The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #144 with Jared Cannonier

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

Joe is joined by Jared Cannonier, a professional mixed martial artist currently fighting in the Middleweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. www.ufc.com/athlete/jared-cannonier

the Joe Rogan experience we're up here we go Jared Caronier ladies and gentlemen hey what what a fucking crazy couple of weeks of fights has been man it's so much to talk about you know this last main event oh oh, my God.

I'm still, like, in shock. The Justin Gaethje head kick knockout. Yeah. Dustin Poirier, I'm like, oh, my God. I mean, we all knew that that fight was going to be tremendous. Something big was going to happen in that fight. So when it did and how it happened, it was beautiful. Beautiful execution of that technique by Justin Gaethje to get that head kick off.

It was beautiful. It landed beautifully, and he followed up nicely. Well, it wasn't a follow-up. He was on his way. I think the ref stopped him. I think he did land one hammer fist. Yeah. But, yeah, it was perfect.

It was a direct mirror image of Leon Edwards' kick. Yeah. On the opposite side in the same place. In the same arena, yeah. Crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. Crazy. Something's going on there, right?

Oh, man. I'll tell you one thing, and you can tell me if you feel it as a fighter, but there's something about the energy in an arena when you go to a place that really appreciates that you're there. Because, like, we're in Vegas a lot. You guys fight in Vegas all the time. They get a little used to the fact that the ufc is there yeah but when you bring it somewhere like salt lake city they get fucking hyped up those people were there for the first fight of the night the place was packed and there's this wild feeling in the air like

everybody's excited does it as a fighter does that affect you well absolutely you know when you hear the crowd reacting to the fight and pull that pull the mic right in front of you yeah when you hear the crowd reacting to the fight in itself you know you get energy from it you know uh i get invigorated by it or i get checked by it you know i mean if the guy's doing something good and the crowd's loving it i'm'm going to put a stop to that. So I like to take control of it in a sense. But, yes, it is a factor. Yeah, it is a huge factor for some.

You know, for some it isn't. Some people can just stay focused and stay on the rails and handle their business, you know. But I like it, you know. But I like fighting in the uh do you like the apex as well i like the apex as well because i find that fighting in the apex is a lip is a bit more personal you know what i mean i can hear my opponent breathing i can hear his exertions i can hear his corner i can hear my corner a little bit better you know you can hear uh you can you know there's still a crowd there and you can hear them. So you still get the feel of the crowd, of a crowd.

You know, although it's not that big, it's not as big. But, you know, but you can hear everything. You can hear the commentators, too, you know. I feel like when I'm at the Apex, I feel like lucky. Like, oh, I'm lucky to be one of the people to be here. Like when Francis fought Stipe at the Apex during the height of COVID, I was like, we are so lucky. We get to be here live for this. There's only like 30 people in this place.

That's that thing, man. It makes it feel personal. I guess it's personal for those in attendance as well. Yeah, well, yeah, those in attendance and even people watching at home, I think you get a sense of that yeah from that like it's it's like you're watching a like a fight in a gym yeah you know it really is it's like a high-tech gym i mean that's kind of what they did it's kind of what

the ufc did they just made their own gym and they made their own arena yeah a little intimate arena and it's great for t night fights, too. Yeah. The contenders. You can just go there and handle business and then go back to whatever else you was doing. Yeah. And the PI, like, putting something like that, such a high-tech, like, state-of-the-art gym where guys can do their camps there. Yes. The PI has been a goldmine for a lot of guys, especially those guys in Vegas.

I've used it a few times, but I don't really get up there too often. But I can imagine if I did live there, I'd be in the PI all the time, maybe once, twice a day. They really help guys scientifically cut weight correctly too and give them an assessment of whether or not they can do it and be healthy when they're doing it. That weight cutting game is a crazy game. And you are, you got a wild career, man, because you start off heavyweight, you go down to 205 and now down to 85.

Has anybody else done that and been as successful as you? I don't think so. I don't think anybody's, I don't think anybody's gone down. You know, Conor McGregor's gone up. He hasn't been as successful, but he's just successful in anything he does. Right. But I'm saying, like, has anybody ever started out as a heavyweight

and gotten down to become an elite middleweight? No. I don't think anybody's done that before, yeah. Well, Vitor has gone up. He's fought up at heavyweight. Oh, yeah, he did. He's fought up at light heavyweight. But middleweight would have been his correct weight class, I think, if he started today.

Like what he wound up in, I think that's the correct weight class with weight cutting. Well, I would say the same thing about me, too. I'm not no natural heavyweight. Right, right. And I knew that while I was fighting heavyweight. I was just an undisciplined heavyweight, if you will, you know? Well, you probably walk around in heavyweight all the time. Well, absolutely, yeah.

I think a lot of us middleweights walk around in light heavyweight or above the light heavyweight. Yeah, above 206. Yeah. Like, what is the heaviest you get when you're walking around, to be honest? light heavyweight or above the light heavyweight limit. Like what is the heaviest you get when you're walking around, be honest? As a middleweight now? Yes. The heaviest I've gotten was 125. No, 225. 225.

Yeah. So I'm about 220 right now, but I haven't been back to training as consistently as I would like to be. It's so crazy that you say that so casually because you look great. You look super fit. And the idea of you being able to lose that much weight is so bonkers. Yeah. Well, you know, water weighs a lot.

You know what I mean? So I burn a lot of water. Well, that's also you. There's like a – I guess they break it down when you do it with someone like, you know, that's a real expert in dehydration. They break it down like how much muscle mass you have. And the more muscle mass you have, you can actually – muscle's mostly water. You can suck more. That's why guys like Yoel Romero were able to make, you know, 185 when he's a big guy.

Yeah. He's fucking big. Yeah. Just a thick thing, you know. From top to bottom. The idea that that guy's 185 for even more than 13 seconds. Well, not anymore, right? Not anymore.

He's doing 205. Yeah, now he's doing 205. But, you know, he's a top contender at 185 for a long time. But those were hard weight cuts for him, though, right? Yeah. Because he was so big, I would say. But, you know, I was never there for any of them, so what do I know? When you do yours, how far out do you

just start to change your diet? How much time, if the UFC calls you up and says, we want you to fight for a world title in two weeks? In two weeks? You can't get down there. In two weeks? I haven't done it before, but I'm sure I could.

Hell yeah, I could. Right? But you wouldn't want to. Ideally, what would you want to? How much time do you need to get all the way down to healthy? I would comfortably four weeks at the very least. Four weeks. At the least. You know what I mean?

But six weeks to be the, you know, is the general consensus for fight camps. Eight weeks for those who want to put a little extra on it. Right. But, like like how much of the camp is centered around being careful with your weight how much do you think about it i would say the whole camp you know what i mean because uh when i'm not in camp and i don't have a fight coming up i don't really pay attention to you know saying how my portion sizes yes and that's the big thing is the portion sizes and the the quality of the meats that I'm putting in my body as well, you know.

So I change from eating less red meat for sure. You know, I eat more salmon, more fish. And portion sizes, again, for me is important. The workout put, as long as I'm going to the gym, making my appointments that I've made for myself, and I'm going to the gym twice a day, I burn it off, and I sweat off a lot, too. You know, so I can

as long as I got at least four weeks, I can make it happen. You know, where I'm at now. But when I'm training, you know what I mean? I'm around 210, 215, and all I have to do is change my diet. I'll drop about 10, 12 pounds in about two or three weeks

and then cut the weight during fight week. Well, that's not that much then. So then you really just cut in about 10 fight week? Yeah. So that's a healthy way to do it. Yeah. No, I'm not showing up fight week. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a healthy way to do it. Yeah. No, I'm not showing up fight week at 220. Yeah.

No, I absolutely do not. There's some guys that have done some wild cuts, some really wild ones, where you're just like, did you just not prepare for this at all? Did you just try to wing it? Did you put it off? Yeah. How did you allow yourself to come in so big

and try to cut so much? Who knows? Just miscalculations. Or maybe just to get called with an opportunity that they couldn't refuse no matter what state that they're in. Yeah, they couldn't have made it. They don't want to be the ones to say no sometimes. Do you ever envision a time where the sport would have no weight cutting, where they would just match people up by weight? When there's no weight cutting? No weight cutting where they would just match people up by weight? When there's no weight cutting?

No weight cutting. What if there was more weight classes but no weight cutting? I think that would be fine. I would love that, actually, to make it more of a natural competition, you know what I mean, as opposed to people trying to get the edge on their opponent.

But it seems like a crazy edge to agree to yeah like if we were like i i firmly believe that if weight cutting didn't exist and then people started doing it now they would try to ban it they would try to say don't do that that's dangerous you're 24 hours before you're going to have a cage fight you're going to dehydrate yourself to death's door to death's door i've seen some dudes that were on death's door really oh yeah travis luther when he fought anderson silva was the worst i ever saw a man when he was cutting weight travis couldn't walk he was shuffling to the scale yeah and he missed weight he missed weight in a world title fight and he had a real shot against anderson because his jiu jitsu was phenomenal okay his jujitsu was phenomenal yeah

he took Anderson down he got caught a triangle and got beat up but he was the closest I saw did like I looked at that guy I'm like oh my god like if I found that guy in the desert I'd get him right to the hospital yeah I'd be like holy shit bro you okay like have some water we're gonna get you we're gonna get you some water man. Like, that's what he looked like. Wow. Just out of it, huh? Just sucked in. When you're almost killing yourself, you're taking all the water out of your body, and

then you're putting it back in. 24 hours before the most extreme physical combat sport that's currently available. Yeah. Which is MMA. Out of your vital organs. In America. In your brain, yeah. Like, you know, there's some left-way shit. They might disagree that there's more available. Yeah. Which is MMA. Out of your vital organs. In America. Like, you know,

there's some left-weight shit. They would, like, disagree that there's more extreme. Yeah. But that's why I wouldn't do no extreme weight cut myself. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's why I said,

that's why middleweight is where I'm stopping. I could probably do welterweight with a strict diet over a period of time. Wow. You would be a giant

welterweight. Yeah. But, uh... Wow. But that would be uncomfortable for me. That would be uncomfortable to live. I wouldn't be able to live the way I want to. I wouldn't be able to eat the way I would like. You know what I mean? I remember I ran into Rumble, rest in peace.

I ran into Anthony Rumble Johnson in a hotel lobby, and I go, how big are you? And this is when he's fighting at welterweight. He goes, I'm 230 right now. I'm like, no way. Is that a fight week? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He was in town for the fights just to watch.

But you couldn't believe how big he was. And then he would make it down to 170. Wow. Even if that was fine, that would explain some of his missed weight cuts showing up to fight with the 230. I don't think the UFC now would allow something like that to happen. A fight like that to go on.

Probably not. Well, there's so much more eyes on the fighters' behavior and what they're allowed to do and not allowed to do. Which I think there's a lot of it. I was having a conversation with Jeff Nowitzki about it. That they are trying to introduce things like peptides and allow fighters to use things that help them heal from injuries. Give them exemptions for things like that. Because it's only beneficial to the fighter and their ability to heal from injuries. A lot of people, at least anecdotally, there are some studies on BPC-157.

I don't know what the full date is, but I know that the doctors that I work with and the people that I know believe in it a lot. And it used to be legal for UFC fighters. Then they banned it. They did? Recently, yeah. Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah. It's a bummer. This is why I don't use supplements myself. I only use this that they give us from like Thorne Supplements. I think UFC has a partnership with them. Right. And they're all third-party tested. Yeah.

No bullshit in them. Yeah. So there are some other things like Elementes, hydration packages I'll use every now and then. Those are great. I rarely do I take supplements. On top of that, I'm kind of even take them consistently to get the benefit from them. So there's really no point in it for me. So do you have someone who cooks for you?

Do you have like a meal service to use? My wife. Your wife. Yeah, there you go. That's perfect. Because I see some guys, they take it so seriously. They have like stacked up Tupperware containers that they get from a company, and it measures out all the carbs and the protein,

and it writes it down, 50 grams of carbs. Yeah. We got guys like that in the gym too, you know? Yeah. I think that's more of a convenience thing. You don't have to stand over the stove for 30 minutes to an hour and a half cooking and preparing food and stuff like that. Whenever I think about people that do stuff like this, I think about Fedor.

Because Fedor used to fight you out of big belly. You know what he didn't give a fuck about portion control? Yeah. I mean. He was very unassuming the way he looked physically. But his demeanor. He was such a beast. That's something else, yeah.

I was listening to, God, I can't remember who was talking about it on a podcast i'll try to remember it might have been zahudo i forget who was talking about it but they were talking about oh no it was rampage was rampage jackson and he was talking about how fedor was his favorite fighter and he was recalling this moment where kevin randleman suplexed him and threw him on his neck and And Fedor's expression never changed. I saw that clip, too. Isn't that wild? It's so true.

Because he just, no matter what, in the heat of battle, just stone-faced. Never, no emotion, no nothing. Stone-faced. That just says he saw some hard shit as a child, probably. Yeah, right? Something. I mean, it definitely wasn't easy easy whatever he went through was not easy but that dude is that is a hard man how did that fight it at that he come or at him like right after that but

look at the compression there yeah I mean look at how he's landing there that's crazy Fedor Kim or is him yeah okay right afterwards yeah you want you want to see it it's pretty though yeah it like right afterwards. Yeah, you wanna see it? It's pretty dope. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty dope. See if you can find the finish. Yeah, when he was going down, he tied up an arm.

Okay. See, have you found it? It's only showing the slam. Oh, just go fade or taps Yeah, I'm sure I've seen it one point or another It was incredible. Okay. Here it is. So random and slams them. Oh, how did he flip them over already? Yeah, I want to see the transition so he takes him down Boom right So he takes him down. Boom.

Right? Oh, this is the start of the fight here, yeah. So this is before, yeah, this is the start of the fight. This is before he body slammed him. Yeah. So he took him down first. I'd like to do a pride round. That'd be nice.

Do you like the idea of that? The 10-minute round? Oh, yeah. I think so, too. Imagine, like, the option to, there it yeah. I think so too. I imagine like the option there it is boom

crazy. That was knees to the head on the ground too. Pride was a different different beast. Oh that was beautiful roll over

that was beautiful that was beautiful. That was beautiful. And then he started throwing his own knees. And then he got the Kimura off of this, I guess. Is that Rampage? Dude, those are hard shots from the top here. These are fucking hard shots. And now in dominant position.

Hold on, his legs. I got him. I got him. These are fucking hard shots. Damn. Like that dude does not care about portions. He just eats whatever the fuck he wants and smashes people. Yeah. I wish I got to see that guy live. I have a regret. You never seen Fedor fight live? No.

No. No, and all the guys from Pride, he was the one I would like to have seen live. I got a chance to see Crow Cop fight live a bunch of times. Yeah. But seeing that guy in his prime in japan must have been wild that must have been wild so you've been in this game for a number of generations yeah like yeah if you were to map the uh mma uh as a sport how many generations would you say we're in right now? I guess it's the 30th year

of the UFC. An elite fighter, what's the average amount of years they can compete? Is it probably 10? Yeah. Average? 8 to 12. Some guys can extend it. You know, Randy Couture

extended it. Some guys can. I actually started late. But some guys extend that time period where you could fight as an elite fighter. But there's only a certain amount of time. So that's kind of a generation, right? So that's like 10 years. So I'd say we're at least three generations in. But it's more like four or five.

Because the generations, they change in terms of like there's of the skill set. The skill sets improve. I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine about how people today, everything they do today, they get a chance to see all the people who have done it before, and it helps you get better. If you want to watch MMA fights, in 1993 when the UFC 1 was around, you couldn't see anything. more if you want to watch mma fights in the 1993 when the ufc one was around you couldn't see anything like where what are you gonna find i watched my first mma fight on the vhs tape yeah yeah yeah so i i watched people watching i don't know what a vhs is probably

yeah and those people that fought in those things had nothing to look at first. They just went out there and did it. And they just were hoping karate worked. Wow. They were hoping that judo was enough. They were hoping that freestyle wrestling was enough. Talk about going in blind. I mean, those are the wildest of wild people.

I mean, respect to the pioneers, like the Hoyce Gracies and the Ken Shamrocks and the Dan Severins and Don the Predator Fries. Like, those guys, those are the pioneers, man. Yeah. Mark Coleman. There was nobody before them. No. Nobody before them. So they didn't know what to expect.

They just knew that they had it. They knew that they could get paid money to fight. And so they were like, okay, for as long as this lasts, let's do this. And for a while it looked like it was going to get kicked off cable. And then it did. It got banned from cable and you could only get it on DirecTV. Yeah, that's when I used to get it. I got DirecTV specifically because it was the only way.

No, it was before Spike. Before Spike? Spike TV was when all – that's when it really took off. But that was like 2005, right? Yeah. But there was a long period of struggle with the UFC. Yeah. Both when SAG had it.

There was so much suppression. It was so hard for them to get into venues and get sanctioned to have them in certain states. It's a grind. When you first started watching MMA, how old were you? How old was I? When I first started watching? Yeah.

So when you saw your first- I was in Alaska when I first started watching? Yeah. So when you saw your first. I was in Alaska when I first started watching. When I see my first fight, I was in Dallas. I was transitioning from college into the military. So I was about 21, 20, 21. I was 21. Yeah. So it was just a fight my mother she had she was uh adopting children

and she had this uh ecuadorian a shaolin ecuadorian a shaolin monk from ecuadoria right an ecuadorian who was who lived in the shaolin temple and trained and lived that life you know what i mean and uh he would go outside and meditate and practice his art practice kung fu and stuff like that and um he found it on tv i didn't even know it existed or anything like that and he he was watching it one day when i came in and i sat down and watched i think i was watching i can't remember the fight i believe it was Shogun and somebody. But anyway, I saw the fight, and it didn't really pique my interest at the time, but I was interested in it because I respected the competitive aspect of it. I definitely love martial arts, and I was just seeing these people fight and stuff, but I didn't see myself training at the time.

At that time, again, I was transitioning from college to the Army. So when I get into the Army, they have a Modern Army Combatives Program, which is like basic white belt jiu-jitsu, you know, minus a lot of the stuff that we do in actual jiu-jitsu. But once I got my first hands-on experience with the martial arts, I was like, ooh, this is something I need to do with my vessel, with my body. This is something I'm meant to do. You know what I mean?

And even as a kid, you know, watching all the kung fu movies, the Ninja Turtles is big. I love the Ninja Turtles. But all the martial arts stuff, you know, it interests me and stuff. On top of that, my daddy, whenever I would go and visit him, he has a gym in his garage, a boxing bag, and me and my brothers would throw the gloves on and play around, not really taking it seriously as a martial artist, you know. But once I did it in the Army, I knew this was something that I needed to do with my vessel, something I have to throw myself, I have to ingrain my ingrained into myself so that was in basic training and then luckily in AIT we had my at my AIT phase which is our training phase for our job in the military my AIT phase my one of my drill sergeants was like a level three combatives, had like a level three proficiency in combatives.

I think it goes like one to four or five or something like that. And there was a battalion combatives tournament that I could participate in. You know what I mean? So we were training for like a month, a month and a half, maybe months of training uh basic white belt jiu-jitsu for the modern army combatives thing and i loved it man i was having fun i was learning i was exercising i was applying my mental capacities to something that i wanted to apply to not something that i was ordered to apply to or something i was trained to apply to. Right. It was something that I wanted for myself.

And it was one of the best times I had in the military, you know, one of the best aspects about the military that I liked. And I got all the way to second place in the tournament, you know. I think I had, like, four matches. So I got all the way to second place. And the guy who took first place was like some football athlete, just some buck strong motherfucker, you know what I mean, who was just faster than me, you know what I'm saying?

My technique wasn't able to get it done. So I took second place by points in that one. So it was all good. So that's the birthplace of your martial arts journey. Of my martial arts journey. get it done. I took second place by points in that one, so it was all good. That's the birthplace of your martial arts journey. Of my martial arts journey. In the Army Combatives Program, how much striking did they have? When you get up to a level three or four, I think that's when they started incorporating striking.

That's what I wanted to do throughout my military career. Are they essentially teaching MMA? How they're incorporating grappling and striking? They weren't. There wasn't MMA. I think they did. When you get to the very tip top of whatever you're training, then they have like MMA. They combine MMA.

But usually it's separate. Okay. So it's grappling or striking. Or striking. And then is it striking like Muay Thai style? It seems a little bit striking like Muay Thai style striking? It seems a little bit like amateur Muay Thai. You know, they have the headgear and the shin guards and there's no elbows and stuff like that.

Okay. So they modify it so I guess soldiers don't end up getting hurt and taken out of duty and stuff like that. Yeah, but why would you remove elbows? Well. They're too goddamn effective to remove. Like, you want people to be proficient at elbows. You want someone in a hand-on-hand fight who breaks his hands to be able to throw elbows. Yeah.

And a person with really good elbows can do that. But a person who doesn't have good elbows is doomed. It's funny you said it because I broke my hand in a fight and I had to finish it with an elbow. There you go. With elbows. Yeah. I can't imagine why any effective system would want to remove elbows. You could give guys elbow pads. Yeah.

You should have them at least practicing elbows. I mean, obviously, take care of your training partners. Don't try to smash their face in. Yeah. Well, I think, again, you got to think of it like the amateurs. They don't want guys getting cut. Right. In the fights.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's the military. They want their soldiers to be Right, in the fights. Yeah. And it's the military. They want their soldiers to be soldiers, not world-class fighters. Yeah, but if you're going to teach them how to fight, teach them all the way. Don't teach them taekwondo. That's what you want for your military, right? Yeah, that's what I want.

Don't teach them taekwondo. Teach them Muay Thai. Teach them MMA. It's not that there's anything wrong with taekwondo, but if you're going to train someone to fight, why would you remove elbows? Put that back in there. You need to be able to stop someone that's coming towards you.

Some dudes, when you watch elbow masters, dudes like John Wayne Parr, dudes who slice people up, San Chai, guys who just know how to step in and smash people with elbows. There's a beauty to elbows. Yeah. Oh. I'm actually increasing my repertoire with the elbows and stuff. I'm working with a few of the guys.

Ben throws some nasty elbows in sparring. He doesn't wear elbow pads, but he has such good control and awareness of his distance that, you know, sometimes, and I'm not too spastic, so I'm not, like, running into elbows either. So there's a little bit of control on both sides. So, you know, he can just barely, like, boom. I'm like, oh, my God. Like, I can only imagine the amount of damage he could have done if he really, if we were going at it.

Yeah. But I've been working with him. He brings it out of me a lot, you know, working with Ryan Diaz, who comes in and helps me out, shows me a lot of the stuff. You know, he knows a lot of ties and stuff. So he's a Muay Thai specialist himself. Did you ever see the fight between Nate Marquardt and Tyron Woodley in Strikeforce.

That was the last fight in Strikeforce, right? Oh my goodness. I did see that one. Oh my goodness. I don't know if that was the last fight in Strikeforce.

I think that was the last event. The very last event? Really? Yeah, I think that was the last fight because that was the main event.

That fight was insane. That stoppage was insane. I mean, this is like video game stoppage. Right here, the over the top elbows yeah then you hit him with this elbow look at this uppercut boom oh my goodness i mean that was a video game stoppage yeah like people forget like they missed out on this nate marquardt era when

he was at his prime yeah and that fight is like a great example of it what year was that boom god i'm not sure because i remember watching that i was a big fan of uh mma at that point in time boom i mean insane combination boy i want to say what year is that jamie that would have been like 20 early 2010s like maybe 11? Yeah, I'm thinking. That makes sense. I'm kind of bummed out that Bellator and the PFL are going to become one thing now. Yeah. I like having a bunch of different organizations.

Apparently, that's what I keep hearing. 2012. 2012, yeah. Rockhold vs. Kennedy. That was a great fight too. Damn, a lot of great fights on Strikeforce. My God. Strikeforce was one of the few organizations where you could absolutely say that it stood neck and neck with some of the best UFC fights at the time. Yeah.

You know? Like when Nate Diaz or when Nick Diaz was running shit over there, when he had that fight with Cyborg, like when Nick Diaz had that crazy fight with Paul Daly, insane fight with Paul Daly. And then with Frank Shamrock and Robbie Lawler. Yeah, Robbie Lawler fighting Melvin Manhoef over there. You remember that one? I remember that. See, you could say that when Luke Rockhold was a champ over there

and then became the champ in the UFC, you could say that the level of fighter in Strikeforce at the very peak... Was at the level. It was at the same level of the UFC. Like Josh Thompson was over there. It was at the very same level. It was just elite. I mean, we just got through watching that Woodley fight.

Last event they had. Gegard Mousasi. I mean, elite. Gegard Mousasi is a bad motherfucker. Jacare Sousa. Tim Kennedy. Ryan Couture, who's a bad motherfucker too, who's Randy's son, Josh Barnett, Daniel Cormier. Jeez. But Willie went on to become, what, the Westway champion after that?

After that knockout? Yep. Yes. Yeah, no, Wilter, yeah, after that knockout yep yes yeah no Wilter yeah after that knockout when he answered to UFC after that knockout yeah for sure it was quite a bit you that Jay here on knockout oh my god whoo yeah there's it's it's interesting if you go back and watch the first UFC and if someone did like an analysis like some some egghead did an analysis of like what percentage better are elite athletes today I would be very curious yeah I think we all would be curious I think that will put into numbers right yeah

quantifying you know what we're actually doing with ourselves. Yeah. I think we can probably put some direction on how to direct that trajectory, maybe even accelerate it. I wonder if you can. I mean, it's so accelerated right now. I mean, nobody's really focusing on it, you know? Is anybody, how many of us are focused on it? Right.

Focusing on combining all this stuff and progressing it to the level. And then it's only going to get so far because you can only test it out against the current level of competition out there. So there are factors, limiting factors. But if we all focused on a certain thing as opposed to if it was like a collective consciousness focusing on it like a think tank or some shit like that I think we could speed it up you know really I think so like how so how do you think they could use to speed it up well they were definitely have to be it would definitely be a over a length of time there'll be a lot of training involved right because um but i would say with people focusing on it like you got different expert experts at different fields right testing

trials and trial and error and type stuff like that you know how science works right you get a bunch of ideas together you try you test them out you see you. You document the results. Yeah. I see what you're saying. But I also think that's a big part, and this is what a lot of people disagree with about martial arts, that it's an art. I think it is an art. I think people disagree because they don't like arts where people get hurt. But I think it's an art. And I think everyone, it's something about whatever it is that draws them to that art, whether it's wrestling or it's Muay Thai, whatever it is that draws them to that. And to me, like, you're never going to be able to fix that with numbers.

You're never going to be able to quantify. Like, what drives someone to become elite world-class striker and then learn how to wrestle? Yeah. You know, it's a different animal it's a different it's a different thing like and you gotta let people figure out what their thing is yeah some people it's a jujitsu thing they just want to take people down strangle them and some people it's like no they want to keep you on the feet and beat the fuck out of you and you got to let them figure that out and it's like some of the best fighters are not necessarily the most balanced where they're great at everything, but they're so good at one thing that they can impose that, whether it's grappling or whether it's striking.

It's a really interesting argument. Like, what's the best approach? Is it to be an elite specialist and then also an elite athlete that can pick up the other stuff quick? Or is it better to be, like, fully well-rounded like like Mighty Mouse? It was like the most well-rounded guy ever he did everything he do world-class. Yeah ground game world-class stand-up world-class everything No holes That's like the guy if I had to look at like technique for like all-time technique Mighty Mouse is the guy Yeah, I agree for sure he could

do everything the best all-around fighter he'd do everything ever and he was a ghost he was in front of you and then he was to the side of you and then he was kicking you and then he was shoving you then he was fucking dropping punches down on you and then he had your back it's like whoa yeah he was he was a speed demon man with perfect technique and a library of information. And that relationship that he had with Matt Hume. Matt Hume is a very, very intelligent guy and a very interesting guy when he talks about martial arts. He knows a lot about martial arts. And he was another one of those guys that was like early on he was fighting in MMA.

He fought Pat Militech in an MMA fight that I watched. One of those weird organizations that was emerging that we forgot the name of. Like World Combat something or another, you know? But like that relationship between like a great coach and a fighter. Like a DJ and a Matt Hume. Or, you know, a George St. Pierre and Firas Ahabi. Like this kind of relationship that happens with certain athletes. That shit is so important.

It really is. I mean, you've got to have a coach that's going to be able to communicate with you, and then you'll be able to communicate back with your coach. So you go from Army Combatives, and what is the next gym that you join? Like when do you start, like, taking MMA as MMA as a path well after I get out of the army well I was trying to do it in the army but that wasn't a priority so after I get out of the army I relocate to Alaska I use my skills that I acquired in the army to get a job with the FAA and I get hired on in Alaska so So I relocate up there, me and

my wife. And so we relocate up there. And as soon as I get up there, I mean, there's a lot of time in between my exit from the Army. I exited, what, 2008, December? And I'm in Alaska July 2009. So in between that time, you know, I found it, I had the bug. So I found the judo gym. You know what I mean? I'm broke. I'm broke as a joke right now. You know what I mean? I'm on unemployment because I just got out of the military and my wife is pregnant. You know, we're, we found out two days before we had to clear post that we're pregnant. So, uh, it was pretty harrowing time for us. You know what I mean? But, uh, I still wanted to train. So I found myself a judo gym.

And I trained judo for about a month and a half, two months, and tried to pick up as much as I could. In between that time, I was applying for the job with the FAA, eventually going through all that hiring process of interviews and a bunch of other things. We relocate up to Alaska. And as soon as we get settled up there, me and my wife and my newly born daughter, I'm looking for a gym, you know what I mean? And I find Gracie Baja, Alaska that's up there. And I get into it, you know, I start doing jujitsu.

I'm like 300 pounds, you know what I mean, training and stuff. In between this time, in between my Army time in Alaska, I put on a bunch of weight, put on a bunch of baby weight. So I'm training jiu-jitsu, you know what I mean, 300 pounds up there, throwing myself into this martial art. You know, I didn't even know about MMA. I wasn't concerned with myself about being a UFC fighter or anything at that time. But one of these days, I look up and see these guys are striking, you know what I mean? So that goes on for about a month or two, and I'm interested in it,

and I wanted to get in shape first, so I didn't just throw myself into everything the gym had. I just wanted to focus on jiu-jitsu, so I just did jiu-jitsu for a couple of months, and then opportunity came up, and I just did a couple of the MMA classes, and it was fun. I was hooked.

One thing led to another. I figured out they – I found out they had a MMA promotion in Alaska, the AFC. So I trained for about a year from, like, the end of 2009, early 2010 to about early spring. It was about March 2011. So where were you getting your striking in? You were getting your striking in? At Gracie Baja, Alaska. So the guys that were striking there, you just joined in with them?

Yeah, I just joined in with them. Was anybody like a – Well, it was an MMA team. Oh, so it was an MMA team. Yeah. Yeah. So they had an actual MMA team and there was an mma team oh so it wasn't mma yeah yeah yeah so they had an actual mma team and there was an mma promotion there was a few other gyms in the town as well so um

uh i just threw myself in i couldn't do it at first because of work and stuff like that and just being home with it with my daughter but um uh eventually i trickled i trickled my way into it and got hooked. And it caused some friction at first, but me and my wife made the adjustments we needed to, which was either be close to work. Me personally, I either have to be close to where I work at or close to the gym because that's where I'll be spending most of my time at. How crazy is it when you think of that moment then, when you first started doing this,

when you had to convince your wife, and now you're one of the top middleweights on planet Earth? It is crazy to think about. Crazy? Yeah. Crazy. What a journey that is. And it's hard to think about it as it being crazy

because, you know, I'm in the driver's seat, so it just seems like the road that I've been on you know what I mean right so just so a lot of people a lot of people are astounded by you know so to go from I guess a regular guy to like you said the top middleweight in the world but I don't really find see any I don't really see a scene in the transition to me it just been like this is what I want to do this is what i need to do with this is something personal for me you know what i mean so like people go to church it's personal for them you know what i mean this is personal for me this is personal development not only just doing martial art what you see on the outside

learning how to do a move and you know be stronger than the next, but the internal aspects of it is what really drew me to it, of being a martial artist. It makes sense when you watch you fight because you're constantly improving. You always are on the path, which I think is very admirable and very difficult to maintain for a lot of fighters, to maintain their enthusiasm for the path. to maintain for a lot of fighters to maintain their enthusiasm for the path you know they'll have some setbacks and then maybe they lose a little bit of enthusiasm from the setbacks and it's hard for them to like re-gear up but you always stay on the path and like all of your fights like the Marvin Vittori fight was super impressive man that was a super impressive performance and it's just like you're getting better. It's like we knew that you were elite as a middleweight, but you even through the fights that you've lost, you come back and you're better every time you're better. It's like you keep to that top level, the improvements are incremental at best.

You know what I mean? So it's hard to see them. Yeah. And that's one of the things he's impressed by with me as well. He says because I'm making semi-drastic, and I don't want to say drastic improvements, but I'm making some big improvements that are noticeable. The movement in the Vittori fight was noticeable.

That was very impressive. Your movement was like there was much more activity going on. It was really technical, setting him up really well. And it's only going to get better, I promise you that. I believe you. For me, it's already gotten better because I've moved on from that. Right. And with a big fight like that and a big win,

is there also like this feeling, like almost like you've leveled up, like you've gone through, like you got affirmation. You knew it. You thought you were going to beat him. Vittori's one of the best in the division for sure. He's a beast. That's another dude. Like how the fuck does that guy make 185 pounds?

Yeah. He's a beast. He's a house. Yeah. I always stand next to him like, how the fuck do you do that? He's so big. His head's got to him like how the fuck do you do that he's so big his head's gotta be like 40 pounds

Pejeda who just fought at 205 this weekend to beat Jan Blachowicz when you're standing next to him you're like

what do you really weigh bro you're 230 pounds dude he's gigantic he looks like he's 225 pounds when he's standing there and I think he is

something like that right they tested them the day of the fight to see how much weight he put back on. It was like 22 pounds or something like that. Something bananas like that. Yeah. Yeah. What did he weigh, Jamie?

I think they'll show it. They show the before and after. Yeah. That fucking dude's good. He's good. Yes. And now that he can defend on the ground, too. Look at that.

228. Bananas. Homeboy gained 23 pounds. He's good. And now that he could defend on the ground, too. Look at that. Two 28 bananas. Homeboy gained 23 pounds and had full endurance, man. He looked fantastic in that fight. That was a good fight. When you think about it, though, is that really? I mean, that's like, what, two gallons of water plus some food? A gallon of water is like eight pounds. Is it? Yeah, I guess. How much does a gallon of water weigh like eight pounds is it right yeah i guess how much is a

gallon of water way i never even thought of that a gallon of water is like over eight pounds i think 8.34 okay so yeah you're right a little bit over two yeah two gallons three three gallons of water we're definitely drinking that much we're definitely getting that after cutting weight yeah yeah so with him being that big that's not really that big drastic of an increase when you think about the fact that we're – he may not be as dehydrated as he was at middleweight, but I'm sure he's dropping his weight, especially to get back up to 220. I feel like –

I think when you dehydrate yourself, you really can really put down some water. Yeah, no, I agree for sure. And I think when you're a real big guy like he is, the benefits of that weight cut are without a doubt. Yeah. I was like 215 when I fought Vittori. Were you really? Yeah.

That's the most that I've put on. Yeah? Yeah, that's the most. Did you do it on purpose, or was it just happening? No, it just happened. I didn't do anything intentionally. The only thing I did intentionally was prepare a big jug of tea with some electrolytes and stuff in it that I carried around with me.

That was the first time I've done that. When you do something like that, do you sip it slowly when you first start taking it in? Because you're dehydrated for like how long? I don't sip slowly. Just get it. No, because I cut the night off. The most dehydrated I am, I cut the

night off late that night so I can just try to go to sleep and then wake up and go to the early weigh-ins. And that's how I do it. And I wake up and if I need to cut extra, there's still time to cut and then wake up and go to the early weigh-ins. And that's how I do it. And I wake up and if I need to cut extra, there's still time to cut because I wake up early. I can't sleep the night of a weight cut. That makes sense. Yeah, I've heard different people do it different ways,

but I think people are realizing now it's better to just get up early. To get up early and do it? Yeah. I think it would be better. You know what I mean? You want to sleep. You just wake up. Yeah, you want to sleep hydrated.

You definitely want to sleep hydrated. Because otherwise you're missing a night of sleep for real. No, you're absolutely right. Yeah. It's like you're going to always dehydrate yourself, but you're going to miss a night of sleep because you want to be dehydrated earlier. Don't do that. You need that fucking sleep. It's just I really wish that there was a way around it because I just don't think it makes any sense.

And I know it's tradition and I know it's the fight before the fight like John Anik always likes to describe it as but I just think it's it's unnecessary and dangerous and I think it's dangerously unnecessary like there's no reason to have people almost kill themselves a day before a fight yeah well I think it affects guys chins and Josh Barnett was saying that uh Josh Barnett and I were having a text conversation about this, and he said it absolutely affects your chin. When you get dehydrated, your brain doesn't hydrate as much. You're not just dehydrating yourself. You're dehydrating your brain, your liver, your kidneys.

It can take a shot as well. Yeah. Yeah. So it's one of those things, man. I feel like it's a legacy thing in the sport that I wish wasn't there anymore. But I do like to see a guy like you go from heavyweight all the way down to middleweight. I do like that because when you fight, I go, God damn, he's big. It's worth it.

It's worth it because you could really be a bully in there sometimes. You're a big middleweight. And it has its advantages. It has its advantages in durability too, I think. You're absolutely right. I'm able to absorb a lot more, even though that's not my goal is to not absorb anything in there. But it's the nature of the beast. You can't really block them all, I suppose.

Yeah. But same for guys like Vittori. It's like one of the things he's famous for is he can take shots. Yeah, look at this man. Yeah, because I'll put some heavy leather on that guy. He was just looking at me like, yeah. Like, yeah. No, he's a warrior.

But that was a really intriguing fight for me because I know he's elite and I know you're elite. But, you know, you just beat Sean Strickland and then you went right into that fight. I was like, this will show. You know, this will show like where he's flying colors, man. You just dominated him. That was, I think, your most technical performance. Do you agree with that? I think the Anderson Silva fight was pretty technical as well.

That was very technical. That was. That was very technical. That was very. But that was mostly leg kicks, predominantly leg kicks. Yeah. You know. I think I was more disciplined in that fight, to be honest,

because the goal was he's going to be hard to hit in the head. Right. Whereas, well, I think I'm comparing this one to the Strickland fight, not to the Vittori fight. But I was able to make that adjustment okay his head's gonna be hard to hit right off the bat so i'm just gonna touch you down here and i stayed to that and and it only took one round to make cause that injury yeah anderson is as far as i know the only guy who successfully come back after that shin break.

Yeah. No one else was able to do it. Well, didn't McGregor? Well, Tyron Spong. Did McGregor fight? No, he hasn't fought since the injury. Oh, okay, he hasn't fought the injury. But Tyron Spong, he's done it.

He injured, yep. He had a horrible one against Gokhan Saki. Horrible. Same thing as Chris Weidman Uriah Hall same check horrible snap isn't he about to come back though Tyron Spong became a boxer he'll still do MMA

I know he had at least one MMA fight since then but he was an elite kickboxer he was elite he was so good and to see his shin snap like that like god damn i mean you would always think about it before you went to throw a shot you would always think about the two years it took you to fucking regrow your bone back where you could throw kicks with it again yeah i wouldn't say it slowed my kicks down checks have done that enough. You know what I mean? Checks hurt enough or deterrent enough.

But, yeah, it definitely gives you something to think about, you know? It's definitely a scary fact of it. It's one of the most horrific injuries in the sport. Yeah. That shin injury. And it's happened. There's so many versions of it now on Instagram. Yeah.

You can find so many small shows where guys are doing it, accidentally breaking their legs. I think Nogueira getting his arm snapped was pretty horrific as well. That was horrible. I saw another girl get her arm snapped in a Jiu Jitsu tournament. Same thing.

Oh, goddammit, tap. I remember when Khabib had Michael Johnson, and I remember thinking, just please tap, please tap, please tap, just please tap. Don tap. Please tap. Just please tap. Don't make me see this, man. Don't make me see this. Tap. He got you.

Fight another day. Please tap. Please tap. That fucking spiral arm fracture from that Kimura is so nasty. Yeah. Ugh. And I hear those are from doctors. I hear those are really hard to repair and stuff.

Yeah, hard to repair. You know, who knows if your arm's ever going to be the same again. That's a rough one to come back from. From doctors, I hear those are really hard to repair. Yeah, hard to repair. Who knows if your arm's ever going to be the same again? That's a rough one to come back from. My friend Tom broke his arm playing basketball. What was it, like two years ago, Jamie? Two years ago. It's still fucked.

He's still struggling with it. His humerus or ulna? What part did he break? He broke the top bone up here. Oh, that's the humerus. Yeah. It was big. Yeah. Big big fracture yeah nerve damage in his hand i can imagine that one being painful because it's not only is the break yeah painful but you got the weight of the arm uh-huh pulling on that thing yeah and that could make it hard for it to heal as well yeah dude injuries. What's the worst injury you've had in MMA? In MMA? Well, in my MMA career, I've torn my pec training.

You know what I mean? I think the worst one I had in competition, I mean, I broke my hand in competition. Did you tear your pec in drilling or sparring? It was just we were initiating a warm-up. So it was a warm-up row. Me and Ben was like a warm-up row me and ben was like a warm-up role and i was passing his guard and ben henderson ben henderson yeah yep and he uh shout out to the lab yep oh yeah all day long lab all day you all know that everybody knows what what we do so uh

it's great great gym it really is yeah that's the whole reason why I quit my six-figure job and moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah. But, yeah, he had a whizzer on my left arm, and I was passing to the right side, so I cleared his leg, and I went to pass his guard, and I was extended with my left arm because he had the whizzer, and I went to get strong to collect him up at the side control, and as soon as I contracted that pec it tore just like that little three little rips and it tore um that was February I think that was during the that was fight week for John Jones versus who did his

last fight at light heavyweight Dominic Reyes Dominic Reyes. Dominic Reyes, yeah. So that happened in Houston at the hotel. Wow. And then I came back and fought. Yeah, that was 2020 before COVID. And then I came back and fought Robert Whitaker in Abu Dhabi. Was it still fucked up? No, the peck was fine. Okay.

Shout out to Ares Physical Therapy. Now you got me running around with all my shout outs now. Shout out to Ares Physical Therapy. Now you got me running around with all my shout outs now. Shout out to Ares Physical Therapy. I've been hitting them up since the Anderson Silva fight. You know what I mean? I've been working out with them, working out there, as well as working out at the lab. Those two combined have, you guys see my cardio. Those two combined has really propelled my career.

But I came back after the pec tear of the fight, Robert Whitaker, and, look, not a minute into the fight, he throws his patented Reaper combo, one-two head kick, and breaks my left ulna. Oh, man. So I ended up fighting this guy for, what, another two rounds plus four minutes of the first round with a broken owner and I almost got him to see the other guy right that's one of those

crazy freak injuries that like it can always happen when you're blocking kicks but it was my fault I black extended my arm to block more reactionary as opposed to being grounded and prepared and bracing and you know ready to absorb the kick like oh shit right and uh the reason being because i was slipping his his initiation typical shit we all see it happen all day all day long with robert whitaker we all know that combination and so are you surprised at the dreckus duplicy fight oh yeah who wasn't right i wouldn't say I was surprised as if he doesn't have the capability to do what he

did, but it was still surprising to see it happen, right? Because we all think so highly of Robert and his ability to go in there and fight at the highest level, but... It was shocking. I'm sure, you know, Drekus, he fucking opened some eyes with that one. Yeah. But to be

honest, when I look at that fight, when I was looking at that fight in the lead-up to it, that fight went exactly how I thought it could have gone. Really? I either thought Robert was going to be the tactician that he is and pick him apart, you know what I mean, maybe hurt him with some shots and get a finish or take him to a decision.

Or Drakus, who was a buzzsaw. My words exactly, dude was a buzzsaw. He keeps going. You know what I mean? He doesn't slow down. He may look from the outside, look tired, but he probably doesn't feel tired to his opponent in there. I'm pretty sure he's putting some pressure on. Yeah.

And that's exactly what he did. And Robert began to wilt in the first round from what I saw. Well, he got his nose fixed now. He could breathe out of his nose. So for the longest time, the reason why he had his mouth open, he had no nose. His nostrils are completely closed off. So he won't look exhausted, slack-jawed.

Always look slack-jawed. But he also would fight awkward, too. I think it affected his cardio quite a bit. I think that's his style, though, right? Yes, for sure. I would say that's his style. It is, but he used to get a little too overeager, and he would blitz, just run forward,

which you can't do with a Whitaker. You can't do with just run forward which you can't do with Whitaker you can't do with you can't do with Pajero you can't do with an elite guy but he tightened all that up man and he specifically tightened all that up for the Whitaker fight that was a very technical fight yeah there's someone someone broke it down on Instagram one of those breakdown sites I forget who it was

whether it was Lawrence Kenshin or one of the other ones but they were talking about his use of the right hand, like stopping Whitaker, and the right hook stopping Whitaker as he was coming forward. And that Whitaker has this, like, leap in style. And that, you know, they had figured out the distance for that. And that's when he started putting it on him.

It was very technical, man. What he did was, you know, it was a very interesting fight i'm gonna have to find his because whitaker is so fucking good man for him to beat him down like that it's like wow you got to take that guy for real you got to take that guy serious yeah but that's what I saw. What I saw Drakus do to Whitaker, I personally feel was the effect that I had on Vittori. Because I was in his face, putting pressure on him. Right. I was hitting him too. I think that could be a bit of a difference.

But I think the pressure, the fact that Robert had to stay on, you know what I mean? Yeah. That does something to guys. Guys aren't used to being on the whole time. Right. In their feet, like. Right. Getting chased.

Yeah. Sprinting. Yeah. Right. It's like sprinting. I equate to sprinting. He can fucking crack, too. So, Drake can sprint in there.

Yeah. That's a good time. I'm going to keep that one. Well, it's going to be interesting to see what happens with him and Adesanya. I mean, he's not fighting in September, right? Yeah.

I don't know. I hear rumors that they're going to go with the Strickland fight. Well, I think that is happening now. I'm sorry. That is definitely happening now. I'm sorry. Because Strickland... They're in negotiations still, though. Because I think Strickland wants they're in negotiations still, though. Because I think Strickland wants more money.

I think there's, I don't know. I don't know what they're doing. I hope they work it out. That would be a good fight. Well, I don't want to be Mr. Steal Your Girl here, you know what I mean? I know. I was thinking that when you came on here. But, you know what I mean?

Are you preparing for something like that? The possibility to something like that well when I get back after this my diet is going to change I'm going to prepare for somebody how many weeks

is Australia September 29 that's like 5-6 weeks right I think it's September 9th time for Jared Cannoneer

to get popping again so that's what I'm preparing for I'm preparing for the stars to align and me to go in there and win my title who knows what's going to happen and four, the stars to align, and me to go in there and win my title. Who knows what's going to happen. If Sean is being difficult, you know what I'm saying?

Mick, you know who to call. Dana, you know who to call. You know what I mean? Y'all know Lou. Y'all know first round. You know how we handle business. Y'all know I'm not difficult. You know what I mean? I think you guys pay me good. I'm not going to ask for too much extra to go to Sydney. I've never been there.

I think my contract is something that we agreed upon prior to these events occurring. And, you know, I think we can make something happen, you know? So that's what I'm going to be getting ready for. You know what I mean? Well, I definitely want to see you fight for the title for sure. Yeah. It's going to be a different thing. You know, everybody, you know, we all saw the first one and nobody was too entertained by that.

Not especially me. So I've made the adjustments not only to make it more entertaining because I know that's what people want, to be entertained. Do you have to balance that out in your head sometimes? Like be entertaining? I don't concern myself for being entertaining or anything like that. It's not as, it's not it's it's what you are this from you are fortunately well your style is very entertaining so you don't have to worry about that well this is coincidental right right yeah i like the i like the hippie i if anything i'm entertaining myself because this is fun for me right i mean i'm going in there

having fun right you know what i mean uh and this is something I tell people all the time. You know, I don't think of this as a job. It is a career, and I do get paid. It is my livelihood. But I don't approach this as my job or anything. Like, I have to go to work now. You know, this is something that me fighting is merely a part of my training. You know what I mean? It's like the test you take.

You know what I mean? Every couple of weeks you take a test in school or you challenge yourself somehow and that's that's for me that's what this is this is the challenge marvin vittoria is the challenge israel adesanya is the challenge and my and i'm here to to conquer these challenges you know what i mean that's a beautiful approach so that's probably why you just keep getting better that's why you keep getting better. It's a fantastic mindset for an elite fighter. Yep. Mindset of constant growth. I'm always trying to learn.

That's the only thing. That's the thing I love about it because I get to go into study. You know what I mean? Right. So something that I want to learn, something that I want to dissect and analyze and break down and not only do it with my mind but do it with my body as well that's that's something you can't really do a lot you know I'm saying operate yeah a field of a field of thought with your mind and your body well it's also very impressive and very um inspirational to people that you're doing it

like I think you're 39 now. You're 39? Yeah, 39. You're getting better at an elite athlete's level. You're getting better at one of the most difficult jobs. For a combat sport athlete, that's one of the hardest fucking jobs on earth in terms of physical demands. And you're getting better at 39. It's amazing.

I've mitigated a lot of the wear and tear through my years i didn't grow up you know jumping big heels on bicycles and shit like that and uh or anything like that um on top of that um i find my body to be valuable so i didn't like grow up destroying my body or anything like that. When I got into – when I finally started training, I was, like, 25 years old in Alaska. So I got into it relatively late. I didn't grow up doing martial arts or anything like that. So I wouldn't say that I regret it, but I would like it to be the other way around. I would have loved to have done martial arts as a child.

Yeah. But it is what it is. You know, I think, though, I think one of the best, especially a guy like you that's maintained your peak athleticism into your late 30s, you don't have the wear and tear that someone who started doing it when they were like 13, 14. But, you know, by the time you're 25, 26, you got 10-plus years of getting kicked and punched and taken down,

your knees twisted and your neck cranked like everybody gets banged up within ten years I mean I had a friend who was 22 when he had his first nerve blockage Where is his fucking arm wasn't working correctly because his nerves are getting pinched in his neck. Yeah I mean so he his neck was started to get fucked when he was a young young man Yeah, so by the time you know get fucked when he was a young, young man. Yeah. So by the time, you know, you enter into martial arts later in life, but you're already a mature man.

And one of the things I think about, like, a big guy that cuts down is, like, your body thinks you're 300 pounds still. You know what I'm saying? But you have all the tendons of a guy who is 300 pounds for a while. Yeah. But meanwhile, you you're you're competing at you know 210 215. yeah i liken it to goku training in hyperbaric chamber at super saiyan i just want to be regular super saiyan all the time so here let me just get heavy train super saiyan and then when i lose weight it'll be like regular yeah well you seem to have

got it down to a science it sucks when people don't make weight. Like this past weekend, Michelle Pereira and Wonder Boy, they canceled the fight. That's a bummer to me, man. That's such a bummer. Yeah. That dude's so big, though. He is big. He's gigantic. That's a gigantic 170.

He's fucking huge. So I could see it because Darren Till missed weight with Wonder Boy in the past, and Wonder Boy always felt like that was a factor Yeah that he came in heavy. I was going to sub for one of his fights. I think they were Concerned either I think it was visa issues visa and weight issues a Darren Till one. Yeah, yeah but Man, it's interesting watching these guys Come and go and you know and come in with so much promise and it doesn't doesn't

quite you know injuries yeah there's injury Darren Taylor had a bunch of knee injuries yeah well you know the UFC is a is a promotion machine so they sell the world a dream for each and every one of us you know what I mean so a lot of people out there in the world have this idea of me that could be completely wrong. You know what I mean? So we all have these expectations. Everybody has these hopes and dreams and stuff like that. And us as fighters, especially with the mics in front of our faces, are allowed to share ours. So everybody definitely believes me when I say I'm going to be a champion one day.

You know what I mean? I sure as hell believe myself when I say that. So, but very few of us are going to make it to that level. You know what I mean? Very few percentage of us are going to make it. So, that's the reality of it, you know. And that's the reality I had already come to terms with when I first started this. So when I first started doing MMA, I already had a full-time job,

a good, comfortable job, you know what I mean? I was able to take care of my family, so I was good. And I was able to go train, so I was happy. I just told myself, I'm just going to go as far as I can go, you know what I mean? Pretty much make myself no promises go you know what i mean um pretty much make myself no promises you know what i mean because i understand that i understand my ability and i had confidence in myself which is why i did it in the first place but i understand the reality of it and i should be and i was blessed to have already have a full-time job to be able to take care of myself because there's a lot of fighters a lot of fighters out there are broke trying to fight yeah you know the majority a majority of fighters are in broke situations

trying to fight so um yeah when i first when i was training it wasn't my goal to be a ufc fighter i just wanted to go as far as i can learn as much as i can while i have this time here on earth so this is as far as I've gotten. Well, you've gotten pretty fucking far. You've got a great approach, man. You've got a great approach to life, a great approach to this path that you're on to be a better martial artist and a better person.

It's a fascinating approach. It's very samurai-like. Well, thank you. It is. For me, I like to take energies from all places and try to create this, I don't want to say character, but create this avatar and equip this avatar with all these different perks and stuff that I find admirable, that I find moral,

and things that's going to make me a bigger, stronger, better, what am I? A human? Right. A man? Right. A black man? If you want to use those labels and terms, you know what I mean? But for me being who I am.

That's a great way to think about it. Yeah. And not necessarily try to distinguish myself from any and everybody else. You know what I mean? Look to any and everybody else to see the potential that I have, because we're all human. We all have the potential to do great and wonderful things or terrible and bad things. You know what I mean? I say, I said, this is one thing I tell my children, my children, you know, we have the ability as humans. This is what makes us unique from any other species on this planet that we have the ability to

be an animal or we can be something better than that we have the ability to be a demon or a devil or we can be a celestial or a god or a goddess you know what i mean not that we would physically embody our definitions of these things these are just conceptualizations but i think for me that allows me to take the trajectory of my life and point it to where i want i want to ascend you know what i mean to concept to use the word that has been so conceptualized to godhood and i realize And I realized that I'm not the almighty, but I am living an aspect. I am generating a perspective. I am so many different ways to put it. Living an experience.

You know what I mean? That God can look back and say, yep, I've done this. You know what I mean? Maybe this has look back and say, yep, I've done this. You know what I mean? Maybe this has already been done. Maybe it hasn't. But for me, I just want to go up, be better. I want to be able to levitate and shit like that. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Do things that nobody else does, which is probably one of the reasons why I joined the Army and do martial arts in the first place. Because everybody where I'm from, where I grew up, definitely wasn't't joining the army and nobody was doing martial arts that I knew of so um I guess I was just born a uh non-conformist if you will and I just like taking the route that I find best suits me you feel me, I do feel you. No, that's a fascinating path. I like what you just said. I like what you just said a lot.

I think if people could adopt that mindset and adopt that way of thinking, I think that would be very, very beneficial to a lot of people. It's very admirable. Sometimes when you hear someone's philosophy, the way they think about things and the way they approach their life, you go, oh, that's admirable. And that's what I just felt

when you were saying that. I was like, that's very admirable. I like when someone has a very clear, disciplined sort of view of what their life is and what they're trying to accomplish. And you have, especially with this mindset that you have about constant growth about looking at it like that like you're always on the path yeah and and to approach that as a martial artist and then you know be a martial artist while you're still an elite fighter in the UFC yeah you're still a martial artist and I think that's why you're so good yeah I think that's why you keep getting better too. I'm a martial artist first. It's awesome. That's awesome.

And I think that, you know, there was a lot of people that felt like that was kind of lost along with all the trash talking part of the sport, the pro wrestling style of the sport, which, you know, I think the first person to do it really good was Chael Sonnen. But to me it was funny, man. I loved it. So it's like I'm conflicted. I like it too, You know what I mean? Who didn't love it?

Who didn't love the Conor McGregor era, right? How could you not love it? Man, he came on the mic saying some wild shit, right? How about when Jerry Stevens was talking shit to him? He goes, who the fuck is that guy? Yeah, right? He said so many iconic one-liners that, oh. So yeah, man.

I can understand it. I can understand the entertainment aspect of it. Yeah. And I can understand the business aspect of the UFC catering to that because apparently that's more profitable, you know? Yeah. But I necessarily don't cater to that, you know what I mean? I keep it clean.

Not that I keep it clean. I keep it real, for lack of a better word. You just are you. You are you. Yeah, you know what i mean i keep it clean i keep not that i keep it clean i keep it real for lack of a better word you just are you you are yeah no matter what this is how you feel about the matchup yeah i'm gonna be and my my only goal is to be as honest with myself and in doing so i'll be honest with any and everybody else you know what i mean yeah so and that for me that keeps me in check because i don't want to have to tell you some crazy fucked up shit i didn't do you know right right right so i don't have to be like mama mama you know and you know what i mean right right right it was at one point where i was uh getting ready to leave a previous job of mine so i'm not going to say which one

specifically but i was doing things that I shouldn't have been doing and let's just say I got put in a position to where I can't even say it don't say it if you think you should tell me afterwards

don't get sued Jared I won't get sued because no damages nobody was hurt nothing happened or anything like that if you don't think you should say it don't get sued Jared I won't get sued because no damages nobody was hurt nothing happened or anything like that but if you don't think you should say it don't say it but anyway it was wild and it was a moment where I was going to call my wife and be like baby

I just want you to know I love you but something happened and it may make our future a little rainy you know what I mean something bad may just you know so well i'm glad you didn't do whatever you're thinking about doing yeah i was gonna call her and then i just didn't call her too and i just i'll tell you about it after okay tell me afterwards tell me afterwards so when you were competing um you start first start competing in alaska

how did you wind up in arizona like? What was the path to get down there? How many years in were you? Well, I was training from, I began competing in 2011, and I moved to Phoenix in 2017. On our team, Joe Murphy and Lorne Murphy. Lorne Murphy's in the UFC. Joe Murphy, we're all familiar with. Some of us should be familiar with that pair.

They were some of my first training partners. Joe's a really good friend of mine. I love that guy. That's my guy. I love him. And I love Lauren, too. Some of my first training partners. But they had moved.

Lauren, they had moved to Florida. Joe was in the Air Force, went from Florida to Texas, and eventually landed in Phoenix early 2010s. and eventually landed in Phoenix early 2010s. And when they came back to visit in Alaska, they told me, hey, we're in the lab. You know what I mean? They have a really good program there. I think you can go there and, you know, really be good.

You know what I mean? As opposed to staying up here in Alaska, you know what I'm saying? If you want to take your MMA career to the next level, the MMA lab can get you there. And at that time, I was just now getting signed with the UFC. I was 7-0 as a heavyweight in Alaska. I fought my last fight January 2014. I had my first fight in the UFC January 2015. So a year later, I had my first fight in the UFC January 2015. So a year later, I had my first fight.

So in the summertime, fall time, I was getting managers, getting in with the UFC. And in contact with them, they said, come on down. You can stay with us for a little bit. You know what I'm saying? Do your camp here and, you know, go from there. And I went down went down did the camp and got my toes wet as they say and I really like the temperature of the water you feel me so um it was a two-month camp I did my debut you remember that you remember the card it was Jones Cormier won and the first fought in Vegas so uh I fought

Shawn Jordan on that card And those who don't know Sean Jordan, I was lucky in my heavyweight career in the UFC. I didn't get to fight any of these 6'4", 6'5",

giants, behemoths. You know, Sean Jordan was like 5'10", 5'11". He was a crazy athlete. But he was a crazy athlete.

Remember he... He would do backflips after all of his wins and knockouts and stuff. Did he stop Derek Lewis with a hook kick? After he stopped me and stuff. Did he stop Derrick Lewis with a hook kick? After he stopped me in the first round, he stopped Derrick Lewis with a hook kick. Yeah, that dude was a freak athlete. That was his next fight because I was watching.

I was like, let's see how this guy got. Because I be watching to see how guys do after we meet and win or lose. He was a freak athlete. He was. He holds a, I think it's a bench press or a squad or deadlift record, some way lifting record at LSU. And he played for LSU. I think it was a fullback for them when the Tigers won,

when they won a championship way back when. When you see a dude who's built like the Hulk and he does a backflip, you're like, what the fuck, man? Yeah. He's built like a tank. He's built like, yeah, like a tank, like the Hulk. Yeah. For real.

When you see that guy do a backflip, you're like, that's a fucking athlete because that's a lot of weight to throw around. Yeah. So, yeah, he knocked me out in the first round. TKO. He didn't knock me out. It was a TKO. But did you already know at that time you were going to go down at least a light heavyweight? Not at that time.

You thought you were going to fight as a heavyweight? I thought I was going to win this fight and make millions of dollars and quit my job. Right, right. I could just fight and train now. So that wasn't the reality of it. I lost the fight. I went back to Alaska. That was early 2015.

So I spent another two years up there, you know what I mean, doing my career. I fought again in heavyweight. I'm sorry. Let me get on this mic. I fought again in heavyweight and won that one. That's the fight I won in Croatia. That career I fought again in heavyweight I'm sorry let me get on this mic I fought again in heavyweight and won that one that's the fight

I won in Croatia that was my last fight in heavyweight and interestingly enough on that fight that fight in Croatia there was like four or five other

heavyweights on that on that card and all those heavyweights are the guys who look at it and say oh that dude that's the man you know what I mean

it was Francis Ngannou everybody knows him. And Curtis Blades was on that card. It was Derrick Lewis and Gabriel Gonzaga. Ben Rothwell, he fought. Who did Ben Rothwell fight? Did he fight Junior Dos Santos? I think he fought Junior Dos Santos.

But those are just three behemoths, four, six behemoths of men. Yeah. Jan Blachowicz was on that card. I didn't even know that. Curtis Blades, Francis Ngannou. Oh, Timothy Johnson, Martin Tybura. Yeah. Interesting.

So all these big dudes was on this card. Yeah. And I'm, you know know standing next to him walking next to him and i you know i went by knockout in the first round so i'm a big dog too you know what i mean um but you started thinking i started thinking not that i was afraid of any of these foods but for the sake of my career if i want to be able to compete and give myself as best a chance as possible to make this career work right when i see guys like john jones and francis and francis and gano it was uh it was kane velasquez at the

time you know what i mean right who who i was getting prepared for that's a guy when i did my training coming up i was looking at him i gotta get ready for that guy that guy had cardio that's another aspect of my training right there Cardio cane That's what they call them So that's why My conditioning is Where it is now

Because that's one thing I focused on Early on in my career It's so huge Yeah It's so huge Having a giant gas tank Oh yeah

That's the last place I always talk about Primetime BJ Penn When BJ Penn was At his best He was training With Marv Marinovich And Marv Marinovich

I don't want to Parap is, I don't want to paraphrase, I don't want to fuck this up, but I'm pretty sure their philosophy was it's more important for strength and conditioning for an elite fighter than even fight training. Yeah, sure, it's water and there's filtered water in that too. So their philosophy was they would get BJ

to have the most insane gas tank. He already knows how to fight. Just do your drills or whatever you want to do, but the most important part of your day is plyometrics. We're going to give you the most insane ability. So you do eight weeks of this. By the time that fight comes, you'll be a totally different kind of human

with a crazy gas tank and a crazy ability to change distances, to change positions, move back and forth. All the plyometrics shit they did and box jumping shit. That was like all the work they did. Everything was like high intensity Tabatas and all these different endurance work and all these different things that they would do for explosivity and strength and conditioning that's just purely for like your ability

to just generate fast twitch muscle fibers and throw them into action for fighting. And he was a beast during that time, man. I dare say he was training with one of my training partners, Rob Emerson. Yes. Because Rob Emerson brought a whole bunch of good stuff. He did working with BJ and his team. He's brought it over. He always has us doing explosive stuff.

You know what I mean? It's always plyometric oriented type stuff with him. Explosive and mystical power. It's fascinating stuff, man. It's fascinating stuff, because there's so many different philosophies. And then George St. Pierre, when he was at his best, he didn't do any strength and conditioning.

He said he just wanted to work on efficiency and fight training. So he was just constantly training fight specific stuff. He didn't do any of the gymnastics stuff either? He picked that up later? When he got to a certain point in his career, he was incorporating gymnastics at one point in time, but I think towards the end, maybe he did a little bit of that still,

but I think towards the end when we had this conversation on the podcast, he was saying that he doesn't do any of the shit that he did when he first started out. He was doing box jumps and all this crazy shit and cleans and presses. Traditional shit. Traditional shit that you see in the countdown show.

It gets exciting. It gets you hyped up. But he stopped doing that, and he was just concentrating on efficiency. So it was just all technique. Well, that makes perfect sense, especially when you become a person like GSP. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I'm saying there's two totally different schools of thought there, right?

There's the BJ Penn school of thought under Marv Marinovich where it's all strength and conditioning. You already know how to fight. Just get yourself to this insane gas tank. And then there's the George St. Pierre where it's all fight-specific stuff. You're fight-drilling wrestling, fight-drilling takedowns, fight-drilling jiu-jitsu, fight-drilling stand-up. Everything's fight, fight, fight, fight, technique.

Well, I guess that approach can be attributed to the person right gsp is more of the martial artist you know what i mean the more the traditional martial he's a correct you right he yeah bj is a real martial artist too but he's he's a jiu-jitsu guy yeah jiu-jitsu martial artists are different from karate traditional karate martial artists that's true i mean sure so i would say um that could be attributed to their training style. I would say BJ Penn, you know, he's from Hawaii. I think he's got some dogs out there. You know what I mean?

Oh, yeah. So I would say he's got more of a dog in him than BJ would carry around, than GSP would carry around. I'm not saying GSP got a dog in him. Ain't got it in him. I know what you're saying. Like BJ will fight you in the street. Yes, exactly. You know what you're saying. Like, BJ will fight you in the street. Yes, exactly.

You know what I'm saying. Yes, exactly. So I think that could be attributed to the character of the person doing the work and the coaches and the corner men around you and stuff like that. I mean, it's also you, the gas tank wouldn't do any good if BJ didn't have spectacular technique already. Right. That's the thing.

No, you're absolutely right about that. He already had spectacular technique. Yeah. He was only one of the first jiu-jitsu guys who was striking. It was like fucking world class. If he got you to the ground, he probably won the Mundiales three years into jiu-jitsu. That's nuts. The what now?

The Mundiales, the world championships. BJ won the world championships three years into jiu-jitsu. Three years consecutive. Yeah. He got his black belt in three years, entered the Mundiales, and won. Three years in. Okay. Obsessed, training every day.

Oh, and doing jiu-jitsu. Three years in. Oh, okay. Wow. So he's a white belt, and then three years later, he's a black belt, and he wins Mundiales. Okay. That's how talented BJ Penn was. BJ Penn was a phenom he was a phenom yeah I

just got my brown belt after being a purple belt for like seven years I was a brown belt for eight years eight years eight years yeah I wasn't consistent enough yeah god I wish they could just fix injuries all of them so you'd never have to worry about them again. Like 100% just fucking boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. I would do jiu-jitsu until I died. I'd be like Elio Gracie on those mats. Oh, man.

That dude was rolling when he was in his 90s. That's my plan, man. Yeah. Yep. I mean, everybody talks about, you're 30 years old, 39 years old. First of all, I said I'm level 39. I'm a level 39 Jared Cannon. i'm a level 39 killer gorilla i'm a level 39 badass so uh first and foremost i'm a level 39 so 39 years of experience in life exactly and when i see myself as 60 65 i, big, chiseled, jacked, gray beard, gray afro,

with a battle axe in one hand. You know what I mean? Ready to fuck up anybody who's finna step foot, you know what I mean? Who's finna cross that threshold. So that's how I envision myself, you know? So I don't see 39 the same way as most people see 39, you know what I mean? I do know what you mean. So I want to be 120-something years 39. You know what I mean? I do know what you mean.

So I want to be 120-something years old. You know what I mean? Yeah. Finally getting on the dance floor because I don't dance now. But it'll be something new when I'm old. It's interesting elite athletes that are able to compete at a higher age, they almost all have one thing in common, extreme discipline. Like Bernard Hopkins, one of the most disciplined guys ever in boxing never got out of shape

Never ate bad always ate clean always ate organic never drank never smoked never fucked around never fucked around and Competed deep deep into his 40s. We're at a world-class level world class I think he beat his last world champion when he was, I think he was 50. 50. 50. Crazy. Crazy. He competed 51 and then he lost, right? Yeah.

Joe Smith Jr. knocked him out. Knocked him out of the ring. It was horrible. Out of the ring, yeah. Horrible because he fell on his head. He fell right on his head. Yeah, that was horrible. That's so bad for you.

Yeah. That's worse even than the knockout because a lot of the, he was getting clipped, but the ropes were loose. And he just went right through the ropes. It's a shitty job by whoever put together that fucking ring for a world championship fight with a guy like Bernard Hopkins to go through the ropes like that. And to not have any protection for the athletes below the ropes is concrete. That's crazy. That's crazy. For the athletes, below the ropes is concrete.

That's crazy. That's crazy. At the very least, they should have wrestling mats all around the base in case of the worst case scenario. Yeah. Someone falls out of the ring. Yeah. Man, to be—it's funny you mention that. I would like them to have wrestling mats inside the ring. You think that would be better than the canvas?

Yeah, I don't like the canvas. The canvas gets slippery, especially when you put the logos on it. You're right. Like, I slipped, like, last fight I didn't slip. I had a pretty good foot in my last fight, but I had made some adjustments. But when I fought Strickland and when I fought Adesanya, it was a few times, and when I was slipping, I was getting ready to go. And it's the logos because they get wet.

It was the logo I slipped on, but even the canvas in itself. Right, you have to wet it and then step on your feet. Yeah. Why do you think they continue to use canvas? Because canvas also fucks your skin up. I would say because of the logos. I would say it's so they can have logos on it. Can't you do logos on MMA mats?

I don't think they will come off a whole lot easier due to friction. Imagine if they had, instead of no seams you want to have no seams though right yeah you have you can't have a seam i mean there are seams on the on the in the uh on the canvas yeah there's like a seam everywhere two two and a half three feet there's a seam but you can't have like tatami mats where they're like stuck together you can't have the possibility of a toe getting in a crack no you's what I was thinking, like a wrestling mat. Right. Maybe not as thick as those thick ones.

Right, but not the surface of a wrestling mat because they're wearing shoes. You want the surface of tatami mats where you have that texture to it so you can dig in. Because I remember we switched to a smooth mat at one time in my gym, my old studio, and I couldn't use it. Because as soon as I got sweaty, every time I went to throw a kick, I'm slipping all over the place. I'm like, this sucks.

And that's another reason why they use the canvas, because it's absorbent. Right. It does absorb. But if your feet are dry, it's real slippery. Yeah. And if they do get the logos, the logos, I don't know how they apply them. But if they're just like uh what's that shit when you do with the iron what's that called yeah jamie do you know what i'm talking about like

a heat sort of yeah what is it called though these to iron on yeah whatever so like if you get like a cheap t-shirt from someone that's real thick like this is a nice t-shirt it's like it's there's not so much material that's thick if you have that on a canvas where it's real thick, that's just not going to, water's not going to go through there. It's going to puddle up on that. Right. This is going to be,

yeah, right on top of it. And if you lose a fight or get an injury just specifically because of that, that's a shame. That's a shame. It feels like to me, there's a better way. I mean,

who, how many people are buying something because they see someone get the fuck beaten up on top of it? Yeah. I've seen those, right? They got those cards that have pieces of the mats in them to commemorate the event. That makes sense, actually, if you're a big fan. And also, it does make sense that people find out about products.

I just wish there was a way to do it where it didn't fuck with the performance. Speaking of shirts. You got a Jared Cannoneer merch? Yes. Nice. I was going to give it to you for one of my fights, but I don't think you were there. That's a perfect example. Like, do you see how shiny that is?

There's no way water's getting through that. Right. If that was on a canvas, that would suck. It would definitely. But how do they do it on a canvas? I would imagine they've thought about this. So I'm sure this one was like they put like a press on it with this one. Right.

If the canvas, they just do dye. Yeah. Can't they just do it with dye? Yeah. Let me give my shout out here real quick. Go ahead. Sorry. Shout out to Nelson for hooking me up.

He gave me, hooked me up with the artwork for this shirt. Right. And I put it on a shirt. So I really like this one. And what's the website where people can buy these? Thank you very much. Ooh. You don't know?

Canoneer.com? I don't know. It's a link in my bio. Do you have a personal website? It's a link in my bio and it links it to a square. There you go. Killer Gorilla.

Merchandise. Okay. Beautiful. Okay, it's in your Instagram. There you go. Bam. Nice. This one is not on sale yet, right?

When's it going to be on sale? Huh? When's it going to be on sale? Probably soon after this podcast releases. All right, good. Let it go. But yes, I have my homeboy. You're wearing it.

You can just show people. Yeah, I'm wearing it. Oh, there we go. There it is. Yeah. So I'm giving you this one. Oh, thank you very much. Thank you.

And this one's actually a little bit different. It's not as thick. No, it's not. The thing on top isn't as thick as that one. Oh, thank you very much. Thank you. And this one's actually a little bit different. It's not as thick. No, it's not. The thing on top isn't as thick as that one. Yeah, it's printed differently. Well, the other one's like a graphic image. Yeah. But this one is exactly what I'm talking about.

Yeah. This kind of stuff, if sweat hits this and you have to move your feet around on it, you've got to slide all over it. Absolutely. Yeah. Did you ever compete in the crazy days where people were allowed to wear wrestling shoes was that all phased out by the time you were in

no my first fight was in 2011 so I was way out of that I remember when dudes wore wrestling shoes all the time

yeah I mean there's some venues I'm sure right some local promotion that I wonder that ain't gonna like adhere to

strictly adhere to UFC standard of martial arts. That seems so dangerous, though. Wrestling shoes, like a head kick with wrestling shoes, like if the foot goes in the eye. It's kind of a weapon. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, submissions, especially heel hooks and shit for the person who's wearing them. Or wrestling. That's a huge factor. Yeah, a huge factor. Huge factor. That grip and traction. Yeah, that's gigantic, both in defense and offense. Imagine somebody wearing wrestling shoes against DC, right's fantastic. Huge factor. That grip and traction. Yeah, it's gigantic, both in defense and offense. Imagine somebody wearing wrestling shoes against DC, right?

Right. Or Khabib. They're getting taken down right off the top. It's also the thing about generating power in punches. Like, you get more traction. That grip, yeah. Yeah, you're really digging in with your feet. Now, I've injured my toes naturally from kicks or whatever.

And I've had to wear wrestling shoes for training now what one thing wearing wrestling shoes for me has done has helped sort of increase make better amp enhance my footwork right it makes me be more cognizant of how I'm placing my feet as opposed to dragging my feet across the mat or the surface of whatever of how I'm placing my feet as opposed to dragging my feet across the mat or the surface of whatever whatever surface I'm moving on oh because there's traction in the bottom of it so you can't slide as easily exactly interesting so it's um so I have to use precise footwork precise foot placement and I actually use that as a teaching technique when I try I

teach a class at the lab Saturdays 10 p.m at the mma lab um and that's one of the things i in an analogy that i use was imagine anybody who's seen the kung fu panda movie or any old kung fu movie where they have those training setups where there's a bunch of logs standing on end and they just have like that small two three inch surface round surface to stand on to move around on and do all these kung fu uh kung fu training and maneuvers and shit on kung fu pan is the one that comes to mind big time for me but that would facilitate precise precise foot placement precise footwork you have to place your foot in a precise position and of course maneuver your body in accordance but uh it all starts with the feet yeah so um that's one thing i hugely that's a huge thing that i ingrained in myself is footwork

and uh where are you like taking the footwork from specifically like where you learned from self-taught self-taught self-educated just what what you like like things that work for you when you're things that i find are effective things that work for you when you're sparring and fighting. Things that I find are effective, things that I find that I can find that are accessible for me, you know what I mean? Things that I know work. I watch. For me, I'm like Rogue, you know what I mean? Rogue from the X-Men.

I see something. And you imitate it. And I can imitate it, you know what I mean? Or like Kakashi. Yeah, I'm an anime guy, too. Okay, there you go. Copy Ninja. I'll see something, I can do that shit. an imitator you know what i mean or like uh kakashi yeah i'm an anime okay copy ninja i'll

see something i can do that shit you know how much it bums out some dudes that like killers are anime nerds yeah well you know those guys are missing out right they're missing out if you enjoy it i wouldn't say i'm an anime nerd because there's a lot of anime that i don't watch and i can't watch but uh speaking of footwork did you watch the Terrence Crawford, Earl Spence Jr. fight? Oh, yeah. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And I just saw so many different levels in both fighters, but mostly in Terrence Crawford.

I saw him change his tempo, change his approach to the fight. You know what I mean? Make those adjustments. And the ability to land hard shots in so tight. tight crazy really tight positions and so accurate just inches away from him and he's landing these right hooks oh my god what a performance yeah what a performance beautiful amazing there you see it there there's one of the knockdowns. Mm-hmm. Yeah, boxing is one of the sports that I continue to watch after getting into MMA. And a lot of people, for whatever reason, are sort of trying to come up with reasons why Earl Spence didn't perform

as well as they thought he was going to. But I think you just have to say Terrence Crawford is that good. Yeah. I think he's just that good. And I think we found that. It doesn't mean that Errol Spence isn't amazing. He is. But I think Terrence Crawford, I think you're looking at an all-time great.

I really do. He's, in my opinion, the best switch hitter in boxing since Marvin Hagler. And he might be better. He's so good, man. He's so good. He's so good, man. He's so good. He's so good. And he's going to fight. I think Boots Ennis is his mandatory.

Oh, really? Yeah, which is an amazing fight. That's an amazing fight. See, pull up some Boots Ennis because this dude's movement is next level. Yeah. And he's another one that is a brilliant switch hitter. Yes, Jaron Boots Ennis.

They have to fight him soon if he plans on keeping the title. Go to a video of Boots Ennis because that dude, yeah, highlights. That dude is phenomenal. He's fantastic. When you watch him fight, man, he's so precise. Oh, he is. And so slick. Ooh.

He's really, really good. And he's also undefeated. I mean, come on, son. This dude. And this is, you know, early on in his career. I mean, from the moment people first started seeing this guy fight, they're like, this guy is super talented. Something special.

You know, and so that's a big test, man. This guy's good. Like, world championship good. Dude, I mean Is he ready for Terrence Crawford? I don't know, we're going to find out And it's going to be interesting Go like a little further up ahead in his highlights

I mean, look at that movement, man Look at that Oh, play that again Play that again Come on, son Look at this Look at this Look at this

I mean, that head movement is a thing of beauty. And to do that while you're wearing shorts like that. Yeah. You know Duke feeling himself. He wears shorts like that, fighting like that too. Look at that right hand. He just landed. Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my goodness. So talented. So that's interesting. That's very interesting yeah yeah I like watching guys like this you know because I pick up so much just from watching fights like these yes and I'll watch a fight and I'll go back and watch around like three four times I'll watch a certain part of the round like you see that technique and then I go back and watch the whole like three four times i'll watch a certain part of the round like damn you see that technique and then i go back and watch the whole round and then i maybe watch around in front of that to see if there was some like a tail that the fighter may have seen so do you watch all kinds of

things you do you watch uh like kickboxing do you watch other organizations anything combat related you know what i mean it can even be you know uh i wouldn't say the gimmicky stuff but uh the less conventional mma stuff you feel me so what kind of stuff like uh capoeira oh you know what i mean i study capoeira and i have a few what i call my fifty thousand dollar moves that are capoeira based. That's funny. Yeah. Fight night bonus. Exactly. If I break them out in a fight, if I land, you know what I mean? These moves are pretty much finishing moves.

You know what I mean? If I land this in a fight, I'm pretty much going to guarantee a bonus. So capoeira is a risky martial art, though. But it can work. Oh, absolutely. I've seen it work. How about that Sanchai cartwheel kick? That shit works.

He pulls that off all the time on people. He kicks people in the face with that. It's unorthodox stuff sometimes you don't see coming. It can work. And that's a lot of force behind those kicks. And I would also imagine that learning capoeira would be just like when George J. Pierre got really into gymnastics. It would help your athleticism. Yeah.

I've made that same correlation. So, yeah. It really does. Yeah. It makes sense. Just like yoga does. Just like anything that's requiring you to flip your body around like that and throw kicks into the air. Yeah.

That's got to be good for everything. Mm-hmm. You know? Or just be able to hold your weight up. Yeah. On and throw kicks into the air. Yeah. That's got to be good for everything. Mm-hmm. You know? Or just be able to hold your weight up. Yeah. On the ground and stuff like that. Yeah. So.

So are you in kind of like a holding pattern right now just to see what happens with Australia, whether or not they signed Strickland? And have they contacted you and said, hey, Jared? Nobody said anything to me. Maybe after this podcast. I would hope so. It maybe after this podcast i would hope so um it's good timing i would hope so right like i told him i know i'm here i'm waiting i'm ready well i personally hope that they um they this strickland thing gets worked out because uh i think that's an interesting fight and i would like to see you fight whoever wins that fight. Yeah. And I think that you're right in line, man.

And it's a real fun time for the division. There's so much talent in that division. Yeah. With Drekas Tuposi just beating Robert Whitaker like that, and Whitaker was always the guy that was like right below Adesanya and like creeping up on him. Yeah. Like in the last fight, he got closer. Like it was a unanimous decision loss, but he had his moments in that fight.

It was a much, much, much better performance than his first fight where he got taken out quick. Yeah. So everybody was thinking that that's the guy. Now you watch Drek his duplex, he beat him down. You're like, wow. Yeah. It's going to open some eyes. Definitely bring a lot of attention, a lot more attention back to the middleweight division

after what he did that was a couple weeks ago. Mm-hmm. There's just so much talent now. So much talent in the sport. to the middleweight division after what he did that was a couple weeks ago. This is so much talent now. So much talent in the sport. There's these guys that are just jumping in that are UFC debuts and you're watching them fight. That guy looks like a world-class contender. Yeah. See, when I see stuff like that, I'm like, yes, they look good,

especially in the first round. Don't we all look good in the first round? Right. So, yeah. And on top of that, I think having your fight in debut fights is completely different from fighting top five. Of course. Top ten fighters. You know what I mean?

Yeah, of course. Those, like even with, there's so many different examples. Johnny Walker is a big example he came in wild guns a blazing he was successful until he got to that

top level and realized let me settle down a little bit these men are older up here these are some grown men up here

you can't just come wild no it can it might work yeah I mean it works on a lot of people yeah but you can't

it doesn't always work but at the top level you can't take those risks. You don't want to be taking those type of risks. You want to take risks. Yeah. But those type of risks are sort of, you don't have to take that type of risk. You know what I mean? The thing is, in that flashy style where he's taking those risks, occasionally he has like the most insane knockouts.

Because the guy generates crazy power. Yeah. That Khalil Rountree knockout, that elbow from in tight, another vote for elbows there. Yeah. Because that was insane. That was nasty. His power is crazy.

When he... Which was his last fight? Fuck. Who did he last fight? Fuck. Who did he just fight? God damn it. It's at the tip of my tongue. Fuck. I hate when this happens.

Anyway, he won by knockout. He's so big, too. He looks like he should be a knockout. He's, he's so big too. He looks like he should be a heavyweight. Yeah. He's another guy. He's just tall. 205. He's enormous.

And that's one of the reasons why I was like, here, man, let me go down the middleweight too. Cause everybody I was fighting was like six, four, six, two, six, three. I'm like, damn, I thought. Paul Craig. That's who it was. That's what, yeah. That's what it was.

Why can't I remember that? Yeah. He was, uh, Paul Craig was's who it was that's who it was why couldn't I remember that yeah he was Paul Craig was grabbing a single he was beating him up Kaling him while he was holding onto his leg yeah when he started hammer fisting

yeah crazy he could generate that kind of power yeah but yeah right little world beater

right out of the gate but what happens when he fights the more elite guys but I think he probably does Capoeira right I would assume he moves around yeah real world beater right out of the gate, but what happens when he fights the more elite guys? But I think he probably does capoeira, right? I would assume he moves around. Yeah, he can do that stuff. I'm sure.

He's probably done it for sure. So, I mean, he's able to generate. That was his whole body. He was able to generate the power for that position. But when you get to a level like Jamal Hill, that's not. Yeah, you don't want to be doing that. You're doing wild shit with that guy. If you want to take risks, I mean, by all means, do your thing.

You know what I mean? But it's not a high percentage of success. Yes, the margin of error goes down drastically. Yeah. So that's one thing I've realized, especially after fighting Robert, fighting Kelvin and Israel, right, that the marginal error is just much finer up here. So not only do I have to be better, but I even have to get better at getting better. You know what I mean? I have to think about things through a microscope.

I got to just look at these techniques through a microscope. You know what I'm saying? There's so much that goes on when you extend for a punch or when you step to move or step to feint. There's so much of an effect that it has, not only on my position, but the way my opponent is going to respond and may reposition himself. Do you write down things that you've learned?

I don't really write down things. You just keep them in your head? I just keep them in my head, fill it with my being, my vessel. Sometimes, rarely though, will I write some some things down like if i'm in camp and i need to keep this stuff on my mind if it's something that i'm like i need to just keep this on my mind as long as i can keep it keep a keep it conscious i'll do it so without having my coach to tell me this is what we got to do this is what we got to do so but uh it's hard there's just not enough time to train everything not enough time to get good everywhere and right not enough time to recover from all the workouts not to mention

that right yeah what do you uh do you do anything uh unique for you for your recovery i am i do have a ice i have a plunge cold plunge yep i use a cold plunge i ice bath i mean epsom salt i stretch um stretching is huge especially post-workout i think that is uh one of the bigger things one of the more prominent things that I do to help with my recovery. Um, I get massages, you know, uh, other than that,

nothing else really. When do you do the cold? Especially during fight camps. Um, do you do it after workouts? I would do it after workouts, but I also know the benefits of doing it. Like first thing when you wake up,

you know what I mean? And i just hadn't gotten that far in my journey with this uh cold plunge yet so but i definitely want to i definitely love using it using it prior to this fight and uh help me out because when i got to the to the pi and used the plunge there it was very nice having the hot tub right next to the plunge yeah so i can go out of one and into the other and use that uh one extreme to the next for some mental training you know what i mean and i felt i felt great you know they got a bitch ass cold plunge at the pi you said a bitch ass cold plunge cold plunge what what was this i think it was like 40 I thought it was like 45 or something

is it 45 it felt colder than mine I got a bitch 34 I said my well I said my cold plunge to bitch then yeah

don't do it don't give in you want it cold I'm incrementing my way down I'm making my way down the thing is once you start doing it

34 you'll get used to it you will get used to it you'll get used to it. You will get used to it. You'll get used to it. Yeah. Exactly. And that's how I felt. I hear about people cold plunging at 52 degrees. I'm like, shut the fuck up.

Don't even. Yeah, not cold plunging. Don't ask me what mine is. You're lukewarm water plunging. So what do you do yours at? 34. 34? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. For how long? It sucks. Three minutes. Just one session? Yeah. Well well sometimes two sometimes what i'll do is i'll do it before the workout and then after the workout i'll do a sauna session and

then after the sauna i'll go back in for a few minutes you go before your workout yeah i do it in the morning first thing okay and then i work out and i use the because i'm in the cold for so long for three minutes and i'm freezing when i get out i do a lot of my working out outside i'll do like a body weight stuff like push pushups and, you know. Okay. Some plyo. Body weight squats and stuff like that. Pulling the sled.

I'll do that outside. Nice. And then I get inside and do the rest of the shit. Okay. But I think there's something to cooling your body down and then making your body reheat back up. That's supposed to be like real beneficial testosterone levels. And there was like this, I think it's a Japanese study about that.

A lot of people have used that. It just feels good too. It just wakes you up first thing in the morning. Woo! I get in that motherfucker and I don't want to be in there. I'm like, God damn it. But I think everybody should do something like that. Just a little something like that.

Just a little something for yourself. I think my closest experience to that was in the Army. Having to wake up and it's cold as shit outside and you're freezing balls, sitting in formation, and then you start running. You're like, oh, finally. At first you're a little, you know, creaky-crackly a little bit and then you loosen up and you get that runner's high or some shit like that. Or you get a good drift sergeant to pump you up, motivate you, some shit like that.

Yeah, if you get all about the cold, then. Yeah, people just have to be active. Like, if you really think it sucks to be outside in cold weather, guess what? Once you start hiking, you start sweating. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. That's the thing if you go hunting.

One of the things about it is, like, layering correctly. Yeah. Like, you want to actually be a little cold while you're hiking? Yeah. That's the thing if you go hunting. One of the things about it is like layering correctly. Like you want to actually be a little cold while you're hiking. Yeah. Because if you're not, you're going to heat up. You want to be a little cold. Yeah. But you want to have a minimal amount of layers on. Because if you have a lot of layers on, you have to stop, take them off.

Now you're wet. You know? Unless you're wearing merino wool or some top-notch synthetics, it sucks bad if you're sweaty and it's cold out. That sucks. That's how a lot of people get really fucked up. Oh, man. It's cold. I remember when I moved to Alaska, the first time I had to do this

learn-to-return training for my job, right, because we would fly out to remote places and work on our traffic control equipment. So just in case some shit happened, shit happened be like a reenactment of the gray with that movie gray with the wolves and oh was it liam neeson had to fight off the wolves yeah it'd be something like that they'll teach you how to survive you know what i mean and uh i was not prepared for this class bro it was uh it was wintertime so it was snow all over the damn place in Anchorage Alaska and it took us to some BLM land some BLM land uh and I had on steel toe boots right you used to be wearing steel toe boots out in the cold right so that's a that's a big no-no right there cold it gets colder because the steel gets cold yeah the steel gets cold and you'll lose you'll lose toes like that oh shit um i didn't wear layers i had on steel

toe boots some jeans uh a uh button-up polo shirt oh no and a carter jacket no way that's it and i think i had a beanie i can't remember i think i had a beanie on my head oh my god but that was it right and we're supposed to go out there in the middle of the wilderness to simulate a fucking uh a plane crash and luckily um i lost a shoe luckily i lost a shoe we had to make they taught us how to make a makeshift shoe out of uh airplane seat cushion and the airplane seat cushion was way more comfortable than the other steel toe boot that i didn't lose. And it was warmer. You know what I mean?

How'd you lose a boot? Airplane crash. Simulated situation. Oh, I see. I see. I see. Sorry. And it was able to stay on top of the snow a lot better than my boot was.

So I was definitely, needless to say, I was not prepared to live in Alaska. And it was slow going at first because I didn't have money to buy all the gear you need to live in a cold weather environment. So I'm up there and I'm going outside, clearing snow off of my vehicle in freaking flip flops, gym shorts and a t-shirt. Well, a jacket, of course, because you can have jackets on. Oh, no. Yeah, I wasn't prepared to live up there at first. Which part of alaska were you in anchorage anchorage did you see a lot of moose and bears and shit you did see moose i

think i saw a bear like three or four times while i was up there in the in town grizzly bear no no grizzly bears black black bears black bears no we don't see grizzly bear in town jesus thank god for that thank god so yeah i have a friend who uh lives in bc like way up in bc and he had a shoot a bear from like three feet away what yeah there was a brown bear that was trying to get into a cabin he was in the cabin yeah he had to shoot through the window or what no i think i think the thing was coming through the door and he had to open the door and shoot it in the head. What did he shoot it with? A rifle, I believe.

I forget the story totally. He told me a while ago. He's had multiple encounters with bears up there. There's like the high areas of when you get up into BC and to real heavily wooded areas. They have real grizzly problems. There's a lot of grizzly bears up there. And they recently made it illegal to hunt them. You can hunt black bears still,

but you can't hunt grizzly bears anymore because the people that live in the city voted it out. So the people that live in Vancouver are like, oh, don't kill the grizzly bears. Because they revere the bears. And the people that are up there are like, hey, you've got to kill them or there's going to be too many of them. Like, what are we doing?

You've got to manage their population. They come into town and sometimes they fucking open up people's cabins and that's that's scary stuff man yeah scary stuff there was a video recently somebody put me uh onto of uh this grizzly bear that uh tears open this cabin and pulls out uh like a leg of a moose and it's dragging it out but it like went through the wall of this cabin just they're so strong they just tore the wall apart just tore a hole through the wall yeah and it smelled the meat through there and it's like i gotta get to this fucking wall yeah and got a so i've been motivated then yeah to say the least it's a scary animal to live around.

I just came from Alaska, and we were up there. We went camping, stayed in the camper for a little bit. And there was, where were we? There wasn't, no, this isn't a bear scare. It was a tsunami scare is what it was. Oh, Jesus. But they cleared, they gave us all clear. But what happens?

You get like a horn blows off or something? Well, we were in a camper right there on the beach. And then on your phones, you get an alert, just like an Amber Alert or something like that. On your phones, you get an alert saying tsunami warning for this area. You know what I mean? Get to high ground, shit like that. So we were, so we packed up our stuff and we had to leave. So we packed up our stuff and we had to leave.

You can look on the internet and see where the effects, where places are actually affecting. And it wasn't us. We were just really close to it. But they hit the whole area. Whew. Tsunami scared the fuck out of me. When I lived in California, I was always worried that a big one was going to hit and a tsunami was going to wash over the whole city. Yeah.

I was always worried about that. Yeah. But I started telling a story because we went up to Alaska, what, a couple of weeks ago? But like a few days before we went to Alaska, I heard about this black bear pull this man out of his truck and kill him, out of his tent, and killed him. I think I was in Arizona. So I'm in Arizona, and I hear about this,

and we're about to go to Alaska. In the camp, right? It came like right in the camp. The bear came right in the camp, pulled him into a brush and mauled him, killed him. Yeah. And so I'm worried because the last time I went to Alaska, we was in a camper. There was a bear come through town. I could see the bear running in the distance and shit.

It was a little black bear. But still, so I'm like, you know how black people are. We don't play around in the wilderness and shit it was a little black bear but still so i'm like ah you know how black people are we don't play around in the wilderness and shit man we don't do bears and bobcats did you have a gun or anything on you the last time we had a gun but not this last time we went we didn't have a gun but that uh the time we saw the bear we had a gun and some bear mace and stuff like that so this time we had the bear spray but not gun. I only saw a grizzly bear one time in the wild. While you were hunting? Yeah.

They look at you so different. Yeah. A black bear looks at you like, who are you? Are you going to hurt me? What are you doing here? What are you? Maybe they've never seen a person before, but they're like, what is this? A grizzly bear looks at you like this.

Can I eat you? Can I eat you? Like these cold, dark eyes, man. The eyes just are feeling this like you realize the primal energy

of this killing machine is locked on you a real live grizzly bear in the wild it wasn't a big one either the one that I saw was only like six feet tall small

but a young bear but like right away looking at me they'll know when they're being that yeah yeah it's just a different

sort of wiring, I guess. Like polar bears. I would hear stories, because I worked up there, and we would go to remote areas to work on airfields and shit. And the further north you get, you can come into encounters. And I've heard stories. One of the guys who I worked with was up in Barrow, which is way up north Alaska.

And he was working on his thing and uh um out in the distance way out in the distance with the binoculars because they're always watching there's a polar bear out there you know what i mean and uh so they have to keep an eye on this thing and they just notice his bears getting closer and closer so this bear is freaking honing in on them. You know, these bears can see you lift his nose and then put his nose down and start coming closer and closer. And they notice this bear is hunting them. So they have to abort mission and leave because these bears will break down the door and get whatever they want. You know what I mean?

They hunt anything. They hunt everything. Everybody. Yeah. They hunt anything. Yeah. They hunt everything. Everybody.

Yeah. So, yeah, we don't mess around with polar bears and stuff when you're on the job, at least. I don't know what people do on the outside of the job, but I don't mess around with polar bears, period. A friend of mine is a veterinarian, and he was explaining how when they work with little baby polar bears, he goes, they're like the predator right out of the womb. They're like the alien, you know, from the womb. Wow. Like right out of the womb. He's like, alien, you know, from the womb. Wow. Like right out of the womb. He's like, you're looking at these little cute killers. Damn.

Yeah. It's like polar bears don't eat anything but meat. Yeah. There's no vegetables up there. There's no vegetation. There's no fucking blueberries. No. We're lucky that these, that's like the thing about salmon and the brown bears.

The brown bears and the coastal bears. Because they have other food sources. Yeah. Plenty of food. Like that's why you see all those videos of people, like, sitting there taking pictures of these things catching salmon out of the river. They say the inland ones are more dangerous. Yes.

The inland ones. That's what they say. Yeah. Yeah. Because they hunt most of the time. Mm-hmm. Or they, you know, eat berries. Yeah.

That's why I've seen these big bears run down a fucking moose. They're so fast. Man. They're so powerful. They're powerful. That's the thing. Did you see that video that some guy captured recently of these two bears duking it out for a long time? Yeah.

A long time, man. Like a pride round. Yeah. The dude was like, this is going to get good. Or some shit like that. And then they just like standing up. And I was like, whoa. They go hard, man.

Got them by the ear. Had one by the leg at one point. I was watching it like, ooh, what kind of wrestling move these bears finna do? They do have a little jujitsu. They got something, man. Yeah, they do use a little wrestling. And they bite each other so fucking hard. Snapping.

You see him? He got that overhook. He got that whizzer right there. Their coat is so impressive. They pull giant chunks of hair out of each other. Did you ever see the movie Grizzly Man? No, not Grizzly Man. Oh my god, you have to see it. That's a documentary, right?

Yeah, it's about this crazy dude. Is that the dude who died? Yeah. I think I might have seen that, who died at the end. It's a Werner Herzog movie, and I swear to god, he's trying to make it a comedy. I think it's a comedy. I really do. I would call it an unintentional comedy, but he's too brilliant for it to be unintentional.

I think he did it on purpose. It's a comedy movie, man. Grizzly Man. It's a tragedy for sure. It's sad that this guy got eaten by a grizzly bear and his girlfriend too. But it's also, it is a bananas movie. Because this guy just, he thought he was protecting these grizzlies. He's like, I'm here to save them.

I'm going to save all the grizzlies. And he's like, you're not saving jack shit. Like, what are you talking about? You're merely accommodating them for the time being. You're just around them because they don't know what you are. If they knew who you are, they would just eat you. And that's what one of them eventually did. He's like, I think I can eat this guy.

And he just fucking ate him. Damn. Yeah. Well, he stuck around too long, too. And most of the bears were already in hibernation when he was in there. So the bears that weren't hibernating yet didn't have enough food. So they were desperate. So like maybe a desperate old male.

And so then he just said, oh, he just eat this dude. I've been seeing this annoying motherfucker saying he's saving me. You're like, no, I'm saving you for later, motherfucker. But there's a scene in it where they talk to the sheriff. And the sheriff's like, I thought he was retarded. And then he just cuts, smash cuts after that. I'm like, that is comedy. Like he's doing this on purpose.

He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. Yeah. But it's a crazy movie of this guy who's just, he seems like an in the closeted gay man. And cause there's part of the movie where he's like, I wish I was gay. Cause if I was gay, I would just meet a guy,

but I'm not gay. It's like, what what are you doing man like what's going on up there just fuck well I'd actually find many gay people in there loving up maybe maybe that guy pretty sure but I mean I think it's it's not I think it's a thing where people attach themselves like that they're there to help and save this magnificent creature, which is a magnificent creature. And then it gives their life so much more meaning because they're attached to something bigger than them, so important, so huge. Because their whole identity is wrapped around protecting these bears. But the people that are the wildlife biologists up in Alaska, they know what they're doing.

Those bears aren't in danger. They're not in danger at all. They have to monitor their populations very carefully. They go out there with rifles. Yeah, they have to be. They'll use them if they have to. Yeah, they have to sometimes. And especially if a bear starts eating people.

Yeah. Like there was a hiker. They're going to put their bear down. Or a bicyclist in Montana. She got pulled out of her tent. Ooh. Yeah. people yeah like there was a I don't put their bear dinner or a bicyclist in Montana she got pulled out of her tent yeah apparently she had had an encounter with that same bear earlier and scared it off and the bear came back I think that's the case see if you can find that store but that's in in Montana and that was like real close to town mm-hmm so it freaked everybody out this lady got just dragged out of her fucking and

killed yeah she got killed she got killed i don't think it takes much for it's a rare exception when a grizzly bear doesn't kill you yeah and you see some of those dudes they stitch them back together and they're like yikes respect respect dude that's cinema shit right there that's that reverent. Yeah, that's a true story, man. It was? Yeah, it's based on a true story. Based on a true story. That was a wild scene. Yeah.

Yeah, I forget who the reverent is based on. What were you just looking up? The lady getting the bear, the hiker. Oh, yeah, the story about the hiker. The bicyclist. Did she run into I think she did I'm not

there could be different articles either way either way the bear pulled her out of her tent yeah that's the scariest way to die

that's why I don't do animals man yeah I hear you bro I respect them you know what I mean oh I've seen this one this bear showed up at a cabin and starts rubbing his body on it

that's gotta be like a miniature cabin right no he's just huge, man. Some of those bears are 12 feet tall. Jeez. That's got to be like over a... Jeez. That thing's huge.

Jeez. Revenant, yeah. What is the dude's name who it's based on? Apparently the real story, the author of the book on it was on Steve Rinella's podcast Meat Eater podcast was a really good story Hugh Glass

Hugh Glass is the author it's an amazing episode where he talks about you know there's a difference between the Hollywood version and the real version but it is based on a true story that was a good movie man

bro imagine living back then you worry about bows and arrows flying at you and you're trying to make your way through the woods and what the fuck are we doing here hard people man what was that that wasn't the reverend that was uh was it the predator

the newest the newest one yeah with the comanches yeah prey and they had the french that was good Predator. The newest Predator. The newest one, yeah, with the Comanches. Prey. And they had the French over there. That was good. That was good. That was a really good one. It was fun.

It was fun. It was a fun Predator movie. Like, I was a little skeptical. I was like, yeah, they got a girl. On the streaming site, yeah. They got a girl who's going to kill it. Come on, shut the fuck up. But it was good.

It was still cinematic for the story. You know, some... Suspension of disbelief. Yeah. Yeah, but still, they nailed it. They did it good. It was good. I enjoyed the shit out of it.

It was a lot better than Aliens vs. Predator. Yeah, that wasn't so good. No. What do you do to unwind? Are you like a video game guy? What do you do to relax? Well, I play video games. There you go.

I knew it. With the anime, I was like, it's a shot in the dark. But, you know, since having children, man, it's few and far between. But I still get my gaming time in right now. Right now I'm playing Final Fantasy XVI. I don't play much online. My daughter is, she's big into, what is it, Roblox and shit like that? Roblox, mine too.

So the battle is, no, too much of that shit get off of that shit get off of those things you know how it is with kids you know what i mean yeah we played wanted dead or alive you know that karate game wanted dead or alive you don't know that karate game oh man it's the shit yeah yeah it's a karate game i fuck everybody up in that game nobody in my house wants to play me uh it's a newer game? No, it's one of those ready, fight. Oh, okay. You know those games? I remember that.

I had Karate Champ growing up. That was on Nintendo. It was just like that. You had a red one and dude in white. Yeah, that's the game. Wanted. Dead or Alive. Oh, just Dead or Alive.

Okay, I remember Dead or Alive. Sorry, I fucked it up. But Dead or Alive is the shit. That game up. But Dead or Alive is the shit. That game was fun. Dead or Alive is the shit. You'll knock somebody off of a platform and they'll fall. And then you'll jump down and continue fighting and shit like that. I keep trying to coach my kids how to do it.

Well, I keep fucking them up. You can't help yourself, huh? I can't help myself. I get very competitive when it comes to that game. They don't like playing it. They get mad. When's the last time you played it? A couple days ago.

Yeah. Who's your character on that one? I pick whoever the fuck. I don't give a shit. Okay. Yeah, I don't give a shit. Each one of them has some specific moves you can do, a combination you can do to knock a person back and just keep landing it. See, my favorite fighting game was

Bloody Roar. I don't know if a lot of people don't know what Bloody Roar is. Bloody Roar. I think I've heard a lot of people don't know what Bloody Roar is. Bloody Roar. Yeah. I think I've heard that name. What is that? What does that look like? It was a 3D fighting game, but you would transform. You have fighters who could transform into beast-like apparitions.

Oh, okay. Similar kind of thing. Yeah. Oh, I remembered this. Yeah. Yes. So I was good with a lot of them. Have you fucked around at all with VR?

Have you done any of those VR games? I've played Thrill of the Fight. Is it Thrill of the Fight? Is that a boxing one? Yes, a boxing one. Those are great, aren't they? Yes. You can kind of move around with that a little.

Yes. That was fairly realistic as far as the sensors and responsiveness goes. And I was using that to cut weight for my last fight. And for the Adesanya fight, I was using it to, you know, because I start pouring sweat on those damn things. Yeah. And then the eyes will fog up. I was surprised that, like, we did it on the concrete. I was like, my feet hurt.

Because I'm, like, pushing off my feet and moving my body around. Which one were you playing? Which one were we playing, Jamie, on the HTC Vive? It could have been this. I don't remember at that time. I don't remember. But I do remember. I love the fact that when he pops you, the screen goes white.

Okay. Like you get hit. Yeah. Like it feels like you see stars. Yeah. I'm like, that's cool. Yeah. It's like it gives you like a real feeling of what it looks like when punches are coming at you.

You get a real good workout. Yeah. It was really good. I was – If you could do – I'll take a sweat for sure. That's what I always tell people. Like if you could find something you enjoy doing, working out is so much easier.

Like, people say, well, I'm going to get in shape. I'm going to go to the gym. God damn it, that's boring. That's so boring. Just learn jiu-jitsu. Learn kickboxing. Do something. And if a video game, like, there was a while where they were talking about, and I think some people still, they are doing it, but doing VR games on a unidirectional

treadmill or a multidirectional treadmill. Yeah. So they have this treadmill that can go all different ways and it's propelled by your movement. So as you're moving, you're, you're harnessed into this circle. Yeah. But the treadmill can go in 360 different ways. I've seen those.

Yeah. It's fucking cool. I want one of those. That's fucking cool. So you're running around and shooting things. It's like you're getting exercise while you're also playing a fun game. Yeah.

If you could do something like Dance Dance Revolution, a lot of people lost weight doing that because that's fun. That thing is revolutionary right there, though. Yeah. I didn't get into it because I'm not a big dancer, but I like my games. Do you do anything?

But I got to use the bathroom. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We can just wrap this up. Let's wrap this up. We're about the end of the line anyway. Thank you very much, man. I hear you. Let's wrap it up.

P, tell everybody your Instagram so they can follow you. Yeah. I'm on Instagram, KillerGorillaMMA. So give me a like, follow. You guys will see all this cool stuff that I'm doing. I'm going to get more active. I'm not super active, but I will be more active. I'm definitely active during fight weeks.

But I'm slowly spreading my wings. Well, I'm just happy when you're active in the octagon. Yeah. And I'm glad we got to do this. I really enjoyed your perspective on things. I think it was great. Thank you, man. I enjoyed it very much.

My pleasure. Let's do it again. All right. Bye, everybody.