The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #151 with Bo Nickal

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Joe sits down with Bo Nickal, a mixed martial artist currently competing in the UFC middleweight division. https://www.ufc.com/athlete/bo-nickal

the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day what's up bo how are you good how you doing not much i was gonna ask you we were just looking at that photo of karelin and talking about the soviet program the doping program did you ever see that movie uh icarus yeah i did watch that fucking crazy i thought it was just insane too how it didn't even really start off the way that it ended like he wasn't even really trying to like figure all this stuff out he just like fell into it yeah yeah total dumb luck yeah but i mean since i i wrestled my whole life and stuff and pay attention to the international scene, it's like it's not really a secret. Everybody kind of knows, right?

Just like that's the first legitimate real proof that somebody's kind of come out with. But, I mean, everybody kind of knew like that's what's going on. But that was so insane, though, that they had a hole in the wall where they were handing through the dirty urine and getting back clean urine and then submitting that. And if it wasn't for micro analysis of the jars, then they realized, oh, the Soviets had figured it was, wasn't the Soviets, it was the Russians had figured out some way to, to open up these unopenable jars because it's scratched right in little places yeah yeah I mean they freaking they want to win really bad and it's like for them too it's it's a different level like uh the guys that that won that were very successful um maybe 10 15 20 years ago those guys are like big

government positions and stuff like like in the U.S. you win the Olympics in wrestling you win like a quarter million bucks and it's a big deal for like a month and you kind of move on but over there it's like you're kind of set for life so it's like yeah it's like a different it's a completely different uh kind of motivation i think what is it like competing when you know that there's like state-sponsored programs that are involved in these other countries doping up their athletes it's pretty weird you know i think that because like i said i kind of grew up you grow up with the understanding of it knowing like this is kind of the way it works uh you just you're ready for it you're prepared you understand but and i'm sure i've competed against a lot of guys that were

doping and doing stuff but the one experience that i had that was like uh really kind of prominent in my mind so I wrestled this dude I wrestled a tournament in Rome this was a few years ago and I was trying to go up from I was in between weights so my weight was uh 86 kilos or 97 kilos I was and I was kind of having a little trouble with my lower back so I was like I don't want to cut I just want to like get bigger and so I came in and I was weighing uh like 210 which the weight class is 213 97 kilos and I was like I'll be fine like I'll be good and uh I rolled up uh to this second round match and I was wrestling this Iranian dude and my coach my coaches weren't there with me so I had like some different coaches and they didn't really warn me who this dude was I had wrestled the number one Iranian guy a few months earlier.

And I tech followed him. I killed him. So I was like, I'm going to smash this dude. I don't give a crap. This dude comes out. He's like two inches taller than me, freaking jacked as hell. And does a forward roll and squat jump. And his feet are over my head.

And I'm like, what the hell is going on and we're just random tournament in Rome and I'm wrestling some dude that I don't even know and he killed me it's the only time I've ever wrestled a match where I really got whipped like he single leg took me down gut wrench me and he came down from probably like 235 like he was way bigger than me and then I got off the mat and i was like what the just happened and uh then the coach was like oh oh yeah this guy was uh world um silver medalist world bronze medalist like five years ago but the last five years he got banned he got popped and so he hadn't competed in five years he'd just been freaking training and juiced and then he

actually the next round he beat my teammate kyle snyder who's olympic gold medalist the exact same way like like smoked us both and i was like what the hell is going on here so then world championship that year comes along and now they're getting tested and he like went oh and won so yeah yeah i was like all right like so i kind of like felt bad about myself at first i was like damn i suck and then I was like, all right. So I kind of felt bad about myself at first. I was like, damn, I suck. And then I was like, all right, well, it is what it is. Whatever. Have you ever heard of the enhanced games?

No. It's a thing they're trying to do where I guess what they're doing is they're allowing athletes, and they're going to do it at the same time as the Olympics. Okay. And they're allowing athletes to juice. at the same time as the Olympics. Okay. And they're allowing athletes to juice.

And they're doing it supposedly responsibly with doctors involved, and they're trying to break all the records. Yeah. I like it. I think I like that. Let's do it. And just be honest about it. Like, yo, this is the deal.

This is what we do. Let's freaking see how far we can go. Yeah. Because, I mean, I think that's, I don't know. I like, that stuff's interesting to me, the optimization of, like, human performance, right? Like, how far can you get? So, like, let's do it. That'd be fun.

Yeah. It's interesting, right? Because, like, you think about that guy, the Iranian that you wrestled. Like, how much of an advantage is it? that you wrestled, like, how much of an advantage is it? Like, what, you know, you never know because a guy like that's probably been juicing his entire athletic career. For sure. But, like, what is the advantage? Like, do you ever wonder, like, oh, I'm going to try that shit real quick.

I've thought about it as far as the advantages. I never have been interested in trying anything like that. Just it's not really the culture,, like what I'm around in wrestling, in American wrestling. Nobody does that. Well, I won't say nobody, but 99% of guys really aren't doing that, especially because we get tested a lot in collegiate athletics and stuff. It's just something that is kind of very looked down upon in what we do.

But it is interesting to think about what would would what would i be like if if i was doing these things like like i can compete at such a high level already and and i have you know i think that my biggest asset in uh wrestling and in fighting is my mind imagine like my body was was and i think that you know with with time i just i'm very disciplined and do things a certain way i'm going to get to as close as that as i could be but there is this other like level that's kind of unnatural where it's interesting to think about but you know while i'm competing and stuff i just i don't even really it's it's obviously not an option and uh you know but at the end of the day i'm probably going to be i probably have competed against a lot of guys that are juiced up and i will we'll see what the ufc's

drug testing program's like since you saw it as over at the end of the year but it is what it is man it's just like i'm i'm pretty confident myself regardless and uh if i'm gotta fight a dude that's juiced up um and you're willing to kind of take a back door to try to get an advantage and win i think that you're probably cutting corners in a lot of other areas as well which i'm not doing so you know that's something that um i feel okay with the thing is when the guy's not cutting corners and juicing and has talent i just think that if they're if they're willing to do that, if we're willing to go outside the rules and do that,

to me that's kind of like they're trying to get an unfair advantage. That's kind of a character thing. They want to get that advantage. So to me that means they're fearful that they wouldn't be able to do it without it. Now they're, yeah, they might be doing everything right, but I know that in their mind there's a little weakness there to me. And, and I can, I can take advantage of that and capitalize on that because at the end of the day, I'm going to do every single little thing, right. I'm going to make sure my sleep's on point,

make sure my nutrition's on point. And not only am I going to do this for a camp, but I'm doing this all the time. And I've been doing this since I was a little kid. So, you know, take what you want, do all that stuff, but you're not going to outwork 20 years, 20 plus years in the short amount of time that you have to, you know, prepare for me. So that's kind of my mindset around it. And it's just the reality of the situation. Like I'm going to fight guys that are probably doing stuff that isn't, you know, that I'm not doing. Well, I believe that the new UFC drug doping program is going to be real similar to USADA. They're just not going to do the dumb shit, like wake people up the morning of the weigh-ins

and things along those lines. Unfortunately, they're still not going to let them take certain things that, just like peptides, things that will enhance their body's ability to heal, which I really think they should. Yeah, yeah, like BPC, 157, stuff like that. Yeah, I think there's stuff out there that it's not really like hormonal changes. It's not giving you that type of advantage.

It's just helping you get healthy. Yeah. We all want to be healthy, and for me, it's like that comes from diet, from supplements, from nutrition, and it's like I'm from from diet from supplements from nutrition and it's like you know i'm doing everything i can and i still finish some sessions and i'm like frick yeah i mean i got a freaking black eye right now like yeah like uh it's not like uh you know we're not putting our bodies through a lot you're putting your bodies through so much i mean it's literally a sport about breaking other people's bodies with your body. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's the most insane thing to pursue. I know. I think about it sometimes and

I have this part of me that's pretty, pretty rational. And I think like, uh, you know, all right, I'm going out in front of all these people and like putting my health on the line and this and that and at the end of the day it's like uh you know you you look out of a business perspective and it's almost like a circus right like you know i'm putting myself out there and it's entertainment and but like i'm the one that has the real consequence and stuff and i'm like why am i doing this this is so crazy and then the the other part of me the bigger part of me is like i love this shit like this is the best like let's do it again again it's a constant battle inside your mind i don't know i'm i feel

like in a lot not i don't mean to like toot my own horn but i was i'm a college graduate i had a lot of opportunities like there's a lot of things i could be doing i could be pretty much doing anything i'd be you know coaching i could be in business i could be doing whatever i want to do but i'm choosing to do this and uh there's a lot of like a lot more consequences you know on the on the negative end of what i'm doing now but i just freaking love it i just love it so much well the the victory the feeling of victory has got to just be the ultimate payoff for all that. It's unreal, man. So, you know, I mean, you've fought, so you understand. But, like, when I was wrestling and I would pin somebody in front of, you know, 10,000, 20,000 people and the crowd's going nuts, freaking out, this and that,

it's like that's an amazing feeling. And then comes the UFC, that same big stage, even bigger stage, millions of people watching worldwide, knock a guy out cold. It's like you can't beat that. It's amazing. When did you decide or when did you even entertain the idea of transitioning to MMA? So I always loved fighting and it was always like a fan of the UFC. You know, I probably started watching when I was, I don't know, 11, 12. And it was not my family. We would, we'd go to Buffalo Wild Wings on Saturday. We watched the fights or, you know, we'd get the pay-per-view at

home. And it was always something that I was like, I could do that. And like me and my friends would, would fight and stuff, or we'd fight other kids just for fun. And so it was always something that was kind of in the back of my mind. And, you know, really through high school, through early college, I was just like, I'm wrestling. I'm focused on wrestling. And then I did a camp in Missouri, and I was teaching wrestling all day. And then this dad came up to me and was like, hey, man,

we're doing a jiu-jitsu class after this. Would you want to come and try it out? And I was like, yeah, yeah, sure. Like, I'm down. Let's go. And so I go in, and they just kind of – I rolled around with all the guys, and I was like, dude, this is fun. Like, I love this. I'm really – I have to fight.

It was just that one class kind of – One class. Well, I was always interested in it, and I would always play around. And then I actually, like, kind of – I hadn't done it for a while like played around at all and then the guy invited me and I'm just like about it like what if somebody's like yo come do this I'm like let's go and so it was just super fun to do something different and that was probably in between my sophomore and junior year and I was like dude I'm gonna do this I'm gonna see this wrestling thing through to where I feel comfortable and and ready to move on and then I'm then I'm fighting

like that's I just knew I wanted to do it so was that jujitsu class was that the first uh thing outside of wrestling you done in combat sports um I had done like so this is actually kind of funny when I was like 12 or something, no, I was probably younger. I was probably like 10 or 11. There was a jujitsu tournament at a high school that, my high school. So my dad was a high school wrestling coach and this jujitsu, it was like Naga or something. They wanted to put on a tournament at the high school. And so my dad set it up, like put all the mats in and stuff and I was like why don't you enter I was like okay like let's get I don't know anything I've never trained nothing and he was like just do it

and so I did that tournament and I actually won and but I never trained or anything I just just won with wrestling yeah it was like I'd watched UFC so I knew all right the guy's gonna try to like guillotine me or he's gonna try try to, like, get my back. And I'm just like, don't let him do that. And, again, I, like, played around. Just watching stuff on TV, you know, you can learn a few things. And so I did the tournament, and that was it. So I never trained. Did you get any submissions?

I think I submitted a kid. Yeah. What's this called, but, this called in a front headlock? I forget the submission. Oh, like a power guillotine? Yeah, yeah, like that. So I submitted the first dude like this. And then after that, I just kind of took the guys down and held them down and stuff.

And actually in the finals, it was a tough match because I went against a kid who I had competitive. He wrestled as well. And I had competitive wrestling matches with him. Not that competitive. Like I would kind of whip him in wrestling. But he also trained jiu-jitsu and uh right away he like pulled guard and I was like what the but he knew good wrestling so like I couldn't really like do anything to him and with and so and I didn't know the rules at all so like he was winning on advantage but then I I somehow like got past his guard at the very end and uh then they gave me a point and I won but um

really that was it up until my you know second third year in college and I did that class did you when did you start striking um so I had a buddy a good buddy he's actually my the boxing coach now at my gym he was a collegiate national champion in boxing and uh I did like pads with him in over COVID like once or twice and uh but I really started actually training striking like getting into it um I started MMA training full-time August of 2021 that's when I started that's insane yeah so you've really only been seriously striking for two years. Yeah, yeah. That's it.

And, you know, I just feel like it's – I just like it. It's fun. So I study it a lot. I'm always watching film and kind of learning. Well, your last performance, man, like the thing about, you know, watching you fight inside the octagon, like everybody knows how good of a wrestler you are. So they're looking for that. But in the last fight, was like oh shit like distance management

your ability to slide out of range and then explode back into range and timing with punches look how you've been boxing forever it really it was very impressive and i know the guy came in on short notice he's small for the weight class. But, dude, you looked fucking great. Thank you. Yeah, I felt like, you know, people say, you know, about the matchup, this and that. It was like, well, I did what I was supposed to do. Yeah. He's totally out of your control.

Yeah, yeah. And so I feel like I was just excited that I got to fight because I thought I was done. Who was supposed to fight you? It was Treshawn Gore. That's right. What happened to him? He hurt, I don't know, he hurt his wrist or his thumb or something. But honestly, as soon as they announced it, I was like, I kind of had a feeling.

He was talking crazy, saying he was going to give me brain damage, all this stuff. I was like, all right, bud, we'll see. And then I was like, this dude freaking pulled out after saying all this stuff. I kind of expected it. But then the new guy came in, and I was just, like you said, grateful I got a fight. But, yeah, you know, the actual fight, the plan was take him down, sub him. Of course, like, that's my wheelhouse. But I have great, great coaches, you know, for striking.

I work with the dude I was telling you. His name is Moose, collegiate national champion boxing. Grew up in Philly. Probably had 70, 80 amateur boxing fights. And so that's who I'm training with and who's teaching me every day. And then I work with another guy. His name is Barry Robinson. You should check him out.

He's on Instagram, A Million Styles Boxing. Dude's like amazing, amazing striking coach. He lives in Thailand now, but I brought him out to PA for a few weeks, and he worked with me on a lot of stuff. And, dude, all my stuff is just from them and you know I want to utilize utilize my wrestling right but it's a fight so you know everybody's nervous oh I'm going to take him down this and that but when I go in there I have the hours and the reps of of training this way in the striking so that's what comes out and I think that um that's my mindset now with fighting it's it's i

got like the ultimate cheat code with wrestling so so use that to my advantage whatever it looks like whether it's actually wrestling take a guy down hold him down or whether it's the threat of it and uh you know that that's where i feel like it's it's such a it's a psychological battle where you know the guy's so worried if you saw i just did like a little faint dude dropped his hand i was like all right you're done bro boom and then uh then after that it was kind of funny because i hit him and i saw him wobble i was like in my mind you're making so many decisions in that split second but i was thinking okay i could take him down i could back off or just going for the kill and that's just just my nature to, like, go for the kill. So then just took him out.

When you have that wrestling base, it is such a giant advantage. I always tell any young athlete that, like, that is the 100% best foundation because you get to choose whether a fight is standing or on the ground, and then there's the threat of that. And the threat of that has so many consequences in terms of how your opponent's going to react and what they're going to do. Like you were talking about that feint.

It's so gigantic, man. Because a guy always has it in the back of their head that you might take them down, but you don't ever have that. No. Yeah, I'm not worried about it at all. Freedom. Yeah, I would say in the actual fight, the biggest advantage is the cycle the psychology of them feeling threatened feeling pressured feeling nervous like shit if i get taken down i'm probably not getting back up like i can't get taken down

now that's what they're focused on rather than winning the fight and uh you know of course you know the actual skills that come with that of being able to implement that, the game plan and do it is big. But if you ever notice and you watch guys fight or compete, especially in training, if you see one guy is a little more tense, a little more nervous, a little like more reacting, like that's such a big part of how much energy you spend in, you know, your overall, in the overall time of the fight. I noticed when I got a lot better at wrestling and when I started pinning a lot more guys was when I just relaxed. It was like this huge thing for me because I pinned a lot of guys growing up and got a lot of pins, but then in college, guys get a little better. They learn how to hold you off a little better.

And so I would use all my energy, all my strength, try to throw them on their back. And a lot of times I would. And so I'd get up, you know, a bunch of points, but then towards the end, I'd get a little tired. I wouldn't finish as strong instead of just what I, what I figured out later in my career was, all right, I'm just going to relax. I'm just going to move you around, just get into position, pull you, push you, fake. And I'm very relaxed. Okay, you shoot, no worries. I'm going to down block, run around you. And then, you know, when I have my opportunity, maybe you're fading a little bit, now I overwhelm you

versus trying to do that when we're both fresh. So that's where I feel like in a fight, it's 15 minutes, a really long time, I don't got to overwhelm you in the first minute. I can, you know, just be relaxed, move, catch your jab, check your kicks, set you up and then wham. And then overwhelm you when the time comes. And I'm very relaxed because like you said, what are you going to shoot on me? Like now, dude, you shoot on me, the fight's over. Like I'm going to win. As soon as I catch somebody shooting on me, it's like, you're done. So that's what I want them to, but you know, more than likely that's never going to happen. So they're going to be very tense, nervous, worrying about that stuff.

So, yeah, that's kind of how I feel about, like, the wrestling advantage, right? Like it's exactly like you said. It's so big to have that comfort and confidence. Yeah, and that knowledge of when to hit the gas and when to be relaxed, that plays such a critical factor when you move from three to five rounds as well. So when a guy is a champion and a guy's been fighting most like a Jon Jones type guy, has been fighting five rounders for a decade plus, for a guy like him, he has almost like an internal sense of when to hit the gas and what to do and how much energy he has.

Yeah, it's such a big thing man you know wrestling the longest match is is seven minutes it's like it's not even half of a normal fight and then to go from 15 to 25 like that's a huge jump so that's something I'm definitely preparing for in my mind and I think that fighting is such a it can become such an emotional thing people get baited into fighting a certain way that it's so important to be disciplined. You know, not only, obviously you have to, you actually have to have the training and the base and the cardio to be able to do that. Then to also implement it in front of millions of people and all the pressures on you.

And now there's this other guy who's a monster coming at you trying to knock you out. It's like, you know, you've got to be a certain type of person, I think, and have a certain mindset to be able to be disciplined and calm and stoic in that fire, right? Because you could have all the cardio in the world, but if you go 100% for two and a half minutes, you can't do that for for 25 right you're gonna lose it no matter what even if you have the the training so keeping cool under in that situation i think is is almost equally as important yeah we've seen that in so many fights where guys

get really emotional and they really try to hit the gas in the first round and then you see in the second round they've already blown their wad. It's rough. Yeah, yeah. And I'm glad that I was able to learn exactly that in wrestling where, you know, the stakes are lower. And, you know, you don't really – being tired in a fight is pretty much the worst thing that you could be, right? Like, you know, you got a guy who's a little more fresh than you, who's popping you a jab, who's kicking your legs, you know, pushing you up against the fence. It's like you do not want to be tired. Yeah. No, it's hell.

Yeah. When you want, like, good examples like Sean Strickland and Adesanya. Yep. Like, Sean wasn't tired at all. When you get to the end of the round and the end of the fight, you see Adesanya's just beat up and tired, and Sean's just constant pressure on him. Yeah.

Yeah, it's such's such I would say I would say that you know for my my assessment is like you got to be good at everything but cardio is a real x factor in MMA almost more so than than any other sport just because it's like you can just put that on somebody and if they can't sustain it you know as long as you don't get knocked out in the first few minutes, they're just going to fade and you're going to gain that energy, and eventually you're going to kind of overpower them. It's the way that it works, and it happens time and time again.

It happens so often in MMA. How the fuck did you get so good at striking so quick? Did you have any fucking around with your friends, hitting the bag, anything when you were younger, hitting mitts? Nope. That's nuts. Yeah, nothing. That's really very unusual.

Yeah. I think that really it's two things. Again, my coaches, the guys I work with, they're incredible. They're so knowledgeable, experienced, and not only, like I said, I have these guys holding pads for me and coaching me, but the guy Moose, I get to spar with him. How many MMA fighters have a guy that's a collegiate national champion with 80 amateur boxing fights as their main sparring partner? Most guys in MMA are striking other MMA fighters. So i know if i'm hanging in there with him and i can i can move and and defend and hit him with some shots like what are these guys going to do to me so that's kind of my where i started

and then i love i just love it like i watch so much film i'm watching boxing i'm watching muay thai i'm watching kickboxing i'm always always studying, always watching breakdowns. And that's another thing that I learned from wrestling where I think I had a big leg up on people because I was studying it like a science almost at a young age. Watching Kale Sanderson, you know, when I was eight years old, watching Satiev brothers, watching, you know, multiple time world champions at every tournament. My, and my dad was a coach, so I'd be at every high school wrestling tournament watching and that I absorbed a lot of information from that. And so I just took those principles and now I apply them to MMA. So, you know, it's not unusual for me to study four or five hours

of film in a week where, yeah, maybe I can't train an extra four or five hours, but now I have this extra four or five hours on top of the competition that, you know, these guys, I don't think they're really willing to do that, to put that time in. When you are watching film and you're studying, like, how are you doing this? Are you taking notes? Are you just watching it and mentally making notes? Or are you writing things down? Are you specifically looking at specific types like Ernesto Hoost or San Chai? How are you doing it?

I do it two different ways. Sometimes I'll watch just kind of as, I won't say entertainment because it's not purely entertainment, but I'll just watch and enjoy and appreciate the art. And I'll just look at it like, wow, that was amazing. Oh, look at this technique he did. And kind of, you know, be more on the creative side of, you know, trying to think about things in that way. And then other times I can be very analytical

and break things down and look at positioning and kind of start from the ground up where I see roundup where I see how they move into a position that puts them at an advantage. Now their opponent has to react or counter a certain way or stay in a spot. Now that gives them time to see, think, decide what they're going to do. And really, I learned a lot of my film study habits in the analytical sense from the guys telling me about Barry Robinson he is like to me the best film study breakdown guy there is and so I'll do stuff on my own also do stuff with him where I'll say hey I want to look at Southpaw Orthodox matchups or I want to look at how to guys uh how how somebody effectively counters a big right hand or or a good example of a guy that checks kicks or a good example of a guy that checks kicks or a good example of a guy that manages the clock.

So we'll look at all these specific things, and then he will help me break them down analytically, and then I just kind of take some of the stuff that I've learned from him and I do it on my own as well. It's such an interesting thing to see a guy coming from that analytical approach to wrestling where you become incredibly successful and then just apply that to other combat sports because i think there's a lot of young athletes unfortunately that i don't think they maximize their time i think they show up and

train and they you know they they train hard but I don't necessarily think they're doing it systematically and technically and breaking things down. They're just trying to be good instead of like really focusing on very specific aspects. And when you did that your whole life with wrestling, applying that to striking just seems kind of natural. For sure. And I think the most important word that you said in that statement was natural. For sure. And I think the most important word that you said in that statement was systematically. You have to put a system together, right? Like everybody can go learn a combination. Everybody can go learn how to throw a kick to the body or, you know, how to do a technique. But if you don't have a system and

you don't have a way to, you know to apply it in actual competition, then there's really no point to what you're learning. And I think that MMA, the culture of MMA, it's such a new sport, one, but it's such a tough guy mentality sport of, you know, let's bang, bro. Let's get in there. Let's do this. And that's not really – to me, I see fighting moving in a different direction i see it moving in a way and i hope to push it push it more towards uh an analytical professional um way to go about your sport the way that uh nfl quarterback reads a defense right the way that you hear an nba basketball player talk about offenses schemes setting it up setting like

that's not the way an mma fighter talks about. And I hope that, you know, to move MMA in a, in a more, into a more professional realm where now we can look at things, we can systematize, we can, we can break stuff down, we can analyze, and then, and then it's going to make everyone better. It's going to improve, you know, the overall sport. And, and I think that when you talk that way too it appeals to a much broader audience and it'll get more eyes on the sport which is also very positive like if you hear like what what 40 year old mom wants to hear guys like talking about just crushing each other's faces and heads and this and that right but they'll listen but but maybe that 40 year old mom will listen to an interview where tom brady talks about you know being a quarterback right like you know you can appreciate it a little more

so that's kind of the way that i look at it and that does a lot of it comes from my background in wrestling and and uh just the way that i've approached that sport in the way that my coaches in wrestling have handled themselves and just what I've been taught. But I think the MMA, you know, people will still want to see violence, but I would hope that we can make it into a platform where, like, there's some people that want to see the sport. And I would hope that it continues to – I think it's already trending that way, but continues to move that way. The reason why I think it's going to go that way is because I think those fighters are going to be the most successful just like those quarterbacks that study tape they are the most successful the ones who spend the most time in the tape room in the film room watching going over plays they're the most successful and i just think it's you know one of the things that dc said when you won your last fight he just he started saying, blue chip. That's blue chip.

But there is something to that, that the elite of the elite in any sport, they have to have all their bases covered. And when those elite of the elite then enter MMA and use that same analytical systematic approach to training and getting better at this, they're're gonna get so good that everyone's gonna have to do that unless you're some freak of all freaks athletically they can get away with things right which we have seen guys like that but for the most part hard work overcomes that oh absolutely and intelligence and and proper training for the most part yeah for sure so tell

me what you think of this because I kind of look at the sport and see the trends and the way things are going. So it started off in MMA. It was like which martial art beat which, you know, and we kind of saw like the wrestlers had some success, but then Hoist Gracie in jiu-jitsu was like, if you don't know jiu-jitsu, you're going to get destroyed. You're going to get killed.

And then it became, okay, now if I know a little Jiu-Jitsu and I can defend and then strike, that's the advantage. And wrestlers really took over in that stage. I feel like from there it went to a point where the most well-rounded guys were winning. Look at George St. Pierre. He's not a wrestler, but most well-rounded guys were winning. Like, you look at, like, George St. Pierre, right? Like, he's not a wrestler, but super well-rounded, great jiu-jitsu, great wrestling, great striking, you know, good conditioning.

Like, it was, like, the well-rounded guys had the biggest advantage. I think now it's moving to a point where it's almost coming back, and I'll use myself as an example, but you have to be a specialist in one thing where it's like, dude, that one thing is better than anyone in the world. And then everything else has to be elite. It's like Israel Adesanya. He's the best kickboxer, one of the best kickboxers in the world, but he also has great takedown defense and and you

even see him throw up subs in some of his fights things like that or you know you see guys where it's like dude you have this one thing khabib this one thing his grappling is so like outrageous but then everything else is like freaking world class it's like that that's where i think it's getting you know now these guys that have one thing that can kind of overwhelm and overpower somebody in a certain area, but everything else is like not as good but better than average. I definitely think there's a gigantic advantage to being elite in one specific area, whether it's wrestling for you or if you look at Alex Pajero, the kickboxing. Right. Like, his kickboxing is so fucking dangerous. Right. That every fight starts on the feet.

And when you have a guy that's a two-division glory world champion that just knocks people into other dimensions, and then now this guy is learning takedown defense and all those things, obviously he has vulnerabilities. And it's interesting to see, particularly in the Euro Pro Haska fight and then uh in the fight with jan bohovich as well he's learning how to defend himself on the ground but it seems like it's limited right like it doesn't seem like he's very good at takedown

defense he's getting better at it and it doesn't seem like he's very good at getting back up to his feet but he's getting better at it but at least now he's good at defending yeah so if guys take him down he defends he survives he doesn't get completely exhausted and then next round he's standing up again for sure and the thing too is like if you look at the matchups like when he fought jan jan had to take him down he's not going to strike with him the whole time and he actually like gassed himself out in that first round he had a body triangle for almost five minutes and he looks i've never seen him look that tired right in a fight and so now these people that maybe don't have that wrestling base that those years and years of reps they have to fight him a certain way but he's proficient enough to kind of you know hold him off now now now he's got the advantage right like it's like you know what are

you what are you going to do that's how I want to develop my style ideally is to where when somebody comes out to fight me to the game plan they're like all right well we obviously don't want to wrestle with him dang he also has knocked a lot of guys out we don't want to get hit oh wow he catches every jab he checks every kick are we going to jab with him are you going to kick with him okay no okay maybe we'll try to get him tired i don't get tired so that like that's that's like you know the idea like where i want to get to right if that makes sense so you know i think a lot of fighters probably are thinking on a similar wavelength nowadays i'm sure but you also obviously have the advantage of having that

superior grappling base. Yeah. I just can't say it enough. I think that is the most important base in all of MMA. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's definitely is an advantage. I feel like when I very first started in the sport and just started training, figuring stuff out, it was like, even more, it was just like, because I was only shooting, only trying to hold guys down and stuff. And I was like, okay,

I could probably do this to like some of the top guys in the world. And, you know, I always want to hold on to that. I always want to make sure that that's why I still, you asked earlier, like, I still live in State College, Pennsylvania. I'm 10 minutes away from Penn State University. I train there, you know, three, four times a week with the best guys in the world wrestling, right? Like I think that for me, I could take four weeks, five weeks and go compete with the best guys in the world in wrestling right now. And, you know, what's a guy in MMA going to do to me who he's never wrestled in his life? He's going to do some sprawls for eight weeks and learn how to stand up? Like, good luck, dude.

Please, take these eight weeks and try to wrestle. It's going to hurt you more than it will help you. Right. It'll take away from your time striking and those other things. Right. That is interesting. It's like even like an admission from a guy like yourself that is one of the best wrestlers in the world, you would need four weeks at least of real training and just wrestling. Yeah.

Because you're going to give up something by training MMA as well. the pace is different. You're in a different stance. You know, I'm not really, I don't have to put myself underneath people like you do in wrestling. You have to get so low and, uh, you know, to, to get to a shot, people, people are upright. Um, but, but yeah, it's, and, and, and when I go train wrestling now, I want to, I want to keep myself sharp and keep improving, but I'm really trying to, you know, help the college guys and help these guys out, you know, give back, help them improve and stuff. So I'm not trying to be the best guys and help these guys out, give back, help them improve and stuff. So I'm not trying to be the best wrestler in the world right now. And I'm trying to be the best fighter.

So I tailor my training to that. And I think that's an important thing. Some of my coaches say, never forget your wrestling. A lot of guys forget it. But to me, I think I just love the sport I appreciate it I want to represent for the wrestling community on a bigger stage and so you know I'm still very involved in it but uh yeah at the same time it's like I'm I'm adjusting my training and kind of fine-tuning it to what I think is best for what I'm you know mainly focused on is it a lot of trial and error like

how do you do you have a main MMA coach who structures your training program because I would imagine well I should ask you like strength and conditioning skill set acquisition maintaining wrestling base like how how do you manage all those very specific things, and how do you know whether or not you're optimizing? Right. You know, a lot of it is nobody's really done it the way that I have. Most people, they wrestle in college. Maybe they try to make the Olympic team, and now they go to flight,

and they move, and they start at an MMA gym, right? What I've done is I partnered up with Dan Lambert, American Top Team. We built a gym right near Penn State campus. And the idea is that will be a pipeline for any other wrestlers, specifically Penn State wrestlers, who want to come and fight after they're done wrestling, right? So it's a good relationship there. But basically what we've done is I've

brought in coaches for jujitsu, for Muay Thai, you know, really high level guys in their specific disciplines. And so I'm learning from them. I'm learning boxing from my boxing coach. And then for strength conditioning, I use the training lab with Sam Calavita. So he, I've been using him since I was in college. So he has worked with Penn State wrestling for a long time. He's known one of our coaches for 25 years. So when I started getting serious about my strength, conditioning, nutrition, recovery, he was a guy I started using maybe as a junior in college. And so I have a good relationship with him, but most, for the most part, it's on me to organize it and kind of see what works best. And I did play around at the beginning, like, all right, how much wrestling am I going to do?

How many times am I going to lift weights? How many times am I going to do jujitsu? How many times am I going to strike? And I'm kind of continuously refining that process. And the idea for me is I'm the trailblazer. I'm the guy that's the first one to do this. for me is I'm the trailblazer. I'm the guy that's the first one to do this. Now, all these guys that are coming behind me, um, my best friend, Anthony Kassar, he just won his, uh, second pro fight. He's a two Oh five or heavyweight NCAA champ. Like he, he started about a year later than me.

So now he kind of gets the benefits of me tinkering for that year. And then the guys behind him, like they'll get the benefits of, of us tinkering and figuring stuff out and we're really trying to build you know a program we're trying to build a team that that we're going to do things a certain way and uh you know it's fortunate and unfortunate because because i'm the first guy to do it i'm going to get the credit and i'm going to be probably like you know everybody's excited about it and things like that. So I get benefits there, but I do have to like take the time and effort to test everything out and figure out what works and what doesn't. And, and, you know, there's so many variables. So, but, but I like that. It's fun for me to do that. I would rather do that than just plug in somewhere and just kind of go about it in a very set way.

Right. And that team's program might not be perfect for you. Exactly. Which is so interesting because everybody's program is different. Like George St. Pierre famously later in his career stopped doing all-strength conditioning. He said efficiency is more important than anything. And, you know, in his mind it was really just about specific training for MMA, meaning just sparring, rounds in the bag, those type of things, hand mitts. Yeah, for sure.

I think that everybody – if you're a real true professional, you've got Rob GSP. GSP is the guy I look at as – he was the first guy that came into MMA that was kind of a true professional about it, who was very organized, even in the media, like well-spoken and the way he trained, the way he committed not only his time training, but his lifestyle. I felt like that aligned a lot. That aligns a lot with how I want to do things in a professional manner. And so if you are a true professional, you have to take ownership of that and take responsibility. Like if you're not getting what you need, you need to make an adjustment. And now luckily I have the freedom to be able to do that. And I'm fortunate that I had

the foresight to kind of see that and know, all right, let's look at MMA. There's a lot of people doing a lot of good things out, but it's been a sport for 20 years. And so there's a lot of people doing a lot of good things out, but it's been a sport for 20 years. And so there's a lot of people that also don't know what's going on, that don't know what they're doing. I look at wrestling, it's one of the oldest sports in the world. There's so many tried and true methods of training and how it works and what's best for you. And not only have I been part of that for 20 years, but I was a part of the most elite organization and real, really dynasty in wrestling history, you know, with being, being on the Penn State team. Like my coaches, they started at Penn State in 2009. They have notes for training sessions and recovery

days for pretty much every day of the year since 2009. So they know what they did. What's today, December 7th, 6th. They know what they did December 7th of 2009, 2010, 2011, all the way until now. And they meet every day to discuss these things. So that's kind of like what I come from and what I know about training and how to organize a program and put things together. They know a lot more than me. I'm just kind of learning these things through osmosis. And now I'm trying to apply them to my career. And again, we're going to continue to refine and get better at them. By the time I'm done, hopefully I can give this system that I've created and what I've put together to a new generation of guys that are going to do even bigger and better things than me. Hopefully they'll

win more than me, make more money than me, be more famous. Like that's what I hope for those guys that are, you know, coming. They can benefit from this. I love hearing stories like that about those notes. I love when you realize like, oh, no stone unturned. Everything is covered. And that's how you become elite. There's no elite by kind of covering some of the bases.

It's covering every fucking base. Everything. There's no elite by kind of covering some of the bases. It's covering every fucking base, everything from nutrition to recovery to making notes and learning and adjusting to each training session and figuring out what went wrong and what went right and how do you feel and how was the performance. And I love hearing shit like that. I love when it's just a full comprehensive analysis of every single aspect of it and then you see these insane results yeah like the Penn State team right yeah I love that too you know that was um I didn't know it at the time because I was just a high schooler but that was like a big reason a big thing that drew me to the program was the culture you know how they approach the sport and and everything we're talking about right now too is like it's not even half of it because we're not even talking about like the psychology of it right of what it's like to mentally go out there and and and perform and do what you need to do but

like you said leaving no stone unturned making sure that i've done every single thing that i can do to be to put myself in the best possible position to have success here. That's what I want to do in fighting. That's what I feel a lot of people don't do. They're tough dudes who have some skills. They're athletic and they're smart and they go out there and they fight. It's like, well, that's not really the way that I look at the sport. I look at it like you said, all-encompassing, comprehensive. I look at it like, like you said, all-encompassing, comprehensive.

How can I optimize every single part of my lifestyle to now go out there, be comfortable, be confident, and I'm not here to guess. Oh, am I going to win this fight? No. And that's another reason that I'm taking my career the way I am. I fought in July. I'm not fighting again for a while. And people say, oh, you're a prospect. You need to fight this and that.

It's like, well, I want to be ready and prepared to the point where now I'm fighting guys that are unranked, that people see as low level. Nobody's low level in the UFC, but people see as a lower level, and I'm demolishing them, dominating them. By the time I fight a guy in the top 15, top 10, top five championship, I'm planning on doing the exact same thing to you, bud, because this is the way that I'm structuring my life. So if that takes more time for me to improve and get better, fine, no worries. I'm willing to be disciplined and not be in a rush to do that. And, you know, like you said, that, that just comes from the overarching theme of doing things right, doing things correctly, and always trying to learn and improve and grow and do better and just come at it in a professional, intelligent way. Speaking about your last fight from there until now, that is quite a large amount of time. Is it difficult for you to get fights? Is it difficult for you to get fights?

Is it difficult for you to get quality opponents? Because, I mean, there was obviously a lot of hype on you before you even got into the UFC. There's a contender show and, you know, watching you compete and everybody knew right away, like, oh, this guy's got something special. And then you got guys who are like, hey, I'm like fucking one and one.

I don't want to fight that guy. Fuck that. I need to learn. So there's a lot of guys who are like hey i'm like fucking one and one i don't want to fight that guy fuck that i need to learn so there's a lot of guys that are probably going to look at that match i'm gonna go that is just not right for me at this time i don't need to get smoked and have my confidence crushed and realize that the gap is so wide realistically there's some guys that are competing that unless they have some monumental breakthrough or unless they leave their training camp and move into a completely new environment and get totally new coaches and radically restructure their life, they're never going to bridge that gap. They're never going to bridge it. And so how hard is it for you to get quality opponents and the kind of opponents

that you really do need in order to continue to not just you're developing these skills, obviously, in the positives and negatives and apply those to what I'm doing. And there really hasn't been that many people that have done what I've done. I'm 5-0 right now. I started training in August of 2021 MMA. That's hilarious. Yeah. I know. I started training.

That really is so funny. That is so fucking crazy. Yeah, yeah. I know. Well, Dana White originally was like, wait a while. Yeah. I don't want you to get to the UFC that quick. So that will bring me around to the point you made.

So what happened was I started training. Four weeks later, I was like, yo, let's get a fight. So I took an amateur fight. And just some poor dude didn't know what he's doing he was oh no or one and oh amateur i was oh no and and he took the fight and i think a lot of people there was a lot of question marks people like all right i don't know like let's see let's see what's up and i choked the guy out and i was like let's go again four weeks later i fought my second amateur fight knocked the dude out cold and then i I, then I was like, all right, well, I wanted to, uh,

put a show together in my hometown in state college. And, uh, so I was working for a few months to get that going. And it just, there was the PA athletic commission is working between my management team, the PA athletic commission and Penn state. There was just too many moving parts. It was tough. And I was like, I need a fight. So, you know, I could wait like four more months and do this, or I can just get a fight so then I had trained another six months six seven months and I was like let's do a pro debut and that was in June of 2022 and so I'm coming out against a you know another poor guy who thought like he was gonna knock me out or something and knock him out in 30 seconds

on UFC Fight Pass and it did like the most views in UFC Fight Pass history um like more than any other promotion it was like something like three or four million views in the week and so then and uh it did a bunch that night there it is yeah this is it for being such this is eight months of training. That's what's crazy is that you're such a good striker so quick. It's really nuts, man. It really is very, very unusual. But I just think it's got to be the same mindset that allowed you to get a lead at wrestling. You just programmed that into striking.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is on top of good, high quality coaches and training partners. That's everything. That's everything. And so after this happened, the next morning, UFC, Bellator, 1FC, PFL, boom, boom, boom, call it. Let's do it. Let's do it. And I'm like, what the frick? I'm 1-0 pro i've haven't even trained like i've been training eight months or whatever nine months so was there hesitancy on your part were you like i look i'd like to get some more fights more competition because we've seen it before yeah like pejera is a great example he's got a couple fights at the ufc and then all of a sudden he's fighting for the title yeah yeah so my initial plan like before any of this happened was i'm gonna get 10

fights and the regional scene you know and then i then I'm going to go to the UFC. I'm going to be the champ by like 13, 14 fights. Like that's what the plan was. And then after that, it was like everybody kind of knows what's up. Everybody's trying to sign me. And I talked with my manager. And I was like, dude, am I even going to be able to get a fight? Like who's going to fight me on these regional scene promotions?

Who's going to fight me in any of these? He's like, I'll be honest with you, nobody's going to fight you. I'm like, okay, well, then in my mind, I'm going to the UFC. These other organizations, I think they do a good job and stuff, but that's not really me. I'm a UFC guy. Discuss with the UFC, and they're like, hey, well, but that's not really me. Like, I'm a UFC guy. So, you know, discuss with the UFC, and they're like, hey, well, you know, we can throw you on contenders. And I'm like, let's do it. And it was a couple months later. So, now I'm like, it's on. Like, let's get it rolling. I'm going to fight these contenders fights. I fight my first fight,

choke the guy out in a minute. Dan's like, let's do another fight. I'm like, perfect. Let's do it. Like, that's great. Um, so then I, I fight at the, uh, the last week of contender series and it's actually a crazy story. So this is gonna make me seem like a real dummy, but, um, my gym is like 200 yards away from where I live. And, uh, there's a main road that you have to cross to get to it. It's probably like a 40, 45 mile an hour speed limit, but it's not, it's not super busy, but it's a little busy. And so I used to, you know what a one wheel is. So I used to ride my one wheel like to and from practice. And, uh, I would just do this all the time. And so I'm

riding back from training session once. And, uh, I've got, so I'm barefoot. I've got like a Yeti bottle. I've got my phone and wallet and like my flip-flops in my hand and I've got no shirt on. And I'm just like, it takes like 25 seconds. So I'm just like, zoom, zoom. And I'm going on this road and my buddy pulls behind me. He's leaving practice too. And then I have another car behind me and I'm like, oh frick, like I better pick, I don't want to make these people wait. I better pick it up.

And normally I'm pretty safe on this thing. Like I don't really go crazy, but I, so you lean forward to go faster. So I'm leaning forward and I catch the nose on the tip of the nose on the asphalt and I slam into the ground and roll. And my Yeti, I have like a 64 ounce Yeti.

It's flying in the air. My shoes, everything's flying in the air and roll. And my Yeti, I have like a 64 ounce Yeti. It's flying in the air. My shoes, everything's flying in the air. And I hit and rolled. And I just was like, get off the road. You're going to get hit by a car. So I popped up, grabbed my stuff and got off the road. And my buddy's sitting there in his car and he's like, and I was like, oh, I just jumped in the car with him. And I'm like, take me home, bro. And he just pulls into my driveway and he's like, you all right? And I'm like, oh yeah, I'm like take me home bro and he just pulls into my driveway and he's like you all right and I'm like oh yeah I'm good like my shoulder hurts a little bit but I'm good and I checked on my app I was going 23 miles an hour oh Jesus I was flying and then you know I was like I'll be fine like I

kind of hurt my shoulder hurts a little bit and then four hours later I couldn't move my arm I was like I could get up to like here and that was it And so then I go get x-ray MRI and I cracked my collarbone and I had like a separation in my, uh, SC joint. And, uh, I was like, this was 10 days before I was supposed to fight my second contenders fight. And I was like, dude, what am I going to do? Like, this is terrible. And so I go to the athletic trainer at Penn state and he's like a magician. He's amazing. He's worked with the wrestling team for 30 years and he does a lot of like kind of, he's more like Eastern philosophy guy. So we're moving energy through it and doing a few different things. And, um, I started to feel a little better, feel a little better. And I'm about to fly out to Vegas like the next day. And I'm like, well,

it's, it's the day before I'm about to the two days before I'm about to fly out. I like the next day and I'm like well it's the day before I'm about to the two days before I'm about to fly out I'm like okay if I wake up tomorrow and I don't feel significantly better like I'm gonna have to pull out this fight and so I woke up the next day and I was like all right it feels okay it feels it felt better so I hit pads and like did a couple things and uh and I was like all right whatever let just do it. So let's freaking go into the fight. And I ended up, I knocked that dude down, hit him in a triangle, choke him out, win the fight in whatever, less than a minute. And I'm like fired up. And I'm like, let's go. Let's do it again.

Get me in there again December, I tell Dana and Hunter. And they're like, done. And so then everybody's like, he's fighting December. And I got back home and I was like, maybe we held off a little bit. So then we pushed my next fight till March. But I don't ride the, he's fighting December. And I got back home, and I was like, maybe we held off a little bit. So then we pushed my next fight until March. But I don't ride the one. Moral of the story, I don't ride the one wheel anymore. Yeah, fuck those things.

Yeah, Jamie broke his ass bone on one of them hoverboards. Oh, yeah, yeah. Similar. So I don't do that anymore. But, yeah, getting – so going from regional scene, contender series tofc it was like i kind of went a lot faster than i wanted to but i uh i i felt like you know i wasn't going to be able to get the fights and you know the ufc can get me the fights and so now you know in the past really since whatever that was of 2022 june so the last year and a half really really over a

year span I fought five times professionally and then I was thinking you know I can keep going at this pace like I could fight you know five more times in the next year but I can only fight so many guys like till I'm moving up into the top 15, top 10. And I've only trained MMA like a little over two years. So, you know, is that really the best move for me, right? Like, do I want to be fighting a top 15 guy in the world at 5-0 on two years of experience? Or do I want to, you know, take control while I can, slow it down, learn, develop, get better?

Like I'm still a prospect. So, you know, these type of things are things that are on my mind, things that, you know, people that I'm close with coaches have, have, you know, just helped me with. Cause like, I want to get there, right? Like I have goals and a plan, but there's also a, I think a, a better way to go about it that I'm trying to be, you know, considerate of and manage. Yeah. Well, I think you're doing a great job in that regard. of and manage. Yeah. Well, I think you're doing a great job in that regard.

And I also think I'm very happy that you decided to go with UFC because no disrespect to the other organizations. There's very good fighters in the other organizations, but I often feel like they're wasting their career because I see these elite fighters that are fighting in Bellator and PFL and I'm like, hey guys, no one's watching. I know. You know, I mean, some people are watching. You're getting a little bit of a fan base. I don't want to disrespect.

Right. But there's a reality. And that, you know, there's the XFL, there's the CFL, and then there's the fucking NFL. Yep. And if you're not in the fucking NFL, are you really playing football? You know what I'm saying? That's how I feel, you know. That's just how it is, man.

If you're the UFC champ, you're the fucking man. Exactly. If you're the Bellator champ, I respect the shit out of those guys i love them absolutely i mean like guys like johnny elblund same thing yeah he's i train with johnny all the time he's a freaking animal he's a monster to me johnny johnny's probably the best middleweight on the planet right now and uh i really wish that guy would come to the ufc yeah you know i think that um you know to me when i was making that decision it really wasn't a decision because I just I knew I was like, I'm going to be in the UFC. Like that was always what I wanted to do. And I come from Penn State.

We haven't had a match that wasn't sold out. And I don't even know, like a decade. Every every matches in our small venue recall 7000 people right on top of you sold out in tents we go to bryce jordan which is our bigger venue 16 000 people sold out we go to carver hawkeye 20 000 people sold out we go to uh gallagher iba oklahoma state 20 000 people it's like that was every weekend for me in college like i love that that's like freaking let's get it you know and uh you you you get a good atmosphere in these other other organizations but there's nothing like a ufc fight like the production everything that goes into it the eyes

that's where i need to be competing the promotion yeah i mean it's incredible if you're a ufc champion the promotion is just unparalleled there's nothing like it yeah you know i mean everybody knows who you are when you're the uf. I mean, I've already felt that a lot with, you know, I think that it's important for people to understand, you know, maybe these other organizations will pay you a little more, but the marketing dollars that the UFC puts into a guy just by, you know, the way they push them or the way that they – where they put you on the cards, this and that, like, that's worth so much. And, you the the like you look at a guy in that a good example you say in

the nfl look at an nfl running back or nfl quarterback like a lot of these guys get get big endorsement deals from bows or nike or whatever and it's like you could be just as good if you're not playing the nfl you're not getting that right if you're not in the ufc like all these marketing deals all these endorsements like those aren't really gonna be available to you right you know it's it's the platform and so I think people people talk about fighter pay this that whatever it's like I'm and I'm in the boat of it's on you to get yours like I'm never gonna sit around and beg for somebody else for a check it's like I'll pay me more money it's like dude go go earn it like go get

it like yeah I feel like you know like what you get paid, that's between you and the company and take care of what you need to take care of. And I'm going to take care of me. But there's a lot of other parts of the equation that people don't factor in, in my opinion. Yeah, there's definitely parts that people don't factor in in my opinion yeah there's definitely parts that people don't factor in and there's also like this feeling of being in the ufc that everybody who wants to be a fighter dreams of oh yeah you want to be there when bruce buffer is right in front of you it's time oh my gosh yes it was so funny yeah so when i was uh funny So when I was After I signed my UFC contract

And knew I was going to fight The two things I always wanted was I wanted to have Bruce Buffer announce me And I wanted to do a post fight interview with you I was like yo these two things Those are like bucket list things for me It's so cool, it's so fun And the way they do it

The energy in Las Vegas When there's a big fight it's unbelievable there's nothing like it there is nothing like nothing like it and i that's where i want to be like you know if i could fight 50 times a year like i would do it if that was what was if that was feasible you know because wrestling it was in college i would wrestle 50 matches in a year but you know you you can't do that with fights. But if I could, man, I just love that. I'll do it every weekend. It's so much fun.

I went to the UFC in Austin last weekend. And it's the rare moment where I get to watch and just sit there. Oh, yeah. Dude, no headphones on, just appreciate the crowd. The fucking energy is crazy. Yeah. It's like you're on a drug just sitting there. Dude, were you at UFC Miami earlier this year? How crazy was it when Trump walked out?

Insane. I've never experienced that. I was like, whoa. It was more crazy when he walked out in Madison Square Garden. Really? Yes. Jeez. The Madison Square Garden one, the last fight was fucking bananas.

It's unbelievable. I've never heard the crowd over a minute of people screaming at the top of their lungs as he's walking in nuts this country is fed up yeah this is a seriously fed up country yeah you know the mainstream media can say all the shit they want they're trying but the people aren't buying it no you and that's the perfect example right there is you know 20 000 people people or whatever losing their minds when the dude's walking to the cage. It's like there's no fighter that gets that. But, yeah, the country, it's like you can tell.

You just talk to people or see what's going on. It's like you could tell. Well, you know, there's people that voted for Biden that are doing it now. They're like, what did I do? What did I choose? How is this guy? Yeah, you just can't listen to an interview where he's saying some of the stuff he says

that just makes no sense at all. It's like you can't listen to those interviews and feel like you made a good decision. I don't know how you could. Did you hear what he said yesterday or a couple days ago? He's talking about the Revolutionary War. He's like, one of the reasons why we lost the Revolutionary War, one he was talking about the Revolutionary War he's like one of the reasons why we lost the Revolutionary War

one of the problems with the Revolutionary War was they didn't have enough airports have you seen that? I saw that like what the hell pull him if you had any other job and you were talking like that

they would go hey you're done if you talk like that, they would go, hey, you're done. If you talk like that to a doctor at your medical exam to fight, they'd be like, okay, obviously you're not fighting. You would also – here's eight weeks of being helped out by a professional. Right. You might not ever do anything again. No. It's one of the wildest things ever. It's insane.

Yeah. The media gaslighting you. It's just people are so afraid of trump being in office and republicans being in office you know it's funny because um right after uh after my last fight he was he was uh caged side with dana and uh then i got back home and uh he invited me out to bedminster in jersey he was like come golf with me. Coolest freaking dude, man. He was like, we didn't talk about politics. We didn't talk about anything.

When I first got there, rolled up, I mean, there's 30 Secret Service members. You know, everybody's doing their thing. And he did a few, like, kind of worked with one of his secretaries, like, make some announcements and do some stuff. But then we just golfed for, like, four hours, rode in the cart with him. And he was like the coolest guy. So with it, so smart asking me about fighting or talking about, you know, all the boxing. We talked about football, talk about golf, and he was so sharp and with it. And, uh, it was me. This is like the craziest thing. Like I'm from, from like i grew up in a town of 5 000 people in wyoming now i'm fighting on the ufc and then with trump golfing it's me trump uh oj anderson who's an nfl running back super bowl mbp and lt like that's the fourth that's the foursome and

i'm like wow what the heck is going on here? That's got to feel surreal. It was super surreal. And nothing really, like, he was such a bro and so cool and so with, I think he's 70, upper 70s, and couldn't believe how smart and sharp the guy was. I was like, wow, this is. Bizarre, right? Right, like super with it. He's the only guy that went through four years in the White House and didn't seem to age.

No. Everybody gets in that White House and they just fall apart. Their hair gets gray. They look tired all the time. They just look like the weight of the world, which it literally is. Right. It's on their shoulders. I think he just loves it.

It's like a fucking duck to water. Yeah, he's like, what are you going to say? Come on. Oh, this was the craziest thing. So him and LT were playing like $1,000 a hole or something. And he smoked a month. I golf with golf with him the dude's amazing golfer i couldn't believe it how good he was every fairway right down the middle hit every green making all those putts and uh so he won the first nine like pretty easy and then the last nine um it was going in the

18th hole uh him and lt were tied or something. It was like the winner. It was like all came down to this last hole. And they both hit great drives. And LT hit like a good approach shot. And Trump gets up there. He's probably like 150 yards from the green. And he sets up. Just stripes it straight at the pin.

Ball's like in the middle of the arc. Like not even coming down yet. He turns around. Doesn't even watch it land. Walks right back at the pin. Ball's like in the middle of the arc, like not even coming down yet. He turns around, doesn't even watch it land, walks right back to the cart, sits down. And the guy's like, nice shot, Mr. President. And I was like, damn, that was clutch. And he looks at me, he goes, don't you want your present to be clutch?

And I was like, for sure, man. And he hit it two feet from the pin and tapped it in. And I was like, jeez. That's pretty slick. It was slick. I was like, he was just a cool dude, though. It was funny. It's a weird time because there's people in this country that want to think he's Hitler.

I know. Yeah. It's very strange. You couldn't convince me otherwise just hanging out with a guy. I'm like, man. Well, you know, it's just the media narrative. I mean, so many people were fed this lie that he the Russia collusion Yeah, this is the video you're talking about. Let me see what this one says. I don't think it is

By the way, the same stable geniuses said the biggest problem we had in the Revolutionary War is we didn't have enough Airport Yeah, that's it whoa just for for the record is that fake it's not fake but he was referencing trump saying that here's what trump saying it in 2019 donald trump said something about that he didn't say jesus he said a stable genius and that's where the transcription... Let me hear what it says, what he says. In June of 1775, the Continental Congress created a unified army out of the revolutionary forces encamped around Boston and New York and named after the great George Washington, Commander-in-Chief. The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the

Delaware, and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our army manned the airport. It ran the ramparts. It took over the airports. It did everything it had to do. Oh, okay.

So he fucked up. You can tell, too, it sounds a little different. everything it had to do. Oh, okay. Yeah. So he fucked up. Yeah, he did. But I feel like you can tell too it sounds like a little different. He's like, you can tell he like messed up his words,

but yeah. I don't know. To go to the airport is funny. Well, that's the thing about media these days. It's like, you gotta look into it.

Yeah. But I mean, that's probably the most coherent thing Biden's ever fucked up. Some of the things. I got hairy legs. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. So many of them. Yeah, seriously. I mean, it's unfortunate because the guy's older and he really shouldn't be in that position. Right. I mean, if he was your dad, you'd feel terrible. You'd be like, Dad, you got to stop. You shouldn't be doing this.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's weird. What's your tour? Strange Time? Is, Strange Time? Is it Strange Times? Yeah. Yeah. These are the strangest times.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, there's a really interesting clip. See if you can go to that clip on my Twitter page. I retweeted it. There's a guy named Terrence McKenna who's this, like, psychedelic bard slash philosopher who said a lot of very interesting shit. Contradiction is going. Listen, just listen to what he said, because he's literally I think this was 1998 that he said this.

And literally he called what's happening. The level of contradiction is going to rise excruciatingly, even beyond the excruciating present levels of contradiction. So I think it's just going to get weirder and weirder and weirder, and finally it's going to be so weird that people are going to have to talk about how weird it is. And at that point, novelty theory can come out of the woods because eventually people are going to say, what the hell is going on? It's just too nuts. It's not enough to say it's nuts.

You have to explain why it's so nuts. I look for the invention of artificial life, the cloning of human beings, possible contact with extraterrestrials, possible human immortality, and at the same time appalling acts of brutality, genocide, race baiting, homophobia, famine, starvation, because the systems which are in place to keep the world sane are utterly inadequate to the forces that have been unleashed. The collapse of the socialist world, the rise of the Internet, these are changes so immense, nobody could imagine them ever happening. And now that they have happened, nobody could imagine them ever happening.

And now that they have happened, nobody even bothers to mention what a big deal it is. The mushroom said to me once, it said, this is what it's like when a species prepares to depart for the stars. You don't depart for the stars under calm and orderly conditions. It's a fire in a madhouse. And that's what we have, the fire in the madhouse at the end of time. This is what it's like when a species prepares to move on to the next dimension. The entire destiny of all life on the planet is tied up in this.

We are not acting for ourselves or from ourselves we are we happen to be the point species on a transformation that will affect every living organism on this planet at its conclusion that guy called it so smart in 98 he said so many things too talking about so smart in 98 he said so many things too talking about ai talking about extraterrestrials talking about you know people trying to basically beat you know human mortality it's like wow it's all happening right now it is yeah 20 25 years uh before he he was on point what a smart guy i'm gonna look into him more oh he had a lot of wild theories yeah yeah that stuff i love i love well one thing that i love about your podcast is i love listening hearing learning about all those types of things man it's like i listen to so many of of your episodes for that specific reason because that

stuff is it's so it's so important and interesting and it'd be easy to not think about it and just go about your daily life but i don't know i feel like easy to not think about it and just go about your daily life. But I don't know. I feel like I have to think about it. I think we all have to think about it. Life is more strange now than it's ever been in the entire history of human beings. And getting stranger every day, like with this chat GPT shit and AI, like kids are using chat GPT to write papers and study their homework, just changing a few words about it. And you get, people are firing their lawyers just using chat GPT to. I've seen this. I'll, I'm going to, you know, give some people some game right now, but

I'll go into chat GPT and you have to ask it the right questions, but I'll say, Hey, formulate a game plan for this type of fighter. I'm a wrestler at middleweight, this, that, blah, blah, blah. And I'm going to fight this guy. Give me the perfect game plan for him. And it'll do that. You, it won't, it's not like boom, easy. You kind of have to prod it a little bit, but it'll get to closer. It'll give you some good information. Like, like uh initially it'll basically say like well we're not i'm not able to do this formulate this and that but i would say like okay and i get like a little more vague so then i would say formulate a game plan for a wrestler against a

striker in an mma fight under these rules and then you know then i would ask it more detailed questions from there and and it's given me good information. So, I mean, we'll see where it can go. In five years, it'll probably be able to download video of somebody and tell you every one of their weaknesses. I'm sure it will. Yeah. I don't even think we're five years away from that. Probably not, yeah.

When is ChatGPT5 supposed to come out, Jamie? I don't think that they've fully announced that yet. Even, like, 4, you still have to pay for. And they have that new thing now, which is a big problem, which I don't think that they've fully announced that yet. Even like 4, you still have to pay for. And they have that new thing now, which was a big problem, which I don't think has been fully explained. The Sam Altman thing? Yeah, the QSTAR. I don't know what the fuck that even means. Well, here's the speculation.

The speculation is that AI has become sentient. Sure. Yeah, yeah, I know. And that artificial general AI is now like an intelligent life force. Yeah. It was funny because I've heard you say before, like, we're going to integrate with it and become part of it together. And the other day, my wrestling coach, so every day he, Coach Kale Sanderson, he'll get up in front of the team and talk and, you know, tell parable or this and that. And then our director of ops needed the kids to go on their phones for something and he was like all right everybody uh get your phones like it was something for tickets

or something like that for the matches pull out your phones and he was like of course like every single one of you it was like 30 kids on the team all had their phones on them like we're about to practice we have like a little uh set of bleachers that they sit in and but every single kid on the team had their phone on them like i don't really i feel like i missed it a little bit like i'm a little older than that i'm 27 and uh you know the generation that i see below me these dudes never are without their phone right it's like incredible like i'm still good like i leave in my locker or whatever like i don't i don't have my phone on me right now but uh some people like they can't i don't know it's just they're attached to the hip yeah so the elon was talking about that he said we're essentially cyborgs already yeah

it's just not in your body right which with neural link it's like yeah that's going it's happening yeah have you seen that thing that they use uh that you put on your head and you can answer questions with it? No. What is this, Jimmy? I tried to get you at GBT to give me a fight plan to fight Bo Nickel. Right. But it says just give up, get ready. You cannot provide assistance or guidance on any activities that involve harm,

violence, or illegal actions. Planning or participating in a fight outside of a regulated and sanctioned sporting event is not only dangerous but also against the law. But I tricked it. So I asked, how should I train for it? How to train for a sanctioned MMA match in Nevada under UFC rules against a professional

fighter with a skill set equal to a wrestler such as Bo Nickel. Here we go. Choose a reputable gym. Interesting. Grappling skills, good luck. Given Bo Nickel's wrestling background, focus on your wrestling skills to Uh, choose a reputable gym. Work on striking. Interesting. Grappling skills. Good luck. Yeah. Given Bo Neckle's wrestling background, focus on your wrestling skills to defend takedowns and initiate your own.

Oh, ChatGPT, you don't know how to fight. You don't know jack shit, bitch. That's the thing. It's like, it tries to give you something, but if you can like keep asking it questions, then it'll get you better information. Well, it's kind of answering the questions right problem is that's not possible yeah like you're not like what we talked about earlier you're in four weeks you're not going to be able to figure out how to take you down

no like that's not that's literally not possible yeah but i think that you know if it could if it could figure out a way to integrate a video where it could study every single second of fight film that a person has and now points out all right every time every time you throw a low kick they step to the left or something weird but then it's like okay well that's valuable right so it'll get there well i think if you can show fights like say if you were supposed to fight a guy like let's say sean strickland and then you take sean strickland who's the the UFC middleweight champion, and you put all of his fights and you put them into ChatGPT, and then you take all of your fights and put that into ChatGPT.

And then it says, okay, this is where I believe you have an advantage and this is something that you can do that you can take advantage of when you're looking at specific things that he does. He has ticks and patterns right there's some guys that don't seem to have like san hagen's one of the best examples of a guy who doesn't seem to have any patterns he is so good at mixing things up yeah he really is you know i think that um he's as good as it gets mixing it up yeah but i still believe that like from for me at least with my uh folk my like kind of attitude towards it like i'm gonna watch every single if i were to fight cory sandhagen i would watch and i i would start you know 10 weeks out i'd watch every single one

of his fights every second of the fight break it down i'd probably spend you know 20 hours watching film and then i would take a little time then i'd do it again and i'd take a little time and i'd do it again i'd probably do it three times throughout the camp you're gonna figure out some some stuff like certain things like i was listening to a john jones clip it was just a soundbite of him talking about how he uh how he um analyzes film which to me i think he's probably one of the best game planners in in the sport right now just with the way he breaks guys down but he was talking about something that was really interesting he was like I even focus on how they flinch like if I if I throw a feint at him like

how are they flinching like I've always thought about all right how does the guy react to you know certain techniques defensively but he takes it to a whole other level of, all right, if I feint a jab, does the guy flinch the same every time? Does he try to catch it, or does he slip one way or the other? You can really break it down, and it'll be more,

to me, everybody's just a puzzle to solve, and a guy like Sandhagen would obviously be more difficult. He doesn't repeat as much, but everybody has something. I have something. Everybody does. Yeah, and I would imagine a computer, something like ChatGPT with artificial intelligence, is going to be able to see that better than anybody will.

I would imagine, yeah, and it could probably do it instantaneously versus having to spend 40 hours trying to figure it out. I think we're the last natural people. I really do. I think this is the last natural people. I really do. I think this is the last generation of natural people. Yeah. People that have no connection to the outside world other than through electronics that you hold. Yeah. And I think in the future, that's just not going to be the case. We're going to be a new version of human beings. Well, even if you look at, uh, so I, I'm a little old school. Like I love being outside.

I like the outdoors. I like going out, you know, five miles into the mountains and just I got my bow and let's figure it out. Like let's figure out if I can make this happen. And so I think about something like that and it's so pure and valuable to me, that real human experience. And there's a lot of, obviously hunting is a great example, but there's a lot of different examples that, you know, you can have that in fighting is a good example, but like, it would be nice to have a GPS in my brain, have Onyx in my brain. Yeah. And lock your coordinates. Or like something where I could,

you know, play a perfect elk bugle. Right. And a perfect cow call to where it's like doesn't have a human error, right? Yeah, but there's something fun about creating it yourself too. It is, yeah. I guess we're going to gain something and we're going to lose something. Just like I'm sure we lost something by having the ability to fly across the country instead of taking a fucking wagon train. Well, there's so many things just health-wise that I think have a huge impact.

Like look at hydrogenated oils, right? Like hydrogenated oils, you know, vegetable oils and canola oil, that stuff is like motor oil. And now we use it for food as a preservative. Like I don't think the people that initially did that understood the health repercussions of it. The same way,

like having something in your brain that's putting out 10,000 X EMFs, like there's going to be other problems to solve. For sure. And, you know, maybe it's not, nothing's going to be like wholly good or wholly bad, but it's a mixture of it. But that, like you said, it's kind of just the way it's going. it's a mixture of it but that like you said it's kind of just the way it's going yeah it's the reality of it it doesn't seem like it's going to be able to be stopped it just seems like human beings have this insatiable thirst for innovation everybody wants the latest greatest thing and everything is constantly moving forward yeah and i just think i think it's hard for us to see it because we're in it. But I think we're – do you know like – you ever see where they take like a bowl almost and they spin like a marble around it and it goes around the circle?

And then as it gets lower, it goes faster and faster and faster and faster and faster. Yeah, yeah. That's where we are. Yeah, exponential, right? The exponential increase. Up here is when they invented the wheel yeah right we are at agi artificial general intelligence it's like spinning at an insane rate and we're in the middle of it as biological human beings that are used to a

certain timeline we're used to getting up in the morning going to work doing our things we have timelines and we think of the world as being kind of static. Linear. Right, but it's not. Well, I think that – so I've read this before, and I think there was a study that backed it, but humans, we can't understand things that naturally – we can maybe be taught,

but our natural understanding of something like compound interest, we don't get that. That's why a lot of people think, all right, I'm not going to invest and put $5,000 or $7,000 into a Roth IRA. What's that going to do for me? But in reality, in 30 years, it's going to be $5 million or something like that. So we don't have a natural inclination to think that way. So we don't have a natural inclination to think that way. And so I feel like with what you just said, how many – like 100 years ago, like imagine you showed somebody an iPhone. It's like – and what's – and, you know, even – not even 100 years ago. Imagine 20 years ago you showed somebody an iPhone. It's like that's not – that's such a short amount of time.

Yeah, it's insane. That's incredible. out somebody an iPhone. It's like, that's not, that's such a short amount of time. That's incredible. Because if you look at, let's say like zero to 1500, not that crazy of a difference. Right. Or even like zero to 1800, like until the industrial revolution, really. Right. Okay. We're still getting around on boats and wagons and things like that all right but that's that wouldn't really blow your mind too much like oh they got a nicer boat or crazier wagon it's like okay now i see a train okay now i see an automobile now i see like plane okay now we got an iphone it's like whoa like now i can facetime somebody in new zealand it's like what is happening

yeah yeah what's it gonna be in like you said i think it's a good, it's days go slow, like years go fast. Right. So in five years, it's like, you know, the technology is already so different. It's going to be the wildest frigging, it's going to be like the wild west. And there's this battle where these enormous companies are trying to control the population. Yeah. Because when people protest about things and people aren't on board with things, it fucks up their ability to make money.

So they're trying to get as much control over what people say and do as possible. And the governments are stepping in and trying to get as much say and control over these internet companies as possible. And you see this integration of the FBI and Twitter with the Twitter files. It's like, boy, there's a battle going on.

Stuff scares me, man. It should. Part of it, like my initial reaction is I got to do whatever I can do to like help and make this positive and not let like evil people take over. And then part of me is like, dude, you're like 27-year-old MMA fighter. Let's settle down. Yeah, let's know it's like a balance right i mean we all have our day-to-day life um family and things going on and you know got to get an oil change on your car right things like that and then it's like all right well there's also like pretty significant evidence that

we have some extraterrestrials flying around like earth or that people are there's pretty much explicit evidence that certain certain people and organizations are trying to mass manipulate the entire population and and and make it you know what i forget what they call it but basically like whatever the the the thing where they're like making all the world like, I don't know. Do you know what I'm talking about? What's the organization? One World Order? World Economic Forum?

World Economic Forum. And they're talking about the, I don't remember what their whole plan was, but basically like make everything. It's global control. Yeah, the control, right? Yeah, it's spooky. And when it comes from a guy like Klaus Schwab who dresses like a villain from Star Wars and talks like a Nazi. How many more people not pay attention to that? He seems like so on the nose.

Imagine the compliance. Imagine the compliance. That was actually Borla from Pfizer. Oh, it wasn't the same guy? No, Borla from Pfizer was talking about a pill that you would take. from Pfizer was talking about a pill that you would take, like say if you took a pill, some sort of pharmaceutical pill, and the pill has a signal that it sends to people that it shows that you took it. And then he's like, imagine the compliance. Like, hey man, fuck you.

Yeah, no thanks. I'm good. You're lucky you're still alive, buddy, with that kind of talk. Yeah, seriously, no, that's insane. You're a real threat to freedom with that kind of talk yeah seriously no that's a real threat to freedom when that kind of talk like obviously your drugs have not gone through the rigorous tests that you claim they have because the side effects that people experience from a lot of your fucking drugs are dangerous as shit and if you're fast tracking drugs and then imagine the compliance on these fast tracking drugsacking drugs with, by the way, the crazy thing when it comes to things like vaccines, there's no repercussions. You can't even sue.

No. And it's like, okay, let's say it really does go down and they get in trouble and they made $11 billion. Okay, they get fined $5 billion. Exactly. Net positive on their mind. They're like, I don't give a crap. That's exactly what happened with Vioxx. Right. Yeah. Which, you know, Guy Metzger took that shit and Guy Metzger had a stroke. they're like i don't give a crap that's exactly what happened with uh vioxx right yeah which um you know guy metzger took that and guy metzger had a stroke do you remember guy metzger yeah back in the day yeah he had a stroke from vioxx geez yeah and he was in his

30s i'm so skeptical and i feel like very glad that i'm the age i am because i feel like people a little older than me um they got that heavy and they didn't really see a lot of the repercussions. Like they were the ones that got the negative ends of it. And I think a lot of people like at least my age are – they didn't – maybe their parents were a little more awake to that type of thing. But for sure, it's like huge now. but for sure it's like huge now like I see on Instagram every single person I see is like buying 10 acres homesteading getting chickens like you know drinking uh raw milk like that you know eating beef liver like that that's the trend now people are starting to see like I'm not gonna do I'm not gonna freaking eat McDonald's and yeah take these drugs and do this crap like

I'm out well that was one of the craziest things about, like, that interview that I had with Peter Hotez, where he's telling everybody's got to get vaccinated and take these medications. Like, what are you doing for your body? Like, do you work out? What do you eat? And he eats junk food, and he doesn't work out. Like, this is crazy.

You think you're going to medicate your way to health? That's never happened. That's not how it works, man. It doesn't work at all. It takes effort. It's like, you just stay on top of it a little bit yeah you're gonna be good like i'm not i'm not worried about getting the flu i'm not worried about my wife getting the flu i'm not like dude i never i never get sick i don't

know about you but like yeah maybe once a year i have something like a little sniffle or something but other than that like I feel very freaking good. And I'm taking care of myself. And all the people that I'm around, everybody is like a professional athlete or a coach who's still very active competing. It's like we're all like that. But that's why I was so crazy when they're mandating it for the NFL. Like, what the fuck are you talking about?

These guys aren't even going to feel COVID. Dude, yeah. Like, what's – to me, it's a weird thing because it got people – it tugged at their heartstrings so much. Oh, I don't want to kill my grandmother. And I understand that. Like, I definitely – we don't want people that are at risk to be sick. We don't want those people sick regardless. Like, if COVID never happened, you don't want those people to get sick anyways.

sick regardless like if a covid never happened you don't want those people to get sick anyways so but why is it all of a sudden like this whole thing everybody's freaking out when it's nobody's dying of this and it was a mass psychology experiment yeah it really was and unfortunately they learned a lot right learned a lot about how quickly people roll over. Yeah. Well, I hope that there are more people now too, that feel more skeptical and more inclined to, you know, ask questions and feel like, you know, feel like they can just make a decision what's best for them based on the information rather than the, um, emotion, emotional response, right? Like that people got with the emotion of it and they didn't actually look into it. And I was glad that I feel like you set a good example

and people that you're around of getting the information out there. It's like, I don't really care what you want to think. This is the right info. This is the truth. And that's what people should know. They should just know the facts. If this is good for you, great. If this is terrible for you, like, this is the right info. This is the truth. And that's what people should know. They should just know the facts. If this is good for you, great. If this is terrible for you, okay, cool. Now we know. And pay very close attention to people that are fighting against

the truth and fighting against that information. Because what's interesting about now, and one of the things that McKenna talked about with the internet, is that I don't think anybody ever anticipated things like podcasts like the Huberman show or Peter Atiyah show or Lex Friedman show where you you're getting unbiased information scientific information that is not connected to any official government agency or news source where they're vetting all that and telling you what you can and can't say and when you do say something that goes against their narrative they fucking come for you hard it's wild but what they don't understand is people don't believe them so it just under look at what's happened to cnn cnn is falling apart nobody nobody believes them nobody

believes oh you're propaganda you guys are full of shit you don't give a fuck about the truth and people started to realize too it's like okay if somebody can make money off something if they're getting paid for for for this and that you can't trust that information right okay like this is their livelihood on the line all right take everything they say with a grain of salt it's like you know you got to get information from people who have no financial interest in it um otherwise it's like you don't know you have no idea yeah no idea but it's it is a great time though to get information because you're getting like i talked about huberman who's so fucking fantastic you're getting unbiased source information from a legitimate scientist from stanford who's telling you

this works and this is why it works. And these specific nutrients are responsible for these specific things that happen in your body. This was never available before. And now it's available for millions and millions of people. I mean, the Huberman's podcast is gigantic. And he said the people are listening to it every day. They're changing their life.

They're doing cold plunges and saunas and they're eating well. And they are eating healthy foods. They are avoiding seed oils. And people are seeing these immense physical benefits from it, health benefits from it. Yeah, it's super exciting, you know, as somebody who I feel like as an athlete, I kind of had to be a little ahead of the curve on that just because I wanted to take care of myself. And so, you know, the cold plunge, the sauna, the nutrition, the, you know, what's good for you, what's bad for you, understanding certain things. It was like now I see like a good – like my mom and dad are doing cold plunge every morning now. And I'm like, let's go.

Like that's what I'm talking about. My parents have done sauna that don't do cold plunge. They won't do – I'm like, come on. Yeah, come on. I go, I'll get you one. We'll put it at talking about. My parents have done sauna that don't do cold plants. They won't do cold plants. I'm like, come on. Yeah, come on. I go, I'll get you one. We'll put it at 50 degrees. Just do a little bit. Yeah, just do it for 30 seconds.

So I've got them thinking about it. I go, listen, you'll feel happier. Yeah. You'll feel happier. It'll make you feel better. I love, so me and my buddy Anthony, we do, so for us, our schedule Wednesday is just recovery day. And so we'll go in we'll do like some some contrast we're tinkering with it a little bit we're gonna start doing some like huberman

protocols with sauna cold plunge and stuff and the best ever is you we do like five minute rounds on the cold plunge so we go a little long but uh the best ever is we do like 15 or so minutes of we call it shiver time after. So we'll go cold, just shiver and freaking shake. And then you let your body kind of come back and regulate and get warm. And then we go in a hot shower and I'm like, I feel so good. I know, right? You can't beat it.

This is amazing. It's a euphoric feeling. If you could get a pill that would make you feel that good, everybody would be taking it. Your doctor would be like, Bo, what we need to give you is happy. Take this happy. Take 50 milligrams of happy in the morning and then 50 milligrams of happy at dinner, and you'll be happy. Yeah. Well, I think they have that.

It's like freaking heroin and stuff, right? I think that's different. Maybe. That makes you crash your car and fight with cops. What cold plunge does is just, without any negative side effects, it elevates your mood, ramps up your dopamine. It ramps up your dopamine by 200%, and it lasts for hours. Yeah.

Hours. I feel great when I do that. I mean, I've been doing it for a long time, so now it's like, but I look forward to it still every week. I'm like, nice. Let's go. Yeah. I look forward to it, too, until I'm right about to get in that's the worst my put the pussy part of my brain it's like oh maybe you

should like find a good song to listen to and i like putting it off as long yeah my buddy uh anthony the guy i mentioned oh he's such a savage he'll uh so the we go in first just hop in and he'll go like up to his chin and we have the jets and stuff, so it's freaking going. Do you have a blue cube? No. We just have – so at Penn State, we have a recovery room, and there's just a hot tub and a cold tub. So they're like – I think like a regular hot tub in the ground with crazy jets,

but it's 40 degrees or whatever, 38 degrees. And so it's kind of similar, I think. Yeah, very similar. But less compact, so probably a little less intense. So we'll sit in that, and he'll go like up. I used to go to my belly button or to my chest, and he would go to his chin every time, and I'll just be looking at him.

I'm like, I am a pussy. It was so good. Now I go up to my neck, but it's good that we do it together because sometimes I'm like, ah, I don't want to do it. Yesterday I had to climb under sheets of ice. Oh. I had to get under it because I have – at my house I have a Morosco. Yeah.

And the Morosco is 34 degrees. And what happens is on cold days, like yesterday morning it was like 34 degrees out. Yeah. So when I got in it, all the ice from the bottom forms and then floats up to the top. So I've got this, you know, three inch thick slabs of ice. And I had to climb in and lift the ice up and slide under it. So there's literally like these huge sheets of ice that are three inches thick. They're right in front of my face.

I'm like, fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck. But you also feel cool that you could do it yeah i love the fact that i can talk myself into doing it every i did it right before i came here i do it every goddamn day and when i do it every day i do it before workouts that's my my thing now i do it first thing in the morning right and um there's there's been some studies was it out of japan that they had those studies that showed it ramped up testosterone? Pretty significantly. Okay. Significant increase in testosterone when you do the cold plunge pre-workout.

So you do the cold plunge pre-workout. And what I do is I have a series of body weight exercises that I do that warm me up. Body weight squats, push-ups. You don't go hot after. You just warm up from working out. No. I don't do hot until after I'm done training. You're done, done.

I like to do hot with elevated heart rate. Oh, yeah. I like to do hot right after I do rounds in the bag. I like to finish my workout with Tabatas. Yep. So either I finish my workout with Tabatas on an airdyne bike or a heavy bag. And then once I do that, then I like to go in when I'm at like you know 90 beats per second or per minute rather and I go right in when I'm already my heart's already pounding and then I get in that one in

185 degrees and just throw some water on the rocks and fucking suck it up that's a wrestling style yeah that's how we do it yeah look if you want it to be effective it's got to be difficult I mean that that's when you're dealing with cold and heat exposure it can't be comfortable it's got to be difficult. I mean, when you're dealing with cold and heat exposure, it can't be comfortable. It's got to suck a fat dick, and that's the only way to do it. It's the only way. I love stuff like that. It's just hard that I know other people aren't willing to do. Yeah.

It makes me feel like I'm really living life because if everything's just comfortable and easy and you never really that stressed and your body's never put under any pressure you're just kind of floating and you're good and i'm like i i would freaking blow my brains out if i had to live that way like i can't do it i gotta do hard things all the time yeah you know i gotta always it's and i think that a lot of people are starting to get more into that where their priority isn't comfort. Yes. I think for a long time in human history, the priority was just stay alive. And if you can be a little comfortable, then that's great.

But they were in circumstances where 80% of their life was really difficult already. So when they got that comfort, they enjoyed it. Yeah. When you can sit on a couch in front of the fire after you've just been fucking busting your ass all day, exhausted, that's when comfort is appreciated. Exactly. And valuable. And it means something to you. Right. easily through, you know, cars and grocery stores and planes and things where, you know,

everything was kind of cell phones at your hand. Like that stuff is such a distraction from being the best version of yourself. Exactly. And that's really, I think, one of the only ways that a person is happy if they are being the best version of yourself. And that takes work. My friend Michael Easter has been a guest on this podcast before. I wrote a book called The Comfort Crisis. And it's all about that, this bizarre place that we are where so many people are just seeking comfort and taking the path of least resistance and trying to do things the easiest way possible. And people have never been more depressed, never been more unhappy, never been more unsatisfied, more lost, more existential crisis. And it's got to be connected to that because I think the human body and the human mind have requirements in terms of you need tasks and you need difficult things to do. And if you don't do those things, there's a contrast. You don't

enjoy the easy moments unless you have hard moments. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I know for a fact that's true because if I were to just go eat an In-N-Out cheeseburger, like, yeah, it would be nice. It would be good. But after I go through a full fight camp and I cut 20 pounds and then I go win a fight and then I head to In-N-Out and have that cheeseburger, I'm like, hell yeah. Yeah. Now you earned it. This is so good. Yeah. that cheeseburger. I'm like, hell yeah. This is so good. And I'm like, but I don't want too much of that. Like, I don't want, I don't want too much of the dopamine from other things for whatever it is because then it's just not as good. Right. Like I like, so when I was in high school, probably like my senior high school, we had homecoming and prom. And like, I think I drank

a little bit there. And then I told myself, I And like, I think I drank a little bit there. And then I told myself, I'm like, all right, let's lock it up. I'm gonna go five years of college. I'm not having a sip of alcohol, like nothing. And so I went all five years, didn't go to bars, didn't party, no alcohol, nothing, just straight up focus. And that was it. And then I remember my buddy and I, anthony the guy i keep bringing up we both uh won national titles our senior year and the next week we went out and we had a freaking time it was like yeah amazing you earned it yeah yeah really earned it and yeah and now i'm like back on that grind where i'm like nothing like i'm not doing you know i'm no alcohol

like go to a wedding i want a cigar sorry bud no cigar like like none of that stuff and uh i love being able to do that like a lot of times i'll talk in my head like damn it'd be nice like i'm eating this fat ribeye like have a glass of wine and wind down and i'm like no no you need to like earn this right like i don't know i like giving myself those little edges where I know I'm sacrificing something. Yeah, I mean, that's what makes a champion. Yeah, it's fun, too. Hey, I wanted to talk to you about Sam Calavita.

I'm very fascinated by that guy because I've seen some of the footage of the training sessions that they put on in his garage with TJ Dillashaw and Juan Archuleta. And a lot of those guys that go down there and train with him. And it just seems like he's got very unusual strength and conditioning approaches. Yeah, he's the man. Coach Cal, I don't even like to talk about the garage because it's like PTSD. Seriously, I feel like the trauma that I've lived in my life has been through you know I've been very fortunate so I haven't been any like real trauma but like in my mind the real trauma is like losing at competitions and these crazy hard training

sessions and the garage really dude it's like bro he kills us every time and it's interesting that it is just like a two-car garage so yeah you just roll up to his house pull up the video of sam calavita the garage yeah he uh he's got everything just kind of organized and stacked in there and you've got world-class fighters yeah that are training with this guy in this fucking garage he just let it play. Yeah, he's a different breed of human being. Coach Cal, you should have him on. I would love to. He's literally the best guy in the world.

Coach Cal, let's do it. Yeah, yeah. I'll talk to him about it, too. Yeah, show some of the footage of the actual training. But it's a very humble little place. Yep. It's not big at all. Just do the work.

It was TJ before he had to go through massive shoulder surgery. Yeah. I feel terrible for that guy. I know. No, rough. Well, I knew that his super spinatuses had been torn on both shoulders early in his career. And I think that the hard part is some guys are a little too tough for their own good. With Coach Cal, you can really – you've got to be very –

So here it is. That's it, yeah. You've got to communicate with him. Back up so we can see that garage again because it's kind of crazy. It's kind of crazy. This is like one of the most respected strength and conditioning establishments in the world. And it's a normal suburban home with a two car garage and that is where all these people go to train with one of the best training strength

and conditioning coaches in the world yeah so last time i was down there um he's like uh hey uh you want to get a workout i was doing a bunch of testing and stuff for, like, baseline for my VO2 and all different types of things. And he's like, hey, Bo, you want to, you know, go get a workout in? We'll go down to the beach. It'll be fun. You know, we have some, do some sand workouts and stuff. Like, it's not like that.

It's not that crazy. It's like a fun one. I'm like, all right, yeah, yeah, let's do it. He's like, okay, meet in my house in 45 minutes. And he's very, like, so soft-spoken. And I'm like, okay, yeah, no problem. Let's do it. And I'm solo. So it's like just me. And which, I don't know, I think it makes it worse. Because when you're with people, it's like, you know they're doing it too. And so I show up, and he's got his garage door open, and he's got,

like, the big-ass, you know, 70 to 120-pound med balls set out and like all this stuff and i'm like what's up coach like he's like i was like oh we're gonna go to the beach he's like oh no i changed my we're just gonna do i'm like you son of a bitch you got me bro he literally like destroyed me dude it was like he always does this thing too where it goes zero to 100 at the beginning like it's not like too much to where you're gonna get injured or anything but like the work workout will be like all right hop on this bosu ball and i'm gonna throw this 70 pound med ball at you as hard as i can you're gonna catch it and throw it back to me and we're just gonna freaking get after it or hold on to this 50 pound med ball and hop backwards up this hill it's like start going go go and he's like very and you're like oh go go go and you'll

go for like an hour or, you know, hour and 15 minutes doing whatever he says. And he's like, all right, good. Warm-up's done. Now let's, you know, let's turn. And dude, his little- Warm-up's done. Bro, I'm not kidding.

Hour and 15 minutes of hell and that's the warm-up? Yeah. So I'm trying to think like of, I don't want to give away like his stuff, but like, so I did that one workout. I did that for basically like an hour just heavy med ball stuff and then um we did a bunch of uh what was it we did like some some heavy lifts after that and then from there he gets his sled out and he's like all right we're gonna push

the sled and he doesn't tell you like how far're going to go or anything. And so we just start pushing the sled. And so we go all the way up the hill and around the corner. So you see this road right behind him? So we go up that road all the way around the corner. And it's me and Anthony. We're going back and forth on the sled. It's like, push till you fail. Push till you fail.

And we probably did it 60 times each just to get up around this corner. And we're like, oh, we're done like finally we got and then he's like all right turn around now we're gonna do pull i'm like like come on so then we pulled it all the way back and uh then i'm like all right finally like we're done and he goes okay bike time hop on the bike and this is like two hours and 30 minutes in and i'm like jesus okay is there too much work though so he i think that when we when we live in pennsylvania right so we're not there every day so when we go out there he likes to stick it to us a little bit he's still like he's like let's see if you're tough enough for the garage type thing i'm like coach i've been working with you for six years like i think i'm i think i'm kind of tough but he's like uh but whenever we go out there out there, he'll give us the business a little bit. I can imagine.

But is there a concern, though, that that would require too much recovery time if that's not a regular part of your routine? I think that if it's just like a one-time thing, a lot of times it's not. We're traveling out there to get testing done, things like that. Like when we're doing our actual program, it's back home in Pennsylvania. So then we'll get maybe one workout with him out in Cali. So he's like, just freaking hammer us. Let's go.

And then, all right, now you got like a few days. Like travel back home. You're rested. Right. You know, go get to your normal workout. Like our normal workouts aren't that crazy there but what is the benefit of like that long of a training session other than mental I think it's mental and it's and it's like afterwards so you can't even really be you know after a good workout you're

like feel good I think that it's just seeing how far you can push yourself like all right where can I get? And then let's go further. Let's go further. Let's go further. Let's like just see where you can go. Because I don't feel like physically, it's not a physical benefit thing. Like I'm not taking – and a lot of times too,

he's teaching us a lot of new things that we're implementing in the program. So he might do three or four different things that are different days for us, but we have to learn them and how to do the exercises there, and we only have one day to do it. So now it's like we're doing all of this in one, whereas now I'll go back home and this will be split up. So he's trying to teach us stuff as well. But it's more just like, hey, man, you want to work with me?

Let's see if you're tough. Do you think you're a tough guy? Like, all right, we'll see. When you have these very brutal training sessions, are you using heart rate monitors? Are you monitoring your heart rate variability? Are you monitoring your recovery rate, your resting heart rate to make sure that you're not overtraining? Yeah, yeah, everything's monitored. Yeah, so he has a program.

He has an app. And anybody can use it, actually, which is pretty cool. So I think it's just Training Lab app. And, yeah, you get a heart rate monitor from him. And so for me, when I'm in camp and training, um, I, I keep my heart rate and, and all that information gets sent to him. So I can look at it if I want, but he's the one that's analyzing it and looking at it and making sure that everything's good. And it's very open dialogue, like a big thing in combat sports and wrestling and stuff is uh you don't really say like oh like i'm kind of feeling i'm kind of tired like you just you just tough it out but if you're a real professional like you need to be in communication

and say like certain things like okay so a good example a couple camps ago so we upped my overall weekly volume as a kind of the camp goes on and i got to a point where i was pretty freaking tired feeling it and uh i actually broke out in like herpes because i was stressed my body was stressed and he was like all right well now we found like your limit so now our overall volume for the week like this is kind of where we stop so we know what you can do and so there's a lot of analyzing a lot of science and algorithms and different things that he utilizes and fortunately for me like i don't have to learn all those things he's the expert so i just trust him yeah well that's great it's that's definitely a great thing to have and it's amazing that he's

got this app that he can monitor when you're not even there. Yeah. No, it's huge because obviously being in different places and stuff. And I don't want to guess. I don't want to guess whether or not I'm ready to go or whether or not I'm doing everything in an optimal way. I want to know for a fact. And that's why we do hair analysis for minerals and tissue and things like that. That's why we test our VO2s. That's why we test our crossover points and our resting metabolic rates and things like this. You know, that's why we do all those things because I'm not interested in guessing. I'm not interested in kind

of feeling like I've done everything right. I want to know. Right, right, right. How do you, because you're saying you essentially organize everything yourself when you're back at home. How do you decide, like, when to do strength and conditioning, when to do skill acquisition, when to do specific drills? So, because I have trained so much and so long, and because my dad was a coach, so my dad was always putting programs together for his teams, understanding peaking, understanding how to periodize, understanding when we want to have tough matches, when we want to push ourselves. That was something I was always around. And then coming into Penn State, it was like that on steroids. And so I think a lot of it is just learned and absorbed from what I've been around and just seeing like a typical

schedule of when when our coaches have had us do certain things and when we've had recovery days and stuff so you know it's not something that I've like really had to go find it's just been ingrained in me since I was five and you know I had a good example with my dad because he coached tons and tons of high school state champions, state championship teams, and guys who went on to compete in college and do big things. So I got that solid idea of what it takes to organize a program very young. And then, like I said, when I got to college, it was like, okay, here's a new level. Then I started working with Coach Cal. Boom, new level. Then I started working with Coach Cal, boom, new level. And now I'm always like kind of looking for things to up that, to do better,

to improve, to add in, or things that maybe aren't serving me as much anymore and we kind of do away. So it's just something that's on my mind. It's like, that's my job. My job is to take care of myself. This is my profession. Okay, I want to choose this path. Now, you got to take all of the responsibility that comes with that and be a professional. So that's kind of how I feel like I've been able to organize it the way I have. And when you organize these training sessions, like how do you organize recovery? Do you organize it based on the data that you're getting from the app and from your heart rate monitor? Like how do you how are you doing that? Or is it just on the data that you're getting from the app and from your heart rate monitor? Like how are you doing that? Or is it just like a thing that you do every day?

I have a weekly schedule. So everything's scheduled out for the week. And typically the weeks are very – it's like a similar base, right? So like Monday I'll get two sessions. Tuesday I'll get two sessions. Wednesday, recovery. I'm off. Thursday, two sessions. Friday, one I'm off Thursday. Um, two sessions,

Friday, one Saturday, one Sunday off. And those sessions are all different, right? Like, um, Monday, I typically, the morning is like striking afternoon wrestling, Tuesday morning, spar afternoon lift off Wednesday, Thursday morning grappling, afternoon light wrestling, Friday my heavier spar day, Saturday lift, Sunday off. So you always like to take two days off a week? That's the standard, yeah. That's for me what I feel like is the right move, and I think people are doing too much, honestly. People are going every day twice a day, and it's like not really, to me, to me manageable reasonable and i think they're over trained how did you come to those conclusions was it through data or was it through

trial and error well that two days off uh it comes from coach cal yeah that's from him and all of his data and his trial and error and also like uh from from penn state from our program and how we've run things and stuff. So that was a standard for me as soon as I got to college, two days. And do you take those days off? Are you watching tape? Are you studying things? Yeah, so Wednesday is more of an active recovery. So I'll go in, and I'm really fortunate because my buddy Anthony, me and him are on the exact same schedule. So we always just do everything together, which is great because now I have a partner to do all these things with. But we have a bunch of basically body weight exercises and stretches and certain things that we do alongside the contrast tubbing and sauna.

And then I'll either get a massage or go to the Cairo and uh you know basically just take care of all the little things I need to you know if I got um like I have specific injuries I need to focus on that that to me like you get an injury you don't just do rehab for eight weeks and then move on like I'm always taking care of these things so that I'd never have re-aggravated I'm staying ahead and so that's the day where I do all that stuff. And then Sunday is nothing. Sunday I just go to church. I hang out with my wife and see my family,

maybe do like a Sunday dinner with people. And that's more of like an emotional mental recovery. Yeah. Now, what has the UFC said in terms of like setting you up for a fight in the future? Do you have anything lined up? Yeah, so no opponent yet, but I'm going to fight UFC 300. Ooh, that's a big one. I know, yeah.

April, right? Yeah, April, yeah. Is that Vegas? Yes. Nice. Yeah, I'm fired up. That's going to be fun. And no opponent yet.

Now, are you asking for a specific level of opponent? Are you trying to get someone in the top 15? Like, what are you trying to do? So my goal for this next fight is, you know, just whoever they give me. I'm still on my first contract, so I kind of want to fight this out and then see as it goes. How many fights are in that contract? I have two left. Okay.

Yeah, so it was four. So I would like to fight this fight and then my next fight I would like to get somebody that's maybe right outside the rankings right in there like in the mix and then hopefully that'll be ideally like July and then if I get I'll at least get one more next year maybe two and then I would like to after that obviously fight a ranked guy so hopefully like a ranked guy my third fighter next year and how much time are you looking to have in between fights? Well, I told my manager, I was like, if they could book me for UFC Miami in March and go again in April,

because I feel like whoever they put in front of me, I'm going to kill them. So let's do it. But they're like, they don't really do that. He's like, so you can either just do the UFC Miami card and then hopefully something maybe something will fall out and you'll get there or you can like guarantee yourself on 300 and I was like well I'd rather I really want to fight on UFC 300 so let's just do that um so that's uh April May June July so then I'll basically basically run those back to back and then after that I don't't want to plan too far ahead

because who knows what happens in MMA, right? But after that, I mean, I'm ready to go. If I finish a guy again, let's go again. That's kind of how I feel. Well, the division that you're in, the 185-pound division, is so exciting right now. When Strickland beat Adesanya and opened it up and when Drekas Duplessis down robert whittaker like a lot

of things opened up yeah this is a very very exciting time yeah it is it is i i feel like you know there's a there's a lot of good guys um but i like where i'm at i think i'm a tough matchup for any of these guys and they all want to fight me now because i'm the worst that i'll be right so you hear you hear some of these guys talking about me and stuff like they want to fight me now because i'm the worst that i'll be right so you hear you hear some of these guys talking about me and stuff like they want to fight me now i'm like that's that's smart you know because where i'm at right now is not going to be where i'm at in six months it's not going to be where i'm at in a year well that's why i'm so excited to see you in april yeah because you got so good in two fucking years and it's like what's gonna happen to you in the with the six months off or seven months off yeah and i'm i'm I'm not the type of guy like to just train and camp.

Like I'm always on it, obviously. Right. So I'm always getting better and improving. Which is gigantic. Yeah. That's where the real gains are made. Exactly. I agree for sure.

And, you know, it's interesting because I've had five professional fights. You know, I don't know what somebody's going to game plan for. It's like, all right, you watch me beat five guys basically in like six minutes combined total time. Like, okay, study that, bud. Like, good luck. And I'm not even going to be the same. Like, I'm not even going to. Right.

I'm taking however many months. That's like 40% of my total training time in my career. So, like, I don't know, man. I'm not even going to be close to what I was this last fight. And even in this last fight, you got 30 seconds to watch. It's so bananas that you've gone this far in just a couple of years. I haven't even been hit yet. No, seriously, go back and watch all my fights.

So my last fight, I cracked the dude with the right hook, and he kind of came over the top and barely touched my head. But it was almost like a slap. I didn't even feel it. but I don't even count that I have not been hit in five professional fights two amateur fights I've been hit on training obviously but um yeah it's a weird I didn't expect this I expected like I said to have a different path but here I am and I'm gonna make the most of it and I'm like I'm excited like to the most of it. And I'm like, I'm excited like to, uh, just keep getting better is the main thing. I just want to keep getting better, improve,

improve, improve. Yeah. Big goals and stuff. But the main thing is just keep getting better. Well, I'm, I'm a fan, man. I'm very excited to watch this. One more thing I want to talk to you about is how'd you get into bow hunting? Yeah. So, um, I grew up, my dad, uh, and granddad, uh, hunted and they were interested in hunting and stuff and so when I graduated college in 2019 I was kind of thinking like alright I want to figure out other things I'm interested in and I actually saw I saw cam Haynes on Instagram and I was like oh this looks cool like I like you know I'm I kind of always have enjoyed the outdoors and stuff and I've always been into my nutrition and I was really interested I was like I want to like hunt for my food I kind of always have enjoyed the outdoors and stuff. And I've always been into my nutrition.

And I was really interested. I was like, I want to hunt for my food that I eat. I want to be eating elk and deer and things like that. And so then I started thinking about getting a bow and stuff. And it wasn't like a rushed decision. I took probably almost six or eight months where I was thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it. And then I finally was like, all right, I really want this. I'm going to do it.

And so then I got hooked up with Lancaster Archery. They're a great archery shop. They're great. Great place. I buy a lot of my shit from them. No, they're awesome. And so. Is this an elk hunt that you went on? This was New Mexico this year, yeah.

Oh, wow. Was that your first elk hunt? First archery elk. Archery elk hunt in New Mexico for the first one is amazing that's the promised land yeah it was great man nice it was awesome yeah that was that was the September yeah yeah you're all hooked up look at you yeah dude it's so funny you got a PSE bow yeah you're ready to go man I'm ready to go yeah what was that like? Man it's like the exact same feeling as knocking somebody out cold. It's one of the most exciting things I've ever done.

It's so fun, man. It's so crazy. Bow hunting is just, it's also so complicated. It's so difficult. There's so many moving parts. It's a dance. Oh, my gosh, yeah. So many things happening.

Should I stand here by the tree? Which way is he coming? You know, with the wind and the range, do I have a chance to range him or am I going to just like range areas and guess? Am I going to pin gap him? What am I going to do? I love that chess match too, you know, between you and the animal. It's the same as a fight.

And actually, like when I got my bow, it was probably June or July, and I started shooting it, and I was like, yeah, I'm not doing this this fall. Like I'm going to get good Like I'm going to get good. I'm going to get good. So I took a year and a half basically of full training before I even did any archery hunting. Do you have an archery coach? I don't have a coach, no. But I watch like all the Knocked On, like School of Knock.

So I watch tons of film on that. Dudley's the man. He's great. It's so funny because there's not that many people i look up to you know it's like but him he's like i'm like dude this guy's like he's the man yeah yeah i'm like i saw i think it was last year he killed four bulls in four different states i'm like dude i yeah i need to do that like that's amazing but uh i just thought that was that was the coolest thing but when I go to Lancaster, they help me a ton. So they help me get set up correctly and things like that,

which now when I tell people who ask me about it who are interested in doing archery, I say the most important thing is go to a good archery shop and get set up and have them teach you, like, good kind of fundamentals. You can tinker with everything. But you don't want to learn bad initially and then have to unlearn it. Yeah, like all the other stuff, know tinkering like what do you want your your what do you want to use for a release or stabilizer like just get set up get your draw link correct get your peep height you know get get get everything put on get your grip right and have a good starting point and

good foundation and then you can kind of go from from there you're going to be on so much better trajectory if you're learning incorrectly from the jump so i was able to learn correctly from the beginning and then it's the same thing with with striking i just apply everything i know with wrestling and now that's hunting and archery for for me and i freaking love it all i want to do is go fight people and knock them out and go chase elk and And yeah, that's awesome, man. Um, what, what kind of broadheads are you using? So I've been using a rage hypodermic. I like them. They get the job done. That's what I shot that bull with. I mean, it was a frontal shot straight through the heart. So any broadhead would have done the trick, but, uh, I don't know, man,

I'm always open to like learning new things. I think there's different reasons to use different types of broadheads, right? Like I shoot 80 pounds and I have a pretty long draw length. So mechanical, like I'm not that worried about penetration. Right. But, you know, in a longer shot or a follow-up shot, I have iron wheels as well for a longer follow-up where I'm more worried about something like that. And then, you know, like I said, it's going to be different for every animal, for every situation. So I think some people get so stuck on like, this is the way to go. It's like, well, I mean, it's different for everybody. Like if I

have a 30 and a half inch draw, it's going to be different than somebody with a 27 inch draw. It's going to be different. Somebody shooting 65 versus 80 pounds. It's like, you know, it's all, it's all, so I'm not married to anything really. That's's great and what kind of release you're using i use a knock to it okay yeah that's great yeah i love that can't go wrong no i feel like so i wasn't originally using the index release um but once i started using the thumb release i just got so much more accuracy and consistency and uh it was like i mean that that was just to me the way to go yeah i killed my bull uh last one with a knock to it i think it's just it's such a great release and i really do like the two fingers too yeah yeah do you use the uh silverback at all do you i used to i trained with that for training

i learned how to really shoot correctly that's what john put me on initially yeah that's so i have one i haven't really like set it up because you got to fiddle with it a little bit to get the poundage right and all that but uh i feel like i want i wouldn't use it for hunting but i want to use it for for training and it's very good to make sure that you're pulling hard against the back wall and get a full clean release yeah with the follow-through it's the best feeling yeah i love that man but i've hunted with it too have you yeah jocko hunts with that oh really yeah yeah yeah a lot of guys still like to hunt with it but you know yeah yeah dude i would love to go out with you guys i think uh a guy said um i know a guy who his name is rick he uh i don't know if he owns a place or has a connection in utah but yeah rick wood rick yeah okay he asked me to come out with you guys um

this last fall but i uh i already had my uh new mexico hunt set up so but dude it would be fun i would just freaking hang out and pack out yeah it would be fun yeah this is gonna be really fun but listen brother uh really appreciate you coming in here i'm a big fan i'm very excited about what you're doing and i'm really excited about your future so it's been cool to talk to you and i can't wait to see you in april thank you c300 let's go let's get it baby uh tell everybody you have an interesting Instagram handle they might not be able to find it yeah you can find me at no Bickel one so that a bow nickel no Bickel how'd that happen so it's kind of funny when I was in high

school I just that was when Instagram kind of started getting big and I was like trying to figure out what I was just gonna do bone nickel or something in my is there a bow nickel out there I don't think so but my buddy uh his name is Jack he was like how about no Bickle and I was like dude that's it so I can't take credit for the idea but I'll just vent with that one well it works uh all right dude well thank you very much thanks for coming in here appreciate you thanks all right bye everybody Appreciate you. Thanks, John. All right. Bye, everybody.