The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #152 with Sean Brady

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Joe sits down with Sean Brady, a professional mixed martial artist currently competing in the Welterweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. www.ufc.com/athlete/sean-brady

The Joe Rogan Experience You always have something wrong, right? Yeah, it's rough. Like, especially for someone like me, I'm getting a little bit older now and I'm being smarter. But like I was training, I still kind of do like almost three times a day. So like I would do a morning skill session, an afternoon run or an afternoon strength session, and then another skill session at night. And I did that for 10 plus years. But I love it though so i'm but i'm finding now like i'm fine trying to find that balance of like if it's a hard morning like mma like sparring session nighttime will be jujitsu and i'll try to make it light but you know how that like you drill then you start rolling and when you're rolling hard it's almost just as i

get injured sometimes more during juiu-jitsu so the whole rolling light is it doesn't happen never happens i was telling my wife because my hand i was coming out here i was like maybe i can go and i can just like drill with gordon and those guys she was like you ain't fucking drilling with no if you guys start rolling light like there ain't there's not gonna be any of that and i'm like you're 100 right so yeah that's smart though that's like and i'm smarter sean like older 100 and that's where like before i'd like nah fuck that like i'm going i'm gonna go hard and then i'd be injured and then i wouldn't be able to fight so but the problem with injuries is if you don't give them respect they get chronic

they just they yeah they if there's so many guys that have a an injury and they try to train through it and it just gets worse and worse and worse and then instead of being out for six weeks now you're out for six months and that was me after my below fight so i came home from abu dhabi i didn't have any injuries i wanted to get back and i wanted to get that taste out of my mouth so i'm back training I'm back running and then I start to feel that pain I was telling you about And I literally just kept running like i'd run once I was warmed up like, you know It is you warm up the injuries kind of go away like you feel good until you cool down And I did that for a couple months and I had a fight scheduled and I tore my groin and then

I rescheduled the fight. I did my rehab. And the first week back of training, it tore again. So it was a shitty road. Have you had any surgeries? I had my deviated septum done. Obviously, they didn't fix the outside because this shit is fucked up. But besides that, I broke my thumb. I never had a knee. I've been pretty lucky with no surgeries but a lot of injuries.

Isn't the dva deceptive one amazing when i got it done and they when you have to have those things in your nose for a week though as soon as they pull them out you feel like a new human it's like oh it's the best it's incredible it's the best i never knew like how much cardio i was missing not being able to breathe out of my nose i look at like Drekus, like Duplicy, when he got his nose fixed, like he used to always fight with his mouth open and people thought he was out of shape.

And the guy just can't breathe out of his nose. I think at some point though, you have to open up your mouth obviously, but I do all my zone two now on the echo bike, mouth closed. And now I just started doing mouth tape when I sleep. My fucking, my recovery on like my aura ring went through the roof. Just from mouth tape?

Just from mouth tape. You use like hostage tape? I had this one called Dream that I got. But hostage, it's the same thing. Does it fuck with you with the mustache though? No. Sometimes if I have like too much facial hair, it doesn't stick that good. My buddy Simon was saying that because he had some like cheap one.

He was like, doesn't it bother you when you pull it off i'm like yeah a little bit but i don't mean that i mean it doesn't stick oh no these ones they stick good like you have to you have to pull it off yeah the cheap ones just fall right off like i'd wake up and it'd be like on my fucking shoulder right yeah but uh that's interesting that it had that much of an impact on your recovery yeah so you you wear an aura ring yeah like so what is so what is, my wife wears one of those, but I've never worn it. Yeah. How does it work? Like, what is the, what's the metrics it gives you?

So I used to have a whoop and whoop couldn't, like I was getting. Tattoos. I couldn't shoot through my tattoos. Yeah. So I'd get inaccurate readings on all my shit and I actually messaged them and they're like, Hey, like it's just the kind of lighting we have we have like so I would wear it here but then it would go up on my wrist and then I might like I have nowhere I could wear it so this was like the next best thing and but it does the same it

does HRV heart rate your sleep deep sleep REM it does fit the tracks your workouts but like I really don't care about that. If I want to track my workouts, I wear the Polar or the MyZone. So I'll wear those. But yeah, it does your sleep. It does a lot of things. I got a new one, Morpheus. I have Morpheus.

Train with Morpheus. I have Morpheus, too. The app is outstanding, too. I have Morpheus. I really like that one. You do the HRV in the morning and stuff like that. I love buying them, and I just try them and i like compare them like i'll wear everything and i'll do the echo bike workout and i'll compare like my heart rates and stuff like

that so yeah it's fun but when i got my nose fixed it was a it was a game changer for sure yeah it's just such a different thing to be able to breathe out of your nose but it's interesting to me that the the sleep that your recovery is better i just always wonder why yeah why breathing through the nose while you sleep improves your recovery well i'll i'll snore like i'll if i sleep on my back my wife will hit me and she's like you're fucking snoring i'll turn on my side and i won't snore anymore and then i added the mouth tape and i just started doing no thc but just cb gummies. And my wife too, she's a nurse. She's like getting the best fucking sleep she's ever had. Our deeps, cause you can see the deep sleep on there.

I have the eight sleep mattress too. So I can, I can like compare it. And our deep sleep is from the CBD for me. And the mouth tape is through the roof. She doesn't do the mouth tape, but she does the, she does the CBD. And our deep sleep is fucking, is great. That's interesting. So like, does it give you a score? And a score and like what is your score that you get?

So it will give you like can't pull my phone out sure yeah Like I'll I post it one the other day here. It is Jamie's pulled it up So it shows you readiness readiness so Time to recover is 44. That's me today for sure. Trade carefully is 75, and then good day ahead is 96. This was my one when I wore the mouth tape and the CBD. My heart rate was 38.

Yeah, that's great. No, that's awesome. And usually my deep sleep doesn't get as deep. Resting heart rate 38 is pretty fucking low. Yeah, especially not for in camp. Not bad. That's great. Their description of what makes it maybe a little different.

It says each person a unique version of normal rather than your base averages on impersonal population benchmarks like hit 10,000 steps. Aura gets to know you and provides you with personalized baselines and insights. apps, Aura gets to know you and provides you with personalized baselines and insights. Whether your sleep took a hit after a night out or you're prioritizing balance in your wellness routine, Aura helps you reach your goals by delivering the best 360-degree view of your health. I like it, but can't wear it during MMA practice or anything like that, so I'll take it off. But I was getting almost too caught up with the whoop because you wake up when you're in a training camp, you're most likely going to be in the yellow or the red. You're not always going to be in the green.

Then it's like telling you to take it easy. It's like, I fucking can't take it easy. I have a fight and fucking. So you have to find the balance of knowing I actually really feel like shit or these things just tell me I feel like shit. It's really funny that balance between like, especially when someone's just completely obsessed. Like I was listening to this uh or watching this video where craig jones was talking about when he was training especially when he's first starting out he was training every day yeah and he went to a doctor and the doctor's

like you like might have cancer like you might have a serious illness yeah like what's wrong with your body and it really was just that he was just worn out he was completely over trained yeah and with mma like we just have so many things we have to cover like we have to do boxing we have to do wrestling we have to do muay thai and then i'm big in the like strength and conditioning so i have to lift i have to get but that's something i've gotten better with i lift three days a week now i have a strength coach that works with the with the eagles his name's gabe and he's like we go in we warm up like we're doing all that shit i'm like fuck like i don't want to do this now. I have a strength coach that works with the, with the Eagles. His name's Gabe. And he's like, we go in, we warm up, like we're doing all this shit. I'm like, fuck, like, I don't want to do this. But now like, I love it. Like, it's like just getting me more athletic and it's more just

like GPP, just keeping me prepared and just getting me ready for my MMA sessions and just keeping me strong. Like we do trap bar deadlifts. Um, we do front squats. Like I don't get crazy with like, like a lot of the lifts i used to do like i used to want to lift like a fucking power lifter i'd be benching and straight bar deadlifts and back squats i'm like i don't get that's not what we do you know so why did you get into that initially was it just for jujitsu um i started off lifting before i started mma so i started training when i was like 16 but i started off lifting at like my local like rec center like just benching every

day. And then I really got into lifting and I would school, like I would have the squat bench deadlift, like trying to get my numbers up. And then eventually I kept hurting my back. I was like 21 years old with a wrecked back. So now I just do trap bar deadlifts, no more straight bar, anything like that. So, um, I think the straight, like the straight bar just puts you in like a bad position. Whereas the trap bar puts you in like a more natural position to squat down and lift and you can still put on some good Weight on there. So it does it does the job for me. Yeah, there's a lot of people that think that deadlifts are just not worth it Yeah, yeah the amount of possibility. Yeah, possibly. Oh, yeah during your back Yeah that there's other ways to show like you saw that machine

We hit the belt squat belt squats the best which is such a great machine for your legs I mean it just puts all the weight on your hips. You're not compressing your spine at all Yeah, yeah, you can get like big numbers. Yeah, you don't have that bar in your back That's like in camp. We do a lot of the belt squat walks So we'll do three five minute rounds of we'll put on like if I'm fighting it I find it 170 we put on 170 pounds and we walk for five minutes like just side to side rest one minute and we do it for three rounds so but by the end of it you're fucking your hips are cooked but it's but it's good though like i don't have that that bar on my on my back and like you said it's compressing you and that's how you

get another louis simmons invention That fucking guy was a genius. The best. He was such a genius. That's like the method we do is like the conjugate. So we do a dynamic upper, dynamic lower, max effort, max effort. So a lot of, like we do a lot of sled pulls, backwards, forwards. So it's a lot of like the Louie, the Louie stuff. It's really good.

It's interesting when you see fighters training and like their strength conditioning routines because it's so hard to figure out what's the optimal balance between strength work and skill work and then we were talking about how gsp especially towards the end of his career all he did was do skills yeah yeah that's all he didn't really do any strength conditioning yeah well because if think about like the, like NFL, like if you go into the Eagles or the Steelers, like they might have different coaches and small things they do, but almost everything they're doing is going to be the same. Like they have that strength system figured out.

MMA guys, I know guys who don't work out at all. I know some guys who do bodybuilding. I know guys who do powerlifting programs. So no one has it like figured out yet to where, like maybe in 10, 20 years from now, they will. But right now, no one's got it figured out. So we're all kind of just trying to see what works best. Yeah, I think there's like the Sam Calavita method, which a lot of people really like.

Yeah, I was listening to Bo with, he's a wild man. He's amazing. Sam does some crazy shit. He does. But like you were saying, Bo, I think there's definitely a point of no return He's a wild man. He's amazing. Sam does some crazy shit. He does. But like you were saying, Bo, I think there's definitely a point of no return where you go too hard. And those workouts, like, they kind of start to pull away from all your skill training. Because if I have to recover for fucking four days from a bike workout, I just missed maybe potentially eight sessions that I could have been working on my skill. And that's something I'm still like I had to figure out.

Well, you know, Marv Marinovich, who was training BJ Penn, when BJ was the fucking man. Yeah. There was a time where, like people forget, there was a time when BJ was in his prime where I would put BJ against any 155 pounder that ever lived. He was a monster. And when he was training with Marinovich, they really didn't have him doing any skill training. It was almost all cardio and plyometrics and these dynamic sprinting things.

And their idea was like, BJ already knows how to fight. The problem is the gas tank. Like giving him a fucking insane gas tank where he can go as hard as he wants. So do your drills do your stuff but to put it but to have extensive mma training they're like for six weeks or eight weeks you already know how to fight yeah just six weeks eight weeks just we're gonna blow it out with this insane cardiovascular routine yeah and they got him in just fucking superhuman shape yeah

it's superhuman shape bj was yeah yeah Yeah, yeah. Sean Shirk, BJ. That knee against the cage. Oh, yeah. Joe Stevenson, when he beat Joe Stevenson. Yeah, yeah. That was a, he was a monster, man.

Did he move up to 70 before or after that? Well, he moved up to 70, I think, for fun. You know, because he didn't even really move up to 70. He just didn't diet.

Yeah, yeah. He probably walked down 170 pounds. Yeah. Because he was pudgy. Like he wasn't. When he beat Matt, Matt Sarah,

excuse me, Matt Hughes, he wasn't big. Yeah, no. It was just jiu-jitsu. And Matt Hughes was a monster. A monster.

A monster. He had that farm strength. He was jacked. He was fucking strong. And now, we all walk around close to 200 pounds. Isn't that wild?

Close to 200. Like I cut from, fight week I show up, I'm 190 pounds. What's the heaviest you ever get? I used to get heavy. I'd be like 205. But when I was younger, I'd go out after a fight and celebrate and eat like shit and drink. Now, I don't drink.

I don't drink alcohol. I don't eat bad. I ate a bad Sunday the day I got home from Austin with my wife and I felt like a piece of shit. I go so hard. I'm wife and I felt like a piece of shit. Like I go so hard. I'm like, I never want to feel like this again. So now, uh, like one 95, one 97 is like the heaviest I'll get. That was a big win for you though. You need to celebrate. Yeah, it was, but I needed, I needed to get back and, uh, I got into it, but one 95, um, like 10% body fat, like that's where my DEXA scan's at, and that's where I feel great, like 195.

And then I'll slowly get down to 190, and that's where I start my actual water cut from. So they weighed me in the back at that fight. I was 193 right before I fought Kelvin. Really? So you put 23 pounds on. 23, yeah. Wow. That's nuts.

How bad do you feel when you step on that scale? Not that bad. This last one was my i was on weight the night before i had um i had like probably three about like three liters of water that day before i even went to sleep so i woke up i was 178 on thursday i went to the sauna we went to like a fucking la fitness right by us i cut eight pounds by accident i cut all my weight i weighed myself in an hour. I was on weight. So I hit up, I worked with Charles from the PI.

Like they're the best. Hit him up, told him what happened. He was like, hey, like gave me the exact amounts to drink. And I was drinking and eating on Thursday. I think I put back on four pounds. I went to the sauna that night. I cut all of it in 30 minutes. I'm always on weight the night before.

I never, ever want to wake up and know I have to go cut weight because those sweats are so hard to break. Like when your body fat's that low to break that first sweat, like it's fucking hard. So I'd like to get on the night before and just be done with it. There's different schools of thought. Some guys like to just have a good night's sleep. They don't want to because they say they can't sleep when they're cutting. Yeah. I feel like you're already like you're already into that cut though. So you're like, if you're going to sleep bad, like you're going to,

I think you're going to sleep bad regardless. So I just rather not have that stress of like, fuck, I got to wake up and cut. I know guys who wake up, they cut 10, 15 pounds, but that's how we used to do it when the weigh-ins were at six o'clock.

Cause you had all that time. Now they're at nine. So I try to sleep till seven, get up. And then you have to be over there by eight, eight 30 30 try to be one of the first ones on the scale and then Just start hammering those hammering those liquids back in I Wish they would let people do IVs. I feel like if you're gonna allow people to have these massive cuts Yeah, we have better performances if you get let them do IV we used to fucking

Like we get hooked up with the IVs and we'd feel like Superman, like 10 pounds immediately. But the only negative aspect of it is they say that it can mask performance enhancing drugs. But I think the solution to that is

test the guys like as they're cutting. Yeah. Test the guys before they rehydrate. Yeah. Test them then. So that way you know

like they're not on, if you took something then, it's not going to help you in 10 hours. Guys are definitely still doing it though. They have to be. Guys are doing it,

100%. And now, with this new thing that we're under. You think guys are doing IVs? Oh, 100%. Really? 100%.

No shit. Yeah, because if you're, if guys are cheating and getting away, because guys are definitely getting away with taking PEDs, there's a way to get away with,

like how, what are they going to test for? The traces of the plastic in your blood i think that's it yeah but from what i heard that we're drinking shit that has plastic in it all the time so how are you going to know it's an iv that's a good question you know i was hoping that with this new thing with usada being done we were going to be able to iv but i was talking to charles from the pi he's. He said the science, I don't know behind it, but he was saying it's better orally to do it anyway. You're better off doing it with the amount of time we have than an IV. I'm like, hey, I get all my weight back

on. I can't complain. Why is it better orally? It seems like getting it right into your bloodstream would be quicker. Obviously, you do IVs. I used to, it'd be after cutting weight, so I'd be super bloated afterwards. I mean, you get bloated from drinking your liquid you have to put back in anyway,

but that's the only thing I'm thinking. Like, maybe it'll just fuck up your stomach more, but I don't know. It's such a weird balance. It is. And it's so interesting when you have something like the UFC PI, which is, like, super high-tech, super scientific.

They can tell you how much water to drink. And it used to be guys were just kind of winging it and they would fuck it up one time and get it right the next time. Like they give us a sheet. Cause I, we have a Joey Pfeiffer fighting December 10th. He has a main event. So I'm going to go out there, do all my tests, my testing and they give you a sheet. Like they know how many calories you burn at absolute rest. Like they know like your body, like better than you do. And they give you a sheet. Like know how many calories you burn at absolute rest like they know like your body like better than you do and they give you a sheet like after you uh weigh in you need 4,500 calories

you need like a thousand grams of carbs you need like all these different macros and it's fucking it's right there like it's do they provide you i know they do that with some fighters they give you like meal prep yeah like what how do how are they how are they doing that so they do it based on yeah each athlete your weight as far as i know yeah they um and i've like i've like hired other nutritionists and stuff like that but the pi does it great like it's free for all ufc fighters and if you're just in contact with them all the time like i am like they make it so easy for you and they they hand you your meals and they're like listen eat this eat this eat this and then you should be good to go.

Like, they're taking your weight. They tell you how much water to drink. Like, they make it pretty easy for us, you know. And do they provide you guys with supplements? Thorne. Thorne. Okay, so it's all set up for you. Yeah, so if you want all Thorne, like, now we have an app that we go on, and we can put in an order every month that we want.

So they do a lot of good shit for us. What are you not allowed to take? You're allowed to take creatine, right? Creatine. Creatine's okay? Any supplement that's third-party tested. So I use this company called Allmax. They have some things that are third-party tested and some things that aren't. So all the things that are third-party, I think it's Informed Choice. So Informed Choice, BSCGg like i take shroom tech from on it you guys have bscg i can take i can take that right um but if it didn't i like you you can take it but now it's at your own risk

so anything that's third-party test that we're good to go um but i thought going into this now like we'd be able to do more stuff and all they was asking Jeff about, I text Jeff Novinsky and I was asking about peptides. Like I just wanted to see like maybe for my hand or any, like just any injuries. I'm like, are we going to be allowed to take this? And it's an absolute no. Yeah. I was talking to them about that too. And as well as the new guy from Drug Free Sport.

Yeah. I forget his name. But the guy was taken over from USADA and they were saying no because peptides that you'll get popped for it at each individual Commission, yeah, so if you're in Florida and they don't allow it test there the Florida Commission will pop you for it Yeah, cuz I was asked him he said even if they didn't allow he said all the states like they won't give you it's quite A TUE some kind of exemption and they said none of them would do it So I'm like, all right, well, just good to know. But stem cells and stuff like that, as far as I know, that's all good to go.

Yeah, that's all good to go. Yeah, creatine, protein, all that shit. There's so many companies now who have third-party tested stuff. You can take plenty of stuff. Fish oil. And then if you don't want to go outside the realm, just stay with Thorne because their shit's super high quality. And the UFC gives it all that stuff to you for free. Yeah, yep, yep.

That's nice. Yeah. So do you ever do a camp at the PR or do your camps all in Philly? I've done all my camps in Philly, and that's something that I'm super proud and happy about. I'm born and raised in Philly. I never left. We have a small team. It's called Marquez MMA.

We have like six guys in the UFC right now. We have a small team. It's called Marquez MMA. We have like six guys in the UFC right now. We have me, Joey Pfeiffer, Pat Sabatini, Andre Petroski, Jeremiah Wells. So like we have a great crew. We got a good squad. We had Paul Felder.

Paul was like one of the first guys out of Philly. Besides, I train with Eddie Alvarez. So like we have a good group of Philly guys. That's nice. Yeah. I fought Christian Aguilera and I put him to sleep with a guillotine eddie was my main training partner because it was during covet he was fighting for one fc no one was training and he hit me up he's like yo are you guys training i was like fuck yeah we're training we had all of our windows like duck because in philly like

you weren't like they were shutting shit down and but we all had fights so we're like we're fucking training so me and eddie got super close during that when cormier fought um stipe he got coveted during camp and just trained right through just kept going i fought um first time when you interviewed me and you weren't even in the cage it was when they were still doing oh that was ridiculous jake matthews i had covet two weeks before the fight you remember that how crazy that? You just had a fucking cage fight. So you're on top of each other, sweating and pounding on each other. Everyone's tested.

I'm tested. All the announcers are tested. All the referees are tested. And we still couldn't be next to each other when I interviewed you. That was so dumb. So I had COVID two weeks before that. The only symptoms I had were I lost my taste and my smell which that fucking sucks for food right food and like i love drinking coffee especially when you're in camp and you're

cutting weight like that's the only like thing you really get to enjoy so um i get to i get to fight week show up because i tested negative before i got there i let the ufc know i get there i take my first test and so when you were getting tested, they would call, you get a text, you're good to go to work. All my coaches sitting around me all got their texts at 7am. My phone never goes off. I'm like, fuck. I'm like, something's not right. I get a phone call. They're like, hey, like you tested positive. I'm like, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like I had like, so I sent them my results. Like it was a false false it was a false um false positive so luckily i sent them all my stuff and let them know i had covid two weeks ago so like everything obviously went

through but like if i didn't do that they would have canceled my flight right there i was getting calls from the cdc because i was in vegas they're telling me um i can't leave the state like i can't fly home i was like fuck that i was like i'm flying i'm driving the next city over and i'm flying home if i can't fight like i'm not staying here so yeah that was uh what a wild time but still it's still lingering sort of they're trying to bring it a little bit in some ways i still see people like in restaurants i saw the other day i was a server was wearing a mask i was like okay the best is when you're in your car by yourself nuts you're by yourself There's no one around you. It's insane. Yeah, it's people are just insane. Yeah. Yeah, some people just lost their minds I mean they just yeah, they broke a few. Yeah. Yeah, and but the hospital is like

My wife's an RN and she said they're they're reinstating the mask mandate But I think it might be there's flu and then there's covid and shit so it's just not even scientific that's the thing it's not even based on science are you doing it to make people feel better yeah yeah because the science doesn't support mask use it just doesn't be uh before the kelvin fight like three weeks in um i had lost my taste and my smell i'm like i definitely have covid i've refused to test myself though i'm like I'm not testing myself. I'm not doing it. I trained and I'm like, because if I tested myself and if I had it, then I'd be like, fuck, I feel bad.

Are they testing anybody anymore? No, no, no, no. And I'm like, I'm just sick. I'm just normal, normal sick. You can get normal. I'm like, all I taste is metal for three weeks, but I'm like, I don't know what that is. Isn't it crazy though that it feels like normal sick,

but because you have this label on it, it not the same covet anymore it's just not yeah and they're still treating it like it's this deadly disease yeah i i don't know like i knew a few people who got like you got fucked up but people also get fucked up from the flu like people get fucked up from normal normal sicknesses so like yeah no it never i was just in bed for 10 days with the flu sick as shit sick as shit like no one shut anything down and that was that's normal but now like you said there's covid's attached to that and if you post about it or you say shit about it like these motherfuckers are trying to come at you and cancel you so like i try to like on social media you just gotta kind of gotta just sit back and let these crazy ass people just say their shit.

There's just so many insane people on social media. They're so insane. And COVID just gives them an excuse to be a cunt. Yeah. It just gives so many people an excuse to just yell at people. We're starting to get tired of it though. Like people like me and you and like people who want to just go about their life. And like two weeks in, I was back to my normal shit.

Like I was running. I was back to my normal shit like i was running i was doing all my shit like i thought like we weren't like i thought it was never going back like i'm like this is gonna be fucking nuts like i would go to parks and they'd have the parks closed yeah i mean you're telling me i can't go run uh a wooded trail by myself there's people in the then it would start people would start coming out they all had masks on i'm like you're in the woods and they were You were supposed to be Six feet apart from each other

Like what the fuck Are we doing here It's so silly They arrested a guy The Coast Guard got a guy Who was surfing This dude's On the ocean

By himself On a fucking surfboard And the Coast Guard Rolls up on this dude Pulled up on him Like yo Is this a good use Of resources folks

Like let's go buddy You're getting locked the fuck up. So dumb. Yeah. I'll never forget how dumb it was. It's like it's all kind of normalized now. Yeah, for sure. It was just a couple of years ago.

Everybody had lost their minds. Well, we look back at it. I'm like, it's not that long ago. Our whole country was just fucked up. And now we're just like, it's like it never happened. I'm like, this is crazy. Well, it seems more preposterous to MMA fighters or jiu-jitsu guys or anybody who does anything that's actually dangerous. Yeah, yeah.

Because you're doing something dangerous all the time. Yeah, yeah. And also, you're in supreme health and condition. Yeah. And then they ask you to do something ridiculous forever. Yep. Forever. Stay in your house for a year.

Like, what? That's the worst thing you can do. Yeah. It's terrible for you. But they don't want you to be healthy. They want you to be fat. They want you to be lazy. They don't want you working out.

They don't want you eating right. Well, they definitely want you to comply. Yeah. That was the most important thing that they wanted during that time. They wanted full compliance from people. Yeah. And if they could scare you into compliance,

that's the way they did it. It fucking worked for a lot of people. Boy did it scared the shit out of me because i was like oh my god there's so many pussies out here yeah there's so many people that will roll over for the government even if what they're saying doesn't make any sense even if it's not scientific it's just really disheartening but they even put us like it was almost like a position where i'm like damn like i'm not vaccinated i'm am I going to have to get this shot so I can fight? I'm like, then it's going to come like, do I retire because I don't want this fucking shot? I'm like, I don't know what the fuck to do.

So luckily it didn't come to that because choosing my career or getting that fucking shot, I don't know what I would have did. Well, I almost got the shot. The whole UFC, the UFC staff, they allocated all these vaccines. They had it set up. And so Dana and I were talking. He goes, if you want to get vaccinated, we have them for you. I go, great.

I wasn't even remotely hesitant in the beginning. Yeah, yeah. And just by luck, I get there on Saturday for the fight. And I call the doctor and I say, hey, I thought they could do it for me at the arena. Yeah. So I was going to do it, get vaccinated, and just call the friends. I mean, like, how bad could it be?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't hearing anything bad about it. And he said, no, we have to do it at the clinic. Can you come on Monday? And I said, I have to go home. I go, but we'll be back in two weeks because we had fights in two weeks. Yeah, yeah.

And then within two weeks, they pulled it. Shit got bad. That's when they pulled it. Yeah. When Johnson & Johnson was the one. And then within two weeks, they pulled it. Shit got bad. That's when they pulled it. Yeah. When Johnson & Johnson was won. And then I knew two dudes who got strokes. Two guys. It's like.

I was like, what is going on? And so then I started getting a little weird. And then I started like listening to these doctors that were speaking out against this technology. And then I listened to Dr. Robert Malone, he owns nine patents in the creation of mrna vaccine technology And he had a very severe reaction to the vaccine and he posted about his Reactions yeah, and then I had him on and then people started getting mad at me. Yeah, this guy's a legit. Yeah Yeah, well my my mom's a nurse too and um She got her like yearly flu shot and the chick who gave it to her,

like must've gave it to her wrong, like fucked her shoulder up. So like she had like problems in her shoulder. And then it came to the, getting the COVID shot. She's like, I'm not getting it. And it wasn't like any like,

like reason, like it wasn't like, she didn't know shit about COVID at the time. She's like, I just don't want to get another shot. So they were getting tested. They made, they made a super small window where they had to be there,

whether you had work or if you didn't have work, and you had to get tested like three times a week or some stupid shit like that. So they were making it super hard for the nurses who didn't get vaccinated to do their job. I'm like, yo, these are the people who are saving these fucking people who are coming in who are sick. And almost all of them get exposed to it,

and almost all of them develop immunity. Yeah. Naturally. Yeah, 100%. They were trying to pretend that natural immunity was bullshit i've heard people say it recently natural immunity has been debunked yeah like no it hasn't there's there's actual studies that show it was multiple times better than the vaccine yeah yeah when i uh when i faced craig jones in that grappling match my whole fucking team was sick and at that point we're like, none of us were getting tested. I'm like, dude, we definitely all have COVID.

But I'm like, I'm not getting tested. Like, I'm not doing it. Just because I feel like shit. I don't know if I'm run down or whatever it is, but I'm not saying it's COVID and I can't go do what I want to do this weekend. Like, I'm not doing it. When you do something like that,

like, so you're one of the most promising welterweight contenders in the sport you know as your career progresses you'll probably get a shot at a title within the next couple of years taking a grappling match is that's a risky move yeah especially against a world-class guy like craig jones yeah well it's funny because so only thing craig couldn't do in that match he couldn't heel hook me, but he could straight knee bar me, straight ankle lock me, anything besides heel hooks. So after the match, people were- Is that your idea? No, that's the UFC's.

So Fury was working with the UFC, and the UFC told him, hey, all UFC guys, just no heel hooks. Even Aldo just did that match for them, and the only thing they couldn't do was no heel hooks. i mean just because of like yeah yeah but like a leg lock or like craig or anyone else you still have all those other submissions you can do so it's not like you're getting handicapped that fucking bad where like people were giving me shit online like oh you had a handicap on this and i'm like i was like i'm a ufc fighter like this was the rules i didn't like he didn't make the rules. You could knee bar me.

You could straight ankle lock me. You could do all these other things. So, you could toe hold me. But, yeah. But I like that they don't do the heel hooks. Yeah, it is a risky one, man. I mean, how many guys have ripped their knee apart heel hooks? Oh, yeah.

It's bad. A lot. Yeah. A lot. Yeah. Did you see that Mikey Musumechi one in 1FC where the guy wouldn't tap? Horrible. Horrible.

Dude, I can't watch that one. He ripped that guy's knee up. I don't know how that guy's doing right now It's probably not doing well. I gotta imagine his knee is ruined for the rest of his life Was it um see if Stephen find that video because it's so hard to watch cuz Mike we were talking about Mikey before yeah Yeah, because he's calling out some dude. Who's a bully. Yeah, dude. He destroys this guy's knee I mean destroys it the guy won't tap. He's got him in a knee bar here the guy won't tap So now he adjusts and now he's ripping it sideways. I mean look at the guy's knee Look look at the motion of his knee. Oh So you see you see the way he's you see the way he's holding that yeah, he calls that the

You see the way he's holding that? Yeah. He calls that the Mikey lock. Yeah. And the guys I train with at Movement Art, they show it. And, dude, it's nasty. He's a monster, man. Yeah. He's so good.

Yeah. I heard he does very well against all the biggest, like, even guys who are a lot bigger than him. Oh, I'm sure. He's so technical. Well, we were just talking about Craig. How about Craig versus Vinny? Oh, yeah. Broke his leg. Broke his leg.

Broke his leg and Vinny wouldn't tap. I'm like, bro. And Craig's like, your leg's broken. Craig's like, your leg is broken. And then he went again. And then he finally was like, all right, I'm done. I'm done. Insane.

But yeah, I did that match with Craig and I did another one with Ben Saunders. And it was the same thing. Same rules, just no heel hook. Yeah, but beating Craig Jones in a grappling match, even if there's no heel hooks so yeah but beating craig jones in a grappling match even if there's no heel yeah yeah that was gigantic i just went into it i'm like i'm gonna stay on top i'd played by the rules and i'm like if he doesn't sweep me or get under me like i'm gonna win and then like he there was odds for it i was like uh like he was i was like an like an 18 to 1 underdog or something like that he was supposed to smoke me but you should have but like

people were giving me shit online. I'm like, listen, I just went in there and just did what I knew I was going to do, and that was it. Oh, so this is what the guy, what happened with the dude. Torn ACL, torn MCL, torn meniscus, and a broken ankle.

Oh my God. So Mikey said, I'm really sick to my stomach. I never felt someone's leg explode like that in a match. Oh my God. So Mikey said, I'm really sick to my stomach. I never felt someone's leg explode like that in a match. Oh my God. He goes, I've been training for 22 years. I never broke someone's leg that much. I've broken a lot of legs, he said, but that leg exploded. I didn't know what to do and it was disgusting and gross.

I really wish he tapped. The result didn't change and now he's in the hospital. So I don't know. But what a warrior is for showing his will. I mean, the dude is a warrior but i mean that's crazy you gotta tap you're losing anyway for for sure tap anything knees shoulders like i'd rather almost not tap maybe in a like if i'm gonna pick something it'd be like an arm straight arm bar where's the camora like your shoulder you're not just the, but that spiral fracture, like when Frank Mir

gave it to Minotauro and you see his arm snap. Just like a chicken wing. Oh, that guy... You're done. Oh, that one's so scary. And Minotauro, he had a giant scar

up his arm where it was like it was a spiral fracture. When he rolled through the way he did, it was beautiful. When he turned it and he hit a snap.

Put it behind his back. Oh, done. God. Frank Mir has broken two arms of world champions. Who else did he do? Tim Sylvia. Yeah.

Remember that? Snapped his forearm in half. He was good. I was just watching him versus DC the other day. When I'm on the echo bike, I always just watch fights and I was watching

him versus DC and I'm like, damn, DC was a motherfucker back in the day dude and he was not even really a heavyweight no I mean he was so small DC could have been a 185 you're so small yeah look at him look at him I mean he carried around so much body fat but his wrestling was so fucking high level man and he's such a tank the Outside, like, high crotches he would hit when he dumps the dudes. Yeah. No, DC was the man.

And he was actually hurting Frank on the— I don't think there was one takedown scored on, like, either side here. I think they just struck the whole time, but, like, DC kind of just put it on him. DC was an animal, man. Yeah. And, you know, that was one of those things, you know, iron sharpens iron. Cause DC was training with Cain Velasquez. Cain was the fucking man. Cain was, that's another guy. Like when people look at all time greats, you got to look at them when they're in their prime. Yeah. You know, sometimes guys get injured, they fall apart, things happen,

they're, they get old. And then you look at these fights where they're getting beaten up. You can't look at those fights. You got to look at the fights, fights where they're getting beaten up you can't look at those fights you gotta look at the fights like when they're at their highest RPMs how do they perform Anderson same thing like guys who are watching fights now

I'm like you guys don't I remember they came to Philly it was Anderson versus Forrest Griffin like that's when I first got like in the watching fights

I think it was 2009 and he did that like step back and was fucking dipping the punches and hit him once and Forrest just quit. I'm like, this guy's a fucking, he's the best. And he moved up to 205 for that. I heard that Forrest, though, got knocked out twice in camp for that fight. That's what I had heard.

Oh, happens all the time. And I think that's true because I think Forrest at that time was, you know, Forrest is, look at it. It's like. He wanted to help him up. Jesus. Right here. He's just like. It was just complete different levels.

I think he ran out of the arena. Yeah, it's that right hand. Yeah. That's it. Forrest was like, that's it. But I genuinely think think genuinely think that those concussions that he got in camp had an effect yeah there's quite a few times where you see guys fight and you're like man something's wrong yeah i got knocked out too easy yeah and then you'll hear oh

he got knocked out in training two weeks ago and and that and even if you don't get knocked out like you're fucking getting hit in your head you might not be going out but like i definitely left practice before and i'm like damn like i'm fuzzy you know like guys are definitely and like we're pretty controlled like i only go with guys i trust too like and that's something i think like you have to do like guys i only try like don't like yeah injuries can happen but i'm not i'm not going to try to knock you out you're not going to try to knock me out and you have that like a glance because that's how like a small team like our team like all of us came up in the same gym like we all we only have like we have one head coach we just brought in like Dean I'm working with Dean Thomas now but

like I love Dean the best he's coming he's coming down to Philly all the time he was in my corner for that fight and uh great addition to the team But he loves our team because we're a small team, but we just fucking, we just grind. And we just want everyone to keep getting better. But John Marquez is our head coach. And, like, we go hard. But now, like, if it gets out of control, like, he steps right in and shuts that shit down. That's great. We're all wearing headgear now.

I got this. I fucking hate headgear, though, because I just feel like you get hit more. So I got headgear from Onyx. it's the small one and it's it's thin you can actually see like it's trevor whitman's yep yeah i hit up i hit them up and uh they sent it right out to me and it's good like because you can grapple with he makes the best shit best shit the best shit the best gloves they sent me gloves and i was like yo can i get your mma gloves like i'll pay whatever cost and gaethje was like nah, nah, they're not out yet. I'm like, all right, well, when they're out.

Dude, the UFC, I don't know what happened. I don't know how it went wrong. But the UFC was talking to Trevor about using his MMA gloves. He has absolutely superior MMA gloves. They're the best. No one even comes close. And when you make a fist with those, it actually it encourages

a closed fist you have to work just to open your hands like this you have to actually work against the glove whereas the ufc gloves they kind of open your hand up more and you have to work to close it the arm like you you fucking know that arm pump we get from when i put like i get the smallest hand wraps like i tell whoever's up i'm like give me a from when i put like i get the smallest hand wraps like i tell whoever's up i'm like give me a grappler's wrap like i almost want nothing because once you have that wrap on you have the glove on like when you're trying to close your fist i'm like i'm getting fucking arm pump just from trying to close my fucking hand right after the fight like you're like my forearms are like double the size because the arm pump you have from grappling right so

there's got to be like there's got to be i'm telling you it's trevor's gloves i mean i should probably reinstitute these talks and try to get it going again i really should you know what i'm gonna do that because they're superior they're absolutely the best it's a problem it's a it's a problem i don't know what happened what went wrong but trevor uses superior foam yeah like. Like, he, like, if you use his boxing gloves. Oh, I have them. They're great. They're the best. They mold to your hand. Yeah, they're the best. They mold to your hand. And it's also their superior protection, too. Yeah.

Like, he'll show, like, he's done demonstrations where he shows how much better the foam he uses to other cheaper foams. Well, because it's fighters making stuff for fighters. Right. It's not people who aren't doing it. Right. Like, Gaethje's the best one to do it. Right. And then, obviously, Trevor, too. Like, they they're an amazing combo and they're making amazing shit like the headgear is great because headgear is like your window's this big next thing you know like you're trying

to kickbox and you can't see the guy's legs you're getting fucking kicked in the head exactly and uh you're trying to shoot you're shooting into a knee but his like super wide and it's so thin and you're really just wearing it to prevent cuts right because like realistically if you have a big ass headgear on like when i see someone wearing a headgear i'm like i'm like that's a bigger fucking target like it's gonna be easier to hit but with a small one it's just enough padding yeah just enough to keep you remember mike tyson back in the day he's with a real thin one yeah real thin one when he was training it was almost like a it's almost like a like a wrestling like headgear yeah yeah i think that's uh the way to go and i think that you know it's it's just unfortunate

that there's no other way around it there's nothing better yeah you know there's no like better solution if you want to prevent cuts yeah kicking and punching yeah yeah i do i do not like like when people have the face bar and there's like you can't see i wore that um for a while like i broke it i broke my nose so many times but in the beginning of training camps like i like broke my nose so you have to spar the entire camp with that nose guard and it fucking sucks and it still touches your nose and you probably get fucked up more with it on like definitely get more head shots like oh yeah because you can't see yeah, because you can't see shit. With a big headgear, yeah. You can't see shit. And that bar, it sticks out, like, this far. So that bar gets touched, and it would touch your nose.

So I would even wear, like, you see basketball players? Right. The one basketball player always wore it. I forget what his name was. But I would wear this plastic shield on my face, even when I would roll, because my nose would be fucked up. I'm like, I can't miss training. And that's, like, what we were talking about earlier.

I'm like, maybe I should stay the fuck home. But I'd be in the gym. I was duct taping it to my head and shit. But yeah, it's getting better with the innovation, but we got a long way to go though. So you were telling me that you had hurt your hand in the Kelvin fight, but it's not a break. Not a break.

So it's just, you're just trying to like, let it rehab or recover. So I'm trying to, and that's like me trying to be smart a little bit. At my older age of 31 there, I'm just trying to let it heal. And before I get back, I just don't want to start another training camp with an injury. Whereas before I would do that. But yeah, I'm just trying to be smart.

Like maybe get some stem cells and like some shit like that. And just rest it. Let me see if Brigham got back to me. Not yet. I'll call him. I'll call him when we get out of here. But I think we can get in there. But yeah, just rest.

Yeah. And rest. But I can still work on my kicks. I can still punch. And so, yeah. You're always getting in training. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was a big win for you, man. Kelvin, I really think, and I've said this to Kelvin. This is back when he was fighting at 85 after he knocked out Bisping. I was like, dude, I think you're a world champion at 170. I really do. This was years ago. He just didn't want to make that weight cut. And he's not a big guy.

He's not big, man. He's not. He's not even big for 170. No, he's not. Guys like Philly. Yeah. Even when I grabbed him, I was like, oh, these are the easiest takedowns I've ever gotten in my life. I couldn't believe how easy it was to get him down.

And even when I wrapped around his legs, he has a big framed upper body, but his legs, I would lock under his butt. They're small. And it was so easy to take him down. And yeah, like I was saying to you earlier, like, I walk around 195, 200. Like, most guys, like, we're not, like, I think he's better off at middleweight. Because I think he found a niche where he was a lot faster than a lot of those guys. So, like, Bisbee, he was, like, in and out on him. Tim Kennedy, like, all these guys, he was fucking up with his hands.

He was just a lot faster then. Well, the Tim Kennedy fight, I know for sure for a fact that tim kennedy over trained yeah and that that's what because tim kennedy who's known for his cardio gassed out in that fight and i watched that fight a million times yeah it's studying it's the fight sucks because tim's a friend yeah i watched him get beat up yeah because i know how good he is like when he beat bisping like tim kennedy was a fucking monster he uh but yeah and he just he went through two camps in a row yeah and it's almost like in our minds we think always we always think more is better yeah and when i'll take a day off now or even just a session like

a night session and i'll come in the next day and i'm like and you want to get after it more like it gives you that like right i fucking can't wait to get back in there. And then you feel fresh when you go into that. Like, we'll train till 8.30, 9 o'clock at night. And then we have practice at 9.30 the next morning. So, like, you're at the gym. You go home. You sleep. You're right back at the gym.

Like, I do the same drive from my house to the gym. So, like, I just, I could close my eyes and drive there. Because, like, I'm there all day fucking long. But when you have those little breaks in between you go back in you're like alright Like I can't wait to fucking get back in here Yeah, that was interesting talking to Bo nickel about that because Bo takes two days off a week Yeah, and I listen to that and I was like, why do you do that? And he's like it just it's the right way to do it. It's Sundays are my day like I'd like

Like I try to do nothing. Like, not lift. Like, I'll go on, like, a long walk or, like, walk my dog or run my dog or something like that. But I try no training on Sunday regardless. But I think two days is probably, like, the way to go. Or even, like, Thursday, like, I'll do a jiu-jitsu session in the morning and take the rest of the day off. And that will be, like, a lighter day or something like that because we're doing something like i've counted my sessions and by the end of it including like every workout i do i'm at like 22 or 23 workouts in a week like like there's no other sport like it's nuts it's nuts and then we start like i'm eating like 3 000 calories 2700 25 and i'm cutting my calories down like and you're

still and we still in our minds we're like we have to keep that same that same workload yeah or ramp it up even more because when you're in camp you're trying to you're going a little bit harder so it's a motherfucker it's gotta fuck with your mind yeah yeah especially when you're cutting the calories oh yeah because you're like damn like i'm supposed to feel this way and i fucking feel like shit yeah you know and you know fights four weeks out three weeks out two weeks and then if you miss a session that's where you're like like oh shit like he's fucking training you know and i'm not fucking training so that but that's where you gotta be like like i'm i'm recovering like you gotta trust the process yeah like i have the sauna i have the ice i have the like norman tech boots like i have all these

things but even just like sleep like i'm in bed in training camp like no later than 9 30 i have like 9 30 at night i'm asleep and i'm up at six like no matter what my schedule is like i'm fucking on that shit and that's the bet like sleep is the number one thing you can do 100 yeah that's the superpower yeah tito ortiz used to sleep 12 hours a night. I wish I could sleep 12 hours a night. Yeah, he would fucking close all the windows, the shades, make the room dark as fuck, and just conk out all night. I think eight hours is minimum seven, seven to nine. But if I get eight hours, I feel like that's the sweet spot for me. I feel good.

It is interesting that this sport, which is relatively the ufc didn't even exist before 1993 and yet guys you know here in 2024 are still kind of just dialing it in yeah and there's no there's no like established protocol that everyone uses everyone's got their own kind of methods they're using yeah different individual coaches yeah well even like like i know guys who are high level fighters who don't know dick about nutrition don't know dick about nutrition recovery nothing i'm like and they're just like just naturally talented and i'm like man like these guys don't even know like yeah so it's it is crazy it's gonna be crazy to see where it goes but um like you were saying about tim though i hit up tim before i was coming out here before my my hand was hurting me too

much i was going to try to work out with him because he does some fucking hard ass workouts and i love that shit so he told me he was traveling but um i'm gonna come back and like train with gordon and train with tim and because tim's a motherfucker. He's a savage, bro. No, he does some animal shit. Yeah. His cardio sessions are legendary. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. On the, like, the skier, I love that shit. Yeah.

It'd be super fun to get in on that. And the guy's not even fighting anymore. No. He's still in fucking tip-top, mcgoo shape. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's an animal. He's jacked.

Yeah, and that fight always bothered me, that Kelvin fight, because I knew what was wrong with him. Yeah. Because I knew he had had a fight. He went into camp, and then the fight got canceled, and then it got rescheduled. Yeah. He either got rescheduled or got a new opponent.

I remember which happened. But then he went right back into camp. So he's essentially in camp for like- Probably 16 weeks. Yeah, something nuts. Where you can't. You just can't do that. You can't.

Your body's gonna break down and then you're caught in weight and then you have to gain the weight back because you don't want to stay too low like that's that's where it starts to get like like this is fucked up like i need to let my body like my body recover like there's some guys where i look at them and i'm like how are you making like joe how are you making 185 joe Piper yeah he's a big boy how you making 185 big boy that doesn't even make sense he's so big yeah he uh he's so fucking big man he gets like 215 220 that's it yeah no he doesn't get that bigger than that he looks like 230 no no no he looks big yeah he does he does but he's in the octagon this is a heavyweight almost yeah he um but like 215 220

for him he's got a big fight coming up he's fighting Hermanson that's right at a main event yeah that's a good fight yeah that's a good fight

that motherfucker hits so hard we should tell everybody that he broke Francis Ngannou's record on that punch machine and they weren't

trying to give it to him or something like that yeah they didn't want to register it which is I don't understand why I've trained why didn't he want to give it to him I don't know. I don't understand why. I've trained and been hit by-

Why didn't he want to give it to you? I don't know. The guy was saying something was weird with the machine, and Joey was like- He did it like three times. Like, three times in a row. Oh, so the guy didn't want to believe it. Yeah.

He didn't believe that it was real. Like, how hard Joey was hitting it. Like, Joey cracks. He's by far the hardest person I've ever been hit by. Who was his last fight? Who was his last fight against? Abdul... Al-hassan. Holy shit.

He submitted him. Yeah, but bro, he was putting it on him before that. Yeah, yeah. He's on another level right now. Joe's good. He's on another, but there's a real clear difference every time you see him in the octagon. He's just getting better. Like at a high accelerated rate.

Yeah. Like I said, me, him, Jeremiah andre petroski is another one like dude we have a fucking we have a good squad and we just it's a small small gym in philly we're on a fucking four four and like an old warehouse and uh and a pretty bad neighborhood in philly so but it's awesome like well there's like a there's two schools of thought right there's one school of thought you should be in the biggest camp possible like ATT they're bringing in people but you know I've talked to guys that train there and go yeah but then you're in these sparring sessions with these Russian guys you've never heard of and they're fucking straight up killers and that's the creed we're starting to get it in like we have a good group of Russian guys coming

in I have this kid Igor he's like my main training partner i think he's four and oh kids came over as a refugee from ukraine he's one of the he's a fucking savage dude he got carjacked in philly whoa bro if i don't know if jamie can go on my instagram it's pinned to the top he was delivering for uber eats and um got two guys came up to him they showed him his gun and he didn't know what was going on he gets he walks over his car they're fucking stealing his car he's hanging on the side of the car they're going 40 miles an hour they shoot at him two Gun and he didn't know what was going on he gets he walks over his car. They're fucking stealing his car He's hanging on the side of the car. They're going 40 miles an hour. They shoot at him two times Oh my god, they shot at him while he was shot at him two times. Yeah. Oh my god They say get out of this

They point a gun at him right here, and then he's like alright Let me off the dude told him like I'm gonna fucking shoot you and he finally gets off like In the beginning of the video you can hear him he gets shot at fucking film in this so uh just some dude in a car behind him Did they ever find the car no they didn't so we actually started a Sort of go fund me for him, and I've raised like 15 grand for him, and he got a new car I started a GoFundMe for him, and I raised like 15 grand for him, and he got a new car. Oh, wow.

But yeah, they shoot at him. And what people don't realize, he's hanging on this car. They're like, oh, why won't he just let it go? His documents are all in the car. So all the money these guys have to pay for lawyers and shit like that, yeah, all of his shit was in his car. And he just came from practice and was fucking doing Uber Eats. So he doesn't have any money to fucking pay these lawyers and shit wow crazy but philly's wild yeah philly's philly's wild philly i i carry everywhere i go in philly i do um i don't know fuck around but his best friends um yaroslav ams yaroslav from um bellator i don't know how to say his last name he's gonna

come over and train with us too. Nice. So like we, like I brought in Drew Dober in my last camp. So we have Neil Magny come in. Eric Anders was just up. So like our gym's starting to get recognized, which is cool. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's cool. Well, I mean, for a small gym, you got six guys fighting in the UFC and a bunch of fucking real killers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's cool. That's amazing.

Yeah. And we got like Pat's fighting in AC. Andre's fighting in AC. So we'll all be only kind of like like fighting around the same times which there's nothing better than that like when your teammates are fighting and you're in camp sucks being in camp when you're by like by yourself you're like fuck when you went to the balal fight were you were you 13 and 0 14 15 15 and oh wow yeah 15 and now that's a bitter pill to swallow right yeah it sucked

like it was the like I thought it was gonna be the worst thing that ever happened to me and I kinda going into that like I just didn't feel right like travel

first time I've ever left the country like I've never been outside of the United States travel there all my coaches were getting sick they were all

like super jet lagged and all week I just kept having these like like thought I'm like I'm gonna lose this fucking fight and uh usually like you have those thoughts but i couldn't i couldn't like flip my mind back to like yo you're gonna win this shit because you always have doubts but i would have i was having dreams i was gonna lose and i'm like dude like i can't get this out of my head and i told my wife like the day before i'm

like i was like i had a dream last night i lost and um I thought when I lost like I thought being undefeated like it gets tied to you everyone sees you they're like you're gonna fucking be the champion you're gonna stay undefeated you're gonna return like then you become like you're like damn like I'm not even fighting to win this fight I'm just fighting just to stay undefeated if that makes sense like I'm like I can't lose this record and then uh in the fight, first round, like, it was real, like, it was super competitive. I went back and watched it. And I thought I did a lot better than I thought I did. And then in the second, like, I got clipped.

And I was, like, there the entire time. But I just couldn't throw. I'm like, I was just like, I just kind of quit. Like, I was like, I just didn't know what to do in that moment. And that's the only time I ever quit on myself, like practice, anything. And ever since then, like I started working with two mental performance coaches and I'm just like a completely different person now, but it's the best thing that ever happened to me.

That's a lot of times fighters say that it's like, you need to feel the sting of defeat. I'm telling you, Joe, the minute I lost, it felt like, like a fucking, sting of defeat i'm telling you the minute i lost it felt like like a fucking like a bronco was lifted off my shoulders like i was so like i was like yo like this is going to be this is going to be the best thing that ever happened to me because the just the pressure of being undefeated let it go like every time like i was going to a fight i'm like i had the pressure of not only just losing and what comes with losing, but I'm like, if I lose my record, like no one, like it's, it's over. And then I'm like, it's one fucking fight. Like I've won 15 fights in a row. I lost one fight. Like it's not how it works. And I just thought like, I just thought like my life was going to like implode and it

didn't, you know, um, I had a hard, like I said, I came home and I definitely trained way too hard because I wanted to come back and fight again. And I fucked myself up doing that. But that even gave me more time to sit and reflect with myself and just get my shit right and realize it doesn't mean everything to be undefeated. The best fighters in the world take losses. And yeah, I needed that for sure. Yeah, the only one who didn't is Jon. Jon Jones, the only one who didn't. But. Jon Jones, the only one who didn't. But if Khabib,

if he would have stuck around long enough, you know, so you never, he had a couple close ones, close one with Gleason Tebow. Gleason Tebow is very debatable. I watched that fight a lot. Go back and watch it again.

Yeah, very close. But, we're all, it's, you have a 50% chance of going, you're going to win or you're going to lose. And when you're fighting the best guys in the world, like,

Bilal's good. Like, I know I can beat Bilal, but I'm happy for him to, went on he beat Gilbert He's gonna fight for the belt next and I'll win that established is he definitely fighting for the belt next they haven't announced it But there's nobody else. No, I would hope nobody. Yeah, he he deserves he deserves he deserves it 100% He's being the most guys in the top ten, you know, like, he deserves. I think he's on a 10 fight win streak. Yeah, he deserves it. Yeah. And I think he has a good chance of doing really well. And they also fought before he got eye poked.

Yeah. So it's, it's, it's there for him. Like, he deserves it and he should get it. And I'm happy for him. He fucking, I don't know why he gets so much hate. Like, he's not, he's not a bad, he's not a bad dude. He's a great guy. He trains fucking hard and. He won't even swear. Yeah. You know when he was in's not a bad, he's not a bad dude. He trains fucking hard.

And, he won't even swear. Yeah. You know, when he was in here, I'm fucking cursing a million times. He would say, what the fudge?

Yeah. It's like, what the fudge? You're a goddamn cage fighter. Yeah. He gets a lot, a lot of hate, but I'm happy for him.

And that's going to be a good, uh, it's going to be a good fight. He's a big guy for 170, man. Yeah. Bilal's very large. Yeah. You know, he's not a small 170 at all. No, it's going to be, that's going to be a good fight. He's a big guy for 170 man. Yeah, the laws are very yeah. Yeah

Yeah, you know he's not a small one so no no it's gonna be it's gonna be a good fight very good I uh, I wasn't super like I wasn't super impressed with that Colby Leon fight you weren't no definitely not on Colby side. No that's the first with Leon I want the I want the Colby fight. I think that the problem in that Colby fight is Leon. He was so dangerous. He was so sharp. Yeah. He's so technical on his feet.

And I think in that fight he was, you know, because Colby talked so much shit. I think he was really. The shit with his dad was fucked up. Fucked up. You don't, like, say whatever you want about me, my team, whatever. But, like, you start talking about people's,'s like their parents, their wives, their kids, especially if one of them's dead. Like you're a fucking, like that shit you get fucked up in the parking lot for.

Like you don't do shit like that. You know what I'm saying? So. Well, you know, that's Colby. He's the master at getting under people's skin. But I think in that fight it backfired. And he looked like I was watching. I'm like, what the, like, I didn't know what was happening with him.

Like he just wasn't doing anything. No, he didn't look good. And then Leon shot on him and was like, I think he wanted to just make a point. I can take you down. And he did. No, Leon's fucking good. Yeah, his grappling is very good. Leon's good.

But it almost, he got reversed a couple of times. So he shot, and then Colby kind of switched it up. And Colby wanted him on top. Yeah. Well, I think that was where the tactical errors were made. And, you know, that's what I was critiquing at the fight. I was like, I don't think he fought the smartest way. Yeah. Because I think he could have avoided those exchanges.

And he had this massive advantage in the standoff. Super clean. Like, he would have came out of that fight, like, unscathed. Unscathed. If he didn't do that. But, yeah. He still won the fight handily. Yeah.

But at the end of the fight when colby's on top of him at the very end of the fight that doesn't look good no no that's yeah you know he won yeah he looked great and on the feet man he is so sharp his south ball is um that's really fucking good he's sharp yeah no he's good and he's long he's big too we're all fucking all 70 pounders are big yeah there's the day of the 70 pounder walking around at 7 here Those are gone long gone 55 gone Paul used to get up to 200 pounds when he'd fight at 55 I would like dude. He's like I weigh 203 right now. I'll be bro. You're 8 pounds heavier than me Like but he'd be like fat like he'd be drinking IPAs and like after he would fight he would get huge like Patti Pimblitt fat

Not that fat that boy is fat he got fat so quick and see him in december after his fight his face he just goes on i'm like dude like you're going to a different but we have like fighters have fucking eating disorders like we 100 all have eating disorders because you're eating this way and then you're cutting out food and then you're craving all these foods like It's a fucking it's a it's a wild wild way to live but Look all fat and happy look how tight that shirt is on him. He is so crazy how much weight he gains It's so nuts because he was sure ready. Yeah during that fight. Yeah, he He gets big he does does. He gets big. You know, he got a lot of shit

from that Tony Ferguson fight, but I was very impressed. I was very impressed with his grappling. I was impressed with his striking. I think everything looked better. And at the end of the day, he won the fight. Yeah, 100%.

He found a way to win. He definitely, the third round got a little sketchy, but he found a way to win. Yeah, but people saying that he didn't look good, and it's just, I thought he looked great.

You know, Tony Ferguson is still dangerous. Yeah. He's he's still dangerous i mean he was dangerous in the gaethje fight until gaethje started beating him up yeah he was you know dangerous in the chandler drop chandler yeah like he's still fucking dangerous man yeah i don't think people realize like you go in there and you have 15 minutes and you could have woke up that day had the fucking worst headache like you could feel like shit or it just could not be your night, you know? So that's why, like, in that moment, you have to make the best of it. But some days, it's just not your day. You know what I'm saying?

But in the gym, like, you get that day, you get to go back the next day. But a guy like Tony, like, at what point does someone step in? Now. You think? Yeah, it has to be. It's, what, six or seven fights? I think it's seven in now? You think? Yeah, it has to be, it's what, six or seven fights. I think it's seven.

It's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he's not, and it's not like, if you were to win that fight, I would still like to see like, I,

me and my buddy, I was cheering Tony, Tony. And I, anytime he would do anything just cause I fucking love Tony Ferguson, but it's time. Like, yeah.

And, uh, like it was awesome. Like having Goggins there and all that shit but like like just hanging up like you're just doing more damage you know I also don't know what he's doing in training like the Goggins stuff is great and everything like that but who is he sparring with is he sparring you know is he are you doing skill work yeah I don't know what he's doing like if you're gonna do this shit with Goggins, like do that outside of training

camp. Do that. Like when you don't have a fight, you build up that aerobic capacity when you're not getting ready for a fight. Like I'm sure he was, but it kind of seems like he always just did whatever he wanted to do. Yeah. You know, like.

Well, it worked for a long time when he was the boogeyman. He was fucking everybody up. Those chokes that he was hitting on people, the Darces. Yep. That's in Barbosa fight. He would lock that he was hitting on people, the Darces. Yep. That's in Barboza fight. He would lock that shit on you and you were done. Cowboy, he was cutting cowboy up. Pettis.

Pettis. He was fucking people up. Tony was a real scary man for many, many years. Then he tripped on one cord. Isn't that crazy? And it all changed. Isn't that fucking crazy? Getting ready for the Khabib fight, Madison Square Garden.

Trip on a court Massive fight And your knee is done Just blows his knee out Doesn't make any sense And then he came back from that super fast Beat Pettis Yeah

Oh he won after that Oh yeah Oh he beat Pettis after that Beat the shit out of Pettis I remember the fight He beat the shit out of Pettis But I didn't know I didn't know if that was before or after

No that was after That was his comeback fight Damn Cause Pettis was kicking the shit out of that leg. Yeah. And it was only, if I want to remember correctly, five months or so after the surgery? It was like five or seven months. It was short.

Very quick. Fucking short. And I don't know shit about knees, but I know that sounds very short. It was ridiculously short. When I talked to people that knew about that surgery and knew about how bad his knee was, he did his own rehab of course yeah he's just amazing yeah but he was the man he's a man but i think uh i think it's that time like father time yeah wins all fights yeah like him it was nice to see cowboy

be done when he was done because like i was telling you earlier being a cowboy when cowboy was on he i think he was the best fighter in the fucking world. He was so goddamn good and He would fuck us all up down at the ranch like me Jonathan Webb Paul he would be the shit out of everybody and then Yeah, like even Jim Miller I remember him head kicking Jim Miller when they first fought in AC knocked him out and then his last fight was Jim Miller and Jim got the best of him. So it's like, all right, it's time to—

Yeah, at a certain point in time. But he knew. But look at him now. He's fucking all soft stuff. He's fucking—he looks great. He's jacked. I love it, dude. He looks—

Got a hair transplant. He looks—and that's another thing I think—like, I just did—I started working with Merrick Health. I just did all my blood work last week, so I'm waiting that just to like see where we're at like after fights, you know So I check my testosterone just check check all my shit I'm trying to like really like dial all that shit in and a lot of guys don't do that, you know Well, I think if you want to compete against the best the best you got across all your T's and all your eyes You got to make sure every your ducks are in a row. And the difference between the guys who are just super talented,

who don't take care of nutrition and still perform at a very high level, and the guys who are also talented like yourself, but dial everything in. That's how you become a champion. That makes a difference, yeah. Because even when I'm done fighting, I'm going right into jiu-jitsu. I can't wait to compete in jiu-jitsu. That's going to be, like, so fun. Because no-gi is getting so fucking big now.

And, like, you got guys like Wagner. He's, like, 45 years old, still competing and winning. So I'm super excited to get into that, too, you know. But I got a lot more fighting in me. Do you think when you stop fighting MMA, you'll compete in jiu-jitsu? Oh, that's what I want to do. Really? Yeah, yeah.

And, obviously, like, I want to open a gym one day, but I want to compete just straight jiu-jitsu, like no gi. I did gi for 10 years, so I did gi for a long time. I haven't done it in a while because I feel like to a certain point, it's like, all right, I've done this. I'll pick it up when I'm done for sure, but I love just hard, like no gi. I love it. It's so fucking fun to me.

And it's getting so big. These guys are ADCC. It's at T-Mobile next year. Isn't that wild? Gordon, and he's the fucking best. I was at the last one that they did ADC in Vegas, and it was an enormous place. Yeah.

And like you said, it's getting huge. I didn't realize he was sitting next to you at the fights when I was talking to you. He's the man. I was going to train with him this week. I can't wait to train with him though. But I remember seeing those guys back at Henzo's because I was going up to Henzo's a couple times a week training

in the blue basement and I'd see Gordon and Craig when they were all still together and they were savages back then and they're still fucking doing it. It's crazy. Yeah, he's completely extraordinary. When you look at a guy who's 28 years old, he's universally accepted as the greatest ever. Next.

That's nuts. He's next level. And that motherfucker doesn't take a day off. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy. No days off. Crazy.

365 days a year they're training. They're working on something. And I'm sure they're training hard. Training hard and working on skills. And they watch tape. Yeah. And they break technique down. It's not just like, ah, good enough, go on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. it's not just like uh good enough go on yeah

that's very systematic yeah and that john donner having that guy as your coach what a fucking cheat code that is i've seen the room it'll be like john gordon gsp will be in there i'm like dude this room is fucking is crazy that like the people that they would have in there so you're only four you're going to get better regardless you know I remember seeing GSP's corner it'd be like John Donahair Frasahabi Greg Jackson back when he would fight like he was so ahead of his time like with

like doing shit like that like yeah there's I think GSP's he's like my like goat of MMA just the way like being a true martial artist like even how he is now like guys when they're done they get fat. Like, guys, when they're done, they get fat. They're done training. Like, once they're done fighting, like, they're done.

He, like, still trains. He probably looks better now than he did back then, so. No, he's in great shape. I'm trying to follow that, for sure. Well, he keeps coming down here to train. I see him in Austin all the time. He's here all the time. I'm like, I'm surprised he doesn't move down here.

Well, he just comes down to train. Yeah. I think he likes Montreal. Yeah i don't yeah that gym kind of uh tri-star was the shit for a while amazing haven't heard like too many guys coming out of there now i just feel like there's there's so many gyms now there's so many more gyms like but it was gsp they had rory mcdonald rory was rory was a. I remember watching him in his prime. I was young. I'm like this fucking guy He's great. He was pretty fucking sharp He was very very couple of those wars though with

Robbie definitely shortened his career. It was very nice seeing Robbie go out like yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was beautiful Yeah, it was a Barbarina, right? No, it was Who fuck It was Barbarina, right? No, it was... Who? Fuck. I thought it was Brian Barbarina. No. God damn it.

It's at the tip of my tongue. I'm looking at his face right now. I can't pull up... Nico Price. Thank you. Nico Price. Nico Price. Tough dude. And Nico Price is fucking...

He's got some crazy knockouts and submissions too. Yeah, he's a dog. That dude's a dog. But Robbie went out right. He went out on a win. That's got a feel. Beautiful win. First round knockout. Didn't and submissions too. Yeah, he's a dog. That dude's a dog. But Robbie went out right. Like, he went out on a win. Like, that's got to feel. Beautiful win. First round knockout.

Didn't even get hit. Yeah. And everybody went crazy. That's got to feel good. We played this video. It was beautiful. Yeah, yeah. For a guy like him.

And he's still, he's one of the main guys down at Kill Cliff. Like, he's still, he's like coaching. Yep. And that's great to see too. It is. Because when a guy like that, if he's done, he leaves the gym. Like, a part of like, you lose part of that gym. Yeah.

Yeah, this was awesome, him winning like that. It really was fucking cool. It was really cool. Because it's just like, that's what you want to see from a legend. Yeah, yeah. But people forget that Ruth was Robbie Lawler days. Like, when him and Rory had that fight, that was just guts and just survival yeah in this in his lips oh when it was split like that and i was interviewing him he's screaming when his lips

rory you could tell rory had his nose was smashed so bad that last punch i think it was probably like a straight left yeah he's like i'm done like I just can't take any more pain at this point. Yeah, he was destroyed. When your nose is broken, you get hit in it. It's not fun. Well, his face was pale, too. Like, he had lost so much blood that his face was pale. He was fucked up.

Yeah. What a crazy fight. Look at his face, man. Ugh. I mean, his face was just a mask of blood. And this part. This is like so iconic. Yeah.

They're just staring at each other. Look how flat his nose is there. I mean, Rory's face is destroyed. Look at his nose. Jesus. It's just destroyed. His face is destroyed. I mean, that is as close to death as I think we've ever seen anybody get inside the octagon. Yeah, yeah.

Look at that. Look how pale he is. And he went on to have some fucking good fights after that, but I was watching his career in PFL, and it was just sad to see the way he went out. Well, I mean, I think you go through a fight like that, you don't ever recover fully. No, you don't.

And then you're back in the gym, you're training, and then you fight again. Everything's amplified in a fight. It's training times 10 you know and uh you come out like i've came out of fights where quick fight for me uh but i still like i'm like i don't even like i'll hit my elbow i'm like what the fuck did i do to my like you just come out of a fight and you're like you still feel beat up even if it wasn't like a super hard fight like Like even my fight with Kelvin, like I didn't land like any crazy right hands, but my fucking hands been killing me for the last month.

So it's always something. And then you go through something like that. Do you do any hyperbaric chamber work? My strength coach has one, and I got in it. And I was having like TMJ or something, and I got in there, and my fucking ears started to pop, and I got kind of freaked out, and I got in it and um i was having like tmj or something and i got in there and my fucking ears start to pop and i got kind of freaked out and i got out but i need to do it uh i know like off camp but he's like dude you gotta get in you gotta get in and i that's like the one thing that float tanks are like the two things like i haven't got into yet but um yeah i need to do the i need

to do the float like the um hyperbaric. They say it really, really helps recovery. I know that Uriah Faber used it after the Jose Aldo fight. Yeah. Remember when he got his leg destroyed? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think, I know, especially for your head, too. They say it's super, super good for your head.

Yeah, post-concussions. Yeah. But, like I said, stem cells, stuff like that. It does suck we can't do, peptides because that shit helps. And it's not like test us for everything else. Like, be there on site or whatever. But I think that stuff would really help us out. Yeah, I don't know why it's illegal.

I mean, I think the argument is that it gives you a performance-enhancing benefit. But I just think all it does is aid in recovery from injuries. Yeah. gives you a performance enhancing benefit. But I just think all it does is aid in recovery from injuries. Yeah. And I think if you're dealing with a sport where guys are literally training and preparing to injure each other. Yeah.

That's what you do. Yeah. And you're getting injured while training. Yeah. Preparing to injure each other. Yeah. You're going to get injured. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And it would be better for the sport overall if that was allowed.

And I don't know why these athletic commissions don't recognize they're like hey this is not like steroids yeah this is something that just helps your injuries helping you recover yeah i'm definitely happy though that we're done with usada i'm hoping that if they're obviously they're going to come and drug test us but don't come to my house at 6 a.m or 7 a.m and don't come when guys are cutting away they uh they came to my house to one night.m. or 7 a.m. And don't come when guys are cutting weight. They came to my house the one night. It was 9.30 at night. Luckily, there was flights on. I was in camp or else I would have been asleep.

I was watching like Bellator on a Friday night. They knocked on my door. I look at my ring camera. My wife's like, it's fucking USADA. I'm like, I've never been mean to them. And I wasn't even, I'm like, dude. I looked at them. I'm like, I'm about to get in the bed.

They're like, we're sorry. They have a protocol they had to do. And I'm like, I get it. How long does it take? It's quick. It can be quick. If they do blood, you have to sit there. You have to sit down. They time you for 10 minutes and then they take your blood. Then you have to do piss. So that can be annoying. But like, if you just have to pee, you can run through it real quick, but you have to get out all your supplements. You have to write all that down. So it takes probably like 35, 40 minutes. So every time they come, you have to show them your supplements you have to write all that down so it takes probably 35 40 minutes so every time they come you have to show them your supplements yep every time they had them

saved at one point but then they went away with that so you'd have to redo it any medications you take and then the dude has to come watch you piss you have to pick out a cup so i never did like i haven't been drug tested by these new guys yet but come at three o'clock like come when i'm home and i'm just sitting on my couch well i think the argument against that is if they can catch you, like if you're, if they come to your house at 9 30 AM, if you take something that is in your, your system for a short period of time, but provides benefits. Like if you take some sort of oral testosterone at 9 30 PM, right before you go to bed, like we're going to get you. And then like, that was what they were doing with the gummies, right?

With testosterone gummies and baseball. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the idea is that you take it, and then by the time they tested you, it had already been out of your system. I think guys, like, if you have enough money, I'm sure guys are gaming the system somehow, you know? Have you heard anything about how guys could do it?

No, I haven't. But I just feel like guys like they're like guys have people are gonna if you can cheat somebody's gonna cheat like they're gonna find a way but even with the ivs i've had heard of guys doing ivs still and i'm like i guess like you said like they say the trace plastic but i'm like how could you even test for that because if you're drinking fucking gallons of water or whatever you're drinking with plastic i guess there would be traces of plastic maybe it's a different plastic yeah why don't you jamie google please how do you detect if someone has had an iv usada see if there's a way that explains it because they

were explaining to me that there is a workaround and the workaround would be if you got all the liquid into a glass vial i was literally that's what i was thinking yeah and then you injected the liquid back into someone's body slowly and instead of a drip like with a hose you're you're you're just going straight from a glass vial yeah sounds like a fucking process something a real process for just for just for an iv the craziest one asking it the craziest weight cut that i had ever heard someone But if you're masking it. The craziest weight cut that I ever heard. Someone was cutting weight by getting their blood removed. So they're getting their blood pulled from their body.

They were chilling it and then putting it back into their body. Time for you to just move up a weight class. But here's the question. Because blood doping, that was a way that like Tour de France and a lot of those guys would do it where they would take blood out of their body. And then they put it back in, right? Yeah, their body would recover and build that blood back up. And then they would put that blood back in so they'd have all this extra blood. Yeah.

And it would give them extra oxygen. That, like blood doping, that's like the craziest one. Like if you're going to do anything, if you just never get tired, like that's like, that's the most superhuman thing you can fucking do. Strength and all that is cool, but if you can just never get tired, that's next level shit. Well, there's been guys that get popped for EPO. DJ. Yeah. Well, there's actually a documentary that the UFC did that just came out last week.

I started it. I watched it. I started it. It's wild when you see what he looked like. He was a skeleton He looked like a dead man Yeah, like a guy who was starving to death and he was about to fight Henry So is that what he was he saying he was doing the EPO to help him cut weight? Is that what he was? No, no, he was essentially he was anemic. I mean, that's what yeah

It's it's for anemia he was anemic he had gotten to a point where he he couldn't do anything yeah i mean his his body was just he shouldn't he should have pulled out it's really what he should have done yeah and but or what he should have done i think is probably had a test cut yeah and if he had a test cut like he was where he's at he was down to 135 and then cutting the weight and when he was down to 135 you looked at him you're like oh my god he was bad i remember seeing pictures of him in camp i'm like i'm like this dude looks horrible when he was uh preparing for the fight and then they were it was like the day of the weigh-ins you see him

walking around you're like what in the fuck? His whole face was just skeleton. And then, like, you get fucking hit like that? Right. Like, I don't care if you have 48 hours. Yeah, so that's what he looked like. Oh. Is that so insane, man? It's so insane, that weight cut.

Look at his. Yeah, look at him there. Listen, all of our cheeks get sucked in, but that's different. I mean, that's not just a cheek suck. No, yeah. It's like you're losing your jaw muscles. Yeah, look at him there. Listen, all of our cheeks get sucked in, but that's different. I mean, that's not just a cheek suck. No, yeah. It's like you're losing your jaw muscles. And that's the thing. It's like you're losing muscle, man.

You're losing muscle. Now you see him now? He's not a small dude. No. He's pretty fucking big. Well, TJ also had had shoulder problems his whole career. Yeah. Well, TJ also had had shoulder problems his whole career. I think he had two torn supraspinatus muscles in both traps or both shoulders and just never got it fixed. He was so good.

I love watching him. Like, just his striking was so good. I feel like he was, like, one of the first guys to start doing, like, to switching stances and throwing. Like, he was, he's fucking good. Dude, the Hennen-Borau fight, holy shit. The first one, yeah. Also, it's also like his ability to perform under pressure. Like when the stakes were high, when the pressure was high.

Cody Garbrandt fight. Yes, yes. He got dropped in that first round and came back and knocked Cody out. And I fucking love Cody. It was nice to see Cody get back on track. But yeah, that was he can fuck He's a competitor. He's a competitor and uh, it worked for him for a long time, you know Yeah, just the shoulder thing is just so unfortunate because now he's fucked and he's had multiple surgeries

And he's hoping they can still come back because he fought in Abu Dhabi on that car with me and then his shoulder popped out like immediately or something like that Well, he had actually told the referee before the fight said my shoulders gonna pop out He said just just let me fight and I'll put it back in it pops out all the time Like that's not I've seen I've seen that though I've seen guys like in the room might they get like sprawled on their fucking shoulder pops out and they like yeah They hit they're like I need a second. They snap back I'm like I'm like dude I don't know if you should be doing that like that's like supposedly what

happened with yuri like his coaches were trying to yes they put his shit back in the place and they just totally destroyed his show i'm like yeah yeah probably shouldn't be doing that it's not like a finger like a jujitsu finger where you're doing gi and like you're like your coach fucking snaps your finger like that's your shoulder well it's also when your shoulder gets destroyed like that and they have to replace your shoulder that's it yeah i don't i i know guys have gotten their hip resurfaced and continue to compete yeah i know frankie edgar did that yeah but i think shoulders like once that's shoulder shoulders and knees like i've been pretty knock on wood like i feel like once you have a problem with your shoulders or your knees, you're fucked.

You're always going to have... Same thing if you do that back surgery. The back surgery is a big one. I think, and your neck. If you do any of those surgeries, I think you're fucking done. That's what's crazy about Aljamain. He did his neck and then won and defended the title multiple times. Yeah.

And he looked great. He looked great. Besides Sean O'Malley like yeah came back and that Peter Young fight He looked fucking he looked great in that a fake disc. Yeah in his neck. Yeah, he's got an artificial disc in his back He's competing in MMA. That's winning as a champion. Yeah, it's nuts Chris Weidman's coming back again, too. He's Bruno. I was there. No silver I was there for his fight in Boston and it was good like good to see him like get back in there

like that break was so bad so bad I guess they're putting out like mini series of the UFC I watched that one and

on him like coming back from his leg I was like almost crying watching it like seeing like the pain he was going through like he had like

two or three surgeries after that and really it wouldn't like his leg like wouldn't take or he's uh he would like start feeling a weird pain and they'd go back in and do another surgery he'd start getting better they'd do

another surgery it's like it's the same thing as that tj one if you get like 25 minutes watch it one day it's fucking good well that's the case with connor as well i believe i think connor's had multiple surgeries as well well a break like that like it's a crazy break the only one guy you know i'd said no one's ever come back from it but apparently the guy who won the pfl heavyweight division uh he had a broke really broke a leg like that and he came back and he he's competing at a high level well how about chris weidman does it to and to Anderson Silva and then he gets it done to him? Oh, nuts. That is like, what kind of like, how does that happen?

What are the odds? That's nuts. Especially when you think about how few leg breaks like that have been in the UFC. Yeah. I think there's only been four. There's not many. And he's been a part of two of them.

Yeah, that's crazy. I can only think of those two. Who else was in the UFC? The first one was, what was the gentleman's name? Corey Hill? Yeah, I remember that. I think he's dead. He is dead.

I don't know what happened to him. Yeah, but I remember that one. And then Chris is involved in two of them. So it was Corey, Anderson, Chris.ris who else there's one other one someone else got there like bro yeah i don't know connor connor that's it that's it yeah so those are the four the the biggest one talking about yeah and then uh outside of that i've seen it with uh tyron spong yeah he with the go-kart i seen that that was nasty that's the only time I've ever seen it in kickboxing

he's fucking his highlights are crazy oh he's a killer you ever see the one where I think he dude comes out drops Tyron he gets up

showing up and throws that overhand and cleans him I'm like god damn he still he still trains like he's down at Henry's and he's like one of their main guys

what did you do this one this was not in the UFC but it's on combat oh this is like He's so trained. He's down at Henry's and he's one of their main guys. What are you doing? This was not in the UFC, but it's on combat. Oh, his femur comes out. Oh, I saw this one. Yeah, he gets taken down. That's a crazy one, right? This one's bad.

And it's weird how it goes down. Like, oh, look how it goes backwards. Oh, look at his pain, the pain he's in. Oh, my God. It's weird how it goes backwards. Oh, look at his pain, the pain he's in. Oh, my God. It's weird how it goes backwards. Oh, God. Look at it poking out like that. Is that his femur? Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Yeah, he's like, my leg, my leg. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That's bad. They're hard to watch. That's, uh, my dad broke his femur. He was a construction worker. He had a bunch of stones fall on his leg, snapped his his femur he was a construction worker he had a bunch of stones falling his leg snapped his fucking femur in half he had a metal rod in there for years they they

he got his knees redone they had to take the metal rod out of his knee like his like bone like i guess like form to it they said taking it out was rough yeah it's the biggest bone in your body i think i think so, too. God damn. Yeah, Frank Mir, when he got hit by a car. Remember that? He broke his femur. Yeah, he was riding a motorcycle.

Guy ran a light, T-boned him. He went flying through the air. And it took a long time before Frank got back on track. That's, like, one of the hardest things with me. And, like, I grew up riding dirt bikes, like i love doing shit i'm like but our job's so dangerous already i'm like i can't afford to to do any of these other things like we were up the mountains over the weekend like my brother's like let's go snowboarding i'm like bro like i can't dude like i want to so bad but i'm gonna do all that shit when i'm done fighting like you

just can't stack another thing on top of fucking like I have a I'm a Ford Raptor I got it all souped up. I'm like, that's my that's my thing, you know, like I got a nice truck But I can't I can't ride bikes Yeah I can't like we just can't afford to stack all those other things on top of our dangerous ass job already See what Sean Strickland was doing the other day shooting like like Roman candles on each other firework fight. Yeah, bro I'm not doing three weeks before he's fighting Yeah, they burns on him. doing that. Three weeks before he's fighting to retain his title.

He had like, burns on him. He's so nuts. He's nuts. He's so out of his fucking mind. But, that boy can fight. All he does is spar. He probably looks at,

he looks at a treadmill, he's like, get the fuck out of here. He's like, I'm gonna spar. What's crazy is his conditioning. Like, look at that Israel Adesanya fight.

This is his first time fighting for the title He's fighting a legend in the fifth round. He's not even breathing heavy floors on two amazing Amazing hits him with that one two drops him pummels him afterwards and then but dude He's like he's not even jumping like dirt bikes. He's jumping like motorcycles in the desert I'm like what the fuck is this he's out of fucking mind. And that's also how he blew his knee apart. Oh, yeah. Because he used to fight at 70.

People don't know him and Kamaru fought at 170 back in the day. Kamaru put it on pretty good. Well, I think he's one of those guys that really was cutting too much weight. He's definitely. He's huge. There's that point of diminishing returns. He's huge. That'd be like Joey trying to cut down the 170.

Like, you'd be fucked. Just because you can make something doesn't mean you should do it, you know? I'm going to be interested to see that fight next weekend. I can't believe it's already here. Well, if anybody wants to see the extreme version, watch that TJ documentary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty heavy. His fight with Drikus is going to be...

Very interesting. Drikus is fucking scary. And that's a guy who's so big for 85 the way he looked against I counted I didn't give him a fucking chance

against Robert Whitaker and boy was I wrong well also that's after he got his deviated septum surgery which I think I mean

it's a big factor being able to breathe out of your nose if you can't breathe you can't fight but it's also it's like Drikus looks awkward

when you fight. He moves different. But that movement and that awkwardness makes him difficult to time. It's like his timing is off. And if you don't have anybody that can imitate that kind of stutter step motion that he does. Yeah, he fights weird.

Yeah, it's deceptively technical, though. Deceptively. It's his style. You can't say it's wrong. That's how he fights and it works. And you can tell he's strong. I think he's going to come in and really try to put a hard grappling pace on Shawn. But Shawn's hard to take down.

You don't see many guys taking Shawn down. No. He's not. Well, he's a very good grappler. He's not easy to take down. I've talked to guys that roll with him. He's like, that motherfucker's very good. I've seen he was out at um i think he was training with jaco yeah this guy's yeah jaco told me yeah jaco goes dude he's fucking legit yeah he's really

he's long too like i'm sure he has good good jujitsu yeah but that's that's a good fight well here's an interesting statistic because you know the ufc was it a mouth guard that they gave you guys to show how many shots you take? Something like that, yeah. He gets hit the least. Yeah. And he spars the most. He spars the most.

See, it's like his defense is so underappreciated. Yeah. Because that was a big factor in that fight, too, with Adesanya. Adesanya just couldn't find him. Yeah, he's like, it's like a weird, like, Philly shell that he does. And then he's lifting that, like, lead leg to, like, teep. Yep. And he's front kicking you with the lead leg

Yeah, and that and he's just always jabbing like and it comes like you would think a jab coming from down here Like it'd be easier to time but it's not because it's coming from like you don't fucking see it and then pop pop And then he sent you with the jab, but it fucking it works for it works for him amazingly I don't think Izzy was 100% in that training camp either. He had that DUI thing where the DWI right before that. That was like two weeks before that fight. And I think he just thought he was going to fucking blow Sean out of the water. And Sean's a tough motherfucker.

After the Abus fight, someone should have looked at that fight and go, Listen, this guy is always there. He's always there. It's crazy how it can flip so fast. A year ago, listen, this guy is always there. Yeah. He's always there. It's crazy how it can flip so fast. Like, a year ago, he lost to Jared Cannoneer, and now he's fucking UFC champion. Yeah. It happens fast.

How about the Pejeta fight? Yeah. He gets flatlined in the first round against Pejeta, and then you think, this guy's not going to be the champion. A year later, he's the champ. He's the champ. Yeah. And went to train with Pejeta.

Yeah. That shows you how smart he is. He's like, I'm going to go learn from this fucking guy. And Pejeta will teach you, which is even crazier. Hell yeah. Alex, he's a bad motherfucker. He's a big dude. He's gigantic.

That guy making 185 was ridiculous. Nuts. Ridiculous. Like, how? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did you do it? Yeah. Because you look at him at 205.

He's so big at 205. I think he's way better off at 205, though. I think so, too, yeah. How did you do it? Yeah. Because you look at him at 205. He's so big at 205. I think he's way better off at 205, though. I think so, too. Like, I don't know who he's going to fight next, but I'll be watching. Yeah, I mean, I would imagine it would be Jamal. I just don't know when Jamal's going to be fully recovered. You know, Jamal blew out his Achilles, which is a bad one. That's a hard one to come back from.

Yeah, it's a bad one. That's what Aaron Rodgers did? Yeah. That's a hard one to come back from. Yeah. It's a bad one. That's what Aaron Rodgers did. Yeah. That's got to be weird. Like you're just going and then next thing it's done. Yeah. It just pops off. Yeah.

But Aaron Rodgers is doing great. They're saying he might like play like pretty soon. He was hoping to. Oh, yeah. But it's only been how many months since the injury? Four or five? What was the beginning of the season? September, I guess.

Is that what it was that started? I think so. October, November, December, January. So four months. Yeah, not long. Not long at all for such a catastrophic injury. Yeah. I think Alex will be champ for a while, though.

It's got to, until someone comes along and exposes his, because his ground game's not where it needs to be. Well, that's what's interesting with Hamzat, right? If he fights Hamzat Chemaev at 185 pounds, that gets very interesting. Yeah. You know, but I think we saw in the Hamzat fight against Usman that, you know, Hamzat,

against a really big, strong grappler, is still very effective, but, you know... Not to the level where, like, it should be. Well, Usman exposed some holes in his game, and Usman had no camp. That was a five-round fight, and Usman took it on short notice. Even on short notice, if there was two more rounds of that, who knows where that could have gone. Usman was putting it on. I rewatched it recently, and he was getting the better of him in the third round for sure.

Especially in the strike game, because I think something happened to Hamzat's hand in the first round yeah he broke his hand yeah yeah he's got some injuries going on but um yeah someone but even like someone like that someone like bo nickel bo's gonna be a motherfucker and then joey's right joey joey's known for knocking guys out but joey has fucking really he submitted abdul in his last fight he's got really good wrestling really good submission so it looks like 185 doesn't have, like, those grapplers. Like, 170, like, we're stacked with grapplers. 155 is stacked with grapplers. Like, 185 kind of doesn't have that.

So if you come into 185 and you have that good wrestling and grappling pedigree, like, I think you can do really, really well. It's interesting with Bo. It's like they're let—it's like some fighters get thrown to the wolves. Yeah. And some fighters, they lead— He's doing like the slow. Nicely slow. Yeah. Like every fight he's this giant

favorite. And the next fight same thing. Yeah and he smokes them. Yeah. He hasn't fought since July. I listened to the podcast. It was really good but I think he's doing it right. He's like listen I'm going to kind of slope because he's 27, 28 28 he's already in the ufc a couple fights away from being in the top 15 why rush and i feel like that's something

i did early on that i wish i wanted to be in the top 15 so bad then once you get there you have to wait for the division to play out you have to wait for guys to fight and then you get hurt and then you're sitting on the sidelines whereas if you're not in the top 15, you can kind of rack up these wins, fight these guys who aren't world class but they're still good fighters. You can get that experience and then go into the top 15. Yeah, well that's what they do in boxing and it's always been the way they did it.

They test guys. You get tested but not a fight that you're going to lose. A fight their guy's going to show you some different looks. You're going to get, you know, maybe this guy likes to fight inside. Maybe this guy's long fights on the outside You get these different looks and you learn and grow and develop new skills and get experience and then you fight Yeah, well we have um, sure boots drawn on us. His dad was my boxing coach for you I boots holds pads for me all the time, bro

Is this a wizard? I'll watch him hit pads from orthodox to south paul how hard he hits like i'm like yo i wouldn't i would but i would i'd be butt scooting towards boots if i had a father yo come here because he thumps and he's 25 or like 26 like he's not even a man yet like i used to think the man's trying to thing was bullshit it's true like the older you get you definitely get stronger. And he's getting stronger and he's getting better. It sucks. They gave him the belt, I guess, because Terrence got stripped.

So he didn't get to earn it. He was the interim champ. But he's having such a hard time getting a fight. Yeah, nobody wants to fight him. And Terrence wants the big money fight. And I get that. I get it. But Boots is going to fuck any of these dudes up.

I think Terrence is great, but Boots is that next generation. Well, I think that fight would be very competitive, and I would really love to see that because I think Terrence is the fucking man. Yeah. But I think that Terrence is 35, 36, somewhere in that range. And for him, it's all about big money fights. That's why he's trying to get that Canelo fight. I get that Terrence is 35, 36, somewhere in that range. And for him, it's all about big money fights. That's why he's trying to get that Canelo fight. I get that.

You get to a certain point in your career, you deserve that. But I'm happy that they did strip him, so now they're going to give Boots that clear path to go let him build his resume and fight the guy. But I don't even know who's in that division. Well, it's like right now, Terrence is locked up with Errol Spence again because Errol Spence, he exercised the rematch. So they're going to fight.

Yeah, I think, you know, if I was being cynical, I would say, listen, Errol Spence fights someone else, how much is he going to make? Errol Spence fights Terrence Crawford again, he's going to make a big payday. Yeah. And I think that's probably why he's doing this rematch again.

He knows he's getting paid. Yeah, knows he's getting paid, but also not happy with his performance in the first fight and thinks he can do better. And I get that. I think Terrence is on another level. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's fucking good. He's good.

We had the UFC fights and those fights going on, and he just seemed like he was on a different level the entire time. Yeah, he's so smart, and he's so technical, and he just seemed like he was on a different, different level the entire time. But yeah, he's, he's so smart and he's so technical and he also has that incredible ability to shift. He can switch stances and fight just as good. Yeah. Yeah.

Orthodox. He, uh, I think it was like, I think he was fighting Sean Porter and his coach was like telling him like, yo, he's, it was like the 10th round.

He was like, yo, he's up. And it didn't register for his, like he looked at back. He's like, he's up, he's up. And he went out there and he's like, all right, bet went out there, smoked on the next round. He was like, yo, he's up. And it didn't register for his like, he looked at back. He's like, he's up. He's up.

And he went out there and he's like, all right, bet. Went out there, smoked him the next round. I'm like, yo, this dude is fucking, he's the man. But yeah, boots like, boxing's hard to follow though. Cause there's so many, it's not like the UFC is the UFC. There's like top rank and there's Showtime and there's this and the belt. Like who has the belt? So it makes it hard to follow.

Well, there does because there's not just way more weight classes, but there's also four sanctioning bodies. Yeah. And so it's at least four. WBC, IBO. WBO. Yeah. IBF, right?

So how many boxing? It's at least four. It's at least four. It's at least four. WBC, WBA, WBO, IBF. That's four right there. Is that it? That's probably four more. Yeah.

There's a lot. But it's just like, why? Yeah. Why are there so many sanctioning bodies? Like, that doesn't make any sense. It's not like we're in MMA. Like, yeah, there's Bellator. Well, not now. I mean, there still is, but. There's Bellator. Not now.

There still is. Bellator is going to still exist overseas. Yeah, with PFL. In MMA, you want to be a UFC champion. When you're a boxer, you're like, I want to be WB. It's so hard to... You want to beat the guy who's recognized as being famous as a champion. What do you want to have?

Do you want to have all four belts? Because if you don't have all four belts, you're not really, you can be like, oh, that guy's still out there. Right. It just gets like fucking hard to follow. Right, it does. But yeah, Boots is, he's scary. Yeah. He's scary as shit.

I love watching him. He's crazy. And dude, his dad's like 70 years old, still spars. Really? Yeah. He still spars? He still spars. So we live in the same neighborhood.

I'll see him running he'll be running i'll fucking beat my horn i'm like yo but his name's bozy and he's just still just getting it yeah it's crazy yeah 70 years old still sparring that's crazy still sparring still running like comes in the gym sweat pants sweat top like he like holding he doesn't hold pads anymore because his shoulders but he holds noodles so he holds like the noodles for him and still just fucking just loves it that's what he just loves to do yeah that's awesome crazy crazy i love the fact that he can keep doing it that age i mean floyd mamby weather senior was doing it he was sparring like yeah pretty pretty late into his

life yeah i mean when i'm done fighting like i I'm 100% gone. Like obviously Jiu Jitsu is going to be huge. I'm old. I like, I want to compete, but I still want to train. Like I like, there's nothing better

than waking up every day and you get to do what you love to do. You know, like there's rough days, of course, but I get to go train and there's no other place

I'd rather be. Like if I had a billion dollars in my bank, I would still do the same exact things I do every day because it's what I love to do. That's beautiful.

You know? That's a successful life. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's a truly successful life if you're actually doing the things you love all the time. Yeah. And if you can make that your job, that's amazing.

Because you go to a nine to five, like you're sitting in traffic, you're like, dude, I fucking hate this. Yeah. We have a schedule, but you still get to kind of make your own. Yeah, that's Bozy. 70 years old? This is old, too.

Yeah, right? So what is he, 65? Whatever. Still, that's incredible. He looks great. Oh, he is boxing still. Look at that. Wow. This is crazy.

65-year-old Bozy Sparrant. 65. And he's just fucking around, bro. He's talking shit, too. Come on. Jack. Jack. Hold on.

I did it. There you go. Another one. There's another one. Just popping with that jab And the jab As you were saying before About Sean The jab real low

Coming down Coming down from low Yeah And same thing I was saying About like our Jim Marquez MMA Like bro They're in just these

Like these gritty gyms Like there's no No super gym Like there's no super gym In Philly Like Well that's the The question Is like what is the best just these gritty gyms. There's no super gym. There's no super gym in Philly. Well, that's the question. It's like, what is the best?

Is it best to be with a small gym with really good coaches where they give you individual attention and they really know what you're doing, when you're on, when you're peaking, where you're at, versus going to a mega gym like ATT? Well, so my coach john like he only person that holds pads for me he watches all my sparring sessions like he does for all of us and then he'll send my sparring to dean dean will break it down and then like my wrestling coach cody like everyone it's only three or four guys but the head guy is john and he oversees

everything and when you have a big gym if you're if you're not a top guy like you're not getting that you know like because there's so many like yeah like you have the training partners but you're not getting that one-on-one that unless you're a champion unless you're a champion you know and um then it's still even hard because you're like you got like your your training partners like fuck like i want to help these guys out but i know like american top team like they have different sets of coaches so you might work with this coach like they have mike brown's like the main guy so you might work with mike but you might not work with this guy but i just think it's like i'm lucky enough i don't have to travel like my whole family lives in this like i thought it like there was definitely times

when i was coming up i'm like damn, damn, like, where would I go? Would I go to Florida? Would I go here? Would I go there? And then I got lucky enough that I was just winning fights and our team was growing. And we have the training partners now. And I don't have to go anywhere. No, you're, listen, man.

Results speak for themselves, obviously. Yeah, yeah. So tell me more. I want to hear more about this mental training and what's involved with that. So you decided to do this after the Bilal fight? Yeah. So you said you made some decisions in that fight that you never had made before. Yeah, I feel like I remember you're in there and being in a fight is the weirdest feeling ever.

Sometimes you're super present and then sometimes you're not. Like, I remember just being in that fight with Kelvin. For 15 minutes, I was where my feet were. I was super present. Like, I was locked in that entire time. When I fought Bilal, I remember, like, I was just thinking about other shit. And then I'd come back to, like, the present. And I'm like, what the fuck are you doing?

Like, I'm in the middle of a fight i just wasn't like what kind of shit i just wasn't present like i wasn't even like where like i just wasn't thinking about the fight like i just didn't want to be there that's so weird and i didn't and i never felt like that before so now i started working with this guy brian cane he worked with gsp after gsp lost to um Matt Serra first fight he uh started working with him and then I started working with Brian and it's just all about just being super present like not even just in fighting but just in life like not worrying about what I got to do later or stupid shit like that just being in that moment and just focusing in on that because that's all you can control I was so

caught up in thinking about the future or what like happened the day before. Like if I had a bad day of training, like I let it bother me and it just came out of the fight, but I just wasn't in the moment. And that's like now, like I just try to be in the moment, everything I'm doing, just super present, not thinking too far ahead, not thinking about the past. And that's something I used to get caught up in a lot, just not, not being focused on in, like, I was just so worried about my next session or my next this or like thinking about my fight like things I can't control like I can't control that far but all I can control is what I'm doing in this moment

so what is it that you do so like we just have like just like drills like say if um if I'm sparring and if like something's not going my way just like little like signals just drills like say if um if i'm sparring and if like something's not going my way just like little like signals just to like bring myself back into what i'm doing like if if i round doesn't go my way like not getting too caught up on that and just and just knowing like i have another round and i can just get back into that and just having these like signal lights like yeah it's called like red green red red yellow green So green all systems go you're having the best training session of your life yellow You're starting getting your head in a little bit

It's not working out like you're not getting off your shots not getting over your takedowns red It's like you're getting pieced up like your minds going other places like you don't want to fucking be there anymore And when you get in the red you have to have like like he works with baseball players say like uh you hit a like you get you're about to get struck out they got the batter will step out of the box they'll take off their gloves and they'll like they'll like do like they'll like tap their shoulder or something and it's just like something that a reset and that's exactly that's exactly what it is so like if i'm having like a bad session like obviously i'm not going to fucking fucking tap my head or something like that. But just talking to myself and just knowing you're good.

Bring it back. So how do you reset? Is there a very specific thing that you do? I just talk to myself. And what do you say to yourself? Just looking at myself. We have our affirmations for my last fight where I control what I can control. I trust my training.

I'm aggressive and always moving forward. And then we'd have a funny one to make it not that serious. It was, I'm confident, I'm cocky, I'm motherfucking rocky. And it would just make you laugh. And before my fight with Kelvin, I'm fucking in the bathroom and I'm saying these affirmations. And then I would laugh because it's like it's not that serious but like small little things like that just to just to bring it back and just be just be present and um I think that and then I started then I started working with another guy through um my management company his name's Brandon Epstein. And we would do like visualize like the fights.

So every week we'd meet on the call and we'd go from visualizing being in the locker room. Well, even before that, the first like the nervous, like the most nervous I would get before a fight is like that shower at like 12 o'clock fight day. Like you get a shower and you know the car's coming to pick you up in like two hours. So we'd like close our eyes and we'd start in the shower i'd shower get changed car would pick you up we're walking to the locker room we're in the locker room we're hitting pads we're warming up getting your hands wrapped making that walk and then like for 5 10 50 however long i'd be just eyes closed visualizing how I want the fight to go. Bad situations, good situations. And then eventually winning the fight and visualizing talking to you or talking to DC. And I would do these mental reps over and over and over again.

Sitting in the sauna, I would do it. Sitting in the cold tub, I would do it. I would have my affirmations so timed up. If I was going in the cold for three minutes, I knew how many times I would have to say them. And then my three minutes would be up and that's all in training camp. And I would just do that shit over and over and over again. And,

and that was something you'd never done, never done before. Cause, um, you would never like, I would never think about it. And then before you know it, you get there and you're like,

fuck, like this, it feels brand new to you again because you only fight a couple times a year if you're lucky but instead i've seen these things a million times in my mind already like yeah physically i wasn't there but mentally like i'm already in this locker room i'm already i've already walked in the cage i already made the walk like they would make custom music for me that I would listen with my walkout music Kelvin's walkout music crowd noise and I'll listen to it before sparring and when I'm shadow box and then shit like that like and I just like felt so prepared doing it and I just never did anything like that before and Yeah, it's a fucking game changer changer that's interesting because they do say

that visualization actually helps skill learning yeah as much as training yeah like if you are training but then also visualizing things it's getting as much time you're training your improvements will be compounded oh 100 and like i'm blanking on a million other things we do but like that's like the big ones like just visualizing what you want to do and not just the good, the bad too. So I would think about, if I get ready for Kelvin, everyone is like,

I'm going to get knocked out, I'm going to get this, I'm going to get that. So I would visualize getting fucking dropped and having to get back in or getting rocked or going for a takedown, getting stuffed

and having to recover from that and go and win the fight because they're not gonna you're not gonna it's not always going to go your way so visualizing the bad but still making it out with the good which i didn't do with balal like he rocked me in that moment and i was still there instead of just making that switch and be like you're good like go back and just getting back to the fight, I just never could get back. Is that partially attributable just also to getting hit? Because sometimes when guys get hit, they're out of it. You've seen many guys that go back at the fourth round,

and they don't know what round it is. No, because I remember everything. I was definitely buzzed me, but I remember just putting my hands up, and I just couldn't throw them. I'm like, punch, and I heard the 10-second clap go off. I thought I was going to get saved by the bell, and I was going to make it to the next round, and I never did. Well, it was an interesting stoppage

because it was one of the rare UFC stoppages with a guy standing up. Yeah. It's very rare. Yeah, I never, and that's what I'm saying. Like, I didn't get dropped, and I remember everything. I remember hearing the clapper. My coaches were right behind me. I could hear my coach John screaming, he's good, he's good, he's good.

And he stopped it, which, good on him. But I just couldn't do what I wanted to do. It was the weirdest feeling. Well, it's so subjective. Yeah. Like, when a fight gets stopped and when it doesn't get stopped. And the thing that sucks the most is when a fight is stopped too late. Yeah.

You mean like- Yeah, for sure. You know, the Jalen Turner, Bobby Green fight. That was bad. Jesus Christ. That was bad. That was so bad. You were cage-side for that, right?

Oh my God. I was like, stop the fight. What is happening here? I think it was like 20 something unanswered strikes or something like that that is so hard to watch yeah it was um so unnecessary it was bad but yeah back to like like the mental performance stuff like it was just really just all came down to just me just being focused for 15 minutes because like we you can be doing anything and just you're fucking driving,

but you're looking off. You're not in the moment. And that's something now I try to do. And everything I do in my life, if I'm walking my dog, I'll leave my phone at home. And just try to be present doing the thing you're doing at the time. There's so much noise and other shit. And when i'm fighting

like the only thing i'm fucking thinking about is fighting and well just having the tools in terms of like having strategies and having a pathway that's already carved in your mind yeah for all these different scenarios it's got to be beneficial it's way better than just winging it no yeah and that's the thing if you're just winging it and, uh, they wanted me to even get to the arena and, like, go walk it before the fight. I couldn't get in. Like, he would have, they used to have GSP go in the day before the fight and, like, actually already be in the arena and feel that and already, like, see that. I couldn't do that this fight, but if I get the chance, like, before I go and fight my next fight, I'm going to go fucking walk around that cage, feel the canvas, and just, yeah, because you only get to do it once. So Kelvin was ranked, right? Where was Kelvin at? He was ranked at middleweight. Oh, right.

Yeah. So at welterweight because it's a debut. I was number nine going into that fight. I'm number seven now because he was originally supposed to fight Shavkat. Shavkat got hurt, and then they matched us up. supposed to fight shavkat shavkat got hurt and then um they matched us up and i don't know what he's going to do if he's going to stay at 70 go back to 85 but i'm number seven at 70 now so it's i don't think he has that over a heart of a time making it down no i don't 70 i just think he has to make some adjustments yeah for sure you know for sure when you go back to when kelvin was in

his prime i mean just i just really think 170 was always the weight for him. I just think he needs to do it the right way. He needs to do it at the PI. If you look at the people he's beat, he's fought everyone. And the guys he's lost to, they're all close fights. How about the Adesanya fight? Very close. Very close fight. I watched that fight

so many times. I'm like, he's fucking... Kelvin's good. He's fast. His at one two that right left yeah fucking straight left i had so many guys like just getting ready for that fight because i watched all these fights i watched what he did to all these guys when he knocked out bisbin when he knocked he beat jacare like he's beating all these guys he beat um johnny hendrix like he's like you go and look at his record you're like holy shit this guy fought all these guys and he has so much experience i think he had like five or six main

events he fought uh chris weidman dropped him bad in the first round weidman submitted them in the third round but fucking got floored before that so you're thinking like this is at 185 he's going to hit way harder at 170 so i trained my fucking ass off for that fight and um but yeah once i got him to the ground i'm like this is where i'm going to win this well you are in that weight class one of the absolute elite grapplers and that was really established in that fight yeah i mean i was so impressed with your control your ability i mean he's a good grappler kelvin's a very good grappler and you're manhandling yeah i it's like the same thing uh it's just like having like i have a path i'm going to do on the ground

and you turn this way i have something for that you turn it's like a map in my mind and right it fucking like you might think you're getting out but i'm just putting you in a direction i want to put you on and um yeah i love love like that, like almost like that slow cook approach, like take you down, wear you out, second round, same thing. And then I like, I submitted Jake Matthews in the third, Kelvin in the third. Obviously if I can get it in the first round, but yeah, when you wear on guys, like there's nothing better than that feeling. Like, cause you can feel it.

Like you can feel when you're on top of somebody and they're just slowly slowly like their energy is just getting zapped yeah so have there been talks about uh when you're going to come back and and who you might likely be facing so there's that atlantic city card it's march 30th so it's still like 12 like 11 12 weeks away um like i just want to make sure my hand's good before i go back into anything so maybe april time frame will be there but i would like to colby fight he's ranked five now he hasn't beaten anybody inside the top 15 he has no ranked wins um mazdal doesn't fight anymore all the guys he's beat like they're not even in the ufc right so and then there then there's Wonderboy right ahead of me I don't know what he's going to do I know like

they don't want to put him with your grappler you know like so and I get that but if it's going to be like that I don't think you should be in the rankings either like if you're going to pick and choose and he deserves to he's done a lot in the sport go have your fun fights like Terrence Crawford but put someone else in the division

but yeah there's there's a couple big fights uh Luke A's right behind me so that could be a fight that they match they could match us up have they given you any indication of which way they might be going not yet not yet how does that work like do you just get a call one day they reach out to your manager I guess they and then your manager calls you and they're like hey like this is what they're thinking and then you it's literally like that simple. Like you just go from there. But if you have an injury or something like that, you kind of let them, let them know what's going on. So I just told them, I'm like, give me a week or two to see kind of how my hand's feeling. And cause I'm going to try to do absolutely nothing and just

let it rest. And if it feels good, like I would love to fight in AC. Like I fought in AC. I won belts in AC. Like it was like my bad, fighting in Philly or fighting in AC. Like fucking we'd all go out and party afterwards when we were younger. It was great. What was the drive?

Like 45 minutes? Like an hour. It's the easiest drive ever. But being hungover, driving home, you're like, all right, it's only an hour. It's not that bad. We used to get fucking rowdy. And AC, when I was younger, it would be awesome to do that again.

But, yeah, I just want to make – but I just – I don't want to rush into it and start a training camp with my hand fucked up. Yeah. Especially because I'm in a good position now. You know, I'm No. 7. I had a big win and um yeah i think i i would like to colby just because he like he's always gotten like not he's won his fights but he's always kind of gotten like a easier path to the to the to the title so i think he should have to fight somebody younger than him rank behind him and then if he deserves it he'll win that fight and then he can go back but if not let the let the younger guys

move up it's going to be interesting what happens with him now after that fight and then he can go back but if not let the let the younger guys move up it's going to be interesting what happens with him now after that fight because it's obvious that you can't give him another title shot no right so it's not like you can go right back in yeah yeah i mean he absolutely could earn another title shot in the future yeah with a bunch of wins yeah it's still possible yeah but you know what is that path like and who do they match him up with he was calling out he went at Wonderboy I'm like no like you're not

like come on like come let's like you're one of the best grapplers in the division I'm one of the best like let's fucking

me and you do it and let's see who wins you know we're right next to each other in the rankings like that's what I want I'd love to see that fight yeah that's what I want

well listen Sean you're a bad motherfucker appreciate you always love watching you fight. Yeah, that's what I want. Well, listen, Sean, you're a bad motherfucker. Appreciate you. Always love watching you fight. Thank you, Joe. Super high level. I just, I love watching high level grappling. Yeah, yeah.

It's so awesome. Looking up, I didn't even realize, I seen you, and I didn't even realize fucking Gorder was right next to you. I'm like, I was talking to Dana. I'm like, there's Joe. I'm like, there's Gordon. I'm like, damn, this is, it was awesome, man. Fucking thank you for having me, man.

Hey, my pleasure, brother. It was cool being there ringside. Dude, I like watching fights so much better than commentating. If you could just get to sit there and watch, it's so fun

and that fight was really fun. It was really fun to be able to watch live up front. So congratulations and good luck to you, brother. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it.

Tell everybody your Instagram and social media. Sean Brady MMA on Instagram and yeah, that Sean Brady MMA on Instagram. And yeah, that's it. Okay. All right. Good luck.

Thank you, Joe. Thanks, everybody.