The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #156 with Royce Gracie

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Joe sits down with Royce Gracie, a retired professional mixed martial artist, veteran of the early UFC, and full-time athlete and instructor.  www.roycegraciejj.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Joe Rogan Experience Shrain by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day! What's happening my friend? Great to see you! Life is good in my world. Yeah, life is good in your world. It's always good to see you man, but it's... You know, I know you're you, and I know, you know, you... You're just always Gracie, you're the... You're who you are, but for most human beings,

you are one of the most unusual people that's ever lived. The original Ultimate Fighter, the number one, the guy, the reason why this whole thing is so big, you're the fucking man. It's because of my father. I'm a product of his work. For sure, for sure. But for most people, our introduction to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was you in UFC 1. We didn't, you know, I grew up in martial arts, but we didn't know about Brazilian Jiu

Jitsu until UFC won in 1993. Yeah, it's a, that one that, Horton had a vision. So back then we used to teach in the garage, private classes, one student at a time. And Horton had the vision, how can we spread out throughout the world? Once America find out, we gotta put on TV. Yeah. Once America find out, we got to put on TV.

Once America find out, the whole world will find out. The world found out so quick. I've never seen a martial arts spread through the country like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu did in the 1990s. A lot of people thought the graces are arrogant. They were trying to put down the other martial arts but was not it was like it was like a put up or shut up yeah karate against kung fu everybody claims that their style is the best there's only one way to find out

and we're willing to to try to find out we're not saying that we're the best we're just like hey you say you're the best, I'm the best, there's only one way to find out. Well the thing is you guys had already tried it in in dojos. You'd already gone to gyms, you already had challenge matches, you know. Gracie in action videos were an eye opening video for a lot of martial artists because they saw all these karate guys who were, you know, the guys who thought they were these badass fighters and they just got taken down a strangle taken down his triangle taken down an armbar but again that was in Brazil a lot of that

will happen in Brazil when we came to America was a different level it was okay this guy's the world champion in karate the number one boxer the number one kickboxer well let's see if our stuff work against them Who is the bigger to when you grew up with this? Do you I mean you started jiu-jitsu when you were very very young So when you grew up with this when was the first time you saw one of those challenge matches? It was Hicks on fighting Zulu. Oh, I was I was young, I couldn't get into the stadium, so I watched through a crack on the door.

It's like outside the stadium, because there was an age to be in there, I think it was like 16. And I was like 15, I think, when he fought, or 14 when he fought. So Roy Lergarian, because he did a demonstration, I guess, before, but I had to stay outside and I was looking through the crack could barely see it.

Wow. Yeah. Oh sorry even before that there's a black and white video of Horyon, Halson, Holiage and some of the students fighting against karate guys on the tile and that's when I was there I was present on that day. But I always heard stories of the family fighting and yeah we got a fight on the this guy on the beach and the guys show up at the school and we had to fight and I always grew up listening to them the stories of my father fighting, my uncles and my cousins.

So I was like, I wanna be one of them. I wanna do this. So there was always rumors about why you were chosen to be the representative for the first UFC. What's the actual truth behind it? Like why did they choose you? Dude, it was gonna be on national TV Imagine if they put an ugly brother

They all could have done the same thing my cousins. Yeah, I could have done the same thing. Mm-hmm. But come on by the looks No, no, I think I think my father in Horton knew I was going to obey my father's order. It was like, do not hurt your opponents. The other brothers and cousins, all of them bigger, smaller, they could have done the same thing. It was very raw back then. It was one style against another. But I think my father knew I was a little more calm personality. I was going to obey his

orders and his order was like, do not hurt your opponent. Now, why was that so important to him? To show the true art of Jiu-Jitsu. If a cousin gets in there and beat the guy up with an elbow across the opponent's face, yeah, he would have been impressive. Oh my God, he would shock everybody but wouldn't show the technique. And my father-in-law was concerned about showing the technique of Jiu-Jitsu just what we can do by dominating somebody bigger, stronger without having to hurt them.

That's so amazing that you guys had so much confidence in Jiu Jitsu that they wanted you to not hurt someone. That's the conversation I remember having with my father was like, but dad, the guys is bare knuckle, they're gonna hit me. He's like, don't worry, they will never hit you. They're not gonna touch you, don't worry. That's how much confidence he had. Wow. He's not gonna, don't take me wrong.

My mother's order was totally different. My mother was like, your father doesn't know what he's talking about. I wanna see some blood. Send him to the hospital. Mom was the mean one. That's crazy. Dad was like, no, no, don't hurt your partner.

They're not going to touch you. Don't worry. They're not going to, nothing's going to happen. You're going to dominate. Mom was like, I want to see some blood. Send him to the hospital. Your family is, it's so unusual because I have always said that your family, your father, Carlos, everyone, that the whole family, it's the most important family in the history

of martial arts. There's no family in the history of martial arts that's had the same impact that the Gracies have had. I think that Jiu-Jitsu landed with them for a purpose. They're from the north of Brazil, persistence people, and the vision that they had, or having a lot of kids.

Uncle Carlos had 21 kids. 11 boys, 10 girls. My father had nine kids. Then there were seven boys, two girls. So it could have been all girls. And it just wouldn't be what it is today. It is kind of crazy because your father was so unusual, had such an unusual mindset. And the fact that he had had those early matches like the matches with Kimura, all those Santana,

all those different early matches that a lot of people don't even know about that you could see online. It was, they wanna test themselves. So Kimura haven't lost, and not just not lost, but nobody lasts more than three minutes with him. And my father was like okay I want to try heavier, younger. Valdemar Santana heavier, younger. They fought for like three

hours and 40 minutes. One round straight. Wow. So it's yeah they just they want to put it to the test. That was the main thing. They want to see what they can do. But my father always said he wasn't on how can he beat the opponents. He always told me don't walk in to win. Walk in not to lose. If you don't lose, the question is how you're going to beat him. He makes a mistake. But the mentality was always not to lose. If you don't lose the question is how you're gonna beat him. He makes a mistake but the mentality was always not to lose. So always be defensively minded. We're giving the weight advantage to the opponents so if I don't lose we're gonna he always used to explain that way we're gonna play a ping-p game. So every time you put the ball on my side of the table, it doesn't matter where you put that ball,

I'll put it back on the center of you. I'll catch that ball, put it back on the center of the table. What am I doing? Playing the perfect defense game. When am I gonna lose? Never. So when I'm gonna win, now we have changed the question. When you missed the table, did I win?

No, you're the one who made a mistake. You're the one who lost. If you're not, we're going to play forever if you don't make a mistake. So it's a very defensive part. It's not a very aggressive. I've heard Helson describe Jiu Jitsu in that way. He said, Jiu Jitsu is I do this and then you do that and then I do this and then you do that forever. Until somebody make a mistake. Until somebody make a mistake. They say I could have made a mistake too, but if I don't make a mistake, if you don't

make a mistake, we're going to play forever. You know how it is. Yes, yes. We're going to play. Yeah. Until somebody gets tired or make a mistake or, yeah. It's also what was perfect for you to be in it because in the first UFC you were what did you weigh about? 176 pounds 178 178 crazy and you were in there against gigantic guys

Like what a chemo way 250 250 roided to the gills No testing no testing carrying a wooden cross into the octagon. That was crazy. He was raw. He was probably one of the strongest guys I fought. He was huge. He was raw strength.

Not the most technical, but he was pure strength. And I messed up on that one because I tried to match strength with him. He got me tired. So I tried. I heard he was very strong and I tried to match strength with him he got me tired mmm so I tried I heard he was very strong and I tried to match with him walking in with the cross I remember everybody's like what the hell is going on here I was like I was like go ahead carry that cross it was solid wood by the way that was heavy I'm sure probably good warm-up and there's you how old were you then? That was a sturdy FC I was 27. Wow. Look at his eyes man it's like

yep yeah just jacked full of juice enormous Jesus tattoo on his stomach the early days my man what is it like when you watch these? Bear knuckles. Sometimes I think what my father was thinking in Hordeon on putting me rockers. And I had a fight before. That was your first fight? It was UFC 1? UFC 1 was the first fight. Wow. I had to say how many fights you had? I said 51. Those tournament matches when I was a kid competing in tournaments. Professional fights, never. On the street, never. Wow, that's crazy.

I got jumped on the street once when I was like 14 years old because I wanted to be a fighter like my brothers. Never had a fight. I heard all of them fighting. So I was like 14, 15 years old. I went to a very bad neighborhood, got my bike stolen, my nose broken, got jumped like five guys daytime, took my bike. But I came home and I was like, okay, I had a fight. So I can be one of them. I want to be one of my cousins, one of my brothers,

man. I want to be part of that, the Gracie. Never had a fight, it's like, ah. When you first fought, did you have striking training at all? Yes. Very little. I had students showing me some stuff. That's crazy. More for me to know what's coming

I need them for me to use. Right. So it's more for me to know how they move. Yeah. So it wasn't like I'm gonna learn striking to learn boxing to fight against a boxer. Mm-hmm. It was more for me to know what's coming, how they're gonna move, when they're getting ready to throw a kick, a punch or for me to understand their movements. Yeah, Hickson's talked about that the same way. He said he didn't learn kickboxing to be a kickboxer. He just learned kickboxing to understand what they're doing, the distance, the timing.

Distance that's management, distance management. That's very important. Some guys you see plant their feet and just exchange firepower you can go either way so I like more of a you to style hit and don't get hit get away when you look back on this now and you think I mean when you watch these old matches from like 1993, what does it feel like to see that? Crazy. I think my father was crazy. No one had ever done it before on television.

It had never been in America at least. It had never been a thing. And then all of a sudden have this. No time limit, no weight division, no gloves. No rules. No rules, everything. time division, no gloves, no rules, no rules, everything. No biting, no eye gouging. Yeah, you could punch the nuts, everything. But if you do a goug or bite like Gerard Gordour, as soon as I took him down, he beat my year on the first year in the finals and the first UFC, but there's no punishment. There's no, okay,

you're going to get disqualified. It it's like don't do it again sir it's so crazy but then from that moment from ufc one brazilian jiu-jitsu exploded across the country exploded grace academy double size on after the first ufc the second UFC we double again. Wow. This is in Torrance? Torrance. Yeah. I started at Hickson's place and then I went to Carlson Gracie's place because I didn't know any better. It was closer. It was closer to me. It was on Hawthorne as that was when Vitor was making his debut in the UFC back when they were calling him Victor Gracie. It was UFC 12. And I remember the feeling of the first class, the feeling of how humiliated you are

when you don't know Jiu Jitsu, and you spar with someone who knows Jiu Jitsu. It's like you think you know how to fight, and then you get in there, and then all of a sudden you're on your back, you don't know what to do, and all of a sudden you're getting choked, and you're like, oh no, this is crazy

Like it was even doing martial arts for long time already. So I had a completely distorted idea of my ability to fight Completely distorted and I remember my first class. I was like, oh boy Now I know it's like a back in the garage days those some those always a student that bring a family friend or of a family of member or coach from different styles of martial art and they'll come in and They'll come in to fight us But we or tonight would have be like, okay

We're gonna control and turn him into a student. So we'll take the guy down, mount, and pretty much talk to him, maybe choke, maybe arm bar, let it go, not hurting. And the guy will go home and goes, oh man, can I sign up? Can I learn? Right, because of the fact that he didn't hurt them, you could convert them into a student. If you beat the fuck out of them and just broke their face. They would never come back.

So we were more concerned about gaining a student than trying to beat them up. But they were coming to fight. We were converting them. Wow. Was it your father that was the mastermind behind doing it that way? I think that was the mastermind behind doing it that way? I think that was Horion.

Horion was like my second father. I came to live with him. I was 17 going on 18. I came to America to live with Horion. So Horion was a lawyer, very smart, very calculated. And we were teaching back in the garage days, teaching every day, private classes, half an hour private classes. Place looked like a crack house.

Half an hour there's a person come in and leave and come and go. The neighbor was like, what are they doing over there? It's amazing what started in that garage if you really think about it. But it's also amazing like his vision that he had so so much belief in jujitsu that he knew that he just It wasn't like it had to be developed. It was already there. You just have to show people they just need to know and We try advertisements and so he finally figured out we have to put on TV And once the American people find out, the whole world will see it. So, and that's

what happened. Put on TV, second UFC, people coming from everywhere. There was applications coming from different parts of the world. It's crazy. It's, there's never been, I mean, other than maybe one thing that happened, like Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee Lee movies people saw Bruce Lee movies They all wanted to learn martial arts, but other than that, but that was movies, right? So that was like you wanted to do this thing that wasn't real like this guy was fighting ten people They were all coming out and one at a time But it wasn't real

Watching you in UFC one. it was like so many people had this light bulb moment. I thought a lot of people thought it was fixed. It was like, no, there's no way this thing is for real. Even though Taylor Tully lost a tooth by Gerardo Gordo, got kicking the face right off the bat, the first fight. But a lot of people thought, eh, second UFC still people like, eh, I think the fourth one is when people said,

okay, this thing's for real. Martial artists knew right away. Yes. In the martial arts community, right away. I didn't see UFC one first, I saw UFC two. That was the first one that I saw. Because UFC one, for whatever reason, I think it was some licensing thing. It wasn't available as a DVD or a VCR tape

Yes So the VHS tape when it when it was released and you could get it in a store a friend of mine had told me About it, and I had just moved to California It was 94 and I got a hold of UFC 2 and I watched it in my apartment. I remember going, oh my goodness. Like it just changed my mind about fighting. Fighting for me was always standup fighting. I wrestled a little bit in high school, but fighting for me was kickboxing. So when I saw that I was like, wow. I remember everybody, like all my friends that were into martial arts, everybody was scrambling to try to find a jujitsu school

Like there had never been a moment like that where one martial art had emerged with such force Jiu-jitsu judo wrestling. I had a lot of wrestlers and judo guys. They came up to me as like men Thanks for putting us on the map. Mm-hmm going back to the old black belt magazines inside karate inside kung fu those all stand up martial arts yeah those they wouldn't consider wrestling judo part of martial arts. I know it's not crazy. It's all stand up. We used to share a gym back when I lived in Boston there was a guy that I used to work out with and he had a gym that he would share with the judo class so on one side there's a judo guy and the other side is a kickboxers and I remember thinking like one of these guys Do what a waste of time?

Practicing throwing each other around like what's the point? You know and no one knew it's so interesting that everyone see From the time I first got into martial arts when I was a little kid There was always this thought like what would happen if a karate guy fought a judo guy? What would happen if a boxer fought a wrestler and everybody had an opinion? But until UFC one came around no one really knew it was just theoretical I always maintain that since 93 to today Martial arts have evolved more over the last 30 years than they have over the last 30,000 years It's everybody had that

that like World happen. Yeah, but nobody was with it with a challenge the other one Nobody want to step on anybody's toes. Well, nobody was willing to take the chance, you know What if I lose or what if I don't want to bow, I don't want to beat the other guy too because if I beat him he's going to feel bad and there was a lot of that. We were like, hey, we're willing to find out. Yeah. Well, thank God you did that.

I mean, thank God it came along because who knows where martial arts would be today if that hadn't happened It would still people thinking the death touch. Yeah I'll touch you right here in the shoulder in a week from now you are paralyzed Grab your collarbone you go to sleep. Yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of that stupid shit There's still that stupid shit out there. There's still a lot of people out there that believe that stuff. It's crazy, isn't it? But hey, UFC came along. Yeah, but most people know now. Most people know now.

I mean, now if you want to fight, you have to know Jiu Jitsu. You have to. Because there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. If you take Jiu Jitsu away, it goes back to the old style. Stand up, karate against kung fu. Jiu-Jitsu, the bond between the striking arts and the grappling arts and all of them. I mean, there's still guys who only understand Jiu-Jitsu

in a rudimentary sense, like they understand defense. But you have to at least understand defense. You have to at least know what someone's doing. You can't you can't compete without understanding it because you'll get caught. You gotta know. Yeah. Not just not just on the grappling part but understand that part. You have to know how to defend yourself. It's like it's not just come up and start to hit the opponent. No, no, no. I gotta manage distance.

I gotta know when I'm too close and he's gonna hit me. So I gotta play defense all around. What is it like for you, having been there for UFC One, to see what it is today? To see like UFC 300, which was just insane. This thing where millions of people are watching it around the world. It's this huge phenomenon It's like the most exciting sport in the world now and to know You were the original you're number one. There's only gonna be one original ultimate fighter. That's you I

Don't look at that way. I Don't look at that way I Don't look at that way. I look as a as a Yeah, I was part of it You were the V part of it if it wasn't you like if you didn't exist if they had the UFC one And there was no representative of jujitsu Some big strong guy would have won maybe what if I lost right what if you lost yeah so I said the idea said I'm not part of the history I am the history yeah you are the history yeah you you were the original

representative of jujitsu and the reason why the UFC became so exciting was not just because You get to see these wild fights inside of a cage But you see a smaller guy with better technique beat the bigger stronger men Which is what martial arts was always supposed to be Jiu-jitsu I always tell people is the only martial art that delivers as advertised people is the only martial art that delivers as advertised because if you're a kickboxer and you're a small guy and another guy's a kickboxer but he's like 250 pounds like you don't stand a chance you're fucked he's gonna hit you yeah lightweight boxer against a heavyweight doesn't stand a chance doesn't stand a chance but jiu-jitsu if you're really good and that

guy doesn't know what he's doing you're gonna fucking kill him he doesn't have a chance or even if he knows what he's doing yeah like wait yeah the lightweight have a chance oh yeah to survive and play defense and end up choking or on bar the bigger opponent which is why absolutes in jiu-jitsu matches are so interesting when you watch a small guy beat a big guy win the heavyweight championship it's like like it's a light weight. Yeah no it's it's the only martial art that really delivers as advertised where technique triumphs over everything. And that's what my father and uncle Carlos and their brothers always tried to show people that you don't have to be the biggest the the strongest, the fastest.

You just gotta know what you're doing. My father used to say, give me the right leverage and I'll lift the world with one hand. Just gotta have the right setup. Well that was also the brilliant thing about Jiu Jitsu and your father. So your father was, he was a smaller guy. He weighed like 147 pounds or something, right?

About 145, yes. Crazy, crazy. And challenged everybody, wrestlers that came from, would go to boxers, would go to vacation in Brazil, he would be at the airport waiting for the guy. It's like the old Joe Louis went to Brazil. And, excuse me Joe Lewis went to Brazil and my father challenged him. Wow. Horto had a letter that was given to my father saying Joe Lewis would box against anybody, boxing against boxing, not an MMA match. My father was like 145 pounds, Joe Lewis was 220,

200 pounds, the heavyweight champion at the time. Wow. The old man was crazy. Imagine if he took that on, if he was willing to do that, that would have been exciting. But back then there was no, the internet. Yeah. So a lot of people probably wouldn't find out. Right. It would be very smart and it would be didn't happen. Yeah no one would understand. There's no tapes. Right, right, right. Yeah you'd have to

set that up. You'd have to set that up, bring a camera crew and the whole deal. What was it about your father that had this mentality, that had this desire to challenge himself and prove Jiu Jitsu's effectiveness? I think he was being smaller, being peak on it, and once he learned he had that power he learned Jiu Jitsu he got that power with him so he wanted to show others and he wasn't i would say as a fighter he always says if i fell on top of the opponent i would be nice.

I would choke him out, I would subdue him. Use submission, make him tap, technique. If he was on top of me, I would have beat him up. He used to say, hit him, get off me, get off me. He should have listened, he should have got off me on the first punch. He would tie you up and beat you from the bottom. Well that was one of the more interesting things about Jiu-Jitsu because of what your father did, was because your father was smaller, he developed much more technique off of his

back. Because in these other styles of Judo and Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, it wasn't really emphasizing fighting off of your back. Yeah, he was playing defense. So he always said, tie your opponent up. And if you have to beat him up from the bar, but if you get on top, there's no reason to beat him up. You under control, you control the fight, you just subdue him.

Well, it was a lot of defense. It's interesting now. A mean defense I would say. Very mean defense yeah. But it's interesting now when you see the rules, the rules are set up much more for strikers and for wrestlers because I've been talking about this lately. Like say if you're a j a jujitsu guy and you're fighting in the first round and it's Rounds are five minutes long and you take the guy down four minutes and 30 seconds. You only have 30 seconds to work I feel like a fight should be even if you're gonna make it rounds The fight is the fight. I don't think someone should be able to get up. I don't think you should stand people up ever I think once a guy takes you down that's the fight is on the ground.

If it's boring for the audience tough shit. If you're on the bottom get up and if you can't get up tough shit. And if the round ends and then the new round begins I think they should start you right back in the same place. I think cause they're on the same weight division division back then there was no weight division. Right. But since the it's so I would say I would say the fight doesn't favor one person one style or another. It doesn't favor it but it gives a distinct advantage if you let a person stand up that didn't stand up. So if you start the second round say if if you take me down with four minutes and 30 seconds

to go and you're dominating me and you're closing in on me and you're about to tap me, but then the round ends. And then we start, but now we start standing up. But I didn't earn that stand up. I just gotta stand up because of the time. I feel like the fight should be a fight. So if a fight is five rounds, that's a 25 minute fight. And I think whatever position that you're in at the end of that

first round, you should begin in the second round. That's what I think. I'm in favor of doing one round straight through. Well, that would be wild too. I think one round and maybe even no time on it. No time limit is not good for the TV. No, no, but good for the internet. One 15-minute round. Ooh, yeah. It's like, that's it.

One 15 straight through, go straight. Yeah. No, no rounds. Start 15 minutes later, we'll stop. They should try that. And if, hey, if nobody wins, and another five minutes or 10 minutes. Right, overtime round.

You see, overtime. Well, I think pride had good rules with a 10 minute first round was better. I think 10 minutes is better. Especially if someone like works really hard. Again, four minutes, 30 seconds, you finally take the guy down, now you're on top. And now you're trying to set things up,

but the bell rings. And then you start standing up again. Yeah I started standing up again but then yeah I think put a 10 minute round 15 minute one round straight through man. But I think the problem is they've stopped changing the rules. The rules are the rules now and they've kind of like solidified them and established them but I don't think the rules are right. I think I think guy takes you down, you should have to earn a stand up. You have to get back up to your feet. So if the fight ends...

With one mounted on top of the other or on the back. Yeah, if that's the end of the round, you start from the same position. I think they should show it up on the screen what the position was and then everybody agrees okay so he had an overhook he had half guard go or how about like the they play football American football if the fight five minute finish and the guys on the mountain position you got to let it go until they break away. Yeah. So you're gonna go and tell somebody score. Yeah. So I like that. It's like if the position up on a such an advantage position that was something about it. Yeah it's something to think about if you

want to make things more realistic Like this is the round and i'm on your back about to choke you or with a guillotine or a choke or arm bars cotton Okay, the bell doesn't ring until you get away and get up then we'll take a break. Yeah, that's not bad either I just think that Having a fight start If start, you start standing up. But I think round to round, you should resume the position whatever you were in in the previous round.

I think that's the only thing that makes sense. Because otherwise you didn't earn a stand up. But if a guy takes you down and mounts you and he's setting up a head and arm choke and he's sinking it in and then the buzzer rings you should go right back to that spot when round two starts because you didn't get out of that so and now if the guy's a kickboxer now he goes oh shit I almost got caught and now you start that next round standing up he has an advantage because now he's standing up yeah you did but he didn't earn that stand up you earned the takedown. You got him down.

You got in a superior position. You were about to finish him. I like it. Yeah. I think it makes more sense. I like it. No one's going to listen to me though. Especially me. You're biased towards Jiu Jitsu. I'm like, yeah. Yeah, I am. But I'm not though. But I'm not though, because I feel like, I mean, if it was the other way, if you start a fight, if a guy stood up and got back to a standing position, you would never take them back down again and start to... But if it was a switch around, just playing devil's advocate over here okay the kickboxer or the stand-up guy hit almost knock him out mm-hmm

bell rings whoo saved by the bell right how do we restart that one well you restart it standing it's still standing I mean the round you have the minute rest but you're still standing. The kickbox is still. I would say let it go. Let it go. Let the clock go until hey and either he recovers, get in a clinch and whoo. Yeah. Got away.

The right way to do it then is one round. One 15 minute round or one 25 minute round in a championship fight. That's the right way to do it. That would be wild. What 15? 30 seconds. So 30 second minute round, minute break second minute break and then 10 minutes. That's not bad. Yeah. First round 15. Yeah. That would be crazy. It would be an early night. Yeah. I mean how many finishes would there be? There'd be a lot more finishes. I think so. I wonder how people have to work on endurance too. Oh yeah. Because a lot of guys there I see they finish the fight one is fresh the other one is done for the night. But then the one that's fresh lost because

he doesn't have that quick twitch that fast twitch muscle and the one that explode everything on the first round the second second, third round, that's it. This guy's ready to go for five, six, but his time is over. Right. That's interesting too, right? It's a matter of what people don't understand that don't, that just watch it and don't do martial arts is that it's really just about pacing yourself too. Knowing when to hit the gas, when to back up, knowing

that you have to fight for five rounds and knowing like when to push. Like some fighters they'll back off in you know in the beginning because they know that a guy's gonna come out fast and hard and they're just gonna wait okay slowing down now. Now I start to press. Now I start to put on the gas. And it becomes a mental too. Like Horton used to say, if I drop you off in the middle of the ocean and tell you I'm coming back in an hour, all you gotta do is try the water for an hour.

But if I drop you off and say goodbye, find your way home, now you gotta pick a direction, start swimming. Yeah. Most people drown before an hour. Yeah, true, right? Mental, Yeah, it's a lot of mental There's no round to save you. Yeah Yeah, that's the most interesting thing about the early UFC's is that it was just no time limit. Just here we go

This like Dan Severn On top of me for 15 minutes. I beat him on the final 16 minutes. Yeah. But 15 minutes, if was today, he would have won. Yeah, he would have won the decision. He was on top of me, took me down, got on top. Would have won the decision.

I remember that day. I remember when you caught him in that triangle. Most people didn't even know what was going on. They're like, what is he doing? What the hell's happening here what is going on nowadays everybody would be go oh the audiences are so educated now that was a perfect example of playing defense right there I totally play defense against him just first straight the opponent until he made a mistake. I tried a triangle early on in the fight,

but Higa was able to get out, to get out, and then I defend, defend, defend, defend. He couldn't do anything. I can see him getting frustrated. Like, he didn't know how he was gonna win. He's like, I can feel that. There's no way I'm, I can't beat this guy. Right, because you were so good defensively.

Just playing defense. He couldn't hit me. He tried, you see, but I knew he didn't have any finishing holds. He didn't know any finishing holds. He was just trying to put pressure. Okay, I'll take it. No problem. It was also the gi. The gi was so smart, too, to fight with the gi on, because guys would just grab that gi.

When you would close the distance and get a hold of them, they would grab your gi instinctively. I prefer them to grab a lot of Brazilians who are like man but then they grab they make it harder for you. No, I prefer them to put their hands on me because I know where their hands are. At least if they are not punching me, if they have nothing to grab, they're going to be swinging at me. Right. Go ahead. Grab my gi all day long. Yeah. I don't mind. Well, guys who weren't even grapplers would grab your gi. I remember watching. It's human instinct. Yeah.

Human instinct. Yeah. And also you have all that friction is so good to hold on to guys when you have the gi. And I dry them. Use the gi to my father. It's like use the gi to dry the guys because if you had to be slippery mm-hmm so like today they put oil on their body oh yeah definitely do yeah they definitely do boxes I'll put Vaseline all over this warm up the Tiger Bonds to warm up that thing slippery man oh yeah guys take baths in baby oil they would lie down in a bathtub and put water and put baby oil in the water and just soak themselves in baby oil so even if they're dry then is

the moment they start to sweat they just like whoop like hold it up to a salmon slip right out of your fingers. Good old days. Good old days. No rules. And then they slowly started implementing rules they slowly started implementing rules they slowly started implementing weight classes and then mandating gloves and then taking away shoes I understand I understand you had to be it became a show mm-hmm let's say yeah so on the beginning was a style against a style yeah today's more of a outlook are would look at it more as like, is an athlete against an athlete.

Yes, now it's a sport. It's a real sport. And it's still a sport that, there's still a lot of rules that I don't agree with. Like, I don't agree with no knees to the head on the ground. I think that's ridiculous. I think that doesn't make sense, cause they're very effective.

Like, don't be in a position where you get need in the head. Like, don't be in that, don't stay in in the head. Like, don't be in that. Don't stay in a turtle. Like, when guys just stay in a turtle and a guy's got a hold of them, man, that's a terrible place to be. In the street? Oh, my God. If a guy's got a head and arm on you and he's holding you and you're in the turtle

and his knees are free and you're not blocking your head, oh, this fight is over. But in the UFC, you can't even do anything. That seems to me to be crazy and they tried to make it I think for to last long the fights well I think it's less brutal too and the idea is that like you can't defend yourself against knees to the head of ground but you can obviously prize did him yeah can elbow in the back of the head right the back of the head from the back if you have the back mount remember when Hanzo when your cousin fought striker that guy in was it world combat league oh

my god he got his back and just boom boom just fucked him up like you didn't even need to put the choke in like he couldn't do anything you just flattened out with your face on the mat and the guy's pounding the back of your head you just tap. So they're kind of trying to put a little bit of to protect the fighter. Yes. I understand. I understand too. I don't agree with it. I don't agree with it either. Also it's weird that you can't hit the back of the head because the back of the head gets hit a lot a lot accidentally especially with head kicks like a lot of times head kicks. Like a lot of times head kicks wrap around the back of your head and it's totally legal. Like if

two guys are standing and one guy feints and the guy throws a punch and the guy throws a head kick and the head kick hits him, bang! It wraps right around the back of the head. It's a shin. That's okay. And that's a legal KO. Yeah. Which is crazy but if you get a guy on the ground and you punch him in the back of the head the referee take a point away Stand you up Doesn't make any sense Yeah, it's I would say Let it go. Yeah, let it go days out of you. No, it'll be good

Yeah, you got to protect the back of your head the back your head's vulnerable if you're in a situation where a guy can punch The back of your head you should be blocking the back of your head. The back of your head is vulnerable. If you're in a situation where a guy can punch the back of your head, you should be blocking the back of your head. And if now he can punch the front of your head, now you gotta block the front of your head. Turn the face into a opponent. You have to do this. We're talking about the sport of effective fighting, and it's very effective to punch someone in the back of the head. And they say it's more dangerous, but I mean, we're talking about a very dangerous sport. It's affected to punch the temple. That's okay. That's fucking vulnerable.

That's a thin little piece of bone. How many else is it? The gloves? Four. Yeah. Just to protect your fingers. That's all it does. It helps you hit harder. Yep. Yeah. It just protects you from cuts a little bit. A little bit.

But still. The cast that they put underneath, all that taping and the gloves just to protect your hands so you don't break your hands. Exactly. Yeah. Do you think that they should be bare knuckle? I think it should have gone back to the old ways. Just try out one time. One time, right?

One time would be great. No time limit, no weight division. Why doesn't someone do that? Why doesn't someone do that? Why doesn't someone do that? Someone should do, I mean, I don't know about the weight limit thing. Guys are too good now. The problem is guys are too good.

But if there's no weight division, if there's no weight division, you cannot have time limit. So if you take the weight, you gotta take the time. Like my father used to say, I'll give you the weight division, you gotta give me time. So you get some of the light weights over here, right. I can use my father. Yes, I'll give you the weight division. You got to give me time, right? So we have some of the light weights over here man. Mm-hmm the 170s 180s they'll fight the heavy weights also with no time limit most of these guys Well, if they're jujitsu guys, but also a lot of these guys are not really that's the other thing is the weight cutting

Like Kamaru Usman is the weight cutting. Like Kamaru Usman is a great example. He was the 170 pound champion, one of the greatest ever. Never weighed 170 pounds. He weighed 170 pounds for about five minutes. Walk around 200. Yeah, easy, jacked. All of them, everybody.

Everybody, you can't fight, I mean, except for BJ Penn. BJ Penn was the last guy who fought at 170 probably weighed like 165 when he beat Matt Hughes, you know, and he didn't just didn't cut any weight at all He just weighed what he weighed and just just went in and went after it. But again jujitsu guy, you know But everybody have to know just today. Yeah, some are more proficient than the others. But everybody has to know. Yeah, you have to know what's going on. You have to. Everybody has to know a little bit of wrestling, judo, kickboxing, karate. Everybody has to know a little bit of everything. Yeah, it's a different sport. It's totally different. But wouldn't it be fun to do once once see who can sign up for it? Yeah, yeah no

time limit, no weight class, no gloves. Yeah old school. I think they should take away the cage. I think the cage helps people too because it helps people stand back up. It helps you if you get a guy down and you get a guy down in an open room like say a basketball court like there's nothing to help him get back up. Okay, hold on, time out over here. Now you brought some memories over here. First UFC, it was John Miller's, the producer for Conan the Destroyer,

the father of Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood. He's in charge of creating the cage. But before the cage, they come up with some ideas, they present to me, I was like, wait a minute, hold on. They're like, how about if we make a round ring with a pit underneath, with a pit around it, with sharks. I was like, hold on, imagine if I fight a sumo wrestler and just bump me off and fall off the sharks,

we eat you, yeah, yeah, we should put piranhas because you're from Brazil. What? The ideas they had. How about like a bowl and people try to get off but you can't because it'd be slippery you can't climb off the walls aside but then they didn't had the angles for the camera and how about putting up they try with the octagon but with bob wires oh god I was like dude imagine if I got somebody big and just

push me against and hanging on top. Oh, yeah, that's right Let's make a electrical fence The ideas they had men's It was like the file fight some everybody I'm gonna fight it's gonna be bigger than me the guy push me against the fence Fry me against the fence I keep viewing the ideas, but on, really? That's crazy. I keep vetoing their ideas, man. They had all kinds of crazy ideas. God, imagine if they went through with those.

That's so ridiculous. I've been saying for a while that they should do, look, if you could watch a basketball game, basketball games on this massive court, why can't there be a fight on a basketball court? Just flat mats, no no walls so everyone can see everything that's going on. But you could have that being there's a even a basketball the guys will go to the edge. Yeah but you have a warning track so you have a warning track of like 15 feet on each side. Yeah let's make that bowl though. Bowl's not a bad idea. Bowl so the guy can not climb off.

Yeah. It's like with the wall, the edges. Have you seen karate combat? How karate combat is doing it? No. Karate combat is doing it like that where they have a flat surface and it's on the edges. There's mats that go to the edges like at an angle. In the angle like people cannot climb out. They kind of go up against it but then they get pushed and then they fall down.

They fall down because it's like I think a wall is actually better than the angle Because it's just too easy to fall like as like someone's pushing you up against that thing is a slope It's hard did like as someone's your yeah So if you see how they do it see how they have that was it yes, yes the angle So I don't I don't necessarily think that that's the best idea because as soon as you go up against that a lot Of times guys wind up falling down and the guy just oh you can't back up with them. Yeah, you can back up Yeah, you can't back up I think it would be better if it was like a basketball court just a flat mat and a basketball court

And there's a warning track So if you know you're in the red zone you have to get out of that red zone And if you keep retreating to the red zone, you have to get out of that red zone. And if you keep retreating to the red zone, maybe they take a point away from you. Like maybe you have to, it's a lot of room. A basketball court is a big space. There's plenty of room. You start in the center, and then that's how you fight.

I'm just trying to eliminate all the factors that aren't another human. Like the other human, if a guy takes you down and you could scooch up to the wall and then you start using the wall and you press against the wall, now you're standing up again, but you use the wall. Like if that was just flat, no wall, you're not getting up.

Now you have to go underhooks, you have to de-paf, you have to do something to try to reverse the position, you try to get back up on your feet. You have to earn-path you have to do something to try to reverse the position you try to get back up on your feet You have to you have to earn a stand-up much more difficult than if you're just Using the wall to help you stand back up Shock Remember the first UFC I worked was UFC 12. And this was when I was on a television show.

I was on this television show called News Radio. It was a sitcom. And so I was hired to go do the post-fight interviews. And I remember the people that I was working with on the sitcom were like, what are you doing? Why are you being involved in this? This is brutal. And I was telling them I was like no no no This is gonna be the biggest sport in the world. They're like you're out of your fucking mind. You're crazy No one's gonna like this. This is insanity

Like you're going to watch people fight in a cage and I'm like that was one of the challenges that Horton had and a lot of people did not Believe it on him. Mm-hmm. He was like people like man That was one of the challenges that Horton had and a lot of people did not believe in on him. He was like, people were like, man, you cannot fight on the streets. How are you going to put this on live TV? That was one of the challenges that Horton figured out. Pay-per-view.

He must be happy now watching it, right? Oh yeah. Like, look, I was right. His baby. Yeah, look at his baby now. His baby's on ESPN yeah crazy crazy yeah national TV when was the last time Horian went to a UFC I don't know does he still watch them I think so yeah he's just watching so I talked to him once in a while and once a month we talk. It must be crazy for him to see this thing that was his idea just branch off and become

this huge. All over the world. Is he mad that he didn't get a piece? No. No. Because it's sold for billions of dollars. He never told me. He never talked to me about that.

Boy, they should have cut him in. But they should have cut him in. Yeah. You know, when you me about that. Oh boy. They should have cut him in but they should have cut him in yeah You know you think about it like if anybody deserves a piece that guy deserves a piece for that for the vision that yes If it wasn't for his vision and the way they decided to go about doing it Also your father your father's vision for you like don't hurt him Just use jujitsu show everybody because that's one of things that made it so appealing it wasn't that it was just so brutal that the guy who won wasn't brutal the guy who won it was just better technical that's why i think the first second third UFC until i i didn't finish on the third UFC and first and second people are like there's's no way. He's the smallest one, beat everybody without hurting them.

I don't know, everybody thought I was like, yeah, a lot of people are like, the non-martial artist people. Yes. Martial artist people knew, it's like, uh-oh. Yeah, yeah, martial arts people. We gotta learn this. Well, everybody who took Jiu-Jitsu knew right away,

because it was so eye-opening. Like I said before, my first classes, like the ideas that you had in your head of how competent you are versus the reality that you're confronted with. And you saw that in all the Graciean action tapes too. Like these guys, they wanted to do it again. Like, how did you do that? Let's try it again. No way.

And then whoop, take down again. Whoop, arm bar. Like Gerard Gordo after the first UFC he went back to Holland and Prepare Ramco Pardue to to beat me Ramco Pardue judo player and use some stand-up When I beat Ramco Pardue they went back to Holland. They're like, okay, we have to learn this Jiu-Jitsu thing We have to learn this Remember when Ramco Pardue fought Orlando Viet? Yes.

And he got him in side control and he just elbowed him unconscious and everybody's like, oh wow. Like whoa, that was crazy. Cause Orlando Viet was scary. That guy was scary. Lightweight, very good kickboxer. Yeah, nasty, nasty Muay Thai and

Remco Parduj took him down elbows boom boom boom and then stopped he stopped That's a wrap Such an educational moment for martial arts again Martial arts has changed so much since 1993. People's understanding of martial arts, just the general public, what they know. If you see street fights today, guys go to the ground all the time. You see street fights today, guys get guys in heel hooks. Crazy! Street fights! Yep. You know? Here it is. Here's Remco. Boom! Boom! The first one he was already out. Remco is like 260 pounds.

He was a big dude. But it was just like no one understood what was going on. No one understood anything. That's the same takedown that he tried to do to me, but I end up on his back. Yeah. And I knew he was going to do that takedown, trap the arm, roll over.

So I end up on his back and that's when I choke him. Such a strange time for martial arts really, if you really stop and think about it. Such a strange time because all these years, thousands of years of people fighting, thousands of years of people having this idea of how to fight and then all of it comes together in the UFC and then we go oh okay now we have new data. Now we have new understanding. Now we have, okay, now we get it. Now we get it. And then you see it evolve to what it is now,

where you see these guys, like Alex Paheda, the kickboxer who comes in and now he's got his style. I think today's more of a lot of strategy too. Cause both fighters are practicing the stand up and the grappling. They do Jiu Jitsu, they do wrestling, everybody does kickboxing, karate, everybody practice all of them.

So it's a question of who have the best strategy. Yeah, who has the best strategy. And then there's people like Pahira who has a unique skill set like scary kickboxer Dangerous, he just hits you once you're unconscious, you know, he's like that guy presents a very unique challenge Like if you don't grab him and you don't get him to the ground you are fucked Because if you're standing up with him at any moment that guy's gonna set you up Moving boom like we did with Jamal Hill and that last yes

All it takes is one shot from that guy. You know, like, so these guys now, everyone has their own unique skill set. And it's so interesting seeing how that skill set matches up with another guy's skill set. Like, with Paheda, I want to see what happens if he fights against like an elite wrestler, a really good wrestler, who's really good at takedowns,

who knows Jiu-Jitsu, you know? And we haven't seen that yet. But he trains a lot of wrestler, a really good at takedowns, who knows Jiu-Jitsu, you know, and we haven't seen that yet. But he trains a lot of grappling too. Oh yeah, oh yeah, he's, well he just got his black belt from Glover. From Glover, yes. Yeah, which is huge. And Glover's good.

Yeah, and Glover says he's like very good on the ground now. No, Glover, Glover himself is tough as fuck. People don't know how good Glover is, cause Glover could not fight in the US for six years because six years because of visa issues during his prime like during his prime Glover was stuck in Brazil He couldn't come to America because of everybody knew about Glover was the boogeyman Like everybody talked about Glover Glover was the guy that like out of all the elite guys that weren't in the UFC Glover was the number one guy that everybody talked about

He was so good when he was younger guys that weren't in the UFC, Glover was the number one guy that everybody talked about. He was so good when he was younger. By the time he got to the UFC he was already like 36 years old. He won the title, I think he was 41 or 42 when he won the light heavyweight title. And Alex trains with him. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's a good combination. Oh perfect, perfect, perfect combination. I mean this is it's an amazing exciting time for the sport

you know really is And it's good. There's a still a lot of countries a lot of places that are against So we still can open up more doors. What countries are against MMA? A lot of European countries are still like What countries are against MMA now? A lot of European countries are still like... It's starting to make its way, like this guy is from France. Just now, last year, I think starting in France and Spain. Well, France has some great guys too now though.

You know, Cyril Ghosn and Cedric Doumbay who fights for PFL, who's an elite kickboxer. It's... and then you got, of course course you got those guys from Dagestan. That's an interesting element too. Those Russian wrestlers. I don't think just because of their wrestling. I think it's because of their discipline. And I tell a lot of people that those guys don't think about anything else. Just train. Yeah. train, discipline about it.

Very religious, very disciplined, very focused. There's no girlfriend or wife, they're not thinking about any of that. No partying. There's no partying. That's all they do, get up, train, sleep, eat, train. So yeah, they don't think about anything else. They're just more I think they're more discipline than

This side of the world. Yeah I was watching this interview with Khabib where he was talking was a conversation that he was having with someone who was talking about young people That it's so important that they maintain focus because a young guy who's really talented and is above and better than everybody else when he's 18, sometimes they'll slack off and then they come back to it when they're like 22, but then by then they're average and everybody else has gotten much better and they lost that advantage and they won't be special.

But the guy who's 18, who's above and beyond everybody else in the gym that guy if he can maintain that Discipline and maintain that focus then he can go on to become a champion Yeah, I totally believe on that. It's the discipline Yeah, it's not because they're better wrestlers or nah because they're better strikers You find very good wrestlers everywhere in America. Top wrestlers in the world over here. Olympics. But I think the discipline is what's missing a lot of people. They don't take Sunday off. It's all Sunday and we're going to rest. No, not for them, not for those guys. What was training like for you, like during UFC 1?

Training, I never really party. So I understand because I'm on that philosophy. I would say good. I before like a month, two months before the fights, a month before the fight when I was fighting in Japan, when I went to fight in Japan a month before the fight, I would move out of the house. So don't have to deal with the kids, with the woman, nothing. So, a month before. And, Horie would come over and have a talk with me and my father and it's like, okay, there's no babysitting,

there's no hanging out with the kids. Yep, none of that. Just Spartan training. Pretty much, yeah. And I understand, I was like, okay, I'm a soldier, man, you tell me to do it, I'll do it. There's not a doubt, you see. They say do it, done.

So you cannot hang around with the kids and babysit them, the kids are little, they're all grown now. But it's like, nope, okay. I can cut it off not a problem and what a discipline on that say goodbye to the family you got to go train you got to go spend a month away and what was a day's training like did you do any strength and conditioning back then or was it all just jiu-jitsu training and and position training and drills? It was a lot of in that order you have to know what you're doing that's how I learned from my family you have to have endurance then becomes power yes I did a lot of strength and conditioning but a lot

endurance endurance was before the strength and strength, but a lot of endurance. Endurance was before the strength. So even till today, it's like, it's knowledge. If you don't know how to fight, you have no business in the cage. But then you know how to fight and you have a lot of power, but you can't last more than two minutes. Uh-oh, you're in trouble. So you have to know what you're doing.

You have to have endurance to last at least the first round five minutes Then becomes power and what kind of endurance training would you do? Oh during everything from running to swimming to Strength coach and I one time got up and it's like okay The guy used to be the strength code for central, for the Rams when they were in LA. James went for a 41 mile run. Forty-one miles?

One day, seven hours later, I told him, stop. My calves are both cramped up, man. I can't take it. I can't stand it. That seems crazy. Yeah. So just not too long ago, a couple years ago, a bunch of friends of mine from the Navy SEALs asked me, hey, let's go swim across, let's go swim at Tampa Bay.

I was like, sure, let's do it. I figured out it was across Tampa Bay. It's like three hours later. Three hours of swimming? I made it, but my God. I was having frostbite on my fingers. It was January, very cold water. Brazilians are not made for cold weather.

It was not the distance. It was not, I can make it. It was not carrying like extra 40, 50 pounds of weight dragging behind us. No, it was the cold water that got to me. It was like, but I did it. Got the other side. Did you train for that or did you just do it?

We swim, I swim about maybe a dozen times. I thought we were just going to go to the beach and just hang out, swim on the beach. Yeah, cold water. Okay, yeah, come in, come out. No. Three hours. By the time they said it's across Tampa Bay, I was like, now I cannot back down, man. I got to do it.

So I went to a pool a pool swimming a nice warm pool dozen times maybe a dozen times just to get ready for that yep it was pretty much just on heart man we climb up cactus to clouds that's in Palm Springs strength coaches like yeah let's we're gonna go for a hike, dude. It's like cactus to clouds. It's bad. We did it, we got up there. How long did that take?

All day, all day, left like three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning, we started. Finished by four o'clock in the afternoon, three or four o'clock in the afternoon. three, four o'clock in the afternoon. Cactus to clouds, 21 miles, difficulty, class one, two, highly strenuous, 10,400 feet change of elevation. Jesus Christ. That's nuts.

Yeah. Yeah. I always did endurance stuff. With fighting, if you don't have endurance, you don't have anything. Sakurabana, we fought for an hour and 45. It was an hour and 45, yeah. It was six rounds of 15 minutes with a two-minute rest. I think it was two minutes rest in between rounds.

15 minutes rest for two, 15. Crazy. Yeah. Is that the longest fight you had yes 945 that's the second longest fight in history what's the longest fight my father 340 Wow 2 42 or something like this yeah fighting but he was one round yeah I was six rounds of 15 minutes what was the longest fight in the UFC that was one round I think Dan Sever and I oh wow no Kesha Murok and I one round of uh it was 30 minutes

on the uh UFC five we did it one round of 30 minutes What about other organized remember when Marilla Bustamante fought Tom Erickson? Max and yes, I was another one that was crazy because Marilla was in Brazil 185 and Tom Erickson was 300 pounds. He was a very good wrestler Powerful guy to people forgot about Tom Erickson. He was a very good rest. He was a scary motherfucker Yes, big they we call him the big cat because he moved like a cat but he was 300 pounds. That was when the wrestlers were taking over and trying to fight against showing the Brazilians that Jiu Jitsu was nothing. So they had the heavyweights. It was Tom Erickson, Kerr, Coleman. Royce Alger too, he entered into the UFC and Ensign Inouye

arm barred him. Remember? Broke his arm. And all those guys went to Brazil to fight in Brazil. Kevin Randleman. Randleman, Mark Kerr, Chuck Liddell. They fought Fabio Gurgel and. Chuck Liddell fought Pele. Yup. Everyone that used to have the ring with the netting underneath the bottom row so people can't slip out. Yeah. Crazy.

It's crazy when you think about it how much the sport has changed and how many just, I mean, and what's amazing is you could watch all those matches too. Like back then, trying to watch a match was very hard to do. You had to find a tape, you know? Yeah. I remember people saying, yes, man, you fought in America. We had to wait a week or two weeks until somebody bring the tape over. The VHS, they had to bring it, not even send it.

They had to somebody come over here, send it, they had to somebody come over here, record it and then take it back to Brazil and make copies and pass around to people. Yeah. Well, it's also like people had to understand where the level was at too, because if you didn't watch it, you didn't understand where the level was at. I remember there was a match between Hickson and Higgin. There's a jujitsu match between Hickson and Higgin. There's a Jiu Jitsu match between Hickson and Higgin. And at the time it was like the highest level

Jiu Jitsu black belt match we had ever seen. And we're watching Hickson and Higgin going after him. Like, oh my God. You're both studs. Studs. Higgin was not easy, man. He was so good. He was a stud.

Oh my God, and watching those guys go at it in their prime. It's like you get to see that level and you get a watch a tape if you were gonna see that yeah because you know we weren't in Brazil so we'd have to someone has to film it if we get it over to us yeah crazy how come Hickson never fought in the UFC did was there ever a moment where it almost came over I think because I was fighting there in the UFC, if not, it was tournament back then. So if both of us fought, we end up facing each other. So I think that's why he decided to go to Japan. But when you stopped fighting in the UFC, was there ever a moment where they were trying

to get Hickson to come over? I don't know if they approached him him but he was already successful in Japan and they kept him busy over there. So Higgs was beating up the heavyweights in Japan. Yeah he was beating up everybody over there. That's the thing that unfortunately in America people weren't aware of like Japan Valley Tu and all the different and then the original pride you know when he fought Takada and he fought those guys over there and Funaki. The first Vali Tudu yes. Yeah yeah well that's fortunately we have choke the documentary so people get a chance to see it from that. Hicks was a beast man. Oh Oh my God, yeah. Well that was the crazy thing

when you were winning the UFC, you were telling everybody, hey, my brother's even better than me. And everybody was like, what? By a hundred times. Not by a little bit, by a lot. That's crazy, that's crazy. Why was he so much better?

I don't think it was just physique. It was the way he moved, put his weight, the way he positioned himself. So it was all position. People say because he was stronger, he was more athletic. Nah, he wasn't. Because I don't think he ever used strength against me when we're training. It was not like, okay, I'm stronger than you. I'm going to just rely on strength.

It was just body weight. Just the knowing position and knowing. So he just had a special talent. Yeah. I'll say a special talent. Yes. But that was so confusing for us because we would hear like what? His brother's better than him. Like how is this possible? My little bit

Crazy But Hoyler too. Yeah, and the Hoyler was lighter weight than me but you like like you said Hoyler sporting with Hoyler, it's like a Grab your salmon He's all over the place. It's like uh, and he with Royler, he's like grabbing a salmon. He's all over the place. He's like, ah, and he's little, man. It's like. Well, he was the most successful in tournaments, right?

Yes, and he used to win the open weight divisions and fighting all the heavyweights, and Royler was a beast, man. What a family you have. I mean, what a family. All I mean what a family all of them bunch of studs all of them everyone Enzo including the girls sure look at Kira yeah now sure sure we're good kid look at even the ones they're not involved on teaching dude they're vicious it's just so incredible that this one family produced so many champions

There's never been anything like it in all of combat sports has never been anything even remotely close There's no even second place that you could bring up Oh, well, you know, there's a few times where two brothers were really good at fighting, you know But it's never been anything like you guys. Bunch of brothers and cousins. Yeah, everybody. Uncles and. Yeah, everybody. Yep.

I mean, when you heard the name Racy, everybody's like, oh shit. It's gonna be a problem. Like I think it was Hansel that said once, Hanselman is another beast on the family. Oh yeah. Said, we are not a family, we are a factory of fighters. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah, yeah. said we are not a family, we are a factory of fighters. Yeah, in a lot of ways. Pretty much.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so many. Hyen, Hensel, I mean, just so many, so many. It's just really incredible when you really stop and think about it. And the amount of people that we all created, that came, that learned from us at one point. Yeah, it's extraordinary, it really is.

When you watch Jiu Jitsu now, do you watch Jiu Jitsu like Nogi Jiu Jitsu? Do you watch these guys? Like when you see guys like Gordon Ryan. I'm not big in tournament. Gordon Ryan's awesome, man. That's his belt up there. That's his Abu Dhabi belt.

We met up with a friend of ours, Derek. We met up with him. We were teaching him in Chicago. And he's very respectful. Gordon Ryan came up, said, man, can we roll a little bit? He's like, sure, let's roll. It wasn't too long ago, maybe a year ago, last thing a year ago.

And the guy's a beast, man. It's like, I know of him. So he's very respectful, we're going very light, and he's going easy on me. And I was like, okay, go ahead, catch me. And he wouldn't. Really? And he turned around around and I can feel him giving to me it's like no you take me without talking mm-hmm and I was like

there's no way I'm gonna take because it will be believable there's no way I can tap him and I'm okay and I give it to him back something and he's like pretending he doesn't see anything. He gives something back to me. That's the point that I start laughing. I was like, dude, really? I'm giving the arm and he's giving me the neck and I'm giving him the triangle. He's giving me this. We're like both giving each other, but very respectful, man.

That's funny. We wanna talk about discipline. That guy works out 365 days a year. There's no Christmas, Christmas, fuck you. Your birthday, fuck you. you every day they train every day I told him people Misunderstanding what he's saying he's challenging people I said that's good. Yeah

That's what my family did you say you're good I I say I'm good, there's only one way to find out. Yeah. And I told him, keep doing it, because that'll push people. You see, yep, that's Australian. We're going so light, he's going so easy on me, and I'm giving to him, go ahead, catch me. And he's like, put the hand in, he doesn't catch me.

I was like, really? Really? And then he'll give me something, and I was like, okay, you take it. I was like, no, you take it. I was like, no, you take it. Nice and smooth and slow. But that's the thing that he's capable of rolling like that because he's so fucking strong, but he doesn't use it.

It's just all technique and movement and understanding. And obviously he came from HENZO school. John Donoher taught him, and Donoher came from HENZO. It know John Donoher taught him and Donoher came from HENZO you know it's like it's all that same lineage. But there's a lot of good talent people over there out there right now. Oh my god it's incredible like the level of just Jiu-Jitsu now is so high you know Mikey Musumechi and you know the Rutolo brothers and all these different guys out there that's just so much high level. There's somebody that trains with him with Gordon Ryan. I can't remember his name right now man but I heard the kid says I'm gonna catch you on the left arm. It's like, fuck, I'm gonna catch the right foot and he catch you and he tells you how long and timing. It's like, wow, that's impressive.

To be able to pull such a thing, it's not easy. No, well that's what guys do when they get past the level of everybody else, right? They just start challenging themselves by giving themselves one thing they're going to try to do. And I ask people around, and people say, yep, this kid is... Which guy is this? It's a training partner for Gordon Ryan. Giancarlo?

Who is it? Do you know which guy it is? I can't remember the name. It was one of the guys that trained with Gordon Ryan, man. He's on that level. Well, there's very high level guys now I mean, it's just it's so but it's also iron sharpens iron, you know These guys are so good now and everybody's competing with guys that are so good

Like you go to Abu Dhabi and you watch the level. It's just so they've been doing these little kids So yeah people in the beginning thought well the graces are good because they keep in secret No, no, we just stick to it. We just start as a young age and we grew up on this. Mm-hmm Well, this is a thing that Gordon always says he says my jiu-jitsu is ten years advanced of everybody So it does I could show you everything I'm doing. It doesn't matter. You're not gonna catch me because I'm in the gym 365 days a year. Discipline. Discipline. Backs, well it's not the discipline, where he eats and yep.

John Donahue talks about kaizen. Kaizen is this Japanese phrase for doing something over and over and over again, just constantly focusing on this one thing and continuing to perfect it over and over and over and over again, just constantly focusing on this one thing and continuing to perfect it over and over and over and over again, that's what they do. And their thought is, if you work out five days a week, but I work out seven days a week, in a month, I've worked out four times more than you.

In a year, you add that times 52, 52 weeks, you keep going over and over and over again after 10 years I have you know extra years of training on you and when you think about it that way it's it's it's really the way to do it if you want to really be the best of the best and you know there's a guy like Gordon out there that is training 365 days a year like you kind of have to and and we'll go back to dag stands. Same thing.

That's all. There's no Sundays for them. Yeah. There's no, today's my birthday. Today's, it's holiday now. There's no holidays for them. No. It's just discipline.

If you're not getting better, you're getting worse. So you gotta have discipline. That's what I tell everybody. You gotta have discipline. You can be the most talent person without discipline. You're not gonna stay on top forever. Yeah, you know, Mike Tyson said that. He said, discipline, without discipline, you're nothing.

And he said, and discipline is doing things that you hate to do, but doing them like you love it. Yeah. Yeah. I just love it to do it anyways. It is a lot. I mean, that's the thing about Jiu Jitsu too. It's so fun. It's so much fun to do.

Even when you're losing, it's fun. I love a challenge, man. Let's go for a swim across Tampa Bay. Okay, fine. Let's run 41 miles, climb cactus to clouds. Okay, no problem. Now, speaking of challenges, you recently got into bow hunting. How did that start?

How did you get into that? I know you met John Dudley, and I know you did John Dudley's podcast because I listened to you with John Dudley, and John Dudley taught me, so he's an amazing coach. Amazing archery coach. When I first met him, he came up to me, I was shooting at the Black Rifle Coffee,

and the challenge, I didn't know what I was doing. He came up to me and was like, hey, come see me, I'll make you a bow. And I was like, what the fuck is this guy, man? I was like, I don't know. I was like, who is this? I was looking around, I asked around, they're like, he's the hoist grace of bow hunting.

Yeah, he's the fucking man. So I went and spent some time with him, show me some stuff, build me a bow. Not like yours. Yours is how many pounds to pull? I have a 90 pound bow. 90 pound, I can't even carry that thing. Well it's not 90 pounds to weight,

it's the pulling is 90 pounds. I can't even carry that bow. Mine is like 60. 60 is good enough. But if you can pull 90, it's better. Yeah. No, I don't have the... Well, the way I felt like, you know, people say that there's like a, there's controversy

in the bow hunting community where they said, you don't need 90 pounds. 70 pounds is all you ever need. And I'm like, okay But 70 pounds for you is not 70 pounds for me 70 pounds for me is easy 90 pounds for me is not hard. So 90 pounds for you is almost impossible But 90 pounds for me is pretty easy. Like I there's a video of me pulling my 95 pound bow back I just fucking pull it back because I lift a lot of weights So if you lift a lot of weights you

Have all this muscle why not use it yep? I mean I agree if that's a lot more power. I was shooting with the 95 pound bow. I was shooting a 520 green arrow at 301 feet per second when that thing fucking hits man that is going through Everything the amount of penetration you get with a bow like that is insane. And that kind of power, that's better. Because if you hit bone going in, you're gonna go through the bone.

It's gonna go through everything. You're not gonna worry about penetration. You're not gonna worry about lethality. It's gonna be very lethal. So you wouldn't use a 20 pound bow. I wish I had those muscles. It's like a bow at 90 pounds. I wish. Start lifting weights, let's go. Start lifting weights. You wouldn't wish I had those muscles

I do a lot of rows a lot of chin-ups But if you could do you know if you could do that and it's not hard I always say pull the thing back that you could shoot like I shoot I have an 80 pound bow that I practice with and I'll shoot that bow for three hours I'll be out my yard for three hours just shooting hundreds of arrows. Man, this, I love. But it took forever. I love guns, any kind of weapons, swords, bows. You've gone to Tarrant Tactical too, right?

Yep. Yeah, that's great, right? Isn't that place great? He's awesome. He's awesome. Tarrant's amazing. Good teacher too. Oh, amazing teacher.

He knows how to push you to, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's again, it's like learning from a real master, you know, and seeing like, when you see him shoot, you're like, Jesus Christ. When he's like, ding ding ding ding!

Like fast, super accurate, perfect technique, you know, and you see that, you go, oh, that's what it looks like when it's done right, you know and you see that you got oh, that's what it looks like when it's done, right? But we got into bow hunting Bow in general proof not too long ago I'll say four or five years ago. I start to play with it and then when did you think about hunting? Oh I've been hunting for a while. I thought I keep that quiet. yes. You keep that quiet because of Brazil? No. Because Brazil has a very anti-hunting attitude

as opposed to the United States. Yeah, but it's not just Brazil. Same, Gracie family. The Gracie family. A lot of them don't like hunting and they give me a hard time and I'm like, oh my God. You would tell them that you're what? WhatsApp, group chat.

Yeah, they post a picture of somebody was eating some sushi and somebody posted a picture in a Brazilian barbecue place and they all started posting about eating and I posted a picture holding an elk. There's no guns, there's no blood. Everybody give me a hard time, man. Crazy hypocrites. Fuckin' give me a hard time, man. Crazy hypocrites. Fucking give me a hard time. I give them an hour. And then I came back and I was like, that's a bunch of hypocrites.

You all eat meat, give me a hard time. So, oh, but then they start to, oh, but you just kill for the fun. No, I did not. The meat is at my house, the hide is at my house, the head is at my house, and the are at my house, the heads are at my house, and the leftovers, the guts that we don't eat, the other animals went to eat. So I had to educate a lot of them on that.

Yeah, that's the thing. Most people are just uneducated about it and they have this stereotype view of hunting as being this cruel thing that people do for fun. No, I do it for the meat because I want to eat it's the best meat if I'm not gonna eat Yeah, I don't kill it. I'm gonna shoot a cat. Of course. I don't eat cats Yeah, people have asked me to do some hunts where they don't eat the meat I'm like sure yeah Yeah, like there's some man like there's a helicopter hog hunts. They do they fly around the helicopter They shoot wild pigs out of a helicopter. I'm like sure yeah, you know like this I'm out like there's a helicopter hog hunts They do they fly around the helicopter. They shoot wild pigs out of a helicopter like You know you have to do it you can go back and get it well

You could but I mean how many of them you're gonna get like one day they shot 250 of them No, I'm not that man you're not gonna really butcher and and some of them they donate to Hunters for the Hungry which is a great organization that feeds a lot of homeless shelters and stuff and they'll take that meat and bring it to a butcher shop and give it to hungry people and it's very good meat and it's the best meat for you but when you shoot out of a helicopter shooting 250 pigs you're not going to go and take those pigs and bring them anywhere. No I have a friend of ours in Texas that take us out to have his helicopter Ryan Ashcraft and we shoot but then we go back down we collect we don't shoot like 250 okay a couple four

or five you see we go back get the best ones yeah we cut it up and take the meat and oh wow boar is delicious. So good. Sometimes we even give out to churches and they take care of feed people. That's great. But wild game meat, man, it is the best meat in the world. When I eat it I just like, I feel so much better. But the feeling of you went there, you got that meat. It's something just the best, but the feeling of you went there. You got that meat. It's something that you brought home.

You went and got it, you went hunting. And hunting, I tell people all the time, it's not catching. I would say, 70% of the time, I come back home with nothing. So it's not every time that I go out that I come back with something. No, it's very difficult. It's, I would say for me it's about 70% of the time, man.

I come back home empty handed. But it's like, okay, I was there for a whole day, peace of mind, there's no cell phones, there's nothing, there's nobody bothering me. It's difficult. You're in the woods you're hiking Yeah, you need endurance. I mean you need strong legs to get you around those mountains I mean the first time I ever went hunting I got that mule deer with my friend Steve Rinelli

He took me hunting in Montana, and I was in really good shape and I was like, you know, I do jiu-jitsu every day I'll be fine walking up these hills and I was like whoo this is fucking hard like I didn't think of it as a physical thing but mountain hunting is very physical like you have to be fit you have to be in shape. I just got back from bear hunting in Idaho and up and down the mountains. Yeah, hot sun. Yep. Yeah up and down the mountains Idaho that is rugged terrain too. Very rugged beautiful terrain too. Last year my first elk that I got with the bull. Shot the elk with the bull 30 yard shot. Shot the elk with the bow, 30 yard shot.

Got the elk loaded up, took it back to the house. We are taking the skin off, and taking the skin and the hide, and taking the meat, and I went to help the guys 11 o'clock at night. There's three of us. I went to help my friend to to to cut because he's got knives everywhere so as soon as I start to lift the hide put my finger my hand on the wrong spot the guy cut my finger to the bone went to a went to a

so this the other friends like hey do you have a hospital nearby he's like hospitals two hours away got a veterinarian but Veterinarian? He's like, no, it's 11 o'clock at night. Everybody's asleep, man. So he's like, do you have super glue? He's like, no. He's like... You got a stapler? Oh, so he stapled it? That's crazy. He stapled my finger.

Oh my god. Put four staples on my finger. I was like, okay. Wow, that's crazy. But it worked. It worked. Wow. Then a half later I get home and my son decided to take it off. I have to take the staples off. Look where he's using to take it off. I have to take the staples off. Look where he's using to take it off. A pair of pliers. From the garage, from the motorcycle, pick up the pliers. There was no, I can't believe I still have my finger, man. We didn't clean it.

He just pick up the pliers and start to pull the staples off. And how long after the injury was this, that he was doing this? A day and a half later Okay, so it kind of healed up a little bit those when I got back to Florida Yeah, it's like I was in Montana. I got back to Florida my son's like no, you're not going to the doctors I can dig I can take this off. Are you living in Florida? Yes. Where do you live? What part of Florida? So sort of no kidding. When did you move there? Move there about almost two years ago. What made you decide to do that? I

Can see myself getting arrested if I was in California Really? Oh, California people so got so did I love California don't take me wrong I think California is the best state in the world and I travel eight months of the year I love California, but the people over there, man, they just get on your face. It's like this, like this. It's my right to be here, okay? What are you gonna do about it?

It's like, dude, it's my right to knock your teeth out. Oh my God, he's violent, call the cops, arrest him. It's like, people is like disrespectful. Got to a point, you got disrespectful. It got weird, right? It's hard, and I love, don't take my word, I totally, I can't say enough how much I love California. It's the only place where you could be in the ocean

and then in the mountains in an hour. And on the desert. Yeah, and in the desert. You can surf, ski, and spend the night in the desert on the same I'm it is beautiful and a lot of great people there, too But they've lost their fucking minds, but the people that they're demons like in and so Just to me just disrespectful yeah disrespectful, and they've sort of they've

Emboldened a lot of really stupid people to act like idiots, you know, and Just the whole the way they're dealing with the homeless situation is fucking insane You know, they've they've they've lost 24 billion dollars that they can't account for that was Is that is that what the story is? There was some controversy about 24 billion dollars missing that there were This allocated towards the homeless crisis Yeah, so I just saw was enough on the trip and I call my son. I was like dude. We gotta get out of here We gotta get out. So all the kids are grown. So

Everybody's different location Yeah, how'd you pick Florida? by its different location. Yep. So how'd you pick Florida? So here it is. California spent $24 billion tackling homelessness over five years, but didn't track if the money was helping

the state's growing number of unhoused people. So they spent $24 billion and they can't figure out what the fuck it did. God, it's ridiculous. And it's not getting better at all. It's getting worse Every time I go back there. I'm like, oh god, it's worse and I only go back like once a year now I go back once a year does and I love it. I hope it gets better. I would love to move back But it's not gonna get better. Yeah, I have a long time. not gonna get better for a long time. It's gonna take generations.

I used to joke with people and say, I'm frontline of resistance. But yeah, he got to a point, it's like, nah, it's too out of control. Well, it's also crazy things are happening. Like a guy got arrested because someone broke into his house and he shot the guy and they arrested him. Like, okay, you can't even defend yourself in your own home?

Like, what is the fucking point? defend yourself in your own home? Like, what is the fucking point? What's the point of the Second Amendment? What's the point of having a firearm? Isn't it to protect your family? Are we supposed to assume that someone was willing to break into your home violently, that that person's not gonna harm you? You gotta call the police? How long is the police gonna take to get there? What if you have a family? What if you have children? What if you have a wife? You're supposed to just let this person break in your house? You can't do anything about it.

It's insane because they're hiring the most insane district attorneys and they're making it easier and easier for people to get out of jail who've committed violent crimes. I mean, they've lost their fucking minds. And I don't know how it comes back other than they have to get some hardcore Republican governor who starts cleaning things up and Just cuts back on all the waste and cuts back on all the bullshit and just put their foot down It's gonna take a long time, but I have hope but I have hope well, that's beautiful. I Kind of got time. I got plenty of time. I'm not going anywhere. I hope that you're right But I don't have that much hope I just see that they're indoctrinated into this liberal

ideology and they just believe that this is the only way to think and behave and until it bites them in the ass. I've met a lot of people there that I knew that were really hardcore liberals who've now completely turned around. And now they're Republican. And now they've moved out, they moved to Tennessee, they moved to Florida, they moved to Texas. And like, no, no, no, I see where this is going. But then it's like, sometimes I keep thinking, what's the end game? What's the goal for the people that are doing this? Well, the real question is who's funding it?

More power? It's not even necessarily more power. I mean the real money? You see it's like what's the end? What's the goal? It's very confusing but I think generally there are people genuinely there are people that are funding this that want to see Western society collapse. Like my daughter was going to school in the University of Vermont, beautiful over there, but she already had it. She's moving to Tampa now. Really? She's like, be closer to us.

It's like so people doing all these protests against American army. Yeah. Against. against American Army. Against, it's like, she's like, I have a son, one of my sons is in the Army. And she's like, no. So she put an Army shirt, sweatshirt, and walk right through the protest.

And other girls would come over and give her looks and she would just look at them and people would go, yeah, silence is violence. Flip them the finger. looks and and she would just look at them and people would go yeah it's like silence is violence flip them the finger it's like how about that for violence? Silence is violence is one of the dumbest fucking things. Silence is not violence. Violence is violence. If you say silence is violence you've never seen violence.

Yeah. Yeah. Unless someone's being quiet while they're beating the fuck out of you Silence is not violence violence is violence you fucking idiots She had her over there she spent one year. She's like man. I can't put up with this anymore the teacher was talking trash About she's like I didn't pay The teacher was talking trash about, she's like, I didn't pay to hear the teacher. And the political beliefs.

Yeah. So she would get up and leave class. And she's like, I had it. I'm done. I'm moving. I was like, all right, let's go. It happens everywhere. I mean, it even happens here.

There's just certain teachers that just feel that they have this ability to enforce their political beliefs on kids and They'll be very angry. You one can get kicked out of school here because he had to make America great again hat on Hmm. Look with just whether or not you support Donald Trump the sentiment behind making America great That should be everybody should be on board with that the idea that making America great in a hat is offensive to people. It's like what? How? Help me out. You're not saying anything bad. You're saying make America great. Wouldn't it be awesome if America was great? Who disagrees with that? How could you disagree with that? Great means everybody does well, your family does well, the streets are

clean, everyone's safe, there's less crime, less violence, more jobs. That's great. Why would you be against that? How could you be against that? And how could you think that that sentiment is offensive? That's what's so twisted about the world that we're living in today. And that's why sometimes I keep thinking again, what's the end game? What is in for whoever is behind all this? Right. More money, more power, more than what they have already. It's like to destroy society for what?

What's the purpose? I don't know. That's why I keep thinking. You see, it's like. I wish I knew. I wish it made sense. It doesn't make sense to me. I think a lot of it is influenced by foreign governments. I think foreign governments influence universities by

supporting people with very ridiculous ideologies and then making sure that those people with ridiculous ideologies Enforce those things and children and then you have social media Which social media is also propped up especially tick-tock is essentially owned by China, and they promote all these ridiculous things, and these things get into kids' heads, and they're on TikTok every day, and then they start thinking that this is the only way to think and behave. But the way I... Sometimes, for sure, because it's like the way I think in the business of martial art business If your school have a hundred student or a thousand students doesn't make a difference to me I Prefer that you succeeding have a thousand students. Yeah

Won't be the goal for me to make you have no students. You see it's like I want you to go because if you grow I grow right but then it's like on the world society and People trying to destroy one Country trying to destroy the other for what? Well, you're thinking logically power to have more power? To have more power? It's also people are trapped in an ideology. They're trapped in this woke mindset. You can call it woke, whatever you want to call it, but this ideology of what we're seeing with these young ridiculous kids in universities

today. It's like they're trapped in this way of thinking and they don't think about the end game. First of all because they're very young and they don't know anything and they want to rebel against society which all young people want to do. They want to rebel against people that are older and they want to think that they know better than the people that are older and then eventually they get older and as they get older start to realize you know what I think the problem is people are fucking lazy. You know I think the problem is people don't have discipline. You know I think the problem is people don are fucking lazy. You know what I think the problem is? People don't have discipline. You know what I think the problem is? People don't plan for the future.

People don't work hard. They don't...like everybody should have the opportunity to work hard and get better and move ahead and try to better your life and better the life of your family. And if you think that way, you're going to have a good society, but if you think that society is evil and it's all colonists and that we got to destroy it and take it all down and capitalism is evil. Okay, what are you going to replace it with? They didn't even thought this thing through. What are you going to replace it with? Communism? You ever been to a communist country? It's fucking hell. And you know what happens in a communist country? You have to enforce it. How do you enforce it with the military and if nobody's armed but the military now you have a Dictatorship now you have a brutal military dictatorship that decides what you can and can't do. That's what Cuba has decides for you Yeah, that's what you have no saying whatsoever. No say no say that's what China has that's what North Korea has like good luck Good luck with that. There's plenty of examples of that. None of them are good

There's no examples of communism working anywhere where it's for the betterment of everybody One thing that that coming to America from Brazil it was a Lot like in Brazil they put you down a lot. I remember when I won the UFC remember when I won the UFC, there's a thousand guys that will do better than him, this is nothing. Everybody was like, it's not a lot of people like, his accomplishment is not that big of a deal. Different than America, they push you up. You see, they changed their mentality now in Brazil. But back then used to be like this. That's interesting that the mentality changed. Why did the mentality change in Brazil. Oh really? Back then used to be like this. That's interesting that the mentality changed. Why did the mentality change in Brazil? Don't know but they changed.

I can see that now. People try to push you up now instead but back then when I won it was like nah, it's no big deal. These are guys that will do much better than him and they came over and they got beat up over he badly in the UFC. But that's one thing that attracts American culture was like they're trying to always push you up. It seems like that change now, they're trying to push you down now. In some places, in some circles. Yeah.

But there's still quite a few people in America that still believe that. Oh yeah. I think that's more prevalent here than anywhere else in the world this attitude that we want people to succeed to celebrate success but then This whole thing what's going on right now. It's almost like they want to crash. It's like why it's usually losers Losers who don't have anything going on and they want other people to be losers as well. They don't want people to succeed and also they connect success with the worst examples of success. Like they connect the idea of financial success with people being oppressed.

Obviously people being oppressed is terrible, but all financial success is not oppression. That's ridiculous. Like if you have a school, like for example, if you have a jujitsu gym, if you have a jujitsu academy and you have a thousand students, there's nothing oppressive about that success. That's all beneficial. It's beneficial to your students. It's beneficial because if you have a thousand people, then you have a place that's run well and you have staff, you have people that are employed there, and also you have plenty of classes. So I can get a class at 630 in the morning before I go to work. 630 a.m. class, I'm done by 8, I shower up, I'm in the office at 9, I feel good, I got something done today, and I'm getting better at Jiu Jitsu, like, oh, this is amazing, you know, and then you have classes all day long, and everybody's getting better, and the leveljitsu, like, ooh, this is amazing. You know, and then you have classes all day long,

and everybody's getting better, and the level is high, because there's guys that are good in the gym, so you get excited, and you're thinking about your game, you think about constantly improving. That's not, there's nothing oppressive, and the person who runs that gym, they're making a good living, and they feed their family, and they have a nice house.

There's nothing oppressive. And employing other people. Yes, there's nothing oppressive about that success. We're not talking about the success of the military industrial complex or the oil companies polluting the ocean. No, you're talking about there's a lot of people that work hard and their success is not even remotely oppressive. So when people connect all capitalism to degradation of the environment and controlling of people

and oppressing people that's ridiculous that's just a foolhardy way of looking at the world yeah it's a like I said if your school have no students or a thousand students I don't make any more money, right? So but I want you to have a thousand students It's like because if you have a thousand students if I come to teach If you don't have any students, I'm not gonna come over exactly. So but I want you to succeed Yeah, so I wanted to fill up your school. Are you primarily doing, do you do like seminars now? Do you do a lot of seminars? Seminars, but I'm building a school in Sarasota. Oh, nice, nice.

I haven't had a school. I used to teach with Horton until 2000. Then I stopped teaching at the school, at the academy, at the Gracie Academy, and just went to do seminars. But now I'm building a school for my son and I. Oh, wow, that's great. I love to travel, to see the world, but I'm gonna build a building,

we've got a place, a location already, just waiting for permits. Oh, that's great. Be my first headquarters. That's great, that's gonna be awesome. Boy, that's gonna be successful. And the location's awesome. Boy, a hoist Gracie school in Florida,

boof, that's gonna be big, right away. I mean, if I have that first day, you'll be successful. And the location is awesome. Boy, a hoist Gracie school in Florida, that's gonna be big right away. I mean, every first day you'll be full. Yep, we got a lot of students already just on the standby waiting for us. How long do you think before you're open? About good eight months. Nice. We're just waiting for the final permits. And they start building. We're gonna tear down the building and then build up. build up is fast it's just permit takes forever in Florida yeah takes it forever a lot of places and how big is this place gonna be big enough big enough very big yes yeah we're talking three floors oh wow so is it gonna be different things in there? Like, what is the plan?

Do you wanna give the full details? Not yet. Not yet? Okay, well you let me know. Let me know when you're about to open. We'll let everybody know. The location's awesome. That's great.

Five minutes from the beach. Oh, that's beautiful. That's exciting. That's very exciting. That must be really exciting to look forward to something like that. Five minutes from the beach to Beach and floors are a lot of my son my son

No sharks on the Sharks on the East Coast, right? Oh, are they I'm on the West Coast. There's no shark West Coast in the Gulf Arthur sharks in the Gulf to sharks don't like Brazilians, man. No Sharks for you like Brazilians man Hold on too many too many bones on this one, man. I'll choke on this one Let me get that meaty one over there with all the muscles. Look at that that meaty one over there with all the muscles look at that that's a shark in Sar up to someone's boat? Oh my God, saying hi.

Those are pets. Fuck sharks. Do you surf? No, not as much, not like Hoyler, no. Hoyler surfs a lot. Is he in San Diego still? Hoyler's in San Diego. Yeah, a lot of surf down there.

He surfs a lot. He goes to Bali every year, spend a month over there. There's sharks down there, bro. Yeah. There's a lot of sharks down there. Where? San Diego. month over there to sharks down there, bro. Yeah San Diego, yeah There was a group of people that were training for a triathlon and they were in the ocean doing a swim and one of them Got killed by a great white and my friend went swimming there the next day Because he had to prepare for the swim that the shark was already

stomach full so I get full so easy probably told his friends I got a swimmer the other day well swimmers over there yeah that scares the shit out of me sharks scare the shit out of me that's what the like bears to me are not as scary as sharks. If there's bears, you got a gun, you got bear spray, you know what you're doing, you're careful. I think you probably, you know.

Hey, the bear is hunting you too. That's true. You could, you could, well, it depends on what kind of bear too, right? If you run into a polar bear. And they move so quiet, man. Yeah, I know, for such a big animal. 200 pounds 250 pounds you don't hear them coming right behind you. When you were bear hunting were

you using bow or rifle? This one was rifle I haven't done a bear bow hunting yet because that's a very close shot man. Yeah. Mine as far as I can go is like 30 35 is pushing for me. Yeah, so I'm not as proficient on the ball yet. Mm-hmm. So Arrange in your yard where you could practice. No, I don't do you have a yard? Yeah big How big is your art? It's not that big. So far got a pool Like how much distance do you have that you could shoot in your yard? Ten. Oh, ten yards.

Ten, yeah, twenty. It's like, it's Florida where I am, the yard is open. I see. So the neighbors will be like, hey, hey, hey, don't point that bow to us. Even though it's Florida, it's like, yeah. Is there an archery range near you? No. No?

I haven't found one yet, yeah. So where do you go to practice? When I go, man. Oh, only when you hunt? Oh, that's crazy. Yeah, that's why you can only shoot 30 yards. I'll get there and I'll practice shooting for like two days, a day, two days, and practice.

Oh, man. Let's go. I jump first and I figure it out later. That would freak me out. Cause I have to practice. When I go hunting, like say like if I'm like five weeks out, I'm shooting hundreds of arrows every day for five weeks. I want to make sure because I've shot like the-

It's kind of like the swim. I swim about maybe 10 times and then swim across Tampa Bay. But I want to feel confident. Like if I have a 75 yard shot on an elk, I want to be confident that I can make that shot. Seventy five. Yeah, I've shot an elk at 75 yards. Yeah, I've shot an elk at 80 yards.

We saw some elk last year, about 89 yards, but I was like, nah. It finally came 30 yards. If they're not moving, if you know they're feeding and they're not moving and there's no wind and you know you practice at 100 and you know you can make it, but you have to be like, you know what it's like? It's like when I'm like a high level purple belt,

brown belt in bow hunting. I'm not a black belt. I'm a a high level purple belt brown belt in bow hunting I'm not a black belt I'm a white belt yeah yeah 30 yards is good white belt white belt with one stripe Sarasota archers look at this private club requiring membership hey Sarasota archers why don't you let in the goat? Hoist Gracie needs a place to practice. That's nice. I'm sure they will let you. Yeah, I'm sure they'll let you. That'd be great. There you go. Now we got your spot. So now you just go there. You only need a few hours a day. You just need that muscle memory. You need that feel. That feel of the relaxed shoulder, just no anticipation of the shot pulled through. To me, I have to get that ingrained in my head, that technique, it has to just be over

and over and over again, where it's ingrained in my head so that when I'm drawing on an animal, it's just, I know exactly what to do. There's no questions. Sometimes it's almost like shooting. I shoot quite a bit. Sometimes done some competition. And I see the guys studying and looking at the target and shooters ready and they're concentrating the target.

When they say shooter's ready, I look away. So set, go. look up and shoot it just pick it up and find it yeah but don't you think that because you've fought so many times and because of all your years of jiu-jitsu and all like things like shooting and things that involve technique and concentration like they come naturally I think so yeah I think so too I think so it's like I'm very patient I know how to control my breathing mmm don't get excited right you see like when I draw for the elk it was a was a cow I draw it

was less deal hunt willa for day like four days hunting the elk man. I draw on the cow, a bull showed up so I just turned fire on the bull. It was like, but I was going to shoot a cow. I was like, I got to take some meat home. It's been four days chasing, nothing came close and that cow came close 30 yards and as soon as the cow got in front of me I draw and the bull came over just turn just perfect shot bam done. What kind of broadheads are you using? Oh that was the local guy at the farm where I was give me the broadheads.

Mechanical or is it a fixed broadhead? No mechanical. Rage? Was it a rage? It was the blade one. Yeah probably a rage. Yeah I like those. John Dudley has his own broadhead now. He made like a better version of a rage. Like a more durable sharper version of a rage. So G5 making it's called the t2 it's a new mechanical that he designed that John designed that they're just they're just starting to release now I think they just started to sell them but he's he sent me some prototypes I like it a lot it's a great brother yeah yeah the guy the farm that what I was he, that was last year. Where was that? Montana.

Oh nice. Yeah, Great Falls. Yes. Lot of elk in Montana. Montana's so beautiful. And deer and got everything. Isn't it just so amazing being out there too in the wild? Just, it's just so peaceful.

Even if I don't hunt, if I don't catch, I tell the guys when they take me out they sometimes I feel the under pressure catching some it's like dude if I don't catch anything I'm happy yeah just being here mm-hmm just a pursuit and knowing that you know sometimes you're gonna go home empty-handed it's difficult it's a very difficult thing to do that's what makes it good like I said 70% of the time, I come home with nothing. Yeah. But that's part of why it's fun, because it's hard to do. And some people don't understand that. They just want results.

But then when I eat, it's like, I got this. Yeah. I cooked some elk the other night. And as I was cooking it, I was thinking, like, yeah, I remember where I was. I remember where I was. 52 remember where it was, 52 yards, shot down into a canyon, perfect shot. I watched the elk go 30 yards, pile up. I watched it die. I went up, quartered it, carried it out.

We carried it over the mountain, got it into a four by four, drove it back to the lodge, took it apart. I remember everything about it. So like being there, I have photos. I have photos of the impact shot, I have photos of the animal. It's like in my mind, this meal has a history. And I taught all my kids, I didn't teach,

I took them out and the local guys would teach them how to hunt from a young age, all of them. That's great. How to skin a deer. Yeah. How to stab a hog with a knife. Oh, geez. That's heavy.

The stabbing the hog is wild. That's good. The hog hunting with dogs is phew. Dogs and a knife. The first time I took my daughter, I asked her, she was maybe 13, 12, 13. I asked her, hey, do you wanna go? She's like, no dad, I'm gonna stay on the ATV.

Okay, so I'm over there, I'm stabbing the hog and when I back off, I look and she have her knife open behind me, she's waiting there. And I was like, oh, you decided to come? She's like, nah, in case the dog got you, that I would've jumped on him and catch you, stabbed him for you. I was like, okay, you didn't wanna do it, but you were backing me up.

You're my backup, guys. Nice, nice, that's nice. Well, all my boys, they all did it from a young age. Everybody started 12, 13. It's a good thing to learn. And it's also the best meat that you could ever eat. The best meat, the best meat that you could ever eat. The best meat.

The best meat in terms of like the healthiness of it, how good it tastes, it's so good for you. And shooting, teaching them from a young age, they all respect the gun. They all respect the weapon. Yeah, I think everybody should know how to shoot a gun. It's worst case scenario, you everybody should know how to shoot a gun. Worst case scenario, you should always know how to defend yourself. You should always know how to operate a gun.

At least you should know gun safety. You should understand what the gun can do. Yes. So they all respect that. Yeah, they all know how to check and out to point and from a young age they all learned that at home. That's beautiful. It's very important. There's a lot of people that are scared of guns and that's just because of ignorance. They just don't understand. Yeah. I love my guns.

The laws in Brazil are very different, right? You can't just... You cannot buy guns very hard. I think the max you can get is a.380 caliber. So a hunting rifle. No, no. No hunting rifles. Well,.380s, oh.

.380, the handgun. Oh. Oh, okay. The.380, the small. Okay, small, right. Small than a nine millimeter. A nine millimeter is considered to be a military weapon. Really?

So you can buy 9mm,.45, nothing above that. Wow. Shotgun, if you own a farm, yes. But no hunting rifles, no. None of that. No.223s and ARs and. That sucks. Nope.

It's very hard, man. Very hard. It's very hard, man. Very hard. It's almost impossible to buy. But all the bad guys have it. Yeah, great. It's unbelievable. Terrible. They got RPGs, grenades.

Jesus Christ. But you cannot buy guns in Brazil, very hard. It can take a long time and the price is like Wow $500 gun over here in America over there will cost $2,000. Wow so when you come to America and you have this ability to just buy guns because the Second Amendment is pretty nice. Very nice. Yeah especially if you're in a place like Florida that really supports the Second Amendment Yeah, not in California California's nuts. Well in California

They're starting to hand out concealed carry permits to people in Los Angeles again Because the crime is so bad and they realize like but you can't come Somebody you're gonna go to jail. Yeah, even though you're inside your house I know and they walk in and they have guns You shoot them. It's your fault. What's crazy is if you shoot them You'll go to jail But if they break into your house and they rob you and beat you up they'll get right out if they get arrested They'll put them right back out on the street. Yeah, it's it's insane

It's almost like it's designed to destroy society like if you wanted to destroy society, that's how you would do it. Yeah, it's pretty fucked up. And if I keep telling people, if America falls, I think the whole world will fall. The rest of the world will fall. Yeah, maybe that's the plan. Where would you go? Right, there's no place that has this kind of freedom.

Leave America, where would you go? It's like it would be it's tough Yeah place I Used to think Australia then I saw how they handled the pandemic and was like, oh fuck that Well, that's what happens when no one has guns. Yep The army just rolls in and tells you what to do and put you in concentration camps because you have a cold Like it's crazy. Where would you go? It's like that's the question I ask my kids and let them think for a little bit and it's we're in America you're gonna go because outside man stuff yeah it's a tough world out there yeah well a person like yourself that's been everywhere you really kind

of do understand that this is a special place we're very fortunate to be here. That's why I defended them pro police, pro army. Me too. I defend the cops and the army. Well it's also from Jiu-Jitsu we know a lot of police officers we know a lot of army people we know a lot of military people because they're always training. Yes and traveling the way I travel I'm not home to defend my family so who's gonna defend them? Right. It's the police so I'm in favor of them. Yes. So I try to help them out as much as I can Yeah, who is gonna defend this is gonna be the the police the army They're gonna defend if some crazy country decide to invade us So I'm gonna be the average Joe next to next door. They're gonna come over and no

You gotta be Joe Rogan to get his bow and be Rambo out there shooting bows at nine yards, a hundred yards. I'll be like, I'll wait until they get a little closer. Or maybe that's Sarasota Arches Club. You practice your long range shots. They're too far. I'll wait a little bit. Well listen, Hoyce, you're a legend

and it was great running into you at the UFC. I'm so glad we got a chance to talk to each other because I've been wanting to make contact with you, get you on the podcast for a long time. I'm glad we finally did it, man. And I appreciate you very much. And when the school open up in Florida, you gotta come over.

Fuck yeah, I will come, I will come. Choke me out, once, once. Sounds good. Thank you brother I appreciate you very much. Thank you. Thanks for being here. All right bye everybody.