The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #161 with Khalil Rountree Jr.

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Joe sits down with Khalil Rountree Jr., a professional mixed martial artist competing in the Light Heavyweight division of the UFC. www.ufc.com/athlete/khalil-rountree-jr Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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of a website or domain. Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Yeah. What's up? What's up? Good to see you, man.

What's happening? We're back, we're back, we're back. We're just talking about eating pigeon. So I was in Europe and I had a pigeon and it's a red meat. Wait, pigeon's a red meat Wait pigeons a red meat. Yeah, it's red and they serve it very rare. Yeah, that way I know wait first of all eating pigeon is just it's different But you're telling me that it's red meat and they serve it rare. Yeah, it's rare Well, there's quite a detail

Yeah, it's rare. I need more details. I know. I was a little stunned too. When the guy, well the chef basically, he brought us out food, right? We didn't order off the menu, he just brought us out this food. And when the pigeon came, yeah, it looks red, man. It looks almost like you're eating a piece of steak. It's like before you prep it, you know?

This is not what I would expect it being like getting served this Well, there's a bunch of different birds that have red meat like ostrich ostrich is red meat. I didn't know that either Yeah, I used to get ostrich burgers at Fuddruckers. I think Fuddruckers went under unfortunately You know what I think I did have an ostrich burger at Fuddruckers like years ago. Yeah, I think about it shit It's very good. Yeah, I think about this shit. It's very good Yeah, wow so wait tell me more about this What's the word again? How do you say squab squab? That's what they call it okay? So wob, but this guy said like the rest It's like pigeon breast. It's pigeon breast. It's a like a red meat. It does look kind of juicy on like when you see a pigeon

They're pretty like They're pretty jack so I'd imagine it's a good well this conversation started off air because that's what it looks like That's the rib eye of the sky. Oh, yeah, okay. That's sandhill crane now. Look at that doesn't that look like beef Yeah, it looks like beef. They call him rib eyes in the sky. That's sandhill cranes Wow. It's delicious apparently I've never had it, but it's supposed to be insanely delicious Wow. Yeah, they have them in Texas That's a it's a big one in Texas. That's interesting Yeah, so we were talking about animals that have been modified like we're looking at Carl And we're like how crazy is it that a human over thousands of years altered by select breeding?

Created that thing it's kind of nuts. Yeah, I mean since we're on a topic. This is kind of weird There was one night. I was going down this crazy like YouTube spiral And there was some guy who was just making creations like he used human He was just cross fertilizing shit. Oh god. Yeah, it was the craziest thing ever. I don't know mirrors, right? I don't know what the hell you call it So he was like making these creatures and then they were like living in these jars and then it would fast forward like, you know three weeks four weeks and they're growing and one of them had this like crazy little eye and

It was the weirdest shit I've ever seen which then led me down going in another spiral where it's like apparently there's people around the world who will like do like breed breed like goat mix with like fucking human and like it's just weird man there's a whole other world out there. I'm not surprised. There's a whole other world out there. The Russians were trying to do that in World War one or World War two? Which World War was it? So the Russians were trying to make a hybrid human slash chimpanzee and The idea was you get a super violent Psycho-human and you don't have to worry about Russians dying you got this fucking creation because Russians were dying by the millions We know World War one and World War two were fucking World War one or war one

unbelievably brutal so hybridization of animals is famous for controversial attempts to create a human Ape hybrid by inseminating three female chimpanzees with human sperm. Yeah, it's wild Yeah, bro. They were trying wild shit. We're trying to make something so that they could send it off to war Do we have did they succeed? We don't know Where are these test things going where the test subjects? Do we have did they succeed? Where are these test things going where the test subjects, you know, like what the hell happened listen Let's we I think we both agree for sure. There's a clone out there in the world, right? There has to be has to be right. They must have tried that. Yeah, they've done it with sheep They do it. You can get your dog cloned. You can get Carl cloned. Yeah

I want I want version two because Carl's is amazing expensive clones. Yeah, Carl's yeah, they're very expensive, right? Isn't it like it's like 25 grand. I think I would sell them for oh, yeah Yeah, oh, okay, Carl's be worth some money But I think it's a lot of money, but they can do it But I mean the whole dolly the sheep thing like when they that was the first animal They cloned I think there was a bunch of failed attempts So I you know what is the odds that it comes out exactly like your dog it might be all fucked up Yeah, psychotic might have no soul. You don't know yeah, right. It may look like your dog, but who knows what?

Creepy fucking chew on wires But who knows what else going on really creepy fucking chew on wires It's like the very dark like satanic version of your dog Yeah, exactly. Yeah, dude. Yeah, you bury the pet comes back, but now it's still kind of your bed, but now it's evil No, just thinking about that it freaks me out, but that I think that I don't know how I went down that spiral But are you good out some YouTube rabbit holes man? Yeah, I've gone down some serious YouTube rabbit holes Yeah, I was like four hours once researching this theory about Neanderthals that this guy There's one dude that thought that Neanderthals we have this idea of Neanderthals that they look just like us.

Okay. And he thinks no, he thinks they probably look more like gorillas, like, and they probably were covered in hair, and they were probably able to see at night, and they were probably super violent, and they might have hunted us. So he had this whole theory about like these super predator chimpanzee looking neanderthals. That sounds interesting. Yeah, crazy, dude. Crazy.

But most likely not correct. Most people, the real anthropologists who have studied this stuff like, no, no, no, no. We know some of them had red hair. But red hair could be like orangudans have red hair. But they had giant eyeballs, you know, and they were just very different than us, but close enough that we're we interbred with them. Yeah, I gotta see this. I mean, like this type of stuff super interesting. Like,

it's hard for me to get into like fantasy books and stuff like that, but like YouTube videos, oh yeah, you know, like this Neandithal like kind of theory or whatever I spent so much time just going down rabbit holes Brain ticklers. Yeah, I don't know if it's made me a better person It just fucks up your thought process, you're right, just like driving down the street and then yeah random thought about yeah It'll make for good conversation. You know, I always like things that I could pull up Did you know you know there's always stuff in there? It's nice to have the friends that kind of are in the same little like Kind of some of the weird shit, so you can oh yeah fun conversation that friends that go too far

I'll call Eddie Bravo up He's so deep he's so deep in the CIA MK ultra like the deepest of the deep yeah He's in that shit all day long and my friend Kurt Metsker He's the worst if I call him up like he knows everything about every conspiracy That's ever happened, and he knows all the people that were involved and they'll start rattling things off to you like oh my god You give me anxiety. Yeah, yeah, probably freaks you out. I can only imagine you're like okay stop Oh my god, you give me anxiety. Yeah, yeah probably freaks you out. I can only imagine you're like okay stop

Too much yeah, especially today. It's just like seems like the world could fucking explode at any moment any minute Dude, what the hell are we living in this it's yeah? That's why I guess it's better to just kind of yeah You got to put a stop to like yeah what we consume You know like what information we want to like let in our brains because jeez There's a was it obvious advantage is that the guy that was on the podcast talked about he's a great phrase He you know we have processed food is bad for you ultra processed food. This is processed information Yeah, and that's this the way he described. It's like oh, yeah, it's like junk food for your brain It's like but you're eating snacks man instead of like taking a meal. Yeah, that's so crazy

It reminds me. I don't know why kind of off-subject but on You know the comedian Ronnie Chang. Yes, so he had a really really funny like a part in in his most recent like stand-up bit and he was he talks a lot about like, and just the internet and this country, everything. But he said one thing, he's like something about Americans, he's like, it's very common, you know, Americans are like, I'll die for my country, I'll die. And he's like, how about you read a book for your country? He's like, how about that you know and it was funny coming from him.

He's funny man. But I mean like that's I guess what brought that up is like yeah process information right. We have a lot of fast you know info somebody can divvy up a video really quick and put it out there and it's the first thing we see so we believe it you know or like something can go viral and we've seen it a bunch of times and then on to the next thing and we're getting this information but like It's a lot different than like okay Let's let me pick up a book or like a couple things and actually read it and see if these things Right, you know a line and like okay now I can kind of formulate like okay

This is closer to the truth an actual understanding the history of how these things are figured out, how this was formulated, what led to that instead of just the article or worse yet a YouTube or Tik Tok video. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. How many people are educated by Tik Tok today? Everybody. That's a lot. I really firmly believe that it's like shifting the way people think about things in a negative direction. I really, I used to believe that it's like shifting the way people think about things in a negative direction. I really, I used to poo poo it, I used to think, ah, the algorithm, whatever. But now I'm like, oh, it's definitely, it's definitely fucking up the country.

100%. And I think China's doing it on purpose. I think it's brilliant. Yeah, I mean, I've heard that. I definitely don't have the, like, capacity to figure out if it's like the truth or not but I did hear that that's kind of crazy well you know their tech talks very different than ours that's what I heard yeah it's like all like science and like positive stuff and martial art informational martial arts science achievements and ours is just like academics yeah ratchet craziest stuff ever more people get shot on Instagram reels those little what and fuck accounts. I don't even follow yeah, right, so it's like Instagram knows that I'm watching fucked up things so they're showing me like you know failed carjacking attempts all kinds of

People get run over by trucks like every day I tried to create I created a tick tock like shortly because my wife was using it and she'd like they have like shopping or Something on there, so I was like, oh, let me just download it really quick so I downloaded it and like after the first day it started feeding me these like these these pages that were like homeless people and like Arizona and like California that were just like hooked on like fentanyl And I was like what the hell and they get deep into their stories like some guys like interview and then like how long you've been Out here, and I remember I'm sitting here watching this and like 20 minutes goes by and I'm like Why am I depressed?

Why do I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders right now? And I realize like holy shit like I'm just I'm literally here in my living room watching Like drug addicts on the street just like completely waste their lives away Meanwhile you're living the life that they could only dream of if you take a young guy before his life goes sideways and Say what do you want to do with it? What's like if I could just wave a magic wand would I would like to be a bad ass fight in the UFC? Oh fucking jack Strong

One of the top contenders up and coming. Yeah, I mean while you're depressed. Yeah looking at people that you don't even know It's crazy, dude. It's crazy. I think that's how they're doing to us man Cuz no matter where you are There's something that you can watch that'll freak you out freak you out bring you down Yeah, I change your mindset, slow you down, whatever it is. I was talking to Sugar Sean about that and he was saying that just scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, stuff that doesn't have anything to do with him, he goes, I just get

this like mild form of anxiety. It's like mild case of, I'm like, I do too. I do too. I don't know why. I think part of it for me is I know I'm wasting time Mmm. I know I should be doing other things. I'm fucking busy Watching people get shot Why am I watching it? I can't stop. I just keep fucking scrolling. Yeah, especially if you're taking a shit

Oh, that's the worst dude. I don't even know how to take a shit without my I'm like I think I take one hour shits now because of my I don't even know how to take a shit without my I'm like I think I take one hour shits now because Because in my phone, it's like I can't just get in there do the business, dude I got to intentionally leave my phone outside to just to do what I'm there to do But if I bring my phone in there, it's a wrap. It's a wrap because if I don't have my phone in there I'm like Ricky Bobby and tell diggin night Percentage of people take a shit with their phone now. I want to know what to do with my hands. Where's my phone? Oh shit. What percentage of people take a shit with their phone now? 99.9. Guys, men, 100%.

100%. It has to be 100%. It's how I find out half the things that are going on in my life. You know one thing that bugs the shit out of me though? If you're going to take a shit in a public place, like for instance the PI, right? If I'm at the UFC PI just got done work out Whatever I got take shit the guy next to me turn you fucking phone down. Yeah, yeah, like don't blast it I don't want to hear what you're listening to I'm trying to watch my

That's that's we know you're a degenerate We put your ear pods in when you're taking a shit That's what you got a real yeah, you've you've you've you're gone You've gone too far down the rabbit hole you have you fucked around with any of that AR stuff those goggles Augmented reality I'm only like the the meta quest I haven't tried the Apple vision pros yet I know as soon as I try the vision Pro. It's over. I'm gonna be wearing those things like As I try the vision Pro it's over. I'm gonna be wearing those things like Cuz when the meta quest came out like when I first had it like you can get me off the thing It's a like look around playing these games taking off like oh my wow exhilarating but yeah, I know if I if I were to get the

Apple vision Pro would be over because there's just so many cool things What did I see recently? There was something that they were using AI. This woman was talking to her deceased daughter. Her daughter, young daughter died and AI had recreated her daughter. And with with these goggles on these VR goggles, she was having a conversation with her daughter. I was like, I like vaguely remember seeing something like that brand new, but I think it's this oh

Yeah, this is it. This is so crazy This is so crazy yeah, I mean seeing her deceased daughter and trying to touch her oh my god This is like what we were talking about about the phone right like just putting ourselves through like this depression and stuff like This is crazy. This is crazy This is good like this she can't even touch her so she's like reaching out like she wants to touch her yeah And she's crying look like she's hold the glove she has she probably can feel some this yeah How they're showing it to the viewer oh? My god, oh man look at that. Oh, I mean it probably maybe a version of it that feels good to her

You know but like this could be oh This could be pretty bad. Yeah, that's so sad. Oh my man. We're so close to the matrix We're so close. We're in the matrix, dude. I think we might be you know, Michael ballas was saying it yesterday He thinks he thinks it is a simulation. Elon said the chances of it not being a simulation are one in billions Yeah, he thinks it's 100% a simulation I There's too many things that that there's too many coincidences right like even I Might sound like an idiot for saying idiot for saying something like stuff like the Simpsons dude right like you see those like Simpsons theories and she was like come on like this is too accurate yeah they called everything

like this is years ago you know like these episodes came out years ago how yeah how are things like this aligning or like how are these you know matching it just it's weird it is really weird it's really weird it's weird and why is why weird. It's really weird. It's weird and Why is why is us being in a simulation any stranger than reality itself? Just the universe itself just the fact that we are one planet of nine in this one solar system that is one of hundreds of billions of solar systems in this galaxy and hundreds of billions of solar systems in this galaxy and that this galaxy is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. The whole thing is so crazy. The idea that we're in some sort of a program. Why is that more crazy? Like everything about us is crazy.

Subatomic particles are crazy. The way our body is designed is crazy. The fact that you can make a car out of a wolf is fucking crazy. All of it is crazy. Yeah, the fact that you can make a car out of a wolf. Yeah, it's fucking crazy all of its crazy Yeah, I mean even listening to you right now as I was glad you were kind of breaking down how Pretty much insignificant. We are I just kind of like everything started zero and in I was like, oh no Significant and insignificant at the same time. Yeah, I don't think we're invaluable I don't buy the thing like the like does the people that are like really dark about it all and like oh life is Meaningless it's like no, I don't think that's true. No, I don't think that's meaningless at all No, you know like like you said there's an equal like

Significance and significance like when you look at the grand scheme of things, you zoom out, we're tiny, you can't even see us, you know, if you're from an airplane, you look down, you can't even see the humans, right? Right. So that makes us feel a little bit small. But like, I don't know something about us inside how we feel, how we perceive things, the power that we have in numbers, right? Like the intelligence that we have to create things like AI and laser beams and all this stuff.

Like, I mean, that's pretty damn significant, in my opinion. We're very significant. We're just a part of the whole thing. The whole thing is just infinitely massive. And we think of ourselves as small because we're just one piece of it. But we're like, I think we're a critical piece of it.

And I think what we are is like the purveyors of creativity. And I think creativity is like a thing that's in the universe that forces intelligent animals to make things. And I think we're like an antenna of this creativity. And then we put it out there. And then eventually, we're going to leave this planet. We're going to go to other planets and colonize and put that stuff out there in the world and probably not even in the form

That we you and I are in right now. Yeah, it'll probably some hybrid form some hybrid form some cyborg form There was an episode. I forgot the gentleman's name Man super super intelligent guy older guy, and he was talking about the different forms of like... Civilization? Civilization. Nishio Kaku. Yes, yes. How interesting was that?

Yes, yes. Do you know about Dyson spheres? No. So they believe, excuse me, this is just a theory, But they believe that when a civilization reaches an incredible level of technological proficiency, they're going to be able to develop these enormous structures that capture all the energy of a star. So literally surround the star with this structure. And they think they might have detected these structures in the universe now.

Now these structures are just theoretical, these Dyson spheres, but they believe through there's a thing called the James Webb telescope, it's like the most powerful, you know about that. So this most powerful of space telescopes is now, they're getting information that they think might indicate that these things could be a Dyson sphere. So you can find anything about that. So what is this?

So right here in our galaxy, what is that? Just a tic tac? See if there's an article. 60 Dyson sphere candidates. Look at that. Go up to the one that says candidates. Yeah. So this is from May. Go up to the one that says candidates. Yeah.

So this is from May. So they found these things amongst, there's these, I don't know how they detect why they think this is a Dyson sphere. But if, it just makes sense that if civilization can go from being hunter gatherers to being people that fly in airplanes and look at VR and enter into the matrix Like we're clearly doing that if you just keep that going a thousand years a million years You're gonna get to some insane level of technological ability you have to yeah, like you you absolutely have to yeah Maybe we are just like kind of in the beginning stages of like you know Maybe there's humans elsewhere in this yeah galaxies far far far away like some Star Wars type shit, right and

We just haven't gotten there yet, but we're close. I mean we're seeing how close we're getting with everything That's what Terrence Terrence Howard had a crazy theory about I have to watch that one I've seen little clips, but I've got a they're both good The first one's great because he just kind of goes kooky and then the second one's great because Eric Weinstein He's like a legitimate genius from Harvard sort of settles him down and explains What's incorrect and what what is correct and some of the stuff is very correct and some of the stuff is really fascinating He's Terrence clearly a genius, but he's like self-taught and sometimes when you don't have peers correcting you and you gotta have that yeah

You have to have actual it's like if a martial artist like I got this move, bro. Yeah, like try this shit on me Works in the streets it works on everybody It's like now try it on me like but Terrence has this brilliant idea about That what happens is you have a star and then the particles that eject from the star are what creates these planets and when the planets get to a certain distance from the star when they develop that Goldilocks zone he goes they eventually develop people and he thinks it's like peopleing it's like when you see like crops growing oh it's the time of the year the

rain and the soil, crops are growing. And they will, oh, they're far away from the sun, they're peopling. They're making people. And that this is what happens and that as time passes and this society, if it survives, it doesn't kill itself, gets further and further from the sun, it has to develop the technological ability to keep the planet hospitable. And then it goes even past that to the point where they develop these things like Dyson spheres, and they develop the ability to manipulate their environment, create black holes. They develop the ability,

essentially, to create new universes. It's ultimately over hundreds of millions of years or whatever it takes. So he explained this and then someone you said stepped in and kind of like... No, that, no, he didn't correct because that's just a theory and it's a fascinating theory. And Terrence has a lot of like really interesting ideas, but that was one of the most interesting ones that like every solar system, the reason why we see it here and the reason why when they look at the like the Webb telescope has found a bunch of these planets that are in the Goldilocks zone. And he thinks that this is just a normal occurrence, these planets they as time goes on our planet is getting further from the Sun and

And eventually the Sun will burn out but as time goes on as our planet gets further and further from the Sun It's not going to be hospitable anymore It's going to get to a point where it's like Mars and Mars at one point in time was Hospitable Mars they think Mars had water on it. Mars might have even had life on it. We don't know, but it could be billions and billions of years ago. Wow. Yeah, so this theory is pretty wild that like all this stuff is just basically particles that eject from the Sun and that eventually coalesce and form a sphere and form a planet. And initially these planets are like very

close to the Sun and they're you know Insanely hot yeah, but as they get further and further out they reach that goalie Like so and that's when they start developing life And then ultimately develop a very highly intelligent form of life Wow yeah Do we know where this theory like came from I think that's Terrence's theory ah Terrence has 97 patents. What does that mean? I don't know, because apparently,

people that have explained it to me say, you can actually just file patents, and the people that are working in the office, they're not sophisticated enough to know, especially in various disciplines, as to whether or not what you're saying is real or actionable. It's like, is this something that you could really have a patent for but they'll let you file for the patent okay so it's one of those things yeah wow but the idea

that every solar system eventually has a planet that gets to that spot where it's just enough so it gets water just enough so it has like all of the things that's necessary for life And then if you want to get really crazy Then you think that the plant the planets that are farther and further out that have the super intelligent ultra advanced species What they do is they come back and they help us they come back and then fucking pick up the pace boys You know what I mean? Yeah, they give us a little crash UFO here and there they give us a little this give us a little That maybe even manipulate us. That's the ultimate theory is the ultimate theory. I mean that's kind of cool, right?

Well, it's almost like Carl just like Carl. Yeah, it looks very different than a fucking wolf Right. We look very different from all the people on the planet Yeah, there's so many varieties of humans We're very similar to dogs in that regard and that we can all breed with each other But yet we look very different so you can take like a golden retriever and they breed him with a poodle or a labrador You make a labradoodle. Yeah, you know, but they're still dogs. Yeah, right, but they look very very different Well, that's only dogs that are like that. Right?

Like fish, bass all look like bass. Yeah. Zebras look like zebras. There's something about us that's fucking real weird. And you get attributed to climate and different environments to grow. And some of those changes have to have taken place from that too, for sure. But if you buy into all this Anunnaki crazy shit Yeah, the reason why we are so different than all the other primates is because they introduced their DNA to us Yes to like the you created us and created us out of lower hominids

Right. Yeah. Yeah, which is so fun Yeah, I mean like so fun to think if it's true. I've looked at some of that stuff a little bit before, but I didn't allow myself to get too deep. Yeah, you can get deep on that. But yeah, definitely an interesting perspective and way to kind of break down humanity in a way. Well, we are a mystery. We are the ones who've created this theory of evolution and the fossil record and all those things,

but the thing that created it is the biggest mystery, the human brain. The human brain doubled in size over a period of two million years, and apparently it's the biggest mystery in the entire fossil record. They have no idea what happened. Is it still growing or?

Probably. Probably just growing slow. You know, another two million years now might double again Yeah, I wonder if there's any record of like, I don't know. Maybe just the slightest, you know Record of like okay, it's growing. It's right. No wonder for 500 years ago, right now. Has there been any right? right in Yeah, if you get like the average brain size of everybody today like how far back do we have really good records of? Brain size you know yeah gotta go back to like Kennedy's assassination Probably nothing nothing earlier than that I mean I'm sure there's an

Anatomy records that go further than that I mean probably you know maybe the 30s of the 40s like when did they start studying the size and weights of human brains I wonder I Wouldn't know but it makes actually I'm me I'm making notes right now like Terrence Howard like I gotta look into this guy more All I know is just like Terrence is fat. You know his acting Well, he's a great actor. Yeah, super great. He's a great actor, but I mean, I think he's even more interesting as a thinker. But the way he responded, I think, showed a lot of character. The way he responded to Eric Weinstein,

correcting him on stuff. Because he didn't, you know, he kind of tried to argue his point, but he didn't get upset. He didn't get emotional about it. He didn't get attached to his ideas. It was, it showed. He's a brilliant guy that doesn't have all the information, but he's brilliant. But there's a giant difference between being a brilliant person and being a person that has information. There's a lot

of brilliant people that don't have any information. Yeah. You know, which is why, like, there's, there's people like, I, I firmly believe that to be great at athletics, it takes a kind of intelligence. And you're not measuring it in an IQ, but to pretend that someone is like a Wayne Gretzky, that he's not some kind of a genius, you know, or a Federer or an elite MMA fighter. You have to be a kind of a genius because you're navigating this most difficult of world with micro second decisions get made Training instinct discipline the will to carve out this existence and all those things It has you have to have a fucking truly truly exceptional mind to be able to do those things

I agree 100% from yeah, yeah, any anybody that's doing things that just like a Really high level or like they're doing things differently or they're like the number one, two and three in their in anything in the in anything. Yeah, there's definitely a level of focusing at physics. Well, everybody thinks you're a genius. But if you're focusing on hockey, people don't think you're a genius. Or if you're focusing on chess, maybe people think you're a genius. But if you're focusing on jujitsu, maybe they don't think you're a genius. It's kind of interesting. Yeah, but I think they're all geniuses I think for sure

I think every one of those people if they had the physical capability because obviously some people unfortunately have terrible genetics and they're just never Going to be an elite athlete, but if you have the physical ability, that's only like a little tiny piece of it Yeah, the real piece is the mental part of navigating Not just the training, but the improving and then the ability to execute under pressure. You got to have the mental side to even drive the physical side, right? You can be a physical specimen. How I'm built, right?

But I know nothing about football. So it's not like I can just, I'd have to develop some type of brilliance or some type of you have to train. I'd have to train I have to think I'd have to do all these things you look like you could play football That's what I'm saying. I look like I can play football, but my mind's not wired that way right So I'd have to do a lot to to make that happen and then Obviously, there's a lot of football players that look like a beast But if you get them in the cage, They have no idea what to do nothing do they? Throw a punch. We've seen it. It's so crazy. We've seen it

Yes, we are guys that like, you know, they're they're badasses, but there's a difference in being a badass versus a trained fighter Yes, it's just a whole different world and it requires not just physical work It requires a kind of brilliance and Just because Terrence doesn't have that information He's a brilliant guy if he had that information he'd be even more brilliant. He'd be more Relatable to all these other brilliant people. Hmm. That's like that's really interesting, man I I'm I I want to look into Terrence Howard more actually like this is fun. Yeah, I like this I like to I want to explore like the side that you're explaining to me I would have never really known but I'd like to be inspired by that I'd like to you know just hear

this guy out and well I had a reporter tell me about him years ago and then I watched some YouTube videos of him and one of them he was at Oxford talking about mathematics see like that's so that's so cool. What the hell? Yeah, what the hell? Crazy. The whole thing was crazy. But it's just, there's, you know, we should be inspired. There's a lot of interesting people out there in this world. Yeah.

A lot of people that have some really great ways of looking at things and inspiring stories. You know, you think about, like, what they've done and how they've done it it really fuels us all Is there one of the reasons why we like sports when we're not even? Participating in it because it's so inspirational. Yeah, you know if you watch a great fight and someone wins like oh my god That was incredible you leave you like energized. Yeah, yeah, or magic shows Comedy shows honestly dude honestly much anything. Yeah, yeah.

Anything that requires that stuff. Yeah, you get energy from it. You really do. There's a type of energy that we humans get from each other. And I think that kind of energy that we get from each other doing things, that also is beneficial to us evolutionarily, because I think it promotes more work. It promotes things getting done. work and promotes things getting done.

It actually fuels things getting done. So like similar to like the Olympia. Are you watching the Olympics right now at all? I watched that fucking transgender woman boxer box, the female boxer. Mike, what the fuck are you people doing? What? Oh, I haven't. I haven't seen much every bar or whatever.

And anything that has a television right now. I've been traveling traveling so I see like Olympics is on yeah, right, but one thing that I that I've noticed It's like it's so weird. It seems like the Hunger Games Like crazy outfits and just like oh, you know, this is like extravagant thing I'm like, this is the Olympics now. Like why is this It's so different now than it than what I remember it well the Olympics is a giant scam there's two things going on simultaneously okay you have the best athletes in the world participating in their disciplines that's that's happening and then on top of that you have enormous amounts of money being made and none of its going to the

athletes it is a giant scam So the kind of people that are putting together that ridiculous opening ceremony We got a bunch of drag queens and the Last Supper and all that yeah Well, I didn't understand that nobody understands it because it's not made by athletes. It's not made by the Olympics It's made by the people that are in charge of putting the Olympics out It's made by the people that are in charge of putting the Olympics out So they're the ones who are reaping all the money and sucking all the cash out of these athletes God not only do they do that, but then they'll go to places like Brazil And so if it's gonna be in Brazil

They build this fucking enormous place for it to participate in all the different arenas or yeah And then after that nothing yeah So and then all the people there who are poor are like hey where the fuck did this money come from and why didn't just? Spend it on this the community. Why did you do this? Yeah? Why'd you do this for volleyball? Is volleyball that fucking important that you didn't like use that money to like help people yeah? Bizarre that sucks the money they make is Astronomical the Olympics makes billions and billions of money in television revenue and advertising revenue And they don't give any of it to the athletes so it just goes to like the committee

They're just ballin Wow yeah, and these are the crazy people that are putting on the Last Supper with transsexuals That's that's what they're are putting on the Last Supper with transsexuals. That's that's what they're doing Was it the Last Supper? Yeah, I saw it was something out like fuck It was it said something like some Greek Nonsense that was a they tried to say that after the fact the lady who was playing Jesus literally said she was Olympic Jesus She was joking around about being Olympic Jesus because she was in the same position Jesus was in the Last Supper. She had the halo behind her her head it was they're being artsy. They're being fun. You know, but it's not It's not the place for it. Yeah, I mean it's pushing this weird agenda in

This place where people are already getting fucked over right the whole olympics is just people getting fucked over Yeah, I mean if you're the best athletes in the world representing your country, Yeah. at the highest level, The highest level. that possibly, humanly possible, for one, yeah, you should be getting compensated. A shitload of money.

You know what I mean? A shitload of money. You should be getting compensated. Yeah. And yeah, I think that there should be something that's more focused on the extravagance of like this moment of like the the athletes Yeah waiting so long to be able to do this and yeah, it should be more athlete focused

Not so much like a show and let some wacky gay dude get a hold of the fucking the reins and he decided to do this That's what it was Literally what it is. That's literally what it is. It's literally what it is. And he just decided to have a guy in a beard. But this is true. This is the actual person that put it together. That is who he is. Oh really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't even know that. Oh yeah, they know who the guy is. We don't need to name him, but he's getting enough hate as it is. The whole thing is fucking completely insane, but my point is the whole Olympics are insane.

They're robbing people. They're robbing the athletes. No one is tuning in. There's not billions of people all over the world tuning in just to see a bunch of transsexuals pretend to be Jesus and the disciples. That's not why they're tuning in. They're tuning in to see who's going to the 100 meter dash. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's gonna win this, who's gonna win that,

who's gonna win the sprints, who's gonna win whatever the fucking event is, who's gonna win boxing. That's what people are tuning in. And those people that have dedicated their entire lives to wrestle in the Olympic games, they're not getting a fucking scratch of that. That's so crazy.

It's nuts. Oh man, so. It's nuts. Oh man, so It's nuts and there's nothing there's nothing to do about like nobody can do anything about that. It's just pure Okay, well at one point in time. There's probably no money in the Olympics because there's no television, right? Yeah, so at one point in time the Olympics was just about the best athletes in the world Competing against the other bath leads the best athletes in the world. It was for national pride You know, you bring a gold medal. You have a fucking parade when you get back home. It was great.

And it was probably very, I don't know what the original, like the one where Hitler was in the 1936 Olympics and he's fucking jacked up on meth and he's rocking back and forth. Have you seen that one? No dude. You never saw that? No, you're putting me on so much game right now. Oh, I'm putting you on this, bro. You're putting me on so much.

Yo, I got a guy coming on tomorrow to actually talk about drugs in the Nazis. No, you're putting me on so much game right now. Oh, put you on this, bro. You're putting me on so much. Yo, I got a guy coming on tomorrow to actually talk about drugs in the Nazis. Like all the crazy drugs that they were doing. They had to be on drugs. All kinds of stuff. All kinds of cocaine, free drugs, meth. Yeah, they were getting free drugs. And there was no just say no back then. Everybody's like, what does this do? Keeps me up for days? Let's go!

Fuck yeah. So Hitler at the Munich Olympics is like, he's on meth and he's rocking back and forth He's just amphetamine out of his fucking mind just coked up just rocking back and forth why everybody's watching the Olympics Show it to him Jamie We played this like oh my god look at him rockin dude Look at him going he's going what a maniac going that dude What a maniac he ruined that mustache forever yeah, you know just rocking back and forth But back then how many sports were in was that 36?

1936 or 38? 36 how many sports were in the 1936 Munich Olympics? Because now there's Shooting yeah, there's decathlons I don't know when it started, but there's only a certain number of events So if they like just put a new one in they got take something out. Oh Really? That's why I lost wrestling a few years ago Everybody got mad because they added like

skateboarding or surfing or something like that. Is that always been the case? Yeah. From the beginning? I mean, not since, there was only like 10 games to start with. How many events were in the 1936 Olympics though? Because I know they've, they may have, might have put a cap on them in the future. I don't know if they had a cap on it back then but point is back then like

Like in the Jesse Owens days, you know when Muhammad Ali won the gold medal like those guys weren't doing that for money for Ali It was like a way that he could transfer into professional boxing and you know Like with Meljock Taylor and per now Whitaker those guys got fast-tracked Mark Breland all the Evander Holyfield all those guys who met all venues for the events they have stayed a lot going on So they have a lot of stuff but not as much as they have now I wonder it's See if you could find how many more Events are there in 2024 than there were in 1936. We'll see if they say that. But the point is like everybody who did the Olympics before television they just

did it for national pride just like winning the nationals and wrestling. Of course. You do it just for the glory of it. 32 sports. 329 events and 32 sports including 28 core Olympic sports contested in 2016 2020 and then what did it used to be in like 1936 929 of Wow 25 disciplines hmm So it's slightly less gotta love the AI overview right nuts So it's slightly less gotta love the AI overview right nuts

Quick instantly give you all the things all the things the Olympics were often considered controversial because they were held to showcase the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler's theories of Aryan supremacy all jacked up on What a fucking maniac. Wow. Nuts. So back, my point is, so back then there was no television revenue. There was no one, no one was making billions and billions and billions of dollars. So the Olympics started with, you know, a very pure intention. Pure intention of just, you know, winning, being the best. Be the best for your country.

But somewhere along the line it became this fucking enormous business, and the athletes never got cut in. And no one's ever spoken up about it, have they? What can they do? They don't have any power. No one has any power. Yeah, that's true. The TV networks don't want to change it. They're like, shut the fuck up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut the fuck up. This is getting us views. Because they're just stealing. They're just stealing money. Imagine if that was the case with the NBA or the NFL or UFC imagine if the athletes got zero money and everybody else is driving Around Rolls Royces and living in all these will be crazy super crazy. Hey, you guys are fighting for glory Yeah, not only glory is not about money to represent your country

We've done studies and it shows that when people fight for money. They don't fight that hard. Yeah, so what? That's the Olympics. They're boxing for zero dollars They're punching each other in the face as hard as they can for zero dollars And this woman today got punched in the face by a man damn. Yeah, they let a trans jitters apparently to at least two Transgender boxers that are fighting in women's boxing. What the fuck? I don't understand. You can't understand because you're not retarded.

It has to be something wrong with you to understand. To think that that makes sense and all you have to do is say you're a woman. But you're not though. I say I'm a werewolf, but when the moon comes out I stay a person. Yeah I mean like I want to- This is not real. I want to understand the like from their part and their reasoning. Like you're a nice guy. You want to think that there's some part of this, like there's probably some sort of a reason.

Oh, if they explain it to me like, oh, I see your perspective. Yeah, I want to see the perspective. There's no perspective. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist because that perspective would gray the line to like well Why not just let all men compete in women's sports? Well men would dominate and that's why you have title nine There's a reason why men and women's sports are separated because it's not fair. Yeah, it's right There's the reason why the UFC has weight classes, you know fighting Brandon Marino. Yeah, it's not fair Yeah, right. This all these things are put in place to make things as fair as possible weight classes

gender Distinction says they're not transgender. We're talking about what this says they may be intersex Wait a minute. Is this today? This is about them. Yeah July 30th today there but there is an athlete that they were saying was a male Athlete that was competing. Riley Gaines posted it on her Instagram. It says they failed tests that came back. Testosterone tests. Elevated testosterone.

What does that mean? So they took testosterone? Is it an exogenous test? Why are they calling this person transgender? Are they female to male? Like they're trying to transition to male? Is that what they're saying? I don't know. What?

Okay, at least you don't know. What article is this? From Outsports. Outsports, what is Outsports? Well, I'm gonna go to somewhere else. But hold on, what is Outsports? What is that? What is the- Probably LGBTQ.

Yeah, it's LGBTQ, yeah. It is, so this might be biased. Google transgender boxer, and what is it saying? Olympic Trans Boxer. That's exactly where I started it. Said there are it saying they will fight in Paris women's events yeah but here it said this is the person Algeria's inane keel I don't know how to say that and Taiwan's Ling Yu Ting were disqualified from last God pop-ups qualified disqualified from last year's women's world boxing champs after failing gender eligibility tests

Okay, that means they're transgender Jamie that out sports is a biased website. It's Unfortunately, they're it's kind of propaganda about this kind of stuff Scroll it up scroll it up again. So it says, yeah, the person that has the XY chromosome. The boxers chromosome text came back as XY. So that's a male. Well, at the time of the disqualifications, based on DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to trick their colleges into posing as women. The association's president Umar Kremlin told Russia's TASS news agency at the time, according to the results of the test, it was proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from competition. So I don't

think Out Sports is being honest about this particular thing because there's outrage all over the place about this one particular person that they're talking there that did test for an XY chromosome. That's a man. I know it sounds horrible to misgender someone and all that good stuff. All that's great until you want to fight women or even compete against women. Let's just cut the shit. Let's cut the shit. Yeah, when it comes to competition, I guess, yeah, there's a level of like, it's just unfair

or it can be. Also, we're denying sandbagging, right? Yeah, we both know what sandbagging is sandbagging has always happened that you would get in all sports I remember when I was a kid there was a kid that we were in Little League baseball And there was a kid that was 15 he was trying to say he's 13 this motherfucker threw He threw heat. He had a crazy fastball And everybody's like how old is this fucking little league throwing like 80 to 89 trans boxer her G Back young Don back it down aims for gold medal. This is also from out sports though, so okay, so this one They're being honest about

Right, but they're not being honest about that other one Compete's in the war as he competes in the women's boxing division, wait a minute, what does that mean? Why are they saying he then? This was the other one. See, they're saying himself in his nation. So this is a trans female to male competing in women's boxing. Because they're saying him. So out would not be calling this person a male if this person identified as female, but they're competing in women's boxing.

So that just means they're juicing up. They're just cyborg, cyborging their way to the thing. He proudly proclaims he's never taking testosterone on his social media accounts. Okay, so he just says that he's a man? So he's transgender just by saying it, he's not doing any hormone replacement therapy. Knowing his strong stance against discrimination he faced during competition. So this is just a woman that says they're a man and competes with women. That's different. That's very different, especially if this person's not taking testosteroneosterone that's very different. But the other one has XY chromosome And like that's a lot that's a lot to take in that's a lot for my like my brain even process

Well, it shouldn't be about Ideology it should be about biology. You should have biologists determine whether or not someone's male or female It shouldn't be like you just decide like this this article was nonsense, too Because you're saying he competes as you know in women's boxing well Why why would he compete women's boxing yeah if he thinks he's a man go compete with the men yeah, it's sad it's it's and what I mean by that like it's sad because in today's times like It's hard to stay like politically correct right right it's impossible. It's like even now. I'm like how do I? How do I even talk about this? I know you get what I mean like without getting completely like I might I don't know what to say

I don't know what that's I don't know what trick Yeah, trick is getting you so confused by it all that you can't even discuss it Yeah, and then you just could serve a lot Me what am I gonna do yeah, yeah What are you showing on? This is a try these that's um Lucy's that's a breaker breaker. Those are good Yeah, you like oh, it's good man. The espresso is good You'll like it breaker. Yeah, this is a little thingy crack it. Yeah crack it. No has a nice flavor. Yeah Wow Delicious not bad, right? Wow, okay. Yeah, probably banned from the Olympics. I wonder if Nick teens been so speaking of which we should probably get to the your

Whole story. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, so You were slated to fight It was Jamal Hill right yeah, and which was a bit a huge fight for you and for him and Explain the story explain in your words what happened, okay? Yeah, so I was scheduled to fight Jamal Hill co-main event at UFC 303 at the time it was when Connor was still you know gonna fight Chandler so In preparation leading up to that fight I

Was in preparation leading up to that fight I Was How do I even say this I Was working with a company who I like outsourced like to take care of my supplements and stuff like hey You know, I don't have the time to necessarily like pick what's right for me But these guys I I trusted them. They promised me and they did your blood work. They did everything. Yeah. Blood work, everything like, you know,

I trusted them. I'd taken their stuff before past drug tests before. So there was nothing for me to, you know, worry about. And then I it was brought to my attention from the owner of the company. He was visiting my house and pointed out something that I was taking and shouldn't have been, but it was sent to me from their company. They mentioned, you know, they sent a letter to the UFC.

As soon as I took it, I had to, I mean, I called the UFC and I was like freaked out. I was like, what the hell? I didn't know. So this stuff that you were taking was a part of like, it was a stack of things or was it like, so let me, I want to get this like, I want to get this correct, you know, like, because this is the first time that I'm you know speaking about this publicly so The the most simple way that I can put it is I Was outsourcing my supplements I Was sent a

Blended supplement that I was not told that I should not take. And the company knew that I'm a UFC fighter, that I'm under drug testing protocol, like all this stuff. So they knew that. And someone from their company sent me something that I shouldn't have taken. And there was no like heads up, Hey, this, no, no, no da da da da, it just came. And I continued to take my supplements as I'd been doing. And then when it was brought to my attention, like hey, you shouldn't be taking this,

that's when I immediately alerted the UFC and like hey. So this is DHEA, correct? DHEA, and it wasn't even, it was in a blended supplement. So DHEA was inside of a Vitamin type supplement that they sent me and we should also point out DHEA is not even performance enhancing So it's not like you could get any kind of an advantage. It would help your health. It's kind of stupid that it's illegal Yeah, I mean there's like when I looked at stuff from like the water

list on why they banned it It just doesn't really make any sense, you know and for it to have any type of Performance enhancing benefits. I'd have to take it for a long time and a lot of it and it still wouldn't even Probably do anything, you know, yeah, it's not a steroid, the point is. Yeah, it's not. It's not like some crazy shit that you take on like EPO or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I don't understand if you told them

that this was an accident, given the understanding that this is not performance enhancing, why did they suspend you? Okay, so UFC, which is awesome, they've been so helpful man, like Donna and Jeff and even Hunter, like I'm so grateful for them. But they had to suspend me. They gave me a two month suspension because my test did come back positive. As soon as I told them, hey, I just tested on May 4th,

so I haven't gotten the results back yet, but this is what I just found out I've been taking, so it's probably gonna come up on this test, so keep a lookout. You're like, keep your eye out. So then they're like, okay, they expedited my test. They called it like, hey, we need this test back immediately because I was booked to fight.

And so, obviously, this is like immediately because I was booked to fight and so I'm obviously this is like I'm panicking dude. I'm like fuck like everything is Could go down and I fucking didn't do anything you know right now the biggest moment of my life that I've been preparing for is Is in jeopardy so UFC expedited the test they come back and Donna calls me. She's like, okay Okay Exactly. Excuse me exactly what you stated did show up on the test. So We have to issue you some type of suspension for a failed drug test So they just gave me two months, but that's completely separate from the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Oh, yeah. So that's what I'm in now. That's the situation. So what are they trying to do? So I'm still suspended under Nevada State, but they still haven't given me the time yet specifically. They still haven't given me the time yet specifically so yet today was supposed to be another hearing but As far as I know right now, it's gonna be somewhere nine months or more Jesus Christ yes

for DHEA for DHEA and crazy and and so DHEA for DHEA and crazy so crazy and and so UFC is there they're they're trying to help and we're trying to get this like come on guys like I'm being penalized for Reporting self reporting self reporting something that's not even that's not even my fault right you get I mean like I didn't intentionally do this So like it's just it's it's a really really rough time right now Joe like it's it's hard to for me to really kind of like Keep it together especially like you were saying like I was scheduled to fight Jamal I'm like I'm at a point in my career right now where man I felt like I feel like I'm really damn close

But now I don't I don't know what the hell's going on because I'm being held up by really damn close, but now I don't know what the hell's going on because I'm being held up by By all of this stuff. Yeah, you are really damn close You're really really close and every time we see you you look better I was really looking forward to that fight because I think that would be that's a giant test You know Jamal is a former champion. Yes, and he's gonna be angry coming off of that loss to Pereira. Yes Man, yeah, so you you're in limbo right now. I'm in limbo, dude It's and how many months ago was 303 303 was What was it me me?

May may okay, so here we're in July and so you still don't have an answer yet And if it's nine months was it would it be nine months from the day? Eligible in six months from now. Yeah, so you could maybe do December card No, nine months. No nine months from From the day of a positive test. I think that comes out. I could think that comes out to February. Oh Okay, October November, okay. Yeah Like February so I wouldn't be able to fight until next year. God damn it Yeah, dude

And so like and you're so close in this so close heated up division heated up division things are moving You know guys are fighting Dude I mean like even To not fight this long. I mean I Don't think people have or it does so much for me financially like Yeah, you know I'm sure I got mortgage. Yeah, like shit's it's been it's been such a huge thing on also momentum momentum Yeah, not fighting I mean and you're in your prime right now, yeah, dude, it's I When I even think about it like it it brings up

so many different emotions you know like I do my best to work through them and I've been training my ass off you know I like I've I've tried to do everything that I can in this time to just stay prepared and just even though even if I know that I'm gonna be fighting next year or something like that like I'm just like okay I don't I have to I have to stay strong. I have to keep progressing right I have to Continue to be better every time. Yeah, you know every fight. Well you were after the Anthony Smith fight You just you're so hot right now I mean it's like on that level where like this guy might break through and become champion you're in that range

You know yeah, and that's I mean that's where I'm headed. Like, I'm so focused on whatever it takes to get to that championship. And that Jamal Hill fight was like the way that I was looking at, okay, this is my way to prove that I'm ready. Yeah. The only, I mean, hopefully that fight can get rescheduled, you know, because my biggest focus right now is I mean, I want to fight Alex, man. I just I know that that's going to be a great fight that everyone is going to love. Yeah, I know that as a strikers delight. Yes.

And I know that I have to, you know, like, yeah, I've got to fight Jamal and maybe that'll can maybe like if that happens first then that'll still keep me in that position of like talks of like okay then now you're ready for it who knows what's gonna happen who knows how many fights it's gonna take now right for me to get that fight right that's the one to me in my mind that I'm like that's the one that I want really well fortunately Jamal Unfortunately for him Jamal got injured yeah, and so he had to pull out that fight to that whole car It's that that fight switch so crazy right yeah, so when you think about but I think Jamal had a knee injury, right? Yeah, it looked like something pretty bad

Yeah, yeah, and so that who knows what what's gonna happen with that that could take him out for many months We don't know if he had surgery. What was the extent of Jamal's knee injury? I Believe it was like a severe meniscus tear. Yeah, something like that and like a lot of fluid it looked like yeah Yeah, so, you know, have you had any knee issues? yeah, when I when I was 15, I broke my knee in the pit, hardcore pit. Oh no. Yeah, I was moshing, going crazy, some guy had some steel toe boots on and he was just flinging around and he boom, kicked my knee and broke my tibia.

Oh God. At the top, bone was sticking out. Jesus Christ. Yeah, and then crazy thing at the time I was on tour with the band that I was playing with and we were close to like Mexico so we went to this like shitty hospital like Southern California like close to the border and I was only 15 16 at times something like that and they were like parents insurance is like I don't know I don't

have anything but my leg is the size of football right now fix it so they're like shot me up with some type of drug and put a brace on me and gave me crutches and they're like peace and I had to drive from Southern California to Vegas which took us at the time Two days because we had to make stops because I was in pain with a broken leg. Nothing had been done here. Oh my God. We were young, so my friends would stop at like a Walgreens or something,

get a bunch of cough medicine, Benadryl, here, drink this, oh here. You know, like just try to put me out because I'm in a van with a broken leg. Oh my God. Yeah, dude, it was crazy. So yeah, I'm broken, but nothing torn or anything like that that, but also that healed up and you're good to go. Yeah, I'm good now Yeah, it's kind of amazing when you think of how many fights you've had and all the kicking you do

No knee injuries. No Wow. No, dude Yeah, thankfully, I mean shit. It's it's been really good. I feel better now than I ever have like everything's strong. This is This is great. It's a great time for me as far as just like athletic like progression Dude, you look so good in that Anthony Smith fight. Ah, thanks. I love that fight, man I loved that fight. I was one of my favorites. I watched it I watched it back that off speed when you hit him with that uppercut. Yeah, whoo Started you know the crazy thing like I'm glad you pointed that out. I I don't know I think I started that in the first or second round

That was something that was like doing intentionally the the reason why that's my favorite fight is because from start to finish I was 100% locked in zeroed in I still remember that fight now as if it were yesterday So like you know that hints are like that. I didn't finish him because I was just locked in there was nothing like overly emotional I was in there to eat man I didn't I didn't feel Emotional in that fight at all everything was just locked clear locked in strategy Yeah, pick my shots wisely. It was a masterpiece Thanks, and it's one of those fights where there's there's a certain time in a fighter's career

Where they make this breakthrough and you go boy? He's right there. Yeah, like they're right there We're like I want to see that guy fight all these other folks I want to see that guy fight all these other killers in that division. Yeah, that's where I'm at. Yeah, and that division is, you know, it's interesting because Alex is such a dominant champion but there's not a lot of compelling challenges for him. You know, it's Ankolyev who I think is going to be next. I think they're pretty much saying that Ankolyev. That makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. And then Jan Blachowicz, of course, because his fight was pretty close with Alex. I think it was a split decision. Yeah, I makes sense. It makes sense and then Jan Blachowicz, of course because his fight was pretty close with Alex I think it was a split decision. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, and he's for whatever reason not being considered I think a lot of people looking past Blachowicz because he's older. Yeah, you know, yeah, but you can't I mean you can't look past anybody Right. I mean look how far Glover came right right, you know, like and I think yeah, it's crazy Yeah, you can't you can't overlook anybody Well at the elite elite level. Yeah, there's just there's so many of those look Bo Hovich and Jan

And rather Bo Hovich and Ankeleia fought to a draw remember that fight So those guys are like right there like there's so many it's tightly contested fights in that division Yeah, I just I think I'm not like shitting on anybody or you know saying that like I deserve this anybody over anybody I just I'm excited man. Like I just want to give the fans That fight I want to give myself that fight. You know what I mean? Like just for it just for the for the experience like I Don't plan to shoot any takedowns on this guy You know what I mean? I don't think he plans to shoot any takedowns on me. No, and I think that it's like and there's really When you have two guys that strike like we do and that are skilled in we like you know like we're thoughtful

We know everything's precise. It's not just we're not going in there and just laying a bang like Izzy says button pushers. Yeah It's not that it's two guys that would know hey man. Let's get in at any moment Yeah, it could end in the first second But it also could go five because the both of us are fucking warriors. So I just think like And and while he's still doing his best You know like while I still at the peak is kind of like because I'm doing my best and I'm Get into the my peak and you get these two guys at the highest level and like that's a sick fight. That's what I'm saying That's a sick. It's not like me. That's what I'm saying. You know so like hopefully he continues to win

hopefully, I'm not suspended for that long and if I have to fight someone else in between, like you know, in between then, okay, I understand. You know, if it's Jamal Hill, if he gets back and they book us a five rounder and then it's like, okay, who's, you know, winner of this can fight the champion. Okay, cool, I'm down for something like that, you know? of this can fight the champion okay cool I'm down for something like that you know but yeah man they got to work that out who is the

head of the Nevada State Athletic Commission now Jeff Mullen is it Jeff think Jeff's a reasonable guy very yeah seems like it yeah well I don't know how much say he has on how things get sorted out Yeah, but he's martial artist too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so he's a lot of those a lot of those guys are you know I went I went so I thought that I was supposed to have my Hearing I guess you want to call it last month and I showed up in person Like they allow public comments like time for the so the public can come in the beginning So I came and I saw these guys and I'm like, oh, I know all of you

You know in my mind, I thought it was like some crazy thing, you know, like oh man I have to go and so I showed up and I looked around the room and everybody sitting around this table like all the board And I was like, oh, I've seen every single last one of you at every fight, right? So I felt more comfortable and I kind of like let him know like hey guys, I'm here. I Think that my case is today, you know, they were like no it's not until next month and I was like, okay Well, I just hopefully you guys can Kind of look into the facts and just see like yeah, this is not my fault Not only not your fault, but not gonna help you in any way

Yeah, you took DHEA for a couple months. It doesn't mean anything. Yeah, it's not gonna do a fuck Not even for a couple of months a couple days. Oh, there you go A couple of days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's no way that's gonna give any performance in hand I just think I hate paperwork that things it seems like logical heads would go. Oh Clear them. Yeah. Yeah, if you have to suspend it for two months, we get too much. That's not that big a deal Yeah, let's get it right back in the hunt reschedule a fight You know, we got so many big fights coming up after this fear their Salt Lake City Which is I think Salt Lake City is gonna be Holloway and Ilya Deporia. Oh

Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, And then of course- Big Holloway fan here. Shout out Max Holloway. God damn, man. How about that Gachie fight? Ooh. I was there. I was there. It was crazy.

The way that, you know, when people do like the wave in crowds, it was, this was like the fucking atomic bomb. You're like, boom, boom, dude. And then everyone like, last second, you know know like it's crazy because it's like okay You're watching this fight, and you're like okay cool Yeah, this max got this you know yeah in the bag and then Gagey comes and he's swinging and she's like oh, okay like everyone's still engaged right because they're fighting But then like as soon as I hit boom

Insane the entire arena I was insane getting chills just thinking about it like being in that moment that was sick It was so crazy and max versus toporia is gonna be why it's gonna be great. That is a wild fight Toria is a fucking savage. Yeah, he's a sad. He's he's so savage which brings me to what I was gonna say about Jamal I'm very sad that he hurt his knee, you know I certainly wanted to get better But I did not like him taking that fight with you so quickly after getting KO'd by Pereira. No? No, I don't like guys taking fights real quickly. I mean I like it for you, but I don't like it for him I don't think it's smart. I think you feel okay, but I don't think you're okay

And I think that's Volkanovsky after you got KO'd by Islam and then a couple months later He fights Ilya and gets knocked unconscious. Yeah, that's Volkonov ski after you got caud caled by Islam and then a couple months later He fights Ilya and gets knocked unconscious. Yeah, that's real man You know you you've been stopped before you know what it's like. Yeah, it's like you're not quite right for a long time after that Yeah Yeah, I don't know man like when it happened and when like when they called me and told me that this was the situation That was a lot of the fans response and then me that this was the situation that was a lot of the fans response and then people that I know they're like dude what's wrong with this guy like why do you think I'm like honestly my response to everybody was

like dude that's none of my business right it's up to him it's true you know I mean like whatever he chooses to do that's on him yep but I mean it does I don't to me it seems like him I mean he seems like someone who's very like Fuck it headstrong. I'll do yeah, you know oh yeah I'm definitely cool dude do you I'm gonna continue to do me and it's really like he might be fine Yeah, I mean he got clipped and dropped and then he got beaten up when he was on the ground And he stood right back up afterwards. Maybe he didn't get a concussion Maybe just got dinged who knows but like guys have like Merko croak cop in pride

He fought Kevin Randleman and he got KO'd bad real bad, and then he fought again 25 days later What was it was all that winner? Who did he want you remember? I forget See if you find Merko's record, but then he eventually fought Randleman again, and then choked him damn I miss those I miss those days those days I remember when I get in first introduced to MMA and seeing crowcop those high kicks. Oh my god. It's just folding people Folding people fold into the body So so we're Go all the way back Kevin randomness

He loses a random in and he fights Ken Ahara and then he fights oh Yama And then he fights Alex a million and go and he fights Josh Burnett And then he gets a rematch with Kevin random in but so look at the time so April of 2004 May a month later a month later takes a month break comes back in July. Yeah, bro. They were Another month August then again in October again in December and then again Mark Coleman can we shit? Oh my god. Those guys were getting after it. Okay Hall of Famer, right? Oh, yeah, 100% 100%

And back then those guys weren't they were like the whole thing of Pride back then they didn't get called until like two weeks before the fight No one even knew who was on the card didn't even know no they all like it was all like everybody just had a train Yeah, just like the guys were training and then they get a call and then it's a like X amount of money And they're like yeah, we'll be there. Yep, and then show up and you get a lot of you get paid in cash cash, right? Yeah, I'll go get that bag Yeah, corner man. They're like taping cash Yeah, I did hear stories about that. I heard a lot of stories about that man. What a time It was a wild time be cool if it were still kind of like that you're like they have leagues that were like that

That would be cool. Well. It would be cool if there was an organization that was competing with the UFC at that level Yeah, like that pride was at the time like Saitama Super Arena. Yeah, that's Saitama Super Arena. I think is 90,000 people It was yeah full. Yeah full for pride crazy nuts And then you know the scandals the Yakuza all that stuff and it just kind of goes away But at one point in time they were bigger than the UFC. It was huge Yeah, it was she and it was huge here too. Everybody watched it Yeah, especially martial artists everybody watched no Gara when he was the champ and fador when he was going through his prime over there Yeah, when I got into MMA, I think I watched more pride than I did UFC

Oh and at the time it wasn't live right but like right I had to go buy a DVD from Zia Records or something it's like yeah of course I'm gonna buy sometimes it'd be a pride event and you'd have to stay offline because you'd find out the results and they wouldn't air it for a while later like days maybe even weeks later yeah that was before I wasn't even that deep into the into the game yet I was just watching like DVDs and YouTube videos I think and they would have them sometimes live and you know would be live in America So you'd have to watch it like four o'clock in the morning. Oh my god. Yeah Are you one of those guys?

Over but guys from jujitsu came over house. We all watched it like four o'clock in the morning. That's pretty sick Well speaking of jujitsu. I'm gonna compete in world masters. Really? When you doing that? It's the end of August in Vegas the only thing that makes me nervous about stuff like that is when I got yes Yeah, I got your level. That's like right there with a shot at the title Like you're you're a fight or two away from a potential world championship fight Yeah, and then you're gonna let some dude leg lock you it's not gonna happen so no no it's not gonna happen I mean like so this is this is something that I'm trying to just do for myself to like man I've been training like a dog you know and like what belt do you know I'm purple so I've

been training like a dog I feel good yeah, and I just like it's it's not that serious to me, right? It's not like I'm putting everything on the line to go win this thing. It's like no, dude I just I kind of just want to get in there and Khalil you're a savage once you get in there you're gonna be good. Why are you lying to me? Straight-up killer why you lying to me? Straight-up killer why you lying to me? I am a killer But I think I think it's a little bit different when it comes to like going in here and competing with you did too I think for me the reason why I kind of made this decision is

And I mean it all like it's a hundred and seventy something bucks or whatever to register, right? like I could just say at the last minute like that you know, I'm gonna do it but um, I think it's another way for me to get out and like and Hang out with the fans dude like I have a lot of fans in the jiu-jitsu community as well and a lot of friends in that community and I Go to Worlds every year and and hang out there and sometimes I get the itch like man It'd be cool to just right, you know hop in here and have three matches four matches in a Day like whatever so that's kind of more my approach. I just want to get there kind of connect with the people

Yeah, I'll throw my key. I'll compete but I'm not gonna get injured if something's you know, if something's if someone's got my leg Ankle lock something like that like Like, okay, let's, maybe I'll tap. Maybe I'll tap. It makes me think about Cub Swanson. Remember Cub Swanson blew out his ACL in a grappling competition? I didn't know that. Yeah, he blew out his ACL in a grappling competition. Gee, no gee? I think it was no gee. And it was, you know, when it was a couple years back when Cub was, know doing really well hmm and for sure it slowed his momentum He had to see now. You're like freaking me out. I mean I thought about it right the thought of injury

Tell you right now. Don't do it. It's not worth it come on. Listen you probably will be fine But if not if not if not then it's another videos people have sent me over the last week of If not, then it's another videos people have sent me over the last week of dudes getting heel hooked with their leg breaks snaps like hard loud cracks I'll show you some no, dude. I hate that shit Yeah, no, I don't want to know I don't like like right now is so high it's so high level I don't know leg locking and gee I don't't know I don't know what what I don't think you can like inside heel hook there's there's a bunch of things that the problem is the friction of the gi yeah yeah it's this unnatural control yeah yeah I mean I'll give it more thought the other thing

is it's like scrambles like in scrambles knees blow out yeah you know cuz scrambles in the gym and scrambles in training are different. Yeah in competition competition. Yeah, you're way more Like you're gonna push a hundred percent in competition more explosive. Yeah weird stuff happens. Yeah weird shit happens It's not worth it guys. You're right there. Yeah, you're right there. You're right there I'll say fucking don't I was so sure until I had this conversation Talk you out and doing it please listen imagine you do that you blow out an ACL Yeah, then I'm an idiot. Yeah, it makes no sense for no reason. Ah fuck Okay, I would not be snowboarding. I would not be doing that. Oh that's, okay, okay, okay. No nonsense. Don't fuck around. Well, there's no reason for nonsense right now.

You're right there, dude. Damn. You're right there. You guys heard it, Joe Rogan just talked me out of the Jiu-Jitsu world. Thank God I did. I'm glad you got to listen to me. Wow. And a lot of Jiu-Jitsu guys are like, oh you fucking pussy, shut up Rogan, you fag.

No, but here's the thing, like, I would hate to have this conversation with you and you be so like adamant and passionate about like you don't do it And then something did happen and I well I'd hate to even try now because I put it in your head Now I don't want that to be in your head if you want to do it Maybe I'll talk to you again and try to like you're gonna be fine. You're awesome I'm sure you'll be in complete control. These guys can't fuck with you. What purple belts gonna be able to, you're awesome. I'm sure you'll be in complete control. These guys can't fuck with you. What purple belt's gonna be all the top you?

Yeah. But they're gonna be. I've been trying to stay, you know, somewhat active. It's crazy that you say like snowboarding shit because I picked up skiing. Ooh. Last year. Oh.

Yeah, yeah. Super natural. Everything was good. Of course. But thankfully I picked it up at the end of the winter so I only got like three months in but I did hit some Black diamond runs in Whistler one that was like the guy told me it's like oh This is the one that they did in the Olympics, and I was like okay cool. I'll try it Did really well

but outside of that I mean I Play a lot of golf dude. Well golf is a good one. Yeah, now I'm gonna get hurt doing not gonna get her doing that No, I'll just stick to that fucking Trump. He's 80 years old. He's out there playing golf. What a maniac. Yeah How the hell's this guy yeah That's actually one thing that I that I found out about skiing too because like here's the thing Yeah skiing anything like that can be dangerous, but when I was out there I didn't see anybody over the age of 40 on a snowboard right, but I saw guys 80 years old Father-in-law skiing yeah, you know and I'm like okay. I want to pick up things that I can do for a long time

I want to be active now like ever since I made the change and became a fighter and all these things and my life's changed And I want to stay active I think that's very important to like stay active as long as you can and so I picked up some hobbies because I am an extreme guy Skiing can be an extreme sport. Yeah, you know, but it can also be very, you know, it could also be very chill So things like golf and skiing have been kind of I stopped skiing a couple years ago because I wiped out bad and it was not my fault I was going around a turn and this lady didn't know how to ski and she was kind

of like sliding into the trail and I had two decisions either plow right into her and fuck this lady up or fall and I chose to fall and I didn't have much control Over how I felt because it was like at the edge of the turn and I slammed my head the back of my head bad Definitely got a concussion, but also broke the top of my leg. It's called an insufficiency fracture Okay, it's where the top of your shin hits your cartilage. Okay, it still fucks with me to this day and Your shin hits your cartilage. Okay, it's still fucks with me to this day and Top of your shit. Yeah, there's a crack at the top of my shin. Okay, I get the top of my tibia Oh, that's why I broke my leg. That's why I broke my knee same spot. Yeah, right mine was not bad It was just a crack, but I went to the doctor Mike man. Something's wrong

It's just like it's not this is this feels fucked up Yeah, did the x-ray and everything and oh you have a crack shit They're cracking your bone. Yeah, there's nothing they could do about it They said it'll be okay in six weeks, but I'm like fuck skiing I'm yeah, and I was like the rest of the day I was out of it I could try to get on the ski lift and I fell because I was so dizzy Really? I try to get like I try to get up and I had a hard time getting back up They had to help me up like an old man. I couldn't get up I was like I was I I hit my head hard because I remember when my head hit when I heard the

bang of my head hit the the the pack snow it was like icy snow I Remember thinking oh, that's a concussion. Yeah, right away I said yeah, you can feel it does a real concussion Yeah, if this is taking blows to the head before things about you can feel like yeah That was like harder than I think I've ever been kicked in the head. Yeah, it was bang It's like oh fuck man, and I was just dizzy the whole day I was thinking about going to the doctor for that, but I'm like let me just see With life yeah, you know I don't know what they would do for me other than hospitalize me and monitor me

Yeah, but I know I knew I got rocked How has how has your training been going? What's been what you've been doing? well I still like I said my knee still fucks with me and so that's kept me from doing jiu-jitsu because it's just I Don't want to get injured You know I'm 56 and as you get older injuries take fucking forever to come back from and I've had a couple of problems with This knee this I've had surgery on it and then one time I fucked up my MCL about when I was about to get on stage. So I was doing these shows with Dave Chappelle at Stubbs, which is in town, during the pandemic. And

they're bringing me up to the stage and I'm turning the recorder on on my phone as I'm walking up these cement stairs and I wasn't paying attention because the stairs kind of turn and I stubbed like the top of my foot as I was like stepping up and I kind of heel hooked myself and like hard like painful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I went on stage and my leg was shaking from the pain. Shaking from, yeah, yeah. And it looked like I was terrified to be up there like, ooh.

I'm so nervous. The show went great. People probably didn't even notice if't weren't in the front row and see my legs shaking Yeah, but so you got this Netflix special thing coming up. Yeah, that's already. No, you're gonna live. It's live. It's live Saturday night, dude I'm like I'm Where do I find it on Netflix? It'll be on Netflix. Okay, Saturday night. Yeah, I'm excited to see that It's gonna be fun I was actually kind of looking at some stuff like knowing you know like a few weeks months a month in advance

I'd be here. I'm like I want to see some some of Joe Rogan's like comedy shit But I couldn't find a lot of like Reese's I'm gonna put some of it online today I have a clip that Netflix sent today Then I'll put online But I haven't done a special in six years because I was supposed to do a special right when the pandemic broke out Okay, so the pandemic broke out in March and I was gonna do a special in August and then everything just shut down I was like, oh what the fuck and so and then I just came here moved Bought a club started to build in my own club. Oh, yeah this

Saturday 9 o'clock Saturday 9 o'clock Texas time 7 o'clock, Nevada time okay. We're gonna have a watch party at my house should be fun Yeah, I have some friends over. I'll be cool man. I'm excited for it. Yeah, I've been liking I've been liking comedy a little bit more lately like it's a good relief for a fighter Yeah, I'm so like I'm such a like serious guy that fucking sensitive and serious You know I take everything in the heart, but I've noticed that like just Opening up and like watching other guys do stand-up and stuff It's really fun like just having just being able to laugh about certain shit right really cool, you know, yeah

Yeah, actually after I after all this shit happened one of the first things I did Ronnie Chang invited me out to a show Oh, yeah, he was in town He does jujitsu, I don't know if you know that no yeah, how long has he been doing it a few years now I think he's a Blue belt blue a purple belt pretty good We trained at the PI we rolled Super cool had some good rounds. He filmed like this little thing that never got released, but yeah that same same day He's like hey, I'm having a show tonight in Vegas at the Venetian

Like come by I'd love to have you and I went and so cool man. So funny. Yeah sure Ron is a good dude, man Yeah, very very funny guy fight fan. I love his angry comedy. Yeah It's so good angry at everybody being so stupid. It's so stupid He's like his napkins part like he was like saying something about Americans like just always so many fucking napkins napkins And like screens screens. Oh, it's funny. It's very relevant. I love ya. Yeah, he's a smart dude It's a good time for comedy. You know because also whenever the world is about to be on fire I don't know what everything's going crazy everywhere everywhere you look it's a good time for comedy There's so much shit to talk about yeah

Damn so now I'm not gonna do jiu-jitsu don't do it tournament. Please don't do it. I wouldn't ski either I'll tell you don't ski you're just too close Yeah, you're too close you too close to like one of the most important things that a combat sports athlete could ever possibly achieve. You're so close. The UFC champion is the greatest fighter on earth. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. In that weight class, the UFC champion is the greatest fighter on earth. The only thing that you can contest that is with, okay, one FC has some elite fighters,

Bellator has some elite fighters, PFL has some elite fighters's there's guys out there that are really elite that just so happened to have been signed by or other organizations yeah but MMA fighters at a championship level you know ultimately are the best fighters on earth yeah and you're that close yeah yeah so just stay yeah stay stay training man keep training keep training stay focused keep improving you know every time I see you you're better Yeah, it's obvious that you I remember when you came back from Thailand you fought Eric Anders. Yeah, you love that one I love it. I love it cuz when you bring me up on other podcasts and you talk about that I'm like fuck. Yeah, he still remembers that one dude

Because I'd seen you fight before and I knew you were good, but there was like something happened It's like what the fuck happened like this is just Monumental, you know you see like numbers like you you're you went up like 30% or something crazy Yeah, and then even in that fight. Yeah, there was like 75 low kicks landed like things like that It was the smoothness to it to us. There's a technique. It changed me dude. Yeah, like I mean we talked about it Yeah, Thailand was like one of the best things for me And like my heart is still there. There's still a huge connection. Do you go back? I would I did what I went back after the Smith fight, but I went back for just pure like

Let me just get re tapped in and then I went there and then that's where Mia and I we got married there Like here we had a Thai ceremony. It was really cool. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So we just kind of like, I hadn't been back since the pandemic. So we went back and just, I needed it, you know, cause I'd been focused and just training. Right. So I was like, let me go back home. Cause it feels more home to be there than anywhere else. A lot of people move there just cause it's so cheap. Have you seen it? I mean, everybody's there now, man. Yeah. Everybody's there now. So Yeah, it's it's been cool. I've I still stay active in in that area home. I've been working on some new stuff I'm very excited for whenever I do fight again Because I know it's just I know it's a better version of me man

Like I don't know as it maybe it's like as I get older and just like I guess where I'm at in my life and The mental shift that I've made towards training and the dedication you've had some moments in the past We weren't like fully locked in yeah, and then but you've always come back from those and been locked in in the next fight Yeah, you know so I think now you realize like hey. This is it. This is the push for glory I think one I don't know if a lot of people realize this but I've I've pretty much spent my entire career in the UFC when I got into the ultimate fighter. I had three professional fights That's crazy. Yeah, dude. I got in the ultimate fighter 3-0. I Had all my fights in the RFA in the beginning LFA now

at middleweight and then Ultimate Fighter light heavyweight season comes up and I'm like okay fucking I'll try out I can make the weight made it then got the contract so all of my fights besides the first three have been in the UFC so like yeah there's been some crazy like ups and downs but I feel like now I'm at a point where yeah I've got a crazy place to develop from crazy places to so many guys are coming in now the UFC like 21 21 fights 15 to know you know like they've they've built you know they've kind of built their style And they've gone through all the adversity before then they get to the big show it's like no right in a way like I was kind of born in the big show and You know like as soon as I as soon as I got into it Dana was

Hyped because of my ultimate fighter performances. So he starts throwing me on like main cards me, you know, right? Right, you know, I'm on the big show fighting in arenas already all the shit and then the go can go Kansaki fight And then you know, like that was a huge yeah, dude. So that was a huge one Yeah, so I kind of had so much hype coming in hits so much, you know glory champion k1. Yeah, go- so that was a huge one. Yeah, so I kind of so much hype coming in. He had so much, you know Glory champion k1. Yeah, go calm was a legend. Yeah, so it's it's been kind of cool to finally get to that spot where like I Feel good, you know, like I feel good. I'm confident in what I what I can do now and know exactly where I'm going I'm not like one foot in one foot out And you know, I got one thing that I'm focused on and that's being a champion well the work showed in the Anthony Smith fight

It really did I mean that this this trajectory that you're on showed that you're you're on a new level. Yeah, dude new level For sure and You know one thing that it's kind of crazy that helped me for For sure and you know one thing that it's kind of crazy that helped me for The preparation of that fight because he took it last minute in ten days notice. I was scheduled to fight another guy he got pneumonia like kind of the week week before something like that, but I did a lot of shooting for that uh

for that camp I Went shooting and that changed my perspective because I'm not a guns guy. Oh, it's like shooting in a rain Yeah, yeah, and it changed it just changed a lot in what way? You know we were talking about earlier how like like brilliance and like physical ability and like mental Yeah, I'd never I was never a gun guy like my dad was murdered so like from a young age I just kind of had this like weird relationship with guns And yeah, I've had guns Yeah, whatever pulled on me blah blah, but when I made that decision to go and like actually

Learn from a guy who was Navy SEAL, had a lot of expertise, had a really good way of like, we spent hours of him just explaining to me certain things, you know, gun safety, blah blah blah, different situations, his mentality, clearing buildings, blah blah blah. So I'm taking all this in, all this information and processing it all, and then I finally start to shoot and the power that I felt from the gun you know just like the the accuracy that I felt from shooting an AR-15, the understanding of like different caliber of bullets made me start to then formulate how I'm going to strike like you know like man

I'm giving away secrets fuck it so even on the like the Anthony Smith fight like my left hand I'm like okay my left hand is five five six that's the ammunition for fucking you know for AR so like that's how I was kind of processing everything So every time I threw my left hand I'm thinking of the sound and the feeling of the AR real Bum you know like yeah, so I'm like okay like Feeling the target whatever just kind of like okay. What do I feel like fucking loading? Okay? Load it. Bum! You know, like I'm just thinking about

every time I shot the gun, every time I shot the pistol, it's like, I was like. Really? Yeah, dude. Wow. So like, it was, it really like, I was able to kind of pull from that experience and then bring it into my fight.

But then also, not only that, I was also thinking about like the things that this guy was telling me when it came to like, when they're in combat, when they're clearing buildings. And so like just emotionally, it's so crazy dude before that fight, my strength and conditioning coach Lorenzo, he's a big, big shooter guy, ex-military, you know,

but big, big on shooting, big on self-defense. And the day of the fight, I'm obviously just in the zone and I'm sitting in the living room because I stay with him during camps. We just do it that way. So I'm sitting in the living room, kind of just shaking back and forth because I have so much energy and he knows that I've been putting in my experiences from shooting into my training and it's crazy I was sitting there dude and I had my hood on too inside and I'm just like rocking back and forth and he comes and he just fucking sets an AR-15 right there

on my lap and walks away. Oh wow. Just rocking back and forth You know and then we we drive to the apex from the house and then Wow like so the whole yeah the whole time And in my head even as we're walking out. He's like five five six five five six and I'm like And then in the first round he's like five five six, and I was just I kept saying that in my head Wow just fucking dude. It was crazy That's an interesting visualization tool because you think about it like that's really how you want your strikes to land You want them to be almost instantaneous from the time you pull the trigger from the time you pull a trigger?

Yeah, yeah, and you like what's your right hand? Right hand was wasn't even my weapon it was like I wasn't looking at it like that It was kind of more like range really yeah rangefinder, but I'd say like I'd say that When I did throw the jab it was probably Everything for that like was five five six so even my jab I threw some pretty clean jabs in there Yeah But I wanted it to land straight accurate and like fast and so it wasn't like, you know shotgun

I'm not like oh I'm thinking of the sound the reaction precision precision instantaneous Yeah, you know what I mean? Like not a lot of recoil right like pop Yeah Sting sting like just like that. That's interesting to visualize it that way. You know, because, you know, sometimes you see guys throwing punches at a lower level and you see them like grit, swing and everything's wide and hoping it lands. Yeah.

No, I was very intentional with every, every movement, every strike in that fight so far that's my favorite one before that it was Eric Anders because it was like oh got to do some Muay Thai but this one this one I still got to throw some you know Thai style type of stuff as soon as like my posture kind of relaxed I remember one of the commentators like oh here comes the time you know okay so that was cool but I think the you know the weapon kind of mentality for me was was nice. That's interesting That's a great way to think about it really you know yeah It's a great way to visualize like the instantaneous response

Yeah, but that's me dude every time every fight something different like I But that's me dude, every time, every fight, something different. Like... I- that's the art side of me for martial arts. You know? That's how I'm able to stay in this, that's how I'm able to grow. It's more than fighting, it's more than ego, it's more than my dick's bigger than yours, you know? Like I don't- like that to me, that shit... Fuck it, like that's why it's kinda hard for me too to like position myself in the right way and like build the fan base and like have the income

And stuff like that. I think like that could potentially have right? I'm more of an artist because I'm using you know I need it like right naturally an artist So I like I need to find ways to like how do I express this? So every fights different because I'm just trying to find a different way to express myself and like what I'm going through and How I'm feeling you know that comes out in fights art Really it is the right term when people call it martial arts, and you know people have had arguments like that's not an art It's an art to people who understand it because when you watch a person land a beautiful combination. That's artwork. Yeah, that's like oh Because when you watch a person land a beautiful combination, that's artwork. Yeah, that's like

Yeah, oh it's pretty yeah, you know you watch someone land something good. It's like that's pretty yeah, you know and I don't I Don't see a lot of it as much anymore. I think that's why I'm I haven't I've been watching fights for different reasons nowadays You know like I'm watching light heavyweights fight I'm watching heavyweights fight and I'm just trying to see like okay what's kind of the common theme what's everybody kind of working on but that's why I used to like to watch you know Anderson and Liotto and all these guys because it was just a different time they were bringing this kind of like fresh new look and yes you know this different thing well Anderson particularly he was an artist oh yeah like when you landed that front kick to Vitor's face like that was a piece of art. Beautiful. And it's just the timing involved in that and then just expression just landing it setting it up

yeah have you thought about going to middleweight? I have. What do you walk around at? Well I mean right now like under 230 over 220 so I'm like I walk around at well, I mean right now like Under 230 over to over 220 so I'm like I float in between the 220 so you're not an enormous light heavyweight No, no, no, I'm probably one of the shorter ones Yeah for sure and I thought about middleweight But like I've done that Dexascan thing at the PI and my body with like just dense like no water just bone and bone and muscles 186 oh god, so you gotta get to death's door Yeah, so I've done it like the beginning of my career and in amateur days

I did fight at 185, but it was it was hell and so now like yeah, I like to eat man Yeah, and obviously you're doing great. Yeah, and I like to train. I think there should be way more weight classes I really really do I think there should be one every 10 pounds. Yeah minimum that'd be nice. Look at boxing Yeah, there's a reason why there's a 147 and 154 and 160 It's because there really is a difference gene a legitimate in their prime 154 and 160. Yeah for sure. It's just that's how it should be then when you get a gap like 85 to 205. That's crazy That's a big. Yeah, it's a big guy. That's a really big. Yeah, and then another 25 pounds I mean or you know 205 to 265 is nuts. I just should wait cuttings. It's trash, dude

I don't like it. I don't I still like okay So I'm well I walk around to 22 30 blah blah But I still don't necessarily cut weight like I make sure that I gradually go down. I keep my Food consumption the same all the way through camp real the only thing that changes is my intensity goes up Which causes my weight to go down? Oh? So I said this is perfect. I sit in the sauna 30 minutes maximum. Oh, that's great to lose one pound So that's why you're so Physically from perfect when you're fighting. Yeah, dude, I don't yeah, and that's why I like I'm five rounds for me Like I feel like it's gonna be nothing because I train year-round at the weight when I rehydrate

I'm back up to 225 blah blah where blah, blah, where I'm used to carrying my weight. So when I'm doing all my drills, when I'm running and when I'm jumping and when I'm doing all of the stuff that I'm doing to get better physically, that same person is the same person that's stepping in the cage. I hate the idea of expecting yourself to perform

at the highest level, but for the last two weeks or something like you're depleting, and then the last day before you expect to be at the height level but for the last two weeks or something like you're depleting and then the last day before you expect to Be at the height of physical performance. You're dehydrating your body and your brain and everything of Everything that does it doesn't make sense to me. It should be illegal. It should be I honestly like I don't fuck with cutting weight I just that's great. You know, like I just don't I I don't like it I don't think that it gives anybody the advantage I really don't like a guy who's you know I'm gonna cut down to 155 like what do you walk around 190? You're fucking stupid. You know like it

Yeah, you're gonna be the bigger guy who cares like you know what I mean like you're also gonna not be able to take shots As well I'm gonna be able to take shots as well long term like if you really want to do this if you really want to be that doing this long term It's not gonna be good for you You know what I mean? I can only imagine that like at like a smaller level like or like at a deeper level It's probably bad for your body. Do you think there's a reasonable way to stop weight cutting? There's one WME bought the UFC I have a conversation with Ari,

and I told him, you know what I would do? I was like, this is what I would do. If I was running the show, I'd get rid of weight cutting. I'd figure out a way. He's like, how, what would you do with a weight class? I go, blow him up, blow him up. The stars are the most important thing anyway. No one's gonna give a fuck if Alex Pera is the champion

at 225 or 210 or 205. No one gives a fuck. He's the champion, right? We all know he's the champion. So let's find out what he actually weighs. What do you weigh when you're healthy? What do you weigh when you're healthy and lean like you do when you get down to 206 or 207

when right before you cut the last pound or two of weight? What do you weigh? Let's find that out and that's what you should be fighting at. We should have adequate weight classes so that you don't have an elite fighter That's starving himself to get to a lower weight class because he's really not big enough to compete at the 20 pounds above weight class Yeah, and this is I know that one instituted some sort of hydration testing. That's still bullshit. Yeah What do you hear about it?

So I don't I can't I can't give like an educated like I don't have all the facts right now, but from what I've heard is that from the fighters that I have friends in one, they just say it's bullshit and there's also ways around it. They can, for instance, they test the hydration in your urine to be able to be like, okay if you're if If we detect that you're dehydrated and that proves that you're cutting weight, but a lot of these guys will Dehydrate they'll cut weight and then they'll chug a bunch of water and just hold their piss. Mmm, you get what I mean? So like just so that one whatever I don't know. It's really weird, but it doesn't seem to really some shenanigans There's some shenanigans I think that one thing that people that they could do as far as this weight cutting thing just how they randomly test us

We don't know when you shot us coming or we don't know when the anti-doping is coming weigh us, too Yes, and we have to be in between Mm-hmm X amount give us like a 10 pound allowance, right? You know what I mean? So it's not like you fight at 155 But when we came and tested you you're 190 When Alex fought Izzy he weighed in at 85 and then he made it into the cage at 226 226 yeah nuts. Yeah nuts, which is it's crazy. That's like 40 pounds. That's so much depletion That's so crazy. So crazy. That's so crazy. I mean like yeah, you gained a lot of weight But also like how much let's look at the other side of that how much did he deplete?

The day before he's supposed to fight Israel Adesanya the heavyweight or the middleweight fucking champion And when Izzy knocked him out, maybe that had a factor I'm almost positive about a lot of these knockouts and shit do happen from weight cuts. I think so I think so too. Yeah, and then like our ability to go X amount of rounds blah blah blah like I think that it all plays a factor man Especially with the inability to use IVs Yeah, because they say that the brain takes the longest time to rehydrate you rehydrate your body in 24 hours But your brain takes like 48. Yeah, they do a good job at like giving us all the stuff You know like all these liquids and things like that like they do their job

The UFC always does their job, but there can be there can be some type of change made Hopefully there is you know, no one is thinking about it at all. There's no attempts at all to do it culture Yeah, there's just like people are just okay. This is what we do. Yeah the culture I mean it's happened that way for so long that they just have this in their head. Yeah, why would they change it? Yeah, I just think there's a lot of things that could be done differently and I think the hydration thing is a real big one I think that's a that's a giant one because it does it's it's so bad for the performance of the athletes because it's gonna weaken you 100% yeah, even if you victorious you look awesome you look less awesome than you would look if you didn't have to dehydrate yourself 24 hours ago

period yeah also more dangerous also kidney problems organs shut down and the instances that I know that people have died from MMA there was one in Russia where a guy died from a fight that apparently he had like some sort of a pre-existing condition but I know at least two guys who died in Brazil from weight cutting Wow Yeah, we see it right these we see these guys I have to pull out the night before or whatever because they are the day of yeah I think a lot of it is because of the way cuts speaking hydration try this man What's this is my drink kill cliff kill octane CBD? Oh, I have to read the ingredients

Octane CBD. Oh, I have to read the ingredients It's legit it's good that's this is your cherry yeah your company Yeah, Mike well, I'm one of the owners of the company, but this one I came up with me and my friend cam This one's called elk blood spicy cherry. It's good This is all cheers. This is all legit clean ingredients And I'm sorry grams of CBD that's sweet right no not too sweet at all spice to it Yeah, I think that's great if the UFC was gonna do anything differently That would be the first one that I would say the second one that I would say pay structure pay structure for sure

I knew I heard you talk about that before they should get more money or not I also I don't like the wind bonus that's that's what I meant. That's what I meant like I think Or not also I don't like the wind bonus that's that's what I meant. That's what I meant like I think I think the wind bonus thing is like I hate it. It does suck. I did hear you talk about that I forgot what episode I Think it was with Francis. Yeah. Yeah, I I agree man. It's it's pretty rough, you know, especially with bad decision Yeah, it sucks like bad decisions and then like you get half your money crazy half. Yeah crazy Yeah, especially a split decision half That's nuts. Yeah, I you know like

I'm I'm grateful whatever for you know what I make but I do think that it'd be a lot nicer to just not have to Pay or you know fight for win and show. The other thing that they need to do, and I really think this could be done, cover the tips of the fingers. There's no reason why these fingers need to be exposed. Okay, so I've been testing, it's been pretty cool.

I've been the guy testing all of the new gloves, like with Ember from the UFC. One of the slight changes that they've made is the padding in the glove provides a little bit more curvature towards the fingers But yes covering the fingers I think would be something that Would prevent all the eye pokes. That's one of I think the eye poke right now is probably the scariest thing in MMA yeah getting hooked in the eye going blind. I got poked the last camp actually preparing for The eye poke right now is probably the scariest thing in MMA. Yeah. Getting poked in the eye. Going blind.

I got poked the last camp actually preparing for Jamal Hill and like it cut the entire eye like top eyelid and I was like this is the scariest shit ever. Yeah, I think that should definitely be something addressed. It's possible to do. But it's not going to happen anytime soon because all these new gloves like production I don't get it When they said they were gonna have new good they seem real similar to me Trevor Whitman in my opinion has the best gloves Who the onyx yeah, they're the best MMA gloves and they had some sort of

There was some negotiation with Trevor, but he wanted more money than they were willing to give apparently was a lot of money I don't know, but I think it should be different than that even I think it should be like the Trevor Whitman gloves But where the fingertips are I think you cover it with just a piece of leather just a leather Yeah, yeah with like a little sliver you can just yeah, yeah, so it goes in the grapple Yeah, you just can't spread the fingers. Why would you say the finger like mittens exactly? Yeah, you just it's a piece of leather yeah, so if you wanted to hit someone with their knuckles you still could then you still have to worry about the thumb Yeah, but that's gonna cut down think about the percentage that will cut down on finger pokes Yeah, because a lot of them are this yeah, right we see very we don't see a lot of them

So if it's this but if it has that then it's not gonna go in the eye if it's a cover and the cover like you Never grapple like this you never close your fingers together ever So what what would it prevent in grappling nothing? What would it prevent and striking nothing, but it would prevent eye pokes Yeah, it seems like a pretty clear solution. Yeah, I it's just crazy like like anything right? There's just a lot of like Just like politics and yeah, I think that that is one of the things that could have been changed I don't know why or who at the round table is like Yeah, I don't know either. We've heard all the time. We know that eye poking is a thing But let's make the same glove and just do it, you know a little bit differently. Well, it's better everybody says it's better

Yeah, it's not lighter. It's not perfect. Is it light? How much lighter it's? 3.5. Oh half ounce. Yeah half ounce lighter Wrist is a little bit different like the straps different the inside of the knuckle part here is Padded now. So like if you do throw like a ride, it's like it kind of makes me want to Punch like knife style right right right your hands more protected Yeah, hands more protected you can feel the the half ounce or like the you can feel that really you can feel the difference I can at least that's crazy. Yeah, so

Yeah, it's it's I mean It's a decent glove the only thing that we kind of had some issues with in the beginning if you guys saw on the Makachev fight the logo was coming off. Oh really interesting. So I've been testing that and kind of just doing Round after round of just like in the cage, you know rubbing it on the canvas rubbing on the cage You know getting it wet Vaseline whatever to just make sure that these logos don't come off cuz that we can't have that right right right and That's um Huh? Yeah, yeah

But they look cooler. Yeah, I want to look cool the gold ones are the world are gonna be really cool Yeah, but the gold ones the gold ones are cool. Oh the gold ones are so cool. Yeah Yeah, nice. Yeah, it is. That's the new, that's the new uh, new glove. See the contender one, the baby blue? Yeah. That's pretty sick. It is cool. It reminds me of the pride when they had the blue gloves. Pride gloves are great too. Yeah pride gloves. The pride gloves also curved more. Yeah. They curved more and you saw very few eye pokes in pride. Yeah. Uh, who was that? What's that guy? Someone with an eye? He's something. Yeah, they were good. They were good gloves But we'll see man. We'll see you know hopefully

Probably five years five more years like I don't know how long it took them to change the glove I know it took a long time. I don't think they're gonna do anything different honestly I think it's gonna keep it this way, but I mean how many fights get stopped because I pokes I mean look the rematch with Bala Muhammad and Leon Edwards. They had to have a rematch because Bala got eye poked in the first fight. Yeah, real bad You know one thing that I did want to mention too is I had this discussion with a friend you know when these Remember like the Drew Dober fight and that cut

Yeah Remember like the Drew Dober fight and that cut yeah There was a fight before to like some guy like that. I was just like hey, yeah, I brought was just hanging by thread One thing that would be cool is When these moments happen and when this doc when these doctors come in to check obviously as fighters We're gonna want to keep going most of us mm-hmm We got our win and show money. We need that shit. We need that win money, right? But it'd be nice if they like brought, you know, a coach as well to be able to kind of help call the shots, not just the doctor. You get what I mean? Like, I think that having coaches in your corner is a very important thing for many reasons, right?

They kind of keep us in line give us advice what we're doing things that they see but I Think there are times man where like some people should have that coach. That's like dude enough, right? Right enough, right? Especially if you care about the longevity of the fighter I don't think that there's enough coaches in the sport that are like showing this kind of level of Like care or concern for their fighters one thing that I appreciate about my coaches in my corner is like do when you're done with This we don't want you slurring. We don't want you fucking drooling, right?

You know, we don't want you limping right? You got to get out of like you got to be done with this healthy so that you can continue to live a normal life, right? This isn't the only thing you know and I'm like wow that's a good perspective So like when you're done you're in your 40s right and then you have yeah, if you're lucky you got 60 more years of life Yeah, yeah, keep your teeth keep you know like it doesn't have to be that way right you know you don't have to be this fucking barbarian right so I think that like for instance like if I had a cut like that obviously I'm gonna want to keep going but that's a bad fucking cut that's like moments away from like your eyes going to be exposed if you get punched one more time right depending on your opponent so like

having so having like another person kind of be able to come in and tell the fighter like dude. It's over. It's over Yeah, because we care about you and yeah, you need your money and like yeah, but like let me make this call. Yeah, not the doctor or you know what I mean, or the coach can be like hey like There's a minute left there blah blah blah tell the doctor we fucking got this You know what I mean? Like allow the coach to come in at that moment too I think it would be like that makes sense but they're not medical professionals and there's a lot of lines that you know yeah well it's also you go different athletic commissions have different standards right in New York is

notoriously rough they stop things quicker they they stop weight cuts quicker you know New York has had a bunch of different issues with people cutting weight. That's where Homs on when Hums on Missed weight by eight pounds. They stopped him from cutting. Oh, is it the commission was that New York? I don't know if that was New York New York was definitely max Holloway when max Holloway was supposed to fight Khabib and when Max Holloway was supposed to fight Khabib. And I think the last minute, they pulled him out of the weight cut and they said, you can't do it.

Cause Max wasn't supposed to be fighting at all. That was when Tony Ferguson blew his knee out. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Damn, I didn't know it was the commission that like made that decision. Yes, the commission made the decision, but that was the early days of the UFC being

in Madison Square Garden as well Okay, it was you know, you know, you got to realize New York was so fucking corrupt Yeah kept MMA out of New York forever forever and then the guy who kept it out one up going to jail for corruption Crazy but yeah that that was a weight cut issue max was supposed to be fighting Khabib Wow yeah, which would have been why? Yo, oh my god. Yeah, especially now watching max now and max is another one like people Because max lost to Volkanovsky You know people just sort of wrote max off and said oh max passes prime like nope Yeah, nope max better than ever

Fight how do you do you think that we as UFC fighters should be able to like Fight in like more like boxing or Muay Thai type shit like outside of the UFC. Well It depends You know if it's a guy like you I would say no You're too close. But if it's a guy who is like coming up in the UFC and he gets a, you know, you're only fighting him once every six months anyway, and he gets a possible Muay Thai fight, if that guy blows his knee out, that's on him.

You know, this is his decision. If he wants to stay active and do these other things as well, sure. But once you become like super close And also super valuable like you're a star now and in the UFC There's only a few guys like you that are not just stars, but winning spectacular fashion, right? That's like I'd be like no Look what it did to Connor I it completely derailed Connor's career sure He made a hundred million dollars fighting Floyd Mayer there sure sure it made him a huge star I'm sure he would do it all over again if he could do it again

But the reality is you go back to the Connor that beat Eddie Alvarez that the Connor it mean that Connor I was on a mother Yeah, it was a motherfucker. I wish we had that guy still man. I watched that that uh finishing combination again today Eddie Alvarez one yeah, we do Eddie's punch commotion. Did you watch it? It's the fucking algorithm Eddie Connor's got his eyes wide wide open look look look look look at the punch comes to his nose It knows and look at this counter this counter so nice. Oh my god right behind the ear It's a perfect counter and just rocks Eddie the time that he didn't even break eye contact He's still looking at it, and then the right hook look at this bang

Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I So crazy that that got fed to me on my way here Yeah, that's crazy. Well. This has been going around today. Yeah, prime McGregor was so smooth look at that. I'm even smoothing now He says yeah, I wish that was true. Yeah, same dude damn I was true, but I mean maybe he is maybe he is and we just need to see him fight again You know it's been a couple of years I really hope so I love to be able to still get the feeling of seeing Connor do amazing shit you know and by the way I fully support him pulling out of that fight

Yeah, don't fight with a broken toe. No, that's crazy like people say toe like whatever It's people there and talk their shit But like did you stub your toe and you're crying about it for five minutes so imagine having a broken toe exactly You know like it's not yeah, and meanwhile when Alex fought Jamal apparently he had a broken toe What was it broken broken or was broken broken really a broken pinky toe going into that fight it going into it Yeah, I mean well He's ready to go. Yeah Yeah, oh my god. See the guy that you think about when you train. Yeah

100% it's like I never okay when I started this when I started MMA. I had a dream. I had a dream of meeting Anderson Silva and that dream came true like I I Just had a feeling I had a dream, I'm like, man, I wanna meet this guy, I wanna fight this guy, something, I just wanna be involved with this guy. Met him, lived with him, was in his wedding, all that stuff and like, okay, cool.

And since then I haven't had a real dream, like a vivid dream until I started seeing Pejeda come into the light heavyweight division and all these things and now yeah, I have a dream. And my dream is to put on a very, very memorable fight against this guy. Something that no matter what, the fans are gonna fucking love it.

It's gonna be memorable. It's gonna hopefully go down in the Hall of Fame one day. Something like that. So yeah, it's the guy that I think about at the moment and, you know, and my motivation to train and to get better and to be a better person, to be a better man. It's like I'm fucking grateful for the guy in a way, you know what I mean? Like it's not a disrespect thing thing it's more of like fuck Yeah, thank you for giving me something to like wake up for every morning right for being so dominant Yeah, that is the thing about when you have an incredible champion. It really does make everyone inspired it makes people rise

Yeah, make sure skills have you ever watched by top fight in in glory no Artem Vahitov is the last guy to beat to beat Alex in glory uh-huh and he's nasty he's his Russian kickboxer he's really really fucking good super technical those kickboxes are crazy yeah yeah glories it's glory is the most in my opinion it's the most underrated and underappreciated of all the combat sports because the level that those guys are fighting at is so high yeah I remember when I listened to you when your episode with with in Ghana

when you were talking about Cedric Dumbay yeah I mean I trained with him a little bit when I was living in Europe and I walked into this gym Joe I'm not even lying dude I probably trained there twice and I was like I can't I'm not fucking built for this At that time like I'm still young like this was I think it was could have been it was around the go-kansaki fight maybe before or after but I walked into this gym in Belgium and It was just full of dogs and Cedric was there and he was training and the way that these guys were just drilling I was fucked up my legs my arms Because they're they're blocking in their offense defense drills are full speed

You know what I mean big gloves shin guards But they're like wow wow wow bang and then back and forth and back and forth and force speed full speed Back and forth and it's just non-stop I think the class was like an hour and a half or their training session was like an hour and a half, something like that. And I remember leaving and walking home in the cold and I was just like, I'm supposed to fucking, you know?

And they knew like, oh, this guy's a UFC fighter, blah, blah, blah. So like, I was like, fuck, I have to show up tomorrow. I fucking told them that I came here to train. I came all the way to Belgium to train. Show up the next day or whatever, a couple days later, do it again. And I'm like, dude, I don't think I can come back. Like fuck this.

Wow. So the way that these guys are training that are aspiring glory fighters and current glory fighters, it's a different level, man. Wow. It's a different level of ability of what they can take. You know what I mean? Like just like pain tolerance and just like their routine and just what they're conditioned for now Yeah, it's a difference in the way they train the way the ties train Okay, so I'd say like

Ties don't necessarily spar hard at all I don't know of a place that I've like I haven't seen ties like full on spar. It's very like lighthearted and more playful and skill and things like that. A lot more a lot more bag work, a lot more attention to balance and defense and then On the pads, it's a lot less combinations It's not like that. It's not that's not like that Well, that's why it's very cringe to me when I come back to America and I see these guys who are teaching Muay Thai

And it's like these seven punch combinations just because it's punching and kicking and you're throwing in knees and elbows doesn't make it Muay Thai. You know what I mean? Like it's not it's not the same essence in my opinion. So how do they hold pads over there? Like it's so like for instance like when I was when I was training my trainer it's like it's more of like he's drawing out what he kind of wants to see from me based off of my position and like how I'm standing and where I'm standing.

So he'll have his distance and he'll kind of sometimes won't even really tell me what to do. He'll just kind of like insinuate like body kick. Boom. And then however I land, then maybe he'll hold the right hand and then boom however I land after that maybe hold the hook and then from the hook and then maybe he'll hold the leg kick But it kind of depends on like where am I at? Right? You know, like what's my position? He's not like, okay jab cross hook low kick Oh, it's more based off of your fighter. How does your fighter flow?

right you know what I mean, so like in that distance if I'm if he's like telling me if he's just like because my trainers didn't speak English at all I had to kind of like learn to adapt so he would just be like kind of like doing this like okay slow down relax calm so I'm like okay relax and then he'll quickly like that and then I have to kick boom and then he'll be like two and then boom boom and then he'll like okay relax. Punch boom elbow boom like it's just kind of calling out these reactions not giving me this like eight punch combo four punch combo okay in with it's just a lot more instinct. It's a lot more like stay calm stay relaxed and when you attack I don't want to see that you're about to attack me

I need it to come Quick and like I need you to go right back Yeah, I need to go right back to a relaxed position You know and so do you feel like this kind of pad holding is more applicable for an actual fight like developing skills I think so. I mean like especially if you want to Kick or punch or do anything at like a full power, right? Because I do notice that like like from the tie pad work. That's where you practice your power That's where like the on the bag and on the pads. It's more power, right?

It's less like boxing is more like focus mitts. Mm-hmm You don't really do power with boxing on on mitts But with like with Muay Thai it's like this is my chance to be like how how effective is my left kick at? 100% right and I'm like trusting this guy to be able to catch it for me so I Prefer it I make I prefer the the true essence and the true martial art of Muay Thai because it's when you kind of understand it and when you've kind of learned it from you know, like just different traditions and like different lineages, it's like you can

You can pick up on things. They're like, okay now okay. Yeah, this is this is I can fucking ruin someone If I like relax right here And I'm standing just like an arm's length of this guy And I just want to really blast the kick and be on balance I can ruin this guy You know you also were telling me that they changed the way you were kicking Yeah So everyone like everyone has their own way It's like if you go to a jiu-jitsu school and like an armbar is an armbar

But people have different ways of like setting it up or right more effective to to get it The biggest thing that kind of helped me was for one like a Lot of people when they kick they lean back to kind of counterbalance that weight And my trainer always told me like he always had me like a dry like Drive my pressure forward. I actually wish that I was fucking training with you. I was here side note I was like damn dude sick to fucking to show some stuff to Rogan, but anyway He was showing me like next time yeah. Yeah, I got a whole gym here. Yeah, I saw it It's probably way better now than oh, yeah, yeah, just moved in here, but

Kind of like this more like forward projection so like all of my weight and plus the kick moving forward versus standing stationary lifting my and going back right you know like there's like a no tilting the turning of the hips like kicking with the shin and not the foot like so there's a lot of little details that go into Like making these things happen You know and also the speed of the kick like a lot a big problem that I see in MMA for sure is that like man I can see kicks coming from a mile away, right because there's just so much

Just to get your leg up You should just be able to fucking whip it and it still be as a powerful and as effective Yeah, you were saying something about the smoothness of though They taught you how to relax more when you're throwing kicks. I have like you have to relax like the kicks The leg is the heaviest Limb on the body, you know and just like if you want to knock someone out, you don't want You don't want to tense up first, you got to be relaxed. It's got to be swift.

So it's kind of like in order to lift your leg, to throw it at a full speed and like and to for it to be accurate, you got to be relaxed. You have to. And how much of that is like when you're training, how much of your training when you're working on technique is kicking the bag? How much of his kicking pads? How much of his kicking pads how much of his kicking the air? Okay, so I kick the bag a lot I just have a bag in my house and everything's usually like slow just getting my body to move and

Comfortable with lifting my leg and it just be effortless Just the technique. Yeah, just the technique and like the flow and like the feeling when you do it at home Like how much warm-up do you do before you do anything like that? It kind of is my warm-up So yeah, I just I do it lightly until my intensity picks up and until I'm like, okay I'm fucking tired, right, you know, so I'll start off really slow Yeah, I post like a video the other day. It's like of my routine Like I just like I put on this music like Thai country. Oh, let me see it. Yeah, it's uh, yeah Actually, if you pull that up, you'll see like that's kind of my daily

Like my daily routine so I'd say a lot of my training. It's like probably 60% is just like shadowboxing light bag work working on balance. Yeah. So just nice. What are you listening to? Put it on. That's like the classic Thai music. Yeah. So try not like even here I'm trying not to lean my head back and try to keep more of like a station like a Straight up and down posture while throwing the kick. It's very hard, but it's like as you practice it It only makes the kicks a little bit more effective, so this is at your house. Yeah, this is bag

130 and So you just setting stuff up? Yeah, just touching it. Yeah, just touch because like I Need to know that I can touch it before I need to like before I want to blast it And so that's how you warm up you warm up just gently I just do that until I'm I end up like really sweaty fucking hard on the back, you know I feel like okay. I've done this motion enough to where now I can Release at a hundred and twenty percent I can just fucking do you do a lot of stretching? Yeah, I spend

Probably three to four hours a day stretching Wow yeah Really yeah, holy shit. It's like one of my hobbies I just I love it like if I'm not okay, so I when I wake up in the morning. I'll Say like Sparring say I have sparring at 1130 I get to the gym by 9 and I'm stretching for two hours Wow I use Olympic rings. I love stretching on Olympic rings I'll put them like so I hang them out of like a nice height and I'll put my arms through and they're just like kind Of here. Hmm, and then I'm like flexing down and it kind of helps it elongate my spine

Pressing decompressing Put it like on the like under my elbow here And I'll kind of like do like the iron cross and just kind of I do a lot of just different like unique type of stretches and I do them every single day and I just want to make Sure that like my body feels as free as possible. I hate tightness I fucking hate it my lower back so tight right now and I hate it, you know, like that's just one of the I got some shit I could show you for that. Please. Yeah Cool shit here. So yeah, like I'd say a lot of a lot of my time and a day is spent stretching

That's crazy three to four hours three to four hours a day, man That's not like sometimes it's two hours, and then I'll go train and then later like an hour before I go to bed You know but Yeah, a lot of my time a lot of my time. Look at my face is like oh, where's that the garage fucking stretching? What kind of makes sense though when you think about how free you are when you're fighting. Like everything is so fast and fluid. It's got to be relaxed.

Yeah. It's got to be relaxed. And you have to be loose to do that. Yeah. Yeah, I've talked to guys who aren't flexible. Like I was trying to explain, I was trying to show someone some guard technique. A guy was fighting in the, I don't want to say his name. And I was like, so when you're in this position here, I was showing them how to use a rubber guard

I'm like so I'm in control here and he's like I can't get my leg up right there I'm like, what do you mean? You can't get your leg up right there. It's like I just I don't have any flexibility I'm like do you stretch? Yeah, it's like no. I'm like you don't stretch. You're a world-class fighter and you don't stretch Yeah, I'm an old comedian and I'm showing you that I can do this. This is crazy You should be able to do this. Yeah, like this is not a thing. That's Yeah, yeah, I mean it sometimes like especially right now. It'd be really hard for me to do rubber guard, but why? Okay, so the other day I was working out I do these like Saturday workouts. I invite my friends

We do like a kind of boot camp like circuit thing There's something for me to stay active and to invite my friends to come you know enjoy a healthy lifestyle I have a friend who's older guy and he was doing amazing air squats and I was like just banter I was like you call that a squat anybody in their right mind would have known like yeah this is a good fucking squat you know but for some reason I don't know what what's going on that day But he took it personally and he was like what you have the worst fucking squats in here you fucking and just like blew up

I mean, I was like whoa, dude Didn't know we were going that route But since you want to fucking you know what I mean since you want to test the waters And then I just started fucking air squatting like a maniac and bust out like 80 air Squats like my asshole almost touched the ground. You know, it's like going full speed and then like I just I was kind of like rubbed the wrong way, so I just went hard and I wasn't really thinking about Posture technique or anything. I kind of tweaked my back a little bit Then that wasn't the end of the workout

We still had to go and burn a thousand calories on the on the assault bike oh no then I hop on the bike and full blast you know like you've been so pretty miles an hour just and it kept hurting and I was like I'm not gonna show these guys that I'm hurt I'm gonna just I'm a dog you know as I get back on and by the end of the workout like I mean for the past like three days it's been real hard oh wow so my lower back right now and then The day after that I went and I have to swing the golf club like at least four times four days a week Jamie has one of those things out here. Yeah simulator. He told me nothing. Yeah, he's a nut

He's out there all the time. Why yeah, yeah, um that would that would definitely inhibit your rubber guard, but normally you could probably do it Right. Yeah. Yeah. Normally. Yeah should be able to do that. Yeah, it's like if you're on your back. That's it's a Regardless of what people think that's a it's a very effective technique Yeah, and I've put people in and I'm like get out here Let me hold you try to get out not on the topic of rubber guard, but after we're done with this I'm going to show you this sick sweet thing that I'm working on. Okay, it's like it's really cool I'm gonna show it to you and then when you see me do it in a fight, you're like, holy shit Oh, all right. Yeah, it's unseen unheard of and it's a mixture of like what I've learned like some

Muay Thai concepts and like and like yeah Muay Thai concepts and like methods Mix with what I've been learning in my jujitsu because I'm training with a guy Who's a black boat under Damien Maya? And so a lot of the jujitsu stuff that I'm working from like learning from him is amazingly effective Especially for my mentality and like my body style So like in my off time and in my stretching and just my artistic mind I was like, how do I blend these two together Wow got it wow yeah an idea it's nice it's sick how much time do you spend boxing I don't box a lot yeah I'd say like my pad work like my MMA pad work is a lot of hands not

necessarily like boxing boxing just kind of like MMA boxing. But I mean, I would love to do more boxing. I just noticed that when I focus on boxing like I have in the past, I just get a little bit more flat footed. You know, and because of my nature and my spirit, I'm just willing to stand and bang like, right, right, right. You know, and I'm like waiting on counters and I'm waiting to roll and I'm like, oh, I'm going to just wait right here and I'm going to slip and bang like, and just, you know, and I'm like waiting on counters and I'm waiting to roll and I'm like, oh, I'm going to just wait right here and I'm going to slip and react and counter.

But so it sometimes can put me in a little bit of a bad position. But if I find the right boxing trainer that kind of understands MMA and understands my style, I could see it being effective, but I haven't found that yet. So you just put it all together. Yeah, that's your thing. I could see it being effective, but I haven't found that yet. So you just put it all together. Yeah Well listen man, I'm bummed out that you're going through all this bullshit But I'm really excited to see you back in there man. I really really am especially after the end Well, I've been a fan for a long time, but the Anthony Smith fight was like it shows me that you are

Right there right there. I hope you know Jeff sorted out Everybody Nevada State Athletic Commission Sort it out and hopefully you can call the next one too right oh Yeah, I hope so I really do I really do it's always great talking to brother same and tell everybody your Instagram Social media where people can find you find me on Instagram Khalil roundtree. Just my first and last name That's all I got right now, working on a website. Oh really, nice. Yeah, I wanna work on a website and just get a little bit more,

give some more content, interact with fans and stuff in a whole different way. Possibly start to provide more videos and just some more interaction. So all that's a process, but for now, just hit me up on Instagram. Beautiful. That's about it. All right.

Let's go to the gym. I'll show you something. Let's do it. All right. Bye, everybody. Later.