The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Joe sits down with Belal Muhammad, a mixed martial artist and current UFC Welterweight Champion.  https://www.ufc.com/athlete/belal-muhammad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Need more hot takes? Head to the FanDuel Sportsbook app. They've got more ways to bet, more ways to win, and more ways to cash out quick. You can cook up same-game parlays on any MLB or soccer game all in one place, not to mention golf, tennis, and more. Download FanDuel and get more from North America's number one sportsbook. Please play responsibly. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca the Joe Rogan experience all right what's up good to see you man? Good to see you man, congratulations. Good to see you, brother, appreciate you. The champ is here! Everybody has to shut the fuck up now.

That's the best part right now. Now I can just talk as much as possible. They can't say nothing. There were so many doubters, so many naysayers, so many people did want you to get that title shot. It was so unfair, dude. It was really wild. It was wild to see. It really was. It really was. Because I'm like, are you guys not watching his fights? Like what the fuck are you guys seeing? I do not understand when people don't appreciate excellence. I really don't get it. I never- like the Sean Brady fight, you see that fight, you don't think this dude is a fucking problem for everybody you see the Wonderboy fight see all your fights and all of them

they've been different right like yeah the Sean Brady all I did was stand up I didn't shoot one takedown on him Gilbert Burns I didn't shoot one takedown Wonderboy I took him down obviously I'm not gonna strike with a kickboxer so I've showed you guys all forms of martial arts yeah people still hated they're like they're still hating so crazy even with the Leon fight. So even for this fight I'm really on fire. I think they have to shut the fuck up I think everybody has to shut the fuck up and just recognize what you did because you Put so much pressure on him standing up

You were in his face from the very first second of the very first round you just Advanced and you could tell he wanted that space and you could tell it was a Different experience and what he thought he was gonna get from you Yeah, I mean when we saw him against Colby and him against Usman the third fight we saw that he's expert at distance Yeah, he manages the distance. He puts it at his own pace So we were like bro, we got to make this the dirtiest fight the hardest fight for him So we got a step right away So even when the ref was like looking to me,

tell me to back up when he looked at Leon and say you ready, you ready? I'm walking forward right away. So I'm right in his face before he even like looks up. So I was like I got to get him on his back foot right away, make him uncomfortable. And I knew he's not good uncomfortable. No striker's really good moving backwards. Right. But I knew Leon specifically, I don't want to be in his kick range. I don't want him at his slow pace like he did against Kobe and these guys where he kicks, moves, kicks, moves. I'm like, I'm gonna be in his face non-stop,

punching him in his mouth and taking him down whenever I see an opening. The Kobe fight I thought was gonna be different. I think Kobe broke his foot real early in that fight. I mean, I think Kobe sucks, but real early in that fight? I mean I think Kobe sucks but for me I think that Kobe wasn't he's just not a good striker even with the fights that we see that he was really good at it was just because he put a good pace on all these guys right and he dictated the pace with you know RDA and Robbie Lawler all these guys but none of those guys really had that type of cardio when we saw him against Usman Usman showed you all right He could keep up that pace with Kobe and then Kobe can't take him down

So it ended up being like a kickboxing match for Leon He knew if he dictated a pace with Kobe Kobe wasn't gonna be able to do anything to him And I don't think the time off I think hurt Kobe's distance management because his shot takedowns were terrible in that fight Like he didn't he was a man shooting at the truth though. I think the foot had a big factor because I think he broke his foot I think Leon checked the kick real early on or he kicked low and hit the shin and broke his foot Yeah, knee something. I don't remember exactly what happened, but apparently in the first round he broke his foot That you know if you can't move against Leon you're in real trouble Yeah, I mean especially because Leon's so good at his lateral movement.

Yeah. And his disc hurts so hard. Yeah. So for me, I was like, I can't be in kicking range at all. I think I felt like one, one body kick early and I was like, all right, let me step forward on it. So even with my mindset, the whole camp, I probably took two to 3000 body kicks and then move forward on each of them.

And if I backed up at all, my coach is yelling at me, look what you did here. You did this wrong. kicks and then move forward on each of them And if I backed up at all my coaches yelling at me look what you did here You did this wrong move forward move forward. We can't take one step back. So I was like I was writing it down I was putting in my head do not take a step back Do not take a step back and then he just came out in the fight. It came out perfect It was a master plan. It really was watching you executed. I was I was just so I was so shocked first of all his inability to deal with you on the feet. Because even if it was just a kickboxing match, you were, there was so much pressure and so much volume of strikes.

You were constantly on him. Your boxing was so on point, man. It would look better than it's ever looked. Yeah, I think people just underestimate me when they look at me because they say, oh, he doesn't have a bunch of knockouts. But when you look at my fights and you see the way I've pieced up a lot of these, you know, big names like Gilbert and Sean Brady, I beat them both on the feet. And for the Leon fight, my gym is small, but we have, I work with, I think who's the best

striker in the UFC right now. He's a 55 Ignacio Balmundes. Like this kid is a monster. He probably has like, you saw, yeah, his spinning heel kick knockout. I'm like, I'm sparring with this dude every single day. So I'm like, nothing that Leon was going to throw at me was going to surprise me. Nothing was going to make me uncomfortable. And for me, if you're beating me up, I want to, I want to keep going to you. So for Nacho, I'm like, bro, throw the kitchen sink at me. I want to, I want you to throw everything you have in your tool bag at me. So if whatever Leon throws, I'm just going to be comfortable in that fire. So for me it was just non-stop, non-stop sparring, sparring, sparring, even if it's not hard sparring, light sparring,

just enough to see everything and have my reaction time. And I think that helps a lot with the way I've been fighting lately. How much time did you have to prepare for Leon? I had about eight weeks. Did you kind of have an inkling that it was gonna happen before that? Like had you been preparing mentally before that? That was the hardest part, right? The lead-up because it was after beating Gilbert they're like you're guaranteed next and then you're like when is it happening? They're like well Kobe has to fight first so then I'm sitting there in the playing the waiting game and then they offered me Usman. They're like well you know if fight first so then I'm sitting there in the plane the waiting game And then they offered me Usman. They're like well

You know if you don't want to wait we can give you Usman So we were at talks with Usman and then Usman ended up fighting Hamza on short notice So then I was like alright well There's nothing else they could put in front of me It's gonna be me against the winner of Kobe and Leon then that fight happens And then Leon's trying to brush it off like nah There's still other guys I could look at and see who's next and he even brought up Gilbert Burns and I'm like, bro, I just beat Gilbert Burns. So I'm sitting there, you know, in limbo, like what's happening?

I'm calling my manager every day and Ali's my manager and he's like, bro, trust me, Dana's not going to go against his word. He's going to give you the shot. He's going to give you the shot. And then all of a sudden 300 comes up and I'm like, oh, so we're probably going to be 300. And then they say, oh, they offered to fight to three other guys And I was one of those guys so then like I'm sitting there like bro. Wait. No way Am I about to get screwed right now? Are they gonna give it to somebody else? Did you ask it?

Like why didn't I get the fight at 300 if they were trying to get Leon to fight at 300? Why didn't you get that title shot for me? It was just I put it out there I said if they really wanted Leon to fight there, they would have put me on there. So I said yes. You know they asked, they said they asked Islam, they said they asked Shafqa, they said they asked Hamza, and they all said no because of Ramadan, but I fought multiple times during Ramadan. So for me I'm like, if they really wanted Leon, they could have had him with me.

But I think they just wanted to have that shock factor with 300, where it's oh double champ status for Islam or Hamzah is obviously a huge star he comes back down so I think they just wanted that and Lien is not a promoter he doesn't really promote his fights in general obviously he's a great fighter but for 300 I think they want somebody that's gonna try to push the event yeah but still yeah the rules are the rules you know guy makes it to the top of the heap, he's supposed to be next in line for a title shot. Yeah, I mean, for me, I'm like, what else do I gotta do? All the purists felt that way.

I didn't see anybody who's like a real solid MMA fan who felt that way. So a lot of the casuals, a lot of the casuals jumping in with their goofy opinions on things. But that's the age we live in, right? The troll age. Nobody has a profile picture. They just say the dumbest stuff.

Well, not only that, you have a disparate, look, the reality of the numbers is, I had a joke in my act that 90% of all Twitter is done by 10% of the people, and those people are 100% retarded. But it really almost is that, I mean, it's a joke, but it's kind of almost true because

are you commenting on shit all the time? Do you go to someone's YouTube videos and talk shit? You're busy, you're busy being the fucking welterweight champion in the world. You ain't got no time for that. So the people that have time to be doing that all the time are unfortunately generally not doing that good. They're not, Michael Jordan's not leaving YouTube comments

You know I'm saying it's like the people that are engaged in these attacks on specific fighters in particular They're usually just dorks and I get it these dorks by pay-per-view and I get it these dorks But they're not most people most people want to see the best people fight the best people and would it be exciting to see Islam go up and try to win at 170? Fuck yeah, it would be I'll be all in for that fight. Unfortunately for you I mean it sounds great, but if I was running things I'd be like the fights are gonna be fucking great Anyway, it's UFC 300. Everyone's gonna be super hyped up. There's so much on the line. It's a crazy fucking card That's a great fight. It's a great fight. Yeah, and it's two guys that are on ten fight winning streaks.

Yeah, so I mean, how weird was it to have to do the fight at like five in the morning? Oh my god. Explain, so let's explain that to people who don't know. The UFC that was done in England was done on American pay-per-view time so the card had to start what did it start like 1 a.m. yeah started yeah the first fight was one a.m. fight of the night 1 a.m. under card UFC fight pass first fight of the night that's crazy that's so crazy as if we can't watch it earlier in the day as if UFC fans on a fucking Saturday are gonna say oh the pay-per-view Starts at noon, okay, we watch football games at noon What we wouldn't watch world title fights at noon making you guys fight at 5 in the morning to me was

Bananas I was like that is so Contrary to anything you would want from optimum physical performance Yeah, it was wild like we got down there the week before on Saturday and you know we're trying, we found a gym so we're like let's start trying to work out at 4 a.m. because being the main event they said it'll probably be on around like 5, 5 30. So the hardest part was just trying to stay up from midnight to 4 a.m. to go drive to this gym. And, you know, we had like a big house, so we had a bunch of people with us,

but one person yawns and it's like addictive. And it's like, bro, it's midnight, we're all just like watching Netflix. And then we like, we didn't have no games or anything, so we're just like trying to watch movies. Wow. And then one guy yawns, you're like, I'm gonna go upstairs by myself for a second. And then just like, they, the PI is really good

because they gave us like some jet lag, like glasses that shine light in your eyes that you're supposed to turn on at, right when the sun sets. Because when the sun sets, you start getting melatonin in your body and it makes you want to go to sleep. So they like put this on when the sun sets.

So it like shocks your body and make you think it's about to be sunlight. Really? Yeah. Oh wow. So I'm walking around the house with like these glasses that are like shining light in my eyes and it still was hard. Fuck you bitches three in the morning. We went to go work out so I'm trying to get everybody to work out with me so like we had maybe us five or six guys with us and then the gym was at 30 minutes away.

So by the time we finished working out at night, it was starting, the sun was rising cause it was like 7 a.m. And I'm like, how am I about to fall asleep right now? So I would like take melatonin fight week and then it would wake me up at like 2 p.m. And I would still be at groggy the rest of the day. And then you have to do like interviews

and stuff like that. It was hard. So did you try to stay on Chicago time the whole, the whole thing? I tried, but it was, it was still hard just because like I said, that, that time in between where that board time, right? Where we're like, all right, we got to work out at 4 a.m. and then, you know, during the day we had interviews and stuff starting at 3 p.m. They adjusted those times.

So then we would finish everything, it would be like 7 p.m. How have they done London cards in the past? Did they do that in the past? They've done it once with, I think it was business against Hendo twice. Hendo 2. The second one?

Yeah, the second one. But other than that, they would just do it and American time zone would be like daytime here. That's so crazy. But I think pay-per-view wise, they expect more people to buy pay-per-views in prime time like night, 9 p.m. Probably.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess. But when they go to Abu Dhabi, we still fight Abu Dhabi time, night time. Yeah. And then over here, it's daytime. Yeah. But I wonder if they see like a change in numbers with that

and that made them adjust. They probably do do but whatever Yeah, that's my feelings. Whatever like we can't have people fight five in the morning. That's nonsense You can have an audience there at five in the morning fucking exhausted for a world title fight Exhausted can't believe you're still awake for me. I was like, I hope they are exhausted. I'm like, they're probably be booing me anyway, so I'm like Let's get drunk starting at midnight. Let them be dead tired once it gets to that level How many people were asleep in the audience? People started leaving early

Dirt it was like the fourth round and I think I got the last take down and I was like Finishing on top of him. They said people were leaving. Wow, and I was like that that's a good sign That just tells me that they know that there's nothing else he could really do. He had one big moment in the last round when he got on time. Yeah, I still got it right here. And it's just like, I just keep shaking my head every time I think of it. But it just tells me that I still have stuff to fix, still have stuff to work on. And you can never get like too comfortable, especially with him. But yeah, my coaches, my coach is the type that I like, tell me everything I did wrong after a fight instead of the stuff I did right. So right away, now look at your face.

Now look at you, like you did that because you took your foot off the gas for one second and something could happen. Who knows if there was a minute left, what could have happened or blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I won coach, I'm the world champion. You chill out. But he wants it to be perfect.

Yeah. That was, it was interesting because it was, you could see him using energy management. You know, you could see him trying to figure out when to just defend and when to try to break free. And you know, when to plan himself and fire shots and when to just stay on the back foot and keep moving. Like he tried to hold you off a few times,

but I think whatever you were doing for strength and conditioning, your cardio was insane. Because the volume, just the sheer volume and pressure that you were putting on him, and the fact that you kept that up solid five rounds. Yeah. That was insane. Yeah, I think every fighter's fear

is to get tired in the cage. Every fighter's fear is to be in there and not be able To lift up your arms you seen it happen with a lot of guys big-name guys where you'll see them give up a choke Yeah, and it'll be like he just looked up his neck and maybe he was too tired No, he just wanted to get out of there for me I had no fear and I know that I could go harder than any of these guys and if I'm tired I know he's gonna be twice as tired. But I think a lot of it like you said is just You know the team I have around me. I got I do strength conditioning with my boy Matt Murphy, but it's not anything

Outrageous right but not doing that the crazy new stuff that's coming out. We do heavy weights and We do all like the big muscles like chest lower back and squats But we put all this other stuff around it, like the cosmetic stuff too. And we're lifting three days a week. What do you mean by cosmetic stuff? Like say if I go heavy on my squat and then we'll still end up doing like lower back,

chest and like dumbbells, chest and everything on that day. But like on a heavy chest day, we're going like legs, lunges, like lesser weight weight so we go heavy with like squats chest and deadlifts one day a week for each of those and then we still do full body stuff that same day but just like lower the weights and higher reps so you're essentially doing almost like you're doing like power lifter work yeah you're doing bench press like just power generating stuff yeah I doing any plyometrics or any of that kind of stuff

I mean I do a lot of swimming for my for like cardio wise and then people make it fun of me a lot Swimming is fucking people don't know how to say people when they when I take them to the pool Like when I take a brand new fighter to the pool and that they never swam before they get so tired Yeah, and I tell them bro. It's a full body workout It's everything you need especially for fighting It's like one of the hardest things you could do especially if you're like built like you because you probably sink like a rock Yeah, it's hard to stay above water. Yeah, like fat people they say swimming's not hard right because you got a floaty on You're literally swimming around with a floaty. You could float. Yeah dense dudes just Go right under you got to struggle to stay above water and I don't have like the best technique to

doing it so I still like go there and I think I'm gonna go a mile and then I'll go and I'll take a little break go take a little break and like you said you see like that fat person just going non-stop yeah you're looking at them like bro I just want to like slap them what am I doing wrong cheating yeah cheating they got a human floaty on but it's a it's a heart I remember Maury Smith was the first guy that started using swimming for MMA You know Maury Smith was training with Frank Shamrock when Frank Shamrock was just a cardio machine Frank I think Frank Shamrock was the first guy in the UFC that had like a full

Complete arsenal of MMA weapons. He could stand he could take eyes down. He could strangle you, he could arm bar you, he could do everything. He could submit you off his back. And Frank was just a cardio machine. And when Maurice went from kickboxing and got into MMA, he was doing a lot of training with Frank. They were real, Maurice was super cardio focused. So that's like when he beat Mark Coleman. He beat Mark Coleman because Mark Coleman got tired. Yeah. And then Maurice defended off of his, and that's the old days bro when they had headbutt. That was the headbutt days. You know? That's crazy. And Maurice started tuning them up on the feet. Once Maurice got up to his feet, he was just leg kicking the shit out of them. And he was talking to them saying, come on Mark, ground me and pound me. I thought you were going to ground me and pound me i thought you were gonna ground me and pound me whack whack like he didn't take any crazy chances and you know so he didn't get taken down at the

end but he won the heavyweight title it's funny how you say that the headbutt days i was i did an interview yesterday with the chicago news and then the lady's like she had no idea who i was i'm like you didn't do no research because she's like you're the champion of street fighting right oh boy i'm just like imagine that you you're literally the world champion And this person hasn't even done five minutes of research into sport you do I was I was wild and I was like people still think that I should just start making shit up Yeah, we made an alleyways, you know, it's not even so you gotta get it on the dark web In my hand I don't give a fuck

I didn't realize there's still people out here that have that mindset. Well, there's people in the news that aren't even humans. They're just robots. They're like media robots. All they want to do is be on TV. They'd have no opinions, no personality. Oh, I hear you're the champion of street fighting. I'm looking at the teleprompter. I'm like, I feel like that's all they do is just read the teleprompter. That's such, that's so disrespectful to someone who has risen to the top of the greatest organization ever for combat sports. We all know, look, I'm a huge boxing fan, boxing's amazing, I love boxing. But we all know, if Francis Ngannou and Tyson Fury had a fight fight, that shit would not last one round.

There's not a chance in hell they had a fight fight, a real fight, like an MMA fight. Boxing is a sport. MMA is the sport of fighting. It's the hardest fucking thing to do for an athlete. The hardest thing to do is what you did. Become the champion of the world in a tank filled with sharks. It's not saying that it's not if you were 170 pound boxer, it be just as difficult i'm not saying boxing is not hard to do i'm not saying it's

hard as fuck to be uh... ryan garcia hard as fuck to be a giovante davis it just the same mentality they have they would have been world champions in emma but and then is harder is harder it's and it's more effective. It's the real sport of fighting. So for you to reach the pinnacle in the greatest combat sport ever and this lady to go, you're the champion of street fighting and you're on fucking TV. That's so great. Why can't they bring in an expert? There's so many people who could have interviewed you.

I was like, yeah, don't you guys have a sportscaster or somebody that's going to interview me? Call in Ariel Helwani. Call in somebody. There's somebody out there that can do this. This is crazy. Or do one little second of research. Yes. Oh, the UFC. Yeah, but even then, they're gonna be asking you stupid ass questions. You should have someone who knows what the fuck they're talking about. They have to have a sports guy.

Yeah. If don't they have a sports guy? The sports guy's gotta know. They did. And that's what I was like, why am I getting with these two? And she was like, so you do boxing then too? And I'm like, well, boxing is a part of it. It's mixed martial arts. A lot of thumb wrestling. That's a real important part of my game. We do power slap. I'm the champion of that. I have the most powder on my hand when I slap. The whole, it's just disrespectful. It's just a bummer that people don't get it yet.

So many people, way more people get it now than ever got it before. When I first started doing commentary for the UFC was in 97 when I first started doing backstage interviews and people were acting like I was doing porn. They were like, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? Are you crazy? I go I love it. It's great. What the fuck you talking about? Yeah

It was like being involved in that was bad for your career That's why I'll get Dana and I've talked about so many times like people tell people he bought the UFC and they'd be like What the fuck are you doing? Like God? That's terrible Meanwhile, everybody watched it now. Yeah, it's, it's gonna be up there bigger than I think all the other sports. It'll be bigger than everything but football in America. Yeah,

never gonna be football. We can't beat football. You're seeing this next younger generation. It's just wild how they're coming up like getting starting. My boy Nacho Ignacio his his brother's 15 years old, and he's already five and old pro crazy like I'm like bro I started this young 15 and you're crazy. I'm like, that's why I'm fighting pro at 50 Yeah, that's nuts. You're fighting pro men at 15. Yeah, his next fight is for a title It's like a 30 year old and I'm just like, oh my god. Where's this happening? It's in Colombia. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking Yeah, you go wild down there, boy.

They don't have any fucking rules. You can fight a 15. But imagine when he gets to his 20s, the experience he's gonna have. And then if one of these younger guys now that only fought locally in Chicago or something, they see him. He's gonna look at them like, okay, let me show you what I do. Do you think there's something to be said for not jumping in too quick? Because I feel like there's some fighters that they just got rushed and they weren't really prepared for an elite fighter and they got tuned up and they were kind of never the

same again. I think there's been a few guys like that that I think had real potential, but someone rushed them into a top 10 situation way too quick. Yeah 100% I think Darren till is probably like the the biggest one I think of when I think of that when he rushed him to the title fight It's hard to say though because Darren till when he knocked out cowboy see people have two Darren tills in their head They have Darren till with knee injuries Older later in his career and you have Darren Till when he was 170.

Darren Till, when he could make 170, and dude, he was dangerous. When he fucked up Cowboy, I was like, Jesus Christ, this guy's fucking terrifying. He was ferocious, but he didn't keep that for whatever reason. He didn't keep that level of success. He had mad potential. So I'm not sure if he got rushed or if he just got injured or if it was just a grappling game. He was too late taking in the grappling game. I think there's just a lot of guys that don't know how to take a loss. I think that once they, you know, he was undefeated and you get your first loss

and then you go back to the gym, your confidence deflated. You look at, people look at you differently. Like you don't have that same, you know, mentality, I'm the biggest one in the room. And then- Tyron Woodley, he fought Tyron when Tyron is in his prime. That was prime time Tyron Woodley. And Tyron Woodley fucked him up. But Tyron Woodley in his prime fucked everybody up.

Everybody just thinks about that Jake Paul fight. Get that out of your head. That's an older athlete at the end of his run doing something only really mostly for money Well, I said it yesterday He said like people are so quick to forget right of the stuff you did when you're great Yeah when you're at the top and

Especially guys like Woodley where he was he was one of the best to ever do it one of the best Well later you started losing a couple exactly and then it just tarnishes everything I'm like bro go back to the knockout of Robbie a lot of that was crazy Yeah, the way he did and Robbie was the man at that time I think one of his most impressive performances to his most impressive performances are Performances that weren't even that exciting and that's the Wonder Boy fight because he fought the perfect fight with Wonder Boy He never led never led. He's like, let's make it boring I don't give a fuck but then when they they had exchanges, Tyron hurt Wonder Boy.

Wonder Boy never hurt Tyron. Wonder Boy is a 57 and 0 kickboxer. One of the greatest strikers the UFC's ever seen. But he was so worried about those takedowns that he didn't really commit either. And then when, and he was always worried about the takedown, which of course you know opens up punches. And Tyron could fucking crack Tyron could crack

back then when he knocked out Lawler with one punch like holy shit Tyron could crack people forget yeah when I fought wonder boy that was like the one of the fights I watched and then I was that was one of the fights I'm most afraid of because you're looking at him against Woodley him against Johnny Hendrix and none of these guys could take him down. And then Anthony Pettis told me like, bro, I was like, should I bring in somebody for him? And he's like, nah, cause nobody ever, nobody moves like him and he's kicks hurt harder than anybody else I brought in.

Cause he brought in like Sage Northcutt and those guys to be like him and Mike Biggie Rhodes. And he's like, bro, Wonderboy is just different. So he said, I would just try to wrestle. And I was like, all right, let's, let's go. And then I was like, let me just get ahead of him right away and grab ahold of him and not pull back at all. So the problem with wonder boys, he can do some shit that other people can't do. And one of them is that lead leg. That lead leg is a real problem because he's got the

best front leg sidekick in the business. And he also throws that round kick off the front leg over your shoulder. And you don't see his first knockout in the UFC. He throws that shit over the shoulder. You don't see it until it's up there and you're like, oh shit, it's too late. Yeah. And he disguises his stuff so beautifully. He disguises it with his personality because before the fight he's like, hey, what's up, bro?

How you doing? And then I'm like, bro, I know you're going to try to kill me tomorrow, man. But he's genuinely sweet. He's not putting it like some guys will do that just to try to throw you off, but that literally is wonderboy He's a sweetheart of a guy that nicest happens to be a killer Yeah, you know and I feel like wonderboy man. He's one of those guys like he I feel like if he had gotten into MMA Earlier and really learned grappling earlier with that kickbox like maybe if he hadn't had 50 kickboxing fights but only had like he was an elite at you

know 20 fights in I'm sure 30 fights in yeah and got and really gotten into MMA when he was a younger man because the thing about fight like he's 40 now or 41 yeah right the thing about fighting is if you're not cheating and you know you're getting into your 40s like there's no way There's no way you're the same guy you were when you were 25. It's not possible Yeah, so if you don't have the same body to work with it doesn't matter how good the mind is It doesn't matter how good we've all seen it from the great champs they just hung around too long and the body just doesn't perform anymore and

They know what to do with the body can't do it Yeah, and everything just slows down your reflexes even your mindset, right? Cuz you don't want to it's the hardest thing to train for you have to fight every day in the practice room To train for a fight. So these guys who've been doing it for so long you're burnt out Yeah, so it's like you get to your 40s and you got a family stuff Like do I want to train two to three times a day? Do I want to go to the gym right now and Russell? Yeah, like I think that's one of the keys that my coach is very good at. He like tells all of his guys like we're wrestling three times a week. If

you're not at wrestling practice then you're not gonna be at sparring practice. Like all the, cause a lot of our guys are really great strikers. Nacho's been striking with him since he was 16 years old. He told him like I don't care if you hate this right now. You don't know how to wrestle. You're gonna lose. You could be the best striker in the world but all the champions know how to wrestle that's a solid coach right there because every guy needs to learn that because there's so many dudes who don't want to roll because they don't want to get tapped out but they're elite kickboxers there

was a bunch of those guys in the early days of the UFC just didn't quite pick that part up and never excelled yeah I see that see that a lot with guys, like I said, that don't want to get beat up. Yeah. They go to practice and they don't want to get in, that's when the ego comes in, right? Like, I'm a UFC fighter, I shouldn't be losing to Joe Schmoe at a Jiu Jitsu class.

Right. So there's like, avoid those guys. Yeah, I don't think Wonderboy ever avoided anything like that. I just think he was late to the game, you know, and he was training a lot with Weidman, who's an awesome wrestler. But like, he got his first loss in the UFC. I think was Mike Brown

Yeah, and Mike Brown just mauled him just mauled him. That was Mike Brown in his prime who was a scary motherfucker Played no games. He played no games To kill you I would wish that I would never get that call to like My brown and I was like man, I'm like, bro No, my brother's like call him out and I to like, hey do you want to fight Mike Brown? And I was like, I was like bro, no, my brother's like call him out. And I was like, bro I'm not going to call Matt Brown. My brother's always the type to be like, you can be anybody. And I was like, nah, I'll call him. If they call me for Matt Brown I'll do it, but I'm not going to call him out though.

You don't want to get him motivated. Yeah, he's the boogeyman. I feel like there's some dudes that for whatever reason, with Matt Brown, you know, he died. You know, he had overdosed and he had like a serious drug problem I think there's guys who see the other side and they come back and they just have a different mentality You know They almost lost their life to some really stupid shit and they have like a grip on life That's a little bit different and a drive. It's a little different There's been a few guys that I know that were like real heavy drug addicts

and got off the drugs and just became performance freaks. Just endurance freaks, just animals. And like so disciplined, you're like, wow, how is it that this guy used to be a drug addict? A junkie, and now this guy's weighing his food and drinking electrolyte filled water and fucking showing up before anybody and Yeah, putting in those rounds on the air dye machine after practice like god damn

I live with Jared Gordon for three years together. He's like my best friend same situation He would say I'm gonna go for a jog I was like alright cool, and he'll be like come back like three hours later I'll be like what you do. I just ran 20 miles, and I'm just like you said you're going for a jog That's not a job. It's like a marathon like yeah, and he would just do that out of nowhere Like you said, they just had that crazy cardio endurance and they'll just go non-stop Yeah, I think it's that type of mindset right it just gets your mind off all their stuff. They're a little extra spooky Little extra spooky those former junkies. I

Don't know why man. They're like not playing any fucking games. You know guys that have almost died They are not playing any fucking games with you. Yeah, it's interesting cuz like There's there's different things that make a great fighter. There's a lot of stuff. There's genetics There's gifts some people just have that touch of death. You know they just have that one shot ko power Some guys just are born with crazy, like Kane Velasquez they said just has genetic cardio. They said that motherfucker could take months off the gym, come in and just smother everybody and nobody could deal with him. They said it was crazy, like nobody had ever seen anything like it. Like I think Kane for sure was an elite fighter

because of his mind, his discipline, his drive, his determination, his skill set. I mean he was, I think in his prime, there's the his skill set. I mean, he was, I think in his prime, there's the argument of who's the best heavyweight of all time, and I always throw Kane in there. I think prime time Kane was, he was a tornado. He was a tornado. You couldn't understand how a heavyweight could be throwing so many punches. He never stopped. And he could take you down. And if you took him down, he didn't give a fuck. You get right back up. Like with Brock Lesnar? Yeah, bro. He was a tornado in that cage and I Was able to go down to aka and get some work in with the guys on there and Kane was there

Yeah, it was just I was so intimidated Last he's a killer. Yeah, and he's like the nicest guy in the world super nice But seeing how athletic he was he was like don't cartwheels in the gym and just like seeing how he moves, I'm like now I could understand why he was such a great heavyweight and such a killer. He was the perfect model heavyweight in his prime, you know, like 240, not too big. So he has insane cardio. You never going to see a guy like Francis that has the kind of cardio that Kane has. I don't think it's possible.

I think you'd get a trade with Francis. You get the touch of death. You get that one shot, everybody's like, oh shit! Like the ouster over him fight. God damn! Like he has that crazy, crazy power. But I don't think you get that power with that endurance. I've never seen anybody that has that kind of power

that also, like Connor even, amazing power, but he doesn't have the kind of endurance that some of these guys that have less power do yeah I'm interested to see how Aspen on is past the first round right cuz we see him He looks so fast you're like nobody moves like him He looks like a younger right right, but he just keeps knocking these guys out so quick So I'm like let me see him pass the first round to see if he has that cardio as well It's a bit of a problem for him, right? Because he has not been tested in that way. And you're getting up to elite status

where you're calling out John Jones, right? That's the bogeyman. John Jones is the fucking bogeyman. And maybe he hasn't died, but he's probably knocked on the door a couple of times, like, what's going on, Def, you in there? John Jones has had some trials and tribulations But the skill set and the the ability to push deep into rounds is nuts like John fought when he fought

Gustafson he had almost no training camp. They said he barely showed up like you know I talked to Jackson about it and Greg Jackson was telling he's like he didn't even train for that fight Wow didn't even try for that fight. Wow. He didn't even train. And then he pulled that fight off in the fourth and fifth rounds. That's when he like really turned it up. So you're talking about a guy who hasn't even been training. And then you saw the real John Jones in the second fight. That's motivated John Jones.

Who's like, I'm gonna show you what the fuck is really up. And then he just beats the shit out of Gustafsson in the second fight. And I wonder if it's gonna get him to that point. All this talking from Aspen Austin.pen also to get him motivated, right? Or is he gonna be a point like let me be done with steep and be done with it But I don't want a heavyweight motivated John Jones if I'm on the other side. Yeah. Yeah the way he just Pulled gone down so easily and choked him out. I was like, bro Yeah, and then gone looks good his last two fights

Gone is like one of the most exciting guys on the feet. He's so athletic in that style. He's had a weird front kick too. You ever notice his front kick? Like a twisting front kick off the front leg? Yeah, a little push kick. Yeah. But it's weird because he turns it and snaps it up so he jabs you with the toes. There's a kick in Tae Kwon Do that's kind of a goofy kick. It's called a twisting kick and you kind of do it to the face and it's like you you swing your leg up and kick like this it's like this yeah but that's what he's doing in a sideways stance he's just doing it to the body he's like got a twisting front

kick yeah nobody nobody kicks like him and he hurt Bam Bam with that right he fucked Bam Bam up that was that was like zero gone at very best. A guy like Bam Bam who just comes forward and takes a hell of a shot. He's not scared to take one to give one. I mean, Tui Vaso is one of the most exciting guys of all time, right? Yeah, and it's crazy how- But that style with Gahn.

Gahn's this elite striker, incredible lateral movement, counter punching the ability to move out of range and dive right back in real quick Yeah, but Aspin all is like We've only seen him smash. We've only seen we've never seen him be the nail I don't know whatever right and I thought Pavlovich was gonna be the one as like I assume be a banger and he just puts Him to sleep and he took Pavlovich's fight with a fucked-up rib. He couldn't even wrestle. Yeah sure notice it I mean imagine you going up against Pavlovich

You know The only guys who's ever beaten him was Overeem and Overeem took him down, beat him up on the ground. And you're like, I gotta get this guy down. This guy's knocking everybody dead. Yeah. And he knocks him out standing. He's so fast for a heavyweight. But again, you're saying the right thing. Like, what is it like in the fifth round with John Jones? Because if you can't steamroll John Jones and he starts side-kicking your fucking kneecaps

You know there's nobody better with distance than John the best Nobody Yeah, how many eye surgeries if you had to have I've had I've had three Wow yeah Shit, they're literally the hardest thing in the world the most depressing thing in the world. Yeah. I don't think uh... Did you have one after the Leon fight or before? I had one after that as well. Even in my fight in when I fought Lukey after the third round, I went back to my corner and I was like, there's something in my eye.

And I couldn't see out of my eye and I'm trying to blink it out and then the cut man Tate, he's like, bro, ain't nothing wrong with your eye, stop touching your eye. So and I'm like trying to blink it out. And then the cut man Tate, he's like, bro, ain't nothing wrong with your eyes. Stop touching your eye. So then I was like, all right, well whatever. So I go back in there to fourth and fifth round and I just can't manage this. So I'm like just shooting in and then I was like, man, there's still something wrong with my eye. And then I ended up going to the doctor like two days later,

cause I thought it was just a scratch cornea or something, but it ended up being like a detached lens. Oh Jesus Christ. The whole lens they had to like take out and then like sew back in. Yeah. And it was, my eye was like super bloodshot red for like two weeks. And then I ended up doing like a weigh-in show with the UFC.

I read pay-per-view and everybody's like posting pictures and be like, oh, look, it's somebody farting on his pillow cause he has like a red eye. And they're like making fun of me. And I was just like, I'm like crying myself in my room. I don't got pink eye How long did it take to recover from that that one is wasn't as long that one is It would that blood was still in there for I'd be like a month The test retinal is the hardest one that one is like eight weeks

I'm not doing absolutely nothing and I have to be like this eight weeks of not doing absolutely nothing and I have to be like this my head sideways for a full eight weeks. Really? Yeah and have like a bubble in your eye the whole time and then even when I'm watching TV I have to like put my head in a massage chair. Oh wow. And there's like a mirror at the top so I aim the mirror at the TV and I can't do nothing. Wow. But like keep my head down or sideways. and how long did you have to stay like that for it was like eight weeks Yeah, so you're lying. Did you go to sleep in a massage chair? Yeah, I had to sleep the I had to sleep with them my face down in that massage chair the whole time Wow, yeah, it was that was the hardest thing

How hard is it to sleep like that and I'm a back sleeper too. So I hate sleeping on my front on my stomach So it was like the worst two months of my life. And then you're like, you don't know if you're going to be able to train after that and fight after that. Cause the doctors looking at me like I'm stupid. I'm telling them I'm going back to the gym. And yeah, it was rough. Doctors always want you to just stop doing what you're doing. Yeah. How'd you hurt your shoulder? Jiu-jitsu? Oh, you need to quit that. That's what they always say. Yeah. Or you need surgery. And I just like, there's no form of rehab or like exercises I could do. And they love to give you surgery right away. But even with the eye, I like, I'm so afraid to even go to the doctor in general. So like, I was avoiding it at all costs.

So I would like see like a little black dot inside of my eye and I'm still training. I'm like, whatever. And then I was supposed to go with Jared to Brazil when he fought Charles Oliveira and I had my ticket booked and everything and then like the week before I'm sparring with them and then all of a sudden that black dot turned into like a black sheet and it just went full black and I'm just like oh no I think I should go to a doctor now and then they were like you got to go under the knife right away so it's like I had to get surgery right there yeah I had a friend of mine who had a detached retina and he didn't go in quick enough and he lost most of his vision in that eye yeah he had a bunch of surgeries that could never fix it he just he said that whoever told him that it wasn't a detached retina fucked him

because if he had known right away when he went in to check it that it was a detached retina He would have been able to immediately get surgery, and they would have saved it Wow yeah That's the hard part because you always think about yeah, Michael Bisping you're looking at him like exactly I want to be that guy exactly and I gangsters that motherfucker that dude fought ten times the UFC with one eyeball That's a wild couldn't see he memorized the fucking eye chart Yeah, I literally had I had moments where I'm looking at myself like am I gonna have to do that am I gonna have to figure Out something to do to do this. Yeah. Well, how about I'm fucking what's his face the the pirate? Oh Yeah, shot a bullet. Yeah shower bullet. Yeah, that's crazy.

That guy's crazy. He's only got one eye. But it's wild, right? Because I mean, he still looks like he sees everything when he's fighting, right? Distance management is incredible. Yeah. It makes you think how good was that motherfucker with two eyes? You can fight that good with one eye?

I fought in Abu Dhabi my first time there when Khabib fought Dustin Poirier and then he was just like a fan and he came up to me and he said, I'm be in the UFC and I remember the picture with him because he like tagged me and obviously You can't forget that face right? But when I saw him like undefeated killer, I'm like bro. Dang. He wasn't lying He is a beast. Oh, he's a beast. Yeah, I watched him fight before he was ever in the UFC when he was on other organizations So I was like Jesus Christ this guy can kick He kicks like you're thinking he's gonna get tired from all that kicking and he does not get tired yeah it's wild the volume of kicks he reminds you a lot of Yair you

know Yair is like one of those guys like yo you better stop thinking about kicking with him did you ain't kicking with Yair Rodriguez you better figure out a way to get past that shit because that guy can kick in a weird way. I train with Yair and like even just like light sparring I don't even want to like play with him because he just comes from all different angles. Yeah but he's so good at like he'll get so close it'll be like right here and he'll just pull it. Yeah I think that's where I learned a lot from him and then just like when you're going with somebody who flows like that and knows how to move like that It makes you more creative too right because you're not so tense you worried about getting knocked out. Yeah

Yeah, that's the best kind of sparring It's like with a guy like yeah, if you're gonna fight a guy like Yair You got to find some taekwondo champion and bring him in but even then they're not gonna know how to punch that good Yeah, they're not gonna know how to wrestle so you're gonna be missing part of it because you can submit a lot of people He's fucking wicked off his back his triangle as fast as fuck people don't know how good he is and even as wrestling is really good Yeah, but when he puts it all together, but I think even when he gets in there It's just like so much right you put so much energy into everything Yeah

that sometimes it leaves openings for the eyes to like take him down and hold them Down and like if I'm a guy fighting him like bro I don't want to give this guy any distance or any room to do anything Yeah, that style is just so taxing you got on for people that don't see the difference There's two things in the octagon that are like probably the most taxing that you wouldn't really guess the biggest one is the clinch Bro, you see guys just get drained after the first round in the clinch and they go back to the corner and then everything's coming Slower the punches are coming slower. The footwork looks slower reaction time So they'll take a shot that maybe they could have got away from because they just don't want to move

Yeah, I we literally like do this in the gym where it's like, alright Let's do 20 push-ups and then just hand fight for three minutes. And then we start sparring. It's like little stuff like that because that's when you get lactic acid in your arms. You're tired. Now let's see you throw punches right now. And it'll stop people from actually like throwing hard at practice.

It'll make you want to conserve your energy and stuff. But yeah, that feeling when you're in there and you can't lift up your arms, like Damien Maia shot on me like 30 times. And it's the third round. I was like, bro, my arms are like dead right now So if he does take me down, I'm gonna be in a bad spot because my arms are so heavy Yeah, that guy had that creepy

Grappling strength where he would get a hold of guys and he'd be like what is happening here? Like how was this guy so fucking strong, especially at 170 bro. Damien Maya 170 was terrifying Yeah, people keep forgetting and they do keep forget. Bro, Damien Maia at 170 was terrifying. People keep forgetting, man. They do keep forgetting. He got fucked in the Kamaru-Usman fight. He got fu-ha-ha-ha-ucked. He got fucked.

He got to Kamaru's back. He had one hook in standing up, and they fucking separated him. It is one of the greatest tragedies and travesties in the history of the sport. That one positional change that is a terrible I don't know what referee was I don't want to call him out people make mistakes But for Damien Maia

He got fucked because he had Kamaru's back and Kamaru's only loss up to that point was very naked choke in his first fight Yeah And Kamaru was nowhere near the grappler in terms of submissions that Damian was. Damian will set traps, he'll do shit to you and he just gets ahold of the guy. Like what he did to Neil Magni. Like Damian gets ahold of dudes and you're like, what is happening here? Yeah. This is a different kind of squeeze, man. Yeah.

And he got fucked. He got totally fucked. But that's crazy, right? Because a lot of fights could change off of one ref or one judge could change the whole thing. Everything could have changed from that fight. Everything could have changed. So let's imagine the judge doesn't do that. There is a 30% likelihood Kamaro is going to get him to the ground and strangle him. Now legitimately, you're looking at prime time Damien Maia in the worst possible position. One hook in, he's got your back. How are you shaking him off?

You got a 30% chance of shaking him off. You're stuck. You got a good chance of holding off until the end of the round. You might be able to stop him from advancing, but it's perilous. This is a terrible position you're in. Damien Maia's on your back and the referee's like, break it up, there's no action here. Like, are you a champion street fighter? Like it's the same shit. What are you doing? This is the sport. The sport is this guy is a professional strangler

and he's finally gotten a hold of this guy. Oh boo, the casuals are booing, so you're gonna separate it? This is, it's the worst, for me me the biggest travesty I've ever seen Yeah, I'm a that was number one. There's probably been a few if I really had to go over all of them I probably find a few other ones. They're like a top ten I mean even Leon against tomorrow to win tomorrow was on top of him and the rest of them up because the crowd was Booing right and then he got head kick right right? It's like bro He's on top of the whole five five rounds, but now you want him to stand him up

because crowd's booing right now. I believe in no standups. Yeah. I know it's boring. I don't give a fuck. No standups, no standups. I go a step further. No standups and I think the fight should resume

exactly what position you were in at the end of the round. Oh, that'll be the game changer. That's a real fight though, right? Yeah. That's a real fight. Like, how did you get back up to your Well, they ever the round ended. Yeah. Okay. What are we doing? We're cheating for the striker because that seems like you're kind of cheating for the striker I know everyone's used to doing it this way But if you want to look at it realistically the striker has an advantage for the first few seconds of every fight every fight

The fight starts standing so in that perceived that distance where the striker has his advantage It starts off with the strikers advantage So if a grappler gets you to the ground, why do you get that advantage back in the next round? Yeah, and it's the hardest thing to get somebody down and figure it out. So it's like a hardest thing to get up Yeah, so if you can never get up That's tough. Yeah, tough shit. It's on you. It's on you. Yeah, the sport the sport is not boo Stand them up, just breathe. You know, here it is. Look at this.

Let's look at this again. Take it back from the beginning. So Damien gets the clinch, right? And Kamaru's got an overhook on the left arm and he's defending so far. So Damien's working towards the takedown. Damien sneaks that leg in and now kamaro starts to get in trouble cuz damien takes that left arm he goes all the way over and cinches the way so

now he's he's pretty deep kamaro's the thing that's saving kamaro here is his right arm that whizzer on his right arm is the thing that's saving him but he's in danger now he's in much more danger now damien has the hook and now damien's pulling that arm over the top of kamaro's wizard so he'll connect his arms if the referee lets him. What he wants to do is connect his hands in front of Camaro.

Camaro does not want that. They're hand fighting right here. But this is a dangerous spot for Camaro because the only thing that's saving him is that wizard. Without that wizard he's fucked right now and he knows it and he's strong as fuck and he's holding on to that wizard with everything he's got. But Damien is just slowly inching and he's putting leverage with his leg Yeah, and look he's further now he's even further now he can punch him he's even further so he's progressing So he has gotten to a spot where and the referee is telling him. I guess he's grabbing gloves He's referee saying just got to grab the wrist.

And he's closer to doing like a twister, a standing twister. Yeah, look, he's closer. He's even closer now. Now it's even better. Now it's even better. So now Damian is trying to figure out when he can get his right hook in and what he's doing with his left arm.

So the wizard is still holding that left arm in place. But Damian, at one point in time, had sort of threatened to creep it up over the top of Camaro's left shoulder. And that's what he wants to do here. So he wants to put all this pressure on, make Camaro do something to defend all the leverage he's putting on his legs, defend these punches. He's setting up little traps, just trying to open up the space so that he could get that right hook in and that left arm over the top so he is on the back now like fully on the back and then the referee

stops him Wow and this is the first round when they're still driving bro in fucking saying that this referee did this in fucking saying a travesty an unfair advantage for Kamaru for sure and then Kamaru caught him with a left hand or a right hand. He's catching with jabs. He shouldn't be in this position now. Kamaru should be still trying to fight out his way out of that clinch. And guess what?

He might not have fought his way out of that clinch. He was like six steps to checkmate. He was pretty close. Six out of 10, he was in. It's crazy because it's the first round. So it's like, even if the crowd's boo round so it's like first round the crowds booing It's like bro. He just got to the spot. Yeah, this early what Damien punched his butt So you're gonna give you don't think a butt punch hurts like he's trying to like do something to get tomorrow to react

He's trying to get movement out of him. Yeah, you want him to make the mistake. Yeah, it's Travesty yeah, now I look at that. I'm like that's wild travesty. Yeah, now that I look at that, I'm like, that's wild. Travesty. Now imagine, Damien Maia submits him. The world changes. Kamaru goes to that next fight. Now everybody's looking to submit him. Things change. He's not the boogie man anymore. Somebody just tapped him.

Maybe his confidence goes down a little bit. Maybe he doesn't get favorable matchup in his next fight. Maybe he loses again. Yeah. Damien goes, gets the belt. Yes, Damien gets the belt. Things happen,ien gets the belt. Like, things happen, man. Weird things happen. Weird things happen in the sport.

You know, that's why it's so incredible when someone reaches the title. When you actually do it, you become Islam Makachev. You become Bala Muhammad. You get all the way up there, and you win the title. There's so many hurdles. Like, you've lost fights. The eye poke with Leon was crazy. You've had bad moments.

And to get all past that and get to the title. Just thinking back to all your ups and downs. Just looking at the journey in general and you're like, why did this happen? Why did that happen? Especially after a loss. I'm a terrible loser. So you're like, why is this happening to me? But then now that I look back at it and thinking about the stuff that I changed and then I started doing this more I

Started fiction this and now it just like made me the fighter I am today and it's like I'm glad those downs happen because now the ups feel so good and Like nobody could take that away, right? Like the mountain I climbed was way higher than anybody else climbed It was a lot harder than anybody else climbed. There's a lot to that. Yeah, there's a lot to that There's a lot to that because the guys that come up real fast and like super talented and just fuck everybody up and never get tested, like it's I think for some of those guys it's harder to maintain that motivation because you don't know the downs. Yeah. You know like they just they have a belief in themselves

like you know BJ Penn is a good example that in my opinion I always put BJ in the category of one of the greatest of all time. I always say you gotta look at BJ in his prime. You have to look at BJ when he was beating Shawn Shirk, BJ when he beat Joe Daddy Stephenson. BJ was a monster, man. Just a monster. He had crazy flexibility, unbelievable balance. You could try to take him down, he would hop around on one leg like he had two.

It was nuts, man. But BJ was so fucking talented that I think BJ didn't really like to work that hard. You know, he didn't really get up for it as much as like some of the other guys that weren't as talented. And when BJ did wasn't as prime, that's when he was training with the Marinovich's. That's what he's doing those crazy plyometric workouts. And so we had this insane gas tank with all the talent of a BJ Penn. Yeah. And like you said, people forget how good he was. These new age fans, they'd never seen him before.

They never saw him fight. They forget. They're like, oh, he's going to fight for a losing streak. Like Tyron Woodley, the same kind of thing. You think about them only when they're at the end of their career. You don't think about how good they were. Nobody can maintain that forever. It's not possible.

It's not possible. Habib said it from the beginning, right? He said, you're always going to lose. There's a time for your thing. He said it about tomorrow. He said about Tony Ferguson said these guys, they're going to learn the hard way. And for me, he said, if I stayed in, I'd probably end up losing sometime. I don't think you would lose, but yeah, like he said, like you're thinking, like I could still go with them. And I'm looking at this guy, like, bro, you could be the heavyweight champion right now. It's like,

what does he weigh now? He's, I think it's probably like 200 cause he rolls consistently with everybody. And he always says I have to jog 30 minutes a day. He always does a treadmill at least 30 minutes, but just like him and grappling, it's wild. Cause I just be like, it was, when I first got the fight, uh, announced from Dana White, I was over there in New Jersey training with this land for his fight when he was a fighting Poirier And then like they announced it and I'm like Habib's like I'll come with me over here train and then he's just killing me like literally like

Throwing me around and I'm just like getting murdered and my coach tells me hey You see Dana White announced you got the title fight and I'm looking at myself like really? All right. What's crazy is he's still in his prime. Yeah. That's what's crazy. Like, he'd get out 29-0 in his prime. It's like, I'm done.

I made a promise to my mom. And do it on top. And no injuries, nothing. Nobody does that. Nobody does that. Only the greats, right? Even, I mean, GSP did it, but not like QB. But GSP came back and he fought when he was older he fought biss being at 85

You know and GSP His You know, I mean he had gone through some wars and at the end that last one Yeah, he was just like I need some time off, you know Yeah, I think a lot of these fighters they they need the time off Yeah, they don't take it and they try to rush back in as after losses and it just adds up You see it with I mean Tony Ferguson, right? I'm example I think after that that gate you fight that should have been time off. Mm-hmm. That should have been like

All right. Let me take a year off not do nothing But yeah, you want to rush back in there and then all of a sudden the losses start adding up. Your body's taking damage. And here's another one. So let's imagine Tony Ferguson doesn't trip over those wires backstage. So he's about to fight Khabib for the title in Madison Square Garden. He trips over some wires backstage and tears his knee apart. Just a freak accident.

Just a freak accident that could happen to anybody. Tears his knee apart, has to get knee surgery, misses the title fight, Al Iaquinta steps in, has a good fight with him, and Tony Ferguson, the one guy that we were always like, how would Tony do? Because in his prime, people forget, in his prime, that motherfucker was terrifying. He had a long ass win streak and fucking everybody up. He was cutting people, strangling people. He was a long ass win streak and fucking everybody up. He was cutting people, strangling people. He was a beast, dude. Tony Ferguson was a fucking monster. But people

forgot. They forgot. They only see Tony Ferguson now when he got knocked out by Chandler. They see Tony Ferguson now when Patti Pimblitt beats him. Like, you don't understand. He's 40 whatever he is years old. Like, he's natural. The body just can't do what the mind wants it to do anymore And you're looking for that one point where at least a coach family or somebody that tells them like how you're done But you want to maybe you want to end on a winning note or you want to just like I think these guys just like it They want to fight and that's all they know. Yeah, it's it's different in different people Like some people get out and they go I think I did enough I'm out and they hold to it think I did enough, I'm out.

And they hold to it like Khabib or like Andre Ward. Andre Ward's another one, goes out on top. Gold medalist in the Olympics, two division world champions, like that's it. I'm good. I think they offered him when Canelo fought Kovalev, when he knocked out Kovalev and won the light heavyweight title, they were saying maybe Andre Ward would come back and they were going to throw a lot of money at him. And I think he considered it, but I think he said, I serve boxing better in the position that I am.

So here's a guy, Olympic gold medalist, two division world champion, speaks perfectly. Nothing wrong with him at all. You know, very, very religious man, never swears. Like I did a podcast with him, he got upset that I said the F word. He did. Like he called me afterwards, like, I didn't know you were going to be swearing. Oh wow. Because he would want people from his church to listen. Yeah.

So now he can't say, yeah, he's got to say don't listen to that one. Oh wow. Joe Rogan's got a potty mouth. I thought he's a boxing gym and I I was a talk to him like a regular dude But he's but he's one of the wise ones that said that's it. You know everybody else comes back man Marvin Hagler He was another one never came back, so that's it. I'm done Yeah, but Ward I think even I like said in the commentary the way he breaks up down I think his new book was was so good just him. It's like hearing his stories

Why yes is a crazy story, but hemi canelo would be crazy whoo that would have been crazy Yeah, I would love to see that fight. I want to see Canelo and Benavides like come on Saudi Arabia throw that throw that money Throw that money. Let's see that fight because if Crawford if they're not gonna have him fight Crawford, which I did want to see I did want to see even though I know it's crazy, it's a giant weight jump. But Benavidez is not a weight jump, that's the right weight, and that guy's a killer. And it makes the most sense. It makes the most sense.

And Canelo's like, give me $200 million. And I can see them just offering it. Let me just go on my bank account, I'll just give you that check real quick. Saudi Arabia guy. I hope that Benavidez and him do fight fight and I hope it's at 168 because I think that's like Benevides His best division. I mean he only fought he fought that last fight at 75 against a good guy Yeah, and he won the fight, but he didn't look like the same guy that he looks like at 68

I don't think that power carries quite as much with those bigger guys. It's a little bit of a step To step up, you know like that. There's very few guys that keep that power as they keep going up and up and up and wait. It's just, and there's so many weight classes in boxing, right? Yeah. You could be, like you said, if for Canelo and him, it's the fight that makes sense. So for him, he's like, I need to find the biggest fight and it's, all right, let me move up a couple more pounds here. And then you think it's not a big jump, but those pounds make a difference. It makes a difference. But for Crawford, I think he just wants the

big money fight. Like what is the big money funny? Canelo's the big money fight. You know, Crawford is one of the best ever. He's 36. He's like, maybe this is, you know, let me get one big money fight and get the fuck out of here. Yeah. But he's got boots and us, you know, knock on his door too, which is another amazing fight, but super dangerous, you know, like just like Benevides is dangerous boots Ennis is very fucking dangerous very dangerous There's always somebody coming right right now and these guys who've been at the top so long you're like Alright, let me get somebody that's on my level Canelo Yeah, he's been in the game just as long as me and alright

Let's just do this for his paycheck and then move on I think when they get to a certain level and they realize they only have a few fights left, they want the big money fights. And Canelo is obviously the biggest money fight. Even though Boots Ennis is a great fighter, most people don't know who he is yet. And with Canelo, everybody knows who Canelo is. You get the Canelo fight, that's red panties night. Like you're in, let's go.

That's the John Jones effect with steve, right? Yeah, not a lot of people know where Aspinal is yet I mean the real fans know him but everybody knows steep a right everybody knows He was one of the greatest heavyweights to ever do it It's a great thing if John can beat him on on his resume You know, it's an one more notch that John beat the most accomplished heavyweight of all time But here's the thing Everybody's sleeping on steep.

Here's the thing about heavyweights. Heavyweights mature later and they get compromised later too. Like heavyweights can, like George Foreman won the heavyweight title at 45 years old. And that was in the natural days. I think there's, maybe not natural. I mean, I don't know what George is doing, but I was thinking of Vanderhoof Young. Maybe there's something going on.

But my point is that like heavyweight fighters, I think because there's not as much movement, it's a different thing. The body matures, it takes longer. They're just bigger human beings. I could see a guy that's in his 40s still fighting elite. And we haven't seen Stipe since he got knocked out. So we saw that fight against Francis where Francis just looked unstoppable.

Francis knocks him out. And we haven't seen Stipe in years now. Like how, when was the last time Stipe fought? I remember it was at the apex and it was in the middle of the pandemic because there was no crowd. Which was crazy to see a heavyweight title fight with no crowd It was nuts. Yeah that the pandemic days were wild wild. Everybody's wearing a mask hanging over their nose. It's all so stupid Yes, yes, so March 27 2021

2021 dude 2021 and we're getting real close to 2025 So 2025 as this fight happens in november 2025 is just a fucking month away That's a long ass time, but it's also a long ass time with no head injuries Yeah, it's a long ass time without getting You know two or three fights zero gone fight another fight this fight that fight. It's a long time without getting beat up And you don't know if he comes as a different version himself. What if he's been working on some stuff? And he, yes. I mean, if he knows he's fighting John Jones and he probably

knew probably for the last year and a half, I'm just studying one guy for a year and a half, just focused on him. Exactly. It changes a lot of stuff. And you know, he's had time to rest, like let the chin recover. Cause that's a you know I think Daniel Cormier landed the picture perfect right hand when he knocked out steep a but I also think steep a was probably beaten up from that Francis fight that Francis fight was not much I mean I don't remember how many months how many months was there between Francis steep a fighting Francis and then steep a fighting DC seven months oh Oh, that's not enough time here before the previous fight. Yeah a year before that's a different thing It's the Francis fight was the damage Francis was in the first round in particular. He landed some big shots

He was fucking scary as shit, dude So I think he him coming in and fighting Daniel I Gotta imagine I think him coming in and fighting Daniel, I gotta imagine he took some heavy blows in that fight. And, you know, like even if he didn't lose, he had to have gotten some damage. Like he may have been concussed. Like he got hit hard. No doubt.

Yeah. Hard in that fight. And then do you go right back into training? No, you should take a long ass time with no contact at all and let everything heal up. And he probably didn't get a chance to do that. I mean, I think that's also Volkanovsky after Islam. Yeah, I think that was his biggest mistake, right?

Huge mistake. You just want to do- Two mistakes. One, you don't fight Islam on 10 days notice. You just can't. That just doesn't make any sense. That's crazy. He's so hard to beat. He's so good.

If he's not the best, it's you and him for the best, pound for pound, and you're gonna risk that on 10 days? That's crazy. And that, again, changes the course of his career, right? That's wild, right? Imagine if he doesn't take that fight, he says, I can't, I'm ready for Ilya Toporia. That guy's coming,

and he knows how fucking dangerous Ilya is. And so, he doesn't take that fight, and then he goes in fresh for Ilya to pour you that guy's come you and he knows how fucking dangerous Ilya is and so He doesn't take that fight and then he goes in fresh against Ilya and you have a much better fight Yeah, who knows who would have won but you got to think he was compromised from that. I mean he got head-kicked Yeah, head-kicked shin to the dome which is just for sure. It's gonna rattle you for a long time When you're when you're just getting put out cold like that. And especially he probably cut a lot of weight to get to that point. Cause he looked kind of flabby in that Islam fight.

So you're taking a fight on 10 days notice. There's not a lot of guys that are around their, their weight class anyway. So they're cutting a lot. Then you have to go, all right, now I'm going to fight Islam who's number one, pound for pound. And then the head kick Islam looked like Michelangelo sculpted him. He's so big people. He's, and He's so strong. So what does he weigh? What does he weigh? Like normal, like right now, if you called him up,

what do you weigh brother? I would say at least minimum like 185, 190. The fuck out of here. He's 210 pounds. No, no, it's like 250 pounds. His strength feels like 250 pounds. But, but that's the thing with them They're always training no matter what they're doing. They always at least run once a day or our grapple So he's losing roughly 30 pounds to make 55 from the start. I would say yeah He's big that's about as big as you can get and keep doing that. That's big. Yeah, and he's tall He's he's lengthy and he has he has power. He could go up to 70 easily I think. Yeah easily. He's got real power

now on his feet which is a new addition over the last X amount of years. His stand up has gotten elite. Like he knocked down Olivera. He had Olivera in real trouble. The Volkonoski head kick though and it was also the way he set it up. He kept kicking to the body. Oh my god Yeah, I think people just assume that all he's gonna do is wrestle But then when you see him going there and outstrike somebody strike even box with Poirier Yeah, he has some really good hands in there with him. Yeah, and people always strike too, but he's just as good He could do everything. He's he's as good as it gets. He's good as he it gets. He's the most complete fighter on the roster.

Cause he submits people, like he submitted Poirier in the final round. Incredible, incredible submission. But he was winning that fight already. But then, you know, he can also knock you out. He can, he literally does everything. He's one of the best wrestlers in the sport. His top control and his squeeze is insane.

Like remember when we tapped out Drew Dover? He got ahold of Drew Dover. It's like Drew Dover had zero chance of moving. He wasn't going anywhere. He was just crushed. It was like he was fighting a man twice his size. I was just bringing that up when I talk about Dan Hooker. He just went to war with Gamrot. Exactly. And Islam just took him down and tapped him out within like the first two or three minutes. And tapped him out to the point where you're like, please tap, please tap, fucking tap, dude, just tap, don't let him do it. It looked like he was gonna break his fucking arm apart.

It's so funny because Habib will get guys in there and he's the type that'll grapple and just have a conversation as he's grappling, but he had Ali and Kimura and he's laughing and Ali's tapping. And he's just like, ha ha, brother, brother, give me coffee. And he's just like, I'm like, bro, I think you were gonna break his arm.

Like at some point. That's a terrible break too, that spiral break. It's the worst. And I'm like, they're so strong and it's like effortless with them. Their bodies move crazy. I remember Michael Johnson, when Khabib got Michael Johnson in that camora

and I was like, Jesus, please tap Michael. God, tap, please just tap. I was like squirming in my chair because I'm waiting to hear crack Because yes, I like the new great no garret fight with Frank Meier Yeah, you see his arms you hear the snap and you see him like look over at his arm his arms like halfway hanging. Oh That's the one that's the that's a scary part about the whole thing. Oh scary Yeah, such a scary break because that you're this arm is never the same again

It's never the same again. Yeah, no matter what they're gonna screw things in there and bolt things all your muscles have been cut Oh your nerves are fucked up It's never gonna be the same arm and then you have guys that are like crazy enough to like keep fighting after that Yeah, they don't give a fuck with the broken arm break my arm. Yeah, go ahead Tim Sylvia when Frank Meier broke his arm Oh here it is with no gear. Oh jeez It looks down his arm like ah Goddamn, please ladies and gentlemen tap, please tap. Sometimes you have to tap Sometimes I know I know but sometimes you got to tap for the future

You see that guy Mikey Musumechi fought in one FC Oh, just destroyed his leg. Yeah, the guy wouldn't tap this fucking guy's an animal He would not tap and I don't I was tapping at home. I couldn't believe it. He broke his leg like three times He just kept breaking his knee left and right and ripping it apart and watch his knee. I'm like that's destroyed Yeah, there's your LCL. There's look at this this is so horrible oh my god ah like right now his leg is destroyed his leg right now is fully destroyed it's totally twisted all his ligaments are fucked he couldn't walk after this fight I mean look at his heel is totally the wrong way his His knee is twisted completely around. That is horrible

Oh, he's going that way with it. Oh my god. The dude never tapped the dude got his leg destroyed and never fucking tapped. He's But he's probably never going to be the same again Mikey has to have some like craziness inside of him just to keep going though. He's an evil little man He's has to be evil. He's an evil little man. He's a really really really nice guy Yeah, but he's also got a switch. Yeah, there's a switch and he gets into that octagon and what's that? Why did you do that to me? That's what Mikey said to him. Yeah, he felt bad that the guy wouldn't tap It was a

Crazy demonstration, but that poor guy. I mean I gotta think his, what kind of surgery, find out what kind of surgery that guy had to have after that fight. I hate leg locks in general, even at practice I'll tell you guys, if you're gonna put leg locks on, I'm just gonna tap, like I'm not even gonna play it, cause it's... Well I came up before leg locks, so I didn't learn leg locks until late in my jiu-jitsu journey, like I was already a black belt before leg locks became the big thing. When we already knew about them, like I'd seen Dean Lister use them.

When Eddie went to Abu Dhabi, I went down there with him and Dean Lister was tapping people. Dean Lister was the first guy to really like fuck a lot of guys up with leg locks. And a few of those Luta-Levay guys were really good at leg locks. They would do them.

But leg locks in jujitsu tournaments were booed. People didn't want, yeah man. Because they ruined people's knees and no one really knew how to defend them torn ACL torn MCL torn meniscus and a broken ankle My god, that's wild tore everything Mikey said I'm sick to my stomach. I never felt someone's leg explode like that in a match. I've been training for 22 years I never broke someone's leg that much. I broke it a lot of legs But that leg exploded I didn't know what to do It was just disgusting and gross or really wishy-tap the result didn't change now He's in the hospital, so I don't know but what a worry is for showing his will. That's why you got to choke people

You got to choke people some people just they don't want to tap and they just go to sleep and that's okay You gotta choke people some people just they don't want to tap and they just go to sleep and that's okay That's that's my that's Marcelo Garcia's route Marcelo Garcia never used Kimura's because Marcelo Garcia Although of course you could do a Kimura He never used come because he felt like Kimura's were like a strongman's move because you have to kind of yank it you're resisting The arm is not perfect technique. So Marcelo was all about grabbing your neck like he had the nastiest guillotine. Did you ever watch Marcelo? Yeah, oh my god. I was there live when he fought Shaolin in Abu Dhabi. Oh my god. Oh my god It was like was that dude the Tasmanian devil from the cartoons that was like yeah Yeah, just spinning around him get his back and put him to sleep. That's crazy

Oh my god, and nobody knew who Marcelo was that was what was crazy. Like a lot of people respected him everybody knew he's a black belt you know Fabio Grigel lineage solid lineage everybody knew he was good but god damn. Killer. Killer. Did you watch that million dollar tournament uh with Craig Jones? I did yeah I did. That one match was really good in the semi-finals with them two heads. Oh yeah R RutoLo and who was the other catty fight? I forgot, but that was crazy. I think they said it's on YouTube as the greatest grappling match of all time. Yeah, that was a wild one.

The RutoLo brothers are so good, man. They're so good. And again, look, 20 years old, 19 years old, just coming up. The young ones, man. Young and explosive and wild. They do all kinds of crazy techniques. They catch Dares from everywhere. And I like the ring they do that. Andrew Tackett, who's also a killer. So it was an incredible match.

And these guys just went at it. I don't like that ring. It's fun. It's like something different. I don't like it. I don't like it because it's another obstacle. I think they had it right before when there was no obstacles. Like this is an obstacle, right? This keeps you from being able to get up right. It's a thing that you have to think about. This is why, like I've said this before, I apologize for everybody who's heard it. I think fighting should take place with no cage. It would be easier to see,

and I think it should be on a basketball court, and you fight in the center. If you can have basketball in the same arenas where we have UFCs, you take an enormous space, you mat it up, you put security around it so nobody can get in, and nobody, you know, you put ropes up, and guys step in, and they fight right in front of everybody.

That would be epic, no time limit. Nah, I don't think, I think you should have time limits. I think you should even have rounds, but if I was running things, this is what I'd do. Number one, first thing I'd do, cover the fingertips. Oh, yeah. Why are the fingertips open? They don't have to be open. All you need is the same UFC gloves right now

and extend the lever like a mitten, the leather like a mitten over the tips of the front fingers and pull it back in there. I think it would help grappling. I don't think it would hurt grappling. So I don't think grapplers have a problem with it. It'd have no difference at all on your striking. You would just pull it like a bag glove, you know, like those old Everlast bag gloves?

Yeah. But not even as thick. Just have it. So now you have one piece, so you'd have nothing that can go in your eyeball. Like we've seen fingers go in eyeballs before. So that would be eliminated. You'd still have some abrasions of the eye. You could still run into fingers like that. It would suck. It would suck less though. Yeah. It would suck less.. It would suck less. So that would be my first thing I would do.

Second thing I would do, wherever the fuck, nobody gets stood up ever for any reason, unless someone gets injured or some foul or something happens wrong, somebody bites somebody, some crazy shit, then stand people up. And then I think you put them right back down to the position after you take the point away

or whatever you're gonna do. But once a guy gets you down, it's your job to get back up. And at the end of the round, if you're on your back and he's mounted you, you start the next round with him mounted you. You put the arm in the exact same place, he had an overhook on the right arm,

and he's on top and he's got his hand on your bicep. Okay, this is how the round ended, this is how we start. And everybody looks at the screen, and everybody looks at the guys, everybody looks at the guys and they Go three two one fight That would be wild that would be real. Yeah, that'd be real. Yeah, because it's not five fights. It's one fight. It's one fight That's five rounds. Why should it start on your feet every round? That's crazy Why because just that that's how it is in boxing they come out of their corner who fucking cares?

That's stupid. Yeah started more Why? Because that's how it is in boxing, they come out of their corner, who fucking cares? That's stupid. Yeah. Start them where they, you gotta get better the same way you got sick. You got taken down, you gotta get up. Somebody got you down, you gotta get up. Because if you don't get up, then he's winning. He's figured out a way to hold you down.

You don't want to be held down, he's holding you down. So he's winning. Even if he's not doing any damage, he's winning. He's holding you down. Everybody's winning even if he's not doing any damage he's winning he's holding you down everybody boo boo so what so it'll affect your ticket sales so you'll get less money for pay-per-views so what but this is what real fighting is

that's real that's the the most pure version of the sport that we could offer giant matted down space you make it so that you know you have security around it so no fucking psychos can rush. You know you put ropes up so people can't pass it. Everybody's gonna have a clear line of sight. No cages in the way. You still have the big monitors and everything like that. They fight in an enormous space and you have a danger zone. You got an outside danger zone and

if you keep going into that fucking danger zone, they take a point away. If you get kicked in the nuts, take a point away. You get poked in the eye, take a point away. You grab the, well, grab the fence, I think, take a point away too, but let's have no fence. Yeah. No fence. So there's no way to take someone down except taking them down. You got to actually take them down. You can't get them up against the cage and trip them because their back is against, no you have to take them down on the flat ground with no help and he's got to get up without the cage he can't wall walk up to the cage and press his back up and use the leverage uh-uh uh-uh get up you're in the middle of the fucking matted area get up I'm just imagining guys like MVP

and Wonderboy like to be able to catch those guys in a basketball court Wow hard channel Malley. Yeah great for them, too Yeah for them if they get taken down though real bad Yeah, real bad because now you have to actually be able to get up and you're stuck there and imagine getting up with Khabib on Top of you has anybody ever gotten up? That guy gets on top of you you're fucked you gotta wait till the rounds over So like when we when a grandpa like the round will be over with and it'll still be going and it's like no brother. You have to get up It's like I can't like the bell ring bro. You gotta get up I just say I top you it's it'll be like a 15-minute round. It'll be just like that's so crazy non-stop

It's wild but that mentality is why that camp produces so many assassins. I was very impressed with Umar Oh very impressed very impressed because now I always knew he was an elite kicker You know me he's a he's an elite striker too But to see him fight a guy like San Hagan who's so complex He does so many things well and to see him dominate that fight. I was like wow, that's really impressive And that's really impressed. Yeah, I think so only has less than five fights in the UFC he's still yeah he's incredible starting and I butchered his name one time I couldn't get out of my mouth I don't know what it is like sometimes my mouth just don't

work right and that's fine if you're doing a podcast you just say it again yeah but if you're like saying it guys, and I was like, no, fuck. I'm like, what did I say? I felt so bad because I really love the guy. I think he's awesome. And especially after the San Hagen fight, I think he's the most compelling contender in that division after Marab.

So after Marab, I think he's gotta get that shot. Whoever wins, and him against either one of those guys is sensational. That's a sensational fight. That's like an elite top That's like as good as we have to offer today in terms of martial arts talent Yeah, 100% like the way he did Santa like San Higgins is one of my favorite fighters He's so good how good Umar did against them and then I have really any moments of difficulty in there

And I was like he's elite. Yeah, he's super elite. You know, I think about San Hagan one thing I think about is Here's a bomber TJ Dillshaw Like TJ Dillshaw, let's imagine TJ Dillshaw didn't blow out his shoulders because TJ Dillsaw beat San Hagan with one leg Yeah, which is crazy and he beat San Hagan San Hagan San Hagan that it fucked up Marlon Marais San Hagan San Hagan like the the Sanhagen of today, you know, that guy is fucking top of the food chain He's very good and TJ beat him with one leg and a fucked up shoulders shoulder wasn't good back then either Yeah, it was fucked up, but he figured out a way to win was the most exciting fight But how could it be he had one ACL he blew his fucking knee apart

But he still beat him that guys had so many fucking injuries if you imagine TJ Dillashaw not having all those injuries and someone talking him out of going down 25. Yeah You saw big he is right now, but it's huge like 180 pounds. It's wild. I'm like I wish I was tighter with him because I would have said do not fucking do it look at him now. Oh my god Yeah, his piss would melt that you Just put him in Chad Mendes in a room and just have him just like duke it out Do a best body contest their votes like takes but you gotta think man how good Cody no love was when he beat him You know when he stopped him dude TJ Dillashaw was a bad man.

Henen Barao was the pound for pound considerate of number one fighter in the world when he was the Bantamweight champion. A lot of people, he was in consideration. And TJ just pieced him up and he did it like he was sparring. He was all loose and relaxed and he had that, Dwayne Ludwig, I don't know if you were trained with Dwayne? No. He's got an incredible system. That bang Muay Thai system is one of the most complex

and well thought out striking systems I've ever seen. He's a maniac. He's got notebooks, like binders with all these moves, like locked in. And if you watch Dwayne fight though, it's so crazy because he didn't fight that way. Yeah. Dwayne fought, you know, he had like kind of traditional,

like a lot of Muay Thai, a lot of Dutch kickboxing style, nasty striker. But he didn't like switch stances all the time and do like TJ. But he figured that out. He figured out that this is the way. The constant switching and striking from each stance and the constant footwork and movement

and all these patterns that they would get guys to lead into certain positions and do it. it wasn't just like smashing buttons like stylebender likes to talk about Dwayne's thought about it as like a real comprehensive striking program and TJ was his best pupil and TJ when he fought Hannibal Rao was showing that style in its world-class form but people forget people forget how good TJ Dillshaw Dillashaw was. They forget. He has that fight with Cejudo, he tests positive for EPO, because he's literally dying to make 125.

He looked like an Auschwitz concentration camp survivor. He did. He looked like they just opened the doors and let him out of the concentration camp. He had no skin on his face. His face was just, it was just bones. He looked terrible. And T.J. is a big guy for 35.

He's big. He's a good solid, perfect 35 pound frame. And somehow or another someone talked him into it or he wanted to do it for the challenge. Chasing that greatness. Yeah. Fuck that, man. Fuck that kind of cut.

Yeah, it's cool. Because he had to be Starving to death in camp so he must have been like doing his camp while he was starving literally starting to death Like your organs are shutting down your brains not working anymore And then when you're thinking about Was the EPO just because of the weight cut? Right, but then he's thinking if he was using it beforehand how good Cody Nola was before he fought him and after him beating Dominic Cruz that was like the best performance I've ever seen in my life and then he goes and gets knocked out by him and if he says

Because he was on EPO. Right. It's like that changed your whole career. If you're Cody. It does. It does change your whole career And you know there's guys have accused him of doing stuff other than that, and I don't know who's telling, that's what he looked like. Oh my God. That's so crazy, that is so crazy. I wish I was his friend. I wish I was tight with him back then. And when he was, I wish he would have listened to someone who had said, just don't do that, man.

Don't fucking do that. You could be one of the all time greats at 35 and stay there. But you also gotta think, like, how many of his injuries got amplified because of that weight cut? How much body deterioration was he going through and then also going through camp? So he's pushing hard, he's wrestling, he's hitting the mitts, he's sparring, all this while his body's deteriorating.

So all his mass is down, all the muscle that's protecting his shoulders, which are, you know, his supraspinatus has been missing forever. His supraspinatus has been ripped off the bone from like the beginning of his career we were just uh i was talking to a guy yesterday about weight cutting we were at the sushi spot um sushi by scratch and then the sushi guy who was rolling it he was like i used to be a weight cutter in high school when i was a wrestler and i had a heart surgery because i was cutting weights since i was six years old my dad would make me cut weight. And I was like, Oh my God. That'll change your whole life.

Because you started cutting at that young. And he's like, bro, I had so many issues, problems from there. And it was just wrestling. He said I wasn't even grappling or anything. I was just wrestling since a kid. My dad just made me cut weight since I was a kid. It was like 109 pounds to like 90 pounds. And I was like, why are you cutting weight that young?

So bad for you. It stunts your growth, does a lot of wild shit to your body, make your kidneys fail. Changes your life. Changes your life. Yeah, and you don't grow up right. It's like you're being poisoned from the time you're a kid. Your body doesn't develop right.

Who knows what could do to this, the future of your life. It might've taken a decade or two off of his life and it just burns you out in general if you go to Fighting after that exactly you've been cutting weight since that long now you're a fighter now You have to cut weight right every single fighter. I think has like an eating disorder too now after oh, yeah Yeah, i'm sure I'm sure well how much do you have to cut me like I get around to like 190 and then When it's when I'm in fight Camp and I'm training I'm walking around at 185. So like 15 pounds the most yeah, but I I keep a

Chef with me for like this last five weeks Ian Larios, he'd been with like DC Kane and all them guys and he lives in my house for five weeks and I tell people It changes your life like you you train so much better off it cause he's giving you the right food to eat. Right before I would sit there when I'm cutting mochi myself, I was like, I'm not going to have breakfast. I'm just gonna go to the gym and train. Now I'm waking up and he's giving me like potatoes and eggs. And I'm like, bro, I can't have carbs. What are you giving me these for?

Bro, you're not going to train. You're not going to have a good workout unless you had this stuff. So like there's no thought process with me. He just me everything my shakes my food and then I come home from practice and then he has lunch on the table Then I come home after another session and he has dinner on the table and he's is he calculating the calories for each meal? Yeah, that's what's get where it gets fascinating, right when they calculate the calories for each meal and they give you the exact right amount Yeah, I looking at the scale. So like he'll make me step on the scale and it'd be five weeks. I was like, bro, no, we're not, we're not. We still have like five more weeks.

Like get on the scale. So I won't look at it. So he'll look at it right in his phone and then he'll just keep tracking it the whole time. That's the eating disorder. It is. Yeah, man. I was like, bro, I don't even want to look at it. Cause then it just, it tells me like, Oh man, I gotta do this or I gotta do that more, but it'll make me push that much harder at practice. But I'm like, bro, I don't even want to look at it. Cause then it just, it tells me like, Oh man, I got to do this or I got to do that more, but it'll make me push that much harder at practice. But I'm like, I'm going to push hard anyway for the fight. But I think mentally, I just hate scales. It's like, I won't step on a scale until I have a fight.

Like nobody's got to eat disorder like Patty. Oh my God. Patty celebrates his eating disorder. That motherfucker gained 40 pounds after his last fight. And that's going to literally kill him, I feel like. It's wild. It's not good. It's definitely, well, he's so good though, man. I'm so impressed with him. Like, he keeps getting, I thought Jared Gordon beat him.

And I thought that fight, to me, that was another one of those fights. If Jared Gordon wins, then all of a sudden Jared Gordon's got another big fight, another big fight, and he had two blunders in a row, not his fault, the other one was the headbutt with Bobby. But the Patty one was a big one, man, because the Patty one, he was fucking winning that fight,

man, I felt he was landing the big shots. That counter left hook was sweet, he looked good. I thought he won the fight, I thought it was a good fight, but I thought he won the fight. And then Patty fights Bobby Green and he looks like a world-beater he looks like a world-beater that fuck it the strategy was perfect to stay on the outside fuck his legs up and then you realize how big Patty is too like Patty's a big 50 fiber cuz Bobby's big

yeah excuse me King King that's why I love that dude. Change his name to King. So King is, you know, he's a tall dude too for the division. But you realize how big Patty is and people think of Patty only as a grappler, but his kicks were on point, man. His kicks were on point. And he's tough in general. Yep. Those guys, when you hit a guy and he's still standing in front of you, it makes you want

to shoot on him. Because I'm looking at Bobby like, why would you shoot a take down on Patty? I feel like this is the only way of beating you is to catch you in a submission I think his legs were getting fucked up. Yeah. Yeah, but it just makes you uncomfortable. So he shot here it is Yeah, I think he was seeing where this was going look how big he looks man you realize like damn He's a big 55 or and he caught him with that inside low kick I mean it might have been just instinct where Bobby just felt like you had to catch excuse me King felt You had to catch that kick because it was available But as a trap the crowd in Manchester when petty walks out. It's like nuts. Yeah, he's a star

Yeah over there It's it's crazy when I was sitting in the back we were sitting in the back warming up And then we just hear the people going nuts and my family's like texting me like man I wish you were fighting so I could just enjoy this right now. Watch the paddy walk out He's a scouser He's just fun. He looks like he's having a good old time when he's out there and he could back it up So that fight was big for him because that fight moves him into elite status, right? He goes from Jared Gordon and now you know a couple of the fights now BAM Bobby Green BAM

Someone's gonna be a big name. Yeah, that's gonna be a big game. So he's thinking right now about Islam He's thinking about those guys at the top of the heap He's at the point where I think one more especially because of his name if he gets like a hooker or a Chandler right? And he gets past one of them guys Give them a tank considering the amount of growth that we've already seen from him though, like if you were in his corner, wouldn't you say, couple more, be good. Couple more, couple more, don't rush.

I would, but like for money-wise, and I think he's about the big name, especially if the UFC, when you're thinking of lightweight, Olivera just lost, Gagey just lost, Hooker already lost to Islam. If Islam gets past Armandas, I mean, if McGregor comes back and he beats Chandler, he's there, but like there's not a lot of names right now for

Islam because Gamroth was supposed to be the backup and he just lost to Hooker. But Islam walked through Hooker. So you're like, who is Islam going to fight after Armand? Right, right. It's a good question. Good question. You know, cuz gam rot was an interesting one We're looking forward to that versus Islam like that could be interesting because he's such a good grappler But when you know people forget about Dan Hooker, they forgot about him too. Yeah, he's a dog Dan Hooker went blow for blow with Dustin Poirier That was as close a fight as you're gonna get and again another change of the career, right? Dustin moves on from that, gets the corner fights,

Dustin becomes the man. Yeah, people forget about that fight. That was a fucking very close fight, a very good fight. And there was some moments where Dan Hooker was tuning Dustin Poirier up. There's a video compilation online of Hooker having Poirier against the ropes. He goes, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap.

Ripping shots before the end of the round. He's a bad motherfucker He's like I fought with a broken arm. Yeah, he got his arm broken. He's a shitter Yeah, didn't say a goddamn word about it wins the fight and they're like what happened here? It's just a scratch He's why even at this fight his face is like bleeding between rounds and he's like, I love this stuff Well, he also loves like, you know, he had that devastating knockout loss to Chandler, right? Chandler comes out catches him with that leaping hook and drops him and just puts it on him and like fuck You know, this is a big high-profile fight and he got caught, you know, and anybody can get caught. That's what's crazy about the sport That's why it's so exciting. anybody can get caught but it's like

How how can you bounce back? How do you bounce? Can you bounce back and be the same guy after you got caught? Yeah, and that's the hardest part too cuz you get caught and you don't really feel anything afterwards It's not like you went through a war injury So you want to hop right back into it you like let me get that up taste on my mouth Let me fight again, but you need like the coaches around you I tell you like you still got a concussion chill out Don't fight take a couple months off. Yeah, you get she's taking a year off yeah, and it's like you need those guys to hold you back because I've been knocked out before and it's like you I'm alright. I feel good. My body feels good

Like my I don't have no scratches or anything. I didn't go through a 15 minute war so I'm like, let me get another fight Let me get another fight, right? But right you don't know what's going on in your brain You don't know what your brains dealing with and that's gonna be to your future right there. Yep Exactly, and so many fighters are they're so tough. They feel fine Their mind is you know, their determination is strong like I want to get back in there Like that was the case with Jamal Hill He was gonna get right back in after the paeda fight and he was gonna fight roundtree

Which is whoo. That's a bad fight. If you just got knocked out just a few months ago That's a scary dude and even be like taking the paeda fight He had a torn Achilles and I think he just got cleared to come back from that Achilles and it's like right now You got to fight Alex in six weeks. Yeah, and I'm like, bro That's that's a short camp and you're switching up right away, but he's like right now you got to fight Alex in six weeks. Yeah, and I'm like, bro That's that's a short camp and you're switching up right away But he's like 300 such a big opportunity like you can't say no to that Yeah, and then yeah, you get knocked out by Pahetta and you're like, I only get right back in there But you're right back in there is gonna be against a monster like roundtree. I know

Not a easy fight is funny cuz he was on your show and I'm like listen to him and he's like I maybe do just a tournament and then I'm like a week later. He gets a title fight Yeah, I know what's on no no fucking way. Don't do that Well, you do all that shit when it's over because I was I remember Cubs Watson did a yeah and tore his ACL Yeah, once you know once you tear some shit doing something stupid and you miss a title shot You're never gonna forgive yourself. Yeah, especially Khalil is like 35. You know he's up in that age range too where it's like now's the time man Yeah, so it was perfect timing and a lot of people like uncle I have should have got the title shot But the problem is they already set up that fight with Racketsh which doesn't really totally make sense, right?

Yeah, right if you think has Racketsich fought since Yuri beat him up? No. Okay, so that kind of doesn't make sense a little bit. Yeah. It'd make more sense if Jamal fought Rackich, right? Jamal, but Jamal wants something a little more high profile, I understand that, but Ankolyev, man, no one's beaten him. Ankolyev had that one draw with Jan Bojo I know no one's beating him Uncle I have had that one draw with Yon Bohovich and no one's beating him Yeah, there's another guy everybody forgets about Yon Bohovich. What the fuck that guy almost beat pehada He was right there was a close fight super close. Yeah down with the wire. It was like yeah We already saw that like what? What you gotta give you on his deal?

He was a light heavyweight champion in the fucking world and a destroyer Yeah, but it's for whatever reason I think they look at that number. They say oh, he's 40 years old Yeah, it's 41 years old whatever. He is now so what? So what he's still fucked up Dominic Reyes. He still fucks up everybody yon, but ho which is a murderer Yeah, he's he's a scary dude man. That's a good fight and he's Polish, bro Yeah, they don't age He's a killer that dude's made out of rocks. I remember when uncle I have and him were going leg kick to leg kick You know, he was he was kicking his shins. Yeah fucking uncle lives like this guy is nuts

I'm like, so I went to my coach. I'm like, what kind of low-kick was he doing? He's like, I think he was just going shin to shin. He was it's like I'm not gonna teach that he was just saying feel Polish bone density Slamming those fucking shins into the shins, but if I'm ahead out I got I'm gonna pick all the strikers like Mm-hmm him and Raunchy is gonna be a crazy one. It's only a loss against Paul Craig his first fight in the UFC Oh, yeah uncle I've got caught in a triangle. That's right last second Yeah, last second is oh my Paul Craig has the nastiest triangle in the division for sure. One of the nastiest triangles in the sport. Look at this. Look how quick he snatches that shit up. Boom! Snap! And too late. So here we got, I think there was like five seconds to go when he locks this up.

And he tapped it. Unbelievable, man. That is wild. So Uncle Ive has had this long ass wind streak. He looked real good in his last fight. And then they give him a guy who... So he beat Johnny Walker twice. One of them with Johnny Walker, it was like a... It was an injury, right?

Oh, the desert. What happened? Remember he was in Abu Dhabi and he got a knee while he was down and then the doctor came in and he said, who are you? And he said desert and the doctor stopped it. Oh, that's right. And he got mad. Like, why are you stopping it? That's right. That's right. But so he has the draw with Jan Blachowicz. He KOs Anthony Smith, beats Tiago Sanchez, beats Volkan,

beats all these guys. I mean, he's beaten a lot of guys. I mean, he's got a really good skill set, when you think about with a guy like Paheta, because he can wrestle. He can strike and he can wrestle. And he has a huge knockout against Johnny Walker last, so that's... Yeah, so I guess for him, he fights Rockage. I favor him in that fight, but Rockage is fucking dangerous as shit, man.

You know, Rockage has had a long time off of the Prohaska fight, and Rockage looked real good in that fight but Rockets is fucking dangerous as shit man you know Rockets had a long time off of the Pahoska fight and Rockets look real good in that fight he was eating Yuri up before but Yuri was just walking through everything Yuri's like the new age Tony Ferguson where you hit me I'm gonna hit you with five other punches yeah and it's gonna make you tired of just hitting me and I'm gonna catch you it just doesn't work with Poetan yeah you can't you can't be getting hit by that guy like I want to feel his low kick just because I'm like bro what does he do? Like he just touches, it feels like he just like touches you with his foot. Yeah, just like you can't walk afterward. He's targeting it too.

He doesn't ever go shin to shin and even when he checks he doesn't go shin to shin. He lifts his leg up like he's playing hacky sack. Yeah. He just lifts his leg up. He just goes ankle, he just lifts his ankle so his foot comes all the way up to his other knee and then he drops it back down and then he comes in with the right hand. Like he's got it down where if you try to ankle kick him, he's got so many counters for that calf kick.

And he's feeling like he's like on every pay-per-view now. Like they just, hey we need somebody to put the bat symbol out there and he's like, all right, I'm ready. He'll fight anybody. Yeah, he's fighting in Salt Lake City against roundtree and that that's a wild ass fight, man That's a wild fight a lot of people say all round tree doesn't deserve it Let me tell you something round tree fights like you just killed his family and lit his house on fire that dudes coming for you Yeah, he's coming for everybody

Stylistically, yes He's not gonna shoot a tank down. Yeah, there'll be no takedowns He's fucking dangerous man. But if you you know, you think about the the lid like paeira is striking like His overall accomplishments are second to none in an MMA to division glory world champion I mean and the thing about him is that that fucking power is just freakish And he just like touches it though. It feels like well What is that you see him hit the power cube and you got 191 on the power cube with a right hand?

That's like his left hook Like hit it. He probably doesn't want anybody to know yeah hit it with the left hook That's the sleeper that left hook is the sleeper. It'd be like five thousand. You're like, it's crazy He just touches people and it's when you when you're starting to see his personality come out now more It's it's so fun It's because Glover is like the nicest guy in the world and at first Alex was like so quiet And now you're starting to see Glover pull it out of them. Even when he wins. He's never like yeah It's always like yep another day. Yep another day another day another dude

I put to sleep like even after he beat Izzy he just walked away from him the referee stopped the fight He just walked away But there's something exciting about that too like that guy's one of the biggest pay-per-view stars in the country in the world and Most people don't even understand what he's saying And he's a star, right? He's a huge star. All he has to do is make facial expressions. But also it's scary.

When he comes out with the bow and arrow, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Aaaaaah! If you're sitting there watching that guy walk through the cage, you're like, aw shit! I mean, like, thinking to myself, I gotta come up with some sort of stick like that. Like, I gotta figure out something. I can't think of anything. No. I just like look face. Oh, yeah You gotta be yourself. Yeah, that's either you or that's not you, but that's the coolest thing in the world When I see whenever I have his one of his fights to see that walk out face, dude

And the music That is the most terrifying face Him walking towards the cage you're standing there. You've been prepping for this dude for 12 weeks. You're like, oh Jesus here comes Damn Damn. Bro, I hate seeing that one just because Jamal is my boy and I'm like, obviously I'm a fan of Peta but man to see him just like catch my boy, I'm like, come on Jamal, give one back just to get that taste out of our mouth. Well, there was a weird moment in that fight and we've talked about it before where Jamal accidentally low kicked him and the referee moves in to stop and Jamal stands up straight and relaxes like you okay and When poet on puts his hand on herb Dean he advances

He makes a little hop step and then he goes right back to fighting and he catches him with the left hook So he'd close some distance and it's a game of inches. Oh, especially with that guy Yeah him with the left hook. So he closed some distance. And it's a game of inches. Oh, especially with that guy. Yeah, especially with that guy. He does everything for a reason. And then when you see somebody break it down like that, like you said, everything changes. Imagine if he didn't. Imagine the refs that are like, you back up, you back up. Yep. Yep. Everything changes. Yeah. Yeah, everything changes. But that's moments and fights, you know, and maybe that will define Jamal's career. Maybe Jamal will learn from that and never be, never take his eye off the prize again. Never relax.

And I guarantee you he won't relax now. Protect yourself at all times. And I guess, you know, I see it from Prejada's point of view too. The referee said, okay, keep going. And he caught him, but he did close that distance because of that low kick. So it is a moment.

And I think it opened up a lot of fighters' eyes too, right? You're starting to see these little things. Except for me now, I'm like, no, the reptiles is something. I'm either taking one step back myself or I'm gonna take that step forward and catch that, but head a distance myself. You just can't relax.

You can never relax. Cause it's such a game of impossible things happening at any moment. Cause so many guys have pulled out impossible things. Head kicks, spinning elbows out of nowhere. Things happen, and if you're relaxed even for a second. Yeah, the Korean zombie, Yair. Oh my god.

Uppercut elbow, you're like, what was this? Running away, uppercut elbow. With like two seconds left. Yeah, crazy. And you're like, how? How did this just happen right now? When Yair landed that jumping roundhouse kick on Andre? Oh, whoo the scissor kick. Oh

My god, his kicks are so nasty. Yeah, there's it's so interesting to see all these different ways to get elite There's so many different ways, you know, some guys are specialists like Paheta and some guys just dominate all aspects like Islam You know, there's like all these different ways that guys some guys are specialists like Paheda, and some guys just dominate all aspects like Islam. There's all these different ways that guys achieve to becoming the best. Yeah, that's my mindset. I always tell myself I'm behind, because I started late, so I'm like,

I didn't do martial arts since I was a kid, so I always gotta tell myself, oh, we gotta do everything. There's not one thing that I'm amazing at. But people see the fight, and they're like, oh, all you are is a wrestler, or all you are is this and that I'm psyched But I do everything and I train everything More than everybody else and I like I don't take any days off. How old were you when you first started training?

I was 23. Wow. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, that's way behind the curve Way behind way behind and I didn't do no I did like two years of high school school wrestling. Wow. Yeah. At least you had that. Yeah. That's definitely something. Oh no, I mean, for me it changed my life. Also when you're in high school, because you're in high school, your body's developing. Yeah. You know, your body's developing, where you learn how to take people down, like, yeah. That helps, for sure, but if nothing by 23 is crazy. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I always played sports in general. I loved basketball. No striking at all? Nothing? No, I mean, I, I always played sports in general. I loved basketball. No striking at all? Nothing? No.

I mean, I would always get in like street fights in like Chicago just because I'm a trash talker when I play basketball. So like we would always sit there and go to the park and then people would see like, who are these A-Rabs coming to play basketball? And then we'll be winning and I'm talking trash. And then it was like, they want to start a fight afterward.

So it was always the best. What made you start training? My high school wrestling coach, Louis Taylor, he was like the best but what made you start training? My high school wrestling coach Lewis Taylor, he was like the PFL middleweight champion. He was in my high school wrestling coach for two years and then he like left and so I'm like whatever happens to him he was like that cool coach that young coach and he was like gone so I stopped wrestling and then I was at school for just I was trying to be like a lawyer and I ended up seeing him in a newspaper he was fighting in strike force. So then I just like messaged him on Facebook and I was like bro be like a lawyer and I ended up seeing him in a newspaper. He was fighting in strike force.

So then I just like messaged him on Facebook and I was like, bro, you're a fighter. And he's like, yeah, I was like, what ever happened to you? He said, I was still young. I still had something left in me. So I wanted to start training. And he used to be like rampages, roommate in college. So he had already had like that mindset of like, oh, these guys are fighting. I can fight too. So then he, his gym ended up being probably like 10 minutes away from my mom's house. So when I come home from school on the weekends, I'll just start training with him. And then it was just like a snowball effect. I started

like falling in love with it. And after my first amateur fight, I was after like two months, I was like, could I get a fight? He's like, yeah, yeah. Cause I was just like excited about the whole thing. And for us two is like like we were only training partners So I'm training with him and like I'm learning the hard way like we're just going straight sparring or straight wrestling And he was like a division one wrestler. He had crazy power crazy jiu-jitsu So like I'm getting good just because he's beating me up the whole time So now I'm like, oh I can fight amateur and he's like, yeah, let's go get you one. Wow Yeah, so then I got it was like the biggest tree fight in the world the amateur fight

It was like nothing good about my technique or anything, but it's funny cuz mark Coleman was a commentator for it Oh, wow. Yeah, it was like the whole scenario is crazy. It was like I had a bar and It was just like cool. So then after that I was like, bro I transferred to like a closer school near the gym I started training more with him and then you know, my parents are telling me like, stay in school, stay in school. So then once I started just like getting more wins, more wins, and I decided to go pro, I said,

I'll go back to school after I lose. And then we just kept going until we got to the UFC. Wow. Yeah, it was wild. He's still with me now to this day, but even with him, he was 41 years old and they never gave him a UFC shot, but he ended up going to PFL and he was like a 1200 underdog

and he won the million dollars in 30 seconds with a knockout. Wow. Yeah, he was fighting a, a, a boost. Not going to go out of the one that's in the UFC now. They were in the finals, the first- He beat a boost? He beat a boost, 30 second knockout. Yeah.

A boost is good. Yeah, and he was 41 years old, never got his shot. And it's crazy how his career ended like that. Middleweight champion, retired on top now, million dollars. And there's a lot of guys that go to the UFC that don't hit a million dollars. That's true. So he's like, my path was that way.

So even with me, when I was doing all this, waiting for this title fight, he was like, patience, it's gonna come. Like you saw what I had to go through. Your title fight's gonna come. It's gonna come at the right moment. So just enjoy the journey Find that fight see if you can find that fight Jamie Lewis Taylor and a boost magomed off Abuse had a great first round with Sean Strickland a great first round, but that was like Sean Strickland

It's just a zombie Marches towards you and you can't hit him. He's hard to hit. But he was fucking his legs up. I was hoping Abus would knock him out. I was like, come on Abus, please! Bro, he was putting an on him in that first round but he started getting tired. Yeah. By the end of the first round he was tired. He threw everything at him. Yeah. Everything was full clip too. Full speed, full clip.

And I was like... Because even at PFL, the way he was killing everybody, he was like... So he was 41 in this fight? Yeah. That's so crazy. So this is the PFL championships in 2018 Yeah, and it's crazy because they got rid of the middleweight division after this. Mmm. So now they don't have middleweight there anymore How is that possible? It's because they wanted to put the women's division the 55ers So they got rid of the middleweight guys. Can I talk to somebody over there?

Abuse see there's a low kick, his low kicks are nasty. He just for whatever reason, Abuse has a hard time sustaining it. I mean I think he's getting better in the UFC and I think the Shawn Strickland fight was just too quick. Oh left hook! Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness, back that up again. Look at this they go shin to shin

boom oh my god the distance he covered with that left hook and it's like a boost even blocking it too like he just has crazy power. There's another thing about guys who are really good at shooting that same ability to cover distance when you make a double leg is the same kind of drive that you need to move forward to punch. That's one of the reasons why Randleman was so dangerous. Yeah, you know, because Randleman had that crazy shot so he could explode forward and punch you from a distance. You really can't punch him. That's incredible. Look how much distance he covers. Well, Jamie just broke it down. Look at this.

Yeah, he hopped in there. No, go back a little bit further, please. Just a little bit further before he throws the punch. He's way back there, dude. Watch this. Yeah, he hopped in there. No, go back a little bit further, please. Just a little bit further before he throws the punch. He's way back there, dude. Watch this. Look how far away he is. Oh my goodness. Abuse made a mistake that he tried to counter. He was thinking about countering before the punch

got to him and he just wasn't quick enough. That's incredible. Good for him, man. Yeah. Good for him. And that guy's legit, man. To knock out a guy like that a booze is legit Yeah, people when people go back and look at his record He had like ten first-round finishes Wow on his come-up, but like the UFC just said he was too old

They never gave him a shot. Oh, that's crazy Yeah, and I was like people just saw him and even when he started his career Like I said I was like one of his main training partners from the beginning If he was like an American top team or like a real gym, because he had kids early, so he didn't want to like lead them. So he always trained in Chicago and he's like, I'm going to build up my own guys. So we had like a small gym, like three or four guys that he just used as the main training partners. And there's some dudes that can compete at a world-class level deep into their 40s. And I

always point to Bernard Hopkins. Everybody wrote Bernard Hopkins off before he fought Kelly Pavlik. And he beat the shit out of Kelly Pavlik. And he just boxed him. He just did everything perfect. It was a master class in boxing, a master class in world championship caliber boxing against a guy in Kelly Pavlik,

which was fucking dangerous, man. Wicked puncher, tough as shit. Jermaine Taylor fight was crazy. He was out in that fight and came back to stop Taylor. Just a warrior, a real dog. So Bernard was like, how old was Bernard when he fought Kelly Pavlik? When he fought Felix Trinidad everybody wrote him off. He was like 36 or something by the time he fought Trinidad. Oh yeah? Yeah man man Everybody wrote him off Wow Bernard was wild too. He threw the Puerto Rican flag down on the ground in Puerto Rico. He had a run people chasing him Ran

Yeah, they were trying to kill him. Yeah, you can't do that. Yeah, you told me the whole story was hilarious Yeah, he's uh, I mean, but how old was Bernard? 43 years old when he fought Kelly Pavlik. Come on son 43 years old That's so crazy He beat Roy Jones jr. When he was 45 Unbelievable unbelievable what the Chad Dawson fight bro. He was 46 years old and Chad Dawson was a killer fight bro he was 46 years old and Chad Dawson was a killer Chad Dawson was a vicious knockout artist and he knocked him out in the second round and then he

lost against him in the next fight that's how good Chad was. Chad was a fucking good fighter that he lost to Kovalev he lost to Joe Smith jr. which was a bad one but he was 51 years old when he fought Joe Smith and Joe Smith is another one who's a fucking killer man he's a dangerous puncher Joe Smith is a mauler dangerous guy 51 years old that's why natural 51 years old what do you think of Tyson and Jake I wish he didn't do it I wish it wasn't a thing I wish it wasn't a thing where a 58 year old guy was gonna fight a 28 year old. That said, that out the window. I fully support his desire to do it. What is he gonna live forever? He's not gonna live forever.

Maybe he wants one more shot at it. Maybe his body can do one more fight. I don't know. He looks great on the mitts, but that doesn't mean that you know as much as I know. I could look good on the mitts. Yeah. I tell mean that you know as much as I know. I could look good on the mitts. Yeah, I tell people that, like, bro, mitts doesn't show anything, yeah. Especially if you're watching 30-second clips, what you wanna see is him sparring, you wanna see him hitting the bag for multiple rounds. You'd wanna see, like, let's see three rounds hard

on the bag, I'm gonna see what you could do. I wanna see how your feet move, I wanna see what it looks like if you're off balance when you throw in combinations. Do you look like Tyson? Yeah. Remember there's some videos of Tyson hitting the bag when he was like 19 years old? It's crazy. You watch like the speed and the power. See if you can find that. Mike Tyson hitting the heavy bag when he's young. Terrifying, terrifying. That to me, a bag is different than mitts. Mitts guys are meeting you halfway,

you know, you've got a combination worked out, okay, I want you to go left, right, left to the body, right over him. Pop, pop, pop, pop! Okay, do it again. Pop, pop, pop, pop! It kinda can look real good. But can you do that with a guy who's moving?

Can you spar? Would they bring in a world-class heavyweight? Can you do that? Like what how do you move? How are your knees? How's your back? Like are you can sustain that can you sustain those kind of explosions or is this just a gimmick? You know, I mean, I don't know. I know he used to be able to but we won't really know so here's a nice young Michael Tyson I know he used to be able to but we won't really know so here's him when he's young. Michael Tyson. Yeah kill the sound, you don't have to see the sound. Just look at this and he's young here man, young. So that's him hitting the bag later in life.

I would want to see rounds, you know, I want to see rounds. I want to see what it looks like when he's tired, how quick does he get tired. I want to see rounds, you know, I want to see rounds. I want to see what it looks like when he's tired. How quick does he get tired? I want to see him sparring. I wonder if he's going to look at that when he's young, man. Dude, terrifying. Those combinations when he's back. Show that again.

Bro, he was so fast, so fast and always moving, always moving, bobbing and weaving is a target that that you couldn't find just moving at you constantly advancing just a mindset like just craziness madness just can just controlled madness in there with perfect technique and ferocious power and awesome genetics you know they said that teddy atlas told me that when he was 13 years old he would bring him to smokers and they would go how old's that kid he's a 13 he's 16 he's like fine he's 16 and he was he was 13 years old he would bring him to smokers and they would go how old that kid? He's a 13. He's 16. He's like fine. He's 16 and he was 190 at 13 years old. What? Yeah 190 Wow 190 That's wild what? That's God he got a gift he got a God kissed his physique

As you had a smoke you're a 13 year old and you see that guy. What oh, yeah, I have you're like what the fuck What are you talking about? That's a man I pull guard Boxing Yeah, and he scared a lot of guys before they even threw their first punch you would see the the look like I remember Bruce Selden He missed a left hook of Bruce Selden Bruce Selden went down. It's like fuck all this Fuck all this fuck all this. Fuck all this.

Fuck all this. Yeah, what do you wanna miss? Yeah, but he's 58, you know? I support him. I love that guy. I fully support. I'm a gigantic fan of his. Me, meeting him the first time I met him at the UFC,

it was, there's some starstruck moments. We meet people like oh shit That's sugar ray Leonard, you know, oh shit. That's Mike Tyson And my I was even one of the most star-struck moments ever had really couldn't believe I was meeting Mike Tyson. Wow Yeah, I did a podcast with him. I was like, I can't believe I'm talking to Mike Tyson It just seemed he was such a huge part of my childhood When I was a kid was when he was coming up I have in my office framed the cover of Sports Illustrated when he was 19.

Wow, really? Yeah, it says Kid Dynamite. See if you can find that. Did you hand it from back then? Oh, no, no, no. Someone gave it to me recently. It might have been Sports Illustrated sent it to me. I don't know who sent it to me.

Do you know who sent it? Somebody sent it to me. Thank you, whoever did it. I forgot. I'm sorry, but that's the cover. That's framed in my office And 19 years old on the cover. I think that was 1985 Is that what year that was? Does it say what year that was see if you can find was say 86. Okay So that was right before he won the title. He won the title when he was 20 So I was like just out of high school and he was the guy like heavyweight boxing had gotten boring nobody cared After Larry Holmes was like people were bored with heavyweight boxing. There was a bunch of champions and nobody heard of it was like

They weren't really interested no disrespect to any of those guys But they didn't excite the public the way Muhammad Ali did the way George Foreman did It wasn't the heavyweight boxing was kind of dead and then all sudden this dude comes along You're like, oh my god And yeah, he was doing everything you wanted a heavyweight to do just starching people just stop sending them flying He'd hit him with left hooks. They go flying. He like look at this guy's night He's gonna become the youngest heavyweight champion of all time and then he fights Trevor Burbank and knocks him out quick How much your pay per use back God? I don't remember but I

Remember a lot of times people wouldn't want to buy Mike Tyson pay-per-views because they knew the fights would be over so yeah It was nuts man, so this is uh, is this a documentary It says kid dynamite 1985 also, this is a... is this a documentary? It says Kid Dynamite, 1985. Oh, so this is him in 1985. Yeah, this is him when people were just starting to hear about him. And he came through the ranks quick. Just was fucking everybody up. He was having a hard time getting fights. And everybody thought, this is the guy. This is the next destroyer. I mean, he was just killing people man. Everybody thought was getting fucked up like

Just a head moving an inside is just wild Everything and the power it was just that's what you wanted to see from a heavyweight So that guy is still alive and he still remembers all these moments It's not like he doesn't know how to put his knuckles on your face. This question is how much Does he have left in his body? 58 today is not 58 when I was 21. It's a different 58, especially if they're not testing him Okay, they're letting him take hormones and peptides and do all the things that I would recommend 100% I don't know how you could do it if you're 58 if you're not doing that if

that I would recommend 100%. I don't know how you could do it if you're 58, if you're not doing that. If they're allowing him to do all that stuff and get his body to the optimum level that's known to science, you're dealing with a different kind of human being. You're dealing with one of the greatest fighters that's ever lived.

It's just how much does he wanna do it? Is he doing it for money? You know, how much does he have left in the tank? Those are all questions that'll make me buy the pay-per-view. It's on Netflix though, it's free. Yeah, that's right, it's free. Yeah, I'm gonna watch it. 100% I'm gonna watch it.

I'm gonna feel bad if he gets knocked out. Ah, yeah. But, you know. What are his most recent comments about the fight? Tyson addressed the meeting with his usual boldness during a press conference. The show's readiness for battle. He said, I'm just ready. I'm ready. I'm going to talk my talk and do my shit, but I'm ready to fight. Is he really a young killer? Tyson said, discounting any questions

on his readiness. Reacting to Paul's taunting Tyson's need to postpone the fight because of an ulcer flare up earlier in the summer, former champion made a strong statement about his unmatched abilities. He said, I feel a lot better now. Who else can do it but me? Who else is going to fight to make this happen? You got a YouTuber fighting the greatest fighter that ever lived. Ooh. I want to hear him say that.

That sound coming out of his voice would be like. Well, you also have to remember about Mike Tyson. Is that Mike Tyson knows how to mentally prepare. He was trained by Kustomato, who was a hypnotist. And Cus DeMoto started hypnotizing him when he was 13 years old. Really? Yeah. That was part of the reason why he was so terrifying. His mindset was just unstoppable. He really thought that he could not be stopped. He thought he was going to murder everybody. And Cus was his hero. Cus raised him. Cus

took him in when he was 13 years old. He had this terrible childhood, no love, just in and out of trouble, terrible, bad situation, horrible poverty and crime. And then all of a sudden he's being taken care of by this dude who's a master boxer, master boxing coach. He trained world champions like Jose Torres and Floyd Patterson and now he's got this young pupil. This is his last hurrah and the greatest shot he's ever had having a real all-time great.

I mean, this guy's an all-time great and he's 13. Wow, yeah. He's a 13-year-old 190-pound kid. Like what in the fuck? And he's got this kid and he's hypnotizing them and he's telling them you're the greatest and he's getting it into his head. So from the time he was really young he was

learning mental preparation he was learning how to put himself into a mindset of just an unstoppable juggernaut that had one goal one task and cuss would tell him you don't exist only the task exists like you don't exist. What you have to do exists. That's what you are. Wow that's powerful. I'll write that down. Yeah so the question is how much does that guy have left? You know conventional wisdom would say this is a terrible fight. Conventional wisdom would say there's a 28 year old with knockout power just knocked out Mike Perry. He's real fast, he's young, he's fucking athletic, he's bold as shit. He's a good boxer.

He's a very good boxer. People don't want to give him his credit because he's a YouTuber and all that shit. Anybody who knocks out Tyron Woodley with one punch can fucking crack. Anybody that can move the way that dude moves and have a fight with Tommy Fury, who's a world class boxer, and he lost that fight, but it was a very good fight. He's a good fighter, a real good fighter. And he's actually training, like he's getting better. People are just like sleeping on him just cause,

like you said, he's a YouTuber. But I'm like, he just beat Mike Perry, who was killing it in the bare knuckle boxing. He was like on top, but I don't wanna give credit. It would've been interesting to see him fight Mike Perry bare knuckle boxing. He was like on top, but I don't want to give credit. It would have been interesting to see him fight Mike Perry bare knuckle though. Aw, that changes everything. That changes everything.

Mike Perry is the best at that shit. That's a different, it's interesting how that's a different sport, because it really is a different sport. It's a whole different thing when your hands aren't covered and you feel those bones piercing your skin. It's a mindset too. Yeah. It's like. He's a 100% human pit bull. That's a mindset too. Yeah. It's like he's a 100%

human pitbull. That's a 100% human pitbull. That guy has no quit him, no quit. You know, he fucking throws caution to the wind at every possible occasion. You can hit him, he's gonna hit you back. He knows how to take punishment. He likes it. He likes getting hit. He broke uh, Rocco. Yeah, I was like broke Luke Rocko's teeth. He's a bigger too. Yeah. Yeah. Well imagine. Okay How about him and MVP? Okay him and MVP with the gloves on an MMA fight you favor MVP, right? Well, I favorite MVP MVP is super hard to hit He's got crazy distance management those kicks and that distance and the long

length. But he decided to take a challenge and fight Mike Perry bare knuckle because he thought, look, I can move better than anybody. I am the most elite mover in all of MMA and I'm going to fight this flat footed meathead psychopath. And that flat footed meathead psychopath just walked him down. And dropped a couple of times in there. Yeah, man crazy crazy. It changes every changes everything And just a scarring I like your knuckles and your face is after that Yeah, your face is getting sliced up open, but they're starting to pay these guys when you see guys like Eddie Alvarez And Chad men is go over there. You're like, yeah

McGregor like owner part of it now, too Yeah, but McGregor's grimy though after Mike Perry lost and he said yeah, I've got it I don't know. Hey bro, who just tweeted? I wonder if this guy tweeted for himself. He's treating for fun Apparently Mike Perry has a piece of bear knuckle too. Oh, does he? Yeah, I think that's what he said He's like I'm one of the owners to motherfucker. He's the face of it Yeah, there's not like I wouldn't even be watching it if my period was not there. I think regular boxing is just very different. It's very different. What you can get away with. You know, the fact that you can't really clinch and punch the way those guys do.

In bare-knuckle boxing, those guys are getting grimy. There's a lot of dirty boxing in there. It's just so different when those bare-knuckles touch you. It's just so different. You can't guard as much. Your still stuff's getting through. Yeah. You don't have the big cushions in front of you. Those big cushions mean a lot, man. Yeah.

They stop a lot of shit. It's wild. The difference is even when we're sparring with big gloves or sparring with smaller gloves that we have, it's like it changes everything. Changes everything. Yeah. And then even no padding on your knuckles,

like you don't even want to throw is hard, right? Yeah, right and your wrist will break easily so you have to punch a specific way I think they both they all have like a different format of you know way they punch they just hold their wrists in a Different way like this or something like that. Yeah, I'm old-timey boxing guys Yeah, they all were holding their funds their punches like this. Yes, bare knuckle guys. They all fought like this they jabbed each other like this. They were just trying to only hit with these two knuckles Yeah, when we were younger we would do that like we're gonna punch somebody in the like the knee or something like that We put that knuckle out there Stupid it was but I mean you could use that bare knuckle. We could definitely use an eyeball

Yeah, if you punch something like that on purpose to the eyeball like that's that's real I want is there has there been high pokes in a lot of I pokes in there fighting. That's a good question. I Remember any yeah, it's like I haven't really even thought about that But I don't think feel like there has I think in MMA a lot of them come from this a lot of you come from That distance management. Yeah, and I think that's Whoo, I think one point every time. Poke someone's eye one point and no one will ever do that again. Everybody will keep their hands closed. Yeah. You poke someone with the fingers one time, one

point. It should be trained. Like even at our practices, if somebody's putting their fingers out, I tell them like, yo, close your fist. Yeah. That should be like a natural, it shouldn't be even thought. It shouldn't even be a habit. Well it's just such a natural instinct to try to push a guy away from you. Yeah. And if a guy's coming at you and you're trying to push him away, those fingers go right in there, man. You see the Weidman fight? Oh my god, yeah. Oh my god. Oh my god. And that's one of those too where you're like... Same thing. Bro. Right. But then I'm like annoyed by Weidman because I'm like, bro, you did poke him in the eye, but he's saying like, oh, he

shouldn't have felt like that. I'm like, bro, when you did poke him in the eye, but he's saying like I shouldn't have felt like that I'm like bro when you get poked an eye that bad Yeah, that was a referee's problem. Yeah, the referee should stop that just stop that on that last I poke for sure, but maybe he didn't see it. Maybe wasn't in position to see it. Yeah, it's just it's hard I mean, I understand how hard it is for a ref even with stopping fights We were looking at somebody who's this weekendchart, where he was getting beat up and then all of a sudden he caught up with a submission. After that, you're like, some refs would have stopped

the fight in that round. So it's like, the good refs that give you a longer leash and then the shorter refs that Dominic Cruz you and Dominic Cruz you hate you for the rest of your life because you stopped the fight too early. Who did Jared Cannonier get stopped by? Who was his, Jared, not the last fight, but the fight before that, it was a bad stoppage.

Imobov. Imobov. Yes, that's right. Not Sadanimobov. And that was another one of those situations, the same kind of situation, where you're like, that's not a stoppage. He's standing up, he's up.

Yeah. The last one, he got hurt harder by Boholio. When he got dropped, that looked worse than the fight where he got stopped obviously and if you beat it mob off Yes, you end up your entitle could touch it again because he was on the streets But now you're on a two-fight losing streak. Yeah, and he's 40 a rough stopped it. Yeah. Yeah It's crazy how those little moments in a fight can change the entire career of a fighter You never know like at any moment something screwy can happen, you know? So is this it? So here it is. Imovov is hitting him with

some good shots for sure. Jared's definitely getting hit, but he's firing back and the referee stops it. And he's like, what the fuck are you doing? And Herzog is a good ref. He's a very good ref and he faced some serious criticism after that fight and I think you know he made a mistake. You know he was probably trying to save Jared from further punishment, he thought it was over but Jared was like I got a lot left, I was not as badly hurt as you thought. The thing is the problem is when a guy is teeing off on you, even if you're not getting hurt it looks bad.

Even if you're moving away and covering up and you're getting out of the range, you're stumbling around, it looks bad. But you could still come back and you gotta give the guy the opportunity to still come back. You gotta know, you don't let him take shots when he's out, but you gotta give him the opportunity

to be able to come back. And when a guy's standing and still throwing back, you gotta give him a chance, because fights are fights things change yes he might have got burned out from that because he emptied the gas tank we've seen that happen many times and there's some fighters that just like look bad and they make it look just cuz they're there the body movement's weird right you look I mean Driskes always looks like he's dead tired and dead in there and all of a sudden he comes back and wins a fight but there's just guys that just don't have that that good look all the

time even when taking punches. Everybody's baffled by Drikus. Oh my god. Like what is going on? How's he beating everybody? Like what is going on? Like it's wild. He's a bulldog. That dude, I was stunned. I was stunned by the Adesanya fight. I was stunned. Me? Because Adesanya was looking good. He's looking good. Yeah. But Drik was looking good too, you know and Drikus was landing a lot of leg kicks He's got that real sneaky left high kick too that that left high kick comes out of nowhere It's just awkward. He's just like so awkwardly awkward and but game. Yeah, so game He has so much heart like even when he started taking those bad shots when he was shooting he was on his knees I thought oh he's about to break.

And then all of a sudden you see him still have a lot left in the tank. He's a tank. He is a tank. He marches forward man. And the way he capitalized, he hurt Izzy with a couple good punches, one good left hook, he hurt Lizzy and Izzy moved away and then they got into another exchange, he hit him with those two right hands from the clinch and then got his back And once he got his back, it was like that. Yeah, it was quick

He went right to the choke right to the choke and cinched it up I mean between the time or he hit Izzy to the time where Izzy was tapping was just a few seconds Yeah for me I thought Izzy like look like yeah a lot tired faster than he normally does and I was like he looked like he put a Lot more muscle on yeah, so that could have been a key in it where it's his body wasn't used to move in like that Maybe with the extra muscle, but I was like bro. He's moving a lot slower than usual in this third round I always wonder and I was wanting to talk to him about this is if he was ever Considered doing like one of those Marlboro bitch type camps so marlboro bitch they had this

Philosophy that the most important thing was your gas tank. You already know how to fight. You already know how to fight. All you're getting better has already been done. And in the six weeks or eight weeks, whatever your camp is, you should be only concentrating on cardio. And they would do these explosive plyometric things.

BJ hated it. He hated it. But if you look at his gas tank from those fights It was unstoppable and when a fighter's not tired and the other fighter is tired and you realize all that work has paid off And you start putting it on them and you got this Unlimited gas tank and you also haven't been beat up in training For six to eight weeks because you really not sparring you really not doing much of anything other than your cardio They're just doing plyometrics. It's all just jumping around and shit.

Have you ever seen Marv Marinovich? See if you can find Marv Marinovich trains BJ Penn. They had BJ doing all kinds of wild shit. That's all they would do, man. Wow. That's all they would do. Nick Curzon came on the podcast and he was a protege of those guys and that's his philosophy as well.

He was telling me that it's really an elite fighter that's fighting in a world championship fight. They already know how to fight. You just got to give them the unstoppable gas tank. And if you concentrate only on that, it's the most important thing. Because when a fighter gets tired, like when Izzy got tired in that fourth round with Drikus, you could see he's not the same Izzy in the first round. That's like lightning fast and moving and countering and controlling distance and getting out of the range of shots This is an Izzy that's experiencing fatigue. Yeah, but he already knows how to fight Like the fighting is in his DNA at this point. He knows how to fuck people up Yeah, and if he had like here's here's BJ training with the Marinovich's so it's all these plyometrics even with the arms

Here's BJ training with the Marinovich's so it's all these plyometrics even with the arms It's all this explosive shit. Everything is done for time and distance and they they measure everything And he just breaks guys down Physically to the point where when they get into that octagon, they just have the craziest fucking gas tank of all time It's an interesting philosophy. Yeah my mindset going around Eli Alex put out a spots Israel Adesanya injury draws partial confession from stylebender he said this guy knows me so dizzy was injured he said he was noticing he wasn't throwing kicks like he might have been injured and then Izzy was like it's almost like this guy knows me or something hmm so

he's sort of admitting to being injured but not well they clash ends a bunch of times I mean it could have happened in the fight, but the problem is he was still tired. Yeah, he's still tired I mean, I'm sure he was injured. Yeah, crazy fight you get injured in general camps you get so injured in camps Yeah, like the hardest thing like even if a fight's quick people don't realize that I just had an AV camp of non-stop training You get more injuries in training camp than you do in the fight. What is the worst injury you ever went into a fight with? It's funny, I was in Australia and I was fighting two beans.

And then me and my coach were in the back warming up. And then we ended up going knee to knee in the back during the warm up. And I could have put my knee down to the ground after that. And it was before the fight. So I was like, what the heck? I thought we just clasped knee, so it was sore. So even in the fight, it just felt weird.

So then after the fight, we went, and I still could have put my knee down to the floor for two or three weeks. And then I ended up tearing my, it was a torn meniscus. Oh wow. Yeah, but like- Right before the fight. Right before the fight, we just clasped knee to knee.

And like you said, it's so much random stuff that could happen to you. Because I like to spar in the back before the fight. Right before the fight, we just like clashed knee to knee. And it's, like you said, it's so much random stuff that could happen to you. Because I like to spar in the back before my fights. I like to feel it. So I'll have them put the shin guards on, I had Garrett, I'm throwing a lot harder than him. But I want to feel that so I can feel the distance. So I want to go out to the fight

like it's my third or fourth round. Because I usually start slow when I'm at practice, but in the fight I want it to be going going right away and I have like cardio for it So like I want to feel like it's the third round already when I go out there Well, they always say that you should do that Anyway, like really elevate your heart rate and then cool down and then compete. Yeah, some guys like to hit mitts But for me, I like to spar so I have my training partner come down there with me and then you got to have a controlled Guy, it's not gonna hurt you. But yeah, we just go in the back. We throw yeah. Yeah, we're throwing

So they're big gloves on and like I get to the point where I hit me cuz I want to feel it We're giving in this fight with Leon He threw like 50 kicks kicks at me hard at the back Wow, I wanted to go out there like all right my arms feel it my legs feel it, right? And my body's already gonna adjust to it. Yeah's so risky. It's risky, but I'm about to go in a fight anyway. Once you get that adrenaline, you don't really feel nothing. And I'll feel it afterward, but the biggest risk is just the headbutter catching your blood or something like that.

That's why I make him wear a headgear. Like I said, you have to have the perfect training partner for it right where he's gonna throw the right stuff at you there for you yeah yeah he's not gonna it's not really sparring he's there for you yeah if I tell you I hit me right you're hard he'll hit me here hard it's not like we're not gonna just sit there and bang in the back right yeah wow who else does it that way I don't know we like for us we caught ourselves doing it like I feel like I'm one of the first guys to start doing it That I know and then I'll start telling my other teammates when I go corner them like let's do the same thing and they'll like it

Too but yeah, there's not a lot of guys that just I know a lot of guys I just like hitting mitts and then you go out there and then you start a lot slower But for me, I'm like, but we're going to fight like I don't need to hit this right now I'd rather feel you throwing punches at me so I catch distance yeah so I look at the punches coming at me and then I know where I'm backing up where I'm not backing up you're already loose for real loose yeah because even when I spar I'm sparring like five or six rounds regardless so I know I could go five rounds easy in the cage especially with that extra

adrenaline right so like if I do those extra two rounds in the back it's not gonna affect me. And you're going into the fight completely warmed up. Yeah. Psychologically too. Yeah. Like you're much closer psychologically to a fight than just hitting mitts and then all sudden someone's throwing back. Yeah the mindset is the hardest thing right to get locked in because when I first started fighting I was like I'm another guy I don't like the curse but then I was like I was telling myself because when I first started fighting, I was like, I'm another guy, I don't like to curse. But then I was like, I was telling myself, I gotta listen to rap music, I gotta curse. As I'm in the back, and I'm like trying to hit myself

to hype myself up, but, because I feel like I'm too calm. But my coach is like, bro, that's a good thing. Like you being calm is good for you. You don't have to sit there and be something you're not. So then I was like, all right, well let's stay calm, but then let's start adding and sparring. So then I feel that. So I'll just get it through that. So it was your idea? right, well, let's stay calm, but then let's start adding in sparring. So then I feel that.

So I'll just get it through that. So it was your idea? Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah, because you try different things at practices and I'd be like, all right, when did I feel good at sparring? I'll take notes of everything. I felt good on this sparring day

and I did this type of drilling beforehand. And where I did this type of warmup beforehand. Cause my coach, he's like, he tries to mimic the fight with everything. So he'll tell us, all, I warm up on your own. Do your own thing, then we're going to get your five spine rounds in the cage. So for me, I'm trying to adjust and make my style. This helped me better today.

What did I eat today? Let me write that down. This is when I felt the best. I had the most energy doing this. I had the most energy eating this. So now I got it down to a system that I like more than anything. What is the food you take before you train? Before I train?

Yeah, what's the stuff that makes you feel the best? White rice. Usually my guy would make me like white rice, eggs, and turkey bacon. So it's protein with good carbs. Not heavy. Yeah, stuff that I digest fast. Right. Yeah, like I said before, I would just think I have to starve myself. And then he came and he was like, oh, like, what are you doing? Like, you're not going to have good

practices with this way. But my mind said, I don't really care because I was just like, I know how to push myself no matter what. Yeah. Well, having you've gone through camps with Ramadan and that's where it gets and you, we should tell people there's ways to kind of make that a little easier on yourself where you sleep during the day and then you get up and then at nighttime once you can eat and drink then you do that, but you don't do that. Yeah, I've had multiple times, multiple camps during it where I would still stick to my normal schedule of training where I'll train at 10.30 a.m. and I can't eat or drink in the morning.

So I wake up at 5 a.m. and I can't eat or drink in the morning. So I wake up at 5 a.m. for a morning prayer. You get your last sip of water before the sunrise is and then I'll have like a protein shake, dates or something like that that'll give me some energy for the morning. And then at 10 a.m. I have my morning practice and then I have another practice. And you can't drink water in between rounds? Nothing. No. After the first training with no water. No water or food. Yeah. So after like the first three or four days, your body just adjusts.

It feels good, honestly, because it makes you feel like mentally you're in a different place. Like spiritually, you're in a different place in general, because it's Ramadan. And that's where like for any Muslim, that's like the best time. Because you're not stressing out about other things. And you know that you're doing it for God.

And you know, God's gonna give you the strength to push through no matter what. So for myself, for the reasons I'm doing it, I know I could push through. And I know that whoever I'm training for is not doing what I'm doing. So I could push myself harder than them when it gets into the cage, when I can't drink,

when I can't eat. So I think mentally it just puts me in a different place. But for fight camps, like after it's time to break my fast when it's suns and sunsets. That's when I have to be the smartest That's where I got to put the carbs in a lot of protein in and then I got to make sure I'm getting my electrolytes my salts and Just getting all the fluids back in like I just finished cutting weight, right? If I don't do it the right way then the next morning, I'll be screwed right cuz I'll feel super drained. That's interesting. So you got to treat it like you're cutting weight almost Yeah, so like every night I'm treating I like a wake

I have my shakes have my protein that I'm getting it right way And I try to hit a certain at least a gallon and a half of water before bedtime. Mmm. Yeah, okay Yeah, so that it carries you on at least a little bit in the morning Yeah, and like I said after first your body honestly just figures it out Like but you would you wouldn't want to defend the title that way. No, no Like I've before I was trying to chase everything right I was trying to chase that the next ranked guy I was trying to chase this and I felt like I couldn't say no to anything right Right. Cause I was always looking for these guys to say yes. And I can't waste an opportunity, but now I am the opportunity. Now I am the champion. So now I feel like

it gives me more leeway to be like, no, I want, I want to wait a little bit longer. This one feels, feels better for me. My body's healthy now because it took me so long to get here. So now I don't have to go through a camp during Ramadan for it Well now it's about your legacy. Yeah as a champion. Yeah, yeah and you and Exactly all the things we were talking about before the little thing can change your life little loss here little loss there Fuck all taking those fights on ten days notice. Yeah, do you have see calls you ten days before an event? You just change your number Change your fucking number man Don't let him talk you into it

Come on, you can beat him like I know you work out all the time and you start thinking yeah I do work out all the time. They're like we're gonna offer you X amount of money like oh That is you start spending that money That's the hard part right now is because like Like you said I for me I hate saying no in general, just because I have the fighter mentality,

like I ain't scared, I'll say yes to anything. Like the Gilbert Burns fight, it was three weeks notice, it was during Ramadan and they were like, you win, do it for the fans that just bought their tickets to their first event. And I was like, yeah, I do wanna do it for those fans. I'm not afraid of Gilbert. And Gilbert started chirping on Twitter like,

oh, he's afraid, he doesn't wanna fight. So then I'm like, I do wanna fight, I'm not afraid of you. So then like started chirping on Twitter like oh, he's afraid he's want to fight So then I'm like I do want to fight. I'm not afraid of you So then I'd say yeah, no matter what then it's like I'm thinking to myself, bro. I'm on a nine fight winning streak I'm taking this fight on three each notice. Why did I do this? I'm stupid like if I lose I'm back in the line again I was one fight away now if I lose this fight, I'm done Yeah, yeah changes like your mindset mindset, but fighters are dumb. We just want the glory no matter what. I want to prove, for me, I want to prove everybody wrong. So you have to temper that mindset.

You have to think about the overall big picture. Because what got you to the dance is that mindset. Like anybody, anytime, let's go, who am I fighting? I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. But once you got the title, it's like you gotta keep the dog, but you also gotta be intelligent about what fights you take and when you take them. Yeah.

And no one, don't fight injured. You know, there's so many guys that take fights, I had a broken foot coming into this fight, like what? Yeah, afterward, right? Yeah, what? And those are the guys that like for me as a fighter if I lose I lost that's it. I hate guys who come up with a million excuses afterward right because then like for the guy that won it's like people are not going to give him credit for

that win right and then for me it's like when I lost my fight I was like all right I got to change this I lost that's it Like that was always my mindset. Don't give excuses. If we're going into a fight injured, we accepted it injured. That's it. That's it. Put it out of your head because if you go in there overthinking about it, like, Oh, I got an injured ankle or I got an injured rib.

I know I should never took this fight in between rounds. You never want to second guess yourself in the fight. And for me, I just try to clear my head of anything. Once we said, yes, our names on the contract that's it we're all in so who do you think is next there's talk of Shavkat and there's talk of Kamaru Usman right those the ones that I hear yeah mostly I think like you said for legacy wise Usman is obviously the bigger name and he was the guy that Dana said it was the the best welterweight behind GSP or in front of GSP but for boogieman wise and to like shut up the naysayers I

think it's Shavkat because he is undefeated he is the guy that everybody thinks is this killer yeah and then for myself it's like either one of them does a lot for me Usman obviously you'll probably pay bigger pay-per-view numbers and then beating him my resume is up there with GSP because then I have one of them does a lot for me. Usman, obviously he'll probably be bigger pay-per-view numbers and then beating him, my resume is up there with GSP because then I have Usman on my resume, Leon, Maya, Wonderboy, like all these big name guys, Gilbert Burns, Brady and it's like, look at that resume, it's neck and neck with his. But Shotka is also that, this young guy is going to come out here and beat you.

Right after being Leon, everybody's comments, oh Shotka, you can't do the Shotka though. Shotka will kill you. And my chip on my shoulder is like, alright let's go, I'm gonna prove you guys wrong. Now I'm gonna show you guys what I can do. Because for me, like you said with BJ Penn, where it was like the strength conditioning

was his whole camp that one. For us, we strategize everything. My coach is so good at breaking down stuff We're so good at breaking down fighters that I have a game plan for everybody and a strategy for every single one of these fighters And I already have a strategy for for shop got I already have a strategy for for us about because I was chasing I'm so long and I've been watching tape on these guys for so long so I don't see anything from either one of them to where I'm looking at like I'm afraid of this guy because of this I'm afraid of this guy because of that

I think who smiles are tougher fights in shop got if I'm being honest, but I do see many ways where I could beat them both because I've There's a lot of guys in the division that have to fight a certain way They're specialists where they're either grapplers or strikers. I I can strike with you. I could grab with you. I could. I can strike with you, I can grapple with you, I could wrestle with you, I can move laterally, I can move forward. Every time you see me in the cage, it's something different. And I think that that comes from my team

and the strategy that we bring to fighting. We look at it like a real sport instead of, I'm in shape, let's go fight. We look at it like, what's this guy's weakest point? Oh, Leon can't move backwards, let's move him backwards. Gilbert Burns, he can't take you down. He's gonna he's gonna gas out Let's he's not gonna take me down. Let's let's beat him up on the field a little bit Brady He's only good on the ground. All right, let's strike with him

It's like I look at guys and I look at fights in a different way than a lot of these other fighters where some of these Guys, let's go under I see red. I don't care what happens. Yeah, I think for legacy Ousmanman's an important name, also because Usman probably won't be fighting that much longer. You know, he's kind of at the end of his career, and I feel like the UFC owes him a little bit something for the Hamza fight, takes Hamza on short notice. That was like 11 days notice too, right? Yeah, in Abu Dhabi. That's crazy. Yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy, that's crazy.

That was close. Very close and he was winning the third round. What I was gonna say earlier about Olivera and Saryukian, like that's another fight where I felt like that is a five round fight. That should be a five round fight. And Charles almost caught him a couple times in that fight. I'm like, that's a wild close fight

between two top of the Fuji and guys. It seems wrong to have that fight. I'm like that's a wild close fight between two top of the food Jane guys It seems wrong to have that fight three rounds, especially for number one contender status. Yeah, it It's like especially Charles who's been in there for so long, right was the champion and he's like a different type of champion, right? He comes balls to the wall no matter what so he was five rounds You're not expecting it to go five rounds, but in general I felt like it should have been there and he almost caught him a couple of times Yeah, he got real close a couple of times and Charles is I think he's the most successful finisher with submissions in the history of the Sport yeah, and now he's to fight losing streak himself Yeah, but the last one was so fucking close and it's against our uke in who's the top of the food chain Yeah, I've got 155 pound division woof

It's what happens if Islam decides to go to 170 And it's against our uke and who's the top of the food chain. Yeah, I got 155 pound division. Whoo it's What happens if Islam decides to go to 170? I? mean for me, I would never fight Islam, but I Mean if I get how do you do that though? So what if you you're gonna okay? Yeah, let's assume you beat us man Let's assume you beat shop got I'll come on Aldroskis. Is that what you do? You go to 85? Really?

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I feel if there's anybody that can and be willing, who deserves it, it would be me because I had to fight five time five guys to get to where I am now. So I think at least two more than I can start talking about one middleweight. So that's what you would do? Yeah. As long as you go to 70 and you go to 85. Yeah for sure Wow, would you pack on size to go to 85?

yeah, I mean I would put on muscle but like in general I've trained with a lot of 85ers and I think I have good size for 85. Well, Drakens is talking about going up to 205 And fight Alex. Yeah, which is crazy And maybe he vacates the middleweight title or maybe you know Who knows maybe goes double champ status, but I feel like there's so many guys at 85 for him still to fight Oh, yeah, he's fought Izzy. He's fought us trickling Whitaker Yeah, you know Whitaker but now you still got the young guns, right? Brendan Allen who's a dog him against a mob off the winner

I feel like should be there hams that still there.'s still there that people aren't even really talking about anymore. If Hamzat wants to fight and you know I think Hamzat's at 70s the scariest Hamzat. But that's that weight cut's crazy for him though. Is it? What's he walk around at? I've seen him out and he looks like over like two 15s he's like that uh Michael Morales he just fought he just beat Neil Magni, he came to train with us, I brought him in for Leon fight and he was like, I was like, bro, you're huge. He's like, no, yeah, I'm like 190.

And then my coach put him on a scale, he's like 218. I was like, bro, I was like, bro, what do you mean? What are you talking about? He's like, oh no, I just had a bad breakfast. And then I was like, bro. What did you eat? You are you talking about? He's like, oh no, I just had a bad breakfast. But I was like, bro. What did you eat? You ate a whole ostrich? What the fuck did you eat?

But he's so, he's young and he's huge. And I'm like, this is not gonna last long, bro. You can't cut this much weight. No, he's big. He's good too. He's a dog. He's good. He's real good.

Just training with him, he was like another one of those guys we brought in and it was like, he was a perfect training partner where he didn't have have ego where I'm finding somebody my weight class. He's undefeated He'd come in and say oh he's fighting for the bottle. He'll crazy with them. No, he was such a good kid Yeah, he fought trained really well with us and it seemed got there and finished Neil Magne who he thinks like The perfect gatekeeper for any like up-and-comer right? Yeah, he's that test where you go past them. It's like you're real Yeah, yeah, that's the real deal and he looked great in that fight. Yeah, he's a real contender. There's so many real contenders Yeah, and your division is just so filled

Yeah, people forget man. It's like even Gary JDM like all these guys people forget about Jeff Neil You know, yeah, Jeff Neil's a fucking killer. He's going against RDA now. Yeah, that's funny That's funny. That's a wild fight. Yeah, I want to RDA was another guy trained with Nick curse on Oh, yeah, yeah, he was using that sort of that when RDA was in his prime Yeah, I mean that uh him in his cardio days where he could just go non-stop punching striking wrestling That's what we're talking about though. That's what it was Wow. He was doing that same kind of workout with Nick curse on That's why does're talking about though. That's what it was. Wow. He was doing that same kind of workout with Nick Curzon. That's wild. Does he still train people? Curzon? I'd have to reach out. I bet he still does. I know he was training a bunch of other athletes in a bunch of

different sports as well, you know, but his whole thing is plyometrics and foot strength and your ability to move and continue to move. It's interesting because I see both ways. I see like, look, Sean Strickland is the craziest fucking cardio of anybody, right? Because all that guy does is spar. He's fighting every day. He spars more than anybody in the UFC and he gets hit less. That's nuts. That's nuts. So his cardio is from his being completely comfortable with fighting all the time. And I'm sure he does other things too, but most of which, if you talk to Nick Sick and all those guys that train with him, most of the stuff what he does is spar.

He just loves sparring. He loves getting in there and sparring. And he spars stupidly. Stupidly? Yeah. Stupidly. There's guys that'll like spar light and spar for like distance and managing and stuff. And there's guys that like- Going to war like Just want to throw it on I'm like yeah

It's these guys like but he doesn't get hit much the reason why he's so good at that first of all that style So weird stands straight up Has the filly shell and throws punches in weird angles and he's just peppering you peppering you peppering you keeping them on you keep Teep to the body front kick to the body peppering you keep it on you It's a weird style man. Yeah, it's a weird style It's like agitating especially if you're a guy like at a sign you who wants that distance and wants it to look pretty Mm-hmm to have somebody who's like striking look so ugly just in front of you just non-stop. Yeah, we're like against What's his bocce? Yeah, where he just threw like 55. Yeah, Adam every round

Yeah, I was shocked at that fight, but that was a good example of how hard he is to hit He's fucking hard me because I think you know for some reason I Don't know what happened, but I think That I Think some fighters they just have like when he... when Stylebender beat Bohemia, like he was kind of a different guy after that fight, you know?

There's some guys that they have a fight, and for whatever reason, they never are the same guy again. And it's not even a bad beating. It might be like a psychological thing Yeah, I think it's the undefeated thing. He was undefeated in that fight Yeah, then you get your first loss and you like you don't have that same mindset anymore. Mm-hmm Because you were killing everybody then all of a sudden you lose and you lose by finish. You're like, yeah Was I not as good as I thought I was? You get dry humped. Yeah

Is he triumped? Is he has the best celebrations? Was I not as good as I thought I was? And you get dry humped. Yeah. When Izzy dry humped him. Izzy has the best celebrations, like, after any fight. The fight with Pahara, when he knocks Pahara out and he shoots the three arrows into him, that's the greatest. To be, like, thinking about that beforehand is just wild. And then to, like, put it out there, it was so beautiful. I don't think he said he did think about that. I think he just did that in the moment.

In the moment? Yeah. Yeah, that's wild. Well, you know, because Alex always shoots arrows at you in the beginning. I don't think there's a better, there can't be a better celebration of that one. No, it's the best. Nothing's going to come close. And then the speech afterwards makes it even better. Yeah. You know, the speech was incredible. That was really good. Yeah.

Do you think we ever see the third one? Who knows, man? I don't know if Izzy wants to fight that dude again. I don't think he wants to fight him at 205. I think 205 you don't get a drain. Alex Paheta you get a destroyer. Yeah. What he just did to Prochaska, everybody's got to be nervous. All he has to do is one shot. Just touch you once. And I think at 185 he doesn't take a shot as well either. Yeah. I think that draining of your body and you know your brain dehydrates the whole deal. Yeah. And Drikka said if you fight him again he doesn't want any excuses so he doesn't want Alex to come down 85 he wants to go up to 205. Yeah but if you're fighting him like if your first move is not shooting a single

leg I don't know what like what kind of coaching you have. Right. Because that should be your first goal at least in the first round try to grapple him. Something. Yeah. You gotta do something. you never want I never want to sit there and go toe-to-toe with him it's just too dangerous it's weird it's like some guys just have weird power yeah it's weird it's like it's different than everybody else's by a magnitude so a large gap between his power and everybody else's and with everything with kicks with punches anything hits you that scissor knee that hit Michael anus with oh, yeah And if you feel like he's always sparring to himself, he's always like posting videos of sparring with like the normal classes Yeah, it's not like he's even have like crazy training partners. No, he spars light. He'll spar like even sparred light with Strickland

It's the only time it spars light Strickland goes in there spars with him. He's like, let's just touch each other Yeah, I don't want even want to feel it with big gloves on yeah fuck all that yeah And he's talking about going to heavyweight, which is even crazier him against Aspen. I'll be wild though wild But you got to think Aspen all can take him down But what is ego one of them take him out or like I let me show you I can strike with you I think Aspen all the moment he realized if he can hit him on his feet he'll try but if he can't yeah the takedowns always there so that's and he's so much bigger I mean

Aspinall's a solid 255 and I think he's a black belt as well yeah yeah wicked on the ground and he's had nothing but success other than that one time where he fought Curtis and his knee blew apart but that you know that's just a freak accident. Yeah it's crazy right like I can tell people so many random things could happen in a fight yeah that could happen and then you look at guys that are undefeated for so long and you don't respect how hard it is to get there. Mm-hmm yeah it's a crazy sport man it really is and for you what a journey to be 23 years old and step into a gym for funsies, learn a little martial arts. What the hell next thing you know, you're the champion

of the world. It's wild, man. Yeah, it's, it's, it's a blessing, right? Like just thinking about the whole journey, man, like spiritually, it puts you into a different mindset too because you just thank God for everything no matter what. And for myself thinking of what like I said I was going to school to try to be a lawyer and I always tell my mom yeah I'll quit when I lose and it's like now I could have went from that to being able to do something like this every single day and being able to train every day. That kind of a fight, a world title fight, your first world title fight at five in the morning in another country. Bananas.

Yeah. Just a crazy accomplishment. Enemy territory. Enemy territory. People die here. The tired, tired enemy. Yeah. Sleeping.

It's like, ugh. But it's wild, because the fans out there were crazy. There were still so many fans. We ended up having a parade the that same night because we got out of the fight it was like a 7 a.m. And then We had people out there that set up like a parade for us. Oh wow Manchester. Oh, yeah, and the streets were like Crazy packed it was it was full Wow. Yeah, you just stayed up It was yeah, cuz it was like 7 a.m. I'm like, went back to the house and you know,

everybody wants to come see you now. So we're just chilling. And then all of a sudden it gets to like noon and you take your try to say, everybody's taking a power nap now. Cause we were off from the night before at midnight. So it came up to like two, three o'clock and then everybody started falling asleep. So for myself, I'm still wide awake. I mean, we watched the fight. And then they were like, let's go eat some food. And they like surprised me with like a huge parade and like one of their busiest

streets in Manchester. And they said like, they said the streets got like shut down, but they have like a huge Muslim population over there in a England area. So like a lot of the, even before the fight, I was getting a lot of messages from people like you're not in enemy territory. This is your home. And we were blessed out there. Cause people took care of us the whole time. My team had food, everything, every single day. Like even the gym, when I was first looking for myself,

a lot of the gyms I was messing out there were like, no, you can't. You're fighting Leon, we can't open the doors for you. Right. Yeah, but then we met some guys that like opened up their gym for us. And there were like lawyers driving us around at 4 a.m. They had other jobs, but they were driving us around, lawyers driving us around at 4 a.m. They had other jobs, but they were driving us around,

staying up with us at 4 a.m. and then having to go to work at 9 a.m. Wow. Yeah. Well, they're probably excited to be a part of it. Yeah, and that's what a lot of them said. They're like, we're just happy to be here. We don't want nothing from you.

That's great. That's beautiful. Yeah, it was such a cool thing. That's amazing. And you meet new friends, new people. And it was for my team, for my family, like to have that journey all of us together. My dad went, my mom didn't go. What did it feel like when they put that belt around your waist? It was wild because like I tried to think back to it and for me at first it was like I

told you so like I told you I could beat Leon. Like that was my mindset the whole time. I didn't want to think about the belt. It was more so to be like, I beat Leon. You guys thought I was going to lose to him. Every single, I had to live with it for three years of everybody telling me I'm going to lose to this guy. He was, he would have beat you the last four rounds. He would have killed you. And for myself, for that, it was just just like I told you I could do it I told you I was better than him and his coach and his team were all talking trash to me before the fight so just to like rub it in their face but then for

me to have like to be able to wear the title right and to like be able to carry my flag with the title and to show people what's possible because I mean obviously you know what's going on right now in the world for Palestine for them to have a champion right now to for them to have a win from that fight that meant more than anything because I was getting so many messages from them the we had people in in Gaza that were watching video of it and it was kids at a refugee camp they're watching videos of the fight and it was such an amazing thing. Yeah There's you and then even for my coach right there, Mike Valley. He's a small gym. He doesn't talk big right and

For for me to stick with them and for us to do it together from the start Uh Now he has another world champion. We're literally a tiny gym in in there and he does so much for a lot of his fighters He brings a lot of guys in from chile Chile, Mexico, and he puts them in like apartments, doesn't charge them rent, just like helps them grow from their start. You just have to work hard. That's amazing, man. Yeah.

So yeah, a lot of it just comes back down for my people in general. Me it was just to prove everybody that I could beat them. I could beat Leon. I told you so. But now we got a real title and just attention. So for me, it's like using that now. You're calling the shots. Congratulations, brother. Thank you, my brother. Very impressive. Amazing. It's a blessing, man. I'm blessed to be here to talk to you. I'm blessed to be able to like, people now to know my story hear my story and

in general if I get to have conversation like this and Carry this belt around people will look at me and look at themselves with the dream. Hey that that's the parade. Yeah It was that what a picture Goddamn, what a great picture. Yeah pictures incredible God damn what a great picture. That picture's incredible. That looks like a fake picture. That's like AI. It's so perfect.

They literally had smoke and everything. It was wild. That's amazing. Yeah, I was so surprised by the whole thing. That's amazing. Well, I can't wait to see you fight again, man. I can't wait to see you defend your title, whoever it's going to be. I hope I'm there. I can't wait to see it. My brother, I appreciate it.

Hopefully it's in the US so you can come and commentate it. Yeah, hopefully. All right, well congratulations. Thank you, brother. Bye, everybody.