The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #172 with Gable Steveson

Episode Date: January 1, 2026

Joe sits down with Gable Steveson, a mixed martial artist, wrestler, boxer, and Olympic gold medalist.  www.gablesteveson.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Get a free welcome kit with your first subscription of AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/joerogan Athletic Brewing Co. Non-alcoholic Beer. Fit For All Times. Athletic Brewing Company LLC. Milford, CT and San Diego, CA. Near Beer

Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. All right. What's happening? Pleasure to meet you, man. How are you? Great.

I'm great. When you got a name like Gable and you're named after Dan Gable and you go on to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling. That is kind of, it's crazy. It's kind of prophetic. My mom, when I was young, she was trying to find names for me. and she liked Kail Sanderson because Kail was a guy at the time but she was at a tournament in Iowa

with my older brother and she kept hearing Gable Gable and it was Dan Gable at the time and you know Dan Gable was a huge figure in the Midwest for wrestling and so she was like why don't I name you Gable Dan and the rest was history

which is really crazy because his whole timeline is my timeline which is fantastic except the MMA part that too which I wish you would have done I think he would have been amazing

I think he would have been amazing but it wasn't around I mean when he was wrestling Baranaco, maybe. I don't know, do it on a street or something. He could have found a way. It's kind of fucked that there's no real professional outlet for actual wrestling. It is fucked.

And wrestling needs a real way to go out there and be something big. And I think they have a really good one now with R.A.F. If you haven't heard about it. Yes, I have. It's American freestyle. They're trying. And I think they're trying really well. And I think it's going to come to a point where how do you make matchups continue?

because, you know, wrestling gets to the point where, and fighting in a lot of the sports, you can get to the point where, you know, maybe you draft a guy and fighting, there's a next big thing. There's the next guy out there that you can kind of create. And with wrestling, they're trying to create an atmosphere of how can you create that person.

And I like it, and I think it might work, and hopefully it keeps going the way it needs to go. It would be interesting if it. The problem is MMA is so huge now and people kind of associate wrestling with either MMA or pro wrestling now. Like, those are the two things that they think of. And I think it's one of those things like soccer Where soccer should be huge in America

It's huge all over the world, right? It's a very exciting sport, but nope You know it's crazy how popular soccer players are And I feel like in America we have so many sports That like we can't hit that market for soccer And I think that might be the biggest case why Because if you go overseas, Ronaldo's paid $500 million

And if he scores a goal, he gets a million dollars a goal, dollars a goal or something. So he's out here doing bicycle kicks. But it's, like, we have so many professional sports that LeBron James is our biggest athlete. But even then, I think it's at a point where some people see LeBron and, you know, it's not like the crazy wow factors. If you saw a soccer player in Italy or Spain, it'll be like, man, it's him. Right. Well, they have less sports, though, right? I think so. Italy. I think Italy got like basketball, soccer. Well, they're not really known for basketball though soccer's big boxing there's a lot of boxers come out of italy but other than that rome yeah they got a couple fighters um but other than that i think um

we're kind of at a halt with with creating that that big guy for america well it's just it's just strange to me because it's such a wrestling itself is such an exciting sport it really is very exciting to watch and everybody understands it it's not complicated I think I really think everyone understands it to a certain extent I think um but they could learn they can learn points and all the other stuff have you ever wrestled yeah wrestling in high school how how did you do just one year I was doing taekwondo at the same time because I was doing taekwondo and I couldn't do both of them at the same time mm-hmm and I was pretty good at taekwondo you know what's crazy I think since you done taekwondo maybe I should try if you are such an athlete you'd probably awesome at it

I might be able to pull it off. I don't know if I can get to your level. Well, you would figure it out, man. You'd figure it out. Are you flexible? It depends how. And what are we doing? Well, you would get flexible.

The thing is, like, a guy like you'd figure out how to get flexible. The flexibility thing drives me nuts because I've tried to show stuff to guys before. MMA fighters. And they're like, oh, I'm not flexible. I'm like, what does that mean? What does that mean? This is not like you're not tall. Like, you can get flexible.

Like, you just stretch. we can rewind now, and I could say, I am flexible. I am flexible. Well, you certainly could get flexible. You can. Anyone can get flexible. But it's not, can you get, do you want to get flexible? That's a good question.

Do you want to do something? This is a good question. It's a lot of work to get flexible. And would it compromise anything? You know, some people say it compromises some stability, you know, like to have like completely over-flexible hips and flexible joints that it could possibly compromise some stability that Maybe, but I mean, Yoho Romero is pretty fucking flexible. And he's explosive.

Crazy explosive. Super explosive. Bro, how about that match with Pat Downey? He went out there and made Pat Downey look like a beginner wrestler. And it's crazy because Pat Downey's really good. Really good. Yo-O's 48. I know.

48 shooting blast doubles. Like, he just, like, he's back in 04 Olympics. It doesn't make any sense. He's a freak. He's a real freak, man. And, I mean, he's 48 allegedly. We don't even really know how old he is because he's from Cuba. How old do you think he is for real?

Oh, I don't know, man. 35 at this point? I mean, he's obviously at least 48. But it's just crazy. But you know what the best part about it is? When guys get older and they kind of get a little bigger, they don't look good in a singlet. And this is crazy to say,

but Yoel looks really solid in that singlet. Oh, bro, he looks solid everywhere, man. He's still got a six-pack. Still does. And, you know, now he's doing dirty boxing and he's still fighting M.M.A. He's just, he's a freak. I mean, and we really didn't even get him in MMA until he was past his athletic prime. Yes.

I mean, he really started fighting in the UFC. How old was he when he first fought in the UFC? I want to say he's like 35. I don't know that, but it seemed really late because when he was going through Olympics, he was sound in every position. And like you said, I mean, in a couple interviews back, if he would have started that early, just imagine. Oh, my God.

Just imagine. Yeah. But that's the thing that you have, too, is athleticism. And the thing about MMA is the real freak athletes, they go to football, they go to basketball, they go where all the money is, and they go where all the traditional sports avenues are. And it's just, there's not a lot of freak athletes that wind up making their way to MMA. And when they do, they really shine. You know, and when I first started seeing you competing, you know, first obviously in wrestling,

and, you know, if you can win a gold medal in the Olympics in wrestling, I mean, you have to have everything. You have to have everything. You have to be a freak athlete. You have to be unbelievably dedicated discipline. Nobody gets there easy. No. That is not a, you know, like, oh, he's just gifted. It doesn't exist.

You got to have everything, man. There's got to be a lot of tools. A lot of tools. A lot of tools and a lot of fortitude. The thing about wrestling that I've always said is like, not only is it the best base for MMA, because if a guy can dictate where the fight takes place, that is the most important aspect of fighting, and you can learn everything else. But it's also, it's like the mental toughness that wrestlers have.

The ability to grind out those practices, the conditioning that's involved in wrestling. It's above and beyond, I think, all other sports. Yeah, I think it's a next level thing. And you see in UFC right now the guys that are dominating and winning are kind of putting that wrestling base first, but making it MMA wrestling. You know, I feel like when a lot of guys, a lot of D1 wrestlers come to MMA, they kind of don't make the switch of how to take the right shot and how to finish the right shot and how to use your feet to trip their feet out on the cage. And if you get stuck in a guillotine, how do you move from that spot? And I think you see the guys that are doing the best, the Islam, the Hamzats are really going out there and attacking and making sure that people can understand that, hey, you've got to fear this. And then next, I'm going to come with the hands.

And so I think that's the biggest thing that we're working on now is that I've wrestled my whole life and I've done great things and won the Olympics and multiple national championships. But I think the main thing is going out there and understanding that you are that bad dude. but when you show them hands, now you have to respect both. And I think that's where a lot of this is going to come into play when I finally get to that point of reaching that competition. From Searchlight Pictures comes, Is This Thing On? Directed by Bradley Cooper and starring Canada's own Will Arnette.

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everywhere January 9th. Now, how long have you been striking for? I've been going into a little... So I'm from Minnesota. I'm actually from Portage, Indiana. I moved to Apple Valley, Minnesota, when I was 11 years old. And in college, I met a guy named Billy Simon.

He's from Pryor Lake. He fought nothing too big just on a regional scene in Minnesota. He has a house on Pryor Lake, and he has a place in his basement that is built out for MMA and stuff like that. When I was maybe 21 years old, I started hitting the pads. And mind you, stiff as a board, don't really know what I'm doing. But he's kind of started and guided me along the way. And how old are you now?

I'm 25. So just four years? Just four years, but I think really, really striking seven months. That's so crazy. Like really after it. That's so crazy. Really time consuming, hey, this is what I want to do. I'm not going to wrestle.

I'm doing MMA. I would say seven months. But when you watch your dirty boxing match, I would have never believed that. Except I know what an athlete you are. It's just, it's so crazy how someone who really knows how to use their body can learn other things. Well, I think the main thing also is I'm all ears.

You know, you can't have, you can't go out there and think that you can do something without putting that time and effort. And like we talked about with the Olympics or like you talked about. But I think the main thing is if I can go out, there and be all ears and soak up game from the people that are trying to, trying to show me the way. I think I can do a lot of great things. And that's all I do. I'm all ears. I'm going to show up twice a day. I want to do the best thing that I can. If I got to show up three times a day and I feel like it, I'm going to go do it. It's also to be an elite athlete like yourself. You have to be

coachable. You have to really, like, the guys who like already know things and like, I'm going to do it my way. Like they never get elite. It doesn't work. No. And I think you got to put that guard down. you got to trust somebody and if you don't trust anybody and man I think I can do it alone I think I can kind of wing it I think I can maybe not practice today you got to trust somebody

and you got to put your heart into somebody and I feel like I have a good group of people around me to kind of put that heart into and they're kind of they're not even they're kind of they're leading me in the right direction and man I'm grateful so you were doing a bunch of different things right so you become an elite wrestler

and then for a while you were thinking about playing football so you played football for a short amount of time Buffalo Bills, yeah. Yeah. How long did you play it for? I never played football in my life. Never played.

No, that was the first. Hey, that was the first time to play football, I promise. That's crazy. First time you played football was professional. It was in the NFL. My mom was always scared. The high school coach at the Apple Valley High School in Minnesota were like, hey, can play football. They were trying to call my mom and dad, and I'm like, you're not going to convince her.

She is scared of death of football. But the whole time, I'm wrestling. So where do we break this gap at? Right, right. And I just get done with WWE, and I go out there, and I'm chilling. I get a call saying, hey, you want to try out for the bills? And I tell Sean McDermen and Brandon B, and I said, hey, don't expect much, but I could put on shoes, but I've never had football cleats on. I never had pads on.

I don't even know how to put the tights on anything. And I went out there, and I sprinted my ass off, though, in that trial. I was sprinting down and back and forth. I said, hey, if I don't know any technique for D-Line, you're going to see effort. And McDermott's all effort. And that's all he needed to see, and he gave me a chance. What was that like? Like, jumping into a completely new sport.

Hard, because it's not just football. How old were you when you did that? I just turned 24. Wow. I just turned 24. Ooh. I know you see it. You see that stands?

That's the beginner stands. That's the beginning of stands. But I came out there no gloves, just winging it. And I told them, just give me a good chance. But football is not just football. It's the playbook, and the playbook is crazy because I went from, hey, go out there and wrestle someone one-on-one to see if the guard is light on his feet or see if he's leaning forward, to see if the center is going to silent count maybe, or see if the guard taps

the center to snap the ball. There's a lot of different things that you've got to know. And I'm out there with this big-ass helmet. I've never put a helmet on, Joe, so I'm out there with this big-ass helmet. My head's, like, down and I can't look up. And I don't know what I'm doing, but I knew if I gave effort that someone would give me a chance. And I went out there in my first game, I feel like I think I had a tackle, a QB rush, and I was kind of unheard of at the time because I've never played ball before. But it was crazy, once in a lifetime experience, most definitely.

And when you got cut, did you think about trying somewhere else? Did you think about doing it more? Yeah, once I got cut from Buffalo, I was the last one to get cut from the room. I remember going in to see Bean and McDermott, and they were going to do practice squad. But I knew they were going to do practice squad. So I was like, yo, just send me home. I'll figure it out. I'll try again.

So my plan was to go back to college and Russell already. But I sat around for maybe a month. Baltimore Ravens called me, and Baltimore was like, hey, you want to come to a tryout? I said, okay, you know, I never played football before. Just let you know. Like, if it's a little shaky, I went out there and I dominated the trial. And I had like 10 minutes of work. But it was a great 10 minutes.

And they're like, okay, we're going to take your physicals. You're going to be here and stay. The injury report comes back, and the injury report says, they need a, um, what's the kind of, they need a DN and a linebacker. So you got to compensate for the spot because you need someone to play next week. And I probably needed like six weeks on practice squad to play. And so I get sent home. They said, give me a week.

We'll bring you back. A week comes, don't bring me back. And so I'm like, okay, I see the writing on the wall. Let me move on. I sit for a little bit, Indianapolis Colts call. They just got ran over by a team. They said, we need a run stopper. So I go out there, do the trial.

I think it went well. They said, we're not taking anybody today. And then from there, I was like, uh, you know, maybe, maybe this is not it. And so I went back to Russell. And did you ever think about MMA at that time? Was it in the back of your head? MMA was in the back of my head since the Olympics. But I wanted to make sure that if I was going to go to MMA, that let me try things first

before going all in on something that I need to go all in on. And I did my tryouts. I did my things. And now I want to go in all in on something that is finally here. And when your mom was scared of you doing wrestling, how did she feel about you doing MMA? Oh, you know, she's shitting off her. Oh, my God. She can't even watch.

She didn't even watch me wrestle. And so now I'm like, Mom, I got a dude about to punch me in the face. Maybe if he can get to me. Are you sure you want to come and watch? And she's like, yeah, I'll come watch and she comes and has a good time and has her drinks. And when I step out, I'm like, where were you? Oh, it's in the back. So you didn't even see me funny?

I'm like, why you even come then? So she, out of the three fights I've had, she's sat in the back and she'll be like, John will go and get her and be like, it was done. And she was like, oh, what happened? And John will be like, good, it's all day. So did she get nervous? Is that what it is? Oh, my God, she's sweating.

She's nervous. But I'm just like, I kind of, I'll give her that look of like, if this is one of them ones, I'm going to tell you. But I haven't gave her those looks yet. So, so no. So when you make this, so you decide football's not going to happen, WWE's not going to happen, you did like one televised match with WWW, right? Yeah, what was that like?

Honestly, I had a great, from me being real, and honest, I had a great experience. I have no, no, nothing wrong with anybody there. TKL was great, Triple H, Paul Levec was great, Stephanie, Vince, everybody was great. I just had a competitive drive that I needed to get out. And so, you know, when you have, that gap is there. you can't do both. Right. And I was trying to bridge both, and I wasn't giving my 100% to the business.

And if I'm not going to give 100% to the business, then you might as well X me out because it's already over with. So I just, that's practically how it happens. Yeah, no slight on pro wrestling, but it's just like if you really want to compete, compete. You got to get it all out. Yeah. And so I would love to go back in the future. I would love to do a sport and go out there and dominate and then, hey.

Maybe after the UFC heavyweight champ. For sure. Maybe after a couple times. And so I would love to go. And if it meant well, and I would do it again, most definitely, because I have no hard feelings to them, and that's how it goes. So when you make the decision that you're going to go into MMA, what is that like? Like, what are the steps that you take?

I got done with NCAAs, and I said I flew down to Miami. I met with John and a couple other people, and I said, hey, I want to fight. You know, John had me in his camp. So we're talking about John Jones. And did you know John before this? I knew John because I knew John from Instagram. John like wrestling. So I knew John from IG.

He sent me a DM. He sent me his number. And if you know John, he don't answer the phone worth anything. And it's crazy. But he sent me his number. He said, call me. So I called him. And this was before he got hurt for the first deep-bay fight.

He was like, I want you to come practice with us. You know, I want a wrestling partner. I left him and played football. The next year comes, no, I'm sorry. I don't even know where I was at at the time. but skip we go and he's like I want you to come back for the second camp he's going through it me and John hit it off like that wow we hit it off immediately so when you guys started training together in camp is that when it really sunk in your head when you're like this is what I want to do yeah he really he really I needed somebody to kind of engrave it in me with the wrestling I had my father I had the University of Minnesota I had a lot of good people around me kind of like say hey this is how we're going to do it this is where you need to go and this how you're going to this is how it's going to happen. And when I saw John, I saw that drive of like, damn, you know, this guy's winning and

people get close, but they can't get past him. And why is that? So I really sat back and, like, watched his mental and, like, how he went about a lot of things, how he talked to people, how he greeted people, how he walked, how he punched, maybe how he looked when he was in the pocket, when he needed to get out, when he rested his hands. And I saw everything. And I was like, wow, like, man, this guy's a superstar, super, superstar.

and we all know that and and people know that for a long time now but i really saw him and i was like damn i want to be that and that's what kind of that's what flipped my switch right there what an amazing opportunity you know you haven't done any mMA and you get to go in there and train with the goat it's crazy this one man you know it's hard to explain i tell people people ask me all the time like what was it like um seeing john for the first time because i'm 25 so when john was like super peak i was like 12 13 years old and i'm looking at this guy beat Gus of San Reyes and Tiago Santos and stuff like that. So it's different.

You see a different side of people. And when I saw John, I was like, wow. Like, I've seen you for my whole life and now I get to see you in a person. Like, how cool is that? Okay. If your New Year's resolution was, change everything and be a new person, good luck. So instead of pretending you're going to meal prep kale forever or do morning cold plunges, here's one actually realistic thing, AG1.

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want to give it a try, head to drinkag1.com slash Joe Rogan and for a limited time you'll get a free AG1 duffel bag and free AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. Only while supplies last, that's drinkag1.com slash Joe. Rogan or visit the link in the description to get started and for people that don't even know the close fights that John had they were really only close because John wasn't training probably all it is 100% John was partying and he was what I would call playing with his food you know yeah he didn't like the Gustafson fight is a perfect example didn't train at all for the gustavs fight I mean I talked to Greg Jackson it was like I swear to God he barely showed up I'm like that is so crazy

And then he gutted it out in the last rounds. That's what's crazy. It's a close decision, but he wins the fight by gutting it out in the final rounds when he's done relatively no strength and conditioning. Nothing. It's so crazy. It's fantastic to see him.

Then really gets motivated for the second fight was Gustafin and just smokes him. Blows them out. Which is what you expect. When John is in prime form, he's the greatest of all time. Most definitely. For you to be able to,

be a young guy who's thinking about MMA and train with the greatest of all time to do now two division world champion it's crazy yeah amazing you don't and it's it's amazing because you don't see the guy that's um you see the best of the best right away we're back so anyway where were we John Jones yeah so you're saying you so you were talking about like what it's like to first start training with them so you're you had no MMA training really before that at all? You had just been doing a little bit of striking with this guy. Joe, I kid you not.

I didn't even know really how to defend punches. That's crazy. I didn't know how to defend punches. And you probably saw a video of him throwing the knee at me. Because I'm so hard-headed, I'm like, let me shoot on John. But the whole time I forgot, he's a national championship wrestler. Right. So I didn't even know how to defend a punch.

I didn't know I'd defend a kick. I didn't know I'd do anything. But I went in there and I said, hey, if you need somebody, it's got to be me. And that's how hungry I was, and I feel like that's how kids should be nowadays about getting that opportunity. Man, just be hungry, because someone's going to respect you. Yeah, for sure. But, I mean, not a whole lot of people get that opportunity. That's a crazy opportunity.

It's also, like, John is an elite wrestler as well. And so, like, learning how to incorporate elite wrestling into all the other aspects of MMA and to be able to go right into camp with John is just, this is amazing. Incredible opportunity. It's super incredible. I'm grateful for it every day. And especially he's still here in my corner to this day. We talked this morning.

He's still giving me all the pointers, all the advice, even when we're not even fighting, just telling me how I should say things, what I should say, how I need to go about life, how I need to go about business and meeting people and greeting people. So it's a true opportunity. That's awesome. That's really awesome. So when you're in camp with him, you're going through the camp, were you planning on MMA then? Or like, how does it work?

Like, what were you thinking? We just, like, the moment you started training with them, is that when it really started the fire in you? Yes. I had a little bit of burn for it, but... Like in the back of your mind. Yes, but a little burn, you've got to have the heart. You got to have the heart.

So what was the stamp on it was I went to, I went to Madison Square Garden with him, and John was just doing John things, you know, just being a superstar. Everybody knew who he was. And I was like, man, you know, I got Olympic gold medal. You know, like, maybe I should be getting some, too. like John showed me the way a little bit

so I'm trying to have him show me to way and he's bringing me to every place meeting every person showing me the opportunities that he has and he looks at me and he was like you can have this too and that was kind of the cherry on the top but we can put another cherry on the top

and do a double one when he won the fight and then I'm holding the belt with him and I see this guy face to face and you know he's just the most popular man on earth for that day and it's kind of like wow like you don't get you don't really get to see the backstage moments You get to see the guy go out there on TV and fight,

but I got to see the backstage of everyone taking the pictures with him, the superstars, you know, I'm walking out the next game, and I see Queen Latifah, and I'm like, damn, that's Queen Latifah. And I'm taking a selfie with Queen Latifah. I'm like, yo, can I send this to my mom? And she's like, yeah, go ahead. And I see Fat Joe talking to him and everybody. And I'm like, wow, like, this is what it is to be like a real fighting star.

And fighting is one-on-one, and people want to watch someone fight. But I think in other sports, like we talked about earlier, there's a full team with helmets on, with jerseys on. But in fighting, people want to meet that badass dude, and they want to meet the champ. And that's what I want to be. Yeah. So what is training with John like?

Like, what is the training camp like? Like when, you know, you obviously haven't gone into training camp but then the other elite fighters, but one of the more interesting that separates John from everybody else is like, John doesn't take no short-notice fights. It's John game plans for everybody. He studies tendencies. He's, his fight IQ.

I mean, it's obviously he has everything. He obviously has all the skills. Obviously has all the drive and everything else. But the fight IQ is the big one. That's the big one. Because if you don't have a good driver, who gives a fuck how fast your car is? True. It's really the mind behind it that puts it all together.

He's sitting in a Ferrari with. Ferrari gas. A lot of people sit in a Ferrari with 87 gas and a car don't work. So when I got to see those tendencies of him watching people and he does it to me now where he'll send me videos on Instagram of the top UFC guys, be like, oh, watch how he steps. You know, watch when he throws a punch how he comes back and he doesn't reset this certain way. And he's kind of already installing those tendencies than me. And so now when I was wrestling, I never used to watch people wrestle. Like I went out there on a limb and I was just beating guys. Even in Olympics, I never watched anyone to wrestle.

I never watched their film. Really? Never. I told coaches don't show me one video because I don't want to focus on that one thing he did. And that was me being hardheaded. Like if a guy had a great double leg and I'm like, damn, how do I stop this double leg?

And I'm worried about stopping a double leg instead of doing my offense. And so I never watched anybody. I went to the Olympics and I said, show me the guys I'm wrestling and I said, let's do it. I said, let's do it. Like, come on. Banging their head against the wall, listen to this.

Come up. Damn, he did that to me? That's crazy. I said, let's do it. I said, it's me or you as do or die. And this tournament, I'm not dying. Like, you can't beat me in any way possible. And that's when I was at my best when I had that mindset.

And he's kind of putting that back into me and I feel really good about it. That's amazing. It's amazing. So when he's sending you videos, like, do you have like a, do you save all this shit? Do you have like a folder where you have all these different fighters and different moves? Because you're basically brand. at something. Let me just tell you what I said.

You had a fight, an MMA fight, where you hit that dude with a left hook and then took him down while he's out cold. I sent Dana White a text message. I said, everyone's fucked. I did. Well, I appreciate it. Because I was like, that kind of speed is crazy. Like, that kind of speed and incorporated with elite wrestling is crazy.

I'm like, what do you, the heavyweight division is so shallow right now. You got Tom Aspinall, Cyril gone. John Jones, if he chooses to fight again. Francis, if some, by some miracle, they can work something out and bring him back to the UFC. Other than that, there's no one compelling for, like, a championship caliber fighter. There's basically four or five guys on Earth that are in this, like, championship caliber, like, class. And you're already there, which is nuts. And you haven't even fought in the UFC yet.

When I watched you move and I watched you fight, I was like, okay, how do you stop that? Like, what, what, who is, who's got the skills to be able to stop that? And in my mind, there's like, only a few guys where it's going to be a problem. It's like the Francis and Gannos, the, you know, the Cyril Gons and the Tom Aspinall's. That's it. There's like a few guys. And everybody else on the way up, but the only problem is going to be you getting fights.

Like that, that kind of speed is just bananas for a 250-pound man, you know? And when you have that, and you're 25 years old, it's like, this is a, it's a very rare thing that you see in MMA. And it's kind of crazy because the heavyweight division is, of course, the most prestigious division in the world. The heavyweight champion of the UFC is the baddest motherfucker on the planet. And, you know, right now it's kind of a toss-up, right? because Cyril Gahn had this fight with Aspinol, John is kind of semi-retired or whatever he decides to do.

It's kind of up in the air. He'll probably have one more fight, right? I want him too. I think he's got the juice in him. The White House. He would love the White House. He's told me many times he wants to be main event on the White House, and he wants me to be a couple slots behind him

and kind of have us both win, and that's his last leg right there. I would love for him to do one more. If he really wanted to in his heart, he should. But if he doesn't, John's not going to do it. They should do Alex Pereira and him at the White House. I told people. I said, Alex Pereer would be a great matchup for Tom.

A heavyweight version of the BMF belt. You know what I'm saying? It'll be perfect. There's nothing else to it besides two guys going out there. It's Alex Pereira, the baddest light heavyweight. And that's John Jones' baddest heavyweight right now. Yeah. And regardless of someone else has the belt,

John Jones is still the baddest heavyweight out there. The belt doesn't mean jack shit when it's John Jones. It doesn't mean jack shit. It doesn't. It's, you know, there's so many fighters. could do that. They could just step away from the belts, abandon the belts, and then come back and it's really just about the fighter.

Everybody knows who John is. Everybody knows what John does. It's like people will pay to, you don't need a belt. A belt doesn't mean anything. This is a crazy story. I came, I had a French Bulldog that passed away. So I like to go out there and I adopt French Bulldogs and I kind of give them a better

home and I either ship them to a new home or I keep them. And so at the time I had a baby French Bulldog and he passed away and I told John, I was like, yo, my dog died. I got to go home. he let me go home I came back and I came back on a Tuesday I didn't see John until Thursday

and mind you this is a week before he's going to go out there for Stipe he's sick like super sick and I watched this guy do five rounds on a Thursday and they sent they shark baited him

five new people and he's dead tired and this is when I knew he was unstoppable he went out there nobody could touch him and I'm telling you high class PFL fighters

ex UFC fighters ex glory kickboxers were going in there after him and he was just mopping them and I was like like, damn, this dude is beyond next level. And that was like, you know, you got to see greatness. And I see it at the fight.

But you also got to see it when, how does this guy be great before the fight? And I saw that. And I was like, God, damn. I said, excuse me, John, you think I can go in there with you? And he was like, no. And I was like, why do you think so? He was like, you don't know how to defend. And it was kind of a funny joke because a partner got hurt.

And I was like, I raised my hand. I told Greg Jackson. And I said, Greg, let me in there. And Greg was like, not today, Gable. And this was when I didn't know how to defend or anything. He was like, Gabe, not today. And I was like, man, why? You know, I can go in there and take him down?

And he was like, this is different. And when I saw that, that was like the epitome of, like, super greatness in my eyes. Because I like hard workers. I like guys that beat on guys. I don't like guys that go out there and do the little extras that they, to look cool. I mean, just go out there and dominate and let's go home. And I saw that. And I was like, yeah, that's over with Frisipay.

It's going to be a long night. Well, unfortunately, they met when Stipe had already had a lot of miles on the clock. A lot of miles. And John was still elite. It's crazy that John essentially developed a spinning back kick, a real spinning back kick when he's 36 years old. Crazy. It's so nuts. Because, I mean, he tried it earlier in his career, but it was like he would spin instead of go straight.

You know what I mean? But when he hit Steepa, it was perfect. It was perfect. That picture, we showed a video of it and then freeze froze. the heel it was halfway into his rib cage it was crazy I wouldn't have got up either

well very few people would very few human beings can talk that kick is so powerful and when it comes from a big guy like John with those long ass legs and all that leverage with perfect technique and it goes right into the sweet spot

like that like good luck but it's such a brilliant think it's such brilliant thinking on his side because he's like okay I have to fight heavy weights and I need something that can take them out with one shot? Like, what is that? Well, it's the most powerful kick, which is the spinning back

kick. And so he trains it constantly. Constantly. You know, which is just very few people have the mindset to be able to do. Very few guys develop new skills late in life, you know, late in their career. They start incorporating new skills like that. I think that's a thing where he was, he's always our ears too. And that's kind of what he's putting into me also. I watch somebody to spinning back kick the night before at midnight when we were practicing in the hotel lobby um so he was just planning on that he was planning on us he was planning on it showstopper he told me he wanted to take stepe down and then all of a sudden he does a spinning back kick and i was like you slap motherfucker did he bring in a taekwondo coach where did he how did

he developed that technique so he's got a there's a there's a there's a kickboxing taekwondo coach name um Alex he's got a long he's got a long nas name because i think he he married a um tie lady so I think he changed his last name. Oh, okay. But he's from New Mexico. He works out of Jackson. He's got a lot of tattoos on him. And nobody, if you saw him, you would never know.

But the Duke can kick hard as shit. And it's crazy. And so he worked with John on that? Yes. Yeah. The only other guy that I would say developed a crazy new technique late in his career was Vitor. When Vitor was like 35 or 36, he developed a wheel kick. It was crazy out of nowhere.

When he fought Luke Rockhold, all of a sudden he's throwing wheel kick. Like V-Tor never-crazy. Crazy. V-Tor never threw wheel kicks. Crazy. But I think it's honestly got to be cool from, because you sit right next to the cage. So it's got to be cool to like see people grow up through their career. And then all of a sudden at the end, you see like a guy does a spinning wheel kick or a guy does a spinning back kick.

And you're like, damn, like, where'd that come from? And I feel like, I feel like, does it give you a hide to kind of see like a person grow through a new stage of like seeing a new move from them? I just love excellence. That's what I love. when someone shines, when they just figure away to eclipse everyone else, when they figure a way to, when they just, like, the Peoriaan Marab-Dawash-Willi fight, when you see a guy like Peoriaean who loses the first fight to Marab and comes back and dominates in the second fight. Like, I love that shit. I love it. I love watching someone put in an insane amount

of work and dedication and then shining on fight night. I love it. It's cool, too, because you see Peter Yan is the new, like, blueprint for guys that are coaching kids to do moves. I mean, he went out there and threw a fake hook and liver kicked marab. And then he goes out there and he hits a Sotogari and trips guys. I mean, what other film tape blueprint can you use from someone else? I mean, he's done everything in all his fights. His flow state is amazing. His flow state's incredible.

and he's so good at mixing up trips along with like inside fighting his stand-up is so good he's so hard to hit clean too I think the only guy who really hit him clean was sugar Sean Sean hit him with a knee like a really good knee timed it perfectly in their fight and dropped him but other than that he very rarely gets hit and when you do hit him you're you're hitting him and he's kind of rolling with it you know he keeps that super high guard he does the high Uh-huh. Yeah, he keeps his hands straight in front of you. He's something special, man. And, you know, that dude's still only 32 years old.

He's only 32? Yeah. Ooh. I know. It's crazy. What do you think if he doesn't lose it? 32 or 34. How old is Peoria yon?

He's either 32 or 34. But, you know, we've seen him in, I think he's 32. 32? Yeah. I mean, we've seen him in the UFC since he was, like, in his mid-20s. Yeah. If he doesn't lose to Marab that first time, where do you? think his path goes it's a good question you know I mean because he did lose to other guys as well

he lost to Sean and he lost to the Al Jermaine fight was fucked so the first fight was fucked but the second fight Al Jermaine dominated him but I think he probably overestimated himself in the second Al Jermaine fight it doesn't seem like he was just prepared and the thing about Al Jermaine is like his wrestling is very good and his back control is the fucking best in the business when Al Jermain gets your back you're in deep shit He's so good at back control He's so good at rear naked chokes And you know

Al Jemaine just really struggled To make that 135 It's got to be hard But if he got it right And he got it right in that second fight You know and he just He just did what he does At his best

It was one of his finest performances So he lost that fight But it didn't mean that he was done It just mean like he realized like Okay he had to have a camp Like he had for Marab In order to beat Al Jermaine Yes

You know And I just don't think everybody's willing to go through that kind of camp every, every fight. Mara went through four? Yeah, I think so. Four in a year. Yeah. Do you do, for Blueprint, how do you like that? Because I know guys kind of take the two-fighter, the two-fight-a-year approach, so maybe three if you're doing well.

I think that's more sustainable. Alex Pereira did the same thing. Like, he's fought a lot of fights, and he's fought fight short notice. You got to admire that mindset of a guy who's like, I don't give a fuck, let's fight, you know? But Alex has fought with broken toes. He's done everything. He fought with a norovirus and, you know, he had a fucked up hand the first time he fought Ancolaev. But then, you know, the same thing.

Like, he comes in for the second fight with Ancolaev fully healthy and just smokes him. Smokes him in the first round. If you, what do you think about if you gave Alex Pereer or like a solid great wrestler like an Islam of light heavyweight, heavy way? How do you think that he does? It'll be a problem. Yeah. I mean, I think less of a problem certainly now than early in his career. Like if you see his first fight in the UFC with Mickelitis, he gets taken down the first round.

That's not going to happen now. And if it does, he gets up, you know, it's different. But it gets up against who? Does he get up against a guy like you? You know, there's different levels, right? You really saw that with Jack Della Madalena and Islam, right? There's levels. And when you got a guy that's at Islam's level that's just an super elite grappler,

unless he faced that before, you don't know. what to prepare yourself for. I'd tell people all the time. That's the thing with Peoria Yon. He had been in there with Marab for the first fight. And so he knew what to expect. And he'd seen all those crazy fights. He saw the fight with San Hagan.

He saw the fight where this was the rematch with Sugar Shahn where he submitted him. He's like, okay, this guy's a fucking monster. He's a monster now. You've got to prepare for a monster. And he was ready. But unless you've experienced that before, and there's really no one like that

in the Light Heavyweight Division, unfortunately. There's not some, like, super elite grappler in the light heavyweight division. And I think that's one of the reasons why Hamzot is thinking about going up to light heavyweight. And I think he should. I'm a big fan of Hamzaa. I love his style. I love his intensity. His intensity is the best thing ever.

Oh, it's an animal. It's the best thing ever to watch. Because when I was wrestling, I like to go out there and just, you know, put the hammer down to dominate. And he's got it. He's got that touch. Oh, yeah. He's an animal. And, you know, that animal part of him almost killed him because he refused to stop training when he

have COVID. When he had COVID, he was just showing up at the gym and putting in two and a half hour sessions and vomiting blood. It's a nut. That's crazy. Yeah, they said the real problem with Hamzot was that you couldn't get him out of the gym, and he was always overtrained. So then he brings in Sam Calavita. And Sam Calveda, monitoring. From training lab, right? Right. Yes. So he's monitoring his heart rate. He's monitoring his recovery, and he's working on him with his strength and conditioning, and they're doing it scientifically. And then you've seen the Dreyk his duplice fight. I mean, he's just didn't gas at all. That was the same thing

as Islam and Madalena. Very similar. They try to do the maybe what if, what if he can outbox him? But it's hard when you've got to worry about so many things. And I think Islam did a great job of showing the leg kicks, making Jack switch. Jack didn't really push forward. And Islam, when he did, shot

the double, or he shot an outside single. And that's hard. It's hard when you've got to think about so many things. Yeah. Well, you know, Khab is without doubt one of the all-time greats. One of the greatest to ever do it. But the difference between Khabib and Islam is Islam is elite stand-up-wise. Like, Khabi was a very good stand-up, but Islam knocked out Volkanowski with a headkick. You know, that's not in Khabi's repertoire.

Islam is on another level. It's like one more level above. He can knock you outstanding. He can knock you out on the ground. He could submit you. He could take you down. He's fucking huge for the weight class, especially at 155. It's like there's so many aspects. And you're always thinking about that grappling when you're striking. So when you're saying like, oh, you know, who's better striker, Islam, or Jack Delamadena? Well, it depends. Because if you got to worry about that takedown, your striking is not going to be the same. It's just not going to be the same. Because everything he does, you're always looking for that takedown. And that factor, it leads to guys getting hit all the time. Yeah. Like if you go back and watch old fights like Kevin Randleman

versus Kro Kro Kopp, Kevin Randleman knocked out Kro Kro Kopp because Kro Kro Kopp was worried about the taketown. He was worried about the takedown and all of a sudden Randamman comes with the big left hook. And Kevin Randomwin was a NCAA champ aware Ohio State, I believe. Was it Ohio State? I believe he was an Ohio guy. 184 or 197?

Was he heavyweight? I don't know. Three time, Big Ten, wrestling champ at Ohio State. He never won the tournament? Heavyweight. Wow, who do you lose to in the tournament? This is heavyweight, no one on. I'll look that up right quick. Mm-hmm. Okay. But that was the thing about Random Man is, like, the speed and the takedown was always this big threat. And so because of that, you're thinking about one thing, and boom, you get hit with a big shot. I seen Kevin Random Man wear shoes in his matches. What's the difference? What's the difference of wearing? I've seen a guy wear shoes now. I was on Instagram, and I saw maybe a kickboxing match or something like that. Why can they wear shoes now? Is there a rule that you can't?

It's not now. All those things are old. Those are old? Yeah, those are all old. Pride used to allow you to wear shoes. Okay. Early UFC used to be able to wear shoes. I saw that. I remember the first, the first, like, UFC video I seen was that big Hughes dude and that little dude that knocked him out. Was he the big black dude?

Which guy? It was like an old video. That's not descriptive enough. Okay, I'm sorry. Give you a second. Big huge dude, little black dude. Bob this hat, maybe? No, that wasn't UFC.

Who was the big video? And then the white dude came out there and he was just whooping him. And the big dude tried to grab him. I might be tripping, but I saw the video. Well, I don't think you're tripping. I mean, there's been so many fights. It's so hard to figure out what fight you're talking about. But there's an advantage to wrestling shoes, for sure, without a doubt.

I mean, the grip on the ground. I mean, how many times do you've seen guys? Yeah, this one. Oh, Keith Hackney. Yeah. And Keith Hackney had, like, a very strange style. It was like, I think he was a Kembo guy. And he hit him with, like, a bitch slap.

You know what I'm saying? Like, you ever see how he knocked him down? Like, look at the difference in the size Emmanuel Yarbrough, who is a sumo wrestler But Emmanuel was probably like, look at that See, he overhand bitch slapped him This is crazy You basically stepped in and

Palm striked him to the head You think he looks, if he's still alive You think he looks at this video I'm like, damn I got slapped? Probably I mean, Emmanuel fought a bunch of different things He fought, I think he fought in pride as well

If I'm Oh Oh they forgot to lock the cage You got Flew out the cage Look at thin big John McCarthy He lost to Mark Ryland Mark Ryland of Iowa

Okay There you go That's random But we're talking about Yes Yeah the old days We're wild man It's wild

It's wild to go back And watch those fights It's like Since you've been kind of like A huge figure your whole life Have you gone back And like watch Fear Factor I watched it because my kids were watching it

My kids were watching Fear Factor Because there was like a whole Fear Factor channel Was it True TV or one of those Or Spike TV baby? One of those things they had Fear Factor on like all day long And my kids were watching it. I thought it was hilarious Man I was watching it too

I'm just gonna tell you right now And all the shit they were doing hell now Yeah A lot of it is in your head Like a lot of the stuff that they had to eat It's not that bad Some of it was fucking disgusting Were you trying some while they were trying to?

I ate a bunch of things What was the worst thing? None of the things I ate were that bad You know like I ate a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach is like a A cockroach the size of like this lighter Damn yeah That wasn't bad

It was just crunchy huh? Yeah This doesn't have much flavor to it Yeah More in your head than anything I'm sure What was being on that show What was the worst thing you saw Like someone

Tense up about the worst thing was what they had to eat and watching people throw up like people I watch people throw up every day you know how like the smell of throw up makes you want to throw up that went away after a while

it was that bad yeah I saw people throw up every week every week I was watching four or five people throw up this is like totally normal to be around it was like a candle for you because they were throwing up in front of me and I was telling them that they could keep going I'm like don't worry you can keep going

you can keep going don't put that out of your head this is a task Just you want to win? Okay, you can do this. I can help you. I'll talk you through this, but you just got to just, you are in control of your body,

force yourself to eat it. Chew it, swallow it, get it down, let's go. But that was the worst is the eating shit. Holding your breath underwater is hard. There's a lot of things they had to do that was hard. It's a crazy fucking show. There was one where they had to jump out of a helicopter and like swim and grab someone

the helicopter propellers were like blowing the water so they couldn't. Yeah, we did a few of them. things like that yeah were you ever scared um i was worried when they had to ride bulls that one scared the shit out of me because i was like you know the stunt stunt men are animals if you ever meet stunt men they are some of the bravest toughest dudes alive and uh the stunt guys had this attitude about the bull like eh they're like oh that's a stunt bull that's a practice bull and i go does a fucking bull know he's a practice bull i bet he doesn't he didn't get that memo he don't know

he's just a bull that's a fucking huge animal and you're gonna get a hundred pound lady to ride this huge animal that's crazy that's over with and they got launched and almost got kicked and we they rolled the dice a lot and got lucky that no one got seriously injured i think and the bull one was the big one for me i was like you can't predict that like you can if you got a car stunt you got to jump a car off a building into like this big cushion like okay cool you kind of know what's going to happen you know this is the thing this could go wrong and this is how we're going to prepare against it going wrong or prepare for it but you can't prepare for a bull like there's not much you could do if the bull decides to stomp this person that person could die like that that's a

real possibility especially people that have no business riding bulls yeah bull riding's hard for bull riders bull riding's tough it's crazy and they got a good seven seconds on that bull if they're great if they're great if they're great and when you're watching it you're like oh my god you watch the bull kicking and jumping up in the air. It's crazy. I know their lower back kills after that. Oh, we had one guy on Fear Factor who was a professional bull rider, and his shoulder was so destroyed. He took his shirt off to show me.

He had scars all around his shoulder. He's like, my shoulder pops out all the time. He just will pop out a socket. He'd go reach for something. His shoulder would pop out a socket. It was just destroyed. It was hanging on by a thread. Jeez, that's disgusting.

How do you live like that, though? I don't know, man. I guess you just deal with it. I guess you just, that's the price you pay for greatness, you know. Got to pay something. Yeah, well, they all pay. Every bull rider pays. You see those guys later in their career.

They're all stiff because they got fused discs and fucking bolts in their back and shit. They're all fucked up. Spines rubbing. Oh, yeah. It's a terrible. It's messed up. Terrible way to live. I can't.

I can't believe that bull riding is a real thing. I know. It's nuts. It's fascinating, though, because you can really see guys go out there and be like, you're facing the devil. Literally. The bull is going to win all the time. Every time.

The best you can do is hang on for seven cents. There's no goat who could just hang on the bull as long as possible. I'll hang on that bull for 30 minutes. He's kicking bitch. He's going to get you off. He's going to get you off. Everybody goes flying eventually. Everybody.

Everybody is going to happen one way or another. Yeah, there's no human being that could just stay on a bucking bull. No. And just like when I decide, I'll get off. Heavy road? No. Okay, I haven't either. Fuck that.

I don't think black people do that. I think there are. Is there a couple? It's got to be. Yeah, it's got to be. If there is, there is, Ezekiel Mitchell. Oh, look at that dude, right there. Bam, Ezekiel Mitchell.

Look at the size of that thing. I mean, and look at his angle, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, he is so, the bull is so athletic that he's damn near doing a handspring. Exactly. What they do it on his back. Right, and he weighs 2,000 pounds. He's just throwing his body up and through the air. That is, fuck all that.

Like, right there. Like, you easily could get stomped to death right there. It's the game over. You fall wrong, he lands on your face, and that is a wrap. Your fucking head is pulverized. I wonder what the... The size of that thing. God.

I wonder what the numbers are on like if a bull stomps, like, the velocity and the mass of it. Like, what is the degenerator force from it? Oh, it's got to be insane. How many guys have died? None that I know, hopefully. None that I know. But, I mean, there has to be, like, an enormous number of guys that have died, bull riding.

What's the, what's like the... Since, like, run a crazy topic, what is, what is the, like, the craziest thing outside of, like, maybe fighting Taekwondo that you've done that you're like, damn, like, that shit felt good. I never did anything other than, I had three kickboxing fights, but other than fighting, that was the scariest shit that I ever did. Yeah, I mean, I've never done it. I'm not like a, I don't parachute. No, okay. I'm not a bungee jumper. I mean, I've done bungee jumping on vacation.

I did zip lining. I was like, what am I doing? This is stupid. I don't like doing stuff like that. I don't like dumb risks. No. I'm big, so I went on a zip lining one time. You know, you got to jump off the thing.

Right. You got to jump off the platform. Uh-huh. I thought I was going to, Joe, I'm kidding. That might have been my last day on earth if that line didn't hold me. Right, because what do you weigh, about 250? Like, 255, and it bounces. And you're like, ooh.

I was in Thailand, and I went to do this thing. It was a bungee court thing. And they said I couldn't do it because I was only 200 pounds. And I was like, that's crazy. Like, what happens if you get a guy that lies about his weight? It's over with. Yeah, because people lie about their fucking weight all the time. I've seen the ones where the guys, they got the squirrel suit on.

Oh, God. And they jump off the building or they jump off the rocks and they go down and they come up. Uh-huh. And sometimes they don't. Sometimes they don't come up. My friend Andy did that jumping out of a fucking plane. He made it? Oh, yeah.

Okay, good. He held the world record at one point in time for the longest squirrel suit flight. What do they call those things? Wing suit? Wing suit. He held the record for it. It's ridiculous. But Andy's nuts

He's a Navy SEAL 18 miles 18 miles What do you think he's thinking At like mile nine Maybe I drop He's a psycho I don't know

18 miles is crazy Yeah that's crazy I would never do nothing like that ever No, I'm not interested in parachuting I'm not interested in any of that shit I might get on a wake boat and surf That's about all You fall in the water

Not that big a deal With the life jacket Yeah Yeah That sounds reasonable That's a reasonable thrill Falling up the sky is crazy Falling out the sky is crazy

But at least falling out the sky You have equipment You check the equipment You make sure you double check You've done it before It's done you know when to do it With a bull There's no there's no safeguards

You know I mean you have like some sort of a chest protector On some people You have a helmet You're not There's no safeguards He could land on your hip You're never gonna walk again

It's over with Fuck that This game over I couldn't I can't fathom riding a bull. Yeah. Doesn't Donald do it? Doesn't Donald Soroni?

He rides bulls. See, he got the name cowboy. You better do something. He's out of his fucking mind. He got to do something with the name cowboy. That's a dude that has a real adrenaline problem. He's got a real... Rightfully so.

He looks crazy. He's got a real adrenaline problem. He told the story about getting trapped in a water. He was diving and he got trapped in a cave. And the guy he was with panicked because his cords got tangled up and the water was cloudy and he couldn't figure out how to get out. That was one of the most terrible. I knew he was okay because he was right here telling me the story,

but it was one of the most terrifying stories that anybody's ever told me. But that dude loves that kind of shit. He loves, like, thrills. I can't. I don't think I can get behind thrills. I can't. No. It's too much.

And especially your heart be like, mm-hmm. It's just not worth it. It's today my day, and it can be my day. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. So here we are. It's the new year, which means it's about time to hit reset. Just because it's January doesn't mean you need to disappear into a cold plunge

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Use code Rogan to get 15% off your first online order. Near beer, terms and conditions and certain limitations apply. Athletic Brewing Company fit for all times. Was fighting for the first time? was that what was the difference in the way it felt the first time you fought versus wrestling my when i when i wrestle i'm not really nervous i'm more anxious to like perform and put on a good show when i when i went out there for my first fight my heart was beating on my chest because that pin drops and it's like it's me or you and i always had the mentality of like

it's me or you is do or die today's not my day you got to go but um that first time you're like i kid you know my heart was like jumping and and john had it like look at me and I always be like, yo, you're good, rely on what you know. We've been here before, you've done this before. There's 2,000 people here. You've wrestled in front of 20. Just think about it like that. And when I thought about it like that, my heart rate calmed down, you know,

you kind of get like shaky a little bit. You kind of feel like your legs are not there. And that was kind of my first time fighting. After that, at Dirty Boxing, I wanted to kill that dude. Which is really crazy because you couldn't even rely really on your wrestling in that. Which is what I wanted. Right. I wanted to go out there and show.

you that I can throw punches without having to look down at that leg and that's exactly what we did was that a calculated decision to try to do that as well as just like to just have a pure striking fight just just so you could show that you could do it and then in your own mind not have your your main skill set to rely on yes I really wanted to handicap myself because I wanted to show the people to and I and I kind of hopefully I did show me a great show and I want to show the people I I want to show the people at home that are a casual viewer that who doesn't know Gable. Like, hey, can I turn on dirty boxing? And the mom and dad and kids are sitting there watching and saying, hey, what is about Gable

Seafton that's special? And he's a wrestler. So what can be special besides wrestling? And then I go out there and I get this knockout and I jump over the ring. And I'm doing the Arthur Jones. Sackdands. The crazy thing was the way you leapt over the ring. Like it was nothing.

That was banana. What does it feel like? Like to not have, oh, there it is. Boom. But this is the nuttiest part right here. The big jump. Ooh. Like it was nothing.

Like it was nothing. I mean, that is crazy athleticism. But what's wild about that is you look like a really good boxer. And you have only been boxing for a very small amount of time. I always had very good confidence in myself. I've always spoke about myself highly I've always wanted to be over the top you know like a DWI

you know when he gets on the microphone to John Tina's like you can't see me or Roman Ranger like acknowledge me you know when I go out there I don't want to have to say those things I want it to when you see me that's him and I've always tried to be that's the bigger than gay well person but also like if we

had like a routine combo you can see like man he's real human you know you can talk to him he does real things we put on the we put on shoes the same way we put on pants the same way and I feel like a lot of superstars don't really show people that side of them and it's up to them if they want to or they're not but I've always really like showing the families and the kids that like man look at gable you know there's a normal human being but when you compete it's different it's different but it's just crazy to be able to do that in a sport

that you're relatively new at I mean just man just think big about yourself I get it I get every kid I tell everybody what's crazy about that honestly is like I know you're just going to get better at it that's what's crazy when you watch someone strike that well early in their striking career like your striking journey is so new that the sky's the limit as far as your your potential joe and in the nicest way possible i really want to say this that's the worst i'll ever be the worst i'll be and and and for whoever who's going to watch this that's the worst i ever be just think about it um 14 seconds and then now think about if i're going to put some time into me some effort into me and i'm putting an effort into myself

that dirty boxing is probably the weakest I'll ever be in the sport of MMA. I believe you. I believe you. I mean, it only makes sense if you've been training that short amount of time of striking. Now, when you're training, are you training? Are you doing white-tai? Like, what kind of striking training you're doing? Are you incorporating it all together in MMA?

I do it all. So a lot of days I go in, so I kind of have like a really good schedule right now since I'm not going to go into a fight. So I do every day besides Sunday, some days or two a days, like, because I go to a lot. lifetime and play basketball. I'd go to a lifetime. I sit in the cold tub and son and stuff. But when I strike, I go on there. One rounds, maybe boxing. Next round is kicks, teeps, knees, everything, elbows. The next round is what the blueprint I have of what moves I need to really do to get in to kind of get to my shots. Or I'm going to fake shoot and punch. And then I probably go 10 rounds, 12 rounds of that, five minutes each. So you always

incorporate all the MMA skills together in a workout I try to it's interesting when I was talking to Ilya um when he's particularly when he's not training for a fight he doesn't do that he is very rare in that like when he goes and he works on his boxing he'll just box he just boxes when he works on his jiu-jitsu he just does jiu-jitsu when he works on his wrestling he just does wrestling then he puts them all together with m-m-a training but he spends an exorbitant amount of time on each individual skill by itself to really like hone and tighten those things out which is it's an interesting choice and obviously for him it's worked out spectacularly yes I but there's no real like I guess if you want to be like an elite soccer player I'm sure

there's a program that they've kind of devised like this is the very best way to become a good soccer player they have you know coaches and they game plan they know what to do and and With MMA, there's all these different approaches. Everyone, Alex Pereira's approach, is different than Marab's approach, which will be different than your approach. Everybody's got a different thing. Yeah. It's just, like you said, it depends a person, and it also depends the team that you have.

I'm just really big on, I'm just still very new, so I'm really big on just trying to make sure I can absorb all the information possible and kind of, when I go into these fights, these first few fights come, kind of showcase what I can. And sadly, they have ended early. Not sadly, but in a good way, you know what I'm saying. But just go out there and showcase who I am. And when I go train, I don't mind sitting in there all day. Sometimes me and John will practice for hours just sitting there repeating, repeating.

And then all of a sudden we go on at 8 o'clock is midnight. But I like that, though, because it makes me feel good. It makes me feel like there's someone invested in me that makes me feel like I'm here for a purpose. And it makes me feel like this is what I'm – there's someone out of the country. There's someone in Russia. When I'm asleep, he's up. and I don't like that he's up working so when I can get all the time possible I'm making sure I get all that time because I don't want that dude to show up one day and he's got a little

inch on me and I just can't I can't think about that happening I always have that thought in my head with in terms of like UFC fighters like there's such a shallow division the heavyweight division is so shallow I'm like there has got to be some elite Russian wrestlers that are thinking about you go in the Fedor-Amelianenko route like they're thinking about I know Nemcoff, who just won the PFL title. He's a very high-level guy. But there has to be some really high-level wrestlers that are considering going into MMA.

Right now, Russian heavyweights are really not as good as people think in wrestling. Really? They got a guy named Abdur. She's set alive. I don't know if you heard of him. I have. D.C. told me about him. Man, he is crazy.

If he came to fighting, it's over with it. Not for heavyweights, for the other groups, because he's got to go through me. if he comes if he comes heavy weight but Iranians heavy weights are really good

I think that's where the heavyweight field should start coming from is Iran they got a lot of good they got two good guys that are

one's my age I'm 25 and another one is I think 22 they battle for the Olympic spot of a year

but the older one wins just by a little but the time is going to pass where that guy steps up and he's going

to take the spot so I would watch off for him you know what's interesting with MMA is some guys

have a background in wrestling and then they learn how to strike and they fall in love with striking and then they hardly ever wrestle when they fight you know it's it's kind of weird like you would see that a lot in the early like Josh Kostek is a good example who's a very good amateur wrestler and then when he fought in MMA very rarely wrestled it was mostly striking you know he could knock guys outstanding and I think guys kind of fall in love with that and then there's also the amount of effort it's so tiring to wrestle a long with all the other things, that sometimes guys just put that aside, and they just decided to stand and bang with people.

I really like wrestling. I grew up wrestling, and if I had a chance, I would love to go to the 2028 Olympics and win a gold medal. That's how much I still love wrestling. But right now, my path is MMA. And I knew the first couple of times that I would get those knockouts, like, you look at your hands, and it's like you, Spider-Man, you got superpowers. Like, I got lightning in my hands.

Like, I would have never thought in my 25 years of life that I would go out there and I would left hook somebody and he would be out cold and I would double leg and flip him. Who would have ever thought that would ever happen? And so, like, you're right. You get obsessed with knocking people out, but I still think my base is wrestling. I just haven't used the best base yet. And that's just, I just want to show people that my best base doesn't need to be used because the second best one is just as good as the first.

Well, and the second best one is getting better all the time. That's the thing. And again, I keep going back to this. But if you can get that good at wrestling, you can get that good at anything. It's just a matter of putting in the time and dedicating yourself to that thing. But it's the mindset that allows someone to become an Olympic gold medalist in wrestling. Boy, if that person, that's a scary person. That person decides to focus on whatever the fuck it is, fucking pickleball.

Who gives a shit? They'll be elite at it. They just have to put their mind on it. It's a 100% of mindset thing. It ain't nothing else. You can have athletic ability. You can hard work all day. You can be so disciplined in the world.

But if your mind doesn't think it, That's why I feel like that's why I beat a lot of people before I even walked out there is I knew it. I just, you just got to know. And some people. Championship mindset. Some people just don't feel it. And you just got to feel it. I know, you know, it's like I was talking to a friend of mine.

I don't want to mention any names because then you connected to the fighter. But he said, man, he goes, I don't want to fuck with anybody anymore that needs a mental coach. And I said, really, why? He goes, it's just like this just too much. He goes, I want a dude who don't need that shit. You don't need it. It's interesting because some guys. do and some guys that mental coach takes them over the top and then they find a way to win

where you know maybe they'd have mental hiccups in the past you know but his his mentality was i want a guy who has no problems like if i'm gonna coach a guy i don't want a guy who's a head case i want a guy who goes in there and already has this i'm gonna fucking dominate and if i don't i'm gonna learn why i didn't dominate and i'm gonna come back on i'm gonna get him next time Yeah, and I feel like that's a person I am. I just want to go in there and dominate. And I also think that a lot of people kind of rely too much on a lot of outside things to kind of make them feel good about themselves

to go out there and perform instead of just putting that switch on and just saying, hey, we're here. Outside things like what, like we mean? Just, you know, mental coaches. You know, you've got to get someone else to be maybe a breathworking coach or another coach, another coach. There's so many labels for coaches out there that you don't need. And when I was wrestling in Minnesota, I had Brandon Eggham,

Luke Becker, who's the assistant and head coach, and Trevor Brambeau, that's all I had. I didn't have nobody else. I didn't, because I didn't want anybody to interfere with the connection that we had. And I feel like when you get a great bond with somebody, and then you bring in more people, the bonds get mixed up. People are paying attention to too many different things. Instead of practicing, maybe I got to work on my mind. Instead of working on my mind, maybe I got to go do something else.

Maybe I got to take care of something else. Sort of like when you were talking about not watching video on your opponents because you thinking about his double, how am I going to stop his double, instead of thinking about what am I going to do? Yeah, I would rather be productive for the team instead of productive for eight different people and maybe three of them don't care about you as much. You know, they're there just to get a little something from you. Right, right, right, right, right.

Where are you training now? Right now is still in Minneapolis. I'm having a baby girl this Sunday. Oh, congratulations. This Sunday, my little girl's coming out. I appreciate it. Thank you. That's awesome.

She's going to pop out. My lady's going to hopefully get induced that day. If it comes early, it comes early. So that'll be really nice. So I'm in Minneapolis right now, but when I do all the main training, New Mexico, Jackson Wing. Okay. So in Minneapolis, where are you training? That guy with that guy, Billy Simon and Prior Lake.

Same guy. I've been with him forever. So you're in this little tiny gym? I'm in that little gym. Nobody sees us. We got partners that need to come in, but rather than that, I don't want the big lights. Right. When I was growing up in Portage, Indiana, I had a wrestling mat in the garage, and me and my two brothers would wrestle, and that's where we got the most work in. to go in there and hand fight and whoever comes out comes out.

And it was definitely not me at the time. But maybe right now was me. But we were going there in hand fighting. My dad's philosophy was we had Iowa style wrestling. And Iowa style wrestling was brutal. If his face needs to be run into the wall, run his face into the wall. And that's how we grew up. And if you don't watch your face ran into the wall,

you better put his in first. Right. And so when you're training with this guy, Are you training, like, are you training like I could get a call in a week to fight and I'm ready to do that? Or are you training, like, just, like, developing skills constantly? I just religiously trained to develop skills constantly. I try to never stop. I don't like stopping because I'm kind of a, this is crazy.

I'm a thicker body, so if I sit for a little bit, I feel like I'm getting fat. And I want to feel that way. So I just try to always keep myself in shape and try to keep the best look possible. So if you need me on one week, which I don't want to do any short notice. just how me and John do it, no short notice. Like, if you need me in a week, I look good, I'm ready. But we just take our time. So did John coach you about that?

Like, give you some thoughts about that? Because I think that's a giant mistake that guys make. You know, and like the Alexander Volcanovsky fight is a good example. The Islam Makachev fight, he took that fight on 11 days notice. He's just been hanging around, drinking, partying, just being himself, just chilling. And then he all of a sudden he gets this opportunity for a rematch. First fight was razor-thin decision He lost and he's like

I can do better But you can't do better without a camp You gotta have time to be yourself Yeah You have to have time to peek And one of the things I really always admired about John Is like even a fight Like the Chal Sondon fight

They offered him Chal Sondon on short notice He was like nope Nope And they're like what do you do you? We need you to do this He's like nope I'm a professional world champion I prepare for my opponents and I don't want to fight unless I'm prepared for my opponent, period.

It's the smartest way. Look at him, he's the goat. He is. I mean, it's just so many guys they get, and I like I do appreciate that Alex does take those short notice fights, and he wins some of those short notice fights, but how many times he's fought injured, like really injured? Like the first Uri Prohowska fight, he had a fucked up knee, man. And when he stopped Uri, there's a moment when he's on top of Uri and he's beaten on him

and the referee stops it and he goes to step up and he rolls off of him the reason he rolled off him he couldn't support himself on his knee that's how fucked up his knee was and he was in a world title fight it's bad

crazy well I feel like this is an only sport where they would let that happen just because football you're sitting on IR we don't have no IR it's either you do it or you say no

right and if you say no they get upset at you a lot of people get timid yeah and I mean once you get past that barrier of I think right now since I'm going to have this daughter, I think my tone and mindset has changed

to kind of really be more of a father figure for her, but also for like, if kids want to look at me and be like, wow, you know, Gable's normal also. But I think just you've got to say no to a lot of people. You've got to be generous in a lot of ways, but you also got to be able to go out there and say, I don't like this. I don't feel this way about this, and this is why,

and be cool on both sides. But some people get scared about that moment. Are you doing, what, kind of strength and conditioning are you doing so i still i still lift with the college team so everything they do with wrestling yes everything they do at minnesota the university in minnesota i still do i still got the same strength coach with them um bike sprints aerodyne spins um watt bike versa climbers everything we we try to mix it in all rowers everything just to just to stay active and if it's not where we're getting close to a fight just maybe just take longer breaks

in between just to keep the heart rate up but i don't like when my heart rate takes takes a break. I like to kind of keep it consistent. So when I ramp up, it's already ready to rock and roll. You already have a very high baseline. Yeah. And like when you're doing strength and conditioning as far as like weightlifting and stuff like that, like you trying to put on weight at all?

No. No, I like to. You like $2.50. I like to say where I'm at. I do a lot of band work, a lot of explosive work, a lot of jumps, a lot of light weights with high reps just to kind of keep the body moving and kind of keep the cutness and the strength there, but not also put too much where you're stiff.

Mm-hmm. And you're naturally a large guy anyway. It's not like you have to put on a ton of weight. But like when you see a guy like Francis, who's 265 natural, you know, and he used to have to cut a little bit of weight to make two-sixth, which is kind of crazy, isn't it? Isn't it crazy? But it's also crazy that the UFC has a weight limit that you have to make at heavyweight.

You have to cut weight to make heavy weight. How different you think it would be if they didn't have 265? And it was just maybe 300. It should be no weight. It's heavy weight. It should be, what they really need is more weight classes. The UFC, there's gaps that are just enormous. Like, the gap between 85 and 205 is crazy.

20-pound weight gap in between categories, that doesn't make any sense to me. 10 pounds. 10 pounds is still a lot, but at least it's reasonable. How many weight classes boxing have? A shitload. They have so many. Boxing has so many weight classes. Boxing got like eight champions for each weight, too.

That's a problem. That's a problem. MMA does as well, right? If you think about it, there's the one champion, there's the PFL champion. But the difference is, is really only the UFC champion in terms of the public perception. Like, we talked about Nemcoff, who's an excellent fighter. Nobody knows who the fuck he is. Not in America.

You go to a regular kid, you know, some kid on the street and, you know, you say, who is Vadim Knavkoff? And they're like, what? But I bet you that kid knows I show speed. I bet they do, right? I bet they do, right? They do. Right. They know I shall speed. They probably know who Alex Pereira is. They probably know who Islam Makachev is. They know who the UFC guys are. The UFC, that title is worth so much. It's, you know, it's the name. It is the combat sports leader. And if you're not in the UFC, I don't care. I mean, you look, you can go to the PFL and you can win that million dollar tournament and you can make money. And I'm all for that. And I'm very happy for those guys. They get to feed their family and they provide and they make a great living and they can retire with some money in the bank. But the reality is part of what you're doing is you're trying to be the best.

And if you're going to be the best, you kind of have to be in the UFC. Agreed. I mean, that's just what it is. There's so many great leagues, but like the most prestigious people, you can say PFL, you can say anything. And you can go to any place and make a shit a ton of money. but once you get that stamp of he's a UFC champ, people are like, damn, man, that's him. That's it.

That's him. Yeah, that's it. They put that UFC belt on you, and it's on ESPN, and everybody sees it. That's it. The PFL is just another belt. It's like, you know, boxing has so, they have the IBF, the WBA, the WBA, the WBO, the WBC. It's just like so many fucking organizations. It just gets so crazy.

It's like, didn't they try to make Terence Crawford pay for his belt? Ridiculous. How crazy is that? Terence Crawford's like, fuck you, I'm the champ. I just won a 300,000? Everybody saw it. Is that what they wanted from? 300 grand?

Can we get a look on this? Because I might be tripping. But I don't think I'm tripping. They stripped him. I know they stripped him. It's like percentage of purse. And I think it was like 3% of his whatever he made. So it was.

That's so nuts. That is so nuts. That is so nuts that they get paid that much, just be a sanctioning body. And what are they doing? They're not doing anything. Like, it doesn't mean anything. Well, they just get the best looking guys. and maybe throw a belt on you.

That's about all. They don't really get nothing else. You get nothing. You get a belt. But everybody knows he beat the breaks off Canelo Alvarez. That's it. Man, I love Canelo. He's the champion.

I love Canello as well. But, you know, I love what Terrence did. Because what Terrence did was crazy. He goes all the way up from 47 to 68. He had one fight at 54, you know, wins the title of 54, and then goes all the way up to 68, and everybody's like, Canella's going to be too big.

Canel's going to be too big? No way. No. Skill. His next level. He's king. Yep. And he's 38.

He can do a couple more if you wanted to. I don't think he does. But he's done to. I think he's done. He's done. And I love it. I love that he's done. 300,000.

Dehroned over a $300,000 fee. Wow. That's crazy. Do you think that's right? No. No. Unpaid fees and brief reign is undisputed champion. It doesn't matter. He's the fucking champion. You can't take the guy's belt because he's

not willing to give you money. Fuck you. He won. He won. He won. Fuck off. He won. Well, now I see there is there going to be a new boxing promotion, Zepha? Zufa? Sorry. Yeah. So the UFC is doing something with the Saudis. And they are, I think they're launching their first event in January. I think they're launching their first event the night before the big UFC on Paramount event. So it would be the 23rd. Yes. I don't think they've announced anything in terms of the card who's going to be on it. I mean, that's not a lot of time.

You know, that's only not even a month from now. So I don't even understand how they're doing that. But they're probably going to do the same thing that Riyadh season's doing, you know. Which is really smart. Riyadh season's great. I mean, it's putting guys into that next level category of, hey, you are a star. Mm-hmm. And Turkey Al-Shake is throwing crazy.

money. Rightfully deserved for a lot of these guys. Oh, yeah. They deserve it. Oh, they definitely do. But it's, you know, if you do that, you're going to get people to fight that would avoid each other or ordinarily, you know. And, you know, we've seen that already. The Saudis have already been able to do that. Get guys to fight and, you know, you're going to put on the most exciting fights. You're going to put on the best matchups. And so I think the UFC is trying to do that same kind of model and now that the Saudis own ring magazine so they have the ring magazine belt which has always been the most prestigious belt you know like there's always a bunch of different champions and different weight classes but if you're a fan of ring magazine like I am

when you would get ring magazine and they would have the ring champion you know at Marvin Hagler like well that's the fucking champion that's him yeah that's it there might be a WBO guy out there a WBA guy out there but the reality is that's the guy that's the guy and The boxing needs, like, a unified champion thing like that. So, like, when you see Terrence in there with, like, five belts, like, it's great that he's got all those belts. But why? It should be one belt. It's to be like, this is the super middleweight champion of the fucking planet, period.

Fuck all your sanctioning bodies. That's the guy. That's it. One belt is all he needs. And they all different colors, too. They're all cool looking. They're all cool. I mean, it's cool that he's got them all.

I mean, you go over his living room. probably dope. The Instagram picture of the cool. Yeah, it looks great. It looks great when he was in the ring and he's, you know, got him on his shoulders and shit, one on his waist. And I wonder if they fight over who gets to be on the waist, you know? Like, I'll give you an extra $100,000 and put it on your waist, you know. But the reality is, it's like the belt doesn't mean anything. The fighter means something. And when we all know who the champ is, we all know it's Terrence. If this other guy gets the belt's like, okay, you didn't beat Terrence Crawford. So you're not really the 168-pound champion.

But isn't that a hard? Do you think for a box? Like, is that a hard shadow to live in? Or do you think it's a shadow to, or is that labeled as a shadow? You know, because Terrence leaves and then you step up. Well, that's different. When Terence leaves, if he gives up all the belts and he really does decide to totally leave, which I'm not totally convinced, because I think they wanted to him to have a rematch with Canello, and I think he threw a big number at them.

This is all I'm reading rumors online. I don't know what's true. See if you find out if that's true. Did they offer, did Terence Crawford demand like a certain amount for Canello-Alvarez rematch? Because he's coming in soon. I'll ask him in person, but I feel like you could probably entice him for one more big fight. Probably could. You know, one more big fight at 68 or maybe even at 54.

I mean, really, you can fight at 47. I mean. When do you think there comes a point where people need to just stop? And like, you know, there's always going to be money-throat. at you, but when you think there's a point that, like... It's different for every person, you know? Yeah.

So, here it is right here. So Bernie Davis revealed that Terrence Crawford's price for a Canello rematch and it's massive, according to Davis. Crawford won't return to the ring with Canello Alvarez unless he's paid $100 million. And he deserves it. Rightfully so. The Crawford earned $50 million for the first fight in September,

but after a tactical low-action bout that disappointed many fans, fuck off. Who the fuck did that disappoint? Who did that disappoint? You got to be casual if that disappointed you. Tactical, low-action bout. Who wrote this? I don't know. Fuck off. I think I could write a better one than this. I think boxing has some very disrespectful journalists. I see some disrespectful shit they write about boxers. Go back to that little thing when it's had there. So anyway, pressure now on Turkey Al-Shake to decide whether

the rematch is worth that kind of money. Fans already calling for other opponents, Benevides, Batabee of Bevall Fighters they believe Bring real action Oh so this is a kind of a disrespectful It's kind of messed up Real action Why are they dissing them like this?

They do that a lot There's a lot of shit talking and boxing Which I guess is fine I like that there's not that much of that in MMA MMA is much more respectful Really standard and respectful Yeah and that guy deserves everything He's one of the greatest to ever do it

And one of the best switch hitters In the history of the sport Are you putting him above Floyd? it's hard it's you know it's hard you know they they never fought each other which I think would have been amazing if they're both in their prime at the same time that would have been fantastic to watch ain't Floyd supposed to fight Mike I'm my true yes I think I'm sure but I mean I feel like that's going to be like Floyd versus or excuse me like Mike versus Roy or like Mike versus Logan it kind of looks more like sparring a little more exparring really than a fight

fight how is how is floyd going to fight mike tyson have you ever have you ever spoke to mike tyson yeah i've had him on a couple times yeah he's my favorite he's my favorite bro he's when in when he was in his prime there was nobody like him there was nobody like him because he had that speed that speed and that's something that you have the the speed of a of a lighter person in the frame of a heavyweight is an extraordinary gift because it so many of these heavyweights man they got big power but, like Francis, big power, but they don't move like a lightweight guy. They don't move like a 170-pound guy. When Mike was in his prime, he was so fast.

You could see guys trying to calculate and calibrate because it was different. They were used to fighting heavyweights, and all of a sudden you got this guy bobbing and weaving and moving towards you and like, ah! It's crazy. Your brain is being overloaded with all the possibilities. It was just, it was a totally different thing, man. He's by far my favorite. Oh, yeah. In his prime, he's the most extraordinary heavyweight that ever existed.

And every show was an execution. It wasn't like, you know, oh, my God, is Mike going to lose this one? No, in his prime, it was just all executions. And I think the best thing about that, like being popular back in the day, like he was such a big-time fighter, I was watching a lot of videos like Will Smith and Magic Johnson were showing up and Jordan and stuff. Oh, yeah. But you know how crazy it is nowadays that we have social media that you don't have to go and watch someone live. But back then, like, when you see the video of Michael Jackson in this hotel and you look out and it's like, wow, it's Michael Jackson, like, that wow factor is like super cool.

And he had that to the highest degree. Yeah, everybody dressed up in the best clothes. They all showed up. Chains on, watches on. Everything. Everybody. It was an event to be seen at. And if you were one of the people that was ringside, like you were, you know, you were an elite celebrity.

And that was, you know, the Mike Tyson era. That was, I mean, it was different. It was different than any other heavyweight, like, since Ali. So you had Ali, and then Larry Holmes, who doesn't get the credit that he deserves. He was fantastic, so I watched all the videos, too. Amazing, amazing fighter. But he lived in the shadow of Ali, you know, and a lot of people hated him, too, because he beat up Ali when Ali was already done. Yeah.

That was tough to watch. And, you know, he had been Ali's sparring partner when Ali was younger, you know, and so, And everybody knew how good Larry Holmes was, and everybody knew that Muhammad Ali was, you know, who was older and what's that? Would you do that if you was a sparring partner for your homie? And that's got to be a difficult combo because you burn a bridge. Yeah, you burn a bridge with the whole society. But part of it is like you kind of have to, right?

Because if you are the heavyweight champion of the world and they want to set up a fight with Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Ali wants to fight you, and they want to give you $10 million and it's going to be on TV. and everybody's hyped up about it. Like, what are you going to do? Say no, I won't fight him. I'm going to relinquish my crown. What are you going to do? Like, I don't know if he had any opportunity

to do anything other than fight him. But it's just like he was, Muhammad Ali was so beloved, not just as one of the greatest fighters of all time, but also as a cultural figure that watching that man beat him up like that, just beat the shit out of Ali. And then seeing Ali afterwards

when he was, he had, the shakes and he had Parkinson's, and everybody knew that that was trauma-related Parkinson's and knowing that Larry Holmes dished out a lot of that. I think in a lot of people's mind that always, that's, and I think that to this day is why Larry Holmes does not get the credit that he deserves. He had one of the greatest jabs in the history of the sport. Crazy. I just saw a video, but he was flicking it. Even when he fought Mike, when he fought Mike, he was way past his prime. You know, he had been out for a long time. Mike did his thing. And, but, you know, there was round in that fight where Larry Holmes was popping that jab where it made you think like man

what would this fight have been like if Larry was in his prime you know it would have been very interesting I think I think Mike was on another level though he was he was when I see him he just had the veins you know like that was that's my like wow for people he was just he was a speedy tank and just the skill too and also that style that peekaboo style was just so different than anything else anybody was doing. So it was so hard to prepare for. You got most of these heavyweight boxers were standing straight up. You know, they're throwing jabs and moving, moving like Foreman or moving like Ken Norton, or whoever they were. But Muhammad Ali, you know, was the only guy that moved like a lighter guy. He was, he was different. But Mike Tyson was crouching

and bobbing and weaving and coming at. It was a totally different thing to prepare for. You can't prepare for something like that. That's like when someone is too athletic. That's like preparing for Miles Garrett right now. You just can't. He's going to have 25 sacks this year. It's like, how do you prepare for something like that besides try to suck yourself into maybe I can do it? But this is not going to happen.

There's always going to be freaks. There's always going to be these athletic freaks. They can just do things that no one else can do. Now there's more than, now there's even more because you see high school football got six, five, two, two 80 on Ohio State. I'm like, man, what they got on? People are bigger. Also, people are doing things for their kids at an early,

age to optimize their growth and making sure that they come out bigger and stronger and faster, getting them training younger, strength and conditioning and, you know, pliometrics and shit when they're real young to get them prepared for things. I mean, look, you know Vasili Lomachenko? Yes. So that guy's, man, he was fast. That dude's dad took him out of boxing for two years to have him learn Ukrainian dance so that he have better footwork. And he was dancing on people. I see, I watch his highlights on Instagram. Footwork was insane. Usik's the same. Mm-hmm.

Same coach. Ucissik's the same person. Same coach. I really like Uc. Yeah. Oh, my God. He's crazy. Again, one of the greatest

heavy weights of all time. And not a big guy, either, you know? He just knows where to go and when to go, which is nice. Well, it's also always constantly moving. He's never right in front of you. He's constantly stepping and stepping and stepping and stuff. And, you know, he's setting you up.

And he's always, like, downloading and calculating your movements and your reactions and things. It's so skillful. That, to me, is the most beautiful thing. about boxing is that someone could stand in the fire and be so skillful that like crawford that you mean standing right in front of canella there was one point in the fight where he was pity patting him his his his lo Machenko when he's in his prime like the movement was bananas and it was just his ease of footwork and it wasn't footwork like trying to get away from you it was footwork standing right

in front of you and stepping off to the side and cracking like that kind of shit like these angles It's just unless you have tried to do that, you don't know how ridiculously difficult that is. The conditioning all that is crazy. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. Yeah, your legs have to be in peak form. Super peak form.

It's just there's so many guys out there that you could learn from by watching and they set the bar so high. And that is the difference between watching like Keith Hackney versus Emmanuel Yarbrough way back in 1993 versus watching, you know, John Jones in 2025. It's like we get to see now these guys that have seen it all, the Piotr Yons, the Iliotoporias, the Islam Makachovs. You get to see the elite of the elite today.

And these young kids that are coming up now, they get to see that and learn from that and incorporate all these things. And you're seeing these guys that are fighting on Dana White's Contender Series that are, they look like world championship caliber fighters. And they're not even in the UFC yet. Most definitely the latter guys. Most definitely the ladder guys. Yeah, there's so many good guys now. But in the heavyweight division, it's still fairly shallow. I know, which is where Gable comes in.

You know, it's funny. I think I heard you say shallow about three times. And, you know, Joe, in the most nicest way, because I like to be humble with the words and I like to talk with the confidence. I really think I can go out there and do right by this big promotion and go out there and just be fantastic. I think you can too. And I think you can do what Mike Tyson did,

which is revitalize the heavyweight division. Because, I mean, other than John, who's, of course, a superstar, but he's kind of semi-retired, the Tom Aspinall, Cyril Gaunt thing, was a fucking disaster. I mean, that's a disaster. I mean, Tom Aspenol still can't see.

He's got a fucked up right eyeball still. It's really bad, right? I mean, the reality is he might not ever fight again. Like, who knows? Like, if he has surgery on his eye and it doesn't go well and he can't see out of the eye, apparently he's still fucked up in his right eye there's some tendon damage or something

and you know eyes are so tricky you never know unless you're a fucking complete psychopath like Michael Bisping who fought 11 fights in the UFC blind in one eye which is so crazy that he did that do you know what he did that crazy motherfucker what did he memorized the eye chart

like he memorized it so that he could put a they could cover his left eye oh my god and he could just So whenever he went to do an eye exam, he knew the letters. They would say, all right, read the third chart. And he would say, uh, A, B, C, D, E. He knew what the letters were. Oh, he's smart.

He's crazy. Oh, he's smart. He couldn't fucking see out of one of his eyes and still fought world-class fighters. I think 11 fights he had only being able to see out of one eye. Yeah. I'm not really sure how to engage with the eye talk on Tom Aspinall. But I think he's a fantastic fighter. I think God is really sure.

engage with the eye talk you know i feel like um getting poked in eye sucks and i just don't know how he feels that he got you know what i'm saying so i'm not we don't know what he was experiencing yeah and nobody and nobody ever knows but you know critics gonna go online and say say x y and z but i'm just going to stand the middle ground i say i think tom's a fantastic fighter um zero is great also and i think a lot of them are also great also you're gonna you're gonna always say it's really shallow and i believe a shallow too and I believe I can go out there and do the best I can and really dominate when I need to. But just when I see Tom Aspinall, you know, Tom Aspinall reminds me of a guy from Turkey that I wrestled in the Olympics. He was a 2016 Olympic champ. His name Taha Aguul. He was

six four, same size as Tom, same build, same everything. And I went out there and I beat him eight to zero. And I was in his face for that six minutes. And I let him know that I was here. And I feel like in that instance, that's when the tides change. And I feel like with a guy like Tom, I think I look at him as like a guy like Taha Agu. You know, he's on top. He's the leader. You know, he's still fresh. But I think there's another hungry guy that's going to come.

And hopefully it's me that's going to come and go out there and do what I need to do. Well, listen, I hope Tom gets back in because, again, we don't know really what's going on with his eye. And for all the critics, you need to know this, the right eye. That's the problem. But if you look at when he fought, his left eye, the finger went deeper in his left eye than it did his right eye. So if you think he's faking it, he was knuckled deep in that fucking left eye. He was all up in that eye. Yeah.

I mean, it's horrible to see. To undergo multiple eye surgeries, multiple eye surgeries. And that's horrible. By the time a statement goes out, I'll probably have surgery on one eye already. Next surgery's coming mid-January. neck surgery so he's having surgery on both eyes you know it's it's really messed up but i think the way the the post-fight interview went um because i like to i like to look at how how people approach the world also too and he was in just just upset how the people are reacting you know saying why the

fuck are you doing why are you doing this i mean there could have been a they're going to be a great approach to that of him saying man you know i got my eye poked but i but i'm going to come back stronger from this but well the problem is people are always going to doubt you when you get poked in the eye. You know, there's always going to be a bunch of people like, oh, you're fine, because people have gotten poked in the eye and they have continued fighting. But is that smart? It's a foul. First of all, I think every time a guy gets poked in the eye, one point deduction immediately, instantly, maybe even two points. You should never do that to a person. Never. One thing you notice about Piotr-Yon's fight with Marab, he fights like this. His hand is in a fist.

So when he's got his hand up like this and the front hand's extended, he's not doing that. He's kind of guiding you. Yeah. Honestly. Well, he's letting you know this motherfucker's coming, you know, and he's also like in a shell, very well protected. By having that one hand up like that and have that shoulder, he's got the chin blocked and then he's doing this with this hand. It's a very good defensive position, also very skillful because he's so good defensively in terms of his movement and the way he's able to roll with punches and get out of the way in time. But he never pokes in the eye.

He's not doing that. Cyril Gahn is a habit of doing that. Why do you think that is? You could speculate. You could speculate all day long. You could say he wants to do it, you know? I mean, ask John. John's poke people in the eyes.

He does it all the time. Yeah. I mean, even if you would have took the points from him, he still would have won. Yeah. I know. It's just, it's one of those things. It's like, here's a problem. Why are the fingers out in the first place?

Like, why don't they cover that shit up? Like, why don't they have it? like one of those Everlast bag gloves Like a mitten Where it's like a mitt Yeah I mean have the thumb out Because you don't grapple with these anyway

You don't do this You never do this So why do the fingers have to be loose If you grapple you're grappling like this Or like this Like if you're clenching your hands together You're never clenching your hands together Like this

You never interlace your fingers together So why the fuck are they open in the first place When it only causes problems If they developed an MMA glove That covered the tips of the fingers Like a mitten We would have way less problems with this shit You'd occasionally probably have a thumb in the eye

Every now and again But you would have at least Eight less possibilities For each fight of things going into your eye True It just makes sense And it wouldn't hinder grappling You just have a thin piece of leather

That you know the padding goes over the knuckles The piece of leather goes over the tip of the fingers And have it come down like this like a mitten But honestly would you If it was a mitt and I'm on top and I grab risk control, do you think the leather of the mitt sticks harder? Probably. Yeah, probably aid grappling.

They probably make fights better. They probably do stuff like you'd probably be able to get more takedowns. Maybe. I don't know, man. Maybe when the leather gets wet, maybe it becomes slippery like a finger. We'd have to find out. But at least we would have less eye pokes. And it's not going to hinder the striking at all.

There's no need to have these fingers exposed like this. No, there's no need. But two great fighters. I mean, accidents happen. Accidents happen and also purposeful fouls happen. You know, and I'm not saying that Cyril gone did it on purpose. But he did it like five times in that fight. I rewatch that fight a couple of times.

And every time Aspinall came towards him, he was doing this. Every time. Fingers outstretched, pointed towards the face. It's just, it's illegal. You're not supposed to ever do that. Your fish should always be balled up when it's moving towards your opponent's face. But we don't have to have these goddamn fingers covered like that

or open like that. They should be covered. It's not impossible to do. It could be really easy to design a glove like that. I don't understand for the life of me how the sport's been around since 1993 and no one has introduced gloves like that. True.

No, you're right. A really good thing I wanted to ask you is for someone new coming in to a sport that a lot of people know, how do you think they should bridge the popularity of the sport and also the real life of who the person is? I might be saying this in a hard way. No, I know what you're saying. Like, how do you think they should?

Because, you know, I've been around a lot of people, but you know, like, it always gets bigger and always gets bigger. And how do you bridge that gap of keeping that same mind frame of like, man, you know, I'm the guy, but I need to read. I always need a reset. I need to make sure. Yeah. Well, it's going to be dependent upon you, right? And it's going to be a rocket ride that you're on. And the pressure and just the overall, like not being able to go to the mall is going to be weird. You know, it's going to get weird. It'll get weird. You know, you're going to get mobbed at the airport. It's going to get weird. And, you know, you're going to have to, you're going to have to figure out a way to have your own private time. That's very important. When guys never have private time, they're always surrounded by people. and there was you could lose yourself you could lose your way and just fame itself fame itself is very complicated is very complicated for people especially for

fighters when your entire identity relies on the way other people perceive you that's not good it's it feels good when you're on top because everybody's like oh there's cable he's a fucking man whoa you're the man you're the man but if you rely on other people's opinions of you for your self-esteem and yourself worth, then the moment you have a stumble, you know, what if you get eye poked, you know, what if you get eye poked and then also like, gable's a bitch, cable, fuck, and you're like, what? And you're dealing with the opinions of morons and they're affecting your own feelings about yourself. And then there's all the other pressures that come with money and people trying to

scam you and business deals and bullshit and this and that and they want you to do movies and And that kind of shit, you know, like, look, that's the, that's the, that's the, the bane of fighters' existence when Hollywood gets involved. That kind of, in a lot of ways, led to the decline of Rhonda Rousey, in a lot of ways, Connor McGregor. People start fucking, you know, throwing everything at you. You're doing cell phone commercials and all this different shit. And that stuff gets in the way. Yeah. It gets in the way of your training.

But it also gets in the way of your ability to have that deprecreferral. pressure time, to be yourself and to be alone with your thoughts, which I think is very important just to solidify your own understanding of who you are as a human being, you know, and you don't want to be defined by other people's opinions and perceptions. And then there's also, like, the UFC does a fantastic job of showing who a fighter really is, you know, the Countdown Series, you know, the UFC Embedded Series. So when they're doing that, when they're doing stuff like that and you get to see this person interacting with their family

going through training camp going through the weight cut and you get to see who they are, joking around with people, hanging out with their friends, laughing. That's important too because people really want to relate to you. They don't want this guy who just appears

every five months you don't know shit about him and then all of a sudden there he is in the ring again and you know you're putting all these things on him and imagining what he's like the more they can get to see behind the curtain, the better it is for you, especially if you're a good person and you're an interesting person. And they get to see, it's also inspiring for people.

They, like, you like, you're a regular guy. You put your shoes on one foot at a time like everybody else. But like, wow, look at the greatness this regular guy can accomplish. Sure. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can do something like that. Maybe whatever I'm doing in life, whatever, if I'm a fucking skier, I'm a whatever, Whatever your job is. Maybe I can be great and be a normal person like this guy is.

True. No, 100%. Well, that's a fantastic answer. Because, you know, I just feel like at some point I'll get to that spot. You know, of like, how do I know if someone's not real? How do I know if someone is in that space of things change? And there's leeches. There's bad people.

So, you know, it's always a nice thing to have someone that has surpassed that level that you can finally see and be like, man, like, how do that? How did you, how did you change the wrecking? Well, John's a great guy to talk to about that. Most definitely. Obviously, John's had his stumbles, which is, you know, when people talk about John and the things that John's got in trouble with, I'm like, listen, do you want a wild motherfucker or not, okay? If you want a guy to be the greatest of all time in fucking cage fighting, he's going to be wild.

That's one of the reasons why he's great. When John was, what is he, 22 years old when he won the title? He's fighting, 23. me, Mauricio Shogun Huah, who's an all-time great pride legend, he opens the fight with a flying knee. Who does that? You got to be wild. You got to be a wild fella. That's John.

I mean, and, you know, obviously there's stuff he shouldn't have done. There's, you know, a lot of extracurricular activities, a lot of partying. It's not healthy. It's not good. But that is what comes with being that kind of a guy. And, you know, John. could probably tell you more about this than anybody that's ever lived like what were the stumbles what could I have done differently and he he probably could help prepare you more than anybody ever

most definitely he's already kind of put a big foot into it and man he's he's amazing with a lot of things now you know he talks so well now a lot of things are are in a sense of he's trying to look out for me in business opportunities and places that I need to go and it's it's amazing You know, a lot of people don't do that, especially when you see the peaks and valleys of that person and their public info also. And a lot of people don't want to give people the chance because you see something about someone until you finally meet them. And it's like, man, this guy's a whole different person. You would have never expected. And so, man, with John, he's just opened a lot of doors and kind of he is doing that guiding of me.

Well, that's great, too, because John is essentially guiding his replacement, you know, which is really hard for a lot of people to have that kind of self-awareness to know that. There's only a certain amount of time that I can do this for, and I see this young, great man who's coming up, and I'm going to help him. And I'm going to give him some advice that maybe it would have been amazing if someone gave me, you know, because John didn't have some heavyweight champion training with him that could teach him those things. Now, he's out of scratch. Especially not someone at that level, the level that he's at. Man, I know he's honored. We're both honored. Yeah.

He just, like I said, he called me today. He was just, man, I really think you should just let the world know who you are and just kind of give people the real feel of, of, of. who you need to be yeah and and i've always i've always loved to have like you like you just talked about with the umc abetted you know you see the real human being and i've always like people seeing a real human being because we all do shit the same way there's nothing special there's nothing special some people just have more money some people just have more status but at the end of the day hopefully we can all sleep in a bed and i know some people don't which is which is sad to see but it's just some people live different lives and i and i want to live a life where it's happy and

healthy with the people i have and i can meet so many people and i feel like i'm doing a great job right now so man any input i can get on how to be better how to be more mature how to be more sound especially from john i'm getting a lot but from to hear from you you know you get different perspectives of you were in a different realm than then then then john also but you guys also in the same place you like you do the podcast and john's semi-retired but you see the you see the two different lives of two different real respected people well that's that mindset that you have to really want to acquire that information and really sort it out and know that these these challenges are coming your way the the money and the fame and all that stuff is the thing that everybody focuses on but really

the focus is on excellence excellence is what brings you the money excellence is what brings you the fame and the moment you start thinking about the fame and the money and not thinking about the excellence you've lost your way you've lost your way and a lot of people lose their way a lot of people that money and that fame that it starts coming and all sudden you're just thinking about numbers you're thinking about the house you're going to buy and the car you're going to drive and all that stupid shit and you lose your way and you know one of the things that I always try to tell people I try to tell us the young comedians especially is that think of the attention that you have like it has a number value like the attention like let's imagine like if you had $100 you know you can

only spend $100. Let's imagine your mind only has a hundred units of focus you have 100 units of focus any focus that you have on other shit outside of the thing that brings you excellence is just robbing from excellence that's all it is and if you're concentrating on haters on social media or if you got a crazy bitch in your life that's ruining everything or you got some friend who's a hater and you think he's like maybe like hoping you fail like all that stuff that's distracting and it's just robbing attention from excellence you know and some of it's unavoidable and some of it actually strengthens your resolve

to have a certain amount of like shit in your life just to understand how to maintain and still be excellent despite of all that there's probably some resilience building that comes from that

but protect your focus it's precious protect your time protect that energy that you have to invest in things it's so precious the mind your focus and your drive that is everything in your life

that's everything and anything that steals from that I remember this was one fighter and he was a very good fighter that was fighting in pride and he had this crazy girlfriend and every time he was going to fight like the day before the fight the girl would start problems

and she would start fights and she'd and she left the hotel like one o'clock in the morning and went down to the bar she wanted him to fail She wanted to be more important than his fighting career and his fighting career was so important and so overwhelming that she felt like she wasn't getting the attention that she needed so she would go get attention from him and she would steal from him and brought and it was crazy and this guy and he never wound up being a champion and he was a very talented guy too. I don't want to say his name, but it was one of those things where it's like, man, there are people in your life. You got to recognize when you're dealing with that kind of a person. You got to recognize that you got to cut them out you got to get rid of them they're stealing they're stealing from your focus they're stealing from your ability to create excellence and that's what you're in the business of you know you're in the business of excellence and anybody that's trying to steal from that

like those are liabilities they're you know that's like you got a hole in the bottom of your boat you got to patch that shit up yeah well it's just like mike tyson kind of said you know once you're favored by god you also favorite by the devil too Ooh, that's so true, too. Yeah, the temptations will come. Yeah, and then also, you start believing your own bullshit, you know? I mean, look at John when he wasn't training, you know. But luckily for John, he was so much better than everybody in the division that all it took was, like, a readjustment.

Like the Dominic Reyes fight, he almost lost that fight, you know? And Dominic Reyes, as great as he was, that night, should not have been beating John Jones. I think John Jones with like a real focus and a real like real drive towards destroying Dominic Reyes would be on another level. I think so too. It's like he could, he is the best guy to be in your corner, man, because he's made all the mistakes and still come out the goat. Like who better to tell you how to do it right? There's no one better. Man, probably the greatest, of course.

The greatest by far. Yeah. What do you do for chill time? I'm like, what do you do to unwind? Honestly, right now, I like Call of Duty. I play a lot of Warzone. Ronnie 2K, you know who that is? The dude that made the basketball game.

Okay. So I got my own player on 2K. And it says, like, yeah, so when I load into the game, it says my real name, and then people know you're playing against me. So it's either I'm playing Call of Duty or 2K. I mentioned before, the French Bulldogs. I mean, I like to take care of French Bulldogs. I feel like.

Jamie's got one. You do? Yeah. Oh, he's so cute. Should the bottom today. You should have brought him. What? We didn't know.

We didn't know you were into French Bulldogs. So I had, sadly, I had two pass away. I just had one pass away. He had IVDD in his neck. And that's a bad, um, it's a disc disease that happens in French Bulldog because they're bred so bad. And so my first one had it in his back. Um, he was playing all day.

And then I turned and he was like paralyzed in an instant. And I was like, oh, man, like, that's not good. So I had to put him down. Oh, that's horrible. And then I adopted one after. This is like, I adopted one a year ago. He just passed away a couple weeks ago. His name was Archie, my little guy.

He had it in his neck, and I had him on painkillers for like six months. And I looked, and one day he kind of rolled wrong, and he kind of yelped again, and I was like, we got to take him in. Oh, that's horrible. So it was bad. You know, I got bad attachments to Friends Bulldogs. Like, they're like my, since I'm having a real baby now, that's like my second baby. you're going to be amazed how much you love your real baby more than you love your dogs as much as i love my dogs it just just there's just another level oh it's beyond it doesn't even

compare i my one of my dogs uh went to surgery today he had a hernia he had a um a golden retriever and i have a uh king charles spaniel he's the cutest little dog he's so fucking cute he's he's seven months old and he was born with a little hernia it's like some of them get that She's got a hernia in her tummy. So they had to stitch him up. But when I was playing with him last night, I was so scared. I was like, what if something happens to him? Like, I can't take it, you know, because I love him so much.

He's so sweet. He just, like, when he, like, pick him up, he, like, kisses me, like, constantly, and he makes noise, like, and he makes noise, like, and sometimes he barks while he's kissing you, and you're like, I love you two, I love you two. And his little tails wagging. He wags his tail with his whole body. like his whole body's wagging all over mine would go after the ears

yeah he does that too he would like you would like put a whole nibble on the ear and then he would switch side and then he would switch sides yeah my does that too let me live for a little bit but I'm the I'm his whole world

and I feel like sometimes we forget that yeah well they're little love devices they just they just want love from you and they want to give you love they never have bad days they're they're never shitty they're never in a bad mood

they're always cool you know every day is the Same thing. Every day I see him in the morning. I'm like, good morning. And he's crazy. And you just, I get on the ground with him on the carpet and roll around and just letting them roll all over. I love dogs. If, you know, if it was up to me, I'd have 50 dogs. I wish we could make them live longer. I know. Making them live longer be crazy. Like cats are like 20 years. Why can a dog be 20 years? Well, I think they are working on that. I think there's actual startups right now that are working on animal longevity. And they're,

be cool yeah they're working on different medical interventions that can allow dogs to live longer which is fascinating and then sometimes people they clone their dogs Tom Brady just did that yeah I don't know how he did it but I mean that's weird hey have a good time that's a pet cemetery shit that is that might be a hereditary yeah I don't know if I'm into that I don't know I feel about that that I feel like every dog has their own unique personality and as much as I love the dogs that I have now. Like, look, I had my dog Marshall. He's almost nine.

Or he just turned nine, rather. And I've had him since he was a puppy. I love him to death. But then I got this new dog, Charlie, and I love him to death, too. He's a totally different personality. Like, I don't mind new dogs and new personalities. I don't need the same dog over and over and over again. You know what I mean?

I think that's weird. You just try a friend's a bulldog. They've got like 12 different personalities. Oh, I love Carl. Jamie brings Carl in. He's a little psycho. He's got too many person. Oh, he runs at you and just wants to play.

They got that bowling ball head. I know. He's a little ball of muscle, too. Carl's jacked. Carl's got, he's built. I need to see a pitcher. You got pictures of him? Pull up a picture of Carl.

He's adorable. He plays at my golden, and he just, like, throws himself, like, a meat missile at my golden. Because my golden's, like, so gentle, which is great because the, you know, Charlie is only 15 pounds, my little dog. And so my golden is, like, pulling. And he, like, gently puts a paw over him when they play. That's Carl.

Look at that in the face. Look at that inner face. I just know he does everything extra. Oh, yeah. Oh, look at him sleep. He's really nice. He's adorable. But when he plays with Marshall, it's really crazy.

We got a video of him playing with Marshall. Did you get his nose done? Nope. No, he's just, wow, that's perfect. That's a good nose. That's really good. Some of them have fucked up noses. Well, they come out.

They come out like this. Oh, no. And then they can't breathe. And so they breathe. out their mouth and sometimes they got to get it's like solder they clean that out like they make like a bigger hole that's awful yeah but some of them have it where like you have to go in and kind of help the the esophagus because their face is flat so you got to help like the back and kind of cut it to where the it can go down the pipe oh no crazy crazy I wish people I was so dogs could

live forever those dogs got a million different characters I know well I love all kinds of dogs man I love working dogs. I love German shepherds and Belgian Malamaw's. Kane Corso would be cool. They're a little dangerous. But that's what I'm hearing. They only lower to one person. Have I'm not mistaken?

They don't like to listen. Yeah. Well, never mind. My boy Mark Delagrote from Sit Yong, Sit Yotong Muay. He coached a lot of UFC fighters, coach Kenny Florian. Great Muay coach, great guy. Works with the UFC. He had a Connie Corso.

They had to put him down. Bit his hand. Like, chomped down on them. Yeah, and he had it for years. Out of nowhere? Well, you know,

he's testing them. Like, sometimes those dogs, and not all of them, but some of them, they will test you. You know, and you just can't have a dog

that's biting you. No, because what else? What if it bites your kid? Yeah. What if it bites your wife? Yeah. Facts.

What if it bites the mailman? You never know. Yeah. When, it's just like those, and it's not all of them. Like, I've had pit bulls,

and I never had a pit bulls that wanted, even wanted to bite a person. they were always like the sweetest with people but then you hear stories you hear stories which is crazy I know because how can I go online and see a pit bull just not letting go of somebody but all of a sudden the next video I see a pit bull wearing a Christmas sweater with Paul shoes on I know so it's weird I know it's it doesn't make any sense it doesn't but it's just like people some people are born crazy some people are born crazy yeah are you big into anything like um what what do you believe in

conspiracy wise like what's your big one right don't open up that door gable don't open up that door oh my god yo I would tell you this one my dad my dad's die hard conspiracy if you and him had a talk uh oh what is his big one what's the big one with him

I don't even know but I know he's really bad I think that the biggest one right now he just said it but I don't even know I don't even want to say it wrong but that's my thing but I'm big on conspiracies what is the subject do you remember the subject some about I don't even want to say it

Okay I don't even want to say it right now Okay We'll talk off air Yeah Okay But I believe there's a lot of things We don't know as people

And I believe there's a lot of A lot of conspiracies are real That's the problem The problem with conspiracy theories Is some of them are crazy and ridiculous But the reason why people entertain crazy and ridiculous ones Is because some of them are real

And they're so nuts That you go they did what When you, just when you find out about U.S. history alone, you know, you find out that the reason why we got into Vietnam was... I don't know this, Uganda. Okay. It's called the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was supposedly the North Vietnamese, the Viet Cong, attacked one of our ships. But it was fake. They faked it. It's not real. It's called a false flag. And they did it just to have a story so that we would have an excuse to invade Vietnam. So we said, all those people are Vietnam for nothing? A lot of people died for nothing.

A lot of people died for nothing, and a lot of people made a lot of fucking money. And it probably had to do with drugs, too, because they were moving heroin at a Vietnam. I mean, it was control of the heroin trade was a big part of it. There was also one of the reasons why we were in Afghanistan. While we were in Afghanistan, heroin production in Afghanistan was 94% of the world's heroin. What does, and it ramped up after we invaded Afghanistan. It went up. Heroin production, not only did it go up, but we were guarding poppy field.

for the Taliban. Why do we need a guard for the farmers, rather? Why do we need the guard them? Well, that's a really good question. Are we using them for medical here? Or they're just getting used to fuck people up? It's money. It's money.

There's people, there's dirty money that gets moved around for sure. When you, you're dealing with something like the drug trade and billions of dollars are going all over. Like, people want a piece of that. And there's high-level people that are dirty. they get involved in that and they make decisions based on that and and they put people's lives at risk and people die because of it and that probably happened in Afghanistan and definitely happened in Vietnam and the people don't want to believe that he people are hearing this right

now oh stop with that nonsense but it's true I mean there's a video of Geraldo Rivera interviewing these military guys that were guarding poppy fields in Afghanistan and the guy who's interviewing is very reluctant to talk about it, but it was on Fox News, and he had to talk about it because everybody was aware of it. It was becoming a big conspiracy online, and they were coming up with some sort of a rational reason why they needed to guard their heroin production. Because, you know, we need them to tell on the Taliban and like, really? Really? So we're letting the farmers poison young people and heroin addicts all over the world because we want them to give us information about, is that really what's going on, or are you motherfuckers making money out of this?

They've got to be making a lot of money, too. A lot of money. A lot of money. Well, I just saw a story about that guy from, he was a football player from Australia. He was selling drugs. What was that story? He was not from Australia. He went to USC quarterback. He was selling drugs? He was selling drugs out of an apartment in Australia for a cartel that was from Tijuana. I forgot his name. It's this quarterback. I feel like a lot of people know it. Is it a real recent story? It's a real story. A recent story? I from recent from what I've seen it might be an older it might be like a couple years older but yeah he got caught because someone along the way was a middleman for a lot of

yeah wild true story behind cocaine quarterback signal caller for the cartel wow and they said he was making like a million dollars a day and cash and he he was trying to move it through Las Vegas casinos but the middleman someone messed up the bet and he lost the money so he had a loan money from someone and that someone was like an undercover waiting for him like a year later and caught him at a McDonald's before he went across the road to Tijuana or something. It's crazy, yo.

You know drugs control a lot of things and it's messed up. Well, it's the money. When you think about how much money gets moved around in the drug game and people get tempted by that. And then, you know, you get a hold of some legitimate businessman and say, listen, there's

a way for you to get 10x return on your money you know you invest in this we do that it's simple you'll never get dirty all the money goes to offshore accounts no one know about it you can retire when you're 45 crazy and then people start getting roped it and it's also it's the excitement of doing something naughty that's part of it too some people just get you know like some people like to ride bulls some people like to do some people like to do some shit they're not supposed to do they get they get addicted to doing things that they are not supposed to do they get addicted to the life a DEA agents a lot of DEA

agents become drug dealers. What's just like that show, Narcos Mexico? Yes. It's the same thing. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. For cocaine cowboys.

Have you ever watched that documentary? No. What's that about? Amazing. Cocaine Cowboys one and there's cocaine Cowboys too. There was so much corruption in Miami during the 1980s during the cocaine time that one graduating class of the police academy, the entire graduating class either wound up murdered or in jail. How you do that?

Because they were all corrupt. They were all involved in cocaine dealing, all of them, because there was so much money. Everybody's driving a Corvette. Everybody's living large. Everybody's doing blow and wearing diamonds. It's crazy. It's like you get caught up in that life. And if you're involved in, like you're a police officer and everybody around you is dirty,

you know, like, it's more likely you're going to be dirty too. Well, now aren't they kind of blowing the Ecuadorian ships up that are coming to here that are having a lot of drugs on them. Yeah, Venezuela, right? Venezuelanships, they're just blowing them up. I don't even know. I'm not educated on stuff like that, but I wonder if it's for to keep the trade here. No, I doubt it.

I think more likely what it is is because Trump genuinely hates that they're bringing drugs into this country. Is there other things involved, too? I don't know. I mean, I'm sure some of it has to do perhaps with politics. I mean, I think that's a reasonable assumption But Jamie, I just sent you something Here's what interesting

One of the things that Trump was saying is that poisoning our kids and that 100,000 people are dying every year from drug overdoses We have to put a stop to this From the time Trump's been in office Deaths by overdose have dropped off a cliff

Look at that Look at 2024 And leading into 2025 These are all deaths from overdoses. I mean, that's kind of crazy. Like, look at that. From all drugs, which is the top one,

look at that drop. I mean, that's crazy. So you see the peak was in 2022, or it looks like actually between 2023 and 2024. That's the peak where people are dying. And then from the time Trump's in office, it's taking a fucking sharp downturn.

and why is that part of it's because they're blowing up these fucking boats that are bringing in all the drugs and not just drugs but drugs that are tainted with fentanyl fentanyl is terrible terrible because a little piece can kill you exactly it's smaller than a penny and you're dead

and people are snorting lines of it and they don't even know it's in there and the cartel they're buying they're taking shitty drugs and mixing it with fentanyl so it has an effect and people are getting it from what they think is a Xanax, and it's not a Xanax, it's fake,

and it's got fentanyl in it, and they're dying from that. They're dying from Coke, that they think it's coke, and fentanyl's in that. You know, it's horrible. There's so much access to things in this world right now

that I feel like there's so many attainable things that people don't even think about that a lot of shit happens in this world that we just have no clue, and it's kind of weird. And I just don't know, like, kind of the variety that I'm bringing to the combo, but I'm just saying it,

like out of just to say it, but it's different. There's like social media. You can meet so many people and just going to random places and meeting people and then you can get roped up in the wrong things. And it's just the downhill of the downhill starts. Yep, you take a bad turn and next thing you know, you're on a bad road and you keep going. You're like, eventually I'm going to get out of this game. Can't.

No, then you're in jail or you're dead. Ed Calderon, the guy who's been on this podcast many times. He used to work for the Mexican military. Now he's an American citizen, but he's a cartel expert. And, you know, the stories that he's told us about the fucking cartel and the amount of money they have. I mean, they essentially, they have giant military operations. It's all cartel. The car, and they go to war with each other.

It's crazy. Is it Pablo Escobar that had the money in the walls of his house? I mean, probably. I don't know. Or who died and he buried it all over in different places? I'm sure they all do that. I'm sure Escobar did that. I think they all do that.

They have so much money. That was one of the things of cocaine cowboys, was this pilot. They had millions of dollars buried in his backyard who just take garbage bags, fill it with millions of dollars of cash, dig a big hole in the backyard and bury it there because you couldn't bring it into a bank. Why not just give it away? I'll fuck give it away. Because they're doing Coke and they want more money. They just don't know what to do with it, you know? And they can't just have it all laying around their house and someone will break into their house and kill them and take their money.

It's like, then it's over with. It is a crazy game. But I can't recommend that documentary enough. Cocaine Cowboys. You'll watch it. You go, what the fuck? Where's the streamed at? It's probably on everywhere.

Where is cocaine Cowboys? Can you get it? Sounds like Amazon. I'm sure it's on everything. It might even be on Netflix. But it's incredible because you realize like, wow, like cocaine built Miami. Miami had more banks per capita. I don't know if it still does, but at one point in time, more banks per capita than any other city in the country.

And it's because those banks were laundering. money. Damn. They were laundering cocaine money. It was all coming in. And Miami never sleeps either.

So it was all night affair. Yeah, that is a crazy fucking town. That is not a good town if you want to be a fighter and live like a

low-key discipline life. No. You can, all of a sudden you're here, then you end up here, then all of a sudden it's 8 a.m.

Right. You're at the beach at 12. Can't be right. No. Can't be right. That's a dark hole that a lot of people

should not be in. But how do you get out, though? I don't know. Ask John. I mean he seems to have navigated those waters better than anybody you know because usually it ruins everything in your life he's obviously had some missteps but still comes out the greatest

you know which is not everybody's path you know but obviously John is smart in that he spends a lot of time doing the things that he wants to do spends a lot of time training his dog doing you know tactical stuff he's always shooting guns and training and you know you got to have things outside of that life, you know, that you enjoy other than just partying. Yeah, you've got to have fun. You've got to have some type of gap. Some release.

Yeah, and he's got a good release, and he's got a good mentality of what the release should be and how it should go and where he needs to go with it. And then, I mean, I've been with him now since we have this close connection. I've been with him to places, and he's always kept me on a straight path, which is really, really nice. You know, a lot of people that may have, you know, like to take shots or like to do something like that you know there's always a little man do you want one right but there's never there's never been a time where he's like man i think you should try and it's great because as as as an older as a younger

kid that's coming up he sees the potential and that's all that matters and i just need someone to see it and man he's been great with it for sure yeah when you're around a bunch of people that party and they drag you into that world it's so easy for people to get hooked it's so easy for people to just get roped into that lifestyle because people essentially for the most part imitate their atmosphere and if you're around that kind of an atmosphere those are the type of people that you're with and those are the type of thrills that they're seeking you can get caught up in that you know and it's it's the bane of every fighter's existence is women in partying yeah you know he's always been like hey you got to stay you got to stay clean go home and that's been the best part about it that's

great man that is fucking great so what is the timeline right now are have you signed a deal with the ufc are they i know they're talking to you what's going on they've reached out of many times but I told them just I'm kind of all the lines of right now I'm waiting for my my little girl to give my my baby girl to give to come out um so January is kind of a dead month for me but are you signed with the UFC no no I'm not I'm not I'm not signed anybody but have they offered you a fight yet um yeah they've reached out about a couple things but no one specific they just offered dates do you want to have fights in other organizations first the one of the problems with a guy like you is that you're so talented that you could have one two fights in

UFC and all of a sudden be fighting a top contender, you know, which I think you would do well. Yeah, but if I was a manager of like a boxer and a guy with your potential, I would do what Custamato did with Mike Tyson. You have them fight a bunch of different guys like you did with dirty boxing, small organization MMA fights, build up those skills, get a lot of experience while you're constantly training and growing and getting better. And then once you enter into the UFC, you're essentially already the champion. There's just nobody knows it, yeah.

I would really like to debut at the White House. Debut. I would like to debut at the White House. I would like to do one or two more fights before then, and then if I can sign, do a big release. Hey, he signed, good job, and then debuted at the White House. That's my perfect world. Is it hard to get fights right now?

Maybe a little bit. I don't ask. I just say, yes, and then just keep moving. I kind of leave it up to John to kind of watch the people. and all the coaches to kind of watch and see what goes on. But, I mean, if a guy says no, there's no hard feelings. I mean, just keep it pushing and hopefully I can get to the guy that says yes. That's the problem is that when a guy gets so much hype around him,

there's a lot of guys who want to eventually be a world champion and go, oh, I'm not ready for this guy yet. You know, and it's like even good guys. It's like, ah, this guy's not, he's on another level right now. But just when, if they do think that, just whenever you think you are ready, I will be there waiting That's terrifying I will be there waiting

That's terrifying A lot of people heard that like I don't want to wait I don't want to wait Fuck this amount But also the smart move might be To get a hold of you now Before you get better

You can try now too But you know what I'm saying Yeah You know what I'm saying I mean like pick your poison I mean like I said Dirty boxing And that last fight in November

with that double leg that's the worst i ever be and it's kind of neat to to repeat that to the world to kind of let them get a refresher that is the worst gables he'll see if it will be and the best is when he'll come back his next time but after that that's the last worst i'll ever be after that so do you have a blueprint like a map of what you'd like to accomplish in your career yes long term yeah long term i'd like to be champion ufc champion um i think uh stepe has about five defenses if I'm not mistaken, I would like to try to beat that record if I can. And if I can't die trying, you know, I would like to, I played in the NFL, I won the Olympics. I would just like to be just an overall good man.

You know, a lot of people want to look at, like we just talked about, you know, a lot of people want to look at the success, the money. I just want to be excellent man, you know what I'm saying? I want to look back and be like, damn, like Gable did that. And I saw Dana White, he had a pitcher and he said, let your last name, be the reason that people remember you. And I want the Steven last name to be something that people remember. And I want them to look at me and be like, damn, like through the peaks and valleys,

Gable stood up and he became someone his life. And he provided for his family and he went home, healthy. And that's what I want. Championships going to come. But I feel like a lot of people are so obsessed with I got to do this. But I'm obsessed with being the best version of Gable. Because if I'm the best version of the Gable, you're not going to be able to beat me. Keep that mindset and you will accomplish these things, my man.

And then I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you very much for being here. Yes, you're right. It's pleasure. Thank you. And I can't wait to see you fighting the UFC.

Man, I can't wait here. It's going to be fun. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Bye, everybody.