The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #18 with Pat Miletich

Episode Date: March 21, 2018

Joe sits down with former UFC Welterweight Champion and current commentator Pat Miletich.

3, 2, 1. The great and powerful Pat Miletic. I don't know about that. You are. Listen, man, it's an honor to have you in here. Thank you. You know what? I've been watching your show for a long time, and you're a contrarian thinker.

I love it. And you've prompted a lot of people to think differently, right? Maybe. I think information prompts people to think differently. Well, when they get pounded with it enough and hear it enough, eventually it starts to sink in, right? Yeah, I think so, man. And when you talk about guys who have been around,

like you are one of the real pioneers of MMA. It's one of the reasons why I really wanted to have you in here. I remember back when you were fighting. I remember back when you fought Matt Hume. And what was that like? Extreme Battlecade. Yeah, that was John Peretti's thing. I mean, dude, you've been around.

You've been around. You were the early days. Bare knuckle. Yeah, yeah. No, you know, and the thing is, I always tell people. Didn't you fight Dan Severin? Yeah, yeah. We fought to a draw.

Who was 270 pounds at the time. Yeah, and he was still obviously pretty tough back then, still pretty mobile. It was not a fun fight, I can tell you, carrying his weight around for 30 minutes. But it was tough. But Matt Hume is the guy that made me realize that I wasn't a fighter yet. Because I was 15-0. I think I was ranked fourth in the world. I fought Matt.

Ragdolled him for basically the whole first round. Threw him around like a ragdoll. But he was just biding his time and waiting. And he caught me with some knees and damaged my nose. And the referee and the doctor stopped the fight because back then it was very controversial. They didn't want a guy with a crushed nose or whatever. And so they stopped the fight. But I realized at that point he knew a lot more than I did.

Yeah, that was an interesting fight because I totally disagree with that stoppage. And I was watching, I was like, this is crazy. How could you stop a fight for a broken nose? Well, and it was, I got head-butted. I used to spar with a lot of pro boxers and I got head-butted by a pro boxer and he separated the cartilage from the bone. So that gap is still there.

So that's what they felt. My nose was bleeding a little bit, but so that's why they stopped it. Right, but broken noses are just it happens right and it's not dangerous it's like maybe somebody saw those movies where you like like Remember in a movie a guy would hit the bottom of a guy's nose and drive the bone up into his brain like Mike Tyson Talking about it, right? Yeah He hit me like this and put it put your bone up through the brain

That might be the worst Mike Tyson impression I've ever heard. I'm going to let that go, though. I'm doing my best, doing my best, man. Yeah, but back then, yeah, nobody really knew what was dangerous, what wasn't dangerous. It wasn't like a body of fights that we could draw upon. And I was doing televised debates with politicians at the time. Were you really? To keep the sport legal in the state that I was scheduled to fight in.

So think of how stressful it is to train for a fight, stay healthy, try and pay your bills, do all the stuff you're doing. And at the same time, I'm debating politicians in that state who are trying to pass a bill to ban the sport that I'm scheduled to fight in that state. I'm panicking. I'm freaking out. So I do my homework and I'd get in debates like Representative Boland from Illinois. I got by the time we got done with the debate, he goes, I'll agree with Mr. Miletic. He's obviously, you know, I think they expected to go into a debate with a punch-drunk boxer. Right, right. And by the time the debate was done, I'd crushed him, and he's like, well, maybe if we could just do away with headbutts.

You know, that was his rebuttal at the end of it. Yeah, I mean, I see how they think, and I see that thought. But I think today, even to this day, I don't mind headbutts. I don't either, because you train for them. Yeah. If they're legal, that's what you're training for. And it's a legit technique. Like, why is it okay to slam your elbow into someone's face, but it's not okay to slam your forehand into someone's face?

Right. And it's very effective. If a guy's tying you up in the guard and his head's right there you can do that right and he can't really do it back to you it's and i i mean i i watched when i was in my first no holds barred tournament in chicago oh god i don't even remember the name of it anymore it's been so long but um i saw a guy get headbutted 42 times in the first round and he ended up winning with a triangle. Wow.

He ended up winning the fight. It was Marcel Leverich versus this guy named Johnson, Mike Johnson, I think his name was. Marcel Leverich ends up losing after crushing him with headbutts. Mike Johnson's in the shower. They're running cold water on him, trying to wake him back up, and he collapses, and they have to throw in an alternate. Wow. But it was, yeah, headbut butts obviously were legal then so wow yeah head butts like that was mark the hammer coleman's knees on the ground knees on the ground knees to the head on the ground yeah but i mean think about

when coleman was in his prime he was all about head butts and we fought maurice and he took maurice down that was back in the days when headbutts were legal. Maurice Smith, he defended against all that. Doing all of this. Yeah. It's just another technique. But without that technique, it's sort of like when I realized that Taekwondo was very limited was when I started working out with kickboxers. I started getting punched in the face, and I was like, oh, no.

What have I learned? I've learned this thing that it's only good if somebody doesn't punch you in the face. Like, this is terrible. But, you know, you were an open thinker, obviously, and you realized. So the thing was, with early MMA, everybody was so tied to their technique. It's like being tied to a religion and refusing to see something else. Yeah, there was a lot of that. Yeah, there was a lot of pride in your art. There was always a lot of guys like wrestlers who were only into wrestling or kickboxers only into Muay Thai.

They just wanted to stand up. They didn't want to go to the ground. They just wanted to stand up. That just costs you in the long run. Especially when you see a real complete fighter. Like a guy like Mighty Mouse. A guy like Mighty Mouse is the top of the heap. Trained by Matt Hume, right? Right, exactly.

He can do everything. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're a wrestler. It doesn't matter if you're a kickboxer. You're fucked. You're fucked everywhere with that guy. And it's because he's got this just incredibly well-rounded skill set. And I think the days of the specialists, I think, are still kind of here. I'm surprised that that's still the case.

Yeah, there's a few guys that can still pull it off. But the guys that can pull it off are like the Damien Mayas or the Wonder Boys. Like Wonder Boys is such an elite striker that if he can keep the fight standing, he can kind of work a lot of guys. And because so many guys have not done karate and things like that, he's like a Rubik's Cube they can't figure out. Yeah. Well, he's long in that weird sideways stance with that front leg. Those guys who have a good front leg, like that karate-style point fighting style, that they're used to blitzing in with that good front leg, very hard to gauge that distance.

It's so different. I think Woodley did the best job of anybody in fighting him, and I think that's like a roadmap for it. Because people booed Woodley and gave Woodley a lot of shit. But look, Woodley's the one who hurt him in both fights. And that's the way you've got to fight that guy. You can't just charge after that guy. And the criticisms of Woodley in my mind, I think, look, it's a two-man dance.

Woodley kept his title. Ultimately, that's all that matters. You know what I mean? If I'm the champ, I'm just trying to keep my title. I'm doing enough to win. I'm not there to be the most exciting fighter. That was my mentality because I knew once you get – because I fought totally different. Before I got to the UFC, I was just a psychopath and go out and just go 100 miles an hour until the guy was done.

Right. But once you get in the UFC, then it's, okay, we can cut you if you lose. Right. It's like, okay, now I now I gotta change the way I fight well there's also the win bonus I mean especially now did they have the win bonus back then yeah that to me is a real issue I think a guy should be

paid what they get paid I think if you have a contract the contract for X amount of money if you have points on the pay-per-view that's on top of that but the idea that your win or loss could be in the hands of what we have deemed completely incompetent judges i see it every week every week i mean and you do a lot of commentary yourself in these smaller shows i'd imagine sometimes it's even worse i've i mean we've gotten in trouble to the point where we had people come to us and go look you

the promoters at different organ from when there was really, really bad decisions, you know, when I was working with Michael Chiavello especially, we were brutal on the athletic commissions. And we'd hear about it and go, you guys need to back off. I've heard it, too. I've heard it from athletic commissions, too. I say, go fuck yourself. There's guys in there that are fighting for their life. They literally train for months and months. yourself. There's guys in there that are fighting for their life. They literally train for months and months. And someone who literally doesn't even understand martial arts is giving these

guys a decision, a loss or a win. And that's 50% of their money. And that's crazy. I remember the first time I witnessed it as far as a coach when my IFL team was fighting in Texas. We were fighting, I think, Boss's team. And I looked at the judges and all of them, one of them had a bouffant hairdo an old lady and then two old guys with white hair and I went back to the locker room and I go guys you can't let this go to the judges they're like one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel they know nothing about what they're watching like we are in deep shit if we can't do it well it's I think boxing is a very complicated art,

and I think it's a very difficult thing to score, but it's way more easy to score than martial arts. Absolutely. There's so much going on. When a fight goes to the ground, I mean, I have a friend who's a judge who literally said to me in the middle of a fight, one of the female judges, or referees rather, judges, one of the female judges turned to him and go, what is he doing? Like, what is he doing? The the female judges turned to him and go what is he

doing like what is he doing the guy was going for kimura what is he doing yeah what is he doing adelaide what are you doing adelaide bird right yeah we've we've heard you you talked about her during one of the ufc's right me and cormier were joking around it's a very nice lady very nice lady yeah but like i said my mom's a really nice lady, too. I wouldn't want her judging any fights. But I said to Adelaide Bird before the Pride in Las Vegas, Lawler was fighting in that one, right? And I thought, I'm just going to ask. And I walked up to her and I go, excuse me, I'm new to the sport.

Could you tell me what a triangle choke is? And she looked at me and went, oh. And just walked away. She walked away? Yeah. She just looked at me. Maybe she knew who you were. Maybe she's like, this is a trap fucking pat miller just trying to trap the guy with cauliflower ears yeah exactly that's true what new to this sport that's

hilarious you probably had a like a transparent grin like you couldn't hold it back you know those grins just it's it's sad that this goes it's awful they they suspend fighters constantly but when are they going to start suspending referees and judges? I think I've only seen it one time. I agree. I mean, judges and, for sure, referees as well. But I think that the real thing that's so disappointing to me is that there's a wealth of martial arts experts out there. There's so many.

There's so many good coaches that would be great judges. There's so many great ex-fighters. There's so many people that are just really well-versed in martial arts that'd be able to tell. And I also think three people is a ridiculously small number. You mean like five judges? Yeah, like five judges would, I think, lose a lot of the shitty decisions. That's a good idea. Because if it's two and one, like there's sometimes you get a split decision.

You're like, what in the fuck yeah like one person saw this completely wrong and the other two guys got it right thank god the other two guys were there well if there's five people and this happens more than once you say okay we got a weak link here let's get rid of this person right let's get rid of this person yeah one judge will have it unanimous one way and the other judges will have it unanimous the other. It's impossible. They should be held accountable. Someone should have to sit down with them and say, God, explain. What are you seeing?

Let's watch the round. Sit down with me and tell me how you think this guy who's getting the fuck beat out of him is winning. It's criminal, dude. Some of the kids I've seen screwed out of... It's just... It's heartbreaking. It is. It's heartbreaking. And it literally is like stealing money from these kids.

I just don't like the win bonus, man. I just think it's a bad. I don't think anybody fights harder for it. See, and I don't even necessarily subscribe to Fight of the Night and Knockout of the Night and stuff like that. I think they just bring back the yellow cards for stalling type stuff. Right, pride did it yeah right i think that's a great way to do things and when pride did it what did they take 10 of your purse i think so and you know and they would end up i mean you get dq'd eventually right yes they pull the red card and you're done right if it was more than one yellow card you'd get dq'd so they would give you a yellow card if they thought that you were

either doing something illegal or if you're not engaging. Just stalling, whatever. I mean, in college wrestling, they knew that they had to change things. They had to speed up the action. And they started calling stalling a lot faster in college wrestling. And it changed college wrestling. Guys get after it now. You know, my problem with it, though, is that there's referees that separate fighters when they're working real hard against the cage.

And I think, again, it's guys who don't understand. They don't understand how difficult this is. When you have one guy that's trying to take the other guy down, the other guy's trying to defend, they're landing shots in between, trying to open up space, and then the referee will say, keep working, I'm going to separate you guys, you don't work. They're working. What the fuck are you watching?

Yeah, they're battling. They literally don't understand the position. And that's a giant problem. Think about how many referees have never truly trained. Right, a lot.. They're battling. They literally don't understand the position. Yeah. And that's a giant problem. Think about how many referees have never truly trained. Right. A lot. A lot. And if they did train, it was a long fucking time ago.

A lot of the guys going in there with big fat guts and they just. How many times have you called fights in all the years you've been calling fights and been saying, he's out, he's out, he's out. Stop the fight. Stop the fight. Stop the fight. I wonder if you're so close to it that you don't see it as well. That's not an excuse.

That's not an excuse. Because, you know, you've trained for so many years in martial arts, right? You know when somebody's unconscious from a choke. You know when a joint's getting destroyed. You've been around it enough. You've trained high level enough where you see it. You can see their stomach where it's going in and out really hard. You know they're unconscious, right?

Right, right. Where referees look at somebody and their eyes are wide open. Well, his eyes are open, so he must be conscious. You're a moron. Yeah, you don't understand. Right? Yeah, yeah. What are your thoughts on forcing tap outs, like if a guy gets his arm broken?

Like, that's a controversial thing. Like, stopping a fight. What do you think about Tim Sylvia and Frank Mir? Yeah. You know, Tim got his forearm snapped. That was a crazy one. thing like like if stopping a fight what do you think about tim sylvia and frank mirror yeah you know tim got his forearm that was a crazy one because in that one i kind of agree with her because it wasn't an elbow it was the middle of the arm right both forearm bones went at the same time and so i didn't see that angle right tim's back was to us in the corner and herb stops it

and i and tim gets up and he's like, what the – doing a great acting job. Tim, for whatever reason, was able to pull that off. I mean, that's not a pleasant feeling, obviously, having your arms snap. And Tim gets up, and he's like yelling at Herb. I go in. I start yelling at Herb, and Herb's like, Pat, I swear to God, his arm is broken. He's pleased. And then I see the replay on the big screen.

I go, all right, Herb. All right. Well, I remember the crowd was booing. And then we played the replay back. And I'm like, watch it. Watch it right here. Snap. And you hear everybody go, oh!

Yeah. And then I told Tim, I go, wave to the crowd when we walk out of the cage with your broken arm. So Tim goes like this and waves. And then we got backstage when the doctor looked at it. And I go, how bad is it? And he goes, oh, it fucking hurts. This hurts. Yeah. Yeah, it was bad.

So the doctor that did it was a good friend of mine, orthopedic guy, who I trained for many years. He was a bull rider at one time and then became an orthopedic surgeon and then trained with me in kickboxing, right? Tough guy. Tough dude from Texas. I would imagine. And he goes, I've never had to order plates for a tibia bone to put somebody's forearm bones back together. He goes, they're as big as the normal human's tibia. Oh, yeah.

Tim's a giant. Yeah. His bones were massive. He goes, they don't even make – I had to use tibia plates. Wow. Yeah. Did that heal 100 plates. Wow. Yeah. Did that heal 100%? Yeah.

Yeah. Because it was a long time though, right? Yeah, it did. He really struggled with that. Right. I remember him saying thank you to Herb Dean for saving his career. Yeah. Because, you know, if he let him go on and that thing got thrashed.

That thing's hanging down here and everything else. Or especially if it goes, once it breaks through the skin, that becomes a giant issue for infection. Absolutely. All kinds of, here it is right here. Jamie pulled it up. Frank Mir, that motherfucker has broken more arms. They're not showing it right here? Oh, it's just not the angle?

It was right on the cup. Here's the replay. Yeah. Right there. That's another thing about metal cups. That's a weird little loop. Oh, here it is. That's a weird angle, too.

Look at that. Pop. Yeah. Ooh, daddy. That's a weird little loophole here it is that's a weird angle too look at that yeah yeah daddy that's a weird angle that was ugly that was ugly those metal cups man that's a weird uh still loophole like you could still wear those those tie cups i think you should be able to but you're kicking metal and it's also a crazy fulcrum if you got a guy on an arm bar that's you got a fucking metal rod there i like it though i like i'm sure you do but the thing with what the the old timers that taught me and k1 and muay thai was you take those metal cups and you take sheet metal screws from the inside out and you screw this put the sheet metal screws through and then back them back out so there's raised edges everywhere on it right so you wear that so if they knee you or you in the groin, it shreds their meat up on their knee or their foot.

Right. Right. So that's what the old TIE fighters would do. That's the way they would do their cups. So that's how I started doing it. So if they're going to low blow me, they're going to shred their freaking leg up. The problem with that is it also works if you get a guy and you mount him and you drive that thing into his sternum. Then you've got like barbs.

You're shoving into his sternum. Then you've got like barbs. You're shoving into his sternum. That seems like a weapon. It seems a little bit like a little cheating. Yeah. There was a couple other guys that did that back in the day, especially the Chicago circuit because I was fighting kickboxing in Chicago a lot. Was Chicago like a rougher circuit? Dude, they would do K-1 rules, Muay Thai,

and then I started in the PKC style originally, and I hated it because it was the light tree, like the dragsters. The old PKC was you get one kick in, one light light. Oh, yeah. PKC, is that like PKA? Yeah, basically. It was all the same stuff. Same kind of shit, like above the waist kickboxing?

Yeah, with the silk pants and all the bullshit. Right, those were great. Oh, God, it was brutal. The boots, those foam boots on. So when I started, I wasn't flexible, right? I was a wrestler who had some boxing experience. And the reason they did that was so boxers wouldn't come in and destroy everybody. Right.

Right, so the karate guys could survive and do pretty well. Yeah. So just having to get the allotted eight kicks per round, I hated it because it was all kick above the waist. I wasn't that flexible. I was pretty shitty at kicks when I first started, started right so it was just a waste of time and then i i ran into the movie thai thing and the k1 rules fights and i went this is my thing i can kick them in the legs thank god well i remember the first time i kicked in the leg i was like oh this is such a game changer because in taekwondo it was like it was illegal it was illegal to kick below the waist right and

it was legal to punch in the face so it was great for learning dexterity of the legs. But the moment I started training with Thai guys and I got kicked once, just once, I went, oh, you should do this. This should be the thing. It's so painful. It's so painful. Well, it's weird. It's not just painful. It's like your leg goes dead.

Yeah. Yeah. There's this weird feeling. You're like, oh, Christ. But so effective yeah and also that you could do it from such a close range right you know they can be in a clinch and blast somebody in the leg and hurt right so i the worst experience of my life sparring was arthur mariana souza he was the guy in the old ivcs in brazil that laid vanderley silva's eye wide open and all the meat was hanging down past his

eye. That was Arthur Mariano Souza. I remember that guy. Great striker. Trained in Holland for a lot of years and he would come up with Omri Batesh and live with me when Batesh was the elite guy on the planet grappling, right? So we had the best of both worlds. We had a wicked striker and one of the best grapplers in the world and he'd

come up and we'd just train hard, right? For six, eight weeks at a time. And Arthur started low-kicking the shit out of everybody in my gym. We weren't great Muay Thai guys at that time. But the experience of watching, he started, that's the thing, he started getting to the back leg, right? He could throw the cross and step outside and come back and just tap you in the same spot over and over on your back leg.

And you're always taking your weight off that leg off the cross. Your weight goes on it. Then it comes back off of it as you're stepping right when the kick hits. So it's like jello. Your quad's jello. It just cut right to the femur bone every time. And he kicked me like three times in a row in the exact same spot. And I winced and went, ah.

And he goes, patch, you know, with the Brazilian accent. He's likeced and went and he goes patch you know with the brazilian accent he's like patch i don't i don't kick you in that leg anymore and i go no dude i need to learn the hard way i need to learn the hard way so he's like all right cross low kick fall down ball and he had jens pulver jumping like this like a monkey uh he was so afraid of his low kicks and then you're fucked for days afterwards oh yeah yeah you don't want to get kicked out funky when you try to train you're all jacked up yeah it's a it's an amazing skill that the the thais really figured out how to do it right i mean kyokushin obviously had it a lot of martial arts had it but man the thais figured it out yeah they really it's kind of crazy when you think about this one small island, this one small country.

And they, because of gambling and because they had all those fights, they just figured out a totally different method of training, a totally different method of fighting. Yeah, yeah. Pretty impressive. When you think about the history of Thai fighting between the Laotians and the Thais during times of peace, the soldiers would fight each other and all that sort of stuff. Just a bunch of scary people, and they're the nicest people in the world. The nicest people.

You couldn't meet any nicer people who would completely wreck you. It's so weird because when you meet Thais, especially even Thai fighters, they're so friendly. They're so friendly and humble and warm. And then when you watch them fight, you're like, Jesus. It's kind of crazy. So my Muay Thai coach, a guy named Long Longley, his last name was not Longley, it was a lot longer than that, but he was a stadium champ. He lived in Peoria, Illinois in the ghetto, and he had a little shitty basement with banana bags and all that sort of stuff.

And I found him out of sheer luck. Somebody said, there's this guy in Peoria that was a stadium champion. He's the guy. So I went to see him, and he taught me how to clinch do clinch work and he was 140 pounds maybe and he put you in the clinch all the years of wrestling everything else didn't matter I mean I felt like a dog in a lake with a raccoon hanging on my head that's one thing that people don't realize that aren't real fans of the sport is that Muay Thai is a lot about grappling. It's a lot about that clinch work. And that's one of the things that I really like Lion Fight above a lot of the other kickboxing organizations is they let those guys work in the clinch and elbows in the clinch.

Again, like we were saying about headbutts, these elements are very effective. So why remove them? It's what's tolerable to the politicians and the public and all the other garbage, right? Bare knuckle, clinch, everything should be there, I think. I think everything should be there. I think the real issue is the cage. The real issue is the cage, in my opinion, because the cage presents this artificial barrier. I mean, I'm beating a dead horse here because I've been saying they should fight on basketball courts.

I'm like, if you can have a basketball game in a basketball court, why can't you fight in a basketball court? It would certainly serve a striker, right? Fuck yeah. The wrestlers are able to get you against a cage, yank your legs out from underneath you, beat the shit out of you. It is an advantage for the wrestlers. But it's also an advantage for the wrestlers in that a guy's not going to be able to put his back up against the cage and get

back up again. True. You know, if a good grappler has you down in the center, you're going to have to earn that stand-up. You're going to have to actually either reverse the position or figure out a real escape. Because so many guys are so good at wall walking. Yeah. And they're also good at defending a submission

by keeping one side pressed up against a cage. Can't take their back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that it's an artificial environment, like the cage. And it's also hard to see, like if you're in the audience. I mean, it's actually better sometimes to be home watching cage fights. I like the boxing rings for fights. I mean, they go through the ropes now and then, whatever, right?

But it's a lot better for people at home watching and for the live crowd. There's just not that cage area, that focus problem for the eyes and cameras, right? I agree. I think Bellator actually nailed it with their kickboxing ring because they put this big circle around it so you can't fall through. Remember when Bernard Hopkins fought Joe Smith in his last fight? He went through the ropes and landed on his fucking head. I mean, this is a terrible way for a legend to go out.

It's the ropes were loose and he gets clipped while he was already going down he just goes right through the hole yeah that's ridiculous that he could fall four feet and land on his fucking head like that was that was the fight where bernard was talking tons of shit before the fight right was he talking a lot of shit yeah he was talking a lot of shit was his last fight you know probably realized i mean bernard hopkins was getting his ass kicked by antoine eccles who trained at Pena's boxing gym in Iowa where I trained, right? Antoine was scary, dude. He was scary. He got sidetracked and derailed by horrible management. They really screwed his

career up. But he was the scariest boxer that I have ever seen and been in the gym with. I mean, that guy, he's looking like he's punching at half speed and just crushing people with 16 ounce sparring gloves on. Wow. Just destroying people. Yeah, I remember Antoine. Antoine went down to, it was South America, Ecuador or wherever the hell it was.

That was when Norris was fighting Simon Brown. Terry? Terry Norris. Terry Norris or? The smaller one. Right, yeah, Terry. Yeah, Terry. Terry Norris or? The smaller one. Right, yeah, Terry. Yeah, Terry. Michael Nunn was defending his title there.

Oh, wow. And Antoine Eccles got on the card because Michael Nunn was the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. He was out of Davenport, Iowa also, where I live. Right. So they were doing a bunch of sparring. They were training down there, getting used to the altitude. And Antoine walked into the gym, and he started sparring with three-time world champions and beating the shit out of all of them and They go dude. You need to back off. You need this you need to stop this and it's a month out from the fight

He doesn't care. He's knocking the shit out of all these three-time world champs and they go you and Basically what Antoine said to all of them was if you guys can't handle it stay out of my ring Like I don't care who you are or what your titles are. I'm going to wreck you. So toughen up. I own the ring now, right? That's how good he was. What do you think about that kind of sparring, though?

I think it's great. Do you think it's great to just go to war? I just, you know, there has to be a limit, obviously. Because the ties don't do it like that at all. Well, here's the thing, though. That's because the low kicks, the knees, the elbows, all that sort of stuff. It's also because they fight a lot. Right.

Yeah, they're fighting every week. Yeah. So that's your sparring. But the thing is, you can't, and I say it a million times, I've said it for years, you can't become a race car driver by going down the highway at 55. You just don't have the reaction time. You're not used to that high speed, that high endurance, everything else that goes on. You have to get used to that, and everything that high endurance, everything else that goes on, you have to get used to that and everything slows down eventually, right?

Right. With experience and time, things slow down for you. I can remember when I first started fighting kickboxing and everything was like a tunnel this big. Mm-hmm. And all I could hear was me breathing. Right. Right?

Right. Just from nerves and adrenaline. Didn't hear anything else. But then later on in my career, you know, you'd see punches come at you and you'd move this slow. But it was actually – you know what I mean? So it just happens with time. And you've experienced that with everything you've done, right?

Yeah, you just become more accustomed to it and then you become more relaxed. But I wonder, like, is there a way to keep the speed but at least take something off the shots? Well, that's the thing is where you put the shin pads on, the headgear, the 16-ounce gloves, you go at high speed, you go hard, you hit takedowns hard, all that sort of stuff, you know, a couple times a week. But, you know, you can't take that kind of punishment constantly. But, you know, mornings would be conditioning, strength stuff, technique, all that sort of stuff.

Then nighttime was, you know, more high speed, hard takedowns. And as a coach, I had to look and go, all right, tonight's takedowns. But if I saw people getting tired, fatigued, and sloppy, I knew an injury was about to happen. Right. Okay, let's go to the ground now, get in the guard. Let's go from there. Let's do some ground and pound drills, this and that.

Right. So I think, you know, it's important to go high speed until you start seeing mistakes happen because of sloppiness, fatigue. That's when people get hurt. Then you've got to, you know know pull the reins back on everybody when you were running your gym the military fighting systems was the gym i mean you guys were the kings you got to think about who came out of your gym matt hughes robbie lawler i mean jens pulver tim sylvia and then a host of other killers that people just forgot you know we had a lot of people obviously that would come and train with us. Rich Franklin, Dave Manet, who was an 85-pound champ for a while.

He was one of the best martial artists I've ever seen. People don't even know about him. The guy was incredible. Trained with Greg Nelson for a good portion of his career, obviously. But I think we had 92 people made it to televised careers, and I think 30 or so made it to the UFC. That's pretty impressive. So, you know, when I added it all up, somebody asked me to do that, and I added it all up, and I went through all the televised cards that I remembered.

It was, I think, 92 people, and I thought, you know, it's pretty impressive. We had a lot of killers. We had a lot of killers. Yeah, and you also were the first big super gym. You were the first big American gym. You were the first big American gym that was producing world champions. Besides the Lions Den, I guess. That's true. The Lions Den, too.

Yeah, I guess they were the first. We had a good rivalry with them. That's true. Well, the Lions Den didn't produce as many world champions. We really basically had Frank and Ken and who else came out of the Lions Den? Trey Teligman, Guy Metzger. Trey Teligman. Yeah. Guy Metzger. Guy Metzger was a world champion.

Yeah. Yeah. Metzger also had that kickboxing background, too. He had more of an American-style kickboxing background, too. Yeah, and the wrestling. He had wrestled before and stuff, so that helped him. He had some great fights in Pride, too. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, Metzger was super legit. He's a smart guy, too. You know, Metzger's an interesting fellow. When you hear him talk about fighting and talk about his career, he's very open and honest about it. And he's into the holistic health now. Mm-hmm.

You know, he's pretty wise to that. And I tell you what, if you talk to him long enough, he'll have you sold on some products. He will. Smart dude. Yeah. But, you know, he's a guy that he suffered through that Vioxx shit. You know that Vioxx stuff that people were taking for arthritis? Getting heart attacks and all that?

Yeah, stroke. Right. They got a stroke through Vioxx. Yeah. They pulled that shit off the market. Yeah. And when people were taking it, a lot of people were getting strokes. And I think someone commented to him.

Vioxx and Celebrex. Was Celebrex another one? Celebrex was bad too, yeah. There's a lot of weird drugs that people were taking for arthritis. I guess it was like a blood thinner, right? Is that what the idea was? Yeah, there was a lot of professional athletes who were suffering from inflammation and pain and getting beat up and stuff. They were all taking it and it was wrecking people.

Yeah. But anyway, back to your gym. When you guys were doing it, you guys were kind of creating the roadmap. I mean, there wasn't really a lot. I mean, the Lions then had their crazy initiation that they would do. Right. Where they would run you through this insane gauntlet. Yeah.

It was similar to what I guess Ken had to go through in Japan. Right. So Ken had put that together. They had their own little methods as well. I shouldn't say little methods. They had their own. methods as well. I shouldn't say little methods. They had their own. They were very big and very crazy. But you guys, like, there wasn't, like, now you have ATT, you have TriStar,

you have all these different gyms you could sort of model after. You've got Rufus' camp. There's all these different places we could say, oh, all these elite fighters come out of here. How are they doing it? Oh, I've trained with these guys. I know their methods. Here's what they do for strength and conditioning.

Here's how they do their recovery work. You guys were basically at the front of the line. There was nobody back there for you to look at. Right. Well, I was lucky enough to be, like I said, I wasn't a world-class wrestler. I was a good wrestler. I beat some very good wrestlers, but those not by any means even remotely world-class, right? I had some boxing experience. I'd been around some great boxers, so I at least had that to start with. But I recognized, you know, I want to be good enough

to spar 12 rounds with a world-class boxer and hang, you know, hang and go an hour straight with a world-class BJJ black belt and go back and forth with them and battle tooth and nail to be able to hang in the Iowa wrestling room during the summer with the Hawk Club guys who are absolute beasts and frigging throw you around and bounce you off walls and spar with good kickboxers and be able to do all that stuff and then understand how to put it all together. And I think that that at least enabled me to

explain grappling and wrestling to a striker from a striker standpoint and vice versa so that was understanding angles from a striking standpoint from a wrestling standpoint and being able to explain it and understand people and then you got to read people their

personality, you got to coach everybody different, you can't coach everybody the same way because some people want to get screamed at and some people want to pat on the back and hug. You know what I mean? It's just you've got to read people differently. Personalities are a big deal. When you were putting together, when you were training fighters, you started off

when you first started doing it, you were still fighting. And you still had a couple of fights along the way. But when you were putting together like training, say if you were training a fighter of fights along the way right but when you were putting together like training say if you were training a fighter for a big fight in the UFC how did you put together their camp did you leave it up to them in some ways did you just have them attend regular group training sessions did you give them individualized attention I would you know I would give them individual attention definitely.

I had to kind of figure out everybody's body was different, how to find that balance between aerobic and anaerobic endurance. You know, some people needed more of one or the other. And then they'd come to team training. And everybody, you know, you got 40 guys in the room who are all a bunch of killers. And you just get new guys. And everybody was pretty good about knowing this guy's getting ready for a fight. Don't fucking hurt him. You know, that's really important.

Right. You know, so we were pretty good about, as a group, looking out for somebody but pushing them to their limit constantly or double teaming them constantly, you know, every minute a new guy jumping in on them type stuff and doing that sort of you know so it was um and obviously you know helping a guy like Hughes who wasn't the best striker we got to do what we can to get him better at it you know what I mean or a striker who can't stop a takedown we got to figure out how to help this guy I got to put him with a bunch of wrestlers and just have him constantly sprawling sprawling sprawling and guys would alternate and shoot and shoot and shoot and make him work it work it work it, work it, work it. It was just different for each guy, I guess.

Now, did you have anything specific that you would do in between camps? Say if you had a guy like Hughes and you say he wins his fight, now he has some time off, would you start working with him on specific things? Would you have a program? You'd say, Matt, we really got to tighten up, you know, your stand-up defense or we got to work on. Yeah, if they were healthy and stuff like that, absolutely.

You know, there was just guys that. It's so hard for people to be well-rounded. It really is, especially when you're that good at one thing. You know, Hughes was such a powerful wrestler and so good on the ground that it was, you know, it was a challenge. So we had to definitely work you know extra with that well matt was the first guy who was a really great wrestler who also was outstanding at submissions right he was he really changed the game because like like when

he hit that far side arm bar on george saint pierre that is a very technical move right and to have a powerhouse wrestler hit that in a world title fight. Yeah. It's like that, to me, I think Matt doesn't get enough credit. Maybe it's just because, you know, time passes and you start looking at George St. Pierre, you start looking at all these other guys. Tyron Woodley is the champ now. Yeah.

And you sort of just forget, like, that Matt was the blueprint. This is what happens when a really strong, powerful wrestler figures out. He absorbs the ground, right? That's a scary dude. That's where you go, you're not a BJJ guy. You're a catch-as-catch-can wrestler. Right. You understand how to destroy somebody's control position, beat them up, and hit power submissions, finesse submissions, all that different stuff.

Yeah. And when Hughes was in his prime, I remember when he first – i refereed his second fight and he destroyed some poor brazilian and the guy was a really good legit black belt and hughes beat him half to death and it was in chicago i refereed it and i walked up to him and i go dude you ever come to iowa i know i'll make you a world champ there's just no doubt in my mind that was the only guy i ever said that to the only guy i ever recruited to be honest with you for the most part. So Hughes shows up. He drives three and a half hours from Hillsborough, Illinois.

I've got bronchitis at the time, which made it even worse. And he goes, here I am. Let's get this workout in, right? So we wrestled and grappled, you know, takedowns to submissions, everything else. And about 30 minutes into it, I can't breathe. And this guy is a monster. I've had him in 50 submissions, and he's shaken out of all of them, literally. Just, like, bounced me off walls.

He's so fucking strong, I couldn't believe it. And I was a strong guy. I mean, at the time, I was probably benching 365, could dunk a basketball, and run a 4-4-40. So I was not a slouch athlete when I was in my prime. And I couldn't believe this guy. I had never experienced somebody my size being this strong in my life. That farmer strength shit is real.

It is real. And I grew up having to wrestle farmers. Trust me. The Royce Algiers and all those psychopaths, right? But I said to him, I go, hold on, man. I go, I can't breathe. I got bronchitis. And he goes, fuck you.

He goes, I don't care what you got. I drove three and a half hours. We're working out. And he grabbed me and fucking train doubled me onto my back all the way across the room, slams me. He's like, all right, we're here. Let's get it on. So I got him in one guillotine. I lifted him off his feet.

I ran him backwards and ran him as hard as I could ass first into the wall. I mean, I was trying to kill him. I was so pissed because he's just a freak. And he went limp. He went unconscious for a second. So I let go of it. He slid down the wall, hit his knees, woke back up and train doubled me again onto my back and was back at it. And so we get done with this hour something workout of just go, go, go. And I look at him and I go, dude, what are you on? And he goes, what do you mean? I go, what are you on and he goes what do you mean i go what are you taking are you on some fucking steroids or what he goes and he got pissed he goes don't ever accuse

me of that again he goes fuck you he goes don't ever say that again never that was like the one thing where if somebody said anything like that he was so offended because he was just a farm boy his brother was friggin just as strong if not stronger yeah his brother was a gorilla too and his brother fought in the ufc once right yeah and walking back to the locker room after that fight his brother mark goes that wasn't really all i i expected i i really i it was fun but i don't think i'm i don't think i'm gonna i don't enjoy that that much wow and he killed the guy he beat the shit out of it right yeah that's interesting yeah i mean even identical twins they don't necessarily think identically right right yeah yeah matt was a he was a real freak and a real important figure in the history of mma you know like because you

got to think 1993 it all starts and then from then on it's been sort of this learning experience trying to figure out what works and what doesn't work. And in my opinion, Matt is one of the big pieces to that puzzle. Because we had had some powerful wrestlers. Of course, you had Coleman and so many other guys. And they were basically all about ground and pound. I mean, the only time Coleman got a submission in the UFC was when he fucking headlocked Dan Severin. Or can-opened somebody or whatever. Did he never can-open somebody?

Take the leg in the head, go, leg in the head, go, or no, yeah, headlock and then squeeze him like that. It was like a judo scarf hold. a compressor, yeah. I mean, look,

nobody wants to get stuck in that with that fucking gorilla back then. he was ungodly strong when I trained him for the Pride Grand Prix, right? Yeah. He called me up and he goes, I want to come there and train with you.

And he had lost two or three fights in a row at that point. So he was kind of cannon fodder put into that Pride Grand Prix. He was just a name at that point. And I go, all right, come, you come here. You got to do everything I tell you to do. We're going to, we're going to train hard. I'm going to, I'm going to torture you. And he's like, that's fine. And he, he wanted to come there. I think because I had so many scary dudes at the time, like Steve Rusk, who wasn't even a fighter could kill every fighter I've ever trained. I mean, he'd just walk

in the room, take off his fatigues from hunting, beat the shit out of everybody in the room, and then go back out hunting or fishing. That was Steve Rusk. And he didn't fight? He fought four times and just goes, you know what? I'm not into it, but I'll come into the gym and help everybody get ready. He helped me coach my IFL team. But he was the guy that, after I fought Lindland,

when I got kicked out of my weight division, when the UFC goes, you've got to move up weight division, I went. Why did they tell you you have to move up? They go, you've trained yourself out of a spot. You have Jason Black, Rob Lawler, and Matt Hughes all at 170. They're all ranked, I think at the time, top 10 in the world. And they go, and I had done my comeback fight after losing the title to Carlos, knocked out Shoney Carter.

So in my contract, it said that I had an automatic rematch clause, right? And they go, no, not happening. You're moving up to 185. And I go, I'm not big enough for 185, right? But I realized at that point business-wise how easily I could be discarded right and it kind of it kind of ruined me to be honest with you mentally it just I was like I didn't want to do this but neither here nor there Linlin after we fought he came to my gym to train for one of his fights

and Steve Rusk is there that day and Rusk was a great Greco guy and now it's the Olympic silver medalist Greco guy going against a guy that's an unknown. And Rusk ragdolls him. We're doing winner stays on the mat, and Lindland gets taken down, and Lindland won't leave the mat. You can't believe he's getting taken down by a no-name, right? So Rusk does it to him again, does it to him again, does it to him again, and finally the whole team goes, Lindland, get off the mat, dude.

Get the fuck off the mat. Lindland comes over and sits next to me and goes, who the fuck is that guy? I go, that's Steve Rusk. He's just, he's Steve. He destroys everybody. There's a lot of those guys in gyms out there that don't want to fight with their super high level. Donaher was telling me about some guys that he has in his gym that wreck some of his best

top guys that go in competitions. Absolutely. Yeah. and his gym that wreck some of his best top guys that go in competition. Absolutely. Yeah. Now, Rusk was a guy who he grabbed. It was Dave Strasser who fought in the UFC for a while.

Dave was a tough guy. Dave was very tough. But Rusk grabbed the – he was in Dave's guard, and he grabbed his foot and his shinbone and went like this and was going to just break his foot off. That's how strong this guy was. And Strasser taps out and gets up and looking at him like, there's no way I'm ever grappling with you again. He goes, stay away from me.

I don't want any part of you ever again. And Nick Ackerman, who was a national champion wrestler, he won the Hodge Trophy the same year Kale Sanderson won it. They were co-recipients of it. Nick Ackerman was the guy who was a national champ who had his legs were gone from his knees down. And Ackerman was almost as tall as me on his knees. That was another guy in our gym that was so strong that he could just crush your ribs by squeezing you. Just massive, massive power.

It makes you wonder, what would it be like to grapple Carellon when he was in his prime? Because even the great grapplers would grapple him and go, what in the fuck is that all about? Yeah, he was gut-wrenching people and snapping spines. Yeah, literally snapping spines. Like, when guys would flatten out, when you'd see a 290-pound man panic, like, lay down flat on his stomach and try to flatten out and do everything they can to keep from getting launched. And he would pick them up like a half empty sack of potatoes and fucking slam them jesus you ever see his parents no tiny little people really yeah they called them the experiment were they gymnast one was a gymnast or something and the other one was a little power lifter or

something i'm not sure i'm not sure but they were like five five right and you know you see him he was just this fucking giant panther he really was like a panther like he didn't he didn't even move like a big guy he moved like a small guy yeah and and he was a giant i think that you know there was probably some some sort of beating the system with that oh what beating the system that was a part of the system that fucking guy was on everything a i mean you look at his face his forehead came forward and everything just looked massive amounts of growth and everything all kinds of stuff they probably had him on growth when he was a little baby i mean they probably just shot him up with growth from the time he was little that's scary isn't it it's fucking terrifying but look what they're doing right now in china

there he is there's corellon in his prime. Picking up a massive man. Massive man. This guy's battling, too. Look at this. Boom! I mean, that guy, that giant dude on the bottom, probably never had anybody ragged on like that before. No. And it was also like the way he would work out.

When you see some of the shit that he would do, like some of his kettlebell workouts and shield casts that he would do with club bells and steel plates and shit. He was all about movement. Yeah, circular motions. So your gym having all that true functional fit. To see Indian clubs in your gym, I went, all right, he gets it. He really gets it. Indian clubs, I collect all the old ones.

Oh, really? Old antique wood ones oh really antique wood ones and iron the huge wood ones right yeah all that sort of stuff so a guy named ed thomas taught me about true functional fitness long before any of this crossfit crap and all this stuff came out right so ed thomas dr ed thomas and i didn't know he was a doctor he just showed up at my gym one day he walks in a little unassuming dude and he goes hey he goes patty goes i'm ed thomas he goes do you have time for me to teach you some stuff and i went sure you know whatever it was the middle of the day nothing was going on so he brings in indian clubs kettlebells old med medicine balls

old leather stuff and i at the time never seen any of this stuff i didn't know anything about it well he was raised in the turner halls in davenport, Iowa, and that's where he learned functional fitness. And the Turner Halls were brought by the Germans here because the Germans used Turner Halls back in Germany to train a generation to become warriors to protect the nation. And that's where that mentality came from. So everything they did was cargo nets, pommel horses, Indian clubs, heavy kettlebells, all kinds of crazy just functional fitness stuff. So they would climb cargo nets? heavy kettlebells, all kinds of crazy just functional fitness stuff. So they would climb cargo nets?

Yeah, serpentine inside of them. They would swing the cargo nets, and the kids would serpentine in and out of them as it was swinging, all kinds of crazy stuff, right? Definitely the rings. They were doing a lot of the ring stuff and power, being able to do iron crosses, all that sort of stuff. That's the way they raised their kids. So he was, at the time, I think and still is,

one of the first and foremost guys on functional fitness. He was the guy that taught me how to train upside down with gravity boots, doing all kinds of crazy stuff with medicine balls and kettlebells and bands and everything else you could do standing up, you could do upside down. And he rebuilt me at the time, but he came in, taught me for an hour. He said, I'll leave this equipment here with you. You can teach your guys what I taught you, and I'll come back another time. And I was like, yeah. And we were talking for a second.

I got on the phone, and I turned around, and he was gone. Well, he was a – three times in Vietnam, he was a tunnel rat. He signed up for extra tours. He would go in and kill the Viet Cong, sleep amongst the bodies, and then go back out and find another tunnel and kill people again. That's what he did for three years. Just a hardcore guy. But the guy that owned Taekwondo Times at the time, his kid was training underneath me.

And he goes, I heard you met a friend of mine. I go, who's that? He goes, Dr. Ed Thomas. And I go, well, he didn't say he was a doctor, but I could tell he was one of the most intelligent people I've ever met in my life. He goes, yeah, he's a scholar. I mean, this guy's a warrior genius, right? And he's still up in Des Moines, Iowa. I haven't talked to him for a few years, but that guy taught me what real fitness was about. Wow. What year was this?

Dear God, I don't remember. I've been hitting the head so much. I don't remember. Yeah, 90s. You're great for a guy who's been hitting the head as many as you. I never had a concussion. I will say that. as many as you. I never had a concussion. I will say that. Well, you must have. Never had a concussion. Really? No.

Well, what is a concussion? A concussion is like where they check your pupils, they're not dilated correctly. None of it. None of it. No concussions at all? No.

All that hard sparring? Nope. Never. I find that hard to believe. It seems weird. I never got hit with a shot that I didn't see coming. And I think that's the difference.

Nope. Nope. Wow. Besides one time in a huge fight where a dude hit me on the side of the head with a brick and I saw it last second and I at least rolled with it. And that didn't give you a concussion? No. It was a huge, it was hip hop night at the nightclub I was bouncing at.

Oh, sounds like fun. And the Illinois gangbangers and the Iowa gangbangers started going at it. And I tried breaking it up and and they all attacked me, right? Oh, Jesus. So that's when everybody was wearing – it was wintertime, so I was choking people. A guy got me in a headlock, and I was grabbing people by their coat lapels. And I put my head in between his head and his head, and I'd choke him unconscious. I'd find a new coat.

And I was working my way backwards out the front door and finally snuck out of the headlock, put him in a rear choke, went backwards out the door. He went limp. I dropped him. And then as I turned to get out into the street,, put him in a rear choke, went backwards out the door. He went limp. I dropped him. And then as I turned to get out into the street, because there was cops everywhere at that point, there's dogs, it's a snowstorm. Last second, I see this coming at the side of my head and I duck and it bounces off my head.

And this dude goes, yeah, like I was going to go down. And I turned and I looked at him and rifled him with the right hand and knocked him out. And then the next thing you know, there's just dogs diving into the crowd. It was a good one. It was a fun one. Dogs, that's not good. No. Yeah, they're not great.

Dogs work. They work. They work real well. It's not good because they don't know who the fuck they're biting. They might bite you. They might bite the bad guys. I mean, who the fuck? Dogs don't know who the bouncer is.

They don't give a shit. They clear a crowd out real quick, though. Fuck yeah, they do. Yeah. Malinois. Is that what they're using? Back then, it was give a shit. They clear a crowd out real quick, though. Fuck yeah, they do. Yeah. Malinois. Is that what they were using? Back then, it was Shepherds. Really?

It was all German Shepherds. Yeah, Malinois hadn't even entered the scene at that time. I have a buddy who trains dogs who doesn't like Malinois. He says they're too bloodthirsty. Too aggressive? Yeah. He goes, they don't listen as well. Interesting.

He goes, I can trust a Shepherd. Right. He goes, bite, hold, and release. Yeah. He's like, if I stick a Malinois on it, he goes, who the fuck knows? He goes, also, I don't trust him like as a pet right you know he wants a dog that is is a real trained bite dog yeah but also good with the family yeah hang out with your kids right well it's like i've owned mastiffs before right and mastiff mastiff they're you know i had brindle mastiffs and i

always loved to have males and i had a stalker for three years who was a psychopath right so that was when i got my first mastiff king he was 210 pounds but he was a brindle scary looked like a bengal tiger right and he that those dogs are so powerful you know at that size when they're truly in shape where you can't stop them and there were people that were using mastiffs for police work and they stopped using them because a 210-pound Mastiff on a human being, they can kill them really fast. This is not a bite dog. This is a dog that can just have a screw go loose

and rip somebody's throat out in a heartbeat. They're just too big and powerful. If something hurts them and they think, oh, this is a fight, I'm just going to rip your fucking head clean off your body right and that that must have tested me a couple times for alpha position in the house oh no it was one time a plastic bag in the wind was rolling through the woods and on my property and he ran and he grabbed it and i told him you know king come here front and he came up to me and i put my hand on the plastic bag and he goes it's like all right here it is this is this is test time so i ripped the bag and it came out of

his mouth right and he really got pissed off at me i was testing him so at that point i'm like well i can't back down to him now this is it so i put my fist against his teeth that he was showing and i was going do it do it jesus christ do it and he's like this with his teeth going i'm going do it do it and finally he turned and backed off and then i pet him and he was wagging his tail and i was like all right that was that was kind of scary ryan parsons got in a fist fight with his mastiff really yeah he had a neapolitan mastiff in college and they got in a fist fight he goes it was a real fight he goes he had a Neapolitan Mastiff in college. They got in a fist fight. He goes, it was a real fight. He goes, I had a fight with my Mastiff.

I'm like, maybe, maybe you did. More likely you punched your Mastiff. Because if it was a real fight, I wouldn't be talking to you right now. You'd be chunks missing out. Yeah, you'd be fucking dead. A Neapolitan? That's a giant fucking dog. They're big, yeah.

I have a Regency Mastiff. They're half Mastiff, half Pitbull. He's about a buck forty. That's a beautiful dog, I bet. He's a great dog. Heiff. Okay. They're half Mastiff, half Pitbull. Oh, wow. He's about a buck 40. That's a beautiful dog, I bet. He's a great dog. He's old now. He's like 12. Okay.

He's had some years under him. Just socialized him really good? Oh, he's a great dog. He's the best. Gets along with everybody. Gets along with every dog, every person. That's good. I got him because his dad was on Fear Factor.

His dad was an attack dog on Fear Factor. He put people in a bite suit and they tried to run away. His dad was also the dog that they modeled. They used him for CGI for the Hulk. Remember when the original one of the Hulk movies with Nick Nolte and Eric Bana?

Nick Nolte was the bad guy. He was the Hulk's dad. He had injected Hulk serum into his fucking dogs. And so the dogs would get to a certain point, and they would get angry, and they'd fucking roar, and they would Hulk out. Would they turn green? No, they were just big. They didn't turn green.

Yeah, it seems like they should, right? Maybe they did. No, I don't think they did. I think they just defined it. Look at him. He's looking for it. Yeah, Jamie found it. Oh, dear God.

Look at that. That's scary. That was like real bad cgi too boy when you watch that movie it's funny because that wasn't that long ago right i think that was only like 15 years ago what year was that if you had a guess 15 years come a long ways with cgi so his dad uh my dog johnny cash his dad curly was uh in fear factor that was literally what he was built like wow but smaller than that obviously that's that's when he hulks out so they took him and sort of exaggerated him huh basically looked like that you could find him just just google regency mastiff curly he was a famous stud this is a fucking ridiculous dog but the thing about the dog was when we had him on the set he would just fucking chill he was a black dog so none of those are him

there's probably a lot of dogs named curly it's all right it doesn't matter but um the dog was just so friendly yeah like and then when it was time to go when they put the bite suit on people it was hilarious because we were using malmoise for a while and you get like a big football player type dude who's about 240. Couldn't bring him down. They can't bring him down because they could hold on to it. That dog's only 60, 70 pounds. You throw him around. Curly would grab ahold of you, and it would be like they got hit by a truck.

They would just go flying and crash to the ground. And one of the ones that we did was actually my friend Ed's girlfriend was on the show. And I knew her before before and i was like oh jesus i felt bad because she weighed like a buck 10 and they're putting her in this fucking bite suit and then curly hits her like literally like she got hit by a tree like someone took a tree one of those swinging trees and and just boom did she get hurt she was okay she's a tough kid how many how many episodes of fear factor did you do where you were like, this is horrible to do? Two.

One when they had to ride bulls. One when they had a drink come. There's the dog. See, the dog gets these people. Just boom, get down, bitch. Like, you're not going nowhere. Oh, nice. But the problem was with these dogs is they bite so hard that if they get a

hold of a bone through the suit they can break a bone yeah anyway yeah anyway great dogs you had people drink cum on yeah they drank cum i never saw what was it like it never aired it was a donkey cum what happened was um it got out on tmz and then uh we they played horseshoes and they had a drink donkey cum and donkey urine. And yeah, it was ridiculous. That's hardcore. It was hardcore.

There was two episodes where I said don't do it. One of them was riding bulls and the other one was the donkey cum. People got hurt, right? The riding bulls, we got lucky.

No one got hurt. We got lucky. Just roll the dice. Yeah. Because this was the funny, those fucking stuntmen, I'm sure you worked around stuntmen before. Fucking animals. They don't give a shit.

Broken bones don't mean anything to them. Those guys are, they're animals. They're just some of the toughest fucking people for sure in all of show business. And their attitude was like, eh, they'll be fine. They'll be fine. And so my friend Perry, who's the stunt guy, was like, don't worry about it. Boo, they're stunt dogs. Or they're stunt bull't worry about it. Boo, they're stunt dogs. Or they're stunt bulls.

Right. I go, they're stunt bulls? Does that fucking bull know he's a stunt bull? Did you have a conversation with that bull? Because the understanding is, that's a bull! That's a bull! They were so big. Because I was standing next to the person while there's the pen, and they sit on top

of the bull, and you're right there. So I'm standing right next to them on the platform and I'm like, don't do it. There's no way you're going to hang on. My first year in college wrestling at Sioux Empire up by the South Dakota border. Middle of nowhere. We got

recruited by a guy that was an All-American at Iowa State, Johnny Johnson, who was the coach up there. And myself and three other buddies, Mike Wolfe from American Pickers, wrestled with me that year up there, right? And he's actually a tough guy. A lot of people don't realize it. Mike Wolfe's actually a really tough dude. But to keep ourselves busy, we would go, all the wrestlers would go, and there was fields everywhere next to the college. It was a small junior college in the middle of nowhere, right? So there was this huge Angus Bowl in the field right by the college.

So we would go over there, and the first guy that could grab the bull's head would win the money, would put money in the pot, right? So we're running around. The farmer pulls up one time in his pickup truck, and he goes, what are you idiots doing? We put money in a pot, and the first guy that can grab the bull's head wins. And you know, that's, that's the game we're playing. Right. And he goes, you guys stay off my property, man, knock this shit off. And then we got to where the sheep would always escape another farm and come on to the lawn of the college. And Mike Wolfe and I got in trouble one day. We'd take these, these rams and we'd smack them in the forehead, palm them in the forehead to get them

to jump up on their back legs and try and smash us. And then we'd sidest rams and we'd smack them in the forehead, palm them in the forehead to get them to jump up on their back legs and try and smash us. And then we'd sidestep them and headlock them and throw them and stuff. That's what we were doing for fun back then. So Mike Wolf, one of the ladies that worked in the cafeteria saw us doing it. And she goes, you boys leave those animals alone. Stop doing that, right? That's cruel. And it wasn't hurting them. We were just having fun. Quit, stop doing that, right? That's cruel. And it wasn't hurting them.

We were just having fun. We were bored college kids, right? And I said, yeah, but you should see what Squirrel does to them. And Squirrel was one of the basketball players from East St. Louis who played on the basketball team up there. And we had guys from Miami, south side of Chicago, East St. Louis. You know, just tough ghetto kids who got thrown into this farm atmosphere. It was totally foreign for them. But we made the joke, and this was a very religious cafeteria lady,

and I said, you should see what Squirrel's doing to him. And the next day we came in for lunch, he was scolding Squirrel about bestiality, and he's looking at me going, you son of a bitch. So, yeah, that was good times, good times, good times man yeah that's a ridiculous thing to do with your time we had nothing else to do i understand you should find something else to do you needed somebody some guidance well that's that's the uh hayward in iowa which is right on the south dakota border tiny little town the college was there and one night i went drinking and i got in a fight with a bike gang and they were beating me with pool cues but that's you know whatever it happened

but i had a guy a biker was at the urinal and i walked in the bathroom and he goes quit dragging your feet eight man and i go you know people that mind their business don't get the shit kicked out of them right and he goes he goes, bring it. So I crushed the toilet with him. Right. I beat his head on the toilet and powdered the toilet. It's like roadhouse. And, but then the other bikers heard the commotion and I came out of there and they all started beating me with pool cues. And I was fighting my way out of there and I made my way out. I got back to the school and my scalps all split open everywhere. And my arms are beat to hell from blocking pool cues. And I lost my gold necklace, so I had to go down there the next day to go back and get my frigging necklace.

It was a big rope chain necklace that my girlfriend at the time had bought for me. And I walked in, and I go, I lost my chain here last night. And the owner goes, yeah, he goes, you put five people in the hospital last night. He goes, don't ever come back here again, man. Don't come back. So that's just the way it was. That was Iowa. That was Iowa.

That's what we did for fun. Well, Iowa has such a reputation for tough guys when it comes to wrestling. I mean, the Iowa wrestlers. You know there's like Thai kickboxers, Iowa wrestlers. It was always this thing. It was almost synonymous with Iowa. When Gable was coaching, the Iowa wrestling team beat up the football team and the basketball team on numerous occasions.

He'd have to go get those guys out of jail. They just beat up the whole team. Well, I can only imagine. If someone actually thought they were a tough guy and they talked to those tough guys, it's like, well, we've got to show you something because you're going through this life with this delusional perspective. Lou and Ed Bannock and guys like that. Just King, Mueller.

Back in those days, some very, very scary wrestlers. I don't think people truly understand the difference between them and regular human beings. I don't think they've ever experienced. I think you have to lock up with them to experience it. The explosiveness, the tendon strength, just the power, the sheer just violence that those guys can bring in a short burst of energy, it's until you get used to it.

And you see it all the time in fighting, right? A guy who's never trained with guys at that level of athleticism suddenly find themselves getting mauled by a superior human being going, holy, I never had any idea a human like this even existed. Well, you see it when Yoel fights. Yeah. When Yoel Romero gets a hold of guys. When Yoel, you're talking about a guy who meddled in every single international competition he ever entered.

And beat Kale Sanderson when Yoel was 18 years old, right? Yeah. That's a scary dude. And beat him twice. Yeah. He's a fucking monster. I beat him twice. Yeah. He's a fucking monster. Yeah. And when he gets a hold of guys, you see the way he ragdolls people.

You're like, holy shit. But that's what it is. It's just this next level athleticism, next level strength, next level technique. And then also just being forged in the competition of that Cuban wrestling program. Right, right. Did you see the podcast I had with him last week? No. I had him on last week with Joey Diaz, and Joey Diaz translated for him.

Okay. And they went back and forth. Like, you always try to speak as much as you could in English. Yeah. And then Joey would sort of translate the stuff that he couldn't. Right. But he just detailed his time in the system. Wow.

In the Cuban wrestling system and how intense it was. I wouldn't. I mean, think about it. Communist country, that's your ticket to at least leading a halfway decent life. Well, just to eat. He was talking about the difference between the way the elite guys would eat and where they would sleep. They would get

three meals a day. The other guys would get two. And the food would be better. Everything would be better. That would motivate you to win. Yeah. And they're all together. That's the thing. They're all trained together. So the guys who want your spot are right next to you everybody knows like oh you got a hurt wrist they know everybody knows everything right and he's like that competition just makes you a machine and the guy that's eating two meals a day wants three meals a day fuck yeah he does yeah yeah and then and then on top of that you have these fucking incredible genetics

i mean cubans have un-fucking-believable genetics. Right, right. It's just an amazing pot. But that's really one of the more fascinating things about competition is to see all these variables. And it's to see, like, when you think you've reached this high level, oh, look at this. There's another level past that. Yeah. There's another level past that. There's another level past that. And yet you see guys who in no way, shape,

or form should be a champion or upper echelon athletically or genetically, but they figured out how to do it. Just super smart. Yeah, but you see a guy, I would say, if you were to see Smiling Sam Alvey on the street,

and you got in an argument with him for whatever reason, you think, I'm going to kick this guy right. And you got in an argument with him for whatever reason. You think, I'm going to kick this guy's ass. He's wearing a sweater with a tie underneath it. Looks like a car salesman. The guy's tougher than shit. You just would never guess. You'd never guess.

Yeah, there's a lot of those guys, right? Evan Dunham. You'd never know. You look at Evan Dunham, looks like a nice gentleman. Right. Beat the fuck out of you. And you just go home and go, I'm never fighting again. This is just stupid.

Yeah, well, you'd learn that in jiu-jitsu, too. I remember when I first started training, I'd get choked out by guys that just looked like nothing. Computer geeks. They weighed 150 pounds. Yeah. Well, especially now. I think now jiu-jitsu has really been adopted by a lot of, like Eddie calls them nerd assassins. Right.

Because they really are. Like these guys who are just really smart or into the technique and into the fact that. It's a jujitsu by a computer programmer. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That level of thinking through things. And it's cool. I've rolled with a lot of guys like that and go, this is stupid how good this guy is.

Especially now with the leg lock game. With the leg lock game, it seems like strength is less of a factor. You know, when guys are isolating legs and you're constantly defending against that and whatever strength that you do have in your back and your core and your upper body, you're not really getting a chance to utilize it. You're just trying to defend if you don't understand the positions. Right. And they get deep.

They get a couple steps in on you. You're like, phew. You know, it doesn't take a strong guy. And I always loved leg locks. I loved leg locks. And a guy like Dave Manet, Matt Hume, those guys were all sick leg lockers, right? Yeah, sure. Eric Paulson, good leg locker.

A lot of those guys that were the catch-as-catch can and the combo. Who did Matt Hume wrestle in that? Do you remember that one time where Peretti put together a thing with Dan Gable was the commentator with Peretti. He went against an Olympic wrestler, I'm pretty sure. Was it Kenny Johnson? Kenny Monday? Kenny Monday. I think it was Kenny Monday. It was either Kevin... Yeah. Because Kevin Jackson lost to Frank

Shamrock. No. That was UFC. No, that was Dan Severin. No, Dan Henderson lost to Frank. Frank got him in a footlock, right? Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was Kenny Monday. That's when Kurt Angle was calling the action,

and I was sitting next to Kurt Angle, and Kurt was asking me questions. What's he doing? What's he doing? So he knew what to say on air and stuff. Right, yeah. That was an interesting thing, that submission tournament. I thought it was great.

I thought it was great, too. If they were to ever do it again, I think. But they kind of do that now anyway. They do do that now, but for whatever reason, it doesn't get that much attention. Although Eddie Bravo's figured out a way to give it a little bit more attention. Have you seen combat jiu-jitsu? A little bit, yeah. They're doing it

basically like pancreation style slaps, like open hand strikes. Right. And, you know, it opens up. It's also like what we were talking about before with, there's some stuff that you can get away with in MMA because there's no headbutts. There's some stuff that you can get away with in other styles, like in kickboxing even because there's no clinching and there's no elbows. There's all these different little things. Well, with jiu-jitsu, there's a lot of positions where a guy could just smack you in the face.

You'd have to let go of the lock. Right. And now guys are doing that with combat jiu-jitsu, and it's a good intermediary step between... I think it's a good way to find out if you're meant for MMA, too. That, too. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I find Eddie... I've always found Eddie really interesting. He's a trip. He's definitely a trip. And you can tell he's a thinker. You know what I mean? He's a very analytical guy, a very analytical grappler with great flexibility.

I just always would watch him go, this guy's fucking slick, man. Yeah, he knows a lot of shit, especially when it comes to jujitsu. And I'm talking, you know, I'm going to see him tomorrow morning. Oh, really?

What are you doing? You know, Sam Tripoli? Sure, I know Sam very well. Yeah, so I'm doing that show and Eddie's going to be there. I want him to explain Flat Earth to me. He's not going to be able to. I want to know, man.

This is what it is. Eddie thinks that everybody's lying. That everybody, and NASA, and the government, and because of that, I believe he has a blind spot. And that if they're telling you the world's round, he's saying, well, it can't be round. Right. And it's not a good way to think.

No. But it's the same reason why he's so good at jiu-jitsu.'s because he sees an idea and he just pursues it and chases after it and he turns it around jiu-jitsu is like it's all you know it's all quantified it's all right there two bodies it's all very simple there's no mystery right you know it's just a figure it's just figuring out a puzzle yeah but i can see how people get that way because i was a guy who you know not to go off on a tangent but I think it's fun to think about. In 1971, when I was a young boy standing in line in Albia, Iowa with my grandma and my mom when the farm collapse was happening, when Nixon took us off the gold standard, right? Shit fell apart for the farmers right away.

And my grandma was one of the first people in line to get her money out of the Farmers National Bank in Albee, Iowa. And she got it out. And I remember still to this day standing there and asking my mom and my grandma, what the hell is going on? Why is this happening? What's going on? You could see the panic. The farmers went for blocks, right, from all around that part of Iowa. And it just, I think that's what started the wheels turning in my head about being a contrarian thinker.

You know what i mean there's real conspiracies and there's real things where people misunderstand the the actual facts right flatter is not one of them no it's just not it's just not i mean there's they there's so many stuff i mean look snipers use the curvature of the earth to calculate ballistics yeah it's just it's just it's a real thing right i mean there's plenty of shit that's not real, but I want Eddie to tell me, I want him to explain. It's going to be frustrating. I don't know if he believes it anymore. He might've let it go by now. I'm hoping he did.

Right. I don't talk to him about it anymore. I just, we, we had a few conversations about it on the podcast and initially he thought it was stupid. He thought the flat earth concept was stupid. And then all of a sudden he started being open minded to him.

Like, what the fuck are you saying? Like, what in the fuck are you saying? This crazy and he's like and he kept going to the fake the moon landing they're like it's not even the same people right like if they did that was a long fucking time ago you're talking about people right now there's satellites all over the world they there's a lot of people that think satellites are fake um i think eddie thinks dinosaurs aren't real. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. You know what's interesting? I never – the first time I fought in the UFC, I went into – thinks dinosaurs are – Yeah, it hurts. It hurts my head. I went into the production trailer at my first UFC. I wanted to see what was going on in there, right? That always intrigued me, how TV was put together, right?

And I was lucky enough to bring my daughter to one of our broadcasts with AXS TV, and Lonnie, he's the expert to find the satellites. He's got an app on his phone. Have you ever seen guys do that? He has an app on his phone where he can punch it in and do this across the sky and spot all the satellites, right? Oh, interesting. So he knows how to dial into them, call up, know the coordinates to turn the dish towards and lock onto a percentage of the satellite receptor to get it beamed back down, all that sort of stuff.

So he was teaching my daughter how all that stuff was done, and it was the first time I'd ever seen it. I was like, this is pretty amazing stuff. But yeah, you can see the curvature of the Earth and how the satellites are set across the horizon, right? But you could track satellites. The thing is, these guys don't even believe in satellites. Here's what the problem is. If someone has no interruption and they put together a video and that video, they're articulate and they sound calm. They use big words and they show you images that they're claiming show that the earth is flat,

that there's an ice wall outside Antarctica, and that the government won't let you go there. They start saying all these things. If there's no one there, no like Neil deGrasse Tyson type guy there, he's going, hey, hey, hey, no, that's not true, and here's why, and here's how we know, and here's what we found out, and here's a test you can do yourself, and here's how you can figure it out, and here's what you can find online. And for the longest time,

they were trying to say that there was no full pictures of the Earth, that the Earth, like every photo you see of the Earth is a composite. No. There's a fucking Japanese satellite called the Himawari 8.

It takes full images of the Earth, high resolution, every 10 minutes. You can go Google it. You can watch them. NASA has one, too. There's giant photos of the fucking Earth from 22,000 miles out ten minutes you can go google it you can watch them there's the nasa has one too there's there's giant photos of the earth from 22 000 miles out or whatever the hell it is like it's real

yeah it's real like there's a lot of to think about that's fascinating that's not one of them like that's been solved no there's a lot you know i i'm into the geopolitical and domestic policy yeah right that's where where I was drawn more. But what's really going on? You know, behind the news, all that sort of stuff. This is bullshit. And I was lucky to train a lot of law enforcement and then military, high-level military, and get connected to intel guys who go, Pat, we need to talk. Like, no, you're completely off.

Let me explain things to you, right? As far as, like, what were you completely off about? Well, I can tell you what I was right about when I called up my buddy and I go, hey, four years ago, whatever it was, four and a half years ago, I go, we're funding ISIS, aren't we? He goes, oh, yeah, yeah.

NATO's the go-between guy. What do you think? Al-Nusra, ISIS, frigging al-Shabaab. What do you fucking think? So why did they fund ISIS? To take out Syria. It was obvious, right? The Mujahideen in Afghanistan was to friggin' take out the Russians.

But the way I looked at it was, when that was going on, funding the Mujahideen was to bankrupt Russia, right? Right. We wanted them to go bankrupt. And it worked. Reagan was a genius in that part. The diabolical part, of course, is Russia and America both fighting over the resources of Afghanistan. But ISIS was just, that's some weird shit. When you have a 50,000-man army just appear out of nowhere with professional cameramen and editors and producers and directors making the high-level films that they were putting out,

where it's every three seconds they're cutting different angles, professionally put together films of people being burned. I go, this is too weird. This is too weird. You know what people stop talking about? Do you remember when they blamed Benghazi on some bullshit movie? Yeah, some video that someone made? Right.

Was it like the Tears of Muslims or something like that? I forget that. Nobody even knew it existed. Nobody knew it existed. And everybody knew it was bullshit. And they were pushing that as a narrative. Like, this is what was the motivation behind. And everybody was like, what?

Have you had Paranto on your show? No. Who's that? Paranto's former SEAL. What's his name? Paranto. P-O-R-O-N-T-A. His last name's Paranto. But he's? Former SEAL. What's his name? Paranto. That's his whole name? P-O-R-O-N-T-A Paranto. Is he like Roseanne? His last name's Paranto.

But he's a former SEAL. There were several SEALs, obviously, that ran to try and help the ambassador and some of the other guys. Paranto lived through it. But when he talks about it, they're moving massive amounts of weapons through Libya into Syria, into other places in the Middle East, right? It's just a fact that it's happening. And that whole thing going down, I think, was a way for them to just cover it all up and remove and erase any people that knew about it. You know what I'm saying? That's the way it spells out to me pretty obvious because it's documented.

It's all documented that weapons were being moved. And if you look at arsenal weapons manufacturing in Bulgaria, so Diliana Gotenshaiba, who I had on my podcast, The Conspiracy Farm, right? She was the Bulgarian reporter that got fired. I didn't know you had a podcast. Yeah, it's called The Conspiracy Farm. Oh, okay. Yeah.

I want to Google it. We don't start the conspiracies. We just add the water. I like the name. Yeah, my co-host Jeffrey Wilson. He's a really bright guy. It's a great name. Yeah, so we have fun with it.

Do you have t-shirts? Can I wear a conspiracy font t-shirt? Dude, I was going to bring you one. Send it. He couldn't ship me one. I will. I'll wear one. So it's a barn.

Shout out to C.T. Fletcher. It's a barn with a satellite and a satellite dish down next to the barn. Oh, that's hilarious. So that's it, right? And are you doing it out of Iowa? Oh, yeah. Perfect. Yeah, it is, right?

But Arsenal Weapons Manufacturing, she exposed the ISIS fighters, took her to their weapons caches, and there was massive amounts of artillery rounds, depleted uranium stuff, small arms stuff. And it was all arsenal weapons, Bulgarian weapons, right? And she got fired for exposing it. Now, at the same time, Silkway Airlines, who is an Azerbaijani airline, their manifest got exposed by Bulgarian Anonymous with manifests of all the white phosphorus weapons, the depleted uranium, artillery rounds, all these shipments, massive shipments going into Turkey, going into Libya, going into the Ukraine, right? Where a bunch of shit was going down there.

And every one of those places, who showed up to broker the deals? John McCain. Whoa. John McCain, right? And look, we can't prove it, but there's people telling me that potentially there's an offshore company that owns a big percentage of arsenal weapons manufacturing in Bulgaria, right? So that's the kind of stuff I'm going into. Who's causing it? Why are they causing it?

The truth. I'm just a truth seeker, right? Would you seem like that kind of guy? For sure. Don't you think that that stuff is exposed at a level that's never been possible before because of the internet yeah yeah and that these people are probably used to operating in a certain way that they've been doing for decades and now they're having to adjust yeah well and and people like you just doing these podcasts and talking about it which opens

the minds of other people and has them thinking about it. You know, who are the people screaming the most? And I wasn't even a Trump supporter, right? I'm a Rand Paul guy. You got a fucking Rand Paul shirt on. I'm a Ron Paul guy. You got to teach him takedown defense.

Off of a lawnmower, right? He got blindsided in his defense, right? Yeah, but- What the fuck was that about? His neighbor attacked him? His neighbor's neighbor's lunatic uh right good times you know but uh it's a risky thing to do live right next to a guy and attack him right like you're fucking burning the bridge i don't know what kind of sentence that guy got though i don't i haven't i haven't kept up on that but i was given sentence yet during the presidential run i was given speeches for ran paul a couple of them, to introduce him.

So I'd give a speech, then bring him out, and I got to know him a little bit better. This is in Iowa? Yeah, yeah. Amazing dude. We had great conversations. I'm a big fan of his dad. Yeah, yeah. But the people that are yelling the most now about Trump and all the other stuff, you wonder what they're guilty of, right?

The deep state is just, it is a way of doing business, right? There's smash and grab. There's pay to play. Smash and grab is me, as somebody who's very powerful in government, going after an industry, crushing it, ruining its stock, and then my buddies buy the company, right? When the stock collapses and then bringing it back up, like the GI bill for University of Memphis. We go after it no longer. Will there be any GI bill money put toward that? The stock goes from $100 down to $3. Obama's buddy goes in, buys it. Then they go, ah, we're going to allow GI money to go back into it now. Stock goes back up, right? That's the kind of

shit that's going on. It's some bad stuff. And we just do our best to follow it, educate people. And we have a lot of people who say you're a nut. You're wearing a tinfoil hat. What were you just talking about, Jamie? Something that you'd seen about politicians being exempt from insider trading rules? Someone on Twitter, I'll find

a name later, but this guy. He told me about this guy. His name's Peter Schweizerizer he's a stanford professor secret empires that's the book that's the book you want to he wrote clinton cash also yeah there's another book that he hit me up to about yeah but this is the one that he just have you had him on your show no i have not that's a guy to have on your show i would love to have how the american political class hides corruption and enriches family and friends. Yeah. It's insane. Without a doubt, that shit's real. Without a doubt, that shit's going on.

I mean, look, we were just talking about this recently, about how half of what it is to be president is to get yourself into a position where after you're out, you can make these crazy speeches for these bankers. Like, why is that? I mean, it's almost like a retirement policy. Man, I tell you what, there was a time when a good friend of mine who was an agent for me at the time got me involved because of all the years in MMA and martial arts, I'd met people from all over the world who had eventually moved into positions of power in government or cities or this or that. And so they said, we want you to help us get our foot in the door to sell waste-to-energy projects.

So it was basically a facility that burns anything garbage. I mean, you can burn tires in the thing at low oxygen levels, so the emissions are very low, but it generates electricity, right? And in Europe, it was everybody from the city, province, that country, and the European Union, everybody wanted a piece of the projects, right? That's just the way they do business in Europe and South America and other places like that. They have to have a different model for it here for the corruption, right? They just do things differently here.

And that's just the way it is. They've made adjustments and either way, they're going to find their way around it. Yeah. The idea that there's no corruption is ridiculous, right? No one thinks that. So it's how much corruption is there and how many people are out there exposing it and putting their neck out there to expose it.

That's a big part of the problem because if you really know about it, that means you're probably entrenched in the system too. Yeah. And the cognitive dissonance of the citizenry of knowing that Hillary Clinton and a few other people sold, you know, the document just came out, it was 15 million kilograms, 15 million kilograms of depleted uranium, yellow cake, right? Sold to the Russians. At what point in any part of a discussion

on any planet is it okay to sell your enemy 15 million kilograms of frigging uranium? What was the justification behind it? Have they agreed that this is a fact? Oh, it's a fact. It's a fact. Have they agreed? I mean, is there any dispute that this is a fact? No, there is no.

No, but they sit there and use the excuse, well, there was eight other people that had to sign off on this, right? What does that mean? Right. But it's suddenly that company invests $145 million in the Clinton Foundation. Yeah, that's a big problem. That Clinton Foundation is fucking insane. And all these people that were blind supporters of Hillary that didn't look at that. Like, how do you not find a giant problem with that? Right, right.

And that book by Schweitzer talks about it. He goes in detail about stuff yeah I'm sure how's that I'm surprised that's what I was just gonna say he's not going after the Russians dude Clinton cash was bad enough this one's even worse I'm surprised he's not dead I wonder how many people are actually reading it you know it's I just I feel like they think that there's always going to be a certain amount of that stuff out there and they just tolerate it and they just as long as it's not really fucking up their business because it's not the politicians are still allowing it law enforcement still allowing it no one's really going after them it makes you wonder like if hillary had actually gotten into the white house and she faced the same scrutiny that trump is facing right now over the russian which we know

none of this would be uncovered had she won right right we know that right yeah all of this stuff would have been swept under the rug yeah most likely all this stuff with mccabe and um struck and page and comey and all these people of going out of their way to try and derail trump to get these fisa court friggin spot surveillance friggin warrants to spy on a president-elect and then a sitting president are you kidding me at what point is are people not not charged with treason for that right when they were they were doing this spying before he ever won the presidency don't you think that if he was doing something wrong with the russians they would have friggin made it mainstream news and and busted him for it.

Yeah, there's for sure some dummies in his staff that made some inappropriate meetings and had some, I mean, they definitely had some intentions. But if they had something on him. The way I look at it is this. I mean, if you win the presidency, I'm going to send whoever is underneath me. If I'm the president, we have to have meetings with diplomats from other countries to make the transition. That's part of the that's part of the deal right it really is that goes on that's just the way it is but that's not what they're talking about they're talking about before the presidency

they're talking about having meetings with Russians long before right where they're they'd plan this whole thing out look they got nothing they're all dirty they got nothing they got nothing I mean if they had something there it would be out there. It's that projection and diversion and everything else because the Podestas were doing lobbying for the biggest frigging Russian bank in the world. Right. In Washington, D.C. It never comes up.

It's almost like there's too many things to pay attention to. It's like they did everything. How do you keep up? Yeah. How do you corral it all all the corruption from the stock market to natural resources to everything right it's almost there's too many things to take pay attention to yeah it's it's mind-boggling it's like a giant room full of spaghetti yeah and you're in the middle of it just doing this it's fucking

insane way to put it yeah that is what it's like yeah it does that to your brain when you try to comprehend all of it when you when we do shows and we talk about. That is what it's like. Yeah. It does that to your brain when you try to comprehend all of it. When we do shows and we talk about this stuff, it's mind boggling. How many episodes have you done? We've only done like 50 so far. But we've got listeners in 130 countries, so we're doing pretty good. That's nice. We're excited.

Well, you'll get more now. Yeah. For sure. Well, because you're kicking ass. Thank you. Well, we're going to, I mean, promoting it here, right here. Conspiracy Farm. Go.

Go download it. Check it out. So when you started going to, I mean, promoting it here, right here, Conspiracy Farm. Go. Go download it. Check it out. So when you started this out, what was the intention? Just something you're interested in? You know, I did Jeffrey's podcast. It's me speaking to you, and at the very end of it, it was three conspiracy questions, true or false, right? Okay. And I said, can I elaborate on them, though?

Because it might be something that I've actually researched. He goes, yeah, sure. So at the end of it, he asked me, I forget what the questions were, but after we were done, I go on them, though? Because it might be something that I've actually researched. He goes, yeah, sure. So at the end of it, he asked me. I forget what the questions were. But after we were done, I go, hey, I've always wanted to do this podcast, and I want to call it The Conspiracy Farm. And I want to talk about geopolitical domestic policy stuff. And he goes, I love it, man. He's like, yeah, let's do it.

Absolutely. So we've had great guests, a couple Navy SEALs, former Spetsnaz terrorist hunter. Well, if you're going to do Sam Tripoli's podcast, Tinfoil Hat, just understand that it's a different kind of conspiracy theory podcast. It's like, is Bigfoot psychic? Like those kind of questions. Oh, dear God. And expect to get a contact tie from the room. That's all I'm saying.

I've always wanted to ask you about the George St. Pierre stuff with UFOs. I think it's head trauma. Yeah? Yeah. Or did he have sex with a hot green chick? Maybe he did. But if I had to guess, the way he was describing things is very similar to the way people describe things when they've experienced excessive head trauma.

Really? Yeah, because he misses time. His memory's not not good like he'll get home and then he'll have groceries that he bought and left in his trunk and not even realize it and then he'll go out to his trunk and they're rotten and he's like i don't even remember going to the store wow the alien you know so he's got i think he's got this idea that this these glitches in his mind yeah It's not a fucking coincidence that the guy got punched in the head. I think they did a stat before the Bisping fight. I think it was more than 800 times he got hit in the head in his UFC career.

Forget about all the gym training. Sparring and everything else. Forget about all the other stuff. Right. And forget about the fights outside the UFC that he had before he got into the UFC. When he was in TKO, remember? Yeah. So he's experienced a lot of head trauma.

One of the symptoms of head trauma is memory loss issues. Right, yeah. I mean. And Hendricks hit him hard, a lot. Yes, he did. Yeah. And he's only one guy that hit him hard. I mean, a lot of guys hit him hard.

Matt Serra scrambled his fucking brain. Right. I mean, a lot of guys hit him hard. Yeah. And that's just outside of sparring. I mean mean that's outside of everything else that he's done sparring with rory mcdonald and wonder boy and all the other guys that he had to spar with yeah i think that's most likely what it is okay people who have been who've experienced a lot of head trauma that's one of the real problems with it is um um what is what is the dude from the chicago bears that famous guy

quarterback quarterback from the bears oh mcmahon yes mcmahon was on the cover sports illustrated talking about it that he'll be in the middle of his um his living room holding his keys he had no idea how his keys got in his hand doesn't know where he's going wow where am i going like why am i standing there holding my keys? You just forget stuff. Scary. Yeah, there's connections. Really scary. Well, that's why it's so impressive that you, with your long fight career,

you kickboxed, you boxed, you had a lot of MMA fights. I think I learned early on with the kickboxing and boxing, I looked at the older guys and listened to them talk and went, I don't want to be that guy. So I started paying attention to defense. I started watching films on great boxers with great defense, foot head movement you know all that sort of stuff and just and I and it was the key I never got hit with anything I didn't see I think you have sturdy jeans too you got them Croatian it helps I'm sure it helps I'm I'm the smallest Croatian on the planet like when you run into

Croatians they're all huge like merco steep. Mirko Krokop type characters. Stipe Miocic, who's a bear of a human being, right? Super. But that's just, have you ever seen the Olympic water polo team from Croatia? No. Fucking scariest dudes on the planet. They're all massive 6'8 guys that just will drown you. What happened to you?

There was a time where someone claimed that you had neck surgery and you didn't. Like a doctor said something about it. I was training for a fight with Frank Trigg outside of the UFC. It was the first round warming up, and I got hit with a left hook, and my neck crunched. And my left arm dropped and wouldn't work anymore. Man, I went, fuck. Just wouldn't lift at all? It was dead.

Like you couldn't move your hand? No, everything was dead. Wow. How long move your hand? No, everything was dead. Wow. How long did that last? Well, here, I'll tell you. That was the end of the first round. I got cracked with it, right? And I go, all right, let's pick it up the second round.

And I hit him with like four or five right hands in a row because that's all I could do. And I crushed his nose and he had to have surgery because I was so pissed off because he blasted me, right? And I don't think it was necessarily malicious, but we were still warming up and he cranked a left hook on me it was bad so over time everything started to atrophy on this side of the body everything started falling apart and it was very painful and I went to a neurosurgeon who got an MRI neurosurgeon goes he goes your spinal your your disc exploded in exploded into your spinal cord and almost severed it against the other side of your spinal canal. And he goes to make things worse.

You have so much stenosis. There's no fluid in there. There's no spinal canal. It's all scar tissue crushing your spinal cord everywhere. Cervically, right? So you're in, this was bound to happen over all the years of abuse, people wrenching on your neck, punching you and everything else. It just eventually gave away.

So he said, you have to have surgery. You're Christopher Reeves if you don't. You fall off a ladder, you're done. You have to have surgery. And I said, no, I'm not going to do it. Talked to another neurosurgeon. He said the same thing. Then I talked to my cousin at John Hopkins, and he goes, you're truly a moron.

You have to have surgery. And I said, fuck you. I'm not going to do it. So three guys tell you, three medical experts. So I rehabbed, and I got this to come back. How'd you do it? There was some neural work by a guy at Palmer College of Chiropractic, which is in Davenport. Juring is his name, Dr. Dave Juring.

He's the best athlete to ever come out of Iowa, but he's a genius when it comes to rebuilding the human body. He was the strength and conditioning guy for U.S. Olympic team, some of the sports, and then was also on the bobsled team. Guy was a freak. So what kind of stuff did he do? Decompression stuff? No, well that, but he put me in weird positions on a table on my side and they would block certain, they would put pressure points to stop certain nerves from working, all this other stuff, and tell me to move certain parts of my body. So almost like raw things? Rerouting, like rerouting of the nervous system and got things going again and rebuilt me. And I got to where this was back to 100%.

It happened one other time where this side – and this arm is two inches smaller than this one. Yeah, I could see it. And my shoulder is gone here quite a bit. There's some things I just can't do. I mean, I can still do pull-ups and a bunch of other stuff. There's just things I can't do. I was wondering if my mind was playing tricks on me, but your right arm looks smaller. Boss went through the same thing.

Yeah. Right? And this is in your neck right now? Well, my vertebrae is fused together on their own. They wanted to fuse them with, you know. Yeah, chunks of bone. They fused together on their own? Yeah. So the surgery that they wanted to do to fuse my vertebrae is infused together on their own they wanted to fuse them with what yeah chunks of fuse together on their own yeah so the surgery that they wanted to do to fuse my vertebrae is together my body did it on its own right i've never even heard of such a thing oh yeah you

know long enough when the disc is destroyed and dissolves and then it just all grows together so my vertebrae grew together on their own fuck that's one of the craziest things i've ever heard right so i just have to be careful just listening to you i just to be careful. Because I've been paralyzed twice from the neck down. I got hit with an uppercut on the forehead. It wasn't even a hard punch. From Jesse Lennox. I was sparring with Jesse. Before my last fight with Thomas Denny.

And he hit me with an uppercut. It wasn't even hard. But the whiplash shut everything down from here down. And I went ragdoll and dropped on my knees. Jesus. And when I was going down, I went, oh, my neck. And I knew that it was really bad. And then another time I got cranked from underneath here.

And everything shut down again. But right before the fight. Both times uppercuts. No, this was somebody's head was underneath here trying to bear hug me. Oh, okay. But the uppercut was right before the Thomas Denny fight a couple weeks before. And I went, well, shit, I can't get hit at all now. So I went into that

thomas denny fight and just said you know he's not a powerhouse puncher by any means but i can't get hit at all so i just danced around for the first five minutes and then knocked him out early in the second round and you know got out of there without getting hit but it's amazing the sense of urgency you get when you know you could be paralyzed i wish i would i wish i wish i would have fought like that my whole career. Right? Then you really never get hit. Right.

Yeah. So I'm just glad my neck gave out before my brain did. So your neck now, how is it? I have to be careful. I still have to be careful. Have you ever thought about getting one of those artificial discs? You know, they do that. At this point, they would have to saw my vertebraes apart. I've never heard of them healing up like that. yeah yeah where they seal together on their own it does

happen it does happen wow that's crazy so will your right arm come back to a normal size it's been like this for years now wow i did tons of rehab this was how long ago did this happen well when i was training for the frank trigg fight when it first happened i didn't even remember again that's just like dates dates are just think of how many fights you've called right do you remember certain years of like any fight I could name or could you pull it I see you as kind of a guy with a photographic memory so you have a memory for things that are interesting you're pretty sharp but if you ask my wife she's like this motherfucker doesn't remember shit have a very selective memory right but with fights i have a particularly good memory i everything to me because of fighting for all those years coaching for all those years and

doing commentary for all those years it's one big mess of just fights like i'll remember the huge trig fights forever sure i'll remember you know tim winning the title you know i'll remember that that sort of stuff But everything else is honestly Like a Jason Black who's in a war With a guy from American Top Team And he comes back and he sits on the stool Some of the funniest shit I've ever seen

Was in fights right You've seen it And I think you might have even been calling the fight Jason Black sits down and it's been a war For two rounds of just insanity And Jason Black was a great wrestler Just just tough as nails kind of guy. And I go, Jason, dude, stop boxing with this guy. Let's go out.

Let's take him down. Let's get him on his back. Let's keep him there. Let's rough him up. And let's win this round and we win the fight and we get out of here. And he's doing this while I'm talking to him. He's just looking around at the crowd, kind of like this. And I go, Jason, Jason, fucking look at me.

And he looks at me and he goes, yeah. And I go, what did what did i just tell you to do and he goes go out and dance with him and the fortita brothers are right there and dana and they start laughing their asses off and i go whatever go out and do what you want to do so he went out it turned into a brawl he ended up losing the fight jason is one of the guys the first guys that i saw cut weight to the point where I was like, okay, he might die. When he went to 55, he was a fucking anatomy lesson. You remember? I mean, sure you remember. When he went

to 55, that motherfucker had zero fat. It was crazy. He was really a strong guy. I mean, if he got head position... Underappreciated. One of the toughest guys I've ever been around. I feel like he was a tweener. Like maybe a little too big for 50, or 55.

Too small for 70. Too small for 70. Yeah, yeah. It was a rough deal. There's been a few guys like that. That were like, you know, real world class fighters. But the reality of those 70s is you're dealing with guys that are cutting from 205 and up. Yeah.

And the reality of the 55s is that like that's a fucking horrible strain for your body right right no i remember i you know seeing guys cut weight and be in a lot of trouble physically right yeah but our thing was always make weight no matter what i mean that's just the way it was i think i had one guy that didn't make weight for a fight in the ifl and he got run out of the gym because of it right right he just got run out of the gym because everybody was so pissed at him for not making weight. Right. Seen some horrible weight cuts with people, but I had a weight cut where it was in New Jersey.

The weigh-ins were the day of the fight. Which fight was this? Shoney Carter at Continental Airlines Arena. The weigh-ins were the day of the fight. That morning, right? Why? Just the way it was. And the way it broke down, the way it all went down was i had a new gym a gold's gym

building a brand new house had a brand new baby and i had to win the fight to have enough money for the down payment on the house oh jesus they're already building it we already signed the paperwork oh christ so i'm cutting weight and i've been so busy that i wasn't paying enough attention to my weight and i was struggling so the whole night i stayed awake the whole night and all i thought about was i know i can beat this guy. This guy's not going to beat me, but if he head butts me or for whatever reason, and I don't win the fight and I lose that money, I lose my house. Oh my God. I start to panic. Right. And when you're cutting weight like that, it's everything's magnified a hundred times that just the fear and everything else.

And all I thought about was that water and egg white or scrambled eggs all night, the whole night. And by the time it was time to weigh in, I went and knocked on Matt Hughes and Jen's pulvers door. And I go, Hey man, I'm in some serious trouble right now. I'm I, cause I sucked on ice cubes all night and I gained like two pounds or whatever. So I had to go cut again. What? How'd you gain weight? Just from sucking on ice cubes. You suck two pounds of ice cubes? I guess. Yeah. Cause I didn't even know where I was at. I was losing my mind. Oh, wow. So I did that all night. And then, so I made weight and then I went back to my hotel room and I started cramping, everything cramped. I had to tie my wrestling shoes on as tight as I could

possibly tie them. So my feet wouldn't bend like this. Right. Whoa. And then my calves started cramping, everything cramped to the point where I was curled up in the fetal position and i knew i had to fight that night holy right so i couldn't see right there was a bunch of stuff going wrong with my body so i called up monty cox in his room and i go you got to get somebody to take me to the hospital to get ivs or this shit's not happening he goes all right i'm sending tom sour right so you remember tom sower yes so tom sour comes so you remember tom sour yes so tom sour comes to get me and everybody who knows tom knows he had really severe Tourette's right really severe Tourette's like if he's around black people the n-word's getting yelled constantly right uh yeah

he's around women he's yelling hunt uh bitch bitch bitch bitch right the whole time he's really loud so anyway he comes and gets me, takes me to the hospital. We're walking up to the hospital in New Jersey. The whole hospital is all glass windows. Everybody that works in the hospital is black. Oh, no. Now, imagine the kind of situation I'm in mentally and physically, and I stop, and I put my hand on his chest, and I go, Tom, you cannot go in here with me.

Oh, my God. You're going to yell the N-word a million times. They're going to kick us out. I'm not going to get my IVs. Right. I'm not going to be able to fight. I'm going to lose my house. I was like, ah, I was losing my mind. And he goes, Pat, it's okay. Chirp, chirp, chirp, click, click. And he goes, it's fine. He goes, I'm a Dade County paramedic. He goes, I deal with this constantly. It's okay. So we walk in, we go up to the nurse at the reception desk and he goes hey he goes my friend click click click n word n word n word right and she she looks at him and goes say what and he goes i have tourette's i have severe tourette's please don't he goes my

friend needs an iv badly and she looks at me and goes oh shit like i look that bad wow my eyes were way back in my head. I was in rough shape. So they gave me three liters of saline. Three liters? Yeah. Revived me enough. Think of like a two-liter Pepsi.

That was three of those. And then add another one. Three of those. Wow. Three one liters. Yeah. That's a lot of water. Right, right.

And so they revived me enough. I was still seeing double when it came fight time. And so the first round, I just took Shoney down. I threw him, took him down, stayed mounted on him the whole first round to get him to wear himself out. Right. Just hitting him with punches, elbows, just stuff, just not going overboard. Right. But I wanted him to be tired going into the second round. How diminished are you in this state?

Bad. Yeah, it was bad. Like half your capacity? Maybe, maybe, yeah. So the second round I just went, okay, now I got to end it. So I just head kicked him and knocked him out. I remember that. And I just went, I made it out of that with the skin of my teeth. Whew. So it's just, weight cutting can be very extreme.

Yeah. It really can. But we always believed in you have to make weight. You sign your name, and that's why I get so pissed off and disgusted when people don't make weight. Yeah. Well, it's a lack of discipline. It is. For sure.

Unless it's not physically possible for you to make the weight, like if you're a heavyweight and you want to make lightweight, that's not physically possible. Right. So then don't sign it. And it's a lack of commitment. See, that's the thing that I'm disgusted most with is that people aren't committed to what they do. Right? You've obviously committed to what you do. You're very good at the things that you do.

Right? It is. It's obvious. You're obviously a talented guy, but you work at your craft, right? There came a time where I had to leave college to go home, take care of my ailing mother and had to work three jobs and realized sitting in a basement that I was raised in, every time it rained, it flooded. My feet were in water. I woke up one morning and I was doing, you know, I had started out fighting and everything and i said this is it i'm going to win a world title i'm going to win a ufc title that's it this is it and i loaded a nine millimeter pistol and i put a round in the chamber and i put it in my sock drawer and i said if i don't want a world title that gun's going in my

mouth and i'm done this is it right so every time i fought i thought about that gun in my sock drawer and not wanting to go home to it. And that's commitment. That's what was needed for me to succeed at that point in my life. That's the way it was. So when I see people not, when they're talented and they're not committed, I don't want anything to do with them. I just don't. I don't have time for people like that.

I'll take a guy who's committed and sucks and train him every day because I love his commitment. Well, there's some guys that just make some real critical errors, but they're incredibly talented, like Nurmagomedov. Like, you know, when he missed the fight with Tony Ferguson, and literally his body was shutting down. They had to take him to the hospital. All comes to preparation, though. He should have prepared better.

Yeah, he should have gotten lighter beforehand. He should have watched his diet. Now that he has a nutritionist, he made Wade pretty easy for his last fight with Barboza, and now he's going to be fighting for the title. And the guy's a monster. He's a fucking monster. But, you know, Askren had a real good point. What they do with 1FC, I think, is the way to do it.

You know, with 1FC, they test you. They have a hydration test, and they test you. And whatever weight the champions are, they just bumped everybody up a notch, and they bumped him up to 185. There's no cutting weight here. And I think that's just an unfortunate part of martial arts is this weight cutting shit. Well, it's with wrestling.

It's with boxing. Think about they complain about the fighters cutting weight. That's for three, four times a year. Really? It's not that hard. Try cutting weight your entire life every wrestling season. And when you wrestle during the winter, then spring, summer for Freestyle and Greco. Right.

You know, that was probably the thing that made me so small compared to my brothers. They were all 6'4", 6'5". Sure. Is I cut weight from sixth grade all the way through high school and into college and then fighting. Yeah. Right. So during my growing years, though, I was starving. That's just the way it was.

And so it stunted my growth, most likely. I'm sure it did. Yeah, I knew a lot of guys from wrestling that were like that. Their brothers were big and they were small. But I think that it's just unnecessary for MMA. I mean, you're dealing with professional athletes at the highest level of the game. I think they should just cut it out. I think they should implement the 1FC.

It's just never going to happen, though. Everybody's going to look for that edge, right? Why can't they just implement the 1FC. It's just never going to happen, though. Everybody's going to look for that edge, right? Why can't they just implement the 1FC? If they do the 1FC rules, they test you three times. They test your weight. They get a base weight off of you. They get hydration levels every time. As long as everybody has to follow that same.

Yeah, well, of course. Look, everybody has to follow the USADA rules. I think the rules, like in reference to guys using performance-enhancing drugs, it's just as critical to keep guys from fighting dehydrated or from being dehydrated. I mean, obviously, there's risks. Yeah. Fighting dehydrated. You saw the—which boxing match was it?

God, a little Italian dude got the hell beat out of him. Who fought Ward three times in wars? Mickey ward and arturo gotti fought gotti fought a little macho yeah and what did not come out joe camacho what the fuck was his name kid from maine lewis to maine but he wrecked him yeah he destroyed him because he was so much bigger than that yeah so that you know there's risks obviously so who was that pull Pull up Arturo Gotti's professional record. I remember his name was Joe. He was from Lewiston, Maine. He's a talented guy.

And Arturo Gotti looked like he was two weight classes bigger than him. And he fucked him up. Right. Oh, go ahead. If you've got a pee, go ahead. He's writing it down. What do you got here? Go way back. No, we it down. What do you got here? You just edited it? Go way back.

No, we're live. Joe Gamache. I needed a bucket. Joey Gamache. That's who it was. Joey Gamache. I remember that. That was horrific.

That was 2000. Man, time flies. How crazy. Pat Miltich. Tough guy. Can't hold his piss. Now we know. That's probably why I had a hard time cutting weight.

It doesn't make any sense. Pull that fight up. I'm going to see that fight. Arturo Gatti, Joey Gamache. That was a disturbing one. The thing is, like, you see so many of those kind of KOs in MMA. It makes you realize, yeah, Arturo Gatti was just far bigger than him in this fight. Arturo Gatti was just far bigger than him in this fight.

And he was also, this is Arturo Gatti when he was really world class too at the top of his game. They're working on a Gatti movie or something. Well, you know, he was killed by his girlfriend. He was killed by his girlfriend. She got away with it, or his wife. His wife was this Brazilian chick. And she got out of jail. When she got out of jail, she was smiling. It's really disturbing.

He got clipped there with a left hook. It was real bad. Like they think that there was some severe. Oh, there's the KO. They think there's some severe corruption involved in her her acquittal because she got acquitted in Brazil. And they said that he was he committed suicide, but he had some sort of blunt force trauma on his head. It was a big deal. And it was very sad for a lot of people that were Arturo Gatti fans

because his fights with Mickey Ward were— there's fights where guys are matched perfectly, where it's like their skill level— we're talking about Arturo Gotti and Mickey Ward and how Gotti was, Pat Miltage returns from the restroom, how Gotti was killed by his girlfriend or his wife. Right. And acquitted.

She was acquitted. And it was pretty obvious that someone murdered him and they passed it off as a suicide. Because of domestic or something? No, no. She fucking killed him, man. And when she got out of jail, she was smiling. She's like, they're taking pictures of her leaving jail.

I think it was just a Brazil job. Corruption in Brazil is bad. I mean, they tried to get rid of the fucking president recently, right? I don't know what happened with that. They were just stealing money, period, right? There's some severe corruption in Brazil. And apparently, in this case, most people think that she killed him and that she got away with it. Yeah.

To get an understanding, too, of the Brazilian people, you have to read a book called Tigreiro. Have you ever heard of that book? No. I saw The City of God, though. Yeah? You want to understand fucking Brazilians, watch that movie, City of God. I've never heard of it holy shit go ahead tell me about this movie and i'll tell you so elta elta grera or tagrero was

a book about sasha and erntz semel two russians who had engineering degrees who went to brazil around 1920 1921 during the diamond rush right and this is when ironically i think when the the gracie started learning jujitsu right about the same about the same area so ernst and sasha simmel both were catch wrestling guys and boxers just tough russians right we know how tough russians are so anyway they are working their way through brazil and through the matagras, stopping at ranches and towns, fixing guns, because the Brazilians didn't know how to fix their guns, to pay their way further in as they were getting towards the rivers and all that sort of stuff, and to find diamonds. That was their thing. But during all of this, Sasha Semel was fighting no-holds-barred fights against Paraguayan

strongmen and all this sort of stuff in the ring. And then he became a guy who was what's called a tagrero, a guy who can use a spear and kill one of the big cats in the jungles back then that was killing the cattle, killing the ranch hands, all this sort of stuff. These are 400-pound cats, right? These are big, scary panthers in the jungle. So he went and sought out and found a Brazilian Indian who was supposedly a tagrero, the expert, and he found this guy, and the guy's just drunk, just completely drunk,

and he goes, I want you to take me and teach me how to do this, and so they go, and the guy's drinking the whole time, and he goes, they run across a big cat, and what these cats would do is, riflemen on horses would go track the cats. The cats would double back on them, take them off their horse and kill them, right? So they were killing riflemen. So these cats were smart. So this guy taught him though, he watched this guy drunk, kill a 400 pound cat with a spear. And then he taught him how they would sit on their paws, whether they were going high to attack you, whether they were coming low, how to position the spear, all that sort of stuff.

So Sasha Semel became a white guy who killed 33 big cats for ranches, right? What? With a spear? Yeah. It's the coolest. It's the coolest. You couldn't write it any better. But to tell you about the Brazilian mindset, there was a guy in one of the gunsmith, blacksmith shops where they were fixing guns for people, that this one Brazilian had an attitude,

and Sasha insulted him in front of the friends. So this guy then, once you insult a Brazilian back in those days especially, they have to kill you because you disrespected them so badly in front of their family and friends. And they're just hot-blooded people, right? You've been around enough Brazilians, they're hot-blooded people. Vanderlei Silva, when he loses his temper, it's a pretty scary dude. So this guy tracks him for a while, and then they hire a guy that's the sheriff of Pasafundo who has a necklace of human ears to prove he brings back the ears of the person you

paid him to kill, and that's how he got paid, right? So he had a necklace of human ears, and he was hunting Sasha and Ernst. It's the coolest book you've ever read. Wow. It's incredible. book you've ever read. Wow. It's incredible. Can I spell it? Taguero. T-I-G-R-E-R-O.

But it's a rare book. A friend of mine gave it to me. T-I-G-R-E-R-O. Taguero. It's a rare book. It's hard to find. And John Wayne was going to make a movie about it, but they couldn't do the movie. They were going to do it in the 50s or whatever it was, but they couldn't because the Amazon was still too dangerous.

There's cannibals everywhere and all kinds of stuff and malaria and everything else. So there's actually a documentary about going there to do the site surveys and all that sort of stuff, and they went. Do they have malaria in South America? I think so. I thought malaria was just an African disease. In the Amazon and stuff like that. Really?

Right. Well, I'm sure they got plenty of diseases. But yeah, the cannibals, that's like what got that explorer, that English explorer in the Lost City of Z, right?

I've never heard of that. Yeah. The Lost City of Z is a book that they turned into a movie a couple of years ago about this guy and it turned out

that what he had discovered has now been proven that there was some ancient systems there uh some ancient um uh civilization yeah civilization but also irrigation systems and they've they've figured out that they had all these roads and stuff because of satellite imagery ah they're in some new technology where they can look through the bushes and all the the jungle foliage and stuff and see these structures. See buildings and roads and everything. Look at this dude.

That's him. Yeah? There he is. That's him. Is that a spear right next to him? There's pictures of him. Is that a gun or a spear? A gun with a bayonet on it.

Oh. But there's pictures of him with spears going up against cats too. Jesus Christ, dude. He was hardcore, man. He was hardcore. Wow, there's a spear. That's a spear. What a fucking animal. Jesus Christ, that. He was hardcore, man. He was hardcore. Wow, there's a spear. That's a spear. What a fucking animal.

Jesus Christ, that's so crazy. Yeah, think about that. I spoke to his son. Wow. I was writing a screenplay on his life. Wow. And I talked to his son, Sasha Jr., about it, and he eventually just didn't want to do the life rights thing and all that.

What if they ate the jaguars? I have no idea. Did you know mountain lion's delicious? Is it? I have people that say it's their favorite food. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

I had no idea you could even eat it, but it's apparently a more delicious version of pork. Wow. Yeah. It's supposed to be fantastic. Mountain lion loin, like the back loin, back strap from mountain lion. There's things I'll eat and things I won't. I don't know if I'd eat a predator. I'd eat the fuck out of a mountain lion.

I don't like them. Yeah. I eat them. One of them killed my dog when I lived in Colorado. Really? Yeah. I've seen two of them. I saw that one, and I saw one of them in Santa Barbara.

Oh, really? I was actually driving through Montecito, a real nice neighborhood, and I saw this thing run across the road. At first, I thought it was a coyote, and then I saw the tail through Montecito, a real nice neighborhood, and I saw this thing run across the road. And at first, I thought it was a coyote, and then I saw the tail, and I went, oh, shit, that's a cat. Wow. Then I realized it was a mountain lion. Was it a big cat?

Not that big. No? 50, 60 pounds. Because there's some big ones. Maybe 70. There's obviously some massive ones out there. Oh, there's some fucking giant ones. Yeah.

Yeah. Colorado's got some fucking whoppers. And the coyotes, the coyotes where I live, they're everywhere. You ever see the picture of the one? We're supposed to get that. Whatever happened with that? The one,

the Hollywood sign with the cat, with the, we're supposed to buy that. I need to get it. I found the place to get it. Yeah. Let me revisit that

and buy that thing because there's an iconic photo to me that just symbolizes our intrusion into the wild world and the consequences of it. There's an enormous cat that lives in the Hollywood Hills. Okay. And there's a photo of him.

Look at this. This is taken by a camera trap. This is a real photo of this fucking cat. Oh, they've got him tagged. They've got the collar on him. They've got a collar on him. They know the cat. I had a, I forget the guy's name, the gentleman that we talked about the other day that was the ranger, was explaining to us how they do it.

They have to dart this fucker every couple years when the collar goes dead. Yeah. So every couple years, this guy goes into fucking dreamland like George St. Pierre. And I lost the time and comes back. Oh, there's him with a deer. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's like digging a hole, I guess.

No, the coyotes are ruthless where I live, man. They're everywhere. Oh, they're fucking everywhere. One killed my chicken just two days ago. Oh, really? Yeah, I have chickens. Yeah. Yeah, I was out in the backyard.

I saw the cunt jump on the roof of the chicken coop and then jump over the top of the fence. They're so graceful, though. They're smart. Oh, so smart, man. One of my good buddies who, He sold his company to Orkin so he was an expert at getting rid of deer getting rid of coyotes getting rid of anything off Your property getting rid of raccoons out of your house, whatever right? He's he's the guy that started trapping when he was 10 years old right and some of my buddies did that and he was one Of them, but he became the expert sold his company to Orkin for a lot of money

But he's the first and foremost guy, besides one other guy, I think, worldwide that is the expert in trapping coyotes. And when he explains it to you, you sit there and go, how smart are these? If there's anything out of place, they never take the same way back to their den ever. They always go a different route. They're smart about covering their tracks. And to trap them, he goes, if you do one thing wrong they they recognize it right away and they're gone so he had to go and really study research and it's a great book by dan flores it's called coyote america and uh dan is a he's a professor at i think was he from university in new mexico he's from new mexico genius guy but he went into great detail about how intelligent these fucking things are about how native americans just think they were gods

yeah that they were tricksters and they're basically wolves they're a small wolf miniature yeah yeah they're just a miniature super intelligent and i my old house that i had that had some timber on it and stuff i had a fox den across the creek on the hillside. I'd watch the fox coming back with squirrels and rabbits every morning at 4 or 5 when I'd be up to get workouts in. I'd be drinking coffee. I'd have turkey vultures on my frigging – turkey vultures are this big, man. They're massive.

And they'd sit on the railing of my porch outside. I hear my wife scream, just shriek and go, Jesus. I go, what? what she goes what the fuck are those things and then they're she not from around there no she's from montreal oh right her first language is french she's a city girl all that sort of stuff wow that's he brought it to iowa well she was studying to be a doctor of chiropractic in in uh at palmer which is in davenport iowa and uh so you know the thing is, I had eagles, owls, hawks, herds of deer, coyotes, all kinds of crazy stuff running through my yard constantly.

And that's when I had the mastiff and a shepherd and some other stuff. My mastiff wanted to kill everything that came into my yard. Oh, for sure. Yeah. A big-ass dog like that? Yeah. That's like one of the best places in the world for white tail deer they're huge i have a buddy of mine my friend john dudley he bought a farm out in iowa

just to hunt white tails yeah so the the militich farm is down in southern iowa and my grandma on the other side her farm was down there also and it's you know obviously a lot of timber also and it's the deer you see down there and even you know inendorf, Iowa, where I live, which is right next to the Mississippi River, the deer are huge. I see a deer in Texas, and they look like a German shepherd. Yeah, it's interesting, right? You know what that is? That's the warmth. And the corn.

There's that, too. Corn, soybeans, all that sort of stuff. They're well-fed all the time. Dude, I hit a deer, what what was it a year and a half ago with my f-150 and all it was was his chest hit the front quarter front of the quarter panel and scraped down it and destroyed the whole side of my truck just destroyed it they're that big they're tanks yeah now imagine hitting a moose my dad hit a moose almost killed him jesus it it uh the vehicle caught on fire because the moose crushed into the engine compartment

and caved in the front of the vehicle and then it all caught on fire. My dad had to frig and go out to kick the back window out to get out. Jesus Christ. Yeah. And if you honk at a moose, if you stop and then honk at a moose,

they'll run and smash your car. Yeah. Yeah, so you just, seeing a moose, I went on a fishing trip, one of the many fishing trips I went on in Canada with a friend of mine, Mark Lewis. And we were in a V-bottom boat, there was three of us, and we were going, the English River system, if you ever want to go fishing in the summer for badass fish, I mean, you'll wear out catching fish up there. It's north of Lake of the Woods.

And we were going across the lake, and the English River system system is massive and it's endless amounts of islands You can get lost really easy up there But we were cutting across the lake and we got into this bay and there was a moose swimming across the bay You know the huge rack on it and everything else and my buddy mark goes pull up next to it I know what he goes. Yeah, just pull up right to its ass in so I pulled up kind of just on its ass And he jumps out of the boat on its back. Oh, no, he didn't. Yeah. Oh, my God.

So he's riding on the back of the moose, and the moose is doing this, trying to get to him. And finally, he jumps off, climbs back in the boat. We turn away, and right then the moose hit shallow ground and came up right after. He would have been dead. He would have been dead. Yeah. It's a big fucking animal. They're one of the rare deer species that almost regularly charges people

yeah yeah they fuck people up all the time they run into Duluth Minnesota in downtown and smash everybody yeah they just stomp people in in Alaska too and it's usually the problem is if you find a female that's with her babies you're done that's when you're in real real trouble right right yeah so do you hunt much yeah a lot a lot. Do you? Yeah. Where do you hunt usually? I've hunted in Iowa. I hunted in Iowa for whitetail last year. Southern Iowa?

I got a couple of whitetail. He's outside of Des Moines. Okay. About like 45 minutes outside of Des Moines. I hunt Utah. I shot an elk in Utah this year. I got another elk in Central California. I try to go to as many places as possible i'm going next month i'm going to lanai for axis deer okay mostly bow hunt that's

right that's cool yeah i love it got a hell of a bow uh hunting thing set up in here yeah it's pretty bad aspect there yeah sick 45 yard indoor range yeah it's cool it's good keep practice they the doctor that i told you about uh tyson cobb the orthopedic surgeon that fixed tim's arm he was a bow hunter who went and got crocodile in africa you know big all giant game stuff like that and um you know the stuff that he hunted was i mean you know killing a grizzly with a bow is some scary stuff yeah that's a real risky proposition yeah but he did he did stuff like that. Yeah, my friend Dudley that I was telling you about

that lives in Iowa, he does that too. He goes all over the world and hunts. You miss. Yeah, it's very, very risky. Very risky. Right. But, you know, the thing about the grizzly hunting is like people don't like it.

Like it's gotten to the point where in bc they've outlawed it right and uh they really shouldn't have and the reason being is that you got to control the populations because there's nothing that eats them right like except them they they're all cannibals all grizzlies all even black bears are all cannibals they eat the cubs all the time and if one of them dies like if you i've been black bear hunting before and if you shoot a black bear and like maybe you shoot it like right before dark and all that. Eat the cubs all the time. And if one of them dies, like if you, I've been black bear hunting before, and if you shoot a black bear and, like, maybe you shoot it, like, right before dark and it runs off in the bush and you don't want to go after it, you come back in the morning, bears are eating it.

Yeah. They eat their own. I've just been a guy that, you know, I don't have time to hunt. I've gone deer hunting a couple times. I just never, you know, I'm more of a fish, I love to fish. I do too. Right, so that's my thing. What kind of fishing do you do?

I'll fish for, you know, I've fished for shark off a beach before that's another thing that people get mad at they get mad if you eat sharks now well we let them go we let them go you know that's not not a big deal but i watched a guy from blackbark's tackle company they taught me how to do it off the beach these guys are catching 14 foot hammerheads off the beach dude do you know one of the best places to hunt to fish for sharks rather rather, is off of Catalina? Oh, really? Right out here. For great white?

No, for mako. Okay. It's like one of the best mako shark hunting. Which are massive, too. Huge. Yeah. Yeah. But they taught me how to do that.

I love fishing for barracuda just because they're so aggressive. It's a fun fish. Oh, my God. They're scarier than hell. As fast as they hit a lure, it's crazy. They're crazy looking. Yeah. And I love musky pike fishing, bass fishing. I was going to say, they look like a pike on steroids. Yeah, they're scarier than hell as fast as they hit a lure. It's crazy, but crazy look yeah And I love musky pike fishing bass fish. I say they look like a pike on steroids. Yeah, they are

That's what they are. They're the sea water fish. Oh, yeah muskies are awesome So I went musky fishing at the lakota ray Indian reservation It's the Chippewa flowage where the biggest muskie in the world was ever caught right really how big is that? 67 pounds 70 I don't know but it's huge it's huge coyote size musk but they've found jaws and teeth of muskies that are twice that size right just washed up on shore type stuff so there's huge muskies still but the guy that took me fishing he took a job he used to work in vegas for the casino down in vegas i forget which one and he left that and went back to wisconsin northern

wisconsin because he wanted to musky fish right so he took a job with the lakuta ray indian reservation just so he could musky fish so he and he was the vice president holy shit look at the size of that fucking thing they're terrifying that looks like a person that's like a person sized fish that's that's less than 60 pounds? But those will attack you. Oh, yeah. You know, they'll attack you. They're that vicious. I knew a dude who invented a lure.

Do I know him or I know his friend? I don't know. Anyway, someone invented a lure that was a duck. Yeah. It was a fake duck. That's what my grandpa used to fish for him with ducklings. You hook them through the tail and throw them out on top of the lake and let them swim around and a muskie would hit them.

Yeah. Isn't that crazy? That's how they do it. That they regularly eat ducks. Yeah. This guy had a lure that as you pull it in, as you reeled it in, the paddles, the feet would move and the muskie would think it's a real duck and they would jack them. Yeah.

So they, but the guy that was the, he was that casino guy that took me fishing. What do you got here, Jamie? It's called a suicide duck lure. Oh, so, okay. So nice. See, this is my fishing days are a long fucking time ago. Yeah. This is like when I was a very early teenager, like 13, 14.

I was addicted to fishing. I fish constantly. I still fish. I still love it. But I'm out of the loop in terms of like that this is a regular thing so this is a duck oh so the duck is like he's running away and a muskie comes in jack's got to make him look panicked oh yeah but the uh he was the vice president of the muskie world association and he took me fishing and he goes there we have tons of muskies that we've radio tagged he goes but

we're not going to use that. That's cheating. I know their patterns anyway. How do they radio tag a muskie? They just punch the thing by the dorsal fin, and it's got the little. Oh, wow. So it gives out a transmitter, and you can find out their patterns or whatever. But he goes, I'll take you muskie fishing tomorrow if you want to go. I said, yeah, awesome. So we go to the bait store, and he gets chubs this big.

That's the bait. So you're holding your hand out about a foot and a half. They're at least 12, 14-inch fish, right? Wow. That's the bait. So you're holding your hand out about a foot and a half. They're at least 12, 14-inch fish, right? That's the bait, right? And he'd hook them through by the dorsal fin. We'd go out in the boat, drop the chub straight down. Then we'd go back to the island. And he had a rod holder, put the pole in there, set the drag reel light,

put a bobber at the top of the line so you could see the bobber move if something was taken off with it. And we did that four separate times with four lines. And then we sat in the boat and ate sandwiches and just talked. And then all of a sudden the bobber takes off. He goes, all right, I'm going to pull up. You run and grab the pole, jump back in the boat. He goes, I'm going to maneuver you and keep you.

You have to stay over the top of the fish. And with muskie, trolling motors scare them, but a regular boat motor idling does not for some reason. So I'm learning a ton of stuff from this guy. And he goes, we have to, for 25 minutes, you have to let him turn that fish head first and then swallow it. That's the rule. About 25 minutes it takes them.

They take their time. They wait till it's dead. They crush it with their jaws and they slowly flip it and then they swallow it. And he goes, but if it starts to run anytime before that, you have to try and set the hook. That's just the way it the way it is right so and this is my first time musky fishing so when when they start chewing on them you just wait yeah yeah you stay over them so the musky will be swimming along size that fucker yeah so they'll be swimming along so somebody caught that

caught that bass and then the muskies got a hold of it they don't have the musky they just have the bass right so you got to let them turn them and then set the hook then you'll catch the muskie right but so that's what we did in about 17 minutes it took off started to run i set the hook and i caught a 52 inch muskie first time oh yeah holy shit it felt like i set the hook in a log that is a big fucking thing really cool 52 inch 52-inch muskie. Yeah. Yeah, their northern pike fishing is very fun. I've done that in Alberta. Some of my favorite times. They hit hard.

Yeah, and so the English River system where we used to go, if you catch a pike this long, you leave it on the hook because a big one's coming. Right. And the first time it happened to me, scared the living shit out of me. So when you catch a pike that's two feet long and you just leave it on the hook. Let it swim around. Up there anyway. And you're just hoping that something way bigger.

No, you're not hoping. It's coming. Really? It's coming. Wow. Yeah. So a big one's going to come. Is this one here?

It's going right now. Yeah, watch this. Fucking cannibals. Cannibals in the cold water world. Remember Babe Winkleman, the professional fisherman? Yeah, sure. Also, this one is right there. Here it comes. And he's just holding it over

this bigger one that's underneath it. They're such a crazy animal too. Like, pikes seem prehistoric. And they are cannibals without a doubt. Yeah. Babe Winkleman, I watched a video while I was in Canada fishing. We were at the lodge and Babe Winkleman's asking this guy who's

an Indian guide guide he goes so what do pike eat and the guide goes uh pike they eat pike and he goes no what do pike eat he goes pike it's like they breed so they have food that's what they eat that's just they're just aggressive mean fish yeah and they live in that dog eat dog cold water environment where there's three feet of ice above them half the time. Right, right. Yeah. Well, all those animals up there, like we were talking about bears, about bears being cannibals and pike being cannibals and the fucking deer 350 pounds.

It's just a tough, tough world. Yeah. I mean, when it gets that goddamn cold, it's a tough world. Then you go to a whole other level and go to places like Africa and Australia. And it's hot. It's another world, too. Everything's deadly in Australia. I wouldn't even want to live there.

That's right, Adam Greentree. Listen to Pat Miletich. My friend Adam, who shot that water buffalo head in Australia, he keeps trying to get me to go down there and hunt with him. And every time he sends me pictures of spiders that can kill you,

a lizard that can kill you, a snake that can kill you. Yeah, everything. Everything kills you. Centipedes. And they have these gigantic 2,000-pound buffaloes that are super hyper-aggressive. Right. And they're roaming around.

Smash you. Well, they have to kill them, though. That's another thing. It's like the grizzly bear thing. They don't have predators. Right. You know, in Alaska. But they're herbivores, so they're kind of meant to be hunted, in my mind.

Yes. You know what I mean? I agree. But there's nothingivores, so they're kind of meant to be hunted in my mind. Yes. You know what I mean? No, I agree. But there's nothing to hunt them out there. Right. The problem with Australia is that these are invasive species. They brought pretty much everything over there. So the ranchers brought them there or something for beef?

Someone brought them there a long time ago. New Zealand's the craziest place because New Zealand is essentially, they set it up as a wild game park for rich Europeans. Right. Long time ago. And so now they have these enormous stags and all these huge animals that live there. They set it up as a wild game park for rich Europeans a long time ago. And so now they have these enormous stags and all these huge animals that live there, but no predators. So sometimes they have to thin the herd.

They have to fly over with helicopters and just gun them down. Well, they hunt. I mean, we're allowed. They made a rule in Bettendorf, Iowa, that within city limits, you could hunt deer with a bow. Yeah, yeah. Within city limits, because there's just so many of them. You see a herd of 50 of them. They do that in Pennsylvania too.

Okay. Yeah. There's a lot of places where they just get so overrun that they have what they call urban hunting. Yeah. Where people set up tree stands in their backyard. You know, as far as the fishing goes, you should go noodling. Noodling for catfish? Yeah.

You want to bite your hand? Yes. Fuck that. That seems so stupid because occasionally you fuck up and get a snapping turtle, right? Or a beaver. Ah! Fucking beaver. Woo!

Imagine a beaver that can chew down a tree. Imagine what it'd do to your wrist. Oh, it would hurt. Oh, fuck that. It would definitely hurt. I did it one time, and that was it. You went noodling one time? Yeah, I caught a catfish.

Did you get lucky? Yeah, I caught a catfish. It was like 14-pounder, you know. But when they snap down on your arm, it scares the shit out of you. Oh, I'm sure. Now, what is the idea? Is it that the catfish thinks you're intruding? No, they think it's a fish.

Oh, they do think it's a fish. Oh, that's so stupid. Your hand's a fish. So your hand is bait. Yeah. Fuck that. I like fishing poles. I like to be in a boat or on the shore.

I like all the sophisticated, intelligent things. Yeah, yeah. So I was going to ask you, how's it been working with Jimmy Smith? I love that guy. He's brilliant. He's brilliant. He's a very smart guy. I tried to get him hired about four years ago.

Yeah. And I was, because the UFC was looking for guys. First of all, I was trying to do less commentary because I was traveling too much. And I was trying to do less. I was like, you got to hire this guy. He's the best. Yeah. He's really, really good.

He's smart. I love listening to him. We're doing our first show together in April. Okay. The Tony Ferguson, Habib Nurmagomedov fight. Oh, good, good. He's smart. I love listening to him. We're doing our first show together in April. Okay. The Tony Ferguson, Habib Nurmagomedov fight. Oh, good, good. Yeah, Habib versus Tony is going to be, it's a perfect fight for us. So who's color in

play-by-play then? Is he doing play-by-play and you're doing color? No, no, no. John Annex doing play-by-play and Jimmy and I are both doing color. We're just going to have fun. He's a friend, you know, and he's been on the podcast a bunch of times. We're buddies, so it'll be a good time. And didn't he cut his teeth um doing a tv show about combat sports yeah or about he did about fighting around the world or whatever learning different arts was it called

fight sport what was it called something like that fight quest fight quest yeah it was yeah he did that but i mean i think he's but he also had m fights, and he's a legit black belt in jiu-jitsu. No, he knows his stuff. And he's a super smart and well-read guy, too. Yeah. I'm excited. I'm excited that he's on board. Yeah.

I always liked listening to him. Yeah, Bellator fucked up. They fucked up, and they let that guy go. I couldn't, I was wondering what, so, not to pry, but my guess was he just asked for more money, probably because he had an offer from the UFC. They wouldn't match it, so he took off, whatever. Well, they didn't want him leaving for the UFC four years ago when I tried to get him hired. Right.

And there was like a big hullabaloo, and they wound up keeping him. And then I think his contract was up, and I think the way he described it was they actually wanted to give him less money than he was getting. And it's like, I think they're just experiencing some severe budget cuts right if you think about Bellator's market like what they're trying to do they don't have a pay-per-view business you know and if you don't have a pay-per-view business where's the bulk of all your money coming from it's like kind of bleeding Viacom right I just thought I just thought you know when it happened I said why didn't they change the name when Coker was brought in to take over? It made zero sense to me because Bellator had that, you know, from Bjorn Rebny.

I've never been a Bjorn Rebny fan. Bjorn Rebny, you know, from that boxing promoter type, you know, whatever it was. And everybody that I talked to in that business, they were all terrified and intimidated and everything else. It was a lot of shit. Yeah, it was just a lot of shit. I never met the guy. I don't know anything about him other than the bad things that I've heard from fighters. Right. King Moe calling him a dick rider.

King Moe. King Moe and I go back and forth on the internet, on Facebook and stuff. I'll deliberately piss him off on political stuff and just get him stirred up. I get him. He's an underappreciated talent when it comes to fighting. Yeah, no, he's a,

he, that guy was, had some serious physical problems though. Like with, uh, MRSA, he had some serious staff infections, some real bad ones that wrecked him.

Yeah. That fucking shit. He's a great guy though. We talk, we talk now and then when I see him and stuff, he is, he's cool, dude. And But God, where were we talking about but Bellator? Yeah

Should have changed the name. Yeah, it's just synonymous with tournaments and a guy loses the title and suddenly he's thrown back into a tournament He's already made his name. Yeah, it's just a shitty business model. Yeah, and Bellator was for the Spanish-speaking Crowd right wasn't that what they were trying to get out of that i think it's a latin word right i think it's or a roman word for gladiator or some shit but yeah it started out as um wasn't on like espn deportes or something like that yeah yeah it just but it just didn't make sense with coker taking over and i i don't want to watch the geritol posse fight that's all they're doing i don't want to see a pat militech fight i don't i don't want to see it rightitol Posse fight. That's all they're doing. I don't want to see a Pat Miletic fight. I don't want to see it. Right?

Everybody's, you know, I love some of those guys. Right. But I don't want to watch it. I agree. It's, you know, it's a young man's sport. It's guys that are animals, fast movers, just beasts, invincible human beings in their mid-20s to 30, whatever, early 30s. A guy that's 45 years old. Not just 45, but 45 years old with mma miles on them

yeah that's the real issue right it's that these guys their bodies have been beaten up for so many decades in the gym and all the years of wrestling and kickboxing and they're just not the same no you know yeah it takes its toll it definitely takes its toll and you're just not you're just not the same i mean it's part of me that respects the shit out of a guy like Hoist Gracie. He's still a fucking savage at 50 years of age, ready to throw down with anybody. He wouldn't fight me. He wouldn't? Son of a...

When was this? I've been trying to... I mean, with Bellator, I said, freaking get Gracie to fight me. When he was fighting Shamrock, I confronted Shamrock on Axis. That was one of the worst fights that I had. Oh, it was bad. It was when Matt beat the shit out of him. Oh, the out of him when matt took his back and was smashing him and i was like jesus christ i was like this is this is so mismatched so the voice is in a different era and matt is even

though matt's not ranked he's a legit black belt right right yeah and a stud wrestler yeah and a physical freak and and super experienced with modern high-level MMA. Right, right. Because Hoyst was living in the past. Yeah. And the thing was with that, that was after Rob Lawler, Rory Markham, myself, Tim Sylvia, Gann McGee, Chuck Liddell, all of us were on that movie set in Mexico, that Paul Walker film.

Okay. Right? Paul was a great guy. He was legitimately a good human being. I'm sure you knew him and all that. I didn't know him, but I heard great things about him. The stuff that he did on the set to stick up for the small guys was incredible. Maybe we've got time to talk about it or not.

But we had gotten done with that. We'd become friends with Paul Walker and Oakley Lemon, who was his stunt double for everything. And the stunt guys were all really cool with us. We kind of gravitated towards them because they're stunt guys and we're fighters. We got along really well with them. But Lawrence Fishburne was on the set, the Carradine brothers. You know, I'm a kid from Iowa going, this is fucking awesome, man. These are cool dudes, right?

Just to be around these guys. So they were all at that fight in L.A. And Paul Walker and all his actor buddies were in one row right behind him was Oakley Lemon and all his stunt guys and so Paul Walker was a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu student he you know loved that and so they were cheering for Hoyce all the stunt guys were cheering for Matt right they're the hardcore like you know so anyway Matt just dismantles him, wrecks him completely. And I turn around, I'm up on the deck outside the cage and I turn around and Paul Walker and all these actor buddies are like this. Like, holy shit.

Like, I can't believe this just happened. Standing on the chairs behind them is Oakley Lemon and all the stunt guys going, fuck yeah, military. This is awesome. It was, it was, but I saw half that crowd crying. Yeah. Because they saw God get destroyed. Right. You know what I mean?

Well, they saw a hero too. Right. Hoist is like, for martial arts, he was a legitimate hero. He was the first guy to win the Ultimate Fighting Championship. And the way he did it was like, oh, look at this. These guys using technique that we didn't even know existed. Little skinny guy that's dismantling people. And the thing was, with all of that,

then the Gracies came back with, Hughes was just a better athlete and used all jujitsu, Gracie jujitsu, to beat Gracie jujitsu. So I went through all the stuff. He hit a duck under on Hoyce when Hoyce tried to hit him with an elbow. Hit him with a half Nelson

when Hoyce tried to regain guard when Matt took his back there was just a bunch of wrestling mixed in there right yeah and so then they brought out almeida almeida was their dog to come and beat matt right so they put in almeida who was bigger than matt you know he's a big dude for that weight division while matt deliberately hit him with a wrestling front headlocked and choked him unconscious well it was a position that a lot of jiu-jitsu guys are used to being in there, and they just relax because they're waiting for you to spin to the back. But instead of spinning to the back, Matt just cranked that fucker down and shut the lights out. When you stuff the head under the armpit and you crank that down and twist, you get choked.

Especially a gorilla like Matt. Right. And so when they did the interview, you were probably the guy doing the interview. Yes, I was. And he goes, you know, it was just nice to use wrestling on a jiu-jitsu guy. Yeah, and to put him unconscious. Right. And so when they did the interview, you were probably the guy doing the interview. And he goes, he goes, you know, it was just nice to use wrestling on a jujitsu. Yeah. And to put them unconscious, right. Not just you. I don't think Ricardo knew that that could put him out. Right. You know, I mean, a lot of us have been in those positions before, but it's usually a transitionary position where a guy turns and gets your back.

No one's ever done it since either, by the way. No, no one's ever choked. But guys in wrestling, guys in wrestling will use that stuff you know like dave lillovich who wrestled for purdue dave and joey lillovich they were all americans at purdue and they were beasts and obviously lillovich they were croatians psycho croatians in michigan city indiana where they grew up and lillovich used to use a move that they named the lillovich where it was uh you'd include, what the fuck's the name of it? Not a Darce, but. Anaconda choke? It was an anaconda in college wrestling that looked like you had a front headlock, and

he would choke people unconscious. As soon as they'd go limp, he'd grab the chin, roll them, and pin them. That's what I heard about that. So Dave Lillovich pinned Bill Tate from Iowa State. Bill Tate was a Waterloo, Iowa guy. And he put him asleep. He put him asleep and pinned him in the NCAA championships. Is that illegal?

Oh, it's totally illegal, but referees didn't understand it because it looked like you had the arm included in the headlock, right? Right. But if you do have an arm included in a headlock, is it your fault if a guy goes to sleep? No, not at all. So is it illegal to pin him? If the referee recognized he went limp,

they would stop the match for a potentially dangerous hold or whatever. So what you'd have to do is get some of these really bad UFC referees to referee wrestling, and they would have no idea the guy was there. Yeah, yeah. But there's guys doing that. Did you see at the NCAAs the guy hitting the key lock on the guy trying to break his arm? No. Yeah.

Didn't Mark Schultz do that in the Olympics? You know, I'm not sure. He ripped a guy's fucking arm off with that. I believe he was disqualified. I mean, the Schultz brothers, I'm not sure. He ripped a guy's fucking arm off with that. I believe he was disqualified. I mean, the Schultz brothers were just scary human beings. Dave Schultz was just unbeatable. Animals. They were trying to build people to beat him over in Russia.

Remember when Mark fought? He fought Big Daddy Goodrich. And then... Threw him around, ragdolled him. Ragdolled him. But then in the movie, they used a different guy. They didn't have him fighting Big Daddy Goodrich in the movie. They had him fight some Russian guy. Was that Foxcatcher or something? Yeah, it was a different guy. They didn't have him fighting Big Daddy Goodrich in the movie. They had him fight some Russian guy.

Was that Foxcatcher or something? Yeah, it was a bullshit scene. I was like, why would you do that? This is actual real history. Right, right. You really have a guy who's like one of the best wrestlers to ever fight in MMA. To us, it was a real historical moment. And he took it on last second notice.

Yeah, he fought Big Daddy Goodrich. We all remember it. But in this fucking movie, you faked it. You put someone else in. So what else did you fake? What other bullshit was in this movie where you're pretending this is a historical recreation of a real national crime that everybody heard about? It was a real tragedy. And it was a tragedy against a guy who was one of the best wrestlers that America had to offer.

I felt like it was one of the worst examples of what Hollywood does, the arrogance of Hollywood. To do to a real story. A real story. They decided, fuck Big Daddy Goodrich. Why have him in there? That would be like Mike Tyson pretending Mike Tyson won the fucking world title against Ivan Drago or something.

Really, it would be something akin to that. Everybody knows what the real fight was. You know, being an Iowa guy, this whole California experience and Hollywood and all this stuff freaks me the fuck out. It should. It does. I was out here pitching TV shows before The Ultimate Fighter. I was pitching an Ultimate Fighter show to Kevin Reilly, who was the president of nbc at the time

and john herschfeld who you know right john herschfeld goes look you're gonna have maybe five ten minutes with these people right i had them laughing for an hour and a half and they're like this is awesome i love this show i love this idea and mine was much different than the ultimate fighter right it actually made sense the four pillars of mma and competing in each one and all that sort of stuff right well he called us personally and he goes you know we the board talked about it and the board just he goes i couldn't get it through they just don't feel mainstream's ready for this type of thing and all that then the ultimate fighter came out on spike and the rest was history but every time i had one show sold to stars the guy that used to be the president of hbo remember him which guy the guy that got in trouble right i can't remember his name now off i remember brett no rex no something albrecht

yeah chris albrecht chris albrecht that's it i had a show sold and then they were going to co-brand it with spartacus and then the lead actor from Spartacus got terminal cancer, and they couldn't co-brand them together, and that deal fell apart. Then another one that I had sold fell apart because of the collapse in 2008, and I was like, dude, I can't win anything. I had a deal set. It's a crazy business also. If you're an outsider and you're coming in here to try to pitch things,

there's so many people they already know that are pitching things. You've got to imagine if you're a guy that's a producer or, you know, an executive rather at some sort of a network, you've got people knocking on your door all day long. And you're used to quality from certain people. Yeah. Or what you want to see. Right. You've seen their work before. Yeah. It's very hard for an outsider to get in. Oh, dude, I finally just went, okay. I had so many concepts written on a laptop. I'd sit up

all hours of the night writing concepts for shows, all that sort of stuff. You know what's interesting? This thing that you're doing for fun, your conspiracy farm, that's probably your best way in. Podcasts are the best way in because you build an audience, an undeniable audience. Well, and we want to go to black sites, CIA black sites, and arrest us and drag our ass in there, right? We want to get in trouble, right? We want to go to places where we're going to— You don't want that.

We're going to push the— You say you want that. You don't want that. I don't—okay, I get what you're saying, but we want to push the envelope, right? We want to push the envelope, and we want to expose the real facts behind what's really going on and it would cause some heat i'm sure that we eventually get a call you know where you need to kind of divert off the path you're on you think so oh i'm without a doubt you're looking forward to that call weren't you starting to do a show like that i did joe rogan questions everything but mostly it was on bigfoot and ufos so stuff

you're not gonna get in trouble for and. Well, it was mostly almost all bullshit. That's the problem. And I was much more interested in conspiracy theories before I did that show. But in the six months that I did that show, and all these different people that I interviewed, and all the stuff you saw in the air was just a fraction of the total mass of all the people that I talked to. Mostly it was bullshit. Mostly it was crazy people. Mostly it was people that just have a bad way of looking at reality.

Like they have confirmation bias, and the way they look at things, they just have this very distorted version of what the truth is. And they also want Bigfoot to be real. They want aliens to be real. They want the government to be spraying shit out of planes above us all the time it's all just but we've had we've had brennan who was head of the cia admit to that though at least well they admit to one thing that they have looked into weather modification right but the idea that every fucking southwest flight is spraying aluminum and all this different shit in the air no for sure they've experimented on using it for warfare.

I mean, they've looked into everything. They've looked into how- Spray the atmosphere over your enemy and have storms break out on them. There's that. And also to, look, in Abu Dhabi, they make it rain every week. They make it rain 52 times a year. They just throw money in the air and it fucking rains. Wow.

Like they just figure out a way to cloud seed. And that cloud seeding has been around forever. That's real. Yeah. But that's not what you're seeing when you see planes fly overhead and you see those clouds that form behind the planes. That is a reaction between the jet engines, the condensation in the atmosphere, the heat of the jet engine.

And I was never sold on it. For a long time, I was never sold on that at all. It's ridiculous. You know, I was never, you know. For a long time, I was never sold on that at all. It's ridiculous. You know, I was never, you know, in the 9-11 conspiracies and stuff like that. The only thing that I've noticed

about that is you can see the detonations going off on Building 7 when it never got here. You don't see detonations. What you see is floors collapsing and the pressure

of these floors collapsing causing these windows to blow out. Right. This is just what would happen if something was pain-taking you. But I don't subscribe to it is what I'm saying.

I don't subscribe to it. I don't subscribe to it either. I mean, who knows what the fuck happened with all the shit behind the scenes. But what we do know is that a bunch of people capitalize on that, which makes it look like a conspiracy. And all the intelligence reports that came out before that happened was that the terrorists planned on using planes as missiles to take down buildings. Yeah. that, at least. That's where I stop. I lean much more towards incompetence than I do massive conspiracy. A bunch of Barney Fives, Keystone Cops.

Yeah. That's what I think. Right. But who knows? I wanted to talk to you about marathons, about ultra marathons. When did you start getting into this? about ultra marathons. Like you got into, when did you start getting into this? It was a couple of years ago. John Byrne, who is a professor at a college in my hometown, and he and his family had taken martial arts

from me for years. And he one day walked up to me, I think it was 2012 or earlier. And he goes, hey, he goes, I want to thank you for all the confidence you've given me. And he was an amazing guy, a very, very smart guy and a great athlete, great basketball player.

The guy's now 53 years old, I think, and never gets hurt. He can do anything he wants, and he does not get hurt. He's just a genetic freak, right? But he comes to me and he goes, thank you for giving me the confidence. I love the martial arts training, but I'm going to try something new. And I said, what are you going to try? And he goes, this thing called the Leadville 100. And I go, what are you going to try? And he goes, this thing called the Leadville 100. And I go,

what the hell is that? He goes, well, it's a high altitude, a hundred mile race through the Colorado Rockies. And I go, how many days is this supposed to take? And he goes, oh no, you do it all at once. And I'm like, you're going to do a hundred miles without basically stopping. He goes, yeah, he goes about every 10 miles, you get new food and fluids and you just keep going. I went, awesome, Go do it, man. And he went and he finished. He barely made the cutoff, which is 30 hours. You have to do it, right? And so I thought, this is really cool.

And it was a couple years ago where he sent me a message, and he goes, I'm training for Leadville again. I go, maybe it's a good idea for me to jump in. I want to do something extreme. And since I quit fighting, I could never fight. There was just that void in my life, right? And my health was deteriorating. I couldn't figure out how to get back in shape because I was in pain constantly. I had asthma, all this other stuff. I found out that that was gluten. I had a gluten problem, right? And I

thought before that, I thought if somebody said I'm gluten sensitive or I have allergy to gluten, I'd go, whatever, what is gluten, right I'm gluten sensitive or I have allergy to gluten, I'd go, whatever. What is gluten, right? Right. But I was running into so many physical problems. I started training with these guys, and I'd be crippled for two, three days. I'd be in so much pain that I couldn't do anything. And then my buddy goes, and I was getting ready to eat, start eating Oxycontins.

That was, I mean, I could survive on Motrin, all the pain, everything else. But I got to the point where i'd flying i'd walk five gates in an airport and have to stop and sit down i was in so much pain my arthritis was just horrible i'd be soaked in sweat everything else so i had all these problems and i figured if i train with these guys it'll bring me out of this this point in life and it'll change my life and i'll get back to the you know pat milich of the old well I was falling apart worse because of the intensity of the training so my buddy did blood tests on me he goes you're gonna be dead in three years from a heart attack there's so much inflammation in your body if you don't stop eating gluten I go what the hell is gluten he goes wheat and soy you have to stop eating it

where you're dead he goes soy's gluten yeah yeah wheat and soy so it's all how wait a minute I thought it's all modified grains right soy soy has been modified like black beans have been modified for a certain amount of time your body doesn't digest black black beans really like a waste of time to eat so but the the wheat and the soy is what was causing the inflammation along with the sprain that goes on with wheat fields and soy fields it's really bad right yeah so anyway yeah it's bad, bad stuff. So anyway, he said, you'll be dead in three years from a heart attack. There's so much inflammation. You have asthma, you have three forms of arthritis, your digestion system, your, your digestive system is destroyed.

He goes, how's your temper been lately? I go, not real good. He goes, your brain's getting destroyed. Your thinking process is screwed up because the chemicals that your stomach has given off is affecting the way you think it's your second stomach or your second brain, right? He goes, so you have to understand that. So I quit cold turkey, stopped eating. Took about a week before my arthritis subsided. Started to go away. I went from running three-mile runs and feeling miserable for three days to 10 months later I did a 75-mile run.

In 10 months, though, from not eating that garbage. Was it a race, the 75-mile run? No, it was actually a training run. It was a training run with the guys. And, you know, they worked me up from, you know, 3-mile run, 10-mile run, 12-mile, 15, 18, 20. You know, drop back down to a 10-mile run on the weekend. They'd always do the long runs on the weekends. And a lot of times I was doing these runs on no sleep because I'd done a broadcast Friday night.

Get home the next day on Saturday, have no sleep. Because, you know, you can finish late and you've got to fly home first thing in the morning is what I always did. Right. Operating on no sleep and then starting with a 30-mile run, 35, 45, 50, and then a 75-mile run along with the stuff training during the week that a lot of it I was doing on the road too. And it's just an amazing group. It's probably the coolest group of people I've been around. And David Clark, who is a guy that served as a role model for me, just reading his book, which is called Out There, Ultra Recovery, a guy that was 320 pound alcoholic who changed

his life one day and decided to become a badass ultra runner. It just being around those people, they don't show pain. They don't, they just don't show pain, even when they're in misery. It's a weird mindset. It's so much different than MMA, where 25 minutes of misery in an exhausting fight is, now that I've gone through some of this stuff, it's a joke. It's a complete joke. Because when you're out there running 75 miles, 50 miles, I ran 50 miles in 97 degree heat with the same percentage of humidity on a blacktop country road in Iowa. Getting scorched, went through probably four hours of heat stroke.

My brain was getting cooked. I mean, I literally felt like I could die at any time. And these guys are laughing at me they're laughing they had me in a field at mile 30 uh farmer's yard uh hosing me down with cold water from the farmer's house just to get my body temperature down so i could get going again right wow just crazy stuff like that they're just hardcore it's an amazing group of people and i i encourage people to work their way up. Try and find a running group and try it because it's cool shit.

How often do you do it now? I've backed off of late. I've been doing more, kind of getting back into grappling a little bit, doing a little bit of kickboxing stuff. Really? Grappling even with your neck? I tell people, look, don't go for the gold. And there's a lot of good grapplers at the place I go to. Summit, it's a wrestling and jiu-jitsu facility.

CrossFit's in there, a bunch of other stuff. But some of the guys that I used to train are the senior guys down there, and they're some really technical guys, some 10th Planet guys, actually. Joel Laughlin follows that system quite a bit, and he's a former Special Forces guy. And, you know, I just said to everybody the first few times I went down there, I go, look, I have no desire to be a world champion again. I've been paralyzed twice from the neck down. I have no desire to get into frigging brawls with any of you.

I go, I'm here to get back in shape and just grapple and kind of have fun again. You know what I mean? So let's understand that first and foremost. If you go for crazy submissions on my neck, I'm not going to like you a whole lot. So I'm doing a lot of that. I'm slowly getting kind of back into the mindset of ramping back up with the running and stuff like that. My brother, who's 58, who never ran. He did Leadville last year.

Was it last year? Yeah. You know, that's a guy that never ran. And most people take their lifetime to be able to do a marathon. He did 50 miles at Leadville, missed the cutoff at 50 miles but he's 58 years old and never ran before and just he was in love with it he fell in love with it he's in the mountains you know i already live my sports dreams joe i already won a world title i've done some cool shit so to me running that when i saw the course and went this is this is intimidating this is to look at a

mountain and know you got to go over it right at the 40 to 50 mile mark and then 50 to 60 going back it's it's some scary shit it's intimidating my brother was totally the opposite mindset he's like this is the coolest shit i've ever done in my life he goes bombing down that mountain was the coolest thing i've ever done in my life this is amazing and i just went that's the way the mind's supposed to work for stuff like this yeah he, he got it You know what? I mean? Yeah Well, it is a lot of it is how you approach things right how you approach challenges Like some people love the idea of something being very difficult like what a struggle I can't believe how tough that was you get out of it. You feel exhilarated

Whereas other people they look at it like oh no I need a couch and a beer and a sandwich and a good TV show about fucking, you know. Right. Whatever. But I did. So I did Leadville a couple years back. And John Byrne and I went out two weeks early. And I had to leave from Colorado, fly back to Providence to do a broadcast, and then fly back.

He picked me up at the airport, and we went back up. But while I was with him for the first couple days we went out up mount albert which is the tallest mountain in colorado and i felt the altitude i felt the altitude 14.5 or whatever it was and it was it was painful on the way up and then we got caught on a storm on the top of the mountain a bad storm hail downpour and lightning hitting everywhere all over the mountain we had to bomb down this mountain as fast as we could and i trashed my quads right and we're real close to the actual race at that point right it's like a week and a half away and so then i got on a plane flew to providence and i was panicking i was like this is some serious shit i'm about to do right and i

started sweating i'd never had anxiety attacks before in my life and i'm like what the fuck are you thinking dude this is some crazy stuff and so so we were getting ready to go live, and Michael Chiavello looks at me, and he goes, why are you soaked? I go, I'm fucking freaking out, dude. I've got to fly back to Colorado and go do this race. I'm panicking, right? And I never thought I'd be afraid of anything. But the course is that intimidating, right?

So Michael goes, dude, relax. It's okay. So we did the show, everything. I got back there. And when you're out there in the mountains, you start at 4 o'clock in the morning, and they're hardcore runners, man. They're hardcore badasses. People you'd never – if you looked at them on the street, you'd go,

there's no way that person could run five miles. And they're just smiling for 100 miles. They're just going, going. You know who Courtney DeWalter is? Right, right. I had her on. She won the Moab 240. By how many hours? 20. She beat the 10 hours and 20

miles. She beat the second place guy. That's amazing. Yeah, she's an animal. Were there people that thought she cheated to do that? Nope. They knew her. Everybody knew her. She's an animal. She won a race blind. She was having some sort of retinal edema, so she couldn't see anything but her feet. Her pacer had to tell her where to go and all that sort of stuff.

I don't think she had a pacer. She tripped and fell and cracked her head open. She went through the finish line bloody and blind. And that's one of the toughest people you're ever going to meet. Right. And if you met her, completely unassuming, thin woman, real silly, drinks beer and eats nachos. Not on some kind of crazy diet. Eats candy. candy right she's real fun to hang out with that's like very easy going that's like you meet navy seals and you go they're supposed to be tough right right but i watched navy seals fall apart

last year when my brother was doing the race like just fall apart just completely yeah just like well if you're not physically prepared too well you know they did i know that some of them did the 50 miler out there right they did so they were getting ready for it but you know the you get dehydrated at any point or caloric deficit or all this these different altitude problems that can come about all the other stuff you know it's it's uh it's it's a definitely a mental thing that yes it's it's wild so fighting is the way i look at it the best way i can explain to you is fighting is so fucking easy fighting comparison yeah i mean in reality i mean i was fighting like when i fought pele when he was ranked second in the world and i was ranked first i didn't train for six weeks for that fight because i was crippled right i was injured low

back destroyed all kinds of stuff i had 12 shots of xylocaine in my back to go out and fight. Jesus Christ. And he was the number two guy in the world at the time and very athletic. He was a fucking killer at the time. But he couldn't do shit to hurt me even when I was crippled. He fell back for a leg lock on me and I laughed at him. And he was like, well, that's not going to work, so let's get back. But he was hanging on my head and I'm throwing uppercuts and body shots and he's plumbing me.

He ran up my body with knees like that you know just a freak but fighting is that easy it's that simple to me because you're trying to outwit and outsmart another human being right right when you're running for 50 miles 75 miles whatever 100 miles you're battling with yourself the entire time yes that's where you get mind fucked right right right that's the scary part about it because you've got to face yourself. Yeah. Yeah, it's a different thing. Yeah, when you're in the middle of a fight, especially a war, you're in the moment.

You're throwing bombs and ducking and getting hit and dealing with it and toughing it up. You take a minute break, drink some water, hop right back out again for five minutes. It's just a completely different animal. Do you miss the old days of no time limits? I had fun back in those days because I could go 100 miles an hour and gas people out and beat them, right? Right, with conditioning. I enjoyed that.

I did enjoy that. But, you know, it is what it is. There were fights in tournaments that would go 45 minutes and just, you know, you can't cover that on TV. Right, right, right. You just can't. Like when you fought Dan. Right.

Was that a no time limit? 30 minute, just a 30 minute one round fight. Yeah, that's crazy. So it's just, it is what it is. People would sit down and watch it live, but they're not going to watch it on TV. Even the people that watch it live, they're going to get bummed out. Right, right. It's just not the best thing in terms of entertainment value.

No. Yeah. Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. So it's, you know, the rounds, the rules, all that sort of stuff. Give you a chance to look at some girls in bikinis in between rounds. Walk around with the cards. And, you know, I talked to John Peretti.

We had John Peretti on one of my podcasts, actually. Oh, yeah? How's he doing? He's got some health issues. You know, I know he's got MS and some other issues and stuff like that, but he wants people to know that he's the guy that did that. He does. Right?

Yeah. He wants people to know I'm the guy that frigging created all that stuff. Yeah. Well, he was the matchmaker at the time when I first started working for the UFC in 97. Okay. So it has been since 97 you were involved. Yeah. Yeah.

I did UFC 12. That's awesome. Okay. Yeah. And I came in at 16, so you've been around longer than me. you were involved. Yeah. I did UFC 12. That's awesome. Okay. Yeah. And I came in at 16, so you've been around longer than me. That's awesome. Yeah. I remember your debut.

I remember. When I was, I remember Mikey Burnett. How's he doing? He's doing, I think, okay. I know he got shot, right? Yeah. In a robbery. He was a good guy.

Tough motherfucker. I remember when he fought Eugenio Tadeo and wrecked him wrecked him yeah when everybody thought that he was the next guy Eugenio was a psychopath that friggin went after Hanzo and was kicking Hanzo's ass and they shut the power down in the building so Hanzo wouldn't lose yes that was in Brazil right that was craziness back then yeah but Burnett was Mikey Burnett was a guy who was a greco national champ benched 405 squatted 405 stronger than shit tough as fuck yeah yeah the old days yeah fuck man it's been so long it's really interesting when you stop and think about it how many thousands of fights have you called i've seen way too many people get fucked up i know that

i'm real numb to watching people get beat up that's my and that's the thing that's too i would say as my coaching career progressed as i got older you know when you're young and you're full of testosterone and you're a psychopath and you're coaching it's just ah let's go do this right right you know and as i got older and mellowed out i mean i had to lay down on the floor of the locker room before the first huge Trigg fight because I knew Trigg was a dangerous dude, just a tough son of a bitch and a good wrestler, right? And I was really nervous for that fight. I had to lay on my back and just decompress for 30 minutes before that fight just to go out and just coach with a calm mind. Yeah.

the car mine yeah you know and and uh you know when hughes fought carlos newton after carlos took the title from me and carlos comes out and we were infuriated because he's walking out with two playboy bunnies and you know acting and it was you know it's a show right it's a show it's that was when that big ramp existed right and so hughes is standing there and i was all pumped up and i was like matt you know we had to get matt off a tractor on the farm to come and fight him right because my automatic rematch clause got they reneged on that and said your choice either matt can fight him or somebody from another camp but if matt or somebody from another if somebody from another camp fights him you got the winner no matter what but if matt fights him and loses you can you can rematch carlos but if matt wins obviously that's kind of tough because we're buddies right right so matt's standing inside the cage, and I'm pumped.

I'm absolutely pumped. I go, you've got to smash this guy. I'm screaming at him. You've got to fucking smash him. And Matt turns around, and he goes, it's going to be okay, dude. It's going to be all right. He goes, we got this, dude. We got this.

He's like, all right. That was a crazy win, too. That's when he slammed him. He slammed him with a triangle. Yeah. Yeah. The entire crowd, their mouths were hanging open. They'd never seen anything like that.

Well, was he kind of half out with the triangle? He was out. He was out with the triangle, and he slammed him. He knew he was going out and slammed him, and then here's the thing. That's right. He jumped up and said, I won? Matt, no, Matt sits up like this, and he's kind of looking around. And I dove over the cage and let my legs catch on one side so that I could

barely touch Matt's head with my hand and I scraped his hair really fast I'm like get up get up get up get up I knew he was out right so I could get up get up and he stands up and he goes what happened and Jeremy goes you just won he's like crazy that was cool that was a cool fight yeah very intense yeah that was very intense carlos newton was one of the most technical jujitsu guys oh you're saying yeah he was very he was amazing athletic dude yeah yeah he won the best fights i've ever seen to this day was he and dan henderson oh yeah that was an insane fight yeah that was a great fight that was 97 wasn't it 97 or possibly somewhere in that area yeah that was one of my early days i remember when chuck liddell made his ufc debut i think he fought noe hernandez and i'm pretty sure he's wearing wrestling shoes noe hernandez trained with me for that fight and no no he got hurt before

that fight i can't remember what he injured but no he couldn't train hard for that fight so he wasn't in great shape but he was knocking the shit out of chuck until he ran out of gas i mean he was boxing chuck's ears off. You know that fight Peretti came to Chuck and told him, if you want to keep working and keep fighting for the UFC, do not take this guy down. Oh, really? Yeah, because he found out that Chuck was a wrestler.

Ah, wow. Those are the dirty days. That was Gary Shaw telling Petrozzelli and Shamrock type stuff, right? Yes. Petrozzelli had to stand up with Kimbo because he replaced Shamrock. Gary Shaw telling Petrozzelli and Shamrock type stuff, right? Petrozzelli had to stand up with Kimbo because he replaced Shamrock. Gary Shaw. I forgot about that guy. One of the greatest interviews ever was Dana White after that. Remember when he looks at the camera and he goes, you can't do that.

It's fucking illegal. That's fucking illegal. Yeah, it is fucking illegal. That was the dumbest matchup, too. There's a video of me in the green room of the punch line in Atlanta, Georgia. I had gotten off stage, and I was waiting to see Ken Shamrock fight Kimbo. And I was like, what a fight this is going to be. I get off stage, and they say, oh, Ken Shamrock got hurt warming up,

and Kimbo is now fighting Seth Petruzzelli. And I go, oh, this is a terrible idea for Kimbo. And I said it. And I said, like, to the camera. It's like the craziest thing ever. I go, Seth Petruzzelli's going to fuck him up. Right. I'm like, this is.

Because we're assuming he's going to take him down and submit him. And I thought he was going to KO him. I thought Seth was a way better striker. I thought Seth was just going to take him down. I thought Seth is a karate striker. Like a legit seasoned black belt. And he could submit guys, but he's just a – he was on another level as a mixed martial artist. I was like, Kimbo's stiff.

And a fat friend. So here's me while this is happening. If I'm wrong, you'll never see this. To go to the beginning. Hold on. Where did it say at the beginning? He's fighting Kimbo Slice. This is a last-minute replacement.

I got to think Seth Parch Oh, he's gonna fuck him up If I'm wrong, I never see this So it happens in the green mode and literally the fight is six seconds long Well, uh-oh. Oh! Save America! Oh, my God, you're fucking right! Oh! That's it! What'd I say? What'd I say? That was...

You look older there. Well, the beard. I had that full beard back then. Right. That was after Evan died. When Evan Tanner died, we all grew beards. Ah, yeah. Yeah.

That was a bad deal, man. It was sad. Very bad. Yeah, that guy was... He rolled out there into the desert on a mission, I think. Might have. You know? I mean, maybe when he was out there, he decided to go that way, or maybe he just really did

get lost and couldn't find his water, but that's one of the hottest places on earth. Yeah. I mean, he gets to the 130s and stuff out there. It's just... Yeah, that was a bummer. It was a bummer. He was a great guy. He was an interesting guy, too.

He was a guy that really wasn't into money. I mean, he was into the journey and difficult questions. He probably would have loved ultra running. Yeah, absolutely. And he fought down, what was the show in Texas that they were doing back then? Because he cut his teeth in that circuit down there in Texas. I can't remember what shows those were. I don't remember.

He fought Texas Fighting Championship or something. He was a tough motherfucker. Remember when he fought Dave Terrell? Oh, yeah. I mean, Dave Terrell had him in a guillotine. He wouldn't tap, and then he started smashing him, and that's how he won the title. Terrell was talented.

Fuck yeah, he was. But he was mentally like he would fall apart, right? Well, he did in that fight, or at least he gassed out. Something happened in that fight. But, yeah, that was the word is that his talent never matched up to his performances yeah and as a jujitsu player though he was very very successful like i i saw him fight in abu dhabi he was a fucking phenom man i mean he was phenomenal and to this day produces some of the best black belts who's the best grappler on the planet now you think that's a good question? It's hard to tell I mean, it's probably Donaher's guys

Yeah, yeah, it's it's probably Gordon Ryan or maybe Gary Tonin or one of those guys But then there's a lot of really high-level jujitsu guys See the thing is these no one is caught up to Donaher's leg game like there's a few guys There's Craig Jones out of Australia. That's on a real high level. There's there's a few guys um there's craig jones out of australia that's on a real high level there's a bunch of guys that are they're closing in but it seems like what donna her is doing and i mean donna her is such a fucking wizard right he's such a genius and his uh application of his mind you know because donna her's severely crippled he's got a one fake hip and they're gonna they're gonna replace one of his knees.

And he hurt his knee a long time ago from a rugby accident, and his knee was so loose and fucked up that they shortened his tendons and stitched him back together again, but they shortened him too much, and he never could fully extend his leg, and he was fucked up from then on out. And then it caused a defect in his hip okay because yeah it wore out his hip so he's severely injured yeah but his mind is a genius is it i mean he's a very very very intelligent guy superior intellect and his the way he's applied like that thought process to jujitsu is just incredibly unique and so so those guys, Eddie Cummings, Nicky Ryan, Gordon Ryan,

like the Donaher Death Squad, what they call. Right. I have to think that at least in terms of accomplishments, I mean, that guy submitted Cyborg, Ricardo Abreu. I mean, fucking easy. If you watch that fight. Right. And I had John Donaher on the podcast break down what he did to Cyborg.

Cyborg's a multiple-time world champion. And Gordon Ryan went right through him. And Gordon Ryan's 22 years old, I think, somewhere around that, 22, 23. I look at great grapplers throughout history from back, the early Gracies, the Farmer Burns, all these scary dudes and stuff. And as it moves forward in time and just watching guys, it's almost like a constant cyclical there's a cycle there of you you learn how to defend stuff you hit stuff people learn how to

defend it and you move on and it's this constant cycle of it and then new shit coming out and creative stuff and i just watch it evolve and go man i just i wish i could stay young forever just to have fun with it you know what i mean with your body, yeah. It's an unfortunate thing that your mind absorbs all these techniques and you understand how to compete better, but your body just gives out. Right. And that's the thing with MMA especially. I think it's a race to amass enough knowledge to win a title before the body gets out. Right, right.

It just is. Well, that's why TRT was so interesting, like the TRT VTOR days, because you had VTORiced to the tits. And with all that experience. I mean, Vitor made his UFC debut back when I called my first fight. When I was a post-fight interviewer, rather. Right. In UFC 12.

That was his debut at 19 years of age. Yeah. So here you had him at 37, juiced out of his fucking mind with muscles on his eyebrows. I mean, he was so jacked when he fought Rockhold, when he fought Bisping. I mean, clearly he was not just taking testosterone replacement therapy. He was juiced up. I mean, he was way above normal levels. I remember UFC Brazil.

I was fighting. Vanderlei and Vitor were fighting each other. Right? And you knew that was a collision. Yeah. That was two scary dudes. Vitor wore shoes for that fight. But here's the crazy thing.

I'm in my locker room. I'm getting ready to fight. And one of Vitor's trainers comes in. Vitor sent them to get me to come give him a pep talk. Whoa. That was the fight when he had hid for like three days because he was terrified. Vandalee was so scary. He was having just this, I think, a mental breakdown.

Yeah. An anxiety attack about fighting Vandalee Silva. So he's in his locker room and he's sitting in the corner and he's like, with his eyes big, he's scared to death. And I walked in there and I'm like, dude, fucking we're fighting for world titles. What are you doing? What is wrong with you? Let's fucking go.

Let's fucking kill these guys. Got him all pumped up, and he's like, all right, Pat. All right. Well, he had gotten beaten down by Randy before that. Right. That fight took a lot out of him. He wasn't the same guy for a long time after that fight. Yeah.

The most brutal fight I've ever seen in my life, though,ri batash and don fry i remember that in cobo arena in detroit way too big it was way too strong it was horrifying because amri had shot on him and he's walking his feet don fry's walking his feet up the cage and dropping knees straight down on back of amri's head yeah when those were legal yep And the entire crowd is roaring. Cobo Arena's packed. They're going nuts. And all you can hear over the top of everything is Amory's girlfriend screaming bloody murder. Like someone was being slaughtered in front of her, which they were, right?

And then you've got Osvaldo Alves, who's an encyclopedia of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, amazing guy, and alan goez and alan goez i had been up there all week to help omri get ready for the fight right and alan goez shows up the day of the fight the night of the fight walks into the locker room and goes what's your name and i go pat and he goes here's a camera take fucking pictures that's the way alan taught treated me when we first met, right? Wow. So I'm watching Omri get mauled, just completely slaughtered.

And these guys won't throw in the towel. And I'm going, you got to throw in, like. Yeah. This ain't changing. This is stupid. This is stupid. And John had stopped the fight. McCarthy pulled him over.

And he goes, do you want to continue? All Omri knew in English was more, more. And he's like, all right, we're going again. And he slaughtered some more, pulled him back off. More, more. Sent him back out. And finally John's like, we're going to have a fatality here. So that was a horrifying fight.

That was the most brutal fight I've ever seen. Yeah, there's been a few of those over the years. There's been a few of those. Well, listen, Pat, we just did three hours. Three hours plus. Holy cow. Time flies by, man. I'm glad we finally did this.

I'm surprised my attention span lasted this long. Your attention span's on point, man. It's all that ultra marathon running. Right, right. We've got to do this again, man. Yeah, I'd love to. And please, everybody, check out The Conspiracy Farm. Is it on iTunes, on everything?

Yeah, and if they go to chemicalfreebody.com, you would love to. And please, everybody, check out The Conspiracy Farm. Is it on iTunes, on everything? Yeah. And if they go to ChemicalFreeBody.com, you would love that stuff. Okay. ChemicalFreeBody.com. It's all vegan products, sprouted greens, all kinds. I mean, the guy is gold. Is that your company or something? Good friend of mine, Tim James, who's saving people's lives from cancer to all kinds of shit.

He is healing people, veterans with all kinds of open wounds from chemical stuff. And he's saving people. Are you still doing Lion Fight commentary? Lion Fight, we no longer cover them. We cover CES and LFA. You're in town for that, right? What is the event? Is it on AXS? AXS TV, Friday night.

Mark Cuban's Network. We're going to have a blast. It's going to be great fights. Title fights. There's some great fights. Beautiful. Pat Miletic, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it, man. It was awesome.