The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #181 with Justin Gaethje & Trevor Wittman

Episode Date: June 20, 2026

Joe is joined by UFC Lightweight Champion Justin Gaethje & boxing and MMA trainer Trevor Wittman. https://www.youtube.com/@justin_gaethje https://onxsports.com/ Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Get a free welcome kit with your first subscription of AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/joerogan onX Offroad: Try onX Offroad for 50% off- go to https://onXmaps.com/joerogan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Gentlemen, first of all, thank you for being here. I couldn't wait to talk to you. Congratulations on one of the most epic accomplishments in the history of combat sports, and that's not an understatement. I mean, it might be an understatement.

It's perfect. That was one of the greatest nights I've ever experienced of watching anything in my life. It was amazing. and have you cap it off and win the title when you're facing a guy that everybody thought was at least number two pound for pound. It was like him in Islam or number one and number two. And some odds had you at six to one, which I thought was very disrespectful. I thought like, this is crazy. Like six to one's crazy.

Like Ili is really good. But so is Justin. This is kind of nuts. Like to have you win the way you won in front of the fucking White House. Yeah. How's it feel? You know, it's really not real yet. I was expecting to have like an internal sense of relief that like I don't have something to chase because I was always chasing this belt.

And I was expecting to wake up with like some kind of natural release of pressure. but I don't know, I don't feel that. As the days go by, every day, I feel a little bit more, a little bit more. Two days ago, my dad was like, you know, what was it like waking up being the champion? And I was like, I haven't even thought about that. And then I was, you know, on the shitter like 10 minutes later, and I was sitting there thinking about it. I was like, wow, I'm the fucking champion. Like, it's fucking crazy.

And, yeah, it's just, I mean, I've just been on the grind for so many years now. My dad dropped me off 19 years ago in Colorado. I knew nobody to wrestle. And, yeah, to see where I'm at now is just absolutely incredible. I mean, there's really no way to explain how or why, you know, or like why I deserve it. I mean, I worked my ass off. I have made mistakes. You know, I've done things the wrong way, but I've always corrected and got back on the path.

And, you know, I think the coaches, the mentors, but mostly the coaches that I've been. and the team that I have around me is a huge reason why I was able to stay on track and just keep moving forward and keep trusting that, you know, I belong in the top of the league. Well, you've clearly shown it throughout your career and having a great coach like Trevor, and one of the reasons why I wanted to bring in Trevor is because you guys have a very unique relationship. First of all, I love the YouTube series, the Art of Violence. Fantastic. And what's great is watching you two guys work together and Trevor you being like very acutely aware of when to pull him back, when to ramp it up, when to push. Like you're, you guys having a relationship like that is so critical because you guys know each other so well. You've seen him perform so many times.

You've seen him fight and perform in the gym that you know where he's at all the time. And having that sense of where your fighter is. Is at any given time in camp because you know them so well? Boy, that's a giant advantage. It is. Well, hold on. Testes, testes, one, do you, very? Yeah, I think that's a huge advantage is knowing your athlete.

And, you know, I've been doing this for a long period of time, but there's lots of coaches out there that consider their fighters their friends. I do consider them one of my best friends, but I put myself more in like a father position of I need to know when to tell them the truth. and I've got myself in trouble with that with fighters where you tell them the truth so hard that you have to let them go like a child like hey if we're not in the same beliefs

go live life and see how it is and then when you return I'm still going to love you having that type of thing where I have to be dead honest for your career not because it helps us now and it feels good right now at the moment I have to look at that from the time that we start and we talk about what are his goals and then my job is to

be an advisor, be a mentor to get them to that place as best as I can because these are his goals. And I want to support those. And in the beginning of his career, his goals were to be the most violent guy out there, the most remembered, the guy that's every time someone bought a ticket, they remember Justin Gehche's selling that show. And then it turned into, no, I want to have this belt. And that was hard because we did go and not get the belt twice. and you know it's so cool to be in kind of those scenarios where it's like damn you had two opportunities now it's never going to happen

and that's what life is life is one of those things that you keep getting up and chase your goals you never know how it's going to happen and yes you want to dream and you want to have a you want to have a plan but I'll tell you right now through all the times that I've had championship fighters in business and life

the plans never work you always have to adjust them but it's that dream and that vision And to get you to the top of the stairs, you have to get up each one of those steps. So, you know, Justin went out there and wrote a story that I don't think will ever be forgotten. And he did it one round at a time. And that's what impresses me because his mindset, I love the mental game. I love to talk about the mental game.

Even like Ilya. Ilya is a special guy with how he uses his mental, the secret. If I see it, I believe it, it'll happen. To a point. You know, it's like, I always tell people, like, if you go down the ice cream aisle and you're like, hey, I don't know what ice cream I want. You're going to stand there and go, oh, that one looks good. That one looks good.

The people that are like, I want mint chocolate chip, you get in there, you get it done, you grab that mint chocolate chip, and you walk out. Very similar to Ilya's last three fights. He went out there and he demanded what he wanted. His confidence got him through that. But it makes it very hard when you get that stale, nasty, rotten milk, fucking mint chocolate chip. Then you start to go, oh, shit, what is going to happen now?

So I think the relationship that we have is me guiding him, me pulling him back at the strictly situation, hey, let's pull back a little bit. Let's focus on what's going on. I don't want no distractions. And having someone, and he trusts that I care about him. I love him to death. I love his family. Like, our relationship is so strong, and I need that with my athletes.

And I'm just blessed and 100, you know, I say honored, but more importantly, humbled by someone who I've never worked mental with, who chose me different ways to the mental game of fighting, which I feel I've very, very much. high level with is it's something that if you put some put yourself around people that make you better this guy makes me better daily and i'm very grateful for that reesa knows a thing or two about great combinations chocolate and peanut butter obviously but there's more than one way to reases from indulgent reese's big cups with caramel to crunchy reese's pieces and reese's miniatures there's a delicious rees for every mood it's the same combo you love just with more ways to enjoy it so when

Whether you're snacking, sharing, or just treating yourself, nothing else is Reese's. You said something about Ilya, about the fight, about having expectations. And you said you don't have any expectations when you fight. That way, you don't get thrown off. Yeah, I mean, it's huge. I mean, my expectations come from my hard work. Obviously, I expect my body to perform. I understand that I've trained my mind to, and, you know, maybe the narcissistic tendencies in me love showing off and performing in front of, you know, thousands of people on that stage.

That's what I love the most about this, and that's what my personality, like, I'm very competitive. I want to win, but I'm never going to lie to myself. And that's how I've never had a coach in my entire. entire career since four years old of wrestling have to pull me aside and talk about the mental aspect of competition because it's always been so natural to me. I'm not sure if I'm not sure if it's because they they see that I'm doing good and that they agree with my approach mentally or they don't they don't understand what's going on or but I've just always been so comfortable and so content with my situation of, you know, this is the competition, it's the game. You know,

I'm very competitive. I'm very petty. I take everything personal. And yeah, when I go in there with I have gone in with expectations. And it's, I said it before the fight, you know, Aaliyah, like, I said so many true things to him. And I think it was such a, it's such an asset to tell someone the brutal truth, especially someone like him, because it pushes them farther away from. from the truth. You know, he, even if I tell him the exact truth and exactly what's going to happen and, you know, you're making a mistake by having all these expectations and when we go to round two and when we go to round three and it's not going as you predicted it or wanted it to or expected it to, then where do you go from there? And, you know, I said that exact thing to him and then

that pushed him farther away from it. And, you know, I... It's almost like you wanted to prove you wrong. Yeah, he wanted to prove himself right, you know, and he was unwilling to be open to opinions because obviously I don't know him he knows them better than himself but you know I got here because I am coachable I got here because I listened I use every

like I posted yesterday every person placed or thing that has happened to me or for me has ultimately molded my mind and my body to be able to deal with the situation that happened on Sunday night and you know I can pull so much experience

from the past my losses my wins setbacks, failures, accomplishments. I mean, there is so much to learn from it. You know, every day is a learning experience. And I constantly try to learn and be better. And I don't know why I'm able to perform like that. I think I just think it's who I am. You know, when I say I wanted to be the most exciting fighter ever,

it's not that I wanted to be the most exciting fighter ever. The thought of that was fucking cool to me, you know, But I was just being me. And I've been blessed to be able to, you know, through my childhood, through coming from a small town, through having, you know, unwavering support from my family and my friends and my coaches and my teachers. And everybody from, you know, it's just crazy to be able to come out on top. I mean, it's just crazy.

One of the things I think was a giant factor in the fight is that you have been in wars. You've been in a bunch of wars. And Ilya really, it only had some rough moments against Jai Herbert. You know, Yusuf Zalalai gave him some problems, but it was nothing serious. The wars that you've been in, these just down and dirty brawls that you've been in, you're comfortable with the back and forth. You're comfortable with enduring. You know that you're not going to break.

You know, if your body holds up, you're going to keep fighting and you can endure. I don't think he'd ever experience that before. So when you didn't break in the second round, and I think he made a mistake, and I think you're correct about that. You said he made a mistake by going to the ground. Absolutely. And then he hurt you to the body. I told Trevor yesterday, I think, you know, him hurting to my body was,

the reason, one of the main reasons I won. You know, when he, when he hit me, when I dropped, it wasn't the first time he hit me in the body. That was probably like the fourth or fifth one. And he had landed some really clean shots. And he could probably sense that I was in trouble and hurt. And I think that fact made him dump everything because it was his last chance to take me out. And he almost did take me out. But when I went down, in hindsight, it's always easy to make these decisions in hindsight.

But when I went down, you know, he had way more submissions than he has knockouts. And so for him not to have that belief that he's going to be able to go down there, especially with the Kabid fight, especially with the Charles-Lav air fight, especially with all the negativity around my grappling. You know, I think he would have been foolish not to, because I would have stood back up. I would have stood back up, and he would have charged forward, tried to finish me. I would have jumped on his legs. I would have pulled guard.

He was going to end up on top of me no matter what. I wasn't going to sit there and trade with him again. Like, I would have, you know, front-rolled into grappling situations or whatever. I would have made him cover me. And but I think me getting hit is what made him completely blows, you know, Shane Carwin-esque, you know, blow his tank. Yeah. And, you know, go for the win.

And I think that was the choice he had to make because it was going to continue to get worse. I beat his ass in the first round. Like, it might have been close on the scorecards. I absolutely took the first round. But the amount of damage that I inflicted. in the first round, set up the rest of the fight. I do think it was a mistake. And you're saying, what you're saying is so correct.

But what I'm saying is from a standpoint of him demanding it, he's going to finish you in the first two, understanding the damage that he was taking. He took big risk. He got in there. He kept his hands on your collar bones. He was landing really good shots. Yeah, the two body shots before that, that left hook to deliver, that the sound it made was crazy.

That last one was clean. It was precise and deep, but you could tell it was already there. But if he didn't put that pressure on his self, and this is what I mean by mistake, is like when you come out, you have to know that you're going five rounds. And he knew that he had to unleash everything right there. If he would have been smart in that scenario saying, hey, we got five rounds, let me step back a little bit. Let me do some damage.

But also he's like, hey, let me get you out of there quick. Justin, you know, can't grapple, can't do all these things with a lot of people think, which Justin's a great grappler. and what was so smart about you is when you get tired, that's where the worst decisions happen. That's one of my big things is coaching. As we get someone tired and then we make them make bad decisions and then we capitalize on those mistakes,

Justin was able to stay so composed here with being speared to the body. And when you take a liver shot, it is way different than the headshot. A headshot's like taking a shot with your buddies at the bar. It's like, hey, let's go. But you take a body shot, you're dying. Like your liver shot. you feel like you're dying.

And Justin, all the decisions he made on the ground from the triangle, from the arm bar, from not being flat, so many good decisions were made in that scenario. And I do think it was a mistake. Obviously, there's so many different ways it could go. But those type of moments in fights are what make fights great. It's overcoming obstacles. And he had set that up. He had said it.

He's like, hey, I'm going to overcome anything. I'm going out there, put the worst thing out there. Like, what are you going to do to be? I've already been knocked out the last second of a freaking huge fight. by Max. You can't do nothing worse to me. And that mindset, I think, is something to take away for all the fighters out there that always, I love how you say it. Expect a war, always. Some of the biggest mistakes that I've made with fighters that I had is allowing them to think that they're going to go through this fight easy. And then that fight becomes super hard.

You think it's going to be a war, then you're like, hey, it wasn't as bad as I was expected, even if it was a little bit of a war. They're not going to help them in that moment. There's no pulling them out. That's fighting. Fighting, like, fighting is mentality. I look at this, Like there's techniques out there and there's things like that. What makes this sport inspirational and makes someone that want to go out there and beat cancer because they were inspired by a fighter, it's not the technical piece. It's getting back up. And it's okay to get knocked down.

I love watching people get knocked down because my favorite part is seeing how they get up. And that to me is why I love fighting is how people get up. Yeah, how they endure. And that was the big story of that second round. You figured out a way to get through it. and the change in tempo in the third round was very obvious. Because the sprint that you have to make, like what Ilya did when he was trying to finish you, he used so much fucking energy.

And the great Chale Son in once said that if you try to win by knockout and fail, you won't win by submission. Yeah. And a lot of times that's the case because you know, as good as anybody, if you fucking sprint at hard, you wail in the bag with fucking everything you got for two minutes. and then they go time. One minute's not enough. It's not enough.

Even in preparation. Even two minutes. They were still tired after that day loose. That was crazy too. That was crazy too. We'll talk about that. Preparation for these fights. I'm doing 20, 30, 40 second sprints at most.

I mean, that was a two minute sprint for him. Yes. Full out. Full power. Everything full power. Every punch full power. You can't even train for that. Can't.

You got a half spot. Right. And he didn't. He was just unloading. I mean, that's a young man with a tremendous amount of confidence because he's a two-division world champion and he thinks he's going to go down as the greatest of all time. And hey, he might still. He might still. He might still. What was he 28? The odds. The odds are fucking great against that right now. Because of that loss? I hope he does. I hope he does, too. I hope he does. And I know that he has a skill. I know that he has the skill to be a champion again. However, same thing with Tony Ferguson. I didn't break Tony Ferguson's confidence. I changed the perception of his opponents of him. And that is a huge factor when you go in there.

Like, who are you fighting? What do you figure, you know, before this, he was a guy that would, that you couldn't get through, that you couldn't push through, you couldn't survive with. And once I showed people that, all you got to do is get through that, then nobody's ever going to go in there with thinking that he's, He's unbeatable now. Right. And that was his, that was his identity.

And, you know, that's going to be such a tough task for him to fight people that aren't scared of him. That's interesting. That's Mike Tyson in his prime. That's Anderson Silva in his prime where the fight was lost before you got in there. Yeah. The fight was lost before he even got in there. Physically, now I don't know what the truth is, but all these reports are that he has. two fractured orbitals and a broken nose.

Just that alone, just the orbitals alone, like anytime you've got eye injuries, like anything severe with your eyes, long-term consequences vary. Psychological. Absolutely. And physical. And physical.

The body is resilient. I'm telling you, I had a broken bones make stronger bones. Like, that is, his orbital bones will be stronger. It depends on where, though, Justin. The orbital bone, I had my orbital broken. and for six months I do this and my tooth would move. And it's right where my sinus cavity is. You remember when you hit me with a spinning elbow?

Your tooth would move? Dude, right here? And my tooth would move. Oh. Summer is great, but it also comes with a lot of chaos, travel, and spontaneous plans. So make sure you're taking extra care of yourself with AG1. It's a simple daily health drink that replaces your daily multivitamins, probiotics, prebiotics, adaptogens, and more.

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That's a, and you broke both orbitals and the nose? Like, I do believe the bunny is resilient. You ever see Marob's nose? Yeah. You ever seen the x-ray of Marob's nose? Did I send it you, Jim? It looks like a spine. Dude.

He's got 33 vertebrain on the road. It's literally fucking crazy. I've had three broken noses. I've had it fixed twice. Yeah, I know you had it fixed. You know, this is what... There it is. That's Marab's nose.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I mean, that's... That looks like a long cocaine binge right there. Took out the whole fucking left side of his nose. That looks like you got hit with a sledgehammer. That's crazy. That nose is crazy.

That is like... And to fix it, he's going to have to have no contact for like a year. Yeah, that's hard. And so he's not going to fix it. He's just going to deal. Look how turned it is. Make that the bone. I've had my eyes fixed and my nose fixed.

And my nose was better for quality of life. Oh, the nose is a big thing. But obviously being able to see was huge. But when your nose is broken, like, you have to understand, like, getting a haircut fucking sucks. You can't breathe through your nose. You're mouse open the whole time. You're constantly breathing in fucking hair.

Like, there's so much. Be it at the dentist. Every time you eat food, like, you just, there's just, there's. There's something missing. Sleep. I wore a nose trip to bed for 10 years now. You know, and now I'm used to it. A permanent scab because the people don't think off all the time.

Yeah, my nose is used to it now, but yeah, losing your nose is insane. When you got to fix, which fight was it before the Max fight? Yeah, right before the max fight. And then you could breathe out of it perfectly. Yeah. Is it still good now? Yeah, he broke it, but he didn't break. He didn't fuck with the cartilage.

He actually fractured the bone up top, so I didn't. It's another factor that when we were talking about the fight and, you know, people were talking about this matchup with Ilya, I said, you have to think about what he did to Fiziv. Fiziv is a super talented striker. And then you also have to think about the Max Holloway fight because he was pressing in the first round, but he got caught with a jump spinning back kick to the fucking face. And when that was, that's a game changer. And it happened at the end of the first round. And from that, it changed the tone of the fight. Because it was just dead on. It was perfect. Couldn't have landed any better. The truth of the matter is, is psychologically, I was not there. I was not prepared mentally for the fight when I fought Max Holloway. It was such a different circumstance.

It was a guy that wasn't in my weight class. It was a guy that I'd never thought about fighting. It was for fun. And the whole experience was so different than any other fight I've ever had when it comes to, like, being mentally. prepared for a fight. What do you attribute that to? Like, what was it? Myself, my, my, my, my, my, and us.

Like, we took, we, too, we told him to take the fight. He didn't want to take the fight. My coaches. And then we told them that you're going to keep the title contention fight, because that's what they promised us. That's why he was very, very, very, one of you guys, was like, oh, something was different. It was like, well, why didn't you guys fucking say something before the fight?

You told, you told me afterwards. You told me afterwards. He told me afterwards. He told me afterwards. He told me afterwards. He's like this. He's like, I just didn't respect him. And I'm like, how. How could you not respect Max?

And I didn't catch on to it. So it's like, I'm always looking for flags and things like that. And 100% I take 100% responsibility because that's how we learn. Everybody makes mistakes. I remember then Tony Ferguson fight, I didn't give any fucking water. You know, like, there's like things that we all learn from. But the thing when he had told me that, I'm like, how did I not catch that from you? Because he's like, dude, he was a smaller guy.

I just didn't. And I was like, dude, Max is like one of the guys that I look up to from the outside. Like, he is talented. I remember thinking what am I? looking for like what am I afraid of I kept trying to convince myself that I needed to be I need to find what I was to be worried about and I couldn't find it so you always need that before a fight yeah yeah absolutely no matter who it is you're fighting right you know right and so like I was I've never been as present and like um I've never been able to retain a fight and I you know before the knockout

I was there like I was I was in the I was in the in the arena I saw the lights, I saw the people, I heard the people. Like, I've never been there in my life. And I think that I can attribute that to me not being scared. And so me not, you know, me not being in a real fight or flight. Real life or death situation. Yeah, yeah, so you weren't fully focused. You could actually hear the crowd.

Yeah, I could actually. I could hear my thoughts. You know, I had thoughts. Never had thoughts in a fight because I'm so intuitive and reactionary. And that one was just so dear. There was so much, and so sure, the kicks, the eye pokes, no, I think I was not, I couldn't have beat him that night with the mentality that I had. And that was my last lesson to learn. I had made, my lessons with Oliveira was like I wanted it so much.

I wanted it so bad. And I wanted to perform it. I wanted to impress my fans. You know, Rose had a fight that night, and she fought like absolute garbage. and I told my coach I'll say coach don't worry I won't do that to you right before we're about to walk

because I don't worry coach I would never lay you down like that and coach is pissed and everyone's you know the locker room's all fucked up because Pat's fucking weird Is that the Carlos Sparza fight Was that the same night?

Yeah yeah And I was at home And so there was just And that was again That was my fault I allowed those things to affect me Right and to

you know affect my fighting decisions rather than just being myself. And so that was a huge mistake. Another mistake was winning two or three times in a row and just kind of becoming complacent with how serious what we do is

and how dangerous this game is and how much luck and chance are a factor every single night. And so, you know, I wasn't doing the extra credit. I wasn't sitting in the sauna at home. you know and I don't know why it's just and I made that mistake probably into the Eddie Alvarez Dustin Porrier fights lost and then I won three or four in a row and then I completely went back to the same mindset of I'm the best in the world no way can beat me and I paid for it and those two

mistakes were huge very very big learning lessons and then the the Charles Oliver fight you know I was like I wanted it so bad and then I made the moment so much bigger than it actually actually was because it's just 25 minutes in time. And all I can control is being perfect, my preparation for it, but then ultimately being there for 25 minutes and being perfect. And yeah, those are the mistakes that I made. I had to learn. I had to make those mistakes.

I would not change anything about my career. I think the farther back into my career you go, the more special this moment is. And, you know, I think in time, again, this is going to age. Like, my career is something special. The way that I did it, the way that I lost, the way that I stayed on track, the way that I threatened retirement if I wasn't going to get a title shot, the way I called my shots along the way, the discipline I had.

I mean, it's second to none. I've watched this sport my whole life. Since 1992, my dad showed me. I remember as a four-year-old seeing it, I don't have a lot of great memories. I remember my childhood, but it's not like you have specific. I remember seeing it for my first time in my dad's bedroom. We were sitting there watching it together and I was and I was enthralled. I was like, this is, this is amazing.

I love this. Can you picture that? Here with like a baby bottle just squeezing it. Yeah, and I was like, I just fucking love this. I love it and then I watched it and I was a diehard fan. I've been a diehard fan ever since then. And especially in 2001 when it came along, I was, you know, probably in seventh or eighth grade, six or seventh grade, and just fell in love with it. And then, you know, me and call going into a guy,

college we'd go and sit above the wild wings for six seven eight hours spend five dollars those poor service people it's just amazing that you've been able to keep this ferocious mentality for so long because i remember when you first entered into the ufc the michael johnson fight i was so pumped for it because i was like get ready because this is going to be fucking wild because i had been a fan of yours when you were fighting what was it world series of fighting and then uh that michael johnson fight was everything but I thought it would be fucking crazy. Just a wild-ass fight. Crazy coming out, party.

Dude, I giggled so many times in that fight. Dude, when you went against the cage and you were like this, you looked back and you were like, oh, I'm looking for the shot, and you're like blocking off the thing. And then you come back with the right hook and then you let it back in again, then you hit it with the right hook again off the cage. There are so many giggle sessions in there.

I wasn't nervous because just again, that's the way he fights, and I'm like, no one's going to forget this fight. Michael Johnson was swinging, too. And caught him with that left hand a few times. Well, that's the same left-hand he knocked out Dustin. His left hand is so fast. He's fast. Michael's power.

Yeah, he does. Yeah, dude, and he was trying to win. I mean, he was going all out that you guys just emptied out in that fight. It was fantastic. And I was like, there it is. The three-rounder to get off the backflip took three rounds. He got up there, fell out, got up there, fell out. I was like, you can do it.

I'm out there, motivate him. I always get so scared for your knees when you do that. Mike, please don't. hurt your knees after you won the title. I'm 100% baby. I'm missing, yeah. We're training for Khabib, and we're over at high altitude. He's doing backflips off the cage. And I was like, stop.

Do this after the fight. Yeah, he's like, hey, hey, no more backfall. I was like, today? Today's the day. Today's the day, I become a bitch. Like, today's a day. I never forget that moment. He's like, you know what? I turned my head, I was like, stop. Go ahead. That is kind of true, right? When you get something and all of a sudden, you're special,

Then you started protecting it and then you won't be special anymore. That's what makes us. That's why I told him. I was like, today's a day. He's fucking crazy. Like, I never want him to stop being fucking crazy. Like everything about him in life. When you play golf with him, he's the highlight.

He does shit that you'll never fucking see. Like, it's like everything you do is the highlight. Like his life is like his fighting. He's fucking wild. So your mentality, you've never had to work on. I mean, obviously you've learned lessons along the way, but you've never had to like sit down and work. on this mindset.

It's always been something you inherently possessed. Yeah. Yeah, I think... It's crazy. I think people just complicate things so much. Like, when you can truly understand that there's...

There is things you can't control, but it's not everything. You can only control what's inside of you. You know, you can only control how you perceive things, how you react to things. The work you put in. Obviously, the preparation.

Yeah. But it's... I mean, there's so much you know and I guess I always knew that something was coming because no matter how far off the road you know like I've made mistakes you know I've done I was never an out thank God I was never an alcoholic and never but I was I could say I was I was probably a drug addict that's you know one time in my life and what drugs

I don't know I have never told my parents about You don't have to. All of them. All of them. I want so, but it's, you know this is going to sound stupid, but so I went to school for human services. I wanted to help people. A big part of that is helping people come off drugs, and I lost many, over a handful of friends,

really close friends from drugs, where I come from, we're not far from Mexico, and we had the best. We had the best shit coming right across the border before I ever got cut up. and it was my life you know where I'm from is very boring and so like you chase again you know we have it so good in this country we're always trying to create chaos in order to feel something and I guess that's what I was probably doing and in college is when I really you know I was like if I'm going to help people come off of drugs then how can I ever even try to understand if I don't know what they're chasing and so That was a part of it. Also a part felt good, you know. And so, you know, once I did certain things, I knew what people were chasing. But then I always knew that something was bigger for me and better for me.

And I had something to do. And so that was always, it was never a crutch for me. I was always like, that was awesome. You know, I'm not doing it again. What is it in your head that were you always knew that you had something bigger? Well, probably my faith. I mean, I've been, my parents, the best thing they ever did for me was make me go to church every single Sunday and create a relationship with God through the Word of Jesus Christ.

And just trying to live up to those expectations, I knew. Not that I was going to be a champion or anything. I just knew that I couldn't take the easy way out. you know, when you're on drugs or when you're living a lifestyle like that, then nobody expects anything from you. Nobody wants anything from you. And that's an easy way to live. You know, those are, there's no pressure.

No expectations, no pressure. And, I mean, it really is, I can understand how you can let that overcome the passion to live. You know, and I don't know, I just think the passion to live, because of my faith has never outweighed my desire to feel good. I want to talk about the shift that you made in your career from being the most exciting guy in the world, wanting to be the most exciting guy in the world, being happy with performing to the best of your ability, whether you win or lose, to wanting to get the belt. What was, what started that decision?

It's weird because I don't remember a time or a day where I made a change other than I'm not going to get hit. You know, in the Dustin Porre fight and the Eddie Alvarez fight, I absolutely almost broke them. And it was no different than any of my other fights. Nobody had just ever – same with Elia, you know, like nobody had ever got past it. Nobody had ever been able to withstand the ferocity of my – actions for two or three rounds and then those guys did and I was like what happened you know and ultimately I put myself in a position and I got hit with a shot that took me out of the fight and so after those fights I was like I have to not take these shots and that was ultimately all I can say that

I changed mentally is I'm gonna I don't want to get hit I used to never care about getting hit because it's like doesn't hurt nothing hurts in there you don't feel nothing it's never hurt and so that was really just the mind I just need to not let them get me in a predicament where I'm not able to where they have to stop the fight so the shift but he he probably from the outside outside torso yeah it's it's definitely there there was a shift and it wasn't just like an instant shift. There was the two losses in row with Eddie and Porreir where he's like, I'm winning these

fights and I need to be able to get to the distance. And I was like, all right, we got to become a spot fighter because you just drown people. And what's happening is you're making mistakes. We threw a low kick against Poriere and he got caught because he based back lazy with his shoulders above his hips. So I was like, all right, let's be sharp. Let's fight in spots. Then he goes on a three-fight win streak where he's

finding the right spots and putting people out from Vic to Barposa into Cowboy Soroni, and that's where he's like, and then I sat down with him, and I was like, do you want to be a champion? And I was like, this is how you have to fight

to be a champion, is be smart. And he never said, he never said he didn't want to be the most excited fighter to war. He would tell me after fights, he's like, I'm not even trying to fight excited,

but look at me. And it's like, it's so amazing. Like, it's in them. It's just, how do we get you to sprint 50 yards, pull back for 100, yards and jog and then sprint for 50 yards

and be able to know your red line. Don't cross over that red line. Don't hold red line. Well, that is again the experience that you found in wars. It was so critical in the White House fight. He could do it. But we don't want to make mistakes. And it is, I think it's crazy. I think, again, the fact that

they said that he had outstruck me in the first round 39 to 32 or something. You had landed some hard jabs. Yeah, yours were devastating. He might have touched and skipped on. I'm talking about the perception. It looks like I'm getting hit. It looks like it's an...

But, I mean, I don't have special skin. I am able to see punches. And roll with them. And roll with punches. If you watch my, you know, fight frame by frame, I'm not getting hit for the most part. You're moving with the punches. Yeah, yeah.

It's be like water. Like I'm constantly, you know, and intuitively making these calculations. That's the scoring that when you see that, I don't know who's counting that, but that's like amateur boxing. Amateur boxing, if the white glove touches you in the face, even if it's not a clean blow, that's considered, that's how you judge. Yes.

And that's where, Jess, I think, where you look at it from a point system, you can't just look at the screen, and that's why, you know, judges can't look at a screen and go, oh, this guy landed more, this is who won. You had the damaging blows. I think everybody knows that. Like, I get it. Like, I see the way you roll a shot. I see the way that you fade off and allow the shot not to go through your skull.

and deflect it. It still gets touched to you, so it's considered that they landed that shot. But the damage is, like, what you do to people by the way that you hit through, that you drive through people is so different. Like Justin hits, unlike it. He still, I still think to this day we've got to ask the UFC, but they did a test on him to see who has the hardest bones of the UFC. He had the hardest bone.

Dude, he kicks me, and I'm just like, dude, I'm so glad. I feel so bad for Luke Cidillo. He don't let me kick him more. God, dude, Luke Cadillo just take. Let me tell you something about Luke. He has his pat on. kick him and his nuts swell up. Dude, I get blue balls, bro.

And so I can't kick him a one. There's a nerve on the inside of your leg. I talk to a doctor about it because I'm like, bro, like he kicks people and they bruise on the inside of their leg. And it's because the shock through, but there's a nerve on the inside of leg. I'd go home and I'd tell my wife, I'm like, baby, I got fucking blue balls. And she's like, from who? And I'm like, Justin. She looks at me like,

the fuck you got blue balls from Justin for. One of the things you were doing early in your career that I always thought was so wild was you were leg kicking people from a collar tie. Like you were a leg kick. And I was like, oh, my. My goodness. I'm like, how come no one's doing that?

Like, you were one of the only guys that I saw that was doing that, that was from the clench was leg kicking. You've got some fucking flexible hips, man. Because the way you're able to do that from, like, right in tight like this and then, and not just throw the leg out. You're whipping into it. He pulls them to their lead leg. So he's making a base on that knee. And then it's just like, you've got a stump in the ground. You're just trying to bend that tree.

Yeah. Man, he's very good at that. Let me tell you something about Luke, because I got into the octagon at, right after you won. And Luke and I looked at each other. He was like, ha, dude,

he was so happy. He's like, dude, he's like, Joe is so pumped. He hug me so hard. He was so happy. He was the best. It was amazing, because seeing all those videos

and knowing he's in camp with you all the time and knowing how much he loves you, watching the happiness that he had when you won was fucking incredible. No, Luke is one of my really, really good friends. Pukes every time before a fight. Every time.

Before Trevor was in my corner, Luke cornered me, he used to go, to Arizona with me. I had no coaches. I would just do it in between wrestling seasons, and yeah, he would go down there with me and just wrap my hands and he would just be there.

Wow. He's amazing. One of the best human beings on Earth, dude. Yeah, I love that, man. What a ride. Do you tell him about the Sunday? So the Sunday before, the fight? So there was one time, but I think it was in the cowboy fight where you were pummeling with Ben and he'd finish with a low kick on Ben

every time, and I'm like, stop kicking your coach. And he looks at me, he's like, Trevor. He used to drag me back on the mats. He's like, I'm going to kick. I was like, I was like, like, give me this fucking,

give me this opportunity to beat his ass. So we go golfing, Joe, and I'm off. Sunday, we go golfing. Sunday. We get there Saturday. We go golfing Sunday. And, you know,

it's a Sunday. We never work out on Sundays. And Trevor, not Trevor, Luke and Ben got fucking pickled. On the golf course. They each had like three, very, very, very stiff.

Bloody Mary's. Luke bought like 12 beers. because we got there and they're like, hey, everything's on the president. And he's like, fuck yeah, I've never heard that before. He's on the president. I'm going to drink. And so like, whole 10 or 11, Trevor's like, let's fuck with them. Let's tell him that we're going to work out later.

Well, we're going to work out, but I'm telling them they're going to be the workout. I didn't know we were working out. I had no fuck. Dude, we're fighting on Sunday. We're definitely working out. I thought he was fucking with me. We're out there golfing. It's hot as shit.

I'm sweating my ass off. I had no idea we were working out that day. He's like, let's fuck with them. Let's tell him that we're going to work out. I was like, all right, cool. So I told him I was going to text him and give the workout because I'll lay out the workout for everybody. And I told Luke he was going to go three rounds of sparring, a full-on sparring.

And then Ben's got to go 40 minutes straight. No brakes. Just grappling. Not wrestling, just grappling. And they're fucked up. And I told Justin, I was like, all right, let's fuck what it. See how he is. And dude, instantly, I didn't text it.

We just started talking about it. So we're on the way home, driving home. And, dude, Ben is like, dude, he's like, I'll just take you down. And he's like, I asked him how many times you're going to, gonna take them down as many as I want. Many times I want. He's at 40 minutes. Let's go 60 minutes.

So they went 20. Dude, you got what, seven submissions on your coach. He drug them back on the mat. It was so funny because I was like, dude, you got to drag it back on the mat because I got to witness this.

It's funny because I got a video. Dude, so we get home, I go down and take a nap for like two hours and they just stay drinking. Talking shit. My YouTube guy filmed everything and they're just talking so much shit. How they're going to fuck me up.

Luke was good though. Luke was like he was trying to ban. Luke's been through it, me. Luke's like, You're really going to say that? Like Luke's like, hey, I ain't saying any of this. Not me, it's him.

But they're making a plan how they're going to team up on me. And so it's funny. Then he got the video there and I'm beating Ben's ass. No, actually, I went with Luke first and I was fucking him up. And Luke's punching Ben because Ben won't jump in. Ben's like, he's like, what the fuck, Ben? What the fuck, Ben? Now's the time.

And he's asking for help. I beat his ass. And I did it to Ben too. It looks fun. Great coaches. Our whole team is just. everybody so dialed in. Yeah, that whole week is one of my,

every time we go, that whole week is one of my favorite experiences. You were using the sauna in-between workouts as well. And before. And so we were. Nothing, that shit sucked. I say it was perfect. You say it was perfect?

It was not. It was detrimental to our performances. Yes. The humidity was there. I didn't realize it because obviously it's not, you know, it's not something I can worry about right now, but after round one,

I just remember of thinking, oh, fuck. I am so tired right now. How is this possible? and the amount of fluid I lost I probably lost like $50. Because it was in the 70s. Dude.

Yeah, 70s with the cool breeze. You know when you go out there, what you feel is the cool breeze, but in the fight, man, it was different. Yeah, I hated the fact that it was going to happen, but I'm glad it did. Again, I would not change. Again, I think...

How could you change it? It affects me, it affects him. Again, I grew up in the country. He's a city boy. There's no way he's not a city boy. I don't know him personally, but there's no way he's not a city boy. You know, and so as a country, country boy from the desert in Arizona, like, I was hoping that it would be hot as fuck.

Hot as fuck. When he sat down on the stool, I was like, oh, God, these outside fights kill me. Yeah. You know, he was, dude, he was. Yeah, after round one, they're like, dude, he was shaking. Dude, he was, like, trembling. I was like, holy shit. Well, it is crazy to ask people to defend a world title in a completely alien environment that you never have fights in.

We've had how many fights outside? We've had the Abu Dhabi fight in like, what was that, 2000 and fucking nine or something like that? No, they did. Didn't the, what was the setting? I wasn't there. It was, it was. When Adisania did his famous walkout in like a, it was covered, but it was,

it seemed like the environment was outside. Poreer against that. In Abu Dhabi. No, in Abu Dhabi. Well, we did one in Abu Dhabi when BJ. The big arena. Lost to Frankie Edgar. That was outside.

in Abu Dhabi. And that was when Anderson Silva fought Damien Maya. Is that with it with that Ferrari building? The Ferrari building was there, but I don't know if it was in the same place. Do they have a fight in the Ferrari building? I think they did, but I wasn't there for that one. I only went to one of the Abu Dhabi fights. Yeah, it wasn't that long ago.

I would say within the last seven years. Remember the dude in Morocco said after the first round he was done? He was just trying to survive. He said it was so hot, remember? Yeah, no. I mean, that's what I remember. it being over there and then once you realize the climate over there and the humidity

it's like, it doesn't have fucking madden. Do you remember Bodog? Remember Bodog fights? They had a fight outside in the sun on the beach. Caesar Palace in Vegas. Remember Caesar Palace? The boxing. We got to fight there. Verno Phillips against Cosi Muma. Yeah, that's right. They used to always

do it outside. World Tuesday was fighting around the NASCAR event. Yeah, that was crazy. Durand versus. No, it was an outside. Duran versus Hernes was outside. They were great, yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's right.

At least Vegas is dry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Arizona, Vegas, Colorado. Yeah, humidity was what I was training for with him, was heat stroke, like dealing with it where you can't breathe, it's heavy air, like. So were you putting water on the rocks in the sauna as well?

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. And so what was the- And we trained in a hotter gym. I'd turn a temperature up in the gyms, just so he's getting used to dealing with a little bit more heat stroke. We would spike my heart rate, and then I would go in the sauna 15 minutes, then I would come out and do eight to ten rounds.

It was great. I'm so glad we did it. Very smart, very smart, because that environment, you mean, it's so completely different. I just, ultimately, I think the best way to fight is obviously the way you usually fight. Yeah, controlled environment. That's how it should be. It was cool, though, Joe. You know why?

It was so cool. So we went and did a rehearsal, okay? And I'm like, why are we rehearsing and a walk through? Like, it isn't a freaking wedding. Like, just tell us where to go. The camera guys are always like, all right, you're Mark. Here's five, four, three. So why are we doing this?

And then we go there and we get stuck in this locker room for two hours. Hour and a half. Because of rain. And thank God that happened because then I started to go, oh, because it's all unexpected. And how I said, hey, I'm a visualizer. I can't visualize this arena. And I visualized a lot too. So I was like, I felt the exact same thing when he said that.

And that's when I knew, hey, these are going to be some huge unknowns. And I had told him that night because the rain was coming. Like, it was crazy how the storm. split around because it was all bright red. I was like, this is thunderstorms. They were talking about pushing the fight to 10.30 p.m. We had planned up fighting at the start of the night.

Two in the morning was what I was playing up. I started staying up to like 3 a.m. after the rehearsal. I was like 3 a.m. when we fight I'm going to start staying up. But that's what was cool. Like the walkout, like having the soldiers, like just walking through the soldiers, there was that we weren't able to take any of this in, Joe. And I can't really speak for him. I know where his mindset. I couldn't

from a coach's standpoint. I was nervous as fuck because you don't know, there's no pattern I can take on right now and kind of put myself and breathe to it. It was very unique. And at the end, I couldn't even really smile. It was just like, dude, I'm just like blown away. Now I can kind of just look around slowly and just try to take in everything because it was very, very hard to go through that scenario with the pressure of us fighting on this stage at the White House. We're the Americans. We're a six to one underdog.

That gets to you. When you hear that over and over and over and over, it's, you know, you can't connect your phone. Dude, you caught one. You caught a Marlon. But having just that scenario was so unique. And then once it was over, then it was like, now I get to enjoy the White House and just being here and this, this, this great environment. There you can see it.

What is he reading there? Is that the Declaration of Independence? So we weren't in the room with him right there. Through the rehearsal. How crazy is that? He's in the Oval Office stepping out. And then all the soldiers walking through is so cool, like having the two guys next to him. And a lot of people complained about this happening at the White House.

Do you don't think this is cool? This is, dude, it's fighting. How could you not like this? This is fighting. This shouldn't be taking place to watch. Shut the fuck. Dude, life is a fight. World is a fight.

This is incredible to watch. Inspirational. It's a wild thing to watch. By the way, how much gold did Trump put on those walls? Look, he's got gold everywhere. Look at these fucking gold designs. Would we hear of the Oval Office? First thing I said is I was like, this thing is small as hell.

Like when I see it on pictures, it like seems so big. But the gold pieces on the wall is the first thing I was like, they dust that shit every day because dude, it was so clean. Well, he put that up there. None of that was there. None of that was there. He was explaining to me. There was no gold.

I wanted to have gold. He's got a gold cherub, like a solid gold cherub that's above one of the doors. He goes, if Putin comes, hopefully it doesn't fall in his head. It's like he's got gold everywhere. It's all him. He redesigned a bunch of the things there. You know, he's a builder, right? So that's why he wanted to do the ballroom.

That's why he wanted to keep it, you know. He likes everything in gold. He's a gold guy. What was Allison Powers? Bro, we were just watching you look at the decoration of independence before you walked out, which is also wild. Like, this is never going to happen again. This is more historic than Rumble in the Jungle, more historic than...

I mean, think about all the great. great fights that we've all watched as kids that were like, remember that? This tops everything because of the scene, because of the fact that not only is it at the White House, but the American who's a six to one

on some book's underdog pulls it off in spectacular fashion and just the seesaw of the fight too. The back and forth. The back and forth of the fight was fucking huge because the second round was crazy. It was like, oh no, it's getting it. And letting it go on again. So our corner, all the coaches

were like, dude, they're going to stop it. And I was said out loud, I was like, please let it go on. And I just wanted a definitive ending. Dude, because that would have been a point where it's like, especially with him going, hey, I want to go and continue. And then we have Goddard come out and say, hey, you are. Thank Godd for Mark Goddard. Yeah.

Okay, because if it wasn't from Mark Goddard, if another less experienced referee, you think he did? He won it out. Yeah. You don't, you know for a fact, you do not ever as a fighter say, I cannot see. It's over. and he was counting on that. He said he had already stated it.

He didn't need to say it again. He did not think there was. I don't think he thought there was going to say it back out there. So you think that he called Goddard a turkey internally. He was like when he said, oh, you're going to go play. No, I mean. In that moment, he just like, I don't, you know, I've tried. And it might have been like, you know, the little devil on his shoulder trying to get him out.

And then he re-evaluated and re-thunk it and understood that he had to keep fighting. Did you say thunk? Thunk it? Re-thunk it. That's a real word? I stopped him twice. I stopped him twice that night. There's no doubt about it. I loved it. I loved it. This episode is brought to you by OnX Off Road. Ever wonder how to reach these epic mountain

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Try on X off road for 50% off. Go to on XMaps.com slash Joe Rogan. Well, it was a big factor that Goddard let it go on because then we got to see that epic fourth round, which is fucking crazy, which was just, in the end, when you landed that knee to the body, that was like the final. Oh, yeah.

That was a punch is right where he landed that heavy knee that he just starts chopping it where he got the elbow in. Yeah. And then he has to quit on his stool. And if Goddard had just given to that referee or that judges or the doctor's rather desires, here it is. I love how you punch right here, right on the spot. Yeah, right there, right where I just lay out. Yeah, he did not like that.

And that was the end. Crazy fight. I mean... It's crazy how different. So, again, being a fan of the sport, I've got to watch, you know, I would have usually watched this from... And yeah, it would have been the most fucking incredible thing ever. Being the fighter, you know, you're really not appreciating any of that because you're so locked in to... It's like golfy, like, you don't know, but golfing is like certain swing thoughts.

You know, and nothing else can come in, nothing can creep in. And so, we looking at the decoation of independence. I was looking at it, but I didn't take it in as this being the deckway. I was sitting there and I was like, okay, got to reset his feet. Got to control. Got to move left. Got to move left. Can't get against the fence.

You know, and those are the thoughts I'm having as through the whole walkout. And so I'm really not taking any of it in as it, as the show or as the theatrics of it. Of course not. Watching it in hindsight, obviously, it's fucking awesome. There was something special about you warming up with the American flag around your shoulder too.

We were watching that. There was something special about watching you Shadowbox before all this with the American flag on. I was like, if he wins. good Lord if he went tonight it's gonna be fucking insane

and it was the feeling of like joy throughout the building throughout the grounds like the happiness that everybody had seen had been there

to see such an incredible event and such an amazing cap to that event with your fight it was just nuts it felt like a whole arena to me it was crazy for the amount

of people that you could see here it is to back flip in front of the fucking white house Dude, he flagpole. Dude, you flagpole, dude. That's a sick picture. I rolled out of it. Hey, hey, tell me, what was it?

Tell me what did you use? Newton's law? Newton's first law. Object in motion needs to stay. I just stayed in motion. Stay in motion. That's all it is. Look at the size of that fucking crowd that was outside of the lives.

So you couldn't see this crowd. Like, I couldn't see this crowd. But you know what, though? You could hear them and you could feel them. Dude, you could feel the energy. I mean, even though there was only 4,000. people did not feel like 4,000 people. It felt like a hundred thousand people because all those people were behind us You know, it was different how many people were in that place at 85,000 plus? Yeah

It happened so fast The the size of the group outside was insane Yeah, I mean and they're watching on these giant screens and freaking out like a concert Yeah, we're at the way ends it was like dude, that's what I picture like woodstock being like dude, I looked at I could not see the end of the people Yeah, no, it was not the wayans were nuts when we first walked out, I was like, holy shit, this is crazy. But it just shows how hyped people were for this event. You know, I mean, it was an incredible event.

I mean, the UFC production team, they just knocked it out of the park. And then more importantly, you knocked it out of the park. It could not have gone better. It couldn't have gone better. And the most important thing was that you did have to overcome, that we did see a real back and forth. And we did see the skills that led people to believe that this guy is the number one pound for pound farter in the world.

I mean, his fucking boxing is. elite. It is sharp shooter and dude. But I mean, my coach is a fucking genius. I mean, when it comes to like, again, it's really hard to you always sound right in hindsight, but the strategy we had

was so perfect to fight a guy like that. I mean, I think if you ask him right now which way was just in moving, he's gonna think I was moving right the whole time because my head is so so heavy and I lean over to that side. But I was moving left the entire time.

And he's so pointed that, you know, he's powerful here. But when you put him here, like, nobody can push and sprint. Like, he's not ever going to take off sprinting that way as fast as he can. He's going to have to gather and reset and then point and then go. And I constantly kept readjusting him. And it was so subtle. And that's what fighting is. It's subtle movements.

But, I mean, his game plan was, and then his game plan, his mind, my ability. But really, it's my athletic ability. Like, if people don't understand how athletic I am. And I think that is what surprises every opponent I've ever fought, is how, you know, herky, jerky, twitchy, how explosive, and how athletic I am. And I think that's the biggest asset that I have. Why do you think anybody be surprised by that? stage why do you think they're surprised because the human because it doesn't look like that no you're

i you're justin i think you're looking into the patty fight i feel like uh the patty fight you you you because a lot of people were like oh you look older you look this because the way we fought like our style our our our game paddy fight how sweet is that now i mean if you watch the patty fight you would never expect you would only expect punches coming from here yes that's all i threw because he would pull and he had to like wrangle them in wrangle them in and this guy no shot came like palm strikes like we need to palm strike them we need to keep them inside of our loop. And if you're throwing straight shots at Patty, Patty will disengage very long with his upper body. So he was throwing wild shots and then long uppercuts.

Like stay on the outside when you're throwing the upper cuts because Patty's got very good knees coming in. So we can't get too deep with that. Very simple plan. But also it was like make it chaotic. As most chaotic as you could be to be able to do that because Patty, his blitzing was very fast. He's a very good blitzer. He'll blitz past you and almost like running type of punches like old Vitor Bell for it. But this fight is a lot different where it's now elbows in. We have to be tied in these types of positions. And we need to step to his center and get on his back foot line or outside of his back foot line.

And that was like a key factor to this one is because Ilya is very front heavy and will bounce back and forth. So once he goes to this angle, we need to attack the rear shoulder. And once he starts to reset, now we're going to be able to jab. And stick the jab at the rear shoulder where your jab was landing. There's my favorite part is the jab wasn't landing here where Ili is got a very good slide. We're jabbing outside, so you're not doing inside jab coming under. You're jabbing from outside your shoulder, which is pushing him on his rear foot. And then once we started to pressure, my favorite part is the jab, pause right hand.

His left foot, Justin's left foot, when we go, has to be outside his rear foot, like right there. He opened his lead foot and he got his foot outside. And that's also, so in case the right hand countermed... That was a giant moment in the fighting. The right hand. Dude, the sound of it was crazy. Oh, I wanted to sell his ass. Oh, that was such a hard shot.

one more time, Jamie, and watch his lead foot after the jab. Now watch his left foot after the jab. Outside the rear foot, boom. And that because he's got a high shoulder. If I'm throwing a right hand down this point, if you were looking at me, Joe, if you're, if I'm here, if he gets his

foot out, now the shot is coming from here. So we're able to put him on the back foot and find that over. Because he's got a very good shoulder tank. He also dropped that right hand down. Yeah. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. And it was such a giant moment in the fight. Like, look where I started. I started with my back to us

and look at on left, left. Mm-hmm. Left. Left. Left. But if you go out to the left, backwards, that's where Ilya, to me, is the best. How we stop Volk, where he'll throw at you and then you go and then

he readjusts his lead shoulder almost to us Alpa. Super dangerous there. That was one thing we talk about. We cannot go backwards to the left because that's where we get square and Iliad, dude, he's very front-heavy so he will attack you quick. And he gets They're fast. Well, if he can recover from this, it's going to be a big lesson.

A big lesson, learn. And, you know, I wonder if he'll still have those celebration dinners the night before. There's no way. He better not. Dude, his team. That's up to his coaches, to be honest with it. It's amazing. Hubris is an amazing thing.

Like, people love that kind of confidence. They love that belief in themselves. And when someone pulls it off, people were talking for days about the Oliverify. You know, he celebrated the night before. Isn't that crazy? And it worked that time. And it played that great for him. But the lack of experience being the nail.

So much experience being the hammer. It's just the expectations. He never thought he would have to be here. But you keep saying, I wanted to go back to this thing that you said, people don't think you're athletic. And I don't agree with that. I don't understand why you think that. I mean.

It may be watching the Michael Johnson fight. Even when I. I got to college, you know, my freshman year of college, and I did a cartwell. to a backflip and these guys one guy was like I would have never fucking guessed you could do some shit like that

like I just don't understand you know if you look at me I don't look like an athlete dude you want a Ferrari no I know I'm at me I know how athletic am I just see the perception no no no your perception's crazy listen you look like an athlete

what the fuck are you talking about? He said dude he sent me in this picture when I first met him from he went up to do a clinic with his coach up in Grandby with Ben Charrington. And he sends me this video. I don't know where I open it up. And he's got a soccer ball.

And he's in this auditorium with the pads that out of the ground. And he's got his phone set up on the pads that are against the wall. He throws a soccer ball up in the air and he does one of those bicycle kicks. He played just like one or two years of soccer. He did a bicycle kick,

landed on his feet. And the ball knocked the phone off the freaking thing, dude. He hit the freaking phone. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen. I was like, bro, you are nuts. This guy snowboarding when we had snowboard? because I rode professional when I was younger

got taken out of high school for it and he this dude he would catch things so fast and his tumbling there was one time we were watching him and he was in moguls and moguls suck on a snowboard he does this 360 catches his edge

falls to his back and bounces off one of the muggles to a backflip right back into the moguls and do these people on the side I thought he meant to do that shit they're look dude I was like bro his tumbling skills dude you're freaking you are an athlete I think everybody knows you're an athlete Well, you're not built like Paul Acosta, if that's what you mean.

Yeah. You know, it's like you're not, you know, there's guys that have less body fat than you and guys have more prominent muscles than you, but nobody looks at you fighting and doesn't think you're athletic. That's crazy. I think it's the experts after the paddy fight saying, oh, he looks sloppy. And some fights got to be sloppy. Those people are retarded.

Yeah. That fight looked like chaos. It looked like you were going to press him. And it also looked like you were kind of disdainful of his ability to hurt you. There you go. You know exactly. Yeah, once I didn't respect his power, I was like, I'm fucking walking through. Yeah, and that's what it looked like.

It looked like you were just trying to make it as chaotic as possible. You make it sound like you had like a water boy. Like someone was like, the water sucks. And he's like, making the noises. No. You don't. But that's also probably a good thing that you think about yourself that way. You know, because it forces you to rise.

above and beyond anybody's expectations of you. You know, and I think one of the things about this fight that makes it so important is because Ilya was so dangerous, you had to get, like, deep in the zone. You couldn't have a moment, like, the Max fight. Well, the Max fight got me here. Without that, I would have never been as hungry. I said it was going to happen, and it didn't happen, didn't happen, didn't happen.

Then it happened, it's like, okay, now I can never let my parents see me like that again. That was a driving factor. Like I can never let my mom. I remember getting knocked out. I don't remember getting knocked out. I got knocked out. I don't remember anything. I don't remember him getting his hand raised.

And it had to have been 40 minutes to an hour. And then I just, my first recollection is being in the ambulance and see my mom's face. Can I tell you that? Can I tell that story? Yeah, yeah. Tell me what I did because I still don't know. So we're in the ambulance, okay. Well, you never know.

You were in there too. You were there with you. You were there when I came back. Your mom standing outside the back doors and we're waiting for the driver. There's a medic in there with us, but he's good. But he keeps asking the same question over and over. I still remember any of this.

And I'm worried about, like, you know, everybody's parents are different on how they react, you know? And his mom was just cool, just like, I was so impressed. I was so impressed with her just spirit of seeing that happen. But Justin's laying there, and he's like, he's cool and everything he does. So he's got like this cool, like, lay. He's like, you know, just got stopped. And he's laying there and he's like,

he'll look at me. and he gets like his head, he's like, I got knocked out? And I was like, yeah. It's like 40 minutes. He's like, what round? What round? And I said last second of the fight, and he goes,

good for him. Dude, I'm telling you, like two minutes to go by and we'd just be having normal conversation. And he'd look at me, I get knocked out. And I was like, yep. Dude, it happened over and over and over. You've had that happen with fighters.

Yes, but him saying, good for him. The way he said it every time that he came back to it, Like, that's the type of person Justin is. Like, if he losing competition, the better man won that night. And that, to me, is something that stands out to me. That's character. Character of him saying when he does it,

that, that's subconscious traits that you have. That character is also the character that allows you to reach your full potential. Absolutely. Because you're not being held back by any bullshit ego things. Not fake. Because there's a lot of people that are held back. As good as they are, they don't ever reach their full potential because they have some bullshit ego problems.

Absolutely. They care of what? Everybody thinks. And that, in that situation, losing that fight in the last second or the last run and having that reaction, that is the truest test of character that a man is ever going to go through. Yeah? That is true a test of character ever. In front of the whole world. What I remember first to see my mom's face, though.

I saw her face and I saw no concern. She was worried about me, but she was not concerned. She wasn't freaked out. No, she wasn't freaked out at all. I was like, and that's when I never, I never, I never received. set and asked if I had got knocked out again after that moment, I don't think. No, no. Once, it happened for probably, I'd say you probably asked it six or seven times.

And then once, then we were cool for probably five minutes before we went to the hospital. They were totally cool. The cool part about this, Joe, is those are some of my, and it sucks because he's taking a shot like this. But me as a coach and as someone that just loves fighting and loves the inspiration and what these guys do is those are my proudest moments. Winning a fight like this, it was proud. And, you know, take it in, you're going,

wow, this is a cool spot to be in, and you have to be grateful for it. But there's times where I'm caught smiling when my fighters are down, like when Camaro got kicked. And I stood next to him with the biggest smile just because I'm like, dude, you went out on your shield, you were looking so good.

And this is the way you stand up, again, so important to me. Justin Salas one time with Tim Means. It was one of my proudest moments just to see his subconscious. Like, I love the mindset of people. knee. Dude, Tim means hits him with a knee.

And he fights through it a little bit and takes another knee and he goes down and he's on the ground and his right leg is still like moving and he's like still punching and he's out. And I'm like, dude, that's a fighting spirit. Like there is no quitted. Like you're fighting through being knocked out. And subconsciously he's still in the fight and his body is still reacting that way instead of shelling up and being like, I just got rocked.

I'm going to shell up. I could not wait to get in the octagon and they're like not trying to let me in. I'm like, let me just get over to him and sit next. to put some ice on them back. When we stop guys, I'm always over to the other opponent first. To me, that's the coolest part is being able to see someone go out there and do their best and then to watch them come back. And that's why I'm very excited to kind of see what happens with Ilya.

This is going to be a hard one to overcome, but I hope he does. Because he's that talented. If he takes the right lessons, that's going to be a super inspirational thing to overcome. It's going to be hard, but I sure hope we get to witness at. I wonder if he's going to stay at 155. There are big guys at 155. And he's, he wasn't that big for 45. You know, you think about weight cutting in the modern era.

Like, you were, you're considerably bigger than him. When you guys were standing next to each other, I'm like, this is, there's a big difference. I've also really focused on getting bigger last three or four fights. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, I, you were 83 in a patty fight. The night of Wayne, yeah, was 83. 183 in a patty fight, so he was big. I touched, I touched 80s this fight.

We waited on Saturday 11th. Saturday when I went to bed, I think I was 184. Oh, wow. And then I think when I woke up, I was like 176. That's how much water. It's crazy. Our bodies are crazy. Right, especially because all the weight cutting.

But I think when I got there, I was pissing so much. I was actually too hydrated for the drug test, so I had to piss three times. I couldn't drink water. You were too hydrated for a drug test? How's that work? Yeah. So if the piss is too diluted, then they make you do it again. Really?

Yeah. That's why, you know, doing it after a fight. They used to do it after the fights all the time. But your adrenaline's gone so you don't pee, so it takes a long time. Like, we've had a locker room for hours waiting for the piss test. But when you're doing it after, like, rehydration, that's a shitty thing because these guys have to hydrate. Everybody's fucking taking as much fluids as they can. So that makes it tough.

But with the weight cutting piece with him going back down, I agree with you. I think Ilya is a smaller body, but he's also a big advantage for Ilya. Speed. And when you go up and wait, that speed is a huge factor. If you see a lot of guys go up, like with Max, Max kept his speed when he came up. When he went back down, I think everybody was like, oh, he beat Max. He beat a drained Max. Yeah, I think that weight cut down to 45 for him was brutal.

And this is where, from like a coaching standpoint, if it is hard for you to make it at that weight, I care about the longevity of a person. And I've seen guys get dropped with jabs because of bad weight cuts. Yes. And that going back down and that's, to me, the scariest part. in this fight game. Well, I think there's two things we have to change the fight game. One of them is weight cutting and two of them is your gloves.

Absolutely. But the weight cutting thing, don't you think that we need more weight classes? I should say that. I should say, do you think we need more weight classes? I think there's many ways. I think you're going to have to have some type of a

weight class and there's different ways to do it. Like maybe you have where you can't go over a certain amount of weight after you make weight and you weigh in a week out where you can really recover? But I think guys are going to do it anywhere and you're just going to have bad performances. I think for me I want nothing to change.

I mean, we are grown-ass men and women and we're making these choices. Right, but you can make 55 and it's good for your frame. Now imagine these guys that are tweeters. I'm sure it's hard. No, no, no. I'm not thinking it's easy, but you can't make it. You've made it over and over and over again.

But like, think about guys that are in between. Yeah. Should be a 60- or 65er like in boxing 70 to 85 is crazy. 85 to 205 is bananas. And then 205 to 265, that's... Those weak classes are already watered down in a way. And so you're just going to water it down more? So these are my thoughts and my research that I've done that it's...

I've talked to Dr. D about it. And I want to get some expert, some doctor who can actually talk to me about this. Because when I started researching boxing and why is there so many deaths in boxing, What stood out to me was almost every death in boxing in the last 10 to 15 years comes after. There's every once in a while

it's from a punch where they get dropped and they don't get hemorrhap. And they get hemorrhaging. Almost all of them are past the ninth round, especially the ones I'm talking about that don't take a punch. They're past the ninth round and it looks like they start to get tired and they're just like, hey, I need to take a knee

and lay down. A lot of these guys are winning the fight and not even taking a lot of days. damage. And if we're cutting weight the day before, you're teaching your body to sweat and sweat and sweat. To me, I believe, because I've had a fighter where, you know, come on his last fight we were crapping so bad, so scary, so freaking scary. Like, I almost called off. I called off. I was within like, like, minutes of calling. I talked to the whole team about it. But if you dehydrate yourself, think of my lips. If they get dehydrated, they crack when I smile. And if you dehydrate your brain, and I had talked to Dr. D, I was like, could

that be something if you dehydrate your brain would cause something? He's like, absolutely. And then I started to research that. But if you go back and look at all the boxers, and if we can get someone that could do their true research that understands this stuff, that to me is like, what scares me about weight-cutting? Because you're training your body to lose that amount of weight. And when you

start to do things in patterns, you just took all the nutrients out of your body. And then you're going hard in a fight like that. And I was like the big thing with the Tony Ferguson fight that's kind of funny now, but it wasn't funny to me. I didn't give no fucking water for a five-round fight. That is crazy. The longer you take your brain to that point of dehydration,

that's a scary thing. You just forgot? Dude. Yeah, we were locked in. This guy don't train with water. So it was like, dude. Yeah, I don't drink water. I train myself.

I don't drink water practice because everyone's like, you want water? I'm like, water's for pussies. No, I don't want water. Talk about the mindset. You don't drink any water in training at all? No, he'll drink afterwards. Like, we did this fight. They made me this fight.

Okay, so do you think that that just helps your mental. No, because I, it doesn't, it can't, because I'm fucking working right now. I'm locked in, like, I might not get water one day. You know, I might want water. Even when you're doing strength and conditioning, everything? Nothing. I never drink water. Wow.

So you make sure you're hydrated before you get in there. Yeah, I drink a lot after. But once you're in there, you're just going. Yeah, this fight was different. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's just me.

That's just me being an asshole. You know, Ramadan's nuts. Like, I know Balal was training with no water and, you know, drink. no water during the day and then training again at night time and you know that's that's got to be so hard but going through hard training sessions and no water so you do it but so there's two things gone one i would think maybe you could do more work and get more round more reps and more this if you're rehydrating but then the other thing is like would you and how much mental toughness are you getting by not giving yourself water right it's a crutch and the

mental toughness thing ultimately won you this fight. There is a lot of fucking human beings at the top level of the sport that would have folded in that second round. You did look the happiest of the Tony Ferguson fact. That look you gave me when you had the water? I never contemplated it. Not once. Not for one second. Did I contemplate that I was done?

No, I mean, you, that's how you fight. He hit me? I was like, oh, fuck! Oh shit! Did you get to hear him in the corner? He goes, dude, that was a good body shot. I was like, yeah, that was a sweet. about a shot. Who does that?

I know. Who sits down? The look at his face wasn't like, like eyebrows like an a frame cabin. Well, even after the fight he were talking

about how skilled he was. You were talking about it. I mean, I could go so many different ways with how I react in this fight. I just wanted to be known how disrespectful

he would have been if he beat me. If he put him to sleep, if his, I mean, can you imagine how shitty he would have been and I mean it would have

And it was And the world The world would have been fucking Shitting on me I was fighting for so much I was fighting for so much that night You know I'm never going to let people

For one I know how special What I've done is And it would have taken all of it away With the loss And I wasn't going to let that happen How about the people call it His loaded gloves Do you see the picture

The image? There's like rocks in his hands People are so stupid What? People are so funny So stupid. What a compliment. Have they not watched any of his fights? Yeah.

People saying I'm juiced, what a compliment. People saying I got bricks in my fucking gloves. What a compliment. People are silly. You can't read the internet. There's always going to be someone saying something. I know, but again, I got here because I was petty. I read comments.

I read comments. They fuel you? They do. They do. I've told them not to do it because I'm like, bro, this fucks with so many people. We had the conversation outside. Like, it'll cause your mind to go crazy. And he's like, I love it so much.

David Goggins takes haters and he records them on a loop and then plays it to himself while he runs. Yeah, I mean, that's crazy. I don't need to have it on video. I know. Right. I know what they're saying. I knew what they were saying every fucking day.

Right. And that's, you know, partly why I won. Well, it's, you know, that Teddy Roosevelt quote about the man in the arena. You know? Yep. That's what it is. It's like there's always going to be people on the sidelines or talk about shit.

It's impossible to make it. Especially at that level that you're fighting. As ambitious as you are, you can never make everybody happy. No. That's why it's hard to be a champion. Which sucks. The pressure. You know, it really is detrimental to like overall like what you're trying to achieve.

And it's just so hard. Well, you can't make everybody happy because some people are just not happy, period. It's like you being awesome is going to make them happy. Yeah, but some people are not. They're not healthy. They're not mentally healthy. Their brain isn't right. They haven't done the right things in their life.

And they see success as being somehow or another. It steals their own personal joy. Other people's success is bad because they compare themselves to other people and they realize that they suck. And I love seeing good things happen for people. Of course. Because when Max knocked me out, I was like, good for him. Like I'm fucking imagining what he's feeling right now.

Yeah, but because you have given everything you have. You've truly maximized your potential. You've made mistakes. You've made great decisions. And ultimately, you wound up winning the biggest fight of all time. No, to exceed. But that's why you can be happy for other people. To exceed your expectations from 2017.

To exceed his expectations from 2011. To exceed my own expectations is, I mean, I cannot describe how special and how good that makes me feel, you know, in general. Like, that was my goal. was to exceed expectations of you You didn't exceed them man You I always had a feeling that you were going to do some wild shit And after the Tony Ferguson You couldn't have said I was going to do this

I didn't listen There was a lot of conversations that I had with people That were counting you out those are like I don't think he can win this fight 100% I mean I said it on the podcast I even said it to Ilya Like Ilya was saying it was going to be easy I've seen that podcast and he was so wrong So many times

You know not just the whole he has zero chance against Patty he said something about how I probably sleep during the day more than I do at night because I party too much and it's like you were so... You don't remember him saying that? He said something about weed

and you're like, I don't care about weed. But for him to think that that's true is fucking insane. And you have five looses? That's just... Dude now he's got one lucid. He's gonna have to learn to deal with that.

I was like, wow, what a fucking idiot. You know, like to think that I got here by just being a a guy that drinks and you know has fun all the time like that's fucking crazy my life is so boring I don't go to bars I mean I don't do any of that I sleep I sleep 8 to 10 hours every single night I was sleep in 10 but it's too much so now I have to sleep 8

but for this whole week I was sleeping 12 hours every single night of the fight week that's nice it was so fucking nice that is nice You know, it's just one of those things. If he wanted to watch your, you have a YouTube channel. You could watch. Well, I mean, it also something to be said about how I knew he was watching. If you go back to my other, like we'll always show sparring.

We'll always show me hitting mitts. I didn't show myself hitting mitts one time this camp. I didn't show myself sparring one time this camp. Purposely. Because we were switching up the game plan big time. Like the tight punches, high hands. He had, no, he had expectations, but none of them were based in reality. And I controlled that.

That's awesome. Yeah. And then, you know, when I did make the, when I did make the comment about his wife, you know, it was in an interview like this where we're just fucking around. And I said it in jest. I didn't, it was 100% true. I was like, he's so fucking annoying. I couldn't imagine being in the same room with him, you know, with his pompous attitude.

You know, and you're just trying to like hang out with the guy, but he's like constantly, he's stealing all the thunder and it's irrational. And it's like I would leave him too. Like, I mean, if that's my part, like, that's why I broke out with my girlfriends is because they were somewhat like that. I mean, and so I didn't mean it in a mean way. Like, I would never dig at somebody and I would never make fun of someone's personal experience. But that was like, that was just my honest take.

You are the honest guy. And I was joking, but it was true. You just say what you feel. I said so many two things to him. I said the, so many, I told him that he's going to go to the second round, go to the third round, you're going to be fucked because you're not going to be able to pull yourself out of this. You know, with the way that you're thinking, there's no possible way you can have these expectations, face adversity and then come out in a positive way. There's no way it can happen. You could dig deep and you could be even more of a narcissist than it might work.

But you, you know, you're going to walk yourself into a situation that is going to fucking be dead. detrimental to you and this is detrimental to his psyche and this is 90% mental. Well, so again, I want to see him. We'll see how he adjusts to loss, but you know, see how honesty will be with himself. The strategy has to change. Yeah. You can't just hit the gas like that and we've seen that with boxers. We've seen that with all kinds of fighters.

They just think they can just hit the gas. Well, obviously you had to make your own adjustments. Yeah. You know how he overcame the, that. The Max fight? How? He adjusted. Sorry.

But can you guys know? Didn't you play golf every year? Six months straight. Wow. Every day, dude. This guy got really good. Yeah, DC was raving about it. He's like, I've never seen anything like it.

He goes, this guy's playing golf like he's been playing for years. That's crazy. It's really funny. Well, you know, that's the mindset that's coachable. That's a coachable mindset, competitive. And also, objective. You know, it's the same reason why you think you're not athletic.

It's like you can look at yourself in a critical way and then see what adjustments you have to make where a lot of people are delusional. Yeah. And that delusional keeps you from getting good at everything in life. You do what you perceive? Dude, you got a perspective is everything. Like, how are you seeing things? And you always got to see it from the internal.

Not spikes in valleys like this right here. Like we come home and even through the airport, we're like, there's no celebration. I can see it is what it is. I mean afterwards, like, peaks, piques will keep. No celebration at the airport. What we did, someone was buying us drinks. Like, we got there, we got there a little bit earlier. It should have been a fucking parade.

I know, but I don't want that. I know. I know you don't. You don't. But I have to do it because I do need to take advantage. Like, I am the champion. It's crazy. He still can't fathom it.

But I am the champion, and I need to be the champion. Be you? And enjoy being the champion for a little bit. And you need to look at yourself in the mirror. be like there's times to sit back and have bliss where you're like man i freaking did it like there's times to really i thought that would come natural doesn't mean you run down fucking yelling out different brands of mayonnaise with no motherfucked clothes on to make bad decisions you're like what was that from shit then we did fucking three-fifths of fucking vodka um are you going to

continue fighting right now i'm planning on it yeah because you were talking about going out with that fight there's not there's not something natural in me that feels like it's over So that's all I can say. Also, after a performance like that. Yeah, I mean, I'm obviously performing the best. Either way, either way. Also, capitalized because the financial reward. Yeah, but I'm in a place where it's like I deserve to be compensated for what I have done.

100%. Not for what I'm going to do or I don't. I shouldn't have to fight next to be. UFC 300, UFC 324, and now this. Those are the biggest stages that the UFC needed somebody to do something phenomenal. And they picked me every single time and I delivered. I wasn't the main event of UFC 300, but co-main event still stole the show, even though I lost. And so I think I need to be compensated for what I've done.

That's where I'm mad. So you're talking about in the future for like a next fight? Like. Yeah, renegotiate, my friend. No, no, no, no, I'm not talking about for the next fight. I'm talking about the UFC should make a company and give me equity in that company and, you know, so I can build passive income like that. Like, I'm not saying that's what they should do.

Have you talked to them about something like that? No, no, I would. I've never asked. Luckily, I have a personal assistant now. So she asks for things for me, but I've never been the guy that asked for things. I wish people that were opposite of me that ask for things and get all kinds of things. I wish I was given those things without asking because obviously people know that it's appreciated it

and I like it but I'm not ever gonna like I'm not taking this truck from fucking Armin there's absolutely no way I would take a truck he never shook my hand Oh this is Armand Sarukin We should explain that

So Armand Sarukian he He bet a million dollars on Justin His friend And won He won like 53 I believe 57 57 That's what I heard

Yeah so he said So he's gonna buy me a truck But I mean I would never What kind of truck? Wow now I just saw yours Get a Raptor. I have a Shelby Raptor. Those are pretty dope.

But I think now that I've seen your truck, that will be my next truck. Also, it has USA on the side. Yeah. You see the rap? I love the... You didn't do that rap? Hennessy does that rap. Hennessy's the shit.

I want that truck. Oh, you need that truck. Yeah. Tell Armand buy you that fucking truck. No, I'm not taking the truck for him. What the fuck? If I was Armin, I would force it down your throat. I would deliver it to your house and give you hug.

No way. You want him $5,700,000. I didn't have to ride around in a fucking truck. truck that a dude bought for me every day. I don't know. I just can't go there. You won that truck. We didn't shake on it. He does not own it to me. I don't give a fuck. Take that goddamn truck. I'm right there with you, Joe.

Yeah. Take the truck, dude. First of all, it's cool. Yeah. And he might also be your next opponent. I mean, that's possible. That's the guy. He is definitely the guy that's up for. That's the guy. I mean, if there's anybody else in the division, that is the guy. I mean, now that Islam is up at 170, who else is there?

That's the guy. I agree. Yeah, and what a division. I mean, holy shit. And now Charles is saying he wants to... He wants to fight you, BMF and the lightweight title on the line. That would be crazy. So there's fights available.

Yes, there is. Big, big. What are your thoughts? When you're thinking about competing, who do you think it will be? You think it would be Armin? No. No? I can't say that I have a name.

Do you think Ely is going to try for a rematch? No, he doesn't get a rematch. He can try, but he doesn't get one. Wow. He quit on the stool. He quit twice. I stopped him twice. What else do I have to fucking do?

Plus, his next challenge can't be me. He needs to fight Patty or someone like that. Does Patty have a fight scheduled? I think he's fighting. St. St. Denis? Yeah. That's a tough fight.

It is. Yeah. Benoit's a beat. It's a fucking crazy game, bit. It's a crazy game. It's the craziest game. in the U.S. by J.D. Power is designed for your everyday. And with available all-wheel drive, you can handle your to-do list with total confidence.

Start your build at Chevrolet.ca. Details at J.D.Power.com. I mean, think about where you were when you lost to Max and then where you are now. Just like think of the highs and lows. It wasn't that long ago either. Was not that long ago. Now you got the BMF champ wanting to fight you. I have every belt. Like, I have three belts, three real belts, two interims, but those are,

fucking real belts. A real belt, the BMF belt, and then the UFC 250 belt. Yeah, the UFC 250 belts. No one's so cool, dude. There's only two of those out there. I mean, being a fan,

that shit is freaking heavy. Being a fan of this sport, like, what do you want to come in here and do things that are not easily attainable. And I've done a few things that are impossible to obtain.

Eight. Nine bonuses in my first seven fights. 16 fights in the UFC. I probably, what, like 12 main events? Yeah. At least 10 main events. And to be put in the main event of a UFC fight is fucking huge.

Like, you know, you go on the poster, not many people get to experience that. And I've done it almost every single time. And so, I mean, yeah, I mean, I've done something unattainable. It's got to feel good. It feels great. It feels great. It should. It feels good.

It's awesome to have guys like you out there. As a fan, it feels good. Right. As a fan of yourself. As a fan of the sport. As a fan of the sport, getting to see what you're going to see what you're going. you've done. Yeah. What did you think about Cyril Gone? We didn't do

so. We didn't see it. We were in the locker and like, oh, you guys are going to go to a different staging room as soon as Bruce Buffer starts announcing. So they took us into a room with no screens. That's probably where the video of me shadow boxing with the flag. Yeah. That's where, so we were in that. We were in there for like 30 minutes before I walked. And we could hear, you know, you could. A little bit.

You hear that, I heard the ding of the, you know, the end of the round the horn. I was like, okay, was that round one. yes and then you hear nothing and then I didn't even hear the finish I didn't hear the crowd roar or anything and then I heard and still right? Right?

No no no no it said and new because they were both going to be new I thought I heard him still nose interim. We heard gone we heard gone yeah they had gone I was like oh fuck he won that guy moves like a cat that's it's crazy

for a heavyweight I love watching heavy weights that can move like the member the Mike Tyson era just watching, I was, I love watching Mike Tyson and just watching all the guys he fought, heavyweight boxing was so good at that time. People used to jump, bro. Now it's like, like, I'm not going to say that all heavyweights are lazy, but, you know, my knees are bad. I'm a big person. Like, those guys can move and Cyril Gahn is one of those guys. Well, he's the most. It's so fast. The thing about him is he started out as a basketball player. So think about basketball, it's all

these pliometrics. You're constantly changing direction and moving and jumping. Agility. Yes, it's all agility, and that translates so brilliantly to his striking style, because you've got a guy who's 248 pounds who moves like a middleweight or moves like even lighter than that. I mean, it really moves like a welterweight almost. He's fast and just very agile. And when you notice it is like, because you know how good Pereira is, and Pereira getting lit up on his feet like that and then drop with a jab.

It's like, woo. Yeah. Perfect time. And it's heavy weights. Like, those are big dudes. Yeah. Like, obviously Perera has put on some weight, but it's, It's frame size.

Yeah. It's, you know, Pereira's got a big frame, but it's... There's levels. Your body's been that weight for a long period of time. Like, it's, again, that consistency.

It's, it's an MMA guy going into boxing. Yeah, they're shorter rounds, but you're hitting sprints every round. Like, it's a different... Like, there's, you have to do it for a period of time to be able to adjust to that. That's a different...

It's everything that you do, you have to slowly go into those positions. You can't just jump into it. And when you think about how big he was at 205, it maybe would have even been better for him to not really put on much weight. I agree. 100%.

Because it's not like Cyril Gons a grappler. And you got to be fast. Yeah, you got to be fast. Like your speed's a factor. It's a giant factor. And he's got insane power. I mean, his power has always been heavy weight level power. Absolutely.

He's not going to lose his power. Because he was so big. He was 251. And I was thinking, man, now it's like, even though you have more power, you're also moving around with extra weight on your body. Like you're weighed down more by gravity. I mean, Gahn looked so light and so loose. He's just, like, that style for a heavyweight,

light on the toes like that is so unusual. And not allowing Pereira to set his feet. No, never. Like, that's very smart. And even, like, feigning takedowns, it's not like he committed to those, but he's got him thinking about. Look at he drops him with the fucking jab.

Now, here's the question, because one of the things that Pereira is saying is a lot of, there's an illegal shot. A lot of the shots were illegal into the back of the head. But a lot of them, We're to the side of the head. They're close.

They're close. And then the first one. When they're also moving. Yeah. When they explain it to you, it's. Yeah. It's a two inch line down like a mohawk. This whole, this whole apron right here.

But it's like this is legal. This is legal. Yeah. This is legal. Legal, illegal. I mean, a couple of those shots definitely landed illegally. But there's also. Hammers fist.

The first one. Did you see him drop his head down to the hips? Exactly. So you're moving. So that's legal, that's illegal. There's a couple illegal ones. There's probably three or four. Right, but it's also movement and chaos.

It's not like he's trying to deliberately. That's like poking someone in the eye on purpose. Like if I was that good, I would touch their chintz. Right. That's a lot smaller target. Was the fight stop there on the ground? No, no, it kept going. This is actually the finish of the fight right here.

That was a finish. He caught him with a big elbow right here and rocked him. I mean, Pereira was in real trouble. Yeah. I mean, it was, he got fucked up. Yeah. And Cyril Gahn did a fantastic job. He really put it on him.

Should you ever stop a championship fight on the feet? That was it right there. Yeah, I would have. At that point, yeah. I'm not saying it wasn't. I haven't watched the fight. Here's the stoppage right here, you can see it. I haven't either, and I'm just watching this.

Yeah, that's like he fell in his hands on his hips. It was so many blows. Maybe he could have taken one or two more after that for sure, but Pereira is pissed off at Herb Dean, and he's saying Herb Dean should never referee again because he allowed those shots to the back of the head. I mean, you're in the moment. I mean, you're in the fight, but that's natural for a fighter to do.

Like, again, if it's a situation, you want to, first time, you've got to bring awareness to it, so they're not, you know, you have to always be aware of, hey, I could have did better here, because that's how we all grow. So we need to do, need to talk about it. But from what I just watched there, and I haven't watched the whole fight, was the fight competitive at all?

Yes. Okay. The first round was very competitive. Okay, so that would change a little thing, but from what I just watched right there at the end that was uh that looked like a good finish to me the first the roughs have such a tough job i've been i'm notorious for being yeah really hard on these refs because i mean it's they you expect them to be you want you need them to be perfect their their main job is to protect you uh when i thought michael chandler i'm still and again i only speak about it now because i've never had a retraction from the referee whenever you're you he poked me in the eye and then he didn't get in between us and he let him hit me with a huge

shot and then he doesn't give me my time to rest not rest to recover and there was only five seconds left in the round so it turned out that I got a break anyways but he goes in there he says are you good I said no I'm not good he just poked me in the fucking eye and he says okay but are you good and so then it's like can I still fight so so then I said yeah I'm good And he says, okay, go. What referee was this? The guy with a braid that he puts in his thing. Oh, Mike Beltron.

Yeah, Mike Beltron. And so I was very upset that he let Michael Chandler land that shot. And I know why he was so scared of the fucking heat we were throwing that he didn't want to jump in there and get in the middle of it. But his job is to protect me. And he failed. He failed so bad right there. And so, like, after the fact, I need you to acknowledge this so that you do not ever let that happen to another athlete. in there because you fucked up so bad.

And, you know, he's trying to justify it. And it's like, what the fuck are you doing? How can you justify this? And so that, for me, that that pisses me off. And then the decision not to give me my time, like, I need an explanation.

You know, because I need to know that you are going to learn from this experience. And for right now, I still believe that he doesn't think he did anything wrong. And so I'm still upset about that. Well, once you say to some We're petty. We're petty. You know, like, you should be in that situation. Because you say to someone, you got poked in the eye, are you good? And you're like, yeah, I'm good, but I got poked in the fucking eye. And then you're supposed to say, you have five minutes. One or two seconds. But are you good? But are you good? I said, well, yeah, I'm good. He says, okay, go. Are you good is not the right question. You have five minutes. Are you ready to fight? Can you see, do you need to bring in a doctor? There's a series of questions. But the, you have five minutes is very important. For a fighter getting poked in the eye, you have five minutes to recover.

Yeah, I didn't feel like, I didn't know. I didn't know what the point. I feel pressure in my face right now. Like, I don't, this feels forward. You're not going to know for a couple seconds. Yeah, I don't know. You're going to blink a little bit, move around a little bit. All right, I'm good.

And that's when you're, it's supposed to be very clear. That's when you're ready to reengage. And that's what I'm saying. That's the mistake he has to learn from because it was such a, and after the round ends, I walk home like, like, dude, get your fucking head of your ass. What the fuck are you doing? He's like, go to your stool. I was like, no, what the fuck are you doing?

Like, your job is to protect me. You just let me get hit with a huge fucking shot. What is going on? And he's like, go to your stool, go to your stool. And I sit down and then boom, never thought about it again. But still pissed off about that one. You should be. I mean, that makes sense.

Same with, who's the ref that against Khabib? After the fight, he corners me in the hallway. And he's like, I know you, I know you would never. never tap. I was like, I tapped three times. He's like, no, you would never tap. I'm like, I'm like, dude, from the horse's mouth,

I'm telling you, I tapped. And he still was like, no, no, you wouldn't tap. I was like, what the fuck? How can we get through this? Like, I tapped three times. And you went to sleep. I've seen that. Yeah, I tapped three times.

100% you tapped. 100%. And he's like, no, I know that you, with the way that you compete. Who's the referee? What's that guy paying? I hate to talk. I don't even want to throw him under the bus, you know, because it's like his intentions.

His intentions were good for me, you know. He believed I was. He gave you a chance. Gave me a chance. But like I fucking tapped, man. And the fight should have been stopped. And I went to sleep because of it. And luckily there's no detrimental and chronic, you know, long lasting problems because of getting choked out.

So, I mean, there's no repercussions. Yeah, there's no concussion. There's no TBI. Like, it really is not detrimental. at all. As long as you don't hold it too long as I die. As long as I wake up, I'm good. Right. And so I was like, okay, the repercussions aren't as severe. And so, like, whatever, I'll just let this go. But ultimately, he did. I mean, I was, even when I told him, he didn't believe me. That was the first thing you said when you jumped up. You went over to him. And then

you guys had the conversation afterwards. But you went over to him saying, dude, what the fuck? I tapped. He's like, no, you did it. Then we seen him later. But that was the first thing. He didn't. I was like, dude, I tapped three times. I tap three fucking times. Yeah, it was pretty obvious. And they don't see things too. And everyone was like, oh, you said, you know, you're some kind of fucking, you think you're some kind of Superman.

Why would you tap? It's like, when your life is ending, you know, you're a fool if you don't understand that. Like, I knew I was dying. And that's just where I was. So that's how crazy you are to everybody. Their eyes are like, no, dude. I know you better than you do. You never tap.

You kind of fight like that. That's what I mean. People think the best. That's how he perceived. The best thing up to this moment is people don't give me credit for my intellectual abilities. And I've also played into that. And I've also understood how big of an asset it is for people to approach me like that, you know, thinking that I'm just some animal that doesn't think or feel or whatever,

whatever people think, or think I'm retarded. Well, I think what it is is when you are such an animal, people think you can't be smart. Because a smart person would be aware of the consequences and wouldn't have the courage to fight the way you fight. That's all it is. And people who don't have that kind of courage, they like to dismiss people that fight like savages because they go, well, savages can't be smart. That's not right. That's not correct. People, it's like, you see a really hot woman, you go, oh, she's got to be a retard.

Like, no, some of them are really fucking smart and also hot. You know, like the world is confusing. And you can't categorize people and put them into things, little. little, you know, little fucking boxes just to make you feel better. Yeah. That's all it is, you know. And your...

And the thing is, I never signed up, like, when we were walking out to the press conference, there's like 12, 15,000 people out there. I look at the guy, I was like, dude, I never, ever signed up to be a public speaker. What the fuck are we doing here? Like, I never wanted to be in this, where I talk in front of this many people.

Like, that's not what I prepared myself forever. And now I'm in this situation where I have to, you know, every single word I get, I say before these fights is analyzed by the world. Like the whole, you know, my father is my dad. Like, sometimes I get tongue-tied. Yeah. Sometimes I miss speak. I do too, and I talk for a living.

That's what I mean. But nobody, if people had to listen to themselves, they would understand that they also make mistakes. And so it's like, fuck, man. Like, I can't be perfect. I'm sorry. I really wish. I didn't mean my dad was my father, even though. You know, it fucking makes sense and it's true.

Listen, you're dealing with a bunch of people that have to write stories. Yeah, they have to. It's not about writing a story because something's interesting. They have to make a story no matter what it is. Their job is to create content. And your job is to create content. You make content out of nothing. And it's not usually not good.

And that's what they're doing. They're making big deals out of nothing. If I could have been mentally coached, it would have been in that. public speaking just like I think you speak very well no no it's like I just I guess there's no lesson to learn like you just have to do it it's through yeah it's like fighting you just do it a bunch of times and you get comfortable with it or you're naturally talented like Connor you know who the fuck is that guy smart guy yeah he's great at that like he's fantastic at that shit I mean that's where he shines you ain't

lying you are like Tom Petty Tom Petty the Heartbreakers you are petty dude who cares what people think No, I know. I think he speaks great, right? I like, you know, I like to see what people are saying about my, our interview. You know, because I want to see the perception. I want to... Just keep inspiring.

Yeah, but the thing is, you're asking for the perceptions from people that you would probably never fucking talk to in real life because they're dumb and annoying. You don't want to know their shit. And those are the people that are most likely going to comment. Yeah. The people that are most likely going to... You think Michael Jordan's out there leaving YouTube comments? No.

Right? It's not people that have their fucking shit together and have big goals. 100% people who are really dialed in and really fucking discipline and the people whose opinions you'd respect they're not leaving comments yeah they're certainly not even shitty comments you nailed that that's just the reality and I'm not hating on these people I'm just saying like I would have been one of them if you if somebody give me a fucking YouTube account when I was 17 I'd be posting the most horrible shit about everybody right everybody would you're a kid you're or you're a dumbass

you don't have your life together yet but that's the type you can't listen to them take that as gospel because it's just not. Just seeing him walk through the airport and just everybody's perception when they see you and meet you is so great dude. Like it's like people who they like like bro the haters. If the haters met

you they're like bro I'm a big fan. Yeah but still but one of those things is like the inspiration on people like everybody comes up and they're your favorite fighter like have the brand that you're the your favorite fighter favorite fighter like that is unique. Yeah. That is like such a cool thing like

You just keep inspiring and be you. You should be. Should be so proud. You should be. Yeah. So I asked you after the fight if you're going to fight again. You said you promised your mom you weren't going to make a decision. And so it just settled in.

I mean, today we're here, it's Friday. The fight was just Sunday, so it was five days ago. So now you're just like, fuck. How do you not after that? I mean, you're the fucking champ. It would be great to go out like that. It would be an amazing cap, but also. Great to have at least one more.

Yeah. We'll see. People like to watch chaos. It's the highest level, controlled chaos. You know, it'll never be that chaos again because it'll never be like... It's hard to understand how dangerous this game is if you don't do it.

Right. And so... Is it impossible? Yeah. Yeah. So that'll be a huge... That's a huge fact. There's a lot of variables

that I have to contact. to plate when it comes to that decision. Do you have a timeline in your head? I do know. So you can't remember a time I fought two times in six months in the UFC. I fought two times this year already in less than six months. And so I'm going to take the rest of the year. I need my body to heal it. I mean, I have, what's the fucking diagnosis? I have a severe bone endema in the tip of my fibula that happened on Christmas, and I have been dealing with that since Christmas

day. So a bone bleed, like a bruised bone bruised bone. Yeah, it's in the bone marrow of the tip of my fibula. The tip of my tubula clacked against my femur, and it caused a deep, deep bruise, and I cannot get it to hill because I went, you know, I was going through training camp. It really hurt after the paddy fight. When are you leaving? When are you leaving today? Were you flout at like 6.30? It's 3 o'clock. I want to see if I can get you into Waste Well. Let me text Brigham and see if they could jab some fucking stem cells in there before you leave.

I mean, I've gone to Vegas. I've got stem cells multiple times. Ways and Wells is a pretty special place. PRP put me on crutches. It was crazy. And then I did a Corazono shot on the Friday before I left. Wow. And that helped a lot.

Well, not training is really what it needs, right? You've been doing any hyperbaric chamber stuff? No. That's huge. For recovery? You have no idea how against my process you guys would be. I mean, I think I got two, probably had two massages this camp. That's amazing.

Well, it's really funny if you look at the difference between Ilya Tuporia as a YouTube channel as well where it's fantastic, really goes into depth. But they're using like all this high-tech neurostimulation head gear. and he's doing all these different things. And it's all like... You see the video? It's got him doing that and then me taking a 420 dab.

Yeah, exactly. Did you see our video? Where he had the dog chocker on his forehead. Every time he got straight with his legs, it got flat, I hit the button. He bent his legs again. No, we cover our eyes and threw balls at each other. Yeah.

Trying to tap into those intuitive abilities. Yeah, right. Yeah, with your eyes closed. But I mean, they're like... You're funny. I come from the fucking dirt. You know, my parents fucked up. They didn't put a golf club in my hand at four years old.

They threw me in the dirt. And, you know, I became comfortable with the uncomfortable. That's a giant factor, though. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable is a huge asset. Yeah. It's such a... It is. With everything in life.

With everything in life. I think wrestling is definitely... Definitely has... is the biggest variable when it comes to my success. I mean, the mental side of it. like nobody can it's very similar to fighting in the fact that nobody can help you

you know it is against all the blame is on you all the success goes to you and you can never use somebody else's excuse any team said I played football I played baseball soccer swim team swim team is a little different but you know there's always a justification

for why you failed or why you lost when it comes to those and you could always point to somewhere else, or at least a piece, even if it's one or two percent somebody else's fault, then you can justify it. Yeah, the loss. Yes. In wrestling, that's never the case.

Not only that, it's a combat sport that's acceptable in high school. Like, it's a combat sport that you take in junior high school, you take in high school. And kids learn, like, there's guys out there that are different. They're working harder than you, the more aggressive than you. They want it more than you. They put in more time than you. you and that's a lesson that's very valuable

because kids get delusion about what their abilities are how special they are, who they are when you get fucking flatlined by some dude who just fucking picks you up and slams you on your back and pins you and you're like and he can do it any time he wants and this is the reality of training with this guy like over and over

and over again you're like oh great he lateral drops you in front of the whole class oh great like this is this is reality now you're either going to get better or this is going to happening to you over and over and over again and the mental toughness that comes out of kids that grind it out in wrestling and learn how to wrestle Uncomfortable learn how to cut weight at an early age all that shit's terrible for you but the mental aspect of it is fucking undeniable Think about how many great wrestlers have become great MMA champions

It's the most important foundation great business people like they watched a study a long time ago They said that the boxing and wrestling created the best employees because accountability. Yes. You know? And again, the cutting the weight, like,

you're responsible. Like, that's, this is what I love about Justin is, what makes it so nice to train him is, high level people.

Like, I've had the luck to be able to train some high level guys lately. And I don't have to deal with any shit. Like, you know, and it's, if I hold myself accountable,

then there's, we don't have to have these deep conversations or get our feelings hurt that we're just true to it. His accountability for everything is just, there's nothing like it.

And I, I credit that to his parents. His parents are, just such amazing people. And the way that they had raised him to hold the, you know, because he screwed up a lot as a kid. I told him, if we were hanging out when we were younger, we got a lot of trouble.

Because he reminded me of myself, super hyper, like making super bad decisions. But getting punished, getting grounded, getting not being able to go out late at night, like strict parents. And that, being able to understand that there is rules in life and you have to be accountable. If you screw up, you've got to deal with the punishment.

And that is, it comes from your parents. And it's one of your best traits. I think my parents being such good people, So my mindset has always, since I was a kid, I have looked up. So the reason I take comments online and I read them, I've always looked up and given every single person I've ever interacted with the benefit of the doubt of being good. And whether it's what they're saying, what they're doing, their actions,

everybody's been my role model. I've never, never looked at myself as a role model. I've always looked at whether, no matter what, even strangers, like I trust that they're good. And that's where I start my, that's where I start everywhere from. And so reading comments online, like I truly take into account what I'm reading, you know, and I don't know why. Because I know it doesn't matter a lot of the times. A lot of these probably fucking 13, 14 year old kids. But I, in my mind, they're 50-year-old, you know, men with experience.

And I just try to use as much and as much of the readily available information, comments, words, action as I can from a place of, like, I feel like a child in a sense when it comes to, like, interacting with people. And I don't know. I don't know why that's how I take it or that's how I do it, but it makes everything, you know, a little bit better. And I'm not as disappointed as much because, like, once I learn that they're not that, they're not good and they can't. help me, then I don't be like, oh, that's a bad person. I'm just like, okay, I'm not going to have that experience again. Well, that's a good perspective. It sounds like you use it then. And that's, everyone's different. And if you can handle it and you don't get mentally ill from reading comments, that's a rare, you're a rare person. We had many conversations in the way

that they never affected them. That's what my, I went to school for human service. I love to help people. You have no idea how much joy it brings me to assist people, to make people, to make people life better to live someone's spirit. I mean, those, that is what makes me feel alive. And that comes through my faith and to my parents. You know, my parents are such good people. They deserve so much more than most parents because of their actions and their example that they show for me. And yeah, I'm just so grateful to be the person that I am because, you know, it makes life easier. Life is easy. Life is so easy when you're not concerned about what people are. think when you're not worried about things that you can't control.

Well, it's also easy if you're a good person. It's easier. But I couldn't be a good person without the example of my parents. You have no idea how good and naive my parents are. And when I say naive, it's in such a good way because they haven't done the bad things that most of us have done. And I failed him. And the last time I ever did drugs, I woke up.

in the ambulance and I'm pretty sure I died and I was like I will never fucking do that again. My parents do not deserve that. And that was probably 2016. Wow. And I was like I will never touch that again ever. My parents do not deserve that and that was, that's why

I'm here. Good for you dude. That's awesome and it's great that you have such an awesome relationship with your parents and it really does seem like that attitude that you have is very freeing in a lot of ways. It is. It really is.

Yeah. Golf. Weed. Trevor, let's talk about those gloves. What the fuck do we have to do to get your gloves into the UFC? It doesn't make any sense that we're using inferior gloves. Wait, I want, obviously, I want to talk about this. But the gloves I fought in this week were different.

They are? They felt, it was a different. They weren't different. There was the same glove. The leather was different. It was a little bit thicker, I think. and so it was softer and so every time I've ever

fall I've had the most excruciating pain in between my hands right here and I didn't feel that at all this fight so it's like if you have a thinner material going through it's going to cut through the skin a little easier or tighter material this was looser

because it was thicker it was weird so it was better better for that feeling that all fighters get better for comfortability yeah like you guys have no idea how uncomfortable we are when we were always like pulling on the love to pull the back.

It's like getting a hand wrap too tight and you get those little things between you. You're constantly pulling on the tongue here. So you make a fist and it squeezes harder. But this guy's a genius. He can fucking make anything. So Hunter reached out to me three weeks ago, four weeks ago,

and said he wanted to ignite conversation again. So we'll see where that goes. But, you know, from that first position that we were in, a lot of things happened and a great thing. I always told you it was going to be timing. Timing's everything. And they did the right thing

and tried to, make what we had spoke about. You know, we had an NDA and we had a five year and they moved it to a two year. Took a lot of great notes and I'm very grateful to be a part of those because they did go out there and use a lot of the ideas that I had, but they just couldn't do it to the level that I could do it. And I thought it was super cool that they were trying because it's a problem that they don't really see and understand. So I think they're in the right mindset and, you know, them helping the athletes, I thought was a great, great thing to do. But during that time, when I was going to talk to, I actually brought the gloves, and it was when you were fighting

on 300. We were out there, and I had a new patent that I had been working on, so we could go opposite direction. If they want to hone it, it's a separate patent from the patent that I had that goes in all of our products, the internal strapping. This was a new patent, still with internal strapping, but a more dialed in for a fight glove. And then we had those two options, and when we got there, Ollie had told me that they're releasing a new glove.

and so we have two versions now which is super cool and yeah I think it'll go great here's the conversation though what are you trying to fix eye pox okay eye pox a bit

that is not possible you don't think it's possible to make less eye pox you can make less absolutely you can make less but you'll never stop well of course you're not going to stop because the fingers are out the issue is the athlete the issue is the comfortability of the athlete

and the performance of the athlete. That is where your ambition has to lie when it comes to making the glove better. Because the gloves we're fighting now are fucking terrible. You have no... It's hard to make a fist. You have to use your entire muscle of your arm

to make a fist. And so by the time we get to the fight, this is already exhausted. Exhausted. And then the pressure in between your fingers is like something you can't replicate. Let me ask you this. Do you think it's possible to make something that's like a mitten?

Something that covers over the tips of the fingers, you would have fucking 80% less eye pokes. I do think you could do that in time. I don't think that's... Change is hard for everybody, Joe. And that's a huge change for grapplers and things like that. But so you're a grappler. So you're a grappler.

Most people are going to say, well, that's going to affect this or my certain lock or... I think they try it, but again, it's you have to test it. It would enhance it. The problem would be like rear naked chokes. Like getting the hand behind the head,

you have more thickness. Like it's regular gloves are a problem already. But is it more of a problem just to have the fingers covered with the regular gloves? I think it's the same. It might actually

even slip in better. But the thing is it's like covering the tips with like a mitt and like those old school ever last bag gloves. I just think it's a different sport now. But why? You can still clinch.

You can still do everything to do. That's what I'm talking about, Joe. You take guys to the ground. Everything's the same You can still grapple This is telling me so much Right And if you take that away from me

Yeah Right Like that is a That's a huge factor When it comes to intuitive abilities Okay like explain that to me Like what are you feeling With your fingertips

That you think would be missing Well it's not The fingertips When you're my hand Like he moves away He moves any direction Like I can make that read Now he's farther

Now he's there Right And I think if you're gonna take Touch away from us That would deter our intuitive abilities. I wonder. I wonder how much it would if you start practicing with them.

Where as a fighter, for me, it's like when I am relaxed, when I'm relaxed, and if my hand can be in this position when I'm relaxed, then I'm okay. Then there's not going to be as many eyepokes. But when I relax and it goes like this. Right. Because the loves force your hand over. Now I have to do this. You're never going to take the human reaction and instinct.

the way to protect yourself. And the instinct to protect yourself is, no. Right. That is the instinct. It's natural, it's intuitive, and it has to be that because you're trying to get your chin tucked behind your shoulders so that you don't get hit. But the uncomfortability and, like,

the strenuous effort it takes to make a fist is fucking stupid. It's stupid, and this is the difference between your gloves and the current UFC gloves. My gloves are made. Your hand. My gloves are one of those things that it's... Promote a natural hand position.

A better grip. Better fist position where I'm not... When I squeeze my fist and I have the wrap on, it doesn't pull my hand up like this. And when you see guys touch gloves, they're usually like this. Uh-huh. Not like this.

Right. And it's lining the bones up for, you know, again, they said that the last gloves were causing less knockouts. Our gloves were going to cause more knockouts because of better hand position, better grip strength on being able to have holds. Like if I'm holding someone's form.

And better protection for your hand. So less bro. and internal strapping. That is a huge thing. My goal at a certain point would have to have where you can't have hand wraps on. Like if you have a glove that's actually protecting your hand, but you have the gloves on that now it's equal 100%.

Because if you've got one person that adds more padding or less padding or double layers tape, like there's many different things that you can do. And that to me, it's like if one fighter has tape wrapping their hands and the other one has house wrap in the hands, They're rapping differently. Which one's better for breaks? Which one's better for punching?

Right. So having that, that would be really cool. And that's the difference with like our gloves. I'll show you. I've never broke my hand when he's ever taped my hands. Like his tape job is, I can't wait to show it off to the commission every single time. I'm like, look at that. Tell me you've seen a better one than that tonight.

And every time they're like, I don't think so. You got gloves? Of course you do. Of course you did. They're my favorite, by far. And ladies and gentlemen at home, if you're just listening, the differences in Trevor's gloves and everybody else's gloves. One of the big differences is that you can see, if you're looking at it on the, let's see how they're curved folks. It looks like a hand.

The regular gloves from the UFC are not. They're straight, just like this. So these gloves promote a natural punching position. Look, without even putting them on. They're already in that position. And then when you put them on, they're damn near perfect. The padding is amazing. they're fantastic they hit the bag with

they're just fucking awesome and more importantly look what they promote so my hand is totally dead relax and it promotes a closed fist position the cool part too is this this is what I was talking about so this is a he's doing the internal strapping right now

this strap is coming from over here so that's going to pull this in as you notice we got pat on the side so there's no like all the other gloves the pad right right right coming down on a single knuckle but again this strap is going to really see you in oh yeah And then this one. Oh, so these are better than the last ones you brought here.

Oh, this is fucking fantastic. I've been dialed in finding the right product. Oh, my God. You don't even need hand wraps. Well, you had told me before that when you hit the bag with his gloves, his bag gloves, you don't even wear hand wraps. I haven't used, I haven't wrapped my hands since 2015. Pfeiffer doesn't fight with hand wraps on, which is crazy.

And it can get to the point if we have the right protection. It's awesome. This is so superior to the UFC gloves. I mean, the fact that this isn't being used. by the UFC right now is fucking criminal. I hope so. Hey, and you know what?

I've been trying so hard. I stepped away from like the business part. I'm the visionary now. So I got right people that know how to make deals. So it's right. And the UFC's going to be happy. We weren't ready. Yeah.

Dude, I'm in there like, dude, you know, I don't do. That was me versus Kabim. I take full responsibility. Oh, I believe it.

That I didn't know that you could do deals all these different ways. You know, when they'd say what they wanted to do. I was like, yeah, that's not how big. It's so better. It's so better.

It's just. much better. It's like, you should use the best one. Well, this is one of the things that I love about you is that you're so fucking creative with stuff.

And you're constantly trying to refine things and make them better. Every single piece of equipment I have trained with for the last. So we see so many. So this is your training bag? 1112. Yeah, that's what I train in.

Nice. I hit pads in that. I've never wore hand wraps once. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, that's fantastic. Open your hand to go straight out. Mm-hmm.

And then the pointer knuckle. Protecting that pointer knuckle is so big. Yeah. That's it, right? Yeah. Oh, it's so nice. Yeah. Then you open, you can still grip.

Right, you get still grip. But your fingers... It's hard to chokes. And the door knocking knuckles. This is what hands a lot. Chalk the shit of people with those. I bet you do. You got to go palm to palm, right?

But still, it's just... Those are yours, Joe. Fantastic. Oh, thank you. Yeah. And I got you another pair of X factors, too. Because you got big hands. I remember I give you the 16s.

You're like, bro, Things are going to wear for me. Yeah. I got big hands for a little dude. Unusual. Yeah, we'll get it done, but, I mean, anytime you want to... I'm so happy. I'm so happy going to get it done because I pushed for it so many times.

I brought it up to Dane. I brought it up to everybody. I was like, listen, what the fuck are we doing? You guys spent a million billion dollars trying to make these new gloves. You got rid of them in three months. That's because this could sound bad. That's because they've never thought about the fighter. But they did.

They tried. They tried. They tried. They tried. They didn't fucking try. They did, dude. You know how much money? I'm not going to tell you how much money they put it.

They put it. They did. To do what? To give me the same exact fucking problem? They thought they were making a bet. They hired people. What did they do? What did they change?

They hired a company that works on football helmets. But what did they change in their glove? But they don't know. They took the ideas. At least they tried. They did. I will give them 100% credit for that. They did try.

But I remember seeing the gloves when they tried and going, these suck. These are not as good. Right away. Still uncomfortable. Still hurt my hands. I said to him right away, why don't you just get Trevor's gloves? What the fuck are we doing here? No, these are good.

These are good. Get the fuck. The best gloves exist. They're already made. There's only a few people out there that are willing to like really get creative and redesign and engineer gloves. And when someone does it to the extent that you've done it, like God. So Joe, when you think about that, that's where I think I fit in well with this because I want to involve with the company. And if we change one thing, like my first thing I want to do is help a performance.

I don't want someone to hurt their hand where all of a sudden I hurt my hand on the top of your head. And I just left-handed now. And everybody just, you know, there's no pay-per-view now. But I pay to watch these fights. And now the guy that I wanted to see fight can't continue because he hurt his hand. Right. So we fix that problem. We fix longer, better grip strength for the grapplers who are going to need to have risk control when throwing shots.

I want to help athletes perform. And as we go, let's slowly develop and test with the athletes and find out what we, because it's about the athletes. It's what works for them. And when we can get gloves on people and try something like you were talking about, that'll take time. You have to train it and go, oh, I actually like this better. And there's pros and cons. There's pros and cons of everything. Right.

So it would take time. And that's where I'm passionate about is let's find a problem. And let me think through solving it. But I need to know what that problem is. Your gear and we should send anybody to your website. Is it onyx? Yeah. Onyxports.com.

Yep. A lot of people spell it with a Y. The best gloves, the best shin pads. Thank you. You have the best equipment. It's fucking phenomenal. There it is right there. That's the website.

Onyx Sports. It's fucking fantastic stuff. I mean, it's really obvious that it's a high-level coach who's developed all this shit. I mean, everything you make is top of the food chain. Got the best tester in the world, baby. There you go, darn. I fucking break everything. I'm sure.

And I cannot break these loves. I cannot break these loves. I have to switch every, like, six months because I wear the foam out so much. So I don't ever want to hurt my... But you. got two or three sessions of training every day. Like that's, for a typical person, these gloves are going to last well over.

Corey had his shin guards for four years. I had my shin guards for like three years. Yeah. And when you think about the amount of damage that three years entails, that's pretty fucking incredible for pieces of leather and foam. Yeah. So much fucking sweat. So much fucking sweat. Everything's getting broken

down and moisturized and then drying out again. Crack. Hey, that's our bags that were up there? Dude, we got connectors for the shing and the knee pads on the outside, so all your equipment's on the outside of the bag to dry. Oh, yeah, so that's really cool, too. So just trying to rethink how things works.

That's what I love about the way you approach things. You're always, like, fixing the problems. I can't stand when we're not even working on kickboxing and someone's kicking, and it's because they're fucking gear. That was the worst thing about fixing my nose. Dude, fucking smelling people. I was like, oh, my God. You know how the gym is, especially with geese, right?

Yeah, oh, dude, you get that old, bro, like, the dudes who don't wash their geese, those guys are, That's a real problem That's a real problem And those are the ones Always give you fucking cooties too Dude Right

So nasty Yeah it's nasty Listen Justin I just want I'm so glad you're not gonna fight To the end of the year Like for whenever Just enjoy that

Because that was a Fucking masterpiece It was beautiful to be there I felt so American American I felt so It's so hard to represent

This country Because we're such a melting pot Yes And I think I have I have done it. I think I achieved that. And so I'm very, very proud of that. Dude, you did it in spades. You mean, you did it five stars. It was fucking phenomenal. It was one of the greatest events that any sporting event has ever put on. I mean, maybe the greatest sporting event in the history of the world. I said it before, this is going to be like

some miracle and ice shit. It was, man. I know. It really was. I knew I knew I had the opportunity to do something special. You did it, and then here, come down. Yeah, I wanted to see my family. It was incredible. That was so cool. Look how cool that is. Yeah, so cool. Look how cool that is. That is so amazing. That's so fucking amazing.

It was an amazing night, dude. I'm so happy I went. I'm so happy I was there to see it live. Me too. I was a real honor. I was honestly really nervous, Joe. I was like, dude, there's like, just again, being around everybody and something could happen, the drones that, you know, that they stopped.

Again, I wasn't knowing what to expect and then until after the fight, because again, we couldn't take it in. It was a beautiful thing. And Justin. I was like, fuck it. If I get taken out in the middle of the cage, how fucking legend is. I said to Trump. I go, I hope we don't die in a terrorist attack.

I said to Trump, I hope we don't die in a terrorist attack. He goes, we got to go somehow. I go, what the fuck? Everyone will remember it for the rest of an eternity? Sign me up, bud. Better the way it went. Dude, the way it went, it's way better. Way better.

Well, hey, brother, thank you for coming here. Yes, sir. Congratulations. Masterpiece. Yes. Both of you. Let's go hunting. I want to go hunting.

Fuck. Yeah. I just got a, I'm going to shoot an L. I saw on Go Hunt. On the Go Hunt website, you went Annelope Hunting. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Did you see?

A thousand-year-shot? Dude, check it out. Check it out. We fucking missed our ass off. We were in the, it was windy. These things do not stop moving. They could see us forever, and they just kept going. And we were on shoot.

We couldn't get prone. So we had to, you know, every hunt, you're like, I'm going to have a prone position. I'm going to shoot from, we can not get in a prone position. So we're on shooting sticks, trying to manipulate the sticks and take shots. Yeah. Antelope. You know, that's a prehistoric animal. So Luke misses from 140 yards.

Dude, this story was so much better for Luke without that. This thing goes to a thousand ninety three yards. Crazy. Hits it in the head, drops it. And we're just like, what the fuck, Luke? How? How do you hit that shot and miss a hundred? This is, yeah, look at this.

Wow, that's crazy. 1,000. Was he shooting for the head? No. I don't even know if he hit it. I mean, it was just a lot. It looks like a neck. Yeah.

It looks like a guy on the neck. It was, well, a thousand yards. You know how much windriff. You're just trying to hit the center of the fucking target. And these crazy prairies, too, the kind of wind drift you're dealing with? And they don't, they can see for miles. These things do not stop moving. No, they evolved to get away from cheetahs.

They used to be North American cheetahs. And so North America, this is all before the younger driest impact. So it was like when somewhere around 11,800 years ago, 65% of all North American mammals went extinct. and there was an American lion that was bigger than the African lion and then there was a cheetah. And these fuckers,

these guys evolved to get away from cheetahs so they can run like 55 miles an hour. Forever. They fucking lie. Evolution is crazy though. Evolution is wild. When you look at them, they look prehistoric.

Their eyeballs are like way out here. It's crazy how good a decoy works with them though. Oh, horses too. Guys walk right up on them on horses. Get a moose. A muckel? Mm-hmm. Just walk right behind them.

And then you can, that's how archery hunters do. Because you have to get a lot. Very tough to sneak up on them. So smart, but so dumb. Do you do a bow hunt? No. No?

Would you want to learn? You would love it. It's not that I have a bow. I have a bow. I shot an elk and did not recover it. And I told myself that I will never go archery hunting unless I have a time and effort to be 100% ready to make that shot. Right.

And so right now it's just rifle. Well, rifle is always going to be the most effective way. It's still an awesome way of mine. Coo's Whitetail in Arizona is my favorite hunt. Oh, really? You should go on that with me, one of these things. That's a fun hunt. Those are tiny little guys, the little great ghosts.

I grew up there, so my buddies, their whole life, have looked. We could go out there. We wouldn't find shit. They're fucking everywhere, but you can't find them. They call them the great ghost, and my buddies can find them. And it's such a fun hunt. Yeah, it's a great hunt. Well, Arizona is a great hunting state, too.

You have some of the best elk in the country. Yep. Yeah. Gentlemen, again, congratulations. Absolute Masterpiece Sunday night. One for history. Maybe the greatest event in the history of the sport. I mean... Got me on Joe Rogan again, baby.

Anytime. Let's do it one more time. Let's do it one more time when you do decide to wrap it up. Thank you guys. And onexports.com, get the best clubs in the world. I brought them. Thank you. All right. Bye.