The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #184 with Aljamain Sterling

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Joe sits down with professional mixed martial artist Aljamain Sterling, who currently competes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship's Featherweight division. He is the host of the "Weekly Scraps" podcast and founder of Funk Harbor Rum.www.youtube.com/@FunkMasterUFCwww.funkharborspirits.comwww.aljamainsterling.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Visit https://ketone.com/Rogan for 30% OFF, or find Ketone-IQ at Target nationwide. This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit https://BetterHelp.com/JRE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Rogan podcast, checking out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. What's with the goal to? What's going on? Give you smile. Oh, you got it top and bottom, man. What did you do?

It's amazing. I've always wanted to have money so I could get one of these when I was a kid growing up. Now, is that one of the ones that you could take out or is it? Okay, that's good. Because that's such a commitment, you know? One day you got to go to the White House Right You got diamonds and gold in your teeth

That's crazy It might be your first time, you know How does it fit? It's like a retainer Yeah, so they fit it, they mold it I got it done in Dallas actually And they just fit it mold to your teeth And then you can pop them in It's almost like wearing a retainer

Texas loves grills Yeah, they love grills We're gonna get ours You should Yeah Paul Wall says he's gonna hook us up Just go hand Yeah, I'm not sure. I just, I remember, what was the one episode with Theo?

And you asked about the headphones and he said something like, it's like sitting there with the, with the condom. And she's just looking at you or I forget exactly how the joke goes. But it was funny. It was like one of Theo Vaughn's greatest moments where he says all these things. He was like, when I feel like saying it, I just write it down. I don't know if you saw this clip But it's how I mean I'm sure I was there when it happened

But he says so many ridiculous things I can't remember Here guys Over here, I didn't see you put it on On I feel like I'm alone here It's weird huh It's like when you put a condo on and then The other person's just still looking at their phone

You're like oh this is weird And the person I mean is a woman You gotta tell everybody huh Well I just I was saying There it is Yeah That's why we said

The headphones That just came to my head It immediately Yeah Sometimes I have them off Sometimes I have them on But it's better to have them on It locks you in

Locks you in You know I feel that Did you watch the UFC This past weekend The Apex? I watched The main event

Co-main Bro, the main event Sal Kill is legit I wasn't Too sure about them But now I'm very sure. As a man who has one of the best back controls in the sport, you had to appreciate that back control.

Oh, it was amazing. He took him down, which I was kind of surprised. I was like, why is he going for the take down? Crazy. Proving a point. Proving a point. Because his stand-up is so sick, too. That guy's so complete, man.

To do that to Gamrod? That's what I was going to say. He's a sick grappler in his own right. I thought he was going to get out that one moment where he had the leg hiked up. He had the ankle. And all he had to do was swim inside. but he kept it too long, allowed him to hit the ground, and he was able to readjust and locking that figured four,

and it was over. Well, when he reached over and grabbed the far arm and used that to hang on to the back, like, that is slick. Yes. That was slick. He was fucking slick, man. And just very high level. Everything was like an elevated level.

I had a very high opinion of him before the fight, but now I'm like, oh, this dude could do it. He could do it. He knows ball. I was really surprised with that and the fact that it went so quick all his fights have been in the first round and these scrambles

these scrambles from this position now generally in this position it's so hard to keep back control like right here grabbing the arm and this adjustment bro that's really skillful as a seatbelt yeah just the way he's able to adjust

with Gamerat's trying everything but once he gets to that position it's over you're back you're back in his backpack and he's got a a lot going on, man. He's, first of all, real tall for the weight class. I think

he's over six feet tall, long, excellent reach, excellent strike. The other thing that he did that was really slick, he pretended to get up off of his back, so Gamrod explodes, and he exposes his neck, right there. Watch that, back that up just a touch.

Look at the, this is so slick. Look, he's hanging on his back, they're struggling, and he said, let me just sit up, and he'll sit up, bam, right there. That's so nasty. It's slick as fuck, man That's so slick That's such a good sneaky move

Because the guy's like Oh, now's my time You know, those moments where you feel like you can move Like he got He gives you some space Like I'm gonna go And then plop I'm anytime I'm in training

Someone has my back I always try to make sure I'm always aware of the choke Matt Sarah always says Always protect the choke first And that's the main thing I always try to focus on Protect the choke first Before you start doing anything else

That's crazy because at the end of the day, it just takes that little split second to get under the neck and that could be the fight. Yeah, it's like sometimes people just get, they get a little too urgent. You know, they get a little too,

they just want to make something happen without just being safe all the time, always be safe. And that's, in Gammarath situation right there, that was the moment. Because who knows, if he could have made it out of that position and survived all those choke attempts

and got to the next round, who knows? You know, and if he got on, on top, who knows? And Sal killed I mean, you presume he has great endurance, you presume, but we really don't know yet. We have no just the wild unknown about him.

That's what I'm just like, I don't know how good he actually is but I can tell you what, first round, he's a motherfucker. He's a motherfucker. That guy is good. It's interesting, like these guys that have the unknowns. Some guys get really like Tom Aspenol becomes heavyweight champion of the world

and it's kind of an unknown whether he can fight in the fourth and fifth round. Kind of crazy. Yeah. Right? We just know he's a blitzer. We know he's big and fast. But we really rarely see him get out of the first round.

Yeah. Kind of nuts. It's a gift and a curse. Right. That's a good way to put it. Because you get both your paychecks. You get done really, really early. But then if you get into the, you know, run into the wrong one and the fight starts to get tough, you don't know if you can actually push that envelope.

Because training is different. That is the most bullshit part of the UFC. You get both your paychecks. Fuck off. Fuck off with that. I hate it. That drives me nuts. I know the boss. We could talk to him. He's not going to listen to you. I've said this a hundred times already. It should be you get paid what you get paid. It shouldn't be first of all if if judges were perfect every time Maybe you could make an argument for that but I still don't think you should make an argument for that because I think guys fight as hard as they can to win. There's no one who's fighting harder because you think you're going to get a win bonus. You know you're fighting as hard as you're possibly get at the highest level.

And so you're not incentivizing people to fight harder. You're just, you're giving too much of their career, too much of their future, too much of their actual, like, how they're going to feed their family to the whims of people that sometimes get it wrong. 100%. I do remember one incident where I was, situation, I should say, where I was going to fight harder. And that was UFC 300 against Calvacator when Dana announced the bull.

bonuses were going to be 300,000, and I got super pumped up, and everyone always points to this. They go, you got so excited that you went there and you fought like that. I go, listen, it takes two to tango. If he wants to sit there and hold me, it's not much I could do. I can't really just fight. I thought about it's like, I'm going to just go out there and just start swinging for the fences and take him down and maybe get a crazy finish, and it didn't go that way. But I tried. I thought about it. Guys cancel each other out, too. Yeah. That's the thing, you know, people want exciting fights. Everybody wants exciting fights. Of course. course, of course. But there is a reality to skillful guys going after each other and that sometimes

they'll cancel each other out and make a boring fight. Yeah. That shit happens. It really does. There's no rhyme or reason either. I mean, who is it? Like Francis Lewis, Francis Lewis, Francis Angano and Derek Lewis. Oh my God. One of the worst fights of all time. But we all thought that was going to be just a quick fight. Someone's getting madness. Madness. Guaranteed madness. Two of the biggest knockout artists in the history of the heavyweight division. An exact opposite.

Nothing. Nothing happened. But? It was hell. These fights happened. And then the fans get on you about it. I'm like, listen, you go take a punch from that guy. That guy is going to send my consciousness to a whole different universe.

Well, you had Francis coming off the loss to Stipe, and I think he was a little rattled mentally. And then you had Derek, who realizes, like, he's looking for his one big shot, and he's not willing to wait in and get clipped. And so he's, you know, waiting to play the role, the counterstriker, and then no one does nothing. Yeah. Carlos Baza and Rosnaman. Runez, worst fight in history. Arguably. I think it might be worse, because I think that was five rounds.

We went through five rounds of that shit. It was five rounds. That was worse. Derek Lewis and Francis Ingana would have been the worst because of expectations, but it was only three rounds. Yeah. This was five rounds of what the fuck is going on. And it's not a knock on the fight. Of course not.

They're two of the greatest fly weights. Right, no. Straw weights. Straw weights. It's two of the greatest straw weights of all time. I mean, Rose Nama Yunus, when she knocked out Zhang Wei Lee with that fucking head kick, holy shit. When she starched Yawanna, hit her with that left hook and took her out. Like, dude, Rose is a beast, man.

She's a beast. One of the absolute most exciting fighters, champions of all time. in those those those those particular exchanges like some of the fights that she's had they've been amazing amazing fights but that just fights that fight sucked for whatever reason it happens just happens sometimes can't explain it but sometimes you just feel something when you're in there you're just kind of like well I'm not going to go and they're like well I'm not going to go if you're not going to go that it's just I don't know what was going on in that fight it was very strange but I also think there's a time when you've been in so many wars you know you've been even

had so many wars that your willingness to exchange is different. Your drive to attack is different. It's not there anymore. And especially people who fight in wars. And Rose has been in some wars. And that's why I fight the way I fight now so differently because those wars that I had leading up to where I'm at, I mean, I had that barn burner with all these, all the guys on the way to the title and I had to change it up. Yeah, you got to stay alive. You got to fight. smart. I'm joking. My fights are not bombarders like that. No. They're different. Your fights are

the best you have the best back control I think I've ever seen in this sport. When you get on someone's back, I'm like, oh shit, this is getting crazy. Yeah. I do want to say I appreciate, because I do hear the episodes where you guys talk about it, I'm like, yeah.

Too's your back control is nuts. The Sandhagen fight is nuts. When you know how good Sanhagen is and you just got that back and that was nighty night, it was so slick. You've done that to so many dudes too, and you could see obviously

redemption for you was the second Peeltyon fight. That was redemption. It felt so good. Cool. I remember you came in right afterwards and was like, everybody's got to shut the fuck up now. They all gotta shut the fuck up. It was a split decision. They go, shut up. Yeah, please.

Yeah, you really showed everybody in that second fight. The first fight was just nonsense. The first fight would just that kind of a move to hit someone when they're down on one knee like that? Like, what the fuck are you doing, man? That was a rough time. Crazy.

And then you, having already had a bulging disc in your neck, your neck was already fucked, it's also kind of crazy that you could compete at the level that you compete at with a fake disc in your neck. Yeah. Do you ever think about that thing? Oh, 100%. I still have, like, nerve damage in my tricep from it.

Like, if I do, like, a Pilate or just a plank, you'll see it just decide shaking it's so bad even till this day it's a lot better than what it was before but this is what people don't understand like some of these fighters us like we go through a lot just to make it and you're gonna hear the other side of it when no one told you to do it it's not even about that it's just like we're trying our best to chase something great something that's crazy in the sense of the word you're right and you put your body through hell to get there. And I just, I know there's great fans out there who appreciate that and just the other ones who are more casual and they don't really understand. But I wish they took the time out just to

train, do a week of training and understand what we put our bodies through day and at a high level against other high level guys. Listen, you need the casuals. You need everybody to buy tickets. It's all great. Yeah. But the reality of the casuals, all you haters, you are doing yourself a disservice to. You're saying ridiculous shit. You're acting like a fucking. and retard. What you really should do is do better in your own life and you wouldn't be a hater because almost all haters are losers. 100% of them. And the people they're hating on are doing way better than them. And there's legitimate criticism, but legitimate criticism can be handled respectfully. And the people that don't handle legitimate, the people that

don't dish out legitimate criticism respectfully is because they haven't been smacked. Right? Yeah. Or Or they haven't been smacked by the guy they're talking shit about. Yeah. Or they see them and then they change their tune real quick. Of course. It's such a weird thing. People are so crazy. They talk about literal, professional fighters and call them pussies.

I get sure. I got a lot of DMs. It's so delusional. One guy said I'll fold you in half like recently because I don't. Yeah, but they're just trying to fuck with your head. They don't even believe that. They're trying to get a rise out of Al Jermaine Sterling. They can get a rise out of Al Jermaine Sterling.

out of a UFC champion. You know how when they're 16 years old, jerking off, Cheetos all over their fingers? You know how exciting that must be? To have direct contact with you? Yeah. That's what I try. I try not to engage as much as I used to.

Because before I would, I think we talked about it before, I would engage and go back and forth. Don't do it. And I kind of got away from it, but the old version of me would like to just say all kinds of crazy shit, but I'm, you know, a little bit more mature now.

There's no benefit in it, And it wastes energy. That's the problem. And then it also waste your, you get distracted. You're like, what did he say back? I can't want to see what this motherfucker responded to. I'm going to get him again. I do check.

I do check. You saved a bunch of pictures of him from the Instagram. Let me see your ass in person in real life. Yeah, before he deletes it. Let me screenshot these. Yeah, there's people or people. So I get it. Yeah, people are people, man.

And I would have done the fucking same thing. If I was 15 years old and somebody gave me an Instagram account and I could talk shit to to whoever, I would talk. shit to everybody. Whoever it was. I'm trying to think if I was like that. I don't know if I was ever like that as a kid. It didn't exist when you were a kid.

The access didn't exist. If that access existed, I guarantee. If you and your friends are like, bro, Drake's talking shit with me. And you and Drake are going back and both. You're like, fuck you pussy. Of course you would do it. Everybody would do it. I would do it 100%.

I guess it's just human nature. 100%. But I think that when you, you get to the level that you're at, a literal world champion and a professional fighter of the highest caliber, that's, you do yourself a disservice. You do, like, I love Sean Strickland. He's crazy as fuck, but he gets in there with everybody all the time. He gets in there all day long, talking shit with people. He gets in there, but it's somehow another doesn't distract him. I wouldn't give him the same advice. Something's fucked up about his brain that, like, for him

To be in that kind of conflict all day, it doesn't seem to bother him at all. I think it feels them. Like, want to keep going more, like driving. Bro, Gagins plays a recording of all the shit that all of his haters have said to him

while he runs. I wouldn't do that, but... But you know what I'm saying? Like, there's people that are wired different and they think Sean is very, very much wired different. And for whatever reason, you know?

Yeah. Sometimes I always... But I like it. I like, he should have a segment, like how Ray Longo has like the Ray Longo minute. He should have like a Strickland minute. Well, I was telling him, you know, we were talking when he was out here. He went to Waysdwell as well to get his shoulder work done after the Hamza victory. And I was saying you 100% could do a podcast.

It would be hilarious. It would be great. You could have guests on. You could do whatever the fuck you want. Like, you have a real future outside the sport. Like once, and he's also very smart with his money. As crazy as that dude is, he saved a ton of money. He gives great investment advice on Twitter.

like he gives investment advice you're like wait who the fuck is this this is the same guy he's telling you how to invest your money you know S&P and all this shit and like oh what he's not as crazy as he comes off he's a lot smarter than people give him credit for it he uses that as like it tricks you

and it tricks you into thinking that he's like a silly person yeah you know I mean but he'll say whatever comes to mine yeah that's him but the motherfucker can fight yeah and I respect that day that's the thing that dude can fight like he can fight and he can fight And he fights in a weird way. Like his very weird style. Like nobody has that style.

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Oh, shit. Al Jermaine brings gifts. Let's go. We bring gifts. These are fighter cigars, too. Fighter cigars? Yeah, I'm like part of that So it's different fighter lines

I know you got a foundation If I could ever open this I think it's all cold now I need to use my fighting muscles Fuck it out You need some help I might

You might You get the beer claws It's weird I broke it I broke that too What the fuck I'll use an arrowhead It's supposed to just pull open

Should I open it this morning That's weird Did something happen to it? Got cold? I got a knife in here somewhere. Where's some big ass knives that used to be here, Jamie? Oh, you had to take them out.

Why? Oh, when the Vice President was here? Lucky, I always carry one. We can't get these open, Al Jermaine. Bro, this is like chromatically sealed. No, here we go. There we got it. So we got different ones.

You got a Jew Dober in there. You got a Funkmaster. Which one's this? I think that's the Funkmaster. So I don't know if you like light or dark. I like them all. This is you? We gotta smoke yours.

Triumph cigars. So who's making these? Where are they making them out of? So he gets them from different places. He gets some clipper on the back of that too. Sick. He gets them from different places? Yeah, like Cuba, Uruguay, Honduras.

Cuba? Really? I believe it's Cuba. Because Cuban cigars are... Banned or... No, no, no. They're not really banned. Pop the top.

Do you know how to smoke cigars, son? What are you doing? What are you doing? I don't know what... Give that to me. Oh, shit. That's the clipper. Well, this is high, this is a high-level shit right here.

Calibri. Wow. A lot of fake Cuban cigars. You got one. I got one. And then foot for the top. There you go. So they got like Maduro's and different kinds.

I'm like new into cigars. And these are the funk master. That might be dead. Here, I'm sorry. This one's good. This one's good. Jamie, you smoke cigars? No.

Damn. Jamie's strictly blunt. But now he's got to stop because he doesn't want to be a felon. He's got to cross state lines. He's got to go to Oklahoma and get high. Do you really? Do you actually? Once a day?

Yeah, he takes a flight. Southwest of Oklahoma. Get some bong rips and hops back on a plane. This is good. This is very good. So the feedback on them has been great. They're good quality cigars. They make it from people that make them,

and they get them to make our own different lines of them. Pretty cool. But I like them. Well, we used to perform in Miami. There was a place that you could go. We could watch them hand-roll cigars, and they'd sell these cigars, like hand-rolled. It was pretty dope.

You watched these ladies, like roll everything out, and they get that long knife, and they slice it up. You rolled yourself? No, no, no, no. They told us how to roll down in Miami. I don't want to ruin it. I don't want to do brain surgery on myself either. It's fun.

Get an expert. Somebody's got to be good at this. You got a rum line too, right? Is that it? Funk Harbor on your neck? Funk Harbor, baby. Look at you. I got money now, Joe.

You know that song? Bitch, I got money now. I was supposed to bring my sharp because I don't know if you wanted it, like, signed or whatever, but... Sure. But we won multiple medals. and things like that. Multiple medals. There's medals for...

Like, competitions, yeah. For rums? Yeah, we got two double goals for this. We got two double goals for the silver. Jamie, can you get us some ice cubes and some glasses? Let's fucking party, Al Jermaine. Then we're going to go to the mothership. I love that name, by the way.

Thank you. Yeah, we were trying to figure out what to call it. We had a bunch of different... You know, Mitzie Shore, that lady, who ran the comedy store. Yeah. The painting up there, that's her. She was the owner and founder of the comedy store.

She used to say about the comedians, the inmates are running the asylum. So we were going to call it the asylum, but I thought that sounds corny. A little corny. There's something about it. It's like a little like, oh, we're crazy. You know, and then I thought, well, what is this? One of the things that Ron White, he was the first. Ron White was the first guy to move here.

And, you know, I knew Ron real well from L.A. And Ron said, you know, I love it. It's in the middle of the country. You could fly out. What's the matter? You want one, Jamie? He's got work to do it. He won't get hammered with us.

He goes, it's in the middle of the country. He could fly out. It's only like three hours in New York, three hours to L.A. It's perfect. And I was like, well, that would be like the mothership. And then you could fly out. All your ships could fly to different parts of the country. But that would be your base.

The mother ship would be the base. Oh, that's perfect. That's pretty cool. Plus, obviously, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with aliens. That's what I thought it was. Of course. Yeah, I mean, I'm obsessed for whatever reason.

Which one? Darker Light. What's the difference? So this one's our limited edition. It's got the number one on it. We're going to be coming out with some different ones. We're actually going through a rebrand right now. This one's aged two to five years. But they're all Jamaican origin.

This one's aged under the tropical sun. Unaged is a silver. Well, bust out that age under the tropical sunshed. And this one, we use ex-burbon cast. So it's really nice if you like bourbon. Oh, okay. It's a little bit, it's like, I don't say sweet, but it's not as harsh when you drink it.

Are you a rum guy? Is that your thing? Is that why you started a rump company? Yes. You've always been a rum guy? My parents are from Jamaica. My parents are from Italy, but I hate Grappa. That shit's nasty. Grappa's not. That's fucking nasty.

That stuff's nasty. I'm going to take the big one. All right. Cheers, sir. What do you guys say? Salute. Salute. I thought you guys said something else in Italy.

I don't know. Do they? I just got back. I was just there last week. Yeah. Two weeks ago? Yeah, two weeks ago. It's awesome.

I love it there. We still haven't gone. We want to go so bad. Oh, bro. If you want to eat, that's the place. Pasta. I just hear everybody talking about it. I would love to do that.

I gained three pounds. I ate nothing but carbs. I ate so much food. I ate, too. I was hurting every night. I was like, I was like, I'm going to ignore my diet completely. I worked out every day, but I was like, I'm going to ignore my diet completely and just eat for pleasure.

But it's not as bad, though. It's not as bad for you. The food is not as bad. But wait, calories are calories, though. It's just the volume. I'm a glutton. I ate two pizzas. I ate linguine with clams.

I had barata and tomatoes. And I also had, what else do I have? Something. Oh, a bunch of pieces of bread. ate so much in one setting that I got home that night when we sat back and I was like I can't move I've eaten myself to a place where I'm like you ever see one of those lions that eats too much they just line that's how I felt just me that those were those were my 135 days as soon as the fight's over I'm going in right I remember one time I ran into you at the apex and I was like what do you

weigh. And you said 176. I was like, that's crazy. Yeah. You got to lose 40 pounds. That's crazy. The fascinated part is when I went up to 45, I got down and I was lighter in my natural walking around weight. You still eating the same way I always did. And I was walking around about 168, sometimes 66 to about 172. And I'm like, this doesn't even make any sense how much lighter I am from 135. And it's just less anxiety about making the weight. That too. Your body didn't hold onto it as much. Yeah, so the body kind of just recognizes what's happening.

Like, oh, this is a nicer weight cut. Yeah, you're healthy now. Yeah. Even though it's still a weight cut. I was going to say, but I just checked my weight last week when I got, well, actually, two days ago when I got back from a mile. Let me guess. You're at least 170. I'm heavier than that. 175?

North. 80? 180? I was 78. That's when I checked. And I didn't look fat. I was like, this is crazy. It's happening.

It's happening all over again. There's people that don't understand it. Like I have to explain to my normie friends where they're like, how does he lose all that weight? He doesn't have anything to lose. I'm like, well, you're sucking your muscles dry. That's what's crazy. And your organs.

That's what's really dark. Oh, it's dark, dude. It's dark. It's the worst part about fighting. I still think same day wanes. Well, same day, Wayans would change a lot, but also guys would get really hurt because people are still going to lose the weight.

They're still going to do it. But I think that's going to be like a phase. Like people are going to realize how stupid this is. They go, oh, I actually feel better just competing at my weight. Perhaps. But I think you would have to have multiple weight classes added. Many weight classes added. There's too many gaps that are too ridiculous.

The 15-pound gap would be the most challenging from 55 to 70. What about 85 to 20-0-5? That's nuts. 85 to 20-0-5 is crazy. 20 pounds is crazy. I always thought there should be it in-between for that one. 100%. There should be every 10 pounds.

Every 10 pounds is smart. You know, go 125, 35, 45, 55, 65, 60. Blow up the ones that are, you know, like when you get to 70, make 70, 75. You know, 85 is already there. Make a 95. Make a 205. And then it gets weird with heavyweight. I think you might want to have like a bridger weight, like a 220, 225, and then giant

fellas. And then after that, it should be as big as the heavy weight. the fucking you want to be. Because that's the weird thing. It's like... Heavyweight's limited. I remember Tim Sylvia when Tim Sylvia was saucy. There was a time when Tim Sylvia was big.

He was a big fella. And he was cutting weight to make 265 hardcore. He was barely making it. He was so big back then, man. He's a big man. He's gigantic. Yeah. And that was when he was fucking sick.

And he, I remember watching him struggle to make the 265. I'm like, that's crazy. Why are you making the heavy weights? cut weight. That doesn't make any sense. It takes away from what heavyweight actually means. The biggest, badass motherfucker alive. Yeah. You know, when Mike Tyson was fucking everybody out, people weighed 220.

I want to say small, let me not say small. For heavyweight? For heavyweight, he was small. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't matter. Kane, when Kane was fucking everybody up, he was 240. He was light, too. Yeah. Fadour. Same thing. He was never real big. Fadour was fairly small compared to a lot of other heavy weights. But then you got a guy like

a Rosebellis dispense? Oh, that guy's crazy. He's huge. Seven feet tall. He's gigantic. Huge. That range is nuts. He's like the modern day Neanderthal.

Like, he's an Amazonian. He's a giant, a literal giant. He's one of those guys where when I saw that fight that MVP did with him and Junior Dos Santos, I said, please don't do that fight. That fight's not right. That's one of those fights really, that fight's not right. Yeah. This is just too much of a changing of the guard. Yeah.

is one guy who is coming off of karate combat, first of all. One thing if Junior was a wrestler, if Junior was a sick wrestler, and, you know, oh, you know, maybe he's going to take him down, ground and pound. This is kind of even though he's older, he's been knocked out a bunch of times, he's still very dangerous. But, you know, Junior had seen his best days back when he knocked out Kane, which was like, what year was that? Ooh, 2016, 2015?

Was it even? I got signed at 2014. I don't, I remember Kane, not Kane. So it was the big, it was the big Fox card. It was the first card on Fox. Because I remember they made Kane fight with a blown out knee. Or they encouraged him to fight with a blown out knee. Kane's knee was fucked before that fight.

And Jr. caught him with that perfect right hand. 2013, okay. That's his debut? Right. No, that's that fight. That's the fight where he knocked out Kane Velasquez. Oh, that's the second one. What's the one where he beat Kane?

It was right before that. No, right before that. Oh, so he got signed before I did. Yeah, the Fox one. 2011. Okay, so 15 years of wars. Yeah. 15 years of the steep amyotric fight, which was horrible to watch, right?

That was a brutal, brutal fight. And then you have the second cane fight, which was horrible to watch. And then I think there was a third cane fight too, correct? JDS? Yes. Yeah, which was also horrible to watch. Two tough fights back to back. Bro, if you don't take Kane out in that first round, that storm never ends.

Yeah. Never ends. You're like, we're going to ride this storm out. No. There was no rhyme. Prime Kane was a motherfucker, dude. I, man, when, I've always been conflicted with him in D.C. Because it kind of reminded me of Marab and I, and I always said, like, if D.C. stayed at heavyweight, he could have argued.

potentially have been the greatest heavyweight of all time. But I do know DC always says in the training room, Kane was the man. He was the guy. Yeah, he told me always, Kane beat his ass. D.C. should have been a middleweight. How about that? I don't know.

That guy's making middleweight. Disciplined D.C. Him and his chicken. If D.C. went to D.C. went to D.G.A. for three years. He's not going to forget. Yeah. Forget three years. If he, if D.C. made middle weight and he could have made middle weight.

A lot of guys who are way leaner than him have made that weight. So I saw him at my UFC debut, UC 170, at Mandalay Bay in the back room, cutting weight, doing the workouts. And he looked like he was dying just to make 205. True. So I don't know how he would have done it. Well, he would have had to change his diet. No more papas. Yeah, no more nothing, no more garbage.

I love DC. I love DC too. He's my favorite person to do commentary with by far. He's the best. He's fun. We have such a good time. We have such a good time. He's such a fun dude.

Like genuinely happy, fun dude. Look at him. That's 205 DC. So 205 DC though. You're telling me that like Alex Pereira, if he was built like that, couldn't lose 20 pounds? Of course he could. Yeah. I don't know.

Because he's not, look, if you see the guys that fight at 85, like Joe Piper, Joe Piper is a giant. Dreykis, Duplice is a fucking giant. He's big. He's gigantic. He looks like a heavyweight. And he makes 85. What does that mean?

He's sucking it in. He could have made middleweight. He could have made middleweight. If he had, like, the real, if he just had the drive and did it as a lifestyle change and, like, did it over the course of. of like a year and like really leaned himself out, got on like a ketogenic diet, leaned himself out. But then how often would he be able to fight? Depends on how much he actually gets his body weight down to.

That's the thing. Like, DC's only like 511, 510? How tall is he? I'm going to give him 511. Maybe I like him. Maybe I love them. Might be 511. Otherwise I say 58.

But there's guys with his body that could have, but it's not like a thing where you can make the weight by just dehydrating yourself. No, he's too big. But if he had, with his frame, if he had slowly but surely leaned himself out and did it healthy, smart over like the course of a year, you'd have to take some time off

and really just dedicate himself to just getting lean. His gas tank could be better? Who's going to fuck with that guy at middleweight? Do you remember what he was doing at Dan Henderson? Do you remember that fight? He flipped him like a burger. Bro, he threw him around like a ragdoll and Dan Henderson's a monster.

He's a monster That guy's a beast He's such a tank And DC just Raag dolled him Just rag dolled him That was 2 or 5 right Henderson came up

Henderson came up Yeah you know Because when I would cut down And I wasn't always This big at 35 But when I would cut down to 35 I would have to do it in stages So I couldn't do a three month

turnaround Like I did for The one fight How much time do you need? I needed Four months is ideal That's crazy It's ideal.

It's so long. Because I could slowly get down and then I could start tripping away. Because I'm at my natural state. I'm fat and happy. And it's not even fat. I'm just having my normal walking weight. And then I get down from 70 whatever to 70. Then I get the next week or the week following.

Down to 65. After that, I get down to 60. And that's like the optimal weight I want to be at. And then I get to 55. And this is like where I'm going to be when I'm stepping into the octagon. So to do that over the periods of time, like you could do it really quick. because I have the wrestlers mentality. I can do it fast, but it doesn't mean everything is going to be where it should be.

And I also felt my cardio in rounds four and five, in comparison to doing rounds four and five in the training room, severely different. My gas tank, you would think I was Maraub, right? And just for comparison's sake, right? And then I'll go into the fights in rounds four or five. I'm like, I got to serve some energy because I'm slowing down. I can feel it, but I'm trying not to show it. Is there a difference between when you were allowed to use the IV

and when they took the IVs away? I used IV once. Only once. And I was in like 2015. I thought it was stupid. It took forever to get it. I'm like, I could have been eating right now and I'm the same weight that I was when I just ate.

I'm like, I'd much rather just stuff my face. I think the idea is that it hydrates you more efficiently because instead of having to go through your stomach, it goes right into your veins and then it hydrates your muscles more efficiently. I didn't really feel like a performance difference, if I'm being honest. Interesting. But I'm different. Some people call me an anomaly and they say you can't do what I do.

I drink in training camp and people think I'm crazy. Really? Yeah. I drink the night before the fight. What? Yeah. Come on. I have one glass. Sometimes two. Really? Three days like we're getting crazy. The night before the fight after you've cut weight? Yeah. Why do you do that? I'm not John Jones. That guy's built. I'm built different, but he's built different than me. Well, I think John is just so fucking talented and so fucking smart that he's.

he was able to get by and dominate at a world championship level by putting himself at a deficit like that. Whereas if John, you say that, but John's a different person. Like, he wouldn't be the same guy. He's wild. There's something about John that's one of the reasons why he's so good is that he's wild. He's intelligent and wild at the same time. And that's why you can't compare. It's like whatever makes you happy.

When people, I remember Kyle Dake said something like he'll eat ice cream, not right before a match, but in his training, he's like, because it makes him happy. I want to have a drink because throughout the training camp, I'm already going through this hard grind. After sparring, and I feel like I hit a threshold where my conditioning is at a place where I want it to be, it's like a checkpoint.

I'm like, okay, this is my checkpoint, I hit it. Have you ever worn an aura ring or a whoop strap or any of those things? Yeah, that thing's stupid. They lie to you. That thing's attacking me every day. Because what it's saying is that the alcohol is affecting your sleep.

Stop attacking me I took that shit off and threw it in the corner somewhere Fuck you with your facts Facts and data I remember I brought out Adrian Yannis I brought him out twice

The first time though It was for the Piotrion Rematch And he stays at my house For about a week We spar I think it was a Thursday I'd take him to Johnny McGorries

And I bring it to my guy Rishi What's Johnny McGorries It's a pub Oh okay on Long Island in Massapico, they got two now. But I bring him over there. And the guy I talked to over there who I deal with Rishi, he's the man. He's good friends with Wyman and Valante from the college days back at Hostra.

And he's a big M.M.A fan. So I love that. So instantly we kicked it off when I met him the first time. So I bring him over there. And it's after this bar. I'm like, yeah, we're going to get some food. We go there. And then he sees me and I order a drink.

And I was like, yeah, get one for him too. He was like, yeah, bro, what are you? What are you doing? I was like, no, no, this is normal. Trust me. He's like, he looks at me, he's just like dumbfounded. He's like, you drink in training camp? Like, it was the biggest, like, taboo thing on earth.

I'm like, yeah, dude, like, we just had some good rounds today. This is my reward. You deserve one, too. Like, you're in shape, I'm in shape. Let's have one or two. And I always get my Thai chili wings over there. And so whenever I go in Long Island, I'm finishing up a camp on the East Coast, I'm fighting home on the East Coast.

Rishi always hit me. He goes, we're going to do the ritual. Get the Thai chili wings. You get my IPAs. And yeah. But like I said, everyone's different. Whatever makes you feel comfortable. If you're going to do it, you can't, like, for me, like having a drink the night before the fight and people go, like, you're not worried it's going to affect your performance.

And I go, if I lose because of this one drink, I was supposed to win. Point blank, period. Okay. But let me push back on that. Imagine you're fighting a guy who. you and him are like that. Neck and neck. Neck and neck.

Moser? Neckland. Yeah, right? Neck and neck. And the difference is whether or not you got that extra REM sleep the night before, where you could push when you lay off, when you lay back on the gas, when you really maybe could like, if you were a little bit more rested, you could just one extra move, one extra transition, one extra guard pass, one extra attempt at a submission, one extra thing that gets you the round.

You know what I'm saying? I take my naps before the fight. I take my naps before the fight. Recharge that battery. Well, listen, Ilya Taboria used to drink wine at the weigh-ins. He was weighing in while he was cutting weight. He was drinking wine. Yeah.

Yeah, there's no perfect formula. I mean, also, there's something to be said for doing what makes you happy. Always. I think enthusiasm is a very important thing. Enthusiasm and joy is a very important thing. It's underrated. Yeah. So my friend Dennis Bazukia, he just fought in the Albania card.

Bad stoppage by the ref. And I like Jason Herzog, but bad stoppage. He said he tapped. He didn't tap. But I remember his second contender fight, he's cutting weight, and Marabas having a party at his house in Vegas. That tap, that was a weird one. That tap was weird.

He went from locking his hands to finding his leg and pushing off the leg and he ruled it as a tap. I just don't understand that tap. I go, Jason, I've trained with Jason. And I'm not attacking him because I don't want people thinking, I don't like to attack people

unless they really deserve it. But I go, if you're not sure, because he said he wasn't sure. He said it looked like a tap. So I go, if you think it looked like it and you weren't sure, why not just wait? Because if it was, he would do it again. Yes.

But his immediate action after pushing off the leg was to grab between his leg where you kind of lock your hand from the head and arm. I have the hardest time ever finishing Dennis, and I'm a pretty good black belt in jujitsu, and that's a good position for me. And I struggle.

I could count on my hands how many times I've probably finished him in that position. It's also, it's the classic defense. You grab the leg, and that's the best way to prevent the guy from putting all the pressure on the neck, the head and arm. Do you ever go to, do you know what the impaler is? Any bravo calls the impaler?

To get out of that position, you slide the knee to the sternum, and you finish with the knee on the sternum. For the bottom guy. For the top guy. So when the guy's defending, you go knee to sternum, it's fucking brutal, man. It's brutal. You're being attacked on two different fronts. Uh-huh. You're being crushed, your sternum's being crushed, and this defense does not work as good anymore.

It still gives you a little bit, the grabbing the leg and looping over like that gives you a little bit, but there's something about that crushing on the store. sternum and along with the squeeze of the head and arm choke. Yeah. It's nasty. The difference with that, I would imagine you, at least when I've tried it, I try to get it before they get on their side. Because once they're perpendicular with the ground, it's a little bit hard to get the exact course pressure point of what you want.

And I go, I try this literally the very next day and I go, there's no way you could submit somebody with your ass in the air. You could be squeezing as hard as you want. But if your ass is in the air and this guy is on the side, it's going to be really difficult to make somebody tap in that position. Very hard. Depending upon your squeeze ability, right? That too. Did you see Amosov when Amosov finished that dude?

He did that thing. He's a nasty grappler. Bro. And it's crazy because he lost to Jason Jackson. And I'm not saying that as a slight. But it's just like, how good is Jason Jackson? Jason Jackson's real fucking good. And that's my Jamaican brother.

He's not signed here. Real good. He needs to be signed to the UFC 100. 100%. That guy could crack. And he took him out, man. He took him out. He didn't just beat him.

Yeah. He took Amasov out. Cross-promote? Well, that's not going to happen. I know it's not going to happen. I wish Santa Claus was real. But I go, like, why don't we just find out who's, make it like boxing, you know, where we can find out who's actually. So look at this, how he finishes.

DC and I were actually talking about this because he looked, he goes knee to the belly. See how he does that? Across. Now, if you're grabbing the leg, so if he was grabbing his leg, you would go knee across the chest and you put it right down on the sternum. But he did that to make sure he was flattened out To make sure that he couldn't go to the side But this dude is so good Wicked

Jules just look at it's like I can't do anything about that Of course he can fucking Of course he could break dance Bro breakdancing is a great base for jujitsu We had a bunch of guys Richie Martinez and Gio Martinez These guys that came into 10th planet

Way back in the early 2000s And we were all like Oh shit break dancing Like we never even thought Gymnastics everybody knew Like a guy who could do gymnastics, a guy who was like really good at tumbling, that kind of explosive ability and balance and control and body strength totally translate to jiu-jitsu. But we didn't even think about it. Like breakdancing is kind of like a gymnastics.

You know, these dudes are doing weird shit where they're on one arm with their legs lotus position above their head and they're hopping around on one arm. That's crazy. It is. Because I try to do it. I'm like, yeah, I can't do that. Eddie started doing breakdancing practice as a part of like strength and conditioning training for jujitsu. He started trying breakdancing move. Eddie's so open-minded.

He's always willing to like try something out. Like thing about Eddie's classes too, if somebody finishes somebody with something, Eddie will stop the class. What did you do? And it's like, oh, I do this and I grab my foot here. And he's like, okay, everybody look at this. Come over, come over. Come over. And he'll bring everybody over.

He'll show it to us. Show us how you set it up. And they'll show them how he set it up. And they go, who thinks they can get out of this? Who thinks they got a move to get out of this? And then they would all practice different ways to get out of this. And they go, well, what if a guy does this? What if a guy does that?

And they break it down. Like, he is very, very, like, open to new moves, you know? It makes his classes very interesting in that regard. You guys still train? I don't. I haven't trained in a while. I was training with Gabe Tuttle out here for a little bit. But I got one knee, man, that just keeps fucking up.

and I do too many, I like to do too many things to want to go through another surgery or to deal with something. I just don't want to, it's like everybody I know that gets to my age that still trains,

gets a disc replacement, gets another surgery, gets another surgery. And then when you start getting like back surgeries or like Matt Sarah, I just got a knee replacement recently, you start getting to that range

and it's like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, this shit's forever. Yeah. Like you've got to walk around. You got to, play with your kids. You've got to be able to go hiking. You've got to be able to do things. And if you break your body down, especially through grappling, I still hit the bag. I still

train kickboxing. I still do a lot of working out. I work out constantly. But every time I just start doing jiu-jitsu again, my knee starts throbbing. Yeah, that's kind of similar to Al. I quinta. Yeah. sucks. I always go like, I wonder how much more he had in a tank. Bro, he gave Kabib a hell of a fight on no notice. Yeah. No notice.

And the Kabee fans don't give him any credit for it. They go, he was playing with him. I go, really? Tell me one fighter who goes out there and tells you that they're just going to play with their opponent. Primetime Al was a beast. Yeah. He was a beast. And he was tough as shit and game, you know.

Isn't he selling real estate now? Shout out to Al Iaquinta. Yeah, he's doing really well, man. We were working together for a little bit, but then it got to the point where I was like, dude, I just don't have the time. I got to make a decision, and that's when I started doing the rum company and everything.

You see how fast time gets absorbed with things. Oh, yeah, with everything. Yeah. I wish I had multiple lives so I could do multiple different things, multiple different lives. It might be in another dimension. Maybe.

I would love to. But in this dimension, I have too many interests. I almost wish I didn't have as many things that I love to do. I could whittle them down to a few. Yeah. You know? I still want to... I want to learn how you do your spinning back kick.

I throw mine, but I know you do yours a little bit of a different way. I remember the video you did with the GSP showing them how you do yours. But I like to spin. I like to spin to win. Listen, if it lands, the amount of torque that you get on a spin, it's crazy. Come on. It's not good. What do you do different than the way I do it?

I don't know. I know you're supposed to step, turn to heel, look over the shoulder. You can jump as well. You don't have to step. The whole thing is just getting it out in a straight line. And the problem with most people that didn't train, like, in a classic Taekwondo School, is that it's a circle. Circle can land.

It can be really powerful if it lands. It's not going to be as powerful as the way I do it. The way I do it is a turn. And then I always say spinning back kick when I do commentary because everybody understands that. Yeah. But it's a turning sidekick is the way we talked about it in Daek window. It's a turning sidekick. You're like fold the damn back.

Yeah. I'm getting maximum amount of energy, maximum efficiency. It's the difference between throwing a punch like this. You can knock somebody out if you throw a punch like this, like a crazy arm punch. And you could hurt them and knock them out. 100% of the time. And you could do that once and say that's the way to throw a punch. Or you could learn how to throw a punch Tommy Hearns style.

Were you fucking turning your body into it? And you got all that torque and bang! It catches you on the end in a straight line. And Tommy would just starch people with that. Or Deonté Wilder, right? Straight, straight down the pipe. That's the difference between a turning sidekick and when people spin in a circle. So when you spin in a circle, of course it's going to have power.

You have giant legs. Your legs carry your body around. all day long. You're pushing off the other leg. You're spinning with all your torso. Yeah, it's going to have power. But it's not going to have as much power as the way I do it. The way I throw it, when it lands, it's everything's going in a straight line and I'm pushing

off my back leg and I'm getting all my abs into it and my hips into it. And it's just straight. And I know that if I hit you with that, you're going nowhere. You're going down. You're going to the hospital. Like, you're not going to make it, man. I saw you hit the bag. I was like, holy shit, that's a fucking kick and a half right there.

There's only one video of me online fighting. It's from when I was 19. I was at the U.S. Cup in Connecticut. And I hit this dude with a spinning back kick and sent him through the air, send him flying through the air. And I knew the moment I hit him, I'm like, this fight's over. I turned around and just walked off casually. Because I would like to do that, like, fuck with people's heads.

But I knew that one move has too much power for your body to absorb. There's no way you can take. take it. It's just too much. It's like getting hit by a car. That's nasty, man. It's a nasty kick. Like when John landed on Stepe. Yeah. It just caved his body in. Like, Stepe is one of the toughest human beings that's ever walked the face of the earth. But he takes that to the body. Like, that's, you're not going nowhere. You're not going to nowhere. And John's so smart. Like, John practiced that specific technique because he was going up to heavyweight. He was like, I need something. Because I can't knock guys out with one punch at heavyweight.

I can maybe kick them with, but what's the most powerful kick? And he realized, is the spinning back kick? So he just drilled it. So three days a week, that's all he would do is just drill the spinning back kick. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You've probably heard about BetterHelp before, but maybe you haven't heard from those who have actually used BetterHelp. That feedback can tell you everything you need to know.

Go to BetterHelp.com slash reviews and check out the feedback from hundreds of people saying, much they love this service. It's easy to see why. To get started, all you have to do is answer a few questions. You'll get matched up with a therapist based on your needs. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time. See the reviews, see what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com slash J-R-E. That's BetterH-E-L-P-com slash J-R-E. Yeah, and one thing about John, man, he's such a, like, his IQ has always been through the roof. His fighting IQ's crazy. He understands fighting, and I think that's what sets him apart from everybody else.

He understands himself. Like, if you look at him, he could go, I'm not probably going to knock anybody out a heavyweight with the way I punched, so. Right. Develop something else, and it worked. And that's just reality. That's just the reality of his frame. I mean, you know as well as anybody. It's weird how some people can just punch.

From the moment they get into the gym, the first time they're hitting the pads, like, what the fuck? It's a natural gift. Punching power is a weird natural gift. And either you have it or you don't. And if you don't have it, you can only develop it so much. I'm still trying to figure out if I have it. It's physics, man. A lot of it is like the size of your hands.

And my arms aren't. They're long. Yeah. So someone like a Toporia has like he's not as long as he's a, he's a, he's a, To Pori? Big ass fists. But I always like imitate the Toporia and the Connor McGrega. A little toporia, he's a bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bop.

It's fucking shit. Well, Connor's another example, like big fists man. Yeah. Look at that dude's fist. They're giant. That's a big thing. Yeah, I got a little these hands. You gotta do what you gotta do?

These hands are meant for grabbing things. Yeah, well they're really good at that. But that's the beautiful thing about M.A. As opposed to boxing. Like there's a whole bunch of different. ways to finish a fight. Yeah. What did you think about the fight with Yusuf

before the fight happened? Like, in terms of like a... I used to text you, like, asking, like, your opinion, like, what do you think, you know? So I'm curious to know what your thoughts were before the fight, obviously, hindsight. Because I know what I thought going into the fight. What did you think?

Going into the fight. I thought it was going to probably be one of the hardest fights, for sure. We've trained together multiple times. Back in 2017, We've trained together a couple times within the last two years. And I always knew he moved well in the feet, lateral footwork, great calf cakes. And I said to myself, if I get chopped down with a couple of these calf kicks early in the fight,

it's going to be a rough night, especially if I can't move and do what I do, which is I'm also good at lateral footwork. And he has those nasty knees up the middle that are very quick to end the fight or put you on skates and can get you out of there, right? And he did submit me that one time. so I think that really gave him a lot of confidence coming into it. So those were my thoughts. I was like, for me to win this, I got to stay on the outside and put pressure on him when I could put pressure on him, take away his calf cakes when I can by putting him on the back foot,

making a little bit more difficult to land that calf cake with authority, right? So that was my two cents on that. I knew if I could take him down first, it should go my way. Well, it worked. Yeah. It was a little easier than I, thought it would have been but um

I think you're a different beast yeah the geese was tight I was like oh I ain't playing for this I didn't plan for this one yeah that was tight yeah but you got out of it and I think you're a different beast at 45 you know I think you just have more resilience at 45

you're more durable at 45 more energy too yeah that's where it comes from right it's again I wish we could eliminate weight cutting completely from fighting and I've had conversations with the UFC about doing it, but there's no real roadmap that makes sense. I think once guys get it ingrained in their head that they're going to cut weight, they're just always going to cut weight.

They're going to, even if there is weight classes, they're just going to fight dehydrated. They're going to figure out a way to be bigger. I mean, we did it for wrestling and we competed two hours later, sometimes an hour. But you're not getting punched and kicked in the head. That's the difference. That's why I feel if they did same day wins, kind of like what you do for, for an amateur, you can get as big as you can get, which is going to be very little, maybe five pounds.

So I go, same day weigh-ins, you give them four hours, so this way they can eat and have a nice meal, digest, and then they can still warm up and have enough time to prepare for the fight. I think for the fighter's own safety, you almost have to protect them from that, and that's why they have the weighing the day before, for their own safety,

because there's guys that are just going to be stupid, and the fights are going to suffer. They're not going to be as good, because you're going to be more depleted. I just think there's going to be people that understand you can't cut 20 pounds the day of the fight and go and compete I think that's going to be the end

like the end all be all like you're going to come to the realization like hey they'll just lose and then it'll weed out the people that are doing that and then they'll go okay so that didn't work right I have to go up in a weight class and this makes more sense for me wouldn't it be better if we look we have random drug tests right they just show How many times you've been randomly drug tested? What you saw it, probably a lot.

I know they have it on the website. You could check how many times people have been tested and whatnot. So it was just random. Now, imagine if they did random weigh-ins. That would be cool. Yeah, but then the problem would be what happens the day of the fight? You know, like, what if the guy doesn't make weight? You're back in square one.

Yeah, what if you have a giant pay-per-view or a giant numbered card? Is that dead? Oh, I'm about to say. You have a giant numbered card. and the guy doesn't cut weight or doesn't make weight. What do you do? Do you still have the fight? I mean, we have the fight now.

Yeah. But, I mean, what changes? It would be different if you only had to cut a few pounds, though. Like if it's, so if you did it that way, random weigh-ins and then weigh-in day of the fight, even if a guy was heavy, like you weighed in, you know, 137 or whatever, you're like, well, you've got to lose two pounds. Anybody can lose two pounds the day of, and it's not that big a deal. Yeah.

If you're not cutting weight already. Yeah. If you're not cutting weight already and you're fully hydrated and you weigh in the scale at 137, 135 is easy. Or just penalize them, the same way we penalize them now. Yeah, guys are just going to take the penalty and fight bigger. But it's like you're ready. Like for me, if we did same day weighings, I would have to fight at 155 pounds. There's no way.

Possibly even 170 because that's the weight class. 165 would be the sweet spot where it's like, this is nice. I don't have to cut. I'm probably going to fight guys more than less. likely my size and I'm going to feel good. I'm going to have the energy to compete. And I'm not dehydrated myself severely or 155 where I could diet a little bit. I can still get down. I hold myself for a meal, step on the scale. I can have my meal. Now I feel good. I go compete. But I'm not dieting all the way down to 135 pounds, 145 pounds. So that's a 10 pound gap. You see what I'm saying?

So that's why I think the same day it makes sense because you're not as depleted where it wouldn't be as severe in comparison to what we're doing now. I think that would be smart, but I think the only way that's really going to happen is if you have more weight classes, like at least every 10 pounds. I mean, look at boxing. Boxing has so many more weight classes than the UFC. Like, how many weight classes are there in boxing? Too many.

There's a lot. There's like every three pounds sometimes. Well, the lighter weights, right? When you get down to, like, atom weight and straw weight and flyweight, like, their fly weights are fucking tiny, you know? Like, their bantam weight is what? It's not 135. It's lower.

Yeah, it's like 126 or something. It's bantam weight. 118. That's crazy. Minimum weight. That's crazy. Imagine telling the lady that in the bar? What do you do?

What weight do you fight at? Minimum weight. I've never even heard of that. Minimum weight is crazy. Yeah. I mean, but this is also why Manny Pachiao was able to go up and win world championships and eight different weight classes, which is fucking bananas.

It's cool, though. It's crazy. So go back to that again, please? So look at the difference in the gaps when you get to the top. You got 122 to 126, only four pounds, 130, another 6 pounds, 35, another 5 pounds. It's kind of random. Five more pounds to 40, 7 pounds to welterweight, 47.

That's another stupid thing that we do, where we have you have welterweight in boxing which has existed since the beginning of time and it's always been 147

Sugar A. Leonard Tommy Hearns all those people Roberto Duran 147 our welterweight 170 like it doesn't even make any sense

come up with another name yeah what's a welterweight you just is something somebody made up doesn't even make sense I just think we're we're like the Americans

versus the Europeans we just want to go against the grain like we have have inches instead of centimeters, like what we use in metrics and pounds versus kilos. Like we just said, fuck everything you're doing. We're going to do everything different. We're just going to challenge everything that you're doing.

There's a little of that too, but I think they just wanted recognizable names when they came up with weight glasses. Because remember, there was only two at one point in time. Was it lightweight? I don't remember. But when Frank Shamrock was fighting in his day, it was like 200. Yeah. He fought at 200. And then there was a heavyweight.

So, yeah, I don't even know. I don't know what those weight class. I used to watch, but I didn't know shit. I just watched. I think it should just be the number you weigh. It should be fighting the world champion at 170 pounds. That's what it should be. Like, wrestling doesn't have names for the weight classes.

No. You just have weights. We don't. We just have weights. That's what it should be. Like, this is stupid. The fuck is a welter weight. What the fuck is a straw weight?

What's an atom weight? You know, shut up. What's a fly weight? Fuck off. You don't weigh with a flyweight. This is stupid. Flyweight's a dumb name. The 125 pound champion of the world.

Minimum weight is a ridiculous name. Ridiculous. Nobody wants to be minimum weight. I'd rather fight fat. Minimum weight. I never even knew that it was a thing until just now. Yeah, it's probably tiny little dudes. There's a few dudes that fight in atom weight.

in one FC in their kickboxing division that are wild man it's incredible to watch they're so fast it's like they're defying space and time you know and they're super skillful yeah there's there's the one guy i saw the japanese fighter no not japanese fighter the guy doing in moitai the um well there is a japanese fighter the guy in rising who fought patchy mix oh yeah dude that dude's a beast the fuck was that that dude was a beast i was like this guy's been hiding over here the whole time and the world doesn't know who this man is. This guy is a savage. Yeah, he lit

patchy on fire. That was incredible. Patty's not a striker. But he's competent enough. Yeah. But that was like he exposed like everything, every flaw that he has as a stentum guy. He took full of edge of it. I was like, dude, this guy's fighting like he's in the Matrix right now.

There's a bunch of those guys that exist out there in the world now. You know, it's a different world that we live in. The Dagestanding standing guy, I think. That guy. There's a lot of them. There's a lot of them. There's the guy who fights in the PFL, Megamadoff, who's fucking nasty, man. And he fights exactly like the guy who I think might be the best striker in the world, who's just a Muay guy.

Azadullah Imangazalev. I think that's the guy. Yeah. I can't say that. Bro. I can't say that. It's a tough one to say. That guy's nasty.

But this guy, Magamatoff, did you see the PFL? I didn't get to watch it last weekend. He fought in the PFL. He fights just like Imong Ghaziliev. And they're both from Dagestan. So guarantee you these guys are training together. That was the one last weekend, right? Uh-huh.

Yeah, we had one guy on that card. His name is Levan. He's nasty from Ossetia, the Caucasian regions. Hmm. But he's a nasty striker. There's so many of those guys right now that are coming up that no one knows and they're world-class. They're elite world-class fighters and no one knows who they are. It's kind of crazy.

Yeah. It's like the amount of like world championship caliber potential world championship caliber fighters out there never been higher. Imagine talking shit to that guy. All because you didn't know who he was. He's just like, fuck. It's a problem out there in the world right now. There's so many guys who could fight as opposed to. Just be nice. Just be nice. Don't talk shit. Yeah. Don't talk shit. Everything would be okay. Yeah. I mean, how hard is it? So tell me what you think about this weekend. Islam versus Ian Gary. So what's fascinating about this matchup is how well Ian Gary can control the range.

I think he's going to be much bigger than Islam in a sense of height, reach advantage. In terms of size, I never thought Ian was the biggest wealth weight. I still don't think he is. Well, he can't be. He's so tall. He can't be thick. No. But in a sense, even when you're talking just from a weight standpoint, from what he was walking.

walking around that. Right. I forgot what he told me he walked around it, but it wasn't cutting a whole lot of weight. I want to say, off the top of my head, maybe 10 pounds. Which is why he's so healthy.

Yeah. He has such energy. So I go, you're cutting just this and you're going out there and doing this to these guys who are, you know, essentially bigger,

heavier guys, but he's got the speed advantage. The thing about Islam, he's such a complete fighter. He could do everything. But this would be the first time he's got a test with a guy who's a long man.

And can he get inside, take him down? I don't think he's going to stand up and strike with him. He can, but I just don't think that's the path to victory against the guy like Ian. I don't think he has any plans of standing up and striking with him other than as a means to an end. Yeah. And his grappling is so high level. Islam's grappling right now is at the top of the food chain. I always want to grapple with those guys just to see where I'm at.

You should go over there. I remember when Al-Faqqqqqqqqq. and Al might have been like the only guy who was able to like escape certain positions multiple times where most guys they kind of just concede the feet and they just fold. And we were talking afterwards he goes like I think you would actually do really well grappling with him. And I'm like, probably trying to get me killed right now. He's trying to get me killed by the bear. But whenever he said that it kind of stuck with me.

I'm like, man, just from my own, like, experience, not like a ego thing or anything like that. Just be cool to see. And I would like for them to put it on me, just so I can see, like, where I'm at, see how my strength measures up with theirs, positionally, IQ, knowing when to transition to certain spots. Of course, the weight's going to play a big advantage,

but it's still cool because I grapple with bigger guys. I've grapple with Wyman. And I always tell Chris, like, I wish we were the same size because you would have been my main training partner, bro. You know, because that would have been cool, like kind of coming up that way. But, you know, obviously Marab was my guy.

Al was my guy, Dennis. Well, having Marab as a training partner must have been an awesome advantage. Oh, it's the greatest. There's just, like, there's no replicating that. And I see guys outside of, like, they'll watch and they'll think like, you know, he's kind of like all over the place, he's not really. And then they'll go in there with him and go, ah, yeah, feels a little different now. Not that you've been in there with the guy.

It's a whole different beast to watch from the outside. You're like, what is he actually good at? But it's just like the chaos that he brings, always constantly challenging your nervous system, reacting to his feints, his movement. He's just always giving you something to think about. And I remember GSP talked about that, just saying, like, you want to use your feints

to challenge the nervous system, get guys to react because eventually you start to slow. Like, in the beginning, we're quick twitchy, right? We can react to everything. We're super sharp. as time starts to go on, those reaction times starts to go a little bit slower. You don't react as fast or as quickly. And things that were landing, weren't landing, are now landing.

Farras talks about that a lot. Yeah. I think that's where George got it. Yes. For us, very smart, dude. So. Very smart dude. When it comes to, like, strategy and understanding, like, what's going on with fighters

or why they're reacting to certain things and what to do and how to counter. it's not guesswork. It's like a really intelligent, structured system of what to do. Yeah, you have to be like that. I think some guys, they train and then to go and fight without any goal in mind. And I try to pre-this, because I used to coach at Longo's a lot before, you know, running a lot of my own practices, training camps and stuff like that. So I took over the role of, you know what, we're going to add these two MMA classes in. And when we come in, we're going to work on specific things for my fight.

And anybody who has a fight, and if I'm not fighting, we're going to focus on you guys. And even if I have a fight, we'll also work in positions that you guys need to work on. And I always try to explain to guys, like, when you're coming in, you should have a mission. Don't just waste an hour, hour and a half of training, just to say I trained. That's cool if you don't have a fight, but you should always be looking for something to get better at, something that you can improve at. When you're sparring, hey, you're not just going in there to spar. There should be an intent. your sparring partner should be looking to give you a look for the fight,

and you shouldn't be looking to be a complete asshole and kill your sparring partner because then nobody wants to spar with you, right? They're doing you a favor, and you need the favor from them to get where you want to be to make sure all the things that you're drilling on the pads, drilling what your partner's one-on-one, and then when you go into sparring and you're putting it together, pull it from 100%, pull it down to like 70. This way you can work in real time. I call it guided discovery.

I learned this at SUNY Cortland when I was studying to be a PE major. guided discovery. Yeah. So you're working on certain things, and say we're doing wrestling, and you're learning the position. I show you a high crotch. You grab the trice up, or you post it, you shoot the high crotch, which means your head is on the outside, and I attack the leg. Two hands are now locked on that outside leg. My head is on the outside, and I'm in a strong position, my posture is straight, and now you're learning defense.

Okay, so from a defensive position, a guy shoots this shot, super clean, super perfect. What are my choices that I can make? What are the options? I could turn the head to the inside, stuff the head. I could push the head further outside and stuff the head to the outside where his head already is and look to cut the corner. Or I can use my stuffed head and use my whizzer or tightweighs, plugging the hip, stuff in the head, and rotating my hips. And if he puts me down to the mat, what is my responses from that? So then you're chaining everything together and you kind of, you kind of, you kind of, you kind of,

I kind of got a system of my responses. So I'm not just doing stuff based on instinct. Instinct is good, but you should also have instinctual habits, if that makes sense. Like stuff that you know will work. Right. And then you fine tune it to know, this is my line of defense. If he goes here and I feel him going this way, I go this way. And if he's starting to turn the other way, then I know I need to do this and turn his head the other way.

Put my pressure or my weight in another position so that I can now create this space so I can escape and get my leg out. And a lot of guys, they're not trained like that. They're going, they're sparring, they're just throwing a bunch of punches. Maybe they're throwing set combos at the head on the pads. But how are you setting it up? Are you fainting, moving him towards the cage, looking for the gap where the octagon kind of changes, where it's no longer like a flat surface

and it's cutting at an angle where you take away a little real estate and then you're trapping them where there's not a lot of room for them to get back from, but now you can set up your strikes and know where you're trying to go. But if I'm cutting him off and he constantly does this and he maybe juke steps me and goes back the other direction and I'm starting my combination, now he's gone. So it's like, how do you set up all these things

that you know exactly where you want to go? Because he's going to have an option in the fight in real time, but in trainings where you should be working out the kinks and understanding this. And I truly feel this is one of the things I'd done so well early on in my career and why I was teaching a class

because I felt like the guys needed it. I was taking these guys down at will. There was no resistance. I'm like, I'm good, but how good am I actually? Because these guys just, they just don't know. They don't have the information. Okay, let's level them up. Now these guys are leveled up.

It makes it harder for me. Now I have to improve what I'm doing, and I have to bring a different approach. Okay, he knows how to do this now. So when I do this, I can't just get an easy takedown way. I'm just going to sit him to his butt. He's now challenging me with the wizard, stuff in my head, breaking my posture.

Now I'm elongated. I'm on the ground. Maybe I'm on both knees. How do I readjust, post my hand? get height again, attacking the legs, taking them back the other way, or coming through the middle, through the crotch, and finishing a takedown, like what we call, some people call it an Iranian or we call it an All-American finish.

But there's just so many little nuances, and I feel in MMA, people are still training just to train. And I think that's the difference between understanding your timing. You know the same moves, but if I know how to react faster than you, I'm going to win that position or the situation every single time. Unless you throw caution to the wind and it's just some random wild card that just get caught by, which if I'm aware, the chance of that should be very, very low.

Well, that's the benefit of teaching the people that you're training with everything you know. That way you must come up with a new solution. Not anything. Not everything? What do you hold back? What do you hold back? Not everything. Get close.

But that's also world champion mindset versus someone who's just a fighter who fights. who fights and does well and is a good fighter. But there's so many times where I watch guys fight and I watch exchanges and they're wading towards each other and throwing bombs at each other and one guy wins and one guy loses. But I'm like, this is not the ultimate way to do this.

You can do it. You can be a battering ram and a blunt force object and you can get it done. We've seen so many fights that have just been an insane first-round wars. And then we've seen guys that just are slick and they're moving around

and switching stances and doing wild shit that you don't expect and overwhelming the other guy's nervous system and not getting hit and doing things where you're like oh my God that's so sweet

that's so smooth and those are the guys that are going to excel and those are the guys that are going to really take it to the next level and I think when you're talking about all these guys

like the caucus guys these Dagestani guys these so many guys that are coming up right now that are so fucking high level Like you can't have any flaws in your game anymore. You can't just be a guy who wades at someone and tries to throw bombs and hopes they land. Maybe that works on a regional scene.

Maybe that works with training partners that are a lower level than you. But you're going to get pieced up if you fight someone who's really good. There's levels and levels and levels, and the levels are changing all the time. The levels are moving up all the time. If you just go back to the ultimate fighter season one, that's 2005. That's not that long ago in regular sports. 2005 boxers look pretty similar to 2026 boxers. Yeah.

You know, pretty fucking similar at the World Championship level. And MMA, man, there's no comparison. It's nuts. Night and day. Night and day. And these guys are getting better all the time. I see guys coming off the contender series. I'm like, okay, this guy looks like a world champion, like right now.

It's crazy. That Ethan Ewing kid, that guy comes out of nowhere. Matrix. And he's fighting so smooth and so slick and so intelligent and the footwork and the faints and the movement and knowing what to do at any given time. And you're like, these guys are just so good now. They're so good. I was bummed down when he got hurt for that fight with Farron. Yeah, that was a bummer.

Farron didn't have a tough fight though. But I was curious to see how that one was going to go because Ian, to me, is the dark horse in that division right now. Yeah. Easily. Yeah. Yeah, the wellmaker fight was a big wake-up call to people. And then he fought that Brazilian cat and just lit him on fire. Two undefeated guys back to back.

And it's the way he did it too, man. It was so slick. And you realize, like, there are levels. And these guys coming up right now, they are already at a level that's above and beyond world championship level of 15 years ago. Yeah. It's crazy. Two fights in the UFC. And, you know, 20 years ago, you would have said he was the goat.

But what's fascinating is like from a striking standpoint, you could see that and look at a guy and go, this guy is the real deal. But then you kind of wonder like, well, what happens later in the rounds if a guy does take him down and how can he adjust to those takedowns in terms of a cardio standpoint, lactic acid build up? Can he turn it around and still be as efficient, as effective? Right. So there's so many like variables when it comes to things like that. And when people are game planning and approaching fights, those are the things. I like to think about first round, everyone is dangerous. Everyone is so skilled.

But it's like, okay, if I can get out of the first round, what does the fight start to look like? How do I paint the pitcher? If it goes in this direction, he's able to get off a couple of these things and I'm beating up a little bit. What are my fallback defenses to try to turn the tide a little bit and get it back to going where the ball's now back in my court? Well, that was why I was so interested in seeing what happens

in the Connor McGregor, Max Holloway. fight, which was crazy. The result was ridiculous. But take that away. I was interested because I was like, if Connor can't take him out quickly, Max Holloway does not get tired. He does not get tired. And he's so accustomed to that five-round pace.

He understands when to hit the gas, when to back off. He knows when to move, when to... And he's always moving and side... You want to talk about getting overwhelmed. Like Max Holloway overwhelms people with pressure, pace, and feints and skill. Yeah. And he's not going anywhere. You guarantee he's going to be fighting in the fourth round, just like he was fighting in the first round.

He's not going to fade. Yeah. It was one of the worst matchups for Connor if he couldn't take him out of the first round. I was hoping. I was hoping we got to see more. I think the world was hoping to see it. Well, you hope we got to see anything. We didn't see anything.

But it's crazy because he threw that same kick in the back room, but this time he runs at him and he throws it, he lands, and it's like, oh, come on. Well, he threw that kick when you're hitting a pad is very different than when you're kicking the air. You never throw that kick in the air. You throw that kick jumping in the air. The amount of torque that is on your supporting leg is bananas. You're just hoping and praying that your knee stays together. Look, if you throw a jumping side kick, that's a different thing.

you're landing on the ground, you're landing in a linear way, right? When you're rotating and kicking and flying through the air at the same time and your opponent adjust, so you're trying to change the arc in midair, try to catch him as he's circling off, it's the worst kick to jump and throw. So I got to stop doing that. With jumping roundhouse kicks? Jumping roundhouse kicks are great if you're close enough to land them. Yeah.

You know? If you're close enough to land them. Who was that guy that landed it on Bonfim? No, not on Bonfim. On James Vic in karate combat. Did you see that? He throws that jumping switch kick. Brazilian guy?

Yes. Yes. Gabriel? The turn. What is his name? Alves. Raphael Alves. That was close.

It was one of the worst chaos I've ever seen in my life. But why is James Vic still fighting? He likes fighting, I guess. Oh, he's only 37. I'm 37. My bad, bro. He's had a lot of chaos. My bad, because.

Unfortunately. And this dude, he hit him with this jumping just right before that. But he looks like a tank compared to him. Well, it's just the speed. His speed is crazy. James Zick is tall and very skillful, too. But it's just this kick would have knocked him out at any point in his career, any point in his career, and any human being. Like, this is too much.

The amount of force that he lands when he lands this kick, when he throws that, he throws the jumping round, Knoissek, touches him with the right leg, and then comes up top with the left, and just clean across the chin. They're doing some good stuff at Karate Combat. Yeah, man. It's fun. Well, Robelis was fighting there. Right before that, Jamie.

I think he had a combined... A little further ahead. Go to, like, right below, before where the Brazilian flag is. Robel's combined fights in karate combat was like, what? Less than two minutes? I know. It just... There it is.

There it is. So let's watch that again. Back it up again. So watch how he throws it, boom. I mean, it is clean shin to the jaw. I mean, there's no... Why is he pointing at him? I don't know.

He's upset. Is he talking shit? I'm so sure. Now he's bowing and praying? Well, I mean, he realized after it was over how serious it was. So watch this. Touches him with the right, and then the left comes... I mean, it's literally perfect.

That probably would have cailed him at any point in the time in his career. And when James has been in the amount of wars that he's been in... And then your head hits the canvas is the worst part. Oh, he could have died. That was one of those ones where he could have died. Because I think he was in the intensive care for quite a while after this fight. Really? Yeah, he was hospitalized for quite a while after this fight.

And I think it was pretty serious. That sucks. It was a bad head kick. That was a bad one. It's a rough sport. It's a rough sport. And there's times... You don't play.

There's times where guys get chaoed and they're never the same again. You know, like Terry Edom, when Edson Barbosa hit him with that wheel kick. Yeah. Terry Edom was a real contender before. that fight and we never really saw him after that. It never really achieved those levels again. I don't even, do he even fight after that? Maybe once?

Maybe, maybe, I don't know, I'm not sure, but that fight essentially ended his career because it was so, I mean, and again, that's one of those kicks. The wheel kick has so much torque. Bro, I remember my fight with Marlon and I thought I was gonna be one of those guys. I was so, like, I don't say paranoid,

but nervous, concern, any adjective that you can use to describe it, I was just like, man. After the fight? After the fight. Of getting hit like that again. Yeah. Not having to get hit like that again, if I could even take a shot. And mind you, I have my phys ed degree. I could have went, just been a gym teacher.

I would have been some resolve pension that would have had health insurance, the whole nine. And I decided to chase a crazy dream. Thankfully, it worked out, and I'm blessed for this life. and all that good stuff. But after that fight, man, to tell you, like, the concern I had if I would be able to make another two paychecks, I was like, I'm going to do one more. Whatever happens, happens.

If I get knocked out, I'm just done. I gave it a good shot. I've rolled the dice. Thanks for coming. See you later. Thanks for the memories. But thankfully, it worked out, and I was able to keep on pushing. I remember after that fight, I didn't spar for, like, three months.

And the next fight I had with Greg. people think you should take even more time off than that. I needed the money. And that's the shitty part about this gig. You need the money, you need the money. I'm living in New York at the time. So Long Island's fucking expensive. And I'm subbing as a teacher. I'm coaching, wrestling. And when the training camp came up, I was fighting Brett Johns, undefeated, three and only UFC, just came up for a 30-second cast slizer submission over Joe Soto. Mind you, Joe Soto submitted me probably, I think, five times in five minutes. So I'm looking at this guy, like this guy is a wizard. You know what I mean?

So this is my perception of him going into this fight. And I told the guys, and I'm going to spar these last three, four weeks. I'm going to, I'm going to just circle and I'm going to wrestle. I was like, you guys try to hit me, but just know I don't want to get hit in the head. But try to hit me. I still want to have like my awareness. But the whole, that whole last three, four weeks, everything was just grappling before that, striking, hitting pads, cardio. I was like, I'm going to just use my footwork and whatever I'm. could do and thankfully it worked out how much time between the marlin fight and that fight was there april December 9th 2017 so was four months just about yeah which was scary it was scary and they

offered me to fight i was like i don't know if i'm supposed to be doing this right now but i kind of need the money so well you needed the money but if i could give an advice to like volkinovsky i would have said first of all i would have said never take a fight with islam Makotchev on 11 days notice that's just crazy never especially when you're not training at all you're just kind of chilling and you take a fight with one of the best pound for pound fighters if not the best on the planet and you get head kicked and then to fight ilia just a few months after that is kind of crazy yeah and he he was looking good in that first round until ilia does what he does traps you against that black line against the cage and he puts those combinations on you and puts the lights

out. And yeah, I agree. He should have taken more time. 100%. He would have been okay with taking more time. You've got to take more time. You have to. You just have to realize that as tough as you are, your body is a machine. And if the machine's broken, it's got to be repaired. And it's going to take time to repair. It's not as simple as like, go to the shop, you get a new carburetor. You're good to go. You got to give your body time to heal. And with the head, it's hard because you don't know. Yeah. It's the wild card. Yeah, it's like, and everyone is different. Mm-hmm.

And I kind of wonder if that's something to do with, like, the way people grow up, if maybe they dropped it on their head a couple of times when they were kids. Sure, football, play football in high school, get caoed a few times doing that. You know, you get caoed a few times doing stupid shit with your friends. And then you get older, and now you're trying to compete, and you realize I can't take a shot. Yeah. As much as I thought I could have. And, like, you see a guy like Diego Lopez, and you're like, dude, you got a, his,

His chin is granite, bro. It's like, what can you hit him with that can actually put him down? It's crazy. Well, if he continues getting hit, there'll be a time. Right. Remember Chuck Liddell? Chuck Liddell in the early days was bulletproof. He was bulletproof.

He was just weighed at guys, bite down his mouthpiece, eat shots to the head and take guys out. And he didn't give a fuck. He had full confidence in his chin and would force guys into these chaotic wars. And then it goes away. And then one day, you get it. hit hit and it just goes well left hand broken hand from rich franklin that hit chuck well yeah he broke rich's arm yeah and then yeah and with that broken hand he hit him is that what he knocked him out with

the broken arm from what i remember that's what he hit him with that left hand and put him out and i was like that was he was done at that point his chin was done i mean after rampage catoed him that was kind of that was the big one that was a nasty one that was a nasty one yeah i always wanted to be like the mini rampage but I was like but I'm not knocking anybody out so it's uh it's hard to do that with the chain and the wolf yeah I always wanted to do that

and rampage did it all natural whereas everybody else was doing juice especially in pride you know he was fighting all juice monsters everyone was a juice monster in pride yeah you know it's a different time back then he still has the craziest slam KEO of all time Arona right yep

When Arona didn't let go of the triangle And he takes him over the top of his head Like a pillow And slams him down Oh my God That was another one Arona was never the same again after that fight What about cyborg?

And that knee from MVP That was the craziest Freaking dented his cranium Crushed his skull Literally crushed his skull Broke his skull open So This is gonna sound like a joke

But I go like what do you do Plunge it to pull it back You gotta reconstruct it You ever see what they did? did do it no all these plates in his head yeah he had all sorts of screws and plates and everything to piece his head back together again because his skull structure has been compromised what does it do to your brain your brain is now squished not good not good i mean he said after the fight i'll be back but everybody's like no you won't no that's what it looked like i mean that is literally crazy

yeah bro i saw a moytai fight recently online where a guy did that to a dude with an elbow and he caved his head in and you see like this giant hole in his forehead where his head's dented in and the referee's like stop the fight he's like why he's stopping the fire he's like bro you need to see what you look like you're not seeing what

I'm seeing yeah your head's dented your head's broken like you have a broken like you have a broken head it's amazing how few times that's happened if you think about it yeah this is it this is it look at that oh that might be worse than the other one it's right up there

If you back it up, you can see the elbow of the dude lands right there. Boom. That was it. And then he looks at him. He's like, hey. And then the referee gets a look at it. And the referee gets a look at it as soon as the referee sees it. It almost doesn't even want to hit him again.

He's like, fuck. Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. The referee stops. He's like, hold on a second. Let me get a look at you. It's like, you should stop, devil, my friend. Brings him the doctor.

What's going on here? Tomahawked him. That was what was so impressive about Zanyu, Chonko, and his... John Pork? Yeah. Why did they call him that?

I have no idea. Chonko, they call him Chanko because that's his town. That's the town we grew up in. Okay. But, man, that dude's elbows were so slick. He's slick. He's fun to watch. He's slick.

His elbows in the clinch and in tight, because he's a Muay World Champion. And, you know, that was his original discipline, which is interesting. When you see these guys who start off as strikers, And then they get to Dagestan training room with Khabi and Islam and all those guys. And they learn the wrestling. But they start off with just this elite level of striking.

Yeah. And that other guy wasn't bad. He gave back some resilience. Oh, yeah, man. He dropped him, remember? Oh, no, that was his first fight. Yeah, no, he didn't drop him. That was his first fight in the Contender Series.

He got dropped. He's a dangerous guy, man. Super dangerous. Conco's fucking, he's for real, man. and so high level with his striking. His striking is just so elite, especially those elbows in tight, man. Elbows are nasty.

I'm like Joe son and I can't let you get close. I can't let you get close. Because, nah, you're not about to do that to me, bro. I ain't trying to look like that. Yeah. Like, you know, I want to continue my acting career and, you know, I got a whole lot of things I want to do. But it's going to be a little tough

if you get a couple of those. Yeah, well, elbows are... It's kind of funny that your gloves protect your hands, but not these. But not your elbows. Or knees. Or your knees, or your shins. It's kind of nuts that we have...

The padded thing is the thing that's the least likely to hurt you. If you really think about it. It's a crazy sport. It is the craziest. I love it and hate it sometimes. How much long are you think you gonna do it? You're 37 now.

Yeah, you must be thinking. You must be thinking how much more am I going to do this for? Yeah, you know, I'm just taking it one fight at a time. I would like to end my career with the UFC. You know, hopefully... You know, it's an option that you might not? I don't know.

You know, you never know what's going to happen. Sony comes up with a big number? No, not even that. Like, you just never know. Like, I know I sometimes piss off the brass from time to time. Do you? I guess I've been told this. How?

That sometimes I don't say the right things. What have you said? I'm a very honest person. So sometimes I just tell how I really feel about seriously. things and people these media outlets they know what they're doing they're asking me these questions because they know I'm gonna tell them the clickbait clips that they want who are you talking about specifically with which one the media outlets that fuck with you all of them they all try to get you say they all of them they ask

these questions they'll go from fighter pay and I've been in the headlines from fighter pay many times many many times it's a legitimate argument it is but for some reason when I when I talk about it I am And maybe because I'm not the crazy guy like a Sean Strickland, because Strickland has talked about it and he's always been, he's known as the crazy guy. But what he talks about it, he

makes it a very logical understanding bit where I go how come he's not getting, maybe he is. Maybe I just don't know because I don't ask. I'm like, for some reason when I say it, I feel like I'm a little bit more scrutinized. So what did, does the UFC get upset at you? Do they say that they're upset at you?

You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to. I feel like this is a real issue. It's going to get in trouble. No, we have a great relationship. Look, when Yvesluev and Alexander Hennel. When they fight. Yeah. It's just very soon.

Fokanovsky is defending his title against finally, Eve Luev. Like who? That fucking guy has been waiting forever. Yeah. Everybody's booked. So I don't really know who's a clear-cut guy for me to face unless is Lerone Murphy. I was told he was hurt. I think he's booked.

I heard Lerone's got a fight. I heard he was hurt. Oh, really? Really? Yeah. Maybe he had a fight schedule and it doesn't anymore. Yeah. But I thought he has a fight coming up.

Yeah, I was told he was hurt, so he's going to be out for a couple months. I don't know how long. I don't know how serious of an injury. But everybody else is booked. Who did he just lose to, Laron? Mosa. That's right. Which was crazy.

I thought that fight should have been scored or draw. Did you? With the point deduction, should have been scored a draw. What was the point deduction for? I think it was a low blow. But they gave him four rounds. They gave Moussard four rounds. I'd have to watch it again.

I didn't think it was a bad decision when I saw it. It was a competitive fight. Moussard didn't decide to wrestle him until the end of round three. And he just goes to show he could have taken him down anytime he wanted it. I'm just like, fuck. Well, I think Mosevar wanted to show his striking.

He does have striking. But because of that, he made it more controversial to the overall fan base because he decided to use his wrestling a lot later on in a fight. But I think he needed to show that he's not boring in order to get a shot at the title and now he's got a shot at the title.

But the stand-up fight between rounds one and two was still like there's nothing happening. I thought it was pretty good. It's a chess match. It was a chess match. But I think it was opening up Lorone to shots that I don't think he expected were coming at him because I think he probably

anticipated shot takedowns, take down temps. And instead, Most far was getting off on him. Yeah. He could strike. He can. But it's like you. It's like why do it when you're better at grappling?

If you can get a hold of them, why do it? Why roll the dice? And, you know, when people say, like, a lot of people were upset when Marab beat Sugar Sean. Yeah. And they were saying, like, that was boring. That was just like, listen, this is the sport. We're watching.

If a guy like Marab can take you down and give you nougies for five rounds and you can't do shit and you lose your title, that's how it goes. You can't say that's boring, and he should fight differently. Because Sean's got to come up with a solution. He's got to figure out how to deal with that. Salas makes fights. It's about the story. Yep.

How did you do against this guy? Islamakachev versus Ian Garin. Same thing. How does he do with this guy? Connor McGregor versus Kabib Naramatov. Same thing about the storyline. Connor was protected his whole UFC run. Now he's fighting a good high-level grapple,

probably arguably the best grappler from the top position, clinched position. Ever. Ever. And it's the storyline. Can Connor McGregor overcome this? Can he land a perfect shot? It's what gets you to buy into it.

But if you're going to be pissed that the machine is going to come in and your guy can't land the perfect punch, whose fault is that? It's like, but this is why you're watching. You're tuning in. You're not tuning in to watch a slaughtering of the lambs. You want to watch a competitive fight. If you just want to watch one-sided fights. I don't know

Like what do you want Yeah I mean it was one-sided in the In that he was able to take him down at will But also the problem was Sean fought that fight with a fucked up hip And really probably should have been fighting Like he had a tear in his hip Yeah But we all have stuff

Of course I went to the fight with Sean Injured coming into the fight He gets injured during the training camp And then he uses that I had a busted rib I go bro we all have stuff But you are in a better position to win this fight than I was coming into the fight.

The same thing. When did he hurt his hip? I don't know. But then they fought again and it was worse. It was worse. Well, Marab was like super confident coming in the second fight that he was going to be able to take him down. And then also he had that championship level confidence.

Oh, of course. You get that level up. Get that level up. Yeah. So it's like it's not knocking Sean. It's not knocking the fans. But it's like, yo, this is the game that we're playing. No one's coming into this.

I was talking to the guys that way so well. They're like, it's fascinating how many of you guys are so beat. up. I'm going down a list of my injuries and everything I got going on. I got an MRI for this. I got an MRI for this. This hurting. That's been bothering me for two years. This has been still ongoing. And I still go fight and you would never think it. But that's just what it is. Like we got to do what we got to do. We're never going to be 100% going into it. A hundred percent. Like all sports. Guys have fought in world championships with blown out knees and won. You know, I mean, when Alex Pereira beat Yuri Pajaska, he had a fucked up knee in the first fight. Yeah. And that's why when you see him get on

on top of him when he's finishing him, he rolls over. Like rolls, instead of stepping up and standing over, he rolled off of him because his knee was blown out. Carlos Oberg. Yeah, that was crazy. But that was on Yuri. That was such a blunder. Such a blunder.

Well, that's Yuri's craziness where it's not good. You know, some of Yuri's craziness is great. Like when he fought Jamal. I felt for him so bad. I did too. I was just like, it's not like saying I wanted him to win, but I think. felt for him like, damn, bro, you made the biggest mistake that you could have possibly made in a situation like that.

It's literally the only thing you can hit you with. Fuck it out. And he lends it. It's the only thing he can hit you with. He doesn't have a right leg. His right leg is completely gone. But he could still throw that left hook, you know? That's his best punch.

Lightning. I always tell people, the way he leaves that, he just leaves out that lead hand and he's measuring, stiff jab, and he's stepping back. takes that side step pivot, that L step, and then boom, it's just, he's clean with that. That division is on fire right now. How about Navajo Sterling? I'm about to say, what happens with those two guys? I know, right? In the same camp, no?

I know. He just beat Blahovic. What happens? And he stopped him. That was crazy. I know. Watching that was extraordinary. I was like, this kid is something.

He's something, man. That right hand was, who, the distance he covered to land that right hand, too. And Yon's got a chin made out of iron. to take Jan out like that and drop him like that, very, very, very impressive. It's 43 now. Yeah. So it's also, I'm not taking anything away from him,

but it's like... I think that's how old Glover was when he beat him. Really? I think Glover was like 42 when he won the title. He was in his 40s. It's doable. It's doable. It ain't easy, but it's doable.

Yeah, it's not normal. I mean, Glover was the boogeyman for six years before he could ever get to the UFC. Everybody had talked about Glover. Like, he was scary, But he was trapped in Brazil. He couldn't get a visa issues. He couldn't get a visa to come to America and fight.

And during those six years, he might have been the best light heavyweight on the planet. Yeah, I remember you told him. Because when he got signed pretty, what was it, like late 20s, maybe 30s? Mm-hmm. I think he was in his 30s. Yeah, and I didn't know about him until he came over and made that debut. And what was against Fabio Malinado, I think maybe? Mm-hmm.

But, yes. Sometimes it just goes like that. Even like Pereira. He came over so late, started so late, I should say. And for him to do what he has done in such a short amount of time is like unreal. Unreal. Yeah, pretty extraordinary. How impressed were you with Cyril gone, though?

Very. How many heavyweighs can move like that, dude? Zero. And that's the whole thing with the Aspenov fight that I was saying. I was like, dude, this guy played basketball. It's a different type of athleticism. Quick twitch muscles. Knows how to pivot, fake hit his jukes.

Yeah, it's like pliometrics, like a giant man pliometrics. Yeah. Yeah. And he's great at just holding the range outside of the eye pokes, but great at holding the range. Also, the dude never gets hit. Yeah. When the last time we saw, I mean, think about, Gahn is fighting in the heavyweight division. He's fighting guys like Tai Tuivasa.

He's fighting, you know, these elite guys, these big heavyweights. And you'd never see him get cracked. Even against Ingano. I'm about to say even against Engano. He didn't get cracked. I mean, that's kind of crazy that he's so good at avoiding getting hit. He's probably like the least hit-clean heavyweight in the division. I think that fight with John Jones made people think less of him than what he actually is.

It's just that's how good John is. I'm like, you can't do that. That's how good John Jones is. You can't do that. It's not the same. Especially if John gets a hold of your neck, he's going to finish it. And the way he did it, you know, taking him down like that in the first round and guillotining him. I mean, phenomenal.

But it's just you have to deal with that speed and that movement standing up before you could ever get that to happen. And John figured it out. But I think Cyril has tightened up his takedown defense considerably since that fight. Yeah. Because I think you realize,

like, this is the big hole in his game. I know he brought in a lot of real big wrestlers. But when it comes to kickboxing, when it comes to Muay Thai, he's so hard to fuck with. And that style is different than everybody else's style. He's nasty.

Light on his feet. He does a weird thing, too, from his side. Yeah, that front kick. I'll be watching. That twisting front kick from the front leg. It's the way he stands. He stands almost like this bladed, but it's like not really bladed, but it is. And it allows him to have that dexterity and the flexibility where he could just look like he's throwing a front kick.

It's a twisting kick. Yeah. There's a kick in Taekwondo called a twisting kick. And that's what it's like. It's from this position, you throw it out like that with the ball of the foot. So you're standing completely sideways and your front leg comes up and it twists and goes like that. And that's what he's doing to the body. He's throwing a twisting front kick to the body.

It's nasty. See if you can find it in here. Well, that's his round kick. But it's off of his front leg. He throws it off the front leg and he throws it completely sideways. And when you get to moving, he's gone. Yeah. And also you might try to like over-emphasize those movements.

and he counters catching you coming in because he's faster than you. And that's what he did to Alex. Yeah. He caught him with a jab. I mean, that's what he really rocked him with. It was a right jab. Alex was big.

That's huge. It's freaking ass. I was like, yo, this is like distracting, bro. You got a fucking bedunk-a-dunker-dunk that's fucking blocking my vision on the screen right now, Alex. Like, move, turn the other way. It was the worst matchup for Alex

to step into heavy weight. A guy who is bigger than him, naturally, moves faster than him and lighter on his feet and is also an elite striker, a world championship caliber striker at a heavyweight level. Because like, you know, Alex has been 185. He's a thinner guy and he definitely put on mass to get up to 250, but that's not necessarily where he was naturally.

Yeah. Whereas Cyril Gahn has a natural frame to be at 248. And he's more stationary. The stationary guys never do so well against the guys who can move very well. It's just hard for you to try. Chase him down, track him down to learn the perfect punch, had a hard time landing his calf kicks, which slows fights down for him

and allows him to land that big Chama left hook. I don't know, even if they were to have a rematch, I don't know what he would have to work on to make that adjustment. That's just a hard fight for him. It's always going to be a hard fight for him because Cyril gone so agile. He's so hard to hit.

He's never in front of you. Unless he caught him, like maybe through those high kicks right in the beginning, he could have caught him with something like that and rocked him. That would have been a different story. But he didn't. And Cyril's like, he's great at blocking shit too.

Even if you get to him, his reflexes are excellent. Yeah. And it's just that movement and speed is extraordinary. It would have been very interesting to see what happens if the Aspenol fight didn't end the way it ended. That was a heartbreaker. It was a heartbreaker. I got a lot of flag for that because people were saying I should have taken his side

because I got foul too. And I'm like, I'm not taking inside. What I'm saying is the only person that knows how bad he truly like was hurt, it's going to be Aspinall. Yes. You know, so if he's saying it, I take it at face value. It is what it is. I can't go and say, I'm in your eyeballs. I've seen guys get poked all the time and they continue.

Yeah, we've seen it all the time. But not all eye pokes are created equal. No. And he got all of them three stooges fingers up in there. To his knuckle. Yeah, it was bad. Terrible. Terrible. I can only take what he's saying. I was like, but again, it's really up to him. Can he have said

if he was winning the fight, my pushback was devil's advocate. If he was winning the fight and having his way, what he had said, you know what, I'm going to suck it up and try to fight through this, even though I still can't see. You never know. If he was having...

I don't think he should, especially for a foul. I think it was, he made 100% the right call. Because look, he didn't lose that fight. It was a foul, although controversial, he doesn't get knocked out, he doesn't get head kicked,

he doesn't get flying knee in the face. If you can't see out of one of your eyes... It's hard. There's all sorts of shit that's coming from this direction that you're just not going to see coming. And in wild exchanges where your peripheral would catch it and you would duck under, you're not going to be able to see it. Yeah. And you're going to get rocked. And it's also, you're thinking now, oh, my God, I can't see out of one of my eyes.

Fuck that. Yeah. He did the right thing. He did the right thing. And I think, you know, he should have got more support. He should have got more support from everybody for that. From everybody. From everybody.

Yeah. I mean, I tried to give him as much support as I could. I think he got fouled and they did the right thing. And I think you got to take one point away every fucking time someone touches an eye. One point every time and they won't do it anymore. It looks like he's doing better now. I'm hoping he gets to compete again this year. He's had two fucking eye surgeries, man.

So that, remember when you got knocked out by Malin Marais, how in the back of your head, you're like, oh, shit, I can't get hit. How about him? Two eyeball surgeries. And now every time a finger comes towards his eye, he's thinking about his eyes losing his eye. Look at Michael Bisping. He doesn't have an eye. He has one eye that's missing, right?

So you've got to think that. Am I going to not be, I'm going to look at my kids through one blurry eye for the rest of my life? That's fucked. That's fucked, you know? So being the position that he's in right now is kind of terrible. I want to talk about the Islam fights for this weekend for 3.30. Can we take a piss break? Yeah, take a piss break.

We'll be right back. And we're back. Jamie, pull up that card, the one this weekend. So we take a look at it. Yeah. What do you think about the Ian Gary, Islam fight, if you had to predict? If I had to predict. If you're like on the UFC desk and they put you on the spot. Okay. Islam Makachev did a really good job, neutralizing. JDM's boxing.

Didn't really give him an opportunity to do anything. He chopped his legs away with the calf cakes. control them in the clinch. The takedowns were relatively easy. He didn't even really have to set it up with, like, hands. He kind of just shot and just took him down at will. Ian Gary now, on the other hand, he's done a good job of showing takedown resilience.

We saw that with Bilal Mohammed. Is Balan Mohammed Machachev? No, he's not. No. But it definitely showed something. He did a good job with Shafkat as well, who was a bigger guy, was able to defend a bunch of times.

I forgot if it was Shafkawkaw, who had his back, but he was able to defend. Shafka is the guy who beat him. So Shafkat is the one loss that he has. And it was the grappling that Shavkat got him with. But he also blew out Shafkod's knee. Yeah.

Like that's why Shafkod has had all these surgeries. That oblique kick. Mm-hmm. That kick is so nasty. That's the one thing that I wonder. Like, should we not have that? You don't like any other. You don't really like that one.

It's, you can't, I mean, you can defend it by not getting hit by it. But the problem is if you get hit by it, like Kaleel Roundtree and Modestus, Bukakis when he went turned his knee sideways. He stomped that thing. Stomped it. And that's a career changer. Like, it could be a career ender. Bukascus came back, but...

But this is two years now, right? Yeah. For Shavka, he's been out? Yep. He's had multiple surgeries. He had it done, and then it blew out again, had to get it done again. Yeah, I just don't know. The range, the reach advantage. I think Ian does a great job of using his lateral footwork. He's fast. He's fast.

He's not the fastest guy. No. But what he is, he's imposing. He knows how to cut you off. That South Paul stance, I think, causes some problems for a lot of people. He's only lost, what, one time to the Adriano Martins with the head kick knockout? A punch. Was it a punch?

Yeah, he got punched. Oh, I thought it was a heck kick. But either way, I think Ian's going to have to look to something like that, see if there's maybe some of those old tendencies that that punch was able to land. That was also such a younger version of Islam. I just don't see him making those mistakes again. Yeah, that was a long time ago. How does Ian win? He's going to have the point fight and sit on the outside

and hope not to get tired going backwards the whole time. Right. And he got tired doing that against Carlos Prothis. So this is a tough one for Gary. Can he get the upset, of course, is fighting. We just saw this with Gaghi and Tuporia. But I would say Islam has the one sure-cut way to win,

push him against the cage, take him down. And even if he pushes him against the cage, I'm curious to know if, the curious to see if Gary can do damage in the clinch. Whenever I'm in the clinch with somebody, I always tell the guys, look for your knuckles and hit the eyeball. Hit the nose.

Hit the soft spots that's going to make this guy uncomfortable in the clinch, not looking for his foot sweeps, where he's comfortable just resting on you, looking to set up his take down, his next transition. And I learned this from Brian Carraway, my first pro loss in the UFC.

After being 5-0, we clinch. I take him down. But in the clinch, while I'm going for the single leg, I have his leg up in the air. He's leaning over my back, and he's taking his knuckles, and he's just hitting me in the eye. Swallowed my whole eye. I was like, what the fuck is he hitting me with? And I go back and I watch the tape and I get to see, and I learn that.

So I always, like, share these little tricks and stuff with guys when I'm teaching him. So if Gary could land some good damage in those positions, kind of deter it is on a little bit or make him a little bit more sloppy on his finishes, it could cause some chaotic scrimbles where he could potentially get to a good position, and maybe we see. Islam on his back again, kind of like what happened with Volk. And when he was there with Volga, it did not look good. Right. And, of course, it's round five.

So it got to be fair. It was also a fight where the time was all fucked up and he didn't have as much time to rehydrate. Oh, yeah, they did say something like that too. Yeah, it was not, he was compromised in that fight because of that, because he didn't have as much time to rehydrate because they're fighting in Australia. And they were trying to fight on U.S. time. This one is the one that I'm really excited about, too.

because Jillian is so fucking good on the ground. Top position, even off of her back. McKenzie Dern is great off of her back. The top position, too, she's more decorated in terms of the jiu-jitsu space. On the feet, she's more reckless. Like, she's throwing caution to the wind because she doesn't care. She's not afraid to get her pretty face messed up. She's going to go in there and go after you.

She's just attacking. Jillian, on the other hand, not as physical on the feet. Not a big puncher, not a big kicker. She sets everything up looking for the takedown or the cleanse to take you down, get to the back. But when she gets there and she gets you down, her ground and pound, it's nasty. The question is, is she going to be able to do it to a world champion like McKenzie Dern? To a good position. Like some of those other girls, she gets the back mount or full mount, and she's able to land these solid elbows, beat them up in that position.

McKenzie's a jiu-jitsu world champion. Exactly. It's a different world. That's the hard part. It's going to be interesting. It's going to be interesting. Go to the other, rest of their card, go back to it. Because I'm interested to see how Abdul Malik recovers from his last fight against

Bulgari. Bulgaria is a monster, dude. That's a guy in the 185-pound division that's a real fucking problem. Yeah. He's a world-class striker. He has a victory over Pereira in glory. Yeah, that is the, yeah, that's the guy. Yeah, one victory.

And then he got starched. in the rematch. But the thing with Malik is he was trying to go for the takedowns, but the setups were like, in my opinion, from a rest of standpoint. So I may be a little bit unfair with this criticism, but I just didn't think they were that good. He was also dealing with striking that was like way above and beyond him. Yeah.

And that was part of the problem is that in the transitions, like trying to get close to him, you're dealing with the guy was gigantic. He's one of the tallest guys in the division. He's so fucking big for 185, so long and saw tall. And on top of it, world-class striker. And he's coming into his own as an MMA guy. And part of the reason is because he's down there in Connecticut with Glover and with Alex. And he's doing camps with those guys.

So his grappling is now on point, much more confident on the feet, much more stable. But before that, I thought Mansour was a real potential world champion. Yes. But it's just so crazy you can see somebody in one fight and I see him in the next one. And you're just like, all right. It was a bad loss, too. It was a bad one. It wasn't good.

It was a lot of, like... See, you can find that fight. Like, leg kicks, the jabs. He got beat up. So the thing was, the amount of damage that he took, because he's so tough. The amount of damage he took before they stopped the fight was pretty extraordinary. There was a lot of damage. I was hoping he could get the fight down at least once.

Right. But, yeah, he couldn't. It was a tough... There's a lot of guys at 185 that are a fucking problem. man, a lot of guys at 85 that are a real problem. But we need that in those divisions, because those divisions have been so thin for so long. Like there's a couple of guys, right?

But now you're starting to see more. Like even like the low-weight classes, a guy who's unranked like an Ethan Ewan. Right, right. And you're like, I'm excited about this division because I want to see how far he could go. You got a guy like Mansour, and I can't say the other guy's name.

Abdul? No, that's Mansour. Bulgaria? Bulgaria. You got these two guys coming up. What are you got, Atabogotee? How about that motherfucker? Yeah.

He puts guys into Orbang. bit. He fought our guy, Ozzy Diaz, the last one. Yeah, that was a tough one. It was a tough one. Yeah, this is the fight. I mean, Menser is so tough that he was able to keep this fight going where a lot of guys would have got taken out early. But look at that. Yeah, the elbows and the clinch, everything. He's just getting destroyed. You see how he's even trapping the wrist and then stepping in with the punches or stepping in with the elbows? Clean right hand, elbow. It's just, menser is so tough. Man. He's so tough.

He's just absorbing so much punishment. And finally, they stop it. But before the stoppage... He's waiting it off for him. He said, get out of here. Before the stoppage. I think that was the end of a round. I don't even know if that was...

That was the end of the round, yeah. That wasn't the actual stoppage. So if you keep going in the fight, it gets even worse. I mean, the thing about stand-up is when you're dealing with a guy who is a world championship kickboxer, and you can't take him down. and he's got really good take-down defense, and he's got a reach advantage. It's like everything possible

that's terrible about what could happen is going on. Oh, that split right hand. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my God. I'm surprised he didn't just place plan after that. Well, he's so tough, man. But that's the durability. The durability, but the toughness is

your problem is you get so many holes punched in your card in one fight, in one fight. Whereas if he got hit with one shot, one big shot is bad. He'd get taken out, but it's not as bad as a prolonged beating over three rounds. I always say, I call them dings. There it is right there. There's only so many dings you can have in your career before he's just like. This is the final, his body just couldn't.

As tough as he is, and he's so tough. But the problem is that's a kind of fight where in boxing, you wouldn't have, if you were a manager, and he was your guy, you would not have had him fight him at this stage of his career. Not at all. This is not a fight for you right now. We've got to really get our striking better.

We've got to, there's growth to be had before you fight that guy. But you've got to know that. And I think sometimes fighters, we could be so egotistical that we could beat anybody. But sometimes it's nice to be like, you know what? I could beat him, but just not right now.

Let me beat somebody else. We'll get there when we get there. But the UFC does not give you that opportunity. The UFC is like, here's the wolves. You can say no, though. You can't be shelved. But you might get shelved for a long fucking time. You say no.

And a lot of guys know that. And they also know some guys have taken advantage of those opportunities, those short notice. John Jones. Yeah. John Jones got, I mean, what was the fight with Shogun? It was very short notice. After he'd just be in, oh, man.

who did he beat? He beat everybody, but who did he beat? Rashad Evans had just gotten hurt, and then he stepped in and took that one. Right. For the title. Exactly. And that's when him and Rashad were training partners. And that shows the wildness of John. He's fighting Shogun, who's a legend, who's the light heavyweight champion, opens with a flying knee. Yeah.

At 22. And beats him down, beats him down and wins the title. He has to be studied. Listen, man, he should be coaching for sure. Definitely should be coach. I mean, he is now with Gable. Yeah. Gable Steveson is a real fucking problem.

But the other thing is this. You can show all the technique in the world. And I always say it comes back down to what do you do when you're in there under those bright lights. And that's the most important thing. And if you can't dial it in, it's a scary place to be. Because I can't make you confident. You can be as confident as you want when you're talking to me, but only you truly know what's really going on between those years, you know?

So that's where it gets, like, tricky. It does. It gets very tricky. It gets very tricky and it's complicated. And, I mean, there's only so much a mental coach can teach you on how to handle those situations. They can give you some tools. But either, I mean, I think it's something that's born out of your life. You like mental coaches?

Excuse me? You like mental coaches? I think. There's nothing wrong with tightening up every single aspect of your game. However, I don't think they could fix a leaky boat. Yeah. What do you think? In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this.

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for the Cadillac definition of luxury. You said it like you don't like mental coaches. I think it's a chinking of armor. I think he's a chink in the armor. If I know you have a mental coach, I'm coming for that ass. Okay. But what if you found out

that Alessandre Pantosia had a mental coach? As savage as that dude is. Good for him. I might be like, okay. But he's not fighting me. Right, but you know what I'm saying? That's what I'm saying. But you know what I'm saying?

Like, imagine if you found out pure yon had a mental coach. That's cool. But you know what I'm saying? Like, if a guy is elite already and already a dog and you give him just some different things to concentrate on, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. What I think is, if you need it, it shows me that there's an issue. And sometimes that issue can never be fixed. there's some guys that when the going gets tough, they find a way out. That's where I'm getting at.

I agree with you. If you need it, there's nothing wrong with it. But I also know that there's a place in there that if I could get the right key to unlock that door, it's going to be bad. Yeah. It's going to be bad. You're a joke of people. Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right.

And I don't know. I mean, Sean Brady had a mental coach. and you know there's moments where Sean Brady is a motherfucker yeah right like the Joaquin Buckley fight like holy shit dude that Leon Edwards oh my god extraordinary

but then Morales but the problem is Morales is a fucking light heavyweight he's huge gigantic you want to talk about the one guy that is like the poster boy for cut and weight it's Morales he's so big for 170

it doesn't even make sense Yeah. You see him in the octagon, you're like, that's a light heavyweight. Or at the very least, a very big metal weight. Yeah, for sure. He's a big dude. And he's a welterweight. And seeing him and Brady in there, I was like, this is not the same weight class.

It seemed like it wasn't. He got a big back, but I'm looking at him like... Look what Brady did to a former world champion in Leon Edwards, who's a good grappler. I mean, Leon took down Camaro Oussman. Leon can grapple. He's a good grappler, but there's levels. And Sean Brady's on another level when it comes to... of that. And what he did to Buckley was just bananas. It looked like he was in a training room,

you know? Right? When he was on top of him, it was like he was like working a heavy bag drill. It was crazy. Yeah. I got no fear whatsoever of getting shook off. It's like, there is not a chance in hell you're getting me off of you. So I'm just going to work my cardio and beat your ass. Which is fascinating because he's so strong and explosive. You would think he'd be able to get up. 2.23. Pro. He's now weighing in as the backup for this fight. So he's cutting weight. That's ridiculous, bro.

2.23 is heavyweight. He's a heavyweight. He's down to 193 now. Yeah, but that's probably after training. Yeah, that's not the morning. He's not a wheel. He's really over 200. I guarantee you.

No, I see him in person. He's a big motherfucker. He's enormous. How are you making 170? And his power is fucking extraordinary. He has to cut 20. 20 or more pounds this week. Yeah, but listen, he can do it.

He's young. He's done it before. He started out. He was a wrestler. That's his original discipline. Really? Yeah, he knows how to cut weight. I didn't know that.

Wrestling and judo, I believe. See, find his Wikipedia. He can grapple, man. That's the thing. You don't see it from him, which is crazy. I see his videos. Yeah. Not the one where he's dressed up as a girl.

I think that's a tradition down there. Yeah, I know. They get silly. I know. This guy's blowing case it's a little Suss. Like what? I think they do

It's a traditional thing they do down there. I don't understand it, but I don't have to. I've never seen Cheeto do it. He's been doing judo since he was five years old. Yeah. See, there you do. I won't see him in his long. His mother was what?

Third Dan Judo black belt. Yeah. He retired when she was 42. Wow. He switched to wrestling when he was 10. Yeah. Watch out from a little mama. So he's got a background in grappling.

That's where he started out. But the thing is, the dude's got lightning in his hands. I want to see him in his own. I want to see him in Carlos protest. That's what I want to see. Fuck. Yes. I just, I want to see it.

Protest is the truth. I just don't want to- That dude scares the fuck out of me. I don't want to buy knock each other off yet. I understand what you're saying. That's what it gets hard. Right, because that's 100% a great world championship fight. You know?

And we'll see what happens. Listen, if Islam may retire. I can feel him He may retire He's done a lot He's He's competed in two different Weight classes

And won world championships In two different weight classes If he beats Ian If he submits Ian And says I've had enough I'm going to do what Khabib did And I'm going to coach now I could see that

And then I could see Morales And protest For the fucking Undisputed title Yeah That's the way to go Protest scares the fuck out of me Dude

To me he's the scariest because he does weird shit in there where he sets you up with stuff like he does that setup where he fakes a punch and dives in with that left knee to the body yeah nasty and his punching power is fucking crazy man

oh why his hands are down here hands down there and having fun having fun relaxing like when JDM took him down he's like why why are we wrestling my friend people don't want to see wrestling come on let me up But JDM's the boxer

So I thought it was going to be more competitive JDM's pretty complete You know JDM supposedly In the Islam fight had a really bad back It was pretty fucked up And really struggled with wrestling Getting ready for that fight That's the word

And you know even if he didn't There's levels And Islam's level is the highest level He's the highest level When it comes to grappling There's no one higher in that division than Islam His fucking and his squeeze is extraordinary.

That's what I want to train with those guys. Just give me a week. One, two weeks and forget. Send him to Dagestan, two years, forget. That'll be good with that. Would you want to go down there and train with those guys? I would go down for a bit. Why don't you go down?

I got this. I got the cigars. I got my training partners. I understand, but time is of the essence. There's not much time left. If you want to find out, it has to be now. I know. You can't go down there when you're 40.

Or maybe I'm like Mighty Mouse. When I'm retired, I go train every. where. Or George. George St. Pierre does that. He's down here all the time, training with Gordon Ryan. Yeah, that would be fun, you know.

George is like a real martial artist. You know what I mean? Like, never got out of shape. He's the man. He's the man. And he's so cool. He was, you know, he plays chess at a really high level. I play chess.

You play chess too? I play chess. Are you good? I'm about a 1400, I'm out of 1350 to 1420, Elo. Is that good? It's supposed to be good.

Decent for like, I'm not like a grandmaster, which is like 20. 500 or some shit or 3,000. How often do you play? Every day. Really? Every day.

But I play five minute games because it's similar to like a fight. Like you got to know and make your strategies, make your attacks. Some guys, they play 10 million games. I'm like, bro, I'm too busy to play 10 minute games. I got to... Where did you learn? I started playing after COVID, during COVID, when Queen's Gambit came out. Ah!

And I used to think chess was like, oh, that's a gay thing. This is like, so stupid. Play checkers like a man. What? Play checkers like a man. The dumbest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, then I realized really quick, I was like, oh, this is some high-level shit. This is not for stupid people.

This is for intellects. Like, you have to understand what you're actually doing, strategizing, setting people up. Kind of like a fight. It's a fascinating game. George was playing James McCann. James McCann is a hilarious comedian from Australia. And George and James is very smart and really good chess player. And George and him were going to war in the green room of the mothership.

And we were all like, oh, shit. it yeah yeah they had a board yeah oh man guys playing at the mothership all the time a brian simpson and tony hinchcliff play all the time okay yeah they get serious about chess challenge accepted yeah man i don't play but i'm scared i'm scared to play yeah yeah it's addicting that's the problem it's because then you want to you want to know the openings you want to know the strategies you want to know okay if i do this sacrifice and there's so many now did you learn by reading books did you learn by watching videos How'd you learn? I downloaded the app during COVID, and that was it.

I was hooked. And so how did you learn how to move? The game. So the game, you could start, like, beginner level. It tells you what pieces does what? Like, the pawn can only go for it. It can only capture sideways. The night can only do, like, this L-shaped thing forward, backwards.

So you just learn from the app? Yeah. Oh, wow. And then I started watching videos. And then I was watching hour-long videos and tutorials. I was like, all right, the hooks are in. Bro, we had Magnus Carlson on the podcast, and Tony sat in with it because, you know, Tony plays.

And it was like watching a guy and watching his mind move and just talking to him about how he does it and how he strategizes. And, you know, he's the greatest of all time. Yeah. So having him, like, explain the game to you, you just go, whoa, there's just so many, there's so many moves.

It's so complex. There's so much going on. There's so many steps in it. advance you're playing. It's cool. Yeah. It's cool. And it's something you can play forever too, regardless of your physical ability.

You know, you don't have to ever worry about getting out of shape to play chess. Yeah. I want to, I have some of my friends that did some time, and that's where they learned. That's where they learned how to play. And we'd play from time to time. But then I come to find out, like, they were really good at the time because I wasn't. really good. I thought it was good, but I really wasn't. And then really quickly I realized, oh, these guys really, they're not that good. They're like, low level. You know, so it's,

it's very intellectual game. That's why I really, really enjoy it. When I was playing pool in New York, there was this kid who was a young player who, like when he was really young, he was playing in tournaments all over the place. He was like really good. And there was a dude who got out of prison and learned how to play in his head in prison because they didn't have a board. And so this kid and this old dude were sitting there playing chess in their head and they would call out the moves and they had the the whole board mapped i was fascinated i was like this is crazy that's really hard to do yeah and you also have to agree where the pieces are yeah you know what i'm not that good you got to rely on and you know this one guy had played so many times in prison in his head that he could

keep track of the entire board and this kid was a wizard at it and watched these two guys call out moves and just sitting there staring at each other. They're trying to figure out who's winning. I'm like, you guys are playing an invisible board. This is crazy. Yeah, that's next level. That was my first introduction to chess. I was like, this is nuts, man.

You want to try the silver? Sure, I'll try it. I still have some of this left, though. It's water now. Yeah. I know it is. Agua. It's still chilled, too, so.

I like this one chilled. You ever do, like, a green tea shot? What's a green tea? It's like with bourbon or whiskey. It's like a little simple. Yeah, they call it green tea. You see a lot of the girls they drink it at the bars and stuff. So we did this with like a, we call a silver tea.

It's a silver room. What is rum made with? Sugar cane, sugar cane, or molasses. I think the other one's agricultural. But. No matter where people are in the world, they find a way to get fucked up. Yeah. From the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Is that what's room? No, no. But that's what the pirates would drink. Ooh. Why did, uh, why are pirates? Why were they so into rum? Honestly, I couldn't tell you. You know what I?

I don't know. That's like rum is like associate. They probably learn from the Caribbean, right? That's where it originated, right? Yeah, you get it from sugar cane plants and the whole distillation process. This is like pot still, pot still and columstile for both of these. It's just a Jamaican blend. Like some of them are mostly,

Pirates did drink rum, but the stereotype is exaggerated, so it's perplexity. During much of the 1600s, Caribbean pirates often drank wine and brandy more commonly. Rum became far more available and popular in the early 1700s as Caribbean sugar production expanded. How that makes sense? Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum. You know what I never understood? It's like we know the big players in the rum market like Bacardi, Captain Morgan, Malibu. But when we go on vacation, we go to the Caribbean, we drink all the different rums from the islands.

And I always tell people, like, you have such a great time drinking rum. Like, why don't we bring that here to our culture and make it more of an inclusive thing versus just only when I go on vacation? That's the only time is really associated. And I go, I want to change that narrative and let people. Rum is for year round. You could have sipping rum, you can have for Vegas pool parties. you can have it with a cigar.

There's so many different ways you can enjoy it. It's not just for vacation time. For me, I want this to be something that makes you feel like you're back on the island. And we want to make sure this was 100% Jamaican rum. Didn't want to piss off my people in Jamaica because that's the one thing when we were doing this. So I went through the whole process,

like the branding, the labeling, my money invested in it. So it's actually my company. But with that said, one of the things I spoke to some of the guys at the distilleries, the one we went to mainly was Worthy Park. And they were saying the main thing you don't want to do is call something in Jamaica Rome if it's not 100% Jamaican. I was like, I had a feeling, but I wanted to make sure. So we didn't tow that line and piss anybody off.

So this has been a fun project, and we've been having a good time just getting some bigger distributors and stuff. We should get one in California soon. My guy Kevin Falkler from King Seafood He has a bunch of restaurants down in Cali in Vegas He brought us in it But he's a Long Island guy He heard me talking about it on the Ariel show

And reached out and I thought it was like a prank email I was like, let me just see where it goes And it turns to something I was like oh this is actually a legit guy Actually had a legit business and everything And it's been cool So this has been fun It's my passion project

What's a smart thing to do To prepare for your retirement too To have a real legitimate business going Like as you're still fighting Yeah, it's not just my name on a label Trying to do a quick money grab or anything like that That's awesome So where are you right now in terms of like your next fight

Are you in a holding pattern? Yeah, everyone's got a fight Lorone's the only guy who would make the most sense in my opinion But like I said, I heard he was hurt I think Diego Lopez is supposed to have somebody He's fighting lightweight now That's what I heard I heard Diego's moving up which makes sense because he's big

He's a big dude He's big and after he beat Steve Garcia Which was a crazy fight I got my thoughts on that. What's that? I got my thoughts on that. What are your thoughts on that? Think about it while you're lighting that cigar.

Pause. So. Coming for that ass. I'm coming on that ass. No, I'm coming for that. I remember that. I still get those messages till this day, bro. It's the funniest thing.

I was like, yeah. You just got done with a fight. What are you going to do? My adrenaline was through the roof. I'm on cloud nine. I just submitted the boogemon of the, the division. Even back then, my managers, I heard talk that they thought he was going to be the first

champ for their management company. And I took that as, as Michael Jordan would say, I took that shit personal, you know? So I was so glad I proved the point. And yeah, I was just a whole other level. But yeah, Lorone is out. Garcia just lost. Arnold Allen just had a great fight with Costa. He lost to Gene Silver

before that. Moser in Vogue. We know that. I fought most are already. And Gene Silver's got a fight too now, right? He's supposed to be fighting Yairair. That's right. Those are the rumors I saw circulated on Aethe. That's right. That's an interesting fight. That would be a fun one. Yai'er is always a wild card.

Yeah. That dude can kick. I was going to say his kicks. If there's a guy I don't want to fight, is that motherfucker? Because I know what the kicks do and I'm like, I don't want to be on the receiving end of that. His kicks are Baseball bats getting swing at your head. And he's so dex, he's got so much dexterity.

Like he can whip those kicks around from anywhere. He's so light on his feet, man. Those kicks are extraordinary. Yair is one of the best kickers in the sport by far. 100%. People think I have like a kicking background. I'm like, no, I just watch a lot of VHS tapes when I was a kid and played white tiger, white lion, and all that stuff with my brothers growing up.

Is that how you learned out of kick? Basically, we just see what we did on the, on the TV and just start imitating in and we have these battles. I'm a family of 20, so I got a huge family. Wow, that's crazy. That's huge. Yeah, all the boys, we went to war with each other.

And you just learned from watching movies? We learned from watching movies. We didn't do anything traditional, like no martial arts traditional background. So when did you first get, like, someone teach you technically how to kick? I forget the guy's name. But when I was at Team Bomb,

squad in New York when I was in college and I was just starting off as an amateur and early pro. We had this moitai guy come up. Stone something I want to say but he was working with John Jones. He was the first guy like showing John the elbows, the knees and stuff.

And that's where I first first started learning how to do like traditional moitai kicks. Then I worked with this other guy named Primo Bella Rose. He was really good for me to work with. Irish guy had a ton of moitai fights. and then when I came to Long Island

I didn't really have like a I still don't even have like a set Moitai instructor or anything like that I just kind of know what I know from back then and I kind of just blend it in where it makes sense I know you train in Vegas sometimes too I've seen you at Sunday kid you live there now 100% yeah

wow what made you decide to do that my home's always going to be in New York but I live in Vegas now it's the fight capital of the world business for me over there it's doing really really well and is it because you get more training partners, more coaching.

Training partners, more coaching. Are you still a syndicate? No, I was, Mara was at syndicate. Right. I would go to syndicate. That's why I saw you training. Yeah, I would go down there to help him out for his fights. I started at XC, that's where I trained with FERS with Nixick.

The training times were a little bit odd for me. It was like 3.30 pro classes and stuff like that. But I think this sport's still kind of backwards. People doing all these classes, I think in the beginning is good, but I think eventually you have to get to that one-on-one Ilya Teporeo, an O'Malley, Henry C. Udo, a Mighty Mouse. The way these guys are doing it.

Tailored structure training camps for you. Like a boxing camp. Right. Right. And even when I was back home in New York, that's basically how we essentially rent it. You know, I was running all the stuff that we were doing and, you know, rain, those guys would come down and for sparring.

And I go to Sarasford, BJJ, working a lot with Jason, Jason Rao, who's got his own school now, too. I don't know if you know him, but he's like the boogeyman everyone talks about in the training room. But for some reason, in competition, he's just never really showed what he can truly do. But he's so talented, could walk you through everything and explain everything at a high level. But yeah, that's kind of how I ran everything, but it's centered focus. And I felt like that's the best.

Our gym was on a run where everyone was killing the game. So is it also because Marabs in Vegas that you wanted to go to Vegas? I moved before him. Really? And then he moved in and he found a house right next to me. Oh, that's perfect. That's amazing.

So we're literally like across the street from each other. Oh, that's amazing. It's pretty cool. That's actually great. And where are you training? What Jimmy you train at there? The Q? I don't know that place.

It's a brand new. Before it was kind of like nomads land. We're training most of the classes at the PI, but you can't charge anybody, right? You're using someone else's facility, so you can't be running a class and on top of that charging people. Right.

So that whole thing. So my coach Mateus, who was eventually able to find a place. And now just about all the undergrad are now graduates. Most of them are just about all signed to the UFC now. So we have a, we have Deoni Barbosa. We have John Paul Lambozzan.

I can never say his name. John Paul, I just call him JP. John Powell, I think he's supposed to be getting signed. Shane Collins just got signed. He had that debut against Atari, the Georgian, which was also a friend of mine who was kind of sucked watching that fight because I was like, I don't want to see nobody get hurt, I don't see nobody lose, Ozzie Diaz,

and I think Marab is now going to be shifting over to doing most of his camp. He's still going to be working with syndicate, but he's going to be doing most of his camp with us. And there's a feel that I'm sorry if I'm missing some other people. Don't be mad at me. I'm sorry. I'm just a man. No worries.

And so you have Mateus, not Mattias from London. No. What's Mateus' last name? Nakashi, Nakashi. He's from Noviu and Yao. He grew up with Al-Dohan those guys, Henna Barrao, Johnny Eduardo. He's like, bro, you fight all my Brazilian friends.

You beat all my coaches. Because I beat Johnny Eduardo. I fought Henna Barrae. I beat him. And he's like, bro, I remember I was there and you beat my coach. I was like, fuck. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. But it's a good gym. You know what it is? It's a lot of the drills that we do, even in the classes, It's practical. We're not doing eight, ten punch combinations. We're doing real-life practical stuff, scenarios that happens in the fight.

So I don't mind doing the classes with this. But I also like to do my one-on-ones afterwards, especially when it's fight-specific that we need to work on. I think they do a good job with that. Now, you were saying you had thoughts on the Steve Garcia-Lopez fight. Again, another pause. Light went up for my boys. Yeah.

145. Yeah, Steve Ford. I always said Steve is the dark horse of the division He looks so good in the early going Bro If you watch some of his other fights The one fight, the few fights he lost where he was knocked out Was him just being more reckless

Than he probably should have been Big frame for the weight class His reach is fucking stupid Crazy long Crazy kicks When he gets you on the ground His ground to pound is ferocious Like almost reckless to a point

Right? And then he's fighting a super smart fight with Diego Lopez. Diego Lopez now comes out for round two. He flips the switch and says, fuck this technical shit and just pulls him into a barn fight. And, man, he clipped him. And he's been knocked out before, right?

So if there's any way, a guy who has a granite chin who could rely on it is a guy like Diego Lopez. And I even said, I saw Diego Lopez at the PI and I told him, it was like, congrats on the fight. So we had a little beef. But it was more so about who should have. gotten a title shot. I thought he was gifted a title shot. Okay, cool. The second one, you mean? The first one? The first one. I thought it should have been Mossar. The second one was

ridiculous. The second one was ridiculous, too? Didn't make any sense. But congrats to him. Do you think they gave him the second one as a gift because he fought short notice? Possibly. Yeah. It kind of seems like it. This one don't like me. But my whole thing is that's why we kind of bumped heads. We did train together one time. We were friendly, cordial and the whole nine, and that kind of set a little riff in the relationship a little bit. We both fought at USC 300. We took a picture in the back. But that's what I said.

It's like I always speak my mind on things and sometimes it gets me in trouble with. And it turned to a whole thing with his manager and myself and Twitter beef and all this whole thing. And I thought the fight should have went to Mossar. Just being fair based on merit, should have gotten it. Tied up the division, jammed up fights that probably should have been different directions, right? But I told him, congratulations. You fought a smart fight. You pulled them into your style of fight,

and that's how he got the job done. If he fought him on a technical standpoint like that, I think Diego would have probably ran away with it. Not Diego, Garcia. Garcia. Well, he just, unfortunately, when Lopez started chasing after him, he engaged in that kind of fight. Yeah.

And that's what he does. I'm like, if I'm fighting Diego, I'm not doing that shit. I'm sure I could take a punch. but that guy's got Mitz That's one And he knows he could rely on his chin And he's probably looking at me Like I don't think this guy

Can knock me out So I'm gonna risk it right So he's got a square jaw dude You have to understand What you're getting into And that's what I was saying before About like some of these guys You have to understand thyself

You know? When you look at Diego Yeah that's good Yeah Diego looks like he's designed To take a shot Yeah Like one of the Mark Hunt type chins

You know Designed to take a shot So that's where I go like if I were to fight him I know how I would approach the fight obviously the path of least resistance for me is always going to be the ground but he's good on the ground too. Very good.

He almost got Ivoev. Remember? The knee bar, the triangle, arm bar. Yeah, you could make an argument that he could have won that fight because he was closer to finishing multiple times and those should count. Those submission attempts, close submission attempts should count in a big way. And just because a guy got out of it doesn't mean he was almost dead. Like that means a lot. That means

just as much as rocking a guy. It should. It should. But judges are judges? That's a bad aspect of judges because it's very difficult to get to a position like that where you're almost submitting a guy multiple times. Yeah. Like those are very close.

And if you were looking at that in terms of a jujitsu perspective, like, yeah, he's got the advantage. 100%. 100%. So that's why that would be a tough fight for me. But it's the, I want to fight the biggest names. Well, Diego's moved up. So Diego's 55 now. Yeah.

from what I understand, which makes sense because he's fucking big. It was probably a real struggle for that dude to get down to 45. Yeah. A real problem. Yeah. But 55 is such a fucking lion's den too. What did you think of the Tuporia Gaghi fight? I thought it was amazing, man.

Like for Gaiji to come out, it kind of reminded me of the Tony Ferguson fight, right? The boogey man, he did what he needed to do, had a perfect game plan. And what Gachie said was the most spot-on thing. I was talking to one of my friends They said They like Gaiti on the podcast But they were like I thought he came off a little

Like a little cocky or arrogant I was like I was like as he fucking should He's the champion of the world Was trying to shit on him And gave him no chance to win the fight If anyone relates to that as me I understand

Exactly where he's coming from Fuck Let him fucking talk of shit Because if the other guy won Best believe he would have been His white rose Like he said he was gonna do He's had beef with his dad

like there's a lot of built up animosity whether it was fake whatever it was there so let him have his time in the center so but with the fight I thought the thing he said that made the most sense to me that resonated was he changed people's perception of the fighter

where before people were kind of going in there hesitant scared and they kind of knew what they were walking into and it was going to be a bad night and going in there doing that to Ferguson changed Ferguson's career going in there doing this to Toporia, can Toporia bounce back and be the same guy and have that same aura, same persona, that people are going to step in the octagon with him and be a little hesitant

to want to go in there with him because of what he's done in the past, but then also knowing that, oh, it's just like us, man, he puts his fucking pants on the same way we do, one leg at a time unless he could jump and put both on at the same time. I think there's a physics element to it, too. The reality of Gaichi and Tuporia is that Tuporia is much smaller. Yeah. He's a much smaller person. Look, he's got death in his hands.

Death. And a lot of people would have folded in that second round. But Gachi is so fucking durable. He's so, and you can't make him quit. He's not going to quit. You might beat him. He's been beat before. But it's not because he doesn't believe in himself.

And it's not because he can't endure. It's because he gets caught. Yeah. And you think about the way Ilya put it on him in that second round. He emptied the gas tank, emptied the gas tank, and Gaichi was still there. And that's the problem, because you cannot empty the gas tank on that guy. I think he tried, he got ahead of himself too. I felt like he was trying to put an exclamation point bow tie ribbon on the finish,

where he could have submitted him or maybe just go for the TKO, but instead he went for the Kabib-like mounted triangle that, could be hit on Gaichi, and he was in the same position, was going for the same sequence, and I go, brother, this is either going to be really dope or is going to be the reason you lose? And he lost the position. Gaci gets back up, and, man, just everything he did in the approach. If they had a rematch, maybe the fight goes different. Maybe Teporia, if he does, he takes him down and does what he's also really good at and submits him.

Or maybe he's more patient with his attack. He doesn't empty the gas. tank in the second round when he has him hurt. It was Justin's attitude is so crazy too. Like when he got back to the corner he's like, good body shot. He's the best. He's the best. He helped. Like congratulating him on hitting him with a good liver shot.

Yeah, yeah. And man, the way he hit him, I was like, the fact that he didn't just go down and curl up in a ball and just say, all right, I'm just going to take my paycheck and go home. Nope. But it was his last chance at 37 to be a world champion. And he did it. And he did it in the White House.

Which is crazy. So you're saying this a chance. Is it saying this a chance. 37th? You're saying this a chance. Of course, it's a chance. You've already pulled it off before. You 100% could be a world champion at 45.

You know it. Bro, that would be the Cinderella ending for my career, right? Yeah. I couldn't even put into words, like, what that would feel like. Like, I get, like, goosebumps even, like, thinking and talking about it because it's my career. Well, you're better and smarter than you've ever been before. Yeah. All your experience, the Zalalalphite's a great example of that.

You're at a world championship level at 45 for sure. Yeah. 100%. It's a matter of whether or not you get that shot. And I think they should hopefully, let's say I don't get booked because there's not a lot of options. But let's say they have their fight. Hopefully it's in Abu Dhabi sooner rather than later. I think that's when it's supposed to be, right?

Yeah, that's what I've heard. And hopefully I'm the next guy because then it's okay to wait. If not, then, you know, I'd rather stay active, stay busy, make money, and the whole nine. Because that's ultimately what it comes down to. So they haven't talked to you about any potential fights or offered you anything? They floated names. Pico's now booked with Zalao. Oh, yes.

Interesting. There's Vallejos, but with Vallejos, that's going so far back again for me. It's like, it's not a fight that makes a ton of sense. But whatever these guys want to do, but I've. I've never said no. Maybe that's a problem. But ideally you'd like to fight for the title next. Ideally, I would like to fight for the title next.

And I think that makes sense, especially you as a former world champion at Phantom Weight. It makes sense. Especially if Vogue wins. Yeah. It's like, this is a big fight you can make. Two OGs of their weight classes. Everything I've done at the band-weight division, set the records. Why not?

You know, so. Well, I mean, he, after Lerone knocked out Pico, he was saying, I'll see you next. And we thought that was going to be the case. And it changed. Yeah. So hopefully, I don't know. Hopefully it changes, but it changes. Now, Lorone loses to Eve Luev.

And, you know, and then the whole thing is just upside down now. Because Lorone, after he knocked out Pico looked like the man. I mean, it wasn't looking like the man before that, but. Well, Pico's bad motherfucker dude. He didn't get like, no fucks. I was like, dude, you got to slow down. He was so reckless. I mean, it makes him so exciting.

But, listen, he adjusted. in the pit bull fight in a perfect way. I mean, he looked like world class in the pit bull fight. That left hook he has is beautiful. It's nasty. Oh, it's beautiful. It's perfect. Like, they should study it.

They should teach that left hook. The Aaron Pico left hook, him and Ilya. Ilya's left hook is fucking phenomenal. That left hook to the body. Ilya just does such a good job. Once he gets going and he hits a slip and he's just like, bink, pink, pink. It's almost like Connor-esque the way he just lines up his shots. Vintage Connor.

vintage Connor like Eddie Alvarez Connor Oh my God That was when he was the Matrix Who is it uh They did a side by side Uros Medich with D-Rod Yeah And it was a problem

I was like There's no way This is like the same exact combination Close except for the knee Yeah Yeah Euros Meditch look good man He's another motherfucker

He's another motherfucker And another guy who was cut in too much weight At 55 Yeah Yeah at 70 That's perfect for him Because he's big man He's so tall

I think all first rounds too Uh huh just starching guys. Serbia's a wild place too, man. They're wild people. Brother. It was hostile. They were nice to me, but my Albanian friends.

Because there's still a lot of history that wasn't too long ago. And I always tell my friends, they're like, yo, we are blessed to be in this country because the shit we bitch about and complain about, these are luxuries, liberties, and freedoms

that a lot of these countries do not have. Right. And all it takes is a short trip overseas and you'll see, hey, I can't wait to go back home and I'll kiss the ground. It ain't perfect, but we got a lot, you know? Have you ever seen those Serbian basketball games? I heard about it. I didn't get to see them, though.

I heard they were talking about, I think we were supposed to go to one or something like that. It's like war. Like the chance in the audience is crazy. The flares and everything too? Well, it's the chance. It's when they're chanting. You're like, Jesus, it's like daunting. It's very different than anything you ever see.

in America. Yeah. It's like, first of all, their national private, give me some volume on this. Yeah,

the flares, bro. Serbian basketball. Yeah, they're lighting that place on fire. I mean, it might as well be a riot.

Now, is this actually basketball? Like, how we know it? Bro, basketball. They're fucking good. They're not tackling each other. The Dagesteady stuff. It's crazy.

Like, listen to the crowd. Fuck. Bro, they get into it. Look at that stadium. I know. Amazing. It's like war. I mean, the energy.

Three. The fucking crowd. The energy is like the energy in an American NBA game times 10. Shout with the Knicks. It's crazy. It's crazy how much. Like, look at all the movement in the crowd. I mean, these people are active.

I mean, it's kind of nuts. Yeah, we don't. That's the one unfortunate thing I feel like our sports Isn't as like Like our fan base Besides New Yorkers who Will beat you up for being the rival team

In the playoff finals We're in the wrong jersey You better take that shit off We don't really get like Like we don't That kind of pride Yeah that's like Well those people have been to war

Pretty recently It's different Yeah Yeah But it makes you appreciate That's what I go back to like It makes me appreciate like what we have here and the fact that we can achieve basically whatever it is that

we want to it's going to be it's not easy but we can yes we can try we have the option to try anything yeah I mean this is literally the land of opportunity but when you see people that come from Serbia we see people that come from Dagestan we see people that come from these like war-torn Chechnya they're different because their their childhood was different like different mentality. Yeah, it's a different mentality. It's a warrior mentality. It's very different. Yeah. Like I've seen it, I've learned a little bit from Arab and going to Georgia and learned the history about them

and Russia and the whole, the whole war and everything and the political side of things and then going to Albania, going to Kosov, and then going to Serbia and see how, like the Serbians are coming up to my Albanian friends introducing themselves basically or asking my friends where they're from. And then just straight up to saying Kosovo, Serbia. As an introduction, I would go, are we just trying to start a fight right now?

Like, I don't even understand. Can we just be like, can we just be cool? We're in your country. We're just accept one another for what it is. We're here for the fights. We're not here to fight. Just have, oh, before I forget this. So we were at a, we were after one of the nights, I think we went to one of the clubs on the water.

And we go out to this food spot to go get food. to call good food or whatever. And we're there. We're with some of the staff, the UFC staff. We're hanging out. These guys are always great. We're having a good time, a couple fighters. And I guess one of the guys came over and was talking to one of our friends.

And he goes to him, like, our friend looks straight up Dardinian. Like, he looks like a straight up Illyrian bloodline. Like, he looks straight up Albanian. And he asks him where he's from. He tells him, oh, I'm Albanian. I think he says he's from Kosov. And they start talking. But then sure enough, the guy, I guess, starts reaching into his pocket.

And he says whatever he says, they don't speak Serbian. It's different language. And we have a Serbian friend with us. And he translates for them. And he tells him, he says, if you guys don't clear out in 10 minutes, I'm going to blow this place up. Brother, what? I'm taking a piss break around the corner outside somewhere because I'm like, been drinking all night. I got to find somewhere to go.

I come back and they're explaining this to me. So we start telling the girls, he says when the guy starts going down the steps, he's like trying to talk to the guy. He keeps taking a step back. He says he starts sweating profusely. He's got his hand in his back pocket and he moves it to the front. And he's just like waving, whatever he's saying in Serbia and telling everybody they better leave. And he said he thought it was a gun.

And then he asked our Serbian friend, he said, no, it was a grenade. I was like, what? He's just casually walking around with a fucking grenade. Are you kidding me? And just because they were Albania. Brother, this is life for these guys. And I know people are going to be, they're going to criticize, oh, we're not all like. Of course not everyone is like that.

But there's still some crazy people out there that still have this pent up resentment and anger for everything because of the separation of the lands and all this. But this, it's almost like the Israel-Palestine thing. It's all the lands get divided from years ago. And then you did this to me, but then you did this to me. But then you did this to me first. But you did this to me back then. And I'm like, what are we going to go back to BC? Like what the fuck are we talking about?

Can we draw a line in the sand and go, okay, this is where we all agree that this is what it should be. And just make everybody happy or somewhat happy so that we can go on with our lives and peace. You know what I mean? It's just, it shouldn't have to be like that. It shouldn't have to be like that. Yeah. Yeah. I was so

I was so like broken up about it I'm just like, I didn't know it was like this man This is like Because you're from this country And this guy Had a pleasant conversation with you He's got a fucking grenade

Pull out a fucking grenade He's going to walk I'm like no It's crazy But Yeah Don't take any fights over there For you Albanian

God bless America Well Dennis is Albanian That's crazy And the chance he was getting Basically what they told me to translate to it was kill Albanians. And I'm laughing because I don't understand anything.

I'm just laughing because I'm like, yo, this is sick. You're in the main event. This was like me fighting O'Malley in the main event. The crowd was packed. They could not wait for Dennis to make that walk. Boo-in, you hear chance, Kosovo, Serbia, Kosovo, Serbia, Kosovo, Serbia. And, yeah, unfortunately. But I told Dennis it, like, you handled it well.

Like, you know, even in hostile territory, you came in like a champ. You didn't piss anybody off. You were just doing what you normally do. You do your ego every fight. You're not looking to provoke anybody. And it was nice to see even after the fight, whatever, the fucked up stoppage. He got a better reception on the way out.

There was still some angry fans. Well, luckily he didn't win. I was like, bro, you had won this fight here? I don't know, man. We had to blow up the hotel. Oh, my God. Imagine you fight Euros Medich over there And you beat him

I don't even know if I'm supposed to say this But his dad was told when he got to I guess the hotel That he wasn't welcome here He had to go all the way back to Albania Really He drove all the way down Had to drive all the way back Wow that's serious

His last name Holy shit Yeah they told me you're not welcome here This is God bless America Yeah I mean Here's the thing like in America Like when Russians fight in the UFC, everybody cheers.

No one cares. I got the biggest reception. But I mean, even now, even now, in the middle of the Ukraine war and all that shit, like when Russians fight over here, nobody cares. If you could fight, they'll cheer you. There's a few people that yell out USA, USA,

and that's all good, because it's just, it's not that bad, you know? It's just they're cheering for the American, but they're not saying death to the Russian. You know what I mean? Yeah, we don't have a phrase. We don't have a statement. Right, but would you fight in Russia right now?

Imagine if you were fighting a Russian in Russia right now, how scared? I got offered a raft match in Russia. What's a raft match? R-A-F? Oh, I thought you meant like raft, like you fight on a raft. No, no, that would be crazy. Did you see Marab was sparring with Zuckerberg on a raft? Basically a rap.

He did the sport, he kicked off the raft, and then he picked him up and slammed him into the water. So you got offered one of those matches in Russia? My second one. The first one was with Benson Henderson. That was a fun match, more so for me. Yeah, but I was just like, it was a really good prospect, 12-0 guy. I think he fights a PFL. Tough guy, but I'm like, dude, I'm leaving Albania.

I just left Baku. I have no desire to go all the way back overseas again. I want to prepare for a fight. I want to sell some rum. I want to fucking sell some cigars, help my training partners. And I got a wife. I got a picture that I'm... Kind of home.

Kind of home. Give her some attention and some love. You know, some TLC. Well, it's also... There's a reality of wrestling matches that you have the potential blowing a knee out. That too.

That's real. So... You know, who was the Russian guy blew his knee out? Oh, the Georgian guy. Is that it was? Yeah, the big heavyweight guy. Yeah.

Yeah, the Georgian guy. It was like a silver medalist in the Olympics. I mean, you can blow a knee out in these matches and then you're fucked. And all the injuries in MMA are basically What were you doing? Wrestling. Wrestling, yeah.

The corporate. Well, listen, Al Jermaine, it's always good to have you on here, brother. And good luck with the rum company. It's called Harbor. What is it called? Funk Harbor Room. And we actually got a community app now, too. It's called Join Funk Harbor.com.

And what is the website if people want to go and see the rum? Well, if they want to join the community, it's JoinFunkharbor.com. If you want to purchase, Funk Harbor Rum.com or Frontcarborspeerspirits.com, pretty easy. and we're looking for distributors, more distributors to keep growing this thing as best as we can. And the best thing about it is we're actually giving people an opportunity to help grow this thing from the ground up. We're two years in as of August 1st. And we doubled ourselves from last year, so we're in a really, really good spot. So I'm excited about that.

And anyone that's been following me from the beginning of my career, they get an opportunity to now take the ride with this. And we've got perks and stuff like that, all listed on the Republic campaign for the crowd funding. I'm so happy that you have something like this. It's really cool. It's good. It's smart, too. Yeah. It's really good to invest in something like that. Yeah. So far, so good.

And good luck and whatever happens in the future, because I really do hope you get another title shot. Oh, my God. That would be the, that's the right way. The right way is, yeah. Because, again, you're 37. This is the time. Clock's ticking.

Yeah. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you. Always good to see you, my friend. Always. All right. Bye, everybody.