The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #25 with Michael Chandler

Episode Date: May 7, 2018

Joe sits down with former two-time Bellator Lightweight Champion Michael Chandler.

four three two boom and we're live how are you brother i'm great man great to have you in here man thank you i've been here yeah i mean i've been wanting to have you on for a long time man i've been following your career forever and i've been a big fan forever so it's nice to be able to sit down with you i know man this is awesome this is. I've been a big fan of yours, obviously, and the podcast for a long time. So to be in here, get the tour, check out your awesome man warehouse. I think every man's dream. This is an elaborate plot to convince me to get you to join the UFC. That's all this is.

Oh, my gosh. Right away? Right away? We want to go straight to it? Okay. Well, I just, I mean. All of this could be yours. I appreciate Rory McDonald going over there.

I know he did what he had to do, but even that one bums me out. You know? I just, I wanted to, I want to see you fight the best guys in the world. And I think right now over in Bellator, you have very good competition, but I don't think you have the best guys. And I think you're one of the best guys. I think I wake up every morning and think I'm the best guy in the world, too. I think that's the way to think if you want to be the best guy in the world. That's the way I've been thinking for a while. Not always in my career. I mean, I've had some losses where I've

had temporary lapses of confidence and whatnot, whether it be my training or my abilities in myself or my thoughts and my abilities myself. But I mean, where I'm at right now, firing on all cylinders, I feel like everything's working so do you feel like those moments where you haven't been at your best where you've had lapses and then you felt those dark moments do those motivate you to never let that happen again yeah I mean I think I actually went through for those the people that don't know I went through three losses in a row I mean that's that's rough I mean the first loss to Eddie Alvarez was a tough split decision. A lot of people thought I won. So you kind of get this, you know, oh, woe is me attitude, which I never had really had before. And all of a sudden it's like, why

did this happen to me? Then had a back injury and then fought Will Brooks when I shouldn't have on one week, basically one week of training, which led to another loss, which led to another lack of confidence and then another loss. So I went through that tough, dark time, you know, and I think there were certain aspects of it that it was me taking the sport for granted. It was me taking my abilities for granted and also just not taking extreme ownership of my mental state, like realizing that I might be the hardest worker in the gym. I am the hardest worker in the gym.

At every gym I go to, I'm the hardest worker. I live life right. I do the right things. But if you're not constantly taking extreme ownership of your mental state, of your confidence, your self-image, I think a healthy self-image is the most important component of being successful in life. And I just, I wasn't taking care of that aspect of my life. So you were doing all the right things physically, but you weren't doing what you needed to do mentally? Yeah. I mean, I think I had never visualized until after that. I mean, honestly, I mean, I come from a, I come from a hardworking background.

My mom and dad both worked two jobs. My dad was a union carpenter, woke up at five in the morning, every single morning, pulled himself up by his bootstraps. the morning, every single morning, pulled himself up by his bootstraps. Mom, the same way, working two, three jobs, both of them to make sure that me and my brothers had every single advantage in life, whether it be wrestling camps, football camps, this, that, the other thing. But we weren't exactly taught that, hey, you can go out in the world and do great things. You can go out and you can be not just good, but great and be a champion. And I think I went into college wrestling and I might have told the coaches I wanted to be a national champion. I might've told the reporters, um, all the people that I was supposed to, that I wanted to be a national champion,

but in my heart of hearts, I didn't truly believe it, you know? And I think, and I was, I mean, you, you asked Tyron, you asked Ben, um, those guys took me under their wing because I was the hardest worker in the room, you know? And they said, man, this guy could be good. But I didn't exactly believe in myself. And now it's taken me almost till in fighting, not just in sports, but I mean in anything, in business, and just being a good person, just believing in yourself and having a healthy self-image. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that's one of the most important things to life,

but it's also really difficult to cultivate. Oh, it is. Well, I think, too, I mean, I'm very hard on myself. I mean, I think anybody who's successful is at least relatively hard on themselves. And I think I got to the point where I just started calling myself lazy. You know, I wake up every morning, you know, and I think, Michael, you're being lazy. If you don't do something today, listen to this podcast or watch this YouTube video or read this book or spend 10 minutes, five minutes, 30 minutes visualizing yourself in a cage or on a podium or having loads of wealth or having loads of influence,

having loads of impact, having, having ridiculous amounts of success because until you actually see it in your mind's eye, you can't actually achieve it. Or we are going to get to the point right on the cusp of about to be achieving it. And you're going to have that cognitive dissonance where something, something pops up where you have the opportunity to break that barrier, but you're going to find a way to sabotage yourself because you don't truly believe that you deserve it. And I did that numerous times in college. There was times where I was beating, um, top rank guys in the country and would somehow find a way to lose because winning to me being crazy successful to me

wasn't exactly it didn't exactly mesh with how I truly saw myself you know I think it's and I think I can look back on that not with regret but with that kind of edge now I just educate myself and I look back and I could put myself at national duels against CP Schlater us versus Minnesota my team needed me to win. He was ranked top five in the country. I wasn't supposed to beat him. I was up by two takedowns, and somehow in the third period I lose the match. And I can go back and see that in my mind and realize, okay, that was a time.

Let's respect that for what it is, and let's use that as fuel for the future. for what it is and let's use that as fuel for the future. I mean, my loss to Eddie Alvarez was a lot of technical things I did wrong technically. Losses to Will Rooks were things I did wrong technically. But mentally I wasn't there as well. And then I came back with a vengeance and then won. And now I've won six of my last seven. The only loss was a crazy freak injury. And now we can continue to move forward and just kind of look at it as an adult instead of take the emotion out of it and look at it A plus B equals C.

And so it's really kind of helped me. I think for a lot of people who don't test themselves in such an extreme manner, I mean, I think MMA is probably one of the most extreme things you could do for a job other than being a soldier or a fireman or a police officer or something like that but it's that this idea that you sabotage yourself because you can't imagine yourself winning chael sonnen talked about that quite a bit about his fight with anderson silva how he was you know kind of dominating him not kind of but was dominating him was very close to being the ufc middleweight champion found a way to fall into a triangle and he had done that with paul ophelio when he fought him and there was this thing that he would do where he would find a way to fuck it up almost even though you're there doing it the pressure of possibly pulling it off was too overwhelming you didn't believe some some ways you

didn't you didn't believe it and and it's not even, we're all – I think we're all victim to our subconscious sometimes too. I mean, like we said, I mean, we're in there fighting. You think, okay, that's a man in there fighting. He has control of his body. But you do, but you don't. I mean, like when Chael was getting caught – I mean, I know exactly what you're talking about. Everybody knows, remembers that fight because we were all sitting there watching, thinking, holy cow, I can't believe Chael is beating the tar out of him. And all of a sudden, I think we all saw the triangle coming, too.

Anderson, it seemed like he pushed the arm down real slow, and then all of a sudden he threw the leg over, and we're all like, what are you doing? And then 30 seconds later, or 10 seconds later, the fight's over. And I think it's your views or your beliefs not matching up with the reality. And all of a sudden, there's that fine line between breaking that barrier. And unless you have been there before, unless, like I said, visualizing yourself

extremely successful, extremely wealthy, someone to be looked at, someone to be admired, someone to follow, unless you see that, you're going to get to the point where you tell everybody you want the success, but you're not going to get it unless you 100% truly believe in it. And it took me 30 years to figure it out. So anybody who's done that before, you know, it's okay.

It will come with time. But you really have to, like I said, take extreme ownership of inside your brain. Between your ears is the most important part of life, as we've already said. And you can continue to work hard. And I go back to talking about being lazy. I literally call myself lazy and shame myself. Like, Michael, why didn't you do this today? Why didn't you work on your mental health today, your self-image today?

Why didn't you visualize? Why didn't you do that? Because that's just like flexing a muscle in the gym, just like throwing a thousand repetitions, whether it be on the punching bag or drilling a wrestling move or a, or a takedown, it's all the same stuff. And arguably more important on the mental side of things than it is on the physical side of things. Well, you keep saying extreme ownership. Did you read Jocko's book? I have it. I have, it's one of those ones where I have it and I haven't read it yet but I I love that that word extreme ownership yeah it's an awesome word it's an awesome book too and it's from a guy who's actually lived it you know there's

a lot of you know there's a lot of wisdom in his life experiences that you can get something out of um I asked because you you obviously are a guy who seeks out knowledge right you you work on your mind. What was it? Was it a book or is it a series of books? What got you thinking differently? Well, honestly, for me, what got me thinking differently was honestly just going through the most trying time of my life. I mean, I had just gotten married. Now it's time to be a man. Now it's time to step up. Now it's time to provide. And all of a sudden, I go through this loss streak where after my third loss, I went home to San Diego with my wife. We sat on the couch and we sit there and we just cried.

Who was the third loss? Third loss was Will Brooks the second time. Oh, that's right. So I lost to him twice, Eddie once, and then now the Madison Square Garden one. But we went home, we sat there and it was almost like, what do we do now? Is Bellator going to cut me? Am I, did I work this hard to now, you know, be where I'm at now? You know what I mean? I was at, I mean, I was a two years or year and a half removed from being one of the top three guys in the world had just beaten Eddie, Eddie and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And now here I was three fights in a row loss, but it was,

it was that time where I realized right. I was actually starting to change my kind of mental training and stuff. I was starting my mental training as I was going into that third fight or that third loss, that second fight with Will Brooks. But I just hadn't been there yet. And honestly, that one was more just like I got caught, you know. But that was really what kind of set the trigger. And I re and I think I just started to realize Michael, why, you know, you, you sit there and you tell people you want to be the best. You, your, your actions speak louder than your words. You work harder than everybody else. You show it first. You're the last one to leave. You take

care of your body. You do all the right things. At the end of the day, somebody has to be the best. Why shouldn't it be you? And I kept asking myself that question. And the only answer I could come up with was I deserve to be the best. I really do. You know, I, and I can say that with humility to say, I really do deserve to be the best guy in the, in the entire world at lightweight. Now, nobody works harder than I do. Nobody takes care of themselves better than I do. Nobody has made the sacrifices that I have and nobody lives the clean lifestyle like I do and has, has a calling on their life like I do yet when it came down to it it has taken years and years and decades to almost erase the small mindedness that I've had in my past um and we're all just a constant work in progress and I think

I just I came up with work hard good things might happen but most likely it'll be mediocre you know that's kind of that was kind of my mindset. But what did you do different? What did you change? For me? Yeah, reading books. Like what specifically? Do you remember what triggered it or what helped you?

There was a book called Mind Gym. Have you ever heard of it? No. Mind Gym. And he talks about making a mental highlight reel. And since that day, I've made mental highlight reels every couple months. And even right now, to this day, on my mental highlight reel right now is beating Kyler Sanderson at Mizzou on senior night when him and I were ranked at the same. We were ranked like fourth and fifth in the country.

And not that I wasn't supposed to beat him, but the manner in which I beat him, I almost majored him. And not that I wasn't supposed to beat him, but the manner in which I beat him, I almost majored him. And it was one of those breakthrough moments where I gave myself permission in front of everybody to just go out there and beat a guy handedly. This is a wrestling match. And it was a wrestling match, you know. So when you say make a mental highlight reel, this is of your past accomplishments? Past accomplishments. And I think the biggest detriment to the people that work hard and expect a lot of themselves is when you have achievements, you don't take time to smell the roses. You don't take time to pat yourself on the back.

You think that, okay, well, if I stop and I say, you know what? I am good. Oh, my gosh. I did do a great job. Holy cow. I was dominant. You're not supposed to do that because that's prideful and that's conceited and that's narcissistic. But really, if you're not your biggest fan, who's going to be?

And I think that's what I always did. I would accomplish something and I'd say, okay, well, I'm supposed to accomplish that. I won this tournament. Well, I was supposed to. But there's a balance, right? There's a balance between patting yourself on the back too much and kissing your own ass and believing your own bullshit. And we see what happens with those guys. That's almost worse.

Exactly. And I think we've all seen those cases, too. We've all seen those cases where you see one guy, pride comes before the fall, and then all of a sudden the fall happens. You say, okay, well, I don't want to do that. Right. But there is that fine line, that middle ground where it's like it's okay to love yourself. It's okay to look at yourself in the mirror and say that man right there standing in front of me in the mirror is a badass, and you deserve to be extremely successful. But then when you go out in the world, you don't walk around like you're better than people.

You don't walk around like, you know. So, I mean, there is no, you know, finite A plus B equals C type of way to live. But there is that middle ground between being your biggest fan, taking time to stop and pat yourself on the back and realize your accomplishments, which the mental highlight reel thing is something great because you can go through 10 things in your past and just continuing to remember those times where you were in your flow state, where you absolutely performed at a ridiculous level that you kind of surprised yourself almost. And I think that continues to happen step by step and brick by boring brick, you make these little bitty accomplishments. And as long as you continue to remember them, you can continue to increase that confident capacity that you have, that you should have and start to go from, man, I didn't know I was capable of this to now the confident expectancy of, okay, I, I, I've said I deserve it, but now I really am starting to believe that I deserve it. And then once you actually believe, then you get in those scenarios where it's you versus

him and someone's got to win. So it's you most of the time now. So this flow state thing, so like when you're in a state where you feel like everything is just clicking, do you try to, how do you try to recreate that in your mind to remember that state? I think it's, I think it is writing things down after a practice or, or honestly, sometimes what I like to do is- Do you do that? You like have a journal, a training journal? Yeah. Try to write things down. I mean, and that's, that's things too,

that can be added to a mental highlight reel, you know, like going, like having a really great sparring day and then remembering what you had for breakfast, remembering how your, how your day started. Remember whether you did or did not watch the TV before practice or, you know, those little things. And then, and then I always talk about working extremely hard and surround yourself with the best people possible. And that's why I've, you know, I moved out to Las Vegas right when I started fighting and then moved to San Diego and then move and then move my training camp to Arizona and then now Florida. And now, you know, so I've moved all over the country to find the best guys I possibly can. So when you have a great day like that, sit down with the coaches and say,

hey, coach, you know, I'm talking to Henry or Evan or Kami or one of these guys that is coaching me right now and talk about it, like almost overly talk about it, which those guys are always annoying to me or they always used to be like, hey, I did this right and I did this right and I did this right because I always thought, well, you should just work. You shouldn't talk, just work. But you get, I've started to realize that those things need to be vocalized or they get swept under the rug and you forget that you had a great day. So now we sit down and we talk and we say, Hey man, that, that three, two was really, really working great off

the faint. And we worked that, we worked that yesterday as we were hitting mitts. And now you're continuing to show yourself that this thing really actually does work. You're not just working to work, you're working smart. And then you see that working smart actually turns into results. And then you're like a lab rat in the gym, working on these little experiments that you're making, and you're actually collecting the data and seeing the results. Now, when you're talking about doing a mental collecting the data and seeing the results. Now, when you're talking about doing a mental highlight reel thing, is this sort of a rebuilding exercise,

a rebuilding confidence exercise, or is this just a solidifying skillset and understanding your potential? Cause you've already done things before, like, cause you were in a bad spot when you started doing this and you, is this when you started constructing this highlight reel thing? Yeah, that's when I really – I actually read the book in college and then found it on my shelf one day.

Do you know who wrote it? Mind Jim? You find it, Jimmy? Gary Mack. Gary Mack. Powerful Gary Mack. Yeah, and then there was just a bunch of – and there was another book. Don't remind me.

It's called How Champions Think. And it was just a bunch of instances where they were talking about Tiger Woods. They were talking about this guy or that guy, you know, and then one of the chapters was doing a mental highlight reel. And I think it can be used for both. I mean, no, I mean, you should do one today. We should all do one today, whether you're in a great place, whether you're just, you just closed the biggest business deal you ever possibly could, or you just are down in the dumps because you feel like the biggest loser on earth. You do a mental highlight reel to just, it's, it's just like going to the gym and then it changes. You know, maybe, maybe this month is different than next month. Maybe you, you wipe off an old one and you put on a brand new one that you just remembered because sometimes we forget successes that we have.

we forget successes that we have. It takes, it takes me going to my Wikipedia page or me, you know, going on some old interviews or, or somebody telling me on Twitter, Hey, remember that time you did this for me to actually remember the successes that I've had, because I've been conditioned to pull myself up by my bootstraps every single day and forget about all my accomplishments in my past. Cause those don't matter. Those are stumbling. Those, what I used to look at stumbling blocks, because what got you here isn't going to get you where you want to go. And we have that some sort of that mentality. But you have to take the time to remember and almost look at yourself the way other people see you because we all are our biggest critics. You know, the way my fans see me, the way you watch me fight is and the way you see my abilities is probably even better than I have seen myself a lot in my past.

From an outside perspective, it's so much easier to look at someone outside perspective because our own inner monologue, our own self-image dummies down who we are and how much we want to accomplish. Not all of us. I mean, there's a lot of people out there who are cocky, narcissistic people who think they are the, you know. Those people have the hardest time coming back from losses, though. Big time. It seems like when they get head kicked or something and then they realize they're human, it's like, whoa.

You see it with a lot of those guys where they don't, instead of facing their demons, what they've done is create this delusional self-image. done is create this delusional self-image. And when that delusional self-image gets shattered, and it's an undeniable reality that there's people that are better than them, it's very, very difficult for them to bounce back. Yeah. Well, and I mean, I think I am by no means the poster child for that. I mean, it took me a loss that carried me into another loss and another loss. I went 688 days without a win. And I'll never, but when I write a book some days, someday it's going to be called 688 days. And that's how long it took me to go from loss to win. And that's a long time. It's a long fucking time. It's a long time to be, to question yourself every single day, to wake up in the morning, wondering if you were going to have a paycheck, wondering if you were going to get a phone call from your manager,

wondering if you really wanted to open up your phone and see all the negative comments that I told you, Michael Chandler wasn't as good as we all thought he was. Oh, you don't read that shit, do you? You can't read that, dude. But I mean, not even, you know, not even just the fans. It was, you know, the media wrote me off and everybody, you know, you're just, you get written off and it shapes the reality when really the reality was, man, I was put on this earth to do some great things. But it just took me – I look at it now and I think, you know, if bad things happen to you but a good thing comes from it, was it really a bad thing?

And I look at it and I say everybody's got losses. It's not a big deal. You know, I remember the sting. I remember the pain. I remember the embarrassment. I mean the pain. I remember the embarrassment. I mean, what we also got to remember, too, is this is embarrassing. You lose a fight, that's embarrassing. You know, it's a hard pill to swallow.

Yeah, you know, so it's tough. Especially when you were a former champion and then you're going to go a long time without competing again. You could go six months without competing again. You can go eight months. Guys go a year if you get injured. That's a long fucking time. Any other sport. If you lose a baseball game, you drop a ball, you're back at it. Next's a long fucking time. Any other sport, if you lose a baseball game,

you know, you drop a ball, like you're back at it. Next day. The next day. Same thing with wrestling. You know, wrestling, wrestling was great because, you know, you, you lost, you lost a match on Saturday. You were able to, to come back in the duel on Wednesday or even the next Saturday, seven days you had to go, you know, I mean, a lot of times, yeah. I mean, barring injuries or whatnot. I mean, it could be a year before you get to get to step back in the cage again. And then every single day you spend questioning and every single day you also just end up putting so much pressure on yourself. I mean, my, the biggest thing that I did wrong was I came into this sport. I wasn't, and literally the 18 months after starting the sport, I was in a cage with Eddie Alvarez,

top five guy in the world, beat Eddie Alvarez. Then it was like, okay, now you have to perform. That was that soon after starting the sport? August of 2009, I had my first fight and then I fought him in 2011. That's crazy. Yeah. And you finished him? And finished him. But then, but then now the, now the real game starts. Now it's like, okay, hey, you're there.

You're ranked in the top three, top five. Your whole future depends on every single fight. And then instead of thinking about every single fight, you think about every single practice. And instead of thinking about every single practice, you think about every single round in practice. And not just every round, but every minute in practice. So you hit me with a one-two, immediately that's a loss in my mind. So now I have to come back and get it. So instead of just focusing on success, I was focusing on perfection.

So every single day I was trying to be perfect. You can't be perfect. The greatest athletes in the world will tell you they are not perfect. They fail time and time and time again. But I put all this pressure on myself to where I put myself in this prison of, Michael, you suck because you just lost to this guy. Who's not even signed to any organization at all. And you just lost to him in, in this, in the sparring round. And my, my view of, of what the loss was, was different than

my coach who watched it. He said, no, you did. All right. You didn't lose horribly. But in my mind, I lost horribly. I would've got finished, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of like crazy stuff, you know? Um, so that's the thing too, is I started focusing on success and not perfection, you know, stop putting so much pressure on yourself to be perfect. Just focus on being successful. Now I'm focusing on the big picture of being successful instead of these little bitty instances where I'm trying to be perfect. Now, when you look at yourself and you look at your overall MMA skillset, do you, uh, do you try to look at it almost like as if you're managing yourself, not managing yourself like a fight manager, but like, like a project, like looking at it,

like, okay, this is what we need to work on. This is how I need to tighten this up and tight. Do you, do you look at it as like an overall long-term project? Like, how do you, how do you visualize it? Yeah. I mean, and I, and I get that question a lot too, is like, well, Hey, how much, how much, how do you prepare for an opponent? And honestly, I'd say almost 90% of my training is focusing on myself. I mean, cause if I, if I put the right systems in place, if I get the right skill sets as sharp as they can be for fight night, there's not a guy in the lightweight division in the entire world that I think can beat me. That last 10%, 90% focus on myself. The last 10% focus on the little intricacies, the little habits, the little, the little tendencies that my opponents might have. I mean, Eddie did a great job with it in

the second round. They knew if they ran from me in the second fight, yeah, they ran from me and they circled and circled and circled crazy maniac robot come forward like a reckless abandoned. Michael Chandler is going to come and he's going to eat a thousand, you know, eat a thousand jabs and you can keep them off you long enough to hopefully maybe win a decision. They did a good job at that. I wasn't cutting off the, I wasn't cutting off the cage. I wasn't using my feints. I was trying to throw big shots because why? We had that epic battle in 2011. I wasn't a hundred percent confident in my training. So that led me to just fight like a barbarian rather than a skillful veteran that has the skills and the abilities to be able to go out there and be any lightweight in the world.

You know, so I think that's still relatively new with your fighting experience too, right? Well, that was the second fight, but I was still very young and I had changed. I had moved to a training camp where I wasn't getting, we all, we all need to look at ourselves too, or not, I'm not telling people how to live their lives or train, but I needed to focus on a certain path to victory, find the easiest path to victory, Bruce Lee, you know, water, be like water, you know, I mean, adapt, but also just say, okay, I'm a, not a long, not a long guy, not a tall guy. I'm a shorter, powerful wrestler who can take anybody down. Who's not going to get taken down, who has an overhand right that can knock anybody out in the entire world, and a gas tank that will surpass any 25 minutes that I need to fight.

So I needed to focus on these certain five elements to be successful and not a thousand stuff. I mean, training with dominant crews and working on footwork and doing this and doing that and rollouts and all that kind of stuff. It just, it wasn't the right path to victory for me. Therefore, I found myself almost out training myself. I was training so much when, if I were to really just want to train basics and good cardio, good strength and conditioning, good boxing, good wrestling, good grappling. That's easy to say after the fact, right? You get stuck in that, yeah. Where were you training at the time? Were you training at Alliance? Yeah. Yeah. And so you

felt like you were trying to mimic like Dominic's crazy movement? I think it's just, I mean, the good thing about that training camp is they have opened themselves up to a lot of different techniques. You know, I mean, I feel like I'm pretty athletic. I feel like I catch on pretty quickly. But really, to be successful, like if I was going to step into the cage with Khabib tomorrow, I'm going to focus on the basics that win. I mean, you can win a whole fight with a one-two and good takedown defense, some takedown offense, and some good grappling, you know, and that's it.

That's all you need. And in my mind, the more I try to make this an intricate sport and a complicated sport, the more you're going to find yourself having incremental defeats, you know. Like when I'm sparring outside of my element, all of a sudden I find, okay, I tried this this round and I got beat up, you know, and got beat up, which messes up your confidence and all that stuff. Do you feel like, and this is something that I struggle with too,

when trying to analyze fighters' performances and their future and what you can and can't do, do you feel like you go into MMA with a certain skill set, you started out as a wrestler, and you're not going to be a karate expert. You're not going to be a wonder boy. You're not going to be like a karate expert, right? You're not going to be a wonder boy. You're not going to be a jujitsu expert, which you are as a powerful wrestler with great striking.

That's your skill set. You're strong and you've got great cardio. If you tried to add a bunch of stuff to that, it'd expand your skill level. Do you feel like there's enough time in a career to really achieve the type of proficiency with say, like kickboxing or something like that, that a real world-class kickboxer has, you almost are better off not doing that. Yeah. I mean, that, I mean, I think I am the

how-to manual for that, you know, but I also... What did you try to do different? I mean, just too many angles too too many too many angles too many different combinations too many too many calls i mean you can also a coach can out coach too you know i mean a coach can out coach and say tell you seven different combinations in one minute when really it should have just been focused on cutting them off focus on focus on feints focus on touching a leg which is going to set up the punches, and focus on the punches that are going to set up the takedown. I mean, I also would say now, say my coach Henry Hooft, awesome kickboxing coach, has amazing techniques,

but it's very, very, very basic. We focus on being very, very proficient and very violent with the basics. I mean, you're not going to see us throwing a bunch of crazy combinations or a bunch of crazy stuff. So that works very well for me. I started out with Gil Martinez in Vegas, just wrestling, just boxing, you know. And then I went to Alliance and then now down in Florida with Henry. Do you live in Florida now? No, I live in Nashville. But my last three camps I've done down in Florida, I'm opening up my own gym in Nashville, so I will be doing training at both places.

But, I mean, the killers that I get to spar with and train with down in Florida can't be matched, and those coaches are amazing down there. Yeah, I'm a big fan of Henry Hooft. Yeah, he's good. I like him as a person, and I really like his coaching style. He's an animal. He is. And the funny thing is he coached against me

in that second Eddie Alvarez fight. So we talk about that. And that's why I will always... I want to fight Eddie again so bad. I want to have that I want to fight Eddie so bad. But I have so much respect for him because not only did I spend 50 minutes inside the cage

with the guy, we both have our face bloodied and battered and stitches. I mean, I got stitches in my lip. We both have our face bloodied and battered and stitches. I mean, I got stitches in my lip. We both have stitches in our lip and our eyes and eyebrows from each other. But it's funny because when I sit there and I talk to people that I train in, I basically train in his training camp that he used to train in. And everybody always said, there's only one guy I compare your work. I can compare your work ethic to your dedication to your love for your family, your love for the sport, this, that, and the other thing, and that's Eddie.

So, I mean, me and Eddie have spoken a couple times. I went up and trained with Frankie Edgar for two weeks a couple years ago, and he was out there training. So we like, it's always just funny between me and him because we, you know, have fought and, you know, but it's funny, but it's not like we have so much respect. We don't hate each other. Do you guys hang out and go to dinner or anything no we've never done that but i mean we saw each other at practice and i asked him to spar and he's like no man i don't want to get knocked out and i made that up but but we were at the same we were at the same thing and uh same practices and stuff

and it's kind of but you also get it's cool to get compared to a guy that you fought because that immediately gives you that a much more respect for somebody because right because i know how hard i train i know i show up early and i'm always doing the little bit of extra and everybody knows what i'm fighting for and i think him and i are very similar in that kind of in that respect so it's kind of cool yeah uh i would imagine no one knows each other better than you guys do after something like that it's pretty nuts yeah i mean and and man yeah they were both knocked down drag out wars they were crazy i would still i would still say

i won the second second fight but it's a very close fight right i will say but but like i said i mean i ran into too many punches um you know it was it was kind of crazy too i think i actually spoke to one of the refs one of the refs who who called the fight for eddie or not one of the rest one of the judges like a couple months after i was at some event and he's like oh yeah well he rocked you in the second round and i was like he didn't rock me in the second round i tripped i basically like tripped and it looked like i i got rocked right so it's just funny that kind of stuff too this this sport is left up to people who don't necessarily know what they're doing that too yeah that's a real problem with me. I go crazy. I remember you talking about it a couple fights ago.

Yeah, me and DC. Yeah, you're like, we're not going to say that name. Leave that lady alone. Yeah. She's a nice lady. But look, man, it's just a disgrace that you have people that really don't know anything about martial arts and they're judging martial arts competitions.

I mean, could you imagine if you had like an ultimate fighting championship, eight-man tournament with all the judges and have them fight each other? Yeah, right. You'd be like, what in the fuck is going on here? You guys don't even train? You don't know anything about fighting at all? Well, what do they take, a test? A written test, you know?

A lot of them in certain commissions come from boxing. So they're boxing judges. But even then, were they boxers? Or did they take a written test for boxing? A lot of them, no. But I think, I don't know if Harold Letterman can box. He does a great job of judging, though. I agree with a lot of his assessments.

But I think boxing is more straightforward. It's two hands. There's no elbows, knees, takedowns. You don't have to understand jiu-jitsu. You don't have to understand wrestling. You don't have to understand when a guy's in trouble versus a guy's not in trouble in a certain position. How close was that submission?

How many leg kicks has that guy eaten? Why did he switch his stance? Did he switch his stance because he does that all the time, or is his left leg chewed up you know right exactly they don't know they really don't know stuff that you're saying that that people who have seen the sport are thinking but the judges are have you know may or may not have any idea what's going on with a lot of them don't have an idea it's a disgrace it really is a disgrace well it's crazy to think that we the sport's been around for 20 years now 25 years now and we're still having this conversation boxing has questionable judgments like there's there's some questionable calls but nothing like mma yeah i think mma is crazy ones it's disgraceful yeah it really is what's the worst do you know the worst one in your opinion

i wouldn't want to i wouldn't want to say a worst one because there's been so many fucking terrible ones. Sometimes it's like a split decision where you'll hear one you agree with, one you agree with, and one you're like, what the fuck? And we'll look at each other. I'll look at Anik and I'll look at DC and we'll be like, Jesus Christ, how the fuck did someone think that person won that fight? It's just bad, man. It's just really, really, really bad. And for a guy like you who, you know, you have a win bonus and a show bonus in the UFC. So if you're in there and you do everything right and you get robbed, you just get robbed of a decision.

And on your record, it goes to the law. And you could, you know, you could protest until the cows come home. Nobody ever gets anything reversed. When was the last time anybody got a decision reversed? I can't even remember. No. I mean, I don't really think it happens. They rob you of your win bonus.

I mean, it could cost you tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's a fucking terrible, terrible disgrace. Yeah. I mean, and also, too, I've never really even thought about the financials of it. It's a fucking terrible, terrible disgrace. Yeah. I mean, and also too, I've never really even thought about the financials of it. I never really thought it was always to me, it was like a wrestling match. It was a loss. It was a loss on my record. And then now I look back and I think, dang, man, if I would have fought just a little bit different here or that, or that judge would have saw this with a little bit different. And we're talking a lot of money that

I could have in my pocket or would have won, you know? So it's, we've discussed this many times. And I think, first of all, the idea of three judges is ridiculous. Why? Why only three? Are they expensive? Yeah. Like how fucking – you could get some of the best martial arts practitioners

in the world to judge fights and have ten of them, and I bet you would have a correct outcome way more often than you would with three. You know, and I just think we need to overhaul that. And for whatever reason, they're reluctant to do so. We talked about before this podcast started, we talked about weight classes. I think that's another giant issue. Yeah. I think every 10 pounds is a legitimate compromise.

Yeah. And I think what we have now, like the 185 to 205 pound gap is just bananas. Huge. Of 20 pounds in between world championship weight classes like yeah it's just nuts you're dealing with two different size humans it's just so different completely yeah i mean and yeah i mean obviously closer to home for me would be that 165 ish you know yeah i mean and there's so many competitors or so many just the average human being is between you know 150 and 190 you know i mean right there's the big guys there's the small guys but we're kind of in that mid-range you know and I think a 165 weight class for a lot of us

at 155 um I mean I would always probably stay at 155 I would love some some cool matchups at 165 and be able to try to go for different belts and all that kind of stuff obviously that would be great but yeah um 155 is great for me um but there's definitely I know some guys who are missing weights you saw Kevin Lee two weeks ago miss weight. Khabib has obviously missed weight numerous times. Well, Khabib is, you know, he's a big guy. When he gets down to 155, that is quite a cut. And since he's been, I believe he's with George Lockhart, right?

Yeah, I think so. Wasn't him and Tony, weren't him and Tony both with Lockhart? I think so. I think so. Like the week of and Tony both with Lockhart? I think so. And then he dropped him the week of the fight, right before Tony got hurt? I don't know. I'm not sure. I thought that was a thing. I think that's the case.

I mean, there's a lot of great experts. Mike Dolce, of course. There's a lot of great experts in getting you down to the proper weight. But the bottom line is, when you're coming down from 200 pounds and you're getting down to 155, that's a fucking struggle. It is a lot, yeah. I mean, and like we talked about too, it depends on, you know, because everybody, that's always the question I get from all kinds of people. Hey, what weight do you walk around at? And it's not really the weight.

It's the body composition. How much body fat are you holding? You know, I mean, I get a DEXA scan every couple months when I'm down in Florida or whatnot. We always try to start. What's a DEXA scan? How does that work? So basically it's the one where you lay down. That's the one they have at the Performance Institute in the UFC?

Probably. It's just the thing that goes over top of you for five seconds. And it does everything from water to bone density to muscles to tendons to ligaments to organs, like all that kind of stuff. And the cool thing is my bone density has continued to go up like over the last couple of years, you know? Yeah. Like how much? I mean, it's, it's 0.01% or whatever, but I mean, that's, that's a lot when you're talking about bone density. And is that from strength training? I think so. I mean, I put, I put out a post a couple of months ago where I really think, you know, I've been extremely blessed to have throughout college wrestling.

I mean, I've seen so many talented guys careers ended because of injuries. Yeah. I had none, you know, I had a couple of sprains here and there. I had a meniscus tears, whatnot. Those are like six week injuries. No big deal. Same thing in, in, in mixed martial arts. I haven't really had any really bad injuries. And I really do think it's because I keep my body in great shape and I do a lot of strength training. My body is constantly overcompensating for the weights that I'm throwing around, the med balls that I'm throwing around, the comfort zone, getting my body outside of my comfort zone day in and day out that my body has just kind of bulletproofed itself to a lot of serious injuries. Obviously, it's fights. I mean, it's a fighting

and you're jacking up little limbs and hands and feet and all that kind of stuff here and there all the time, but nothing serious. cam haynes went and worked out with you in one of your strength and conditioning workouts who was your your strength coach for that that was uh todd durkin in san diego fitness quest 10 so that was uh that was something he he had just skydived he went skydiving that morning yeah with andy stump yeah and he uh he wanted to come in for a workout and yeah we went through i mean a lot of my stuff is not crazy heavy, but it's just a lot of reps, a lot of cardio, a lot of moving stuff around, a lot of functional movements. Like what kind of stuff are you doing?

Man, I love med ball stuff. I love med ball slams, med ball rotations. I love anything. What I always focus on is strength plus speed equals power. So we'll do one strength movement, whether it's a deadlift, whether it's a trap bar deadlift or a squat, straight into a speed movement, which would be like just a plyometric squat jump. So you've got the strength plus the speed, and that's how you continue to gain power in supersets. So then maybe we're doing a bench press.

Bench press isn't the greatest workout, but it's focusing on the punching power just three reps of something a little bit heavy doing dumbbells or barbells uh barbells and dumbbells right to a plyometric push-up so now you got another strength plus a speed equals power so plyometric push i mean you explode up yeah yeah and do you are you clapping at the top like how you you could yeah you could you don't have to i mean a lot of times it's just exploding as hard as you can and catching yourself up yeah yeah and do you do you clapping at the top like how you you could yeah you could you don't have to i mean a lot of times it's just exploding as hard as you can and catching yourself exploding as hard as you can um and we do a lot of that kind of stuff whether it's you know squats to hurdle jumps or deadlifts to um med ball slam to jump you know i mean we're always and that also

gets your heart rate up it's also just getting your body moving like crazy so i mean a lot of the stuff we're doing at my at my new gym gym, a lot of that programming is, is very similar to that where we have like a ripped class where it's resistance, interval, power, plyometric, and endurance. And we're focusing on all those things. Everybody likes to do that. They like to make it an acronym. Yeah. People love doing that. That was my boy, PJ. That was my boy, PJ at training camp. And I loved it though. I was like ripped. What is that? And then I was like, wow. R I P P E D. I love it. So yeah What is that? And then I was like, wow, R-I-P-P-E-D. I love it.

So I was pumped about that. Yeah, people like that because you can remember it, right? Yeah. Now, when you are going into a camp, who organizes your training? Like how do you decide when you're doing strength and conditioning, when you're doing skill work, when you're sparring, when you're recuperating? It's always a little bit different. I mean, in the last couple camps down in Florida, we've had pretty much the same kind of schedule.

You know, Monday morning is always a drill. Tuesday is sparring. Wednesday was wrestling. Thursday was grappling. Friday was sparring. And then at night we go more individual, whether it's individual with one of the kickboxing coaches, one of the mid coaches with either Henry or Evan or maybe it's a one-on-one with Kami Barzini or maybe it's a one-on-one with

Greg Jones or it's a one-on-one with a grappling coach or it's your strength and conditioning. A lot of times I couple them where I'll do an hour with I'll do an hour of strength work with 30 or 45 minutes of pads as well you know where it all depends on the recovery you know I mean if I if I feel myself getting overworked I will cut one of those out and focus on which one's more important for that particular fight you know I mean if I if I was fighting Goiti Yamauchi who's a big time grappler big time submission artist so I focused a lot more on escapes, defense, submission defense, and all that kind of stuff. I was still focusing on strength and

conditioning and striking, but I really threw in an extra couple grappling sessions there, you know? So who's managing all this, though? Do you have a head coach that decides when you're going to do what, and they look at you and say, you know, today we're going to take it easier today. We're going to do this. I think, I mean, it's that kind of loose schedule that we always have, but Henry set that. Henry and Kami Barzini has come in and really helped manage some of that stuff. We've made a couple of different changes.

But, I mean, yeah, they come in and they say, here's what we're going to do. But then every now and then it's like, hey, tonight instead of an hour long, we're going to do 30 with me and then 30 with Kami. Or Henry would do 30 minutes with pads, 30 minutes with Kami. So it ebbs and flows. And I think one of the biggest things about mixed martial arts is it's an individual sport. We're all grown men. We all have our coaches that we're supposed to listen to.

But I don't have to. I don't have to do what any of these guys tell me to. But I think that's why wrestlers are so successful because they show up, they shut up, and you tell me what to do. And you ask me how high to jump, and I just jump. Yeah, I've always said that I think there's two aspects of wrestling that make it the most important skill set to have in MMA. One of them is the ability to take a fight to the ground or stand back up. Just to have that, to have the ability to dictate where the fight takes place

is gigantic, but two is maybe just as important is the mental strength. Wrestlers are always dehydrated. They're always exhausted. They're always pushing and they take pride in being the most miserable person. There's something about that.

Having the ability to push through discomfort, which is just something that you cultivate in an amateur wrestling career. Yeah. I mean, and you just get, I think you just get so comfortable being uncomfortable. Your life sucks for five years straight, especially division one college wrestling. I mean, and it's, it's an emotional rollercoaster. I mean, with that mental toughness that you're talking about,

you don't just get mentally tough from, from working hard. You get mentally tough from working hard and losing and then winning and then losing, and then having coach riding your butt because of this. And then you got a final and you got to test and you got this and you got all this whole, this whole life that you're trying to manage and figure out while you're still trying to become a national champion. So you're getting thrown into the hardest sport in the entire world physically, the hardest sport mentally, plus trying to have a college career, actually get your degree the whole reason you went to college, and then really just being coachable and understanding delayed gratification. I think so many people can come into an MMA gym and they

have a great boxing coach and it's like, they expect after the first MIT session that they're going to look like Roy Jones Jr. Whereas when I showed up to MMA, I realized, okay, I went to Vegas and I was training with Gray Maynard and Mike Pyle and Jay Huron and Tyson Griffin and Evan Dunham and all these, all these great guys. I knew I was going to take my licks for a long time. It might've been a year before I went around. I was okay with that. You have to be okay with the delayed gratification of life. And that's, and now even at a 32 year old, as a 32 year old, I understand that any aspect of life that I'm going into that's new, it's okay if I'm the guppy, it's okay if I'm the lowest guy on the totem pole, even though I've accomplished so many great things and I'm, you know, and I, and I've

done some great things in life. I still, I'm still a guppy in a lot of, a lot of aspects of life. You know, it's like a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. It is why a lot of kickboxers never learned jujitsu. They hate getting tapped. I love getting tapped. It's never happened actually, but no. But you know what I mean? I mean, you've seen it. I mean, we've all seen it. Guys who are fantastic kickboxers that for whatever reason, they just try to concentrate only on defense. That's all they want to do. Yeah, I mean, I'm not one of those guys that I get tapped and I'm like, oh, man, good job, man. I'm freaking ticked.

I'm pissed. Of course. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to show up the next day. That doesn't mean I'm going to skip. I mean, the funniest thing is you go to any gym around the country, if they have – I bet you asked DC this at at aka he's running the wrestling practice i bet the amount of guys that show up for sparring day and grappling day is different than the guys who show up on wrestling day oh yeah same thing at our gym we'll have 28 guys 30

guys sparring on on you know tuesday all of a sudden wednesday rolls around we're doing a wrestling practice and there's like seven guys that show up you know it's fucking hard it's hard you know but fucking hard but you have to embrace suck. You have to understand that you don't get anything in life without getting yourself outside of your comfort zone. Every single thing that you want to accomplish is waiting for you right outside of your comfort zone. And that's what I've really started to realize. And you just take ownership, extreme ownership of it and say, stop being a sissy and just go push yourself to your puke. Have you ever puked? Have you ever passed out?

No, you haven't. Or you haven't go push yourself to your puke. Have you ever puked? Have you ever passed out? No, you haven't, you know, or you haven't passed out. You know, I rarely puke. So I want to just continue to try to get myself there. And if I can, I'm doing something right. Now, when you say visualization, you say you visualize, how do you do it? And what do you schedule a time? Like, Hey, 8 p.m. tonight after training, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to visualize for an hour? Yeah, there needs to be a time. I mean, first of all, you always want to try to set a time. You can never say, I'll definitely do it tomorrow.

You need to say, okay, well, I have practice here, I have practice here, I need to eat here, I have an interview here, I have this here, that there. It doesn't need to be a crazy amount of time. I mean, five minutes is long enough enough that's a long time to be i mean that's a round you ever you ever grapple around in two minutes goes by you look at the clock and there's three minutes left you can't believe holy cow like you know five minutes is a long time because you can get a lot done mentally because because visualization knows no time there's not a clock ticking you know there's things happening.

So you close your eyes when you do this? And where are you sitting? Are you sitting in a dark room? How do you do this? Sometimes it's – I mean the hard part with me is I'm a very good sleeper. I've tried to be like I'm going to wake up in the morning and I'm going to keep laying in bed and visualize and I'll fall asleep. So you've got to know yourself. That's good though.

At least you're getting sleep. Oh, for's good though. At least you're getting sleep. Oh, for sure. Yeah. You got to, I mean, you got to have the self-awareness to know where, where you're on, where you're off, you know? Right. So for me, I mean, a lot of times it's sitting up, sitting on a, sitting on the couch, sitting on a chair.

Um, but I think the biggest thing is, is, is seeing, seeing the lights. I mean, the other day, for instance, like I was just, we were just talking about Fuji and putting in the mats. And so we just, we just installed a, a bag rack system in my gym and something there. I don't know if it was the rubber, the cage panels or what it was. And it's, it smelled exactly like the Bellator cage. And I started to get, I got like, I literally, my heart's heart rate started going up and I got like goosebumps because of a smell. You get triggered.

Yes. And that's what it is. Exactly. And I know exactly what that smell is. It's weird how smells do that oh 100 and i've i've almost i've actually asked bellator hey can i have a piece of that cage i want to cut off just my eight inch piece of that cage the canvas or whatever it is to bring and just just suck it in a huff cage just huff cage but but you got to get yourself you got to get yourself to there, you know? Yeah, yeah. And be in the space, in the arena. I can see the cage. And after I started doing it, I mean, it was the Petricky Pitbull fight, the knockout, where that was the first time that I had really, really gotten – I had really hit that breakthrough where I walked into the cage.

I mean, Joe, I hated fighting. I didn't really like it that much because I, I wasn't myself. I wasn't present. I was literally a caged animal and I hated the way I felt. I was peeing blood after fights because I was just going so crazy. And I was just, and obviously I gained a lot of fans because people loved the way I fight, but they didn't exactly care about my wellbeing that much. But, but it wasn't until that fight where I got into the cage and I just started smiling because I thought, Michael, this is your home. Like this is your home. Because I had visualized it so much. Because the problem with what we talked about earlier is you only get to compete every six months, every eight months.

You don't know what that actually feels like. And you can show up to the venue early and you can walk around. You can smell the smells. But there's nothing like competing in the cage. There's nothing. You can't recreate it in sp's nothing you can't recreate it in sparring you can't recreate it in the gym the only really place you can recreate it is in your mind if you if you just continue to remember i can remember my last fight like like it was yesterday because i've actually gotten better at the skill of visualization because i think that's one thing that happens

too is you sit down and maybe you're listening to this podcast and like, okay, I'm going to smell the smells of this. I don't really see the sides of this. And then you have a really not great visualization session. And you're like, man, that was stupid. That guy's an idiot, you know, but it really does take, it really does take a second. It does take actual practice to, to see and smell and hear and feel like you need, you need to see yourself getting put in compromising situations and, and hear and feel like you need, you need to see yourself getting put in compromising situations and, and then see yourself getting out of it. You know, you need to see, you need to see yourself, um, performing at a ridiculously high level and how that's going to feel and how, and how, how your brain is, is a hundred percent bulletproof and how your, how your heart rate is

where it needs to be and how you are somehow confidently composed during that, during those fights, you know, because it used to be, I would, the bell would ring and I would go a thousand miles an hour. And the times that you've seen me exhausted in fights, I mean, I passed out, literally passed out in a fight before, right at the round, right at the end of the round. Thank God it was at the end of the round. Henry Hoof came, picked me up. My feet were like pigeon-toed. He was like dragging me back to my corner. I sat down in the cage because I watched the video, and all of a sudden my coach out here woke me up.

I heard his voice, and I turned around. Which fight was that? It was the Benson-Henderson fight. Wow. I literally thought the fight was over. And I asked him, I said, did I just get finished? Is this fight over? And he said, no, man, you've got to go.

Do you know what happened did you get hit um what was it was with it was in the benson henderson fight going into the fifth round we were in that weird i i have this thing where i actually like to get um you know that one that one move where you're you're basically like this and he and they catch your your arm with the leg and then crucifix yes and mounted that one where remember the old school where that guy just got elbowed and elbowed him but i do a backflip over top and and i always land on top and it's something that i set up and i probably shouldn't put myself in a bad situation but a lot of times i get it so i like to go there so you mean like a crucifix where the guy's behind you yeah like he's he's he's on his back top of him yeah he no he's on his back. And you're on top of him? Yeah, no, he's on his back like this. Okay.

Right. And then I did a backflip and I crunched myself up. So I think I kind of crunched myself. Oh, you kind of put yourself to sleep. Yeah, almost. And he had kind of a halfway choke, but I wasn't really going to compromise. Oh, here it is right here. Oh, my gosh.

Come on now. Powerful young Jamie. Yeah, how do you do that? He knows what he's doing. Come on now. Powerful young Jamie. Yeah, how do you do that? He knows what he's doing.

This was Benson's first fight in the UFC after Korshkov, right? Or excuse me, in the Bellator. So he fought Korshkov at 70, which is crazy. He did not belong in that weight class. So right to this position. And I do this backflip. I always end up on top. So he's got kind of a choke.

And then I crunch myself. Boom., I always end up on top. So he's got kind of a choke and then I crunch myself. Boom. And then hopefully, hopefully that. So you, you got on top here. And hopefully this shows my dead eyes. Oh, wow. That's so crazy. Cause you look tired. Like you were brawling.

There was, there's another one on that you can find on the internet that you can just look into my eyes. Look, look, look, look dead, glazed over eyes. And I look down at my feet. I look down at my feet. My feet aren't moving. My feet were, like, dragging my feet. What happened in the fight where you lost the title,

where your leg gave out? I stepped back, rolled the ankle, pinched that nerve, and then my foot just went straight. So from rolling the ankle, that's what did it? That's what pinched the nerve? Yeah, you see where I stepped back? Yeah. I thought like something had broken, like a ligament had given out or something like

that. I had no idea. I wish I would have had the hindsight to just not chase. I mean, I have this thing where I love to hit people and run at them and like go in for the kill, which has worked very well for me in my career. But in that instance, if I would have either, number one, switched to southpaw because I could push off of it, I just couldn't lift it. So I wish I would have switched to southpaw,

or I would have just planted myself in the middle of the cage and waited for him to keep throwing kicks, and I would have kept handling it. I mean, only one punch really got landed in that entire fight, and that was me dropping him. Now, when that happened, how long did it take before your legs started working again oh man it was scary man i mean two two weeks later or seven days later i ran five miles so seven days seven days later but for about three days i looked down at my foot and my brain was telling me to lift my foot and nothing was happening man i thought it was it was a scary

time i mean i got so you were wondering whether or not you had permanent nerve damage in your foot. Yeah. And I had, and I got a great, a great staff around me. I mean, we, my, my manager has hooked all of us up with Sanford medical up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Um, Dr. Reeves, orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Troy Gus, neurosurgeon. Um, and what did they say when they looked at it? He just said, you just have, you just have, um, pinched nerves, Dr. Troy Gust, neurosurgeon. And what did they say when they looked at it? He just said you just have basically a pinched nerve whenever you did that. That is crazy. I've never seen that before. Yeah.

It was unfortunate. It was horrible, you know, but it was just one of those things. And that was my, yeah, I'm on a six out of seven, and that was my one loss. Yeah, that was a weird one, too, because it was a because it was a fight where it was kind of just getting going. And when your foot started doing that, I remember watching it going, whoa, is his ankle broke? What's going on here? This is weird.

And it's one of those things too where I've talked to Big John about it. I've talked to Herb Dean about it. I've talked to all these guys. I'm like, man, would you have stopped that fight? And then they're both like, man, it looked really bad. It looked bad. But you're still up and you're conscious. I'm like, man, would you have stopped that fight? And then they're both like, man, it looked really bad. You know, it looked bad. But you're still up and you're conscious. I'm still up and conscious.

And I wasn't taking damage. I could imagine, like, you know, I mean, what's his name? O'Malley hurt his foot and he was like, he couldn't even walk and he was falling down and he was about to start getting beat up. Like, I was still on my feet. I was still fighting. Did it look really bad? Did it look like a wounded deer out in the middle of the field?

You know, like, of course. But, you know, I always say like if this was back in the Viking days and, you know, you chop one of my legs off and it's me versus him to the battle of the death, I'm still winning that fight 10 times out of 10. So you wish the fight kept going. 100%. Yeah. It's a weird way to stop a fight, too, when a guy's not taking damage, he's just got a leg that's not working properly. Well, and the problem was too, you know, he almost, he basically called timeout and asked for the doctors to come in.

Once you've done that, the fight's over. I think, I think the ref literally thought, you know, he should have just called the fight, right? Did he think your leg was broken or something? Like what did, what was his thought process? I guess. And then, and then the doctors came in and then they started feeling around and they're like, you know, they're like, right here I think his tibia is fractured. I can feel the bone.

I'm like, doc, I promise you just get out of here. Let me fight. I got a calf cramp or something. I was like, you know, just lying to him. Like just get out of here. Let me go. I promise. It's fine.

I don't feel a thing. It's not hurt. I'm good. And then they stopped the fight. Then they pulled the stool then they pulled the stool to pull the stool from me too so remember that oh yeah that's right yeah what was that about that was my commissioner that was that was new york athletic commission at its best like pulling the stool and i fell and i and then a bunch of people were like hey man did they call

the fight because they they thought you couldn't stand and i said no i i hope not because that would have been very unfortunate because I fell. On national TV, got Charlie Brown. All three stooges, Moe, Larry, Curly. Thanks for nothing, doc. Yeah. Why did they pull the stool? It was, I don't know.

It was just a mistake? I think I stood up. I was like, hey, maybe if I get the crowd into it, maybe these guys will get out of here and let the fight go. So I stood up and I was like, let's go. And I was sitting on the stool and I freaking looked at him and I was like, you better hope they don't let me off this stool, boy, because I'm going to come break your face, you know, and then I stand up and then he, then the guy pulls the stool and I'm then a second later, I'm on my butt. Now, why didn't the rematch take place? Oh man, I asked for it in October. I asked for it in November. I asked for it in December. And

then finally I'm like, man, this is stupid. I'm going to go ahead and take a, take a fight against the scariest guy in lightweight division, Yamauchi. And then, then he got, man, this is stupid. I'm going to go ahead and take a fight against the scariest guy in the lightweight division, Yamauchi. And then he got injured. So then I fought Brandon Gertz. So it's like I've never once pulled out of a fight. I've went into many fights injured. I've never once not answered the call. I've always stepped up and I've always been the most exciting guy on Bellator.

Will forever be the most exciting guy on Bellator. So it's unfortunate that these things happen to me, but it's just part of it, man. It's a long time, though, to go without a rematch. You know, I mean, to be clamored for it. And he hasn't defended a title, correct? No, he's a part-time fighter. Part-time? Part-time.

What does he do full-time? I don't know. I think he teaches kids jiu-jitsu or something. I don't know. Okay. I don't know what he does. I mean, honestly, it's baffling. Well, does Bellator even have a heavyweight champ?

I don't know. That's crazy. How the fuck do you not know? I don't know. Well, I don't, I mean, I don't, you know, it would take me a second to think about all the champs in the sport, too. Well, they've got a stacked welterweight division. They're a welterweight division right now with Rory McDonald and Lima and, you know,

Paul Daly and, I mean and Lorenz Larkin. It's a fucking stacked division. Yeah, it's tough. Korishkov. I was asking for the Paul Daly fight. I was trying to get that fight. Were you? Really? I want to get some big fights.

He's terrifying. That motherfucker can hit. He can. For about a minute and a half and then you just break his will. Well, his grappling has always been his Achilles heel but god damn that left hand is a missile that Lorenz Larkin fight

where he knocked him out on his feet and he was just kind of like there but not really there Paul Daly can do that to anybody that left hand he has that to me was one of the most frustrating ones when he fought Josh Koscheck and threw that punch afterwards

and he got kicked out of the UFC basically forever. And now you see like Conor throwing dollies through windows and all this shit. I'm like, well, what about Paul Daly? Paul Daly's got to be going, what the fuck, man? I got kicked out forever for this? I didn't even throw a punch that landed. Yeah, he's like, I wish I was in it when it was the entertainment business. Guys like him, him though are very interesting

where he's such a specialist. He's such a striking specialist. I watched him kickbox actually because Bellator does those kickboxing and he kickboxed Fernando Gonzalez, I believe. And it was...

He's good. He's a beast. Really good, especially in that kickboxing range when he knows there's no takedowns, when he knows there's no threat of, and there's a different distance there, and he's really good at that kickboxing range. And unless you're there to be able to really threaten with the takedown, he's going to be on his game.

One of my favorite fights of his forever will be that fight with Nick Diaz, which was just fucking one round of chaos. Just chaos. Until Nick Diaz overwhelmed him. But Nick just puts that crazy triathlon pace on you where you just can't keep up with him. I know.

He just doesn't give you any break. I know. And those guys, both Nick and Nate, have done a very good job of not being afraid to take some damage, let guys really swarm them. And they do have that cardio, but I think they have that – they just have that Stockton just confidence. And almost just like that – I've actually – the funny thing is, like,

me and Michael Johnson sparred numerous times where we're kind of like talking to each other because that's against my – that was against my nature, like that cocky, braggadocious talking during a fight type of deal. I mean, once again, that's practice of of almost an alter ego almost a little bit different in my last couple fights you've seen me be more present talking a little bit almost kind of egging egging them on like not being afraid it used to just be like business business business got a fight now it's like hey man i'm in here you're fighting you're fighting somebody who's cognitively here my two feet are planted firmly on this ground. Right, you're not overwhelmed by the moment.

I'm 100% present. You're in the zone. 100% present and in the zone, like in the zone, ready to die in there, not afraid to, but also willing to fight a very smart fight, smart, sharp, composed, missing shots, taking shots or taking takedowns when I want to and need to and not being afraid to just fight like an extremely talented veteran rather than just a vessel of violence, you know? Yeah, a vessel of violence. That's an interesting way to put it. To think of yourself as a

professional, like doing your best to execute your skill set in such an extreme circumstance. And how many fights have you had now uh 22 how many fights do you think it took before you felt that comfortable 17 isn't that crazy yeah man i'm not joking it's it's it's ridiculous i mean i wonder why now i i know why so many people just they have a short mma career and then they're done you know it's hard to it's hard and then you know and then and that's with my career going really well I've signed some good contracts and had and been able to do some really good stuff and had some big fights and had some you know had some good success but I can imagine these people going through the grind and then all of a sudden you get injured or all of a sudden your manager screws you over and all of a

sudden this yeah and I've had a really relatively not easy road, I mean, but I've had a really good path. But I can see how people are like, man, I'm done with this. And I think going back to your point too where you talk about fighting like a veteran, I mean, I think it's all based on the confidence too. And I see it time and time again. Guys only have one option, and that's to fight like a crazy madman because they don't have 100% confidence in their skills. And I think that's why you saw early in my career I fought like a madman because I wasn't 100% confident in my skills. I was 100% confident in my cardio, my heart, my willingness to just take damage, my willingness to die inside the cage. I was, I was confident in that. There was, I stood, I stood against Eddie Alvarez of 16, 18 months removed from a college wrestling room and said, I'm going to beat that guy. I'm not supposed to beat him on paper. I'm not supposed to beat

him record wise. I'm not supposed to beat him in any other, any other universe besides right here in my mind. I said, I'm going to beat that guy. And I did it just by sheer toughness. So I believe in my toughness and my cardio and my heart and all that kind of stuff. But I didn't 100% believe in my skills. So then all of a sudden you start to mature a little bit and you start to realize that you have these skills. You have these bag of tools to use and you can use them not just effectively but you can use them efficiently and smart. Under pressure. Under pressure, yeah.

And there's still times where you got to cut you, you got to gut check, you know, and that's, that's a good thing that I know I have in my back pocket is, is I get in, in a fight with one of these guys and he's out matching me. He's outclassing me. He has better technique than me. He's on that night and I'm off. He's he's on technique wise. He's not tougher than I am. He doesn't have better cardio than I do. He's not willing to, to literally take as much damage as I am and keep coming forward. He's not willing to do that. And that's what I've always had the confidence in. But now I have the confidence in my skill sets as well. When you see a guy like, he's one of my favorite examples, Justin Gaethje, who's just a fucking savage. But you see him go undefeated in World Series

of Fighting. What do they call it now? Professional Fighting League? Is that what they call it? Professional Fight League, yeah. Is that it? Yeah. So he goes undefeated in World Series of Fighting.

One of the most interesting and intriguing contenders to enter into the UFC. Has a spectacular debut against Michael Johnson in a fucking war. I mean just a fucking war. And then loses to Eddie Alvarez in spectacular fashion, and then loses to Dustin Poirier in spectacular fashion. But just in those three fights has taken so much damage. So much. It's just crazy to watch his style when you know that he's a very good wrestler.

He's a smart guy. And, I mean, Trevor Whitman, his coach, his striking coach, this is the same coach that coached Thug Rose. And you look at her footwork and movement. She's turned it into a technique machine. A technique machine. Sliding away from things, entering in, you know, like constantly moving, presenting angles and different looks.

And Justin is just hands up high, moving in on you, and just leg kicks from close distance and brawling. That guy can't do that very long. Crazy that he admitted that. Like that interview just came out there. He said, I only have five fights left in me. I want them to be good ones. Is that what he said?

Yeah. I mean, I could be wrong. But, I mean, I'm pretty sure he had an interview that said, I only have five fights left in me. I want them to be good ones. You know, like, is that what he said? Yeah. I mean, I could be wrong, but I mean, I'm pretty sure he had an interview that said, I only had, I only have five fights left in me. And it's, it's crazy to see that because when you're already, I mean, he's, he's younger than I am. He's like 29, isn't he? 28? I think he's something like that. I don't even know if he's 30, you know? I don't think he is. And, and this might be a guy, didn't he start late? Didn't he, didn't he wrestle in college? So he's only in college? Yeah, I don't think he started even striking until he was 21. Yeah, so he's only been fighting for eight years. Yeah.

And I think it goes back to when I look at him, it's not a knock on him or whatever. I just don't think he has the confidence in his abilities. I think – but there's a fine line between having confidence in your abilities, his abilities. I think, but there's a fine line between having confidence in your abilities, confidence in your, in your, in your striking techniques, your ability, your ability to win any other way than a brawl. Cause I've had these thoughts too, man, I've sat and I've thought, and the thought of me just outclassing somebody and piecing them up and the whole world watching and hearing the announcer saying, Oh my God, Michael Chandler striking is on another level. Look at this.

And then, and how he strings together his punches with his kicks and blah, blah, blah. That felt foreign. And it felt uncomfortable to me because I didn't a hundred percent truly believe in that stuff until recently. And you start in, and I think he has, he only has, he only has the capacity to believe in himself as a brawler. Therefore, that's the only way he knows how to win. Therefore, in his sparring rounds, he's not – I bet you and I could go watch him,

and he's the same Justin Gaethje in those sparring rounds as he is in the cage. But is that because – here's no regrets. Five fights left. Like that's a tough spot to be in, you know? But that's just his mentality, though. I wonder if you're right about that because I think he likes that kind of fighting. Well, that's the thing, too. I think that's what he enjoys.

He likes breaking people. Like when he broke Michael Johnson, he just broke him. Hey, man, the fans love it. You want some fans? You want some fans? You have a couple of those. And, I mean, he's got a great following now after, like you said, just a couple of fights. People believe in him.

I mean, people still right now, they see this, like, cyborg robot step into the cage like that's what they think they don't even look at him as a man they don't look at him as a like he has a heart and a spirit in his brain they just look at a guy who's go out he goes out there and he's going to just freaking try to break somebody just through sheer not beautiful technique but just pressure and punch count and leg kicks and that kind of stuff and he's going going to step in the cage against whoever he steps in the cage against, even though he lost his last two fights. And he's still going to be the favorite, I believe. Well, he's one of the best leg kickers in the sport.

Just crazy that he started striking so late. Everybody gets their legs fucked up with that guy. And he leg kicks the shit out of people from close range too, which is weird. Like literally be in the clinch and he's whipping down on your legs you know i just think he loves chaos i just think he loves it yeah he he embraces it when it when shit gets crazy that's when he's at his most comfortable and yeah maybe that's me speaking from experience because i saw i mean i see a lot of my my early career very similar to that, just brawling.

You know, like that's what I did. And then I decided I have these physical gifts and the speed and the power and the ability, the mental capacity to pick things up. I mean, I have been blessed with the ability to pick things up very, very quickly. And two practices, I'm like, holy cow, this stuff's working just after a couple of mitt sessions. But Justin's shown no indication that he even enjoys doing any other kind of fighting. I know. You use a lot of footwork and movement. You slide in and out. The Patricky Pitbull fight was a great example of that.

You slid in and dropped that right hand on him. It was a perfect closure of distance, and you launched a missile on him. Gagey's just, here it comes, bitch. Here it comes. It's coming. It's coming. And that's scary,, here comes, bitch. Here comes. It's coming. It's coming. And that's scary, man. Yeah, he's a zombie.

Anybody in the lightweight division is lying when they're not a little bit shaken. Like, dang, I've got to freaking fight that dude. Yes. Like, he's that guy in the bracket. Wrestling, there's the guy who's not really ranked. Or he's ranked, you know, he's seated number eight. Or he's not even seated, but you know he's a goer. You know he's tough.

You know he's strong. You know he's not that good. But he's going to be in your face for seven minutes and you could lose to him because he's that good he's not the guy you want to draw first round if i was gaethje i would say take some time off and really reconsider your approach because that chaos is always going to be there the chaos is always going to be there he's always going to be able to do that he's always going to love that he's always going to have have some of the best leg kicks in the sport. Just use a little more footwork. That's what I said, too.

Use a little more movement. How about some feints? How about every now and then a little bit of this? How about every now and then a little bit of that? Switch up stances. A little bit of takedowns. How about throwing a takedown? Or even touching a leg.

Just touch a leg. Make him think. It's a fucking good wrestler. Yeah. He's an all-American. Kid's a good wrestler. Yes. In Northern Colorado. Yes. Just touch a leg. Make him think. It's a fucking good wrestler. Yeah. He's an all-American. He's a good wrestler. Yes. In Northern Colorado.

Yes. You know, so. But, and then the other part of me says, shut the fuck up, Rogan. Let him fight like that because it's awesome. I mean, that's his thing. That Poirier fight was fucking amazing. Yep. And the Michael Johnson fight was fucking amazing.

Even the Eddie Alvarez fight. It was chaos. It was. Up until the moment Eddie landed that knee and Eddie's leg was in trouble. Bad. He was in trouble. I thought I was waiting for Eddie to go down. I was Eddie landed that knee, and Eddie's leg was in trouble. Bad. He was in trouble. I thought I was waiting for Eddie to go down. I was like, man.

Well, Eddie's got that boxing stance, and he gets low, and he puts a lot of weight on his legs, and he's got a lot of confidence in his hands. But Donald took advantage of that in his first fight in the UFC. And, you know, I mean, just when you saw Eddie beat Rafael Dos Anjos and win the title, I mean, just when you saw Eddie beat Rafael Dos Anjos and win the title, what was that feeling for you, knowing that you shared all those rounds with him, just two crazy wars? Was that feeling like, fuck, that could be me?

Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the – yeah, that was – when I watched it, I was in Salt Lake City, actually. Or no, Park City, Utah. I was at a wedding. And so we were all just hanging out, and I was like, the fight's on, and I was watching it. I couldn't hear it, but I was in Salt Lake City, actually. Or no, Park City, Utah. I was at a wedding. And so we were all just hanging out. And I was like, the fight's on. And I was watching it. I couldn't hear it, but I was watching it.

And he was just throwing that flurry. And everybody I was with was like, holy cow. You beat that guy twice. Once. Twice. Once? Once the judges disagree with you. No, I'm just joking.

That's the sport. and I love it. But fought that guy twice, two very close fights. And, you know, it's kind of one of those things where it's like, man, yeah. But I knew it. I knew he was going to go over there and he was going to do extremely well. I didn't know he was going to come in. I mean, he lost to Donald Cerrone. Beat Gilbert.

Beat Gilbert. He beat Pettis. He beat another guy, I believe. I think it was just those two. Those two, and then he got the title fight. I think it was just those two, and then he got the title fight. I think. I might be wrong.

He would pull up his record. But either way, what I admire about Eddie is the same thing that I admire about you, is that he does thrive on those wild fights. You know, I mean, he's just an unbelievably tough guy. And the Gaethje fight was a perfect example of that. I mean, he got fucking hurt in that fight, man.

His leg was chewed up. Bad. I don't know what was going on with his face. You guys were calling it out. We were trying to figure out what it was, you know? Yeah.

Okay. Gilbert, Pettis, and then Dos Anjos. Yeah, it was just those two. And then the loss to Donald. But those two fights were, you know, Pettis and then Dos Anjos. Yeah, it was just those two. And then the loss to Donald. But those two fights where, you know, Pettis was a champion, you know, at lightweight and was, you know, at that time still thought to be in the mix, had beaten Gilbert, you know, submitted Gilbert.

And Gilbert, of course, from the Strikeforce fights, mad respect for Gilbert. It's one of the best in the fucking world. Yeah. I mean, it's just, when you really stop and think about how fucking tightly matched that lightweight division is

and how many killers are in that division, that is a fucking crazy division. And in the UFC right now, you got Khabib, you got Tony Ferguson, you might have Max Holloway. I mean, it's crazy that Max Holloway got pulled from the New York car because he was having trouble making weight.

And he's the 145-pound champion, which is just... He's a tall boy. He's a big fella. He's a tall boy. He's a tough motherfucker, too. Holy shit, is he tough. So you just got this incredible wealth of talent in this one division. And then Kevin Lee, how fucking good did he look against Barboza?

He did look really good. Holy shit. He did look really good. He's a fucking stud. So you've got so many good fighters in this one division, you know? And this is why we've got to bring you into the UFC. Come on, man. Is that why we've got to do it?

What kind of fucking contract do you have in Bellator? We've got to talk, Michael Chandler. Should we talk about it? 32, man. You're going to be 33, then you'll be 35, then you'll be 40. And then it'll be over. I'm 50. Trust me.

It happens. It just happens. I hope I look like you when I'm 50. It just comes. If you will, you won't pass any drug test. I'll tell you right now. But we gotta get you in here, man. There's no other way to do it.

Well, we're trying to figure everything out right now. No disrespect, Bellator. How about some cross-promotion? How about move some people around? How cool would that be, huh? I would love that. I really would. I said when Rory went over to fight in Bellator, I said he very well might be.

Shout out to Powerful Warrior. Very well might be the best 170-pound fighter in the world. It's very possible. It's very possible he is. I mean, if he's not, he's certainly in the mix. And he might be on any given day. I mean, this is the thing. Like, you just really don't know.

But if you look at his fight with Tyron Woodley, I mean, he essentially shut Woodley's main offense down and used a brilliant strategy to beat him by decision. You look at his fight with Maia, he got in the worst possible position with Maia. Maia mounted on him in the first round when they're not even that sweaty yet. And he was able to survive that and then pick Maia apart. He's one of the best in the world. He beats Lima who I think is extremely underrated. I think Lima is one of the very best fighters on the planet Earth.

And just people don't know because for whatever reason, Bellator just has not been able to capture the public's imagination the same way the UFC has. I mean, they've definitely grown. Yes. Big time. The last fight card was fucking incredible. Yeah. And it's cool. I mean, it's cool because I've been there for the maturation of the whole thing.

I mean, I fought – my first fight was on ESPN Deportes that was on – that finally aired at like 2 in the morning after like a couple girls' high school softball games type of deal. Right. Like that was our slot. And then it moved to MTV2 and then Spike and now Paramount Network. And now it was simulcasted now on CMT and Paramount Network. So it's cool to see the growth. It's cool to see – I mean, it's simulcasted now on CMT and Paramount Network so it's cool to see the growth it's cool to see I mean it's growing you know um and it's been it's been cool to be a part of

the growth I mean I will forever probably be in the biggest fights or the the most exciting fights in Bellator history you know so it's yeah I'm not a Bellator hater by any stretch of the imagination and I even though I've obviously I've been working for the UFC for a long time. I'm a fan of fights and I like high level fights. I don't I mean obviously I'm loyal to the UFC but I don't want Bellator to fail I want them to succeed. I like the fact that they have Rory McDonald

so there is an argument like you look at it and you go hey this might be the best 170 pound fighter in the world and he's not in the UFC this is all good. I felt it the same way when Fedor was fighting in Pride. I was like, look, that might be the best fucking heavyweight on the planet Earth, and he's not here.

And I tried very hard to try to figure out a way to get him over there, but they were super unreasonable back then. Not the UFC, Fedor's management. They were crazy unreasonable. They wanted co-promotion. They wanted a 50-50 split. The UFC was like, get the fuck out of here. They were like unreasonable. They wanted co-promotion. They wanted a 50-50 split.

The UFC was like, get the fuck out of here. They were like, this ain't happening, man. And they were also saying, look, this guy is one loss away from losing all of his value. You have to understand this. And then when Fabrizio Verdum caught him with that triangle, the UFC was like, we fucking told you. We told you. And then Bigfoot Silva smashed him. And then Dan Henderson KO'd him. And the UFC's like, was like we fucking told you we told you and then bigfoot silva smashed him and then dan henderson ko'd him and the ufc's like look we fucking told you yeah you had an

opportunity to bring him over here and that was you know it was a different time it was when fedor was in his prime you know it was when you know fedor was smashing people in pride it was just a different human being than what you're seeing today at 41 but i i'm a fan of the best fighters in the world getting together and whatever we have to do to facilitate that that's what i want to see happen you know i mean i i you know i just think that there's got to be a way to make this happen there's got to be a way. What are you talking about here? You! You, motherfucker! Hey, man, I mean, I'm just, I'm going day by day, you know?

I'm enjoying the process. I mean, we're in talks right now. Things are going smoothly. Things are going, things are moving forward. We'll see what happens. I know you have to say all this. No, I mean, that is true. But you want to fight the best guys in the world. I know you do. Oh, there's not a day

that goes by that I don't get... I mean, shoot, you posted that thing this morning and there was 287 likes and comments in five minutes and it was all like, finally, hey, when are you going to come? And I get that every single day. So there's not a day that goes by

that it doesn't get talked about or thought about. Well, especially after Eddie went over there and became the champion. Yeah. Right? And everybody knows about it. I mean, that's one of the things that I talked about when Eddie first came over to the UFC was I was telling people, go watch the wars that he had with Michael Chandler.

And then I've said that also, too, when I've seen you coaching people or being in someone's corner. I'm like, that right there is one of the best lightweights on the planet. Yeah. And I just really would love to see you. I mean, I don't want to undercut Bellator. I don't want Bellator to, you know. No, I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, it's a competition

between the two organizations. There's guys in both organizations that are great, like you said, Lima and all these guys. And Koreshkov. And Koreshkov. I mean, there's the Pitbull brothers or whatever. I mean, there's some great talent in both. And you saw it back in the day with Strikeforce,

and now all of a sudden a lot of these Strikeforce guys are UFC champions as well. Well, it's just weird the way fighting is today as opposed to the way boxing is. A perfect example is the Gennady Golovkin fight this weekend. A perfect example is like the Gennady Golovkin fight this weekend. You know, we went to see him and, you know, you go to – you're basically going to see one of the best boxers on the planet. You're not going to see him because he's, you know, the fucking WBC guy or the IBF guy or the WBO guy. People don't really give a shit about that. He's a world champion. about that he's a world champion but the the one but it's versus bellator versus the ufc

it's a big difference in the way people look at it like the average public the people don't give a if you're the wba champion in boxing or the wbc champion they don't give a they just want to know who's a bad like is it you know is it deontay wilder is it anthony joshua these are heavyweight champions. Let's see them fight. They don't look at it that way when it comes to Bellator and the UFC. I don't know why. I have my speculations, first of all, because the UFC's been around forever and it's

like the NFL. It has that name value, like Q-Tips and Kleenex. They've done a good job of building the name value as well. It's also a really good name. UFC's a great name. Bellator is a shitty name. It just is. It's just, you know, you go to the average person, like, oh, I'm going to watch Bellator tonight.

They're like, what the fuck is a Bellator? They don't know what a Bellator is. But Ultimate Fighting Championship makes sense. Makes sense, yeah. Why don't they just call it Paramount MMA? I think, yeah, I mean, I think there was all kinds of new branding going on with the whole new Paramount stuff and all that kind of stuff. I mean, if there was ever a time, it would have been now. But, I mean, I think they're stuck to it.

They like it. I mean, it's kind of one of them things. They should get their money back from Spike Lee. Remember when they had to pay Spike Lee? Did they? Yeah, they paid him off. Because he trademarked Spike? No, he sued them.

He said that you stole the name from me. And they were like, what the fuck? It was basically just one of those frivolous lawsuits that you have to settle. I'm like, fine. Spike wanted some cash. Take this money. Take this money, yeah. I wonder how much they gave him.

How much do you think they gave him? Let's take a guess. How much do you think they gave Spike Lee? $3.2 million. Really? That much? No, I don't know. I made that up.

A million? You think they gave him a million? Maybe, yeah. I bet they gave him a million. I bet you're right. I'm going to go with 1.2. I'm, that much? No, I don't know. I made that up. A million? You think they gave him a million? Maybe, yeah. I bet they gave him a million. I bet you're right. I'm going to go with 1.2. I'm going to be in the middle. I'm going to be the middle guy.

Let's see how much they got. Spike Lee. Do you think they disclosed it? Yeah, did he actually trademark Spike TV? Someday he might actually have his own TV channel type deal? I think his thought was, what about Spike Jones? Is he like, where's my fucking money? I think he just felt like his name was, like the name Spike was synonymous with him.

I don't know. Spike was a dog, right? Wasn't that like the logo? Yeah. Oh, yeah, because the UFC was, the Ultimate Fighter was on Spike TV, right? Yeah. Fuck yeah, 2005. 2005.

Stefan Bonner, Forrest Griffin. Yeah. Forever in debt to those guys. They made the sport, that one crazy fight, literally was probably one of the big pushes to make the Spike. Undisclosed. Undisclosed. Undisclosed.

Holla at me, Spike. Tell me what you got. Let us know. Let us know, Spike. A joint public statement that they settled their differences. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

Via Greenback. Yeah, a lot of people were mad at Spike for that. Spike Lee. Yeah. Whatever. And when he tripped that referee. I actually don't know if he did. He tripped a referee?

I don't know. I was in the Jay-Z song. Remember that one? What are you talking about? I never even saw it. Spike Lee tripped a referee? Yeah, he's known of being in the NBA, like a lot of Knicks games. Yeah?

He tripped a referee? Supposedly. Well, that's what Jay-Z said. He said, I'm spiked out. I could trip a referee. And I'm like, oh, Spike Lee must have tripped a referee? Supposedly. Well, that's what Jay-Z said. He said, I'm spiked out. I could trip a referee. And I'm like, oh, Spike Lee must have tripped a referee one time because he is always courtside at the Knicks. Is there video of this?

I think he's saying it because he sits courtside. I don't think it actually happens. Oh, see. One of those things. One of those things. I could trip a referee. Yeah, isn't that weird? Basketball, you can get right up to the action. Oh, so close. You could literally get. You could trip a rapper could trip a referee yeah well isn't that weird like basketball like you can get like right up to the hour so close you could literally get you could

trip a referee yeah you know whereas like you know football you're pretty far back yeah 20 feet 50 feet i mean i've talked about this so many times people get angry at me but what would you think about the idea of fighting in a big open area without a cage like a big open area like like a basketball ring yeah i mean a basketball arena like a basketball court like that size if you had like wrestling hats where you have boundary lines yeah could you actually go out of those boundary lines and they'll stop the stop the action well they'd have to bring you back in there'd have to be some reason it would be like a So it would be like the Coliseum. Exactly. Because it'd be so big that there almost are

no barriers. Well, yeah, because I think that there's something about a cage that presents an artificial boundary and that artificial boundary can be used both to contain someone and to get out, to get up. Like you could obviously wall walk and get up out. I just think

it makes takedowns much more difficult when there's not a cage because you know You're not gonna press someone against cage just scoop their legs out from under them You have to get a legitimate takedown like an open area takedown and it makes getting up much more difficult Yeah, when you're when someone does take you down smashing You can't just you can't just scoot your back up to the wall and get back up You're gonna have to figure out a way to actually get up up. Yeah. Well, that was one of the things too. I mean, going back to become, you know, being a wrestler, I mean, wrestlers coming in should not just expect that they're going to be able to take guys down and not get taken down. I used to get taken down

all the time off the gauge and I'm like, man, I'm a division one wrestler. Why am I getting taken down? But it's, it is completely different. I mean, obviously, I know a lot about maneuvering the body and scrambling out and all that kind of stuff. But adding the cage wall is a lot different. Yeah. When you first started training, did you immediately start training in a cage? I think at Extreme Couture, yeah, there was a cage. So we would spar in a cage. But now I don't.

I don't really spar in a cage anymore but now i don't i don't really spar in a cage anymore you don't not really how come i don't know i mean down in down in florida we don't have one and we just spar in the open there's there's cage walls there's cage walls that like if you're in training camp you know if you got a fight coming up soon uh you'll spar in this certain area where they might put some some tie pads on the floor like don't go past this and then there's your other barrier type of deal. My gym, we don't have a cage. We just have a cage wall and then a padded wall too.

So the cage wall just to work on wall walks and things like that. You get chewed up on those fucking things too. That's why I like to use the padded wall. I mean the only difference is there's a little bit of a give to the cage wall. There's not on the padded wall. But, man, yeah, if you're not wearing gloves, if you have an elbow. I mean, I've busted a bursa sack in my elbow before, and it just takes a week to heal. Or you look at your back in the mirror, and it just looks like a bunch of hickeys all over your back.

Your head. Your head can get ripped apart. Your ears. People get cut open. I've actually gotten cut open, like nicked just a little bitty one on my from in a fight yeah yeah by just hitting the cage because it's metal you know it's not yeah it's one of those things that i think is a legacy idea i just don't it's hard to see too when you're in the audience and you're looking at it like there's often and those pillars get in the

way yeah you know it'd be cool it'd be cool if there was just just a a single cage that didn't have to be bolted together therefore there was no there was no no posts no posts but then again right you know you'd have to have a top post right you have to have a top post and a bottom post and then the the cage would have to be so rigid that it held everything together yeah how the fuck would you do that it would be almost impossible because it's or maybe it's maybe you lower them in yeah maybe it's two pieces exactly just the guys just stand there and then they just get locked in and then big yeah there's no doors spartans just like lock this thing down and yeah there's like elevators that was like the the big ufc you know back in the day what was it got

art davy yeah when they started talking about the all the ideas where they were talking about putting a moat around the cage and sharks and alligators and like, we're really going to do this thing big. Everyone's going to love it. Well, Art Davey is the same guy that brought us X-Arm Wrestling or whatever the fuck it was. Oh, yeah? You know what it is? They tied your arms together and you beat the shit out of each other. Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the Michael Jackson bad video? No, they had an MMA arm wrestling event. Oh, it was actually MMA? Yeah, where you literally tied the guy's arm together. So you were in an arm wrestling situation and they taped your arms together and then you were punching each other

and kicking each other and guys were throwing arm bars. Yeah, with the arm wrestling podium in front of you. Here it is, X arm. Oh my gosh, I have no idea how you find these things so quickly. It was so stupid, because we made fun of this like a week ago. It was so fucking stupid. Look, they taped their arms together and these guys, first of all,

don't ever throw that kick again. But look at this. Look at this. This guy's got an arm bar. Oh my goodness. I mean, which is crazy because your arm can get fucking snapped. Yeah. I mean, you have a table that you're doing an arm bar over. You don't have time to tap and they can't separate you once you table that you're doing an arm bar over. You don't have time to tap. And they can't separate you once you do tap. Look at this. Head kick.

Oh, no. Look at how crazy that is. They're stopping the fight. But even though they stopped the fight. Pin his arm. Pin his arm. So you can win by getting an arm or knock him out. It's so stupid. This is one of the dumbest ideas that humans have ever come up with. Oh, man. Look at this. That dude's

but it's entertaining. I would watch it. I guess. I would watch it. Look at this. That dude's... But it's entertaining. I would watch it. I guess. I would watch it. It's a horrible idea. I'm watching it right now, so I'm talking shit. I would watch it. But look at how stupid this is.

If that was on tonight, I'm watching it, 100%. But the arms are taped together, which is just crazy. I love how the ref comes out and does the tape job, too, while everyone's watching. It's like part of the... Oh, that guy's out. Out cold, hanging off the edge. And then it's watching. And you're like, oh, that guy's out. Out cold, hanging off the edge. And then it's awesome. And then you're connected to him.

You should just like run and start dragging him around. Well, it's so dangerous too. It was such a dumb, dumb idea. Yeah. But see it. What was that like? Was that online? Was that pay-per-view?

What was that? How was that? I don't know. It's one of those things that just existed for a while. It happened for a second. Yeah, it happened for a little bit. And then dudes got knocked out, and they're like, okay. Was there a commission?

Do you have to have a commission for this? Nah, they probably did that on some fucking island somewhere. Exactly, right? I guess that was good. International waters on a boat or something like that. I have no idea how they got away with that thing. It's just so stupid. That was Art Davey, huh?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I believe so. Didn't he just get inducted into the Hall of Fame? Yes, I did. Yes, he did, rather. Wasn't there, Frank Shamrock had a good idea where they were doing one in like, it was like a pit sort of a thing.

Which would be cool because you couldn't really climb out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know they have something similar to that now with this karate thing that Boss Rutan is involved with. Is that in Florida? Yes. Yes, in Miami. Because Luke Rockhold has gone to a couple of live events, I think.

Yeah, they're doing that now where they take real high-level karate guys and they wear MMA gloves. Yeah. I think they're allowed. Yeah. Padded kind of walls type of deal. Yeah. and I think they're allowed.

Yeah. Padded like kind of walls type of deal. Yeah. Well, it's like a slanted area where, you know, you know, you hit the barrier and it's weird. Like you can punch a little bit on the ground. It's very strange. Yeah. Like boss had it in.

You're allowed to punch on the ground for five seconds. Like you take a guy down and you can punch him on the ground for five seconds and then they stop. Yeah. Which is like, oh, okay. It's like, man, let him beat his face in. Come on, man. Well, it's like that, this idea needs a little bit of work.

Yeah. So you think it's going to make it? Or you think they got to? The boss rooting thing? I mean, hopefully. Look, I think the more stuff we can have, the better. But I just think they need to iron out the rules. Like, I love glory.

I love kickboxing. I loved Lion Fight when it was on. But I think now it's only online or something like that. Yeah. You know, it's hard to find good high-level Muay Thai, good high-level striking that's not just boxing. It's really hard to find. Well, that's – yeah, exactly.

Well, and that's why you've seen all these organizations come and go or these kind of crazy ideas. Nothing is sticking in a lot of instances. So that's why it's cool to see the growth of MMA. That's why it's a cool time to be a part of this, you know, this generation of MMA as MMA grows. And like you talked about, asking about myself, I mean, you're seeing all kinds of guys having success with karate style and like kind of on your toes bouncing kickboxing style. Shoot, you know, point kickboxing style. And you're seeing a lot of people come in because it's cool.

It's flashy. The fans love it. The promoters love it. Like Michael Page. Michael Page, exactly. I mean, he's a perfect example of a guy who was a real high-level point karate fighter who's now a real tough puzzle to solve in MMA. Who is he fighting next?

He's fighting 170, right? He's fighting 170. I don't think he has a Bellator. I don't think he has an MMA fight schedule. I know he had a fight in October, but that was. He had a boxing match. Yeah. Yeah.

That was October. And he won by KO. Months ago. Yeah. It was a long time ago. And I know they were trying to set up a fight with him and Paul Daly, which would be fucking chaos. Yeah.

But Paul Daly was just saying something. I read an article. I just read the headline. It said, Bellator thinks I'm a fool and I ain't one. Paul Daly was not very happy for a second. That's why I was very interested. I was surprised to see him. He just signed a fight.

Who is he fighting? I don't know because I read this headline. He's fighting someone in London. I believe it was yesterday. Find out who it says, Paul Daly. John Fitch. That's right. He's coming back. John Fitch is coming back.

That's a terrible fight for him, though. John Fitch is all wrestler. Have they fought yet? Ready to fight John Fitch? I don't think they did. I don't believe they did. Coming off an impressive second-round knockout of fellow UFC veteran Lorenz Larkin. So he's been out for a while, too, because that fight with Lorenz,

I want to say, was six months ago plus, right? That was on my card in September. September? Never mind. Yeah, September. But, yeah, I know he came out. He wasn't very happy about some stuff. So that was eight months since his last fight. So is that what he's upset about, that he hasn't gotten a fight in a long time?

I mean, I think it's like you said, Bellator thinks I'm a fool, blah, blah, blah. He basically said he was walking. There you go. Yeah, Bellator is playing me for an idiot, and I ain't an idiot. You ain't an idiot? I ain't an idiot? When you say that, his British accent is even better. Bellator.

Bellator. Yeah, but that's interesting. I ain't happy with what you guys are doing. Finally a fight that makes sense. Hold on, scroll back up. What is he saying? Bellator wanted him to fight John Fitch, Bellator 199, this Saturday. One thing went through his mind.

I thought, finally a fight that makes sense, Daly said, in case you couldn't tell. I've had great times at Bellator. Okay, so they're just taking a quote out of context and making it the title, which is what they always do, right? Yeah. They're playing me for an idiot. Just be done with all the bullshit. Let me fight.

I love how they bull expletive. Just write bullshit, you fucking pussies. Let me fight. Let me go. Or you treat me like you want me to be here. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's a good fight, though.

The John Fitch fight's a good fight because striking-wise, obviously, he has a giant advantage. But Fitch has been around a long time. He knows his shit, and he's a fucking brutal wrestler. And this is Fitch's first fight in Bellator. Yeah, yeah. Just came over from Pro Fight League. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Or was that when it was last? Yeah. Well, was it, were they calling it World Series of Fighting then? Oh, it was probably World Series back then, yeah. And Fitch fought Paul Harris, and that was when Paul Harris got disqualified, right? Yeah. It was a heel hook that he held on to. Yeah, that was bad for a couple of fights in a row.

Paul Harris will do that, man. Paul Harris? I love when people call him Paul Harris. I'm like, who's Paul Harris? I didn't know he was good. I'm like,ul who's paul harris and what i didn't know he was good and i'm like okay it's yeah he holds on to shit yeah bad but refs like ripping them off yeah well which is actually awesome it's kind of crazy it's terrible if it's your knee yeah it's terrible if it's your knee but it's like awesome for fans but then the fans are like half

of them were ticked off having more pumped like what's going on you're seeing the leg locks now you know you're really seeing them in mma you're seeing them a shitload of them were ticked off, half of them were pumped. Like, what's going on? Well, you're seeing leg locks now. You know, you're really seeing them in MMA. You're seeing a shitload of them in jiu-jitsu. Professional submission matches, you're seeing the leg lock game because of like the Donaher Death Squad and a lot of those guys just seeing it dominate competition. I almost got my leg ripped off. A lot of things would be a lot different if I would have tapped in that fight,

that first fight against Marcian Held. First round of the tournament. Phenomenal jiu-jitsu guy. He had it so deep, man, and sprained my hamstring a little bit, pulled it, popped it, and then I had to fight three or four weeks later again. Wow. But, man, almost ripped my knee in half. Do you train a lot of leg lock submissions?

Do you train defense? Not a lock submissions? Do you train defense? Not a lot. How do you know what to do in a situation like that? I mean, I think there's a couple basics. If you get in a heel hook, roll with it. Or if you get caught in a knee bar, pop the legs open, pop the knee open. Right. But do you work with high-level leg lock guys to really understand the whole chain of events that happens?

No, not – I mean, it's hard to find good leg lock guys. I mean, it's almost like throwing elbows and knees in practice. And guys don't throw them or practice them as much because it's hard to practice them without putting people in really bad danger. You know, you accidentally hit someone with an elbow because you were, you know, simulating it. You catch an eyebrow and it's over. Right. They got 12 stitches. Same thing with leg locks. People will get it.

I actually got caught in a leg lock by Mario Sperry this last training camp now that I think about it. Mario Sperry is still rolling. He's still rolling, man. He's like, you, Chandler, come here. How old is he now? Mario's got to be 50. He's the man, man. He's awesome. Really, really nice guy. Real veteran, man.

A real pioneer of jiu-jitsu and MMA. Yeah, it was a wrestling day. It was a wrestling day, and we went to the ground, and we just kept going. I had wrestling shoes on. He caught me in it. I was like, whoop. Give the old tap real quick because I'm like, man, you get wrestling with wrestling shoes on? It is no joke.

You ain't getting out of nothing. No. So it's like, yep, got me. Thanks, coach. Let's go again. Yeah, the whole leg lock game has evolved. It's scary, man. Yeah.

Because that's especially like heel, not a heel hook, but when they take the ankle, like just like bend it. Right. You know what it's called. Dylan Danis did this weekend. So that's what happened to me. Toe hold. Toe hold. There you go.

I got caught in a knee bar, got out of the knee bar, and then he switched to the toe hold, felt my ankle, pop, pop, pop. What inspired you to talk a bunch of shit about Dylan Dennis after his performance? I don't know. I don't think he looked very good. You don't think his jiu-jitsu looked good? Oh, he was all right. I mean, he went there in a nice little transition, grabbed a leg. But, I mean, he looked like a fish out of water on the feet,

of which, of course, he should, I guess. First MMA fight. But I think it's i mean do i respect what you know the wind do i respect what he's done in him and baby bjj that's cool but it's not mixed martial arts and it's just it's funny how much he's getting called out for being literally just a you know a wannabe connor with all the same saying the exact same exact stuff well he realizes how he realizes how good it gets you paid. Exactly. He's doing a good job with it. But he also said he's the highest paid fighter in Bellator.

I mean, there's all kinds of silly stuff. It's just like, dude, is that what he said? So he's Chael Sonnen in a little way. Yeah, he's a dork, man. Just a huge dork. So it's just like one of those things where it's like. But when a guy's making his debut and you are a world champion or a former world champion at this point,

what inspires you to call a guy like that out? Just because, I mean – Doesn't it help him? Yeah, I guess it does. But it also – I mean, I also woke up to 150 mentions on Twitter. So it's like, well, at least people are talking. At least people are talking. I mean, that's the other thing too is always navigating the narrative

and talking about getting people to talk. Yeah. Getting people to talk about, I mean, over the last couple months, the amount of times, as soon as Khabib fought, the amount of people that were just talking like, hey, you're the only guy that can match Khabib's wrestling. You're the only guy that can nullify his wrestling. I mean, to get yourself in the conversation, that's what it all is. It's all. Well, styles definitely make fights. And that was what became very interesting after the Al Iaquinta fight where people were looking at, okay, what about high-level wrestlers who have more refined striking? Yeah. And how do they line up?

And Kevin Lee was a big one that people kept talking about. But you were a big one that people kept talking about too. Yeah. Because you were saying that you think you could beat him. 100%. talking about too because you were saying that you think you could beat him 100 and him you know having that fight with iaquinta who he was a prohibitive favorite over but it went the full five rounds and you know iaquinta although never won a round showed some chinks in the armor so chinks in the armor showed and showed what happens when khabib can't take you down i mean

it's it's tough whenever the one thing that you've always been used to dominating with isn't working, and then you're stuck. Right. You know, you're stuck throwing punches, and, you know, he just – he's a little bit behind in the striking aspect. Dude, I've got a ton of respect for the guy. He's a mauler. Mauler.

I mean, at certain times he looks unbeatable. He has looked unbeatable where I've looked at it, and other people have looked at it, and people that have fought him that I've talked to. Like he looks unbeatable. He has looked unbeatable where I've looked at it and other people have looked at it and people that have fought him that I've talked to. Like the Barboza fight. Yeah. He just fucking mauled Barboza. And it's just a battle of wills, man.

You're inside of a cage. And it's just like we talked about. I knew I could outpace people. I knew I could out-cardio them. I could out-tough them. Certain people get to that breaking point and and they break, and they concede, and they go into their shell, and they say, I did a good job, but this one's on him. Well, guys who don't have that deep, deep wrestling background,

and they face a guy who does, there's moments in the fight where you see that, where you saw that 1,000-yard stare in Barboza's eyes where he was like, fuck. Like, I can't keep doing this. He goes into defensive survival mode yeah and you know when a guy does have a deep background in wrestling and also can strike that's what makes it interesting yeah and this is why mma is such a complex sport because there's so many variables there's so many techniques you can use there's so many situations where you might have an advantage or your opponent might have an advantage and it's just we live for these matchups these

stylistic matchups so when something like that happens and a guy like khabib has a fight where all these questions get presented that's where a guy like michael chandler comes into the mix yeah well and i love like after that fight too uh because i said something i posted a video do you see the video of me scrambling with kamaru yes like crazy like yeah that was awesome and i said if if all he has is wrestling how do you beat a man who can't be taken down you know right and and i got so many messages from you know russian guys that just said khabib time khabib time you know it's just like of course you know and it's like um yeah i mean it's uh it's one of those things, man, where that fight with Eddie, I mean, that fight with Khabib, it's exciting.

Kamaru Usman has got to be going fucking crazy right now seeing Colby Covington getting a shot at the interim title. He's like, you motherfuckers. Yeah, I know. Nobody wants to fight that dude. No, I wouldn't. I mean, that dude is, I mean, he's a specimen. He's got wrestling. He's got striking.

I mean, you watch him spar or you watch him hit mitts or you watch his composure and his confidence while he's sparring and doing all that kind of stuff. You'd think he's been striking since he was 11 years old. He just started after college. Well, he had a tough fight with… Meek Mill? Yeah. E. Mill Meek or whatever fight with Emile Meek. Emile Meek or whatever. Emile Meek. But I think that Emile Meek is extremely underrated. He's a

fucking tough guy. Very physically strong. Very, very strong. I was Emile Meek a couple times. I was trying to mimic him. Were you in training camp? Yeah, we were there at the same time. he's and he's done that him and i train a ton together and it works out well for me because he's a bigger guy i like to go with a little bit bigger guys so i can just continue to get stronger and manipulate bodies that are bigger than mine you know yeah and a lot of people were

criticizing him for not being able to finish meek but i'm like you're you're crazy yeah that guy is a fucking animal it's it's it's nuts the the amount of people, armchair quarterbacks that are literally out there saying, you should have finished this guy. We are all professional fighters training day in and day out. It's not easy to finish a guy sometimes. Well, that's why I was saying you got to stay the fuck away from your Twitter mentions. Yeah. It's like, man, it just blows me. Oh, my goodness.

Especially for a guy like you, if you do have something like an ankle injury, like that one fight, and then you've got to stay offline for a few weeks. For sure. I mean, I still get it to this day. Are you training? Are you working on your rubber ankles? It's like, oh, come on. These motherfuckers, they know where your soft spot is. No, man.

They start poking you. That's good. I looked out at my ankle and said, man, that is a well-enabled ankle. I'm ready to kick somebody in the head with it. So you didn't suffer any ill effects of it once the nerves came back? No, once they came back. I mean, I've done a lot of rehabbing and I think my legs or my feet in general, it's something that I've continued to work on. I mean, you got to look at each individual joint from hands to wrists to elbows to knees to ankles.

I mean, in all of my strength and conditioning work, a lot of it is very, very hard, very, very tough, very, very violent. And then some of, some of my stuff is stability stuff, core stability stuff, hip flexibility, hip, um, hip strengthening stuff, because that's where the, all your power and all that kind of stuff. Do you do any yoga at all? Um, I do yoga. I've done, I've done hot yoga in the past and we just opened up my gym in Nashville has a 900 square foot yoga studio that actually opened up this morning at 6 a.m. Oh so there you go there what a great way to have my own shit yeah so I'm gonna show up and just show up and work on that core stability is that a hot yoga place or regular yoga regular yoga temperature to keep the room um it'll be right around that 80

that's fine yeah right yeah I mean people like that hot shit yeah we had training the other day and we had about 12 people in there we're shooting some content had some training and and we had to bring towels back there because people were coming out and they're like hey you got any towels because people were sweating their butt off so right and i think we're going to get some cool infrared panels to hang on the ceiling that can kind of add the add a little bit of heat to where it's not hot yoga but it's definitely warm enough when you're going through your flows you're you're definitely opening up the muscles and you're opening, you know,

getting that sweat out. So how often you work on your flexibility? Do you work on stretching and I roll, I'm on my roller every day. So, I mean, I, I believe in roller, roller lacrosse ball. I just found this really cool. Cross balls are awesome. Cross ball. Yeah. Have you used those? Do we have one in here, Jamie? No, those mobility wads from Rogue. Oh, no. I need to get one of those. What do they call those? It's called a wad, I think.

The blue ones? Yeah, the, what was he called it? Star, something star. What the fuck does he call it? I thought it was a wad. The blue ones? Well, wad is a workout of the day.

Supernova. Supernova. Yeah, wOD supernova. That's what he calls it. Is it flat at the bottom and then a... No. It's a... We got one out there.

I'll show it to you after the thing. But it's about a little bit bigger than a softball. But it's got all these little knobs on it. It's hard as fuck. So it's got good traction. There it is right there. I love that goddamn thing. That's the Supernova 2.0.

That seems like the smaller one, right? He has two of them. He has a Kellylly star and yeah there you go so you have a small one or a larger one i whatever for whatever reason i think i prefer the larger one my my soft tissue guy down in florida has one of those those things are the shit man i just got this thing called a so right look up the so right p-s-o-r-i-t-e um i love you know what the so as is yes here i mean that's always been one of my big one of my big things you literally lay on that thing and if you know what it feels like

to get your your psoas worked on you just kind of wobble and wiggle until it hits it and then you can lift your legs um this guy does all kinds of videos where he's hitting the psoas he hits the he hits the glutes he hits the quads he hits the literally everything and he's hitting the psoas, he hits the glutes, he hits the quads, he hits literally everything. And he's got the psoas mini. So I've been playing on that the last couple months. David Goggins was saying that the tightness in his psoas muscles was like crippling his running. It's literally the—you ever see people with the wrestler back with their butts out and chest and it takes a second to stand up that's all so as pulling everything down being bent over or throwing throwing kicks I mean for whatever reason I've

had horrible horrible problems with my psoas and every single kind of chink in my armor has gone back to the psoas muscles the psoas which is connected to the spine down to the iliac crest I believe and then there's something called the iliopsoas, where the iliacus and the psoas are connected. Play that, Jamie. There's a pec thing that he does with it, too. So it's not just the psoas muscle.

He uses it to loosen up your pecs. And, man, it's incredible how much that relieves. Sometimes I get some hip tightness, and I'll get that supernova out and I'll roll on that fucker. I know. All over my hips and my IT bands. I know. Or else it just compounds every single day and gets worse and worse and worse. And also, too, just lengthening everything.

Your diaphragm, all of that just continues to get crunched and crunched and crunched and you can't breathe. Oh, look at him. He's having a good time over there. He's got a – I mean, he held his whole body with it. He actually has the exact same thing in a mini. It's literally like only three inches long. This is feels underscore PSO underscore good, LOL. That's on Instagram.

Yeah. So what is your diet like? Diet, man. Embrace the monotony. That's what mine is, man, chicken and broccoli. I got mega fit meals, and that's what I make my own meals throughout all training camp. When it's chicken and broccoli or it's beef and broccoli or it's chicken. Always broccoli.

I love broccoli. Why do you love broccoli? I don't love broccoli, actually. I do not love broccoli, but I love the fact that a couple weeks after I look in the mirror, I say, dang, man, I'm getting down. Veins are starting to pop out. And that's one of the biggest problems with people's fitness journeys. They focus on the weight, on the scale.

They're not seeing the results that they want to see. But the problem is the work that you put in this week and next week, you're not going to see for two or three weeks, that delayed gratification. But, I mean, I get my meals. It at six ounces of chicken, a cup of broccoli two or three times a day. Or I go beef and broccoli. Now, do you supplement with essential fatty acids or flaxseed oil? I take fish oil. Fish oils? Fish oils in the morning.

And then, yeah, I mean, when it comes to supplementation, I do protein and aminos every single day. That's been my biggest thing. Do you branch change aminos after exercise? Yeah, Diamantize, BCAAs, 50-50 blend. They have the, it's like a 2-1-1, two of the leucine, one of the valine, one of the isoleucine. How long do you take that right after training? I usually drink one blender bottle, one serving of it as i'm going into practice and then i'll have another one going into the next practice and i'll have a protein shake after maybe that's why

you're throwing up no i don't throw up i don't i try to get myself to throw up but i don't um and i drink the diamondized iso 100 protein which is like, it's the big, it's like the cleanest and like almost lightest protein. What is it based on? What is it? A whey protein? Yeah. But it's a whey protein isolate. Okay.

So something in the way it breaks down or, you know, I don't know exactly all the specifics of it. But I mean, when it comes to bodybuilding, a lot of those bodybuilders use that because of the fact that it's isolate. Right. So. And what about multivitamins things on those ones? Yeah. I mean, I, I, we, we go, um, I do like an athletic nutrients, which is basically just like a, an extended version of a multivitamin. Um, I have this daily detox one that I take that has a fish oils and a little bit of taurine, a little bit of other stuff in it. Multi-vitamin.

Turmeric, honestly, I mean, with the amount of inflammation I have. Sure. I try to do a lot of turmeric throughout training camps. If I do, I try to stay away from the Aleves and the Tylenols and that kind of stuff unless I'm in pain, you know. That shit's terrible for you. I want to try to get turmeric and drinking juices and that kind of stuff turmeric ginger shots cayenne pepper and you do that every day yeah i try to it's one of those things where it's like every day but every day loosely you know that stuff's phenomenal i did this morning yeah yeah and uh what about um do you do cryo or do you get massages or sauna or anything like that i do i do soft i try to do a soft tissue

massage or a sports massage um kind of rolfing art almost every week i mean like i was saying i'm on my roller every single day before practice and that's that's when i really see you know like these these times after a fight when i'm kind of not working out as much or i'm not you know not everything is on because you can't be on all not, you know, not everything is on. Cause you can't be on all the time. You know, everybody acts like they're on 365, they're 365 days a year, but they're really not, you know, after a fight, I kind of go less robot mode, you know, break my diet a little bit, enjoy staying up late, enjoy just doing whatever. And then that's when I really realized, Holy cow, I've been on my roller in four days. And that's why my back is, you know,

I'm hunched over and stuff. Right, you just get too busy and you just don't have the time to get it in there. So I'm hitting my roller, and then I like to get a massage every single week. Chiropractic often. Yeah, I saw something on Russian wrestlers where they were getting massaged every day after training, and I was like, wow. Yeah, I mean, I do the roller every day, so I imagine some sort of soft tissue work could be very, I mean, man, we beat the crap out of our bodies. It's nothing like it.

I mean, other than football, I guess, in terms of the amount of abuse your body takes. I mean, you're basically in a sport where your desire is to break someone's body. Yeah. And just the little things, man, I was sparring with Nick Lentz two training camps ago and I threw, I threw a leg kick as he lifted his, his opposite leg up and literally just dead legged me like Charlie horsed me with his knee. It wasn't even supposed to happen. He didn't mean to do it. I didn't, I was trying to throw the leg kick and I got the worst deep muscle, like bone contusion in the middle of my, like where, where your quads meet right between the muscles.

And I could not walk. I fell right to the ground. Practice was over. You know, this was like three weeks before the fight and I had to go see my, my guy CK in Florida. He just had to work the heck out of it, man. And that's, I think that's one of the biggest things. the heck out of it man and that's i think that's one of the biggest things um and i just talked to one of the guys at mark pro about when we talk about injuries we used to think rice you know rest um ice ice compression elevation and that kind of stuff is there's some conflicting kind

of knowledge on all that kind of stuff whereas instead of resting it get in there right away and start moving it moving it and mobilizing it with certain things. Obviously you got a broken leg and you need to get it set and get it, you know, get it rested. But do you do cryotherapy at all? I don't. I mean, I've done it a couple of times. I've done it. I've done that a couple of times. I haven't done ice baths. Really? I mean, a lot of times it's just, you almost got to pick and choose. There's only so many hours in the day to, you know, so it's like, you know, you're waking up and you got, you got only so much time before you go to practice. And then, then you only have so much time to recover before the next practice. And it's, and it's one of those things where I'm always getting a massage. I'm always

working on, you know, maybe I'm doing a massage and chiropractic during one camp. You know, it's, it's almost like you got to pick and choose your battles. If, you know, if you have an awesome man warehouse like this, where everything's in one spot, I would do it all every day. But if you're down in Florida and this is, you know, cryos 45 minutes away and your massage is 20 minutes the other direction, it's, and you're fighting Florida traffic, you really got to pick and choose your, your recovery methods, you know? Right. Now your gym in Nashville, this is your gym. And I was following you on social media where you're putting up pictures, you're putting everything together. How satisfying has that been?

It's awesome, man. I think the – it's satisfying now that it's open. I mean, obviously there's a lot of work that goes involved. Tell people how they can find out about it. Where can you go? We are trainingcampnashville.com, and you can follow us on Instagram, at trainingcampnashville. Now that we're open, I mean, my big thing is, you know,

I'm very active on social media. We want to start doing a ton of videos, a ton of kind of cool, similar workouts like I do and pump out a bunch of information out there. I mean, my, my biggest thing is I wouldn't be where I am today without surrounding myself with great people, great coaches and be important too. And I just wanted to, I had this vision 17 years ago and I was like, I told my dad, I said, dad, I want to open up a gym. And he said, well, if you're going to open up a gym, I'm going to build it with my bare hands. And my dad now just finished my gym with his bare hands. Wow.

So, you know. That's fucking cool. So he, yeah, I mean, every screw, every nail in that place was put in by my father, you know. Wow. So it's cool. And it was when I was, you know, 15 years old or whatever. Very similar to my wife's vision of adopting a child. And like that came to fruition same exact year. So it's like just these changes. Yeah. A lot of changes, you know, but I mean, it's, it's cool. I wanted four walls and a roof where people can walk in and say, you know,

they're, they're looking for a change or they're looking to, to whether it's get stronger, get faster, get, you know, lose that weight that they finally have been putting off. I wanted a place where people can say, because of that guy or those people or that coach, I was able to enrich my life. I was able to become a better person. I was able to increase my self-confidence or just enrich life. So do you have classes for just general fitness, classes for martial arts, beginners classes? Do you have the full range and then also professional?

Yeah. So, I mean, we have a lot of stuff going on. I've almost been fighting a decade now. I've been started out in Missouri, went to the West Coast. Now I'm training on the East Coast, and I've been to Canada. I've been to numerous training camps in between, and the gym is called training camp. And the reason is because my life always revolves around training camp, you know, and there's a difference between like we just talked about in training camp and out of training

camp. How'd you settle on Nashville? My wife and I just love the city. We're both fucking great city, isn't it? Great city. Yeah. We're both from, we're both from Missouri. So it's closer to, you know, home where we grew up.

We were living in San Diego together and wanted to just move back closer to the Midwest. We love the city. We have a bunch of friends in the music industry. So we, you know, had some friends there already and visited and went to a couple of award shows and said, man, this place is cool. I was just there a couple of weeks ago, like four or five weeks ago, whatever it was.

I just, I love it there, man. It's a cool city. It's an amazing city. It really is. From top to bottom too. And we, I mean, we met so many people and, you know, you kind of prod and ask questions and they just said, man, it's a great place to raise a family. It's a great city. It's an amazing city. It really is. From top to bottom, too. I mean, we met so many people, and, you know, you kind of prod and ask questions, and they just said, man, it's a great place to raise a family. It's a great school system.

It's great. You know, the weather is better than Missouri, but it's, you know, you get all four seasons. It's a great place to raise a family, and that's kind of what we knew. We were about to start a family, so we wanted to do that and love the city. And I saw an untapped mma market there too you know i mean there was there was a couple mma gyms there but there was no there was no legitimate pro fighters that were there i mean luke sanders is from there in the ufc he went out to california uh dustin ortiz was there both of those guys were born and raised there they both

went other places i said you know what i want to go to nashville and i'm going to make it the premier place or my gym is going to be the premier place to do mixed martial arts training in Nashville, and we're going to put Nashville on the map. Now you're going to have wrestling classes, kickboxing classes, the whole. All of it. So back to that, we have a lot of stuff going on. We have 3,000 square foot of just fitness area where it's rolled rubber, flooring, turf, plate loaded machines, squat racks, dumbbells, group fitness area.

Right next to that we have 3,000 square foot of mat space where we're going to have a youth wrestling club that has kind of a half wall around it. We started a youth wrestling club this week, coupled with another 3,000 square foot of mats, 1,500 there, 1,500 of the Fuji Tatami mats for boxing, kickboxing, BJJ, MMA, all that kind of stuff. And then that 900 square foot yoga studio. Plus we have our recovery area that we have a guy named Scott

Dunaway at Cairo Strength. So he's a chiropractor, ART, and corrective exercise guy. Plus we're trying to bring in another massage therapist that's going to be there three days a week. And then I'm also going to talk to a cryo guy as well, who has an extra tank that I'm going to try to set something up with, I think. so then when everything's under one roof then then we're like hey joe i've been doing cryo man because i wasn't 45 minutes away you know yeah well that is the thing right it's time management when you're and you're training how many times a day and when you're in camp well twice usually you know but but then there's always there's always something to you know and then there's the media obligations or, I mean, just even,

even with your nutrition stuff, it's like, oh man, I gotta go, you know, gotta go get, gotta go make a whole foods run to get my, my almond milk and my avocados. Cause I make my own breakfast, but the rest of my stuff is in a mega fit meals, uh, containers, you know? Um, so there's always a grocery store to go to, or there's always a media obligation or there's always something and it's all time management. You know, I always, I always, it was always interesting when I heard people like, yeah, I train 10 hours a day and I'm like, really? How do you train 10 hours a day without your body falling apart? You know? Yeah. People exaggerate a little bit. Right. And I'm like, I trained two hours in the morning, balls to the wall. And I trained two hours in that and

at night balls to the wall. And then in between, then I'm like, okay, pass out, wake up, do it all over again. Groundhog's day, embrace the monotony'm like, okay, pass out, wake up, do it all over again. Groundhog's Day, embrace the monotony, chicken, broccoli, eggs, avocado. Let's do it for eight weeks and make weight. Well, listen, Michael, I'm glad we finally got a chance to get together and have this conversation and let people know what you're all about, man. And I'm a big fan, and I really appreciate you coming in here. And I hope one day I can commentate one of your fights.

One day. And it won't be in Bellator. That would be great, man. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. I really, really appreciate it, man. Absolutely. Thank you.

Michael Chandler, ladies and gentlemen.