The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #44 with John Kavanagh & George Lockhart

Episode Date: October 8, 2018

Joe is joined by MMA coach & Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner, John Kavanagh, and performance nutrition specialist George Lockhart.

Here we go, four, three, two, boom, George Lockhart, John Cavanaugh, how are you folks? Hello sir. Doing great. Good to see you. Good to be here. So, Saturday night, what are your thoughts? Now that we're sitting here, it's Monday morning, the Khabib-McGregor fight went down, Saturday night.

Obviously, hugely disappointed that we didn't get the result on the night um i still enjoyed it i thought it was a great fight i'm looking forward to watching it back many times all the corners fights i always pull a little lessons away that i can pass on to the next generation of guys but yeah overall i really enjoyed the fight and i'm devastated that we didn't get the win. Yeah. How much time did he have to prepare for this fight? I mean, he's always in the gym. He's always knocking about

but I guess it was official about 10 weeks out but even since the Eddie fight, I kind of knew or at least I thought his next MMA fight would be Habib. It just kind of made sense. If it wasn't going to be Diaz, but then as time went on that seemed less and less likely and Habib obviously was doing great, kept on winning, so there was a path that was going to collide.

Was there anything that was surprising in the fight? The right hand in the second round was a cracker. It was beautiful overhand right. I mean, it's a staple of wrestlers, overhand right and close. But he doesn't generally do that. He's more jab and then close. But that was a great shot. The style of takedowns, everything was kind of what we expected. And we spent a lot of time in preparing for that.

Yeah, just, you know, kind of expected round one. For sure going to get a takedown. So the goal of round one was to get out of it but still having energy. We didn't want to put a huge amount of effort into trying to get back up in round one. It seemed to happen many times in the other opponents

and to kind of go back to the stool, you know, really tired. So round one, make them pay stool you know really tired so round one make him pay you know do our best on the way in fight as hard as we can but if we do end up down which it was against the fence

figured it would be there tried to stay seated up if we end up in our back just try to play guard until the bell except it will be a 10-9 round for round two

again same plan. Do as much damage as we can, but if we end up on our back, don't put a huge amount of effort into trying to get up. He's an absolute master at re-grounding people. That turned out to be a 10-8 round. He got some good shots there, and obviously he landed the great right hand.

So that was a bit more than we hoped for. Round three, things started kind of turning a little bit in our favor. He did a lot better at keeping it in the middle, defending the takedowns. So the plan was to slow him down a little and watch him slow down a little bit in the third, fourth, and fifth? Yeah, exactly, yeah. So I think at the beginning the consensus was Conor knocks him out in the first, or Habib takes over from two on. For us to win the third round was probably a bit of a surprise to people.

But you know, to eloquent the fight, if you look at that, from round three on, he wasn't able to hit any takedowns. So hoped that would be how it would go in round three. We could defend the takedowns a lot easier and start landing air shots. And that did happen for round three. Not as well as we planned, not as well as we hoped. And then round four, you know, we hit another great takedown. Made a mistake giving up the overhook, exposed our back, and that was all she wrote.

Yeah, he has such a unique ability to tie both legs up with his legs. Yeah. He's so good at that. In round one, I thought Conor did well. We had practiced for that to keep our legs bent. You see guys straighten their legs and Conor did do that a couple of times, but he was able to continuously get a leg free.

Not until the last 30 seconds or so of round one, he didn't really tie them up and get them flat in his back. For the majority of that, he was against defense, used his hands to keep upright, tried to land little shots. Yeah. And, George, you dealt with Conor's weight cut. You deal with his overall nutrition as well?

Yes, sir. Pull that microphone close to you like we're talking about. There we go. Right here. You can move it up if microphone close to you like we're talking about. There we go. Right here. You can move it up if you want to see where you were. Technology. There you go. It's a work in progress.

You work with him on his weight cut? What was his weight before he started camp? It's almost exactly the same way it was when we actually started the cut. We wanted to make sure that his weight was a little higher than, you know, obviously with the boxing, with Floyd, you know, speed is everything. And we wanted to kind of slowly drop that weight down. But with this, we wanted to keep him as big as possible and then, you know, cut all that weight so he can – What was his weight?

He was about 171 when he got back into that cage. So what was his weight when you guys started camp? About the same thing. Same thing? Exact same thing, yeah. It was all about performance. So it's not an extreme weight cut. No, no.

15-ish pounds. Yeah. In terms of cutting, it was an easy day. What's the most you've ever had someone cut? So, you know, on record with Drew Dober, he showed up at 185 on Tuesday and had to make 155 by Friday. So it was 19% of his body weight that we had it. That's the biggest one. Biggest one on record.

He's a big fella. I've always looked at Drew Dober and go, how the fuck does that guy make 155? Right? No. Every time I see him, I'm like, you know, you make me work for my money. Yeah. Every time I see him, I'm like, you know, yeah, you make me work for my money. Well, it seems like it's probably not the healthiest thing in the world for him to do either.

No, I mean, I'll never be like, you know, weight cutting is the healthiest thing in the world. But I will say that, like, because the amount of muscle mass, people look at somebody like him and they're like, I mean, he doesn't have a lot to lose and he doesn't have a lot to lose, but he's got a lot to cut. Muscle is about 70, you know, muscle tissue is about 79% water. So the more muscle you have, the more water you can cut, you know. So if you do it properly, the more muscle you have, the easier it is for that cut. And that's why he's able to do that. How did you learn how to do this? Honestly, man, I'm like, I could be like, well, i got this degree and i got this degree but there's

no degree in actual weight cutting you know i started on the marine corps and uh um i was a heavyweight when i started fighting and then i ended up as a welterweight and um wow yeah yeah didn't do so well as a welterweight kind of the opposite of anthony rumble johnson right right you know it was definitely not uh it wasn, it didn't work out well for me. I was better at cutting the weight than I was actually at fighting. But learning through this process, okay, this works like this and this works like this. I mean, there's so many studies that are out there.

You look at the NSCA, you look, PubMed and all these other things. You see a study over here and you see a study over here and you're like, okay, well, we're going to put these two together and actually see in terms of actual weight cutting. It's rough because nobody's ever actually going to do a study with the level of dehydration that these guys are doing. You know what I mean? Like, oh, yeah, this is how you rehydrate these people. It's never going to happen. So, you know, luckily we've, you know, the amount of cuts that we do,

we work with over 200 UFC fighters. I mean, just in the UFC. I mean, we obviously work with a lot more like Bellator and stuff like that. But being able to see, like, okay, this works, this doesn't work, we need to kind of back this up. And when you say you work with them, if you work with 200 fighters, and stuff like that, but being able to see, okay, this works, this doesn't work. We need to kind of back this up. And when you say you work with them, if you work with 200 fighters, how hands-on are you with 200 different fighters?

It changes, you know, based on, you know, how much they need us. You know, a lot of the guys, we literally don't show up until the week of the fight. You know, somebody like Connor, you know, I'm out there six to eight weeks. I'm out there monitoring everything. And, you know, the people that we are out there for for eight weeks, it makes life a lot easier. You know what I'm saying? Now, do you have anything to do with his meal planning as well, like during the camp? Connor?

Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Everything that goes into his mouth, I'm monitoring. So from the moment you guys start in camp, what about outside of camp? Is he taking instruction from you? Yeah, yeah. Conor, he'll get me up and be like, hey, I'm doing this.

In terms of workout, that's a big one for him. Like, oh, pre-workout, post-workout, what should I be taking? I tell him exactly what he should be taking and then you know basically stays on a regimen and at the end of the day man like diet the word diet means food you eat the habitual way and I like guys to actually live life a little bit you know what I'm saying when you're when you're so regimented like okay I gotta I gotta count this carb and I gotta count this I got it's it's ridiculous you got to count this. It's ridiculous. You know what I'm saying?

So, you know, the fact that he actually is like, okay, I just need to monitor what I'm taking pre-post-workout makes life easy for me. Did you go to school for nutrition? In the Marine Corps, I was a combat conditioning specialist. I was actually an instructor trainer. So, like, when you go, there's a place called the Martial Arts Center of Excellence, right? And they actually handpick Marines. Kind of been, you know, like in certain situations in the military. Brian Stan was actually, you know, a part of that.

And then they actually started something called the Combat Conditioning Program, and I was actually the guy that they actually had to teach all that. So they sent me everywhere. I got to work with the people from the Olympic Training Center. I got to work with the PI in Florida. Just learn from a lot of different people. But in terms of, I always say this, from weight cutting, there's actually not a course. If you're a dietician or whatever, that's great, but that doesn't help you in terms of weight cutting. You go to somebody who's like, hey, man, I'm going to lose 30 pounds in three days.

What do I do? It's a very specific kind of discipline and so it's something that you kind of have to learn along the way and no one's going to teach you in a school 100 but you do have a back some sort of background in nutrition 100 yes yes yeah absolutely and does do you vary your diets based on the way guys train or is it like pretty standard or does it vary depending on how much weight they have to lose no no every diet is different like i mean people like themselves never get the same diet twice uh the same person um so like if you wake up at six o'clock in the morning versus eight

o'clock in the morning you have to have a totally different diet you know like we we feed people from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed what would be the day say if someone likes to get up at six o'clock in the morning versus someone likes to get it up at eight right would it be in what time they have to train that would that be the the variable that's one variable you don't we base everything off type uh type timing portion size or hormonal responses of foods you know i'm saying like uh uh most diets nowadays they actually you know they they kind of stick to one aspect like um atkins diet you know it sticks the types of foods you know like uh zone diet it's uh portion size we we actually stick to all of them

you know like type timing portion size hormone because, you know, if you look at all diets, they, they all work. All diets will work. You know, like if you're, if you're consistent to every single diet, if you do the same thing every single day, you're, you're sick, you're going to see results, but are you going to get to a specific weight and is your performance going to be, you know, increased over a fight camp? You know, that, that's when nutrition becomes extremely valuable. What would be the difference between someone getting up at 6

and someone getting up at 8? Time to eat. So if somebody wakes up at 6, they're going to eat at 6 o'clock in the morning. If somebody gets up at 8, they're going to eat at 8 o'clock in the morning. So you have them eat as soon as they wake up? Yeah, absolutely. Yes, sir. You feed somebody to the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed.

Like what would be a typical breakfast meal? We live off the basic rule. You give people what they need when they need it. So, you know, if you're aerobic, right, your body's primary source of fuel is going to be more fats. Your brain's primary source of fuel is going to be carbohydrates or glucose, right? So we give them like a lot of fruits, right? The glucose feed the brain, a lot of fats. You know, we make sure that we, you know, we get a good measurement of omega-3s to omega-6s, basically about a two to one ratio. So throughout the day, you know, if they're, if they're aerobic throughout the day, if they're aerobic throughout the day, we give them fruits, vegetables, omega-6s, omega-3s.

And then once they start working out, then depending on the workout, then that's when we start giving them more starches and stuff like that. So basically just sort of a light breakfast of fruits and things along those lines to get everything moving. 100%. And then after your first workout, what's a typical post-workout meal? It depends on the actual workout. We something called like you got the metabolic equivalent right so basically the met is the amount of oxygen your body uses and that that's going to determine basically uh the amount of calories that your body so let's say a strength and conditioning workout what if they're going to do weights and sprints and things along those lines right so

what we'll do is everything is actually like a formula. Everything is broken down mathematically. So we'll take their med and we'll go on a scale of 1 to 10, and we multiply that by the actual amount of weight that that individual has, like a kilogram. So we'll say their intensity is a 10. Let's say they have a hard workout intensity of 10 we multiply that by the amount of kilograms um that that individual has

uh i believe and then um look at the formula we basically divide that by uh 200 and multiply that by the duration of actual workout and that'll give us the amount of actual calories that that individual is actually using for that workout. So every workout is going to be different. So if you're doing, like, what's the word I'm looking for? Like training in terms of, like, guard passing and stuff like that, it's going to be a lot different than if you're sparring, right? So a lot of people, they actually feed themselves the same way if they're if they're doing form versus actually training like sparring you don't they they do the same thing i'm gonna take two you know two scoops of protein i'm gonna take this this and this you have to you have to

actually feed the body differently every single every single workout right so we'll take that formula we find out okay this amount of calories that this individual burns during this period of time, and then we actually break it down even more. Because if you jog and you burn a thousand calories, right, and if you lift and burn a thousand calories, well, it's the same amount of calories, but you have to refuel the body differently. Because if you jog, your body's using a lot more fat. And if you're lifting, your body's using a lot more carbohydrates. Again, it goes to giving the body what it needs when it needs it. So we'll look at it and we're like, okay, well, if it's a level 10, and then we'll literally, and we have the formulas for it. So a 10 would be 80-20.

So you find out the amount of calories this individual is burning. 80-20 meaning? 80% carbohydrates, 20% proteins. Right. And what kind of carbohydrates do you mostly focus on? So your body has something called, you have receptors in the body, right? People think that, well, if I need carbohydrates, my body's just going to ingest them, and it doesn't work like that. Your body can process about one gram of carbohydrate per minute, right?

But if you are able to actually access more, um, actually, um, use more than one, um, transporter than, um, at a time, you can actually go to about two, three, uh, 2.3 grams per minute. And, uh, yeah, you have glute one, glute two, glute three, glute four, and then you got S-glute one, SGLUT2. Each one of these has a different thing that actually activates them, right? Like an SGLUT2 is a sodium-dependent transporter, right? If you use a sodium-dependent transporter, GLUT4 is an insulin-dependent transporter. GLUT1 is, I believe, no, I'm sorry, GL-5 is a fructose. It's activated by fructose,

right? So if you use more than one of these transporters at a time, you activate these transporters, they're literally, you're able to actually synthesize carbohydrates twice as fast. So you're doing different types of carbohydrates and mixing them together? 100%. Like what would be an example of a Glut-1? S-Glut-1 is a sodium-dependent transporter. So you've got to make sure that you add sodium, right? GLUT4 is the insulin-dependent transporter.

What's going to help insulin be transported? You need something that's high glycemic. So something that's dextrose. But what is a food that's GLUT1? Well, salt. break it down salt and then uh glute uh glute five or glute five would be uh fructose which would be fruit right so we you know i'll break down fruit for them and then dextrose is is basically like any type of sugar that you have you know what i mean so uh that's basically we incorporate sugar, fructose, and salt.

You put those together. Now, the funny thing is when you incorporate caffeine, it's been shown that caffeine post-workout, you'll see four times the amount of glycogen in the muscle post-workout if you take the caffeine. Really? Yeah. Do you if you take the uh the caffeine really yeah did you take it in form of caffeine pills or do you take coffee i'll incorporate it with like uh the the post workout you know like uh coffee shake yeah it's a anhydrous like it's a it's a stronger type sometimes i'll see like okay if he's if he's obviously going to bed later it'll be more

of a green tea type uh caffeine but yeah i mean the funny thing is like it's shown that caffeine post-workout four times the amount of carbohydrates are in the muscle and i have yet to find out why i i you know i talked talked to Andy Galpin. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, I love that guy. He's amazing. I'm like, hey, man, I'm like, bro, I want to get you in the room for like an hour and

just talk to you. But I was like, and I asked him and he's like, honestly, I don't know either. And I was like, shit. You know what I mean? So, but, you know, the thing is, I don't know why, but the one thing I do know, yes, 100%, you know, caffeine post-workout. Everybody's all about, you know, caffeine pre-workout. Caffeine post-workout is extremely important. And with our sport, it's so important because you got guys that are working out two, three times a day.

You know, they need to be rehydrated. They need their glycogen storages. They need to be up. So did you essentially learn how to weight cut by cutting weight yourself? I learned every, every way not to weigh cut by myself. Rehydrating the same way. Uh, yeah, the, the rehydration I did through, you know, lots, lots of studying, lots of studying. You know, when I, uh, look back at what I did for rehydration, I shake my head i'm

like holy crap well it's a relatively recent thing right i mean think about it with wrestling i mean wrestlers didn't do such a good job of rehydrating i mean they were basically competing the day of the weight cut and you know sound like it's past tense they still do that they're trying to be a little bit better about that with uh the way they allow people with hydration tests and colleges and, you know, still. Yeah. Still rough. Yeah. But at least with them, there's no head trauma.

That's it. That's the big thing about MMA is rehydrating with head trauma. How much more difficult is your job now with USADA in place where they can't use IVs ivs i love not having the iv man really swear to god yeah why um you know if you look at every study out there like the uh oral rehydration is actually better for the body everybody's so funny nowadays everybody's like oh you don't like organic you know earth-grown nutrients you gotta have this you gotta have this and then when it comes to like cutting weight, it's like, now let's jam a needle into their freaking body and let's shove 9,000 milligrams of sodium chloride in their freaking veins. And that's got to be good. You know, if, if, uh, God, I'm sure if they were fighting the same day,

a hundred percent, like, yeah, you need an IV, but they have over 30 hours to rehydrate the body. You know, the body can do that on its own and it's going to be a lot more natural in terms of absorbing nutrients and giving it what it needs. Here's the thing. When a lot of these guys cut, I break it down like this is the exact amount of sodium that your body needs. A lot of people, they were taking in two two uh two uh bags of ivs right one bag is 9 000 milligrams of sodium chloride they would take in 18 like two bags that's 18 000 milligrams of sodium chloride and they wouldn't take any any uh potassium your body is is is got to have a it's a balance of everything yeah yeah yeah like oh you know. Omega-6, you look at fats, there's so many studies out there.

Oh, omega-6 is bad. It causes all this inflammation and stuff. Yeah, omega-6 does cause inflammation, but your body needs it. Your hair needs it. Your organs need it, but it needs a good amount of omega-3 to kind of clear that out. Same thing. Sodium needs potassium. When you look at a muscle pump, sodium're like, sodium goes into a muscle,

potassium comes out. Well, how does potassium get back in? Well, it needs magnesium. Magnesium. If you don't have magnesium, you have to have this balance. And it's funny because these guys, back in the day, they would take an IV,

and then what did they have? They'd have soup, and they'd take more salt. They would never basically look at the amount of potassium. Now these guys are like, hey, George, what do I take? And I'm like, okay, eat this, eat this, eat this, and I think it's a lot healthier for them. So they're getting more sophisticated with it. Johnny Hendricks recently said that one of the reasons why he retired is because of USADA, and they wouldn't let him use the IVs anymore.

Right. He said it made a big difference with him. Yeah. There's a lot of people that are in this job, Joe, that they have no business being in this job, doing what I do. Like, I mean, I just got on the street. I've talked to them. How many people like you are there out there?

I know there's Dolce. Yeah, and there's – Who else? Like, there's a nutrition and, um, I think perfecting athletes, things like that. Um,

I've, I've talked to a couple of people, you know, like I, you know, at the end of the day, man, honestly,

I always tell people, I'm like, you know, I told my wife this, I'm like, you know what game is, babe? And she's like,

what? I'm like, it's your ability to pretend like you give a fuck. Right. And I'm like, I'm like, you know what real game is is actually giving a fuck you know what i'm saying like there's a lot of people that they're like oh i

want to help you i don't want to help you out you know i'm saying like that people actually like ah cool but then they realize then that's why they work with us because they we actually give a fuck like we care you know when you sit there and just like um we taught you know, like we were working with Gray Jackson. It was Johnny Bones. And it was a fight or whatever. And I'm like, hey, guys, you know, like obviously we work with D.C. And D.C. has got exclusivity with us. I'm like, how's he doing with the rehydration?

Like, oh, he's using your rehydration. I'm like, dude, the rehydration I gave you guys was before the IV band. Like, it's not the same. And they're like, oh, you think you talked to his nutritionist? So I went to talk to him, and I was like, what's the osmolality of the water that you're giving him? And, you know, he looked at me like I had a dick growing on my forehead. Like, he was like,

what the fuck? And I'm like, how much fucking salt are you giving him? He's like, well, I'm not giving him salt. I haven't given him salt this entire, you know, fucking training camp. Why would I give him salt? And I wasn't going to sit down and give him a fucking whole lecture on nutrition, but like how the fucking body works or anything like that. But I was like, I just, I went to Johnny Bones and I said, bro,

fucking start eating fucking salt. Like your life depends on it, brother. Because I mean, basically the muscle contraction that you have, a lot of it depends on the amount of sodium that your body has. You know, the amount of glycogen absorption, muscle contraction, neurons in the body, it's all dependent on fucking salt. And when you got guys that are like, wow, I don't fucking know salt, I think a lot of guys are in this game because they want their name on the fucking highlights and shit like that.

You'll see me. Well, it's real bizarre that this is such a gigantic sport. I mean, it is an enormous sport. But in terms of even the way people train, it's, I mean, no one really, there's not a consensus on what's the correct way to do it. And then when it comes to nutrition, there's not a consensus. And then there's the rehydration and dehydration factor that doesn't exist in any other sport other than boxing. Right. I mean, this is the only, and I think it's more extreme in MMA than it is even in boxing for the most part, right?

It's such a crazy thing that you've got these super high level athletes that are dealing with gym bros i mean there's a lot of like real high level athletes and i've talked to their trainers and i'm like what did you just say like you're a gym bro how'd you get with this guy this guy's a fucking world-class fighter and he's got some schmo from fucking gold's gym no offense gold's gym but you know what i mean some fucking guy's got some schmo from fucking Gold's Gym. No offense, Gold's Gym. But you know what I mean. Some fucking guy's got a tub of shit with him. He's like, got to take three of these and four of those. Because I read about it in Weeder. You know what I mean?

They don't really have a strict protocol. And it's not really based on science and blood work and real science. No, 100%. It's sad because the sport is, at the end of the day, they'll be like, well, that guy's jacked. You're the strength and conditioning coach.

You're like, he's fucking big as fuck. You're like, yeah, you're strength and conditioning. And they're like, oh, you know a couple people? You're now my agent. You know what I mean? Right, right. In terms of NFL, we work with a lot of different people. Demi Lovato and shit like that. It's, you know, like in terms of NFL, like we work with, you know, we work with a lot of different people.

Like we, you know, we, Demi Lovato and shit like that. Like it's a different world. Close to your face. Sorry. Sorry. Gets, everybody does it. I'm sorry, brother. It's all right.

And I know my voice, there are people like, good, you're going to have subtitles on this? It's a great voice. It's gravelly. It seems like you've lived a lot. It's not the years, it's the mileage. I remember when Anderson Silva got popped, and then people started circulating photos of Anderson's trainer. He's 70 years old, built like a brick shithouse.

I mean, he's got veins coming out of his fucking muscles that are just like garden hoses. Have you ever seen him? No. It's hilarious. When we found out that Anderson got popped for steroids, then they saw a picture of his trainer. I'm like, wow, I wonder where he got them from. You see if you can find it.

You get a photo of the guy. There's a picture of him taking a selfie at the gym. No, that's not the guy. The strength and conditioning guy. He's a darker gentleman. And he's built like a brick shithouse. He looks more like a bodybuilder than he does a strength and conditioning coach you got it yeah here he is um the guy with the white shirt on yeah that's him but that's not the photo i want there he is

and he's he's in his 60s wow yeah so you. So you see that. Well, that's what I look like without my shirt, Joe. I believe you. Yeah, I'm a little something going on there. A few south of the border supplements. But, you know, but the point is that even like the best of the best world class fighters, world-class fighters they don't necessarily have a background in nutrition or kinesiology or exercise physiology they don't necessarily know exactly the way to the right way to approach things i mean shit for years fighters wouldn't even drink water in between rounds right you know i mean they thought water made you cramp and And there's a lot of, like, crazy shit involved in this sport still to this day.

Yeah. You don't know what you don't know. And I tell you, our goal is by the end of next year, we're going to work with every single fighter in the UFC. We have over 200 fighters in the UFC right now. Every single one. So you're going to push everybody else out? Fuck off. Fuck everybody.

Fuck everybody. 100%, man. You know why? What are they doing wrong? Everything. what are the other guys doing wrong everything? They don't know what the fuck they're doing Joe like 100% They have no fucking clue what the fuck they're all of them all of them 100% I have people fucking drinking They're like all the drink is see like the drinking Was it salt water doing the fucking during the week of the fight and you know I hear guys from ATT like, hey, George, why the fuck would they do that?

I'm like, because that's fucking, that's asinine. I have people fucking be like, oh, we don't want to cut carbs out because, you know, we want, you know, like it takes a specific amount of time to rehydrate carbs. You know, they're thinking it takes like four fucking days. But when you actually do it properly, like is this is all scientific shit like it literally takes 24 hours to rehydrate somebody's fucking glycogen storage if you fucking take their water right so every gram of glycogen holds on to three grams of water right and we can literally find out based on the amount of muscle tissue that an individual holds exactly how much glycogen their

body holds and how much water that is attached to that glycogen. Do you work with Yoel Romero? We did, yes. That dude, I look at that guy and I go, how the fuck is that 185 pound man?

You want to hear some stats with us, man? Yeah. So people, people are like, you know, like I don't have 100%

you know, like rate, Joe. Of weight, making weight? I take pride in that shit. You know why? Because I've taken motherfuckers that I know they're not going to make weight. I know that bitch ain't going to make weight. You know what I'm saying?

But, dude, I'm like, hey, man, I want to either A, be there to be like, bitches, he's not going to make it, and I cut that shit. I cut it. I've got coaches that are like, he's being a pussy. I'm like, dude. He's going to die. He literally has fucking cut .2 goddamn pounds

in the last 30 minutes. He's got 10 pounds to go. He ain't going to make it. His kidneys are going to be... Oh, he's being a pussy. Fuck you guys, man. I cut it off. You know what I'm saying?

With UL... It's between us, right? Yeah. No one's listening. No one's listening. So nobody's listening. So in Australia, he showed up at 198, and he missed by 2.5 pounds, right? With us, he showed up 217 pounds and missed by 0.2. And the only reason that he fucking missed by that 0.2 is because of the fucking athletic commission.

Yeah, the commission in New York put him off. They fucking came in there. I was like, hey, bro, I'm like cool down you know take your time i give them 45 minutes to like fucking just chill we put them in the bath that the commission came in there and they're like how you feeling he's like i feel good to go and they were like you know the guy you literally said he said you know unfortunately that's what all heroes say but unfortunately all heroes are dead and i'm like first off That's the dumbest thing I've ever fucking heard in my life like there's a lot of fucking heroes that are still fucking goddamn alive

You know I'm saying what he wants a quote And I'm sitting there like what the fuck are you talking about? You know what I'm saying, right? But they're like he's you know, he needs to be downstairs and we're like, well, he has a whole hour and they're like no He needs to be downstairs. And we're like, whoa, he has a whole hour. And they're like, no, no, he needs to be downstairs. Anyway, he got down there. He was still sweating on the fucking scale, Joe. And it was only.2. .2.

That ain't shit. But here's my thing. He showed up 217. And we got him.2 over. To 185. Yeah. I weigh 197. And I stand next to him.

And I'm like, how in the fuck is that 185 pound man he is a straight up silverback that dude is so jacked you want to talk about genetics i mean what kind of fucking genetics does that dude have first night we fucking were doing the code with him he'd never done he never did a bath i know he never did a bath because he went in backwards. Like, literally, like, we're like, yo, head goes over here, bro. Like, he'd never been in a bath. He got out. He fucking lost a lot more weight than he expected.

And he fucking butt ass naked, man. Fucking comes up to us. I'm like, oh, shit. Want to hug you? Oh, bro. Oh, man. Not hugging me, like, shaking me and shit. Oh, Jesus. I'm losing my man card shit. Want to hug you? Oh, bro. Oh, man. Not hugging me, like shaking me and shit. Oh, Jesus.

I'm losing my man card tonight, but you know what? I'm not going to fucking, you know. He's a big fucking dude. I bet he is, if you know what I'm saying. Yeah. He's like the freakiest of all the freak athletes. Yeah. You know, of all the dudes where you just like, you look at them and you go,

what are the odds that someone turns out like that you know of all the all the guys who like like a regular looking guy is like an evan dunham regular looking guy and then you got a yoel like the world's not fair it's just not fucking. It's not fair. And that's him on weight, right? I mean. That motherfucker. What date is that? Redemption. Okay, yeah.

So that is him back in the day when you had to cut actual weight for the weigh-ins. That's before the, like, if you look at him with the new ones where he gets to rehydrate. Yeah. He's such a freak, man. Fucking hell. When he tosses. And the fact that he's in his 40s. Like, what in the fuck?

And they test that shit out of that dude. They don't even. That doesn't even make sense. Like, one plus one is 18? What? Test him again. Do it again. Do it again.

It doesn't make any sense. How come you don't work with him anymore? I do. Oh, you still do? Yeah, 100%. Oh, okay. Yeah, just. How come you don't work with him anymore?

I do. Oh, you still do? Yeah, 100%. Oh, okay. Yeah, just we were working with Robert Whitaker, and they decided to not use us the last week. And we're like, all right. So we called. Not use you the last week? Bro, there's a lot of shit.

You know how this game goes. Yeah, I do know how this game goes. This is one of the more disappointing aspects of this game is that I feel like fighting in particular is so dangerous. It's so personal. There's so much involved that I feel like loyalty should be at a premium, and it should be one of the most emphasized things. Like your team, as long as you have a good team like your team is critical i mean it's it's it's everything for the the emotional stability of the fighter but also

for not feeling like you're a piece of shit right you know and i think there's something to that these guys that just dump their trainers and dump their coaches and then hop from camp to camp and don't get a better result from it. I think there's part of them that realizes, like, hey, man, this guy brought you to the dance and you abandoned them somewhere along the way because you saw greener grass on the other side of the fence and it didn't turn out to be greener. And you don't feel like a champion.

You feel like kind of a weasel. Right. Right? And there's a lot of guys like that. But then there's guys who are in a situation like T.J. Dillshaw, right, where he was in a situation where he was like, this doesn't seem right. Like, I don't like the way this camp is going. And then Dwayne Ludwig comes along, and he's like,

I am fucking learning and growing with this guy. And he's like, look, I got to go, guys. I'll still train with you. I love you, but I got to think about my future. And then they're like, you fucking weasel, you left us. But look, he's right. You look at the results. Clearly he was right.

I mean, TJ right now, he defended his title, beat Cody twice, one of the best in the world. You look at his improvement, his overall growth and and his improvement inside the octagon, like, he was right. You know, and so it's a weird balance. Like, when do you pull the chute? When do you bail? When do you get out of there? You know, when, you know, the first person

I ever worked with was Brian Stan. You know, me and him were in the Marine Corps together. You know, like, it's the only reason I'm actually doing what I'm doing today. It's because of Brian? Yeah. Oh, wow. I love that guy. Dude, he's a shithead. I love him to death, man.

He's just all around amazing. I want him to run for president. Bro, 100%. You know, motherfuckers are like, you know, I use this analogy. I'm like, oh, you know, people are like, oh, this guy's a good guy. He's never cheated on his wife. He's never done this, done that. I'm like, dude, look at the motherfucker. He doesn't have options. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, like people are like, oh, this guy's a good guy. He's never cheated on his wife. He's never done this, done that. I'm like, dude, look at the motherfucker.

He doesn't have options. You know what I'm saying? Like, look at him. Brian, that motherfucker's got options. Yeah. I'm like, you're so goddamn good. Like, he would get a text from like a female and they'd be like, hey, I just did a photo shoot, blah, blah, blah. And he'd be like, you know, my wife would not appreciate you texting me in this form and fashion.

And I'm like, I hate hanging out with you, bro. You make me feel like a horrible person just in everything. He's always on. You know what I mean? He's just a good motherfucker. He's a great guy. He's a great motherfucking guy. You know what I mean?

But at the end of the day, man, you're built like a goddamn T-Rex. Big head, fucking short arms. You know what he, I'm like, you're built like a goddamn T-Rex. You know, big head, fucking short arms. You know what I'm saying? And, you know, at WC, he fucking won the world title, got to, you know, UFC. It wasn't working out for him. I'm like, you need to go to 185. He's like, you know, you help me out to cut? Fuck yeah, dude.

And that's what I was doing in the Marine Corps. I was helping guys get down to a weight, and then they had to actually perform. That's my job in the Marine Corps. So your job in the Marine Corps was helping guys get down to a weight so that their have to actually perform. That's my job in the Marine Corps. So your job at the Marine Corps was helping guys get down to weight so that the performance would be better in combat? Right. You have to actually, you have weight standards and you have performance standards in the Marine Corps.

So how would you dial that in based on body fat, based on just how much mass they're carrying around? I mean, there's a lot to it, but it depends on, you know, like, yeah, absolutely. Like, okay, this just to build this individual, this is their activity level, this is what time they wake up, this is what time they go to sleep, this is what their MOS, which for us, that's military operational skill.

If you have somebody that's a recon marine, they're going to have a lot different caloric needs than somebody that's a fucking admin, you know what I mean? So, we give the body what it needs when it needs it. And it you know, we give the body what it needs, you know, when it is it you know and it's funny because we never have a base diet, you know, like if somebody is

basically They don't have an anaerobic Workout throughout the day, you know, like a ketogenic diet is perfect for them You know I'm saying like they don't need those carbs They don't they don't like it's like you actually need a ketogenic diet because you give the body what it needs when it needs it. When you're aerobic, your body's primary source of fuel is fat. Your body's primary source of fuel is going to be that fat. So what do we do?

We feed it the fucking fat. You know what I mean? If you're anaerobic and you're training throughout the day, then we actually incorporate a lot more carbohydrates. Right, for someone who's lifting weights, doing explosive shit. Yeah, 100%. You know, people, nutrition's a lot like religion. If you fucking don't agree with somebody, a lot of motherfuckers are like,

ah, dude, this guy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. I've noticed that. 100%. It's very bizarre. And I've had some conversations on the podcast recently about that. The more recent one was the most civil one was between uh lane bryant and dominic d'agostino where they were nate lane norton rather where they were talking about uh ketogenic diets versus um carbohydrate diets and uh bio lane

uh you know do you know lane lane norton yeah well, I did see that. Super smart guy. George, you're going on that podcast? You better fucking watch this. I'm like, okay. Yeah, super smart guy, but more emphasizes carbohydrates, whereas Dom D'Agostino, they're both scientists, like legit scientists. He emphasizes ketogenic diet. And it's a very interesting conversation because Lane really never was on a ketogenic diet for a long period of time, whereas Dom emphasizes that when you get fat adapted over longer periods of time, four to six months, your body, there's some legitimate benefits with cognitive function and even performance benefits as time goes on.

But certainly in terms of your energy level, your ability to perform without. It feels systemic no matter what. Systemic how so? Yeah. So like at the end of the day, like, you know, like, yeah, someone like Connor, you know, if I put him on a ketogenic diet, he'd be fucked. You know what I mean? He needs power.

He needs output quick, fast in a hurry. You know, your muscles use that glycogen from that, that part of the muscle, whatever they're using right there and then, whereas because he's explosive a hundred percent. Yeah. You know, and that's, and that's where I think people have a problem. Like, you know, like I'm not, you know, I will say Voltaire, you know, he says, you know, the true knowledge of the individual, not by the, by the answers that you, but, but by the questions they ask, you know, like a lot of people are like, hey Lockhart, you know,

like, is peanut butter good for me? I'm like, well, it depends. I can't talk to you. That's what you got to say to them. It's when.

This road is too long. I don't have time to travel. Motherfucker, it's when is it good for you? That's the wrong question. It's when is it good for you? You're like, what are you doing?

What is your activity level? And what kind of peanut butter? Right. Is it that shit that's piled up with sugar or real peanut butter? Motherfuckers, dude, I tell you? You're like, what are you doing? What is your activity level? And what kind of peanut butter? Right. Is it that shit that's piled up with sugar or real peanut butter? Motherfuckers, dude,

I tell you, it's like, people are like, well, I eat healthy. I'm like, what the fuck is healthy? You're putting oil

in your gas tank and putting gas in your oil pan. You know what I'm saying? Everything that you do, you know, respiratory quotient, you break down your body.

Your body's using fuel on a different ratio based on the activity that you have. And it's like, well, if you're down your body. Your body's using fuel in a different ratio based on the activity that you have. And it's like, well, if you're giving your body carbohydrates but your body's using fats, why the fuck is that healthy? You know what I'm saying? It's not. It's not.

It's so simple. But, you know, we always start, you know, people follow this program, bro, and they're like, holy shit, I feel, I'm never hungry. I have energy and this because you're giving the body what it needs. All the time. All the time, bro. Now, do you limit any foods? Are there any, like, do you allow people to eat pasta or bread? Do you cut anything out of the diet?

I mean, honestly, they can have whatever they want at the right fucking time. You know, like, if you look at, like, the metabolic equivalent, right? For somebody like yourself, let's say you go on and you fucking bust a fucking workout out. You know, like if you look at the, like the metabolic equivalent, right? For somebody like yourself, let's say you go on, you fucking bust the fucking workout out. You can burn 800 calories. You know, you can burn 800 calories in a workout. No problem. Right? So if you're burning 800 calories and you're anaerobic and your body's primary source of fuel is going to be carbohydrates, let's just take all the formulas and all the math out of it for a sec. But let's say 800 calories. There's four calories for every one gram of carbohydrates.

For you to fucking replenish what you need, you'd need 200 grams of carbohydrates just to replenish what you just did for a workout. How many motherfuckers do you know take 200 grams of carbohydrates post-workout? None. None. None. Very few. But at the end of the week, you're like, God, I'm fucking tired.

I don't know why I'm so tired. Very few. But at the end of the week, you're like, God, I'm fucking tired. I don't know why I'm so tired. So what kind of carbohydrates would you, like, say if someone wanted to do, like, something like a CrossFit workout or something like that. A lot of kettlebells, chin-ups, box jumps, shit like that. Right. What kind of carbohydrates would you have them refuel with post-workout?

Fructose, dextrose, caffeine, and salt. That is- All those. 100%. Because that's going to activate all the transporters. You think of salt as a carbohydrate? No, no,rose, caffeine, and salt. All those. That is 100% because that's going to activate all the transporters. You think of salt as a carbohydrate? No, no, no, no, no. Then you just add it to it.

Yeah, because in terms of transporters, that is one that activates. The S-glute one is a sodium-dependent transporter. Now, how much salt would you add and what form? It depends on how much weight they lose. So say if I did a hard workout, I'd lose seven pounds. Fuck, man. What if I beat the shit out of the bag, fucking run around the block, do hill sprints, and come back five pounds lighter or whatever?

Just give me a number. Okay. So basically with sweat, I'm negating a lot of fucking other math, but every pound is basically 500 milligrams of sodium. Every pound that you lose from salt, you lose about 500 milligrams of sodium. If you lost seven pounds, you would need basically 3,500 milligrams of sodium to fucking replenish what the fuck you did. That seems like a lot.

Yeah, that's negating a lot of other fucking things, I'm telling you. But a lot of things, like, people are like, that's a lot. But a lot of science that you look at is from fucking average Joe. How many average Joes are going to lose seven goddamn pounds in a fucking workout? Zero. Right? They'll be like, I lost half a pound.

I was on the elliptical machine for 15 minutes. So take 250 milligrams of fucking sodium, you're good to go. You know what I mean? So how do you have them take the sodium? In what form? It's all going to be like, I actually want them to take carbohydrates during and post-workout. During? Yeah.

So in what form? Fruit? Fruit, yeah. So it's going to be blended fruit and the dextrose is going to be a specific type of sugar. They drink it and what happens is when you increase insulin, that actually decreases cortisol, right? Cortisol is not a fucking bad thing, man. It's a glucocorticoid that actually helps get rid of inflammation.

Problem is like people like nowadays are like, oh, it's a fucking stress hormone. Your body doesn't create a fucking hormone that's bad for you. It's not going to. Like your body does not create something that is bad for you. It's just bad for you at the wrong times and in the wrong doses. And excessive. Like insulin.

You know, insulin, is insulin bad for you? Fuck me. Ask a diabetic. They're like, fuck, I wish I had that shit. You know what I'm saying? But when you have it in excessive amounts, you know what I'm saying? That's our problem, man.

Right. We don't know when to take it and how much to take. So do you have guys take those glucose gels like those like runners? Take like no, no, no, no, I actually you know, like, you know, I find out what guys like to you know I think a day like Consistency on a diet is the most important fucking thing if I get something on the zone diet the paleo diet the fucking grapefruit diet There's 75,000 diets in the fucking you know on the internet right now today if i fucking have you consistent on one diet you're gonna fucking see results consistency and i always tell people i'm like i'd rather you be 100 100 consistent on 10 of my diet than 100

consistent on 10 of the diet you know what i'm saying like um so at the end of the day like i have guys that are late they have sugar teeth like fuck me goddamn eat some fucking twizzlers post-workout your body's gonna fucking use it your body is gonna use it you know what i'm saying i've heard that before like people that recommend candy 100 post-workout yeah is it the best no you know like you know i know you have ron de patrick talk about like atp trapping and shit like that but you know like when you're when you're done working out you know your body needs those're done working out, you know, your body needs those carbohydrates quick, fast, in a hurry.

It's going to activate those transporters, and your body's going to use them. Is it the best? 100% no. But it's keeping your sanity, and it's consistency. If somebody works their ass off, and they're like, I know if I work my ass off, I get some fucking Twizzlers. Yeah, you know, you're going to see a lot better results. So what would you recommend, though?

So if someone doesn't have a sweet tooth, but you just they say, hey, what should I use to replenish my glycogen? Lockhart and Lee supplement line. No, honestly, like like a fruct. Fructose is from fruits, right? Break down fruits, right? Sugars, like a dextrose is a basic sugar. It's a monosaccharide. So you can find that in just about any kind of fucking sugar, like cane sugar. What do you think about like chocolate milk?

I know a lot of guys are doing that. Fucking stupidest thing in the world. That was a big thing for a while, right while right dude this is the thing about studies and shit like that i mean like it was like this is this is the best thing for fucking post-workout right same fucking that was from the nsca then the nsca came out with another fucking study was like well you know like 89 of fucking latino populations lactose intolerance 93 of the african-american uh populations lactose intolerant. It's 93% of the African American populations lactose intolerant. And fucking, it was like

90% of the fucking Asian American populations lactose intolerant. I'm like, you guys literally just did a goddamn study and you shown that most of the goddamn population is lactose intolerant, but you're saying that the milk is the best goddamn thing to fucking give? That's stupid. It's asinine. You know, like

casein, protein, like again, it's's stupid it's asinine you know like casein protein like again it's easy if somebody's like if you take you know chocolate milk post-workout but like joe what do you what are you using when you work out what is your body using when you work out is it using carbs or using protein if your body's using protein as a source of fuel you're fucking doing something fucked up man you know what i'm saying like literally your body goes through you know gluconeogenesis you know like fucking you know it'll turn protein into fucking carbohydrates but that ain't the way it's supposed to fucking be right so you would never recommend someone doing like that carnivore diet no no no see i'm i'm a

never i'm a never never guy like i'm never going to say never. You know what I'm saying? Because depending on your lifestyle, if you're sedentary and you don't do anything that's anaerobic, I would promote the ketogenic diet for somebody. Yeah, it's not even a ketogenic diet. That's the thing about that carnivore diet. Rhonda Patrick went over it pretty much in detail, and she thinks what's going on for the most part where people are seeing results is basically calorie restriction. Because you're just not eating that many calories when you're eating only steak in terms of how much you're using throughout the day. And a lot of these people are eating one, two meals a day, and they're losing massive amounts of weight.

They're down to the weight they were when they were 21, and they feel fantastic. All the gut problems go away. All the different issues they have with autoimmune diseases go away. And she's like, this is all mimicked by calorie restriction diets. She's like, this is most likely what you're experiencing. And there's a bunch of other nutrition experts that are sort of examining that because it's become quite a movement, this carnivore diet. You look at people like calories in, calories out.

You know, like 40% of calories from protein are actually used in the breakdown of protein so if i eat 100 calories of protein 40 of them motherfuckers are used to actually break down the protein and then there's a thermogenic effect to actually heat the body like you eat a lot of fucking meat you notice your body's hot as fuck you know what i'm saying um yeah that's one of the things they actually recommend you do yeah right it's one of the things they actually recommend you do. It's one of the things they actually recommend if you're cold, like if you get drenched. If like you're, you know, and you're to rewarm like there's these things that they do, rewarming drills in the military. And they recommend you eating.

And eating is a big part of trying to heat up because your body starts generating heat to try to break down the food that you're taking in right yeah you know there's so much that we look at like you know 10 of your metabolism actually comes from breaking down food 10 that's a fuck ton of calories man that's a lot you know and that's you know when we actually come to rehydration like in terms of uh the fighters getting ready for the fight we actually take a look at that like do you want your body breaking food down while you're fighting and stuff like that? Right. Through your enteric nervous system, your body's not going to be like, we're going to break this food down. No, actually, with your enteric nervous system, if you see a fucking bear,

body's like, hmm, are we going to break down food or are we going to run from the fucking bear? Body's like, we're going to fucking run. So it sends the norepinephrine through the body. You stop digesting, but it doesn't mean that shit's not're going to fucking run. So it sends the norepinephrine through the body. You stop digesting. But it doesn't mean that shit's not still in your fucking gut. Right. But with that being said, in terms of the meat and shit like that, yeah, man.

A large percentage of that is actually used to break down foods. We talk about glucagon, and I get so many fucking people that are like, that's not how the body works. You know, like, I get that's not how the body fucking works. When you fucking eat the protein, like, it's not like your body's like, oh, we're going to shoot glucagon through the fucking system. But how many times have you eaten a fucking high pancake fucking breakfast and you're like, let's go fucking kick today's ass? No, you were like, fuck, let's go back to bed.

Yeah. You have a big ass omelet you know you're like suck today's dick and let's fucking go kick some ass you know what i'm saying like you have energy there's glucagon's fucking you know three system obviously like it's not the way the body works but you know in in essence like when you're when you're taking specific things at specific times you're gonna you're gonna promote the usage of of of carbohydrates more or less so those pancakes wouldn't be a bad thing after a workout? After a workout, 100%.

Timing is everything. Now, we really haven't wrapped that up. So fruits, but what other kind of sugars do you recommend a guy take post-workout, hard workout? I mean, we give them like, we work with so many guys, like they're sponsored by this supplement company, this supplement company. But we give them whatever the fuck they want in terms of the dextrose. And dextrose is just a monosaccharide.

It's basically just a simple sugar. Strain away from that, fella. There you go. Simple sugar. Just bring it to you. Bring it to you. It moves. The arm goes this way.

It goes that way. Joe, me and technology do not mix. Just keep it near you. Just keep it near you. That's all you do. That's awkward. You don't have you. Just keep it near you. That's all you do. That's awkward. You don't have to lean.

It moves towards you. That's what I'm trying to say. Grab the arm. Breach, grab the arm. Pull towards you. All right, Joe, this is really getting on. It goes this way. It goes that way.

It goes back. And before a fight, what do you have? Say if Conornor's gonna fight it 9 p.m is the main event yeah when do you have him eat and what is what do you have so we have to break it down to the amount of meals right so what we do is we basically find out the amount of uh muscle tissue that individual has so like i said he's weighing what on the day of the fight 170 ish right so what we have to do like it's not necessarily you're like uh your weight but it's your lean muscle tissue so you have your lean body mass right so if i let's say you're 200 pounds right you're 200 pounds and you say you're 10 body fat that means that you're 180 180 pounds of lean body mass a lot

of people are like oh that means i'm 180 pounds of muscle no that actually means only 40 of that is actual lean muscle tissue now each kilogram of lean muscle tissue holds under 13 grams of glycogen so we have to find out okay how much muscle or how much lean muscle tissue do you hold all right now how do you find that out do you do it's 40 do you have them submerged in water do you honestly brother i have literally like we've had the uh the hydrostatic testing we've done the um um what the fuck is that thank you thank you i appreciate that so that's what you brought fucking this big word the deca scan is the one that they use the performance i think i don't think i'm saying it correctly but it's something like that that's that machine and they have it in the performance it's something like that. That's that machine. And they have it in their performance. It's a $500,000 piece of gear, right?

Yeah. Fucking, they're incorrect. They're wrong. Is it really? 100%, bro. 100%. I literally, here's the thing. There's things that you know scientifically can't happen.

Your body cannot be anabolic and catabolic at the same fucking time. So if you're like, you know, I got so many people like, hey, George, I want to gain muscle and lose fat. So do I, man. I fucking love that. But it's impossible.

It's impossible. Your body cannot be anabolic and catabolic at the same fucking time, right? Well, we went and did that machine last year with fucking Connor, right? It showed him. And at the end of the day, I'm like, that's how good I fucking am. But it showed him gaining muscle and losing actual fat. It's impossible. I'm like, that's how good I fucking am. But it showed him gaining muscle and losing actual fat. It's impossible. I'm like, those are incorrect.

Well, impossible over a long period of time, you're saying? Obviously, some people do gain muscle and they do lose fat. Like, say, if someone's on a diet. Percentage. Percentage. So here's the thing. Okay. If you gain muscle mass, your body fat percentage can go down.

You can lean out, right? So let's say like, oh, it's like, okay, I gained five pounds of muscle and I only gained like a half a pound of fat. My body fat percentage is going to go down. Because your body weight got heavier. A hundred percent. But did I lose fat? No, I did not lose fat. If you look at like, okay, your body has, does it make sense?

Yeah, seriously. It's impossible. So how does one lose body fat? Well, you've got to be in a catabolic state. You've got to be at a deficit. And when you are at a deficit, you're not going to gain muscle. In fact, you're going to lose muscle. 100%.

If anybody says otherwise, they're full of shit, and they're on an infomercial. And if you buy today for $19.99, that's the truth, brother. So that's just how the body works. The body works in that if you're gaining muscle, you might have less percentage of fat, but that is because your body is getting heavier. Right, right. You can lean out.

Your body fat percentage can go down. But if you look at a DEXA scan, it's going to be like, okay, let's say you at like a Dexter scan, it's going to be like, okay, you have, let's say you have 50 pounds of fat. It's not going to be like, it shouldn't be like,

oh, now you have 40 pounds of fat and more muscle. Right. A hundred percent. I see what you're saying. So you calculate how much lean muscle mass he has, lean muscle tissue, excuse me.

And then you coordinate his meals accordingly? Right. Yeah, so it's like, okay, well, he's going to fight at this time or she's going to fight at this time. This is the amount of meals that they're going to have dictated on the amount of, you know, like after rehydration, so on and so forth. This amount of carbohydrates that they actually have to have. And it's funny because men and women are totally different. Right. You know, men.

Do you still work with Cyborg? I don't work with Cyborg. That was an extreme weight cut, though, right? Yeah, we'll go with that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, she's, yeah. It was tough. You know, Chris is a, I mean, it's no fucking, it's not, you know, she's a big girl.

You know what I mean? Like, you know, so. Where did she walk around at? I, you know, I don't remember, but I think it was like in the 70s. And she got all the way down to 140 at one point in time, which didn't make any fucking sense. When they were making her do that, I was like, why are you making her do that when you don't even have a goddamn weight class for it? I was like, are you making her do that to show that she's close to 135? It didn't make any sense.

There's a 145. You could have her fight at 145. No, no, no. 140. Like, what? There's no 140 weight class. Right, right. It doesn't exist.

Right. It's so weird. That was so weird. And I would see her, like, the videos of her fucking crying and trying to get her down to that weight. I was like, that's insane. Yeah, no, it definitely. And, you know, like, with every weight cut, man, it's fucking tough. You know, like, well, Chris, like, me and her got close.

I think we got a little bit too close. You know, that's one thing I learned. Like, I have to keep, I have to have a separation. You know what I mean? Because when you, like, get the fuck in the bath, like, you know, you have to have that. And with her, I was like, man, we were so close as friends. was like dude like right i see what you're saying yeah you can't get hardcore yeah dude i'm bad like with women too i'm horrible right dude i'm like stop being a man like with girls i'm like oh man dude are you crying we don't really have to do this do we like

right right yeah who's the hardest that you've ever had to lose weight to do this, do we? Right, right. Yeah. Who's the hardest that you've ever had to lose weight? Fucking Vic. James goddamn Vic. Really? Yeah, that son of a bitch.

He's 6'4", fighting at 155. He's a big fella. Yeah, dude, and he's got a goddamn sweet tooth. Oh, no. George, George,

come on, man. Let me have some Oreos. After he makes weight, let me have some Oreos. We have a little, you know, game. Let me have some Oreos. After he makes weight, let me have some Oreos. We have a little game. All right, you get two Oreos if you do this. What does he walk around at? He's in the 90s, man.

Jesus Christ. How much do you think that affects his actual performance? Do you think that hinders him? Am I talking business or am I talking reality? Reality. Yeah, of course, man. It does. So it's a point of diminishing returns, right?

Like you got to figure out when do you hit that point. Yeah. Because you look at guys like Dustin Poirier, he done much better at 155. Yeah. Looks better. I mean, I work with, you know, I'll never forget. Like I worked with Dustin when he first got into UFC and they were like, he needs to be 145 in 21 days. Let's fucking do it, man.

You know, like him and fucking, you know, so many motherfuckers. You know what I mean? You're absolutely right. You know, you look at that Kelvin Gostelum, you know? People don't realize, like, the point of a fight camp is not to make weight. The point of a fight camp is to increase your skill, increase your ability. Like, it should be periodization. You know what I'm saying?

We're talking about, like, the big about the big beef, big motherfuckers. Yeah, this guy's a strength and conditioning coach. He don't know shit about periodization. Do you work with Calvin? Yeah. We work together a lot. Now, we don't work so much together. That's one of the things.

A lot of guys will work with us when they have to make weight. There's certain guys like Frankie Edgar. Edgar's like, dude, he invests in himself. He knows that. I mean, he shows up almost on weight, but it's all about performance. He knows that. You know what I mean? Same thing with.

Well, he's a guy who fought at 155 when he really was 155. I can get him to 125. No problem. What? He's dead, bro. 125. Because people were talking about him fighting at 135. Really was 155. I get him to 125 What? 125 because people were talking about him fighting at 135 you saying you could get him to fight Fly weight, I'm saying but you know and then people like well but and I'm like this if my face whooping ass at 145 and 155 like when they were talking like oh

He's getting more and he was champion at 155 I'm like why the fuck am I gonna try and cut this guy if he's a champion? You know what I mean? Because he could be the champ champ champ. I know, like 125. You think so? Bro. Have you talked to him about this?

I fucking love Frankie. You pulled him aside? No, I haven't. Put the pizza down, Frankie. I will never ask him. I will never sit down. If Frankie was like, George, I want to get to 125, I'm like, thank God, George. Like, thank goodness.

Right. But he's never asked me, so I'll never bring him up. Do you work with TJ? I have worked with TJ. Me and him are good friends. And this is the thing with me, Joe. Like, I work with fucking everybody. So, like, in terms of politics, like, I'm like, I'm a dirty little slut that goes from one room to the next.

You know what I mean? You kind of have to be, right? Yeah, I'm going to little slut that goes from one room to the next. You know what I mean? You kind of have to be, right? I'm going to go to the next one. Yeah, dirty bastard. Yeah, fucking horrible. Do they allow that more so with you because it's a weight cut thing? It's not like you're not teaching. It's not like you work with TJ and you go, oh, I know TJ's tendencies.

And then you work with another guy. I'm not training you to beat a specific individual. You're training the person to make a specific weight. What I tell people is I'm making you the best you that I can be. And in terms of business, I'm like, don't you want to beat the best them? And they're like, well, fuck yeah. All right. So it's okay.

So that's why they're okay with it. Right. That's interesting. That's a rare section of the sport where you can do that. A hundred percent. But you have to, like, and I've had to, you know, we have a pretty, we have an awesome team, you know what I mean? But that's one thing I have to tell them because they get so fucking, you know, like when you're with a fighter for a camp, you get super close. And I'm like, bro, like, it's fine to get close with them, but it's okay to root for them. But we never get to a point where we root and we talk shit about the other fucking team.

Because chances are we work with him. And we worked with Khabib, you know what I mean, for a long time. You know what I mean? Who does he work with now? I don't know. I have no idea. And he's had some real struggles. Bro, he's had some tough cuts, man.

He's a tough motherfucker. What was he doing wrong? Everything. Everything. You know, and it's funny because I think that it's, there's like a language barrier and the thing,

but you know, there's also like, let's say you're cutting weight, right? And you're looking at like, okay, common sense. If I drink water, I'm going to fucking be heavier, right? So fuck drinking water.

What you don't realize is you got your renin, know angiotensin aldosterone system that's fucking going to be activated if you fucking cut back water early people don't realize that shit man you know what i'm saying so what they do is meaning that your body tries to hold on to that water yeah more everything everything in your body is created from a stimulus you know i mean like first stimulus is you you're hot right when you you're hot, what does your body do? It fucking sweats. Then what happens? Well, oh shit, like my body's dehydrated.

Blood pressure starts dropping. It starts releasing ADH. It starts releasing, you know, aldosterone, shit like that. In fact, you prevent it from sweating, you know? So they don't look at that. What they look at is like, I drink water water put weight on

we're going to start drinking water early how long have you been working with connor um since the josie aldo who's the first time i worked with josie aldo so it's been quite a long time yeah yeah yeah and uh how much of a difference has it made john yeah it's it's huge because until then i was winging it you know the weight cutting part of the sport is cloaks and daggers and you're trying you're overhearing conversations and you're googling so you know i was it was pretty much guesswork on on on my end you know i got him to 1455 nearly 20 times on my own. But when we brought George in, and it wasn't even just about making weight. What I noticed with him was that every session was productive.

There was no sessions where he didn't have to pop in his shots or soreness. That would just be a normal part. Whereas when we brought in George, that was a lot, each session was a lot more effective. So it wasn't just about making the weight, it was making the training camp where he was improving the whole weight through it. He got down to 145 a couple times and he looked like a monster.

He looked like a zombie. It was terrifying. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that had to play a big part in your decision to no longer have him fight at that weight class. We'd already gone up to 155. His final fight before going to the UFC was at 155. I was kind of like, thank God, this is suiting him better.

Because when he joined, he was sort of a scrawny 16, 17-year-old. But then he started becoming a man. Getting down there was getting scarier and scarier and then his last fight outside UFC I thought he looked fantastic it was a handy weight cut and he just looked I just said he looked like a tank now the offer came in a couple of weeks later Sean emailed me and said we're offering you a 145 fight in in April and of course I told Connor and he's screaming and running around, we didn't care what weight class. If he had said

125, we would have done it. Sean specifically wanted us at 145, and we went back to that lighter weight class, and it was almost accidental. And then as soon as we got the opportunity, he went back up again. Yeah, he looked very thick at the

weigh-ins. He looks heavier. He looks bigger. Yeah, and that's a part of the life cycle of an athlete. If you're with the same guy for over a decade, you're going to see changes. He's 30 now. He's not 18 anymore. There are these different things going on in his life. That's the benefit, I think, of working with someone for a long period of time

rather than kind of gym hopping, that you'll know what they can and can't do. And he does a lot of unconventional training, right, in terms of, like, physical conditioning. Like, I know, is he still doing all that stuff with Ido Portal? Yeah, anytime Ido's in Europe, he tends to drop into Ireland. We have a great relationship with him, and he'll play around with that. You know, the reality is most of our time

is going to be spent on the fundamentals of MMA. And the great thing with Ido is, especially in training camp, he'll come in near the end where you're just tired of doing single leg defenses. You're tired of doing pad work. And he comes in, he does all these fun games. So we're still working out.

We're still, he's firing his brain in different ways. He's working on coordination, on balance. For me as the head trainer, it's a nice break. I'm sure as John Wayne Power heard say, when you have a fight coming up, you know how many miles you're going to run. You know how many kicks you're going to throw. Every now and again you want to come in and do some on back, jumping in the air, spinning elbows and stuff.

Because it breaks the monotony. MMA is fantastic because it's all the martial arts together. You're almost never going to get bored because you can always do something different. But there's still a repetitiveness to it that it's nice to break with something unusual.

Now how much does training change when you're dealing with a specialist? Like a guy like Khabib who is just a grappling phenom how much do you shift the emphasis of the training to take down defense working on grappling and do you work mostly take down defense or do you just work overall wrestling so the takedown defense becomes a part of that as well? All of that. All of that.

But, yeah, definitely, maybe talk about it later. If there's one thing I could change is that I think I was too defensive in my mindset for this training camp. But Habiba's very specific types of takedowns, depending on where he is, whether it's shooting on the low single in the middle, and then on defense. Long before Conor was due to fight him I loved watching him that's kind of my area

is the fence I just love right from the Randy Couture days how to use the fence and Habib does it to a new level you know one of the

takedowns he hit on Conor he hadn't actually done it until the Aliquinta fight so it was nice that we kind of got to see that the high crotch I see a bit of DC in that the high crotch and then trip on the far leg and i think he blocked it once but he did catch him with it and so you know there's very specific takedowns

um definitely for this training camp it was the most specific that we went and then i remember about a week out or whenever it was he did an interview and he said well if he doesn't make it well i'll fight Tony. I don't care who it is. And I was going, damn it. I hadn't even looked at Tony's fights in so long, so me and the other coaches started like, okay, great, what does he do again? Oh, yeah, he has that style.

Because we were so specific for this one. Tony could possibly be a fight in the future. When you think about the future now, after the Khabib fight, what are you thinking you when you think about the future now after the khabib fight how what do you what are you thinking are you thinking about uh just rest let the dust settle and then look at the landscape like what how do you how do you approach it i might but he doesn't what does he he's screaming and shouting for the rematch within minutes it's hard to push for that rematch though after that fight right sure no i i understand the logic of that you know tony's kind of earned and stuff but i also understand this is a business and

it would be a huge fight you know the rematch would be a huge fight don't you think that it would be difficult to sell because of how dominant khabib was in that fight? Sure I do think the round three showed promise and I like I said I would have liked to have changed things up a little bit specifically a more offensive mindset I thought defensively we did quite well but offensively we weren't really where we usually are and and you know right when the fight was over I was thinking thinking, you know what, I was kind of going into this like not to lose but not to win,

you know, and his shots weren't as crisp as they normally are. He had opportunities to hit him, especially in the third round and he just seemed to be the range

at the time. Something was off. How much of it had to do with the fact that he hadn't fought MMA in two years? Absolutely. Had to, right?

Yeah, of course, of course. And we tried to mimic it as close as we could in the gym, and I brought in guys that he didn't know, and I would say, this is fight day, and he would do with George exactly what he's going to do on fight day, and we'd have a referee to get the fight feel. But it's still in the gym, which means, you know. Is he at a position now where every fight has to be a gigantic super fight?

And is that a problem in that, you know, what I thought after the fight, after it was all over, I was like, you know what a good fight would be? It would be him versus Pettis. Like that would be a really good fight. And it would be a really interesting fight in terms of stylistic matchup. And it would be a great fight, I think, for Conor to sort of just get a wild three-round, or I guess it would probably be a main event, it would be five rounds, but it would be a wild fight that would probably favor him.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the boxing, you know, when Tyson Fury was kind of coming back, they gave him a, you know, not the toughest guy in the world. That shit doesn't happen in MMA. But it doesn't happen in MMA. Well, it doesn't happen in the UFC. Specifically the UFC. Yeah, and there happen in MMA. But it doesn't happen in MMA. Well, it doesn't happen in the UFC. Specifically the UFC. Yeah, and there's an issue with that, I think.

Yeah, you know, at his early stages, he was fighting all the time. And as is natural, as you get older and as you achieve more, it is going to start becoming once or twice a year. That's just a natural progression of an athlete. I don't care who you are. But the wild fights that he could have at 155 pounds whether it's james vick or justin gagey or pettis or there's good fights for him yes that aren't necessarily khabib they aren't necessarily tony ferguson but they're a good fight to get that timing back

get everything locked in you know 100 but but you have to factor in his personality. And he's only fighting now for fights that are really interesting to him. He's not that interesting to anybody. Not that I've heard. Floyd Mayweather paper. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the problem. All that money, money, money, money.

Right. So, you know, what more can he, you know, even with his spending, what more can he buy? Well, the idea would be the eye on the future and the eye on the rematch. You know, like getting everything dialed in so that when he does have a rematch with Khabib, he is samurai sword sharp. Yes, sir. As opposed to having two years off, one boxing fight in between them,

and then such a grappling heavy contest. Yeah, I don't disagree. That would be a trainer, you know, contest yeah i don't disagree that would be a trainer you know for me as a trainer that would be the ideal but it would be hard to motivate him for that i think it would be hard to motivate him and it's it's not the you know it's not really the ufc model it's right it was obvious it was going to be though you know what i mean it was going to be those two anybody could tell the ufc what time it is it It's Conor. Khabib time. Yeah. I mean, if anybody is the guy that can say, hey, this is what I want,

I want a fucking tune-up fight. I want a tough guy. He absolutely could, and he absolutely wouldn't. You know, it was like when he lost the Tiaz one fight. Yeah. And backstage, he was screaming and shouting at all the tough brass about getting the rematch at 170 as quick as possible. I'm in the background going, please don't.

Did you not see that fight? He's a terrifying individual. Let's get a 155 fight. Okay, maybe you meet him again. But he was not letting that go. And four months later, he fought the exact same guy. And that's where he is right now with Khabib that's all i'm that's all i'm hearing from you yeah well listen you could sell it for sure especially with uh the fucking chaos after the fight you know just keep

dylan dennis at home yeah he's grounded yeah so with what would you do differently um like i said from it from a strategy point of view my number one thing would be to be more to think more offensively that we definitely had opportunities to land shots and when connor lands shots you know you know watch the eddie fight back again it doesn't take him a whole lot of shots uh he rarely misses you know even if you look at strikes that didn't land those strikes were for a reason. They were to see what way he holds his hands, see what he moves like. You still have to watch Anderson Silva back in the day, and I thought they have a similar kind of approach.

But this one just didn't seem to be landing. When I look back at the training camp, we did spend most of our time with a defensive mindset, and I think that's a mistake. But don't you think that a big part of it also was that he had to be tired because Khabib is such a mauler? A hundred percent. I mean, it had to have some sort of an effect

on his ability to land those shots. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that did. And that was part of the strategy for one and two. You know, if we did end up on our backs, was not to put a massive amount of effort into getting up, just play guard and stay safe because the next round starts on defeat and try to do damage there, but it's still tiring.

Conor gets a hard time about his cardio all the time, but who has Khabib faced that didn't look like that after two rounds? Iaquinta. I was super impressed with Al Iaquinta in that fight, especially considering he came into that fight looking for a three-round fight.

I mean, that was what he was trained for. Right. He was trained for a three-round fight, and it changes up, and all of a sudden he's in a five-round fight for the title. Fucking crazy. Yeah. Crazy set of circumstances. But it almost makes you wonder, and this this is you could speak to this better than

anybody how much how much is too much in regard to training for a fight like this like maybe training for a three-round fight is the way to go when you have to fight a five-round fight so you're not so fucking beat up by the time you get to the fight if you already know how to fight five rounds you've already done it if you're a guy like connor who's just got so much experience in the game it might be that it's like there's a point of diminishing returns in terms of your strength and conditioning and that guys just go too far push too hard and just don't have it when it comes to i mean how many times have you seen a fighter be overtrained when they fight? Very often, definitely.

They've given their best rounds in the gym. And it's very difficult as well in those last two weeks because anxiety is starting to grow. So you want to train harder. You want to get one more spar in. Because the fight's coming. It's almost like when you're back in school and you're cramming for an exam. Well, the exam's tomorrow. I'm going to stay up all night studying right you know and i actually got me through college so it works somewhat but but in fighting we got to do we got to do the opposite

we don't have it we got to have a solid taper off period and that is hard when you're dealing with a 20 something year old man and he's he's dealing with what's what's coming around the corner so but you know that's that's the trainer's job know. How much did he taper off for this fight? Same as usual. We have about a two-week taper-off period where we start bringing it down. He did actually spar even after that. You know, we were all working very hard for this fight

in a somewhat limited period of time. So we didn't taper off quite the way we would normally do, but roughly two weeks. If you wanted to do a rematch, and if the UFC did grant a rematch, this is obviously dependent upon how the Nevada State Athletic Commission handles the legal ramifications of him jumping out of the cage, attacking Dylan Dannis, the subsequent brawl, the chaos that ensued, visas. I mean, you're dealing with a lot of legal shit in this fight that could hold things up.

I mean, they held both guys' purses, correct? Well, they held Khabib's. Conor got his. Yeah, okay. Conor got his purse paid. So he gets his purse. And Khabib, I mean, who the fuck knows what's going to happen with him? Yeah, I hope they're lenient on him. And not just so we can get a rematch. I mean, I love fuck knows what's going to happen with him? Yeah, I hope they're lenient on him.

And not just so we can get a rematch. I mean, I love watching him fight first. And I can stretch myself to understand his reaction. I can stretch myself to understand. I can't stretch myself to understand the other guy's reactions. I agree. And what they did. For Habib, he jumped over the cage and he jumps on.

It's not the end of the world. Who was the guy that jumped in that was wearing red who punched Conor? Yeah, I'm not sure. I think that's his boxing coach

but I'm guessing here. He's a fighter. He fights for the UFC. In the red? Yeah. He wasn't old? He wasn't older? He actually worked with him.

Oh, okay. You worked with him? There you go. Who is he? I don't know his name. It's either Islam or Rustam. Yeah. it was either islam or rostan yeah i i don't think it was either one of those guys like i know islam he was you know he hit dylan yeah and a guy in a suit that i heard is his russian manager he hit dylan either way um but actually in the cage

when your mind went in and hit him from behind. Yeah. You know, I can't understand that. Like I said, for Habib, I didn't think it was, you know, it was, it's just, it's almost. It's such a foolish thing to do. Foolish thing to do. He'd already won. Yeah. I know that Dylan was talking shit and he was angry, but. Well, he actually didn't say anything because I heard a few people saying that.

Now, I was standing beside Dylan. I didn't see what he did, but I could hear. So he didn't say anything. Now, when I watched the back. I didn't see what he did, but I could hear. So he didn't say anything. Now, when I watched the back, I seen he kind of beckoned them on. Yeah. You know, just stupid end of fight stuff. But I didn't think it justified that level of response. Now, maybe there was something else in the lead up, you know.

Probably. Dylan is a bit of a troll online. Yeah. So there's probably a bit of a buildup of other stuff. But, yeah, like I said, it wasn't that big a deal to me, what Habib did. It just really wasn't. Well, there's two ways of looking at it in terms of, like, the trash talking. And one way is that, man, does that sell a fight?

I mean, it sells a fight. I mean, Conor's one of the best ever at it, if not the best ever at it. Talking shit to opponents, getting them riled up. I mean, it is the reason why Jose Aldo lost his composure and came charging face first at Conor. I mean, you've got to think emotions played a big part of that.

It ramps up your stress. It ramps up the fighter's anxiety, anticipation, and it ramps up the pressure on them to win. And this emotion that they're fighting with fucks up their judgment it just does and it's a major tool that connor that connor uses and but on the other hand people say well i'd like it when fighters are respectful and this is one of the things that

khabib's saying this this this sport should be about respect you shouldn't be talking about someone's family shouldn't be talking about someone's religion you shouldn't be talking about someone's family shouldn't be talking about someone's religion you shouldn't be talking about someone's country but you know on the other hand that's one of the reasons why connor's so fucking huge it's not just his results it's all the other things that come along with it is the excitement that he generates the shit talking the who the fuck is that guy like that kind of shit that's a big part of who he is. It's a part of who he is as this cultural icon. I mean, it's one of the reasons why people love him. I mean, they don't just love his ability inside the octagon, which is quite substantial.

They love the swagger. They love when he comes in with rubber arms and struts around the cage. They love all that shit. They love all that shit, but it's like, when is too far? And that is the question. When is too far?

Yeah. Yeah, you know, Conor's a real divider. Some people will love it and some people will hate it. I'm not really that interested in people's opinions on things. I'm just interested in what is. And what is, that sells fights. There's a reason he's the highest paid guy. So if that is what is, and that's just natural for him's a reason he's the highest paid guy. So that is what it is.

And that's just natural for him to do as well. It's not an act. It's not, you know, when he's sparring, like him and Artem are best of friends. And every single spar, they shit talk each other. Oh, you're shit today. You're not on form today. And, you know, people listen to that and like, oh, they hate each other. And then it's big smiles at the end of it.

It's just part of the game for him. It's part of, he enjoys it it it's just part of the game for him it's part he enjoys it it's a bit of fun this one was darker you know as Dana said it definitely was but it's just part of who he is

I don't really involve myself in it I try to stay outside of that and just focus on the the task in hand does it ever get cringy for you because you are a very respectful guy yeah I mean it's absolutely not my, it's absolutely not my personality.

It's absolutely not my personality. But again, I don't find my own opinions on things very interesting. I'm only interested in what is. There's a fact that he does this, and it's gotten the results he has. Okay, well, I guess that's what he does. It's not how I am. Right. I mean, you look at the two

biggest names in combat sports Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor and they both do it yeah I mean you know my favorite fighter back in the day was Fedor and there was a man that barely said anything and the purest if you want to say loved him but he was also fighting mostly in Japan and it's a different

vibe it's a different culture than here you know you could be that guy and I almost have also fighting mostly in Japan and it's a different vibe it's a different culture than here yeah um you know you could be that guy and I almost have the two extremes I've got an Elson who you never hear a blip out of yes and then I have Connor who's you know the other end of the scale and um you know you can only be true to yourself but at I look at their their you know their followings and their sponsorship deals and their fight purses and stuff, and it's obvious which one is doing better. If we can agree on the object of prize fighting is to make money, and that's it.

The object of martial arts, I think, is very different, but the object of prize fighting, and don't ever lose sight of that, as soon as I hear a fighter saying it's for some other reason, I'll try to make him retire as quick as possible because he's not being smart. You're taking damage for money, and keep that in mind no matter what your choices are.

Do you have guys in the gym that you see that sort of mimic Connor? Of course, of course. Yeah. You're dealing with teenagers and 20s. Yeah. And that's, you know, I look back on myself. It's a hugely impressionable period of your life. Young men almost try out different personalities.

And you have such a strong personality in the gym. Definitely, I can spot the 18-year-old walking in with the man bun and the suit telling me he's going to be the next year. I probably would have been the same at 18. It's no different. But through, again, months and years of conversations, not telling them what to do, but conversations, I sort of say this is a completely natural thing to do, but start to find your own voice and find your own way. And if that's who you are, you enjoy that side of it, run with it.

If it's not who you are, even the fans will see it through very quick as well. the fans can see when someone is genuinely doing something and doing it as an act. Now, who did you guys bring in for wrestling for this camp? You know, Sergei, his wrestling coach since day one. Yeah, we're not big into like, oh, if we bring this guy in and there's six weeks to go, we're going to learn. You know, it's not the approach. Not the approach to learn for a camp. But, like, say now. Right.

Like, say if you got, like, here we are, it's October. If they say we're looking at July of 2019, substantial amount of time from now, plenty of time to train. And also it's a gigantic card, the Fourth of July weekend. Right. Let's target a rematch for them. What would you do differently? Who would you bring in in terms of, like, wrestling? So when you're dealing with somebody for this long,

you also know there's personalities, you know, and it's one of the reasons why George worked so well. He kind of fitted into how the team's structured. So you might bring in someone who's and I get so many great offers from guys with you know

really good credentials but what is the use of that if him and Conor are going to clash? Right. No matter which athlete I'm dealing with. So actually to me

even almost more important than anything is that they can connect and that they have a good working relationship. Now, let me state very clearly as well, Sergei is a fantastic wrestling coach. He comes from generations of wrestling in Moldova.

He's got the real slick kind of Russian style of wrestling. It's not just about kind of power doubles. He's very, very slick, and we have some very, very slick wrestlers in the gym. So I think we're good there, but guys coming in, passing through, and we had some very very slick wrestlers in the gym so I think we're good there and both guys coming in and passing through and we had Helen Helen Morales there the the female Olympic gold medal is the first American female to get a gold medal she did a lesson McConner and was worked out brilliant so

things I think they think that would would happen naturally like that I have a busy gym I'm always getting fighters coming through. We're always stealing techniques. I tell my guys to be technique vampires. Get what you can out of everybody that comes through. You're never going to have a mindset of, I don't need to learn from that guy. That guy knows something that you don't know.

So that, but for a structured, okay, let's train with this guy for three months and we're going to, that's not really how skill is passed on as far as I can tell from my experience of it. It's got to work personality-wise. And like I said, is there some secret technique that... I remember watching an interview with Dan Henderson

and he was saying when he started doing jiu-jitsu tournaments, he found it so strange that they wouldn't warm up with each other or that they were afraid to see his deep half guard move. Because in wrestling, I know what you're going to do. You know what I'm going to do. It's just going to come down to who can hit it on the day.

And he would actually warm up with guys he was going to be competing with. Right. Sometimes even because it made the match a little bit better, he had a bit of a vibe going. Yeah. And I don't think there's any big secret move that Conor could learn that would suddenly reverse on Habib. I thought we did quite well.

He almost took him down at the start. We were ready for that low single, and we had a little technique for there, and he actually sat him down for a moment. He didn't drive in. We should have dug the underhook there and went into jiu-jitsu mode and started passing, but instead he withdrew, and Habib did a great job. He followed him back up in the single and then it got a finish so I don't think it's necessarily about trying to bring in a four

time gold medalist or whatever and make a big wrestling program that doesn't quite fit in what we do you know do you think though that it would help him to bring in high level wrestlers to have like intense sparring sessions with him so he could feel that kind of pressure that could be put on him. Because the level of grappling that that guy brings to the octagon, it's very difficult to match. Yeah. It's kind of like on the reverse. Who would you bring in to bring the level of striking that Conor can bring in?

Right. As trainers, we're always looking for that carbon copy so we can get as close as we can. And we did. We had some big 180 you know 185ers Russian guys

who were actually begging us not to put anything online because they can't go home so we had guys that were you know

we're mimicking but there's a reason why Habib is undefeated and the world champion you can't get another guy like him you mimic as much

as possible and you do drills and you do scenarios and you know Dylan Dannis was a great training You mimic as much as possible, and you do drills, and you do scenarios. Dylan Dannis was a great training partner. He's up at 200 pounds, and he actually comes from wrestling before jiu-jitsu. He's got really good takedowns, and he's got a real good eye for stylistically trying to match somebody. So you get as close as you can.

Can I ever be the exact guy? No. So you feel like there's enough room for improvement that if you could go back to the drawing board and give yourself a few months, that you could get him to a point where he could have more success? The day I don't think that, well, I would quit, you know?

Yeah. So I'm completely biased, and I absolutely think that if we could get another shot at it, and Connor thinks that as well. Absolutely. What did Connor think after the fight was over? Like, what did he say?

Cursed a lot. No, he was very down. He was, you know, watching. But he hates technical mistakes. So that right hand, you know, he was very disappointed he got caught with a shot like that. But it's actually funny. I was just thinking about this. You know, that right hand, if you show that to a boxing coach, you say, that's horrible.

You know, your head's down. You're swinging. Again, I don't really care about people's opinions and things. I care about its effectiveness. That was a damn effective technique. Yeah. you say, that's horrible. You know, your head's down, you're swinging. Yeah. Again, I don't really care about people's opinions and things. I care about its effectiveness. That was a damn effective technique. Yeah. You know,

it's one of the hardest clean shots Conor's been caught with in his MMA career, never mind. And, but a boxing guy, you know, you bring in a boxing coach

for Habib, he would train that out of him. No, your hand's here, it goes out straight, it comes back. So you've got to be careful about the individual arts,

you know. You wouldn't, a high level Olympic you you wouldn't high level olympic boxing coach wouldn't teach a beat but it's very effective dan henderson's career was was around that technique yeah it's just things change though when you add in takedowns right i mean it's one of the things that we compared it that you know yes you know it's a great it's a lovely part of being such a high level grappler you can go in and swing crazy you know connor has to go in and be always worried about the guy

coming underneath his shots so yeah things change it's what makes the sport so interesting yeah we made the comparison

between Kevin Randleman when he fought Mirko Krokop that Krokop was so worried about the takedown Randleman comes with a big punch

and knocks him out yeah it was a similar set of circumstances Conor recovered very very quickly but he's got a hell of a chin yes he does and comes with a big punch and knocks him out. Yeah, it was a similar set of circumstances. Connor recovered very, very quickly. Yeah, he's got a hell of a chin. Yes, he does. Yeah, he's rarely hit, and that's, of course, kept his chin strong because it does diminish.

He's 15 years sparring almost daily. So if he didn't have that style of being elusive, if he was a gym war guy, he wouldn't be able to do what he's able to do today. How hard does he spar? It's a little bit dependent on who we're against. If I brought in a sparring partner, it's like a fight. It's going to be like a fight.

He's looking to finish. If it's a training partner, teammate, we're probably doing it at a lower level so if you bring in someone there's no fucking around they're ready they've got to be ready and I tell them

I always say to them I say two things one he's going to talk to you don't take it personal this is how he lives and two

it's going to be a fight so protect yourself be ready now I referee and I'll be quick to step in but we have to do this we have to get a level of training that's going to match the intensity so protect yourself, be ready. Now, I'll referee and I'll be quick to step in, but we have to do this.

We have to get a level of training that's going to match the intensity of a contest. Right. Are you going to do that all the time? No. That's only at a certain period of the training camp and it's only going to be, for us, it's once every four, once every eight days, depending on how the spar went and how the body is.

The more of that we can do the better because it more directly correlates to what we're actually going to do but then you've got to be matched against well if he was a Jim Moore type guy

I'd have to pull back his sparring because he's taking too many shots Conor could go training camp rope being hit he's so elusive in the case so good at

judging range and so on. So for him, he can spar all the time. I think another example, that may be Darren Till. He's the top dog in the gym, so he can spar all day long because he's never really accepting damage. But if you're number 10 in the gym, you probably shouldn't spar all the time because you're taking the shots. Yeah, you're getting lit up a lot. So for him particularly, he loves fighting.

He loves sparring. Absolutely his favorite part of training. He will do that seven days a week if I let him. You know, he trains the other areas, but there's always the glint in the eye when it's, what's today? Sparring. Oh, here we go. How do you decide?

Do you have a set schedule? Yes. Yeah? Yeah, yeah. So we do things in cycles. It will vary up for him, but it's roughly on an eight-day cycle that I do with him. And day one and day four we'll be sparring. Again, a little bit depending on where the weight is and how the last spar went and how he's feeling.

But if I can get that out, then that's what I'd aim for. Now, when you train for the Mayweather fight, first of all, how much time did you have to prepare for that fight? Ten weeks to the day. That doesn't seem like a lot. No. No. I remember just getting the message. Do you think that that was calculated on Floyd's part?

Maybe. He's a very smart guy. Because it seems like most of his fights are planned way in advance. But that one was like, what? It's a couple months away. It just sort of happened, yeah yeah it was was it august is that when the fight took place and it was august august yeah and so i remember hearing about it and thinking like wait wait august that's fucking really close right like for a mayweather fight you would think six we are six months or something along those lines but i would feel feel like for Floyd, as great as he is

and probably the best ever in terms of boxing technique and not being hit, I mean, he's so elusive, still really wouldn't want a guy like Conor preparing for a long period of time and really getting acclimated. Yeah, yeah. It was kind of funny how that all came about because when he fought Eddie in November the year before, I remember shortly after that we were at a function and I kind of pulled him aside and I shook his hand and said,

right, you're done. All the best. Enjoy the rest of your life. And he was kind of shocked I was saying this to him, but I said, what else are you going to do? You're the two-way champion. You've got out the other end of this grind, this meat grinder, with no damage. You're in a very small percentage and you've made plenty of money. Often enjoy yourself. And then time went past, a couple of months went past, and then the Mayweather

fights started talking. And I could understand it because now his grandkids were going to be financially secure. So it made sense because it was a big payday. It didn't really make sense for any other reason. He enjoyed the competition side of it. No matter what you're doing with Conor, it's going to be competition.

I don't care what it is. He's going to look, how quick did you do that? You're like, I just went for a piss. Yeah, I'll do it quicker. He's just that way. So when him and Fred started having a bit of a back and forth, he was like, yeah, okay, let's quit the boxing and be the best boxer in the world. And for me, I was on the outside going,

okay, I understand what, you know, that makes sense to do. Nothing else was really making sense at the time. It's going to be damaging. Boxing is a horrendous sport to prepare for and to compete in because we're just looking at one thing really punches to the head. I don't know, of course, the body shots as well, but it's so damaging. The only justification I could see for that was,

you know your grandkids are financially set. Yeah, tremendous, tremendous hype behind it, tremendous amount of money. Did you think you could win? Of course. I'm always going to think that way. That's my mindset. Let's prepare as best we can.

Is there options here? When he landed that uppercut in the first round what did you think yeah like even when he went out to do that so you know we did a whole training camp and we brought in you probably heard we brought him and that was my first time ever seeing him against a recognized boxer yeah because in the gym, local guys... What really happened in those sparring sessions? Because what we got to see, the clip that was released, was Conor lighting Malinagy up. But Paulie Malinagy insists that most of the sparring was him dominating. That's not what I saw.

When he came back, he did a spar, he went away. It all broke because a picture got leaked. And then back he did a spar he went away it all broke because a picture got leaked and then

Paulie did a lot of interviews he was on the east coast working a show

so when he came back he was coming back to have a fight and it was actually a weird night in the

gym because the Fertitta brothers came in Dana came in there was a few celebrities

came in it was a fight and the referee was there Joe Corte he's a great guy and he did 12 hard rounds and I come in, there was a few celebrities come in. It was a fight, you know, and the referee was there, Joe Corte, he's a great guy. And he did 12 hard rounds.

And I think there is something being released on Netflix soon, a documentary based around that fight. And it will have all the rounds, so I guess... Really? Yeah, I mean, of course we have the rounds. We have the 12 rounds. And as far as I'm aware, I just actually did an interview for recently there.

I think it's a three-part documentary that's going to be on Netflix soon. And so people will get to make up their own minds about it. But just going back to the fight. What did you think, though, about the sparring? When they walked out first and I went to myself, I have no idea what's going to happen. I'd seen him box some amateurs back home and some pros. I'm horrendously ignorant to the boxing world I just don't really follow it

and he was schooling those guys and I was like yeah but they're not a world champion they're not that elite level so that night when he went into the ring with Paul I was like you know me and Owen are kind of like what's going to happen here

is he just going to get tooled and then we have to you know scratch our heads and go shit what are we going to do here? Right. But he came back after the rounds and me and Omar were going, wait a second. It's not magic. It's still punching and it's range and there's techniques.

So my confidence was growing. My confidence was growing. I knew no matter what happened, it was going to be a good fight. It wasn't going to be, you know, you go in and just, oh, this looks terrible. He's missing whatever he shot and he's being made look silly. It was a good fight. You know, it was entertaining. I think no one in the crowd was saying that was ridiculous.

No one was saying that was a waste of money. It was an entertaining fight and it's going to be one of those things that I'll be an older man than I am now and I'll be talking about the time we went into the boxing world and fought Floyd even on the night I was kind of just looking at a scratch and going what am I

doing here that's Floyd Mayweather and his dad over there these are guys that you know of all the boxers I always preferred watching Floyd

than anyone else because I love defense defense to me is the most intriguing part and him and Tony and those type of guys and how he worked the Philly Shell

and it was it's beautiful it's so interesting to watch and he was getting on a bit but still able to compete so fantastically

because his whole career was defensive base never really took the shots never was damaging the gym never was damaging fights but yeah when he was in the ring

and they were working in the corner in air corner. I'm just going, what the hell is Conor doing fighting fly? This is just strange. Even at the beginning, you know, I'm so used to Bruce Buffer and it was a different guy and he hit the bell three times.

I was like, oh yeah, they do that in the Rocky movies. I remember that. Ding, ding, ding, ladies and gentlemen. It's kind of the beginning of the ceremonial. And I was like, oh shit, they're actually going to box. Right until the end of it, it was still just head scratching and then Floyd coming over at the end and giving his little compliment. He's got a hell of a shot on him.

He's tough as nails. It was a great experience. I wouldn't do anything different. If the Pauly Malignaggi sparring session, which you said was like a fight, if it was scored as a fight, you think Conor would have won the fight? Yeah, of course I'm going to say yes, and then people will say, well, no. Everybody who was there in the night had, you know, asked Dana. Actually, Dana knows a lot more about boxing than me, than I do.

And all of those guys were going, okay, we have a fight in our hands here. This is going to be an interesting contest. So, yeah, I'm of course going to say yeah. But I guess people will see the rounds and make up their own mind. But it wasn't as one-sided as those clips

that were released where it's kind of just dropping. Of course, Pauly, he landed his shots as well, of course. He's a brilliant boxer.

For me, as a trainer, it was amazing looking at him. He's put on a little bit of weight and you still have to go 12 rounds because after about

round four, he's not going to continue. He's breathing very heavy and he's been hit hard and he'd been sat down once. Whether it was a push or a punch, you guys can make up your own mind on that. But a lot of heavy shots and I was thinking, he's going to be out here by six. So we had another sparring partner ready. And I was like, OK, just be ready to go because I think this will go about six rounds. And then Polly just hit this rhythm and started landing his own shots.

And it turned out to be a great a great contest you know I'd say contest because it wasn't a spar they were talking the whole time Pauly was talking to me

he was talking to the cameraman he talked he was almost better than Conor it was great to watch everybody had a great night and I think they both

actually bizarrely enjoyed it like kind of Conor and Nate it's Batman and the Joker like you know they both need each other they hate each other

but they love each other. It's a weird dynamic when you see a contest like that. Well, Pauly was campaigning for a fight. Yeah. He was trying to get Conor to box him. Yeah. It's not out of the realms of possibilities. Really?

It's absolutely not out of the realms of possibilities. There's all sorts of crazy rumors going around the managing team and the fight team and what might happen next. It could be boxing. It could be him. It could be Floyd. Floyd again. All sorts of names are being thrown around.

Well, one thing that happened in the fight that was undeniable is that Conor started to fade. And we've talked about this, the endurance issue. What do you think is that issue? Well, certainly in that that fight you could see and what i learned to about it was it was just brilliant to watch floyd how he managed his energy i think it's one punch in round one and maybe not much more around two he was just so such you know it's such an amazing strategy and then and then switching from the usual style to kind of just hands up and walking in.

And Conor did unload a lot on his forearms. Very inefficient, which is the opposite of what I would describe Conor's fighting style. He's efficient. Very few shots, maximum return. This was lots of punches. And it was one of the few bits of advice I gave him in the corner that was of any use, because I'm not a boxing guy, was let's pick our shot. There's a reason why he's not throwing anything.

You don't throw anything. This is 12 rounds. It's almost like there's three parts to a fight. There's one to four, there's five to eight, and then there's nine to 12. And Floyd just worked that beautifully. And it'd be something that we would definitely do a lot more if we were to ever get another boxing fight. It was recognized that there's 12 rounds.

Pace yourself. He was kind of there's 12 rounds, pace yourself. He was kind of in the MMA mode of just big shots and light the guy up, but Floyd's the best in the world at not being lit up. Do you think it's a pacing issue and not an endurance issue, or do you think it's both? Specifically for the boxing, yeah, there was pacing and endurance in a new field.

No clinch work at all. We had a few little kind of funny clinch techniques we were going to try out. What was the hammer fist to the back of the head? Well, he was aiming for the side of the head. It was supposed to be like that. You know, we'd play it around with little stretches of the rules, and we'd see what Joe Cortez would pull us up on, and could we do a little, you know, I'm a Lomachenko fan as well and he comes from wrestling and you see him doing kind of what almost looked

like arm drags and tie ups and stuff. So we were trying to use that and we just got broke every time. We had very little opportunity to kind of, you know, even going towards the back and holding the hip and hitting with one hand. I couldn't find anything in the written rules that were against that, but we were pulled on it straight away. So some of the areas where we thought we'd be able to rest and maybe make Floyd use energy that he's unused to, clinch,

we didn't get that. It was immediate breaks. And that's the sport of boxing. That's just how it is. So, yeah, there would have to be all those type of adjustments. One of the more fascinating rumors was that there was going to be some sort of a striking match in the octagon yes that with mma gloves that's being talked about that was being talked about

is being talked it is yeah that's been going around as well because i talked to dane about that and he said it was horse shit oh okay uh well i don't deal with you you heard about this i'd heard about this who is talking to you this. Who was talking to you about it? You know, speaking with Conor and speaking with Magnum, I'd talk about, like, you can only throw leg kicks. Oh, Jesus. Boxing with him. That would be the end. Yeah.

That's all it would take. Sorry, Floyd. I hate to say that. The side-on stance is you know what it's like if you get a leg kick in that way. You must face straight on so you can check leg kicks. If they allowed leg kicks and only leg kicks, no head kicks, Conor would fuck him up 100%. Quickly.

100%. I think it would be the first kick. No one even understands. It would be the first leg kick. Yeah. Now, I will say right away that Conor absolutely doesn't want to do that. He wants to fight UFC rules or boxing rules. Oh, Christ.

Zero interest in a hybrid fight. Leg kicks. Just that alone. A hybrid fight. Zero interest in a hybrid fight. Leg kicks. Just that alone. A hybrid fight, just leg kicks alone. Yeah, yeah. He would fuck Floyd Mayweather up. Doesn't he want to fuck Floyd Mayweather up? He does, but within one of the two rule sets.

Oh, my God. Just leg kicks. Just let him throw leg kicks. Just a few. I mean, it doesn't matter what fucking stance Floyd stands in either inside leg kicks outside leg kicks just one of those

it would be like we have a lot of you know Ireland we have very good boxing history and very good athletes and we get the odd time and a good boxer

will come down for a spar and you know these guys can take shots all day long and one leg kick and they run it's such a pain that they've never felt before.

Like you said, it changes everything very, very quickly. It would change Floyd's entire game. He has no idea. Do you remember when cool Vince Phillips fought Masato in Japan? No. When Vince Phillips was at the top of his game, when he was a real elite boxer, he was just starting to slide and he went over and fought Masato in K-1, and Masato just fucked his legs up.

Just fucked those legs up. It was horrifying to watch. The only one that I remember that went over there and actually, oh, Shannon Cannon, Shannon the Cannon. Shannon Briggs fought uh tom erickson and tom erickson cracked him with a couple of leg kicks and shannon actually talked about it on the podcast he's like champ he hit me with a couple of those leg kicks i was ready to quit champ he's like it hurts so bad he goes but i'm pretending he goes i'm pretending it ain't nothing he goes i'm in

agony champ it's just a different pain. It's just a stomach. You can get whacked in the head all day long, and most fighters won't even recognize that. But the right body shot, you hit that liver or the right leg kick, and there's just no gritting through it. It's stunning. For people that have never been kicked before, it's stunning to watch. They're like, what? This happens all the time and if you watch like a k1 match or a you know a

glory match or a muay thai it's just crazy how often they get kicked and they just learn how to absorb it they learn how to check it and eat it and you know just takes time but that would that would be if you could somehow or another talk con Conor and Floyd into a boxing match with leg kicks, did Floyd actually say that that would be something he would consider? I don't know. It was just one of those, like, while I'm talking to Conor, he regularly throws stuff at me then. I'm just like, what the hell are you talking about? I'm always having weird conversations.

And this was just one of them where it come up that there's a possibility of this, and they were talking about hybrid rules, but he shut it down straight away. You'll fight him, obviously, MMA rules would be ideal. I think Floyd, he's a very intelligent guy. He's not going to do that. Absolute intelligent guy. He's not going to do that. I don't even think he would do the leg kick.

I don't think so either. I think he flirts with a lot of this stuff, and I'll come over to your world, but he's no fool. He's a super smart guy. I just can't imagine that he would spar with one guy and eat one of those kicks and he would just be like oh fuck this no thank you yeah fuck all that but it changes the way you're allowed to stand yes i mean he would have to be very light on his front leg he'd have to learn how to condition his shins i mean it's like the whole thing would be different. But they have talked about some sort of a rematch in boxing.

Like I said, it's just one of those things that's thrown out there and you hear a movie role and you hear this and this and that. You know, Conor has the world at his feet. There's so many people want to pull him in so many different ways. But he seems to have avoided some of the more obvious Hollywood type traps yeah you know because like Ronda Rousey got sucked into all of them right she was doing everything she was all these TV shows and movies and I remember before she lost a Holly home thinking God she's getting stretched thin like

this can't be good this can't be good you know I was worried about Amanda Nunes Amanda Nunes was the one that I thought would had Rhonda's number I'm like that girl punches so fucking hard. And she's a elite ground specialist. Like it wouldn't be a picnic on the ground. And Rhonda, you know, takes girls to the ground and submits them. But I was like, but you got to get through the fire. That's Amanda Nunes's hands. And I remember seeing her and all these other things and these television shows and these movie deals. And I was like, those things will rob you. Yeah. you you give you they give you something they give you some money they give you some fame you walk that red carpet you

look wonderful smile Rhonda look over here smile Connor but they steal things from you they steal your ability to actually fight they steal your ability to have all of your resources. And Conor's done an amazing job of avoiding that. For the most part. I mean, you know, it was proper 12 whiskey coming out and that. Photo shoots, you know, had to be done. But no movies.

No, no. He's avoiding the movies. The movies are the ones that really fucking rob you. Yeah, yeah. He actually had a small part in a movie when he was just starting off, 18, 19. It's a little Irish movie. It's funny seeing his little head in it. He played a prisoner.

But yeah, because he's obsessed with fighting, he loves fighting. That's beautiful. You could see in the lead up to this, he didn't want to do much media and press, and they came to an agreement on what would be done. He'd rather do none of it and have no buildup. Conor's ideal world, I think, would be to fight in every UFC every Saturday night. That would be his ideal.

Just live near the UFC and fight Saturday night, and then have a fun night Sunday, and then get ready for the next fight. He loves fighting. Like, what else is he doing? I scratch my head about this. If I had that money, I think I couldn't engage with Khabib. No, thank you. I'm good.

And he wants to get right back in. Or fight Floyd. Definitely the Khabib one. That's the fire. If you had to guess what's next, what would you think? You know, I won't pretend to understand the business side of things him and audi and paradigm they they do all of that and you know the fans

somewhat and and and the officials decide and who gets the next shot i i'm i only deal with what you know what's going to be put in front of me um i think it'll be the it'll be rematch that's i think it will be that and now I'll be getting torn apart and worried, and this, and this guy's, I'm only saying what I think.

Is it going to be someone else? Will it be, you know, is Tony going to, I don't really know, but that's what I see him talking about,

so that's how my mind is. What do you think will be different in terms of the way he approaches it, in terms of like trash talking and all that other stuff?

He's never going to not be him. That's, that's the side of his personality, you know. And, you know, it's a dividing line. And my, you know, my parents are not mad about it. But the kids in my gym love it. You know, it's just one of those things. Conor's never not going to do that.

That's, like in Dublin, you know, where he's from, there was always that guy in the class that was just sharp wit you know had the quick reply and from the moment I met him he was just that guy that's like

you can't make a tiny mistake around him you make him feel stupid very quick you know you know being on the end of it yeah but I remember

I remember that guy in school as well and it just happens that he has a you know lethal left hand on top of that and then he has the look

and he's just an unusual package that it all came together so I don't, you know the build up for Diaz too, he didn't stop it wasn't like he was going to go, oh I hope I don't lose this time and he went in with the same kind of mindset he had and I've no doubt he would go into that fight

as fully prepared as he can and he'd be 100% sure in his mind he's gonna destroy him in a round because that's how he always thinks if there's another fight that would sell

and it would be huge it would be that it would be Diaz 3 oh yeah that could be especially if Diaz gets past Poirier yes

and he shit even if he doesn't I mean just that fight alone I mean there's the history between those two guys

I mean that would be and it's it's, there's the history between those two guys. I mean, that would be... And it's so appealing stylistically as well, the fight. I'm a grappler at heart. I love grappling. But I also understand that a jiu-jitsu tournament will put people to sleep. Even if you're into jiu-jitsu, it's hard to watch a jiu-jitsu tournament. Yes. But anybody can see a punch hitting someone in the head and them falling down.

That's exciting. And him and Diaz, it's such a great personality matchup. It's such a great skill clash. If I was to design somebody that's going to bring the best out of a corner, you'd want someone that can hit back and take a big shot and put up at the trash. It's a beautiful fight. I would love to see that rematch. Yeah, the thing about Diaz when they first fought was that he didn't give a fuck about trash talk.

It didn't bother him at all. It was normal. It was like, oh, okay, we're doing this? Yeah. It was amazing. It was what everybody wanted to see at the time. It's because Conor was so good at talking shit and people would get so flustered. But then Diaz didn't give a fuck. And you could tell he didn't give a fuck. It was just so normal for him. time it's because connor was so good at talking shit and people would get so flustered but then

diaz didn't give a fuck and you could tell he didn't give a fuck it was just so normal for him and it was like wow trash talk doesn't work on diaz yeah it really doesn't work yeah like i'd known about some of his training partners and he's like connor like in the gym he's trash talking his brother he's trash talking whoever he's sparring it's it's because it's fun you know and yeah it's always just you know when we have Connor having a big spar

you know the gym will be packed everybody wants to come down and see him spar and you see you know he's talking to the guy the whole way through

whether it's a close friend like Artem or whether it's someone we brought in that he doesn't know it's not going to change him you know I'll be

I certainly don't spar but I'll roll him and he'll trash talk me when I'm trying to do my shut up but it's you know it's just it's his personality I certainly don't spar with him, but I'll roll him. He'll trash talk me when I'm trying to do my jiu-jitsu. Shut up. But it's his personality. So what timeline do you think we're looking at in terms of his return,

if you had to guess? It was funny. I was looking at March 16th. Paddy's day is March 17th. That's a Sunday. March 16th is a you know, Paddy's Day is March 17th. That's a Sunday. March 16th is a Saturday. Oh, wow. Imagine like MSG on the Saturday night before Paddy's Day.

Oh, my God. That would be insane. I wonder if it's not booked. Yeah, I was actually going to go on. MSG's booked pretty far in advance. I'd imagine so. I'd imagine so. And they're doing one in November.

To do two at MSG in a year. I think you could do Conor in there every weekend. You could. You could also do the Boston Garden. Just him and Diaz every weekend, and it's going to be packed out. You could do the TD Garden in Boston, too. Yeah, yeah, we've had good times there. Ah, fucking Irish in Boston. More Irish in Boston than there is in Ireland.

And you could do, of course, Vegas anytime. Yeah, Vegas anytime. Just I saw that date, but like you said, just the big summer card as well. You have fight week, the July card. I think probably next summer is probably realistic. We have to obviously see what punishment he gets. I hope it's not a long ban. Yeah, I do too.

I mean, everybody was so amped up after the fact. And I was like, oh, man, this could be terrible. But Monday morning, I'm like, eh, what the fuck happened really? Nobody died. Nobody even got cut. A couple people got punched in a place where people get punched. You know what I mean? It's like.

Yeah. No, I have the other hat in that. I have a big commercial gym. I coach kids. I'm president of the Amateur MMA Association back home. I deal with politicians all the time. And this is the exact thing that they're arguing with me when I'm wearing a suit on a Wednesday meeting with the Minister for Sport. So I'm looking at it going, great, that's what's going to be brought up at my next meeting when I'm trying to get governing body status for my life's work

my art my sport and I'm trying to tell plus 60 year olds that this is legitimate and they're showing me this and you're you know so

for that it was terrible you know there's no other way around it like I said if Habib had done that isolated I didn't think it was

that big a deal didn't think it was that big a deal he didn't really hit Dylan the a bit of pushing and pulling. Who cares? Your man coming up and hitting, it was absolutely dangerous. You know, he's a trained fighter. He's bare knuckles and he's, you know, hitting a guy who's tired,

who's done hard rounds, who's taken some head shots. And, you know, it went for the illegal shot. You know, there's a reason why you're not allowed to hit the stem of the brain there. you know, went for the illegal shot. You know, there's a reason why you're not allowed to hit the stem of the brain there. There has to be something, there has to be ramifications for that. It can't be just like, ah, they're hitting each other.

You can't allow that to happen again. No, no, and an example has to be made so that other people in the height of it go, wait a second, it's not just a slap on the wrist. Something substantial happens if you do something criminal, you know, it's assault just a slap on the wrist. Something substantial happens if you do something criminal. It's assault. Yeah, it literally is.

And I really worry about him in terms of him having a visa and being able to obtain a visa and fight in America again. And I believe he was supposed to be fighting next month. Did we find out who that guy was? You did, right? His name starts with a Z. One of them was the guy that Artem was going to fight in three weeks' time. Who is it?

Okay, let me read it. Yeah, that's the guy. That's the guy. And he was actually bragging about it on social media. Yeah. How do you say it? Zuberia Tokugov. That's a lot of consonants.

And Islam Makachev face UFC axe, as Conor McGregor ring attackers revealed. Yeah, Zubaria, I don't know how to say his name. I'm sorry. I think he's the one that was wearing red that jumped the cage and punched Conor bare knuckle. Islam Makachev, he's the one that hopped over the ring. That happened right in front of me. I didn't think that was him in the red. I thought that was him in the black that him and Conor had a little exchange.

And then the other guy hit him from behind. But I could be wrong. I'm sure we're getting a million texts in there to correct us. Not sure. Yeah. Either way. Either way. That can't happen again.

Bad stuff. You know, I hope it all gets worked out. Well, thank you, gentlemen. Thanks. Thanks for being here. George, thank you for illuminating the very elusive art of weight cutting. It was an excellent conversation. You're all dipped out now, huh?

Hey, babe. Increases your cognitive ability by about 200%. Does it? Yeah. Dip increases your cognitive ability by 200%. Why are all those truck drivers so stupid? Truck drivers listen right now. Fuck you, Ruga.

Just a joke, folks. Just a joke. That's what I do. You're talking about my people. That's my people. I'd say 80% of the stats are made up on the spot. That's what I do. I'm all about making shit up.

And thank you, John. Really appreciate you coming in here. Thanks for having us on. It was a lot of fun. And hopefully we'll do it again under brighter times. It's just sport. It is a sport. It's just sport.

You've got a great attitude, man. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.