The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #45 with Justin Wren & Rafael Lovato Jr.

Episode Date: October 15, 2018

Joe is joined by heavyweight fighter Justin Wren & middleweight fighter Rafael Lovato Jr.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 I really am, man. I want to commentate your fights. I know for a fact that Bellator right now is a higher level than it's ever been before. I mean, you look at, they've got Musashi, you, Rory McDonald, Lima, Paul Daly, Machida. I mean, it's fucking high level now, man. It's like Bellator is very close to comparable. Still, I would love to see you over the UFC. Yeah, well, we'll see what happens. But right now, I'm really happy where I'm at. How old are you now?

I'm 35. And you didn't start MMA until you were like 31, 32? Yes, 31. That was four years ago. Yeah. 2014 was my first fight. Were you doing a lot of MMA training before that? Because when you're, you were, for people that don't know, you're one of the most accomplished Brazilian

jiu-jitsu black belts in the world. And when you're competing as a Brazilian jiu-jitsu martial artist, were you training striking? Were you training other things as well? Well, you know, that's a kind of my life story, I guess. You know, my father is a lifetime martial artist. And so I had a whole martial arts upbringing well before I ever found out about Brazilian jiu-jitsu. My father was a Jeet Kune Do instructor. And so growing up, you know, the main thing that we were training when I was a child was the Jeet Kune Do system, which was basically mixed martial arts before mixed martial arts. You know, Bruce Lee's philosophy was way ahead

of his time. He believed in, you know, learning from all the arts and creating your own personal system of self-defense that involves, you know, each range of combat. And so, you know, I grew up doing several different forms of martial arts, boxing, Muay Thai, Eskrima, Wing Chun, Pinjok Silat. I mean, you name it, I've probably done it. And when my father discovered Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I was an early teenager, like around 12 years old. He learned about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in one of the Jeet Kune Do instructor conferences that takes place in California. They brought in the Gracies. They had, you know, they did like shoot fighting and different sort of, you know, martial arts that included grappling. But it was very, you know, rough and not near the technique that

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has. So whenever he first technique that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has. So whenever he first started learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, he fell in love with it. My dad's a smaller guy. At that time, he was probably like 145, 150 pounds. And so it was perfect for him. And he fell in love with it. And he comes home and he starts telling me about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and teaching me what he learned. And we lived in Oklahoma and the instructor conference was in California. At that time, basically the only Jiu-Jitsu was in California, maybe a little bit in Florida, and then Henzo was in New York. So everything was as far as possible from us because we were right there in the middle of the country. And he fell in love with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And so he started making trips to California to learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Jiu-Jitsu. And so he started making trips to California to learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And I was just a teenager. I'm a young kid. So, you know, I was already doing some boxing at the time. I was competing in amateur boxing. And I'm used to training with adults. And once I started learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you know, I fell in love with it right away because that gave me something that I could do where I could be competitive with the adults right away. You know, I was a long, lanky kid, and the guard just, you know, felt natural to me. And just being on the ground, I really loved it. And I loved the technique of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, how technical it was and the science of it. So I fell in love with it right away. And, I mean, we sacrificed a lot to learn jujitsu, being in Oklahoma,

always traveled to learn. The first time I went to Brazil, I was 16 years old. It was in 1999 to train and compete in the world championships. And, you know, we just never stopped. And we became the first American father and son Brazilian jujitsu black belts. But, you know, going back to your question, the full spectrum of martial arts was always in my blood. You know, even as a jiu-jitsu competitor, you know, someone that found his passion in jiu-jitsu, I still considered myself a martial artist first and foremost, not just a jiu-jitsu practitioner. And so it was always in the plans to one day do MMA. But I really wanted to go as far as I could in Brazilian jujitsu. You know, I was there when BJ Penn won the world championships in 2000. And I watched him win. And I said, you know, man, I really want to be the next American to win the world's that immediately became like

my big life goal, my first life goal. And, um, and I achieved that in 2007, but, you know, like we all saw BJ go straight to MMA after he won, he never even did another tournament. You know, that was the only tournament he ever did as a black belt was the worlds and he won and then, and then switched MMA. And so I really wanted to be an American, you know, um, just kind of representing for us in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, competing at that high level and winning as much as possible. And kind of, you know, at that time, it wasn't like today, the worlds were still in Brazil. The sport was just dominated by Brazilians and pretty much still is today. But, you know, now we've come a long way. And I just wanted to be that force to

show everyone like, hey, we can do it. You know what I mean? You know, it's possible, you know, because at that time it was a whole nother scene. You know, the world's in Brazil. At the end of the tournament, you're lucky if you had a handful of non-Brazilians on the podium at all the belts, you know, including blue, purple, brown, I mean, all the belts, let alone black belt. And so I stayed in the sport to really try to get a second gold. That was the main thing that was keeping me in it, um, to win a second gold at the worlds as a black belt. Uh, I ended up meddling eight times, never got that second gold, but, uh, towards the end, I was just like, you know, it's time to switch. You know, I really felt like MMA was calling me.

Jiu-Jitsu was getting a little too comfortable, you know, and I had been fighting. A little too comfortable? Yeah, like it wasn't motivating me and inspiring me the same way that it was in the beginning. You know, I kind of lost a little bit of that hunger just because I'd been at that level for so long. And I've already, you know, competed against the best guys of my generation so many times. And it didn't take a lot for me to get ready. I was kind of just used to it. It was the same tournaments, the same season, year after year.

Same guys. Yeah, same guys. It just stopped bringing out the fire. Every now and then I felt it, you know, especially when I went back to compete in Brazil. You know, the world switched to the US in 2007, the year that I won it. And so I stopped having that thing to push me to go to Brazil to compete. And so I went back a couple of times to compete in the Brazilian Nationals, and I had really good performances there. I ended up winning the absolute in 2013 in Brazil. Uh, the, the all weight class division,

uh, became the first non-Brazilian to ever win a major absolute title. And I did it in Brazil. That was a day I was extremely inspired, you know, uh, competing in Brazil brought that out of me, but I just didn't feel that way all the time, you know, uh, just got too used to it. And so I just felt like it was calling me, you know, I knew one day I was going to do it. I had to have one fight just as a martial artist. I had to do at least one before it was all said and done. And I really just kind of took it as a one fight basis, you know, like I knew I needed to do it once and, you know, the time felt right. Like, okay, let's, let's's go let's switch back in uh to you know kind of tapping into who i was as a martial artist the the training that i had as a kid as a child

um under my father under the the jikundo system and um and i did one fight and i i enjoyed it i said i got to do more and i got to do at least one more so were you the whole time you were doing jiu-jitsu were you training kickboxing at all were you doing any wrestling like well I always uh did wrestling you know it's a supplement part of your training yeah supplement Brazilian jiu-jitsu the nogi competitions ADCC things like that um you know and I just believed in training everything to judo as well um like what about practicing ground and pound and all the other things in mma well whenever i was younger uh my father he had some fighters that he was training and so i trained a lot with them and then whenever i took over the academy

um we had a couple guys that were fighting then as well uh one of which went to the UFC. And so I was sparring with these guys, helping them get ready. And in 2008, I met who is now my main MMA coach. He's my Muay Thai instructor. His name is Mauricio Amado. His nickname is Veo. He is brothers of Andre Dida. And they are both shoebox. Is that why you were in Curitiba?

You've done camps out there. Yes, exactly. That's where Dida lives, his brother. Didi's to fight in pride. K1. Oh, is it K1? Yeah, K1. He fought in Japan.

Dream, I believe. He did some MMA as well. But he's more of a striker. but he's more of a kickboxer. Yeah. Striker. Um, and I met Mauricio and, uh, I really fell in love with his style of Muay Thai. And I had some guys fighting at that time. What's the difference in his style? Well, it's, it's totally designed for MMA. Um, you know, it's not Muay thai for muay thai you know uh they call their system evolution thai basically means evolution you know and it's evolved into this system that is designed for mma you know you're you're not just training striking for striking you're doing striking to set up takedowns or defend takedowns. And it was just an incredible system.

Justin, whenever we fought last year, he got to train with Matti Uccio and experience it for himself. Something special. Yeah, and Matti Uccio himself is just an amazing martial artist. You know, the passion that he has is – You can't get him to stop. Well, you trained with a lot of guys. What was different for you?

has is you can't get them to stop yeah you train with a lot of guys like what was different for you man i think the way that they they move and see the punches coming and the blocks are different and the the movement i mean just so much movement movement movement um when you say different do you mean to compensate for the fact that you're using smaller gloves like a different way of yes protecting yourself how would you explain that, just how they were moving that? Yeah, I mean, the offense and defense is so intertwined. You do everything on both sides. And it's all very powerful as well. It's designed for inflicting as much damage as possible.

And for me, it was so good because they can work with me as a jiu-jitsu guy much different because they don't have to worry about someone trying to take me down. I can pretty much throw whatever is possible, everything in the kitchen sink. And for the most part... You're happy if someone takes you down. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. And then also I have the threat, being able to

threaten someone with a takedown, which opens up a lot of striking as well. And so the way they have this system design, you know, is just perfect for me. And Mauricio as a person is just an incredible guy that I really fell in love with. And honestly, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be doing MMA. He just made me feel like I had the, the right person in place, the family, um, to, to go into MMA confidently and, and enjoy it. You know what I mean? Cause I, in the beginning, I wasn't sure how much I was going to, how much I was going to like the whole process. But you've been working with him for what? 10 years? Yeah. We've been training together 10 years. Yes. And so I was bringing him out to help my guys get ready. There were the guys that were fighting MMA and at the same time, always training with him.

It wasn't my focus then, but I love to cross train, you know, and just the movement. You know, I love the movement and keeping my body guessing, doing different things. And and so when I decided, OK, let's go all in on MMA. He was the obvious person to call. And since then, he he basically spends half the year in Oklahoma with me and lives with me. And I go to Brazil to train with Dita and his team there. What made you decide to do that? I mean, that's a big commitment to try to go all the way to Brazil for your camps.

How many camps have you done down there? Nine. Yeah, I've had nine fights basically every fight wow um well how much time do you spend on that at least two weeks um sometimes a little more there's been a couple times a little less but right around two weeks this next time if you fight uh gay guard musasi you might spend three or four weeks yeah i'm thinking probably a month month um you know it's just kind of full circle for me you know like i said i went to brazil first time uh 16 years old going to rio to train jujitsu compete in the world championships did your dad go

down there with you whenever you're 16 actually my dad has never gone to brazil whoa he you know he's not a flyer he doesn't fly uh he does not like to fly when he was going to california he was driving what driving oklah. Yep. Over 20 hours. Drove to your last fight in Boise, Idaho. Does he know that a flight is like three hours? He knows. And he used to be in the Air Force, and that's kind of why. He had a bad experience flying.

Oh, okay. And he lived in Spain. He was stationed there when he was in the Air Force. But you can get him to fly. It's a bit of work. It's going to take a little bit of, uh, some drugs and maybe a drink or two to calm them down. But, um, yeah, he, he would, uh, I mean, we did road trips on my spring break, Christmas break from Oklahoma all the way to

California to train. Um, so he's, he has not made a trip to Brazil yet but I think it's coming soon he's he took a long break from from uh from flying and uh in 2009 he had a heart attack uh unfortunately but he bounced back and since then he's kind of reformatted his life a little bit and uh and one of the things that he put his mind to do coming back was the famous walk in Spain. God, it left my mind right now. They made a movie about it before. And that pushed him to – Famous walk?

Yeah. Why? I can't remember it right now. Yeah, you know where you walk – It's a hike? Yes. Yes, it's a long walk. I feel so bad that I can't remember the name.

Yeah, it's like a six-week walk. Yes. It's a long walk. I feel so bad that I can't remember the name. Yeah. It's like a six week walk. And you end at a special cathedral. There it is. Yeah. The Camino. The Camino. Oh my God.

El Camino de Santiago. Yes. And the Santiago is the cathedral. There it is. The picture there. So he did that. And so he had, of course, he had to fly to Spain to do it. And so he.

Fly to Spain to walk six weeks. Yes. yes they're special he trained for it and you know and he that was one of the major trained to walk six weeks yeah well you were in a backpack and so every day he would backpack yeah you just back backpack through they have special hostels that you would stay in on the walk I mean there's a lot of people that do it. You know, you're not going to be by yourself. There's people doing it all year round. So it's like that trail in Georgia. What is that called again?

Appalachian Trail. Yeah. The one that goes all the way up to Maine. I had a friend that just did that. Six months, right? Yeah, I know. Six-month walk. It's wild.

Yeah. I was so proud of him for doing that. And so he started flying again, and I think he'll be going to Brazil soon. But you and your dad, to me, are something are something really special like you embody the heart of a true martial artist you live it as a lifestyle and for you even and for him to be supporting you you know you coming out of the womb basically starting martial arts and then how he's supporting you as a 16 year old going down to brazil yeah and how long did you stay there whenever you're 16? Two weeks, a little over. Yeah. I mean, it, yeah, my, my, my parents, both my parents, uh, just have given me incredible support. My mom, I mean, my dad is a full on martial artist. I mean, you know, uh, uh, lived,

he, he follows his passions, martial artists, musician, he plays the organ, uh, just a very unique individual. Um, and, uh, you know, he opened a martial arts school, my mom giving us incredible support. And, you know, I just basically followed his footsteps. And whenever I started to commit my myself to, you know, going all in, they've always been behind me. And I mean, I, the timing of it is just very special, because he was inspired by Bruce Lee. And that's what pushed him to, you know to follow the Jeet Kune Do system. And so I got to come in in that, which is a very unique style. When I was a child, I was training with Danny Inosano, Richard Bastille, some of the most incredible martial artists that have ever lived.

That's very fortunate. And then I was at this special age of a teenager when Brazilian J Jiu Jitsu first started making its way to the U.S. And I had the support of them saying, yeah, you're going to go to Brazil. You're going to compete in the world. And I got to see Jiu Jitsu, you know, very early on. The first world championships was in 96 and I competed in 99. So I got to experience Brazilian jiu-jitsu in almost its roots in Brazil and see what it's become today worldwide, such a big sport. And now I'm also fighting MMA.

So it's really cool, my whole martial arts journey. Shoe-to-box is known for some of the roughest sparring ever. It was old school, the way they used to do it. Do they still spar like that? Because it used to be just gym wars. I mean, and the criticism was that a lot of these guys were damaging themselves so badly in training that they were limiting their careers. Yeah. I would say they learned from that a little bit. A little bit.

But it's definitely hardcore down in Curitiba. And that's one of the reasons that I like it so much. It gets me out of my comfort zone. And you feel that energy every day. You wake up and you kind of have to process what you're about to go to in the professional training every morning. How often do you spar down there? There's some version of sparring almost every day, basically every day. Um, but it's a different aspect.

You might be boxing only. There's a Muay Thai only day. There's, uh, MMA sparring. There's, you know, grappling with ground and pound and wall, wall work, you know? Um, it's, it's interesting because there's so many different philosophies when it comes to how often you should spar. There is, um, you know, and there are definitely days where I have to kind of speak up and say, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to pull back just a little bit today.

Uh, just depending on what my body feels. Uh, I try to listen to that as much as possible. Um, aren't you sparring partners with like Vanderlei down there still? Yeah. Yeah. Fuck all that. Yeah. Actually this, this, uh, spar Vanderlei, there still sometimes? Yeah. Fuck all that. Yeah, actually this – I've talked to people about that and they're like, you don't spar Vanderlei.

You just fight him. Right. This scar right here is happening. Could achieve a sparring with Vanderlei. Yeah. You know, you get more comfortable with it. And the guys are awesome. I mean, they are definitely my MMA family down there.

That's just the way they do it. It's not a personal thing. No. It's not like they're trying to hurt you. No, not at all. They try to hurt each other. guys are awesome i mean the they are definitely my mma family that's just the way they do it it's not a it's not a personal thing it's not like they're trying to hurt you no not at all each other they sing and dance and you know hug and you know i mean afterwards everyone's so happy you make it through it and you celebrate it there's a crazy story i heard was um shogun and vanderley were arguing over the price of a pit bull puppy. And so they decided to fight. And if Vanderlei won, then he would get the puppy for free. And if Shogun won, then Vanderlei would have to pay him what he wanted.

And Vanderlei knocked Shogun out in training. And he was laughing when he woke him up holding the puppy. Wow. I'm like, what the fuck? And they're really good friends. Yeah. It's a little different somebody needs to talk to them about traumatic brain injuries

yeah I think one of the things that they the worst things they were doing they were sparring full on like two days a day before the fight that was too much sometimes they were sparring right the day before

there's some really funny cool stories that they have. Well, I guess you get used to it, so there's that. But you also leave a lot of your chin in the gym. I mean, there's just only so much punishment a body can take. Yeah, don't take it wrong. I mean, it's controlled. Now.

Yes. More so. But I would say it's still more hardcore than the average place, for sure. I mean, it is so open in terms of how people decide to structure their camps. Some people have very little sparring. Like Cowboy was telling me, he hardly spars at all. I mean, he does just technical work and pad work. He's like, I already know how to fight.

He used to be completely opposite, though, right? He used to spar, spar, spar, spar, and now he's switched it up. But that's when he started doing much better, he said. He said it really made a big difference because he was going into fights damaged. Because, you know, he's so hardcore himself that sparring with him ultimately must become more hardcore. Because he's such a fucking wild man robbie lawler did something similar as well thing i think tony ferguson was yeah no sparring yeah tony had no no sparring in preparation for his last fight that's that's

what i saw in the post-fight interview what makes sense about that with him though is that he was coming off a catastrophic knee injury i mean he literally tore his ligament off the bone and had to have it put back on. And then six months later, he was fighting. That's incredible. There's not a whole lot of human beings like that guy. Yeah. He's a real freak. That level of grit, determination to come back from that injury and to perform like he did with Anthony Pettis.

Yeah. That was my favorite fight of the night. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I was bummed out that Pettis hurt his hand. Yeah, because he does not stop going forward. No, he doesn't, man. He never gets tired. That's the crazy thing about Tony.

You know, and Eddie Bravo does his camps with him up in Big Bear. And he says, it's nuts, man. They do hill sprints. Everybody else is exhausted. And Tony's just lapping them. Just running back up. I mean, he's just never out of gas. A wild man.

He'll work out six hours hard a day. And on top of that, what he does is he gets there, they rent a house, and then he builds his own gym. So they'll have like a house that they rent. He'll mat up the living room. And then he'll go outside. He'll put up a Wing Chun dummy. He'll hang heavy bags. He does it all himself.

I used to do the Wing Chun dummy too. Yeah, man. I mean, he actually used Wing Chun in. He'll hang heavy bags. He does it all himself. I used to do the Wing Chun dummy too. Yeah, man. I mean, he actually used Wing Chun in the fight with Pettis. He trapped his hand and hit him with an elbow once. And I remember watching it going like, holy shit, he just used Wing Chun inside the cage. Like, it works. Like, if you really know your shit, he trapped his hand and then came right over the top with an elbow.

And I went, look at that shit. Because he's always practicing it. He's always practicing kung fu. But he's a very, very unusual guy. There's all this talk about a Conor rematch. Because financially that would be a fantastic fight, right? Financially. But when you look at what happened, that was a dominant victory.

I mean, there was one round where Conor did pretty good. The third round. Other than that, Khabib just sort of dominated him. I mean, dropped one round where Connor did pretty good the third round other than that could be just sort of dominated him Yeah I mean dropped him in the second beat the fucking shit out of him in the fourth and the third was around where Connor did Pretty good because most of it was standing up. I think he won that round right that was at the first round Yeah, he'd ever lost. Yeah, I think that was yeah, but I mean it wasn't he won it like running away It wasn't like that. He blasted him in the body had him hurt and you know, there was nothing like that It was just he won it running away. It wasn't like that he blasted him in the body, had him hurt. There was nothing like that.

It was just he edged him. It's hard to make – I mean, I guess you could say that's the same thing that sort of happened in the Nate Diaz fight. And then Conor came back and won the rematch. So this is the argument. The argument is Conor was rusty. He's out of the cage for two years. He gets back in. Let's do a – and then financially, Jesus Christ.

I mean, it was the biggest fight of all time. They're saying it was above 2.4 million pay-per-view buys which is fucking bananas yeah that's that's huge so if it's bigger than that and then they have if they could talk people into a rematch i get it but i don't want to see that i want to see tony i want to see tony yeah he's more than earned it and the khabib the suspension let him give a little money to somebody come on what's the what i might take on it like you know this the whole thing is fucked it's not professional it shouldn't happen but neither should people be fucking screaming shit at him while he's fighting yeah you know and i guess that was going on the entire time.

He was apparently having, like, Dylan Dennis in Conor's corner was screaming shit at Khabib while the fight was going on. Which I guess gets annoying. Yeah. Did you see the new angle? There's a new angle of video where Khabib's Russian manager, as Conor is tapping, he comes behind Danis and slaps him on the back like three or four times. I did see that. Yeah. Kind of instigating something.

Yeah, there's that. And then someone said Khabib, that Connor swung first, which is true. But Khabib had already gone over the cage. And someone's coming right at him. And then the guy was coming at him and Connor swung at him. But I think it was already chaos at that point. Yeah. You know, it's all very unfortunate.

But what happened really? No one got hurt. I mean, Connor got hurt more than anybody. What was your point of view down there? I mean, did you feel at all like, oh, man, this ride's coming towards me or anything like that? Did it spread around through the audience? I am so fucking numb. I'm so used to people beating the shit out of each other.

It's like, oh, now they're beating the shit out of each other over here. It didn't feel any more dangerous. I was hoping the chairs wouldn't start flying and then it wouldn't get too crazy. And I was really, really, really hoping that someone wouldn't do something stupid and hurt someone to the point where they would get kicked out of the UFC or suspended. But that might be the case with that one gentleman. What is his name? Zuba?

What is his name? My fucking, I should check my Instagram because it's filled with free Zuba. I don't know how to say the gentleman's name. Oh, that's what that, I think I just saw that. Khabib's like a training partner. Yeah, I mean. That's the guy that got fired? Yeah. I don't know if he got partner. That's the guy that got fired? Yeah.

I don't know if he got fired. His fight with Artem was moved. It's supposed to be with Artem, and not a bad idea to cancel that fight because it's so close to this, and obviously it's going to be so charged up. Let me find homeboy's name. Yeah, they just moved Artem in to fight Michael Johnson, I think. That'll be a good fight. Yeah yeah that'll be a real good fight yeah um yes zubaria they call yeah see save zuba this shit's all over my instagram you crazy russians i see what you're doing that's like all my mentions uh zubaria i can't pronounce his last name t-U-K-H-U-G-O-V

Good luck Good luck with that one John Anik can pronounce it He pronounces it flawlessly Zubaria is a very good fighter too It's very unfortunate I hope they can work everything out He was supporting his brother

He felt like there was a fight going on He was showing his loyalty. I get it. There should have been more security. They should have been better. They should have talked to these guys beforehand. They should have stopped all this fucking nonsense beforehand. It's bad for the

sport. It's bad for the image. It's bad for them. It's just, you know, there's nothing good about it. But, to Khabib's point, there's nothing good about Conor throwing that dolly at the bus. That was worse. That was worse. I mean, someone could get really fucked up.

Fights got canceled because people got cut. Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, Chiesa got pulled from his fight. He had a big cut on his head.'s still dealing with uh injuries i think from that really yeah yeah i saw him at one of the bella tours um in uh chicago uh there and he was like man i still uh dealing with like flash concussions or something like that and i don't know it was it was really serious for him for him i think he took the worst of it how did he get a concussion from it don't quote me 100 i know he had glass in his eye and yeah i just know that he was still dealing with residual effects yeah residual effects for me i'm torn because i i was at a conference it was called like the summit of greatness and we had a bunch of people that came

over there was like 13 different people that came over to our Airbnb, had a blast. Um, there were some incredible people there. Um, there's a guy that, that I think you need to know of his name's Nick Santanastasso. And he's a guy that, uh, that is incredibly inspirational to me. I've gotten to know him. Uh, and he's got only one arm, no legs. Uh, he's got one finger on one hand one hand. But the way that he's overcome adversity in his life, incredible dude. He first started with skateboarding with one arm and doing handstands on the skateboard. After that, he started doing bowling. And then from there, he had a little bit of an arm on his left arm. Sorry, yeah, his right arm.

And he wanted to wrestle, but his parents said that he had this, uh, his bone was growing faster than his skin. And so on, on one of his arms, it has like a, a problem with it.

And so he wanted to wrestle, but they said if he landed on that part of his arm, that the bone would stick through, it would stick through and like stab into the mat and that there's no way he could wrestle. And he looked at his mom and dad, and he thought about it for months, and he said, Mom and Dad, what if we just cut it off? Oh, Jesus. And they're like, What?

And Nick says, What if you just cut off my arm? Can I wrestle then? You know, my other arm's good. And they said, Nick, you're being pretty extreme here. Let's not call it cutting it off. Let's call it amputation. And no, you can't do that. Well, he just kept pushing the issue. There he is right there.

And his Instagram. So he wound up getting it cut off? Yep. So right there, it used to be five or six inches longer than that. And he went and got it lasered off. And what he says is that he wants so yeah, buddies with the rock. He's a bodybuilder too. He just wrote a book. It's available on Amazon. I think it's called like from victim to Victor. Yeah. I mean that, that tire flip on his Instagram, it's wild if, if, if you want to pull that up, but it's he's a really inspirational guy to me.

He, like literally, so on that top left picture, he calls that on his other arm, he calls that his potato. That's what he calls it. But he had to have five or six inches cut off so that he could wrestle. And really inspirational guy to me. He's been on like Ed Milet's podcast and Lewis Howes and his stories there are incredibly inspirational. I thought the Neil Melanson story was crazy. What's that? Neil Melanson. Yeah. He What's that? Neil Melanson.

Yeah. He broke his toe real bad. Yeah. And they were saying you couldn't roll for six months. You had to put in a splint. He said, how about you just cut it off? Wow. And they said, okay.

So they did it. You know, you've seen Neil Melanson. He's a giant gorilla. Yeah, for sure. I didn't know he did that. If he says, cut my toe off, you just go, okay. Okay. We'll just cut your toe off. I got to train tomorrow. Yeah, for sure. I didn't know he did that, though. If he says, cut my toe off, you just go, okay. Okay. We'll just cut your toe off, man. I got to train tomorrow.

Don't kill me. He fucking had his toe cut off so he could keep training. Wow. So Nick and him, they've got some screws loose, but they're committed. How committed are you that you want to achieve this goal, this dream? His dream, he grew up in New Jersey. He's like, I want to be a wrestler. Wow.

And so I'm going to do this. Incredibly inspirational guy. So him and 12 other guys came over to our Airbnb and we watched the fights and it was Connor versus Khabib. And we loved watching everything that night. And then whenever that happened, um, so I'm torn on it because I love those guys as fighters. I absolutely love them as fighters. Um, and then whenever that happened, it was just something that in me, I don't, I don't know if I was embarrassed or if I was disappointed, but we were introducing some guys. Steve Weatherford, who played for the New York Giants, he came over for like he played for the Giants for like 10 or 12 years, lives in San Diego. Great guy, but he's not a big MMA fan. So I was explaining everything to him.

And when that happened, it was just pretty disappointing. Then I spoke at Anti-Bullying Coalition in Tulsa. And I went there and there was this girl there that she looked real sweet, real quiet, introverted. And she worked with mental health. And her name was Allie. All of a sudden, she found out I was an MMA fighter. And she said, oh, my gosh, you know, my husband's a huge MMA fan. I'm not at all. I never really even fighter, and she said, oh, my gosh, you know, my husband's a huge MMA fan. I'm not at all.

I never really even sat down and watched it with him. But then he decided to take me to the T-Mobile arena for the – so her first fight was Conor Khabib. And she was in there, and she said she loved it. Before that, Michelle Watterson was an incredible inspiration to her, her saying that she wants to be the first mom to be a UFC champion. She said the night was going great. And then whenever that happened, she said it was, it literally scared her because fights started popping off to the right of her leftover behind her. She said it poured out into the arena. Um, and so that was her first introduction to MMA. So that was a little tough to see, but at the same time I get it, like those emotions are flaring and you were

talking about it too. And, uh, kind of your perspective of martial artist and. Yeah. I mean, same thing that you're feeling just, you know, that little bit of kind of sadness and disappointment of, you know, the, the biggest event, the most views, the most people watching, and that's the last thing that they see. That's what they, you know, uh, go to bed thinking about and feeling about. And and I just you know, I don't think even even Conor could be. That's not who they are as martial artists. You know, sure.

All the motions are flying and they you know, they have a history and and it's hard to let that go. But I just don't I don't feel like that's even who they really are. You see in all their other fights, they respect their opponents. I'm going to disagree with you. I mean, look, Conor, that's what he does. He talks shit to people and fucks with their head. I mean, it's a giant part of his game. And I know that that was part of the strategy of him throwing that dolly at the

bus that shit's way out of line i mean throwing a dolly at the bus that's not what a martial artist does when you when you if you stop and think about what we value about martial arts in terms of teaching children honor respect and discipline and the the things when we think of as a classical martial artist like Leota Machida or someone like that bowing to their opponent, that is not. This is theatrics. This is hype. But in all fairness, the UFC used that to sell that fight.

I mean, that was a big part of their promotional campaign was seeing Conor throw the dolly at the bus and screaming and yelling. Seeing Conor throw the dolly at the bus and screaming and yelling. You know, you're setting an example. There's something going on outside of the actual contest itself. There's all this extracurricular violence, right? There's throwing a dolly at a bus, shattering in the window. All these guys running and screaming, get off the bus.

And then they're promoting this. They're showing this. And then everyone's shocked that it escalates after the fight itself. You know, one of the, in some ways, one of the more interesting moments of the fight was Khabib on top of Conor beating the shit out of him going, let's talk now. Have you seen that video? Yeah. That's fucking terrifying. Yeah, it is.

It's like, come on, let's talk. Bam. And he's just slamming him. Bam. He told him he was going to do that before the fight too. Yeah. Yeah. We're's like, come on, let's talk. Bam! And he's just slamming them. Bam! He told him he was going to do that before the fight, too. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to talk. We're going to talk.

When I'm on top of you and you're tired and I'm beating the fuck out of you, that's when we're going to talk. And that's what he did. You know, this is all not what Khabib does. Right. This is outside of his, if you look at his standard behavior, he's very respectful. I mean, he's never had an incident like this ever in a fight. All of his fights before that are him shaking his opponent's hand, doing the standard stare down, standard stuff, talking about his skill set and what he's going to do.

And there's no disrespect. There's no insults. There's none of this. That's what I mean about Khabib. Yeah, but not Conor. I mean, this is – but here's the other thing. On the other side, it makes it fun. I'm very torn because all the shit that he talked to Jose Aldo, look, that was a big

factor in Jose Aldo charging at him, losing his composure, face first and getting clipped with that left hand. That's a big factor is the emotional angst that he had gone through for months and months on the road with this guy. The mental warfare. Yeah. I mean, that mental warfare is a real thing. It just didn't work with Khabib. It had the opposite effect. And with Khabib, he's like, I can't wait to get my fucking hands on you. It wasn't, I can't believe this guy's saying these things to me. With Khabib, but it ramped up the violence to the point where he was letting you know like hey this is real to me like if you if you want to act thuggish and you we'll just keep going we'll just

i'll keep taking this like he didn't want to stop after connor tapped like he was holding on to him and he's letting him know hey motherfucker like this is real this is not just shit talking connor was saying to him this is just just business. It's just business. And he's like, let's talk now. Let's talk now. He's like, this is not business to him. So to him, fights, I mean, this is what he said in the press conference. It should be, this is a respect sport.

And this sport should be about two men expressing themselves to the best of their physical ability inside the cage. Just doing their best against the best fighters in the world, and that should speak for itself, and that they should have respect and honor outside of it. I wish you would have had the chance to say that. Yeah, we didn't have a chance. The sad part was him letting the emotions take over what he felt, and instead of just getting the belt tied on

and kind of killing them with kindness at the end and saying that and having that chance to put that in everyone's minds and and ears he did in the post fight interview but i mean how many or the post fight uh press conference but how many people got a chance to see that a lot less i mean just a few thousand i'm sure and as in comparison to the 2.4 million that downloaded the pay-per-view and the many, many, many, many more that saw YouTube clips and Instagram clips. Yeah, I mean, everybody saw it. It's unfortunate. But it's also a financial windfall.

Like, the whole thing, it's weird because part of what makes Conor so interesting is that he's so good at talking shit, he's hilarious, and he knows how to back it up. But when we saw him fight Khabib, he just fell short. It's really that simple. When skill versus skill, he fell short. And the shit-talking led to Khabib taking it very personal and very personal at the end and then pointing at Dylan Dannis and jumping off the top of the cage. The whole thing was just so fucking crazy.

But the idea that people should be surprised after Conor throws a dolly at the bus and then still winds up able to fight. I mean, what did he do? Paid some money? I mean, he's got to do some service. What is it? Is it community service? I don't even know what he has to fight. I mean, just what did he do? Paid some money, did some, I mean, we've got to do some, some service. What is it? Is it community service?

I don't even know what he has to do. I don't either. That's where it's not. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. Throwing a dolly is fucking way worse than punching a guy who punches people for a living, which is Dylan. Dennis is a professional fighter.

He's a professional fighter. He jumps out. He takes a swing at him. They're screaming and Dylan's like, fuck you. And he's like, fuck you. And there's a bunch of people get involved. And's a professional fighter. He jumps out. He takes a swing at him. They're screaming. And Dylan's like, fuck you. And he's like, fuck you. And there's a bunch of people get involved. And then a bunch of other people jump in. The whole thing was nuts.

But the idea that we should be shocked after him throwing a dolly at a bus because Khabib's on the bus. Those Russians don't fucking play like that, man. Did you see the videos afterwards in Dagestan where they're shooting off the Uzi's and ak-47s yeah so i wrestled there uh when i was like 18 um wrestled there and it was crazy they were taking us around everywhere in g wagons and the ones in front of us had like armed uh i don't know machine guns on top of them the one behind us armed machine guns on top of them um and then what was it we were we're walking through one of the streets and there's these big chains that are in between the road and the sidewalk. And we're walking down the sidewalk and all of a sudden there's like a laser that comes over and, uh, and our guys are like, we

gotta go. We gotta go. All of a sudden the car came up onto the sidewalk, started driving like they're going to plow us down. We had to jump into the road to not get hit and uh i i don't know why that happened but after that we weren't allowed our uh the hotel we were in we had like balconies to where we could look out well they had to move our rooms to where we're inside to where we couldn't have a balcony and everything else to where the the just because of that threat because of the laser that came because of the truck that came up onto the sidewalk and tried to run us over. There was some crazy rumor that someone got arrested outside of the T-Mobile arena. See if that's true. If someone got arrested with a gun outside the T-Mobile arena after the fight or during the fight. Because there was some sort of crazy talk about threats.

The problem is you don't know how much of that's bullshit. Right. I mean, I probably should have researched that before we talked about it. But you see anything? Bullshit? Did they post that? I don't know. I heard the same thing, though.

You heard it, too. I heard it. Yeah. Yeah, I think I heard it on Instagram. Yeah, they don't play around. It's a different world, man. Especially Dagestan. That's a hard part of the country.

Not that Dublin isn't hard, but it's like they're not known for their humor and shit talking. Yeah, well, I went into a store. I went into a store, like a little market, and I was whistling in Dagestan. And I didn't know that that was something disrespectful. But someone came right up behind me and just slapped me on the back of the head. Like an older man. Probably like a Khabib's dad came up, and I knew that he was a bad dude, so I wasn't going to do anything. I just didn't know.

Translator had to come up and say, you don't whistle in public. Oh, you're having a good day? Yeah. Don't whistle. Whistling's disrespectful? And I can't even whistle that good. But I was just kind of whistling to myself I didn't even know I was doing what do they think about air guitar yeah that's probably bad it's probably bad and they don't show the bottom of your feet uh like if you uh that's for sure you

can google that but if you um are sitting there and you like cross your legs and you show the bottom of your foot that's culturally really disrespectful to show um the yeah bottoms of your shoes or the bottom of your feet so they just don't play around there um and then so if you have you like your foot on top of your thigh like this like sitting like don't do that can't do that don't do that someone will come and slap your leg and make sure your feet are both on the ground so just a lot of cultural stuff the world man it's a hard part of the world they're always climbing up those mountains uh i mean it's just jagged. It's a hard part of the world, man. It's a hard part of the world. That's why they're so tough. They're always climbing up those mountains. I mean, it's just jagged mountains.

I remember it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Just stunning. But just the hard life. Did you see that Nike, or sorry, not Nike, but Reebok video that Khabib did? It was awesome. Yeah, it was awesome. But just seeing that, that's the real life there. It's a hardship.

There's a photo of him that he posted on his Instagram with his father, him and his father standing right after the fight he did it. Like to explain like that this, what this is about to him is honor. It's not about money. It's about honor and respect. And it's a photo of him standing with his father with this incredible mountain range behind him. Wow. Yeah. It's a different part of the world.

So that strategy with Conor backfired. Do you think there's a point where... There it is. Look how gorgeous that is. That's incredible. What a photo. That they should say, hey, let's turn the talking down a little bit. How can you?

That's what got Conor to the dance. I mean, it's one of the reasons why he's... But it has escalated. It has escalated since Aldo to then Mayweather bringing in his dad and the assaults and different stuff like that. And then Khabib going after his family religion, everything else. Yeah. Yeah. So it's gotten...

It's almost like he has to... I think you were saying this. Yeah, he's got to one-up himself. Right. And for me, it just kind of felt like, you know, it wasn't a surprise. It was kind of like the karma for the UFC promoting the bus and, you know, and letting it just keep getting deeper and deeper. But they say it's the story, and it is the story. But at a certain point, if it's something that was illegal or hurt somebody, maybe don't use that.

I was honestly shocked that they were using it in promotion. I was like, well, I shouldn't be shocked. I thought that when I saw the promo and I saw the dolly flying at the bus and then the video from the inside with the glass shattering, I was like, okay, I guess I shouldn't be shocked because it did happen. You know, it is a part of the story. But, I mean, is this encouraging this? Like, what is – I mean, they're using it to sell the biggest fight in the history of the sport. Turned out to be true.

It is the biggest fight in the history of the sport. Is that good? That doesn't seem good. No. That seems, it seems, I don't know, man. Not from my perspective. But it's, you know, it's entertainment versus sport, right? When it comes to sport, like, you would never use that to advertise the Olympics, right?

They would never have an assault to advertise the Olympics. But this is something different. It's commerce. There's a lot of money involved. It's a huge cultural spectacle. It's Conor McGregor. He transcends sport. it's conor mcgregor who's he transcends sport he's this superstar in just the world of just show business so it's different but different but at the same time what

this might be more for the purist or hardcore mma fan or martial artist that competes but but what what originally drew you to the martial arts? I mean, I haven't heard that firsthand from you, but what drew you to the sport initially? Well, I mean, like Raphael, I found out about Bruce Lee when I was a kid. I mean, Bruce Lee was the first. I saw those Bruce Lee movies. I lived in New Jersey in an apartment complex, and my superintendent of the apartment complex, his son was my age, and I went over to his house. We watched a Bruce Lee movie. I was like, holy shit. Look at this they had he kid had noon chucks and shit i whacked myself in the back

of the head trying to practice noon chucks but i remember watching that guy throw kicks and you know jumping off of tables and beating the fuck out of all these dudes are coming out and every kid wanted to be bruce lee every kid wanted to be br Lee. And then I took a Kung Fu class and then I took karate and then I got into Taekwondo and then I got into Muay Thai and all these other different things. But to me, it was just martial arts was, you know, it was a way to learn how to fight, first of all, for sure. But then it was also a way to test yourself. But it was always, there was no shit talking back then in martial arts tournaments. There was no trash talking. Even if there was little subtle things

that people would say to each other at the weigh-in, under each other's breath, like, I'm going to fuck you up or something like that. It was very quiet. It was very little of that. Most of it was bowing, shaking hands, and then there was just the fight. But there was also no money involved. It was just fighting. And I think that when you're dealing with money and you're dealing with promotion, let's just be completely honest. Conor throwing that dolly at the bus and Conor talking all that shit

probably made that fight twice as big. Maybe it would have gotten one million pay-per-view buys it wound up getting two and a half million it's worth a lot of fucking money think about two and a half million versus what one extra million people buying it at whatever the fuck it costs what does it cost 70 bucks or something ours was 64.99 it's a lot of money, man. You're talking about a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of money. You know? And then it's worth more for other fights because the whole card was so amazing. It's going to get more people to watch the next card. What was your favorite moment?

Favorite moment of the night? Was it Derek Lewis? Derek Lewis. Or Tony? Derek Lewis. Derek Lewis. Derek Lewis winning by knockout. Yeah.

And in a fight where he said, the thing about Derek Lewis is he can always just land one punch. We had just got done saying that like 10 seconds before he lands this fucking howitzer on the top of that dude's head. And then the post-fight interview, he takes his shorts off. And I'm standing there like, what are you doing, man? He goes, my balls is hot. I'm like, oh, my God. But, I mean, Derek's hilarious. He's always hilarious.

So I always look forward to talking to him. But his Instagram, if you want to know what Derek Lewis is about, you got to see his Instagram. And I brought that up. Now he's got like more than a million. What is he at now? He's at 500-some thousand in just a couple days after that fight. That's so awesome. But it's true.

It's fucking Instagram's all motorcycle accidents, dudes jumping off roofs and landing on their heads. It's the most fucked up Instagram of all time. But he's just a funny dude, man. He's really funny. And him and Daniel Cormier, them promoting a fight is going to be a breath of fresh air. Because did you see the thing where you know like Danny was joking around said he said he's gonna knock me out yeah man use disrespecting Popeye's let's play this cuz it's so funny there it loose told me he was gonna knock me

out right before we walked out here there the music what's your issue with Daniel? I want to know too. He disrespects that Popeye's chicken on a commercial for you. It's just, you see, the two of them together. This is a bad version of it. This is all music and stupid editing. But he's just a funny guy, man. He's just a funny guy.

And he's, look, I mean, and he joked around about it with DC. He's got 1.3 million followers now. That is hilarious. I think it's like he's gained a million followers. Yeah. Because I've been following him for years now. Yeah, I think he gained a million followers. And he, you know, they were talking about it. And he said to Daniel, you know, Daniel said, he goes, you don't really want to hit me?

He goes, motherfucker, I'll fight anybody for money. It's just classic. He's just a funny guy. And there won't be any of that. There won't be any nonsense. But it'll still sell a lot because it's fun. It's going to sell a lot of Popeyes, too. It's going to sell a lot of everything.

It's going to sell a lot of everything. But it'll definitely sell a lot of pay-per too it's gonna sell a lot of everything but it'll definitely sell a lot of pay-per-views the real question is is he gonna be able to deal with Cormier's wrestling Cormier's experience I mean this is the level of fighting that Cormier's experience is just significantly higher but Derek Lewis has unbelievable power I mean his power is fucking no joke man if you look at some of his KO victories, he's a brutal puncher. Brutal. He is. But I think if he, and I'm a big Derek Lewis fan, but I think if he fights DC like he fought Volkov, it's going to be a tough night for him.

I know that it could go any way and that one shot from Derek Lewis can put DC out or anyone in the world out. But I just see DC's wrestling, his dirty boxing, I mean, everything. If Derek Lewis is turning his back to DC like he was with Volkov, I mean, he's going to close the distance. He's going to take his back. He's going to exploit that. He's going to take him down. Sure.

There's a difference between 6'7 and 5'10, though. That's true. There's a giant difference in size between Volkov and DC. DC's a real light heavyweight who, in my opinion, could fight in Raphael's weight class. I think DC really got his diet in order. He could be a 180 fiber.

It's true, but he can flip over Josh Barnett over his head and all sorts of guys. There's something about that round body type, though. I mean, there really is. The barrel. The ability to kind of

be ungrabable. And of course he has the power and he has the wrestling so I mean he's like a version of Fedor. Very similar. Seeing him knock out Stipe with one shot like that was stunning. Like wow. And he was saying that he was

doing that in training. He said he hits way harder as a heavyweight. I think just the way he likes to live his life and how he likes to eat, he just has more energy as a heavyweight. You know, he might be a better heavyweight. He's gone through a whole life of cutting weight. I mean, an entire life of it. Well, and he had to withdraw from the Olympics because of kidney failure. Right. From weight cutting.

And I think his life should be a movie for sure. I mean, the way, the stuff that he's overcome, the stuff that has happened to him, the missed opportunities in wrestling, not missed opportunities. He's one of the, I mean, he's so great, but not being the champion, not being the world champion,

not being the Olympic champion and then coming to, and the life stuff that he's gone through. I'm just happy that people like him now. Because remember he was getting booed for so long. Which was ridiculous. Every time he got booed, it broke my heart. It took a while for people to understand him.

And now I think that people, you know, after people seeing him choke out Rumble Johnson and then seeing him knock out Stipe, people are like, oh, he's a bad motherfucker. And he's a really nice guy. He's a great dude. One of the best commentators now. Oh, he's hilarious. That's also what made him grow on people as well. You hear him in commentary

and you realize he's not an egomaniac. He's a really good guy who knows a lot about fighting, knows a lot about wrestling. Man, I'm so looking forward to Jon Jones coming back too. Jon Jones fighting Gustafson. That is very fascinating. Is that going to...

I know they're going to strip DC, so is that fight for a title? Yeah, I guess. Interim or the real deal? I think that's the real deal. Yeah, which is weird, right? Yeah. Like, why let the guy be champ-champ if you're not going to let him,

I mean, I don't know. It's like, I don't know. I mean, I'm so torn on all this. Well, he's probably going to fight the winner anyways, and then it'll be for the belt. So maybe let him keep the belt. I mean, look, I love the UFC, obviously. I've been working for the UFC forever.

But I think there's an obvious conflict of interest when the promoter is also responsible for who holds titles and who gets to fight for titles. It's weird. And who gets to fight for titles? It's weird. You know, I mean, in every other sport, there's like a sanctioning body that decides this is, you know, Rafael Lovato won five fights in a row. He's the undisputed number one contender. He will be next in line for the title.

You know, not, oh, Logan Paul sold five million YouTube buys. He's next. You know what I mean? It's like, it's weird. Like, it's weird that commerce, I mean, it plays a giant part in any sport, right? But should it be the ultimate decider in what happens and what doesn't happen? Would you ever support the Muhammad Ali Act coming over to MMA? I don't know exactly how that act is structured.

What does it say? I don't know a how that act is structured. What does it say? I don't know a lot about it, but I know that I believe the moment- Let's pull it up so we can talk about it from an educated perspective. For sure. I think that the promoters have to split 50% of the revenue with the fighters, I think. Is that what it says? I think so. I think that is part of it. They would start doing that Hollywood arithmetic, like a Hollywood arithmetic, like when a movie comes out? Do you know how that works? No.

Dude, it's hilarious. People who have written movies and produced movies and dealt with studios, they factor in all this other shit. Like, this is how much my car costs. This is how much it costs for gas. This is how much it costs to rent this building. This is electricity. Oh, there's no more money left over. Okay, here it says, the Ali Act, Amending Professional Boxing Safety

Act of 1996 specifies that a sanctioning organization may not receive any compensation from a boxing match unless it files its bylaws and a complete description of its ratings, criteria, policies, and general sanctioning fee scheduled with the FTC, the act further directs the FTC to make this information available to the public. A sanctioning organization does not have to submit this information to the FTC. However, it makes the information accessible through a public website.

All right, if you can translate that. I don't know what the fuck that means. I don't know. I've heard that part, which I'm not sure that that's specific, the splitting the revenue. But then I also think it takes out of the promoter's hands. What does that say? Look at that where it says law.

15 U.S. And what is that fucking double squiggle shit? What is that? I've never seen that thing before. You ever seen that thing before? Have you seen it? For law. You've seen it? I mean in this context, yeah. I've never seen that thing before. That's what a law is?

It's like a dollar bill thing? That's like a law? That's like a symbol for a law? Have you seen that before? I think so. There's a law that Fight for the Forgotten has been looking into for bullying prevention. It's called David's Law out of Texas. And that same squiggly thing.

That didn't even show up on Google. You just Googled it and it didn't show up. Look at that. Did not match any documents. So, okay. Whatever that is. I mean, I guess that's a law thing. Look, I always favor the fighters, always,

because they have a very short amount of time to do it. They put the most on the line. They have the most at risk. The consequences of their actions are, you know, in terms of losing, in terms of just the possibility they get horribly injured in training and not get compensated. There's a bunch of factors that I don't feel are fair or just. Look, I was very upset when Tony Ferguson got stripped.

Stripped, yeah. I mean, he fell, he ripped his knee apart, and they stripped him. I mean, look, I get that they would be upset that the fight would happen, that the fight would not happen and that he would, you know, someone else would have to take his place. I understand that. But stripping him doesn't make any sense. Like, how could he get stripped for an injury? It's one thing if he did something to someone like the John Jones situation, crashed into that lady's car, took off in the scene. That makes sense.

It's an ethics violation, right? This is not an ethics thing. He fell. You know, it's unfortunate. Helping to promote the fight. Yeah. I mean, he just tripped over some wires. And it was erroneously stated by many people, me included, because I read it somewhere that he was wearing sunglasses.

He was not wearing sunglasses inside. He was just wearing glasses. He just stepped over. It was just a freak thing, man. Just a freak thing. Stepped over some wires. And especially a guy as coordinated to get injured too fucking crazy didn't make any sense yeah crazy i mean it's horrible but there's no no one to say no to that right it's like how does that work how do you decide like how do you decide who gets stripped

and who doesn't who's got an interim title mean, how many interim titles can you have? It's just like this. It's just weird. Just for the rankings and the ability to get your shot, just that by itself I think deserves a sanctioning body 100%, let alone the ability for them to get paid more and be more fair across the board and everything. Well, you see how USADA has completely taken away, like the UFC has nothing to say about USADA testing

and about the punishment that it implements. It's completely independent. So what they do is they come in, they randomly drug test fighters, they make sure the fighters give their whereabouts at all times, they have to register and log in and let everybody know wherever they are. And if they violate that, USADA hands out the punishment. And we've seen these punishments, and they're strict. They're very severe. And they take away a fighter's ability to make a living if they violate any of their policies, or if they test positive for any supplements.

They've since made what I think is a welcome amendment where if a fighter, if it's possible that it's a tainted supplement or they have a trace amount of something in their, they don't say anything until after it's resolved. So instead of putting the fighter on blast and putting it out there to the whole world hey this guy tested positive instead of doing that they resolve it and then smart yeah which is the way they should do it but still look at a guy like Josh Barnett okay Josh Barnett was ultimately exonerated but he had to go like two years where he couldn't make a living and when you're Josh is 40 years old this that's not two years where he couldn't make a living and when you're just 40 years old

this that's you don't have two years to spare you don't have two years right that's fucking crazy so but my point is that is a completely independent entity right it's outside of the ufc's ability to they don't control that they step back they take care it kind of should be that way when it comes to who gets to fight for the title. Yeah. Like, if a title is a title. Like, if it's the world championship and you look at a guy like Tony Ferguson, I think, I believe he's 11-1 in the UFC. Right? He's on this crazy win streak.

He's fucking beaten. You look at his, like, who's who of who he's beaten crazy kevin lee there's really no one else for him to fight he has to fight he's beating the elites oh the only person he hasn't beaten is connor and khabib those are the two guys fuck man i mean give them to him yeah yeah you gotta prove himself so look if you looked at it that way you would say he's next but if you were were Mr. Moneybags, you're like, oh, Conor wants a rematch. Oh, Conor, let's give you a rematch. Come on, baby.

It's another area where the sport and entertainment crosses. Right. What do you think about tournaments coming back to the UFC? I mean, they haven't done that, but what do you think about them doing that for finding out who's going to fight for the title? Bellator's doing it now. PFL's been doing it. My buddy Josh Copeland just made it. He was ranked eighth seed. Came in,

fought two times one night. And Vinny Magalhaes as well, right? Yeah, and that was an awesome triangle. Dude, he's like one of the most underappreciated guys in MMA. One of the few that can jump guard. And you're fucked, man. That guy wraps his legs around you.

He just had a rocky start because his striking wasn't there wasn't there but now it is and he's head kicking people and knocking him out did you see you know did you see josh copeland's uh knockout at heavyweight it was one of the best knockouts at heavyweight in a long time no i didn't see it in a long time it's on my instagram if you're able to pull that up jamie it's uh please it's um on my instagram and it was awesome. He got the deepest cut, one of the deepest cuts I've ever seen in my life. You could see his skull.

And it went farther than his eyebrow. And he got cut probably five seconds before he gets the knockout punch. And if he wouldn't have got that, they would have stopped it. Came in ranked eighth seed. Now he's going into New York City, uh city madison square gardens new year's eve um and fighting for a million dollars how does this work how does what is the million dollars what does that mean like does every weight class win a million i i believe they have 10 they're giving away 10 million so at least 10 weight classes um i think for the women too what do

they air on nbc nbc sports nbc sports. So it's like one of the cable channels, right? And then for Josh, they just fought in New Orleans, and he had to fight a two-round fight first, and then he fought a three-round. Two rounds. In the night? Same night? Because they wouldn't allow you, the state commission wouldn't allow you to fight more than five rounds in one night. And so the first round, or first fight, first part of the tournament was a two-round fight, and he had to fight the number one seed.

He beat him, and then an hour later, he had to fight again. Here's Josh. It was just a brutal knockout, but he got cut right over the eye, and then right here, he just... Boom! Oh, damn.

Oof. Damn. One of the best knockouts i've seen in a while but it's uh dude he looks way thicker than when he was fighting in the ufc yeah he's really gotten his nutrition under but if you can see that cut or his i mean it was brutal um boss rootin was interviewing afterwards he's like josh i can see your skull right boom that's a haymaker of a right hand holy shit i don't walk away yep i mean yeah he looks much better physically than he did when he was fighting in the ufc yeah he's been working his butt off

he's earned it and uh now he gets to fight for a million dollars which is he training down with you guys in oklahoma he he isn't um whenever i am in camp he'll come down for like two weeks before my fight he's a super nice guy yeah super Yeah, he really seems like a really nice guy. I haven't met him before, but. Which I don't know if you know, he's a nine-time competitive Rocky Mountain Oyster eating champion in Colorado. Which, by the way, is bull testicles. Yeah.

People that don't know. He's the only guy I've been with that we go to. So have you ever heard of the big Texan? The 72-ounce steak, the large. This is an Amarillo. 72-ounce steak, the large – this is an Amarillo. 72-ounce steak, you have to eat it in an hour or you have to pay for it. 72-ounce steak, huge, large baked potato loaded, a dinner salad, a shrimp cocktail, huge dinner roll. You have to drink a 72-ounce soda with it.

Do you have a diet soda or does it have to be a regular soda? I don't know. Look at the size of that. Yeah. That's preposterous. The man versus food guy barely finished it. He did finish it? Barely finished it.

Man versus food. I think it was like 58, 59 minutes, something like that. Josh did it in 32 minutes. I think it was the fastest that's ever been done. Jesus fucking Christ. That is so insane. And then get this. So have y'all ever seen the endless shrimp at Red Lobster?

So Josh went to Red Lobster, endless shrimp. And he asked them what was the most someone's ever eaten in shrimp. And he had already eaten a bunch. He always says, you don't go to Red Lobster and not start off with the cheddar biscuits. You know, you have to eat those. He had like three or four of those or a whole basket of them. And then the lady said, I think the most anyone's ever eaten was, I think it was 226. 226 shrimp.

And, and Josh, 226, like of the, like coconut or fried shrimp, whatever it is. And Josh is like, there's my mark. That's what I'm going to do. Or that's my, that's my goal. What kind of calories are we talking there? Man, the guy told us food stories all night. He's got like four or five restaurants he's literally not allowed into. It's not a joke.

So Josh gets to like 250 and they're like, okay, you broke the record. And he's like, no, I'm still hungry. And so he gets to 300. He gets to 300 shrimp. He ends at 400 and calls it good. 400 shrimp and calls it good 400 shrimp what does that look like if you put it on like a cube if you had like a box you could put 400 fried shrimp in it i don't know he smelled like garlic for three days afterwards did he yeah then then we went to a i don't know i'm going to all these

stories it looked like we went into all you can eat a crab restaurant or sorry he did and it was all you can eat crab legs and he's just ordering bucket after bucket after bucket of of crab legs and they come over and finally said this sir there's got to be a limit somewhere and so wow so uh they ask you to leave they have to ask you to leave so he can eat but now he's gotten his diet under control and everything else whenever he came to grudge whenever i got off the ultimate fighter he came in at over 350 pounds i think it was 356 or maybe it's 346 something like like that. What are you down to now? I think he walks around at like two 45, two 50. He looks a lot slimmer, but he also looks thicker, like in his shoulders and

the chest. He's been working with Lauren Landau, who was a great guy that Brendan worked with. So he's in Colorado as well. He's in Colorado. Okay. So he's training with elevation and, uh, and, um, uh, man, why am i forgetting the main place that he trains at um but uh ryan anyways uh trials mma in uh fort collins is where he's training mainly and uh but i'm just so stoked for him million dollar tournament bellator is doing the million dollar tournament now um i think it'd be something i don't know what does 50 cent have to do with bellator he's like offering all this champagne. Yeah.

He's talking to Khabib now. What does he, what does he do with Bellator? Does he have, I think he's helping promote it. I actually, I'm still, I'm where you are.

I'm like, what does he have to do with this? But he's, he's promoting his champagne, people, money, his champagnes on the, on the canvas and on one of the,

the, the kids, his own champagne. Yep. Oh, and so His champagne's on the canvas and on one of the cage. He has his own champagne? Yeah. Oh. And so he's given everyone the champagne after they win their fights and stuff like that. It's such a strange combination, him, 50 Cent. And he keeps saying he wants to fight people, too. Yeah.

What is going on with that? I don't know. But if you support in Bellator, I don't know. There we go. I'm not necessarily against it, but I don't know what's going on. Do you think he's actually going to fight someone, or it seems like it's all just a lot of fun? Yeah, I think it's fun. I think it's for promotion of his new champagne.

Do you enjoy working for them? Yes, I do. Very much. It seems like a great organization. Everybody that I know that went over there really enjoys it. Yeah, super professional. Everyone's really friendly. Scott Coker is a great guy.

A lot of jiu-jitsu guys on the staff, too, so I like to feel that love. Everyone's really friendly. Scott Coker is a great guy. A lot of jujitsu guys on the staff too. So I like to feel that love. That's nice. It was funny the last time, you know, Shonji, he's always in my corner. And, you know, one was at Chicago, Rich, Rich Chow, who's also, I hope I said his last name right. Cho. Cho. Who's also. I think it might be Chow, who's also, I hope I said his last name right. Cho. Cho. Who is also.

Or Chow. I think it might be Chow. Sorry. Okay. He trains jujitsu. And Shonji was like, hey. And he's a matchmaker for Bellator. Yes.

Really great guy. Taking us to Hawaii next. Yeah. And they've met before. And Shonji's like, hey, did you bring your gi? Let's roll. You know, let's go train. And Rich, oh, no, I don't have my gi.

I'm too busy. He's got a lot of things going on. You know, let's go train. And Rich said, oh, no, I don't have my gi. I'm too busy. He's got a lot of things going on. Well, in Idaho for the last one, Rich had his gi, and he was totally ready for Shonji this time. And, man, they ended up training like probably, I think they did at least two, maybe three sessions. And each time was like an hour or over an hour straight.

And, you know, they had a lot of fun. And Rich was like ready for ready for it he's like i had my gi next day he's texas chanji i'm ready let's go again you know that's awesome yeah so so how did you get hooked up with him and salo well tell everybody that you know salo huberto and chanji are just two elite brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts and they're down in san die. Yeah, they're from the Amazon, from Manaus. Saulo's a six-time world champion. He's the older brother.

Shanji's seven-time world champion, two-time absolute world champion. He's the greatest heavyweight that there's ever been in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It's a really cool story. I was 19 years old. I was a brown belt. And I competed in my first professional event. It was a N cool story. I was 19 years old. I was a brown belt and I competed in my first

professional event. It was a Nogi pro tournament in Ohio. It was the part of the Arnold classic event that goes on with the bodybuilding and all that. They had a jujitsu competition and they had a pro Nogi tournament. It was only three weight classes, like a lightweight, a middleweight and heavyweight. And at that time it was like the biggest nogi tournament that there was besides for ADCC. And a lot of the ADCC champions would do that event, um, to win the money, of course, and then also just kind of prepare for ADCC later in the year. And I knew Salo, he had his home base, his affiliations, association schools were in the beginning in that area of the country, in Ohio. And he always competed at that tournament.

So did Shanji. And so I knew there was a great chance that, you know, I would get a chance to face Salo going into that event. I had to send my resume in to get accepted into the pro tournament, and I'll never forget the email they sent me where it was like, you've been accepted. Congratulations. Sal Hibedo is in your division.

Good luck. You know? And I'm like, okay. How awesome. I'm already thinking, how awesome would it be to have a match with Sal? I'm 19 years old. Sal was already a six-time world champion, I'm already thinking, how awesome would it be to have a match with Saul? I'm 19 years old. Saul was already a six-time world champion, a legend already. And so I go to the tournament, and sure enough, it was Destiny, man.

We're on opposite sides of the bracket, and he clears out his side, gets to the finals, no problem. And I fight my way to the finals. I had four matches matches and actually in the semifinals, I ended up going against one of his black belts. And it was the first time I ever faced a black belt. At that time, there wasn't a whole bunch of no-gi opportunities, you know, where you could be a non-black belt and fight a black belt. And I was losing on points. And at the end, I started coming back and I was able to submit his black belt and go to the finals. His black belt kind of threw a fit and was pretty disappointed.

I wouldn't shake my hand. I wasn't there when the referee raised her hand. I could feel all this energy because it was kind of – I think everyone thought they were going to close it out together. How would they do that, though? Would they fight it out? Every tournament's different. Or would you bow out?

Yeah, they'd probably bow out. And then they would share the prize money. There was a substantial prize money for first place. I think it was like five grand. And second place was like $1,500, something like that. It was the first time I got paid to compete. I ever won money. I was super pumped.

But, yeah, so I'm going into the finals against Saul, and I just beat one of his black belts, and I was just like, whew, I was so nervous, so scared. Well, you're facing an absolute legend. Yeah, and I'm 19. It wasn't like today where you see all these legends and these world champions all the time, like at that time they were all in Brazil, you know? And so it was hard to see this guys. Like the only

time you saw them is if you were in Brazil and they were still very, like they had this mystique about them and, you know, it, it was just a different vibe. They were way more scary, I guess you could say way more intimidating, um, back then. So I was definitely super intimidated, but, you know, at the same time I was fired up, you know, I want to be a world champion. I get to face, you know, a legend and, um, let's go. And so we had a good match. Uh, I was able to last for a good amount of time, but, uh, he eventually passed my guard, mounted me and submitted me at the very end. And, uh, you know, I wasn't disappointed. I was happy. It's like, man, my, you know, this was the first time I got to face someone like that. And I did my best. I was able to keep my guard for a while. So I was,

I was proud of that. Um, but at the same time, you know, he, he mounted me, tapped me and, and, you know, that's what he was supposed to do, you know? But he, he was so nice to me afterwards, gave me a big hug and we talked and, and that was kind of that at that moment. But I felt like I had earned his, his respect, you know? Fast forward a few months later, I'm in Brazil. And at that time there was two world tournaments. There was a second organization called the CBJJO. So there was the CBJJ and then there was a CBJJO and they were paying. There was a world championships that were paying. Novo and Yao kind of created that event. They separated, didn't want to support the original

world championships and they made their own world championships and they were paying. And that was the way they could get a lot of guys to come over and support that tournament. And it was big. It was pretty much the same. It was basically the same thing. There was only a couple teams that didn't support that tournament. And at the same time, there was a couple teams that competed that tournament that didn't support the original Worlds.

So depending on what division you were fought in, it was either exactly the same or it was tougher, especially in the lightweights, because Novo N Nyal had all the best lightweights at that time. And so I'm at that event. I competed there and Salo wasn't competing that year. And so he was very approachable. He wasn't fighting. He was just coaching. And I competed. I was a brown belt still. And I come over and I say, what's up, DeSalo? And, oh, he's like, hey, my brother. Good to see you. How are you doing?

And he's like, where are you training? And I tell him where I'm training. He's like, well, you want to come train with me? I said, yeah, I would love to. And he was like, here's my card. Give me a call on Monday. I'll come pick you up. Sure enough, I call him.

He comes to my hotel, him and Shananji they pick me and a couple of my friends up they drive me all the way to copacabana we were staying in baja and we go and train and uh man like just seeing the way he interacted with his guys the energy the way i felt there uh you know at this time there was there lot of the, you know, how do I put it? Like there was Brazilians and then you were a gringo, you know. It was hard to go to Brazil and, like, learn a lot and have someone really kind of open up and help you and show you and teach you a lot. I mean, Eddie would know.

I'm sure you've heard the stories. I remember being in Brazil with Eddie a long time ago, um, back in the day, uh, you know, you just, especially if they felt like you were a threat, you know, they wouldn't show you a lot because what if you ended up fighting one of their buddies, you know what I mean? And so this was the first time that I wasn't treated that way. And, you know, solo and Shonji really opened up and, and was, was like, you know, Salo and Shanji really opened up and was like, you know, bringing me sort of into their family right away. Do you speak Portuguese? I'm not 100% fluent, but I'm pretty good. You know, I can go to Brazil and do whatever, you know, I need to do and be on my own and be fine.

At that time, my Portuguese wasn't as good as what it is today. Did you take classes? At that time, my Portuguese wasn't as good as what it is today. Did you take classes? The next year, actually the year after this, in 2004, I lived in Brazil for four months. And that's when I really got pretty good at Portuguese. But anyways, he was open to answering my questions. He was teaching me stuff.

And I trained there all week in between the time from the first worlds into the other, the main worlds. Um, and I just kind of knew like immediately, like, man, this is, this is what I want, you know? And it was the first time I ever had someone of that level be open to helping me and taking me under his wing. And so we stayed in touch. Shortly after that trip to Brazil, he came out to Oklahoma and taught a seminar at my dad's school. That time my dad was running the academy. My dad loved him right away as well. He stayed with my dad. And once again, we spent a whole week on the mat together. He's helped me. He he did an amazing seminar sol was just an amazing guy too uh just a you know he's like an encyclopedia of jujitsu and just you know one of the most amazing martial artists i've ever met um and i mean we just never stopped well you have his style in a way um they him and chanji have that smashing just pressure game.

It's just such a hard style. I love that style. Me too. I love watching it. I love that. It's just total control, and it's just pressure. Everybody that I've talked to

that's rolled with him or Shonji says it feels like you have a building on top of you and these guys are on you. Exactly. Two of the greatest guard pastors that have ever existed. And they're mounters. They make people tap just from their mount.

So do you, brother. It's suffocating. But I didn't have that then. I was a guard guy. What's a great combination of those two things. Yeah, it all came together for me. But, I mean, this was a time I'm a brown belt transitioning into becoming a black belt. The next year I get my black belt when we really

started training like day to day that year, I spent four months there. I train with Shonda every day, you know, you know, I become a black belt and they're literally just, I mean, destroying me, you know, they were their home base at that time in the US was Toledo Ohio in the middle of nowhere yes that's where their affiliates were in that area Michigan Ohio down into Virginia they had Philadelphia when did they go to San Diego it It was 2007. 2007. So this is like, this is like a training with them down there. Cause he was down there with them for the BJ Penn fight, which I feel like was before that.

It was around the same time. Oh, seven. Oh, eight. Really? Yes. versus Diego was oh seven. Oh, eight. Yeah.

Wow, man. I'm confused. I felt like it was like 2003 or something like that. I'm too many fights. I'm kind of scrambled. Diego Sanchez was in the Ultimate Fighter in 2005, right? Well, he was in the first season,

which is 2005. December 11th, 2009. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I said 07, 08. It was probably 08, 09. But yeah, I mean, they would just destroy me with that pressure.

And it was like the exact answer to my guard because you fight your way inside. So I couldn't use my length. And I didn't understand how to frame how to protect myself. And I just literally got smothered and, you know, just destroyed on a daily basis. And in Toledo, Ohio would just be the three of us, you know, they didn't have like a big team. You know, they didn't have like a big team. And so I would go there and stay with them. And we would just train for hours every day. And the bike, the Airdyne bike would be the evening training partner. You know, so when two guys are out, the other guy was on the bike. Don't you hate that fucking thing? I got one of those rogue echo bikes out there.

That's the version of the Airdyne. Holy shit. Is that thing death? Yeah. It's a lot harder to me. Have shit, is that thing death. Yeah. It's a lot harder to have Saul screaming in your ear. How would you do it? Would you do it sprints? Or what do you do on that thing?

You had to keep a certain pace. And whenever they were in a scramble and going hard, you had to sprint at the same time on the bike. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so you didn't want to be the one going too slow. And in the middle of the training, Saul looks over and he's like, you know, yelling at you to pick it up.

You know what I mean? So you had to, you had to push up, you had to push it. And then it was your turn to go in. And, you know, so I'm going back to back between solo and Shonji and the air dine and the air dine. Those were, those were some good times in the living room or something like that.

Or was that Mark Lehman and stuff? That was Lehman. Okay. Yeah. have like mats in the living room or something like that? Or was that Mark Lehman and stuff? That was Lehman. Okay. Yeah. Just mats in the living room at the house. That was Lehman. There's another underappreciated guy. Very much.

Mark Lehman's goddamn encyclopedia of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I remember he had everything sort of written out like way back in the day. Like most people just had moves in their head. But Lehman had things written. I think he might have done it on his computer. Yeah. It was on his computer. Yeah, it was on his computer. Yeah.

Another guy that had a big influence on me. Where is he these days? He went back home to Wisconsin, right? And I think he might have a school there now. I think he is. Because I know he was doing team takedown, right? Yeah. He was with Hendrix.

I fought with him twice. When Hendrix was at his best. That's right. You were there as well. And then I haven't heard from him. I was wondering. Yeah, he went back home. He's. And then I haven't heard from him. I was wondering. Yeah, he went back home. He's had some back issues that kept him from training.

But I think I want to say I heard he is teaching now. He is back to teaching. He's teaching. And I think he's also some of his family, either it's a bait and tackle shop or maybe it's like the standing paddle boards or something like that on a lake. And I think he's helping with that business as well too. So his back from jujitsu, right? I think that's, yeah. If there is a number one injury that fucks people up in jujitsu, it is the back, right?

Back, neck. Yeah, back and neck. Have you had any of those problems? I used to have some neck issues. You know, it wasn't ever anything too serious, but if there was something that kept me from training for a week or two, it would be because my neck would flare up. But fortunately, my strength and conditioning coach that I've been with now for about nine years, he really changed the way I trained. the way I trained. I used to think that, you know, the supplementary like strength conditioning type stuff, like I had to just destroy myself and lift hard and do all this crazy stuff. And I didn't feel like it was productive unless I couldn't walk at the end. And then I would go train and

get hurt. You know, I just, I couldn't move. I was too tight, too sore. And so my strength conditioning coach, Luke Tyree, he really kind of put me on a different path and made it a lot more back to the basics, pure, clean movement and everything just about health and awareness, a lot of – So what kind of stuff do you do now? Well, you'd be surprised how little I do. I don't – there are times where we push it, but I, I, I don't, uh, I don't ever leave feeling like I'm not going to be able to train later. You know, I actually, a lot of people do strength conditioning type training, you know, later in the day after they've already done their martial arts training.

So they, you know, don't feel tired when they do their martial arts training. The strength conditioning training that I do actually makes me feel healthier. It makes me feel kind of awakens my body. I feel looser. And so I, I always do in the, in the morning. Um, that's the way I like to start all my days. Um, but, uh, you know, we do a lot of kettlebells. Uh, I've been playing a lot with the mace lately as well. Um, I do a lot of airdyne bike. I'm on the bike a lot. Sledge rags. We just pick heavy things up and move it around. The only lift I really do on a regular basis somewhat is deadlifts with a trap bar, so it's safer. And there's just also a lot of movement, a lot of mobility involved. Why is deadlift safer with a trap bar?

Because you're not carrying the weight in front of you, so it's not as much pressure on your back. You're kind of inside of it, and so it's a little more natural to bring it up. What's that other machine that Luke has that you also love? It's the reverse hyper. Reverse hyper. That thing's amazing for your back, isn't it? Reverse hyper. Reverse hyper.

That thing's amazing for your back, isn't it? It's so critical for decompressing, decompressing your spine and then strengthening up all that area in a real weird way that's very difficult to do outside of that machine. And he was the first one to just say, crawl. Why don't you, you know, he taught me how to crawl. And, you know, just start crawling for five minutes, ten minutes. Hang, you know, get on the pull-up bar. Hang. He would incorporate all these recovery techniques and exercises into my training and a lot of movement and would be the first one to say, I know you want to go this hard today, but no. You're going to tone it down. How are you feeling?

What's on your schedule? schedule, you know, and really just, you know, put it to where it fits nicely into my routine and isn't something that is everything, you know, that takes it all out of me. And he kind of opened my eyes to the movement area of his training. And that kind of led me into another person I'm training with now these days. His name is Cameron Shane, who's an innovator when it comes to movement. He has a system, the Budokan movement system, and he's an incredible guy. He's in Florida, in Miami, and he is a yoga, you know, he's a yogi. He's a martial artist first, fell in love with yoga, and then created this free form mobility and movement that you see guys like Ido Portal

preaching and doing now is really well known for his work with Connor. And I'm really into that as well. And so I've been working with him now for a year and I love that movement. I just love it. And it's all when Shanji are also that they spend a lot of time with Alvaro Humano from Genesca Natural. So I was a big part of that as well, right? Exactly, exactly.

So I love yoga. I love movement. And that's a big part of my recovery and training without impact, you know. And it's kind of implemented into my strength conditioning program as well. implemented into my strength conditioning program as well so your conditioning program used to be just was it you on your own or was it someone else that was like brutalizing you a little bit of both and it was just hardcore yeah go full blast and try to build your strength up and break your body down but yes while you're doing brazilian jiu-itsu, it's not really the best way to do it. Yeah.

I was 100% going for all the major tournaments in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at that time. And I would kill myself in strength and conditioning, go to train, neck would get jacked up. Do you ever fuck around with that iron neck? Have you used that before? Is that like a... The halo? Yeah. I've seen it, but I haven't...

I've got one here. You've got to try it. Yeah, I'd love to. It's crazy. I'd love to. It's one of the best things ever for strengthening your neck. I've heard you talk about it. I love it.

The decompressing on the hangs. Yeah, those are great as well. More people should be doing that. Right. Yeah, it's great. It hangs from a chin-up bar to your shoulders. It's just great, too. So what you're basically following is just like a protocol

where you're not going to failure. You're just strengthening things up and you're probably doing like more workouts but less time. Yes, exactly. A lot of people are leaning towards that now. Yeah, I do something every day, Monday through Friday.

And then Saturday is like a long, hard training day in the mornings. And then Sundays is like a yoga recovery day. That's the other thing Luke taught me about is active recovery. You know, I used to think, well, I need to take a day off. I need to rest. And I would basically lay around, you know, and I thought that was helping. And it wasn't.

He was the first one to really give me the active recovery. Like, go take an hour-long walk, you know, stretch, move, breathe, do yoga, you know, something like that. And that helps tremendously too. I don't get to a level of soreness anymore where I feel like I can't do anything, you know, whereas that used to happen to me. But I was younger and I had this, you know, stubborn mindset and, and I just thought, well, no, I got to go, go, go, go. Well, you think you're doing well you're pushing hard and you think that that's really the way to do it yeah it's just the harder you push the stronger you'll get it's just all about overcoming weakness in your mind right yeah

exactly you had that thing in the back of your mind like what if the other guy's doing more yes you know and it's like I gotta go hard today I've always wondered how many fighters ruin themselves before they get to the fight because they just over train. I think it's real common. And I think you can get to a level of spectacular strength and conditioning. You can get there. But it's not something you're going to get to in a two-month camp. And I wonder how many guys are coming into camp where they're not in the best shape.

And I wonder how many guys are coming into camp where they're not in the best shape and they're just pushing it so hard during camp that by the time those eight weeks are done, they're fucking worn out, man. And they taper off the last week or so, but it probably isn't enough. Yeah, it's got to be a lifestyle. Yeah. It has to be a lifestyle. The way you eat, you move, you breathe, the way you view your training. Are you saying sled drags? So you're putting a harness on and dragging training. Are you saying sled drags? So you're putting a harness on and dragging the sled behind you or are you pushing the sled?

Yeah. I mean, both. Both. Harness that's maybe around your waist or you can hold some handles and push it, pull it. Are you doing any running at all? Hill sprints. I don't do a lot of long distance extended period of time running, just hill sprints.

I feel like that's the easiest on my body and also translates the most into what I need. And you decided, Justin, to go down to Oklahoma to train with him. Oh, yeah. And you moved there. What caused that move? Like what was the motivation behind it? Honestly, it was a couple of things. There's some really great people.

My sports agent's out of Oklahoma City. My business manager is out of Oklahoma City. An organization we partner with is out of Oklahoma City. And then – Is that Water 4? Yeah. They're out of there? Yeah, they're out of there.

And then JASCO is out of their company that I'm a spokesperson for. But then the thing that was the deciding factor, my wife and I, we watched, uh, if anyone's got a flow grappling subscription where you need to go get one, um, because they did a documentary on Raphael. Um, and it's called the American. Um, and it's his life story, his life journey. And you get to see how hard he works. You get to hear all the history.

Um, but then to me, it was like, this guy's like a modern day samurai. And then whenever I went down and trained with him, it was suffocating. And I've trained with Shane Carwin and Frank Mir and Randy Couture and all sorts of big heavyweights that are known for being so much pressure. I've never been claustrophobic under any person in my entire life except Raphael. under any person in my entire life except Raphael. And it just feels like, like you said, a building or like this building of, of melted hot, I don't know, cheese or blanket that's going over your face and cheese. I don't know. It sounds cheesy me saying that, but it's just like, it's melted all over you and you can't get them off. And you take inch by inch by inch. And I have a good wrestling game, but I wanted to get my jujitsu there where every time I take someone down,

I'm going to finish them. And I've done that in fighting statistically, every fight I've taken to the ground to finish, but I wanted to get even more proficient at that. And just seeing the way that he, he coaches, he teaches, um, honestly, like I've, I've been coached by Kels Henderson and Kendall Cross and Kenny Monday, um, Olympic gold medalists in wrestling, um, fantastic people, amazing coaches. There's something really special and different about the way he teaches and coaches that you really start to grasp everything. What is it about it? He breaks it down bit by bit, inch by inch. I mean, the way that he will, because he's an active competitor, too, and he's a great teacher.

I mean, when did you start teaching, Rafael? I mean, you were in high school probably, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because it was just my dad and I, uh, in Oklahoma, you know, I was the most advanced student there, you know? Uh, and so I started helping my dad teach when I was like 16, you know, if he, if he wanted to go travel and train, I would help teach if he needed a night off or whatever. Um, I was sort of the next one. And I started teaching adults, uh, right off the bat, you know, I'm 16 years old and I'm teaching grown men, but, um, I, I've been teaching, teaching now for almost 20 years. And then there's things that I'm doing and he'll say, turn an inch this way. I'm just an inch. And I turn an inch and I hear my, the guy I'm training with, you know, the, and it's just a small little inch of an adjustment. Um, get your chest up higher, get, you know, finish this way, get your chest down low. I mean the, and I can hear them very distinctly.

Um, whenever I'm training, whenever I'm competing, whenever I was in my last fight, um, I can hear everything he's saying too. And so trust it. So there's this level of trust that I don't know why it's there, but you're just a fantastic human being. Thanks, Jason. This guy blew me away. He's been such a blessing in my life. I was very kind of skeptical of him at first just because he's a big guy, heavyweight, MMA fighter.

I was like, man, how is this going to work? Is he going to be open to putting on the gi? What is his mindset? Is he a fighter? Is he a martial artist? You know, I just didn't know how it was going to work. You know, I'm not a – we don't have a fight team. You know what I mean?

We have a martial arts school. And so you're always just a little – you know, when a fighter wants to come and, you know, how is this going to work? Yeah, some of them are a little rough around the edges. Yeah, yeah. That's saying it lightly. And especially when you have kids and classes. Right, right. And people that don't have anything to do with fighting, they just want to learn.

Right. And that's the most important thing, just learning. And becoming part of the team, part of the family. Of course, I did my research on Justin, and I knew he was an amazing person, but I just didn't know what he trained like, what his energy was like inside the academy. But he was open to putting on the gi. The first conversation we had, I said, hey, man, I'm going to want to put a gi on you. Are you okay with that?

What's so critical for you about the gi? For me, I can't pass on what I really have to offer, my passion, my love. There's no way I'm going to be able to pass that on to you if you don't put on the gi, if you don't get inside my head and learn what I have to say and how I feel about Brazilian jiu-jitsu. But what is specifically why the gi? It's just for me, that's jiu-jitsu. Like for me, that is jiu-jitsu. No gi is jiu-jitsu is a part of it, but it's submission wrestling, submission grappling.

You know, the beauty of jiu-jitsu for me is with the gi. You know, the beauty of jujitsu for me is with the gi, the inches, the details, the way you can make a mistake here. And that's your downfall. Ten, twelve moves later, you know, minutes later, the way it feels, you know, the tightness of it, everything. Jujitsu is, you know, I mean, jujitsu is my passion. For me, I feel like whenever I put on the gi, it was tough. I didn't want to put it on. But then whenever I did, and it was just tough because I couldn't power out of stuff.

I couldn't slip out of things. That's the big factor. Yeah. Defense. Defense. For me, it's helped expand my knowledge of every position. You have to be, for me, in learning from him, it's, both are technical, but there's one that seems a little bit like,

maybe you expand your knowledge, and then whenever you take it off, I feel like I understand the no-gi positions a little bit better, a little bit more. More refined, more refined. More refined, that's refined, more refined, more refined. That's the word. Yeah. It's like a galaxy of friction because of the fact that people can grab you and they can, you have to, you have to slow it down. You have to slow it down and truly understand it. I feel like before I was able to muscle out of things,

I was able to slip out of things. I was able to use my weight a lot more. Um, and, and I still get to use that whenever I take the gi off, but whenever I'm in the gi it's to learn and it's to really expand my knowledge base, the base, the depth of it. That's what it was too. It's like, you know, uh, you're not going to fully become part of the team and the family if you're not in the classes, you know, and like I was saying, you know, I'm going to want you to do the classes and 98% of my classes are all in the gi. Um, you know, we take it off. We, we, we do no gi afterwards. You know, we have our sparring or MMA training, everything else, but I want you to come to class. You know, you, I'm not going to do like a lot of special treatment just for one individual. You need to, you know, be a part of this family. And that is to put the

gi on and come to jujitsujitsu class um have you had a lot of other guys who are professional fighters come and specifically come down to train with you like this no no no oklahoma is not like that sort of hot spot you know i mean it's rare for for people to come when he told me it made sense that he was going down there and then when i saw the results yeah as soon as i saw that one fight where you uh mounted that guy and got an arm triangle i go well there you go yeah yeah i mean now you're finishing from the top it's not just punching a guy when you're on top of him now you now you're strangling people yeah and he learns like a sponge i mean he he's because of that attitude that he has and our connection that we made so quickly uh it made it really easy for me. And, I mean, obviously he's a great athlete, great wrestler.

And the fact that he was open to it, you know, I mean, I was telling him, like, Justin, you've got to play guard. You know, you're going to start on your back. Like all these things, he was accepting of it. And then he just made it so easy to absorb all the knowledge. And it's just like, you know, playing a video game with him. It's like, here's what you're going to do. And boom, he did it.

When a wrestler falls in love with jiu-jitsu, I mean, you already have this ability to manipulate bodies that it's at such a high level and the strength that wrestlers have. But so many of them, for whatever reason, never make that leap. It's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable. Going to your back is not, I mean, you've been trained your whole life not to go to your back. Right. And so to do that, go to guard, to have someone put you in a – you're not supposed to be getting pinned.

You're supposed to be turning your back and getting up, but getting comfortable with your back just flat on the mat, but then getting to your side because you understand that you're just going to get smashed and smashed and smashed if your shoulders are flat against the back. Are you catching triangles and doing things like that? He's got a good omoplata, man. He's got an omoplata. Don't let people know that.

I need to pull it out. You got good flexibility? I think I do for a heavyweight. He's been working with a strength and conditioning coach, too. I mean, he's kind of gone all in with his regimen is kind of becoming mine. I'm inspired by it. But, yeah, I've got an omoplata. The triangle is a little harder.

I've got small legs for a heavyweight. Short a little harder. I got small legs for heavyweight. Short, short legs. They're thick. They're not short. They're just so wide. They look short. Okay. Okay.

I only wear like a 30-inch inseam or whatever, 30 inches long or 32. Really? It's either 30 or 32. So instead of, I think most heavyweights are like 34, 36, different things like that. So you have short little legs. Is your torso long? Torso is really long. The doctor told me that if I didn't have short legs, I'd be like 6'7".

How bizarre. So, yeah. Wow. But, yeah, I got short little legs. And just coming in the academy, it's been really great. You know, I came in and really wanted to be coached. And I wanted to have a mindset of being coachable and just absorbing everything he teaches. And I wanted to have a mindset of being coachable and just absorbing everything he teaches. But then on the flip side, last year, we had like this holiday break Christmas party. And, and Raphael said, you know, what if we could like transform a community with clean water? And so what if we like set a goal at raising and what does that cost? And I was like, man, it's like $4,200. Um, and he's like, man, let's set a crowdfunding, uh, campaign and let's, let's do it. And, uh, hosted a party. Um, and we were able to raise

$14,400, um, through the Academy and the team just came around it and said, Hey, we're gonna, this is your passion. You're sharing in our passion. Like we're gonna, we're gonna do something great in the community, um, and in the world. world. And so that's been great. Raphael and I are partnering again. We're getting ready to launch a nationwide through Fight for the Forgotten, a nationwide bullying prevention campaign and curriculum. I grew up getting very heavily bullied. that like really extensively in the podcast yeah terrible stories yeah man and and it made me uh and and so this last year um i got injured i had a shoulder surgery um i got mesenchymal stem cells in their msc stem cells i'm getting better uh hopefully i'll fight uh first quarter when did you get your shoulder surgery so i got it in like late march what was it um labrum uh but it was actually common right yeah labrum and rotator cuff, I think. But my rotator cuff was just fine.

And it's kept me out for a while, but the whole time I've been. And it was actually after being on the podcast last time talking about bullying, it's like, how can we make a difference? And there was such a response from the JRE community saying, let's do something here also. Let's make a difference here in the United States of bullying. How can you prevent bullying? What do you think? I've always said that one of the best ways is teach people to actually fight. I think that a lot of bullies are hugely insecure,

and if they just learned how to fight, they wouldn't act like that. Right. I think martial arts is going to be a tool. So what we want to do this year is to get into get into a hundred martial arts academies, um, with a bullying prevention curriculum. Uh, a lot of people don't know that 160,000 kids in the United States alone, 160,000 kids every day, skip school, skip school because of bullying. That's 3 million school days lost a year or sorry, a month, 3 million school days lost a month. And then I started digging into it because Oklahoma has become home now. And like 28.9% of the students deal with depression.

That's debilitating. That affects them for two weeks or more school. I mean, depression, addiction, suicides, and school shootings are all through the roof. And you know, what's the suicide rate that you said? So, so insane in Oklahoma fit. This is the at-risk youth, um, behavior survey. And they say that 15.4, no 15.1% of the students are dealing with suicidal ideation, like seriously considering suicide. And then 7.4, 7.4% of the students have attempted suicide, attempted it. I was one of those kids. I was one of those kids. And that's seven out of a hundred kids have attempted suicide just in Oklahoma schools.

And that, that, that goes around the country to around that 6%, 8%. I was on a bullying prevention summit in San Antonio with Congressman or US Representative Will Hurd. He brought me in to speak with Maureen Molak. And Maureen, she has a foundation called David's Legacy. She started it because her son in San Antonio was getting ridiculed and cyberbullied relentlessly. You know, whenever we were growing up, bullying would end at 3 p.m. because you're out of school.

But now it just increases because kids aren't in school. They aren't in class. And so that's whenever they can really take off and start bullying. Well, David had over 300 comments of people that were just brutally cyberbullying him. A ton of them were calling for a suicide. It went on for weeks and weeks. They moved him from schools. He attempted suicide not once or twice, but his third time he was successful.

And I'm very proud of Maureen, uh, very proud of her because she, um, got a law passed called David's law. David's law is about cyber bullying. Uh, we want to see if we can get that into Oklahoma. What is the law? So the law, basically Maureen's family was told basically at school, the school was good to them. They were trying to make a difference, but they were basically saying their hands were tied. Their hands were tied from doing anything about it because it was an overwhelming response of students. I mean, 300 students, and then it was off school property and it was online. So they said their hands were tied. Well, now the law basically brings into effect that law enforcement and the schools can get involved

off a school campus and they can look into the cyber bullying and they can take action against it. So it basically just means, Hey, this is serious. And it's not okay. And we're going to stand up and do something about it. Texas, I'm proud of Texas. That's my home state. They passed it 33 to zero. No one voted against it. And it's really great. We're working with a state representative named Colin Walkie in Oklahoma and a judge, Trevor Pemberton. And then there's this principal named, it's kind of sound like a joke. Last week, it was a MMA fighter with a politician. We went to dinner with a politician, a judge and a high school principal, you know, MMA fighter, what brought us all together, you know, it was, it was bullying prevention.

Um, but, uh, Debreon Davis, she's the high school principal of Edmond North. It's one of the biggest and one of the best public schools in Oklahoma. Um, and in the last nine years of her working in public schools, she's been in nine funerals of kids that have all committed suicide. And, um, it's, uh, it's just on the rise in such a, a, a brutal way. And one of the things that really touched my heart and wanted me to get into to this, like, Hey, we've fight for the forgotten. We're always going to be focused on the pygmies. Uh, we're working with even expanding into the, in Uganda, we're working with the pygmy King of the Batwa pygmies in Uganda. Um, we're working with even expanding into the, in Uganda, we're working with the pygmy king of the Batwa pygmies in Uganda. Um, we're looking to do land, water and food initiatives among them, but there's kids in our own community right here that feel forgotten.

Um, and whenever I was a kid sitting at the lunch table by myself, getting pelted in the back of the head with chocolate spit wads, uh, food fist. food fist when kids were pulling up my shirt and slapping my belly and twisting my nipples in front of the girls and acting like they're hitting me with a harpoon, you know, cause I'm the size of a whale and all this stuff, you know, and, and telling me you should just kill yourself, telling me you should just kill yourself. You're worthless. You're nothing. I mean, I, I felt forgotten and thought, you know, I am worthless and I should just kill myself and dealt with that over and over and over. And now the kids are taking action on that in such a incredible way that we've got to stand up and do something. And so we're, we're partnering and I'm really excited. We are

hopefully getting into a hundred martial arts academies this year to equip them with bullying prevention curriculum. It's called Heroes in Waiting. And, you know, a real inspiration to me, there's two things. There's a TED Talk called The Psychology of Evil. I'll text you that link. It's incredible. But it's The Psychology of Evil. And it's by a guy named Philip Zimbardo or something.

And in there, he kind of coins a term called heroes in waiting. Philip Zimbardo. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, then you, uh, you with the on it video that you did be the hero of your own movie, you know, be the hero of your own movie. Um, I love that. I love that, that, that, that you've spoken out and said that about people that you can be the hero of your own movie. Well, Heroes in Waiting, the curriculum that we developed with Century and Maya, which is the Martial Arts Industry Association, it's all about teaching kids. It's bullying prevention, but it's also character development. That is what prevents bullying.

Yeah, absolutely. The only people that bully are people with weak characters. Yeah. And kids that are usually there's something wrong at home. Right. You know, a lot of these kids that are bullies, they're usually getting abused at home or either by an older brother or by their dad or cousins or whoever the fuck it is. And then they're taking it out on someone who they feel is weaker than them. Right.

This is one of the reasons why I think martial arts is so important for young men. Because, I mean, we know from our experience in gyms, when you're dealing with high-level martial artists on a regular basis, they're some of the nicest, friendliest fucking people you're ever going to meet. Because they don't have any insecurities. And whatever insecurities they have, they get out in the gym. They get out through training. They get out of the gym, they get out through training, they get all other frustrations. They don't have all this pent up, fucked up energy

that a lot of kids have. Like kids, kids are always dealing with existential angst and their whole life is just this weird ball of confusion and hormones. And, you know, the, the, the whole idea of life itself is so confusing that anytime they have any sort of control over anything, they exercise it, whether it's control over another kid or control over, you know, throwing a rock through a window or just they don't know what the fuck they're doing. You know, they have all this pent up, fucked up energy and pain. And I think that so many of them are just severely lacking in guidance and discipline.

And just those things alone, guidance and discipline, and also the lessons that you learn from martial arts, that you can overcome things, that you can get better at things. And that when you feel like quitting and you don't, you actually grow and learn. Like your experiences, like training with Shanji and Salu, just like that, that's one of the things that made you such a champion. I mean, training with people that are like- It all started with my dad

and having that when I was a kid. Yes, you're so fortunate because of that. I mean, and those experiences are what shaped you into the person that you are today. And a lot of people don't get those experiences. And unfortunately, they act in disgraceful ways. And this is what we were talking about earlier. I mean,

to bring it all back to like, what is martial arts and is martial arts shit talking and throwing dollies or is, is martial arts really competing in one of the most difficult endeavors in all of, all of the world of sports? sports well so i came from a wrestling background i believe that is without a doubt a martial art yes it is for sure out of martial art and then um and my coaches probably one of the most important martial yeah absolutely

absolutely and one of the toughest to do yeah one of the toughest um without a doubt and then um but then coming into rafael's, I mean, academy and school, it started teaching me like the martial arts principles. We didn't really talk about that so much in wrestling. It teaches you that naturally, the hard work, because it thins the flock pretty quick if you can't cut it. But then what are the six blades? Yeah, so Salo, his logo, it's the star, and he considers the middle the spirit of the samurai. And then there's six blades to the star, and they stand for six different values,

loyalty, respect, honor, discipline, attitude, and family. And those are the core principles inside the children's program at my academy. And sort of just the... There it is right there. It's a very famous logo. Yes, it is. I have right here. I carry it with me everywhere. Bam. Yeah, that's it., besides for, you know, those are the core values. And then, you know, being a forever student and dedicating your life to learning and bettering yourself. I mean, these things that martial arts gives you, I just, you know, there are certain areas and other sports that give you a piece of that. But nothing is like martial arts.

You know, for me, everything I know of life, I've learned through martial arts. Yeah, I think what you're saying that there's other sports that teach you discipline. Like, just, I mean, if you become a long distance runner, there's discipline involved in that that's going to build up your character, but it's not specifically emphasized the way it is in martial arts. Yes. Yeah. And so I've been looking into it and researching and we're partnering with Century.

We're partnering with Zebra. We're partnering partnering with Century. We're partnering with Zebra. We're partnering with Gameness. We're partnering with Suplesse. I don't know if you've seen the Bulgarian bags and the throwing dummies. Yes. And the Gladiator Wall. We're partnering with them because— What's the Gladiator Wall?

The Gladiator Wall is the wood that is—you can hang on it, and you can do all sorts of stretching. The different bars, the level. Almost looks like a ladder. Actually, Jamie, if you could pull up fightforthegotten.org, I've actually got something to show and there's suplex on there. We should give a shout out

to the Cash App too. Oh my gosh. The Cash App is, one of my favorite sponsors has done an incredible thing in donating $5 to Fight for the Forgotten every time someone signs up

and uses the code word Joe Rogan, which is pretty amazing. We've got thousands of dollars for that. they've built two wells, more of them are being built. More are coming. In January, we're starting to implement.

But Cash App came to me, and we were trying to do a $50,000 fundraiser to drill a deep, deep well in Tanzania for the Maasai Warriors. And we're going to do that with Water Boys, which is Chris Long's foundation. Chris Long plays for the Philadelphia Eagles. He won the Super Bowl, donated his entire salary. Really great guy. Climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with him, and we were partnering together to help this village to get 7,500 people clean water, so it's about $6 per person.

I started posting about that, and Garrett McManus from Cash App hit me up and was just like, hey, we want to do something big with you guys. And we already had another $50,000 donor that was being anonymous, and Cash up came in and said, Hey, we're going to match that $50,000 match you have. So cash app gives $50,000 if we could raise 50,000. And so we ended up raising 50,000, $52,625. And then, uh, and then it was tripled. So it came out to being 152,625. And Cash App gave us $50,000 because they believe in the mission and vision of Fight for the Forgotten. They believe in you. They believe in this community. And man, I absolutely love Cash App. In fact, on this crowdfunding tournament we're doing on the website, fightfortheforg, uh, dot org, um, slash heroes.

We're doing a heroes in waiting crowdfunding tournament. And so we're inviting in a hundred martial arts academies and a hundred individuals to help us raise $4,200. There it is. So yeah, we're doing it through December 31st. So we're giving us quite a bit of time, but what we're going to be doing is the crowdfunding tournament is going to fund Wells. So we'll transform a community with the $4,200 and it will equip their martial arts academy with a bullying prevention curriculum. So that was amazing by the way. Yeah. Yeah.

Everything that you could ever ask for to help pass that knowledge along and increase your program, you know, help your school, bring more kids in, uh, make a bigger impact. Um, so not only are you helping the kids, but then you're also raising money, uh, inside the Academy to help towards, um, you know, the fight for the forgotten. Yeah. And, uh, it's, it's going to be a thing where, so that it's, there's 12 weeks of Matt chat topics and I love it because heroes in waiting talks about, Hey, everyone is a hero in waiting. And what is a hero? A hero is someone who sees a need and takes action, uh, immediately. And so we're teaching the kids that, Hey, uh, guess what? 87% of the time, whenever you see bullying and you say something, it can be as easy as, Hey, that's not kind.

Or, or you include the person that's being bullying into your group. Hey, come over here. Within five seconds, uh, the bullying stops 87% of the time. All you have to do is say one thing, 87% of the time, almost nine out of 10 times, you can shut down bullying whenever you see it happening. Because here's the problem. Whenever people think you're, when you see bullying happening, a lot of times you might think you're an innocent bystander, but your body language and you being around and involved in the bully seeing that that he takes you being that you're a silent supporter. So you're not an innocent bystander. You're now involved when you see it. And so you're being a silent supporter if you're not standing up and doing something about it. And so we're

doing this competition and whoever, whoever's the top crowdfunding team is going to get their gym renovated by zebra. They're going to get $10,000 worth of zebra mats. Um, century is going to get their gym renovated by Zebra. They're going to get $10,000 worth of Zebra mats. Century is going to come in and do $10,000 worth of gear. They're going to do gloves, headgear, sparring equipment, shields, the bob, the dummy. Suplesse is going to do the Bulgarian bag, the throwing dummy. And then the top individual fundraiser is going to get a free home gym from Zebra and Century Gear. Bellator just let me know last night that whoever is the top fundraising individual

is going to get flown out all-inclusive to January 26th, the heavyweight Grand Prix finale between Fado and Ryan Bader. Fado and Ryan Bader. At the Forum. Yep, at the Forum in L.A. So they're going to get three nights of hotel rooms. They're going to get their airfare paid for. And so basically what Fight for the Forgotten is trying to do is raise $420,000 throughout the rest of the year.

And what we'll be able to do with that is hopefully drill equivalent to 100 water wells or serve 30,000 people minimum. Hopefully it will be around 45,000 people with clean water. And then it's pretty easy. If people go and hit sign up, Jamie, if you could just hit the link, it's sign up. We're trying to make it really fun and competitive. Tell people how to get to it. It's fightforthevergotten.org forward slash heroes. Yep.

Forward slash heroes. And then here, whenever they go down you can hit become a fundraiser and whenever you hit become a fundraiser you can either create a team which we did with lovato's a couple nights ago you can hit join a team so if a team's already created you can join that team or if you're an individual martial artist or just someone that's passionate about the cause you can hit start fundraising as an individual. Awesome. And then we're going to have a top 10 prizes, basically like prize packs. The top crowdfunding team is going to get a championship belt, a fight for the forgotten championship belt. Two through 10 are going to get championship trophies.

And then anyone that hits the goal of $4,200 is going to get a fight for the forgotten gold medal for hitting the goal. for the forgotten goal medal for hitting the goal. But if you actually click out of that and then scroll down, Jamie, you can actually see how it's kind of started a little bit more. But there's already a few teams. Wow, there's four teams now that have signed up. We haven't announced it yet. So there's Team Lovato down there.

And what it will do is it will show the top team so you can track it and make it competitive. So you can go on there and make a comment whenever you donate. Um, but basically I guess martial arts and more, uh, I do know them. If you click on their page, um, it's a guy out of South Carolina or sorry, North Carolina, Jacksonville. Um, and he just got hit by the hurricane brutally. Um, he can't go back into his home for another year, a year, a year. He can't go back into his home. He's living in the Academy. Why a year? His homeowners association said it's going to be like a year of cleanup, fix everything, fix everything. So, um, that's what it's predicted to be, but he set the goal at $4,200. He wants to teach his community. Um, this is James, right? And, uh,

he, he's wanting to, you know, teach the kids that, hey, we are still heroes in weighting. We can still make a difference in our community with bullying prevention and globally with a community that needs clean water. And so that's what we're trying to do is make a difference in both places. Awesome. Drill the wells and equip the Martial Arts Academy with bullying prevention. Beautiful. Let's wrap this up.

Do you want to say one more thing? Yeah, I just wanted to back it up one more time. You know, Justin has inspired me so much to, you know, get involved in these sort of things. And, you know, I'm happy to have my school involved and I'm just kind of out there calling out for all the other Jiu-Jitsu schools, you know, in the country, like, I mean, if we just get two schools per state, that's a hundred. Um, and if each one, uh, Matt, you know, reaches the goal of 4,200, then we've done it. Um, and so, you know, uh, it's, it's a great cause. It helps the school, uh, the, the material that they get, uh, is very, um, helpful to, to implement into their children's programs. Uh, it even comes with marketing material to help get those kids in the doors. So it's totally worth it. And then, you know, it's always great,

like he said, you know, when we had the school Christmas party last year, and it's always great to get everybody behind something, behind a cause, and, you know, to get your whole school to rally together, you know, for this cause would be, you know, a great thing for your teams and your jiu-jitsu families. And it's not that hard to do. You know, it's not that hard to hit 4,200.

And if we get 100 schools to do it, then we've done it. So I'm here, you know, to support Justin in that. Beautiful. It's always great to have you, brother. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. So happy for what you've been able to accomplish. to support Justin in that. Beautiful. It's always great to have you, brother. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. So happy for what you've been able to accomplish.

So happy to know you and to be a part of this and just to spread the word. It's beautiful. Well, I thank you, man. It couldn't be done without you and your help. I mean, honestly, it's skyrocketed us to be able to make the difference we want, to knock out the water crisis and to stand up and speak out against bullying here.

Well, it's my honor. And thank you for being here, Rafael. Thank you. And best of luck to you. I know you're supposedly next in line for a shot at the title in Bellator. Gegard Mousasi. Everything looks good. He wants it.

I can't wait to see it. Both have won it. Can't wait to see it. Appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks for being here. It was awesome. Thank you.

It was an honor. All right. We'll see you later, folks. Thank you.