The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #48 with Henry Cejudo & Eric Albarracin

Episode Date: October 31, 2018

Joe is joined by UFC Flyweight Champion & Olympic Gold Medalist Henry Cejudo and his MMA coach Eric Albarracin.

Three. Boom, and we're live. Henry motherfucking Cejudo. World champion. And, sir, introduce yourself to everybody. Captain America. That's right. Captain Eric Albarracin.

Henry's coach. What do you do with him specifically? Well, I've been with him since 2004 and recently became his coach right before the first Demetrius Johnson fight, and I'm his head coach for MMA. And you're in disguise in case some other athletes try to swipe you. And it's Halloween. Happy Halloween, everybody. Happy Halloween, folks. So first of all, man, congratulations on your victory. What does it feel like? Oh, man, it feels good. it feels good it feels good try to keep this like a fist away from your face yeah uh it feels good because it's um god it's i think as a

competitor you you live for these moments you live you live for these fulfillments you know yeah i think somebody like and then i told people since the beginning it wasn't so much you know the ufc bell but it was because it was i made it about demetrius and it was about demetrius you know because well i mean he is widely considered to be the best pound for pound fighter ever and you're the first guy not only to beat him but the first guy who not just to beat him but i mean beat him in like 11 years but the first guy to win an olympic gold medal in wrestling and a UFC championship. I mean, those are two gigantic accomplishments.

Yeah, no, for sure. It's almost like, God, I beat the greatest of, to me, the greatest of all time. And then on top of that, I can make the run for who's the greatest combat athlete of all time. I'm a two-sport world champion. I'm just like, damn, that's crazy. I mean, you're absolutely in the running now. I mean, if he's not the greatest of all time, I think he is. But the argument is that he didn't face people as good as Jon Jones faced. And then Fedor and Anderson Silva are the other people that are in consideration for the greatest of all time.

I mean, it's just a subjective argument subjective argument i mean who knows who's right but obviously you beat without a doubt one of the best ever yeah yeah and like i would i would tell people there's there's a bit of uh of admiration that i had for demetrius johnson like i was uh it was it was like you know you're fighting to do that's that's that almost seems untouchable that you a guy that makes you question yourself like whoa this is this is this this guy is that good well what's crazy is you beat him after he had stopped you just how long was it two years uh about close to about two and a half years ago now yeah about i was like i think two years and like four months that's that's

an amazing turnaround between getting stopped in the first round and then coming back and and beating him and then beating him in the championship rounds is really where you pulled it off yeah yeah no uh and absolutely i i had studied demetrius johnson like as soon as i lost him the first time what i pretty much did is i got i got rid of a lot of people, including my, my MMA head coach. I just, my whole philosophy was if I can't be the best, then there's something wrong, you know, emotionally, physically, everything else, just invested. And when I lost, I'm just like, man, I need a, I'm looking for a better leader, you know? And, and that's kind of what I did. I ended up, you know, letting go a lot of my cornermen. You know, I started traveling the world.

Went out to Singapore, went out to Thailand, went out to the Netherlands, spent months and months at a time out in Brazil. Like, I was on a quest. It was like the, I kind of remind myself a little bit like Ash Ketchum from Pokemon. Like, I was just on a venture due to a team. I have no idea who that is, but Vision Quest. quest it was like the i kind of remind myself literally like ash ketchum from pokemon like i was just on adventure dude i have no idea who that is but vision quest vision quest it was a matthew modine movie every wrestler has to watch that movie and that's and and and it'd be like i said it became an exception i i knew that if anybody could do it it'd be it'd be henry

like i really did and even after the first time jo Joe, when he beat me, I still, when he asked me, he's like, Henry, you know, like, I was like, guys, I don't know, but I still know that I could beat him. Even being knocked out, like, two minutes and 36 seconds. Like, I still knew in my heart. And you see when I sat at the press conference, I know I'm still the one that beat him. What was it about him that made you think that you could beat him? What was it about you specifically in relation to him and his skill set? It was, if you're asking me what the difference was. Yeah, well, what was it that made you think,

even after he stopped you in the first round? Oh, God, I think it was more so just believing in my abilities. I think me just believing more, okay, Henry, you need time. Like I was only doing MMA for three years when I fought him the first time. Yeah, a lot of people don't know that. Yeah, three years. You see you fighting for the title not once but twice. You've probably been doing MMA for a long-ass time.

But when you fought him for the first time, that's a very short amount of time to be fighting in mma it's especially getting to caliber athlete like demetrius what year did you win uh the olympics in 08 yeah see that is i mean when you're doing that you're 100 dedicated to wrestling you have to be right so were you doing any striking training at all back then um i did i did what happened was once i won the olympics i almost kind of i fell out of love with the sport i felt i fell out of love with wrestling i remember being at the olympics and being like man i just i don't know if i have it in me no more just because you're burnt out i was yeah my whole childhood

was gone because of the sport you know take that crazy mask off brother what are you doing yeah anyway i've been waiting for you to say that how about that we'll do it in stages so you you fell out of love with it i fell out of love with it but just because your whole life had been dedicated to wrestling? Yeah. And you'd finally achieved the greatest of great goals. Yeah.

Olympic gold medalist is the top of the mountain. No, but check this out, Joe. And it was like in the year 2007, man, I went through the worst year ever. Like I was ready to become a world champion. And I went out to the world championships in 2007 and I didn't even score a point. Like in the first round like I got put out by by Iran and uh for some reason that whole year man I was just going through freaking struggles like left and right you're talking about just adversity I couldn't win a tournament to save my life what was it um I don't know I don't know I I truly

truly don't know I think I was uh I think I probably began kind of falling out of love with it. And I remember there was, to me, there was only two tournaments that I really wanted to win. And that was, that was the Olympic trials and eventually the Olympic Games. And, and somehow like, because I'm correlating this with the, with the fight with Demetrius Johnson. And I remember, you know, just almost being in tears. Like, I just don't know if this is for me. But I just stuck with it. I stuck with it. I ended up winning the Olympic trials. I ended up going to the Olympic Games. I ended up pretty much falling behind in every single match that I was wrestling in. So these are kind of the adversities that I was going through, like leading up to becoming an Olympic champion.

You know, it's interesting. When you were fighting Demetrius for the second time, Daniel Cormier said something very interesting. He said most guys, he goes, I would never give a chance. You get stopped by DJ and then a couple years later, you're fighting him again. Like he's going to have your number. He's going to be better in the rematch. And he goes, but Henry Cejudo is a different kind of athlete. And he talked about you competing and then coming back a year later and being – he goes – he was many times better. He goes the amount of improvement that he got in just one year was just unbelievable. Yeah, and I think – I guess you can owe that to genetics.

I think you can talk a lot about desire too, having the genetics only get you so far yeah but everybody at the olympics has great genetics for sure but it's almost it almost becomes a a mentality i'm because of philosophy it's like you almost start doing things almost like to to not feel the to not to not feel the the pain of losing like that's a motivator to not feel the pain of losing right and i remember when demetrius johnson hit me hit me in the hit me in the leg and i literally i don't think you put any how severe it was like i literally sprained like a a a severe low ankle sprain those first 30 seconds in the second fight yeah so i fought demetrius johnson like

that but it was it was to me the motivator was like man i don't want to feel that pain of losing no more i hate it man i hate feeling second place i hate feeling kind of kind of somebody's looking over me someone's almost like a manhood challenge and i hate that was it a low leg kick that uh that that made your your ankle go like what was it yeah it was uh there's a nerve that you have behind like like the bone it's uh i think it's the perennial perif perif perennial nerve per yeah and i got hit there so i put my foot to sleep just like when michael chandler happened to him in bellator same thing exactly he's stepping on it and it's just not working and the problem and the and and the reason uh the reason why everybody kind of got scared i mean because i was hurt but

i remember before the fight i remember i remember i saw my corner man like kind of before i fought the meet i remember i saw him all uh i saw him all nervous and i remember i remember grabbing my quarterman and putting him right in front of me. I remember telling him, I was like, hey, guys, I've been here before. Like, I was ranked 31st in the world. I know I became a world champion in wrestling. Like, guys, I want you guys to have a little faith in me, dude. But I'm going to ask you guys one thing, and I'm going to ask you guys to be composed. I said the key to winning this fight is for me to be composed.

And then pretty much there's six hours later, right before we walk on, they start playing my song. I look back to my corner and I said, guys, I said, the key to this fight, remember, is going to be composure. So when Demetrius Johnson kicked me, I believed in my own philosophy. I went back to, all right, my composure. Because I was hurt, Joe. He could have stopped me that first round. I was forced to switch southpaw, which I never fight in southpaw. So now I'm kind of, me and Demetri Johnson are playing poker.

My whole philosophy and the key to this victory was the composure part. And when he hit me, I really did, I was like, oh, my God, not again, dude, not again. I'm not going to last two minutes and 36 seconds, not again. But, again, the motivator was not to feel the pain to lose again. Right. Like it wasn't a desire to win. I was like, I just don't want to feel that pain anymore. As a competitor, as somebody that's on a mission, dude, that sacrifices life.

Explain to someone who's never experienced that before, what is that pain like? You train for how many weeks and then you fight Mighty Mouse for the title. You get stopped in the first round. What is that pain like? Oh, man. I think every fighter has a spirit. What is a spirit? The spirit is your dream.

The spirit is that you've watched somebody become a world champion. You want to be, hey, I want to be just like that guy. Your confidence, your self-esteem, that's your spirit. And we also have a spirit of a war. That's like the manhood side of it. And what happens when I got stopped with Demetrius Johnson, I almost felt like, and I've never gone through this, not even in wrestling in my life, like my spirit was shot.

And I had to kind of pick up my pieces to kind of start healing myself like mentally and i feel like and if you and if you look at it joe somebody like roy jones jr he got knocked out one time and it became a domino effect yeah because he never he never picked up those pieces he never started healing that spirit well he got knocked out again real bad right afterwards by Glenn Johnson, too. Remember? There's two knockouts in a row. Tarver. Yeah, Tarver KO'd him.

But the thing is, there's a lot of factors involved in that loss. Because I think Roy was also coming off of the John Ruiz fight where he gained a lot of weight to get up to heavyweight. And then he had to lose that weight to get down to light heavyweight again so he was lean at heavyweight and then all of a sudden he's dropping down to 175 pounds again and he just looked like shit he looked smooth it looked like his body was all sucked in and i just think it was a bad bad weight cut and you know i think whatever he took to get himself up to 200 pounds, too, was probably out of his system. And now his body was, you know, his hormones were probably all fucked up.

He just wasn't the same guy. I mean, let's be real, right? The weight cut's important. You don't just grow to 200 pounds without some Mexican supplements. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it'll take a long fucking time for a 168 pound fighter to get up to 200 pounds it takes a long time

if you want to really get up to 200 pounds like an actual 200 pound body not just like fill yourself up with water and fat no to actually be 200 pounds the way he was your body's got to say hey man, man, we need to fucking grow. We got resources that need to be allocated towards muscle.

We got to gain all this weight because we're lifting weights all the time. We're doing things. You have to do something to get your body that heavy. So then all of a sudden to shut that shit off and say, all right, now we're getting down to 175 and you got to do it in a few months. I think his body was just wrecked. Yeah. Yeah. Boxers don't always cut weight the right way either. Neither do MMA fighters. to 175 and you got to do it in a few months i think his body was just wrecked yeah yeah boxers

don't always cut weight the right way either neither do uh mma fighters particularly back in the day there's which is really interesting about the approach that you guys took to this camp that you wanted to talk about which is a very very scientific approach towards your recovery towards your training methods so it's everything i mean you you really had it dialed in as opposed to just trying to wing it which for many many years was how almost every fighter did it yeah and and I think it's all oh we got a video look at this okay so it was right there just the back of the leg like that? That is so crazy.

Just one shin to the back of your leg. But I'm still flopping. I'm still flopping. So I'm going back to that philosophy, composure. Look, I'm still flopping. But it doesn't seem like he understands what's happened to you yet. Yeah. You played poker so well.

Really interesting. Yeah, look, I'm still, oh, that was horrible. I remember as soon as that happened, I did remember the Michael Chandler fight. And I remember he went on a show and said exactly what happened. So I told our other corner, Santino DeFranco, when we get in, put ice on his knee, not his ankle. Because it was the knee where it happened because I watched that show. And I remember watching it for that reason, to wonder why, what happened to him. It's crazy when you watch it because it's just the foot hit the back of your knee.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. You can see it again. I mean, it wasn't even the hardest kick in the world. He kind of caught you at the very end with his foot. And immediately that nerve just went boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing,

boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, right here. Swap. Right there. Barely flicked it. That shit is just like boing, boing, boing, boing, bo just went boing right here swap like right there right barely you know who it also happened to was uh scott jorgensen did it what fight was that man you know what i can't remember but he didn't win the fight i could tell you that yeah anyways it was uh terrible feeling terrible terrible feeling wow you-faced your way through it. But again, Joe, it goes back to philosophy. You got to believe in your...

You got to be up here. There has to be a philosophy up here. Against a guy like Demetrius, it's beyond the physical and the technical stuff. Yeah. You got to be just kind of hypnotized up here. But you have to have everything, right? You have to have the physical skills, but you also have to have this unstoppable mindset. Yeah.

Now, what kind of mind training do you do? Do you do any visualization training, or do you work with a sports psychologist? You know what? I like reading up on a lot of people's stories. I think people's stories are the ones that intrigue me, how Michael Jordan rolls to the top or athletes like that. I think that's the stuff that I got a human interest. That's kind of my motivation.

Like reading biographies? Yeah, reading biographies or watching stuff on YouTube. Even watching other sports. Like, I'll watch Michael Johnson's at times, you know, watching him win the 96 Olympics, like things like that. And watching people's celebrations and trying to embrace the feeling of what they're feeling, you know, because it becomes like an addiction, like a drug, like going through these feelings of, like dude i accomplished what i what i set out to do right so you're like seeing them accomplish these fantastic goals and visualizing yourself experiencing that exact same thing yeah yeah as corny as that sounds yeah doesn't sound corny at all especially not coming from the champ you know once you're the champ all that corny shit's out the window obviously Obviously, it works. People start believing it.

All of a sudden, I became a 10. Yeah, they believe the fuck out of it. Now, they're talking about you possibly fighting TJ Dillshaw for the bantamweight title. Yeah. I mean, there's talk. There's talk. You just hesitated. There's negotiations.

There's beef behind that. It's not just talk. He wants it. We want it. Yeah. No, I'm sure. There's negotiations. There's beef behind that. It's not just talk. He wants it. We want it. Yeah, no, I'm sure. Where's that at right now? Because there's going to be a card in January out here. It was just announced.

Oh, what date was that? It's the same night as the Fedor-Ryan Bader fight, which pisses me off because I wanted to go see that fight. January 26th. Yeah, that fight's going to go see that fight. It's January 26th. Yeah, that fight's going to be at the Forum. And the UFC fight, I think, is at the Staples Center. Or maybe Anaheim.

Anaheim? Anaheim. Anaheim and the Pond. Oh, okay. Both here. Both here in California. Well, there's 20 million motherfuckers in California. Plenty of people to go around in terms of audience.

Yeah, there's been talks, but it's been, you know, I don't think Ali, my manager, has really truly like actually sat down and talked with the UFC. And I think everybody wants to do it, though. Well, it's one of two things that's going to happen there, right? It's either, I mean, now the DJ has gone to one. Demetrius Johnson just left the UFC and went over to 1FC. 1FC, for people who have no idea what we're talking about, is a gigantic organization in Asia. They are literally the equivalent to the UFC in Asia. And although many people in America are not aware of them, they don't know who they are, they're a huge organization overseas. Absolutely gigantic.

And they do a fantastic job. They have real high level fighters. Ben Askren was their champion. He was undefeated over there. And he had, I think, at least one fight, maybe two fights left in his contract. I forget how many. And they made a deal. And the deal was they take Mighty Mouse and we get Ben Askren. And so that's where it's at right now i love the deal i love it i love the idea of it i mean um i feel like mighty mouse you know he um he loves the idea of starting new and a new organization and you know they're gonna pay that motherfucker. Pay. Nice. All these flyaways need to get paid.

Exactly. And he also likes the mentality that that organization is operated with, which is respect for the martial arts. They're not into this. You know, what we saw with the Conor McGregor, Khabib Nurmagomedov fight, all the trash talking and all the stuff that you're seeing that is becoming more and more prevalent in the UFC, you don't see that at all at 1FC. And that's something that Mighty Mouse is very happy about. Yeah, I think first, I think congratulations too to Ben Askren.

I think he's... Everybody's in trouble. Yeah. A lot of motherfuckers are in trouble when Ben Askren gets a hold of you. You're like, why can't I get up? Yeah, Ben Askren's one of those guys that he's very confident. He's a very dangerous human being because he knows that. He's going to be very confident about it.

And I've always told people, I said, hey, dude, maybe the best in the world is on the UFC, man. There's some dude by the name of Ben Askren. We've been singing his praises for years. That will take you down. People think Khabib's control is good up top. You wait until you get a four-time NCAA finalist, two-time NCAA champ on top of you. And 2008 Olympian, his teammate. And Olympian.

I mean, the dude is a bad matchup for anybody, Joe. Anybody. No, Ben Askren, I mean, there's a reason why he's undefeated. And he hasn't been hit in several fights. He was detailing when was the last time he got hit. You know, I had him on the podcast because I wanted to let people know about him. I mean, I've been a big fan of Ben Askren's from back when he was a Bellator champion. And if you watch his fights in Bellator against Koskov and Lima, Lima's a beast, man.

And he just dominated them. Lima fucks people up, man. Lima's a dangerous, dangerous cat. And Ben Askren just whoop, oh, you're on your back again. Look at that. You can't get up and you're taking punches. It's just a different caliber of wrestling. And I've said it many, many times, and I'm sure you believe it as well.

It's the most important skill for MMA is wrestling. It dictates where the fight takes place. If you want to stand up, the guy can take you down, Chuck Liddell style. And if you want to go to the ground, you're the one who gets to dictate where the fight takes place. If you're the superior wrestler, mean it's the the best base for mma i really believe that and especially a guy like ben because i think ben knows that his his striking's not that good right so he just relies on this is this is what i know i do it better than anybody and i'm going to control you this is and and you're going to know how i'm going to do it you know so that's what that's what makes ben askren dangerous he's so dangerous i mean a real

bad fight for him would be someone that can figure out how to keep it standing like jay heron gave him a real tough fight in bellator because jay heron is a good wrestler and kept the fight standing um high school yeah i forget what what his take on that fight was we talked about it on the podcast but i don't think he was too happy with his take on that fight was we talked about it on the podcast but I don't think he was too happy with his training for that fight but someone like Tyron Woodley who's also a very good wrestler

who's a very dangerous striker would be a tough matchup for him but they're really close friends and training partners this is another thing too Tyron's been wrestling him since for years i think so he knows what the ben askren experience is you know that's scary yeah i mean people would be lucky to you know kind of take him down if you really want to give it no takedowns

he wouldn't he just wouldn't let people take him down yeah pettis was talking about it you know he's saying listen it was back when pettis was the champ he said if i was forced to fight ben askren he goes it would be a fucking terrible fight for me he's like, listen, it was back when Pettis was the champ. He said, if I was forced to fight Ben Askren, he goes, it would be a fucking terrible fight for me. He's like, that guy just take me down and beat the shit out of me. He's like, that's what he does. If Ben was to win a belt, the 2008 Olympic team would have five belts. Henry Gatz, two. DC has two. And Ben Askren would have one.

That's five UFC belts if he came into the UFC and won the belt, his teammates. Well, they are going to open up eventually that 165-pound division, which is what Ben is shooting for. Ben would like that division. And he said that if he had 165 and Tyron kept the welterweight title, that would be great for him. I just don't see the UFC doing a five-pound weight difference when all the other weight differences are so huge i feel like the smart move would be

10 pounds every every spot 35 45 55 65 75 like move 70 to 75 like when the ufc had a light heavyweight division initially that the division was a 200 pound division when tito ortiz first won it i believe it was 200 was a 200-pound division. And then they raised it up to 205. And I think just—and they needed a 195, too, I really believe, and probably a 225. You know, I think that would round it all out, which probably will all happen eventually. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting to see how that unfolds. But as of now, it's, man, Ashkren.

He's a beast. Ash is going to be fighting for the belt pretty soon. Well, he's calling out Darren Till. He wants to fight Darren Till. Of course. Which I love. I love that fight. That is a classic striker versus grappler matchup,

especially after Tyron just smashed him. I mean, Tyron in the hype train for Darren Till. We learned a lot about Darren. Darren is a sensational striker. Very, very dangerous striker. But keeps his hands low, keeps his chin up high, and you know, Tyron has proven himself to be

really dangerous even against elite strikers. You know, you look at the Wonderboy fights. I've said this time and time again. You look at those two fights. Wonderboy is known as being one of the best strikers to ever compete in the UFC. He's got a 57-0 as a kickboxer. Something fucking spectacular like that.

Amazing striking skills. Yet, Tyron hurt him in both fights. In both fights, Tyron was the one who landed big shots and had Wonderboy badly hurt. Then you look at the same thing with Darren Till. Darren Till is known as being this unbelievable striker. Tyron clips him, drops him, and then strangles him.

So, you know. It all changes with MMA. These guys can be the best, even the best wrestlers. Like sometimes it doesn't translate to the sport. Like it takes a special somebody to adapt to the sport of MMA, not just a wrestler. And I think Tyron has adapted to his time to his right hand.

Man, if you're able to take out two strikers like that, man, you're the real deal. He's unquestionably the real deal. I'm fascinated to see whether or not Nurmagomedov and Ben Askren go at it. That to me, if I had a fight that I really, what are you saying?

Floyd Mayweather what? Floyd Mayweather's next for Khabib. Stop with all that nonsense. That's just what we were talking about. That is not going to happen. He has the same agent. Listen, that ain't going to happen. But Khabib is much more of a grappler than he is a striker.

I mean, Conor is a striker. That sort of made sense. If you want to talk about levels, I think Ben's probably the better grappler. Who the fuck knows? That's what I want to see. I want to see that fight. There's levels. Even though they don't give black belts in wrestling, there's levels to that.

There's levels. And I think Ben Ashland was one of the greatest folk star writers of all time. That's how dangerous he is. He was putting the best kids in the world in pretzels and submissions. They just wouldn't get out of his. He's like a bowl constrictor. But he's stunning in his ability to control guys. You're like, what the fuck, man?

Like, Koreshkov and Lima are two great examples. Because you look at those guys in Bellator, and they just smash people. Korshkov has one of the craziest spinning back kick knockouts I've ever seen in my life. He sent this dude flying through the air. Did you see that a couple of fights ago? In the Grand Prix. You see it? It's fucking nasty. He hits this

dude with a spinning back kick and literally launches him into space and then smashes him when he goes down to the ground. I mean, you look at what Liam has been able to do to people when the Roy McDonald fight was a very close fight. Look at this. Watch this. Look at this. Boom! I mean, he launched that dude.

Is that in Boise? I don't know where that was. Is that in Boise? I don't know where that was. But so Koreshkov, you know, if you watch the Koreshkov fight with Ben Askren, and it's a mauling. It's just a guy just getting fucked up. That's what that fight is. Oh, God.

Ben Askren just dominated him. Like, absolutely dominated him like absolutely dominated him see the dude tried to jump back and landed it landed right as he was in the air ouchie wawa and this guy never got a punch off of Ben Askren it was a total domination same as the Lima fight

Lima crushes people man Lima's one of the scariest strikers I mean he knocked out Korshkov I mean Lima smashes people, man. Lima's one of the scariest strikers. I mean, he knocked out Korshkov. I mean, Lima smashes people. But you see Lima against Ben Askren. I mean, obviously it was a younger Lima. I mean, he's got more experience now. But the difference was so stunning.

What is this? This is Askren-Lima. No, it's not. No. No, those are two Chinese guys, bro. This is not Askren-Lima. it's not. No, those are two Chinese guys, bro. This is not Askren Lima. You gotta trust me. This is not

Askren Lima either. It's literally with the video title. I'm sure the video's titled that, but I'm telling you. I said, is Joe being a bully? You gotta trust me. Those dudes are not the same guy. Joe, you're losing your patience, man.

There it is. There it is. Oh, yeah. Man. I mean, just the way he manhandled them. Like, his wrestling is just, you see guys that are used to defending takedowns, and then they find themselves on their back, and you say, holy shit, man. I think he did get up kicked here and his nose got broken.

Oh, yeah. He got cracked. I mean, Lima's a fucking monster, man. He's a super dangerous striker and he's huge for the weight class. You stand next to Lima, you're like, Jesus, how do you make 170? He does it in the jacuzzi at the hotel. I've seen him. Yeah.

No, he's struggling to make that weight. He's a big guy. But anyway, point being, Ben Askren at 170. Super, super interesting fight. I would like to. Personally, the fight that I would like to see, I'd like to see him and Kobe. Kobe Covington. Ben and Kobe?

Yeah. That would be really interesting. Yeah. But isn't Kobe next in line for the title? I mean yeah I think but isn't Colby next in line for the title I mean I think he's got the interim belt if he has the interim belt

I'm surprised I still have the interim belt huh yeah yeah maybe I guess it's in the White House he doesn't have it anymore it's in the White House

but I mean they didn't strip him did they because there was some talk of stripping him because he was supposed to not that I know of I don't think there was didn't strip him, did they? Because there was some talk of stripping him because he was supposed to... Not that I know of. I don't think there was ever a strip. So I think they're trying to market it.

I think as soon as you get the champ... Wikipedia here says he was the interim from June 9th to September 8th. Oh, so they did strip him. So the stripping was because they wanted him to fight on the Darren Till card. When Darren Till fought Tyron, they wanted him to fight on the Darren Till card. When Darren Till fought Tyron, they wanted him to fight

Tyron. And apparently he had gone through hard training camp. He was all busted up. He needed time to recover. So I guess they stripped him. Man, interim titles. Interim titles are like attached with Velcro. They just disappear.

They get yanked off you. Yeah, seriously. They're not really like... Especially that UFC 229 like attached with velcro they just disappear they get yanked off you yeah seriously they're not they're not really they're not really like especially at usc 229 i mean they all had belts tony ferguson had a bow connor had a bow you know obviously khabib had his belt so you had three people walking around with belts the tony ferguson one to me is uh is a shame it's a shame that a guy gets injured and then they strip him like that. That doesn't make any sense to me. I didn't like that one.

That one bothered me. I feel like Tony should still have the interim title. I really do. Yeah, but that was like the third time that fight had fallen, right? I know, it sucks, but the other one wasn't his fault. The other one was Khabib.

Khabib, right? Khabib was supposed to make the weight. Two to one. Medically pulled out. That's a good argument. How many times did Khabib pull out and howhabib was supposed to make the weight. Two to one. Medically pulled out. That's a good argument. How many times did Khabib pull out and how many times did Tony pull out? Tony pulled out once for sure because he was injured, the last one, when his knee blew apart.

And then Khabib definitely got yanked off the card once with the weight cut. Remember? The weight cut was so bad that his kidneys were failing. Yeah. Either way. We've been there. Yeah, that's the fight. Now, do you like fighting at 35?

Because I know you fought at 35 for a while when you were struggling to make flyweight. You had some issues early on in your career where you really didn't make the weight very well. Yeah, I was getting older, older i think in my career i think the reason why i started having weight problem was because of uh i was just getting older and i was doing some crazy stuff like i used to cut like my just microphone like i used to i used to uh i used to to cut about 16 pounds like in in two two hour sessions what yeah Yeah, as a flyweight or supposed to be flyweight. Why were you doing that? Because I'm a wrestler.

I think my whole philosophy at first when I got into MMA was kind of like, in wrestling, we would never get the same recovery. I know it's stupid, it's stupid as heck. But we would never get the recovery that a fighter gets so to to me was like dude i i can i can stretch this as as long as i can and and i can suffer the day of wins but i'm gonna recover within 24 20 28 hours sometimes you know so to me i i was looking at it a very i just had an odd way so and it finally started catching up to me. So you just had confidence in your body's ability to bounce back,

even though you're putting it through an extraordinary amount of stress and losing massive amounts of weight really quickly. Yes. You just felt like your body could handle it. Yes. You're tough. You're used to it. Yeah, it was the whole – because, you know, in wrestling,

we would make weight like every week sometimes. We would wrestle so much that we're used to kind of like that whole struggle side of things. And then, okay, we wrestle again, we do it again. What kind of weight cut were you talking about when you were wrestling? How much were you cutting? And I was a lot more disciplined then. But I was probably doing about 12 pounds, but I had no fat. Like at that time I was eating just as healthy and as clean as possible because i would make weight every every every you know every three

weeks i had a tournament you know i had george lockhart on and he was explaining to me that a lot of people think that when you cut weight that you know like you're cutting out fat he's like you're not cutting out fat you're cutting out water, and it actually helps to have more muscle because muscle is mostly water. So you're just draining out your muscles, then replenishing them. When he was explaining that to me, I was like, I never really thought about it that way, that a guy like a Yoel Romero who's very muscular can actually cut more weight. Yeah, yeah.

Now you're a pretty muscular guy for a flyweight, so you were walking around how many pounds over? Oh, man, I was probably cutting for like maybe 20, 25. Wow. So you're walking around like 150 and getting down to 25. Yeah. Holy shit. I just had loss.

I just, you know, a lot of it, too, you, because you fight three times a year, like you're not always honest with your diet either. You know, coming from Mexican December, we like to, we love to eat. You go to my mom's house and it's going to be laid down. But when you're in camp, how do you organize your nutrition? I'm disciplined. I have a meal prep company. They deliver my food like every three days. And is your meal prep based on your suggestions to them or your recommendations and directions to them? Yeah, no.

A lot of it's based on kind of, well, my diet is just according to kind of like my training schedule. So my training is very, very organized. Like now, Joe, I'm like a pretty much I'm a professional now, I guess you could say. Like I do things, you know, the right way. I use the whole scientific route, the nutrition route. It's just almost like how Bernard Hopkins kind of as he got older, man, he kind of changed his whole philosophy, started using science more. So I think everything now in my life when I get ready for fights is all based on science. How did Bernard change his training?

Do you know? He just started recovering more. I think he started using a lot of those neural stems, hyperbaric chambers, things of that matter, and just more scientific-based, like just his whole training all around. And did you incorporate any of those methods? I did. I did. I did actually. I ended up connecting with this company called Neuroforce One, a science-based company. And I actually wanted to bring them in to kind of talk about it, Joe, because this right here

might just change my whole philosophy. We're talking about the whole way because how I struggled to how my whole training has changed because of science. And a science that's very, I guess, complex, you could say. You got to have the right people, man, dictating your schedule. So when you set up a training camp like this, how far in advance do you sit down and work out all the details it's almost like the the morning that we wake up is what we know we're going to do right but how like say if you know you have a fight in july when would you start preparing for that and when do you sit down and map everything out well we try to map things out

maybe about three months in advance kind of like a preparation and uh to leading to the camp and that's kind of like the phase that we're on now like now we're on like you know if i fight if it is that i fight in january it's almost like our schedule it's like there's there's there's a pre-test to the big test so tomorrow's november 1st so if you were getting ready for a fight in january you would start ramping up somewhere around now yeah but it would it would it would be more of uh yeah it would i think the first the first month leading up to the next eight weeks would be a lot of it would be uh technical and tactical just working on those particular areas that we're that we believe we're going to be in so you're not doing anything crazy strength and conditioning wise you're not

trying to break your body down no no it could because it's all it's all a learning phase at that point you know working the body preparing the body with a lot of body motion movements and things of that matter kind of just bringing more circulation to certain parts of my body then rather than you know somebody picking up a kettlebell and throwing it and and crazy things like that like like it it's all it's all sports like, right. Range of motion. So how do you organize this? Like, what is the team of people that you use, and, like, who's responsible for what? Yeah, well, like I said, I think— Because you've got a whole crew in the back.

People don't know. The men— Captain America's with you, but you get the rest of the Avengers are all waiting in the waiting room. Yeah, the— I was going to say, we first found him when uh he hurt his hand and he had to rehab it let me get this off oh see it's going in layers it's going so he had hurt his hand before uh um his first fight with sergio pettis and i was trying to find any way for him to still compete and we found somebody using this machine which led us to actually Neuroforce One and

Kareem and all these guys and we tried to force it for him to get back in time and I have video of him just screaming in pain trying to get there and we thought we stayed off it for a couple weeks and then the day of the face-off he went to cut weight and he said his wrist kept slipping out and we had to pull him from the fight. We went to see the doctor. The doctor said, no way, shouldn't fight. What was the injury?

I think it was a, it ended up being something with a sprained ligament. Yeah, I think it was, I had sprained, like, one of my ligaments in my hand, so there's just, there's nothing i could do like i would i would i would open the cap bottle for the for you know to kind of to brush my teeth and uh like it when it hurt to that point i'm just like man i i can't do anything so then i that you know i ended up uh they ended up eric here ended up connecting me with with neural force and found out that they had like these certain machines that help you heal faster. What did the machines do? Accelerated recovery.

So it was like NeuroStim, and they have about 1,000 programs on it, and it just forced him to recover a lot faster. The best example was UFC fighter Pantoja. He was on the Ultimate Fighter 24 with us, our number one seed that we picked, Alexander Pantoja. I saw him blow three ligaments out of his elbow and he started crying because he had a fight in eight weeks in iron no scotland and um i said no no don't go home tomorrow he's supposed to be going back home to brazil and

i said no no no let's try this you gotta try it he did it twice, two sessions a day for 10 days. And he went back and he fought. He fought that guy and beat him. He ran naked choking that guy. Neil Siri. Wow. And put that guy in retirement. So after that, I was like, we need these guys. Henry, whatever these guys did to Pantoja, whatever, we need to do it for you.

And that's how it started. So when a guy gets injured like that and you're still going through camp, how do you work around that injury? You just say, okay, there's nothing squeezing, nothing where you're putting any strain in those tendons, nothing where you're doing anything with that hand that's going to re-injure it. I think you just have to hope for somebody

to wrap it very well. Like, you're screwed. Having a hand injury is probably the worst injury you could have. I mean, we eat with these hands, you know? Right. This is how we survive. Yeah. Having like a hand injury is like probably the worst injury you could have. I mean, we eat with these hands, you know. Right. This is our, this is how we survive. Yeah. And when you have an injury like that, there's, you're going to be fighting with the other.

Do you remember when Uriah Faber fought Mike Brown? Mm-hmm. And broke both hands? Yeah. And just started throwing elbows? And slapping them. It just didn't give in for a second. Yeah.

That's how tough that motherfucker is two broken hands just trying to find a way to win yeah it's miserable that's uh yeah it was a title fight too yep yep you do amazing things for title fights yeah no but i i want i wanted to bring in uh joe if you allow me i'm uh because i'm honored man and i think uh i think uh i i brought them in joe because i want to kind of share, you know, kind of like the new age stuff, like something that's just taken over the top. So, Kevin, if you can hear me, come on. Oh, I can't. There's a bit long delay.

There's like a 30-second delay. You can go grab them. Okay. I'll grab them. Yeah, go grab them, Captain. He's going to come back with a new layer of root. He's going to come back with a cape layer removed he's gonna come back with a cape he's gonna come back naked uh we don't have another microphone though unfortunately so he's

gonna have to take your spot because there's not not another microphone you could captain america man when we use a fourth microphone we actually have to set it up and it's not up right now and joe what do you think of captain america he's hilarious i think that weed got to him. Oh, man. You know how you are with Eddie? That's kind of how I am with him, you know? No, it's that certain relationship. Yep, yep.

Hey, man, that helps. How are you, sir? Good. How are you doing, Joe? Push up. Tell everybody who you are. I'm Kevin Longoria. I am the chief science officer for NeuroForce1. There you go.

And then I'm a neurophysiologist as well. Keep this about like a fist from your face. Okay. So tell us what your role was in camp and what you did to help him get ready. Cool. Yeah. So NeuroForce1 is a neuroscience-based training company and a medical-grade diagnostic testing company as well.

Where are you guys at? We're out of Scottsdale, Arizona. So what we really focus on, which a lot of companies aren't talking about, is the role of the gut and the mind in conjunction with your physical training. So essentially what we do is we start off with a really comprehensive baseline assessment. We want to run them through everything. So the traditional functional threshold powers, autonomic nervous system, DC brain potentials. And really what you want to do is you want to put somebody on a normal curve. What is a DC brain potential? DC brain potential is a-

It's like you want to be like Daniel Cormier. Yeah, sounds like- You got to get that DC brain potential. We all want to be a little bit like DC. But basically, it's an objective measurement of your central nervous system. So you can actually, your central nervous system is basically the data aggregator, if you will. So it has to take information from your metabolic systems,

your autonomics, kind of coordinate things like neuromuscular and metabolic efficiency. That's kind of the data center, if you will. So this is a measurement of potential, basically how much energy you have in the central nervous system to go coordinate neuromuscular and metabolic efficiencies, which is really what we focus on. So is this on like a chart?

Are you getting it? Like, is there a number reading that you're getting? Like, what is it that? Correct. Specifically for DCs, it's going to be in millivolts. And then you just compare that to normative ranges. But most importantly, what it is, is trending data over time. This is an assessment that we would do on Henry every single morning.

It's a home test kit. We really believe in just collecting as much data as possible and trending data. That way, when you see a change, essentially you get predictability in terms of, you know, today's a no-go day because central nervous system is diminished. We're just going to be going through the motions. We're not going to make physiological adaptations and your inflammation is really high. No-go because we're not going to go risk injury when we can't make adaptations. So this is a measurement we would do every single morning where we can look at autonomic nervous system, which is basically things like recovery, sympathetic, parasympathetic balance, DC brain potentials, and metabolic systems.

And what is measuring all these things? Is there a device? Yeah, yeah. This is a pretty amazing device. We actually got it from the UFC Performance Institute. Shout out to those guys, Clint, Bo, and Roman over there. Set us up with this technology. It's basically a chest strap that does heart rate variability, so, and Roman over there, set us up with this technology. It's basically a chest strap

that does heart rate variability, so time and frequency domain analysis, and it does DC brain potential. So a little sticker right here on your forehead. Basically four minutes, you just kind of relax and we collect pretty amazing data and it breaks it down into four different categories, what's called windows of trainability. So it says today we should focus on strength and power or skill acquisition based on metabolic readiness, autonomic readiness, and DC brain potentials. So what is our body primed to go do today? Because if you're not primed, your nervous system doesn't have the energy, you're just going to be going through the motions. So you're sort of there to dictate

when it's going to be a hard day, when it's going to be an easy day. Correct. Yeah. And that's something as you, I'm sure you guys know in wrestling, it's always hard, always let's go. So this was a little bit of an issue in the camp at the very beginning, if you could imagine. Henry wakes up, it's a sparring day, we're maybe even supposed to do two-a-days. He wakes up feeling really good, and nervous system is out of whack. He's like, sorry, man, I know you feel good, but you're not, you know.

Wow. Yeah, so we would go a no-go that day, and, you know, as you could see, it all worked out in the long run. It worked out fantastic. But was that weird for you to feel good? And then to be told you got to chill out? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was, it almost takes a while to kind of adapt, but I started, as I started recognizing like my body change and how I felt and sparring and how they were and how kind of, I felt recovered I was like god this is this is crazy like I didn't run at all this whole camp so do you get a baseline off of this Eric you gotta stop moving around you're freaking me out he's doing hand signals

back there he's translating for the deaf people so what do you do a baseline on this before you get started and then you as before camp gets started and then when camp starts ramping up then you start measuring all the various details correct yeah so we do a comprehensive baseline assessment including the omega wave as well as you know six or eight hours of other testing everything that you could think of under the sun and we put together uh basically columns of this is what you're suboptimal at this is what you're average at this is what you're really damn good at so basically what we want to do is exploit your functional strengths, it's what you're good at, but then we also want to focus on your functional deficiencies.

In a sport like MMA, we also sometimes have the advantage of looking at your opponent and making certain assumptions in terms of their weaknesses, their strengths. Going against somebody like DJ, you don't really have that advantage. So what we really needed to focus on is what Henry's really good at, his ground game. You look, you know, we're doing nervous system assessments while he's on the ground. His sparring partners, their stress systems are going like crazy. He's calming down because this guy likes to be on the floor rolling around. So we pinpoint these little strategic strengths and deficiencies, and then we target all of this nutrition, supplementation. A big thing that we focus on is nutrient timing, something that's not really talked about as well.

But when you're talking about gut health and recovery, managing the hormones associated with exercise, you've got to be getting in the right nutrients in your energy, anabolic, and growth phases. So for nutrient timing, you're talking about when you're actually eating and what you're eating. So you're planning that out as well? A hundred percent, yes. So we put together a nutrition program and because training varies every morning, we're deciding what we're going to do for the day. It's completely dynamic. So we're kind of reinventing the game of periodization and programming because you can't give somebody

an eight week plan. You have to check every single day. This is how you stay very dynamic and you avoid plateaus and just the issues, you know, it's always going to lead to suboptimal performance if you're programming out. So every day we adjust. We're doing this intensity of training. We did a VO2 max assessment. So we know exactly how much glycogen you're burning at various levels of intensity. We do heart rate tracking during your training.

All right, this is exactly what you have to replace following. So I'm standing on the sidelines after every practice mixing up custom supplements for him as well. So this is something. What kind of stuff? We have our own supplement line right now. Frankly, not because the world needed another supplement line. It's not really what our goal was. In sports like this, you have to be so careful what you're putting in these guys' body.

So we just went the route of going GMP certified, WADA, USADA approved on everything we do. Eventually, we want to try and work with a badass company because we don't want to be in the supplement game. For us, it was just quality control. So being a nervous system-based company, obviously, we're doing things like omega-3, DHAs, BCAAs to maintain, put on a little bit of muscle. We do a lot of – a big one, I believe, is the Generation UCAN, the super starch. Very good without a big glycemic, big insulin response, but very good at replenishing your glycogen stores following to minimize cortisol and inflammatory responses and things like that.

So every day it's a little bit different, but, yeah, we ended up going with our own line. And one of the biggest things that we never really talk about in the fight as well is the role that gut health plays. So that's something Henry does year-round, regardless of when we're fighting, is take our line, which is called Freedom Cleanse Restore. This is world-renowned, utilized by university researchers all around the world right now. And basically, it's all just about restoring good gut bacteria, prebiotics, probiotics, and lymphatic cleansing. And this is going to be something that really played a big role in his weight cut as well. It's kind of a

missing link that athletes aren't talking about. but good gut health is going to help with serotonin production. So recovery, relaxation, mood, you know, production of brain derived neurotropic factors. So our nervous system can make these adaptations and learn new skills and things along these lines. So this is something, you know, in my opinion, a big reason why, uh, you know, he had the issue with DJ the first time around Henry, Henry will tell the story. Like He had gut inflammation so bad that people would say good luck before the fight. Tap his gut and that hurt him. That's not normal and that all goes back to the issues associated with weight cutting as we were talking about a little bit. But getting that gut health right, no inflammation,

that goes a long way. How long have you guys been in business for? We've only been in business for about 8 months. We're still very new. Been working with Henry a little bit longer than that. But yeah, this company is just getting off the ground. We kind of rebranded a few months ago, just opened our first facility as well out in Scottsdale. What is your background in? I'm a physiologist. I opened the first mobile medical grade diagnostic testing company in Arizona. So basically, I would have these diagnostics and largely it was trying to fix the healthcare system a little bit. We want individualized solutions. We want data-driven outcomes, right? You want quantifiable progress. So people want to feel good about what they're doing, but maybe a doctor can't afford

this big ass metabolic cart or they don't know how to use it. So what I did is I purchased this equipment, hired technicians, and we would bring it mobile. You know, technology is getting smaller, more mobile. So this was my idea of how I would go make my little dent in the healthcare system. You know, there were issues with scalability in terms of finding good technicians, but the goal is just to go out there and provide data-driven solutions, right? We live in a world of subjectivity, guesswork, a very punishment-oriented fitness system where it sucks to start working out. You typically gain weight if you're doing the right stuff because you're getting hydrated. You go get injured. The goal is to redefine how we assess people so that we can

find these little tweaks for positive reinforcement. And that goes a long way with health care as well as fitness. So you guys mostly working with civilians? Are you working with pro athletes? Right now we're in the research and development phase. So we're really only working with guys like Henry, Victoria, Anthony, a very badass wrestler we're working with right now as well. Just some amazing people, largely for research and development. We trade them the training for the data. And how'd you guys get together? We've been working with Henry about a year. He knew our CEO, Kareem Amin, a great guy. We kind of all circle around Kareem. He brought us all together. But he came in

probably about eight months ago, a little bit before the first camp, and we met, talked, and Henry was straight up. He's like, man, you know your stuff, but you don't know MMA. So I took that. Personally, we spent a lot of time together. I had to learn the sport. I'm a physiologist, not an MMA physiologist. So we really took the time to get to know each other, you know, hang out a lot. Now I got to go to his house and wake him up every day for eight weeks. So that was, we got to know each other pretty well. I do his meal preps and stuff. Too much. Yeah. That's a fantastic combination though. A guy like you who knows so much about the body and recovery and a real super high-level Olympic gold medalist athlete. I mean, when you get that combination, I mean, that's really a dream for a guy like you and for a guy like you.

Like, for both of you guys to come together like this, now I understand why you wanted to bring him on as well. Yeah. I mean, you know. If you understand half if you understand half i don't i can pretend i will yeah yeah the dc line thing yeah yeah that shit's important but no i mean i i do feel uh honored and blessed to be able to work with somebody like henry he's the hardest working guy out there and and of course the hard work goes a long ways but man this guy's a genetic freak as well i i've had the ability to test Olympic athletes, many other sports as well. This guy makes adaptations faster than

anybody. He came off 12 weeks, 16 weeks maybe of not training VO2s already in the high 60s, functional threshold powers that would go compete with the world-class Ironmen that I'm training and things as well. And then, I mean, we did some amazing stuff. If you looked at the body composition changes that we did in seven weeks, it wasn't even a full eight-week camp, he put on 4.2 pounds of skeletal muscle mass, like good mass, which as a physiologist I would call bullshit on if I didn't see it with my own two eyes. That's pretty incredible.

Yeah, incredible. And Henry will tell you he may be picked up weights like three or four times. We don't really do traditional strength training because a lot of people just, it's called vector-based training. So a lot of people do things like squats and deadlifts. This is an axial plane. Like we don't live in this up and down plane. So we break it down by vector. What angles does he need to exert and absorb force in very effectively?

And very rarely does that come down to actually utilizing weights. We do things like positional isometrics and eccentric training and things along these lines. Number one, they integrate with the nervous system very effectively. Isometrics? Yeah, positional isometrics. Like what kind of like planks? I mean, that's kind of a low level of it. Yeah, largely what you would want to do is like a biomechanical assessment and look at overactive and underactive muscles and you put them in very specific positions and you leverage what's called reciprocal inhibition. So basically, and then the most basic term, like when I'm flexing my bicep, my tricep is relaxing.

So you'd hold certain positions so that you want to turn on certain muscles and kind of turn off other ones. And it's kind of a high level of PNF stretching, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. So this is what would be done in like a PT office. So for wrestling like what kind of exercises would you do that would incorporate those methods i mean wrestling is you know largely a torsional sport so when it comes to wrestling we do things like like kaiser like pneumatic compressions and things like that so instead

of using weights we use air pressure basically it. It's very smooth, very low risk of injury. And they live in this torsional plane. So you do a lot of transverse plane. And we do a lot of velocity-based training as well. Actually, really interesting, a study that was published recently, they had a lot of guys working on it for a full year. Some only did velocity, never actually picked up a weight. The other ones did traditional strength training. The people who did velocity-based training, no actual weight training, got stronger with less muscular hypertrophy. I mean, they didn't get as big, but they were stronger at the end of the day. So when you look at something like wrestling and MMA where you got to make a low weight, but you want to be strong as possible, you know, velocity-based training is kind of the way of the future.

So this is kind of our general gym concept that we're building right now is the gym of the future may not need weights. We're going to be next door to these CrossFit gyms where they're throwing all these weights over their head, getting injured. We're next door, empty gym, and people are getting stronger. That's kind of the gym of the future the way we see it. How would you define velocity-based training? Basically, what you want to do is it's kind of like the new one rep max. We all know one rep maxes aren't the safest thing to perform. There's different assessments. Actually, what I'm wearing here on my wrist right now, this is the wearable tech of the future. This is something

we're testing right now. This does velocity. So I could stand in any position. I could do a push press or I could do a punch. This is going to measure my velocity. Your max velocity at no weight would be your one rep max velocity basically. And then you're going and you're doing your training. So max velocity every single rep. When you hit 20% dampening, so say I was at 10 meters per second, as soon as I hit 8 meters per second, I stop. So this is kind of what they call fatigue.

So you stop that. So instead of doing, you know, you're going to do eight reps. You do as many reps as you can until you reach a certain dampening of velocity. And what are you doing them with? Largely things like the Kaiser, the functional trainer, if you're familiar with that. So you're just blasting. Band work. Yeah, things like that.

I mean, very rarely we'll throw like, you know, Indian clubs and things like that in there as well. So it all depends on the sport and what we're focusing on that day, you know, metabolic readiness, things along those lines. But it's all just about training in the right vectors and being able to not only put out force but absorb force as well, which nobody really talks about. If you look at largely other professional sports, all these injuries are happening in the deceleration phase. So when people are trying to slow down, this is absorbing force. This is kind of similar to some of the pieces that just aren't trained in MMA as well.

You've got to be able to absorb force just like you put it out. Now, this wrist thing that you're wearing, it measures velocity. So how is it doing that? So basically I have one here and then I have one on my shoe as well. So it can do it by using two sensors. It can measure relative velocity. So it's reading one relative to the other. This is also doing everything that a badass traditional wearable would do as well.

So it's doing my heart rate, heart rate variability, which is actually clinical grade. Everything we do has got to be clinical grade because what's the point of collecting data if it's shit, right? And then it does pulse oximetry. So I'm looking at my oxygen saturation. The next version is going to be able to do hydration, all kinds of badass stuff. What's really cool about it as well is it can measure form. Any exercise that you're doing, we can compare you essentially to an ideal form. And because we have two, you don't even have to tell that you're doing a power clean. It can read your motions and things like that. And it gives you like a consistency number as well.

So one thing we really talk about is not building muscle on top of dysfunction. We have to get your biomechanical patterns right first, and then we start putting muscle on. If you just put muscle on top of dysfunction, you're facilitating further dysfunction. Would you have to wear one of those on each hand? I mean, I'd say ideally for someone like a fighter, you obviously are throwing with both hands. I think it would be ideal. It's really difficult to time sync multiple devices to be on the same timeline. So that's something we're working with this company, an amazing company actually out of here,

out of L.A., to develop this thing right now. So I would say that would be the goal. It's not something that's going to be applicable to the average guy, though, as well. We're trying to bring this type of training to everybody. Would it be possible instead of time syncing it, you have a left and a right computer, like two different computers that are reading data, both one off the left, one off the right, so you don't have to coordinate them? You just look at the various data? Yeah. I mean, at the end of right, so you don't have to coordinate them. You just look at the various data. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, you still would have to sync them. You know, so the thing there, you'd be collecting it in two different sets of hardware.

You'd want an API connectivity, put it up in the cloud, and then you'd still at the end of the day have to find the same time axis. So it sounds simpler than it really would be. That's why this is the only wearable in the world right now that has even one in the foot. And so this also allows you to track your gait while you're running and things as well. But the more devices, the more complex. And, you know, that's something I think would be great, but maybe not applicable to everybody. Is it going to be able to track martial arts moves?

Like, will it be able to track a double leg takedown or a roundhouse kick or anything like that? Right now, you can program it to do anything. You put it into a kind of like a learning mode on your app. You do a few motions, you name it, and then it can basically compare you to yourself in that mode. So you can try and do perfect form and measure your form relative to yourself. But if you have shitty form, you're comparing yourself to shitty form. Exactly. So it doesn't know any better. Exactly. So what we're doing right now, which will be a little bit of a lengthy process, is defining a library of perfect form for everything that you could think of.

And then this is going to unlock telehealth and teletraining. When you have something like that, we can do remote programming and be monitoring people's neuromuscular function, their biomechanics completely remotely. So that's really what we're going towards. Wow, this is fascinating stuff, man. There's always been several aspects to getting a fighter ready for camp. There's always been their skill set what what they're good at um specific training for that

one individual opponent that they're going to face and then all the strength and conditioning and you know it's usually thought of as you know weights and sprints and plyos and on all these different things but i feel like this is probably the next step, the next step measuring all these variables that you're talking about and seeing how your body is at any given time so that you're not just guessing whether you're peaking. You're scientifically peaking. Exactly, man. I mean, there's just no room for guesswork and subjectivity at this level.

And technology doesn't – there's no need for it anymore. So we're just trying to let people know shit like this is available right so we're developing it and then the end goal is just to make it extremely user-friendly right so you're doing your velocity based training and it says stop and then you rest and we're using your heart rate variability to tell you when to go again so like you know it's easy to stop and go for your periodization and things like that so the technology's's here, now making it actionable recommendations for the individual that can understand is kind of what we're moving towards. This is awesome stuff, man.

Thank you. Yeah, we're really passionate about what we're doing. It's crazy that you've only been around for such a short amount of time, too, and yet you already have a world champion. Oh, I know, man. I mean, I feel, you know, there's times where you feel like you didn't deserve the opportunity because I'm new to the field. You know, we obviously work our asses off and everything,

but for Henry to put the faith into us, this was a world champion camp. We're a company, honestly, we're not even open yet. This is probably one of the best accelerations for a company that's never seen the light of day ever. We also run a few other sports as well, but for him to give us this opportunity, we felt like we owed him something.

We worked extra hard, essentially put our entire company on hold for eight weeks to go help him out. And it's paying dividends, obviously. We're here right now. Now, are you guys going to be open to the general public, say the average girl or guy who does, say, jiu-jitsu tournaments and wants to get in the best shape of their life? Are you going to have products for them and a service where they can sign up for something like that? Certainly. Right now we are already open in terms of diagnostic testing.

So you can come in based on your sport, your goal, whatever it may be. We do have customized diagnostic packages because some assessments just aren't applicable to some people. So we customize your assessment. We basically tell you what you're good at, what you're bad at. Then if you want to develop a program, that's a little bit of an upcharge. The real goal there is to be able to do completely remote training, completely in-house training, and then any level of hybrid training as well. So right now, what the world needs is the diagnostic testing, the data. We're already ready to do that. What we're building now is the processes of being able to use data,

put it into recommendations, and then scale that. It's hard to teach somebody everything that I do, so we're building the softwares to essentially replicate ourselves. My buddy in the other room, Andre Hicks, one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the world. These guys will attest to it. You can't teach people what he knows, so we have to code this into a software, a lot of if-then type stuff. And then this is able to be scalable to everybody. We want to provide this training to people, you know, the average Joe trying to lose weight, you know, the weekend warrior, the jujitsu, everything, man, we want to be able to provide this to everybody. Everybody deserves this type of training. That's minimal

risk of injury, high yield return, efficient. That's what everyone's looking for. And that's, that's why, you know, the people are getting fatter. There's no good positive reinforcement out there and there's no clear roadmap of how to get to where you want to be. You know, we put together like, you know, comparing it to Google Maps, everybody knows their end point. They know where they want to be, but it can't tell you where you're at unless you know exactly where you're starting from. You have to do this baseline assessment. You know, sometimes it sucks to really understand how fat you're, you know, your body fat percentage and your metabolics and your risk of, you know, sometimes it sucks to really understand how fat your, you know, your body fat percentage and your metabolics and your risk of, you know, your insulin resistance and things like that.

But you have to figure out where you're starting from, where you want to be. And that's how we develop a roadmap. So getting people, you know, and we believe this is, this is the way of kind of making our way into the healthcare system as well. That's our end goal as a company is people to provide, you know, integrative fitness is what we're calling it. Taking little pieces from all the different methodologies of fitness. Like, you know, we bring meditation and yoga into our practice as well.

So little pieces of just about everything and be able to, you know, provide this to everybody. That's what we're doing. So in the future, when you guys are open, you're not totally open to the general public yet, right? Correct. Yeah. About six or eight months. Would someone have to come to you for the first initial assessments and then possibly be able to

do the consulting either online or, you know, through, through the application? I mean, there's totally different degrees. We have a hundred percent remote kits right now. There's badass stuff you can do on your iPad, like biomechanical assessments that can find your joints and things like that. We can send this to you. There's a lot of things that we want to be able to do a hundred percent remote for the most complex assessment. You got to come in, you got to do a VO two max assessment. We can't send you a metabolic cart and shit, obviously. So the, the goal is to get people to just come into the facility and then do remote programming from there. And this is a, you know, our, our concept is to put these diagnostic centers and possibly the attached training centers as well and just start providing these everywhere.

Because, frankly, if we just went the diagnostic gym of the future route, it could be 500, 600 square feet, low overhead facilities that are just really efficient, just putting people out, collecting data left and right. That's amazing, man. What has it been like for you to make this gigantic change and to basically be like Ivan Drago yeah pretty much that's that's pretty much how it's kind of how it's kind of been like we took in that uh the Ivan Drago approach probably more than the Rocky approach you know which which I think I think Russians kind of tend to use science a little bit more in their training so to me at first it was almost like man I'm going all in on uh this especially this camp against demetrius i'm like god i'm i'm going all in man like i'm gonna have faith in in the science

like a hundred percent i'm gonna do everything according to even you know even if even if i don't want to and that's and i think it just as i started seeing my body change i started seeing like the coaches kind of adapt with like okay man science is in the center of this whole camp. And I saw the change, and I've never felt so recovered the night that I fought Demetrius Johnson. I've never felt so good, and I'm 31 years old, and I've been cutting weight since I've been a kid. So you felt a big difference through the entire camp doing this kind of method? Yeah, through the entire camp. And people would trip out and be like, people were like, man, you're committing, you're at suicide.

How come you're not doing this? How come you're not doing that? And you would have to kind of... What were they saying, how come you're not doing? Like, what specifically? Oh, no, just more work, more pad work, more sparring rounds,

like things of that matter, kind of like the gladiator stuff. They're like, no, no, no, it's going to go according to my heart rate. It's going to go according to my heart rate. It's going to go according to what my windows of opportunity of training are. And people are like, what kind of mumbo jumbo are you talking about? You're supposed to be fighting. Yeah, like nobody knows.

Like the day that I wake up, the day that I train, nobody knows what's going on until the data's gone in the hands of Kevin and Neuroforce One. And then, okay they they determine this is how many rounds this is how how we're going to kind of peak you for your fight if you could imagine uh standing on the sideline when he's like sparring and rounds and stuff and we're slow down pace you're like coaches like you can't do that this is fighting you can't try and control your heart rate while training no this is training for fighting right you know so we're constantly telling him to train less, slow himself down. You know, there was a little bit of clashing there at the beginning. And then they started to see the body

composition come around and started to feel his power. And everyone kind of bought into the process. But it takes a while. We're redefining it. And we understand that there's gonna be some pushback. This is such a universal concept when it comes to strength and conditioning coaches. It's being discussed over and over again nowadays. People are doing too much. They're doing too much and your body just doesn't have a chance to recover. And even though you're getting in better shape, ultimately, you're not getting in as good a shape as you could have gotten if you did less which is so counterintuitive for most people yeah and that's kind of how that's that's that's kind of how i used to train so hard but i used to get hurt i mean i used to have back spasms kicking like that's how hard i would train like

my back would literally go i was just kicking i'll throw one kick and they had to pull me out the gym in a stretcher you know and i had those problems because i had just i i really i didn't you almost train according to how how uh you know what the how the schedule is rather than okay this is this this is the approach today because this is how this is how your stress levels are yeah like relax dude and then and then at times you're gonna go hard and it's it it'll spike you at time. It's crazy. Well, that's the crazy contrast, right, is between this championship mentality that just wants to do more than anybody, push harder, train while everybody else is asleep, put your body through more than anybody else is willing to do

because that's what makes a champion. And then someone like you comes along and goes, no, that's what fucks you up. You need to slow down. You need to do less, less rounds, move slower. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that was one of the biggest things I told him. If you're not sleeping eight to ten hours a night when you're putting your body through something, you're doing your body an injustice and you're not going to make adaptations.

When we're out there training, we're breaking our body down. It needs this repair. We need to activate our glymphatic system, our brain's waste removal system as well. So we can go learn some new things the next day as well. So if you're not sleeping, you're suboptimal, just like you're not properly hydrated and things as well. This is, this is all comes down to the cellular level, you know, nervous system based approach. Now, are you taking melatonin or anything to ensure that you go to sleep at a specific time? Do you time your sleep schedule? Like how do you time your sleep schedule like how are you organizing that yeah i think i think and that's another thing even at times uh

according to when i would go to sleep because at times you know how you train late and sometimes you come back and it just takes you a while to go to sleep yeah so even then it would it would be like all right when when henry's ready to wake up, obviously, if I don't hear my alarm and I snooze it, I'm more likely they're going to allow me to sleep an extra two hours. Which is important. Yeah. So it's kind of like what Floyd does. Floyd will be like, hey, we'll wake everybody up at 3 in the morning. But there's no scientific to what Floyd's doing.

Like, to us, it's like, hey, dude, we have to peak today. I've always wondered if there is science behind it, and he just doesn't talk about it. With Floyd, you don't know. Yeah, I'd like to think so. Yeah, like when he drinks a Pepsi after a workout. I was like, I wonder if someone told him to do that to replenish his body with a ton of sugar. High-glycemic carbs right after, that's the only time it's really good, that little 45 window of insulin sensitivity. So I do believe that.

One technology while we're on the sleep thing, one that we're utilizing for Henry, just a little light microcurrent here to your temporal lobes, and it's proven to increase serotonin and melatonin and decrease cortisol. So we're, like, manipulating biochemicals, and it's a very natural way of making you feel drowsy. What time do you do that at? and it's a very natural way of making you feel drowsy. What time do you do that at? We would do that immediately following every rigorous training session to kind of like negate inflammatory responses and things like that, get you back into that anabolic phase as quickly as possible,

and then ideally right before bed every single night. Did you feel like a science project while all this shit was going on? I did. I did. Actually, they did a presentation on me in Russia with Roman, with the scientists that they have at the USCPI. Like they tracked everything according to the Omega wave, the device that we were using. And he was able to kind of show it was like, hey, look, my system, my, you know, this system does work. You know, it's just like people were kind of just tripping out. So I was, I went out there,

did the whole presentation with, in Moscow. And everybody was just kind of just and everybody was kind of just like, wow, amazing. Some of them were kind of scratching their head, and some of them were like, damn, that's cool. You're able to kind of see how I peaked for this fight and how I was able to kind of survive five rounds. The Russians have really been pioneering this type of training for quite a while, specifically the type of training that Pavel Tatsulin uses, where you're using way less energy, you're working out way less,

but you're getting better results from it. There's a lot of thought processes that have been leaning in this direction from a lot of really high-level top coaches for quite a while now. Yeah, I know. And it's cool to see it because I come from a traditional sport where you put your head down and you go. That's how wrestling is. Wrestling and Muay Thai, I think they're very alike in that sense.

They're very traditional. The harder you go, the more you push through injury, the better you will become. Yeah, I also think that there's something to be said for that, though, in terms of mental strength. Because one of the things that wrestlers have that is it's not just that they have a great skill in being able to manipulate bodies, but they also have mental toughness that's at a level that I don't think you get from any other sport. I mean, I think there's a lot of pro athletes, even tennis players, that are just mentally tough. They're just tough.

So people just know how to win. They know how to push themselves. But I feel like wrestlers are on another level because they're always tired. They're always overtrained. They're always dehydrated. And they're always working out with a bunch of fucking savages that are all the same way. And everybody takes pleasure in being miserable. There's something to that.

You see it. Man, I've seen thousands of fights. You see there's something to that like you see it man i've seen thousands of fights you see there's something about wrestlers they have just like an extra gear like a high level wrestler in particular has an extra gear that a lot of other fighters just never develop yeah it's it's almost like i tell people wrestling's not it's almost like not a sport man it's like a culture yes it's like you're just you're in the culture of wrestling and once you have that it's almost uh there's an honor to it there's a warrior to it like and it's yeah it's it's it i was just at the world championships joe and i can tell you

man the best athletes in the world i was just in budapest hungary and i saw kyle snyder and all these guys compete and i'm just just like, man, these are the best athletes in the world. This is the hardest shit a human being could ever do. If you're to see the finesse and the strength and the power and what's involved in becoming a world champion and watching these guys go through this freaking

tough, just the toughest tournament in the world, I think what we do in MMA is fun compared to compared to wrestling i really do i believe like that stuff is like man that stuff is hard what these guys go through to win a tournament like it's the weight cuts the you know they don't get paid a lot of money right like these dudes are literally out for the glory yeah all of them each and every one of them it's all glory there's no financial reward at all that's what's fascinating about it but it's it's just interesting

to me that i think you kind of need both in some weird way your mind needs to develop this this layer of toughness that wrestlers have and then i think once you've developed that, then maybe I think your approach, Kevin, is like applicable. But I think that until an athlete has that indomitable spirit, until they have that sort of that iron will that a wrestler possesses, to make a champion, I think you need many, many things. But I don't think you can ever discount that ability to work through discomfort the way wrestlers have. I just don't think it's wise as a professional athlete at a championship level to compete compromised. Oh, agreed.

There's the intangibles, the stuff that you just can't teach. You can't quantify. So we do our best to quantify as much as we can, but yeah, I completely agree. You've got to put in the time and the work to learn the skill at some point and then once you know it's autonomic the skill is mastered that's when you can kind of kick it back into our method i'm gonna i'm gonna agree with you joe i think i'm gonna agree with you and i think the reason why this works for pretty much

every mma fighter is because we've all been through hell yeah like in order for you to see and believe in science is you have to go through how to understand like, hey, man, the hard way probably isn't the best way. But when you were talking about your your the feeling that you had and not wanting to ever feel the pain of losing again, that feeling that you had when your ankle was going out and that like, fuck this. No, no, no. I'm not doing this. I'm going to find a way out of this. they're like fuck this no no no i'm not doing this i'm gonna find a way out of this like you almost have to experience lows in order to have that and i feel like that one of the things about wrestling that makes it a sport that creates so many fucking savages is because you go through

so much shit so much hardship so so much difficulty that you know if you had science-based wrestling programs the way you're doing a science-based camp and you went in and you know said everybody you gotta slow down slow down you know like you're going too hard slow down can't run up hills today you know your your your dc brain waves are off your wrestling coach would be like, shut the fuck up and sit there. Who is this asshole? Like if Dan Gable brought you in a camp and you guys were running around doing all this stuff, he'd be like, what? Like, what are you saying?

Like, this is how we make champions. Yeah, but like I said, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it's, to me, the way I would see it is like you have to kind of go through hell in order to understand it because you have to go through that callous through that burn yeah but I feel like especially in MMA a lot of athletes or even athletes just in general they everybody busts their butts almost if you're an elite athlete like you'll you'll always train maybe not the smartest way yeah you know like it's uh yeah I guess you could add more to your training or take away less. But there's a fine line to it.

Yeah, the fine line is what's fascinating to me. Yeah. One of the things that I love about MMA is that it's so broad. There are so many skills that the approach to success is different with every individual, and you have to find what that approach is. Success is different with every individual, and you have to find what that approach is. Like the approach to you for you to achieve success is going to be different than the approach for a different athlete. It doesn't have the same skills that you have.

But like Anderson Silva, perfect example. He's not a wrestler. He's going to have a different approach. There's going to be different things that they work on in training. There's going to be a different mindset. There's going to be a different that they work on in training there's going to be a different mindset it's going to be a different way of preparing right right and it's all according to everybody according like not it's i think a lot of things are cookie cutter like looking at it the way now it's like a lot of things have have stayed even in wrestling like just over tradition you know like bridging like every time i see people bridging the way they stretch their

neck i'm just like that ain't good for us man That shit's so bad for your neck And then they be doing like these like springs on their head I'm just like Kevin how bad is that? How bad is bridging for you? I mean I wouldn't recommend it I mean

But Mike Tyson always looked badass when he was doing it back in the day I was gonna say it looks pretty badass So I mean Teach your own but Have you ever fucked around with the iron neck? With the iron neck? You don't know about that? Nuh-uh.

Oh, I got one back there. Those things are badass. You gotta try this, man. I saw some of your videos. That's definitely one of the missing links why a lot of these wrestlers get hurt. You know, neck instability, the postural issues that come associated with it as well. These guys need to strengthen their necks. It's a halo.

You put it on. You pump it up like a Reebok pump. Remember the Reebok pump? Yeah, the shoe. Yeah. You pump this sucker up so it tightens up on your head. You put a chin strap on. It's got a bungee cable on that's set to 50 pounds.

You back up, and then there's resistance on the halo, so it spins. The halo has like – you could tighten up or clamp down or loosen up the resistance. And you do these exercises like – you sideways you do like like like loops back and forth it's it's fucking badass damn that's that's crazy i'm excited man i gotta yeah you gotta try is that why i signed that waiver is that no you signed a waiver because you're gonna get a hold of some of that weed i I don't want you running through walls. And then the float tank, if you want to try the float tank, that's what the waiver's for too. I don't want you to lose your mind.

Yeah, the sensory immersion, those float tanks are pretty badass. We study those quite a bit for the nervous system-based stuff. We're building kind of our own sensory immersion, like mindfulness room of the future as well. All the walls, LED screens, so you can put yourself fully immersed in any environment. It's going to be pretty badass. Mindfulness is so overlooked in these sports. How important,

I know you're a meditation guy as well, getting your mind right is invaluable. Yeah, and you were saying that meditation and yoga is also a part of the preparation that you guys employ? Oh, 100%. Yeah. I mean, it all comes down to when we're doing our warm-up, training, and recovery, it's all mind and body. So his warm-up is going to include like somatosensory reaction testing. So imagine like a wall and it has different lights on it. You react as quickly as you can as soon as they light up. And I say, all right, if the light comes up red, use your right hand and blue, use your left hand. So we're invoking cognitive decision-making processes.

So we're invoking cognitive decision-making processes. Then we have you stand on one of these shake plates, a proprioceptive plate. Now your vision, your neuromuscular, your proprioceptive, everything is warmed up. Every part of your brain that's going to equate to force output, absorption, and so on. Then we go do a more traditional warm-up, whatever that may be. We do cognitive training. We do physical training more from a functional aspect. And then as soon as you're done, we get you into a mind-based recovery as well.

So we get you into yoga, meditation, that technology we're playing with right now that manipulates your biochemicals, just about everything, man. It's mind and body every step along the way. And when you're doing yoga, are you doing yoga to increase mobility? Are you doing it for the mental training, for both? Definitely a little bit of both. We believe Andre Moore leads the yoga, what we're doing over there. So he'd be better to ask specifically. it for the mental training for both like um definitely a little bit of both we believe andre more leads the the yoga what we're doing over there so he'd be better to ask specifically but we believe it largely for nervous system and for breathing uh one thing we really talk about

is the diaphragmatic breathing and yoga is really a calm environment to be able to focus on your breathing what does that mean diaphragmatic breathing yeah breathing from your diaphragm this is how we're all born breathing from our diaphragm and just you know eventually we end up breathing from our chest which is very ineffective um for metabolic efficiency in general just like when you see like you know the wim hof guy he's right always breathing from his gut here and that's like engaging your core as opposed to just like your chest so you're actually getting deeper breaths you're encouraging like core stability and things as well it's better better for metabolic efficiency. So when you're actually exercising, it's better for delaying anaerobic threshold, buffering lactate, things like that, as well as keeping the nervous system calm as well.

Do you think there's any benefit to breathing through your nose and out through your mouth? Or is that? I'd say it's on an individualized basis. I think the best thing is to not think about your breathing. When you start thinking about it, it can kind of get fucked up. So if we encourage diaphragmatic breathing without this, this technology we utilize is actually, even though when you're utilizing the technology, you're just breathing in and out through your mouth, it actually encourages in through the nose, out through the mouth when you're training. So, I mean, I'm not an expert specifically on that, but it sounds, yeah, I think there's definitely some performance advantage to it.

I want to talk MMA now, Joe. Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate it. This guy will go on all day. I love it, Kevin. Thank you so much. That was amazing. Tell people where they can find out about your company and what your website is. Our company is in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The website is NeuroForce1ONE.com Check us out. Alright, thank you. That was very informative. It's intenseforce1one.com. Check us out. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Joe. That was very informative. It's intense shit, son. Henry's now become the standard because, like he said, that Roman from the Performance Institute did that PowerPoint presentation for UFC Moscow. He told us he's the first athlete that ever did eight weeks, that they have eight weeks collection of data so henry's now become the standard of the system that uh roman had neuroforce one and all the data put together it's the first

time ever that an athlete actually stuck to the program for eight weeks that's fantastic so for you now you got the title and there is talk about you fighting for the bantamweight title against champion tj dillashaw. What are your thoughts? Where are you at right now? What are your goals? It's a beautiful time to be the champ. There's tons of options, Joe.

Where's your contract at right now? Well, I still have about seven fights left. But we're going to renegotiate because I think more likely that TG fight might happen. It's got to happen. That TG fight might happen if it's going to be a done with with the flyweight division. I think they cat's out the bag, and Dana had mentioned that to me. He said, hey, we want to take you up on that offer. You are challenging to go up against TJ, but this is what the company's been thinking about for a while.

And TJ's down for it too? I don't think so. I think TJ wants to come down to 25. I think that's kind of like the delay a little bit. Now, would you rather fight him at 35 so you can get an additional title, or would you rather fight him at 35 because you don't have to cut weight? What's your thought process? I like both ideas.

I actually kind of left it off to him. I said, I don't know, but I want to fight you, man. I said, I want to fight TJ. I want to go out to the next best thing, and I think that's him. So you don't mind fighting him at 25 or 35? Yeah, I don't. That makes it easier. Yeah.

That definitely makes it easier. Yeah, I'm just like, hey, let's do it at, let's do that 35, but let's fight, man. That's what your mind is right now. That's your number one goal. Yeah, yeah. And I believe TJ wants to fight me, too. I think, you know, beating Demetrius, I think that's going to help his name. You know, I guess for both, you can say, you know.

But now that Demetrius has left the division and gone off to 1FC to get paid, where do you think the division is right now? I mean, is that one reason, like, if you won at 35 and won the title at 35, would you consider dropping the 25-pound title and competing at 35, or would you rather stay at 25? I wouldn't mind dabbling in both. I mean, I know that's kind of broad, but at one point you do get tired of cutting weight.

And I'm kind of— What do you weigh right now? I'm probably about 50. 50. I mean, losing 15 pounds is way better than losing 25 pounds yeah i'm i'm a little i'm a little bigger now uh because of because of that reason i might i might have to fight at uh at bantam some kind of uh i think more likely it might happen at bantam way what's what people don't know is that actually henry fought TJ when he was the champ.

When Hennon Burrell didn't make weight, his first fight in the UFC, he didn't make weight. But two hours later, Hennon Burrell didn't make weight, and they were looking for somebody to go up and fight TJ. You mean when Joe Soto fought him? When Joe Soto fought him, Henry was the number one option. But Henry had already declined. He said he wasn't fighting Jorgensen but now here we are three years later

back now he's got the tent he's got the belt TJ came back and won the belt let's do it these guys been beefing for for a long time so that's ever since the first day he ever came into the UFC him and TJ have been at it and then on the Ultimate Fighter Ultimate Fighter 24 they had Dwayne Bang was the coach.

There was like a little beef with Henry. And Benavidez's team, Benavidez's coach. So it kind of goes way back. There was a bit of animosity, too, on top of everything. Now, you're a very goal-oriented guy. Do you have your career mapped out in terms of like when you would like to get out of the game I do I do and I think about it a lot because man I'll be honest with you Joe I've uh I've accomplished everything I've

ever wanted to uh you know in my career like I've always I had I had three goals and that was just you know my number one goal was just to be a good person, a good father, a good husband. And then after that was to be an Olympic champ, and then eventually UFC champ. So everything's kind of, I've done everything that I've ever kind of set my mind to. You know, those are the two biggest, the two maddest things anybody could ever do. And I don't see myself fighting for more than maybe three to four years. The only other thing, you really are in this rare space where you have the possibility of being considered

one of the greatest combat sport athletes of all time. You're already in the mix, right? Olympic gold medalist, UFC champion. I mean, you have this very rare opportunity for incredible greatness. Yeah. I think for the most part, I mean, I'd like to eventually, I mean, I do a lot of motivational speaking. I've been doing that for a while, Joey.

I've spoken in front of, like, the biggest companies in the world. I mean, the Coca-Cola, like, TD Ameritrade, Proctercter and gallagher billion dollar club i just got signed by kroger um and they kind of you know they use me for for that reason and i really enjoy doing that you know and plus you get paid and you don't have to get leg kicked yeah yeah you don't have to get leg kicked and hit that nerve and do the drunken monkey yeah you don't got to do all that and hit that nerve and do the drunken monkey. Yeah, you don't got to do all that. And it's just cool to kind of share the whole underdog story. I love that people do do that, that companies have the mindset of bringing in champions and people that are extraordinary at whatever they do and speaking to these people that work for them and explaining. Motivation is gigantic.

Motivation is such a huge source of fuel for people in all walks of life. To have a guy like you come in and talk to a company could have a really big impact on their creativity, on how they pursue goals, on all kinds of different things. Yeah, so anyways, that's kind of where i kind of i can see my life kind of heading to now i know eventually i don't think i can i don't think i i think i'll always be a fan of the sport but i don't think i'll be involved in in either wrestling or fighting as much as i think i would not as a coach not as no no it's too hard joe like look at all these

these coaches it's it's a relationship yeah you know being a coach is you're in a relationship with your athletes. Sometimes you go through these breakups, and sometimes the athletes don't give you what they want to give you, and then it's just a headache at times. Yeah. And I see that with a lot of, you know, I see that with him, and I'm just like, man, I don't know if I want those stress levels. It's a lot of stress.

Well, Eric, for a guy like you, you get across a guy like Henry, you hit the gold mine. But you could get across a guy who is a really talented guy that's a flake. And those, to me personally, there's plenty of those. But to me, as an analyst, as someone who watches fights, they're the most frustrating. Because there's some guys that I see and I go, God damn, that motherfucker's good. He's got the potential. They can do things inside the octagon they do things like i'll see guys in the gym like i'll go to a gym and watch guys train and see the guy and i go if this motherfucker could put it together like this in the cage the way you see when he's sparring like some people are just artists but the the anxiety of competition and all the factors that come involved, the discipline, the consistency, all the things that make someone a great fighter sometimes.

There's so much, so many different things that make someone a great fighter that wind up fucking them up when they actually go to compete though the recklessness impulsiveness that actually makes them good also can wind up tanking them if they don't sort of forge it with with with some sort of like severe discipline yeah there has to be a training of the mind too and i think that's where people are skipping and uh you know i think that's that's where you have to understand the philosophy up here. You have to be right up top. You have to be right. You have to be literally, you have to understand and know who you are as a fighter, as a person. And to be stable enough to perform when it really matters yeah you know and if you don't have that you can be as talented

and and as gifted as you want you'll you'll never make it yeah and then we see those all the time like i'd see guys in practice man they would tear me up they came to competition they would just roll roll over like fish it's weird right yeah it's crazy i'm like huh yeah it's weird as you're coming up and you see those guys and you, you realize like, man, there's, there's something missing.

And then you, you, you, you're terrified. You're going to see that in yourself. And I think it's the embracement of embracing pressure. It's something that you don't neglect. It's something that you don't shy away from.

It's something that you don't allow damage to damage you, but it's an embracement. It's a, it's just like, Hey, bring it, man, bring it. Cause that's what it is, Joe.

It's the pressure that people feel, the reason why they can't perform. It's what makes champions. I remember when TJ Dillashaw first fought Hennon Burrell, when he got into that octagon, dude, he looked like he was sparring. He was loose as a goose. And I saw him, I'm like, damn, look how loose TJ is. Like, this is a world

title fight, and he's switching stances and giving them looks, and he looks fantastic. He just looked loose. And then, boom, he hits him with that big overhand right, and the next thing you know, Hennepin Ryle's getting fucked up. I mean, and that was what TJ thrives on that kind of pressure. He lives for that kind of pressure, just like you do, which is why I want to see that fight.

Let's do it. I want his head on a spike. We both do. I want to make some snake shoes out of TJ, man. Snake skin, baby. I want snake skin shoes. Maybe suit. He might be big enough for me.

Yeah. What a fight that would be for fans, too. I mean,'s uh those champion versus champion encounters are always so fantastic no and the reason why it's cool too is because we're both in our prime too like tj's probably a couple years older than me but even like dimitris like dude i beat dimitris in his prime like yeah it was a close fight but man i i can say dude i beat him in his prime in this prime it's almost like there's no doubt but it was it was because of the game planning and you ended the greatest winning streak in the history of the sport

right yeah i mean the greatest championship defense streak in the history of the sport and then on top i mean nurmagomedov has the greatest winning streak in the sport because he's you know he's still undefeated but as far as defending the title dj was number one and again you did it to him in his prime. If you look at the way he destroyed Wilson Hayes, if you look at like, I mean, fucking everybody, man. Moraga, everybody. He's a monster, man. Ray Borg, the greatest submission in flyweight history.

That was the craziest shit of all time. He fucking suplexes him and then catches an armbar on the way down. Get the fuck out of here. He told me he does that in training all the time. Shit, I believe you. Yeah, Matt Hume is a wizard. One of the things that I did that was kind of unconventional for this camp, I had them video edit.

Obviously, we scouted Demetrius Johnson, but then I went back and got every one-minute clip of Matt Hume's interval between rounds. So 25 fights, I have the one minute, what he tells him, how he adapts and changes. And one of the things I noticed is that he always went to wrestling. And when he always went to wrestling, he sounded like it was automatic. All right, so this round we're going to take him down and we're going to work. It was always automatic. And when it went into the fifth round, it wasn't automatic.

You could hear him say, you can try to take him down if you want. It was kind of like that the way he said it. And when I went back and watched and I was like, we got him. And going into that fifth round, one of the things that we talked about subliminally and mentally training was when we went, Henry was just put in the Hall of Fame, you know, which has never been done at such a young age. As a wrestler. As a wrestler.

Yeah, wrestling Hall of Fame. And when I was at the Wrestling Hall of Fame, Nate Carr, who's also one of the greatest wrestlers ever, he told me, he said, you know what, Eric, when I wrestled Kenny Monday and I lost to him in the Big Tens, I knew that when I went out two weeks later to fight him in the NCAA Finals that it might come up

that man this guy just beat me and he goes so I had a book actually I think he said his wife made his book and he put all the positive things that Nate Carr had done and all the articles and she made quotes from that and put it in this book.

So he gave me that idea. And then I did that. So when Henry was put in the Hall of Fame that night, they had a video highlights. They had Terry Brands, his coach. They had Sergey Beloglazov, Kenny, Kevin Jackson, some of the greatest, all his coaches saying stuff about him. And I took that and I put it in this book. all his coaches saying stuff about him.

And I took that and I put it in this book. And it kind of like, I read it to him every day. And it kind of like happened in the fight. One of his own quotes was said, I've got to go in there and kill and be ready to die. And, you know, when he got that leg injury, you know, he was ready to die. He was ready to keep going forward. Yes, we adapted and went southpaw but some of that stuff in the book came exactly true start fast and finish even stronger compete with passion and

and uh and purpose and this is what i said to him right here and the fifth and the fifth day to show you this because this is what i told him going into the fifth round when we was two to two. Let's hear it. Let me see. I said, let's throw Henry. Burn the ships. Take the fucking castle. Let's take him down.

Hurt him on the ground. If he gets back up, knock his ass out. And that's what I told him going into the fifth round. Are you selling that shirt? I think we only had one or two, but we should. It says The Messenger. So, you know, it's just something that I was ingraining into him. Every sparring session I had something said for him.

But this time going into the fifth round against DJ, I wasn't sure if it was 2-2 or if he needed a knockout. How did you feel? I thought it was 2-2. I thought it was 2-2. I thought it was 2-2. And I think DJ, from the interviews that I've heard, I think he felt like it was 2-2 going into the fifth. Yeah, we thought it was 2-2 when we were watching the fight.

We're like, damn, this is as close as it gets. Yeah, and again, Joe, I wouldn't, like I said, because it was such a close fight, dude. I'd clap for Demetrius, too, if they would have the the fight like i i know it was close you know um what did you weigh i was actually i was actually a pound lighter than uh than demetrius i don't know if you do that yeah wow you look bigger yeah you really did but that's again that's that's kind of first one that's kind of where they the way they placed like my muscle like it was uh that's why i look bigger but no i was a pound lighter than demetrius johnson what did you wear like that 141 oh wow that's because when you saw you guys standing together in the octagon you really did look bigger than him it's really interesting yeah yeah so i'm not i was i was

lighter than demetrius people fyi and he kept on kept on saying, he said it twice, he's so big, he's so strong. He said it twice in his post-interview. Well, that's wrestling strength, right? Wrestling strength is just a different kind of strength. Sometimes it's not even strength, it's leverage. It's learning how to use, how to tippy-toe things and how to use your weight to pressure an opponent or to take them down. For sure, yeah, but there's also strength. I mean, there's some creepy strength that wrestlers have. be told things and how to use your weight to to pressure opponent or to take them down for sure

yeah but there's also strength i mean there's some creepy strength that wrestlers have yeah anybody's ever rolled with a wrestler knows that yeah yeah i guess you could see the transformation that he had from the eight weeks from the beginning to the end man there's a documentary these guys filmed the whole entire thing are you guys amazing you're putting the documentary out yeah we're gonna put yeah i think we're to put it out? You're putting the documentary out? Yeah, I think we're going to put it out sometime in the spring, but it's going to come out. It's going to be nice. We're going to try to pitch it to Netflix. Nice.

That'd be huge. The whole process. The messenger. Yeah. The messenger. And don't forget, not only was he fighting for the title, this guy was fighting for his life only eight months before in the Santa Rosa fires. So his story is very inspirational. That's a crazy fucking story in and of itself you actually burned the bottom of your feet running escaping a fire that snuck up on you

like lightning speed huh yeah it was it was a it was the craziest thing that's probably ever happened to me and i've done some crazy things yeah they documented it in the ufc pre-show like when they showed like all the damage to the area where you were living. It's fucking terrifying. Yeah. It was crazy. I, uh,

I, anyways, I mean, I guess, I guess, I guess this is where people kind of share their stories. Right. Sure.

But it's, uh, yeah. So this was about a year ago now. So this was, yeah, about a year ago now. And I,

I got invited to this event with, uh, you know, raising, raising, raising money for kids in cancer. And everybody in there, every big celebrity gets invited, like Jerry Rice, like Barry Bonds, like the big A-list celebrities, and everybody was there. And we had a fundraiser that night in Wine Country in Santa Rosa, California. And everybody had their drinks and whatnot.

I had a couple glasses. Maybe I had a few glasses of wine, but I don't drink wine. But I had a few glasses, and I remember I told everybody, hey, I'm going to sleep, guys. And it was close to about midnight. I was like, I ain't trying to stay up with these people. I'm trying to sleep because I never drink wine. So I go to my room, and I shower and get into bed.

And I remember right before I went to bed, I remember I saw the flickering of lights and i just i thought it was weird this was roughly by the time i got to my hotel i showered i saw the flickering of lights i didn't think anything of it and uh i i pass out 2 30 hits 2 30 in the morning hits and i'm just uh i'm just you know i wake up because i hear the alarm you know kind of pop off at the hotel. So now I'm hearing these alarms starting to go off, and I checked out in front.

I checked out through the window, and I checked out at the lobby. Nobody was moving, so I was like, it's a false alarm. So I got the pillow put over my head, and I freaking slept through the alarm. That happened about 2.30. Now 4.30 comes about, and this time I don't wake up because of the alarm. I wake up because of the smoke. I wake up because of the smoke. I'm like coughing on the smoke, and at first I thought I was dreaming. So I wake up, and at that time I slept in my towel.

That's how tired I was. And I got up, and I'm going to turn on the lights, and the lights ain't turning on. And then I go through the window, and I check the window, and next thing you know, I see the car right in front of me on fire. Three-fourths of the hotel. Like, I was probably about five rooms away from, like, getting hit hard. Like, I'm talking about, like, fire coming out the window. Like that, and I'm waking up to this.

Like, thinking I'm dreaming. You know, in a towel. And the lights, everything was dark, but I could see everything. Like, the room started getting hot. And I couldn't hold my breath no more. I started looking for my my shoes I couldn't find my shoes and I I bumped into my slacks that I left them on the ironing board the night before and I put them on and I I grabbed I grabbed uh I grabbed my phone and I jumped out the window I jumped out the window as I jumped out the window my right foot catches on fire my right foot catches on fire fast and I'm looking to kind of

i'm i'm kind of you know trying to put it out and it's crazy how i can see how people could catch on fire real quick because my right leg was like boom it was crazy wow so i jump out and i start walking as i'm walking i'm seeing like this the whole town in front of us was all in sticks dude like the whole thing was just in sticks like the, the fire had just ate that thing up. There's a building in front of me on fire. Like, I'm just walking through the streets, going up the hill. I'm just thinking, like, God, it's going to be a horrible way to die. Horrible way to die.

Fuck. And I got a bird's eye view when I was on top of the hill. And then I saw there was a cop down there. There was a cop down in the middle of the freeway. I was just like, you know, that's where I got to go. So now I'm running fast, and I'm seeing this brush fire kind of come along. I'm seeing California just catch on fire completely through my eyes. I jump over the first fence to get to the freeway, no problem.

I jump over the second fence, and then the third fence it was uh it was a very like a flimsy uh kind of fence and i remember as i as i jumped out i remember it snagged like part of my snacks i keep in mind i was i had the only thing i had on was slacks i got was commando slacks no shirt no shoes like out in the cold in california and as that flimsy fence as i jumped off that last fence it like cut and like a part of the fence i grabbed my butt and it just it cut me open hard and it tore like half the leg so now i'm full of i'm full of smoke on my right foot's burn and i'm pretty much half naked in the middle of the freeway. Jesus Christ.

So I see the cop car and I go up to the cop car. And as I'm going up to it, I'm sorry, the freaking cop car leaves. Like fucking just scrambles. I'm just like, oh, my God. And as soon as that cop car left, I remember seeing like this big ass diesel coming towards me. And every getting into the middle of the freeway and kind of, you know, waving my hands like, dude take me i ain't dying like this like hit me dude and as it got closer so i was a fire truck and i and i get rescued i get rescued by the fireman they put me in the fire truck and they're just kind of like looking at me like down do you just you just survived death dude wow you just survived that. Damn. You just survived death because I was black, dude.

I already smelled like a marshmallow. Did anybody die in the hotel? 50. 50 people died in the hotel. I'm not sure if anybody died at the hotel. I hope not, but I could see how. 50 people died in the town? Yeah, it was the worst.

No, yeah, 50 people died. 50 families. It was sad to hear man so it just happened quick those fires come so quick people don't realize it's before it's too late and then there's no escape route and and i think the reason why because i think people had time to get out i think the reason why 50 people died is because they didn't take the the alarm like me serious and actually know it was too late because that that smoke will blind you so you think you're going into the right direction

and next you know you're walking into the biggest fire in history. Jesus Christ. So that had happened like two months before I fought Sergio Perez and I still fought him. I trained with two socks, just with a wrestling shoe, and I just stuck it out because I pulled out the first fight with him. I said, I got to make it up to you. And I told him, I said, hey, I owe you one.

And then he kind of called me out on it. I was like, dude, I'm going to fight you regardless now, man, with first-degree burns on my foot. I'm sorry, third-degree burns on my foot. Wow. Well, I'm glad you made it, man. Yeah, here I am, 2018 UFC champ. I'm glad you made it, and I'm glad we could do this podcast. Thanks for made it, man. Yeah, here I am, 2018 UFC champ. I'm glad you made it, and I'm glad we could do this podcast.

Thanks for doing this, man. I really appreciate it. Yeah, no, for sure. Thank you, Joe. I've been a big fan of your show, and I hope you guys got some good insight on the messenger and Captain America over here. We certainly did.

We definitely did. And Kevin as well. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you, Eric. Thank you. We definitely did. And Kevin as well. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you, Eric. Thank you.

Bye, everybody.