The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #75 with Dan Hardy

Episode Date: August 15, 2019

Joe is joined by former welterweight fighter and UFC commentator, Dan Hardy.

People bring notes. No, sometimes you remember things. Boom, and we're live. Sometimes I have to remember things. Like if there's a thought that popped in my head or something I just forgot. I need to write things down. Too many ideas just slip away. Yeah.

They slip away. But one thing you said a while ago, which I've tried to start using, the voice memo is on my phone. And I'm not very good at it. You say you record straight into your phone all the time. Yeah, it's really good. I'm trying very good at it. You say you record straight into your phone all the time. Yeah, it's really good. I'm trying to make it fun. I've got like an old school Elvis microphone

and like a 1950s style chord into an old recorder and I'm trying to use that a bit more because we were talking about Hunter S. Thompson. I like the idea of recording stuff as I'm moving but it's a habit I'm not getting into right now. I think recording anything, like when you have an idea that you go, God damn it, this is a good idea.

Like, grab it. Grab it. I think as Neil Brennan said it best, that he looks at his notebook like a net for catching ideas. I like that. I love that. Why am I always driving, though? I'm always driving.

Always. Because I think when you're in the zone, like you're driving, there's something about, like, you know how sometimes you could be, like be like miles away and you're like, how the fuck did I get here? Like you're sober. Yeah. You're driving and you're like, how did I drive miles? I evidently changed lanes. I, you know, I know where I'm going.

Everything was inside the lanes, but I was, I'm barely there. What is that? I don't know. You get in the zone because you're so accustomed to doing it and you're tuning in to everybody around you. And sometimes you're probably a better driver when you're doing that because you're not being conscious. You're just being aware and just being in the moment.

Feeling the road. Yes. Being present. It's very nice, but my best ideas come then and I have no way to record them. I think it's because you're in that weird mind state. A lot of people also get the same thing when they walk. A lot of writers, what they like to do is they like to write and then they like to go on walks

and think about the writing. And the idea is that when you're on the walk, you just get, you know, left, right, left, getting a little bit of cardio and going up hills.

And all you're thinking about is you're, you're like breathing and you're moving. And those eyes just sort of bounce around the back of your head and get washed. Yeah. Like they're in a washing machine. Like what's in there? Like a filtration system just kind of shaking them through. Yeah, because you're not doing anything else other than walking, right?

So you're just walking and the ideas are just bouncing around in there. Yeah. Or running. Yeah. Same thing again. You must find that. Yes. An idea pops in my head and I'm like, I'm definitely going to be remembering this.

Yeah. And next thing I'm into balls to the wall and dead dead and it's gone it's gone forever away yeah mitch herbert had a funny joke about that he keeps a note by a notepad by his bed because every now and then like he'll have some sort of an idea that he needs to write down or if you don't have a notepad i have to pretend it wasn't a good idea i'm paraphrasing i did a terrible job paraphrasing i couldn't remember exactly how it was worded but it's like yeah that thing like ideas are strange man i i entertained for a while the idea that ideas were life forms that because uh we don't think of them like look there's a lot of different life forms right i mean there's squids and there's chimps and there's barracudas and there's hawks. There's a lot of different life forms. There's insects.

I mean, there's a lot of different ones. What if that's what ideas were and that what they're doing is just making their way. And the more you nourish them, the more they grow, the more you pay attention to them, the more they propagate your head with new ideas. And then you take action on those ideas and it creates everything the world's ever seen that humans have created. All that stuff comes from ideas. Everything from cars to buildings to planes. All that comes from ideas. 100% of it.

But yet we don't even think about what the ideas are. Like what the fuck is that? You just get some random new way of looking at things what is happening is this just pure calculation or are you interacting with some sneaky little influencer that wants to give you credit for it like god damn hardy you're so smart with these ideas you should you know what you should do you should build that building and then you're so smart with these ideas. You know what you should do? You should build that building. And then you're like, I'm going to build this fucking building. All right, Hardy, right on the side of it, god damn it. And you do it all in gold.

Like, where is that coming from? Oh, the ego. Oh, you know, men and the toxic masculinity and their desire for building things. Maybe, or maybe ideas made that dude build that thing. Maybe. Maybe, or maybe ideas made that dude build that thing. Maybe. Maybe ideas were so clever the way they got you and talked to you like a siren pulling you into the rocks. Come on, Dan Hardy.

Build that fucking building. I'm into it. Go and do it. I'm into it. Are you a subscriber to the idea that ideas are collective? So when you have an idea, that idea is available to other people in the world if they're tuned in to be able to collect that idea i think it's entirely possible that a lot of people are thinking exactly the same way you think when you're thinking it i think that there's a lot of fucking people thinking right now and there's a lot of sharing information through podcasts and and twitter and facebook and you know youtube videos and all the different things that people are doing.

And it's not outside the realm of possibility that we share some sort of common thread psychically, that there's some connection that we have with each other. We know we like to be around each other, right? Like logically, I'm not talking woo-woo. People like to be around each other. When you hear someone talk about, oh, I'm just alone or I want to be around each other right like logically i'm not talking woo woo people like to be around each other when you hear someone talk about oh i'm just alone or i want to be by myself like that's a fucked up person like most people i mean not for a little bit of time for a reset miss your friends yeah that's wonderful that's a good idea it's probably really healthy but like those people

that like them ted kaczynski type dudes who just want to just move to the middle of nowhere and buy themselves and be a fucking nomad. Like, hmm, why? Most of us don't want that. Most of us want to be around each other. Well, how come? Well, we feel good. It's like a little drug. We feel good around our friends and our loved ones.

We feel good. There's something happening here. There's an exchange of information. Yeah. But I have to manage that because i it exhausts me you know what i mean you did two of the podcasts that you've done with henry rollins that i've listened to have just blown my mind and there are so many things that he says that that's he's my spirit animal i think there's a voice inside my head that is henry rollins and some

of the things he says it just resonates with me and the idea of being around people a lot of the time is just exhausting I like to be able to pull away and that's when I feel I'm at my best for like four hours a day I can give like a lot of energy yeah no you definitely need a balance of it but you don't want to be completely absent of it what it is is some in some way or another we feed off of each other, good and bad, right, and good people, people that you enjoy being around. You feed off them in a very positive way and it's very fulfilling and addicting and you want to do what they do and you want to help each other and you all want to like feed off of each other. You all want to have this powerful community where you love each other. And then there's people that are super negative too.

It's all about what kind of what kind of circles do you travel in if you get fucked over as a child and you just get tossed into a bad circle really early on that's one of the primary causes for life sucking right you're a kid and you're born in a shit situation with abusive people, abusive neighborhood, danger, crime. Fuck, man. Right from the jump. Just fucked over. Changes your perspective for life.

Changes the way that you interact with people all the way through your life because of those early beliefs. It's crazy that so little is done to stop that. easy that so little is done to stop that so little is done to mitigate that in terms of like how much effort is put into trying to ensure that people are educated or or somehow or another we there's no real way to explain to someone what it's like to be a parent until you're a parent yeah you talk about it till you're blue in the face but if you're talking to crazy people you're never going to know how good they are at it anyway like how like if you take someone who's like a crazy abusive person what words could you ever say to that person to stop them from being crazy or abusive are there is there a string of words that you can say where you could convey the way you feel about it in a

way that would cause them to go wow i should probably stop being a piece of shit i don't know i think it's you know it's zero to six in it's those first six years is when you you when you develop patterns that influence you for the rest of your life it's like the programming that's embedded in you and like from that point on all of the decisions you make all of the relationships you develop they're put through that filtration system of those first three first six years of your life yeah and i mean this is where psychedelics have helped me you know be able to go back and like unpack some of that stuff and try and figure out

what influenced me and like you know memories that you're like you bury down that you don't you don't remember for the rest of your life they'll they'll influence decision making all the way through your life yeah you know yeah like those there and there's little memories that little pit stops like that they they exist no matter what you do you'd be in the middle of doing something you go back to some weird regret you have when you're 18 you go what are you doing there do you ever have those moments now though where you there's a moment where you stop and you think, that was a significant moment. Like, I've just experienced a significant moment in my life that's now going to change the way that I think moving forward.

Like, you must have a lot of those with conversations that you have. Yeah, sometimes in the conversations, yeah. But I feel like if you think like that, like, it's nice to think like that for a second, to take that in. Wow, that's pretty cool. But ultimately, it doesn't do you any good. It's like recognizing that you're in this crazy moment. In many ways, it's like paralysis by analysis. You're like, oh, my God, this is happening.

And then you're just talking about it happening, but now it's not happening anymore because now you're just talking and now you've fallen into this you know it's past yeah it's the moment you got to appreciate it talk talk it through so you're all you all get it whatever it was whatever cool thing it was but yeah um in terms of like the number of events that you see in your life that shape you and impact you in a way that make you reassess where you're at as a person and what life is like. Those are so critical. And if you don't have those, if you just have this flat plane of nothing happening, going to the same job, I think that's what makes people fucking go crazy more than almost any other aspect of this life it's just monotony and boredom and no no thrills and no challenges and nothing makes you scared yeah and i think it's difficult to see that when you're in it though right i think you know i think we're both fortunate enough to be

in a place and i was i was with a good friend yesterday tim hendricks getting tattooed and we were having the same the same conversation he's in a place where he's he's in control of his life you know he's living in the place that he wants to live he said he can walk his kids to school for the next 10 years you know he works in the tattoo studio that he got his first professional tattoo in like he's living his dream and he's got all these businesses that support what he's doing and i we're we're in a similar situation as well and i can see other people around me now that are caught in that monotony and they they can't see it and this it's just it's so difficult to break that do you know what i mean it's so difficult so easy to talk about once you broke through it that's why concepts like the secret is such horse just

because you made it doesn't mean like your mind make made you make it like there's a lot of variables man like to say that you have your finger on the pulse of all the variables that were in charge of making you successful that's so silly right you could be a life coach. What do you think about life coaches? They freak me out. How can someone coach your life? Well, it depended upon how much personal experience they've had. That's the problem. Yeah.

That's completely dependent upon. See, I'd want someone ancient if I was looking for a life coach. I'd want someone that was like at least 90, at least 90. Yeah, someone with like a war-torn past and wrote poetry and climbed mountains and killed sharks. Six or seven different lives. But it's just most people that are doing that, this is no disrespect because I think that some of them actually provide some legitimate fuel um they give people some words that could encourage them and even though they've never really accomplished anything they're not necessarily doing anything negative because

they're propagating good ideas they're they're promoting healthy values and healthy ways to live life. But let's be honest, bitch, you ain't done shit. Like, it's weird. It's weird to be given advice when you ain't done shit. And some people have done things. Some people are legitimate, you know. Some people, like Jocko Willink, you know, when that guy's giving motivational advice, you know who he is. You know what he's accomplished as a Navy SEAL a martial artist he's a he's a he's the real deal and when he talks to people and talks about discipline and

you know establishing a core relationship between your squad and all the people you work with like he's you really believe it you buy it it's why david goggins works you know that fucking savage is out there running right now while we're talking he's running down the street does some people want to keep you soft he's running down the street making youtube videos he'll be out there for fucking five hours today just running he's an animal dude i'll tell you i'll be honest though i was in uruguay at the weekend and like jet lag took me out it it killed me i don't know why normally i'm pretty good i fast on the planes i don't eat anything when i'm in the air that's supposed to be a good trick yeah it works really well i started using it towards the end of my career it's something about your circadian cycle

and you know you have breakfast in the the time and time zone that you're leaving and then when you arrive in the next place you have breakfast at that same time and kind of kicks you over and it works but for some reason this time it killed me and I'm laying in bed and it's freezing cold. South America, I just assumed it was going to be warm. It was not warm. It's the southernmost capital city in South America. It was freezing cold. How cold?

I don't know. I don't do temperatures. It was cold. My face burned when I stepped outside. Jesus Christ. It was cold. So like zero, like zero degrees? I don't know. Maybe I'm being. Jesus Christ. It was cold. So like zero, like zero degrees? I don't know.

Maybe I'm being a pussy, but it was cold. So I decided, I mean, you know, when there's a coastline there, I always try and make the most of it because I live in the city center. I live in the Midlands. I'm like, you know, I'm nowhere near a coast. Right. So when I'm near a coast, I want to make the most of it. But I had no warm training clothes, so I'm out there running,

and the reason I was out there running and my lungs felt like they were bleeding was because you put an Instagram post up saying something about not being lazy, and it just got me. I was like, I picked it up. It was the first post that came up on Instagram. I was still laying in bed, and I was like, I'm going to see Joe next week. I've got to be i've got to be inspired in this moment so thank you i well i'm my pleasure i'm very thankful for

you and i'm thankful for all those people that there's legitimate people that make posts like that that are fuel their mental fuel you know like when goggins makes a post or when jaco makes a post or my friend cam haynes makes a post i read those posts and i fucking want to get going i want to get going because i know they're getting after it it's it sounds so like for people who are not into exercise for people to think that we're macho assholes this is like an excellent place where you would criticize like god it's so cliche what are you going to go get after it i'm telling you there is great value spiritually in doing something hard. There is.

There's something about it. It makes you a better person. Sounds ridiculous, but all my favorite people can fucking push themselves. All my favorite people work out hard because when they do it, it breaks down bullshit better than anything else you can do. It just breaks down bullshit. You know who you are when you're done. You know when you bitched out. You know when you started coasting the last 30 seconds of a round.

You know all that, man. You can't lie to yourself. It's the grand exposure of who you are, and it comes during like extreme duress it only comes when you're doing something that's hard as fuck whether it's rolling jujitsu or running hills or doing yoga it comes in those moments where you want to fucking quit yeah it's been a while since i've been in california and i was actually reminiscing on some of those late night legend sessions back in the day remember those days those were great i even took a drive past the place, and it's empty. There's nothing there now.

But I took a drive past it, and I remember we were in there until like 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night. All the time. The windows steamed up, and they were good nights. Just that grind. I'm trying to bring that back, because I've just opened my own gym at Hardy Warlet. It's my dream. I've wanted a place.

Nice, nice. Where at? It's in the Midlands, in Colville, near Leicestershire. Do you have a website that people can get to? Yep, hardywalletmma.co.uk. Spell all that out because you've got an English accent, bro. H-A-R-D-Y-W-A-L-L-H-E-A-D-M-M-A.co.uk. So you two guys teamed up together.

Yeah, myself and Jimmy Wallet. Nice. He's my longtime friend, training partner. So we've opened that. Yeah, he's a famous UK MMA fighter. He's a thug he's a beast he's beautiful yeah so that's great man that's that's those old legend days man that's one of those places where i'll drive by i get nostalgic i'm like god man we had fun in that

place yeah crazy wars it was uh just such a great place to train and such a great environment a great gym they set it up perfectly it was such a bummer when that went away i was like oh they were good nights yeah man my joy still clicks from your side control pressure everyone always asks me like what so what what's joe's what's joe's grappling like is it like loads of 10 planet stuff i'm like not really no he's like fucking irons people out into the canvas with these shoulders and he's like people don't get you strong top game and I always think back to it sorry dude I got a click in your that's not from me

well no that was from Vitor Belfort that was from a Vitor you got Vitor'd yeah you sparred with Vitor

yeah quite a bit I've sparred with Vitor why didn't you call me call me before you think about doing something like that I was saying are you fucking crazy

let me play you a highlight reel get the fuck away from that guy. He lit me up. Oh, of course he did. He's terrifying. Yeah. When was this?

That was Extreme Couture. So when I was living here, I used to drive out to, I used to stay at Sean Tompkins' house. Was he fighting 205 then or 85? Oh, this was, he was fighting an affliction. I was helping him train for the,

was it Terry Martin he fought in Affliction? No, was it? Yes, it was. I was helping him train for that. Was it Terry Martin he fought in Affliction? No, was it? Yes, it was, I think. I think it was. He only had one fight in Affliction, right? And then Affliction went under. Dude, Affliction had some wild shit. They did.

They threw a lot of money at that. When Fedor fought Tim Sylvia, holy shit. Yeah. Holy shit, that was wild. When Fedor knocked out Orlovsky, holy shit! Both those were affliction fights. They were. Yeah, they were good cards.

But it was Extreme Couture, and it was in the boxing ring that was right in the door. And it was fight week, so there were fans in the gym, people taking photos, and we were on the elevator platform. It's Vitor Belfort

with some dude that no one's ever seen that's got a mohawk, so everyone's like, this guy's going to get fucked up by Vitor Belfort. So everyone's watching. And I'm like moving. I'm trying to stay away from him, using my footwork and my jab.

And he was just trying to march me down. And I caught him with a couple of jabs and a cheeky left hook. And he stepped in and blasted me with this clean uppercut. I was eating soup for a week. Yeah, man, don't do that. Yeah, he was so fast. He's ridiculously fast. Yeah, man. Don't do that. Yeah. He was so fast. He's ridiculously fast. Yeah.

You don't need that in your life. Not anymore. He's too big, too. Vitor is big and fast. He was the first guy that burst onto the scene that had real boxing, hand-speeding combinations. Remember when he fought Trey Telegman and people thought he was a jiu-jitsu guy? Because he was only 19. Remember when he fought Trey Telegman And people thought he was a Jiu Jitsu guy

Because he was only 19 But he came out with his hands wrapped With MMA gloves on And was throwing ridiculously And shoes right Yep wrestling shoes So he was sprinting He had wrestling shoes when he fought Vanderlei too

That's why he took off so quickly Yeah Holy shit But you know what's really interesting about Vitor Is people think of him as a kicker But he really didn't start kicking Until later in his career you know it's kind of crazy

when you think that he knocked out Dan Henderson with a kick, Luke Rockhold with a kick Michael Bisping with a kick, he knocked these guys out with head kicks, spinning kicks yeah well some of them yeah but he with Bisping was just a lead round kick right, wasn't it left round kick? Yeah the Rockhold one was a spinning kick

wheel kick man the second wheel kick probably ever threw in a fight and turned straight back to stance as well didn't spin all the way through he's a fucking serious athlete man that's like the kind of kicking technique that you would get if you were a black belt at taekwondo in your teens you know what i'm saying for him to pick that up deep into his 30s, because he never threw kicks like that, right? He would throw crazy hands, and mostly he would throw some low kicks or things like that. But he started throwing wild head kicks and shit. And I think also something might have had to do with the fact that he broke his hands many times. Like, many, many times.

I think he had something like seven or eight hand operations really oh yeah something i've never had a problem with crazy you got lucky man you got good hand structure i think it's because because i was i put a video the other day of me hitting the the maze bag with no gloves on and i do that quite a bit and i've always done it and i think for the first sort of you know five years of my training everything we did was was no gloves you must have done the same thing with Taekwondo, right? Yeah. I always think now boxers go straight into a gym and they wrap their hands before they do anything.

So they never get that structure of their hands. You know what I mean? I think there definitely is some benefit to doing some hand strengthening for sure. There's no detraction. There's no detriment doing it. It's got to be good for you. You're doing something where you're – that's your weapon. Two of your biggest weapons, the ones that land the most, are these two hands.

And if you could make them more strong, it only makes sense that that would be good. And also if you made them more muscular, right, if you just did a lot of – you would actually make them heavier. You know, like you really – not much. You know, like how much more meat do you got in your hands if you have like a thick hand versus a thin hand yeah it's probably a couple ounces i've got quite small hands and crooked thumbs as well that's the other thing if you punch as hard as vitor you better have some fucking george foreman hands to go with that speed and power you know so maybe that's like there's a lot of great boxers, even with those big gloves. Like Floyd Mayweather broke his hands multiple times.

He just hit people really hard. Hit them hard on the forehead, your fucking hand breaks. What about Chris Lieben? He never broke his hands, did he? That guy's made out of metal. Exactly. He's made out of metal. If you could take his hands off and put them on Vito Belfort, that's a lethal weapon.

He fires bombs at people bare knuckle. It's crazy to see him. Did you see his last fight, though, against Dakota Cochran? He got this giant gash in his forehead. One of the worst cuts I've ever seen. I didn't. It makes me rethink my support of... Because I was saying that MMA should be bare knuckle.

I remember we had this conversation back in the Middle East a long time ago. Yeah. I'm going to have that same repetitive conversation forever. Yeah. back in the middle east a long time ago yeah i've been having that same repetitive conversation forever yeah because it doesn't make sense to me that we have this unrealistic advantage of having your wrist wrapped and having knuckle protections on like it seems like why can't i how come someone can elbow you in the face but they can't hit you with a bare knuckle they can shin you in the face i think about as hard as some people kick and then shitting you in the face like oh that's okay yeah but then you got to think i mean what mma would look like if we

took the gloves off we'd look like a real fight it would this the thing is like the gloves it doesn't help anyone other than the person who's throwing their punches because it protects your hand but it may gives you an unrealistic expectation what you could do with your hands because they're all padded up yeah but i still think people you know the people that are fighting bare knuckle right now have got an unrealistic perspective of of what boxing is with no gloves like if you look back to the any of the old photos or drawings of the old bare knuckle boxers their stance was so much different they leaned back their knuckles were curled in and they were hitting with the front two knuckles were curled in and they were hitting with the front two knuckles with a back fist like i think if if bare knuckle boxing had

started around you know around the same time as the ufc started it would develop and it would look very different right now everybody's standing like boxers like they've got 14 ounce gloves on when they're sparring and they're throwing punches like they've got to like they've got gloves on there's no you know they've not made that adjustment yet to lean back and start using that lead hand better so do you think that you're going to see that in this bare knuckle boxing guys they're going to develop like that old-timey style and start jabbing with those strong for for folks who don't know the the strong two knuckles are the ones that are right next to your your index finger and your fuck you finger those are. Those are the two strong ones.

And if you look at my friend John Lee, who is a national taekwondo champion and one of my mentors, taught me a lot when I was in Boston. He used to punch bricks so often that he didn't have two knuckles. He had one solid knuckle. It was so crazy. It was this, on his right hand, it was like what a knuckle, where a knuckle would be and another knuckle would be. All of it was covered by this like thick callus. Have you ever seen like when dudes have those knuckles from breaking boards and bricks and shit? I've seen the callus knuckles, but I've never seen one combined. Jamie, see if you can find a photo of this because I've seen it on other martial artists before

but you have to be one hardcore motherfucker to turn your hand into a hammer. One of my party tricks is my shins though. Oh, really? Because I've got conditioned shins from Thai boxing. There's still like none of the nerves have come back? No. That's amazing.

And they're like, it's... All calcified and shit? Yeah, it sounds like the table. But it's like the bone collapses down on itself. And then you get like this thick chunk of bone right at the front of the shin. So it's a different kind of bone, like a calcified bone? Yeah.

The way it was explained to me is that if you take a cross-section of the bone, it looks like ladders stacked up next to each other. And what you do is you collapse the rungs on the front set of ladders and that collapses down in itself and those two pieces calcify and then that becomes a thicker outer wall and then you do the same thing so you you collapse the like we used to do bottles and drawing rolling pins and all kinds of stuff to like try and condition the shins like what's the best way because everybody has a that's what i heard heavy bag all day they have i've got a big old sandy heavy bag in my gym

and i just kick that all day kevin ross said he would make me one he's gonna make me a sand one that you just kick with your shins nice yeah that's what he told me he does i'm like jesus christ yeah you got to put some rags in there with the sand just to give it a bit of movement. No, not if Kevin Ross is going to install it. I'm going to take it like a man. I'm going to just fuck my shins up. The same thing apparently is the process that happens with cauliflower ear is calcification. Because when you get internal bleeding, as explained to me, remember, I am a moron.

And I'm definitely not a doctor but it was explained to me that when you have blood inside the tissue that that blood can calcify and that's why your your ears when they get cauliflower they're so fucking hard because literally it's like a rock in there damn i used to just get it out i used to just have some insulin needles good for you diabetic good. Yeah, good for you. There's a lot of people that want that nonsense with their ears. Listen, no disrespect to people who have it because many of them are my heroes because it's part of the game for jiu-jitsu.

But if you have the option right now, not if you already have the cauliflower, God bless, but if you got the option right now, you really should drain your fucking ear because that's how The reason why your ear Hears a certain way Like all that

Like sound comes through there You can hear it I have like Little tiny pieces Chunks Of little hard stuff You know Places where I had

Like a little bit of cauliflower But I always wore ear guards Yeah Yeah you did Yeah fuck you man I'm gonna hear You guys are crazy Bare knuckle boxing legend Big Joe Joyce dipped hands in petrol ahead of brutal fights.

Oh, is this that Irish guy? One of those gentlemen? He said he made his hands hard as stone is what he said. Made me hands hard as stone. Rock hard. Oh, let me hear this fella, Cork. Can we hear and talk? Probably, yeah.

This is a traveler. Why isn't it okay to say gypsy anymore? What happened? I don't know. Is that not acceptable anymore? That's what I heard. Most of the thing is bandages. Because bandages kills a crouch.

When I hear the cutler man, then I'll do nothing to him. Okay, just stop right there because we don't understand what he's saying. I wouldn't refer to him as a gypsy. I would refer to him as a pikey. Ah, a pikey. Yeah. Well, they call themselves trave him as a gypsy. I would refer to him as a pikey. Oh, a pikey. Well, they call themselves travelers as well. These are weird distinctions.

That's how I probably offended a bunch of people there, which I didn't mean to do. Bunch of tough motherfuckers, man. Yeah, for sure. A bunch of really tough motherfuckers. Nicky Holtzkin, isn't he from that? I'm not sure. I think he is.

He's very pretty. Tyson Fury, for sure. Tyson Fury is. For sure. I used to train in the same boxing gym as him. He used to have the ring the hour before me. And I remember watching him. He was just like this big hulking monster walking around.

Dude, he's so ridiculously tall. Ridiculous. He's so tall and long, and he moves so good for a big heavyweight. Nice dude, though. God damn. He's a great guy. He's a sweetheart of long and he moves so good for a big heavyweight. Nice dude, though. God damn. He's a great guy. He's a sweetheart of a guy. He is.

And he really genuinely cares to reach out to people and tell them that if you are going through depression, if you're dealing with and suffering from mental illness, talk about it and get help. Because I almost killed myself and now here I am, champ of the world, feeling great. Yeah. I'd love to see him against Andy Ruiz. I would love to see that, too. I think we'll see that. I think we'll see all these fights.

Andy Ruiz is not looking forward to fighting in Saudi Arabia, apparently. Yeah, why is it there? That makes no sense at all. I do not. Look, again, one more time. I'm a moron. I'm not a fight promoter. I don't know what the fuck goes on behind the scenes with lawyers.

I don't know what the contract said that he had, but what I had heard was that he had but what i had heard was that he had to fight in england like that was in the contract that's what i had heard but that could be horseshit yeah i have no idea maybe maybe it says in the contract that they have the right to tell him i shouldn't even said that i heard that because i don't remember who told to me but the point is there's a story that just came out that he does not want this fight to be in saudi arabia i think he wants to fight in new york again he he said he doesn't trust it over there you know like he doesn't trust it in england either he doesn't trust to fight joshua in

england he's like no no no no no no no i get it i mean he's the champ now he can call his yeah he's the champ man super nice guy have you met him no no i have not met he's great he was awesome on your podcast he's great listen to that it's a champ, man. Neutral terrorist. Fucking super nice guy. Have you met him? No, I have not met him. He's great. He was awesome on your podcast. He's great. I enjoyed listening to that. He's a good dude, man. Genuine as fuck. And boy, does he have like fluidity and efficiency in his punches.

No wasted movement. Yes. Yeah. And the other thing I was talking to Tim Hendricks about, we were discussing boxing. He actually trains at the Ruka gym with Jason Perillo. He's had a couple of fights i'm a huge jason perillo fan yeah he's very very good coach man very good in the corners he's great like his advice is great and you see like the advancement of his pupils he's got that deep

bassy voice and he doesn't toot his own horn ever no it's not you know that guy just stays under the radar and just kicks ass i'd like to see a couple of young fighters go to his gym because he's like, like the old guard kind of leaving now, like Bisping and Cyborg. I'm not sure what she's going to do now. But I think people are going to, you know, up-and-coming people that are in that area for sure are going to go. It's one of those things where it's like there's so many great trainers now that for fighters it's like where

do you want to live do you want to live in san diego do you want to live in la do you want to live in vegas like where do you want to live like you just have to figure out where you want to live and then find somebody who's going to match up with your style yeah assuming you're realistically at the level that you could benefit from such a move you know yeah kind of spoiled for choice really yeah i was at american top team the other weeks but i spent some time with conan silveira and i mean can't get better than that place he's a wizard he's a wizard and so is dean dean thomas has one of the best um instagram pages with advice advice for young fighters and he had a great one today that i i texted him i'm so this genius

advice telling them that one of the biggest things that inhibits their progress is not looking at themselves honestly. Not looking at what they're strong at, what they're weak at. I think it helps to have a good sense of humor, though, as a fighter. Fuck yeah. And I think with him having such a good sense of humor, he can be critical about himself and not take it to heart. And I think there are a lot of fighters that are too delicate to be honest with honest with themselves like how many fighters they get knocked out and they don't watch the fight a lot a lot don't want to experience it they don't want to see it you know that's that's crazy to me that seems to be like an essential part of the learning process maybe in their mind

they they know what happened and they don't want to experience the bad feeling again and what they're just going to do is just get through this learn and improve that they don't want to experience the bad feeling again. And what they're just going to do is just get through this, learn and improve. They don't need to see themselves getting left hooked. They know what happened. They dropped their hand. It's like burying it deep down inside. You never remember exactly how it played out as well. Yeah, I'm sure.

Unless it's final, right? If you wake up and you got flatlined and you look up and you see the highlight of you getting hit and then you barely remember it. Yeah. And then, I mean, how much of that is going to help you to watch that? Right? Yeah, I don't know. Like how much is it going to help Ben Askren to see Jorge Masvidal land that knee on him? Yeah.

I mean, well, the thing is with that, that was, I'm not saying it was a less technical circumstance circumstance but it was one of those kind of wild circumstances which right i mean the only thing that he could have learned from it is the fact that masvidal probably figured out that he shoots with his head to that side you know what i mean so which is why masvidal did the circle to make him force you know put his head on that side so it was in the right place dude it was genius it was it was beautiful it was checkmate with one move yeah that's what it was because it was one move there was no there was no build-up there was no setup so like a fight that lasts a couple of minutes i think there's a lot to be learned from that and like the process in which you know you went through to be opened up for the knockout yeah like the condit fight for me like i've watched that thousands of times i used to walk through casinos in vegas and it was playing

on a highlight reel on the tv i'm like here we go again you know but like i know exactly what went wrong you know i learned so much from that and i remember opening my eyes and thinking i'm just feeling different don't you feel though like i mean now at this stage of your career you know you've become this uh celebrated commentator as well and you can look back and you have so many highlights. Like there were so many great moments of your career. Like you could acknowledge that the bad moments are there, but they can't sting like they used to sting. No, they don't.

I mean, I've always had a good sense of humor. I've always been able to. You always have. Yeah. I mean, you know, I got punched in the face. I get reminded of that line after the Condit fight all the time when you interviewed me. It's the first thing I thought to myself. I mean, you've always got got punched in the face. I get reminded of that line after the Condit fight all the time when you interviewed me. It's the first thing I thought to myself.

I mean, you've always got to be able to laugh at yourself because you're exposed. You're very, very vulnerable. You're in front of millions of people putting basically your health on the line, you know? Yeah. So I think having a sense of humor has always helped. And I think also now being able to look back from where I am now

and look at my career and go well I had 10 fights in the UFC I went four up title fight four down and then I pulled it back for two and that's where it kind of ended so I had I had a bit of everything I had a taste of everything I had the quick rise I was in a co-main event in my second fight, you know, O2 Arena in London, 69 second knockout on top of the world. Marcus Davis after that was just ridiculous because of the build up to it. Then Mike Swick, I'm fighting for a world title. Holy shit, what's happening here? Next thing I'm facing off against George St-Pierre.

And then I had like a four month process after that of looking back at it with everybody saying, oh, you just need a bit of takedown offense. You just need some takedown offense. And I'd started to believe that in my own head and thought I was really, really fucking good. I did. I mean, it went like... You were really fucking good, man. No, not...

You thought you were better than you were. Absolutely, I did. Yeah. And then I looked at Condit and this is where my ego took over. And I looked at him and I thought to myself, what the fuck, he's not going to do anything to me. He's awkward, he's slow, he's striking sucks, he's very predictable, he's not got any punching power, he won't be able to take me down. This was the whole conversation I was having in my head going into the fight.

There was no way he was going to beat me. Wow. And that was a good turning point for me because that put me back on the track where i should have been and i'd already started to veer off after the gsp fight because the rise had been so quick four fights so i because i experienced that it's nice for me to be able to and i try not to talk about it but to relate my experiences when i'm watching other fighters coming up you know i can i can put myself in their shoes because I've probably experienced something of where they're at. For sure.

A high or a low. So I look back and I think maybe my career prepared me for where I'm at right now. Oh, for sure. I think the best commentators for sure are former fighters. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing in there, man. As a comedian. You set the bar so high.

Oh, please. Come on. It's a great job for me. It's a lot of fun, but I think it's best expressed by former fighters because if they can do everything that I can do, which most of them can, the big thing that's missing with me

is not having fought in the UFC where they can relay that. It's very important. I've seen a lot of it. I understand what's going on, but there's an additional perspective that someone like you can provide. Michael Bisping, who I've seen a lot of it. I understand what's going on, but there's an additional perspective that someone like you can provide. Michael Bisping, who I think is also excellent at it.

Of course, DC. He's probably my all-time favorite guy to work with. Dominic Cruz's excellent attitude, as is Paul Felder. There's something unique about the perspective. You know who used to be really fucking good at it? Frank Mir. Frank Mir's very good.

He was great. Dude, give him a job. Somebody give him a fucking job. Yeah. But then I would say the same thing about Jimmy Smith. Yes. Jimmy Smith's excellent. Yes, he's excellent.

I think the UFC had decided that they wanted to use their former fighters more and sort of give them a career option after fighting, which would look like Rashad Evans. He's really flourishing there tyron woodley has already kind of established himself as being uh you know a big time commentator while he was the champ after he was a champ he's doing more of that those the more guys do that the more they're gonna see like oh well there is a life in sports after competition i can make a great living still be involved in the sport that I love that has given me so much

and I've given so much to. And it's all a cool thing. It's like you get, and I think I encourage more of them to do podcasts like Shob. You know, like Shob's kind of carved the path in terms of like ex-fighters becoming successful at podcasts.

And so many people go to him for, you know, what's your take on Canelo versus Triple G? What do you think is going to happen with this? Is Deontay Wilder ever going to fight Tyson Fury again? Like those, those like coming from a former fighter, man, people really dig that. It's a unique perspective. If you can get good at fighting, you can get good at talking. True.

You just figure it out. It's easy to learn it that way around, I think. Get the fighting learned first and then figure out how to tell people about it. I often think, you know, when I'm talking to people, though, like Anthony Smith, when I speak to him, I always think to myself, as soon as he's done fighting, he can cross straight over into broadcasting because he speaks so well. And every time I find a fighter and I feel that about them, I always make sure I tell them. Because although you don't want to think about it when you're a fighter because you always want to think well of course you're going to

become the world champ and of course you're going to be massively successful and not have to worry about it because that's the only mindset that you should have as a fighter of course but there is life after fighting and you know what I've realized is that if I'd have had other options like planned when I was fighting I would have had a lot less pressure when i was fighting this is my advice that i would say i would say for sure if you're the type of person that needs to concentrate on one thing at a time and that one thing is fighting just fight but if you're interested in doing it in any way you don't have to think like this is my way out you could just say this is another cool thing i do. So don't fuck with your head.

Don't fuck with your head and say, hey, maybe when I retire, this will be my career. Stay in the game, but you can just get good at stuff too and just be zen about it. The more you put pressure on, maybe it's time for me to move on. Maybe it's time for me to... Guys can head fuck themselves. You don't want to fight when you're head fucked. We've all seen guys fight when they're head fucked. And you're like, what happened to him?

Oh, he broke up with his girl. Oh, this happened or that happened or someone in the family died. Like, eee. Yeah. That's why Paul Felder fights like it's always his last fight because he knows he's got a good commentary gig when he retires. Guy's a lunatic. He is a lunatic. But he's great at

you know he's a theater major yeah i mean he's just like super well-spoken guy yeah he's quite a gentleman we they bring him in if they bring him in for the european ones we worked on uh moscow together and a few of them he's very him and barboza too is gonna be chaos that's a crazy as long as that motherfucker lasts that's gonna be great that's gonna be crazy yeah barbosa's been in some fucking wars he is amazing holy shit he is the fastest switch kick i've ever seen in my life oh for sure and and it's it's it's the placement as well it's the timing placement of it it's stunning how fast it is though man it's stunning like when you see it in real life you're just like jesus i've seen a fucking thousand people throw switch kicks probably yeah but there's one that stands

out it's barbosi like jesus ridiculous like a world champion tie that's what it looks like he was down at american top team i was there a few weeks ago um and just watching him hit pads and move around and stuff he's dude there's no he's the best kicker in the sport, for my money. He's the first guy to stop two guys with leg kicks. Rafael de Oliveira and... There's another one of them, dude. A wrestler. It was just like, he's a fucking lethal kicker, man.

The first guy to ever stop somebody with a wheel kick, Terry Adam. How many times have we seen that? Fuck that's on everything fuck well i remember thinking like terry's got to take some chances here but if he takes chances he could get knocked out so i was literally saying that when he got hit with the wheel kick he's he's a fighter that i think would benefit from that weight class between 155 and 170. Mike Lulo. Mike Lulo was the other guy he stopped with leg kicks. I knew I'd remember it. Do you remember the Jose Aldo Uriah Faber? What's that?

That wasn't in the UFC, sorry. What was another one? The fight right before that, Marcelo Gutici. Outside the UFC stopped. Dude, he's fucking lethal. His leg kicks are horrific. The only one as close Was Aldo In his prime Oh man

Against Uriah Faber Oh gosh I did a show with Faber the week after And he came in on crutches His whole leg was like You know the eggplant emoji Yes

That's basically what his leg Looked like I saw it It was ridiculous People don't understand You're at grave risk Of infection When you have that kind of bruising

All throughout your leg I mean that is a That could go terribly wrong That was a terrible leg injury of infection when you have that kind of bruising all throughout your leg i mean that is a that could go terribly wrong but that was a terrible leg injury that shows you how fucking tough uriah faber is ridiculous dude he's back it's not just that too how about the fight where he fought mike brown and he broke both his hands yeah broke both his fucking hands so he's throwing elbows and kicks and he's trying to keep this guy off him yeah dude and he's back as well i want to see him against the huda dude i want to see it too i mean it came

close it seemed like this is almost something that really could happen because like when he knocked out ricky simone everybody was like what yeah like what this is crazy uriah comes back he's starching people and good fighters knocks out a good fighter a young up-and-coming talented kid Just catches him perfect and like damn Uriah Faber's in the hunt Yeah, and then everybody loves him and so he starts talking shit to so who don't so who don't starts talking shit to him You're like wow. Yeah, but first so who doe has to fight Valentina Shevchenko and Amanda Nunes Apparently now see his new shirt. He's got intergender champion shirts. Yes, yes, yes.

Go to his Instagram. I love it. I love it. Henry, I'm in your corner. You keep this up. No, no, Henry. Come on. No more rabbits out of hats.

No more capes. He's got people excited about flyweight, man. Yeah, but... Dude, you got to see his t-shirt. Intergender stuff. I love it. Look, they're all in on it, man. This might as well be pro wrestling.

Look at this. Everybody's in on it. Let me see it. Look at that. Intergender world champion. It's all in gold on a black shirt. God bless you, Henry Cejudo. God bless you.

That's terrible. I mean, he's fucking in. Cough me in his way. He's arguably, if he's not the most accomplished MMA fighter in history, he's the most accomplished combat sports athlete. That's undeniable. For sure.

That's undeniable. Olympic gold medalist and two division world champion. He can do whatever the fuck he wants. I could do without it. You let him wear that shirt. You let him go crazy.

You let him do whatever he wants. That's Henry Cejudo. He does whatever he wants. I think the girls are all in on it. And I think it helps everybody because everybody's getting pumped up about it. It's a joke. Amanda Nunes thinks it's a joke.

She posed with them. Valentina Shevchenko's in on it. Yeah, they both fight him, though. They would both fuck him up, too. No, I'm just kidding. That's scary. You really don't want to see a 135-pound man ever fight Amanda Nunes. You don't want to see it. You don't want to see a 135-pound man ever fight Amanda Nunes. You don't want to see it.

You don't want to see it. But I'll see Amanda Nunes fight anybody else, and I'll see Valentina Shevchenko fighting anybody else. I mean, it would be horrible if you saw a men's world champion fight a women's world champion, and he fucked her up. That would be terrible. It would be awful. I would never, ever want to see that.

I was offered a fight against Jermaine Durandamy once. She's hot in a scary way. She is scary. Valentina Shevchenko is hot in a scary way. You know what I mean? I mean that with all due confidence and all due respect rather.

I'm a giant fan of hers. I think she's... I had a conversation with Dreamkiller Balanos. You know Gaston Balanos from Muay Thai and now he fights... Yep.

He's fighting in Bellator uh we were talking about her and he said I think she has the best fight IQ of anybody like maybe better than anybody in the sport man or woman and I was like I can't argue with you no well I mean you watched that last fight against Liz Karmouche and I know a lot of people complained that it was a you know it was a slow fight but and this is something I realized actually during that fight sometimes you need to see the whole octagon to really appreciate what's going on. Sometimes you need to see like an elevated shot of the whole space

because her ability to control that space with the threat of doing something and her ability to cut people off. What is she doing here? Superman punch? She's breaking down a Superman punch. Oh. Yeah, see, she's hot in a scary way.

In a Bond villain kind of way. Yeah, yeah, like, please. She throws her spinning back fist differently as well, which I think there's a good reason for. Because most people are throwing their spinning back fist with their arms straight and they're breaking their forearm. Right. Because when she throws it, she's throwing it with her elbow down,

which means that if she hits with the forearm, it's hitting both bones. Interesting. Yeah. And I think that's the reason she does it. You might be right. I mean, it makes sense. It is harder to break the bone that way, right? I would think so.

Is it, though? Let me think. Let me think if that makes sense. You've got to think hitting one bone is going to be weaker. But if you block it, you want to block it with the edge. You never want to block it like that. Like, if you're blocking a kick, you don't want to take it like that. That's how your arm snaps.

I wouldn't block a kick. I would take it on my arm. What if you have to block a kick? What if you get stuck here? What do you do if you get stuck here? Yeah, but if the kick's coming over, I'm tucking up. I'm taking it on the meat of my arm. Wherever I'm taking the kick.

Hopefully. Hopefully, of course. But if it hits your forearm, wouldn't you rather it hit here? I'd rather take a forearm than a face. For sure. For sure. For sure. But wouldn't you rather have it hit here than here?

It seems like here's going to... Folks who are listening, we're describing the outside blade of the bone, which would be like the edge of a 2x4 versus the flat part of a 2x4. I think if you kick the flat part, it would break. Whereas if you kick the edge, it would break whereas if you kick the edge it probably is a little bit more durable you think i think so i think the problem is yeah i think the problem is actually catching it flat like you're it's one of those things where it's it's not the bone the size difference is so huge that that little bone is going to break like if someone's

a really good kicker like if franc Francis Ngannou kicks your arm, some big giant dude with power, this part's going to break. It's not his shin. The shin's not going to break. Dude, when Anthony Johnson kicked me, I felt like someone had hit me with a tree. See, that's what they look like.

Wow, they look weird. They don't look like what you would think they would look like. We're looking at the bones of the forearm right now. You have a delusional idea what your bones look like. Yeah. I thought they were cooler it's weird that that's our shape right that's what keeps us together

just kind of all floating together just weird fucking hard stuff hard stuff that allows us to articulate as we move through earth but then you see other animals like octopus no hard stuff at all nothing scares the shits out of me they're weird weird you see other animals like octopus no hard stuff at all nothing this gives the shits out of me they're weird weird did you see that little clip going around the snail that had a parasite in it that this the parasite took over and it's like pulsing in its eyes and body dude you haven't seen no oh you know when i think i saw that a long time ago something really similar to that now that now that you're saying it I love these goddamn things I love those grasshoppers

That get infected with that water worm That makes them commit suicide Oh dude I have seen this Oh my god this is amazing So this thing is inside it's eye Like a goddamn amusement park ride It's trying to trick a bird to eat it Because it will repopulate inside the bird

So it's trying to trick a bird Yeah because the snail is already birds. So it's going to trick a bird? Yeah, because the snail's already dead. I think it's gone. Oh, boy. What the fuck? Nature, you fucking scary bitch. We've got it pretty good in comparison to the rest of the animal kingdom. What a tricky, weird way to propagate.

Hey, look at me. Come on. No, you don't want to eat me. Come on. Come and eat me. Fucking terrifying. So this aquatic worm it uh climbs inside the grasshopper's body and then when it's ready to be born it makes the grasshopper commit

suicide so it can like get in the water and swim away literally talks the grasshopper like come on bitch you're going over here like it hijacks its physical motion makes it jump into water and drown and then the worm fucking comes out of it. What was the one with the fly? Stephen King movie. The fly that lands on the spider and gets inside it. There's larvae inside the spider. They eat it from the inside.

Yeah. Isn't there like a tarantula hawk or something that does that? I've stumbled across something similar that's talking about cordyceps, which we've talked about before. Yes. They grow on catapults. It says cicadas have domesticated that fungus. What? And they use it. What?

What? Cicadas have repeatedly turned the infamous cordyceps fungi into indispensable allies. What? They grow it on their body? Is that what he's doing? That like an ant but that is an ant cicada yeah i don't know is that a cicada this is a relative of the zombie ant has been domesticated by cicadas oh so maybe they own that shit they're just like they're running the show

well there was one thing that i saw on the cordyceps mushroom and i don't know if it's exact i think there's like many different strains of cordyceps mushroom but one some particular fungi might not have even been cordyceps but i think it was jesus let me get the story um it infects an ant and the other ants take it away from the colony because they know that it's going to get to a certain point then it's going to explode so the ants will uh literally fill up with these spores and then explode and then the spores get into the sky and land on the other ants and they all get infected and they figured that out so they take it away from the nest somehow or another they know that this fucking creepy ant is like a bomb it's like a dead bomb and inside of it the cordyceps mushroom exploding ant rips itself

apart to protect its own. What is that? Is this a different one? Sounded the same. Google worm infested by fungus. Yeah. Google that. Try that.

Not worm. Ant. Ant infested by fungus. So they know it. It. Ant infested by fungus. This is scarier than anything any humans could write. We just don't think it's terrifying because they're little. That's all it is. Like, if they get too big, we kill them. There's no chicken-sized spiders running around my yard.

Get the fuck out of here. You're dead. I'm not going to call scientists. I'm going to shoot you first. But then you've kind of got to put yourself in that kind of got to put yourself in that circumstance like imagine that happening to you on that scale dude or put yourself on that scale ah dude if there was cockroaches and and fucking giant bugs the size of dogs running around we would have real problems real problems real problems they'd go right through your fucking walls of your house eat everything in there they might eat your baby dude why are you putting these scorpions and fucking spiders and black widows imagine black

widows were giant you'd be so fucked black widows the size of giraffes yeah just running around jacking people it would change everything about the way we lived yeah if we didn't have weapons guess what all that shit would be real back to caves look at that so here it is so one of them gets infected and the other ones are going to carry this dude away because if they don't he starts growing shit on his head it's like uh this this fungus somehow or another gets into his body and it starts sprouting this mushroom out of the top of his head and we we're looking at a slow motion version of this where you're seeing this thing sprout out of this dead ant's head. It took three weeks.

To film this? Yeah. Dude, this is like a science fiction movie. It's just they're operating on a different time scale. But if that happened as quickly as you're watching it in this video, you'd freak the fuck out. Are we going to see it explode? How is it growing so quick?

Is it going to explode? Is that the grand finale? I don't know. I think that's the idea, though. That's, yeah. It explodes out of its head is what they're sort of saying. Oh, okay. So it keeps from the head.

Oh, okay. That's kind of dramatic. But I think it does blow spores. I think some of them, yeah. See, some of them like fill up and then spores blow out of them and those spores can infect other ants that's why they were removing them from the colony if you're a biologist i strongly sincerely apologize for butchering all science that's how i stumbled across there are exploding ants though they literally explode i don't know it's

it's like a whole they explode but their nests live to see another day. Their abdomen's rupture. The whole fungi. Do you ever see what they do with leaf cutter ants? Uh-uh. So ruthless. The women are so monstrous. They chop off the man's arm and fuck him to death.

They chop off his arms and then they carry him away. Yeah, they find the male. For what purpose? There must be a reason for it. For breeding. They find the male. They say, oh, you're not going anywhere, bitch.

And they cut his arms off and then they bring him somewhere to fuck him. Make sure this is true. Please Google this. I'm pretty sure it's true. I watched this whole documentary. I remember they were snipping off the arms and legs of the ant and then they carried him away imagine that's terrifying

dude they're like this is how we do it they know how to do it like this is how we do it we cut off your arms and legs then we you to death imagine how that changes life coaching dude if that was the reality if you're a dude? Because sitting around waiting for a horde of angry egg-carrying women to come charging through your door and remove your limbs. They're terrifying enough, women are. We don't need to make them any more terrifying. Women, humans are awesome. But women, bugs?

That's a weird thing. There's no love in the bug world. No. It's just making honey and getting shit done. There's something beautiful about that, though. It's like pure. It just keeps rolling over. It's just making honey and getting there's something beautiful about that though it's like it's like pure you know it just keeps rolling over it's just you know it's found its rhythm we're the ones that make it complicated with all the other shit that we add on to it well we've made ourselves so safe and so removed from the whole cycle of life and that's amazing that we've done that or that somebody other than us has done that and

then we reap the benefits but because of that we look at real the real suffering of the natural world almost like because it's if it's preventable or if it's bad or if it's you know it's something we should be sad about you know but there's some really horrific things that take place especially in the insect world on a daily basis that make you just go what like have you ever seen those hornets that fly into the honeybee nest and behead everyone? I have seen that. That's terrifying.

It's like a Japanese hornet, right? And they fly in, and just a few of them. And they're a good size as well. Oh, they're giant. You wouldn't want it any bigger. Hedge cutters for a face. And they just come in and chop the heads off of these other honeybees.bees and it's crazy to watch man because the honeybees can't do jack shit just hundreds of them and just getting slaughtered just thousands of them but then

they figured out the way to kill these things is to get on top of them and bat their wings to heat up so they heat up to the point where it overheats the bee and kills it or the hornet and kills it how did they figure that out how did they figure that out but that's their strategy now their strategy is they swarm all over the hornet and they just keep flapping their wings until they overheat that motherfucker that's the argument for collective consciousness because like someone figured that out one of those one of those honeybees figured that out and then the rest of them around the world have probably started using that same tactic probably yeah well that's the rupert sheldrick um thought is that the sweet potatoes in the well he's he's uh he's he had this uh theory called morphic resonance and um he one of the

things that he was saying was he was talking about studies they did with rats and mazes and then if they did a study with a rat in a maze like on the east coast rats on the west coast if they went through the same maze would get through it quicker so it's like they were learning from each other how to get through it's almost like they were sharing yeah some sort of an understanding i mean we want to think that all genetics are the same in terms of like you know you have a child and your child shares your wife's genetics and your genetics and this is this is how it works and this is this is the way people learn things and that might be the way we learn most things but it also might be that we're getting some information from each other in some weird way and gotta be and we but we might be a little detached from it whereas rats

who are out there fucking scratching and clawing and they don't have a language they might be completely tuned into it it might be the sacrifice that language but that we made when we went with language where we lost our ability to read each other the way we used to or to read thoughts and ideas where we used to we rely instead on this other thing so it's sort of like when you wear shoes all the time your feet get soft for sure well we have i mean we've done a lot of things to detach ourselves from all of that stuff i mean like and i and i think you know people that like w Wim Hof and Tim Sheaf and people like that, that kind of go back to as far as close back to nature as they can.

They must be tuning back into something that, that we're lacking. I always feel that like that. I want to get closer to that resonance. And I do feel like this is the study with the monkeys on the islands, the archipelago, and they drop sweet potatoes in the sand. Have you heard this?

I think so, but go ahead. So they drop sweet potatoes in. I mean, this is just a gathering of what I remember from reading the study. But there was a series of islands all with the same species of monkey on the islands. They dropped sweet potatoes into the sand on one island and the monkeys went over and bit into them. And because they were covered in sand, they spat them out and left them some of the younger monkeys realized that if they took them into the sea they could wash the sand off and then they could eat the sweet potatoes and then when they dropped the sweet potatoes onto the successive islands they

already knew to wash them in the sea oh right so that's very similar to the rupert sheldrake thing that's really interesting yeah yeah i really wonder Sheldrake thing. That's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I really wonder. I mean, I really wonder how much, like, the human race benefits from the collective knowledge of everyone involved, not just through the Internet and books and universities, but maybe even just through consciousness. Like, maybe there's some element of it that's being relayed through consciousness. See, I'm invested in it because if I have an idea,

I automatically think that that idea is now available to everybody else. So I need to jump on that shit pretty quick. So I use it as a way of motivating myself. Yeah, for sure, right? And if you have an idea, do you ever wonder where it's coming from? All the time. Where is that? All the time.

What is that? But I what is that i've but i've had experience like with mushrooms i've i used to work with mushrooms all the time and i used to work with them mushrooms yeah same same office yeah same office you know there were two cubicles over colleagues you know and um i know mushrooms i worked with them i always felt like i was downloading stuff i always felt like it was being poured into my head yeah from somewhere else that's very similar um a lot of people have very similar experiences so i always feel like i'm receiving it from someone else and i think that's it's a good way of kind of detaching myself from it not taking ownership of it yeah stephen pressfield wrote about that in a really unique way in the war of art because he talked about how just showing

up and counting on the muse like thinking about the muse as a real thing you know the muse has always been like some the idea is like something's coming to you with these ideas something like something magical right and so i think his idea is to treat it like it is magical and respect it and to show up every day at work at the same time and summon the muse. And then if you just do that with discipline and you act as a professional, all this stuff comes to you. Where does it come from? Well, let's just say it comes from the muse.

It might not. Let's just say it does. Treat it like it does, and it works out. It's one of those weird ones, whereas if you pretend it's magic, it kind of works like magic. But if you just analyze it, these are just neurons firing in my brain. The collective work of all these other people that I've ever experienced in movies and literature, they're all feeling through me, so let's not get carried away about the pretentiousness of creativity.

It might be pretentious. It might be pretentious to think that way. But you might be open to the idea that let's just pretend that it's magic. Let's just pretend. Just trick yourself into thinking that it's magic and then operate like it's magic. But then give it the respect as if it's like, you know, piss off a wizard because you show up late. Right? Show up on time.

Do it and treat it like you respect it. Yeah. It keeps you humble. It keeps you appreciative. Yeah, I would say so. I like that theory. It's not a bad theory. But it's got a lot of you respect it. Yeah. It keeps you humble. It keeps you appreciative. Yeah, I would say so. I like that theory. It's not a bad theory, but it's got a lot of holes in it. I'm sure a smarter person than us can shoot it right down.

What do you, I know how much you've talked about this, but you and I have talked about it, that you've been thinking about fighting again. Where are you at with that right now? Right now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to get back in the USADA testing pool. I have to be in the pool for four months. And then once I'm in the pool for four months, then I have the option to fight if I choose to. You're going to be the first guy they test for mushrooms. For sure.

You're going to have a new mushroom test. Absolutely. And they're going straight to you. I'll be a happy test pilot for that. I don't mind that at all yeah no i mean so i've got to do four months because i never officially retired and so the the whole thing show up at six in the morning you've got to pee in a cup pick your blood yeah the problem is i'm on the road all the time and this is a conversation i've had with jeff

novitsky is because like i can't give them like i don't know exactly how it works but as far as i know you have to you give them like three addresses that these are the places that you're most likely going to be at. And if you're not at any of those places, you have to let them know where you are. Wow, so what if you're leaving your hotel to go to a pub? You have to tell them? Well, if you're within an hour of the place, they give you like an hour or two to get back to one of those addresses. I know. What if you're on the hottest of all hot dates?

Jesus Christ, you sada. those addresses i know i mean what if you're on the hottest of all hot dates jesus christ usada davitsky you cock blocking asshole i'm out here trying to get my freak on with this wonderful lady trying to check my pee at four in the morning oh fuck out of here i don't mind that i don't mind that but i'm i'm gonna get back in the rageous and then you know my options are open it would be really nice if there was a way where they could. I mean, I'm talking crazy. Really, I should shut the fuck up because now I'm thinking it's creepy because I'm thinking like transhumanist shit. I'm like, maybe they just have a chip in you like all the time.

And you just upload every day. They know, hey, look at that. Dan Hardy hasn't done anything. Everything's good. Vitamin B is a little high, but that's water soluble. That's good. That's a bit much. I know.

I need to be paid a lot more to have a chip insert 100 it's a stupid idea what is the price on that imagine if there was no price and if you had to get a new chip if you fought for a bellator and then there was problems turning off your old chip because it was like uh like if you get an iphone you try to switch to android good fucking luck cupcake they're gonna ruin you with those i messages you're not gonna get half your messages you're all gonna be all fucking luck cupcake they're gonna ruin you with those i messages you you're not gonna get half your messages you're all gonna be all fucked up so you're gonna have to figure out a way to switch it over so what if when you move over to bellator you get one of those bellator chips the ufc's chip cancels out the bellator chip everybody gets mad the one fc chip

would definitely be way different too the one fc chip gives you steroids it's like just shoots them right into you you got the old pride chip in there that keeps switching on every now and then. Well, okay, all bullshit aside, but what if there was, like, we know that testosterone levels, just in natural human beings, it's not fair, right? They're not fair. They're not evenly distributed. There's some people that are high testosterone, and there's some people that are lower testosterone. And it doesn't necessarily correlate with success but it's pretty high it's probably pretty high correlation with success there's something there right what if there was a

way where they would put everybody at the same level electronically they just put this little just chip and then they go what's going on is your adrenal glands and your endocrine system are not firing correctly. So what we'll do is give your DNA the signal to ramp up its production of testosterone by 170%. I don't like it. So you crank it up. So it makes your body do it. It makes your body crank up your growth hormone, your thyroid. Everything is perfect.

So everyone fights at like a perfect level everyone fights at whatever the number is but then but that's that's natural selection playing out in mma like i like that natural variance that's what like some people have got naturally heavy hands some people are naturally stronger than others some people have got more testosterone than others you know it's just it's a natural advantage which i like to see play out and i do too my my idea sucks it's a terrible idea but how long before we see like some sort of like physical equality we'd have to want it to be implemented we'd have to have a different league you know i think that's one of the reasons why i'm so opposed to the idea that everyone is the same you know like that there's something good

about everyone being the same like well we're clearly not the same no know like that there's something good about everyone being the same like we're clearly not the same no not at all and some people when you run into like certain dudes like alistair over him you're like oh okay you're from another planet fucking size you how strong that dude is especially when he's like when he fought brock lesnar you're like okay what fucking planet are you from man because you're not from planet where I'm from. You're so ridiculously powerful. And there's other people that just, they're not. They're marathon runners. They weigh 130 pounds.

They're never going to be any bigger than that. This is not even. This is not even. Some people are Tyson Fury. Some people are me. Some people are Brock Lesnar. Some people are you. It's like fucking, it's not even.

It's just weird. People wear a weird conglomeration of shapes. But then the thing is if it was completely even across the board, then there would be the opportunity for one person to be completely superior to everybody else. Oh, yeah. Whereas with the natural selection, you're never going to get Brock Lesnar winning marathons. So he can always appreciate a marathon runner and what they can do, you know? True.

That's true. Keeps everyone humble. Well, it definitely shows you that there's merits to all those sorts of different shapes and sizes, like particularly marathon runners, right? If you want to be able to go somewhere and stay alive, you know, you have to keep moving. It's one of the benefits. Like, one of the things that I think inherently we respect about marathon runners is they can keep running and we know we can't keep running.

So why do you run? You run to get away from things or to chase things. Well, what if you're chasing something and you get tired? What if you're running away from something and you get tired? They don't get tired. That's admirable. Like it locks into our – it's a part of your psyche. Yeah.

I've always felt like the optimal fight condition for like a lifelong martial artist is to find that balance between all of those things. So you've got an equal balance of everything. You don't excel at one particular thing. You get these martial artists that are just these juiced up monsters. Right, right. I can see a glaring weakness in your technique already because I know it's finite. I know it's going to run out. And then I look at somebody else who's focused entirely on technique and they've got no muscle mass and no physicality to them.

And I'm like, well, I can see the glare and weakness in your technique because you're going to struggle to apply it. Yes. You know what I mean? Yes. So it's like finding that Goldilocks zone, that beautiful balance in the middle. Yeah, where is that zone? I don't know.

I've been searching for it for my whole life. It's different with different styles. But here's one thing i can tell you other than 145 pounds and 185 pounds every single weight class is dominated by a wrestler stop and think about that but henry cejudo 125 and 135. Then at 145, Max Holloway. That's one weight class. Then you go to 55, Khabib motherfucking Nurmagomedov, who's one of the scariest grapplers in the sport. You go up to 70, Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington, two fucking beast grapplers.

Yep. You go up to 85, you got the exception. That's Robert Whittaker. But guess what? I thought he lost against Joel Romero in the second fight. I thought Romero beat him. Last three three rounds i thought romero beat him i mean and robert whittaker i'm a giant fan of his i think he's fucking amazing and he's he epitomizes to me like the best of all well-rounded capabilities his takedown defense is excellent he's a great

striker he's accurate he's got knockout power's got everything. I just felt like in that second fight, it just seemed to me that Yoel had done enough to win. But I'm open to an argument against that. It was not egregious, like an awful decision where you're disgusted by it. It was like, ooh, I think that one I'd have to go and watch it again. But I think you would make a real good argument that Yoel was the only one that heard him, and he heard him a couple of times, particularly the second fight yeah I think I had the last

three rounds to Yoel in that fight he's always a slow starter people always think that he's you know people always have got this perspective on that he's this really really fast starter he's very explosive and stuff but he's he doesn't he just kind of lulls you in with that slow style sneaks on you and then explodes and then goes And he's so scary that you don't know what to do when he's lulling. Because when he's lulling you, you don't want to attack him

because he's so fucking fast. You know, that guy, when he landed that flying knee on Chris Wibin, I was like, Jesus Christ.

He's such a freak athlete, man. So, okay. That's 85. Robert Whitaker, let's call him one of two exceptions. 205. What about the female weight classes?

Well, let's go to, let's get done with the male first because the female is a different animal. 205, John Jones. Heavyweight, Daniel Cormier. I mean, that is fucking crazy. If you wanted to ask someone, hey, my kid's thinking about becoming a mixed martial arts fighter. What discipline do you think you should start with first? It's either like a traditional martial arts where you learn how to kick when you're like real little and just learn a lot of flashy kicks because you'll carry that with you uh and you'll develop leg dexterity but then wrestling for sure wrestling yeah because if you're a dominant

wrestler that advantage is if you if you're real similar in everything else but you're dominant in wrestling you're going to be able to control the clinch you're going to in everything else, but you're dominant in wrestling, you're going to be able to control the clinch. You're going to be able to get the guy down. You're going to be able to do things to them. And you see it. It might not be the most glamorous way to win fights. Sometimes people get upset that someone takes someone down and just kind of hits them while they're down.

But guess what? They're hitting them, and they're doing something to that person that person doesn't want to be done. And maybe it's not the most exciting thing for you to watch, but as someone who respects what the sport is supposed to be all about the like what can this guy do to that guy well that guy can take you down and punch you in the fucking face and you can't do anything about it and even if you get up you say i'm not hurt okay well you never got up though yeah that's this is a viable legitimate way to win fights and the guys who

can smash from the top they're the most scary proposition because you can't get up. You can't get up. And Khabib's on there talking shit to you. Going, come on, talk now. Boom. Talk now. Boom.

Terrifying, right? Because you can't get him off you. See, for me, I've kind of started to change my perspective because everybody you speak to kind of divides MMA into, you know, the grappling arts, the ground arts, jujitsu, wrestling, and then the striking arts, loosely into three categories.

But I don't see wrestling as a part of that. I see wrestling as like that's the foundation. That's the glue that holds everything together. Yeah, I think you're right. So I think when you watch a fight where someone is winning with just wrestling and very little else, that's a boring fight because it's not a fight. That's a wrestling match. Right. The wrestling is the thing that enables you to utilize the submissions

or the striking. And there's something instinctively about us. Whenever there's a fight where they're just wrestling or there's someone just dominating the top position and not using it at all, the fans get restless. They start to boo because they feel like they're being robbed of what they came to see. And that's my only criticism when it comes to wrestling

is to use just wrestling. You've got to understand that that is the foundation. That's the glue that you bolt everything else onto. So that's why Khabib's so good because he uses wrestling to put people in a position where he can beat them up. Or, I mean, Chuck Liddell, he used his wrestling to keep people in a position where he could knock them out. But wrestling, that's the glue. That's the part, you know.

And what's beautiful about Cejudo is that he's, instead of having a method of wrestling, he has principles of wrestling. He understands how to break a body down. And that's, like, I understand that from a striking perspective, and it's taken me years to start to see that from a grappling perspective as well. Training with the old 10th Planet guys and stuff,

they had quite a... What's the best way of putting it? An instinctive understanding of how to break down and control a human body based on the techniques that Eddie had developed. And it took me ages to kind of start to figure out that it's not like I'm not trying to learn techniques to do that. I've got to understand the principle of it to break it down.

And to watch the hoodo chain things together against Demetrius Johnson. Go for the inside reap and then Demetrius Johnson steps out so he ankle picks him in the same process. The principle instead of the method is a beautiful thing to watch. There's also the mental toughness aspect of wrestling that I think is undeniable. For sure. It teaches you how to be super uncomfortable at an early age.

And there's something about that uncomfortable grind that if you can get through that and make that normal for you, you could get through almost anything. And these guys, you see them, like perfect example, Cejudo versus Marlon Marais. Marlon Marais is lighting him on fire in that first round. It looked terrifying. It looked like Henry's in real danger of being KO'd by a far superior striker.

I mean, Marlon looked huge. He looked like a beast. He's hitting him with these horrific leg kicks. But that motherfucker never skipped a beat. He just fired back up for the second round. Here we go, bitch. I'm right in your face. It was crazy.

You watch how tough he is. this is the second dj to see him come back and start dominating mirai's in the second round was almost like what has happened has someone put something in marlin's drink it's like no so hoodoo is just so goddamn tough he discourages you yeah he freaks people out i think a lot of people canceled him out the second fight against demetrius johnson with the calf kicks like When he KO'd Wilson Hayes I was like wait a minute like now he looks like a karate master like what the fuck is this? Like he was fighting like karate guy and lighting Wilson up and I was like, this is crazy And I was like, okay this like when we're talking about Vitor learning kicks late in his career

This is just a super athlete. This is what it is and maybe the best super athlete we've ever had in the sport arguably when we think about his physical accomplishments of going from olympic gold medalist in in wrestling then he went golden gloves boxing you know that whole story about him living in the gym after he won the gold medal really won the gold medal in the olympics this is from will harris will harris told me this um and i think there's a video about it from will harris productions but he um he won the fucking gold medal in the olympics and then immersed himself in boxing and was living in a fucking boxing gym and sleeping in a boxing gym after winning the gold medal in olympics just drive that motherfucker's got blinders on he's just going for working out some demons there's some demons there that he's working out for sure.

Whatever it is, keep working them out. I love it. I love watching these extreme outliers, like guys who can do things like that. And you know Luke Thomas, right? Luke Thomas had a really interesting take on it that I really appreciated and agreed with. He said you've got to remember that Cejudo early in his career was it wasn't consistent he was missing weight you know he didn't have the best performances he wasn't the same he didn't have the same focus and then reinvents himself after the demetrius johnson loss and becomes a

fucking demon in the gym and works with all these, who are those people that came here? Is it neuro force? What is the company that works with them? That works on? Yeah. Find the name of those folks. So ridiculously scientifically monitored testing of everything he does. His workload is neuro force one neuro force one. So like these,

there's fucking scientists working with them. So scientists and elite trainers and wrestling coaches and kickboxing coaches and then all of a sudden he emerges as this murderer right like you see when he blasted away uh tj dillashaw you're like holy shit like this this henry sohudo is a different person than what you saw at the beginning of his career like he's he's adaptable you know he so adaptable. He's amazing, man. And that's the thing that's beautiful about it as well. He's not only adapted from one sport to another, but you can see how his style is adapted as a martial artist as well.

He's still getting better. I guarantee you getting lit up by Marlon Marais in the first round is going to turn him into a better kickboxer. For sure. Because he knows what someone did to him. He knows, like, wow, Jesus Christ, this guy could keep this up. But he wilted under that pressure, that fucking psycho wrestler pressure. That's real shit, man. That's Khabib pressure.

That's Henry Cejudo pressure. Those psycho wrestlers. And you can only get that from grind. You can only get that from forcing yourself through those hours on the mat. You can't build that any other way. And if you stop and you take some time off, that muscle weakens. You need to start building that strength back up again. You're calcifying your feelings.

You're just becoming a psychopath. The best ones, when they're in there, man, they might as well be a wolf. They just plow forward. Calcified your feelings. Yeah. I like it there's like a primal breakthrough that you could see in some great fights where uh it's almost like they're down to just this animal and technique just animal and technique no more person it's just savagery just

wild exchanges and savagery and one guy trying to finish the other guy and they're both getting rocked and like holy fuck this could go any way and even as even as people that appreciate the technique there's still something instinctive about that as we watch it we're like that primal feeling yes racing what makes everybody so excited when you see a fucking wild crazy war everybody gets fired up or they're like gripping like Adesanya like Adesanya Kevin Calvin Gaslam holy shit that is the epitome of one of those fights yeah that was just Mike Perry yes dude that's another one these Jesus Christ yeah his fucking nose was like a broken fire hydrant just spraying blood all over the back. And he still didn't tap.

Yeah. And some people think he still won the fight. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? I have to go watch it again and try to score it. I think whenever it's a close fight, there's like sometimes I like the way a certain type of fighter, the way they, like I prefer someone who's doing damage versus someone who takes someone down and doesn't do anything. And sometimes you'll have a kickboxer who's lighting a guy up for the first minute and a half of the round,

but then the wrestler will take him down and maybe stay on top of him for three or four minutes, but don't do anything, and they'll give it to the wrestler. Which I'm like, okay, maybe. But I think it's debatable, especially if it's 50-50. It's like two and a half minutes down, two and a half minutes up it's 50 50 it's like two and a half minutes down two and a half minutes up well what happened in those two and a half minutes downs yes you held position but did you get it back from what that guy was doing to you in the first two and a half minutes when he was chopping at your legs and kicking you in the body like i don't know where

to score that and i think it's not really it's not really clear it's too subjective no it's it's not really clear. It's too subjective. No, it's all opinion-based, really. It's down to the interpretation of the person watching, and this is how your own personal life experience has come into play. If you're a sport jiu-jitsu guy, you're going to see it different to a boxing coach or something like that. And the other thing as well, when it comes to the stats and you look at the total strikes landed, significant strikes landed, I always argue some strikes are far more significant than others sure like if you land 50 significant strikes in a in a round sorry in a fight and someone lands 10 significant strikes but those 10 significant

strikes blow your blow your eye up break your nose knock you down one time it doesn't matter what the other significant strikes did if they weren't as significant and i think like with the mike perry uh vicente luque fight i would say that that knee was probably the most significant strike of the fight so i'm gonna weigh that so much heavier than than any of the other significant strikes it's you know what i mean yeah i 100 agree with you i think we we're living in this compromise of the 10point must system that we don't have to be. What about the way that Pride used to do it, where they would score the person finishing stronger as heavier? Because that's another argument that comes in.

If you look at Mike Perry at the end of that third round, you go, fourth round, fifth round, he's got nothing left. That nose is a mess. So then I think instinctively I do that, and I try not to. I do try and score it per round, but I think instinctively if somebody finishes stronger, which again, Yoel Romero against Robert Whittaker, second time around, he finished stronger than Whittaker by, you know, quite obviously. And I think that people naturally lean towards the person that is,

they've overcome the hump at the start of the fight. It's almost like you've got a round or two, you can kind of forgive the person before they take over. Right, well here's a perfect example the first round with liz karmuch and valentina shevchenko that was a fairly uneventful round in terms of significant strikes landed in terms of anybody establishing any dominance you just got to see valentina dealing with the movement and advancing and landing a little bit more than liz but that's it not. Not much, right? But that's a 10-9 round. For sure. How could a round where they're scrapping and they're going at each other

but no one gets knocked down but it's a fucking wild, chaotic, crazy round, how can that also be a 10-9 round? Yeah. I hear you. I hear you. But that's where people's perspective of fights can sometimes lean one way because if someone has a really, really big last round but they've lost the first two people are not seeing it as in as three sections of a of a fight to be

scored if one person's two rounds ahead sometimes like like i said like i was saying instinctively if someone has a strong round you score towards that person because it was more impactful what they did to their opponent yes so if you take someone down and control them and hold them even if you do that for four minutes of a round but for one minute of that round you get lit up against the fence i'm always going to go towards the person that was doing the lighting up because that was more significant and more impactful on me as a viewer if i'm choosing a tribal leader i'm going for the guy that had the one minute of success on the feet as opposed to the guy that was holding him down for four yeah unless the guy who holds him down eventually mountains him like from game of thrones and crushes his fucking head with

his thumb through his eyeballs that was terrifying that was terrifying um yeah i see your point i guess um but i think for sure that there should be another category of of impactful strikes instead of just significant strikes and total strikes, there should probably be rocked. Like he got rocked. Like your legs go and you're covering up. But then he's a knockdown and automatically a 10-8 round. No.

I don't think 10-8 is right. I don't think 10 is right. I think we should have a comprehensive system that recognizes the fact that there's near submissions, there's a leg kick that barely touches, and there's a leg kick that cripples your leg. They should be scored differently. We should have actual numbers that are attributed to these things. If we want to have an accumulation of things at the end, how much should we count total strikes? How much should we count submission attempts?

How much should we count near submission attempts? What about submission attempts where you're literally saved by the bell, which does happen, right? You're literally, like, locked up, ready to fucking tap. Jen's pulled a BJ Penn. That's the first one that comes to mind. That's a good one. That's a good one that comes to mind.

I was going to go with Dylan Danis' first MMA fight. Okay. It wasn't the first one. Didn't he lock up a dars and the guy got out of it and then he caught him with a dars in the second round is that what happened or my thing am i misconstruing him with somebody else i don't remember but it's that what i'm going with is there's moments where you go this guy is fucked and then the buzzer rings and you're like oh he survived but let's see what happens if he comes back i want to say it's still a dance but now i'm questioning myself seeing too many fights

yeah so what what about if they're knocked and rocked right at the end of the fight like uh frank edgar against gray maynard first round that's interesting too how much is that worth right what if imagine if the corner had an opportunity to add an extra minute to the round extra minute go god well how about with k1 or glory when they get to three rounds if it's a draw they go one more round everybody goes fuck i love it they thought it was over gonna sit back and rest right and then pushes the fighters to be more decisive though in the in the first three rounds yes is it did dylan dennis win his first fight in the first round of second round okay so i'm i'm dumb so the first one was a leg lock yes so it wasn't him it was somebody that landed a fucking darts like a sick darts at the end of the first round and i want to say

it wasn't in bellator now i think about think about it, it was in the UFC. That was a leg lock. And Dylan Dennis is the top of the food chain jujitsu practitioner. There's so many guys that if you're going to go to the ground with a guy like that, you're in some deep shit. He's fucking dangerous.

He's out in New York at the moment. My YouTube guys are out there videoing with him. He's in a real good place. His interview is fascinating. He's a lot more – people see the bravado. He's being silly. I think he's great. I think he's a very down-to-earth guy,

and I think he's just on a journey, isn't he? I think he's with the Meow Brothers at the moment. Oh, is Montel Jackson? No, I don't think so. That's first-round Darce? I don't think that's it because – goddammit. Now that it wasn't – I know it don't think so. That's first round, D'Arce? I don't think that's it because god damn it. Now that it wasn't and I know it wasn't Dylan Dallas, I'm trying to see what

fucking jiu-jitsu guy was it that slapped on a D'Arce and then finished it, the next round finished it with a D'Arce. Maybe it was Ferguson. It's not going to, this is not going to work. I'm never going to remember now because it's fairly recent but there's you know that when when someone's locked up we've gotten way off track

but my point was if someone's locked up in a submission and the buzzer ends you know that guy was fucked he was fucked he's turning purple and then the buzzer rings and your guy has to let go and you're like oh is that a 10-8 that should be worth a lot 10-7 i your guy has to let go and you're like, ooh. Is that a 10-8? That should be worth a lot. 10-7. I don't know, man. It's like you're a couple seconds away from death. Yeah. That seems like it should be worth a lot.

You trying to find it for me? Who is it? It says Woodley drops a two-square second round D'Arce choke. No, no. That was one of the most obvious D'Arce chokes you'll ever see. Woodley just smushed him. Yeah. He smushed him. He's so goddamn strong that you could see that D'Arce chokes you'll ever see. Woodley just smushed him. He smushed him.

He's so goddamn strong that like you could see that D'Arce coming a mile away and he's not stopping it. He just ran that fucking arm through and clamped it on his bicep and crushed him. I mean, he didn't try to be sneaky with it. He was just dominant with it. That's a great example of

like the top of the... Who's that? Dennis Bermudez. Remains perfect with first round darts. I do not... UFC Phoenix. How long ago is this? I was hoping it'd pop up faster than this. What year is this? This is February. Could be. This is

UFC Phoenix? Anyway. Doesn't matter. matter the point being if you did if you do get caught like that if you do get caught like that and the buzzer saves your life that should be worth a lot it's got to be it's got to be worth a lot for sure for sure it's not the same as like how is that 10-9 like how do you get a 10-9 out of that that sounds crazy if there's a 10-9 just like karmush and valentina shevchenko in the first round where it's fairly uneventful. Yeah. You know? And then you've got one round where the fighter nearly gets finished and saved by the bell.

And then their opponent can edge out the next two rounds by stuffing takedowns and fighting defensively. Yeah. And then they win on decision. Yeah. I really think that there's room for growth. There's room for growth there's room for improvement and uh i think that if someone developed some sort of a more comprehensive system like what is a takedown actually worth why do we have to stick this 10-9 stuff it's like i guess it's like oh i'm going

this way or i'm going that way let's see your work like what are you deciding it on are you deciding on okay i have takedowns versus submission attempt and with the accumulation of leg strikes i feel like an advantage was gained and even though much wasn't done with the takedown it did defensively stop the the attack that he was getting on his feet and he was able to impose his will upon him so so I'm going to give him 10-9. We can go, ooh, we can talk about this. And experts can sit around and try to figure out what makes sense to people who have been studying martial arts their whole life. What do you think is worth more?

Who do you think won that round? Forget about the 10-9. If you had a score on the Dan Hardy system, who do you think won that round? And if we did something like that, I think we'd get at least an idea what the territory is. But we're confined by 10-9

or 10-8 or 10-7. It's like, who decides? Who decides? Why is it 10-7? This one isn't and that one is? Well, show me. Show me what it is. Show me what happened.

But then we could overcomplicate it. I see the benefit in the 10-9 thing is it makes it more of an instinctive thing like for me like a takedown should be its own reward like if you take someone down you've put them in a position where you want them that's like octagon control to me so like controlling the center should be scored just as highly as a takedown the takedown's got to lead to something oh i disagree because i think it's easier to take control of the center than it is to get a takedown i don't agree honestly i don't don't. For how long, though?

Footwork in MMA is almost primitive, really. I mean, there are certain people that stand out that got really good footwork. But for the most part, there's so much bad decision-making by people not understanding how to corral someone against the fence. This is an example of why I don't agree. Tyron Woodley versus Wonderboy. Tyron Woodley let wonder boy control the center for most of the fight but that's like playing guard to me if you if you choose to be backed against the fence and choose to counter-strike you're losing until you win a lot of the time but not

as much as being taken down because tyron wind up doing what he wanted to do which is catch wonder boy in between these movements and land a big shot and he did it in both fights and he hurt him in both fights but both fights were a similar strategy of waiting for wonder boy to fuck up and land a big shot. And he did it in both fights, and he hurt him in both fights. But both fights were a similar strategy of waiting for Wonderboy to fuck up and not a whole lot of volume and definitely don't charge at that guy. That guy's too good at counters. Takedowns are definitely worth more than controlling the center. I don't mean that to be misunderstood. But what I'm saying is that the goal is the same thing.

If you control the center, you're putting someone in a position where you can strike them. If you take someone down, you're putting someone in a position where you can strike them. If you take someone down, you're putting them in a position where you can hit them or submit them. Yeah, but they're so removed because when you're controlling the center, you can still get fucked up. You're not controlling the guy. If you're moving forward and you're controlling the center, you're definitely forcing the action, but people get knocked out that way all the time. I mean, you're definitely forcing the action,

but people get knocked out that way all the time. I mean, do you remember when Jeremy Horn or Jeremy Stevens, was it Dennis Bermudez he caught with that flying knee? Do you remember that? Yeah. He was getting pressed up against a cage, and then boom, he explodes out of nowhere with a flying knee. That shit happens.

For sure. But then like Robbie Law and Melvin Manhoff, you know? Yes. Bites him against the fence, rolling. Yeah, that's one of the great ones. One of the great ones. Of course, yeah. That's one of the great ones. One of the great ones. Of course, yeah. So it can't be worth as much as a takedown. But the thing is, say if you're playing guard, right?

If you've got somebody in your guard and you play 15 minutes of throwing submissions up and nothing comes off, and the other person sits in your guard and lands a few punches, the person on the top is probably going to win the fight because they were sitting in your guard defending submissions. And the defense part is its own reward. Sure. They were in the top position. So for me, I always kind of think that playing guard is very similar to counter-striking. I was a counter-striker all the way through my career pretty much.

So my feeling was that I was losing the fight until I landed the strikes to win it. And the idea of controlling the octagon doesn't necessarily mean you control in the center it means you're controlling your opponent so you have this mindset that's an interesting mindset for a counter-striker probably very productive right because you put yourself like to the point where you have to get it back like you're already losing i'm at a deficit because i'm giving ground up but the benefit that i'm getting in giving ground is that i'm making them walk into the places that I want them to step right yeah so so like if I'm backing up straight and I'm just being pushed against the fence I'm not controlling the center of the octagon but if I'm backing up and pivoting off and catching them with the left hook I'm walking them onto that shot

right I would just say that as a counter-striker I would have to be more significant in my output just like if you were a guard player you would have to be more significant in my output. Just like if you were a guard player, you would have to be more significant in your output than you would if you were in the top position. That makes sense. And it certainly makes sense that there's a benefit for getting someone to fight your kind of fight. You know, there's so many variables. They're really in play. And some of them are dependent upon maybe you don't really understand what their game plan was maybe the game plan was fight a really unpredictable fight something you

would never expect from someone with their style or maybe someone has like maybe some hidden skill that we didn't realize they were that good at and so like remember when nick diaz fought robbie lawler everybody thought nick diaz is juj right? Knocked him out with a jab. He hit him with kind of like a weird right hook, right? But he was beating his ass before that. That was what was different about our expectations. Our expectations were Nick Diaz was this really well-respected jiu-jitsu player who was real tough and young and had some real good fights.

I think he started, did he start in WAEC? Is i think he started did he started in waec is that where he started started in some smaller organizations that fight with robbie lawler was early though like very early 37 or very early like that i'll never forget that fight man he came out he was like stockton motherfucker and robbie lawler was like what what is happening here he was like what the fuck is going on? But he outboxed him. That was the thing that was exciting about it. It's like, wow. We thought this guy was just a jiu-jitsu guy,

and meanwhile, what he's doing is he's coming out talking mad shit to Robbie Lawler, talking shit to him while he's punching him in the face. That was something that I love about the Diaz brothers, though, and they've never really had to implement wrestling into their game too much because they've used pressure and boxing to force people to shoot on them. Both have wicked guards. Wicked.

They both have wicked jiu-jitsu, wicked guards. You know, Nick Diaz is a super respected jiu-jitsu black belt, as is Nate. In the jiu-jitsu community they're like you know they're recognized as being really high level so they'll just keep punching you in the face until you decide to go to the ground i'd love to tap into some of that knowledge get their perspectives on the on the sport and the scoring you know what i mean well i like the fact that they're picking their fights now like nate takes some time off and takes a big fight you know does whatever he wants like i like that i like that he can do that.

And I'm very excited about this fight. This fight with Pettis is fascinating. Because, first of all, Nate Diaz, he's acting like a maniac. He's smoking weed during the open workouts. He's smoking weed during open workouts.

I mean, his brother was suspended for like a fucking year for smoking weed back in the dark ages. Wasn't he? Yeah, he was. Yeah. It's like a long time. And he didn't fight for ages because he wouldn't pay the fine dude exactly it's so stupid and meanwhile the diaz brothers are right so here you see nate diaz at the open workout yeah just cbd bro it's just health it's just he's getting high as fuck that's what he's doing

you can do that you can do that now as long as you're not high the day of the fight your levels will be fine I used to stop for weeks before my fights. It was awful had to back then right? But he's he's getting so high it might stay with him for a couple months. Yeah, I might fail the time What was it when? Imagine when when Nick fought to go me and he had like six times the amount in his system? They said he had to be high when he fought Gomi. He had a pot brownie in the back or something before he walked out. Dude, that was an amazing fight.

He caught him with a go-go plata. Go-go plata. Woo! Unbelievable. Let's realize how goddamn good Nick Diaz is at everything. Yeah. Submissions, you know, fucking – he when he fought cyborg just got him to the ground submitted him stood with him for a little bit and said okay that's enough yeah

and the paul daly fight that's the one that always stands out to me like i took him into the jungle i never would have thought that nick dows was gonna knock paul out he took him into the jungle he took him into the deepest water he just said let's just go to war let's go to crazy war people don't do that with Paul David. No way. His power is ridiculous. He's terrifying. He tenderized the side of my head for many years in the gym.

Dude, I can't imagine getting hit by that guy. That guy, his left hand is preposterous. Huge hands as well. Yeah, I believe it. We're talking about hand structure. Of course. I mean, he's got massive hands. I couldn't imagine him not having massive hands.

He has big feet too. He's a wide tank of a man yeah but that left hand is just one of the best weapons in the sport yeah that's one of those game changer weapons well he clips people and you see him like whoa i remember being in his corner one time um he was fighting xavier fupapakam on cage rage and uh we'd had a late night the night before as we usually did with paul d's fight nights, because he's a bit wild. So we'd been up till like 4 a.m. Friday night. Saturday, we got over to the fights and he was just, he wasn't focused on the fights at all.

He'd had some kind of noodle pot for breakfast and nothing else. And he was just like, his head just wasn't there. He's just, you know, he was one of those kind of guys that sometimes he would just show up to fight at the moment that it was required and uh professor x he was like a six foot two thai boxer i remember that remember him yeah yeah real long range you got very powerful dude yeah yeah this uh yeah it was yeah and he got paul clinch and he was kneeing him and he was hitting him with all kinds of stuff and out out of nowhere, just this left hook just came creeping over the top, and he just fell like a plank. He knew he could do that to people, too, and knows he can.

When he hit Lorenz Larkin with that punch, I was like, Jesus, because Lorenz is a very high-level striker. Like, you remember when Lorenz ran over near Magny? Yeah. And you're like, holy shit. And he throws that oblique kick to the body like a sidekick and you're like whoa this guy's hitting him with some shit and he's swift on the feet man like lorenz is like he's got a very unusual style of footwork and movement it's like a lot of guys you

see them trying to decipher it as he's coming at you and then boom yeah the shots are coming so to see him get clipped by paul and get really hurt and stopped you realize like wow that's how hard fucking paul daly hits yeah and you underestimate how long his arms are as well he's got a unique build his waist's like this big he's like he's built like a dorito and he's got really wide shoulders and really long arms that's all that power's coming from that leverage were you you shocked by his fight with Michael Venom Page? No, not really. I think Paul can play the game when he needs to play the game.

He knows when he's taking risks and when he's not. And there was a lot on the line for that. Oh, for sure. But that's the one thing that he always complained about was when guys took him down. Ego can have a say in these things sometimes, though. And I think a loss over a bad performance is much worse for Paul when it comes to MVP. He would have never heard the last

of it. We occupied the same small bit of land. You know, you can't go very far in England without hearing about that kind of stuff. He just wanted to get the win. Yeah. I wonder if, yeah, I see what you're saying, and I like that he fought that way. I like that anybody fights in a way that they can win

because if someone can't defend that, I want to know. And it's not because I want one person to win over the other person, even if it's a bad fight. I like when styles clash and you figure out, oh, look at this. If that guy just does that to you, guess what? Now people know that they can do that to you, and other people who are better at doing that are going to try to do that to you. Yeah.

It's interesting. It makes the sport fascinating. For sure. But would say that paul didn't get into the fight with the intention of fighting like that i think i think the takedowns were a part of his game plan but i think he planned on doing a lot more damage on the ground that guy is so fucking slippery standing up michael venn and page he's so slippery that movement is so crazy to deal with that karate point fighting background they are so good at blitzing. You just don't feel like you can get close to him. It feels like he's so far away.

And if you try to move into the danger zone, they can get to you before you can get to them. And especially Michael Page, who has those long arms and legs. And he's so good at keeping his hands down. So you don't know where shit's coming from, too. Everything's coming from weird angles. And the confidence plays in as well. Because he's so confident in what he's capable of, he fights loose, which makes him faster. He hasn't fought since the Lima fight, right?

No. Yeah, that was bad. Lima's a murderer. He might be one of the scariest guys in the 170-pound division across the board. One FC, UFC. Lima's one of the scariest guys. For sure. He's boom, boom, out go the lights.

That motherfucker, he puts people to sleep. You know, he does. When he knocked out Korshkov, I was like, Jesus. He knocks out everybody, man. Yeah. And his rematch with Rory is going to be very interesting. I just always worry about Rory's nose, you know. Yeah.

It's always on my mind when he's fighting because they just don't heal. They just never heal properly. How about Michael Perry's? I don't know. That's going to be a long time off. He was on my flight on the way home, and his eyes were swollen shut and stuff. He was having a rough time. But didn't he get surgery while he was in Uruguay?

Yeah, they fixed it while they were there. Oh, so you left after he had gotten surgery? stayed for a day after so i guess i'll get some rest jet lag was killing me good for you yeah how is uruguay was it interesting yeah it was it was cool i mean the fans were great you know they uh they had we had one fighter on the card from uruguay um gara gory eduardo gara gory who was i mean he just marched forward and just tried to you know tried to bring the fight to his opponent. He was fighting Bandanai. He was backing up, trying to counter-strike. But the fans loved it.

You know, they were rowdy. They were quiet when the fights were going on, which was kind of weird because the only fans that I've experienced that do that are the Japanese fans. You know, when the fight's going on, they sit quietly. They watch. They applaud when there's a position change. And, you know, there were some good fights on the card as well. The Haoleon Paivani as well from, what's his opponent's name?

Bontorin. Adria Bontorin caught him with a clean knee and opened him up with a lot of stitches. Oh, I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. And the jiu-jitsu guy, the middleweight guy? Oh, yeah. Adolfo Vieira.

Jesus Christ. That guy terrified. Yeah. Peota's good. I'm surprised that he didn't press forward more, to be honest. I was expecting him to be more aggressive. Because, like, Vieira is good, but he's, like, five, six fights into his career. You can still bully him a little bit because he might be unsure of himself in the striking. A little bit, but he did land a hard jab early in the first round,

and I think that, like, woke him up a little bit but he did land a hard jab early in the first round and i think that like woke him up a little bit like he's got heavy hands but the thing is his squeeze is fucking outrageous yeah his squeeze is so outrageous when he wrapped up that head and arm triangle i was like no one's getting out of that like there's some dudes that do that head and arm choke like that where you see their back look like a fucking some alien creature with all the striations you're like oh my god no one's getting out of that like you're going to sleep he's gonna cut your head off like that's horrific those guys that have that incredible jiu-jitsu with incredible physical strength like the jacare's paul harris yeah those guys who have that crazy jiu-jitsu but also ridiculous strength as well are always the scariest.

Yeah. Look at the size of Gordon Ryan now in comparison to when he started out. Jesus, he's so big. He's a monster. He's terrifying. Keep Jeff Dominski way the fuck away from that guy. But that is the thing about jiu-jitsu is like some of these things have testing and people do have tested positive.

It's been like a huge disgrace. But the ones that don't have testing, these dudes's the wild west out there they're running rampant remember jeff monson i remember that monster walking around like he'd just been chiseled out of me yeah he was a goddamn fantastic four character that came to life yeah when monson was in uh there he is right there jacked the. The kid's jacked. Yeah. I watched him on that. The Beast. What was it?

A quintet out in Vegas. And he rolled through three guys on that. Dude, this is amazing. Polaris as well. He's done Polaris a few times over in the UK. He's just a monster. Well, it all comes out of that John Donaher, Henzo Gracie school. Eddie Cummings, John Donaher, all those guys.

Gary Toninin Nicky Ryan Gordon Ryan those are that's some of the cream of the crop of young Jiu Jitsu players these guys are all savages and I'm really excited

that Tonin is now in MMA you know because he's doing really well in MMA he's undefeated and he's he's fucking people up

standing up too he's getting better at standing up but when it goes to the ground good fucking luck good luck and I think people would underestimate john danaher as an mma coach as well you know the experience that he's had like his his knowledge of mma is is outstanding i spent some time talking to him when i was up in montreal at tristar and like the the

way he he you know unpacks things and breaks things down, and not only breaks them down for himself to understand, but for him to be able to communicate that easily to other people, for them to understand. It takes a special kind of coach to be able to do that. Well, he's a really, really interesting human. If you just sit down and talk to him, he's one of the most well-thought-out people I think i've ever had the pleasure of having a conversation with he just

thinks things through and irons out all his points before he ever expresses them so when he expresses something to you he's like let me ask you this and he's a lunatic and he's a lunatic there's there's an edge to him for sure i'll never forget him sitting in a club in Montreal. Like, GSP's there and all of his mates, and they're all, like, dressed sharp and stuff, and they were, like, talking to the girls. He had a rash guard on. Of course he did.

A rash guard, a paddy pack, and a pair of shorts, and he was just sitting in the club just... People don't understand. John Donaher is famous for wearing a rash guard to a wedding. But he's a savant. He's a special individual. He's on a different frequency. If you never wore a rash guard to a wedding, my apologies.

But I wouldn't put it past you. No, he did. I'm sure he did. I'm sure that's a true story. I mean, he is a savant. What he is is I think he's singularly focused on transitions and attacks and patterns in jiu-jitsu and how to improve upon various athletes' success in games. And he's created these pathways, and these guys that believe in him

also happen to be super dedicated and very talented. And then you have that entire Henzo Gracie team, which is just one of the best lineages of jiu-jitsu in all of martial arts. And if you look at what came out of that Henzo Gracie, you know, you have Matt Serra came out of there. There's been so many high-level competitors in a million different martial arts organizations. Henzo is like old-school Gracie. I mean, he's from the root. I mean, that's the purest jiu-jitsu you're going to find in the world.

So he's got, it's just, that's an amazing pool of talent on top of having a wizard like Donaher in there fucking with things and fixing things and finding new pathways and how to counter things and how to switch things around on people. And they have a bunch of systems like back-taking systems, leg-locking systems, and it's super, super effective. And the way he describes it is he's able to cut years out of the learning curve of these guys by addressing problems that come up before they come up. I mean, he's proven that, though. You know, the speed in which Gordon Ryan and Nicky Ryan as well.

And Eddie Cummings. Eddie Cummings, of course. And Gary Tonin. And for sure, they all learn from each other, for sure. I mean, Eddie is also a big innovator in leg locking and understanding these systems and innovating and coming up with new entries and new transitions. All those guys are. It's like everyone has their own little piece of ingredient that they're putting into the stew.

But the result is really exceptional in terms of success rates. They stood out in a world where everyone's trying to kill everybody with chokes and arm bars. And everybody knows chokes and arm bars. And they stood out significantly. Yeah. But the thing with Danaher as well is to be able to sit on the mat and watch all of those high-level guys work against each other. He's seeing the patterns across the mat. Yes.

No, this, this is, I wish I'd have done this earlier on in my career. Like I watched fights as a fan, but then the further into my career, the more I was specific about who I watched. I only wanted to watch the fighters that I felt like I was going to benefit

from. Interesting. Whereas now, because I watch everything, I like, I see the patterns and I can imagine because Dan is, Dana has on the mat all the time time watching all of these guys every day, seeing the patterns in jiu-jitsu all the time,

the same positions that get exchanged over and over again and the different outcomes for each one. And he just seems to have one of those kind of brains that just absorbs everything, adds it into his filtration system, and then figures out the more high percentage stuff and then focuses that as his syllabus. And what's really interesting is if he wasn't injured as badly as he is i mean he probably would have gone on to compete and maybe not been as good of a coach yes that's one of the more amazing pieces to that puzzle he was a rugby player

fucked his knee up early they fixed it but they didn't fix it right and it was always a problem and he was always like kind of leaning on it in a weird way and it fucked his hip up so he had to get a hip replacement now he's going to get a knee replacement and he's a guy known for teaching people how to rip people's legs apart it's kind of crazy yeah but he's i mean he's a unique individual though yeah and i think that is the way that his brain works is he's perfect for jiu-jitsu and that's why you know that's why his brain is fed so much by jiu-jitsu yeah and you see him you see him on the side of the mat you know he's sitting there coaching his guys and it's just it's so calm and it's so well delivered

and he always says their full name as well that's something else i noticed which i mean i quite like it but it stands out yeah yeah yeah it's i think it's so important to have these unique characters for us the hobby is another one to have these uh unique intellectual characters that are involved in the pursuit of people beating the fuck out of each other yeah it's very interesting because we've not even seen the crossover of the fighters that are going to become those people yet either. I mean, you know, Dwayne Ludwig is a good example of one of the first to really make that crossover. Yeah. Like, you look at the way that Ludwig fought and the way that he coaches his fighters. He's so very different.

Yeah, he jokes around about it. Yeah, but I like that because that shows the evolution. When I'm coaching my fighters, I wouldn't coach them the same way that I used to fight, you know? When I'm coaching my fighters, I wouldn't coach them the same way that I used to fight. It's got to vary a little bit, right, depending upon body size and style and what strengths you come into, especially in MMA. But what Dwayne is doing is sort of like learning what he learned from everybody, watching everybody, but not what he did, which is crazy. He's obviously teaching you stuff that he knows how to do and stuff that he did do. But that style of footwork and switching stances and movement that you see TJ employ and a lot of his other students employ, Dwayne's got that written out.

He's one of those guys that has a real system. If you look at his book, you're like, oh, my God, he's a crazy person. It's been a great way. He's got everything written out like all the combinations and all the movements and all the this is not like free for all and just do what feels good like no he's got like patterns he's following and he puts those patterns on you and you you see the success rate from his students learning this thing he was he had a big effect on Team Alpha Male for the brief amount of time that he was there. He saw some good results from some of those guys. He's just uniquely obsessed with teaching people how to strike correctly.

And that's where I think there's a very fine line between programming a fighter and being a computer programmer. You get all those systems in place. And then that's why Faraz, as you just mentioned, and GSP, they had such a good relationship because it always felt to me like faraz was like sitting in the corner with his with his control pad just kind of playing the game and because he because he programmed his fighter so well it was just a it was pure it was a responsive thing same with matt hume and dj yes and like obviously there's there's some level of freedom and creativity for the fighter but

they've always got that backup, that person in the corner that can tell them something, and they know exactly what they mean, and they just apply it and it works. And those systems coming into play and all the codes that are coming in now, it's interesting. It's an interesting development. I think those kind of fighters will always fall short to the likes of the Adesanyas and the Anderson Silvers

that can play the game inside the octagon. Like the thing, like Anderson Silva, I think the most underestimated knockout of his, and it was a great knockout, but still people don't really fully appreciate it, was the Vitor Belfort front kick to the face because Vitor was expecting the low kick and he brings his shin up to block the low kick

as he gets kicked in the face. And if you watch it from the opposite angle over Vitor's shoulder, you can see Anderson's looking at his lead leg. Like that is so underappreciated because you don't see those cells from the replays. You don't see the glances and the looks and the shifts of the body weight

and the nuances of the fight. Sometimes I'll watch these replays 10, 15 times from different angles and all of a sudden i'll see something and it's like a light bulb moment i love those moments but yeah anderson had many of those moments in his career where you recognize that he had seen a pattern and then he just struck on that pattern and hit pay dirt and you're like jesus christ yeah it's like max holloway does it now that first round is like his download round. Yeah. He gathers information.

He studies their patterns. And that's why if you look at Max Holloway's stats, his first round, his percentage of success is low and his output is low. But then as his success rate increases, so does his output. It's ridiculous. I don't know any other fighter that does that. No, he's brilliant in that. And his output is preposterous his output is just so outrageous but not as outrageous as colby

covington's colby covington might have the most outrageous output in the sport yeah it's outrageous what about what about him and usman though do you think they're both outrageous like it's all who's the better wrestler yes who's the better wrestler and who has more power and who can keep that up for the longest because kobe can keep that shit up for five rounds he's done an amazing job of getting people to dismiss him because they think he's a piece of shit with his with his maga hat and all the trash talk that he does it's fucking brilliant man because what he's done is just insult everybody and anybody get a lot of people talking about him and then fuck people up so it's like whoa this is a crazy combination because it fucks with their head they don't want to lose to this guy they don't want to

hear him talk shit after he beats your ass he's gonna still talk shit fuck there's a slight i don't know depending upon the person but at least slight burden in experiencing that from a person it might be a big burden maybe you're one of those people that has a hard time getting fucked with and you can't it keeps you up at night and then it's like a maybe maybe it diminishes your performance 20 maybe 30 yeah and colby doesn't get tired he keeps coming it's terrifying robbie lawler just kept bobbing and weaving and hoping for these openings that were never there uh-huh and then colby's just on you he was punching some ridiculous amount like one every 2.4 seconds or some crazy shit he broke

the work rate right yeah yeah something like that against robbie lawler no but robbie just you know like that first round in particular, when he's up against the fence and he wasn't even hand fighting the chokes like that, it looked like he was kind of coasting for a couple of rounds with the intention of getting started later. But then I just, I just think the, the, the intensity of,

of Colby just burned him out faster than he expected. I think when you're an explosive guy like Robbie is, where he fires fucking hurricane speed bombs at you. And when he does that, he's going 100%. 100%. Colby never goes 100%. If you watch him, he's punching like 70%, 60%, 70%, 60%. And he just stays on you. Stays on you.

Very Nick Diaz-like. In Diaz's early days, like when Diaz fought Frank Shamrock. Perfect example. He just puts that pace on you. Stays on you. Very Nick Diaz-like in Diaz's early days. Like when Diaz fought Frank Shamrock. Perfect example. He just puts that pace on you. Keeps talking shit and puts that pace on you. And he's hitting you a lot. So you're always tight. You're always tightening up, tightening up.

And it's just draining your battery. Yeah. And you don't want to lose to this guy because he's talked so much shit. And you're like, well, he's talked so much shit. But when I get a hold of him, guess what? When you get a hold of him, he's great so much shit and you're like well he's talked so much shit when i get a hold of him guess what when you get a hold of him he's great that's the problem the problem is all those things that fuck with you plus he's a great fighter so the meanness the shit talking all the the maga stuff the strippers the cringe you're like oh, right? And then on top of it, the fucking output inside the octagon. You're like, shit, he's doing all that and he's fucking me up.

He might have fucked me up even if he didn't do all that. But he does all that and I don't want to lose to him and he's fucking me up. It's like, God damn. Do you think there's a point where Colby thinks, you know, at any point during his training camp, like, shit, I've stacked the odds against myself here. I had that moment before Marcus Davis where I thought to myself, myself if i lose here i'm gonna like a i'm gonna look really fucking stupid i think that colby is doing a brilliant job of playing a bad guy like pro

wrestling style and i think he didn't used to do that early in his career he was a hard-working guy who just went out there and fought his ass off but people didn't give a shit and they weren't giving him the credit that he deserves and so he turned heel and from that he's become the interim welterweight champion he's one of the most talked about guys in the sport he took on a character that's what i think and i think that character is super successful at fucking with people you know i mean and he can fucking fight, man. You can't underestimate that kind of cardio. That kind of cardio is crazy. To be able to do that for five rounds, that's bananas. That pace is insane.

Yeah, and Robbie Lawler's strong as well. He's a bull. Such a difficult person to hold down. I wonder whether Robbie Lawler left some of his training camp, whether he left some of his effort in the gym. I would imagine Robbie Lawler's the kind of guy that still trains like he's in his 20s, like he's on it every day. Well, maybe, or maybe they trained together,

and when they trained together, Colby was getting the best of it. I mean, I think they did train together at an American top team. Maybe Colby knew that he could out-wrestle him. He knew if he just stayed on him, he break him and out wrestle him i mean when someone has a wrestling advantage it goes back to this one more time when someone has a wrestling advantage that is a big deal when you start getting tired and this guy has better technique than you and he's not as tired as you are because he's fighting more efficiently and then he gets a hold of you and then i fuck him on my back and then you're like god damn it and then you try to get back up but you can't and the bell's over and you get back up and you are got to keep this guy

from taking me down then boom he takes you down the den again he keeps punching you on the feet he keeps hitting you and making you move backwards and you're just looking to land this big bomb but there's never an opening for it you think he's going to slow down but he never does so colby against khabib but a catchweight what do reckon? Who outpaces the other one? Dude, they could get Ted Nugent to sing the national anthem. America! Fuck yeah! I think that's an amazing fight.

If Khabib ever did want to fight at 170, I think him versus Usman would also be an amazing fight. I want to see Colby and Usman. I mean, that's the fight, right? I mean, and I also think if Colby and Usman. I mean, that's the fight, right? I mean, and I also think if you're going to have an interim champion, you should treat that fighter like it's a champion. Like you can't just take their fight, you can't take their belt away if they don't want to fight right now because they're injured or because they need surgery. I think we have to respect the championship title. Otherwise, people are going to look at interim championships

like it doesn't mean anything. It should mean as much as a championship. We're saying you have to fight for the title next. So to say that they don't have to fight for the title next and we're just going to take that thing away from you, you just take it away. But the person's still fighting. So they're still the champion.

They didn't lose. You just take it away like but you're still fighting the person's still fighting so they're still the champion they didn't lose you just take it away because what is there a mandatory contender that the wba or the wbc the ibf no it's just the ufc the ufc decides like who fights and who who fights when i'm happy that they have interim championships because i think there's times and places for that but you got to treat it like it's a championship. And Colby never lost the championship. He won that interim title against RDA, an incredible performance. And then they just take it away from him. I don't think you need to. The problem is sometimes you've got the champion defending their belt

against another contender, and there's an interim champion that's not available to fight. But that doesn't mean you have to strip the title from the interim champion. I agree. It's almost like it's not a placeholder. It's like a guarantee that they've got a title shot in their next fight. If they're not injured. Yeah, I agree.

So what, 12 months like a normal champion? I just think in this day and age, there's this attitude that the fighters need to step up and fight even if they're injured. That's not good for anybody. That's not good for the ultimate, the eventual fight itself, the ultimate product that you're selling the fans.

It's definitely not good for the athletes. This is hard enough as it is. I think the solution to all this, and I'm a fucking, I'm beating on a dead horse, more weight classes. I love more weight classes. More weight classes,

more champions. I keep saying this there's no need to move the 170 weight class we can't move that there's too much history there oh look at you you want to go crazy you want to go 55 65 70 no no no i want to i want to go i want to use the old pride weight class so we do 55 62 62 is right in the middle who are you 62 63 weird numbers i'm telling you man that's the weight class to make light world to weight it's right in the middle of the two think of the fighters that we get in that weight class masvidal could have stopped off there on his way up cowboy rda we've got guys that could move down i would say covington mike perry could probably make that weight class

and then you know the next weight class after that's 177 that's halfway between the two weight classes you're talking madness i'm making up these crazy numbers these are these are the weight class i'm telling you and then gastelum stops off there on the way up like we were talking about adolfo vieira the uh the guy that fought the weekend in uruguay yes i would say he's not big enough for middleweight but i would say he's too big for welterweight and i would say the same about his opponent he was light heavyweight in the beginning of his career yeah but even if you stood him next to another middleweight you would be surprised well he was interviewing bisping bisping was interviewing him i was like wow bisping's quite a bit larger than him yeah he's just filled with muscle he's a tank but you

know so was paul harris right yeah he was pretty fucking effective with that style yeah i i love the idea of more weight classes i think it's easier to sell fives i know but you know we're not idiots i mean come on we can have we can have numbers that i don't know about you some people are idiots um i just i don't like the idea of moving well to weight it would just be such a shame to lose that weight class oh that's so silly you know the usual the in the early days it was 199 for light heavyweight yeah remember those when tito ortiz first made his debut it was 199 yeah what was pride was that 190 i don't remember because dan henderson was like either side of the line yeah yeah he won both right yeah dan henderson man people forgot what a fucking savage he was in pride what a monster that dude took a shot better than anybody that's

ever lived god damn here it goes okay so middleweight was 205 pounds. Welterweight was 183 pounds. Interesting. Lightweight, 161. Hmm, yeah. So those are close. That's interesting. I fought at 161.

I fought at 160 twice. What do you walk around at right now? I'm light now. I'm like 82. Wow. Yeah. I always start a training camp over 200 pounds when I was fighting at welterweight. you walk around that right now i'm light now i'm like 82 wow yeah but when i like i was over i always start a training camp over 200 pounds when i was fighting a welterweight if you fought and

you would want to fight welterweight again right i'd be open yeah welterweight i could probably make lightweight if i had a bit more time yeah i'd give it a go i'd give it a go how much body fat do you think you would try to lose first you would try to lose a lot of body fat first yeah get down in the 70s yeah i could probably i've got about probably six pounds i could lose without you know without it me looking unhealthy do you eat clean yes even though you know not not this week i'm not in california in and out burger what are you in and out burger last night yeah i'm having a few like i'm you know i'm walking over old grand and having a good you know some memories because i went to the 101 Cafe and had the Waffle Brownies Sunday. We used to go there after the Thai boxing fights.

That place is great. It is awesome. Old school. I love it. But generally, yes, I do. And I tend to eat in a small window of time, so like six or eight hours, and that tends to start later in the day because I'm on a weird sleep cycle tends to start later in the day because i'm on a weird sleep cycle because i mean i'm living in the uk most of the fights are you know the

main card starting at 3 a.m on a saturday oh my god so i so i stay up to watch the fights and sometimes then i'll work through into sunday uh doing like radio shows and that kind of thing you stay awake yeah pretty much so then my whole week kind of kicks over so i'm usually getting up at about noon and then starting my starting eating at about six or seven in the, in the evening. And I eat for a few hours and then stop train late at night as well. Um, and why are you in town right now? Why are you in LA? Um, well, I'm, I'm here for the fights predominantly. I've got my, uh, my team in town, my YouTube guys, the Raptors, those gentlemen, the gentlemen in the other room. Yeah. I was like, who are you? Yeah. So we started a youtube channel about three months ago and hit 20 000 subscribers

recently which is beautiful what is it tell people so uh basically we're doing we've got a few different series the one i'm working on at the moment is the war room which is my breakdowns of the fight so i do inside the octagon for the ufc but because i only do the main events um and the european cards i get so many messages for the fight so like for this week everybody wanted a diaz pettis breakdown and a a romero costa breakdown so i've done both of them and they're up um and this is all you independently correct this is beautiful yeah now are you allowed to use footage yes the ufc are allowing me to use footage on my channel which is cool yeah thank you very much thank you thank you

for that. I appreciate it. That's excellent. Why wouldn't they? It's great. This is the thing. I'm a UFC ambassador in Europe, so my job is to promote the UFC and promote the sport. I've just taken a job as the head of MMA for a UFC gym in Europe, in the UK as well.

Oh, excellent. So I've got a load of gyms opening up, and my own gym obviously has opened up. And then the YouTube channel is really my main focus because it's my way to communicate directly to the fans because they're constantly asking for breakdowns so I can do that. The Raptors are now doing all the media stuff, so they're creating vlogs. But, I mean, today, I actually feel today I was saying this on the drive over because they wanted to come over and meet your big fans of the podcast and everything. So I brought them to your show in Vegas as well, which they blew their mind. But they were supposed to be at Media Day today interviewing the fighters,

you know, as part of their job this week. So I said I feel like a parent taking them out of school for the day because when we're done here, I'm going to take them to the Mel's Drive-Thru and then up to Malibu and show them some California. Oh, give them the views. Yeah. Show them the tour. Yeah. That's excellent, man. I think you do a fantastic job of breaking down fights. malibu and show them some california oh give them the views yeah show them the tour yeah that's

excellent man i think you do a fantastic job of breaking down fights i always like your analysis of how things are going to go and uh one of the one of the reasons i was really excited about you being today is because this weekend there's there's it's a great fight card like the steep a dc dc rematch is an amazing car amazing fight for for that card. I love the card in general, but the Paulo Costa, Yoel Romero fight, that's the one that perplexes me. Like, how does that go down? What happens when these two fucking Brahma Bulls

smash heads in the middle of the octagon? First of all, it's all-time best body fight ever, right? Yes. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. How do you... They both look like they're chiseled out of rock. It ridiculous like statues of gods both of them if you're going through options for bodies if you could choose like it's flip a coin in these guys you ain't getting robbed either way whether you're close to romero might have an advantage because he's so freakish he's so freakishly built that i mean you can't imagine

someone having a better body yeah you just have a different body it's just look at the two of them there look at yoel look at yoel and right there when he's posing he doesn't even look real jesus christ he's such a tank dude the thing the difference in the in this in this fight between the two is that i think well we know Romero can fight for five rounds, and he will take his time early. But Costa comes out throwing guns straight away. He's dangerous, man. He's wild straight away.

Costa's very, very, very dangerous. He's got outstanding striking. He's got real power. And he's fast. He's fast and powerful. The thing is, though, is he as fast and powerful as Yoel. And, you know, he's beaten really good guys like Uriah Hall, but this is the cream of the crop.

I mean, he's in there against the motherfucker of all motherfuckers at 185. You talk about a dude who just can explode on you and send you flying through the air. He ragdolls people. He does shit to people when he's wrestling them, and you just go, what the fuck? He jumps at them with shots when he knocked out luke rockhold with that left hand you're like what the and that shotgun

and then steps in boom and then kisses him get the out of here man that's he's as david goggins would say he stole souls yeah he stole his souls he is a ridiculous athlete. He's ridiculous. My thought is that Paolo Costa's undefeated mentality might play into Romero's hands a bit. Because Costa's going to come crashing forward and Romero will just take his time. Maybe. And Costa has gassed. I mean, he gassed on the ultimate fighter. So if he fights hard for a couple of rounds and Romero's still strong in the third. I think he's a different guy now.

I really do. I mean, I think Paulo Costa is at the top of the heap for a real reason now, and a lot of it is dedication. Waleed Ismail. That guy was a lunatic. I love that guy. He's training. He's awesome.

Yeah, and he's training with Paulo Costa. He's working with them, and he talked to me about him. And you know how crazy Waleed is? He's like, he he measures his food that's what he kept saying he measures his food like that dude has like everything portioned out he's just like a hundred percent eyes on the prize he goes that's all he does is train he goes this guy doesn't party he doesn't fuck around he's just concentrating on measuring his food and training so what what about the money that Romero's come into recently? Crazy. Does that change his mentality at all?

Here's the thing, man. I don't know if it's real. I don't know if they're ever going to give him that money. Really? Look at his stare down, man. Whoa! Daddy! But that's the guy not to tangle with.

Cute! Security Steve Reed on the right-hand side. Oh, yeah. Steve's a bad motherfucker. He's got some stories. Steve's not playing games. He's got eyes. Yeah.

Look at the dude's eyes. He knows what the fuck is up. He saved a couple of shows in Europe that could have gone south. Oh, I'm sure. I have a little story for you from the Gdansk show. So I'm standing on stage at the weigh-ins. I'm announcing the fighters as they come out. And we have a fight on the card.

We have a Polish fighter against Anthony Hamilton. And the voice come through in my ear saying that that fight wasn't going to be walking so just to drop it off the schedule like during the weigh-ins are going and immediately I'm thinking that's kind of kind of strange and I'm not sure whether obviously you know some areas of Poland there's a racial undertone I wasn't sure whether it was because Anthony Hamilton was gonna get some heat if he walks out on stage the next thing I've got quite a unique perspective because I can see down the two tunnels where the fans walk into the floor, and I saw this whole bunch of skinheads with bomber jackets and boots

just come marching in, and they filled the floor space, and then they all went and sat down in one of the blocks and just sat there waiting for him. And it was because he was from a rival football firm. Whoa. Yeah. Oh, I'd heard about that. Yeah. That's right. I'd heard about that, and that's why football firm. Whoa. Yeah. Oh, I'd heard about that. Yeah.

That's right. I'd heard about that, and that's why they canceled the fight. Yeah. They moved it over to Australia. Fucking hell. But they came around security. They came through the glass at the arena, just... And if it wasn't for Steve, that whole thing would have gone south.

Like, he's the... Yeah. Dude, do you imagine if there was a fucking hooligan brawl in the middle of a ufc oh man that'd be awful terrible for the sport yeah that'd be terrible no steve is uh he's a wise man sees everything how do you feel like romero and costa plays out if you had a bank on it if i gave you 100 bucks what do you what do you see how you see this play out i think costa starts fast and i think he pushes romero back up against the fence. Romero defends it, covers and covers,

throws a couple of shots to push Costa back, and then I think the second round comes, and Costa comes crashing forward, and Romero catches him with something, right hook over the top, something like that. The technique I'm watching out for for Costa, which is going to be useful for Romero, he throws a great body kick to left hook and

Romero's got this bad habit and you can see it all the way through the Whittaker fights every time someone throws a kick he does this like over dramatized scoop with his arm to like parry it out of the way if he's parrying out the way that body kick is going to be wide open for the left hook so that's something I'm watching out for with Costa I just feel like he's over confidence his willingness to take risks and the fact that Romero's patient can take his time he's never in a rush to get the knockout because he knows he can get it at any point in the fight I feel like his patience might play off and Costa might might walk onto something imagine if he KOs Costa and we play this over that you look like a goddamn hero yeah but what's most likely to happen is that it's

going to be completely opposite and everyone's gonna be like why has he got a job with the ufc as an analyst well every now and then you're so wrong like when derrick lewis fought francis ingano i was like holy shit don't go for popcorn this is going to be fucking chaos this is going to be fucking chaos i was nervous before that fight started i was like holy shit here we go i'm like francis and connor's gonna be gunning for the title again he's gonna come out guns blazing derrick lewis goes to war every single goddamn time they're both enormous i'm like fuck here we go nothing nothing nothing nothing were you working with crews on that night somebody else who you were working with and they said the words that you never say during a heavyweight fight.

As soon as it's about to start, they go, there's no way this is going the distance. Ooh, yeah, that's a rough thing to say. That kills it straight away. And I remember this. I was so excited, and they went, there's no way this is going the distance. I'm like, oh.

Would you put that voodoo on me, Ricky Bobby? Yeah, that was a rough one man but it's it's interesting how uh francis has bounced back and francis is just nuking everybody now it's just that mental hump yeah he had a con right he had to go through that one fight you know the thing is sometimes we get these fighters coming into the ufc and they've you know they're so talented that they they're in the UFC fairly early in their career before they've had any real lessons especially if they've just starched a bunch of guys like they come in at you know 10 fights into their career and they've knocked everyone out in the first round there's no real learning process there because they've not found anyone to challenge them so then they get into the UFC and

then we get to see them go through that process in the UFC and I think that's what we've seen within Ghanu you know it took him getting to a world title for someone to really show him to see them go through that process in the UFC. And I think that's what we've seen with Nganou. It took him getting to a world title for someone to really show him something in his game that made him feel vulnerable. And then we've watched him go through that process. In the moment, it's really annoying because we want to see a mad fight.

But in hindsight, you can kind of look at it and go, well, I appreciate that as part of his journey now. I understand where he was at. You got you gotta give steep credit for taking fucking bombs in that fight i mean he took bombs in that fight especially in that first round like fuck francis is always in it when he's standing in front of you when he's standing in front of you he's always in it but steep a managed to just slide away from most of them. The ones he got hit with, he went with them, rolled with them. The ones he got hit clean with, he just absorbed and kept going and ground them out.

So here's a question for you then. Do you think you take punches better if you expect the person to punch hard? Probably. Because I would say that he took bigger punches from Nannou in that fight than the punch from DC. And I would say he was probably more vulnerable to the punch from DC because he probably wasn't expecting DC to knock him out. Could be. Could be.

Wouldn't expect to get caught like that in a clinch either. It was a really perfect utilization of the clinch work combined with that crazy big overhand right. I mean, he really set him up perfectly for that. And it was something that obviously was a part of his repertoire. It was not something that was just, oh, it just happened to be there for the moment. He set him up for that. And that was just the perfect right hand.

And he caught him when he was looking. I mean, he just didn't know that punch was coming, clipped him, dropped him, put him away. The real question is what's it going to be like now that he knows that DC can knock him him out i mean is he going to fight from the outside try to land big shots he's going to avoid the clinch at any cost now he's got a big height and reach advantage can he keep dc off of him yeah and then also when a fighter has had a lot of wars like him with junior del santos the first fight there was a war right i mean he's had some wars in his career street fight the ingano fight the strew fight was a war he got stopped in that fight you know how many the mark hunt fight right that was a war yeah i mean yeah he dominated that from top position as well and even the alistair overing fight i mean that first round was chaos

it was chaos until he wound up stopping him how many of those can a fighter have how many of those can a fighter have before we see them start to fade in front of our eyes and i'm not suggesting that we saw that with him because he was able to withstand the scariest fucking heavyweight striker in the sport and i think the dc punch was just a punch he didn't see and it was perfect yeah and it just put him away yeah i'd be surprised if it happens again first round i'd be surprised if it happens again because i think he's he is going to be far more respectful of the fact that dc's got power now for sure i think you're 100 right and like you go back to his ufc debut and like he did fight long like he used he used to use a real good long jab and a low kick and

like recently he's kind of crowded his work a lot he steps in very close with that right hand which often you know offered the clinch to DC he's just KOing so many people that I think that he's like fuck it you know I'm just gonna get in there and just bombs away with these people I mean he makes it exciting it's I think he is the least appreciated successful heavyweight champion ever and i don't understand it i don't understand it he's got everything he's uh uh you know he's a firefighter an active duty firefighter he's a knockout fighter you mean he knocked out verdun moving backwards with a perfectly placed right hand he's a fucking animal i mean he fights super exciting he's been smashing everybody he stopped he won more heavyweight title fights than anyone in history he defended the

title four fucking times no one's been able to do that that's how crazy that division is yeah and still does not get the respect he deserves and he seems pissed off this week as well good like like an active duty firefighter man guy's an animal yeah he just he seems annoyed i just i wonder whether that's going to play into the fight because i got the impression from him that he'd not watched the the previous fight i got the impression that he'd not watched the first dc fight really yeah so that see that concerns me because then the idea of what happened in his head might be very different to what actually happened. Well, God, do you really think they would let him not watch that?

I don't know. I don't know. I mean, there are some fighters that do. It just blows my mind. And the way he was talking in an interview is like, like it's, you know. And the thing that concerns me more is that he was talking about how he was winning that that first round you know he felt

like he was controlling the fight he was he did a lot of good things until DC caught him so if he starts banking on that being you know just one of those punches that he got caught with he might not you know give DC the credit for you know opening that vulnerability up yeah I think for sure he must have heard all the different people discuss tactics, though. It just doesn't make any sense to me that he insulates himself that well. And for sure his coaches over at Strong Style, they've definitely...

Oh, they've watched it for sure. They understand what they're watching. So maybe he relies on his coaches and their guidance of him during training. And for sure he knows that DC knocked him out. So what he's going to do is go in there and fight like he's trying to get it back the question is is he going to be able to use that long reach and that height and that power on the outside and keep dc the fuck away from him because he's got a considerable height and reach advantage can he stuff those takedowns can he keep dc from

getting on top of him can you know yeah if he can do all those things, he can get very interesting. And if DC, you know, he's undefeated at heavyweight, man. I mean, I think that's really where he shines. You look at what he did to Josh Barnett, fucking throws him through the air like a ragdoll when he was in the Strikeforce Grand Prix. Dude, he was a monster at heavyweight. You know, and the wrestling's unparalleled.

Yeah. So do we get Jones at heavyweight then? I hope so. I do. I really do. I think he wants to do it at light heavyweight though. I think he wants to prove a point. What DC wants to do it at light heavyweight.

Yes. I don't think he wants to lose that weight again, does he? What I had heard was that he wanted to fight at light heavyweight if he fights John for a third time. That's what I had heard. And I think I might have heard it from him. Oh. And he, but I would encourage, if I was in his camp, I'd say, fuck all this dieting, bro. for a third time that's what i'd heard and i think i might have heard it from him huh and he but i would encourage if i was in his camp i'd say fuck all this dieting bro like look at you

you know when you have a belly you fuck people up you know and he doesn't worry about food he doesn't worry about cutting weight he and he's fast for a heavyweight much like andy ruiz you know i think there's a benefit in that there's i mean obviously people there's people that knew that andy ruiz was a really talented boxer coming in but there's other people that looked at his body and dismissed him but when you see the efficiency of those punches like and the fact that he's able to uncork so many punches in close whereas anthony joshua with his giant arms and his long length gets a little bit smothered by that closer distance.

And he's just dropping bombs on him over the top, and big power to him too, man. And perfect mechanics. Like so fluid. Everything is just smooth and fluid. Who fuck knows, man? Maybe DC is the best heavyweight of all time. Yeah.

Well, I mean, quite possibly. And there's something to be said for that physique as well there's an efficiency that comes with that you know like you look at anthony joshua and yeah i mean he looks like a physical specimen but the drawbacks would be obvious over rounds whereas you know andy ruiz dc they can just yeah they just keep flowing and it's you know those punches are more about the momentum you know you need a certain amount of muscle mass to get the movement started and then you maintain it with good technique you know like an additional amount of muscle is not going to make up for a heavier punch really right and he's talked openly about being far stronger in training as a heavyweight than he was as a light heavyweight he just felt better i think it's his weight class i really do i think is you know look

he beat the greatest of all time i mean the greatest on paper of all time at least at least on paper i feel like performance wise there was moments where cain velasquez was in his prime where i said like that's the motherfucker that to me i mean i know it doesn't play out on paper because he was injured multiple times out of gang surgeries of surgeries, but when he was in his prime, man, he was terrifying. He just didn't stop. He had welterweight Colby Covington style endurance as a fucking heavyweight, man. He didn't make any sense. And he's slightly bigger than DC everywhere, isn't he?

Like reach and height and everything. Yeah. And he could fuck you up on the feet too. I mean, he could fuck you up on the feet too i mean he could do everything he was so efficient and smooth and just relentless relentless yeah no one more relentless than cain velasquez in his prime for him it was almost like his body couldn't handle the strength of his brain like his mental toughness was so incredible his body just couldn't keep up with it his body just starts blowing things up.

Because his mind just pressed forward. Go, go, go. And his cardio was just preposterous. It didn't even make sense. DC looks in good shape at the Open Workouts yesterday. I think he's expecting a harder fight this weekend. You know where we really got robbed? What's that?

That we never saw Fedor versus Kane in their prime. Oh, man. We were robbed. We were really robbed. Cause who the fuck knows, man, who the fuck knows? Maybe Fedor would have caught him in an armbar.

Who the fuck knows? Maybe Kane would have beat the shit out of him. Who the fuck knows? We will never know, man. We'll never know. And now they're both fighting, but it's too late.

You know, it's like, it won't be authentic. And it won't be authentic now. Yeah. I'll never forget that suplex kevin randall suplex instead or and like his face just didn't even change kane velasquez is doing pro wrestling and he looked good he did a lot of wild shit like it wasn't just like he would go out there and fuck around he had they had some serious choreographed shit like he he did some crazy flips and look at this cain velasquez this is a fucking heavyweight wrestler tony kinchcliffe right now is screaming

in his pants like yes this is better than fighting so does that mean that most of his injuries came from training camp then hey man who knows i think uh a lot of them must have come from fights too. It's just the mind that he had, that fucking berserker mindset, that just juggernaut mindset, just brrrr. He was dead behind the eyes, man. He just was coming forward like a fucking shark. You would see him when he was overwhelmed with Ben Rothwell. You'd see that look on their face. It's very similar to the look on the face you see of a lot of Khabib's victims.

They're like, motherfucker, this is never going to gonna end what kind of animal is this yes there's certain people where it's never gonna end ramon deckers was another guy i remember meeting him once and he's same just like his eyes were just like jamie loves this move that he did watch this here's the move he jumps flips, and throws him on the spot. So how can a guy with a bad back do this? Yeah, right? This seems like. It's called what? A hurricanrana.

A hurricanrana? That's what it's called? I don't know exactly. That's the name of the move? Yeah, when you jump up and get your knees around their head and flip them over. We're going to see Tony Ferguson do that soon. You know who's trying something like that? Darren Cruikshank.

Go to Darren Cruikshank's – what is Darren Cruikshank's – He's over in Rising now, isn't he? Yes. Yeah, he's doing well. What is his Instagram page? Oh, I don't remember. He's like the second coming of Don Fry. I love that, dude.

But he's practicing this really weird takedown defense the other day, and I was wondering if he's actually going to try to use it where someone's diving on him and he's drilling this where someone's going in on a leg and he's diving onto their back and rolling over the top of their back he's going like back to back with them and then rolling over the front and i was like wow imagine if he pulls this off like you i think nobody would expect that i mean maybe they would now that he's put it on fucking instagram but look at that armbar that dj did yes you know yes i'm surprised we've not seen a few more people I think nobody would expect that. I mean, maybe they would now that he's put it on fucking Instagram. But look at that armbar that DJ did. Yes.

I'm surprised we've not seen a few more people attempting that. I don't think anybody else can do it. Here it is. This is it. The sushi roll. Yeah. Watch. I mean, he's drilling it like unsuccessfully sometimes.

Watch this. I mean, he's going over the top. He's crushing his pad. He's doing it with a woman too. I wonder if that's his wife or something like that. Because he's going over the top. He's crushing his pad. He's doing it with a woman, too. I wonder if that's his wife or something like that. Because he's being rough on her. Boom, boom. I wouldn't want this big asshole rolling over my back. That'll hurt your lower back, man.

See, now he's got it smooth. This is interesting. So it does kind of look like he's actually practicing this. If he ever pulls that off in a fight, that would be fucking crazy. Yeah. But he's a really interesting fighter in that he's got a great blend of traditional martial arts, wrestling, and he's got boxing style, but he also has karate style. Was it Kyokushin?

Was that what he started with? Because he's got those hips that kind of come up at the sides. I'm trying to remember. I'm trying to remember what his original style was. But I know he has a wrestling base too. But I think it was some branch of karate. I don't remember if it was Kyokushin though. One of them.

Yeah. Shotokan, Kyokushin. There's a lot of good stuff in those traditional martial arts. His parents started with Taekwondo. Oh, Taekwondo. Yeah, so that kind of martial art traditional martial arts style but with also like good boxing and shit he's doing really well over in rising yeah i like that promotion i ordered some of the gloves how do you watch it though you have to watch it online yeah i watch it online

yeah the good thing with rising is that usually it's starting when the ufc is just finished so like i'll have been up all night so the prelims will have started at 11 o'clock main cards at 3 a.m then by six i'm waiting on the press conference usually but then rising starting so switch over to rising double espresso stay awake keep going ride it out keep going did you uh i mean that's where crone gracie started too right yeah yeah very interesting seeing him in the ufc isn't it he is fascinating. He is a fascinating individual. He's just got a unique energy about him, which you would expect from Hicks and Son of Colt. Oh, yeah. Dude, he's lineage.

They're on a different vibration. I never forget Choke. I used to watch that all the time. It's incredible. The gnarly breathing that he used to do. Dude, that's like one of the most legendary martial arts documentaries of all time. Yeah. Do you remember the one, Day of Zen, legendary martial arts documentaries of all time yeah do you remember um do you remember the one uh day of zen mario sperry yes that was like i do that was

like it was it was a day it was a day in the life of mario sperry he decided to put one of each of his training sessions from the whole week into the same day there were like five different training sessions and by the last two he was just fucking exhausted like it was quite clear they tried to fit so much into that one day right that was fascinating and he was using one of those vibrating platforms do you remember that does was he really always stuck out in my mind it was yeah it was the one it was like a vibrating platform and he had a medicine ball on it and he was like holding the medicine ball on this vibrating platform and then like changing positions like scarf hold and like one of that would really help you yeah i don't know and then uh hickson had the the elastic around the head didn't he remember

that do you remember when mario sperry started coaching over at black zillions no yeah mario sperry like became like one of the head coaches at black zillions for a short period of time and put on these crazy motivational speeches where everybody got fired up. Really? It's like, God damn. Yeah. And it didn't work out. I don't know why it didn't work out, but it was a really exciting development. Because I know Rashad Evans was really excited about having him over there.

And they were all, I mean, I don't know what happened behind the scenes. But I remember when Mario Sperry was coaching the classes and getting everybody fired up. I'm like, damn. I mean, he's old school man that's yep carlson gracie legend when i was a white belt i was training at carlson gracie's in on hawthorne and mario sperry when he would teach you a class he would teach you a class. He would teach you a class. And I knew who he was. I had watched him fight on television. I knew who he was.

I mean, I was like, this is Mario fucking Sperry. Marilo Bustamante would be there. And Carlos Pajetto. Remember all these guys? Yeah. Sergio Cohen was there. All these beasts from the Carlson Gracie hit squad. And the guy would teach you. and then after he'd teach you,

we said thank you, and he's like, no, my friend, thank you for the pleasure of teaching you. Thank you. And he really meant it. Like, shake everybody's hand. The most gracious, down-to-earth guy ever. But it was hilarious. He was talking about how he practiced his triangle on his girlfriend.

He's like, he goes, just repetition, repetition, boom, boom, boom. And my girlfriend's like, no, I don't want you to do it. He's like, shut up. Keepetition Boom boom boom And my girlfriend's like No I don't want you to do it It's like shut up Keep going Keep going Keep going He's like talking about

Like practicing on friends Like get friends to like Let you triangle them Over and over again Yeah this is when He had white hair at the time So this is UFC 220 He's training with

Vulcan Ozdemir I wonder where he's at now Cause he was really good at now because he was really good at it man he was really good at like like hyping people up and you know obviously his jiu-jitsu knowledge is top of the food chain yeah he was in a bunch of the corners in the early UFC wasn't he yeah in like Vito's corner and that kind of thing I don't remember I don't remember but he's a true legend you know there's a few of those guys. 250 and 0 or something.

Yeah. Well, he's one of those guys from the early days of martial arts that was a real jiu-jitsu master. You know, I mean, he was a real master. Yeah, and they lived in the gym as well back then. I mean, it was like everything about their life revolved around the gym. Yep. Like, yeah. Trying to find that kind of environment now.

I mean, Danaher's, as we were talking about, Henzo Gracie's, I'd imagine that's got a very similar vibe, you know, in a basement in New York. Everyone's showing up every day and grinding, doing the same thing. But it's such a rare environment to find yourself in. Do you remember when Mario Sperry got tapped out by that badass Russian dude? Who was the badass Russian dude?

The Russian dude was the same guy that Frank Shamrock KO'd with a slam. I'm trying to remember. Amar Suluev? He opened up a gym. Who? Mario Sperry. He opened up a couple of gyms called Hard Knocks 365. Oh, okay.

That's Henry Hooft. Okay. All right. So that's where he's at. He's with Henry Hooft. Yeah. That's where he was originally, too. Google Frank Shamrock's mixed martial arts record.

Frank Shamrock slammed this dude and KO'd him, and this guy was famous for having beaten Mario Sperry in the old school, what was it called? Battlecade? I don't remember. I remember Extreme Fighting. Extreme Fighting. That's what it was.

Extreme Fighting Battlecade. That was where... John Peretti's organization. That was where Conan fought Maurice Smith. So here it is. Go, where are we at here? Go back a little low. Hold on.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Igor Zinoviev. That's who it was. Igor Zinoviev. Remember Igor Zinoviev? He was who it was. Igor Zinoviev. Remember Igor Zinoviev? He was a beast. Yes. Dangerous guy.

Well, Igor had cut Mario Sperry open. He had a big-ass gash in his forehead, and Mario wound up tapping. But Igor Zinoviev was, I think he was a Sambo guy. Yeah, I remember that guy. Tough motherfucker. Yeah. There were some scary dudes that passed through the UFC a while back. I remember there were two from the Red Devils. There was Andrei Semenov and Amar Suluev. Yeah. There were some scary dudes that passed through the UFC a while back. I remember there were two from the Red Devils.

There was Andrei Semenov and Amar Suluev. Whoa. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. He was Jeffrey Epstein's bodyguard. Igor Zinovia was Jeffrey Epstein's security guard?

No fucking way. That's right. Oh, my God. Look at his face. That's him. That's crazy, dude. That is crazy. Former MMA guy gives alarmingly cagey interview about working for Jeffrey Epstein.

Click on that. We've got all this shit to look forward to. Alarmingly cagey interview. Who is this that's saying this? MMA-guy. Oh, it's Deadspin So, scroll down a little bit Let me see what the fuck it has to say here

So that's crazy that we're talking about this guy just randomly Wow He said One thing you told me, for instance Okay, one thing you told me is he got a heads up When the authorities were going to come to his house the night before And he says Listen, what you say is between you told me is he got a heads up when the authorities were going to come to his house the night before he said and then he says listen what you say is between you and me okay let's let's leave this alone but anyway feel free to google ladies and gentlemen that's crazy they

were just bringing him up and it turns out he was jeffrey epstein security guard that's crazy he was a real veteran i mean that guy was uh on the early early days of the john pretty promotion he was a beast man i remember getting those video cassettes from yes virgin megastore in town ufc two and three man i remember when you first started fighting in the ufc i remember those days yeah it's crazy it seems like it was a long time ago, but not really. Like, it still seems like it makes sense. 89. I was in double figures.

Wow. UFC 89. 89. And that's the only time I've ever been cut, believe it or not. Really? I've only ever had five stitches. Yeah, if someone looks at you, you're a beautiful man. They would never imagine you get hit in the face for a living.

Single as well now. Whoa, look at that. Single and ready to mingle with that beautiful face yeah only ever had five stitches that's incredible yeah right and that was that was the first my usc debut akihiro gona hit me with an open palm and it was the seam on the inside of the club yeah yeah going back to the whole idea of people fighting bare knuckle i've since amended my thoughts on it just too many cuts i want because of really because of really, because of Chris Lieben's last cut from Dakota Cochran.

He had a giant gap. Have you seen it? I don't think I have. No. It's a rough one. Yeah. I don't really watch the bare knuckle stuff too much. Chris Lieben's Instagram page.

I'm looking forward to it developing because I think it will. I've no problem with it. I think people should be allowed to do whatever they want, fight under whatever rules they want. at the moment it's it just it just looks like they're boxing with no gloves on yeah as opposed to bare knuckle boxing which i think looks very different is there any video at all people bare knuckle boxing from the olden days here look at that picture look at that picture dude that's horrific i remember when he fought michael bisping do you remember his face after that fight?

He was sat next to me at the press conference. Like a bus had hit him. Yeah. He's had some tough fights. Too tough for his own good. Anderson Silva's UFC debut. Ooh, yeah. Ding, ding, ding, ding.

Yeah. Yeah. I now remember him. Remember when he knocked out Vanderlei? Oh, yeah. Yeah. He lured Vanderlei into a fucking war. And Terry Martin as well as well yeah that was a

back and forth one he could ko you man and if you wanted to stand in front of chris and you wanted to swing wild punches he'd shut your fucking lights out all day and when he did that to vanderley i was like whoa yeah yeah but it's it's like two different two entirely different styles of fighting though into like the chris lieben of fighting, which we all love, and the Anderson Silva style of fighting, which is like witchcraft. I remember I was cage side. Or style bender. Yeah, I was cage side when he knocked out Tony Fricklin with that open elbow.

Oh, yeah, you were there. I was there. And when he fought Lee Murray, I mean, people don't talk about that fight, but he just dismantled Lee Murray. Yeah, he did. Lee Murray was a talent that we lost early. I mean, you know, made different decisions that led him down a different path. Few unfortunate choices.

Yeah, right. But, yeah, he dismantled him in that fight. Yeah. What do you got here? Sam Wright. That's me. UFC 89. That's me.

Yeah, that was the card that he was on. But if you can find a photo of him in the press conference afterwards, he looked like the elephant, man. Oh, it was bad. Pictures right here. Oh, this is, yeah, this was, yeah, UFC debut. It's the same fight. Yeah.

Yeah, there it is. Like, Bisping just ate him up. Teed off on him. Yeah. Yeah. That was still 15-minute fights as well in main events. So that was only a 15-minute fight. Yeah, isn't that interesting?

Like, what do you think about the five-round main event? Do you like that? Yeah, I don't mind it think about the five round main event do you like that yeah i don't mind it even if it's not a championship fight yeah i don't mind it i just it changes the sport it changes the the way that fighters approach the sport i think it changes their output yeah like there are some fighters that will go okay you want 25 minutes i'll just spread out my same workload over 25 instead of 15 um the thing i like about it is that it can be far more tactical and the one thing that i enjoy about boxing is the fact that you can you can implement a narrative in the first round that can play out in the later rounds and you can you can allow it to breathe a bit because you've got 12 segments that are being scored separately you can gamble

a few and you can play that game whereas in mma you you lose one round you've got to win two yeah you know so the five rounds you can lose one you can Whereas in MMA, you lose one round, you've got to win two. So the five rounds, you can lose one. You can even lose two if you're feeling very brave and then win the last three. So I don't mind it too much. I don't mind it too much. Yeah, I think it definitely changes the way you fight, right? I mean, if all boxing matches were like glory fights,

like glory fights, three rounds for the non-title fights, and there were only three-minute rounds. Those guys go to war. I mean, it's one of the reasons why it's so exciting is because there's such a high output, high volume because they know there's only three rounds. Yeah, it's interesting because tactics do get adjusted. You just have to start faster. You have to do your first two rounds in the dressing room before you walk out. What do you think about Pettis versus Diaz this weekend?

Honestly, I think I took some stick for this on the YouTube. You took stick? Stick. That's a Britishism, is it? Is that dick? Shit. You took shit? Okay. Stick sounds like dick. No one says that. I took some dick. Yeah, I won't say that again.

Did you know what he was saying? I never heard that before. I'm trying not to nitpick. I'm learning. I'm some dick. Yeah, I won't say that again. I'll adjust my vocabulary. Did you know what he was saying? I never heard that before. I'm trying not to nitpick. I'm learning. I'm still learning. So, what did you think? I think Pettis has got the skills to beat Diaz everywhere. Really? Yes, I do.

I think he's a better striker all round. I think he's got a higher fight IQ, at least what he shows us. He makes better decisions than Diaz does. I think Diaz relies far too much on his toughness and his ego and his ability to walk through stuff. And it works sometimes. It worked against Michael Johnson.

You know, he got his front leg battered in that fight and just kept marching him down and eventually forced him into a boxing match. And that could happen against Pettis. There's no doubt about it. My feeling is that Pettis has got the skills to start setting Diaz up because Diaz is very predictable. You know, you can kind of, you can make him walk the directions that you want. You can make him lean in the ways that you want to lean. If you've got the ability to, you

know, to land the strikes that matter, then you can put him out. And, you know, same thing with Costa having the body kick to the left hook. I feel like Pettis has got, well, he used it against Tony Ferguson. He used it against Michael Chiesa. It's a right body kick to the left hook I feel like Pettis has got well he used it against Tony Ferguson he used it against Michael Chiesa it's a right body kick to a straight right and because Diaz is southpaw and he leans so heavy on that lead leg blocking the body kick and eating the straight right might be something that Pettis is going to be looking for but I just I feel like Diaz is there to be hit and I think he uses that to his advantage because he kind of Homer Simpson's people like you wear yourself out hitting me and then I'll'll start to push my game on you.

But when you think about him against talented strikers, like you brought up Michael Johnson who chopped at his leg, but he wound up beating him up. But the Conor McGregor fight, Conor is a very skillful striker. And in both fights, he wasn't really able to do much with Nate. He clipped him a couple times in the second fight and dropped him. And, you know, there's speculation. Like, did he drop because he got knocked down, or did he drop because he felt like it was a good enough punch

to lay down and have Conor come and meet him and wrap him up and catch him in something, which he easily could. You know, you don't know i mean he part of his strategy might have been to try to lure connor into following him to the ground for sure verdum tried to do that against mark hunt a couple of times you know he takes an overhand falls to the floor he did it to fedor yeah yeah i mean i do feel like connor caught him at least a couple of times clean and he definitely did he definitely did but But then Nate came back, and it was a really close fight at the end. A really close fight.

An excellent fight. But Conor McGregor is a fucking skillful striker. And I don't know who would win, Conor McGregor versus Pettis, but Conor McGregor has proven in the Dustin Poirier fight, in the Jose Aldo fight, he's proven in the Eddie Alvarez fight, he fucking shuts people's lights out. Was not able to do that to Nate Diaz. So I think, I mean, in my perspective,

you might be underestimating Nate Diaz. I think Nate Diaz is a lot slicker than he appears, and he's harder to hit. He knows how to use his jab and his long left hand. He's not like the best kicker in the world, but he's never really had that as a part of his arsenal. But his ground game is super, super high level. He's tough as shit.

His endurance is ridiculous. I'm not at all underestimating any of that. One thing I will say, though, is that the difference in the way that the fighters absorb punches is different. So all the people that you mentioned that got knocked out by McGregor, they were all leaning heavy on their lead leg. So so to me that is like hitting a punch bag that's hanging from the ceiling hitting nate diaz is like hitting a punch bag that's standing on the floor because his weight is so spread over his base that when you hit him you know that like those

inflatable stand-up punch bags if you blast that thing in the top it just rocks away and comes back right you know it's like it's like a reed in the wind. That's how he was able to absorb those shots from McGregor because as they were coming at him, he was already moving away, and he was able to ride the power, and then McGregor was overextending. You know, and, I mean, there's no doubt he's a durable individual. I'm just saying that he leans on that sometimes too much. Yeah, it's also we've seen Pettis now at 45, 55, and now 70. It's really wild to see.

And you go by that Wonderboy Thompson knockout, it's like, man, maybe this is his weight class. Like, if he can do that to Wonderboy, maybe this is his weight class. Maybe. I mean, maybe this guy's been just torturing himself, dehydrating himself, and not fighting like he's capable of because his body's always weakened. Like his number one complaint was when he went down to 45. He was a dead man. Yeah.

You could tell. He looked terrible. His body just couldn't do it. So he goes back up to 55 and, like, discouraged. And then on this wild whim takes this fight at 70 against Wonderboy, and fucking Superman punches him in the mug and chaos him like seeing wonder boy out cold for the first time in a ufc fight and seeing it happen because of pettis i mean he's he gets tagged again while he's out he's

totally stiff you're like wow yeah he's definitely got power there's no doubt about it tyron woodley couldn't stop him nobody else has stopped wonder boy have they uh no no been dropped a few times right not stopped mas vidal wasn't able to stop him yeah and then you know maybe he underestimated maybe he wasn't expecting pettis to have the power to knock him out i i'm starting to feel that's a thing i'm starting to feel like if you're expecting of the power you're more you're more braced to you know what i mean sure you got your shock absorbers on you're ready to ready to absorb that it's a good argument it's a really good argument the other thing the other thing to keep in mind is that you know pettis at 170 is the same human that he was at 145 but

without all the suffering you know so it's it's it's finding that right amount of suffering and i think a little bit of suffering for a weight cut is is good i liked it i always thought about it i always likened it to the march to battle you know like if i'm if i'm uh you know the peloponnesian wars i'm picking my sword and shield up i'm not stepping out of my house onto the battlefield i'm stepping out and walking miles and miles so that process that was the that was the weight cut for me you know the the walk into the battlefield and i enjoyed that and i think that we saw mcgregor at 170 didn't have that you see mcgregor on the scales at 155 or 145 and he's feral like he's wild yeah you saw him on the scales at 170 and he's smiling he's rubbing his belly he's not marched to the battlefield you know and i think there's something

in that psychology as well i like it even if it's a small weight cut. And I've done everything from 3 pounds to 16 pounds. And I know how I felt across the board. How did you feel best? About 8. 8 was good for me. So you put a little bit back on, you feel strong and big for the weight class, but you're not depleted. Usually I would be back up to 18 184 186 when i was fighting at

170 that was my that was my good weight around 184 was comfortable because i didn't feel too bloated and too slow i've been up closer to 190 before and it just didn't suit the way that i thought so there's a point of diminishing returns for sure yeah and did you use ivs during those days one time i used an IV. Only one time? Yeah, never really. For me, it was quite an internal process because I always cut weight on my own. And I always found it strange that everybody else.

Yeah, I always did. You don't have anybody rubbing your shoulders? No, none of that. Scraping on me with a room card. Have you seen that? Yeah, I've seen that. It's like, I'm not buying that. It was always a personal thing for me.

room card have you seen that i've seen that yeah i'm not buying that it was always a personal thing for me so like you know running through the streets of tokyo with trash bags on or oh okay sitting in the corner of the sauna in my own head who's the most ridiculous weight cutter you ever saw for in terms of volume oh man anthony johnson for sure oh yeah that's right like when i so when i fought him in in seattle he cut weight at weight Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night to weigh in on the Friday. And I don't know for sure this, but from what I understand, he was 214 on the night when he rehydrated. He looked like a different human being. Oh, my God. And I remember.

He went from 170 to 214? Yeah. It was ridiculous. He was massive. And like my whole game plan, because this for me that and this was this was a good lesson for me i because he punked me in this one i put all my eggs in one basket that's the phrase that everyone understands yes yes so i thought if i can trash talk him into making weight i'll make sure that i can get him tired in the fight and then i'll start to wear on him in the in the

later rounds with my footwork and my movement now i just come off a knockout lost to carlos condit and then i get called up and i've got anth got Anthony Johnson who's never not knocked anybody out at welterweight so immediately I'm thinking to myself well first of all somebody at the UFC hates me and second of all I've got to deal with this monster in some way so I thought I thought it's going to be a rough fight he's going to throw power at me so if I can at least get him to throw and fatigue himself then my window of opportunity will come later in the fight. And the original main event was Tito against Naguera. And Tito pulled out of the fight injured,

so they put Phil Davies in. And immediately I got a message on Twitter from Anthony Johnson, DM on Twitter, and he was like, I can't believe they didn't bump us up to the main event. We need to steal the show. We need to, you know, like, and we were friends. We used to do sign-ins at Tap Out. We'd tap out and stuff all the time.

So we were going back and forth throughout training camp. This is going to be great. We're going to have a wild fight. We're going to, you know, just kind of basically kind of psyching each other up for the fight. Me coming off a knockout, I'm thinking to myself, there's no way he's not going to try and knock me out. Right. Right?

So I went into the fight with the full intention that i we were just going to like i was going to have to move around and cover and you know try and counter him until he got tired then i was going to take advantage of that he hit me with a head kick like early on in the fight and i blocked it it didn't knock me out knock me down it knocked me over it was just a heavy leg just like being hit with a tree trunk bang i. I hit the deck. Then I think there was a scramble back to the feet, and then he took me down, and I dislocated my thumb on that first takedown.

And you can see in the fight, I actually reached over it, because I had him in my guard. I reached over and put my thumb back in. And it's still crooked. It's still not quite right. But then he just drowned me with wrestling, and I had just not i'd not prepared for that i put all my eggs in one basket it was going to be a counter striking

match and i was going to defend these strikes and i didn't expect him to try and take me down at all dude i think that weight class when you when he was cutting down from way above 200 to get to 178 i think it tired him so badly we didn't see the real anthony johnson until he went up to light heavyweight which is so crazy remember he missed weight at 85 and vitor beat him up is it 197 he weighed in something like that crazy like that but i think his next fight after me was uh andre olovsky at heavyweight look at look at what he looked like at 170 skeletor yeah and then look at him at 230. Crazy. As a light heavyweight, he was the scariest. Terrifying.

Because his power was fucking immense. But he's another guy. He fought at heavyweight in the PFL and fucked up Andrzej Orlowski. And now he's a million pounds. Now he's so big. He's so big, man. You know, I saw him in the lobby of the hotel in stockholm after he fought alex alexander gustafson after he knocked gustafson out um and i walked into the lobby of the hotel and he was

there taking a few photos and stuff and i walked up to him and i said i'm glad you didn't do that to me and he shook my hand he went i like you though thank god for that thank god he won he's a perfect example of a guy that when he wasn't depleting his body, we got to see what he could really do. Yeah. And like the Noguera fight. Oh, my Jesus. Yeah.

He kept him on his feet with an uppercut. Yeah, his power is extraordinary. When he knocked out Glover with one punch. Yeah. Like, God damn, this guy's extraordinary. But it was really interesting when I talked to him when he retired. He retired in the octagon. He said, I'm an athlete.

He goes, I'm not a fighter. He goes, the octagon. He said, I'm an athlete. He goes, I'm not a fighter. He goes, I don't like doing this. I'm just good at it. I'm like, wow. Like, how crazy that probably the most dangerous knockout artist in the history of the light heavyweight division. I would say that. Yeah, I would say.

Who the fuck's more dangerous than Anthony Rumble Johnson? Yeah. If he connects on you, the only person that he absorbed, it was DC. DC absorbed that head kick. DC absorbed a big right hand in the first fight that sent himumbled Johnson. Yeah. If he connects on you, the only person that he absorbed it was DC. DC absorbed that head kick. DC absorbed a big right hand in the first fight that sent him scrambling. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Ridiculous puncher. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. Especially, you know, he's a comfortable weight for him. Dude,

the Glover fight was stunning. We never saw Glover get knocked down. And then all of a sudden, boom, one punch, bank, out cold.

Yeah. Remember the knockout that I always remember is the Shane Carwin-Gonzaga fight? Mm-hmm. Because that was like a six-inch punch. Oh, yeah. And Gonzaga just folded on the spot. Didn't he KO Jimmy Manoa too? Oh, he did.

Yeah. Yes, he did. He fucks everybody up. Yeah. Except DC. DC just had that number. Takes those shots so well. He takes those shots so well, and his wrestlings are so overwhelming. Yeah.

And in that fight, you know, he just wasn't, like, physically prepared to do that. And it's that same game plan twice. Mm-hmm. Like, I'm calling it the grind cycle. You know what I mean? He gets you trapped in that cycle. Yeah. He puts you against the fence.

He takes you down. He beats you up until you give his back. Strangles you. It's a beautiful thing to watch. It's very, very effective. I'm so curious as to whether or not he's going to be able to do that again this weekend or what he's going to be able to do this weekend as Stipe and what Stipe has for him, what he has planned,

and how he approaches the fight. He's got to know that it was hard to get this rematch, and DC's on his way out. DC's publicly saying this might be his last fight. He doesn't know. And then Dana White is saying, reluctantly, I'll let you guys fight at light heavyweight if you fight Jon Jones at rematch.

They're talking about another fight other than this fight, which I hate. I never like that. Yeah. And he's, what, a year past the date he said he was going to retire as well, right? DC? I think he said it at 40, right?

Did he say it at 40? Yeah. So it was at the end of 2018. You know what though, when you keep bringing that cheddar around, it's hard to say no to the cheddar.

Yeah. That cheese. I'm an old man and I'm talking about getting back in there one more time. But you seem to want it for, it seems to be more than just for money for you. It seems to be something you want to challenge yourself one more time.

And for people who don't know, your career was taken from you in a way that you feel like didn't medically make sense. They told you to stop fighting because, explain the whole heart condition thing. Well, it was in the build up to the Mike Brown fight. fight i am part wolf yes yeah i won't tell you which part yeah i was it was in the build up the mike brown fight at the mike brown matt brown fight and because it's california they required a bunch of different tests and uh it just it showed up as an irregular heartbeat it's like i have a second heart heartbeat so it's another bunch of cells in the heart that produce an electrical current and it can confuse the heart cause cardiac arrest it can cause you know electrical issues with the heart i'd never had any problems never had any symptoms and side effects

or anything like that so basically what they told me is that if i wanted to continue fighting i had to have an ablation so they had to go into my heart and they had to burn the the the cells that were producing the second electrical current that i've never had anything wrong with me at all healthy i've pushed myself to whatever limits i think i've got and i'm you know i'm hoping to find some more but i push myself i know what my heart's capable of and i just i've never doubted it i've never felt like you were known for having good cardio yeah i always pushed i always push the pace. So I just didn't want to have anything done.

They literally said to me, you can have it done and still fight on the same day. This was five weeks before the fight. Oh, my God. So it just didn't. Have it done. So five weeks. So how much recovery time? Oh, practically none.

So they go into the carotid artery and the femoral artery, and they go into the heart. But Lorenzo sent me out to California. With what? What are they going in there with? I don't know, some cables, wires. These are being broken. It's like a superhero movie. It goes wrong.

Yeah, exactly. And then I end up being Iron Man. Yeah, you come out with powers. But Lorenzo sent me out to Beverly Hills to a specialist out there to have more checks done. And they couldn't find anything any anomalies with my heart no like additional growth or anything like that so I just said I'm not having anything done I went back to the UK and then I was busy for a few years doing the

commentary but I did go and see a specialist a cardiac specialist for athletes and he put me through all the same tests and he points out what they'd seen and he said that it could have been accentuated because I was in I was weight cutting i was in training camp i was tired he said but ultimately there's nothing in these records that show that you can't fight and you're not safe to fight so i have the paperwork now so four months in you start a testing pool and i've just got my i've just got the option to step back in there i would like one more because i never felt like i showed what i'm fully capable of what was the last time you sparred? Oh, I spar regularly.

I drop in the gym because I've got guys that are training for fights. So we've had Terry Brazier fighting recently, Adam Amasinger, Dean Truman fought recently. So I've been in there moving around with those guys. And you've never really gotten out of training training. You've always trained martial arts this whole time, right? Yeah. And I've always stayed healthy. I never gained any – I actually lost weight after I stopped fighting because you know my my diet changed i didn't feel the need to be

constantly eating all the time so i just i allowed my body just to kind of figure out where it wants to be naturally 182 184 is perfect for me um so my plan is just to kind of get to about 85 condition and just sit there and then like i mean this weekend is a great example if like you know pettis or diaz fell out and there's no one else around that's the kind of place i'll just throw my name in the hat and just to be available and one of those fights will be perfect for me just uh you know one of the veterans of the game someone that's like not too concerned with the rankings or anything like that drop in there have a great fight and then step back out again and just be able to how you'd like to approach it you want to immediately jump back in and fight someone with a big name oh for sure

i wouldn't i wouldn't want to because i'm having one more fight i want someone just one more that's it i want someone that everyone knows but if you love it though well yeah i know i will love it but i feel very i feel very selfish thinking about fighting again anyway because it's not what i've realized since i've been fighting is it's not just me coming out of retirement it's like it's my whole family like i was i was there i was there when till got knocked out in london i was there when gunner nelson got knocked out in in glasgow i see the reactions of their family i know what i put my family through and because i've had time to kind of step back and like allow them some time to you know the the their hot souls aren't as calcified to the idea of me fighting

anymore you know yeah so it's a serious conversation to have but i mean the reality is like and and you know the sport's very different now everything's changed like when i was fighting gsp the conversations i was having with the media was you know what we are and aren't allowed to do you know what's legal what's illegal so it wasn't really about about what i was doing it was about i was basically being an ambassador for the sport while i was in training camp so now it would it would be far more of a um an internal journey i'd be able to to really embrace it a lot more and focus on myself um you know and now i've got you know my my camera guys i'd like to document the process i'd like to be able to speak quite candidly to the camera and just bank a load of stuff so after the fight i've got all this all this footage that

i can put into something to kind of give some insight into the the mentality of the fighter and the ups and downs of training camp because you know the days you show up to media day to the press conference and you're like you know you you're confident on the stage and you shit talking your opponent and you're smiling and stuff like you might get back to your dressing room and you might be exhausted you might feel like shit you might you might have been playing a game for a particular reason and there's a there's a good reason you're playing that game and i think that a lot of those narratives go untold because the sport moves so quickly and i think i might be able to give like a nice little insight into that so if we are going to

expect this how much time do you think you need to fully prepare where are you at right now uh I always work on percentages I would say physically and I would say I'm about I don't know about 58 condition 58 that's an interesting number yeah I just choose that well because I'm working through a couple of injuries so i've not been doing a lot of hands-on stuff i've been doing a lot of training on my own um i'm starting to build up my my aerobic base again but the one thing i've noticed is and like i'm i smoke most days like my conditioning like always is good like i can just get out and run 10 miles and feel comfortable with it and that's never changed so all i want all i need to do is just kind of just kind of test that the toughness in that condition now and push it you

know to the points where i feel uncomfortable how old are you now 37 but i you know i'm healthy i've not you know i've not drank in 20 years i've had a ibuprofen since 2009 you know i just i have nothing and you have been out of competition for how many years now it's been seven years now seven years yeah i told you i work in cycles i work in cycles you do this is my this this seven year cycle seven year cycle listen man i hope you do it i hope you fulfill your vision quest like matthew modine that movie thanks man fucking do it it'll be beautiful to see and uh we gotta do this more often man it's fun i really enjoyed this thanks man it's always good talking to you it's

just you know i live so far away now and i'm in the uk anytime you're here anytime we're around i bring a mobile thing we'll figure it out on the road okay if you're ever at ufc events okay thank you brother i really appreciate you man talking to you dan hardy ladies and gentlemen goodbye Always good talking to you. Dan Hardy, ladies and gentlemen. Goodbye.