The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #93 with Alexander Volkanovski

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

Joe sits down with UFC Featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski.

Love, no? Okay, no. Here we go. Three, two, one. The champ is here! How are you, sir? I'm good, I'm good. How are you? Pull this sucker up about like a... A bit closer? Yeah, like a fist from your face. Alright. Is that good? Good to see you, brother. What's happening?

Oh, not for much, mate. Not for much. Just... Has it settled in that you're the champ? Uh, yeah. Does it still feel real? Yeah, yeah. It's settled in. You know what I mean? Like, it's weird. It's hard to explain. Look, I'm the type of person that, you know, as soon as I'm i'm home i'm daddy i'm the regular bloke that everyone knew me 10 years ago but at the same time obviously you got you know the the media obligations and everything

needs to be done so it's uh you know it is different you're going to get recognized a little bit more on the street but what is it like in australia now do people get excited to see you now yeah yeah australia you know obviously that's where I'm from. So that's, you know, the supports are big, especially where I'm locally. Like, you know, every time I fight, literally our city stops, you know, just to watch the fight. What's the city? Wollongong. What? Say it again?

Wollongong. Wollongong? The Gong. The Gong. Where's the Gong? Yeah, we call it the Gong. Just south of Sydney. Oh, okay.

So you're close? So you go to Sydney when you want to get crazy? Yeah, yeah. So you're close? So you go to Sydney when you want to get crazy? Yeah, yeah. Not really. I don't do too much partying and that, except for a couple of days ago when we were in Vegas. So Vegas got me. Got me good. Did it get you after Izzy won?

Got me before and after. So yeah, I'm on real struggle street, but we're good. Well, we'll get you some water. We got water here. Oh, yeah, beautiful. We need electrolytes. Oh, yeah, beautiful. You need electrolytes. Oh, yeah. We got some.

Bring in some of those liquid IVs. Just bring the whole box of it in there. Oh, okay. Yeah, liquid IVs, great. Have you ever tried that shit? Mm-mm. It's good. It's real good.

All right. It hydrates you twice as fast as regular water alone. Oh, that's sweet. It actually tastes good. Salt, electrolytes, all kinds of shit in it. All right, and we got this coffee, turmeric coffee. Salt, electrolytes, all kinds of shit in it. And we've got this coffee, turmeric coffee. Yeah, the Laird Hamilton superfood coffee.

Yeah, I'm addicted to these little, I'm addicted to coffee, but I'm addicted to these fucking. All right, there we go. Look at that. Rip one of them bad boys.

Okay. Chuck it in your water. Well, yeah, we're now, got to do that, I guess. So, you know, I mean, there's becoming the champ,

and then there's becoming the champ the way you did. Because you beat the consensus greatest featherweight of all time in his prime. You know yeah, that's a Big deal my friend exactly right. You know it's huge and a huge for me obviously I love being the underdog as well You know I have been in my last free fights, and you know I love sort of proven that the doubt is wrong You know I mean and then obviously again to beat him like i did as well to you know out fight him you know outstrike him and and stuff like that again he's a great champion nothing but respect to him but

for me to go out there and and do it like that you know that's something i'm very proud of oh you should be you should be proud of your whole run man i mean you haven't been in the ufc that long yeah it was you know i mean how many years you've been in there now that long. Yeah. It was, you know, I mean, how many years you been in there now? Less than two. I think it's two and a bit or close to three. Oh, is it? Okay, yeah, yeah. Close to three, yeah. It feels like, well, since the Chad Mendes fight, that's when people started really paying

attention. That's where, yeah, things went quick. That's when people were like, holy shit. Well, before that, I wasn't even ranked. Right. And that's why I wanted that fight. Oh, no, no. I think I was ranked 10th maybe, sorry.

So that's why I wanted that fight. I knew if if I took him on that'll get me straight to you know fifth rank and then that's why I wanted to call out you know Aldo after that because I knew that'll put me in a position where I could you know fight for a title yeah shoot for them ranks as I always said what is going on at City Kickboxing you need to tell me man yeah well that's another thing that a lot of people uh you realize. I'm actually based in Wollongong, but I go there for my camp. So I go there a lot. Do you go to one in New Zealand? Or do you guys have one in Australia?

No, no, no, we go to New Zealand. So how far is that flight? About two hours, two and a half hours. What made you decide to make that trip? Well, I've known the guys for a long time. You know, Eugene, Easy even, and Brad Riddell. Brad Riddell was actually, when I was Thailand you know Tiger Muay Thai you know I do a bit of training out there and he was a striking coach for a while so I was working with him a fair bit

and you know that's when they bring Eugene and Israel and that's when I started like and got to know them and stuff like that and just ever ever since then, we've always, you know, sort of got along. And now we're just, you know, we're a part of a team. Me and Joe Lopez, he's my head coach. But we go there to, you know, to see the kickboxing and train with the boys. Every camp, we'll go there. You know, we'll go there, you know, a couple of times each camp. So I'll do like two, three weeks, get back to the family and train and then go back there again for the last couple of weeks.

And then I head to my fight usually. And where do you train when you're home? I train at Freestyle Fighting Gym. So that's locally where I am. That's where my first day ever in the gym was, at that gym. So that's still where I am today as well. That's awesome. So what made you need to make a shift, though?

Did you need a higher level of competition to train with? Well, yeah, that's always going to be a big part. You know, again, it's not massive right where I am. You know what I mean? We've got some people, but it's just, you know, we're starting to get a team in that now, but that competitive sort of training partners is a big deal. And my coach has always, you know, Joe's always been a strong believer of, you know, training with so many different levels of, you know, styles, you know, everything.

You know what I mean? That's a great coach. A great coach that's not worried about you going to another camp and training is a great coach. Exactly right. And it works. You know, like, no surprises come fight time because I've seen so many different body types, so many styles. You know, I put myself in that position every time.

Like, you know what I mean? Like, every fight camp I'm doing as many different bodies as I can. Yeah. Just so, you know, there's no surprises come fight time. Is that your phone? Yeah, it was my phone. Sorry about that. No worries.

So when did you start training? What year did you start? I started, I've been doing it for about, yeah, not even 10 years, nine years. So I actually started MMA training as just to keep fit while I was playing rugby league. So I was, you know, that was when I was 214 pounds. So that was when I was 214 pounds. So that's something that obviously when I'm fighting and you say 240 and it'll slow you getting up. It's your language.

You guys have that Australian language. You say things different. 214? Yeah, exactly. Sounds like 240. Yeah, exactly. 214. That makes more sense, but still it's a ridiculous amount of weight. It's still 100%.

I'm 5'6 on a good day. You know what I mean? Give me a good stretch out. Do some yoga sessions. I'6 on a good day. You know what I mean? Give me a good stretch out. Do some yoga sessions. I might make 5'6. But you know what I mean? It's just I was a lot bigger. And I wanted to stay fit in between the season, preseason.

So that's why I went and started and just loved it ever since. So that was about, yeah, again, nine years ago. So and how old are you now? 31. Look at you, you fucking gorilla. Oh, yeah, there you go, see? Look at the size of you. Yeah, man.

Jesus Christ. You're 31. Look at that head. So you were, you know, early, early 20s, and no martial arts training at all before that? I wrestled. So I wrestled, before I even done rugby league, I wrestled for about probably a year. I can't even remember. You know, honestly, I'd done it for about a year, and I'd done pretty good.

It was something that I was actually pretty good at, but I wanted to play football with my mates, and I got over wearing the tights, wrestling and stuff like that. So it was just something that I ended up just playing football with a mate. So I sort of gave it up, and I was actually pretty good at it. So we won the nationals. Obviously, wrestling is not as big in Australia as it is over here but you know I still won like the Australian Championship twice

and stuff like that but then I just I just gave it up and started playing football yeah so that's crazy so you won the Australian Nationals twice yes yeah so that was a yeah they have them every year and you'd only been training for a year you'd only done it for a year? You'd only done it for a year? Yeah, honestly. I remember we used to have a games night, we called it. It was at a PCYC, Police Boys Club. It's just a local club.

Usually they'll have, like, games nights. And they had wrestling there. And I just went there one time. And, you know, the trainer was just like, oh, you should come and do training because I was doing all right. So I just started doing it. And then I was actually pretty good. Again, I was always, like, I literally, you know, come out the mother's womb like this, you know what I mean? So I've been, I've been this big, I've been this big or, you know,

this high and look this old, like for, you know, since I was like 12. So I was always, so I was always versing guys twice the size of me and you know what I mean? So I was older, much older as well. And I used to do well. So that's why a lot of people, you know what I mean so I was you know older much older as well and I used to do well so that's why a lot of people you know thought I was mad you know when I gave that up because I was doing so good and then the same was at rugby league when I played rugby league even people thought I was mad giving that up as well because that was something I was pretty good at as well. So what made you decide to make a switch to MMA professionally? Just my last year of football rugby league we you know we won the comp know, I got player of the match.

I scored a 40 meter try. So you can imagine that guy running 40 meters. Um, yeah, so it was just a, you know, it was just, yeah, a good year to finish on. You know what I mean? I had a couple of fights as well that year. So I was training at, uh, MMA and having a couple of fights while I was playing rugby league. Oh, really?

Yeah. So that was, uh, during the season, really? Yeah. So during the season? Yeah, yeah. So during the season you were having fights? Yes. So you'd have a game and then you'd have a fight? Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. So it was pretty full on and still working, still concreting. Really? Yeah, yeah. Jesus Christ. It was pretty full on. So a lot happening, you know, and I guess that's probably where I get some of my fitness today as well.

You know what I mean? I've just always been a bit of a gamer and, you know, that's just something I've always done, but maybe from back in fitness today as well. You know what I mean? I've just always been a bit of a gamer and, you know, that's just something I've always done. But maybe from back in them days as well. Well, I would imagine that just the sheer tenacity and cardio that you would get from rugby. Rugby is a tough fucking sport. I mean, that's what I think Americans should play.

I really do. I look at American football, I'm like, take off the fucking helmets. What's up with the shoulder pads? And honestly, I think it's safer. I think rugby's safer. I don't think it's safe. It's obviously a very rough combat sport. I mean, it's kind of like a team combat sport, almost.

But you were at least not under the illusion that you're protected like American football players have been for so long with the helmets and the pads. And that's what's causing a lot of the brain trauma. Yeah, with them hard helmets and all that. Yeah. I get what you mean. Slamming into each other, you know? Yeah, I guess I can see what you're saying there as well. But, you know, then, again, then you're looking at that, you know,

someone running at, you know, no helmet as well. But I get what you're saying. I actually think, you know, I think you're right. I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. Well, I think they, you know, I think you're right. I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. Well, I think they've considered this, but people are so accustomed to football helmets, football pads. So the idea is you just make better helmets and better pads. But according to the guys who really study traumatic brain injury, that's not really going to help because it's the impact. The head, the brain swashing around inside your skull.

The head, the brain swashing around inside your skull. That is just so, the amount of mass that you have, these guys colliding into each other. It's almost unavoidable. Yeah. It's like what they actually, when you're talking boxing and that as well. And a lot of people, you know, obviously we've got the smaller gloves. Right. But then the boxers, they have more padding, but it's just so many more strikes to the head. Yes.

Day in, day out. And they reckon that's actually, you reckon that can be actually worse for you. Yeah, I imagine it is. And then also there's nothing else. You're not even allowed to clinch. I mean, if you clinch, they separate you. Whereas in MMA, if you get rocked, you could at least protect yourself. And if it goes to the ground, you could hang on,

you could try to submit someone, you could try to wrestle with them. There's not a lot of options in boxing. Yeah, definitely. there's not a lot of options in boxing you know yeah definitely so what so you you did well in rugby and you had a couple of fights while you're playing right what was it was it just a one-on-one aspect of it like what made you decide to focus entirely on that man i've always loved martial arts i always loved it and i love the fact that you know you're in there by yourself you know i've always been a hard like worker yeah so you could play the best game of your life in, say, rugby league and still lose.

You could do everything right, make thousands of meters, whatever it is. Someone else fucks up. Well, yeah, again, I don't want to put it out. Put it out. Yeah, exactly right. That's sort of – even it could be vice versa. I could play a bad game, we could win.

But I love the fact that I'm such a hard worker and I'm always putting the hours in the gym. I'm so dedicated to this sport that if I lose in that cage, that's on me. You know what I mean? And I love that. I love the fact that if I am half arsing it in the gym, you're going to see that come fight time and I've got no one else to blame but myself.

So I've always loved that. And again, I've just always loved martial arts, even boxing, UFC. Even, you know, before I even started, you know, training MMA, I would, like, you know, listen to music. And I would, you know, just picture myself winning the world title. Really? Yeah, I've always loved it. Even before you were training? I wasn't even training.

You know, it was just something that I've always loved. I actually started watching it back when, I think, because we had a box. You know, you get the chips and you can watch whatever channel you want. And the pay-per-view, I probably shouldn't say that, but anyway. So the pay-per-view was on. And I remember watching Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock. That was the first time, their first fight. So that was the first time I ever started watching UFC.

And that's when I just absolutely started loving it. So I've always, you know, watched it and loved it and, you know, picture myself being in there and all that. I started watching UFC, and that's when I just absolutely started loving it. So I've always watched it and loved it and pictured myself being in there and all that, and I wasn't even trained at the time. Well, Australians are tough as fuck. It's a tough fucking place. There's something. They're men.

You know what I mean? There's a lot of – I mean, sure, there's some pussies over there too, but they're men. You know what I mean? It's like one of the ways that people look at Australia. It makes sense that great combat sport athletes would come out of Australia. Yeah, exactly right. It's a prison colony. I mean, that's really what you guys started off as. Exactly right, yeah.

Especially, as you were saying, me being looking like this since a young age. Obviously, I'm not the type to brag that I get into fights and all that sort of stuff. But when I was younger, that would happen. And so I've always been known to fight and been able to fight type of thing. I've always had to sort of defend myself. Never been the one to start it.

But yeah, there was times where I had to finish it. But it's just always something that I guess I've had in me. So, I mean, Australia, you guys have John Wayne Parr, Jeff Fennich. You guys have had some great combat sports athletes come out of. Well, now it's UFC so big in Australia. So we've always had, as you're saying, very talented guys. You know, we've got a lot of very good athletes over there. But they were always in your rugby leagues and AFL or whatever it is.

Now UFC and MMA is getting so big that we're getting these athletes starting to train MMA and you're only going to see it grow even more and we're going to get a lot more champions from our region, I believe. Oh, I'm sure. Have you ever trained with John Wayne Parr? I haven't. I've met him. I met him at a UFC event.

I think that's the only time I've ever met him, to be honest. He's actually got to get a hip replacement. His hip's so fucked up from all his years of kickboxing his last fight he retired on his last fight which is a boxing match

yeah Mundine so that was a blowout Mundine can actually box really well to go and he's achieved a lot

John Wayne Parr is a fucking savage he's a straight up savage I mean that guy's he's been fighting Muay Thai since he was a teenager. Yeah. You know, spent a lot of time in Thailand. I think I watched him actually.

This was a long time ago. This was when my cousin was a kickboxer. And I went and watched him. Like, this was, I was very young. Oh, wow. And I'm pretty sure it was John Wayne Parr that was, I need to actually hit him up. I need to hit up my cousin and be like, was John Wayne Parr the main event of that? Because I remember watching.

I'll connect you and John Wayne if you'd like. Yeah, all right. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, sweet, for sure. But again, I've always been a fan of him too, but when I got a little bit older. But yeah, again, it's something that I've always been fascinated about, all combat sports.

So you decided to make the leap. Was it the rugby season was over and you're like, you know what, I'm done? Yeah, well, while I was fighting, again, my last year I had a couple of fights. How many fights did you have before you quit? I think I had two. You had two? I think I had two fights. And that was enough?

Yeah, I think so. You know, I'm a pretty competitive type of guy. And the fact that, you know, I wasn't at the highest level in rugby league yet you know i was 22 and you know at that that age usually you know if you're not in you know not nrl as that's the the highest if you're not in the nrl by like 22 you you pretty much you ain't getting in like sort of sort of like that and that's how i was and i'm again i'm competitive so i was like i don't know if i'm gonna make it to even though i was pretty good you made a lot of rep sides and stuff like that but i was just nah you know i'm going to take

this on i reckon i can go the whole way and again like i've already pictured myself winning world titles and stuff like this and i even told people like before i even started that i'm gonna be ufc champion one time and they're probably thinking where you even getting this you know i'm sure a lot of people say that but a lot of people have said it yeah exactly to actually go out there and do it, though, it's pretty cool. It's pretty amazing. Because I remember even having conversations with friends and watching the UFC. Again, I wasn't even training. And I remember saying, it would have sounded cocky, to be honest, the way it would have come out.

But I'm like, I reckon I can do it. I reckon I can do it. How many fights have you had total? 20 and 1. 20 and 1. 21. 21 and 1? 20 and 1.

I don't even know. 20 and 1, 21. 21 and 1? 20 and 1. I don't even know. 20 and 1, I think. When did you have your first loss? That was my third fight or fourth fight. Oh, so it was right after you decided to go pro. I mean, right after you decided to make that your life. No, it was actually because I had two amateur fights. Oh, okay.

No, that went before when I started. Oh, so the amateur fights were when you were doing rugby. Yes. So I had four amateur fights and went pro. i didn't have the that was against at the time you know cory nelson his name little shout out for cory nelson uh but he was a you know he was a pound for pound number one obviously it was that welterweight this was and you know it was very early in my career and i should not have took that fight but win a tournament and uh he i had him first i had the favorite straight up and again it was in a division I probably should never have been in.

But I took him on and I don't know, I held my own, but things didn't go well. But that was, we always talk about that really, things really, it went a lot better for me after that because I realised that he was too strong. So I thought I have to go down or I have to start grappling as well. So that's when I actually started grappling after that. My coach was like, all right, you've got control a bit too much in there. Let's just do jujitsu for the next three, four months or whatever it is, just straight

jujitsu. I had a jujitsu comp. And I was just saying, again, that's when I started dieting as well. But I remember doing that jujitsu comp and I was on the podium, I ended up getting the gold. So I was on the first podium, they're on the second and third, and they're still taller than me. So these are the guys that I'm so familiar. That's why now I fight at featherweight, and I really do look at these, even though they still tower over me because I'm still short in my division, but I look at them and I'm used to footy players, big front rowers, props and fighting middleweight and all these different divisions.

I look at these featherweights, I'm just like, they're puny compared to what I'm used to. That does make sense, though. I mean, you fighting at 170 is crazy. I mean, that's 25 pounds heavier than what you're fighting at now. And that was at pro and, again, fighting the top guys. So I fought Anton Zafir before that, and he was a UFC fighter as well in welterweight. So what did you do to drop the weight down and what do you walk around at uh now I walk around I'm a bit heavy after uh

after because I obviously broke my hand and stuff like that but uh you broke the hand the max fight yes I did yeah I broke that in the max fight and which round um I'm not too sure I remember feeling and throwing and be like oh that hurt I think uh from watching back the tape I wanted to watch back and see where I noticed it I noticed in the fifth round that's where. I think from watching back the tape, I wanted to watch back and see where I noticed it. I noticed in the fifth round, that's where I think it happened. Because you start seeing me, obviously, on the offense. I was only using my left hand and stuff like that. Obviously, if he comes at me as well, in the heat of the moment, I'd throw it.

So that's it. So I think it was early in the fifth round, I think. So you were walking around at now at yeah i'm about 78 kilograms so what's that that's over 170 so uh what's that 170 something i guess jesus christ that's heavy i'm not usually i'm usually around yeah maybe a couple kilos less than that usually but so when it comes off i hold a lot of water 65 ish yeah i guess you could say that but yeah i took holidays uh i went hard in it so wow you should celebrate man that's it one time in your whole 65-ish, somewhere around there. Yeah, I guess you could say that. But, yeah, I took holidays. I went hard in it.

Wow. You should celebrate, man. That's it. One time in your whole life you get to be champ for the first time. Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right. This is your time. But, again, I didn't, you know, have the broken hand.

You know, I want to train. I'm the type of, you know, I try and be, you know, I'm a professional. So I'll do what I can. I was still doing as many things as I could in a strength condition, building them legs, being able to just throw, you you know a shitload of left hooks and jabs so i should have a good uh left hook and jab uh come next fight so i got to work a lot on that well that's great now when you decided to diet down you were you were even heavier than you are now what did you do to get your weight down from 214 to a manageable weight where you can make featherweight? Yeah, it's obviously dieting is just absolute key, you know what I mean?

Even now, like even when I train so hard, if you're not dieting well, the weight won't come off. So that's how, but, you know, starting early, again, you know, I didn't know much, you know, I don't know what I know now, you know, having dieticians and that, I was never doing that. So I just literally ate next to nothing, like, and I'd train, like I told know, I don't know what I know now, you know, having dieticians and that, I was never doing that. So I just literally ate next to nothing. Like, and I'd train, like I told you, I was playing rugby league, you know, I was, you know, fighting, training and then concrete. And, you know, when I was getting close to fights, I was eating next to nothing. And yeah, like you just, when I say nothing. Did you get sick a lot?

Yeah, a hundred percent, you know, staph infections all the time and all that. Like it's, it's a crucial, like diet, you know, obviously the science to it all. And we're now it's absolute game changer. So I just, yeah, pretty much lost my weight that way. So I used to be a little bit, you know, bigger, obviously from eating like that as well, you know, you, you lose muscle, you lose, you know, you probably losing strength and everything like that. Obviously you lose health. Yeah, exactly. Right. So, uh, you know, it probably makes me, uh, make 145 a bit easier now, but because i don't have as much muscle as i did but again it wasn't healthy and it put me in again i had to miss out fights from bad staph infections and you know

mrsa and you know all that oh you got mrsa jesus christ mercis scares the shit out of me yeah that's terrifying it rattles you how long did it get you in there for what's that sorry how long were you in the hospital for that uh was all yeah i was in the hospital the first day but then they just had a nurse that come to your house every morning and night to give you everything and so it was a pretty full-on and then obviously you know about the when i got i got cellulitis uh after the brazil fight with uh aldo well cellulitis is a form of staff yeah yep yep so that got in my leg. So it was,

I was a rattle man. So it was crazy. Like we always talk about how, you know, MMA is such a rollercoaster ride. You know what I mean? So many highs and lows. And that's a perfect example.

You know, you go over to Brazil and then beat, you know, one of the greatest featherweights of all time. And then you get put in hospital. And I was there for like a week, you know, that was in Chile. So I was on my like a week. In Brazil? No, that was in Chile.

So I was on my way home where it just absolutely rocked me, and I was struggling. I was really struggling. I really was. I had like 40-plus degree temperatures and all that. 40-plus Celsius? Yes, yeah, yeah. Sorry, yeah.

Translate that to our dumb. We should all just – why the fuck don't we just go? The rest of the world is on the cellular system. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to get today. I was like, even wearing the clothes, I end up dressing up. I was like, oh, yeah. What is 40 Celsius? What is that?

Let's guess. I'm going to say 104. Yeah, that's a high one. Yeah. So like 101, 102. Because whenever my Canadian friends say, oh, it's 40 degrees out. I'm like, what the fuck does that mean? That's cold as shit. Yeah, that's a high one. Yeah. So like 101, 102. Because whenever my Canadian friends say, oh, it's 40 degrees out. I'm like, what the fuck does that mean? That's cold as shit.

Yeah, get on. Was it? Really? Oh, good stuff. There you go. Very happy with myself. But kilos, between kilos and Celsius, I have no idea what I'm talking about. Yeah, well, I'm trying to keep up with that because obviously every time I'm all right

now, I always say 145. You know, that's every time I have alright now I always say 145 every time I'm like 145 champ so I'm 214 when I'm talking about that but again my Aussie accent everyone gets that wrong I think it was just me

yeah right here I think I fucked it up it's funny you know you always go on your social media and there's always like these things they just roll on

with certain things like whenever I'm posted everyone will try and say I'm a New Zealander and they just start like banter like that and like and everyone's into each other on there but there was one that the same as uh oh yeah i got told that he was 240 and it's like they're just sort of trying to quote you and they're like going and just keeps growing and growing and growing so even when you say 240 i can't distinguish that between 240 and 214 that accent yeah 214 it's a

cool fucking accent, though. Australian's a straight up cool accent. Australian and New Zealand, those are both very cool accents. Some accents are just ridiculous. They need to stop. But you guys, you got a cool accent. I appreciate that. Thank you.

New Zealand's a dope place to be, too, man. I want to go visit there. Just the beauty of it all, man. So green. Man, I love that type of stuff. I'm all about the landscapes i love that type of stuff i'm all about you know the landscapes and all that type of stuff but i'm never actually in every time i'm in new zealand i'm in auckland in the city they're just training that's it so i never actually get to go see the place i i did for

the last event where the boys are fought in auckland so i was there yeah yep so i was there yeah it was yeah that was unreal what a fight yeah man that was good good fight for sure and i was there because i was in the way i was at a wedding the night before so yeah the night before and that was like five hours north so i had to drive five hours remember in uh australia and that like it they the ufc's in the morning so i had to get up like three in the morning three thirty in the morning and then and drive all the way there to watch the fight so while i was there for the wedding, I got to see a bit more. I went fishing and stuff like that.

Beautiful trout fishing in New Zealand. Yeah. Supposed to be some of the best in the world. Yeah, yeah. Some beautiful spots up there. So it was a good drive. At least it was a good drive on the way back down. The word is in New Zealand when it's really good is during mice season.

Mice season? Yes. Okay. Ready for this? Yeah. So something happens where there's more seeds. And when there's more seeds, there's more mice. And when there's more mice, the mice get into the water.

And when the mice get into the water, the trout eat the mice. And so they catch these enormous trout that have just dozens of mice in their bellies. Yeah. Mate, I mean, you know, all these sort of like. I know weird shit. Yeah, man. I don't know why I know so much weird shit. That's good, though.

It's good. I know a lot. This is actually a shout out to Jay Scott. This is listening to the Jay Scott Outdoors podcast where he's talking to, it's a hunting and fishing podcast where they were talking about, they were talking to a guy who's a guide in New Zealand. Oh, okay. And they were talking about, you know, like when's the best time to go over there.

But they just have an enormous brown trout over in New Zealand. Yeah, I've never done trout fishing though. I've done a lot of fishing though, but I've never done like the freshwater fishing. That's fun. Yeah. They do fly fishing too, which is a little bit more skillful. Okay, yeah. A little more difficult to do.

What am I giving that? I thought I could fish, eh? Last time I went fishing, I went there and we would try to get kings. And we had to, what do you call it? King salmon? Yeah, you've got to reel it in and pull it up. Oh, jigging. Yeah, jigging.

I was useless at that. I thought I'm pretty coordinated, but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't get it right. I don't know what it was. But I thought I could fish, but maybe little small fish and that I'm all right with. But the big fish, I need to work on that on that well it's a skill like anything else and fishing is it's the guys are really good at it they're consistently good at it it's not a it's not an accident yeah well i do a lot more spearfishing do you yes that looks fun yeah yeah

that's it you know again like as you know like underwater it's just a whole nother world yeah you know what i mean so it's a it's unreal it. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's unreal. It really is. And I love it. So I go with a mate and he's like a professional spear fisherman and, you know, he's an abalone diver. He does all that. So he takes me to pretty crazy places, like in the middle of the ocean, just where there's a buoy, you know, like a, I don't know what you would call it here. Just, you know, a chain and there's like a, you know, a floaty buoy, we call them. And they're just there and then we'll go there, fish off there and like go for like dolphin fish and stuff like that and like you literally just see a chain that goes down to

and it just disappears it's pretty scary when you you know what i mean you're out there and sometimes you're on your way and you'll see a shark on the way over there and then you've got to jump in and you're like flower out yeah i've had friends that were hunters that got into spear fishing they say it's basically like hunting. You're hunting underwater. And also the element of holding your breath. Yeah, exactly. So there's an athletic element to it. And then the fucking predators underwater,

they're way scarier than predators on land because you can't get away. It's not a goddamn thing you can do. It's not our world, you know what I mean? It's not our world at all. It's unreal. So I get to watch him, like, you know, my mate Jack Lavender, a little shout-out to him as well. So I get to go down there and watch. He can hold his breath for forever.

Like, five minutes he'll be down there. Like, sometimes when it's murky, he'll go down and he'll just disappear. And then I start getting nervous. I'm like, oh, now I feel like I'm by myself, you know what I mean? And then you'll just hear a shunk. So you'll hear that mean, like, here we go. And then he'll just come up. I'm like, he and i'll see him come up like 100 meters away and stuff like that but you know it's a it's unreal it really is it's something that i think you should

have you so yeah i haven't done it i need to get in there yeah yeah my friend bert just got back we've had valentine thomas on the podcast before and she does it basically professionally oh okay yeah she's she's always spearfishing and her whole instagram pull up her instagram her instagram is all like her spearfish she was a lawyer she was trying to be a lawyer in montreal okay she was like what the fuck am i doing like i don't want to do this so now you know against her family's wishes she's out there fishing jack and tuna and shit all right right. That's cool. But yeah, her, yeah, this is.

Oh, there you go. Yeah. All of her Instagram is all dedicated to her catching wild fish. Oh, far out. And she's hot. She speared that? Yeah. Looks like she did.

Man, that's trying to pull it in. Still got the fucking spear in it. Holy shit. When did she get that? Far out. God damn. That's huge. Is that a swordfish or a marlin?

That's a marlin, right? Looks like a marlin, yeah. Yeah. How do you even... How does that even work, you know? I don't know. I mean, what... Yeah, how do you pull that fucker in?

Pull the trigger and then just lock your speargun to the boat or something like that? I mean, that's a serious line on that thing. How do you even get close to that? I caught one marlin once. It was a small marlin and it was like 70 pounds and it was so hard to pull in. It's kind of a fucked up story. It was with my oldest daughter and she was, I want to say she was 12 at the time or 13 and she was a vegetarian because she loves animals.

I'm like, let's go catch a fish. It'd be great. You know, you'll catch a fish and you eat it. Because she had like started eating like a little bit of meat. Yep. So I take her. We catch a marlin five minutes into the trip. They pull it on board, beat it to death with a club right in front of her.

She's like, oh, and it's big, right? Like the size of a dog, right? And they're beating this thing with clubs. You see the look on her poor face. She was like, ooh. Well, welcome back to the. It didn't die quick either it kept making noises it flop around every now and then it would like come back to life a little bit and flop around did she go back to uh no vegetarian after that she eats meat but it was it was a bit traumatic yeah i could imagine likely yeah but i love fishing man

it's just one of my favorite things to do. I love it. Yeah, well, watch, because I get into the, I do a bit of hunting and stuff myself, so I've watched the Maydita. I've watched the Maydita a couple of times.

Yeah, that's cool. Do you hunt in Australia? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Australia's a great place to hunt. Yeah. Shout out to my friend Adam Greentree.

Yeah, yeah. I watched a bit of him, yeah. That's his skull up there that came from Australia. All right, oh, wow. Yeah. Okay.

Asiatic water buffalo dangerous motherfuckers those things oh yeah they're big far out I've never done like that I've never been right up there

he'll take you don't go if he offers don't do it yeah I don't know man he tries to drag me out there it's nothing but mosquitoes

exactly mosquitoes and crocodiles they drank water that they filtered out it still tasted like buffalo piss Yeah Because the buffalo

Is pissing this water And all you do Is just filter it And like Fuck you Well actually it's funny You say that Because I wanted to

You know I gave you That kangaroo hat Yeah Oh is it there Okay There was Oh there we go Cheers

Is there a right way To wear it I think this part's On the front right Yeah I'd say so I think this part's on the front, right? Yeah, I'd say so. I don't know, actually. Come on, how good does that look? There you go.

I belong over there. I'll fit right in. If I didn't live in North America, Australia's where I'd live. Yeah? Yeah. I love it there. I don't go there very much because the fucking flight's too long. Oh, right.

You need to fix that. How do we fix that? So what was I saying? I was going to actually get you. How do we fix that? How do we fix that? So what was I saying? I was going to actually get you, they even had crocodile belts and stuff like that. But I wanted to actually get you a knife, a custom made one with luck. And I was going to get maybe crocodile skin, but I just ran out of time. Thank you for the hat. Next time.

Hey, thank you very much for the hat. Look at all these fucking crocodiles. Oh, shit. I watched that. Actually, watch that video. Yeah, look at this. Man. Fuck you, Adam Greentree. This is probably in Australia. these fucking crocodiles oh shit actually what's that video yeah look at this man fuck you where

is that green tree this is probably in australia oh they're the everglades i don't know but what i mean i couldn't no those are crocodiles bro that's not alligators if you look at the the snouts they're they're long and thin crocodiles have a long thin uh snout whereas uh alligators have like a blunt snout I mean I could be wrong but I don't think I am yeah those are crocodiles and the fact where you you could be going past little little pond or not even just a little paddle and there'll be a big crocs laying in it and stuff like that this is so ridiculous that's so ridiculous yeah so many it's so many I mean that's insane that doesn't even make. It's so many. I mean, that's insane.

That doesn't even make sense. I don't know where that is. Maybe that's Africa. But if it's Australia, fuck you, Adam Green Tree. Yeah, man. I don't think I could do that. That would be the snakes and all that. When I was younger, I used to be pretty wild.

You know what I mean? Like I'll do anything. You know, I'm not one to give me on a snowboard. I'll try a backflip off a cliff and, you know, cliff jumping. I'll do it all. Like I was silly. But now that obviously I can't afford to get injured and having kids, having kids that really does throw you off doing some of that sort of stuff.

So now I'll be way too scared up there. I wouldn't be able to do it. You shouldn't. We need you. You're very important. You're very important. So your position now where you are the UFC champion. What is next? Is it a rematch with Max Holloway look right now? We don't really have

Anything locked in obviously, I think they're waiting for clearances and stuff like that. There's a hand clear now. Yeah. Yeah, so I've been many months I was the fight now How was that? It was a December 15th. So yeah a few months So it's a I just had like my had my first wrestling sessions and grappling sessions. They held up well. So I told my doc that, and he's happy to – they're more than happy for the June. Obviously, there's a perf card in June. And, yeah, so that's something that –

Do you have a pin in there or anything? I've got a couple of screws, yeah. So I've got a couple of screws in there, and I've done a bit of ligament damage as well. We don't know if that was before the fight or during the fight. But, you know, again, I'm back into training, and it doesn't take me long to get fit, and I'll try to do it again. I'm professional. I'll try to keep training. But nothing's locked in. Nothing's locked in.

We haven't even really had that conversation yet. But all, you know, everything's pointing to, you know, Perth, and even Max being the rematch, you know, that's what Dana White keeps bringing up, but we haven't had that conversation. I uh for the division and for me i think that that probably is still the biggest fight it's a big fight yeah you got it it's a big fight there's nothing else that makes sense in the horizon that's the thing you know what i mean we've got so many ortega is going to fight korean zombie and i don't know what the happened this

weekend were you there when he smacked Jay Park? I just missed that. So I knew that that could have happened because when, yeah, Korean Zombie done the interview, like, where they had the translator, where all that sort of happened. I was, like, watching it. So I knew what happened. And Ortega said that he was going to slap him. Like, he actually said this. He was going, I'm going to slap you when I see you or something like that.

Why was he saying that? Because Jay Park was translating for Korean Zombie and supposedly he said things that insulted Ortega and Ortega didn't like it, so he said he was going to. But did he say things or did he translate the things? Yeah, that's what a lot of people are saying, but I think he didn't translate fully and then he just sort of had his opinion as well.

Like, so maybe. So I think, you know, Jay Park might have just said that he was ducking zombie when he got injured. How, you know, they were meant to fight. And that happened. So I think he said that himself as in, I don't know, it was weird. So I was away though. So I wasn't away. I was backstage with Izzy, you know.

So we go out there and, you know, watch the boys, and then we all huddled up and do our thing, and then I went back, and then it just happened. So it was Joe, my coach, ends up telling me, he's like going, oh, there was a fight just there, and he didn't really know who it was, and then I got told by a couple of people, and then I'm like, oh, man, I bet you it was that Jay Park, because I didn't know he was there. You can't do that. Yeah, I know. You can't smack, he's a tiny little guy, too.

You can't smack that guy Yeah, I know. You can't smack. He's a tiny little guy too. You can't smack that guy. Even if you want to. I mean, if you want to point at him and get in his face and make him nervous, that's fine. Yeah, exactly. But you're a goddamn professional killer. Yeah, exactly right. I mean, Brian Ortega's a killer.

You can't be smacking some guy who's a rapper. Yeah, that's it. Well, if he wanted to get that fight again, I think it worked because there was zombies there. Well, he was getting that fight again anyway, wasn't he? Wasn't it scheduled? I don't know if that was. I don't know if that was because it was scheduled and then it didn't happen. Ortega's gone through a series of pretty significant injuries.

They just keep happening to him. I heard him and Zabit as well. I don't know if that's happened, so I don't know. Oh, that is what I heard. That's right. You're right. as well i don't know if that's happened so i don't know but oh that's that is what i heard that's right you're right it was um calvin catered jeremy stevens and zabit in ortega okay those are the things that i heard but after chan sung jung knocked out frankie edgar who knows i mean maybe they would make that fight now but i don't want to reward people for smacking people you know i mean

i mean they shouldn't make a fight just because he smacked jay park yeah i'm hearing you so that's again like when you're talking about the division and like what's next for me i was while i was injured i thought there's so many people that are probably one fight away from a title shot you know i believe you know i mean you got your your ortega's there's a bit you know korean zombie you know yeah I think any of them fight each other and win I think they're clear number one

I think you know what I mean obviously people are going to always say you know Max deserves that immediate rematch and things like that

and I understand that but I mean I think they could have had a case there to actually but no one did anything so right now you know

I'm not going to wait around especially when there's an Aussie card you know and I think they've been talking to Max. I don't even know. Again, we haven't even had that conversation.

I just do my thing. I let my team do theirs, and I just do my thing. But nothing's happened yet. It's a hot division. I mean, that division is hot. You know, just like Calvin Cater, who's another guy who's on the up. That's a dangerous guy. There's so much talent in that division.

Yeah. It's an amazing division, really. Yeah. 145 is one of the, if you look at it, stacked divisions, one of the most stacked divisions in the sport. Yeah, I think so. I think so, for sure. There's a lot of killers in there, and now they've all got their eyes on me.

Well, I was so impressed with the fight you fought against Max because to fight your style for five rounds, you have to be in tremendous shape because you have such an explosive style. Your style is so movement, leg kick heavy, and then power shots. I mean, you're throwing so many power punches. Just your sheer output, and you're not touching people. You're smashing. You know what I mean?

It's a very difficult style to maintain for five rounds. Yeah, well, it is. But, you know, again, I've always been a hard worker. And we train hard. We definitely train. Yeah, and we all put in our – I don't know if you've ever – we call a workout we do, we call it spider. It was named after someone. But, yeah, spider.

So it's just literally fight gone bad, and it's just the hardest. Whatever you're fighting, if it's a three-rounder, you'll do the three rounds. If it's a five-rounder, you do the five-rounder. It's like the hardest five-minute rounds that you can think of, and they just put you versus everyone. The atmosphere is absolutely crazy. If you'd just seen the workout, you'd be like, wow. Okay, that explains why he's fit. You know i mean it's it's crazy it really is so we put the hard yards in and you

know obviously to have a style like like that like you said you know you got to put the work in but again as you're saying like you know obviously they're not just touching like there's a lot of big shots but you know i always try and break the rhythm so a lot of times i i am you know there will be a couple touch and then couple send them right through and I just try and mix it up really well And I think that worked really well with max obviously gets real deep, but I won't get a do they might be rematch So I can't give too much right What was the well you could give away this what was the game plan coming into that fight and was anything Unusual for you like when when you actually wound up fighting max was there anything once you actually in the octagon with him?

Was anything unusual? Not, like everything pretty much went to how we thought it was going to go. So he made adjustments during that fight. We both were adjusting. So, you know, I don't know if many people would have seen it, but even when it come to just a way,

like, you know, I'll go and then he'll try and counter and then he would be like, pretend to counter, then pull back, then counter, you know what I mean? We're sort of just having these little battles um but always leg kicks were going to be a big part not just to hurt his leg but just to really break his rhythm and uh you know and make him you know obviously he loves that jab and he stays pretty uh heavy on that front leg yes and

uh whether that's uh you know making him adjust you know his stance and and just putting him in a position that he's not comfortable and he's's been fighting forever in this style and it's been so effective for him. So, you know, him even being a couple of inches back, you know, so he's not so heavy on that front leg, that just throws his whole rhythm up, you know what I mean? And that's why a lot of people, it's funny, a lot of people are going to go, he's going to make adjustments and he's going to check the kicks and all that. But you've got to remember, you know, he's a volume fighter. If he starts adjusting so much, you know what I mean, starts worrying about all that but you gotta remember he's a you know he's a volume fighter if he starts adjusting so much you know what i mean starts worrying about all that then he can't stick to

a game that's been so successful for himself so uh i don't know i'm expecting the same thing i'm expecting to go out there and do my thing but again we'll mix it up but i can't give too much away right you saw some adjustments where he switched to southpaw did you guys anticipate that as well yeah yeah we anticipated that that. Again, you're going to smack the leg that many times, I'm sure. But again, it was just even though he does switch stances a lot so we were ready for that

but for him to actually do the whole round in Southpaw, I think that was a third round or later in the second he sort of switched but in the third he was like Southpaw for a while and that was probably my biggest round. That's where he copped a lot so then he tried to come back to orthodox but you know just again i'm so so good at playing what's in front of me so he did make adjustments and i adjusted again and it's just again i think that goes back to training with so many different

bodies and styles and you know what i mean no surprises come flat time that's how i look at it yeah you mean you guys have a crazy crazy team you really stop and think about it you know dan hooker israel at asanya and you just alone and i'm sure you guys got a bunch of killers coming up right man i'm telling you there's some guys in you go there and you train and there's guys that do it as a hobby they just train there as a hobby and they could be in the ufc i'm sure it's a blowout. There's always guys like that. There's always those guys in gyms. In jiu-jitsu, there's always a guy like, why aren't you competing? You roll with them and they're like elite black belts. There's always these guys that just really love it, but they don't feel like doing it for a living.

Yeah, man. It's a blowout. Again, I've trained with a lot of people. And I'll go there and I'll have this guy that hasn't even had an amateur fight, and he's giving me problems. And you're like, what's going on here? You know what I mean? That's crazy.

But it's cool. Again, that's what you want. But that's what makes a great gym, right? Yeah. I mean, it's not just the main stars. It's all the supporting talent that you have in the gym as well. Yeah. Well, that's, again, no one's even in our gym.

We've got a couple of guys, even amateurs, that fight. We're all treated the same. You know what I mean? When it's fight time, if they're doing that spider workout, everyone's here. Even when you're at City Kickboxing or at our gym, the champions will still be there supporting the other guys that are doing their spider. It's just one big family sort of feel. Again, we're obviously a freestyle fighting gym, but we've been welcomed as a part of the family. I think that's a big part big part of, you know,

why they're so successful as well, just that sort of team camaraderie, you know what I mean? For sure, yeah. You see it when one of you guys fights. Everyone's there to support. It's a big factor. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, yeah, again, you know, I just think it, you know,

obviously it's working well. We're doing good things. And I think they're 4-0. Yeah, City kickball is a 4-0 at the moment. We'll just keep getting them wins up. What did you think about Adesanya versus Yoel Romero? Yeah, it's a tricky one. You know what I mean?

Obviously, a lot of people are knocking it. Obviously, it wasn't so many exchanges and stuff like that. But I guess you've got to look at it why that happened and i think uh yo you know obviously he was just in there waiting for for easy to come in every time you know is he did commit to something he just come out like he literally was gonna wait till you come in and i'm just gonna throw bombs obviously he knows that so he's trying to touch him trying to get him to react and you know you know waiting for him to explode and things that just didn't happen.

It's just a tricky one, man. That's why a lot of people are going to say whatever, but you're never in there. You don't really know what it feels like until you're actually in there. And someone like Romero, he can take your head off like that. You know what I mean? Yeah, I didn't like the criticism of it. There's not much else Adesanya could have done. And Yoel, I guess he's selling that Izzy didn't't do anything that he wouldn't fight him man-to-man, but that's not true

Yeah, because he didn't come forward. Yeah, like he's he's selling as if he was chasing Izzy and Izzy wasn't doing anything But that's not what happened. Like Izzy was trying to get him to engage and he didn't want to engage He was literally standing there at the beginning of the fight, standing still, which is kind of crazy. It was like a solid minute or something or more. Standing still. And then he would switch stances a little bit. Choo, choo.

Yeah. Stand still. Choo, choo. A couple of little. But he's lulling you to sleep. And you saw that when he did land a couple of good left hands. Yeah. When Izzy did try to connect, when he did try to get close to try to bought

into it a little bit and you all through that fucking left hand yeah crazy how fast that guy is yeah man so again like you know when you're just you can sense that as soon as I do commit to anything he's just gonna come guns blazing obviously you know fair enough obviously there's gonna be a lot more opportunities if he started trying to do stuff as well. But the fact that he'd done nothing until he was just ready to explode, it makes things how it is. You know what I mean? Again, if you want to fight smart, if you're trying to fight smart as well. And he should fight smart.

And I think he did fight smart. I think he did. I mean, this is what fighting is all about. Some fights like Zhang Weili and Yuan Yuan Zhechek is super, super exciting. But that's styles. Those styles matched up. I meanion Jacek is super, super exciting, but that styles, those styles matched up. I mean, not every fight is super exciting.

Robert Whitaker fought Yoel in a very exciting way, but I mean, that's a bad way to fight with that guy. Yeah. Yoel's a fucking beast, man. Even just, even just hitting him.

I'll even like a, I reckon easy from the leg kicks. No, obviously that would have been hurting Romero, but it's probably hurting yourself kicking him. You know what I mean? He's just solid rock. He's a solid dude. You can imagine throwing stuff and hitting just a brick.

Well, that's what Rockhold said. He said every time he hit him, it hurt him. Well, there you go. I mean, it's just. He's a freak, man. And the fact that he's 42, it's like, why in the fuck, man? Crazy. Absolutely crazy.

I really felt like that was how Izzy had to fight him. I really didn't think that he could fight him any other way. I mean, I expected that. Use his length. Use his reach. Use his attributes. Stay on the outside. Use the, he's a higher level kickboxer.

Use that, you know? Yeah. And try to lure him into, you know, attacking and counter those attacks. But it's one of those things where it's like if you see like uh when tyron woodley fought wonder boy kind of same thing a lot of people were saying oh those are boring fights well that's how you have to fight that guy yeah exactly that's how you fight him and you wait on him and you gotta remember you know what i mean like obviously oh let's just go out there and let's just be you know really exciting but you lose everyone forgets about you everyone forgets about you you know so you've got to have that sort of especially if

you're champion you've got to you've got to fight the fight that's going to get you to win and you only have so many holes that can get punched in your card right those those punch holes are valuable and you you let yourself get cracked when you didn't have to there's no need for that yeah you should always fight smart it's dangerous enough to fight smart. Hit and not get hit, you know? Yeah. That's how I believe as well. It's just styles. It's just styles, the way styles match up.

Like here's another example, Paulo Costa. Paulo Costa and him, that stylistically is going to be fucking crazy because that guy fought Romero the way Romero wanted someone to fight him, and he still fucked him up. Didn't fuck him up. I shouldn't say that. He still won. And even whether or not he won was close.

It was close. Very close fight. Some people saw it the other way. But, I mean, he hit Romero with everything but the kitchen sink. There's a picture that I put on my Instagram of him head kicking Romero. I mean, it's fucking clean. And Costa's a knockout artist. And he's shitting him right upside the head.

Doesn't even budge. He's not even moving. Well, Romero has a huge scar down the back of his neck. And I think his neck is fused. And I think that's part of one of the reasons why he kind of moves funny. Okay, yeah. Look at this. Look at this photo.

Oh, yeah. I mean, bro. It even looks like he just went into that as well. Oh, I mean, it looks like he's ducking into it. He's catching it right in the face, and nothing happened. That's a big dude kicking you in the head, too. His neck, there's a big scar. It's really big.

I've never seen a neck surgery scar that's that large. And he said he almost died. You know, he said he had some sort of serious neck injury. And, you know, I mean, when you're a silver medalist in the Olympics in the Cuban national team, the fucking wrestling practices those guys must have and the wrestling actual matches that he's had i'm sure the wear and tear on the body's yeah unbelievable 100 i reckon it's one of like wrestling's gonna be one of the hardest sports it's one of the hardest man by far like you know

you obviously doing mma you gotta do a lot of wrestling and yes just seeing them scramble like there's nothing like a scramble and just see the scrambles they have to train for yes like imagine the the training you got to do to be able to just do a two minute scramble or something like that it's just man it's crazy yeah and the test of wills i mean they're they're like they relish in being uncomfortable you know in a lot of ways exactly right they enjoy it they like being really fucked up and uncomfortable well that's that's a big part of how you've got to be comfortable when things get uncomfortable. I could have worded that better, but that's something that I'm all about. I put myself in uncomfortable positions in the gym day in, day out. Obviously, you're going to have structure to how you train in a week,

but I put myself there, and then how do you adapt to that? How do you sort of go from there? So that's what, again, with that spider workout, that's what you're meant to do. You are going to go to breaking point. Right. Like we put you there and I'll be in that position, but are you going to shy away from it or are you just going to get up and just do whatever you can? It might not be the best because you literally can't move.

Right. But it's how do you adapt to that sort of position of being in such an uncomfortable position. So, you know, if it gets there that, you know, you're always going to be able to at least push yourself, at least get you to that, whatever you need to do to win. That's where a great team and a great coach comes in handy. That's where it really comes into play because a fighter, you know, especially some fighters, they want to be the hammer all the time. They don't want to be the nail.

They don't, they want to be dominating in practice. They don't want to feel like, you know, they're getting smothered and sw the time they don't want to be the nail you know they don't they want to be dominating in practice they don't want to feel like you know they're getting smothered and swarmed and they don't want to fuck with their confidence but you have to trust in that process you have to and there's many many fighters who don't they don't they train with guys who are not as good as them and everything goes great until it doesn't go great yeah and then they're not used to that position exactly right so i think i've i've always done that i've always been even from the first day of doing mma you know what i mean i'm i'm the type of person when you're always doing that when you're always like putting yourself in uncomfortable positions and then you know you always got to figure ways out yeah so if i'm first in heavyweights because that's the type of guy i'll train with heavyweights

and you'll be losing but you know you can just sit there and accept that oh I'm going to find a way to get up and you're constantly doing that over the 10 years you're training you know uh that's where a lot of people like you know how do you how you so fit and all that sort of stuff I think it's just through so many years of putting myself in uncomfortable positions that when when training does get tough I'm still going to go I'm still going to push myself you know what I mean I'm not going to shy away from it and it'll make me who I am today. Yeah. I mean, I just think there's such a value in being able to deal with uncomfortable positions.

Yeah. And that's, I mean, there's a lot of really talented, really, really good guys who don't do that. But I think if the shit gets ugly, you're used to it. Well, you see it. You see it in a lot of fights where people obviously get uncomfortable and it goes downhill for them. Yeah. You see people mentally break.

Yeah. It's such a crazy sport, man. Yeah, definitely. Do you have a mental coach? I don't. I actually don't have a mental coach. I think it's something that I could definitely invest in and look into because, again, this is, as they say, there's so much mental in this,

and it really is physically and mentally draining. But I think I'm really good in them situations, to be quite honest. You know what I mean? But obviously I can be better. I don't get nervous before fights at all. Really? I get more nervous when my teammates are fighting and all that. I'll get nervous.

But when I'm fighting, I'm me. I really am. I'm just sweet. I'm having a laugh. I'm with the coaches and the boys. We even have people that work with the UFC and be like, with my max fight, and they're like, do you realize you're about to fight for a world title? I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're all good.

You know what I mean? That's just how I am am i'm pretty chill in their positions it was an actual funny story i'm not really funny but it was a cool it was something he actually mentioned it was bisping so i ended up doing a uh had a chat with him and i had pink headphones so that's uh like i had to wear him like when i've done like an interview with him and uh so while i was there waiting to walk out he needed to go to the toilet in between you know breaking between the fights and he stopped and he was like oh i felt a bit awkward because he's thinking i'm ruining this guy's mojo he's about to you know walk out and i'm like are you

you're all good go to the toilet and he starts going and they're still trying to stay out of my way i'm like oh pink headphones i'm just having a little laugh and he just had a laugh back and i remember on the pod on his podcast he was talking about how, you know, like just the fact that I was able to be so chill in, I'm about to walk out from my title fight. And that's just who I am. I just adapt to every situation. I feel like I'm pretty good in these situations.

So I don't know if I need one, but I think I should still invest in mine. It's probably a good idea just to have one, just to take it to another level. Exactly right. Exactly right. I think you can, because I feel like I can do all all right but maybe there's so many things that we don't know yeah and i think that that could help a lot you know so i'll look into that look into it i'll look into it will you uh like that look at his shirt i looked into it oh look at that yes yeah i did that on purpose were you um were you like that in your first couple of fights?

No, I wouldn't say I was. I think, again, when I was fighting, I would always try and keep myself level. I'm always doing that no matter whether I'm going in the interviews or whatever it is. Say if I'm about to fight, I'm just like, relax, relax. Don't let it take over you, the nerves or whatever it is, or the anger or whatever. Some people get hyped up. I don't want to get hyped. I want to be level-headed.

I've got a game plan to stick to, so I've always done that. And because I've always done that in my fights and in all situations, I really am level when I fight. So sometimes it was hard for me to realize I won a world title because I'm so used to keeping myself so composed that it was like it didn't happen. I won the world title. There's a video of me backstage and I'm like looking at the ball. I'm like far out.

Like it's, you know what I mean? Like I, you know what I mean? I'm going, I even say something like that. I'm like going, you're the fucking champ. Like wake up. You know what I mean? Like it's crazy. Yeah, exactly.

Like, you know, I'm just sitting there still walking around just like nothing happened. That's probably a good way to be it is it does help me in my fights it really does and that's how you can stick to a game plan when you're so composed and level-headed in there so i believe it it works it works for me but uh yeah again i wish i could uh be more excited about being a champ though maybe it's not a bad thing i, maybe it's great to keep this mindset throughout your entire career. Yeah. I mean, maybe when you retire, you can go,

Holy fuck, what did I do? Yeah. Yeah. I like, like the Vegas trip. That's what it was. It was like,

what the, what the hell did I do the last couple of days? That's a little different. Yeah. So you say you hunt, do you, uh, is wild game.

Is that a part of your diet? Is that a big part of your diet? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, uh, you know, I like like to eat that i love all that type of stuff and i've done it from a young age like with my dad like so we used to you know even go like hunting like for goat and like pigs and stuff like that and uh you know we'll even get the spit going like while we're over there like we have to turn it with our hands because we didn't yeah like full like all taken

yeah so yeah man i'm yeah i don't, to be honest, when I'm in camp, I don't, I can't get out there and stuff like that. But I'm all for it. I love it. I love it. That's why I watch a lot of you and always see you with your gamey meats and all that, and I love that. I love that type of stuff.

Oh, it's my favorite food. I love it. What's your favorite meat? Elk. Elk, yeah? Is that, I've never got to taste any of them. I wish you were around. I'd give you some.

I mean, if you were in town, I'd give you some if you could cook it. Well, sometimes we go when I fight in America, there's a lot of places that will have this type of stuff. But I'm always in fight camp. You know what's hilarious? Fight week. If you get it, if you're an American, you get it at a restaurant, it comes from New Zealand. Oh, really? Yeah.

Isn't that nuts? That's crazy. Yeah, because they farm it. They farm it. Like, you can't sell wild game in America. You can't sell it. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why it almost went extinct. Elk, deer, all these animals almost went extinct at the turn of the century, the 20th century,

because they did what's called market hunting when there was no refrigerators back then. They just fucking shot everything and just served it to people. And they didn't think about conservation at all so they got white-tailed deer down to like a really low number elk were down to a really not mean they extirpated it from many many states where it used to be a game animal in many many states it's not it's not there anymore far out i think it's something crazy like it's it's only in 10 to 20% of its native range where it used to be. Far out. But they're very healthy populations in those states now. Colorado's very healthy, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho.

Utah is where I go every year. It's delicious meat, though. Yeah, that's someone I'll – I don't know. Boise's in Idaho, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, because I fought there. And I wanted to go and explore because I knew there was a lot of big hunting over there. So I was like, I want to at least go for a drive and see if I could see any deer or elk or whatever it was.

But I didn't get a chance to do that. Idaho's got grizzlies. Oh, grizzlies? Big. Oh, I'll stay in the car if I was going to do that. Big bears. Yeah. Idaho's got bears. I have friends that hunt in Idaho, and they get real nervous when they shoot something.

Oh, okay. Because they have wolves, too. Wolves and grizzlies. Oh, you didn't think of that? Yeah. If you shoot, and Wyoming does as well, if you shoot an elk, and so does Montana, but if you shoot an elk in any of those states that have grizzlies, they're very dangerous because usually it takes a couple trips to pack it out.

Okay, yeah. So, like, if you shoot an elk, an elk is, you know, probably 800, 900 pounds. Oh, yeah. And you're not going to carry it all out. It's like you and your friend, if you pack it out, unless you have some four-wheel drive vehicle that can get back to it or you have horses. A lot of times they use horses. Hunters use horses to pack out meat. They'll have a whole train of horses like five or six horses and they'll they'll take the pack you know put all the meat uh distributed

evenly on the horses and get out of there in one trip yeah because if not then you got to go back that's a lot of meat scent uh rolling around you gotta hope that motherfucker doesn't smell it because if they smell it they claim it i have a buddy of mine who killed an elk and they came back to the carcass, and it was buried. Oh, really? Fucking that happened to Adam Greentree. That happened. Didn't he say that on his, I think he saved it on his Instagram page. He shot an elk.

I want to say. It was buried? Yes. Grizzly came and buried it. So that's what they do. They dig a hole in their bear? They bury it. He decides theirs.

Oh, shit. Well, for them, digging a hole ain't shit. Yeah, okay. It's like us crumpling up a piece of paper. There's more. He's covered this fucking elk carcass. Here it is. All right.

Where was he at? Does it say? Give me some volume on this. Yeah. Oh, it's a moose. Oh, this is Alaska. Okay. It's a blowout oh this is alaska okay yeah blowout man yeah refresh this so we can hear all

the words is it a good idea to go back there now that you know it's been that's a terrible idea you buried the whole moose far out the whole moose is buried yeah that's my moose under there Is that your moose under there? Yeah, that's my moose under there. Married? Yeah. Might be shitting myself right now. Oh, mate.

Okay. I don't like this. You hear the other guy? I don't like this. See, the other problem is that grass. Look at the grass. That grass is like five feet high. You can't even see the motherfucker if it's coming.

Yeah. That's what's scary. That thing could be 30 yards away just watching them walk up on the shit. That's a pretty shitty position you're in right now. So he got most of the meat out of there, but the bear had taken some of it. But they had to dig it up and... Far out. Yeah. Mate, that's scary.

Oh, so scary. Mate, at least, even crocodiles, At least you sort of Know to sort of Stay away from the water Or something there Exactly Yeah Well that's The problem is

It had decided That that moose was his You know And they're All over Yeah They're all over It's a big

Fucking animal man Is that another video Is it two Two videos What's this Them trying to get it out of there? Man, all of them have already been gone. Take the headlight and just go.

Ah, you want that meat though. Yeah. Fuck loose under here, all the cut up meat that we've got. Oh, so they've already cut it all up and had it in bags. So this is what I was saying. They cut it up and they were carrying it out one step at a time. All right, yeah. So say if you and I shot a moose and we were out there, you know, we both put like 100 pounds on our back and we'd hike out.

And everything would be, all the meat would be already packed up and stuff. Yes. Okay, I thought that would take a bit. So they cut it, they put it in these game bags, and then they let it sit there. Seems a bit on meaty. Yeah, exactly. So when they went back, it had all been buried. Oh, man, it's a scary situation to be in.

Obviously, we've got a lot of snakes and all that, so that's why a lot of people like going, you know, fuck Australia, you go there. It's weird. Like you literally, you know, there are a lot of snakes and spiders and stuff like that. But, you know, I've had even that mate that I talked to you about, the spear fisherman.

He's just like, man, he's like a Steve Irwin. Like he's just, you know, in everything, everything he does. I've seen him like run. He was on like a swing, jumped off and then realized there was an octopus in the water. Just goes there, jumps in, dives in, somehow, like just don't even know how you catch it, goes in, boom, pulls this big octopus out.

And just situations like that, man, I've seen him even other times we're walking, you see a lizard jump in the water, he's just dived in, like his head and arm goes in, boom, pulls out this big lizard. Just, you know, just crazy things like that. He's just as things like that connected to the wildlife so then obviously with snakes and all that sort of stuff and he's catching the snakes and octopus will fuck you up too man they have that beak they scare me man they scare me yeah

well they even just them sticking to you i feel like plus they're smart as shit yeah oh yeah man i've seen some mad videos of them but they only live like a couple of years i think yeah i think an octopus is life. How long? Jamie Shigginson? It's like max two years. Two years? Maybe average about a year,

maybe average two. That's what we looked at. We've looked at it a couple of times. That's why they don't take over the world because they're like two-year-old babies

but they're fucking smart as shit, man. They figure out how to open up jars and shit. They can spin jars. I've watched them videos and they obviously know their size

so they put a tentacle through and they're like, oh yeah, I can fit through that. It's like this. And the big octopus like that. And they obviously know their size. So they put a tentacle through. And they're like, oh, yeah, I can fit through that. It's like this. Yeah. And the big octopus like that. And they compress. As long as the beak can go through, the whole body can go through.

Yeah. And you watch them do that. And you're like, what? Yeah. Crazy. Three to five, it says giant Pacific octopus. Giant octopus, three to five years, and then die of old age. Small octopus is scary enough.

And they're delicious. Yes, they are. I used to feel bad that I was eating them. But then I found out they only live five years. I'm like, what am I, cutting a year out of your life? This is shit. You know? Yeah.

So I'm saying we've seen, obviously in the wild, in Australia we've seen some pretty crazy things. We've got some, as you know, like the hunting stories are always some crazy stories. Well, you have a crazy place too because so much of your wildlife is invasive. So much of your wildlife has been introduced because the people that put your ancestors there, they decided they were trying to turn that place into some wild hunting habitat. So they brought over stags and red deer and all these animals that thrive over there. They're all invasive species.

Yeah, man. We've got, oh, mate, make the deer they're everywhere now like so where i live is on like the beach coastline there and like we've got mountains and they're just deer everywhere like they just walk in people's yards and stuff like that and i've seen the photos of them on the beaches and stuff like that just yeah where people if you need meat oh yeah exactly yeah like my friend adam i mean he's all he eats is wild game and he you can hunt in so many different places over there.

Yeah, for sure. And they treat them like a red deer over there is like a rodent or a pest. Oh, yeah. So many of them. That's what I mean.

The deers, especially where we are, they're just thousands of them or millions of them. Yeah. They're just everywhere. Everywhere. You go there

and just any open paddock in the afternoon and they'll be you'll see like herds of them new zealand's the same way right yeah they brought in all those animals and just left them there and now there's no predators yeah luckily there's no predators but they did fuck up in australia and bring over some predators they brought over cats and wild cats in australia are a big problem they kill everything they've devastated ground nesting birds and all sorts of different wildlife. And it's one of the weirder things about bow hunting in Australia is that they'll hold up cats like something they killed.

So they'll take a house cat. They're like holding up a house cat and smile. Like, look, I got him. And you're like, what the fuck? The same way people would here with a coyote. Like, look, I got them. And they're like, what the fuck? The same way people would hear with a coyote.

Okay, yeah. Like, hunters kill as many coyotes as they can over here. Okay, yeah. Because coyotes kill fucking cats and dogs, and they kill chickens. They've killed all my fucking chickens. Oh, really? I had a bunch of chickens. They killed nine of them at one time. Oh, shit.

I've had them a bunch. They killed them slowly, and then they got them all at once. We had a fire out here, and the fire burnt down my chicken coop coop so i had to put them in a smaller chicken coop okay and the coyotes tore open the chicken coop and killed my nine remaining chickens all in one night so fucking feathers everywhere oh they're monsters they're clever they're really interesting animals okay part of me admires them because they're really they're really smart little fuckers they're really smart and they're sneaky like they'll they'll trick a dog into chasing after them, and then a couple other coyotes

will be waiting, and they'll jump the dog and kill it. Oh, really? Far out. It's crazy. What is this here? Australia is deadly serious about killing millions of cats. See? Look at that guy, holding a fucking cat. He's playing with him. Yeah. Feral felines are driving the country's native species to extinction.

Now a massive culling is underway to preserve what's left of the wild. Someone who didn't understand wildlife introduced cats there to deal with other small animals. Because I think they had brought something else over there that was causing problems. I think rabbits. I think that's what it was. I think they brought rabbits over there and the rabbits were fucking everything up So like hmm. What can we do rabbits are eating all those? Cats though, and they just created a mess. So they're they're trying they literally would like all wild cats to be extinct

All right. Yeah, you do you do see a fair bit of them out there? Yeah, well cats in America kill billions with a B billions of birds and mammals every year Yeah, every year B, billions of birds and mammals every year. Every year they kill billions of birds and mammals. So that's why I know a lot of the farmers and that they obviously can't, you know, even in my, again, my mate, like he's, he just, you know, they kill so many native birds and all that sort of stuff. And that's why he's not a big fan of them. But yeah, yeah.

It's just a, yeah, again, like it's bloody crazy. They get, some of them get yeah yeah it's just uh yeah again like it's bloody they're crazy they get some of them get big as well i've seen photos of like they look like a house cat but then they're just like huge they're holding them like this and they're almost touching the ground you're like what yeah that's a blowout good and i've seen some uh ones that were black so they look like a panther or something like well it's a panther no it's just a cat it's not far out 28 pound house it says the number fluctuates from between two to 6 million depending on the weather. Amount of cats?

In Australia? Yeah. Holy shit. They're dropping poison sausage out of the air. To kill the cats? Yeah. Oh, well that's going to fuck everything else up because other things are going to eat the poison sausage.

What in the hell, man? Why don't they ever figure that out? You can't just do that. They estimated over 200,000 cats were killed in the first 12 months after the plan was announced. Dropping lethal sausages from the sky is only part of the country's efforts to eradicate the feral cats. Yeah, some places they have a bounty on them.

Like if you shoot cats, they'll give you money. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, they have that with wolves in some places too if you shoot wolves they'll give you money because uh the wolves are fucking up so much wildlife and that would get pretty like you said with the coyotes and all that like even just and then the bears and all that sort of stuff hunting some scary stuff it can get real yeah because you're out there you're putting yourself in the food chain yeah well like i said ours is obviously we've got a lot of poisonous things

and little things that'll get you, but then over here it just seems like everything's big that'll just fuck you up. Well, Australia's crazy too because most people live on the outside and the inside's just madness. Yep. Mate, they're a bit different as well. I don't know what's lucky, but when you go out west and all that, they're just bred a bit different.

So, like, we'll go out there and even just driving on the roads and, you know, we'll sit there and, like, we'll wave at someone and, you know, the Westies, they'll just be like, they just lift a finger up as in that's a hello. They're just bred so much different over there. It's crazy. Oh, the people in the bush? Yeah, yeah.

That's what we call Westies. Sorry, that guy, the Westies. They're spooky folks that live out in those weird places. What? What do you got, Jeremy? You know, we talked about that.

I think you just said it too. The number of birds that they kill is like, at least in America, it says it's estimated 1.3 to 4 billion birds a year. They add mammals to that number, which includes reptiles

and other things. 6.3 to 22.3 billion mammals are killed every year by cats in the United States. What the fuck? That's so many. That's way more than people have been alive ever. More than all the people ever. Crazy.

Every year, these little fucks. Plus, they're cute. You pet them, they purr. That's rude of buddy. They're little murderers. You pet them, they purr. They're purr. Isn't that a little booty? You know, they're little murderers. It's amazing. Stats, eh? That's a crazy stat.

Crazy stats. I'm comparing it to Australia, and that said just by the way, in the United States, it's even more. Look at that. Wow. In addition to mammals, cats kill an estimated 377 million birds and 649 million reptiles every year in Australia. That's fucking nuts. Far out.

Yeah. And some asshole brought them over there not that long ago. I think they brought them over in the 1800s. Yeah, I've heard a couple of different cases where they bring people in and then just went backwards for them. Yeah, you can't just bring things places. You't just do that you know especially predators or the cane toads so they got introduced for i can't man i know you might have to get this one but they bring them in and now they're just a complete uh like pest like they're they like up those are big fuckers yeah they're big what they bring them here for probably for some other stupid reason i can't

remember yeah i can't remember. Yeah, I can't remember what it was. Too many mosquitoes. Close. Beetles in the sugar fields. Yeah, there you go. Too many beetles. What do you want to do?

Yeah, you bring them, and now they're like a massive problem, you know what I mean? 1935, these dipshits. They were brought to Australia from Hawaii with the intention of controlling the cane beetle in the sugar cane fields in North Queensland. Cane beetles live on the high upper stalks of the cane plant. Cane toads can't jump up that far, so they barely had any impact. These fucking idiots. They didn't know jack shit in 1935.

They couldn't Wikipedia shit. Some idiot is like, you've got to justify your job. Toads. We're going to bring toads. Have we talked about the four pest campaign that happened? Whoa, look at the size of that prick. Look at the one in the middle. Look at the one in the middle. Click on that one in the middle.

The middle picture. Oh, shit. That's a person. I didn't realize that was a person. Look at that. Look at those fucks. Yeah, man. Jesus Christ.

Well, they started off, they're all up north in Queensland. And then they just, now they're all in New South Wales. And they're just expanding. It's just going to take over Australia. I don't even know. Actually, this is the stats that I knew about like eight years ago, so it's probably quadrupled by now. They probably have covered all of Australia.

I don't even know. What do they use to kill the cane toads? Are they going to bring in birds? Have we talked about the Four Pests campaign? It's like a – not ancient, but like it's a historical event that happened that led to like the death of 35 million people in China. No. Yeah, they had a sparrow problem or swallows, whichever, with a small bird. So there was, there were an annoyance that they allowed people to kill them.

They were like bang pots and pans to get rid of them. That worked to get rid of them. pots and pans to get rid of them that worked to get rid of them but then all of the bugs then ate all the rice fields that led to a famine that led to 25 to 35 million people dying oh jesus later yeah so it would have been better off with the birds yeah it's like a whole it's a historical event that people need to keep in mind when these things happen that there's a very sensitive ecosystem yeah was that a 1935 as well when was that it was the same time nobody learned yeah it's like i don't know man i don't know how they're gonna get rid of those frogs do they have an idea i don't know like man i don't know too much i just remember hearing that

stats i thought i'd throw it out there but i don't know it's bloody i think oh man i remember seeing videos of and there was like just the floors absolutely covered of in certain spots up in queensland like absolutely covered like absolutely covered of in certain spots up in queensland like absolutely covered like actually it was in the simpsons wasn't it was it i swear it was a simpsons episode yeah the i would have called them shaz wazes or something like that i've already had someone come they beat them they like uh they pull out the sticks and beat something like that the four pest thing was a couple years later it's 1958 to 1962 interesting so they didn't learn from 35 well maybe those toads taste good maybe they should The four-pest thing was a couple years later. It was 1958 to 1962. Interesting.

So they didn't learn from 35. Well, maybe those toads taste good. Maybe they need to start eating toads. Frog legs are delicious. Are they poisonous? No. Oh, boy. I don't know.

That's a problem. Yeah, that's why I think they're a big one. Maybe not. Maybe not. Are cane toads poisonous? We'll find out here. Have you ever had frog legs? Yes, I have. Well, they're cooked well.

They're good. Where did I have that? I did have that. And it was actually a mixture of, I thought, chicken and fish? The ones I had? Yeah, similar. Is that what you reckon? Yeah.

Well, they always say everything tastes like chicken. Poisonous, but no one's died from that. Oh, okay. It sounds like you get sick. They have boiled toad eggs. Oh, okay. It sounds like you get sick. They have boiled toad eggs. Oh, boy. Toad eggs? Jesus.

Oh, okay. So they have some sort of poison. Yeah, the cane toad has poison glands through their whole life cycle. Depends on when it's killed. What about for animals? Yeah, it's bad for animals, bad for dogs. Oh, well, that's great. That means you can't eat them.

That means these fuckers, they're running around making sure that predators don't eat them. No frog legs in Australia. What a dumb animal to bring over there to kill beetles. You fucking assholes. You should find that guy from 1935 and kick his ass. If we go back in time, like, what were you thinking, man? What a dumb move. Bring over a poison toe that no one can eat.

So what was it for bugs? Literally for bugs. That's a crazy Yeah, and the fact that it's poisonous which not venomous poisonous which means if they eat it they die So these predators if you brought over a bunch of fucking jackals or something to go eat the frogs Yeah, or the toads they would wind up dying King toads. Oh, did you have venom secreting poison glands known as? Cane toads, oh, they have venom secreting poison glands known as paratoid glands or swellings on each shoulder where poison is released if they are threatened, when they are threatened.

If ingested, the venom can cause rapid heartbeat, excessive salivation, convulsions and paralysis and can result in death for many native animals. Great. So you can't even fucking kill them with predators god it's well maybe we get the cats to eat the cane toads maybe that's the move i swear like i could be wrong like the mercy look at this the most humane way to kill cane toads to put them in the freezer alive humane that's the most humane well i think i remember getting told like that back in the the day, you had to kill them if you seen them or something like that. Oh, I imagine.

Kill them if you can. The once popular method was used to kill millions of poisonous pets until it was banned 20 years ago because animal ethics committees considered it inhumane. Oh, you fucks. It's all those fucking animal rights people. They ruin everything. What about

our rights, huh? You got poison toads everywhere, assholes. How do you get rid of them? What does it say? Remove toad temptations and make your home a cane toad free zone. You need a sign. You decide, hey, we're a cane toad free zone here. Cover or bring pet food in at night as it attracts cane toads.

Remove standing water. Oh, great. How are you going to do that? What about ponds? What about puddles? Remove rubbish and other debris so the cane toad cannot shelter under it during the day. Keep your outside lights off when not needed. Keep toads out by creating a barrier.

Far out. Far out indeed. I don't know about that. It's offensive. They can't jump that high. Just hire people. Hire people to kill them. Give them a lot.

Make it valuable to kill them. I'm telling you, I think it was for a bit. I think, honestly, I remember if you see one, I think you had to. I don't know. You're supposed to kill them? Yeah, I don't know. I could be wrong. Maybe I just heard that from someone and I'm running with it. It would be good archery practice if you had a lot of arrows, you know, because it's not a big target.

It's a good thing to shoot at. Fucking crazy assholes bring over fucking poisonous toads. Estimated over 200 million. That's so crazy. That's so many toads. 200 million toads. Jesus, Australia. Yeah, I don't know about that one.

Crazy. Yeah. That's Australia. So what do you eat during camp? Well, actually, I've got a dietician on board now. So he does a few of us. You know, he does easy and that as well. Do you get meal prep, like pre-prepared meals?

No, I used to get that. But now I just, yeah, he just gives me a sort of game plan to go with. Sorry, not game plan. A diet plan. Yeah, meal plan. And, you know, I just, yeah, obviously I've got options and stuff like that. It's a game changer, man. It really is. Like I said, from what I used to eat to now, like I'm talking even just a couple of fights

ago. Like, you know what I used to eat to now I'm talking even just a couple of couple of fights ago like you know what I mean I was doing my own thing and you know the fight week I would literally just eat chicken and nuts and this wasn't that long I was in you know I was ranked and I was just eating like chicken and nuts and just depleting myself so much I don't get me wrong I would end up pretty light but I mean it was not it was not good for the body that's for sure so when will you start so like say if you have a fight and it's eight weeks out, when will you start the dieting process to try to lose weight? And when are you just eating just for health?

Yeah, well, I'm always trying to. All year round I try, except for the last few months. All year round I'm trying to eat reasonably good during the week, and then the weekends I'll sort of just do whatever. And I still do that all the way through to about two weeks about two weeks is my last you know cheat meal as people would say like you know my last time I actually do that but you know it's just again I when I'm in care I don't know if my body just knows obviously there's science still but sometimes I swear I'm eating the same and as I get closer to fight maybe I'm training that a little bit harder or maybe I'm having that a

little bit less sugar or whatever it is you know know, the sauce I'm cutting. I don't really realize, but it's just fine little things I'm doing and the weight just falls off. And how much do you cut the week of the fight? The week of the fight, I'm usually about seven kilograms out, you know, so it seems like a lot, but I hold a lot of water. So that's about 15, 16 pounds? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So I'm about there and, you know, a lot of it will end up coming off during the week. So again, I think so, yeah. So I'm about there and a lot of it will end up coming off during the week. So again, I hold a lot of water. So I blow it up, man. I'll look at a piece of bread and I'll put on five kilos of water.

So that's just how I am. So I actually, I mean, I'll probably get myself in trouble, but I end up weighing in at 145. So yeah, 145, usually a little bit less actually the last few times. And I was getting up to 160 what was it 166 or something like that can't remember what it was but i ended up getting to 76 kilograms wow so i end up putting like 22 pounds or so yes yeah so i'll do that overnight yeah so how's that feel though when you do well i'm used to i'm i'm that weight or or camp pretty much right so that's my

weight i'm comfortable at you know what i mean so'm about, even two weeks out from a fight, I'm about 75 kg, maybe 74, but I'm pretty close to it. It's a real science, isn't it? It is, 100%. And again, to be able to eat what I eat, fight week, and I look at the food now, fight week, and be like, what, how good is this? All over my social media, I'm just like, what? Look how lucky I am. Before used to do that like you know fight week and do my stories i'm just here literally show like six pieces of nuts and a little piece of chicken where now i got like mad like in meals and they you know obviously decorated what changed how did he change it i just yeah like again they just know before i didn't know i just knew i had to cut sodiums and carbs and i'll do that you know you know four five days out

and then again i'll deplete a lot of water. But I'll, like, you know, drink distilled water and stuff like that. But, you know, again, you're still doing similar sort of stuff. But everything's more calculated now. And, you know, they do all the measurements and, you know, calculate everything. And, again, the science to it, it's crazy. And then the last, now I'm usually a couple of kilos heavier when i've got a sweat like that from the night before but it comes off easy and i feel good so i've got energy and it's

easy to come off so like what's a typical meal for breakfast for you uh fight week no like during training okay when you're getting oats usually when i get close i love my oats you know like heat it up and because it always fills me up i I feel like I can – I should be eating more, but I don't even need to. It fills me up that much, like, you know. So there's some meals, like now, because we train so hard, that's what I mean by the difference. You know, I was eating next to nothing to now not even being able to eat some of the stuff that they want me to eat.

I'm like, man, I can't eat that much. Like, you know what I mean? I probably could, but I'm like, I don't need to, you know what I mean? Right, right. That's amazing. Yeah, because we do, like, anyway, three, but I'm like, I don't need to. You know what I mean? Right, right. That's amazing. Yeah, because we do like three, four sessions a day. And some of them, we tell them what workouts and we've got to scale them one to ten.

You're doing four workout sessions a day? Yeah, some days, yeah. Really? Yeah, so I'll do usually three on average. But again, it's going to be controlled. It doesn't mean I'm actually going balls to war every session. You've got to be structured to it. but i'll do strength and conditioning a couple days a week and then i'll usually when i'm back home in australia it's the you know the free sessions every day and then sometimes i do strength and conditioning so when we go to you know new zealand

it's usually in the morning we'll do a couple sessions and then we'll get a session at night as well so it's a but again with some of these sort of training sessions, full on, like I said, and we're burning like anywhere from 1,200 calories to more, like 1,400. And we're fit. So to burn them sort of calories while you're that fit, you know, that's a lot of hard work. So we're doing that and then they're like, you know, they've got to feed us like all this so we can have the energy to train.

And that's what I mean. Like some meals I'm like, man, I don't think I could even eat that. And then they're like, you know, they've got to feed us like all this so we can have the energy to train. And that's what I mean. Like some meals, I'm like, man, I don't think I could even eat that. But it's crazy to be able to do that and like be happy with what you're eating and then go into fight week and stuff like that. It's a game changer. It really is. Yeah, that's where the value of having someone who's an actual nutritionist really comes into play where they tell you, no, this is the calories that you need. And this is going to give you all the electrolytes and the protein, the carbohydrates. This is everything.

You're good. When you're like, are you sure? Yeah. Man, that's exactly right. But that's how it is. That's what I will be like. While I'm eating, I'm like, man, I don't know if I should be eating this. And the funny thing is if you're starving yourself with the chicken and the nuts, like you're not going to lose as much weight.

And it's not going to be as easy because your body's going to try to hold on to food and you're not going to have any energy yeah well i'd only done the chicken and nuts fight week but i mean again early earlier in my career i was just eating nowhere near enough i remember i remember i sort of went off um my wife's uh meal plan that she had like she wasn't even training and it was a it was a meal that she was meant to be having like you know the meal meals that she was having not even training and then i'm a you know obviously a few having, not even training. And then I'm, you know, obviously a few kilos heavier. I'm working a lot harder. I'm obviously, you know, training and doing all that. And I'm trying to stick to this diet that she's meant to lose weight on. You know what I mean? So it was, it's, yeah, that's what I would, you know, that's what I would sort of do my diets. And that's when the

infections always come and it's just crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So when you say you're working out three to four times a day, like how do you break up your sessions does someone is someone dictating what you're going to be doing for the day do you have someone who plans out your workouts oh you

most weeks are pretty much the same but obviously you're going to have your like that's the thing like you know Joe my coach no one knows me better than he is so he knows when

I'm not on you know he knows when something's happening so there was before the max fight there was a you know I don't want to miss training sessions, you know what I mean? So I'm going to go there.

But they could see I was run down, and that's when injuries can happen, and that's when you can get sick and all this type of stuff. So they pulled me up. As much as I didn't want to, I was like, no, no, I'll be all right. They didn't let me train that night and have the day off. And, man, honestly, the next day, the next sessions after that, I was on fire, and I finished, you know what I mean? And perfect.

You know, that was, again, at the time, I'm like, oh, you know, I don't want to miss out on the trail. I don't want to feel like I'm not working hard enough, you know what I mean? So that's sort of how I was thinking. But then the next day, it just made me even work so much harder. And I'd done the VO2 max session, wrestling session, and absolutely killed it, you know what I mean? And that was my last week of training, and I just finished it perfect, like sort of right on peak. Obviously, that's why you structure to peak a week out, and that was perfect.

As with a nutritionist, it shows you the value of having a real professional and particularly someone who really knows you and knows, like you're not going to slack off. You're a guy who's going to go balls out. So if you're tired like that, something's up. And so many coaches or so many fighters, rather, don't have a coach like that. And so they will overtrain. And they'll come into a fight beaten down.

And it's unfortunate. It really is. That's what I mean. The one percenters. And you were saying with the mental coaches and all that. I just think there's so many places that you could really work with it. And I think that all that will help in the end, that 1%. Now, how much of your camp is dedicated to strength and conditioning?

How many strength and conditioning sessions do you do? I'll do anywhere from two to three. Two to three a week? Yeah, two to three a week. And what kind of stuff are you doing? Again, I started with Baymed Performance. So they come on board because I used to get a lot of – What is the name of it?

Baymed. Baymed. Baymed? Yeah, Performance. So they deal with a lot of athletes. So they do rugby league teams and all that sort of stuff. That was a game changer for me because I was having a lot of problems with my back before I was thinking. This was before Chad Mendes.

So there was even times in my career where I was thinking I might have to give like give this up like and even after the Elkins fight what was wrong with your back I just like I have a bulging disc but like I would get all the sciatica down the leg and at the time I just thought it was so much worse than it was and it was mentally getting me and you know it was just it was really uh lower ones I'll tell you which one it was but the lower one so I've got a couple of uh but I even went to a specialist and they were telling me that, you know, to give it up. Like I don't know whether it was just something that, you know, he has to say, like to cover himself or whatever.

Those guys are always so negative. Yeah. They always say that. They told me to give it up. And, again, I was already mentally getting me. And then I had these guys come on board and they're like, no, there's nothing wrong, mate. 80% of the people literally have bulging discs.

Don't worry. Literally it goes until your foot, you know, stays, there's nothing wrong, mate. 80% of people literally have bulging discs. Don't worry. Literally, it goes until your foot stays flat and you're like drags and all that sort of stuff from the sciatica. Or you can't control your bowels. That's when we'll start. You can't control your bowels. Once you start shitting yourself, we'll tell you to stop. That's hilarious. That's when we might maybe do the surgery or something like that.

So this is sort of what, again, they were trying to get in my head and really sort of just let me sort of smash this mentally as well. So they started getting me thinking like, again, I'm pretty good at this type of stuff. So I'm like, all right, no worries. They got me on a MAD program. They built a strength program specifically for my body, you know, for what I do, fighting and all that. So it's an absolute game changer. And I don't have problems. Now when I used to, there was times where I was having like anywhere from 14 weeks to not training

before I fought. Like Elkins. Yeah, Elkins, Jeremy Kennedy. I was doing next to nothing in between the fight and then literally having six weeks

to do, yes. Wow, so you're trying to recover and trying to just deal with the pain. Yeah, so my back will go and then I'll have like two weeks off,

try to get back into it but it'll happen again and I was doing this for like 14 weeks straight and then getting told I'm fighting. And then, you know, do a camp and be like, oh, I've got six weeks to get myself ready. Do you do any spinal decompression or anything like that? No. Well, no, not that.

We just do a lot of it's just, again, hip mobility and all that. So a lot of times I do a lot of mobility before I do sessions and stuff like that. That really does help with what I'm doing. I want you to try this thing I have out there, this Teeter Dex. It's this thing you climb into. It's real simple. You put your legs behind it, almost like a leg curl,

and then you lean forward. And as you lean forward, all the weight just decompresses on your back, particularly your lower back. It's fantastic for it. It feels so good. Yeah. I do it after every workout.

I do two things for my back that are really big. One is a thing called the reverse hyper. You ever use one of those? No. Is that like with the round thing? No. No. That's another one.

That's a hip glute hamstring thing. The reverse hyper is this machine that was created by Louis Simmons from Westside Barbell. It's like a flat bench. You climb your upper body up on the bench, and then you hook your legs into this thing, and you lift your legs up, and then you let them drop down. And as it drops down, it decompresses. Oh, okay. And as you lift it up, it strengthens.

All right. And it comes from this guy. Louis Simmons is like a powerlifting legend, and he had a back injury, and they were trying to do surgery on him. Yeah. And he was like, well, what's it from? They were like, it's from compression. He's like, well, I've got to figure out how to decompress it.

So he figured out this machine that created active decompression. I have one out here. I swear by it. I love it. There it is right there. It shows you how it works. So when you lift up, don't stare at that dude's ass. When you lift up, it goes up.

And then when it lifts down, it actually pulls the back and decompresses, and it feels great. Pull that video right there. You can see it. If you watch that video, you can see that's Louie. He's a fucking character. He's a really wild guy. So see how it's going down? Yeah, yeah.

That thing pulls your back down. So what I'll do is on the up, it strengthens the back muscles in a real unique way yeah so what i'll do is i'll do that and then after i do that then i'll decompress with the decks that's the decks that's the thing right there see so you climb into that thing and then see how she's got her hands on that those handles you let go of that and it just all makes your lower back like ah i'm gonna give it to you to try out here. You're going to climb in there. You're going to go, oh, I need this. Yeah, man. I love it.

I have one at home, too. I swear by it. I fucking swear by this thing. Yeah. Really good for stretching your back. I'll look into having that. Because your own body weight is like pulling your spine apart and decompressing it. It just relaxes everything. It's very nice.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a, well, you know, again, it just you you need these types of you need a lot obviously the knowledge is getting there with everything you know yeah the knowledge is out there so what kind of shit do they have you doing a lot of it was a strengthening so I was a a lot a big problem of mine like I was getting told like it look your call up when I'd get my back you know and a bit more old-school type of stuff just lock your call you know don't do nothing you would literally do nothing for like a whole week

and then try and get back to training and I would injure it again. I would like literally if you told me to stand up, you know, I would like hold my breath and like stand up, you know what I mean? I was like, yeah, well, no, that's just sort of my mental side of sort of where I was at with it. And it was, you know what I mean? So they had to change all that. They had to, you know, relax and let me like literally,

they said if you, you know, if and let me, like literally, they said, if you, you know, if you drop a, like this one thing he said to me the first time I met him, he goes, you drop a pencil, pick the fucking pencil up.

You know, you don't have to, don't fucking game plan how you're going to pick up that pencil. Like you get what I mean? He's trying to get in my head, like just relax, you know what I mean? And the training,

even the first few sessions I started doing for my strength program, like cause I would always like really hyper extend my back and like thinking I'm keeping it straight and, you know, think I'm doing the right thing. So they had to try and change my posture and everything while I was doing workouts just so I could start, you know, doing things properly. Like even when I used to do deadlifts, I would like try and stay as upright as I could because I thought my back would go.

My back would go every time I did deadlifts and that because my technique was bad and just little things like that so that's what i mean by having a strength program and all this sort of stuff and now like if i do get a flare up you know within uh you know even the next day i'm back into back in the training you know what i mean before i'd have like two weeks off literally two weeks off where now i'm like back at training like they're they're like you can't stop moving like you need to keep moving that that'll you know Don't let your body look at my brain would literally make it lock up. I'll get my hip out to the side It was bad like I really was I'd get a flare up and I blow and then my brain would just toy it

Go back to that position You know where you go my hip would go out and I wouldn't be able to walk for a few days and and it's just Yeah, it's that was keep having but now we're on top of it now. It's a game changer now I'm having camp, full proper camps. That happened before Chad Mendes. So that's when I ended up seeing them. And I had my first proper 12-week camp for the Chad Mendes fight. That's amazing.

Yeah. That's amazing. So what kind of stuff do they have you doing other than, you said, deadlifts and strengthening exercises? Yeah, a lot of glutes. Because my right glute wasn't even firing. Because of the sciatic? Yeah, well, not just that, just the fact that I would use my back muscles and core to do everything.

I wasn't ever activating my glutes to do stuff because, you know, I was just using the wrong muscles and thinking, you know, I was doing it the right way. Now, like, that's a big part of my sort of mobility. Before I do it, I do my mobility and I get the glutes firing and stuff like that and every time i do that i feel good so a lot of the strength program is still building the glutes and and stuff like obviously you're still doing your core exercise now we're at a

stage where we can just sort of build everything you know and and even just having people that know what they're doing again you could go there and they can just work on everything and oh yeah let's let's go nuts but you know the specific sort of training knowing that i've got to go and do my other sessions at the other gym and all that so they all take it all into play and you know that everything's just real structured you know fight you know training weeks are so much more structured than it used to be and uh you're seeing it you know not only in performances but even my body and being able to train them that's a game changer that's amazing wow you're really very really really fortunate that you found those guys yeah 100 it was a it was huge did you do any yoga or stretching or anything um i do like yeah stretches and all

that like i don't do it i'll be honest i don't do it enough like i should be sticking to especially when i'm not while i'm back home i do that in my sessions that i'm doing with them so i'm doing that i meant to be doing that every day, but, you know, I lack it. I lack it sometimes. I should be doing a lot more. So sometimes I won't do it and I'll feel like I get tight. Every time I go on an airplane, I come to, you know, come to America and all that.

I come and I'm just stiff as a board, you know what I mean? But as soon as I do these mobility sort of exercises and stretches and, like, get the glutes going, I'm 100% straight away. Show me someone who doesn't have a back issue that trains martial arts and I'll show you someone who doesn't train enough. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly right. You're going to have a back problem, at least a little bit of stiffness.

You know, it's just. Yeah, that's just always, you know. Yeah, it comes with it. What is it? You see sometimes like memes and they'll be like going, best childhood memory, not having a sore back you know things like that kids man my um middle daughter she's 11 and she she's so fucking flexible her spine she could stand and then bend backwards and put her hands behind her on the ground and then

kick her legs up in the air and go over like what in the fuck are you made out of little kids man yeah man they're made out of rubber yep that's all it is like that actually yeah i mean 100 like even with uh my daughter once actually i'm gonna probably cop some flack for this but i remember i was you know sometimes they just i didn't know so at one time she's like sort of fell and i was like holding her by her arm and she ended up like having like a little dislocated like sort of elbow and I didn't know. Like she was just crying.

I thought she was crying because we left the park and stuff like that. And just the thing, I literally just had – and she just fell and I just like sort of held her. Caught her? Yeah, well, like just – well, yeah, I just grabbed her by the arm. Right. And like, you know, just again, like a hyper – like you didn't break her infant but obviously being young and they're a bit more flexible

but like full hyper extended to her arm but she was all right a couple of days. It wasn't too bad. I literally thought I broke my daughter's arm when I went to hospital. Imagine telling people this story, you know what I mean? So it's crazy. But yeah, some of the things you see the kids do, it's crazy. Well, they're just, they're built to fall down. Yeah.

Just don't hold on to their arm when they do. So what about uh running are you doing a lot of running um i don't do as much running i sometimes do weight loss and all that but you know i get you know obviously when you try and get your you know your your heart rate at a certain amount and doing your what is it the the endurance uh you would know about this yeah no not via two max like when you're doing the endurance uh you would know vo2 max yeah no not vo2 max like when you're doing the like when you're running a consistent run or something you're keeping your heart rate at a certain yes i mean i'd rather i'm the top person i'd rather be

drilling at the gym i'll keep my heart rate there and i'll be drilling i'll just do hours or an hour and do you use a chest monitor yeah we do yeah we do yeah we do that with a lot of our sessions and uh yeah that's again we just try and structure everything we're all about the science and stuff like that yeah i mean it's uh it's so important but so many people don't do it they just go by feel you know but when if you really have great coaches especially great scientific based strength and conditioning coaches that really understand the science behind getting your body into a great endurance spot even though though we even do, like we get our HRV. So every morning to see if we can train, we usually say, yeah, you're good to go.

Or something like, all right, pull up. So it tells you how your body's sort of feeling. I don't know how it works. I wear a hoop strap. I wear one of these things, heart rate variability straps. Yeah, it's big. It's big. It shows you if you're fucking wrecked.

Because sometimes you feel like maybe I'm just being a pussy and then I can look at my phone and I go no man You're fucking do you know you haven't recovered? Yeah There's a thing that'll show you where your static heart rate is where your normal resting heart rate is where it is now It shows you've trained too hard. Yeah, and then sometimes we look and be like, yeah, you just been a little bit You just been a little bitch. It should say that too So you prefer drilling to things like uh running yeah i've done a fair bit of running uh like when i was in thailand and stuff like you know they obviously really make it run yeah exactly right but i i'll be

honest i don't don't do as much now so again doing the force you know the four sessions day three four sessions a day i just uh i'm the top person that i'm just a believer of of drilling you know i can be a lot more fight specific when i'm getting that heart rate there so that's just how how i am everyone's different obviously it's working for you yeah you know sometimes that's a big part of it too is like having a thing that you believe in and the thing that gives you confidence and you know it's obvious that you have great endurance as well so it is physically working for you as well. Yeah, exactly. So you'll do three different sessions at least a day, and you're breaking them up like a strength and conditioning,

maybe a boxing workout, kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, maybe an MMA workout. How does it structure you? Yeah, most mornings you'll do like an MMA sort of workout, so I'm all about putting it all together. You know what I mean? I don't like to separate each discipline but obviously we still do that as well uh we'll do like wrestling some days a couple of days a week and then the jiu-jitsu every morning we'll do as well we've got wall work sessions and you know it's just uh we just do

everything and then you've got certain sessions that are like via two max wrestling and things like that so it's just and these are mapped out by your coaches in it yeah yeah so you know like what the week is gonna be like yeah yeah pretty much pretty much the same every every week that's the difference between now and the old days man the old days guys just work out till they dropped no one knew what the fuck anybody was doing right you know no really no one knew yeah what about sparring and and what is your philosophy on sparring hard versus sparring light yeah man especially Joe philosophy on sparring hard versus sparring light? Yeah, man, especially Joe.

Like, we're all about, you know, more technical sparring. Obviously, we have, like, our Saturdays is where we spar, and that's a little bit more full on. But, you know, you don't get paid in the gym. And, again, if you're going balls of war every time you spar, you know, I mean, like, how do you learn as well? I believe that, you know, keeping it a little bit more chill, you can work on things. That's why I love training with all different types of styles.

Even if I train with someone that's not on my level, that's where I can learn so much as well. That's when I can try things, right? There's things that if you're going against someone that's better than you or just as good and you can't make any mistakes, so you're playing it safe like in sparring every day. You know what I mean? But again, we're all about keeping know keeping it pretty chill you know especially during the week we spar probably like you know anywhere from three

four sessions maybe even a week but a lot of times it's very very very chill you know very technical technical sparring and again that's where you learn and that's when you you know i think it works it's been working for me but then our saturdays is where we go a little bit harder but not not too hard. So it's never like a full-on brawl? No, never. Never a full-on brawl. That's another brilliant thing that people are learning today because back in the day,

everybody used to just brawl. Yeah, man. I mean, there's so many stories. Like the best stories come out of Brazil. The Curitiba stories from Shoot the Box. Okay, yeah. Those guys used to knock each other out in training and just keep training. Wake up.

Get back in there. just push them back in there and you can just imagine, it's not too good for the brain terrible for the brain getting punched in the head and Vegas trips, not good for the brain both things well listen brother I appreciate you coming down here man and talking to us

nothing but the best of luck to you in the future and I really enjoy watching you fight I'm really excited to see the rematch between you and Max I mean two fucking awesome guys that are great fighters I'm looking forward to it me too me too let's hope it happens and stay tuned I reckon I reckon we'll have something soon um Instagram Alex Volkanovski Twitter same yep um yep have you got a Facebook yeah Facebook Alexander the Great Volkanovski going there yeah what about uh do you have a website yeah Facebook Alexander the Great Volkanovski go on there what about

do you have a website we're actually doing one right now we are doing that one and yeah stay tuned for that and I'll have all that up there soon

alright beautiful thank you brother appreciate you man thank you bye everybody oh I've been needing to piss for a while too

I've been drinking all that water