The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #98 with Luke Thomas

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

Joe sits down with combat sports journalist Luke Thomas, who reports on the latest in boxing and mixed martial arts on the CBS Sports programs Morning Kombat, and Morning Kombat: Dissected.

the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day hello luke hi joe we did it we made it we finally made it i wasn't sure it was gonna happen yeah well uh kudos to you for taking the chance to come here during the pandemic i know the all very oppressive pandemic. Well, we were supposed to do it in March. Yeah. And then the world turned upside down. Literally.

Basically. But we figured out a way. Yeah. We're here. Yeah. You said you did some traveling. What did you do traveling for before this? So I went to the Charlo Brothers Doubleheader in Mohegan Sun, which was interesting because

I got there early in the week and the casino was empty. That bitch was slamming by Saturday night. I had not been in crowds since March, right? So that was a little bit weird. So the casino was packed? It was packed, yeah. Not like to the rafters, but crowded. Do they have rules, like with masks?

It's Native American territory. They make their rules. So, yes, they do have the normal protocol. Like there uh hand sanitizing stations everywhere you have to wear a mask but if you're at the table and you're drinking they just pull the mask right down yeah i'm like even if it wasn't that's like can you imagine how fucking dirty those poker chips are it's like the x-caliber you ever seen chips at the x-caliber holy shit um but anyway so i was just you know i minded my business because it was actually in the sun the mohegan sun arena so we would just like beeline to the uh to the place there and then last week i went back to jersey city which is where the studios are for my showtime gig so

so that that is interesting that if it's on native american ground they can kind of do whatever they want pretty much which is why the casinos there in the first place. Right. And again, I would say, you know what? Most people were pretty good about compliance. I did not feel like, honestly, I thought people were more compliant than the airport yesterday. All these fucking weak constituted people that pull the mask below their nose. I want to fucking hit all of them with a car antenna. I hate every single one of them it's not i just want to look at him it's like it's not a hardship just put on the fucking mask not only

that if you have it below your nose you're not doing anything i know i was like just take it off yeah i feel better if you had it off right because at least you're like you're an honest broker in this exchange you know what i mean but so it was fine you know they tested us a bunch of times we were there. Have you seen the new things? Like these new hazmat suits they're selling? It's literally like, go to John Joseph, John Joseph Cro-Mag.

Go to his Instagram page. Do you know John Joseph from the Cro-Mags? You'll have to forgive me. He's the lead singer of the Cro-Mags. He's also a triathlete. He's a firm believer in strengthening your own immune system. Yeah, yeah. There's something to be said for that.

Look at this. Look at this. Holy mother of Jesus. We're in space. I mean, this is the future. And it apparently has some fog-proof attachment some way, somehow or another. And you put your hand, if you have to scratch your face, there's little zips on the side. Yeah you're you put your hand if you have to scratch your face there's little uh zips on the side and you put your hand through you know i i appreciate the

spirit of innovation here but this is a black mirror episode right it is it is it is well you know you talk how many people do you know that have gotten it a bunch yeah me too jamie's the the latest jamie uh but they're saying it's the latest. Jamie, but they're saying, which is very interesting, they're saying it really depends upon what kind of dose you're getting. Right. You obviously got a very mild dose. You had a very mild case of it. That's why the masks are important, right? Because even if you get it, someone has it, you know, they're not wearing it properly.

You're not getting sprayed with this huge amount. Especially if someone sneezes on you or something. That's the thing with drunks. Bars are super spreader events, right? Because everyone's like, drunk talk. That's what I miss. I miss the bars a little bit. I miss the movie theater, and I miss the bar.

And I'm not like, you know, till 4 a.m. I got a kid. But, you know, just saddling up a little bit, having a couple cocktails. Yes. I miss that a little bit, to be honest with you. Well, me too. I just got through Sober October. Hey, it's November 2nd.

Yeah, you want a drink? I'll drink. I was going to lift after this, but I'll have a drink if you have one. You can have a couple of drinks and still lift. Listen, I'm 40. I can have a couple of drinks and think right, much less lift weights. But I'll try. I'll try.

But you know what? It never gets talked about. It deserves to be mentioned here. Send in some whiskey. I know a guy who was an ER doctor in New York new york and he's still there now obviously but through march this doesn't get talked about but it's worth mentioning there is we so i i knew a bunch of people that went to iraq because i was in the marine corps but i got out right before my unit sent so i was very very lucky in that regard but a bunch of them came back super fucked up you know

they're all fine now but super fucked up these They're all fine now, but super fucked up. These doctors who were in New York in March, they all have PTSD. Watching day after day. Remember, there was times when New York was losing 800 people a day. And he was telling me, you hold up enough phones to someone who's dying and so their kids are crying on the other end of FaceTime

and you do that day after day after day. He started smoking the whole thing. We don't talk enough about that i don't think it's bad enough now and he was even saying it's like if you're 25 you're fine but like all of these at-risk folks just coming in and collapsing one after the other it him up i can only imagine you know this is the also falls in line with the the conversation that I've been having a lot about cops. Oh, God. People don't understand what it is to be a cop. All you see is these terrible videos like George Floyd.

Right. Just imagine being a person who every day you're seeing suicide, murder, rape, car accidents. You're constantly worried that the next car you pull over is going to be the guy that shoots you in the head. Right. And you've the head. Right. And you've had improper training probably. Oh, yeah, for sure. You're asked to do responsibilities you couldn't possibly handle. Yeah.

The policy failures of the world are just pushed onto you. And, you know, you have to deal with the dregs of society. Like, certainly, obviously, the George Floyd murder is horrific in every way imaginable. But my stepfather, my mom eventually got divorced, but I had a stepfather for a time. And he was a cop for 30 years in Washington, DC. You know, I'm not saying he had the most enlightened ideas of the world, but when you spend a few months in the hospital, cause they broke all your ribs and you had to deal with, you know, two year old with a gun and you know, every other situation, it will warp you. It will affect your moral calculations. And if you have improper training and improper funding it only exacerbates the problem like we ask cops to do way too much shit and um it results

in a lot of problems and the job that like now good luck trying to find really intelligent people that could do other things you know right now no one wants to be a cop because the cops are the bad guys right they're the enemies and you know it's like defunding the police is now like a mantra that the left likes to use right which they use by the way i'm a member of the left and so i when i when i first heard it i was like i didn't know what it meant and they like to tell you that it means one thing i don't think that it means one thing it means a series of different things to some it means actually what they stay, which is what they claim, which is utterly demolish it and start from scratch.

For others, thank you. For others, it means not going to that nuclear option, but sort of rearranging funds to go to different policy or other kind of intervention projects. Do you ice or no ice? It depends on how good the whiskey is there, Joe Rogan.

It's still Austin. I've not tried it because we bought it. I'll try it. I'll try it and eat. All right. There you go. We tried it when I was doing the... Cheers, sir.

Salud. Salud. Mmm. Ooh, smells nice. It's pretty damn good. That does not need ice. That's good. Yeah. It's a bummer and you know it's a really a bummer when you see cops scrap and they can't and you're like how did you get this far

like you're an actual police officer and you never learn how to you don't even know how to distribute your weight on the ground i understand that quite frankly i was in i was like i told you i did six years in the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps has this reputation, somewhat deserved it, about their being super macho and shit relative to the other forces.

And some of that is true and some of that is deserved. I had never seen, I remember the first time, you ever been to the Mojave Desert at all? Yeah. So there's the,

the 29 Palms is out there. I'll never forget the first time I went to 29 Palms because there is, fuck all to do at 29 Palms. And so the Marine Corps never forget the first time I went to 29 Palms, because there is fuck all to do at 29 Palms. And so the Marine Corps wisely just invests in weight rooms.

It was the nicest gym I'd ever been in in my life, and it was nothing but Hoss Marine. I mean, they're all on steroids. They had to be. I don't think any commanding officer gave a fuck, and they were all huge, and they lived this gung-ho life and blah, blah, blah. But then when it came time for hand-to-hand combatives training,

McMap is shit. It's not good. It's better than nothing. But unless you do straight-up army combatives, which is the best thing maybe the army's ever done for themselves in terms of that kind of aim, policy aim, you get nothing. And every cop I know who has ever trained there's a bunch of guys who uh um i know from various different martial arts schools they took the initiative to go train

outside of what law enforcement was providing them but like they this is what i mean they don't get any of this shit not only if they do it's like you know here's how to get out of someone's choking you in this very it's almost like a women's self-defense class is really the extent to which they learn. That's ridiculous. Yeah, it's not much. It should be mandatory. And not only should it be mandatory, it should be like a part of the curriculum. Jocko Willink said that they should spend 20% of their time training.

And I think he's right. Who's got the money for that though? Good question. I mean real consideration should be put to why don't we have the money for that. Also, I would challenge that a little bit if I mean, real consideration should be put to why don't we have the money for that. Also, I would challenge that a little bit, if I may, which is I saw in the wake of the George Floyd thing, there was a lot of people like, how do we – most people were basically horrified by that. But the question is, what do you do about it? And so I saw some op-eds. I think MMA Junkie published one from this guy.

I'm sure he was well-intentioned, but he was like – I think Henry Gracie had some similar ideas because he really believes in the transformative power of jujitsu right um i do i do to an extent i mean here's what i would say it it's the same thing going through the military like if you don't if you don't succumb to the process it will not redevelop your character right you have to willingly give yourself to that just giving cops jujitsu training does not force that transformation so while i think it would help in certain situations it could exacerbate existing problems with whatever cop has deranged or bad training about the world and now oh wait now you know kimura's and you're a fucking asshole right that's a problem that is a Yeah, you're right in that respect. If you do get an asshole and you just teach him a few moves, you could create a worse asshole.

But I would hope. The problem is in normal jiu-jitsu, the way jiu-jitsu transforms your life, it's not transforming your life in the stress of you being a police officer. And all the things that we talked about, PTSD, wearing out,, shooting you, dealing with all the horrific things you see every day. You're essentially, you're going through this struggle and that struggle sort of steals you and makes you a better person. with the chaos of the police academy or or of uh rather police uh duty i would imagine best case scenario is it alleviates some stress it helps you get past a lot of the bullshit that you would normally it would normally eat at you and it also allows you to relieve some tension and yeah i just i don't know that i would for cost reasons i don't know that i would mandate that kind of training i think i would offer particular forms of incentives to get it to the right kind of folks.

I would mandate it just because you're going to have situations where people have hand-to-hand experiences. You should know how to distribute your weight. Fair enough. But I would say doing that by itself would not be sufficient. That, along with other forms of reform, so that we're asking police to do the things that police are supposed to do and not the things they're not supposed to do i think in conjunction it's never one solution right most problems in the world require a series of interventions yeah do those in conjunction you're probably going to get a better policing when i was 19 i worked as a security guard at a concert place called great woods in mansfield massachusetts and uh it was a short amount of

time i wasn't there for about a few months over the summer. But during that time, I recognized a really clear us versus them mentality between the security force and the concert goers. And it happened pretty quickly. It happened really quickly where I saw security guys beat the shit out of them. The first day on the job, I saw this guy get beaten up with a walkie-talkie because he stole a golf cart. Like, 19-year-old, fresh-faced kid, like, what is going on here? And this guy, his name is Alley Cat,

tackles this kid who had stolen one of their golf carts, and he's hitting him in the face with a walkie-talkie. And I'm like, what kind of job did I fucking sign up for? I mean, and it was only like, you know, 15 bucks an hour or something. I would imagine. I don't really remember. But I remember thinking real it was only like, you know, 15 bucks an hour or something. I would imagine. I don't really remember. But I remember thinking real early on, like, this is a very strange how I've like very quickly developed this us versus them mentality. I've also noticed, you know, back when I was 24, I was working doors at various bars in New York City to make some money to make ends meet because New York City is crazy expensive.

And people, and I was lifting weights like crazy, I was huge, you know, the whole bit. And I'll never forget, people would always tell me, they're like, oh, I bet people don't wanna mess with you. And I was like, it is totally the opposite. Drunks, right? If you got a badge on, they wanna fuck with you. So a bunch don't, but there's gonna be

a certain kind of person, oh, he's big and tall and muscly or whoever. Anybody, you know, you got sleeves of tattoos. That is exactly who they target. There's a certain kind of guy who's like, you know what? I'd like to see what happened if I tried to ride that ride. Yeah, Chuck Liddell said that when he was in his prime, guys would fuck with him. Not the least bit surprised.

You're like, dude, you have a fucking death wish? What is wrong with you? They have a death wish. Well, some people are just really stupid. Have you ever seen that Onion article? It's like, study. Average man overestimates fighting ability by 4,000%. You ever seen that?

No. Most people think they know. Yeah, look, if push came to shove, I know a little something, something. Yeah. You don't know fuck all. You don't know fuck all. The humiliation of seeing those guys on the mat is really adorable when you see a person who thinks they're fairly tough just get manhandled and ragdolled yeah that's the tragedy of modern mma

because there was a time where it was like is jujitsu really all that good and they'd make videos of some guy coming in being like i'm gonna fuck all these black belts up and then he goes in there and they wear him out like a they work him like a summer job you know what i mean for the gracies it was like the greatest promotional scheme ever amazing like to have people come in and fight them yeah come on guys and they would be pretty gentle with those guys when you really think about it i mean they hit them a little bit but mostly they just strangled them yeah basically yeah it's true But we don't really see that anymore because basically the word got out like, eh, maybe don't do that.

But it's kind of crazy when you think about the history of martial arts. Martial arts were around for, since the dawn of time, people have been trying to figure out better ways to fuck people up. Since they figured out language and figured out how to teach skills, they've been working on techniques. Right. And not until 1993 did we really know what worked.

You have a quote. I have an old DVD back when those really mattered. I bought it in, I want to say 2004. So this must have been one of the early editions of like Ultimate Knockouts. I think Phil Barone fucking up Dave Manet was on the cover, something like that. And you had a quote and it was, maybe it was like 2003. I think that'sone fucking up Dave Manet was on the cover, something like that. And you had a quote, and it was, maybe it was like 2003. I think that's what it was. So I forget.

Maybe it was like one of the Miami shows, whatever it was. You had a quote, and it was, martial arts has evolved more in the last 20 years than it has in the last 2000. Yeah. With the exception of weaponry, that is 1,000% true. Yeah, 1,000% true. A million percent true. And weaponry, really.

Like, guns. You want to have a weapon. Guns and knives. Knives have been around forever. Swords, I guess. They used to be better at swords. I don't know enough about hand-to-hand combat with weapons to say one way or the other. But I just know, as it relates to martial arts, the fast forwarding that happened from

93 on, relative to before it, it was this sort of slow process and then it hit overdrive. You know what's really very satisfying to me is that when I first got involved in the UFC in 1997, it was when I was on news radio. And the people on news radio literally look at me like I was doing porn. They were like, what are you doing? Like, why are you doing this? Like, you're going to ruin your career. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know what why are you doing this like you're gonna ruin your career yeah and i was like oh i don't know i don't know what to tell you i like it you know yeah my whole life i've been a martial artist now finally someone did the thing that i've always asked

them to do right my whole life i was like i want to know what would happen if you got a judo guy with a boxer if you got a this with that and then the ufc is like let's let's find out and then i'm like oh my god it's real it's happening to me it was like someone came along with like the willie wonka golden ticket like it's it was happening it was real and then when they offered me a job i was like fuck yeah i'm going how did you get that job how did they know you was did your agent put in a word my manager was friends with campbell mclaren and campbell mcl. Campbell's amazing. He's a great guy. Yeah. And he's been on the podcast. And Campbell had, he had an opening.

And he said, we need someone to do the post-fight interviews. And it was, you know, very little money and you have to take those little Buddy Holly killing planes.

You know, fucking fly to Dothan, Alabama. That was the first gig I did. I was actually supposed to be in Albany, but then they kicked it out of New York. And then last minute they moved the octagon to Dothan, Alabama. That was the first gig I did. I was actually supposed to be in Albany, but then they kicked it out of New York. And then last minute, they moved the octagon to Dothan, Alabama. And I was so happy.

It was the debut of Vitor Belfort. Back when we were calling him Victor, they were calling him Victor Gracie. And this was when I was training at Carlson Gracie's. And they were calling Vitor Victor. I mean, the early posters were V-I-K-T-O-R Gracie. Like he was Russian or something. I don't know why they call him Victor. Like, I don't understand why they did that.

But he was using the last name Gracie. And so he was fighting. He fought John Hess over in Hawaii and beat the shit out of John Hess. And, you know, I was training at his school and I thought he was, like, impossible to stop. And he was 19. And when he was 19, his hands were a blur of light.

He was so fast and so aggressive and so different than any other Brazilian jiu-jitsu guy. Because we thought of Brazilian jiu-jitsu guys, and he was a black belt, but we thought of black belts as being someone who just wants to get a hold of you, drag you to the ground, strangle you, or get you in an armbar.

And all of a sudden, you've got this guy who's wearing gloves, because nobody else is wearing gloves, or very few people. Tank Abbott wore gloves, and just lighting people up with punches. And we're like, holy shit. And so just by chance and fortune, I was training at his school and got to be on the card and doing the post-fight interviews the very first time that he fought in the UFC wow yeah so I got to see him um he fought uh Trey Tellegman remember Trey had a the peck yeah he got a car accident when he's a little kid yeah he could still strike his ass off that guy yeah he could he was tough as shit and he had no idea no one knew what Victor what Vitor I'm going back in time. Yeah. But we called it.

I think I may have even said Victor a couple of times during the broadcast because that's what we called him at the school. Everybody called him Victor. Wow. And then all of a sudden it was Vitor. So you had anglicized his name a little bit because no one. I don't know. I don't know what happened.

It's like they call Kamaru Marty. Well, how about Fedor? His real name is Fyodor. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Fyodor Yan. Like, no one. It's like Peter.

Everybody called him Peter for a long time in the UFC. It was a couple of years. And then finally they were like, oh, it's Fyodor. I'm like, well, I could say that. Why didn't you tell me that earlier? Like, they just decided to anglify it. But Fedor is probably the biggest example of that. Right?

Right. Because, like, Fyodor is not a hard name to say. I'm trying to think of the biggest example. That's one of them. But heor's probably the biggest example of that, right? Because Fyodor's not a hard name to say. I'm trying to think of the biggest example. That's one of them. But he's the great. I mean, if you want to think about heavyweight greats, you've got Stipe, Kane, and Fedor. Those are the three. You've got to choose between. And to have the Mount Rushmore

of heavyweights, you have to have Fedor. Yeah, he wasn't some anonymous figure. You get introduced to him the wrong way, it's hard to undo that. So I got introduced to him in Pride as Fedor. Yeah, I'm't some anonymous figure. But you get introduced to him the wrong way. It's hard to undo that. Right. So I got introduced to him in Pride as Fedor. Yeah, I'm still saying it. And that will just stick forever, despite how it actually is supposed to be.

I know. If I was friends with him, I'd probably say it right. But if you... You ever met him? No, I never have. I had him in studio. Not the most thrilling interview ever. He didn't give much.

He's not there to give. I found that out later. I'm like, I don't think he wanted to be here. No, he's there to give ass kickings. But to your point about the origin of things, I remember most people were like, I've been watching UFC since UFC 1. Well, I didn't because I just didn't know.

I was a 12-year-old kid at the time. You only know what someone shows you for the most part. This is pre-internet, so you definitely only know that shit. I had a family friend who was involved in a martial art that was South Korean called Tu Kong, which apparently was the official... Taekwondo is, as I understand it, and someone's going to correct me on this, but

as I understand it, it was explained to me was that Taekwondo is the official sport of South Korea, but tukong was the official martial art or self-defense system of the military. Well, it's taekyon, T-A-E-K-Y-O-N is what we're taught, was like an earlier version of taekwondo. I don't know anything about it other than what this guy told us. General Chae Young-yi, he was the guy. I used to teach taekwondo.

General Chae Young-yi, he was the guy. I used to teach Taekwondo. And General Chae Young-yi was the guy who really formulated Taekwondo into a system. And my instructor, Jae-hun Kim, was one of Chae Young-yi's original students. So I got real lucky that I got it from the root. I got early Taekwondo, rough, attacking Taekwondo. Before it was more of a point fighting sort of a thing

well whatever the his background I can't speak to too accurately all I know is that I remember it was the summer of

god was it 95 96 something like that and he was like have you seen this skinny Brazilian dude out here fucking people up that's always how they introduce it right

yeah and I didn't believe it and he's like let's go to Blockbuster. Went down to Blockbuster. It's the one down there by Barracks Row for folks who are in Washington, D.C. listening. It's now a farmer's market or a yes market. And it used to be Blockbuster. I went down in there and I got UFC 4 was the first one I ever saw.

For me, it was 2. It was 2? Yeah, so it was 4. And obviously he had 4. I think it was 3 he had skipped before he'd come back and fought chemo. What was the one where he had, I forget the genesis, but there was enough in the video where he was just like lighting these people up in the way. He's like, how the fuck is this possible?

And it's been politicized now. It takes on a different meaning. But that truly was red-pilled at that moment. Like there was a eureka moment and the lights go on. You're like, wow, this really is the future. It's a bummer that red pill has been politicized. I know, because it's such a great term.'t it it's like you just see a matrix fan you see loris fishburne giving you the choice you know yeah it's been really uh co-opted because uh that

was the name that radio rahim came up with for the radio rahim the uh boxing commentator he came up with that for this room to this date and i'm like yeah that guy yeah i'm not sure if you see that's a bummer man the dionte wilder stuff that's going on right now. He's released three different excuses. The first one was the weight vest, the thing that he was wearing, that crazy costume, weighed 40 pounds. Apparently he wore his legs out. The next one was that there was a bunch of people saying that Tyson Fury's

gloves weren't attached correctly, so the gloves were extended, so he was hitting them with the knuckles, and the glove part was not really attached. It was like, so he was catching them with the part that's supposed to be over the wrist. Not correct, not true, and easily provable. The next one he said, egg weights. He said he had egg weights, and this is recent, like a couple days ago. Then yesterday there was an article that said that he believes

that he was his water was poisoned by his own trainer and Mark Breland was a part of that understand for folks you mean I don't know who Mark Breland is former I think Olympic gold medalist world champion yes across two different weight divisions if I'm not mistaken he is the voice of sanity or was till he was dismissed in that corner that was the guy that threw the towel for him. I mean, Breland should be thanked by Wilder and his camp until the end of time. His other trainer, I forget his last name, so I was with a D. He was out there at the post-fight press conference being like,

I don't know if I would have thrown that towel. It's like, you fucking yes, man. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Breland took it upon himself to, I don't know, save the guy's life, but certainly make the right call for halting the contest. He was thanked by being dismissed and now essentially dragged through the mud with utterly, what I'm guessing, or utterly baseless accusations about poisoning his own fighter. I mean, maybe Tyson Fury's fucking awesome. That seems like the simplest explanation for all of this.

Well, Tyson Fury changed his strategy. And also, you have to realize that Tyson Fury in the first fight was coming off of a multiple-year battle with depression, mental illness, drinking, suicidal thoughts. He talked on my podcast about driving his Ferrari and almost slamming into a bridge. He's like, I was pedaled to the metal, and I was thinking about slamming into this bridge. And they changed his mind and just slowly worked his way into shape, got healthy again, got his mind right again, and pulled it back around. But when he fought Deontay Wilder the first time,

his father didn't want him to take the fight. He's like, you're not healthy enough yet. You're not ready yet. And he did his best. He fought well, but it was a draw. By the time they fought the second time, he was in tip-top condition. He had gone through the camp for the first fight. His body was completely recovered from all the abuse of alcohol and cocaine and all the shit that he was doing.

And then he took on the crunk trainer, Sugar Hill. And then his whole strategy changed. He's like, the guy does not fight well off the heel off the back foot let's let's move him back and tyson fury is fucking enormous you know he's huge six nine yeah and he came into the fight i think he was like 280 yeah and so he just pressed him and pressed him and just was throwing bombs and i don't think deontay wilder expected that yeah deontay wilder expected him to run and move and jab and fight the same way he fought in the first fight.

Instead, Tyson Fury just came right at him and just clipped him hard and often. And I think if you go back to their first fight and you look at how when Tyson Fury got dropped in the 12th, rose like Lazarus, and then came back, survived, and then started winning the round. Right. And then I think he realized from that moment on,

oh, the way to beat this guy is to back him up right and then he took that strategy sugar hill of course like cronk legendary aggressive attack i mean they're like the if people are mma fans who love shoot the box they're like the shoot the box of boxing right if you think about it like aggressive attacking multiple champions gerald mcclellan tommy hearns i, the list goes on and on. And he employed that sort of attacking strategy. And he's a fucking masterful boxer, too. Right, that's the other part about it. I mean, folks don't realize he can play the defensive game. I think you saw it in the Otto Wallin fight.

He's so long and has such good trunk movement. He can actually lean on the ropes, and the punches go in front because he's so tall and long. He can play that game. The Klitschko fight. Right, exactly. South box, Vladimir Klitschko was one of the greatest ever. Wasn't the most thrilling fight.

I mean, the Wilder fight was much better. But I did a whole video on it, and, too, I was, like, amazed. From the stance he took, he had a little bit of an A-frame stance, so you could say just the way, and he was always a double jab away. So he was long enough where he was outside of anything that Wilder could have put together. He was a real one-two kind of guy. Or Wilder would just come lunging in with a punch. And he was good enough to back him up and then steer him into punches.

And I always talk about this. Eugene Behrman, and everyone who gets on me because I'm always promoting city kickboxing. He's a masterful trainer. Well, not only that. I mean, every once in a while you come around to a guy who not only can train fighters to a high degree, but has an idea about what the game is missing and how to fill that gap, and they are big believers in fainting. They make a point.

They basically say, like, how is it possible you can have people come from this little tiny island? And, you know, Adesanya is the very best version of that. But they've got good fighters. Brad Riddell, Shane Young. Dan Hooker. Dan Hooker. They've got a lot of guys.

And Volkanovski has trained under Brad who trained under Eugene. But basically what they believe is that what has been missing for a long time in MMA striking is effective faking and fainting. And that they do shadow boxing drills for hours just on fainting. No punches thrown, just fainting. And that they do shadowboxing drills for hours just on fainting. No punches thrown, just fainting. Just to set it all up. Because they basically say if you look at the way which a lot of American and even European strikers throw, it's a lot of sit down and throw combinations, which you can do, but

they don't really believe that's the best way to do it. The best gap to fill is that. Fury, to circle the point here is excellent he is such a brilliant fainter and he had deontay wilder dead to rights over and over and over again which he didn't really do the first time around and so you know all these excuses about mark trainer poison me it's like it's like that's not what the tape shows bro well he got it he was making excuses when he got dropped with the first punch. He was, like, pointing to the back of his head, and he was upset.

And you could see, it's like, it's really weird. It's really weird when you see a guy who's so utterly dominant and who has what Teddy Atlas calls the great eraser, that right hand. Because it really is. It erases all your problems. You fucked up a little bit, watch this. All your mistakes, gone with that. His right hand is a force of nature.

It's one of the best right hands in the history of the sport. Ever. The Luis Ortiz fight. Like, what the fuck, man? Yeah. What the fuck? Hit him on the forehead. Yep.

And Ortiz is down with a look in his face like, what happened? And Ortiz is not some chump. He's huge. He's a Cuban boxer who has great pedigree. One shot set his ass down. And he was winning the fight. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

He was winning the fight. And all of a sudden, bap. If you look at the... My view on his power is that for straight rights, which is really what he basically throws, or maybe a little bit overhandy because it's a little bit looping, that's one of the best, if not the best, right hands in all of boxing. If you're talking about full-on power punchers, though,

I don't know that he's got the full repertoire. Like, is his uppercut with his right hand as good as his straight? I don't know that it is. You see a guy like Ernie Shavers? Right. Fuck, bro. Yeah. Go look up Ernie Shavers highlights on YouTube,

and then smoke some weed beforehand. You will literally laugh at what he does to men. For sure. It's shocking to watch his power at what he does to men. For sure. It's shocking to watch his power. And he has the full repertoire of it. Yeah, a lot of fighters who fought him said he was the most powerful puncher they ever faced. A lot of fighters. Someone told me, I forget who it was, but they got hit by shavers.

And then they felt it in the roof of their foot. What's the... Arch? The arch. They felt it in the arch of their... It radiated into the arch of their foot. What the fuck is that? I never heard some shit like that.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, power's a weird thing, right? You're either born with it or you're not. I mean, I've seen so many guys who you'd look at and they're big and strong. And you'd say, wow, but that guy hits hard. And they can't crack an egg. No.

There's a bunch of them. There's always been a bunch of them in boxing there's been a bunch of them like you see him in the gym and then you see guys like do you remember michael mcdonald when he was a kid when he's coming up yes skinny looks like a little boy knock people into another dimension and you're like whoa this is crazy do you follow boxing currently yes yes so how about this kid jaime munguia you seen him I have not he fought last Friday night holy mother of god you look at him he obviously is an athlete right he's in good shape you would look at him and think yeah you know I'm not gonna say average but there's nothing that

stands out about him at least Wilder is huge right he's bricked up makes sense Munguia is in is in is in fight shape but he's not bricked up. And this fucking guy, I mean, he's rearranging. I mean, he is keeping dentists in business. Was he on Showtime? He was on DAZN. DAZN. He was on DAZN. And what was the undercard of which fight?

Oh, God. I don't remember. I only tuned in because I was like, I have an alert for Jaime Munguia whenever he fights. Oh, really? Yeah. He's that good? Yeah. There's Munguia, the guy on the left.

This fucking, look at him. Does he look like a power puncher to you? Super normal. He is arguably the biggest power puncher to you? super normal he is arguably the biggest power puncher in boxing what? by weight arguably

that's crazy that fucking guy can crack and I think he rearranges oh so you remember the lip split that Overeem had when he fought Rosenstruck

wait till you see what he does to this fucking guy's face he uppercuts him to the point where a piece of his face goes flying off this was last Friday this was just a couple of his face goes flying off this was last friday this was just a couple of days ago look at that shit look at that that was from one uppercut oh

my god look at his face joe it's pretty crazy he looks like he got attacked by a bear now did they let fights go on in boxing with a split lip no they called it eventually here that's interesting because like you remember robbie lawler with that crazy split lip when he fought rory mcdonald but it was right at the end interesting and then uh yeah i mean look at that how about the gervonta davis knockout bro how beautiful is that uppercut that was a thing of the same uppercut that pavetkin used uh yeah a little bit similar that same like if you go and look closely uh gervonta is squared. And so he's leaning to either side. And so when the punch comes, he's able to slip this direction.

So he's left-handed, Joe. Here it is. So watch. See, look how he's square. Oh, yeah, he's totally square. So see how that left hand comes. Can you go back and pause it for just a second? I want to show you something.

Pause it right at the moment of impact. If you can. If it's at all possible. That's what he's going to throw here. So he slips. Now watch. First of all, the Pivetkin one, the arm was extended, so it came under the arm. This is in front.

It's on the inside angle. But notice, Gervonta is left-handed. He is left-hand forward here. So he's squared. And you know how some guys jab with their power hand to like throw people off or just stick them with it de la jolla so he exactly so he sat in square and then gave this guy every inch of a lead uppercut from his power hand god damn that was a beautiful shot look at that al bernstein got saved too because poor al bernstein's the man i love al

every time i've interacted with him he's the sweetest guy he's a great guy he was about to say you know if if uh he was like right in the middle of saying, you know, if Gervonta Davis thinks that his power is going to put, you know, Santa Cruz down, and then he cracked him with it. So he stopped mid-sentence. Wouldn't have been his fault, because the point was, like,

Santa Cruz opened up. Like, he was engaging with the guy. Davis is, like, I think he's, what does he got, 23 knockouts? Something like that. He's only had one person go the distance. Yeah. Which goes back to the Wilder fight. Like Wilder, Deontay, before Tyson Fury beat him, had only gone to decision two times.

Tyson Fury and Dominic Brazil, is that what it was? Brazil he knocked out in the first round in the rematch. In the rematch. Oh, no, Berman Stiverne, right? That's right, Stiverne. Stiverne was in the first fight. He beat him by decision. Right.

And so he had been used, and he had gotten so confident towards the end of his career. I remember there's a photo of him walking to the fight or walking through a casino in Vegas. It's an amazing photo. He's wearing a fur coat with an open shirt holding his wife's hand. And he just looks like

the ultimate heavyweight champion in the world. You see him like, that is what I want from a heavyweight champion. Just top of the game, just wearing these crazy sunglasses, fully shredded,

fur coat, holding his wife's hand. I'm like, that's a heavyweight champion. Conor has that in his head. Yeah. Conor's the heavyweight champion of the world in his head. Which I'm not bashing him hand. I'm like, that's a heavyweight champion. Conor has that in his head. Yeah. Conor's the heavyweight champion of the world in his head, you know? Which I don't like.

I'm not bashing him for it. I want that. That swagger. You should be resplendent and ignorant and amazing all at once. See if you can find that photo of Deontay Wilder holding his wife's hand, wearing a fur coat. It's one of my favorite fighter photos, like getting ready for a fight of all time, because it's so just aggressively confident, just

on top of the world. How do you do that? It's almost like a fuck you to everybody. You know? Yeah, I mean, he was basically, he was being the baddest man on the planet. I don't think I've ever had that kind of self-confidence ever. You know what I mean? Well, you have to have that to be that guy, right?

Especially when you have, you know, he doesn't have the widest skill set you know what i mean i mean literally came into the game i mean i i had the privilege of that's one of them is that the one this is one where he's got no shirt on oh up in the is it for the first or second he doesn't have a shirt on it's just a oh okay okay there it is yeah there it is that's it there's a few of those he looks like mr t with all the chains, too. I mean, come on, man. And you got a white guy getting your luggage? Even better.

Just, I mean, I'm a fan of his. I really am. And I'm a fan of his as a human being. I really enjoy talking to him. And he told me a story. He's a great interview. He's a great guy. He got into boxing because his daughter was sick.

And he was... Spina bifida right yeah he and he's a delivery guy for like was it budweiser or something like that or coca-cola yeah some liquid and he was like look i gotta make some fucking money and he knew he wasn't going to be able to play uh in a college sport or in a professional sport without a college background so he's like i'm gonna get into boxing a year and a half in wins a bronze medal in the olympics like what the fuck just dumb power crazy power crazy like like one in a billion human power but you've ever seen him interact with his kids like the the nobility of trying to do that for your daughter is one thing he's got like a bunch of

kids he's like five or six of them and i've like six of them. I just had a kid about 18 months ago, and I didn't understand it when I would watch. But I don't think he's happier than when he's with his children, and there's not even a close second. A doting family man. It's really unfortunate he's made these excuses because as a person, he seems like such a sweet guy. It's a bummer, and I wish someone was there to advise him.

Breland, He was. Well, I should bring, you know, I don't know, maybe Mark doesn't have the kind of relationship with him that he can call him. My understanding is his manager, Deontay's manager, was the one who brought in Breland years ago. It was like, we need somebody here who's like a high level trainer and brought him in. And it worked for a time anyway, here we are I talked to Roy Jones about him and Roy Jones was saying if he trained him what he would train him is he would concentrate

on his left hand he was like you already know you could put people to sleep with your right hand he goes what about your left hand he goes I want you keep people distance use the jab use the hook he goes I would concentrate on just working that left hand he goes that would fix so many of his problems because his left hand is just like here comes the right here comes the right boom i mean he'll throw jabs but you're not terrified of it the way you're terrified of roy jones left hand you know roy jones have you ever seen roy jones left bicep is it the one that splits down the middle like a perfect he'll show you like his right bicep is like a normal bicep and his left biceps like twice his size it's crazy it's huge you got the sage north cut bicep because he throws so many left hooks like he was flexing he's like look at this and i was like that's crazy right

he was like this one's normal but you look at this one his left look at his left he's got that sage north cut splitter down the middle it's enormous it's enormous. I mean, it's enormous. It's crazy how much bigger it is. Like legitimately 50% larger. Wow, I had no idea. Well, his left hook is just a thing of beauty. When he was in his prime he barely jabbed people. He was just leaping left hook them and crack

them and his speed, his foot speed and his hand speed were so incredible that he could get away with that. I know folks of this modern era, they know the name but they don't really know what he meant to the game. If someone asked me, who's the modern Roy Jones Jr. in boxing? There isn't one. There's not one. There's this guy to take risks and liberties and had crazy athleticism and pinpoint punching and showman.

He was a showman, too. There's great boxers. Boxing is in a great place in many ways. There's nobody who does what he did. Roy made world champions look like they had no business in there. And people were like, oh, he didn't fight anybody. Bullshit, he didn't fight anybody.

He fought world champions. He fought really tough guys, but he fucked them all up. It's the same with Khabib. Oh, Khabib didn't fight anybody. No, motherfucker. He makes them look like they're fighting me. That's the same with Khabib. Yeah. Oh, Khabib didn't fight anybody. No, motherfucker. Yeah. He makes them look like

they're fighting me. That's the difference. Look what he did to Justin Gaethje. That's all you need to know. If you say Justin Gaethje's a nobody, you're crazy. You watch that Tony Ferguson fight, Justin Gaethje's a fucking animal.

He's a savage. And he just closed that gap and he ate a lot of leg kicks too, man. He ate a lot of leg kicks that would... I mean, I don't know how many of those you can eat from Justin. Right. Maybe he had like five or six more in the tank right you're on e

but he closed the gap and then wound up finishing with a triangle off of his back i mean god damn a serious question about this because i went through it a couple times so from the moment he got kicked then he initiates the takedown so it was a kick he tried the first round he did off a head inside single didn't work second round he did it off a head inside single. Didn't work. Second round, he tried it off a double from the outside leg kick. First round was an inside leg kick, hence the inside single. Didn't work. So then he goes to the double.

It's 22 seconds from that till the finish. So 22 seconds, we're apart. 22 seconds later, you're unconscious. I mean, this is my question to you. Is that the best back take you've ever seen in MMA? Because what he does is, when Gaethje is sprawling in this contest, he's not just sprawling. He is sprawling and turning so he doesn't get pushed into the fence.

He was very diligent about that in the Alvarez and the Gaethje fights. You can go back and you can watch it. So in this fight, when you see the level change that Khabib hits, you see automatically Gaethje turn because he doesn't want to get turned in that direction. But what Khabib does is he actually scoots under him, pulls him up, and then with his head posts him over, gets the hands to plant. Well, once the hands are planted, the double is over.

He doesn't care about it anymore. Now he just wants the tight waist. And from the tight waist, his elbows aren't flared. They're tight here, right? Like he's T-rexing inside. At that point, you have created, if you're Justin Gaethje, putting your hands, you've created a stable structure for this guy to now mount. Plus, if you want to escape to the fence to like stand, he can control the ascent.

So he goes, double, turns, pushes hands to the mat, forces Gaethje down, and then with his gable grip, then keeps it there and then replaces it with the hooks. And then turns it to a fake, not a real Joe Rogan, a fake head and arm triangle attempt. Just so Gaethje gets his elbows away from his body. Then he chair sits to occupy the space, then throws the leg over and then sits back and takes mercy upon him. As we learn later from Daniel Cormier, rather than armbar him in front of his moms. I'm just going to triangle you because that's the merciful.

This guy is out here taking fucking pity on his opponents, and he's doing back takes like that. He is, Jon Jones to me is the most accomplished fighter we've ever seen. The things accumulate over time. No one is as flawless as Khabib Nurmagomedov. Not even close. I think that is the argument, right? Like, who is the GOAT?

I think if you look at Jon Jones' early career, right? Jon Jones wins the title in 2011 and from then on has fought more fights as championship fights than he has other fights. So he's the most accomplished for sure. Wins the title, earliest, youngest guy to ever win the title in the UFC. Beats Mauricio Shogun Hua, who's a legend. And then the way he dominates all these other fighters. Up until you get to Alexander Gustafson, you can make the argument that he had a similar career. You can make the argument, like if you look at what he did, John didn't lose any rounds.

John was smashing people. You look what he did to Rashad Evans. You look what he did. John was smashing people. You look what he did to Rashad Evans. Look what he did to Rampage Jackson. Look what he did to Liotta Machida. Look what he did to everybody. Everybody he fought up until the Gustafson fight. But the Gustafson fight, then you have to say, well, how much slack do you give him for admittedly not training? Because it was a really close fight.

He pulls it out in the championship round, even though he's out of shape, though you talk to greg jackson he didn't train for that fight didn't fucking train like barely worked out but definitely didn't go through a training camp still managed to beat one of the best guys in the division after getting taken down for the first time in his career then goes on a tear right beats look at the way he beat daniel cormier in the first fight took him down like who the fuck takes daniel cormier in the first fight. Took him down. Like, who the fuck takes Daniel Cormier down, right? And then you look at him in the second fight. Even though it was ruled a no contest, we know what the fuck happened. He head kicked him and stopped him.

You know, it was spectacular. You look at what John has done. Then you have to take into account the things that didn't go that well. And we haven't seen those from Khabib yet. You have to take into account the fight like Tiago Santos, right? That fuck a split decision you're like whoa dominic reyes dominic reyes thought he won the fight right real close real close fight so those fights haven't happened with khabib yet and we don't know if they ever could we don't know right like right now would you see flawless victory after flawless victory you could maybe make the argument that Khabib lost two rounds his entire career.

Maybe the second round against Justin. First round against Justin is your argument. Maybe first round rather against Justin and maybe the third round with Conor. That's right. That's it. And either one of those didn't get cut, didn't get dropped, didn't get hurt. To never get cut and to never get dropped, I don't think folks understand what that means. In a sport filled with, it's not a scientific measurement per se right who gets cut the most or

something but in a sport built on unpredictability yeah on violence uh you know saint pierre went to wrestling to get away from all of that in large in large part and then to never experience that it's like it is shocking beyond description shocking i don't know how to explain that to folks it's uh But to your point, the thing about Khabib where he falls short is that it's just an inevitability. Like, your run through 29 fights is the best run I've seen through 29 fights. Ever.

Ever. Ever. But, you know, and John's not my best friend or anything, but I just don't... That is the best total resume I've ever seen. John has the best resume. It's just,

it's not, I mean, I know he got, he was getting all salty on Twitter being like, these fucking Khabib fans. It's like, dude,

put the, he shouldn't do that. Oh, he shouldn't do it. But here's my point to John. It's like, dude, put the keyboard down

for just a second. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to go to heavyweight and you're going to probably win. I mean, I don't know that's a guarantee, but let's assume that you do. All of the conversation,

everything that happens right now is just recency bias and khabib retired and his father died and was this incredibly sad and like yeah inspiring moment let the fucking guy have his moment because when you have your moment all of the the worm is going to turn yeah and then everyone's gonna be like john's the fucking greatest he's going to get his just not today at this moment recency bias that's real recent biases that's that's a real thing like you know we just watch could be and then the fact that khabib did supposedly retire come on son i know you want some yeah i know i haven't eaten much so my head is spinning a little bit that's all right everyone asked me like when i go on it's like are you gonna smoke weed i'm

like there's no chance i'm smoking joe rogan's fucking super weed there's no chance i'm smoking it right now i haven't done anything in a month i had a couple glasses of wine last night and i was like yeah i'm feeling it a little bit gotta be careful the um the john jode situation is also uh it's a contrast in personalities right khabib who's this really religious very moral ethical person who doesn't drink. He doesn't party. He doesn't do anything. He just trains.

He's always in phenomenal shape. He takes every fight incredibly serious. He's never been out of shape. He's never been fat. He's never – I mean, he's missed weight a couple of times earlier in his career, but he got that dialed in. He's just so dedicated, whereas John is a wild man. He's just wild.

I mean, you talk about not training for the – so excuse me, for the Gustafson fight. Buddy, that ain't the only fight he didn't train for. How about what he said to Cormier? I did coke and I still beat you. And I'm like, I don't think he's lying. I mean, the stories I've heard, I don't want to repeat them because I cannot verify them.

No. But I've heard stories like if y'all think that was the one fight, he's just like, oh, I'm going to pump the brakes this time. No, bitch. Here's the other part about it. It's like when you... Who's a guy, for example, who maintained dominance of the game and took significant amounts

of time off in boxing? Floyd Mayweather would be a great example of that. But Floyd has been training as a family affair from adolescence, right? For the long part of his life. And he is so gifted that he can take time off and the game is so developed that people aren't going to make warp speed development in his absence. And so they got a little bit better every time he took a little bit of time off.

Like the Maidana first fight with the corkscrew punch. That was a little bit of a wild card there. But in general, he was able to maintain that dominance. In MMA, the game changes rapidly, super fast, because people are still discovering best practices. In two years, people will not be doing the same kinds of things to the same degree they do now. The calf kick and its explosion is sort of an obvious example of that.

John was doing things like not training between camps. I mean, that's something only elite boxers do, because they've been doing this since they were five, six years old and they can take the time to not necessarily do that. Whereas most MMA fighters are like, I'm a, I'm a everyday martial artist. I just ramp it up. He would do nothing and then something and still go out there and beat world fucking champions. And what at the time was the UFC is marquee division. That is out of this fucking world bonkers. I'm going to train. I'm going to beat you as like a part-time guy.

Yeah. What? Yeah. You just couldn't wrap your head around it. I wonder if maybe there's some benefit to it. Cause it's not like you got totally out of shape, but I wonder if there's some benefit to that and that he's not getting beat up. He's not getting his joints wrecked.

Probably. Yeah, it's a real question of what's the best way to approach it. We're still trying to figure that out, right? If you go back to the early days of, say, Hammer House and the Miletic Fighting Systems guys, those guys used to beat the fuck out of each other. Kuratiba, Shoot the Box, what are you talking about? Those guys beat the fuck out of each other kuratiba shoot the box you're talking about those guys beat the fuck out it was hazing let's call it what it was sure

well you know that's a famous uh story about bj penn like bj penn's crew like they would just scrap they would fight they would get together in the afternoon they'd beat the shit out of each other and that would be training and like whoa and you know that was how everybody did it and now they realize like hey you can't really do that if you do that it's gonna really fuck with your longevity my sense about it is is i mean even then in jiu jitsu too like the old half gracie school like you talked to dave camarillo or whatever all those guys back then i mean half you know savage they were not fucking around no not fucking around this is not like hey you want to get better at self-defense no not that kind of school but um my answer to the question about like is it better to do what john did my my hunch is

that there are probably some net benefits to it right on balance there's going to be some downsides and some upsides the downsides are going to be that this development that you might need as a martial artist will be somewhat impeded. However, there'll be some longevity issues you may not have to worry about by consequence. In fact, you look at him tearing his toe in the Chael Sonnen fight. Now, I fucked up my toe similarly, not to the extent where I was through the skin, but he has a buddy system with the wrap on the toe. the skin but you know he has a buddy system with the wrap on the toe um and i had to use the exact same thing for a long time because every even now if i step on my right foot just right it sends fire through my toe it hurts like shit you know yeah john still tapes his he still tapes it and so my point being is to that extent he's probably minimized some of the long-term impacts it's just

he was so far ahead of the game so naturally talented so athletic he could just get away with it you could not be average and do what he does no you have to be very I mean the day he fought Shogun correct me if I'm wrong it was either the beta fight or the Shogun fight that morning he chased down a robber yeah uh in in Newark New Jersey which is I had worked there one time it fucking sucks okay I was born there is that right is you were born in Newark yeah wow Joe you've come up a long way Newark sucks Newark sucks uh anyway and he's when he chased down a robber there and the whole nine yards and you know I mean the just things about distraction and blah blah blah and it had zero impact on any fucked and everyone wants to say by the way I don't know if you follow closely MMA Twitter, I'm a little bit more, you know, in the weeds

on that kind of a thing, by virtue of my media placement. Everyone wants to say, oh, Shogun was washed. Motherfucker, he was the belt holder at the time John took it. Yeah, just knocked out Lyoto Machida. What the fuck are you talking about? Was that Prime Shogun from the

2005 middleweight tournament in Pride? No. But was he some kind of washed afterthought? What the fuck? What kind of revisionist nonsense is this? He was one of the best fighters in the world. Right. Yeah. It's hard to say he was washed up. Just because John comes along. First of all, John opens up with a flying knee.

Who the fuck does that? You know, what young kid? What is he, 23? Right? If. If that. He opens with a flying knee on a legend. You almost watch it. Here's what he really did at the time. He was just disrespectful.

Not like in the fuck you kind of sense, but like, I'm going to fight you in a way where all these stories that they told me about you, it's like the buzzing of flies to me. Yeah, didn't matter. He was so confident. He just was a guy who, first of all when you look at just the genetics in his family are phenomenal his father is a massive man both of his brothers are nfl players elite nfl players there's just tremendous athletes in the house and then they grew up together if you watch guys who grew up with

athletic brothers like they all beat the fuck out of each other right like matt hughes and mark hughes they beat each other's asses like that is the case like joe lozano dan lozano beat each other's asses there's so many examples of guys growing up with tough brothers and they are fucking hardened you know by the time they get into the octagon. There's so many of them like that. I think there's something to that. Having two bad motherfuckers as brothers and constantly competing with each other.

But it doesn't also say something like, okay, Noguera exception aside, most of the brother tandems or even the sister tandems, one is clearly better than the other, though. Like, Matt, better than Mark. Valentina, Antonems one is clearly better than the other though like matt better than mark right valentina antonio better than dan joe better than dan right the nagara brothers i might say that uh uh big nog a little bit better than little nog although little nog was pretty fucking

great you know it wasn't like a tremendous difference but in general usually one like kind of kind of puts it on the other one for a little bit. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Well, sometimes that is what makes a really tough fighter too. Like Chris Weidman's story. Him and his brother. His brother used to beat his ass. His brother was bullying him. And Chris Weidman became a fucking savage because he was just so tough from dealing with his fucking brother.

Do you have any siblings? I only have a sister. Forgive my ignorance. I have a brother. Not the same kind of thing. My brother was a super hardcore academic nerd. And so I don't have any... I have a brother and you're telling me these stories

and it's like, that is so divorced from my reality from having a brother as a sibling. Really, we're talking about a lack of observation. Parents should be there. Hey, you fucks. Stop beating each other up. Separate. Or probably parents didn't have the time.

There's only so much you can do when you've got... Can you imagine if you had Arthur Jones, Chandler Jones, and John Jones in the backseat of the car and they want to slap each other? The fuck are you going to do? What are you going to do? I mean, that's some fucking powerful genetics. I don't know if Arthur is still in the NFL. I think he he is out now i don't know if he still is in there but his brother on the right is chandler uh chandler i don't know if you follow you i don't you don't watch team sports right no you're missing out joe you got i gotta get i gotta get you on it too much to do i hear you i hear you chandler is like a legitimate multiple time all pro. He is the fucking man.

He's at the little bit of the latter stage of his career at this point. Obviously, they're all kind of aging a little bit. But Chandler of the three, well, I guess, well, John had a great career. But of the two in the NFL, Arthur had a good career, I think you could say. But Chandler is, I mean, primo talent. Arthur trains quite a bit.

Yes, he was a wrestler for a time. I wonder if he's thought about fighting in MMA now that he's not doing NFL anymore. I mean, he's probably a better athlete. Again, he's got the Paul Buentello syndrome a little bit where they don't look like it. But I bet he can go in there and fuck people up. Well, Fedor had that better than anybody. Arguably the greatest heavyweight of all time. had that better than anybody.

Arguably the greatest heavyweight of all time. And then the other two besides Stipe is Kane, who also didn't have the best body in the world. Although Kane, he looks menacing. Oh, his face, yeah. You know what I mean? He's got a big-ass fucking head, too. Looks hard as fuck. I re-watched Kane versus Junior 3 the other day.

God damn it. That's hard to watch. That's hard to watch. He changed JDS. Yeah, he changed him. He changed him it that's hard to watch that's hard to watch he changed jds yeah he changed him he changed him it's hard to watch you ever seen uh there's this documentary um um i think it's called the season but if i'm getting it wrong i know your listeners are gonna fucking kill me if i get it wrong i forget the exact name but they you know steve macco he's the att wrestling coach or at least it was i'm not sure exactly he was for a long time steve macco's hilarious i one time speaking to john jones john was fighting glover in baltimore Steve Mocko, he's the ATT wrestling coach. I'm not sure exactly who he is. He was for a long time.

Steve Mocko's hilarious. At one time, speaking to Jon Jones, Jon was fighting Glover in Baltimore, and Steve definitely did not want me to interview him, but he didn't say no. I was like, Steve, can I get a couple seconds with you or whatever? And I stuck a microphone in his face, and I'm like, so specifically, what kind of strategies around Glover have you trained here?

He's like, you know, some particular strategies around Glover for John. He would just literally repeat the exact words back to me. Four questions and I'm like, you don't want to do this. He's like, I don't want to do this. It's like, you could have said it up front. Anyway. John has an issue with you? You guys have a

weird thing? Well, real quickly, I'll tell you real quickly. Because it was a funny time. Yeah, yeah. He sent me to hell on a press conference once. But real quickly, when it comes to Steve Mako, Steve was, he wrestled at Oklahoma and then Iowa. I think Iowa first and then Oklahoma. And they had, I think it was ESPN had done a documentary and they had gone to, you know, Iowa wrestling is like, you know, if not, Penn State is now the best program in the country. And has been for some time because of Kale Sanderson and the recruiting and the great work that they've done. But in general, for a long time, Iowa is sort of one of these titans of college wrestling.

And they ask Steve Mako, as a college student, why do you like wrestling? Why do you want to compete so hard? He's like, because when I really win and I dominate, I change people. They're not the same after I get done with them. They realize they're not who they think they are, and I'm everything that they feared I would be.

Whoa. And he is dead fucking serious about it. So anyway, that was the thing about Steve Maka. So when I put a microphone in his face, it was kind of funny. But about John, so I don't know what the issue is, candidly. I actually, what basically ended up happening was

he had a very good relationship with him and his management for a long time. And I still have a decent relationship with his management. But he had, so the fight back with Cormier at 214 i think it was whatever the number was the rematch he had a press conference he had shaved head he was in a mood you know and i'd asked him some totally softball innocuous question and to the public he goes um you know look i don't like you so i'm not gonna answer your question was that right yeah and it was a shock to me because his coach brandon gibson i'm like very tight with you know and a bunch of

other people and they didn't know either in fact i talked to his manager malki at the time i met him at the host hotel and i go bro what the fuck was that like it was totally out of nowhere he's like he's like you know you know malki right you ever talked to him yeah he's like he's like i don't know he's like but you got a big mouth that's your problem you got a big mouth i was like okay but what specifically was the issue he didn't know and uh and uh i didn't get a chance to follow up with john obviously and brandon gibson didn't know nobody fucking knew so here's my hunch my hunch is that we were reasonably in good terms then he had all those fuck-ups where you know he got into the car accident and everything else and i probably said something he didn't like and i just it's not they don't tell you you know they don't call you up be like i'm really mad at you they just wait to some other

opportunity i had a discussion with john where he was uh he was thinking like why did i go bad on him like what was i saying and well because one of the things that I said that I speculated that maybe one of the reasons why he was behaving the way he was behaving was CTE. And I still kind of stand by that. I think one of the things that happens with CTE, and not that I think John should get out of the game. I'm not saying this at all. But I'm saying that there's an inevitable consequence of getting hit in the head. But I'm saying that there's an inevitable consequence of getting hit in the head. We've seen the video of John getting pulled over drunk driving, and he says, I forget a lot of things.

I get hit in the head for a living. There's an inevitable consequence of getting punched in the head where fighters experience some sort of negative effect of it. And some of them become very impulsive. It's just one of the side effects of head trauma. And even head trauma that's like acceptable, they get impulsive. They do wild shit. I mean, they do more wild shit.

They have a harder, it's harder for them to control their impulses. Well, in the case of John, I don't, as it relates to my interaction with him, and I hold no ill will, believe it or not, because frankly, I almost prefer that. You know, because here's what ends up happening. If you get too friendly, then you could hold back. Not even that. A little bit.

But that's less my issue. Like, I always tell fighters, I'm like, I'm not your friend, but I'm definitely not your enemy. Like, you have to understand that. I mean, it's truly, you cannot work in MMA media. You cannot work in MMA media. You cannot work in MMA media. It's not possible to do the job correctly, such as the job can be done correctly,

which I'm not even sure that's even true anymore. But if you don't understand that the fighter doesn't owe you anything and that the fighter is uniquely disadvantaged relative to the power structures inside mma you cannot do the job effectively you cannot so to the extent that he gets mad he's okay does he want to answer he doesn't he is not he does not have to answer my question i'd have fucking preferred a different result you know right than him saying in a press conference like i mean i was like jesus all right there's a better way to handle this but but at the end, it's like, you know, I can't tell you how many fighters get mad at me and then won't talk.

And, like, I've had intermediaries reach out and be like, hey, man, like, what's the issue? And they won't even tell their friend intermediaries who are often coaches, fighters, blah, blah, blah. Dude, they're incredibly sensitive, which I understand. And they're incredibly, you know, they don't suffer shit gladly, which I also understand. But it's like, I've got a job to do. You think I can watch somebody do the shit that John was doing at the time in his life and just, like, constantly reflexively defend all of it?

It's not possible. I have a job to do. So if he doesn't like that, that's okay. But, you know, if that causes a a division then that causes a division there's nothing i can do about that you know well i think fighting is uniquely personal right it's not like calling like saying bill buckner's a loser because you let that ball go between his legs it's a different thing like when a fighter loses it's uh i i almost feel like they put themselves out there more than any other athlete and they deserve more respect than any other athlete. This is my personal opinion. Obviously, I'm

incredibly biased because that's the only sport that I've ever covered. But I get why they feel the way they feel. I get it. And i try to be as respectful as possible while still being accurate and that's a fine line to draw you know but i'm an employee of the ufc you're not you know and one of the things that i would love to get into with you you said that you what was the way you phrased it that they're uniquely disadvantaged within the power structure of mri there's no way to i don't i don't think you can like if your job is to cover the sport, right? Your job is different. Your job is to commentate for UFC and then do your podcast.

And my position, I come to it a little bit differently, right? So for me, if you're looking at the world and your job is to the best approximation that you can, tell the truth about it, how do you tell the truth about the world and say that the fighters don't have every power structure pushing against them? Because they basically do. That doesn't mean they don't act petulantly at times. That doesn't mean they don't bring shit on themselves at times

or that everything they do is above reproach. That's not what I'm here to say. But let's go through it here a little bit. In the case of fighter pay, the debate is over. It is settled. There is no argument anymore. We now have court documents to this effect. They get paid roughly 18% to 20% by the UFC year over year as a more or less fixed position.

Now, as the UFC makes more money, 20%, the percentage might stay fixed, but the amount of money can go up. So money is going up, but it's relative. It's all a function of this, uh, continued amount, 20%. Okay. That doesn't seem to me quite equitable. That's a personal opinion, but that's the way I look at it. Then you want to look at their management. There are no barriers to entry for management. I cannot tell you half of these guys. Listen, some of these guys I interact with, they're great. I disagree with them at times. I agree with them at times. I think they really have the fighter's best interest at heart. But there's a lot of them there that are fucking snakes.

That's just the way that it goes. And they are not always acting in their client's best interest. And I don't think the fighters are necessarily the best stewards of understanding what's in their rights and interests. It's my personal opinion. But anti-doping to me is to me, I won't call it a fraud, but I think it's a tragic mistake in the way that we are doing it. How so? Well, in the case of the fighters, they had no say it was forced upon them, right? Here's another thing where it's like, to what extent do the fighters support it? There

could be high support for it, but we don't know because it's a compulsory, uh, demand that they have to give into it. That's the first thing. there's many issues that i have with it right we can get into that i have but let me let you go through your list and then we'll come back because there's a bunch so then it goes to the sponsors and then they take away all of them which is the ufc's right by the way it totally is they're right but it again to me i never understood it from just a pragmatic standpoint because this was a way to offset complaints about fighter pay you know because you have now Venom at the time, or any brand or whatever the fuck that was sponsored, Ryu, whatever brand that's come and gone,

was a way to offset fighter pay. So they are restricted. And by the way, the media, I think, doesn't treat them fairly in the sense that, and I'm a member of the MMA media, and I have been for almost 15 years, you are expected to be either friend or foe with them. And I don't want to be either. I want to be friendly. I want to be them. And I don't want to be either.

I want to be friendly. I want to be professional. But I don't want to be like your buddy because it causes all kinds of problems down the road when shit starts to go south for you. And by the way, it will. Every fighter who's young thinks that they're going to live off these wins forever and is like, dude, I've been around long enough to see the downside.

It's coming for you. So you begin to add up all of these factors, and you can say, well, what is the moment we can create to fix all of this? That is the responsibility of the fighters. It used to be the case that you could make an argument that MMA media was not covering enough of these issues with full-throatedness. That is no longer the case. They have aired out all of this.

They have covered this multibillion-dollar lawsuit that is happening. They have covered. Which multibillion-dollar lawsuit? Oh, there's a storm coming, Joe Rogan. So there is a Nate Quarry, Kyle Kingsbury, Kung Lee lawsuit, and many others as well. They are basically suing the UFC for, to put it in layman's terms the bad effects of

monopoly and they believe they are entitled to compensation and other forms of change in the industry as a consequence. We are going to get a result I think on the 19th of this month from the judge in the case that if he allows it to go forward he will have to certify them as a class and all indications

are he's going to which means that trial will proceed. Now, it still has a long way to go, but that is a major institutional hurdle on behalf of the plaintiffs. I'm not hearing anything about this. Because MMA media. Right. Yeah. Right.

Are you talking about this? Oh, like a fucking parrot. Here it goes. John Fitch is involved as well. Yeah, it got launched in 2014. Can I shout out a couple of people who are tremendous reporters in this regard? There's a guy by the name of John Nash. He goes by the name of – if you want to follow him on Twitter, it's at heynottheface.

I don't know. I don't understand it. He has done absolutely fantastic work and is a professor at Pepperdine. He's an economist. He's a professional economist who teaches economics there. He goes by the name of at MMA Analytics, but his name, but his name is... God, I'm blanking now because I've been drinking. But I've had him on my show a million times. These two guys,

and also MMA Payout has done a good job of covering this. Josh Gross, to an extent. I know you know Josh. Josh has done some good work for The Athletic, although he's no longer with them. These are basically the only folks really talking about it. No one else is really doing it. It's hard to focus on the lawsuit because if the judge denies them class certification or it gets thrown out at any moment then the whole

thing goes away and it's a long-term projection like we're not in anywhere close to any kind of end on this for the next five years what is the argument what is um basically that the ufc is not a monopoly as a monopsony which instead of of sort of one seller, it's one buyer. It's a different kind of monopoly, and that has resulted in depressed wages. It's resulted in unfair contracts. It's resulted in any number of harms related to the fighter and their ability to negotiate. I mean, most of that is not arguable, right? You cannot argue that the UFC and the fighter go to contract negotiations with equal amounts of leverage. That is not true.

Now, what the solution to that is, is very debatable. How do you want to fix that? What kind of policy prescriptions do you want to pass? Do you want to pass the OLLI Act and extend it to MMA? There are some problems with that as well. Let's explain the OLLI Act to people. The OLLI Act is an act that exists in boxing. It currently is a thing.

It was passed, I think, by John McCain, I want to say around 2000 or so. I might be getting the date wrong. But basically, the idea behind the Ali Act is that it provides a series of protections for the boxer against the promoter and or the industry in the form of disclosures. So for example, by virtue of the Ali Act, they have to disclose to the fighter, to the boxer, like Teofimo Lopez just won, right? Top rank has to disclose to him who's making what, margins on the costs, sales on pay-per-view, or it was on TV. But to the extent that it's relevant, so they have to disclose that kind of thing. The Aliak prevents any promoter from having the title.

So it's a Strikeforce title. It's a Bellator title. It's a UFC title. You can have a problem with the alphabet soup, but that really is the crux of the issue is to the extent that the promoter holds the title, they hold everything. That is a weird issue, right? And it is with Bellator, with Strikeforce, it is with 1FC, with all these organizations. It's like, it's the,

it's a mix between the boxing and pro wrestling model to an extent. Yeah. Anyway, I'm not, I'm not suggesting that the Ali Act is the cure to everything. But, yeah, see, because the other thing is, like, promoters and then the sanctioning body, like, then the fighters are paying the sanctioning body and they're paying the promoter and the sanctioning bodies are, you know, they're trying to get mandatories that nobody gives a fuck about. And if you don't, you know what I mean? And even WBA, like I've been, you know, I covered boxing for a long time.

Then I stopped because of the nature of my job changed and I didn't have the opportunity to really, I was just so engrossed in the MMA world. changed and I didn't have the opportunity to really I was just so engrossed in the MMA world I'd missed a lot of time and um I remember I was catching up with my co-host for the show I do on Showtime Morning Combat and my co-host was like I was like okay so this guy has the WBA regular title and then this one has the WBA franchise title and then this one has the WBA Latino title like what's the difference he's like do you see what Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. are fighting for? Yeah, like the old man belt or some shit? It's some crazy thing, but it has Black Lives Matter on the belt. They're just trying to capitalize on this moment.

I forget what it's called, but it's some bizarre name for the belt. But both of those fighters are very upset that they're making them fight two-minute rounds. But we're going to get to that in a bit. that long story long story short is i don't i'm not presenting to you the ali that i'm a huge fan of it i think it's the cure-all basically my view on what would be more equitable this is my personal view and economists will debate this my view is that they should be there should be a union and or trade association depending on how you want to view it um there's some debate about that as well. And that that will negotiate on behalf of the fighters' interests with some additional leverage by virtue of law.

At that point, if they're an actual union, the UFC has a legal obligation to negotiate on their behalf. And so I can, as media, stop fucking talking about how I think the Reebok deal is unfair, or the rankings are unfair, or pay is unfair. At that point, it becomes the union's responsibility responsibility and then you can just go into that does the nba have a deal with like a particular sneaker brand or forgive me my i don't believe so i believe you're allowed to through but the collective bargaining agreement through the nba uh certifies all of this you are allowed to have

your own endorsement the teams might have some kind of individual sponsor but if you're a lebron you can wear whatever the fuck you want but that's also if you're conor mcgregor you can negotiate in any way you want as well right there are some card when there's superstars but here's the key is this it's like um i don't people think that if there's a union the fighters are going to get 50 of everything which they would not it's not true there's enough the way that what do they get in boxing uh boxing purses are on average through the range of things. And again, John Nash has looked at this through the regional circuit. Basically, if you look at the two curves, there is a moment in time in the curve where boxing is less than the MMA fighters.

It's that middle class. But before that and then after that, it's all boxing pays higher. Well, for sure, when you get to guys like Floyd Mayweather, who's the highest paid boxer of all time. But there's no one that's really commensurate other than Conor in MMA like Floyd, and really not commensurate because Conor's lost. Right, but let me give you a better example. Two guys who are roughly

similar positions in their division, actually from the same area. Regis Progray just fought Juan Geraldez on Showtime. He was the number one guy at 140. He's probably number two now, right? Josh Taylor's probably number one. You got Dustin Po Showtime. He was the number one guy at 140. He's probably number two now, right? Josh Taylor's probably number one. You got Dustin Poirier. He's number two-ish or close in his division.

If you look at the Google Analytics, Dustin Poirier is eminently more popular than Regis Progray. Like, it's not even close, okay? He's four or five times to one in terms of how people are interested in what he's doing and looking for him. Regis Progray makes, you know, seven or eight times what Dustin Poirier makes.

So you have two people that roughly commensurate. Seven or eight times. I mean, I think he made, I have to look at his last, I don't know what he made for the Geraldo's fight. Before the fight where he was trying to fight Josh Taylor, it was orders of magnitude different. I think it was 400,000 versus a couple of million or more, right? Significantly different. I think it was 400,000 versus a couple of million or more. Significantly different. You can make an argument

that there are sections of the boxing world that don't take care of the middle class as well as the UFC and that is very, very true. Again, I'm not here to paint UFC as criminals. The UFC is a business. They're going to run it like a business. The only way to fix this is for the fighters to decide they want to do something about it. That is it.

There's no cavalry coming. The fighters have to decide. It's going to be so hard for fighters to do they want to do something about it. That is it. Media, there's no cavalry coming. The fighters have to decide. It's going to be so hard for fighters to do that because another fighter will come in and say, I'll take that fight. Right. And then you have no, yeah. Hence the lawsuit being a bit of a game changer because it could, again, this is very much speculating.

It could change the procedure for how this goes forward. It could result, there's a couple of outcomes where it could result in a union or a trade association, and then that sort of fixes the problem. Yeah, there's, it's interesting, right? There's fighters that get to a position where they are, you know, world class, where they're challenging for a title, and they're really, they never quite make enough money where you feel like it was worth it right is this like sometimes you read some of the uh statistics you read the fighter payouts and you go right here's the thing it's like you always hear these stories and bellator by the way if

you're asking what percentage they pay out it's mid 40s mid 40s to what to their uh so that's what they pay right which you could say is like you know who pays more they make less but they make a lot less so and you can keep your sponsors there i don't know how much that matters but it matters in some cases right i'm sure it matters with like michael venom page really popular guys right douglas lima douglas lima right yeah really popular guys i'm sure it's valuable this is what i try to explain to people it's like there used to be this debate because you hear these fighters come out and be like you Lima. Douglas Lima, right. Yeah, really popular guys, I'm sure. It's valuable. This is what I try to explain to people. It's like, there used to be this debate, because you'd hear these fighters come out and be like, you know, I got this bonus one time, and it wasn't expected, and it was huge.

And it's like, listen, man, if you've ever been broke, and someone came in with a lifeline, it is, I mean, you can't get anything but teared up thinking about it, especially if you have kids, and now you can have a Christmas with your kids. I take what the gesture of money to a person who needs it, I take it very seriously. I mean that absolutely sincerely. I really do. But the debate is over. It is not.

There is no more debate about fighter pay. We have court documents year over year over year with express intent written in language by UFC to say we want to keep it at roughly 20%. And they include the fighter expense of USADA as fighter compensation. That's called fighter compensation. So it's really a little bit closer to 18 or 19. What? USADA is... Fighter compensation.

I wish I was making that up. I'm not making that up. Oh, that's unfortunate. So here's my point. Please go ahead. I've been rambling. I apologize. Go ahead. You brought this. It's unfortunate so here's my please go anyway i've been rambling i apologize go ahead you you brought this that's okay uh okay keep going the last thing i would say is i i appreciate the stories of locker room bonuses and helping people out at christmas but the fundamental question is do if you're a fighter do you get

half of the ufc's money from espn do you get what kind of cut do you get from pay-per-view and how much leverage do you have to negotiate that? That is all that matters anymore, and we know what the documents say. The UFC is obviously a different kind of an organization than, say, boxing, where you just have a promoter, and the promoter promotes the fights they promote, and they don't have obligations to 500 fighters they have on the roster. There's obviously much higher overhead for the UFC. Thec runs multiple performance centers all over the world the ufc has this promotion machine built into it right which is very expensive the

ufc has a tremendous staff which they've kept employed even during the pandemic they never let anybody go which to me is very admirable i feel what you're saying i have always been the person like i'm obviously I'm an employee a long term, started for the UFC in 1997, was a different organization I'm pre-Zufa, right? but they they do

they have something that doesn't exist anywhere else where you can go through the system become a champion and be a multi-multi-millionaire. Sure. That's not really available anywhere else. Here's the thing.

I'm not advocating for a world where we make UFC suffer. The UFC suffering is bad for all of us. It's bad for... I'd lose my livelihood. Why would I want that? That's bad for me. You just want the fighters to get a bigger piece of the pie. It's just when it's all over, man.

And you see them at the end there, and they got shit to show for it. And part of that's their – by the way, to be clear, if not part of it, a huge portion of it is their own fault. Agreed. There's no doubt about it. Listen, it bothers me more than anything in the sport. Watching guys at the end with nothing. And then you see what they lost it on. They got scammed.

Yep, yep. Or they bought a car or some $ know some you know seven hundred thousand dollar maybach or whatever and you're like holy fuck how did we get here how did we get here but i'm just saying on some level it's like with usada which we've kind of got lost track on like what i get up and i think about before i hit publish or whatever what do i owe these people what do i owe the fighters what do i owe ufc what do i owe the public what do i owe right people? What do I owe the fighters? What do I owe UFC? What do I owe the public? What do I owe? Right?

And I owe it to the fighters to say there is a situation where you could be making more. I do not think it would be 50% because to get that 50% What do you think the numbers, what's the right number? I think probably around 35. 35. 35 seems like the sweet spot because to get the 50, Joe, you have to have a situation where like you play for, pick a major league baseball, you play for the Royals and they don't want you, but the Oakland Athletics might want you or blah, Joe, you have to have a situation where you play for Major League Baseball. You play for the Royals, and they don't want you. But the Oakland Athletics might want you or blah, blah, blah.

And so teams are competing. That is what gets you to 50. But if you have just one promoter and you have one union, that mechanism to drive pay doesn't exist. What might exist is enough at initial CBA negotiations. Just push it a little bit higher. Do you factor in all that overhead? Do you factor in all that overhead? Do you factor in all the employees? Do you factor in the machine that's behind the UFC that doesn't exist in boxing?

Right. It's hard to parse that because you have to ask yourself to what extent is that kind of – it's vertical integration, right? They want their own hotel, which they're building. They want their own Apex facility, which they have. They want their own broadcast. They want their own – they have UFC fight pass. Like if ESPN went away, UFC just still puts on fights. They have their own – they're going to have their own hotel. They have their own broadcast. They want their own. They have UFC Fight Pass. Like if ESPN went away, UFC just still puts on fights.

They have their own. They're going to have their own hotel. They have their own facility. They have their own broadcast network with Fight Pass, whatever. They have this total, not total, but they have near vertical integration across the industry. And so in many ways, that is a great way to keep fights going. But it's like you hear Eddie Hearn, who runs Matchroom Boxing, and he always sort of laments. He's like, there's got to be a better model that, you know, the UFC model really has figured it out. But you don't get that

if the fighters have rights. You don't get that. You don't get a model where you can have all this extra stuff if the fighters get a significantly greater share. So my answer to that would be, I don't know how it will all shake out. and I don't know that I have the right answer. I would like a union to decide this. I would like a trade association to decide this. Not me. This is not me deciding it. But I just get into a place where it's like,

oh, we can just keep fights going. You do that because you have the leverage to keep it going. When you don't, it's significantly harder. Yeah. Have you talked to someone who has parsed out the numbers, has looked at the expenses, like what it costs to run the UFC? Sure. John Nash has done this extensively through all

the court documents. He'd be better to talk about the overhead and how significantly that impacts. I'd be speaking a little bit out of turn. This is a significant factor because it doesn't really exist in boxing in relationship to promoters. They don't really have the staff or the promotion machine. They don't have the amount of overhead. And you have to ask yourself a question. In defense of the UFC, they're going to have this,

again, let's imagine the pandemic doesn't exist for a moment. They either have or it's already opened the institute in China. So they are forcing that market to begin to recruit and develop and recruit and develop. And I don't know if it'll be successful, but no one in boxing has that kind of hand in the pot to begin to make things happen in the way that UFC could for the betterment of MMA. That's a real thing I give them absolute credit for. It's just you have to decide what you want.

Do you want an institute in Shanghai, or do you want Diego Sanchez to have been paid what he should have been paid? There's a question you have to ask yourself there a little bit. I want to get to Diego, and I want to get to Anderson, and I want to get to a bunch of other fighters as well. The argument, if I was arguing on behalf of the UFC, which of course— So I don't mean to put you on the spot for it. No, no. I'm happy to be put on the spot.

I'm never anti-UFC. I just think about the fighters. What do I owe them? Listen, man. I owe them the truth. I'm on your team when it comes to fighter pay. I don't dictate it. I'm not an accountant. I'm not the guy who gets to decide what the checks are.

But I think they should be paid as much as they can be paid. I mean, I think it's the fucking hardest job outside of being a cop or a soldier or a firefighter or a first responder or a fucking surgeon in the emergency room it's one of the hardest goddamn jobs on the planet earth i mean i don't want to quantify whose job is tougher but it's to me i am obviously a massive fan and uh it means everything to me that these guys make as much as they can but it also also, the UFC has to be profitable. In order to be sold to someone like WME, it has to be valuable. In order for it to be valuable, it has to be profitable.

In order for it to be something that they can promote and get behind and make it as big as they've made it, there has to be some sort of pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for these people. When you're dealing with business folks like you know like the wme i mean these are big time players in the entertainment business for them to come along and fork out billions of dollars literally billions for the ufc it has to be a valuable thing and from that people have clearly profited from that stars have been born and when it gets when you get to a guy

who's a superstar like a conor mcgregor or kamib norma gamedoff or uh israel adesanya or john jones they're gonna make a shitload of money that the argument is do the guys below them you know do the um you know do do the journeymen journey women do they make enough for kel pennington does she make enough i would disagree a little bit if if I may. So let's talk about Jon Jones for a second. So again, not my best friend, but I take his side on this one, which is, do you remember when Jon was beefing with UFC about going to heavyweight? Yes.

He was like, I'm retired. Yes. Right? Okay. And he was like, you know, he was asking for Deontay Wilder money. Yeah, he should. I agree, but there's no crowds. The problem with asking for Deontay Wilder money when there's no crowds the problem with the asking for dionte wilder

money when there's not a stadium obviously you realize that stadiums bring in a significant amount of revenue it's a big deal right i mean it's millions and millions and millions of dollars for a fucking have you you're john jones you sell out the t-mobile arena that is a fuckload of money but john doesn't see a cut of that he doesn't see a cut of that. He doesn't see a cut of that, but it makes sense that they pay him more because of that. So here's what I would be sympathetic to the argument if the problem was the song was the same pre-pandemic as it was during the pandemic.

Pre-pandemic, it was the same thing. This money is outrageous. We don't possibly have it. We couldn't manufacture this if we wanted to. During the pandemic, it's the exact same argument. I'd be more sympathetic to it if the song had changed. But the song was the same. The other point I'm going to hear is this. If you want to just talk during the pandemic it's the exact same argument i'd be more sympathetic to it if the song had changed but the song was the same the other point i'm out here is this if you want to talk about the numbers deontay wilder has had what one or two two pay-per-views in his whole life the first and second um fury fights well first one was about 300 000 or so second one was

about 850 and k and some change then the second one's a very good number but it's like john has been outselling deontay wilder on pay-per-view, and this is not an exaggeration, for a decade. For a full decade, he has been logging four, five, six, 700,000 pay-per-view buys. Now, has he cost the UFC some money with his variety of indiscretions along the way? Maybe. But you're asking who sells more between the two and who has sold more? It's not even a contest. Especially cumulative, right?

Oh, my God. It's a very easy call for John Jones. Here's the question, though. When Deontay Wilder makes that money, everybody's tuning in just to see Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury. The undercard makes a fraction, a tiny, tiny fraction of that. Whereas the undercard of a huge UFC event, you will have four big fights on the card. Then you will have overall 12 fights, usually, 11 or 12. You have to pay all those fighters.

This is what I mean, though. I'm not asking for the guys to get 50. I don't think 50 is realistic for the reasons you mentioned. What the UFC has done spectacularly well is create a fighter middle class where guys can make six figures a year. I don't know how many of them, but there's a portion of them where they can make six figures. They at least have some accident insurance, and there's ways to leverage that. And there's a whole lot of them relative to what there is in boxing.

That's the sweet spot there. When you talk about the argument about who's most underpaid, the people point to the guy who's making 10 and 10 because it's a sob story. But if you're asking who has generated the most versus what they were paid yes for the reasons you articulated john shouldn't be getting i don't know whatever he got for uh um deontay got for the second fury fight no it'd be a little bit less than that but relative to what he got no he is conor mcgregor is underpaid relative to what he generates for the company you think he got 50 of the company. You think he got 50% of that? I don't think he got 50% of that.

I have zero idea. I've never looked into it even for a second. But when you get to a point where you're talking about a world championship fighter, at least they have the leverage of people knowing that this is going to sell a shitload of paper. What leverage does Conor have? Let me ask you. It's a good question. He has no. Not right now.

He has very little leverage. Right now, I would say he doesn't have a lot of leverage. But post Jose Aldo and then post Eddie Alvarez, I would say he had a lot of leverage. So here's why Conor's in a bit of a problem. One, you may not realize this, but the UFC over the years, they're smart businessmen here. UFC's very smart. That's what I mean.

A business is going to do what a business is going to do. You can get mad at them for it. I don't get mad at them for it. I understand they took advantage of... The UFC didn't break any laws. Right. They took advantage of what the laws were.

They were smart businessmen. I completely understand it. But they're very good now about having contractual revenue. Right? So it used to be... For example, the ESPN pay-per-view deal

is a very good example of this where you know you know as well as i do 2014 john fights glover may sell okay but not great john fights uh cormier it's going to be much higher numbers and that's still true to this day because star power sells but what cut the ufc takes for how much money they can get is a function it's very volatile by virtue of the star power involved. The ESPN deal cuts out a shitload of that. How so? So for a couple of reasons.

I really am ignorant to the ESPN deal. So there's a couple of different factors. One is, to the extent that they meet their total quota, so I think it's like 40-something shows a year, they get $750 million. Okay? It's a shitload of money. But that's contracted. So you cross the finish line, money's yours.

And they're going to meet that quite easily this year and good for them. I'm glad. Again, the UFC staying in business and doing well, everybody wins when that's the case, including me. I recognize that. So that's the first one. The second part is what they did with ESPN was they took it away. Like if you have a cable subscription through DirecTV or Comcast, you can't order UFC pay-per-views anymore. You have to go to ESPN+. The way that works is that ESPN+, or ESPN rather, gives them a flat check for every pay-per-view. My understanding is, this is not confirmed, and I hope your audience

understands this, so double-check it. It's believed to be around what they would get for a $500,000 pay-per-view buy. Where are you getting that from? Again, various reports that we've seen from Sports Business Journal. Isn't that weird, though? Just to come out with a number based on various reports. Have you ever asked the UFC to substantiate that?

I asked the guy who wrote the article. Yeah? What did he say? Again, it's a little bit off the record, but there's a reasonable reason to believe it. Again, or double-check it or don't. I'm just going to give you what I know. Yeah, but that seems like a weird one. I mean, I'm with you on all this, but that a weird one to if you don't have the fact if i

have not seen the documents myself well here's what i can say for certain they get a stipend for each individual pay-per-view and then on top of that if it sells past a certain point they get a cut of every they get a percentage of everyone past a certain threshold the khabib fight sold 500 is that what it's I think domestically plus an additional amount Do we know what it sold internationally? I think around 150-200 extra. Which is a huge... Dude, sell at 2pm and that's a shitload. That's very, very good.

So the point being is, what they have done intentionally, again, quite wisely, is they've removed volatility. They're going to have a certain amount of overseas deals with Combache in Brazil or European providers. They've got a series of contracted

pieces of revenue that take out the volatility provided they can meet the overall inventory of content that they have to meet. This is very, very smart but what it has done is it has reduced the amount of leverage that any one individual fighter may have. Plus, Conor pulls out and they go, okay, Jorge, you're on deck.

And Jorge has just fucking exploded to a megastar, and he's all too willing to play ball. And so he had his own moment. But they have a ton of different resources to go to so that fighters think, oh, I'll just retire. I'll just retire, and that'll show them. It's not going to show them shit. Well, the Jon Jones thing um wasn't he contractually obligated to fight like he he had a contract for x amount of money per fight and he wanted

substantially more to fight at heavyweight because he said the risk was higher and that was where the negotiation broke down but why is that why is that crazy that's what would any other person in any other combative sport certainly in boxing what you would get you would get higher paydays for a move up in weight you would um if there was a a fight there that would generate substantial revenue you know i think john moving up to heavyweight you could make the look what was how how well did stipe versus uh dc do the second fight the second fight? I don't know. The third fight, rather.

I don't know. That would be the argument whether Stipe is a big enough challenge for John to generate X amount of pay-per-view buys, which would justify the revenue. But this is my point, Joe. I see your point, though. It makes sense. I'm just trying to say. 600,000, so that's pretty good. 500,000?

Where do you see that? 500,000. Oh, I'm sorry. So 500,000 for three... Take these numbers with a little bit of a grain of salt. It's from Topology, which is a great site, but these are not double-checked to some degree. Actually, you know what? Some of them might be.

But the point being is this, Joe. It's like, what is John Jones entitled to? Here's what I would like it to be. I would like it to be a case where I don't know the answer to that i'd like to let the union figure it out like y'all y'all fucking figure this out and let it let it go i feel you on this union thing i understand the position and like i said i'm i'm always for fighters getting paid more money but it just i don't know if that would ever work it will work you think it will work yeah i think it's gonna work yes really so you think the future is a union how we get there i don't know now that is i couldn't if that would ever work. It will work. You think it will work? Yeah, it definitely will work. You think it's going to work? Yes. Really?

So you think the future is a union? How we get there, I don't know. Now that is, I couldn't, I'm with you. It's like their reluctance, because I know for a long time, privately fighters would be like to me, they'd be like, y'all never talk about this shit.

You'll never talk about it. And I was like, you know what? It's a fair point. We never talk about it. And then we spent the last seven, eight years talking about it and it hasn't moved the needle. And so it's like,

I don't think it's up to me to media i don't think we can solve this problem you know it's really if you guys want it to be better uh it's up to you because again ufc is going to do what they are allowed to do right they're just going to keep doing it so like for example we had this whole issue with leon edwards he got removed from the rankings and everyone was like fire and brimstone fire and brimstone i'm like dude what do you want me to say man it's their rankings yeah they're gonna do what they're gonna do like either well the leon edwards one was weird because like is there anyone that gets less respect for being that good than leon edwards like no one is calling out leon edwards no one is asking to fight Leon Edwards.

Leon Edwards is a top five guy, right? Easy, easy top five. He's world fucking class. He's supposed to be fighting Jorge Masvidal, right? After that scrap that they had backstage where Masvidal sucker punched him. Three piece in the soda. That's supposed to be a fight that gets made, right? And everyone knows.

I mean, you look at how good he is. donald cerrone you know uh beats uh hafel dos anjos i mean he's a world-class fighter and gunner nelson yeah don't forget gunner nelson one of the best jujitsu guys in the division you don't hear his name being brought up it's kind of crazy like for whatever reason he's fallen into this kind of like weird spot where he's really good but he doesn't get the attention i feel bad i feel bad for him oh leon edwards whoo yeah comes out chamayev that's that's a big step up for chamayev that is a big step you know what's funny is uh did you watch the card fuck not the last one maybe cards ago, they had this dude from Kazakhstan. You know people, I don't care where you're from, Tennessee or Kazakhstan,

if you wear dead animals on your head, shit, dude, you mean business, right? This dude, he beat Cowboy Oliveira. Remember that guy? Yes, yes. Rakhmanov, I think, is his last name. Yes. And he guillotined him.

Guillotined him, yeah. It's like that dude guillotined Cowboy Oliveira, who is better than anyone Chermayev has fought, and there's no fucking buzz about the guy. Part of it is, for Leon Edwards, is that, and here's the other part, like he beat good guys. He beat them like on fight pass events or like, you know, cards that just didn't have

a ton of buzz on them. And he has good management. He's with Paradigm, which is a big company. But up until recently, he hasn't done a lot of vocalization. When was the last time he did a big interview with a big outlet? I don't know, man, but I hate that that's a factor.

I hate that fighters have to talk shit. It drives me crazy. Not even that. He just doesn't do a lot of talking. Here he is. There he is. Shavkat Rachmanov. Look at this fucking animal.

Oh, he's very, very good. Bop. Very good, yeah. And Cowboy Oliveira, is he the best fighter in the world? No, but he's not a chump by any stretch of the imagination. Look at that. This guy has a fucking nasty guillotine, too. Yeah, squeeze. Yeah, very good. And then he goes and puts on dead animals

on his head, bro. Look at him. You know? I mean, he's probably directly related to Genghis Khan. Look at him. Like, that's Genghis Khan jeans. Here's what really got Leon. Everyone took an L with the pandemic one way or the other. He took a major L.

Sure, being in Europe, being in the UK. Remember, so the UFC had that show, I think it was a Sao Paulo show. After every sport was like, we're done, they went down to Sao Paulo, and then they were going to follow it up in London, and that's when the world began closing airports and everything else.

And here was the key, man. He was supposed to fight Tyron Woodley at that fight. That was going to be the main event for UFC London. And BT Sport, shouts to BT Sport because they do an unbelievable job with promotional fighter packages. They did one talking about Leon's story, being bullied. I think his parents, I could be getting this wrong, but I believe they are from, they're Jamaican by heritage or his family lineage.

Whatever it was, they had this story about him growing up, you know, tough situation. It was all illustrated like a cartoon and how he had arrived at this position. That was his big breakout moment, and I think he definitely would have beaten Tyron, especially the current condition that Tyron is in as a fighter. And he lost all of it.

This is it. Look at this. I mean, the BT Sport does such an incredible job. Look at this thing. Oh, wow. Yes, I was right. He's from Jamaica. I mean, they show the story, and you feel like all at once, I don't know who Leon Edwards is,

but I want to know more. I understand his story. There's a lot of Jamaican immigrants certainly in the UK and You know growing up hardscrabble and getting fucked up and being in fights and shit and then finally arriving at this moment Look at this shit Joe. Isn't that incredible? That's a great piece and he lost all he lost the momentum from all of this Well, you know the good news is he's still in his prime and once all this shit blows over There's still a lot of big fights to be had at 170,

and there's also the opportunity that comes with guys inevitably getting injured and fights falling out. And the Chemayev fight, if you can shut down the hype train, that will put him right in the driver's seat. Chemayev, I mean, it's really quick that this guy has all the hype on him, and the Mearshart fight just fucking put a candle on that cake, didn't it? You ever watch the regional tape on this kid? Chemayev? Yeah. yeah oh he's a monster there was this dude i uh i was like because people like he's just like khabib and i'm like let me see just fucking striking is a different level exactly so

there was this dude he fought in he's he made most of his fights in brave which is the uh the promotion of bahrain and um he fought this dude who was a world champion in Sambo. No bitch at all. This guy is all dude. And Chamath couldn't take him down for a full round, could not take this guy down. And then said, you know what? Fuck it.

Let's strike. And punched his fucking lights out. The Mearshot punch. He has one punch KO power. Yeah, that Mearshot fight. And also, at 185. Yeah, his power carries. That. And also, at 185. He's a 70. That's the crazy thing.

He's a 170 fighter. I mean, at 170, he's world class, I think. I mean, I'm really interested to find out. Well, we'll see. We'll see with Leon Edwards. I might have spoke too soon. We're going to find out. It's a very, very intriguing fight.

This is the guy I was telling you about. This guy he's knocking out is not a chump at all. He is very, very good. Fakes low. Boom. Oh, man. This guy he's knocking out is not a chump at all. He is very, very good. Fakes low, boom. Oh, man. Yeah, he's got legit power. Was this a 170 fight? I think it was 170. When the guy's doing the one arm frozen up in the air or a leg,

anytime there's something frozen in the air, it's a bad knockout. My go-to on this is what we call testifying in church. When they throw the hands up, when they come back and their head fucking slams, like the testifying in church. The head banging off the ground is when they come back and their head fucking slams, like the testifying in church. The head banging off the ground is always scary. You see that Muay Thai ref who caught the head? Yes. Isn't that amazing?

What a humanitarian. Fuck Mother Teresa, this guy. He's probably a fighter. That's probably why. He's probably a former fighter. But just the agility and wherewithal to catch the head. When you talk about guys that have been KO'd, who has been KO'd more than Alistair Overeem but shows less results,

like less effects of it? I was thinking about that. Amazing. You mean like full on out? Well, he's been flatlined multiple times. He's been KO'd in Pride. He's been KO'd in K1. He's been KO'd in multiple organizations.

But you look at him, and he seems fine. Yeah, I talked to him at UFC DC, which was in about a year ago. Seems lucid. Yeah, right. I mean, how? Even Vanderlei Silva is starting to be the complaining about headaches thing. I don't speak Portuguese, but the people that I'm friends with that do speak it. Say it's a show.

The way he communicates in Portuguese is all fucked up now. Sorry to hear that. Listen, this is how it is. We know multiple fighters that slur their words and don't sound like they used to sound. Overeem and Bisping, Michael Bisping, I don't think he's been KO'd as many times, but certainly he's had a number of setbacks.

He got one-armed guillotine against Luke Rockhold and the Dan Henderson knockout's pretty bad. The Dan Henderson knockout was clearly the worst. Really, really bad. But both those guys have an incredible resolve. In fact, Michael Bisping, this is my standard Michael Bisping point, is that round three he fought Anderson and he got kneed. Oh, yeah.

And then if you look at the numbers, the best round Bisping had in any round in that fight was the next round. Oh, he's a fucking animal. First of all, he got KO'd because he was pointing that he lost his mouthpiece. He was trying to get the judge to give him his fucking mouthpiece. And he let his guard down and Anderson hit him with a flying knee. Caught him right on the chin and it looked like the fight was over. Anderson walked away like the fight was over and could have ended the fight.

But thought the referee was going to step in and stop it. Didn't. I think it was Herb Dean. I believe. I might be wrong. I think that's right. have ended the fight but thought the referee was going to step in and and stop it didn't i think it was herb dean i believe i might be wrong i think that's right um gold standard herb dean you know now that john mccarthy's not reffing that's the gold standard so anderson walks away and bisping like you got to put that motherfucker away like there's no quitting that dude zero quitting that guy i don't think folks understand to get when you if you lose enough at something another they've lost a tremendous amount I mean he's a Hall of Famer and a champion But I'm just saying at the elite level when you lose like her Dean there it is it is a psychological barrier to overcome it

Yeah, it's not people think it's all we just get back up and well listen. We're not with this is small potatoes How about the fact that he fought most of the last half of his career with one eye it's just shocking that's what's insane it's completely shocking i mean he kind of faked his fucking eye tests yeah and another part is like what would you say is like his ace in the hole as a skill this is just tough just his mind he had good everything yeah but like he wasn't like demi and maya or whatever he just had a relentless fuck you in your face ability just tough as fuck uh doesn't get any tougher i've said it make up here bulletproof totally bulletproof you got to beat him you know he doesn't beat himself i mean the knockout of luke rockhold's goddamn sensational i remember being there for that and like seeing the the joy on his face to finally achieved what

seemed a little surprise oh yeah a little surprise on that right to finally achieve what seemed like... A little surprise. Oh, yeah. A little surprise on that. Right at first, he had that smile. Remember he looked around like this? Yeah, like, holy fuck, I'm the champ. I did it.

And the fact that he KO'd Rockhold with that beautiful left over the top like that, and that him and Jason Perrillo saw that as a flaw in Rockhold's defense. But, I mean, I think that was an amazing performance. Clearly the performance of his life because it won him the title. But I say, I think, I mean, that was an amazing performance. Clearly the performance of his life because it won him the title. But I say you go to the Kung Lee fight.

The Kung Lee fight, he beat the fucking brakes off of Kung Lee. And that was when Kung Lee was Kung Lee. And Kung Lee was like a scary guy. He had these wild

Taekwondo kicks who'd throw spinning back kicks and wheel kicks and, you know, had a dangerous style hard to figure out. And Michael Bisping just beat the fuck out of him at the end of the fight.

In retrospect, I'm a little less surprised by that by virtue of the Scott Smith fights that he had in Strikeforce, Kung Lee. But to your point. But Kung Lee in that fight also, didn't he test positive? Oh, I mean, I think he was like through the roof on it. Because he looked super saucy. He was fucking shredded. He had a beautiful six pack.

And then Bisping was like, what the fuck is going on here? Which, by the way, for Bisping is like extra. Oh, yeah. Well, that was the Vitor thing, too. You know, when Vitor stopped him, Vitor was on just full whatever the fuck he was on. There was a moment, for people who don't understand this, there was a moment of madness in MMA where you were allowed to take testosterone. And all you had to do was show low testosterone. Well, guess what? If you've been doing steroids, you show low testosterone. Just get off the

steroids, and then your endocrine system's all fucked up. So you go to a doctor, the doctor blood test uses, yep, you have low testosterone you need trt so testosterone replacement therapy is on the menu and then all of a sudden you go from vitor belford who got front kicked in the face by anderson silva who had if you go pull that up because it's one of anderson's most spectacular knockouts um and the first time ever i saw someone get KO'd by a front kick to the face because i remember i had a conversation with Eddie Bravo once in my gym where I had one of those little rubber dummies that looks like a person. And he goes, could you throw a front kick to the face?

I was like, yeah, you could. But you'd have to time it perfect. It's really not the best place for it. I'm like, the place for it? Meanwhile. But look at Vitor. Vitor then, he just looked normal. Just looked like an athlete.

He wasn't particularly shredded, particularly ripped. Now go to Vitor Belfort. Yeah, I mean, what in the fucking, holy shit. You go, 2012 was the year he was like super saucy. Go to Vitor Belfort versus Michael Bisping, if you could find that. Because there was a time where they let Vitor take whatever he wanted, and the problem with that is they did a test once. And when they did a test

on him, like, look at that picture where they're touching gloves. Yeah, right there. I mean, he is just fucking jacked. Vitor Belfort is proof that no one's ever been like, you know what? Your traps are too big. Look at that picture. God damn, damn that's

making weight right that's that's when you had to make weight that wasn't the unofficial weigh-ins where you weighed in and rehydrated and then you got to step on this you know and i would say the official weight for vitor belford 185 but really he'd be 195 plus right when he would stand in front of the camera at least yeah but look how shredded he was. And that's when he was on testosterone replacement therapy. So Bisping fights him all natural. And Vitor, when he was on TRT, it's like the best goddamn, if you want to do an ad for TRT,

you would have Vitor during those dominant years. To your point, you didn't even have to take steroids to get TRT. You could just have a bad night of sleep. Bad night of sleep. Or eat, by the way. If you just ate a bunch of of sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Bad night of sleep. Or eat, by the way. If you just ate like a bunch of shitty food.

And they'd be like, eh, get on the low side of things. And then you, you literally allowed to self administer. And this is where it got crazy. Cause Vitor tested one time. One of the reasons why they stopped the testosterone replacement therapies,

they tested him one time when he was in Vegas and he was just off the charts. And they were like, what in the fuck, man? And then, you know, they're like... He was off the charts for the Jon Jones fight. That's true, too. Super off the charts.

And Jon was upset with that, right? Because, well, that was a fight at 205, right? That was a fight that really tested Jon Jones' mettle, and that's a fight where a lot of people forget. Jon Jones had a fully hyperextended arm bar on him. I mean, his arm was fucked, and most people would have tapped. I mean, that arm was gonzo to the point where John decided to coach the ultimate fighter because he knew he wasn't going to be able to train for a long time because his arm was

so fucked from the Vitor fight. Vitor, in his guard, threw up an arm bar and had it fully hyperextended. And I think Vitor might have let it go or something. I mean, I don't know what happened there. ended and i think vitor might have let it go or something i mean i don't know what happened there either john just gutted it out and vitor got tired but his arm was fucked where if you're watching it you're cringing because you're waiting for that like frank meir um tim sylvia snap but that that was actually low on the arm that was here right on the forearm yeah i remember that god damn but like i donated to uh's GoFundMe for that.

Did you? Oh, where you get the metal pulled out of the arm? Fell bad, so I gave him some money, yeah. Yeah, how crazy is that, right? World champion. Why doesn't the UFC pay for that? That seems like. I'm not sure what the.

Is that a part of the medical. He tried, and I think it's a. I don't know is the answer. I don't know. So what do they have to do? Do they have to cut him open, take out the plates? Apparently the screws were getting pushed out naturally. And you could see he'd pour hydrox...

What's it? What's the clear... Hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide. And you'd see all the bubbles and shit from the infection. Oh, boy. I think he got like 15 grand off GoFundMe. So I think he more or less got the surgery that he needed

um but yeah Jesus Christ I know it's like why why would you fight why would you fight for a living it's so like well how about Frank Meir remember when Frank Meir got hit by a car when he was on his motorcycle he's got screws and plates in his thigh his his femur was snapped in half which is real touch and go like you could lose a leg there easily because the blood flow and like that that injury is super dangerous like a femur break is really dangerous i know you have i know you don't follow um team sports did you follow the case at all though because this got a wider view of things uh alex smith quarterback for the formerly the washington redskins okay so alex Alex Smith, it was a recent quarterback.

It was, I think, a season or two ago. He got tackled. But the way he got tackled was very different. He broke his shin bone. Okay. But it wasn't a snap like this. Right? They didn't break it like spaghetti.

They – Oh! So this is known as a spiral fracture. Yeah. They twisted it like a sponge. And not only that, you can see upper there. See the upper right there? That's his leg.

He had to get, I think, a dozen. Go to that picture. Oh, well, they made a whole documentary on this guy, Joe. Look at this. Yeah, Jamie told me about him and that he's playing again now, right? Are you a football fan, Jamie? Jamie, go to that full picture, the upper top one, the one right there that you got up there on the right-hand side. No, the one you just had. Just before, just before. Yeah, go to that full picture, the upper top one, the one right there that you got up there on the right-hand side.

No, the one you just had. Just before, just before. Yeah, go to that. Make that large. Jesus Christ. So he had to get. Look at that. That looks like a dog's chew toy.

Okay, ready? He, I thought he wasn't going to walk again, and he got infected, and he almost lost his leg. A couple of weeks ago, he made his return to the NFL. That's insane. Can you believe that? Look at that calf. Yeah, 17 or so surgeries, I think, is what he had.

Over the course of how long? A year and a half or two. Look at that picture. Make that picture bigger. That is insane. You've got to watch the documentary they made on him, Joe. Again, I love fighters, but there's more profiles in Athletic Courage than just what they do.

Look at that. They had to take muscle and reattach it down low. That's like American Werewolf in London when he starts to change. It's like, are you Teen Wolf? That's so crazy. And he made his return. Oh, my God. That's a, oh, my God, look how bad that break is.

Yeah, again, it wasn't in half. It was a rotating break. That's rough. Look how bad that break is. Yeah, again, it wasn't in half. It was a rotating break. That's rough. Isn't that crazy? Well, you know, there's only been two UFC leg breaks. Oh my god, look at that. Show the drills. If they got the video, you could see him do the drills. By the way, he made

$18 million on his year off, by the way. Nice for him. Yeah, good for him. It's just video. And how did he do when he came back he sucked he wasn't very good but uh and every time he got tackled you were like oh my god imagine him and his and dude he had his little kids there and his wife and they were like yeah but i was like fuck that dude i could i had a hard time watching he's fine but he's not very good right now is he compromised like to the where he'll never be the same again?

To the full extent of that, I don't know. I mean, they put him on the roster, and he started at... Because the initial quarterback is young, and he's not very good. They're going to get rid of him. Then the backup got a concussion. So he was third string. And they're like, you're active. So I think we have to go back

over all the different things you were breaking down, because I let you go on this long run about the UFC. No, no, no. It was excellent. But there was a long run on the UFC and all the different things that you think are disadvantages for fighters. Yeah, well, MMA in general. Yeah, MMA in general. I want to make sure I don't blame just UFC for all these problems.

There's the argument. There's the monopoly argument, right? Yeah, well, MMA in general. I want to make sure I don't blame just UFC for all these problems. There's the argument. There's the monopoly argument, right? Well, obviously, there's other organizations, right? There is the Professional Fighters League. They still call it that? I believe so. Which you win the tournament, you win a million dollars.

And that's on NBC Sports, right? ESPN 2 and ESPN Plus now. Oh, okay. So it was on NBC. That's good. Good for them. That's excellent. So it was on NBC. That's good. Good for them. That's excellent. That's where Justin Gaethje came from back when it was the PFL.

No, it wasn't the PFL. It was World Series of Fighting. That's right. So you have one FC, which pays a lot of money, and they brought over Mighty Mouse Johnson and Eddie Alvarez and Brandon Veras over there. I think he's still their heavyweight champion. Cut down to light heavyweight and lost and just really looked drained. What's his face?

I forget. The Malay guy, I think. All Lang Zang. I don't know how to say his name. I think that's the song you sing at New Year's. The guy's a really good fighter. Yeah, he's very good. I forget his – I don't know how to say his name. We should find out his name find out what is um the guy who just beat brandon vera for the light

heavyweight crown um brandon vera by the way at heavyweight looks fucking phenomenal over there buddy yeah they're letting him take all the mexican you know what good for him you know good for him yeah i mean he's been around a long time. Yeah. And he's fucking jackmified over there at heavyweight. He looked really good with soccer kicks and all that shit on the ground. Like, Brandon Vera's a threat. I remember him. I saw him at Lloyd Irvin's gym 2005 or something. Say that name.

Yeah, Ong La, I don't know. I don't fucking know. Ong La. He's Burmese, so you know he's tough as shit. He's tough as shit. He's really good. And he is a Henry Hooft student, right? Oh, is he really?

I believe so. I believe he trains with the artist formerly known as the Blackzilians. What do they call themselves now? So now they're Sanford MMA, because they got a healthcare sponsor. Oh, interesting. So it was Hard Knocks 365, and now it's Sanford MMA. Yeah, that's an interesting camp, right? Because you got Gilbert Burns who's a fucking monster and then you got Kamaru Usman who

is now with Trevor Whitman and he realizes that him and Gilbert Burns are going to have to go after it. Right. And that's going to be really interesting because you're longtime training partners. I can't wait for that one. Gilbert Burns is complete. You know what's amazing? He's complete.

Do you remember the quintet that UFC did? I think it was like early in the – The grappling tournament. Yeah. So it's like a five-on-five. And it was like Sean O'Malley, Anthony Smith, who are all good grapplers. And then it was like a bunch of – I forget who they were going against. But every once in a while you'll see an MMA guy,

and these MMA guys are usually pretty good at this point, not like world class, but they're very, very good. And then Gilbert gets down there, and you're like, oh, right, he's one of them. He's one of the elite. He's a world champion. Of course, but I mean, he hasn't, I'm sure he's, Jiu-Jitsu has fallen off a little bit relative to what it was when he was just Jiu-Jitsu, but you can tell some of these guys, he's not like one of these meow brothers who is a gripping, heavy, kind of leg entanglement, strategic kind of guy. Gilbert's athletic as shit.

He can pass. He can go underneath. He's got a good guard. He can wrestle. He can do the whole nine yards. When I stand next to him, I have a hard time believing he ever made 155. It's shocking. He was really compromised he's one of those guys that was really compromised at 155 because he's so

thick like he's walking around well over 200 pounds i mean he's thick as fuck right and you know and has zero problem competing with guys like tyron woodley at 170 and once he's a fucking monster man his striking is nasty too that's what's interesting about g, man. His striking is nasty, too. That's what's interesting about Gilbert, is that he is an elite Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, but his striking is fucking world class. That Woodley fight was an eye-opener. Oh, my God. Dude, his striking's terrifying.

It's really, really good. Right, and I mean, here's the thing about it. It's like, you know, I mean, can you imagine? It's like, what's your ace in the hole? Like, what's your thing you can go to if you need it? Oh, you're a world champion black belt. That's the thing you have if you need it. Because everything else is good enough to win a UFC title.

That is fucking frightening. If you don't want to stand with him, he's terrifying standing. And he could barrel down on Tyron. Because it's like, maybe he'll fight the takedown if it's there. But probably not. Because on the ground, you know, I mean, his ability to sweep or just create space or threaten you or omoplata or whatever.

Good luck fighting that fucking guy on the ground. Probably at welterweight, at welterweight. Let's think about this. So you have Colby, Kamaru, Masvidal. By the way, very underrated ground game for Masvidal. Oh, yeah. I'm sure you know that. I'm just saying for the audience's sake.

Very underrated wrestling. for Masvidal. Oh, yeah. I'm sure you know that. I'm just saying for the audience's sake. Very underrated wrestling. Everything. Everything. Everything. But all those guys in the top five, Gilbert is your biggest submission threat by a country mile. Oh, a country mile. I would have really loved to have seen Jorge Masvidal and Kamaru Usman of Jorge at a camp. Because he did not have a camp for that fight and still presented some real big problems for Kamaru.

Don't you find the ascension of Jorge kind of funny? I love it. I love it. Do you remember when he fought Al Iacuente at 155? I do. So I was at that fight. It was in Fairfax, Virginia, and I'll never forget, fight week was at one of these UFC gyms

somewhere in the suburbs of D.C. I don't remember where. I live in city property, so I had to go out to the suburbs. And it was decently attended. It was not a super well-attended open workout. But, you know, it was enough people there. And Al got a huge, you know, whatever. And I think it was Frankie.

No, it was Chad Mendez and Ricardo Lamas in the main event. And Chad was a big Alpha Male guy at the time. And, you know, he got a big applause. Jorge came out. And maybe 10 people knew who he was. Media, the Latin media that was there wanted to talk to him but like most of the media you know was kind of like give or take on it and i remember thinking to myself i'm like do you do y'all not know how fucking good this guy's by the way i thought he won that fight too and then years later i did as well remember yeah and then i was

like you're gonna fucking boo me you're gonna fucking boo me? You're going to fucking boo me? Gotta love Al. Al's hilarious. But to see later, it's amazing. It's like you're nothing, you're nothing, you're nothing. All of a sudden, something. It's crazy. Well, you know, the resurrection.

He talks about how he went on that stupid reality show where they made him live in the jungle for a couple of weeks. Exulton? Yeah, whatever it was. Exulton? And he was like, what the fuck am I doing with my life? And then he had a chance to think about all those fights where he just fell short. And why did he fall short?

What did he do? Was he playing it safe? And he decided he was going to start baptizing people, as he puts it. And man, you talk about a guy who turned a corner and changed. I mean, the Ben Askren fight, though, that was it. That was the cherry on top. And then, of course, the murking of Nate Diaz. I mean, he beat Askren fight though, that was it. That was the cherry on top. And then of course, the

murking of Nate Diaz. I mean, he beat the fuck out of Nate Diaz. I mean, that was a crazy fight. And they were talking about running that back. I was like, for what? Yeah, I was confused. I was like... Don't forget Darren Till put his lights out too. Yes, with a beautiful step forward left hook

combination. I mean, he's a monster. He's a monster. He a monster he's hard for anybody to deal with and the fact that he stopped darren till when darren till was this terrifying striker that just beat down donald serroni you know darren till was a scary guy and to see him put him away that way and you know obviously it was after tyron had beaten him but it was still like a stunning stunning ko and he's just a fun guy. Like everything's fun about him. Like I had him on the podcast and I said,

the real question is whether or not Ben Askren can get a hold of you. He's like, he can get a hold of these nuts. And that's him, you know? I mean, that's him. He's just a real fun dude. He's a fun dude to watch fight. He's a fun dude to watch fight. He's a fun dude to listen to him talk. He's been...

He can do... Sorry to cut you off, but Dan Levitard is a big national sports radio guy based out of Miami. So a couple of Miami guys, a couple of Cuban-Americans. And they're on opposite sides politically, very much so. Oh, he's all Trump, right? Yeah, super Trump. And Dan Levitar is very left. But they have this camaraderie through heritage and identity

and sort of shared experiences. You just can't fake, you know? Yeah, he's awesome. I'm a big fan. But I'm a big fan of him skillfully. I think he's a really exceptional fighter. He's very clever. He also has a very unusual stance.

Like, he stands straight up. Like, he stands like a Muay Thai fighter. And one of the reasons why is his takedown defense is so good he's confident that he could stand straight up like that and his striking is very crisp very clean and he's clever like he sets traps he you know he catches you like that fucking ben askren thing was goddamn genius and we see him prep for it when you watch the training footage that he did that over and not only that he prepped for the angle right leaned against the cage so he like presented this and then turned a corner went to the right and then charged at him so that ben asker would be like i'm just gonna grab this guy like literally he he set two different traps the running at him and then the turning the corner

and then running at him and ben asker like the corner, and then running at him. And Ben Askren, like, instincts just dove in, and he couldn't help himself. I call it the Jorge Masvidal test. Go through any of his fights pre-tilt. Win or lose, doesn't matter. And watch how many times when, you know, they're getting the mouthpiece put in and the Vaseline put on at the beginning. Watch how many times the commentator says, folks don't understand how good he is.

Folks don't know how smart he is. This is one of the most well-rounded fighters in all the UFC, and they do it in this kind of way to almost plead with the audience to understand the fighter as they do. Yeah, that would be me. Brian Stan's done it a million times. The thing is, if you and Brian Stan are doing it

and you're not coordinating it, something is happening here. Well, I remember when he knocked out Eve Edwards with a head kick, when Eve Edwards is one of the best 155 pounders of the world after ed edwards had beaten josh thompson who's another guy who doesn't get nearly the respect that he deserves the first guy to knock out nate diaz right i mean josh thompson at one point in time was the fucking man right and so he knocks out eve ed in Bodog. Remember Bodog? I have all the DVDs at home. I have them all at home.

Bodog, for people who don't remember, Calvin Ayers, who's like this big gambling guy. I think what they were trying to do was boom. God damn, that was beautiful. And total finishing instinct. Look at this. He poses like he's a male model. Yeah. They put down a bunch of fights, like good fights.

That was where Cain Velasquez made his debut. That was where Matt Lindland fought Fedor. Remember that? But I think their idea was online gambling. They were going to do it, and they were going to be compensated through online gambling. They were going to do it, and they were going to be compensated through online gambling. But then that was right when online gambling got shut down in the United States, which is really weird. Because why are you shutting online gambling down when you can be in person and gambling?

Why are you deciding where people can gamble? What is this? And the company went under, and I think Calvin Iron is like a fugitive. I think he has to like live in other countries I don't know I've not kept up you might be right because Dana and him were going back and forth and yeah because Calvin Iyer when he had the Bodog

thing had a big billboard for Bodog fight but it was him like Calvin Iyer like in Vegas like looking slick with a nice tailored expensive suit and he was talking shit about Dana Wayne Dana was like you can't even get in this country like you're a fucking fugitive for the law become in this country they'll arrest

you like I don't remember what it was but I think it was one of those things where he was doing this online gambling thing and they were like this is illegal and he's like fuck you I'll do it and Belize or some shit Costa Rica I think something like that I think he lives there now. He has to. I don't think he can step foot in America. I might be talking out of turn. Please don't sue me.

See if you can find that. But he's a big gambling guy. I mean, he's a big online gambling guy. And I think there was some weird shit that went down, which, look, I'm a big fan of personal freedom. And I'm a big fan of people being able to gamble wherever the fuck they want. I'm not a big fan of people regulating things. Unless you can prove that someone's getting robbed, unless you can prove they're stealing money from people,

I think they should be able to gamble. Sure. And I think that was one of the things that happened with that Bodog organization. But they threw around a lot of money and put together... What is it? I thought his name sounded familiar. He got also involved in cryptocurrency afterwards. That sounds about right.

Yeah. That case, who initially, I think, has been settled, though. The cryptocurrency case? No, no, the initial, the Bodog thing. Oh, so he's allowed to come to America? I don't know about that. Sorry, Calvin.

Again, don't sue me. Yeah, I don't know about that. Sorry, Calvin. Again, don't sue me. Yeah. I don't want to be careful here. Well, he put together, I've got to say, he put together some great fucking fights. Bodog was excellent. Chael Sonnen fought there. Yeah, that's right.

Jake Ellenberger fought there. That's right, yep. Tons of good guys fought at the Bodog. Yeah, and they did on the beach with hot chicks. Who was her name? You know who fought there? It was the brother and sister combo. Karina and Rodrigo Dam. Oh, that's right. did the capoeira shit you know they would be in the

middle and they would do this shit during the middle of a fight yes it would fuck people up too well you know the interesting thing is like i don't know what what happened with that organization but they put together a small number of fights i think it it was maybe three or four fights, three or four cards. But if you go back and look at those three or four cards, they fucking hold up. They hold up any affliction event, which is another organization that threw a lot of money into big fights. You ever talk to Jeff Osborne? Sure. Jeff Osborne and I did commentary on the very first UFC.

I'm a big fan of his. No, but I mean recently. No, I haven't. So out of nowhere, I'm no longer with SiriusXM. I moved on, but I had a show once and they were like, Jeff Osborne's on line one. And I'm like, wait, the Jeff Osborne?

So Jeff has a memorabilia shop of like all MMA shit in his hometown. And he called in and we talked about a bunch of stuff. Hook and shoot. Hook and shoot, right? That's him. But also with, do you realize this? The Kane fight that they had was in a ice rink, in the middle of an ice rink, and they actually built a studio slash stage presence for it in the middle of an ice rink in wherever the fuck it was, St. Petersburg, and then a ring to make it look like they were somewhere

else. Meanwhile, they're in the middle of a fucking ice rink. Really? Yeah. Dude, his story- Which fight was this? Kane's fight there. I thought Kane fought on the beach fucking ice rink. Really? Yeah. Dude, his story- Which fight was this? Kane's fight there. I thought Kane fought on the beach.

Uh-uh. No? No. Who did Kane fight? I couldn't tell you. Who the fuck knows? But I could barely- And this was Bodog.

Bodog, yeah. So was this the same card where Lin-Lin fought Fedor? I don't think so. But again, I can't be sure. Okay. But you gotta reconnect with him sometime, because this motherfucker- I'd love to. I'd love to have him on. love to his bow dog stories are like out of control see this this is

this is in the middle of an ice rink jeremiah constant oh he's about to you got you got fat tattooed guy versus kane kane about to work you like dude it's no kane was a force of nature he's the best heavyweight i've ever seen I'm not saying he's the best heavyweight ever but in terms of the eye test and what he could do nobody was better than Cain you know the thing is it's like how long can you be at that level that's the real question it's it's not sometimes you want to look at a guy like you look at Anderson right and you look at the Jared Kananir fight or you look at the second Chris Weidman fight. It's really interesting.

You look at Anderson's career and I actually went over it last night because I knew I was going to talk to you today. And I was thinking, you know, there's one point in time where I was convinced that Anderson was a GOAT. And I think he was at his time. I think in his prime, he was the GOAT at the time. And you go from the Chris Weidman fight, where he's the baddest motherfucker on earth. Chris Weidman KOs him, and then he loses every fight afterwards. Except Derek Brunson. Except Derek Brunson.

He beats Derek Brunson by decision, but he loses every other fight. And it's crazy. I mean, you look at him. You go from Chris Lieben, starching Chris Lieben. You look at his fights. I mean, there was a few that people forget there's a few that were boring right there was a there was um you know the uh tell us lighties tell us latest the cote fight wasn't that good either patrick cote was very cautious because patrick cote knew that anderson still was a counter fighter and patrick had a powerful fucking right hand and Patrick was like I'll let you come to me bitch

and then Patrick with a weird thing he hopped on his knee to throw a kick and his knee just blew out and he fell and held his knee but the Damien Maia fight people forget that, that was in Abu Dhabi and he came fucking

like hell on wheels in the first couple of rounds trying to take Damien maya out and damian maya survived and then he just coasted for the last few rounds and everybody was terribly upset it was really anderson silva like i remember dana white was like if he does that again i'll cut him and everybody's like whoa this is crazy like everyone was so furious because this was the big fight in abu dhabi bj Penn fought Frankie Edgar, and Frankie Edgar upset him, and everyone was like, this is crazy, BJ Penn lost. And then Anderson Silva comes out like a demon,

and he was like screaming at Damian Maia. Damian Maia is probably the nicest, most respectful person. I don't know what their beef was about. I still to this day don't understand what it was. But for whatever it was, Anderson had in his head, he was angry at Damian Meyer and fought very emotionally and tried to take him out and didn't. I also think in that fourth,

maybe it was the fifth round. Damian heard him. Yeah. There's a big punch that lands and you watch the body language and the sort of tactical approach begin to change almost instantly after he gets drilled with one. Now, maybe I'm not saying he's the best striker.

I'm just saying at that moment. It was hot out, too, by the way. You were there, right? We were outside. It was fucking hot. And I think, and there were also bugs flying around like the size of birds. It was weird.

Like, what is that thing? It was weird because we were outside. And Damien survived. He survived the initial onslaught. And then onslaught, but just could never be fast enough to take Anderson, to get a hold of him, to take him down. He never felt like he was meaningfully moving the needle. He just wasn't at that level striking-wise. But he did threaten him.

He did hit him, and then Anderson decided to coast. But Dana was so mad. And folks don't understand, too, this was, I think, two things were happening at the time. One, that was when they had made the sale to Flash Entertainment, and they had sold 10% of the company. I believe that's why they had gone to Abu Dhabi, was partly of those reasons. That was sort of an internal thing.

That was an external thing. But folks don't realize this. This was when the UFC was fucking red hot. Red hot. I mean, they could not miss. Every time they come out, maybe the pay-per-view wasn't great, but it wouldn't sell poorly. This was at a time where I don't think it was too far removed from... I remember when I was in New Orleans once with now my wife

and my then girlfriend, and we watched... I remember this card got super fucked up. I don't even remember what the initial one was supposed to be. It ended up as Rashad versus Tiago Silva. Remember that? It was three rounds and it sucked. That thing still did almost 400 000 buys i mean they could not miss and they had anderson silva they had all these sort of important guests there this was this coronation moment for this like new opportunity and it kind of shit the bed a little bit and dana was fucking heated

after that i can understand that too i can understand that, too. I can understand it, too. Yeah. It was not a good fight. But Anderson, when he was in his prime, there was moments like the Forrest Griffin fight where you walked away and just go, who's better than that fucking guy? But obviously, it was a tailor-made kind of style for Anderson. Forrest was like a blood and guts, come forward, doesn't hide anything, just really charges. And Anderson would just see everything.

He was so relaxed. He would find openings. And the famous step back away from those punches and then just hit him with a right hand, a fadeaway right hand and knock him out. That's what Hall hit him with. Did you see that fight over the weekend? Which fight?

Hall solo. Oh, Uriah Hall. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it was slightly different. But I saw it and I was like, dude, this is a game where you stay around long enough and the elderly get eaten. Well, it was also like when you're watching Anderson move, he's doing things that he would have never done when he was younger.

It's almost like he's trying to get the sparks flying, like crank the engine over, but it doesn't want to. he's moving forward in a way that like you're like ah like you would never see the Anderson Silva that fucked up Rich Franklin twice you would never see him fight like that the Anderson Silva that stopped Chris Lieben he would never fight like that you know that that Anderson was a clever tactician that Anderson was Anderson was a technical fighter, whereas he fought really aggressive in the first round. But if you go back to Vitor being on TRT, you give Anderson TRT, you'll see a different fighter. But if you want to make him fight on the match, you're 45, man. This is 45. It's 45. Unless you're Bernard Hopkins, unless you're a guy that's so fucking good at boxing, where you're clever and you don't waste any energy and you're so disciplined and so technical and so defensive oriented that you can take these like world championship caliber young guys and dragged him into seven, eight, nine rounds and then set traps for him and eventually capitalize on him.

There's very few guys that get to the point like, Bernard got into his 50s. When he changed his nickname to The Alien, I didn't think it was a better nickname, but it was maybe a more appropriate one. But then when he fought Joe Smith and he got knocked out through the ropes and fell and landed on his head, I was like, oh, Jesus Christ. But the difference that you highlight, I think it's really important between Hopkins and Silva, which is that it would not be

accurate to say that Silva lived on his chin. That is not true. But it would be accurate to say there was a couple of times he let it slide. You'd see times in fights where he would kind of just take one and then his head would whip, but he'd still be right there. How about the Jorge Rivera fight?

Right. Remember the cage rage fight? He let him punch him in the face. Right. I mean, that was a little more demonstrative. That was crazy. Okay, but there was all these moments where he would kind of let it go. Mm-hmm.

And he just, at 45, you just do not have the capacity for that at all. Yeah, you don't. Yeah. And also, again, we're talking about a natural 45 a guy who can't you know you're you know you have a very low testosterone level bro my back hurts i'm 41 my back hurts when i got a fucking bed i know you know i'm not a world-class athlete but i'm just saying like training camp but even if you watch him train it's it's not what you want to see you know i've watched training footage of anderson it's all It's hard to say unless you're in the gym with him day in, day out

what kind of output he's really doing. But when I'm watching him hit the mitts and hit the pads, it's just not what I used to see. He is one of, I think, three, there may be more. But if I had to ask how many fighters currently

competing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship have pro MMA wins that predate 9-11, Robbie Lawler, him, and Overeem are the ones that come to mind. That's about it. There might be a couple more. Diego, but Diego's out of the mix now, right? I'm not even sure he has a win that predates 9-11. He might, but the point being is... Not in the UFC, you're right, because his debut was 205. Oh, not in the UFC, maybe just period. 2005.

Does he have one that predates 9-11, really, Diego? I don't know. He's 2005. He was his debut in the UFC. Maybe just period. Does he have one that predates 9-11? Really? Diego? I don't know. He's 2005. He was his debut in the UFC when he won Ultimate Fighter Season 1. Okay. Right? That's 2005, wasn't it? 2005, correct.

There's a certain beauty to it, which is, and I know you appreciate this. I was thinking about it. I was like, there's a lot of strikers and a lot of great fighters folks don't remember. And Silva, I don't even follow him, but Mark Weir. Folks have looked. Sure. Mark Weir's a great fighter. Dude, Silva's maybe best fight. And this is debatable because of the Chael Sonnen comeback,

but you ask me my favorite Anderson Silva fight, he fought Lightning Lee Murray. Lee Murray! Cage Rage! In Cage Rage, in London. By the way, everyone knows Lee Murray as the guy who robbed the bank, because it's such an incredible story, and I recognize that. But put that aside for just a minute. Lightning Lee Murray was a bad motherfucker. Bad motherfucker bad he could fight his ass off he was very good vicious power and athletic and quick and like hard yes super fucking just

elegantly evil okay and anderson silva beat the fucking brakes off of him the brakes in london in front of lee murray's hometown crowd and crowd, and did it with a certain gusto. And no one knows that shit. Yeah. Can you imagine if you just joined? Listen, you come to MMA when you come to MMA. You can't be one of these fans that beats up on newer fans. Because I got lucky.

Someone introduced me. Yeah. But can you imagine understanding Anderson Silva as a function of Conor McGregor popularity? Like, you came to UFC because of him, and that's all you know? Oh, my fucking God. You missed the whole show? Yeah, you missed the evolution. Because there was times where, like, if you go back,

do you remember Alex Stiebling, the Brazilian killer? They didn't like that nickname too much, did they? Anderson caught him with a high kick and busted open his eyebrow and stopped him. But I believe, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, Jamie, pulled up Anderson Silva's record. I think Rio Chonan beat him after Lee Murray. Yes, he did.

Rio Chonan, man, that was a crazy fight. So did what's-his-face. Where he hit him with that flying scissors hold. Yeah, that was his last fight in pride. He went from that, I think, to maybe he had the Otsuka fight. I have to his last fight in Pride. He went from that, I think, to... Maybe he had the Otsuka fight. I have to go look it up. But he went from that to the Lieben fight, I believe. Something like that.

I think he might have fought one more time in Cage Rage. So, Lee Murray and then Rio Chonin. That's right. Curtis Stout, another good striker that folks don't remember. Cage Rage 14. So, that's what's interesting, right? So, he loses to Rio Chonin and then beats the fuck out of Jorge Rivera, but that was after the Lee Murray fight.

Right. So he went from Lee Murray, which was arguably, I agree with you, one of his most impressive decisions, one of the most impressive victories, rather, and then Rio Chonan beats him. People forgot about Rio Chonan. And then the Yushin Okami win is just a...

That was a disqualification. Yeah, he up-kicked him on his knees, basically. That was BJ's promotion. And then the Tony Fricklin crazy upward elbow. Hot! Remember that? Yeah, and then he went and fought Chris Lieben after that. Remember when Lieben said he was going to send him back to Japan?

Yeah, hi. I'll never forget. So I had a job in Washington, D.C., and this job I hated. I used to work a little bit in politics, and I hated this fucking job. And I'll never forget. It was the night of Silva versus Lieben. And everyone was like, hey, we got a bunch of work to do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I had to make up some excuse.

I'm like, I think I have AIDS. I'm sick. I don't know. Something's wrong. And I was like, I had to go home. And I sprinted home. And then I was like, I don't want to watch this alone. And I went to a bar that was near where I was living at the time.

And I watched it. And it was one of the most – I've never – like, alone stories usually don't end with like a smile and glee. But none of my friends like MMA, I'm just the only one. So I didn't have anybody to call. So I was just like, fuck, I'm just going to go to the bar. And I watched it and it was one of the truly like great sports memories of my life. Yeah, I remember I had friends come into that. And that was back when you could bet.

I mean, you still can bet, you i used to bet on fights i used to bet on fights before i didn't nobody told me not to but i decided at a certain point i probably should stop and uh i don't think i'd bet on that i think that was like the last one i didn't bet on because like this is stealing money because whatever the line was it wasn't big enough. I was like, listen to me. And I was talking to my friends. I go, that motherfucker can't lose. I go, this guy's an assassin.

Can I make a request to Jimmy to look it up? Can you go to bestfightodds.com? I'm not paid. It's just a repository for good information. Sure. You can look up someone's odds throughout their career. Oh, OK. How it opened, how it closed. Let's go bestodds.com.

That's what it is? Bestfightodds.com. Bestfightodds.com and try to find the chris levin anderson silver just punch in someone's name like wikipedia and it'll show you all their odds but i remember telling my friend this is stealing money i'm like this motherfucker's an assassin i'm like he's so good he's so good i thought it might be competitive in the sense that silva was. Here we go. So do they have it? Ah, fuck. I don't think they have it. It goes all the way back to Nate Marquardt. How is it that close? Jesus.

Yeah, that's crazy. Well, Nate was really fucking good. That's why. I mean, Anderson was only a two-to-one favorite back then, but you gotta remember that's Nate Marquardt when he was in his prime. And Nate Marquardt King of pancreas, bro. When I talked to Brendan Shaw, when Brendan Shaw was training with Nate Marquardt, he

goes, dude, let me tell you something. He goes, I never saw that motherfucker lose a round in sparring. Nate Marquardt is a guy who at one point in time was one of the elite of the elite. Remember he knocked out Damian Maia with one punch? In the air. Yeah. He was a fucking killer, man. But he knocked out Tyron Woodley with one of the most nasty fucking video game combinations you've ever seen.

It was like right out of Mortal Kombat. He hit, what's his face? Who's the striking coach? Christian Allen? Is that his name? The striking coach over there for him? He's the striking coach at Elevation now, I think. He's like Corey Sandhagen's guy.

Is that who he is? I think it's Christian Allen. I've never talked to him, but everyone tells me he's a fucking genius. He hit Wilson Gouveia. Remember this? He hit him with the

punch, punch, high kick, spin, back fist. Oh, yeah. He hit him with that. God, I forgot about that guy, too. Wilson Gouveia, another good guy. There's so many fighters that just like you forget about Travis Luter. Like, oh, yeah. Yeah guy. There's so many fighters that just like you forget

about Travis Luter. Like, oh yeah. Yeah, but he's training the next gen of guys. Is he? Kevin Holland's out of Travis Luter's gym. Is he really?

Kevin Holland's fucking good, man. He's fucking good. Travis Luter's one of those guys where I remember, you know, I remember when he fought Silva, I was like, this one might be worth watching. And then he missed away.

Let me tell you this, dude. I've never seen anybody closer to death than I did Travis Luter on his way to making the weight. When he missed the weight and then he was going to the scale and I saw him shuffling because he couldn't walk, couldn't pick his legs up. He was shuffling like he was snow skiing, right? And then his lips were cracked. Like you could see like they the red in between the cracks. Like he had no water in his body. And he was trying to make weight and he couldn't make weight.

That's how Khabib was. I interviewed him. We had media day before the Ferguson fight at 209, which obviously did not happen. We did media day and it was my turn to talk to Khabib and I stuck a microphone in his face. And he had the worst – I've seen in 15 years in the fight business, and I've covered collegiate and Olympic wrestling a little bit, I've seen cotton mouth. I've seen a lot of it.

That is the worst cotton mouth I have ever seen in my life. I mean, he could barely separate the tongue from the inside of his mouth. It's crazy to make guys talk like that. It's also crazy that we allow that. I applaud 1FC for their weight cutting measures. I think what they've done, their whole hydration thing, I think it's the most important thing in MMA. I think we need to do that across the board, but I think there needs to be more options for fighters. I think there should be more weight classes. I really, really, really do.

I'd be a little bit skeptical of them. Here's what I'm saying. The weight hydration system, as we understand it through collegiate wrestling, appears to be a godsend, right? So what we understand of it works. Now, I want to be very clear about what I'm about to tell you. I am not declaring to you that what they are telling us

about their weight cutting system is wrong because like you, I've talked to Ben Askren, I've talked to Gary Tonin, and they really enjoyed it. What I'm telling you is I'm a little bit skeptical of the veracity of the claims that aren't

independently verified. They have only recently begun to stream their weigh-ins and even then you can't see what's on the scale. You have no idea about if someone is missing weight and there could be any number of factors related to whether or not they actually made it. I'm just telling you, I personally as a guy in media, I do not take promoter's word for it. And so this is not me declaring to you that their weigh-ins are Fugazi.

This is me declaring to you until we get independent verification of them. I would pause a little bit on some of their claims. Do you know what Fugazi really means? Do you know where it comes from? I know the band and I know it's supposed to mean like, cause I'm from DC. Fugazi is actually how I pronounce the band. I say Fugazi,

but it means sort of a counterfeit. It was a company that was writing bad checks. I'm pretty sure it was a limo company. That sounds perfect. They were writing bad checks and so it became synonymous. A Fugazi check. I found my friend Mike Starr, who's in Goodfellas, been in a bunch

of movies. He was in Dumb and Dumber. He told me about it. I was like, what the fuck is Fugazi? I'm from D.C., so we know waiting room. I have a bit of skepticism about their drug policy. A bit? Yeah, quite a bit. And now that Vitor's over there

and they got a few guys over there that look pretty juicy. Good. I don't care. It doesn't bother me. I don't care if it's known. You know, the thing is it's like, I wish there was a policy like there's an argument that could be made when it comes to things like tour de france that you could argue that it's safer to do it with the steroids than it

is without right with the blood it kills the human body yeah it's destructive and like there's an argument that like doing that with it blood it kills the human body yeah it's destructive and like there's an argument that like doing that with it is actually healthier the problem is in this country we have this idea that you're cheating and it's un-american we have it from baseball and mark mcguire all the stupid ideas joe rogan yeah this there's a lot of weirdness when it comes to that so the last few years i remember i used to talk to traert, who runs USADA, pretty regularly back in 2015 or so. And I found him to be a very earnest guy, very nice. I think he's very committed to his mission.

I have nothing bad to say about him personally, other than now I couldn't find more disagreement with him if my life depended on it. Basically, it sent me down a rabbit hole. And let me tell you what I've been doing the last five years of my life. No one will tell you this. I don't know why, but there is this entire movement, and I don't mean of weirdos and people of ill repute and people who haven't done their homework. I'm talking academic scholars with research who have done the homework in the most complex of ways, right? There is this entire body of work around anti-doping. And if you follow the rabbit hole that I went down, this is not some YouTube rabbit hole. In fact, if you look, you can't find it. It's dense reading, quite candidly,

the history of anti-doping, where it comes from, how it developed, and what the status is today. You can only come away with a couple of conclusions. One, anti-doping globally is a dramatic failure. It has not worked. And number two, the major problem that I have is I'm not expecting everyone to agree with what I say about anti-doping. Many of my views are outside of the Overton window. But the debate around anti-doping is so incomplete and so dishonest

that it's hard to get in a word edgewise. It's hard to get people to understand that you're just repeating 1980s drug war nonsense without even really realizing that's what you're doing. If you actually examine the facts of the case, again, maybe you'll come to the conclusion that I come to. Maybe you won't. What is the conclusion you've come to? That here is basically what we should do with drugs and sport. They are not going away. There is nothing we can do about it. They are not going away. And to the extent they go away, genetic manipulation will happen with the CRISPR technology or some other version of it. Or there's things called

financial doping, which big clubs get involved in in Europe. It's been a big problem over there as well. What does that mean? Financial doping is basically a way to cook. They call it doping because it's a way to make things sound bad. In fact, the word doping comes from the early 20th century when they were trying to figure out a name for giving horses drugs. They called it doping and then they used that. They ported it over to human athletics

to sort of make it sound. By the way, in fairness, it was the mafia doing a lot of that. So they took this sort of organized crime human on animal crime and then they brought it over to a human sport. But basically it's the idea of like, oh, we have certain limits. You can't pay more in salary than this. We'll find ways to sort of manipulate the books to make sure that you get paid more and I get paid more.

It won't show up on the ledger in the way that it normally would, but when you actually calculate the total, we're not meeting the demands of keeping the payload restricted so that we can remain competitive across the league. It's called financial doping. But there's a couple of scholars, Werner Muller out of, I think he's out of Denmark, and then Paul DiMeo out of Scotland. They have written a couple of books on the history of anti-doping, on the state of anti-doping, on the ethics of doping and anti-doping. These are not guys who think that steroids should just be legal.

People think that this is one of the major problems with being in the position that I'm in. People are like, oh, you just think everyone should take steroids. No, that's not what I think. I think if you're an athlete and you say, listen, man, I'm really good and I don't want to take drugs to compete. I think that's perfectly reasonable. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But when you begin to drill down how you solve that problem, no one really wants to get to what the heart of the issue is. First, the issue is this. Everyone, you cannot understand drugs in America without understanding media hysteria and how it has changed things. And no one should appreciate this more than you. Think of any drug we've ever had. To what extent have false media narratives, exaggerated claims, totally ridiculous things have had to been year over year pulled back

by virtue of evidence that has weighed in or whatever the case. Reefer Madness is sort of the common example. Steroids is exactly that way. The claims of harms related to them are totally overstated. It does not mean there are no harms. It means relative to what people have claimed, it is simply not true. In fact, the Australian government did a study over what would be the most harmful drugs in a human experience, and it was behind tobacco. It was behind numerous other drugs well in advance that are perfectly legal and have a deeper societal acceptance. So that's for harm, though.

Right, it's for harm, yes. In terms of actual performance. I'll get to that. The argument about steroids, especially as it relates to combative sports, if you wanted to make the claim that if you and I were fighting and were, let's say, reasonably equal, and I took it and you didn't, it tilts the competitive balance and that makes it unfair. I would agree. I think that is actually true. I don't think there's much argument about that. But that is not really fully what they claim.

What they claim as it relates to MMA is that, or any other combative sport, is that it makes MMA safer. There is literally not a shred of evidence they have ever presented, not one time, that makes that true. Joe, you've been watching mma a long time looks safer to you looks like i wouldn't imagine it makes it safer i wouldn't imagine that was a key selling ingredient when usada was sold to the public about why it was necessary i think the the argument is that if someone is on it and the other person isn't a la

vitor versus michael bisping that mich Michael Bisping winds up blind in one eye from a high kick by Vitor. Right, so let's remove that example for one second because it's such a powerful example. It's like the Ben Johnson of examples. Yeah. By the way, Carl Lewis was on some shit, too. Of course he was.

Yeah, he was on some shit. Show me the evidence that since the introduction of USAP... Allegedly. Don't sue me, Carl. Yeah, don't. Carl, be friendly. Come on, Carl. Get together with Calvin. Show me the evidence. Show me the evidence that MMA has become safer as a virtue because what everyone had said at the time was

this is not like hitting a baseball. This is not like dunking a basketball. We need to protect the health and safety of athletes. Right. The Vitor Belfort incident doesn't even come close to the Cyborg versus MVP incident where he cracked his skull, which was ostensibly totally done naturally. Yes, yes.

The idea... That was crazy. It was super fucking crazy. Fighting is like smoking. You can smoke Marlboro Reds, you can smoke menthols, you can smoke lights. At the end of the day,

you're putting yourself at risk at a pretty significant degree. It does not matter what kind of filter you put on the cigarette. And you could make the argument that if you are taking EPO and if you are taking testosterone, you'd have more energy to get away from shots as much as you would have energy to land them.

I think the argument about... So maybe it could be safer. Here's the issue. I think the argument about taking what is complex, and I think ultimately the athletes should decide, right? So who should decide who takes what in the UFC? I think the athletes should work with the UFC to make a broader decision. And by the way, they might decide that USADA is what they want.

I cannot preclude that as a possibility. But to me, it's like, let's take the Pepsi challenge. Let's bring in Vada. And let's see how many to a man decide this is something that they want. I bet you you get the numbers drop off fairly significantly. Do you think there's a way to skirt the system right now, even with USADA?

Do you think there's some therapeutics, some shit that people aren't? Do you think so? Of course there is. I would imagine, but I'm not, I'm ignorant to it, so I'm just guessing. Let's say something outright. Okay.

This will get me in trouble with the Puritans, but I think it deserves to be said. Drumroll, please. When I watch athletes who I think or know are on something, the sport tends to be better. Okay? When I watch Mark McGuire hit balls into fucking Mars, I love it.

I think it's great. Well, especially baseball because that's the only good thing about that stupid fucking sport. It's not my favorite sport in the world. One of those meatheads hits a ball into another dimension. Right, but when I watch any other sport where I know it's drug-addled, it does not reduce my enjoyment of it. You're supposed to have this

moralistic, puritanical idea about drugs. I do not reduce my enjoyment of it. And that's, you're supposed to have this moralistic, puritanical idea about drugs. I do not, because I understand this is complex, but the basic idea is this. All the claims that folks want to make about MMA as it relates to safety, there is no indication that if you say USADA is working, it's any safer. You're asking about how it's being used now. It's a little hard to say because again, USADA claims a lot of victories without providing any evidence about them, right? I mean, I've never, I've never in my life, can you imagine you're somebody you hire to do some kind of service for you claiming all the victories they claim. And then when you ask to see the receipts, they don't have any, I mean, it's really what I know. I know Jeff Novitsky came on your show and I'm sure he means well, but saying that the testosterone has been lowered. I actually asked

Paul DeMo about it. It means nothing. In any way, there's no way to draw any conclusion about usage. There's a guy, by the way, who has a YouTube channel, More Plates, More Dates. He's been a longtime steroid user and PED user. He has gone through several UFC fighters. He has shown there was a recent study that was done.

You can still take all kinds of testosterone exogenously and come way under the limit for what USADA is looking for. More to the point, what we know from academic research is that – But don't they do carbon isotope tests that show – It's easy to beat all of this stuff. Really? Yeah. Here is the key.

What we know from academic research is that is there a reason to believe that relative to what commissions were doing, that the introduction of USADA has overall depressed usage. There is some reason to believe that. Well, there's physique changes. Yes, but again, here it goes again. Everyone doesn't respond to physique changes normally, or equally. In other words, you could have genetics

that make major pronouncements and change related to physique change, and I could take the exact same thing you're taking and not have the same result. But the point is this, is that as it relates to these considerations, what ends up happening is you might depress overall usage. But what you do is you end up empowering the folks at the higher end. I mean, since 1960, the growth in pharmaceuticals, which the anti-doping world basically just plays catch up on all the time. I mean, they didn't catch Marion Jones, right?

The way they got her was somebody mailed some shit anonymously, then they developed a test for it, and all of a sudden, eureka. But the amount of independent stuff they can find to catch everyone, they have to wait until someone basically tells them about it. What you end up doing is you end up codifying a system where the rich are able to avoid detection and entrench their relative advantages over those who don't have those economic resources. So you might have prevented overall amounts of use.

That's one plausible explanation. But by doing that, you have only made those who had more money to begin with solidify their position. But what is the alternative? The alternative is you let people get juicy as they want? No. Do you have limitations? So here's my view on things.

Okay. Number one, look at American football. And this is what kills me when MMA fans try to defend USADA. It's like, this ain't the hill to die on, folks. In American football, we have multiple deaths and fatalities every year. I'm sorry, deaths or paralysis every year. Not just that, we have multiple deaths at the high school level annually. Annually, these kids die.

If you look at the health outcomes from american football relative to a fighting it is much worse across the board in american football and that is a sport where you can get caught taking something and they'll suspend you for four fucking games you are watching in the nfl and i don't want to name names because i don't want to be sued but you see a lot of guys in their 40s or late 30s continuing to do shit that they're not supposed to be able to do or they look like fucking he-man it's because it is very easy to take something in the nfl and avoid detection and the fans simply do not care the idea that they're really concerned about the health and safety given the outcomes and given the nature of the sport is simply does does not meet match the reality at all so what do i think think is best? A couple of things. One, if you have a

system where the athletes have a say and they work with the organization and they carve out a system where it may not be as rigorous as possible, because by the way, there's a study out of the University of Adelaide. Testing is basically low information. It's basically theater for low information fans. It does something, but not really all that much. The real big fucking fish that USADA gets Or any other anti-doping agency Is a function of investigations through snitching Which MMA fans don't like

I'm like folks that's how the sausage is made I don't know what to tell you So if you wanted to do testing you'd have to do it literally The University of Adelaide has a study that came out That said it would have to be basically every day But that would require privacy invasions So you have this enormous amount of privacy invasions Where they have no life

They would constantly be under rigorous control What would be different though with testing every day versus testing randomly like how would you catch someone like what are they obviously there's if they're taking something and you just wake them up at six o'clock in the morning hey frankie edgar i gotta check your piss like you're you're gonna catch them if they're taking something on a daily basis right yeah well you mean through random or through? Random. Random is the idea is that it would happen frequently enough that there would be no method of, or at least very few methods of, wooding detection. The idea, though, is that there are sufficient things you can take to gain real clear advantages that even randomized testing simply could not account for.

advantages that even randomized testing simply could not account for. Again, it would be some kind of proprietary drug that a rich person could make that there would be no test for, as a clear example. So, but if you did, okay, so something that doesn't have a test for it currently. Right. Something like the Clear, something like what Balco came up with. Yeah, something like that. But there's a couple of examples. So here's what I'm saying to you.

One is like, what's a suitable model? Well, NBA, MLB, to a lesser extent, but MLB, and then NFL. We already exist in a world where basically a pretty significant chunk of those guys are taking something, and nobody seems to care, and it works out well for everyone. What people claim they don't like is sort of the scandalization of it all. What is the Billy Corbin documentary on Alex Rodriguez? Oh, I've seen it. Screwball.

It's fucking great. Fucking amazing. It's fucking great. Fucking amazing. It's fucking great. Is it those little kids acting? Yeah, little kids are acting the part of Billy Corbin, or excuse me, Alex Rodriguez and the other players. And all these low-level mafioso types. But what a genius idea to do it that way.

Well, let me just get this out. Sorry, I'm no ranting. But the last thing is this. There's a couple different methods you can pick. You can just decide that the existing professional sports leagues, in my judgment, have totally figured it out, which is that you get a union to organize basic protections. You put kind of a lid on the lobster, and you just let it cook there without sort of really being super inside the details about it, which means you will allow for some, but you basically get to a point where there's not too many violations, you're not giving too much of an advantage, and you just let it rock because the general for-profit sports world

tends to prefer that. Yeah, but then we're agreeing to deception. We're agreeing on deception. We already agreed to deception. Right, but why do that? USADA is not the cure to the... Well, listen, I'm not a fan of some of the practices. The big one is things like Josh Barnett, right?

Josh Barnett gets hit for a tainted supplement. He disputes it. He's out for, I believe it was more than nine months. They say, oh, we fucked up. It's a mistake. You're free to fight. But what happens to all that time and money that he's missing? Nothing.

No one compensates him. It gets worse than that. They don't exonerate him. How about Tom Lawler? I mean, they took his career from him. It. No one compensates him. It gets worse than that. They don't exonerate him. How about Tom Lawler? I mean, they took his career from him. It needs to be said out loud. USADA tested Tom Lawler, and they said,

you tested positive for, it was an Osterine at the time, and you tested at such a level, we're going to ban you for two years. Two years later, they come up with a test that makes them give more refined results, and they come back and they say,

if you had tested at this level, you'd have been totally totally exonerated they took that fucking guy's career from him and they never apologized and they never acknowledged that basically they had too much belief in their scientific uh instrumentation to ever say sorry dude that is fucking evil that's evil that is evil you cannot do that to a person so this is my point here's what i think the health there's one system is which is let the is basically let a union decide and work with the union decides with the sports organization. The other one is basically what the strength and fitness world has done, which is that you have some competitions where you just don't test and you have some where you do. And that's not a perfect solution either, right? because you can still take it and try to take the one that's sort of yeah but again we're agreeing to deception this

is why i i'm with you most of the way there there there is no alternative well isn't the alternative let them do whatever they want sort of and not test sort of i mean at that point see because i i just don't i don't imagine a world where we're going to agree that you're allowed to lie. That doesn't make any sense to me. Oh, that's the world we live in. I understand. But to legislate this, to mandate this. You're saying there's some kind of harm to it.

If you have an organization like the UFC, that's this multi-billion dollar organization, they're never going to come up with rules or say hey guys we know you're going to lie so we're going to allow you to lie and we're going to talk to your unions and we're going to set it up so you can lie they're not going to do that no no but what they will agree to is certain amounts of protections for the rights of athletes and through those protections they can lie they could lie that seems so ridiculous that's the world we live in man every lawyer in the world has used that trick. Okay, let's assume, let's go from

where we are now to the future, where I agree with you, we will have things like CRISPR and genetic manipulation and some other methods that we probably haven't even invented yet. And they're going to invent them and they're going to have perfect physical specimens. What do we do then? Then it's going to be ridiculous to say

that you can't do certain things, because it's going to be undetectable. It's going to be unstoppable. You're going to have people in China that are making designer babies that are seven feet tall and they're built like He-Man. We're going to get to that point eventually, right? Right. So here's the deal. You have to have stratified sports is the answer. And people don't want that balkanized world.

Stratified how so? In the sense that basically what happens now is that let's say you want to compete in elite weightlifting right that's what you want to do you don't really have much of a choice to do it other than through the olympics but if you want to do it through the olympics then it involves a series of procedures that relate to antidoping and blah blah blah okay but what if you want to do like strongman for example people kind of clown it because they do it in a circusy way but to me it's a perfectly legitimate sport by any other sports measurements i agree and you can't compete at World's Strongest Man's unless you are juiced to the motherfucking gills. It's phenomenal to watch, but what Strongman

has figured out is the average person, men or women by the way, they may want to train Strongman. They want to compete in their local tournament. They want to compete nationally. They have a series of all different kinds of competitions for those who do want to do drugs and for those who don't, for weight classes, for age, for gender, and everything else in between. Now, you don't get the satisfaction of saying that you won Tour de France, the only competition as relates to that. I mean, there's other ones, the races, but there's only one Tour de France. But you have to live in a world where you just understand some of these are going to – everyone wants to make it like, oh, I'm the athlete who doesn't want to take drugs. What about me?

Right. Well, what about the two athletes who both don't mind taking drugs? Right. What are we supposed to do for them? We're supposed to say you can't take drugs? Why? Imagine a world where they never did put any restrictions on testosterone replacement use and Vitor Belfort's still around.

Okay. But see, I'm actually against TRT. For a couple of reasons. Who the fuck are you and what have you done with Luke? For a couple of reasons. One is that the easiness of it was a little too much for me. There should be some hurdles to taking some kind of drug. You should be able to lie cleverly?

You should put some effort into your lying. There should be a little bit of hurt you shouldn't just be able to go to a doctor no that that's the problem if it's that easy and it's that ubiquitous it's that easy to hide you've not created enough stumbling blocks and obstacles along the way to deter some usage the whole point is to deter the low-hanging fruit that's what you really want to sort of uh but that doesn't that set it up so that the rich guys and the guys that are the big camps that are funded by major sponsors, they're the ones that are going to have the best athletes? It's the opposite.

Really? Now is when you have that. Now is what you have because the other ones are super restricted. They don't really have much of an opportunity to fight back against any kind of other form of testing. They're really sort of subject to it. They can't afford a lawyer to challenge them. So you are of the opinion, and we don't need to name camps, but the top camps employ scientists or doctors or someone who knows how to get around the system. I don't know about top camps.

I don't know how it would work that way. Are you asking me like top athletes? More plates, more dates guy. I know that guy looked at Yoel Romero. And Paulo Costa. Yeah. And a bunch of stuff. And again, is everything he says gospel?

I don't think so. But it's worth sort of... But I think his take on Yoel Romero was that he's a genetic freak. Right, but he got fucked by USADA too. Yes, he did. Right. Well, so did Tim Means, right?

Another guy. Who doesn't look like he's on steroids at all. Right. There's a bunch of guys, a bunch of female fighters too, right? Haven't they been popped? Sure. For tainted supplements?

Sure. They have no one protecting them. Yeah, but it's't they been popped for tainted supplements? Sure. They have no one protecting them. Yeah, but it's also like you're not supposed to take that stuff. Okay. I mean, listen. I've dealt with fighters for a long time. They're not the most organized people in the world. I love them.

God bless them. They're the most inspiring people I know. You're preaching to the choir. Buddy, I can't tell you how many times I'm like, okay, 1 p.m. East Coast time. We have an interview. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they just, they just, oh, they're like, oh, I was napping. Like, you think they're going to take, they're going to look on the fucking bottle?

I mean, come on. No. And let's be honest. Also, there's a lot of guys who say they took a tainted supplement when really they were probably microdosing and they got busted. Right. There's also that as well. Yeah, there's that as well.

So I think you have to look at two situations. One, do you want a professional sports world like we have, where people claim they care very much about health outcomes, but they really don't, where people are obviously using the NFL? Which, by the way, I mean, how do you get through an NFL season without growth hormone? I would love to know. Probably very difficult to do that. Peptides.

Okay, but here's my point. Something is a brutal, vicious game. Vicious game. And then on the other side, or you can just, you can balkanize it a little bit. You can have divisions for older bit. You can have divisions for older people. You can have divisions

for people who don't want to take drugs. And for the ones who do, again, does this solve all the problems, Joe? It does not solve all the problems. But it's a much more honest

and a policeable world. When I talked to Roy Jones and talked about the Mike Tyson fight, he told me that they're testing. They're doing VADA testing. And I was like, man, like Roy's 51 and Mike is 54. And I'm like, hmm, boy.

I would have swore that's not the case if you looked at Mike's physique. He looks ripped. He looks so shredded. But he might be one of those outliers, one of those rare Herschel Walker type dudes that can be 54 years old and be shredded. I mean, there are guys like that out there that have just unbelievable genetics and

maintain their physique deep into their 50s. I mean, Yoel is what, 45 something? He looks ridiculous. He's insane. He's the epitome of specimen. He's a specimen. Do you know what happened with him once? Want to hear this story? I told it before. Forgive me if you've heard it, specimen. He's a specimen. Do you know what happened with him once? Want to hear this story? I told it before. Forgive me if you've heard it, folks.

He got a fracture. I think it was in Australia. He had an orbital fracture. And after the fight, I think it was the Whitaker fight. Doctors examine him, and the doctor calls up the UFC and goes, where did you get this guy? And he goes, he's one of the ufc fighters he's like he's like this guy's a specimen he goes yeah yeah he's amazing right he's a top

fighter goes no no no no no no no no no no like i've never seen a person like this he's like i've been doing i've been a doctor for decades he goes his tendons in his eyes are three times larger than normal persons and he goes in that fracture is already healing wow yeah and so dana was telling me about this he was saying that you know cubans had this crazy athletic program and they were doing all kinds of experiments with people and he thinks that they did some experiments with athletes to create super athletes like you remember corellon you know corellon uh was they they called him the experiment that was his that was his nickname because his parents were both like five five five seven and he's a fucking giant refrigerator who moves like a panther you know literally a

300 pound man who moves like a panther and you know obviously cuba had a a deep relationship with russian if you've seen the movie icarus you've seen that movie right which is an amazing movie on doping like russians don't fuck around when it comes to doping i mean they had a very specific program no corner cutting with them no corner cutting it was like super scientific and everyone's on board. Like, you're not going to compete on the Natch. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're here to win, bitch. And, you know, I don't know what they did to make

Yoel Romero, but that's not a normal human. And everybody who fights him says the same thing. Luke Rockhold said it feels like he's made out of metal. It's like you fight the guy, it's like he's made out of steel. Yeah, here's what's funny. So I tore my labrum lifting weights uh maybe 10 years ago or something and uh the guy who ended up doing my surgery well by the way the mma fan he loved talking whenever i would go see him uh was the previous orthopedic surgeon years ago for at the time the

washington redskins they've since changed their name, but NFL football team. And I was like, what are they like? Like cutting these dudes open. He's like, this is exactly what he told me. He goes, they're not built like you and me. You know, he was like saying, you cut them open and you can't believe that the muscle fibers look the way they look or that the tendons are attached

with the same kind of like tensile strength, whatever the proper terminology is. He's like, it was just like everything you understand about the human anatomy, you know it from a sort of averaged position and then you see these herculean monsters and you're like oh so that's what mothra looks like when you cut them open or some shit well that's what i'm thinking is going to happen eventually in mma if the money does get higher you're gonna see more of these next level Yoel Romero type athletes because they exist more in NFL and NBA like imagine you know a guy like LeBron James fighting in MMA who's like just a

perfect specimen imagine these Michael Jordans imagine these next level athletes which unfortunately a lot of those guys wind up going to sports like basketball or baseball because there's more money. There's more money in those sports and you don't get kicked in the face. And then the football guys, there's more money in football. You can make a fucking insane amount of money in football. I was just reading about some guy whose contract was like $400 million, like some crazy shit.

In football? Yeah. I'm not sure who that would be. Who's got the most money in football patrick mahomes maybe it was baseball this is how little i pay attention to sports you're missing out there was an article yesterday about a guy who uh is getting his full contract in baseball and it's a lot of money so like 300 million yeah maybe it's that bro have you seen dk metcalf no holy who's that guy a motherfucker yeah you think yoel Romero's a specimen?

Can you pull up DK? Really? Yeah. Have we talked about him before? Pull up DK Metcalf at the Combine. Oh my God. Dude. Here's the thing.

I disagree with you halfway, which is to say, to the extent you get this kind of athlete, you're probably going to get, on average, better results. The one caveat, look at this motherfucker. Bro, he's a- That's the guy. He's a this motherfucker. Bro, he's a... Joe, he's a pass catcher. How much does he weigh? 6'4", 229. What was his... He's 229?

Yeah, dude, what were his combine numbers, his bench and his run? He is... Oh my God. 6'3", 2... The 1% body fat is not real, but he did run a 4'3", he benched 225 27 times, and he had a 40-inch vertical. Look at that motherfucker.

He can't be 1% body fat. No, that part's not real. But holy shit, is he shredded. Look at that. Woo! I mean, try tackling this fucking wall. The thing about fighting, though, that separates the men from the boys is the mind. And the difference between

being able to perform in a sport and being able to fight another man is trying to separate you from consciousness is a very different thing it's like some guys just can't rise to the occasion this is the big thing he did last week while he went viral he is right here watch him at the top of the screen i'm gonna start over again though watch him at the top of the screen guy here top of the screen here he comes middle look at him over again, though. Watch him at the top of the screen. That's this guy here. Top of the screen. Here he comes. Middle. Look at him run this fucking guy down. Oh, my God.

Look at him. Dude, he's 240 pounds, and he runs the guy down. Woo! That's incredible. That guy should be very fast also. He's not slow. Yeah, by the way, the guy he's running down is like a wide receiver. Super fast.

That's amazing. That's amazing. It's just amazing how many times these guys get tackled and it doesn't just rip their fucking legs apart. Sorry, it was an interception, so it would be a cornerback who got this, I believe. Watch DK Metcalf. He goes for it, misses, and then comes back around

and chases this fucking guy down. That's amazing. It's unheard of for a guy this big. There he is. There's DK right here. He's done running. Look at him. Fucking smoking. He's done running. Look at him.

Fucking smoking. Look at him go. Dude, DK Metcalf is so impressive. Oh my God, that's amazing. You ever watch the combine? When the combine comes on, dude, I'll turn off everything. My wife is like, you're watching a bunch of dudes run. I'm like, not dudes. Heroes.

Superheroes. But to your point about the fighting, Mark Ellis. You remember Mark Ellis? Yeah. He was like a Division I national champion wrestler. I think he had one fight in pro elite, and he was like, no mas. This is the one caveat. I don't know about DK Metcalf or anybody else.

But you see these guys, and in terms of athletic ability, they're beyond comparison. Yeah. But there is something about two things. One, people are always like, oh, with fighting, you have to how to like be punched in the face. Yes. That's half of it The other half is and I think people overlook this You have to have something constitutionally Where you're willing to hurt another person and not everyone has that not to the same amount that is not an automatic response It might be in the case of an emergency. You have to solve a puzzle. You have to solve a puzzle and reason through it yeah there's a lot going on there's creativity that's involved in

fighting that may not be involved in a lot of other sports that are just pure strength and speed and athleticism and and a knowledge of moves and understanding of positions but there's a different thing that's going on where you're trying to create an opening when you're trying to create an opening fighting you know there's there fighting, there's things that people can do in fighting that also you have to commit to that at a very young age if you want to be elite. You can be a guy like Greg Hardy who has a reasonably successful career as a heavyweight just because he's a tough motherfucker who hits really hard and he's a very good athlete. But are you ever going to be Francis Ngannou?

Are you ever going to be Stipe Miocic? Are you ever going to be Francis Ngannou? Are you ever going to be Stipe Miocic? Are you ever going to be... It's like there's a level that you reach where you only reach that level if you've been training it most of your life. And particularly for striking, for some reason, there's exceptions to that rule where some people can figure it out,

but not in boxing. In boxing, it's very rare that someone even picks it up after their teenage years and reaches elite world championship level. There's something about the timing and the understanding of – it's like to someone who's looking out on the outside, it's a guy trying to punch another guy, the guy's trying to punch you, you're trying to punch him. But there's so much more to it.

That's why a guy like Floyd Mayweather always wins. there's a there's so much more to it that's why a guy like floyd mayweather always wins like he's got a vocabulary that's just fucking volumes and volumes of books and you got a little pamphlet you got a little pamphlet of ideas you know and he's standing in front of you with his shoulders like this and you think oh i see i can hit this guy. You don't have a fucking chance in hell. He's so many steps ahead of you. That's what you saw in the Conor McGregor fight. He just slowly lures Conor into his web and so relaxed and composed

and eventually starts piecing him up and taking him out. But there's levels that I think you only achieve if you start while your body's developing. There's something that happens when your body's maturing and growing with striking. That's where the real speed and timing and power comes from. And again, there's exceptions. There's some people that are just sensational athletes. I don't think Gilbert Burns started out as a striker.

I don't think he started out doing any striking. I think he learned how to do that shit as a world champion jiu-jitsu player who got into mma but he's a rare freak you know but it's also he's already a champion martial artist or also already knows how to smash men right there's a thing about that there's a thing about knowing how to solve a puzzle knowing how to figure a man out getting a hold of a man's neck and putting him to sleep. He knows how to do that already. So to figure out that, I just need to know how to put knuckles to chin. And he's already a fast guy. He's already an explosive guy. And the dedication that allows someone to get to a world championship level in jiu-jitsu, it's the same thing in striking. If he just puts the time in and has the focus, the intensity,

and figures out how to end with the right coaching, which is also huge. The wrong coaching can set a guy back. I mean, it could ruin you. The wrong coaching can ruin you. Someone with bad ideas and piss-poor strategy and execution, you can fucking ruin. Or you can run into a guy like Duke R rufus and he can create a world champion out of you i mean it's it's there's so many factors that play into it but if you can get a guy who has that mentality has a fighter's mentality a a person who wants to risk it all

you know and not have the protection of other players not have the the you know the caveat well you know the team we didn't put together defensively and we'll be back next sunday bitch there's no next sunday when you get head kicked right you know, the team, we didn't put it together defensively, and we'll be back next Sunday. Bitch, there's no next Sunday when you get head kicked, right? You know, like, you're not fighting again for a long time. You're suspended for 90 days. You're not even supposed to be sparring. You know, and then when you come back, you're probably still going to be a little bit fucked up from that fight.

There's a thing about fighting that separates us from all the other sports. I hate to say it again but i call it high level problem solving with dire physical consequences it's different than anything else because it's it's there's so much going on it's just two people and there's so much going on in that in that in those exchanges and it's so hard to read unless you know it and understand it that's like the ground game like one of the things that meant so much to me when i first started doing commentary was expressing what i know about the ground game so that a person who's never trained at all can understand it. So when people are going through positions and a guy gets to a position and I know they're close to a finish or I know they've reached a pivotal point, I would get excited and explain it.

I wanted to explain it so descriptively like now he's got to get the arm and once he gets that arm past his leg now he's fucked and and being able to do that to people so they could piece it together and watch it at home like oh when khabib mounted him and sat on top of him and put his leg around oh that's how he's heading up the triangle and then he finishes justin with it oh i wanted to be able to show people what i feel when i see a guy do a mounted triangle in a fucking world championship mma fight and then find out the guy had a fucking broken foot when he did it madness just madness not every baseball player can do that not every soccer player can do that not every football player can do that. Not every soccer player can do that. Not every football player can do that. It takes a man with a gladiator's mind like Khabib Nurmagomedov to do something like that.

That's an unusual human. It's the 1% of the 1%. Well, I would say for me, I often view the combative arts like a language, which is why learning them 5, 6, 7, that's actually teach someone a second language, right? Yes. If you teach them at 2, they don't actually pick it up. You have to wait a few years, and then they begin to get it, and then they learn to speak. You can't force it on them when they're young, for sure.

Yeah, I've tried with my daughter. It's not, you know. She prefers Apple to Manzano. We're working on it. But the point being is you wait until they're 5, 6, 7, and they begin to get absorbing. And then once it becomes a language and the fluency and everything begins, by the time they're 14, 6, 7, and they begin to get absorbing. And then once it becomes the language and the fluency and everything begins, by the time they're 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, my God,

the fluency is sort of incredible at that point. So that's part of it. Wrestling is the same as boxing in that way. You have to start very, very young to actually want to compete later on. But the other part is the problem solving. I would say that someone who's like a quarterback, dude, that is high-level problem solving. Oh, for sure.

It's not the same kind of situation where – and this is why, again, everyone's going to focus on a different aspect of fighting that really appeals to them. The problem-solving is interesting. That's why Adesanya faking and fainting because he keeps them at a distance so he can watch everything. I hate to have favorite fighters, but right now he's my favorite guy to watch. Next to Khabib because there's something about Stylebender, man, especially that Adesanya, the Paulo Costa fight.

God damn, did he shut down the hype. He changed the way I broke down fights. Ever tell you this? I guess I haven't because it's the first time I'm talking to you, but I was just thinking about this the other day. He did something in the Silva fight where I was watching, and I was like, I don't know what the fuck he is doing here. I can't make it.

If you just watch it, even in slow motion, I can't make heads or tails of it. I don't understand what the point of it is. So because of him, now when I break down fights, I actually start. I go round by round, and I make notes every time any kind of strike lands or misses. And then I begin to go back and I piece together a narrative based on what, if there is a narrative, sometimes there's not. But more often than not, there is, about what is happening. And I had to do it from this stance and then that stance,

because he was switching stances, close distance, far distance, inside distance. He is so meticulous and so thoughtful, but so effortless that I had to peel everything apart before I could even begin to comprehend it. People go and look at that fight. They go, oh, well, he only won 29,28. That's not the story there. The story there is that, yes, it was a little bit on the defensive side. That is true. But he is so smart and so... He's the smartest fighter we have right now,

I think, personally. I agree. He is so smart that he can watch what is happening, set things up, and do things in terms of manipulation, distance, timing, and everything else. And a trap setting to the nth degree that he doesn't have a peer in that particular i really enjoyed your breakdown the paul costa fight thanks yeah particularly that one where you you you broke down how he pointed the fake like he faked pointed out that paul fell for it and then kicked his leg right afterwards

you bid on it dude he fucked that guy's mind up afterwards like you signed a contract signed the guy's like contract contract did you just not watch what happened right you got torn apart for two rounds where you landed up two body kicks and one leg kick for two rounds and you got dismantled and and and dropped the left hook and then beaten down and dry humped. That was the – and you're talking about a guy in Paulo Costa that everyone was terrified of. The guy who walked down Yoel Romero. The guy who was smashing everybody they put in front of him.

He's a destroyer. I mean, Paulo Costa's a fucking terrifying force. Super. Terrifying. Adesanya just had all the answers, and he knew he had all the answers coming in. What do you think about Adesanya Jones? Where are you on that? I love it! How competitive do you think it is?

Well, he's got to get past Jan Blachowicz. First of all, that motherfucker hits hard. When he put out Dominic Reyes, I was like, holy shit. And with a weird punch, too. A weird left hand over the top that fucked him up. He's a beast, man.

And he's another guy that was killing himself, making 185. Goes up to 205 and starts nuking motherfuckers. He's a dangerous, dangerous guy. You can't make any mistakes with that guy. Gustafson out-wrestled him for three rounds. And at the time, I remember people like, oh, he had to wrestle him. He ain't that good. I'm like, in retrospect, that's a great win by Gustafson.-wrestled him for three rounds, and at the time I remember people like, oh, he had to wrestle him, he ain't that good. I'm like, in retrospect, that's a great win by Gustafson.

A great win. A great win. Yeah. Look, you know, that guy moving up to 205 is going to be some growing pains, but now he's the champion, and he knows that he can nuke a guy like Dominic Reyes, who went five hard rounds with Jon Jones and in your eyes, won the fight against Jones.

It's the only time I've ever scored against Jones. The only time. It's fucking tight. It was tight. It was arguable, for sure. I'd have to go over and watch it again if I wanted to score it, but I remember thinking, God damn, this guy is ahead, deep. And then Jon came on strong in the fourth and fifth.

But he nuked that guy. He nuked Reyes. And it's not like Reyes wasn't in the fight, but when he started hitting that left kick to the body and left that gigantic brute you'll realize like this dude hits so hard and his game is all power he's just a big power striker and just durable and tough just a bad motherfucker he's he's impressive because I had force I had Dominic Reyes on my show after the the loss to Jon Jones, and we talked about his game plan.

And his game plan was pretty smart if you think about it, which is you're not going to barrel down on Jon. It's really not going to happen. Jon, I think his offense is not the same as it used to be, but his defense, if you look at the numbers and just what the tape shows you, Jon's defense is excellent. Why do you think his offense is not what it used to be? What do you think is different?

So do yourself a favor. If you have five pass, five pass, I can't say enough good things about Fight Pass. I think they need to update their interface. But in terms of the service it does for someone like me, because you think you see a fight in your head one way, then you go back and you watch it, and you're like, oh my God, I totally forgot half this shit. So it's a great way to remind yourself.

But if you go back and you look, he had a certain kind of wrestling dominance from the Shogun to the Rashad, really even up through most portions of his career that has begun to wane. His takedown ability has gone from about the mid-50s, a little bit higher now, the 60s to about the 30s. It's dropped off a cliff. What do you think's happened?

The game has just gotten better. I mean, if you think about it, Dominic Reyes didn't make his pro debut until 2014. Now, Jon Jones was the fucking man already by then, right? I mean, long since been the man by 2014. So how could it be that a guy can be training that long and at least make it that competitive on paper? It's because best practices have gotten much, much better. So what Dominic Reyes wanted to do was create motion. The idea was to get Jon moving because if he's stationary or he's barreling down on you, he's much harder to hit. But to the extent you can

get the guy moving, he's open to the body and to the legs. Now, that's a hard way to win because really the head contest is what wins and loses fights more often than not, whether or not that's fair. It's hard to win a fight on body shots unless you drop them. But I thought he did win it. So he tried the same kind of thing against Jan Blachowicz. He was trying to bait motion.

He was trying to bait activity. Blachowicz no-sold it completely. He was just standing there going, nope. Not playing any of this bullshit whatsoever. Yeah, come close, get nuked. That was his game. And so Reyes couldn't... I don't think he was expecting that. I think he had a hard time adjusting.

Also, when he smashed Reyes' nose, Reyes was in deep trouble. He had shattered his nose before that big overhand. He's just a beast of a man. I think that's an interesting fight to watch Stylebender fight him, and apparently that's the next fight for Stylebender. It's going to be at Light Heavyweight. I don't know if it's going to be for the title.

Oh, yeah. It is going to be for the title. Is this confirmed? No, no, it hasn't been. It is confirmed, Jamie? So Dana White announced it. We've not had a full-on confirmation, but Stylebender did an interview with Submission Radio. Those are

a couple guys out of Australia, and he was talking like it was a done deal. They haven't formally announced it, but I would expect it. I am very interested to see that, because Blachowicz has that power style, and Stylebender is, in my opinion, the most sophisticated striker the sport's ever seen.

He's so clever. You look no further than the paulo costa fight i mean paulo costa is a fucking gorilla he's just a attacking smashing dude and he he had nothing for him he had nothing for him and then afterwards to see paulo costa i was injured i was this i was that signed the contract it's like bro stop bro, stop talking. Take away his iPhone. Stop. Stop talking. What is happening here? Opens as heavy favorite over UFC light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz.

Oh my goodness! You know what, though? Blachowicz has been slept on forever. There's nothing new there. I've been wrong about him a million times, too. It's very, very interesting. Can you pull up his record, though, real quickly? Can you pull up Blachowicz's record? Here's a guy who I think lost the majority of his first six UFC fights. I think he lost like three or four of them or some shit.

He had like a really not a great run at first. But, dude, you know what's amazing? These guys, like Michael Bisping or whatever, it's one thing to persevere in the moment. It's another one to have just like long-term relentlessness. So scroll down here if you can for just a second. So he starts there. He wins against Elir Latifi, which is a nice win.

And then he loses to Manoa and Anderson. He beats Igor Pekajic. Then he loses to Gustafson and Cummins. So he's losing four of his first six. But then he's like, you know what? Fuck all you hoes. And then he just started. He lost to Tiago Santos.

I believe that was the last fight at 85, right? And he was a beast. Okay, no harm, no foul. And then he KOs Rockhold. The Jacare fight was not great. No. But the Corey Anderson fight is a perfect example. Corey Anderson bodied him in the first fight.

The fact that he KO'd him with one punch like that, that is crazy. Yeah, that was a really interesting thing because Corey can take a shot too. And Corey was coming off of that big win off of Johnny Walker. one punch like that and that is crazy yeah that was that was a really interesting thing because cory can take a shot too and cory was coming off of that big win off of johnny walker you know it's look there's a lot of great fight you know what i'm really interested in alex perera alex perera who is the glory uh i believe he's a two division champion who's on yeah he's what is he fighting for lfa he's fighting for i think that's right yeah he's fucking terrifying and he's the last guy to KO out of Sonia

he's on my radar I'm really interested champ champ over at glory to was terrifying fucking terrible that guy is almost like you want to grab his arm and feel what it feels like like what are you made out of that motherfucker just puts people into orbit. He KOs everybody. I mean, when he knocked out Jason Willis, watch this flying knee KO. Boom! And Willis, by the way,

beat Adesanya, I believe. And it was a close... Shouldn't have. I gave it to Adesanya. I gave it to Adesanya as well, but it was close enough. Look at that. But this is Pereira. Look at this shit. But he does this to everybody.

There's something about this guy. You see him hit guys, and it looks like normal punches, and they just go unconscious. Like that shit. These are world-class kickboxers, and this motherfucker just puts them into another dimension. He just put out an instructional with BJJ Fanatics. Have you seen it?

No, but he's been training a lot with Glover Chichera. He's in Connecticut training with Glover. And I think it's one of the reasons why Glover has made this resurgence. Like, Glover has looked sensational as of late. I love Glover Chichera. I love Glover. And I think one of the reasons why Glover, at 40-plus years old, has made this resurgence is he's training with Pereira.

I think that I mean look iron sharpens iron we all know that and there's something about exchanging ideas with one of the best kickboxers on planet earth not just the best kickboxer but a weirdly powerful one he's a freak man there's something about Pereira he he's astonishing and I think him moving into the LFA and if he gets through a few fights there, I have zero idea what his ground game is, zero idea what his wrestling, zero idea what his takedown defense is,

but he nukes motherfuckers. I mean, in a weird way. I mean, when he knocked out Stylebender, it was like, Jesus, one left hook. He does it to everybody. I know. With the big gloves. He's got a lot of different ways to do it.

It's not like Deontay, where it's just this. He does it with everything. Knees, kicks, punches, everything. All of it. You does it to everybody. I know. With the big gloves. He's got a lot of different ways to do it. It's not like Deontay where it's just this. He does it with everything. Knees, kicks, punches. All of it. You name it. And now he can throw elbows. He couldn't even throw elbows in glory. Now he can throw elbows and he can grab you and throw knees. Everyone's going to try and take this fucker down. Oh, they have to. You fucking better. You better.

You're standing up with that guy. That's death. That's death. I know. I'm just like I want to get excited He beat Stalbender twice In kickboxing I know By decision and by KO I'm just dying to see

I understand How the rest of it looks Because of the issue Well how old is he? How old is Alex? I don't know He might be like 34-ish 35-ish

I was there at the Last Man Standing tournament When he was Right before he peaked He was pre-peak at that point And he was still A formidable 33? So he's still got some time and it literally completely depends on how much time he has spent on the ground how much time he spent drilling takedown defense how much time because it's relatively late to enter the game in mma you know he's had a couple of mma

fights but as a kick it's just a fucking shame that he can't get the love and the money as a kickboxer. Because as a kickboxer, you're just watching executions. Like, when does he land? I know. And Gloria, it was a shame because did you watch the... It still exists. I know, but they had some issues, obviously,

due to the pandemic. But did you watch the Badr harry and rico verhoeven yes crazy fuck that was so fun that they did such a great job how how weird was the stoppage like he fall he throws a wheel kick and then didn't he get injured in the process ankle yeah but i mean just the fucking feel of it you've been to the netherlands i'm sure right no i haven't never never you don't know what you're missing really uh i would say it's funny i tell this to the dutch and they're like you're totally overselling it so i'm sure that i am but i went there with my wife and you know she comes from a different place my wife was an immigrant so she

came from a different background and i have a different background and we went there and we both looked at each other and we go this is how society should be organized really yeah it's a homogenous society to a large degree. Obviously, part of the reason why they have some problems is because, to the extent that it's not homogenous, they have some issues. But just the way you see the municipal planning and how life looks like in the cities there,

it's peaceful and it's happy. It's like, how did a place that is so tranquil and so lovable and so nice produce you savage motherfuckers? I mean, it's just shocking. I know the story because the Dutch went down to Thailand and brought it back and blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

Dude, it is. If someone's like, you have to leave America because it got set on fire, where are you going to go? Canada? A little too cold. I'm going to the fucking Netherlands. Really? Yeah.

Wow. That's where I'm headed. Well, they certainly have an insane history of kickboxers, right? Rob Kamen, Ernesto Hoost, you know. I mean, there's just so many. The list is endless. Yeah, there's so many. Raymond Deckers.

Ramon Deckers was like one of the all-time greats. And he may be even more impressive because he was small. He was the size of the ties. And he would go up there and light them on fire. He was amazing. They didn't like that too much. Dude, he fought so hard, he shattered his ankle and had to have it fused. And he still fought and still kicked.

They were like, you can't kick with this ankle. You'll have to have your foot amputated. He was like, fuck you. Just kept kicking with it. He was an animal. He was literally the gold standard for European Western guys who went over and fought the Thais. What's the word?

Farang? What's the Thai word? Yeah, that's what they call it. Something like that. But it's amazing, too. One thing about the Dutch that's kind of funny, I don't know if you've picked up on this, the Dutch will fight their teammates without a whole lot of consternation,

especially in kickboxing, where it'll be like, wait, you're from Mike's gym, and you're from Mike's gym. How come you're fighting? And they're like, business. They're not personal. I'm like, in America, that's the most personal thing. They don't seem to have a hard time getting knocked out and getting back in there again, Jim. How come you're fighting? And they're like, business. They're not personal. I'm like, in America, that's like the most personal thing. They don't seem to have a hard time getting knocked out and getting back in there again either. Nope.

Which brings you back to Alistair Overeem, who's a Dutchman who's just got this crazy record. You want to talk about a guy who's had, what an insane record, right? K-1 Grand Prix champion, Dream Heavyweight champion, Strikeforce Heavyweight champion. At the same time. Yeah, and he's just gotten so close to UFC gold. right k1 grand prix champion dream heavyweight champion strike force heavyweight champion at the same time yeah and he's just gotten so close to ufc gold you know hurt stipe dropped him had him hurt and just eventually wound up losing the fight but he's a guy when he was juicy you couldn't stop him when he beat alistair when he beat brock lesnar yeah that's as juicy as the world gets you remember when he was fighting in like and K-1 at that time?

What Michael Schiavello said about his back? No, what did he say? He said you could screen a movie on it. That's perfect. Dude, when he fought Todd Duffy, I'm like, oh my God. But when he fought Brock Lesnar, that's probably the most impressive. Because he muscled Brock Lesnar around. Like Brock Lesnar was the guy.

And obviously Brock Lesnar coming off of diverticulitis. He had his giant section of his small intestine. Something like that. around like brock lesnar was the guy and obviously brock lesnar coming off of diverticulitis he had his uh giant section of his uh small uh small intestine something like the digestive organs yeah some serious stomach surgery right so he's got gut surgery and not many months removed from that less than a year he's getting kicked by allister over him i remember allister hit him with his shin to the body you see him like grab his body and go down then get beaten up but it was the way he beat him up before that it was just everything about it he muscled him he moved him around he's just like and he was just the that was the ream when he was like full uber ream when he was 265 pounds shredded shredded, built like a tank, looked like a comic book superhero.

God damn, if you want to make an argument for steroids, that's the argument. Well, again, he should be doing it against other people who know what they're in for. I'm totally okay with that. Well, don't you think Brock knows what he's in for? Yeah, I mean, again, you think I have sympathy for Brock Lesnar in this case?

No. We're talking juicy. But here's a point about Overeem is, I remember when Ronda got knocked out by Holly and Max Kellerman was on Twitter at the time. Love Max. And Max had said, you know, I don't think Ronda's ever going to recover from this mentally. And at the time I was thinking like, Max, you don't know shit. Now, he ended up being right.

But the reason why I felt that way was because I had seen guys like Overeem get viciously KO'd. Or Michael Bisping. Or Michael Bisping and come right back. Some people can come back. They are special, special guys, man. Yeah. Some people can come back and some people are never the same. Before we wrap this up, there was a few other things you were saying about the UFC that

I know that this has been so much fun. We've been going on all these different rants. But there was a few things specifically that I think we'd be doing a disservice if we didn't cover. One of them you think is USADA, which I can agree with you. I just don't. Can I make one final point about that? Yeah, for sure. To wrap up on this?

The one thing I want folks to understand is if you look at the history of anti-doping, and again, the scholarship on this is quite clear, pre-USADA UFC, I mean, long into the 20th century and then really beginning around 1968, the way in which anti-doping has moved itself forward is through, there's been reports in the media that drive further forms of hysteria, and then that forces the institutions to act. And so you have to understand, you can't talk about A, anti-doping without media hysteria around drugs, and B, a lot of times when you see these developments in anti-doping protocol, it's institutions protecting themselves.

Like when the UFC really went to USADA, was it on behalf of the athletes? If you want to believe that you can, I cannot say it is wrong. But what the scholarship is pretty clear about in anti-doping is that institutions do it for their own protection, which I understand. There's nothing wrong with the UFC being like, you know what? If we have a scandal here, we're going to get fucked if we don't do more. I totally get it. But that's a part of the argument that deserves to be noted and should not be forgotten.

I don't know what the argument was that forced them to institute USADA. TRT. TRT caused all the problems. TRT was a problem. The question is how you solve it. And we went overboard in my judgment. That's the problem I think we had. Now, that's debatable, but that is

the cause of everything. Do you think that a certain level of TRT would be acceptable, like a doctor administered? I tend to think that it's such an Oh, listen. If you're going to have a system where folks are going to

use, then the way to screen that is through health outcomes. You're looking at forms of screening, not so much for what they're taking, but how their blood enzymes look and digestive organs and what kind of damage they're taking and blah, blah, blah. To me, TRT is one of these things where it's like, we're going to make it super easy and we're going to, like I said, the readiness of it is too easy for me. Is part of the issue that testing is random and that testing is, you know, you might get tested four times a year.

You might get tested 10 times a year. No one knows. No one can tell. What if there was a way where every fighter had like something like almost like an app, and it somehow or another, you put it on you and it screens you. There's something that you could do where it can't be faked. You check in.

Maybe you check in on your computer, like a FaceTime thing, and it does something. If there was a way, obviously, I don't know what I'm talking about, but if there was some sort of technology that allowed them to see every day, twice a day, check you in the morning, check you at night. Okay, Luke, it looks like you're good. You're in the range.

Everything's fine. So a couple things. It's like every employee that I know who's not an athlete gets to have time off except an athlete. We ask certain things of athletes that we don't ask of anyone else in the world. And the reason why is supposed to be to combat these harms. But if you can't prove to me that these harms are existing or that you're meaningfully doing anything about it, then why are we engaging in these privacy invasions? What kind of a wasting time with Conor McGregor when he's in a fucking yacht somewhere, they

show up in a buggy like, hey man, give me a piss test. He's like, I'm fucking retired. Right. So there's a lot of problems there. It's like, if you can't prove what you're doing or stopping, why are we engaging in all these privacy invasions? But it gets to a larger point. I remember when Tim Kennedy got back from practice and he didn't want to get ringworms,

so he showered. And he saw the folks were like, we got to test you. Once we're here, we can't give you time. So they watched the fucking guy showered, which is deranged to the nth degree. But the point being is, here's what anti-doping folks don't want to tell you. is deranged to the nth degree. But the point being is, here's what anti-doping folks don't want to tell you. There is a natural tension between what privacy exists and what solutions there are.

And there's a lot of good solutions, or not good solutions, there's a lot of better solutions if you just decide that people don't have any right to privacy. If you decide that, you have some options at that point. Right. But if you at all care about athletes and what they are entitled to as human beings, and what, by the way, problems might be like, where's all this... Don't you have to look at a guy's dick to make sure it's not rubber? Oh, yeah. He showered

with the curtain open, and then Tim Kennedy... You know Tim Kennedy was like, all balls and everything. He's like, wash my back! Come wash my back! But when you pee, do they have to look at your dick? I think they do. They look at everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And guys, didn't have to look at your dick? I think they do look at everything. Cause you can have the whizzenator.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And guys, didn't Kevin Randleman do that? And they said is non-human urine. It's like, you have like a dead man's piss.

How did you do that? Yeah. I just, it's, it is weird whenever someone's allowed to look at your dick cause they're thinking you're going to cheat. How about you see if they're cheating first and then you go, Hey,

I got to see your dick next time. It just seems like a first step to just look at your dick while you're peeing is pretty crazy. If you moralize doping, which they have done, if you moralize it, which is not a moral issue, it's a strategic issue, if you moralize it, you've decided that it's an evil

worth combating to the point now where this Rodchenkov Act is being floated through Congress. Do I think I'm right about doping i think i have some right ideas but here's the future of doping they're going to start putting more and more people in jail this is the way it's all headed because every time i've tried to make an argument everything has escalated i've just noticed it's falling totally on deaf ears and i suspect it will be the same here even though i've tried to make an earnest argument they're going to start putting people in jail and they already have in europe to to a degree now what they've going to start putting people in jail. And they already have in Europe to a degree.

Now, what they've done is they've carved out if you're an athlete, you won't get put in jail. But if you're anyone who's aided in that process, you're going to go. But they're eventually going to realize what they've always realized, which is that the punishment, the sociological research on this is pretty clear. It's really not the punishment that really concerns them. It's their, to what extent they'll be caught. They think they'll be caught. But if you're rich and you can avoid it or you're willing to take risks because that's inherently in the job that you're in, you don't really think about these kinds of things.

And by the way, you might have good methods of evasion. So they're going to put people in jail. And I think honestly they're going to put a lot of people in jail. I think almost like we need a separate podcast just about this. And I feel like it almost should be a roundtable discussion with someone like you as as a proponent of this someone like me who's i kind of see your point i agree with you and maybe some doctors and maybe someone from usada that would argue against it i think that would be an interesting discussion right because my my arguments against usada are the josh barnett arguments you know the uh the tom lawler arguments this the arguments where you're

ruining guys careers and there's no repercussion and they're ruined financially. They lose so much money. They don't get any of it back. You've made mistakes. It doesn't matter. And I get what you're doing. I get you're trying to make the sport safer.

You're doing your job. You were hired to do it. But is it the most effective use of time and resources? And also, can you prove what you're doing? Show me. Show me the results of what you have done. And they will be like, oh, but probabilistically we should rely on this. I have never seen an institution in my life, more than anti-doping institutions, who just

are begging you and frankly demanding of you to take their word for it. Motherfucker, show your work. I have to show my work. Show your work. When you say show my work, show your work. When you say show your work, like what do you wanna see from now? Prove to me that what you are doing is having an effect. And don't give me all this bullshit about,

well we can't really do this, and we can't really do that. You are demanding money. You are demanding that athletes give in to privacy invasions. You are ruining people's careers, which we've already shown, so it better be fucking worth it. This juice better be worth the squeeze. Show me the squeeze.

What could they possibly show that would make it worth it? That is their concern. That is not mine. The burden of proof is not on me. The only thing you could say is you've caught people and you've stopped people and you could look at physique changes and saying, you know. It means nothing. It means nothing.

It means a lot of that? It means a little bit of that. But I'm just saying you have anecdotal evidence. Yeah. And what other world can you say, I've got anecdotal evidence for my broad-based claims? I can tell you, go fuck yourself. There's no other world where you can do that except theirs. I'm saying to you, if what you are saying is working and what you really believe in

is true, show your work if there was a lawsuit and if someone won a substantial financial reward for some of these fuck-ups i think we'd see a big change i think that that would make if if someone like tom lawler won in court and got really paid because this well they don't have money for that. Tom doesn't have money for that. It's unfortunate because that, he's, I think he's, you know. But John is the, John Jones is the future, right? So the scholarship on this is clear. If you want, after this is over, I'll give you a couple of things you can read. Okay.

It's a little bit dense, but it is. I'll pretend to read it. I'll skim it. Keep it on your bookshelf because even if it's a reference tool, you may find some value in it. Again, you read the shit and you're like, I had no idea. I had no idea. I had no idea. It just keeps going.

But what they found through scholarship is that – so they've upped the punishments from a year to two years to four years. So first of all, someone explain to me why UFC athletes are on Olympic cycles, number one, number two. That's number one number two that's number one so the second one is beyond that um uh in in putting together this sort of um uh portfolio of of of punishments beyond the sort of olympic cycle um i think i said this already like they there's no evidence that indicates that the severity of it forces the behavior change it's only the sort of surveillance of it all as a function of sort of fear. But you can only do that if you abridge the rights of athletes. So the point is this.

You'll hear them talk a lot about we have to protect the rights of clean athletes. Clean athletes deserve to have their rights protected. Joe, let me ask you a question. How do you protect the rights of clean athletes by overrunning the rights of athletes generally? That seems like a contradiction in terms, doesn't it? The UFC fighters did not sign up for it, right? And you have a situation where John Jones, for example, he got the whole tournament ball thing. We don't have to get into it, but there was another athlete in the Olympics from the Ukraine, Alexei Torokhity, had the exact same problem, tested the B sample. It was totally negligible amounts and they took

that fucking guy's gold medal from him. So wait a second. Why do we have one standard for the Olympics? We've got one standard for a private client for an underfunded organization, which is about 20 million is their budget for USADA and results in this sort of different world punishments. John is the future because the research shows that the more severe punishment you get, the more that you have to take precautions to not fuck someone over. Because if you're going to ban a guy for eight years, you're going to ban a guy for life. Man, you better be damn sure you're doing it. But that has opened the door to fighters like John who have money and a legal team.

And of course, there may be the science on his side as well. But it shows that you can take that opportunity and you can say, aha, you were trying to ban me for four years. Man, what is your evidence? And they can poke holes through all of it. When your punishment is a year, it doesn't really matter what mitigating circumstance you can show. Well, his case is so weird too because it showed positive and then negative and then negative and positive, but in such trace amounts, there's no way he could have tested it and

then had it go out of his system in time. The argument is that he had the long-term metabolite, but not the short and medium-term metabolite. Yeah, so it's showing this weird pulsating effect where it comes and goes, particularly during weight cuts. Right, which is apparently what Alexi Torakiti had, and he got fucked. Luke, this was a lot of fun, man. I'm glad we did this.

I think I talked too much? No, you were awesome. It was great. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you. I appreciate your show. I really glad we did this. I think I talked too much. No, you were awesome. It was great. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you. I appreciate your show. I really enjoy your breakdowns. I enjoy your MMA show.

I think you have a very unique perspective. And thanks for coming, man. It was awesome. Thanks for the invite. Let's do it again. The whiskey was great. Happy to come on anytime. It was fun.

Thank you. Thank you. Bye, everybody.