The Sevan Podcast - #221 - Aljamain Sterling

Episode Date: December 4, 2021

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I need to, I'm going to rework this whole, I do so many podcasts, I can't like actually tend to the studio. Although, I think the audio is great and i just switched cameras i got a new big fat monitor so my cameras have changed i should i have so many professional cameras i should just use a camera with a interchangeable lens get that really shallow depth of field so i look awesome i don't even have time to shave tomorrow i travel to a hotel for eight days with the family maybe i should near my body because that's the activity i like to do at hotels it's been a few years am i killing myself if i do that al jaine Sterling, 135 pound bantamweight champion of the UFC.

I know who can't believe it, me or you, that he's actually coming. Unbelievable. I'm going to see this real quick. It is like it is like murder's row, as they say. Bantamweight rankings. UFC. Let's look at where this guy is. Bantamweight rankings, UFC. Bantamweight is 135 pounds. UFC rankings by division.

Al Jermaine Sterling. Look at these dudes. For those of you who follow the UFC, it's nuts. How do they say his name? Piotr. When I wrote it down, I just write P-E-E hyphen O-D-E-R. Piotr. We got Piotr Jan, TJ Dillashaw, Corey Sanhagen, Rob Font.

Jose Aldo is fifth in that division. That's how stacked that division is. It's nuts. A guy named Marab Divalashvili is sixth. Cody Garbarant in seventh. Pedro Munoz in eighth. Marlon Maras in ninth. Dominic Cruz in tenth.

Marlon Vera in eleventh. Frankie Edgar, 13. Song Yedong. What a great name. God, I need to have him on the show. Song Yedong. I hear that name and I just assume he doesn't speak English. But if he does, that's better than Bjorgvin Carl Gudmundsson.

Song Yedong. And then tenth is Cody Stamen. Isn't the guy with the fro in this division too? You guys know who I'm talking about? What's that kid's name? He's got like the Ronald McDonald hair. He's got a gazillion followers on Instagram. Sugar Mosley.

Mosley Sugar. He smokes a bunch of weed. I don't know how that works with being a UFC fighter. Uh, Al, Al Jermaine and his defense, uh, emailed me a few minutes ago because he did not give me his phone number,

which may be smart. Might be smart. Um, emailed me sugar, sugar, Sean. Yes. Thank you,

Brian. Sugar, Sean, sugar, Sean. Uh, he, um, be smart um emailed me sugar sugar sean yes thank you brian sugar sean sugar sean uh he um al jermaine sean o'malley yes yes yes yes uh he emailed me a few minutes ago saying he got in some train last minute training and he might be as late as 605 can you guys tell i'm nervous do i seem normal i seem as normal as I did earlier today. I wasn't normal earlier today either. I'm trying not to eat past. Here's another issue I got going on. I'm trying not to eat past five or 6 PM every night now. I think it's going to have

dramatic effects on me, but I've only been doing it a few days. And so like I panic around four and just stuff myself. So I just stuffed myself with turkey and cheese around four o'clock. And came home. I was at my kid's tennis game. Tennis game? Tennis practice. Man, tennis is gnarly. Tennis is gnarly.

My kid's tennis coach describes tennis as fighting. I was like, hey, when I watch, none of those guys look like they're having fun when they play tennis, those professional guys. And Logan, wrong answer. Yes, a little nervous. Eat a dick, buddy. Eat a dick. Oh, you know what we should do before Al Jermaine comes on here? Logan, you should eat a dick.

And oh, my goodness, I just threw away. Oh, there it is. Barbelljobs.com, barbelljobs.com. Can you believe the show is a sponsor? With two or three more coming in, why wouldn't you sponsor this show? I can tell you why. If you are afraid of what other people might think and you are going to walk that balancing act, that line, that high wire, that tightrope where no integrity exists, you may not want to sponsor the show. And you might just not agree with me. Although it's kind of weird not to agree with two plus two is four. Don't drink coffee. You'll be peeing in no time. I try not – I can't – Brian, I can't pee when I have guests like this.

I can't pee. Are any of you listening old-school CrossFitters? You know who's coming over to my house tonight in an hour and a half? You guys will never believe this. Fitness Lonnie. Dorian. You guys know who that is? Anyone know who that is? Anyone know who that is?

He is now a monastic monk. He's basically been sitting under a tree for, I don't know, seven, eight years. I've talked to him once or twice. And he was in Brazil doing his monastic monkeying. And he's coming over tonight. He just got back from Brazil. I was a few minutes behind tuning in and found myself rewinding the stream so I can hear bam, we're live. Brilliant. Good. Well, it's all I got. It's all the marketing we got. Bam, I'm live. Except I got these dudes, Will and Caleb. Are you guys, can you guys believe like

the little clips and sub clips and little instagram posts it's almost like this is like a real podcast now it's nuts we got sponsor i gotta figure out what i'm gonna do with the with the little bit of cash they gave us i gotta pay those guys right i gotta pay the guys i gotta just invest all that money into making the show bigger and better are you gonna do a live pod man i'd like to i'd love to if you don't know who fitness lonnie is you should google him um uh it's awesome that he's coming back into town oh shit you guys there he is no one make a move and scare him won't scare away the champ it's it's nuts aljermaine hi savon savon nice to meet you nice to meet you dude i'm gonna take down the shameless plug of my sponsor ah there you are and i'm gonna fix your name so it is your

instagram handle which is funk master mma no underscores or any of that silly shit nope managed to get it before any of the trolls got to take it funk master mma how's that is that pretty money awesome dude this this list of guys this pile of dudes that you sit on top of is nuts insane piotr tj cory rob you got jose aldo at fifth that's like no thank you uh marab cody pedro muñoz marlon morass dominic dominic cruz at 10th yikes i mean marlon vera frankie edgar and then that other guy is in there uh way down at the bottom just like hiding in case you get knocked out of the rankings they got that fucking ronald mcdonald dude uh sean o'malley uh yeah you get knocked out of the top 15 and go down there and he beats the

fuck out of you yeah it's crazy not you not you i'm just saying this division is so deep man i keep trying to tell people i think this is the most stacked and talent rich division in terms of skill, not just like name value in terms of skill. When you see guys who don't have the popularity, but you see them fighting, you're like, who is this guy? and I get to look at what I've done is watch some of my old fights. I'm like, man, I've come a very long way and I battled through a gauntlet just to even get here, despite how the belt was won or whatever. But to just get that shot alone, not a lot of guys get that opportunity. And to say that I've been able to do that, it's an accomplishment in its own right. I am. I how would I describe myself? I watch I watch UFC every Saturdayurday i watched a couple contender

series when i have the guys on the show from the contender series um i've watched i the ultimate fighter i don't think i've watched a full season of it but but i spent i already spent three hours a week watching it's like right it's like saturday i sit down and i watch the ufc and i've been doing that for god and you know what i still feel like a noob and I've been doing that for God. And you know what? I still feel like a noob and I've, I've been doing it seven years, you know, probably right as GSP lost was, was leaving the sport. Right. Like I missed that era. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Probably seven, seven, eight years, nine years. Right.

He's been out for that long. He's been out for a good while. I know he made that comeback. What was that 2017 maybe michael bisbing thing yeah and then that one off and then disappeared back into the uh shadow realm again right uh yeah i i came in right as jose aldo was they were saying he was the greatest living um uh he wasn't that there was a light, right? Oh, featherweight. Featherweight of all time. Okay.

And maybe he was the only champ the featherweight division had ever had. Was that, am I? That is correct. Until Conor McGregor beat him and then Max Holloway came into the picture. First it was, so it was Jose Aldo, Conor McGregor, Jose won the belt again after Conor vacated and then um or they stripped him i should say and then max holloway came to the picture be jose aldo now you have volkanovsky who's a champ yeah wow you know your stuff my point is this And I've never, ever seen an illegal blow as bad, not even half as bad as the one that happened to you. So when you say no matter how you want it, it's like maybe it sucks for you, but that dude couldn't have won it either.

Yeah. You can't – I got to be in the top 1% of UFC fans. I buy every single UFC. I watch every Saturday. I'm disappointed that Saturdays they don't have it, and I've never seen an illegal shot like that ever. And I saw the Anthony Smith one, right? It's a joke of a comparison. Right, right. And on top of that, let's not forget Anthony Smith had his teeth knocked out in a fight prior to that and his corner didn't stop the fight and they were ridiculed for that so which side of the

fence do you want to be on not stop the fight stop the fight and the doctor should have fucking said when the doctor saw what Piotr did to you you mind if I call him Peter I don't care okay what when when it bothered me when the doctor when the doctor saw what Peter did to you, they should have just stopped the fight. Like, why the fuck is it up to the guy who got need to decide? It's just nuts. It's nuts. I do think when – sorry to cut you off. No, no, cut me off.

I do think when you give the fighter the opportunity to make that decision every single time in a situation like that. And again, I don't think there's ever been a situation where a guy was that blatantly fouled and then people were wondering if this guy is going to get up and continue to fight like it's a Rocky movie or something like that. I'm like, dude, this is real life. Shots like that really do actual damage. You can't just, no matter how many times you get hit, how many times you can't just no matter how many times you get his how many times you can get here and keep going forward it's it doesn't quite work that way all the time you know so um for for me i just think sometimes the doctors and the refs need to make an executive decision a little bit faster in a situation like that um you give it to the fighter if he gave me the opportunity i would have waited all five minutes and try to stall out as many more seconds after that to try to continue. That's what I would have done because it was the honorary thing to do.

But in hindsight, man, thank God. I thank God that the ref stopped the fight because shots like that can kill people, especially when you don't see them, you know? So, and even if it doesn't kill you, it could do some serious damage. And after that, man, to, to, I threw up a bit after that fight when I got back home to the house and, um. You did, huh? Yeah. Yeah. So people were saying you're faking a concussion. man to to i i threw up a bit after that fight when i got back home to the house and um you did huh yeah yeah so people were saying you're faking a concussion i'm like how how do you fake a concussion

there's no there is no thing that you can do to prove that you have a concussion from like a test so people thought because i got cleared from the hospital i got cleared for no bleeding on my brain so that does not clear me of a concussion you know so people tend to think that they could play doctor and um it's fascinating so did you see the video of the doctor by the way of of the doctor which doctor the one that was there's a there's a video of uh that has uh on youtube with 500 000 views and there's a doctor who basically says hey man like this this the right thing happened here like there's no this the right thing happened they this was absolutely should not have gone on i i know what you're talking

about is the guy he did like a breakdown of what a concussion is and that type of thing i think was something like that i want i don't remember uh maybe he's a petite little dude little white dude yeah yeah yeah black hair um and it's kind of clickbaity like he's gonna talk shit about you but then he doesn't talk any shit about you he actually yeah yeah i was waiting for that i'm like this motherfucker and then i'm like oh okay cool yeah yeah it's cool to see that people with an actual brain understand what's going on and anyone that i know who's in the health field industry they're like dude that was like insane and the fact that they know that the fact that people wanted me to fight right after that is insane and i and the fact that they know that the fact that people wanted me to fight

right after that is insane. And I, and I get that some people are mad that what happened in the aftermath of the fight, but they keep forgetting the aftermath happened because every time I explained what happened, I was getting ridiculed for faking an injury and faking a concussion or acting.

I'm like, so you guys want to keep downplaying what actually happened in the fight and what caused the fight to stop, I should say. And then, because make no doubt about it, I understand I was on the losing end of that fight. You know, if the fight continued to go that way and if I didn't pull off a Hail Mary takedown and pull a Holly home, Misha Tate come back in the fifth round,

I'm losing that fight. I get it. But the fact of the matter is, if I'm defending what happened in the sequence of what happened and people are asking me what happened or the fight got stopped, you ask me a question and I answer it in the honest opinion that I could answer it. And then you're trying to tell me that I'm making it up and I'm acting when you've never been in there, never been hit like that, never been blindsided ever in your life. That was a blindsided attack. It was as dirty as it gets.

So once it started to get to that point, at that point I'm like, now is the aftermath of I don't give a shit what you guys say anymore. I'm going to say what I want to say. I'm going to get you guys emotionally charged up. I'm going to trigger everybody that I can by saying little things here and there just to get the conversation going and just to get them mad. While I'm over here laughing, twiddling my thumbs, laughing at what I'm about to write because I know it's going to cause an uproar, I don't care, man. conversation going and just to get them mad while i'm over here laughing twiddling my thumbs laughing

at what i'm about to write because i know it's going to cause an uproar i don't care man it's eating up them more than it is eating on me at the end of the day i get pay-per-view points this time around i get oh god i love hearing you say this and uh for the first time ever to get pay-per-view bump in a much heated anticipated rivalry rematch i'm i'm happy man i'm laughing to the bank you know so at the end of the day this is why we got into the fight business. And of course, legacy is important. But I mean, let's be honest. I'm trying to pay my bills as well.

And if Piotr Jan wants to give me a freebie of a layup for an extra payday, hey, that's on him. That's not on me. So we'll figure it out. And I get this time to right the ship and show everyone that you can't go into a high-level fight eating two pancakes and two eggs from a 1030 window to an 830 PM fight and not eat anything between the dumbest thing I've ever done in my entire athletic career, bar none. And I'm going to show everybody that I can keep that pace. And it's going to be a much different fight the second time around. Uh, this guy, before I ask you about the food thing, this guy, Garrett clap, he brings up a good point. It's like, we're two buddies talking about something that a bunch of people have no idea

what we're talking about. Um, Al, Al J jermaine sterling so i want to paint the picture here really quick about how gnarly al jermaine sterling is and um there's 200 million people in the world who can juggle proficiently three balls 200 million of the 7.7 billion people there's only two people who can juggle like 12 or 13 balls on the entire fucking planet. This guy, Aljamain Sterling, sits at the very, very, very top of the planet of the one thing that we all should have some proficiency in. And that's fighting. And he does it inside of a cage with other guys at the very, very top with the people who can only juggle 12 and 13 balls it's fucking nuts okay so him and the other guy who can juggle 13 balls were locked into a cage

together this guy's like from siberia or something they come it's the 135 pound class it's called the bantamweight class in the ufc which is the premier fighting league there is no second place i don't know if that's good or bad but i love the ufc and okay so basically it's in the fourth um they're fighting for al jamae was you were the champion at the time right uh should have been the guy got a he got a whatever he he was the champ at the time he oh yeah right right i'm sorry you're right right sorry he was the champ at the time peter yan was a champ i'm getting my my timelines confused and he's now the interim champ right with that He was the champ at the time. Oh, yeah, right, right. I'm sorry. You're right, right. Sorry. He was the champ at the time. Peter Yan was the champ. I'm getting my timelines confused.

And he's now the interim champ, right, with that Corey Sanhagen fight? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So this guy, Peter Yan, is the champ, and Al Jermaine is the challenger, and they go in there, and it's the fourth round. And Al Jermaine, can you tell us what happened that was illegal that made it so you ended up winning the fight? So within the rule set that they tell us,

they remind us of every time in the back room before we go out there to fight. And sometimes they remind you when you're in the fight whether or not an opponent is down. If you're down, if you have one palm weight bearing on the mat, you're considered a down opponent. Three points of contact. You're two feet, that's two points.

I put a fist down, that's three points. I put two hands down, that's four points. If I put an elbow down or a knee down, that's considered an extra point. So anytime an opponent has three points of contact down, you're considered a downed opponent and you are no longer able to knee a downed opponent to the head. You're no longer able to kick a downed opponent to the head. And that's the rule set that we agree by. So understanding that rule set in that fourth round, I land two head kicks and I'm thinking I'm pushing the pace. I'm going to try for one more Hail Mary takedown.

I think there was about a minute left in the fourth round. I shoot in, he stuffs the takedown again. Brilliant stuff to take down. But now I'm on my hands and knees because as you shoot, you stuff the takedown, he sprawls. I'm getting stuck with my hands on the mat and I have to get up safely. So I might be tired. I might be exhausted, but I'm getting stuck with my hands on the mat and I have to get up safely. So I might be tired. I might be exhausted, but I'm no dummy. I know in order to get up safely to my feet,

so I don't get blasted, my head blasted to freaking Pluto. I have to make sure I control the hands, protect my face and get up the smart way. He's stuffing my head on the ground with two hands. So mind you, I can't see where he's looking, where he's standing other than knowing that he's in front of me just based on the hand positioning of his hands on top of my head. So as I control his hands, trying to pull them off, I think his corner said only punch. One corner said kick. Instead of him just looking over to the side, like any small person, and the ref told him probably about six, seven seconds before he threw the illegal knee, that I was a down opponent. Oh, really? That guy, it was Mark Schmidt, right?

Yep. Yep. So he's done this before in other fights, man. He's he plays dirty sometimes. And then he pretends that he can't speak any English. I know he doesn't speak proper English, but he pretends he can't speak any English as if he doesn't understand you're in the back room. They tell what a down opponent is. They show you what a down opponent is. He tells you down opponent. So I'm pretty sure he's smart enough to understand he's the champion of the back room. They tell what a down opponent is. They show you what a down opponent is. He tells you down opponent. So I'm pretty sure he's smart enough to understand. He's the champion of the weight class. You should know the rules that you've been fighting for and fighting under for such a long period of time.

So Mark Schmidt, I never heard this version. So Mark Schmidt, you're on the ground. And Mark Schmidt says, what's he saying? He's down. Yeah. And that's the thing. Don't knee him. Don't kick him.

Yep. In the head. Hey, can he kick you in the body at that point? He can kick me to the body. So he had all those other places to kick. Or punch. Or punch. Crazy.

He could have punched me in the face. He could have threw uppercuts while I couldn't see the punches. He could have did anything, but he decided to throw the most devastating strike that you can't really defend against. Because one, if in my mind I'm thinking I'm safe here, I got to figure out a safe way to get up to my feet. Some people say you were stalling the fight. I'm like, it's not stalling the fight. If I'm using fight tactical skills to get back up within the rule set in a safe way if you want me to just stand up and get kicked in the head regardless and just get knocked out okay but it's irrelevant al jamein it's irrelevant if it's stall tactic it's your fight you can do whatever you want i get this i understand

this but and i've even had some other professional fighters say the same thing, like Demetrius Johnson. And unfortunately for him, he fights for one FC where strikes to a head on a downed opponent is legal. And he got kneed right to the face because he tried to rush to get up and got blasted and got knocked out. And that's the difference between the rule set. At least one, you know the rule set. The other, he knows the rule set as well. But one is legal, one is illegal. And you see how devastating of a strike that is just based on him getting hit with one clean shot. He got knocked down, got sent to the gulags and me, I'm trying to get up the right way. And I got blasted from a strike that I didn't anticipate, didn't brace for. So I'm sitting there relaxing, controlling my breathing. All right, get his hands off your head, get his

hands off your head. Try to see where you're going first so you can see where the strikes are going to come from. Get up safely. Boom. I don't even get that opportunity. I just get blasted in the head. And then I'm over here trying to figure out where the hell I'm at. And people are like, oh, you got your eyes wide open. And I'm like, yeah, dude, because I just got blasted. The lights are bright. I'm exhausted. What am I supposed to do? Sit there. Yeah, yeah, I'm cool, man. I'm calm. Yeah, I'm ready to go. How am I supposed to act in that situation? I don't remember the whole thing. I just know that I end up going to the I was in the truck, the ambulance, and I actually had to be told that Mark Smith came to check on me. And I had no recollection of that. And I thought that was pretty cool that he actually did that.

And not a lot of people actually check up on the fighters after they've been knocked out or whatever and in any other situation that had been deemed a tko or ko you know so um i think that guy might be a really really cool dude i was looking at his instagram and reading some stuff about him on the internet yeah he i think he's a military guy i think he's a fighter pilot fighter yeah i was about to say that on uh i listened to the rogan podcast when he was on there talking about that stuff yeah that guy's legit uh so yeah i think it's irrelevant it's irrelevant to say if you were trying to buy time it's irrelevant you're trying to stall every fighter every fight stalls that that's part of the game push the pay stall i mean we what anyway i found it just ridiculous because if you flip the script and you say and you would have got up and then he would have let's say won the fight then people would have said well he

didn't win that's not fair that he won because he punched a guy out who was stumbling around and half conscious and so it's like it's a moot point to me really i really enjoyed the fight i thought you did an amazing job i thought it was awesome that you pushed the pace i thought it ended like the rules are the rules i had a friend who's the best professional arm wrestler in the world left-handed travis bajan he said hey dude when you go up there there's two people to beat i go what are you talking about i go there's just one he goes no there's two there's your opponent and the referee and i was like wow he's like there's all you always have to know you have to know the rules you have to know you have to always know the rules. You have to know. You have to always know the rules.

And you got to beat the rules too. Yeah. So. It is what it is. At the end of the day, I think it's just a little unfair that I don't get – I mean, from the ignorant fans, it's okay. But from the ones that understand, they appreciate what happened. And, again, I go back to my past performances. When have I ever looked that sloppy? When have

I ever looked that tired after one round? When have I ever done so many silly spins, getting tripped up like that, sliding all over the place? I've never had a performance where I look like that. And if I have a legitimate reason for why I look like that and the next fight, when I show that that was just one night, one bad night. And once that all goes away, it's like everyone all of a sudden remembers again that you were a really

good guy and they forgot all about it. It's just a, what have you done for me lately? Kind of sport, you know? So, Oh, for sure.

That's why I can't get too pressed about it. I can't get too down about it. At the end of the day, we're going to fight again, and people are going to be in for a show. I pushed the pace knowing how compromised I was going into the fight. And that's one thing I'm super proud of because most guys would have just found a way to get out of there and be like, I'll just take my paycheck and go home. And I made it a fight. Even though people can say the punches didn't have much on it, at the end of on his, I stayed on him. I stayed in his face. I attempted to go for takedowns. I tried to make it as entertaining as I possibly could in a half version of myself.

And, um, that alone gives me confidence to know if I could do that well on an off night, I like my chances on a good day, you know? So I can't wait to run it back. And I think it's going to be a completely different fight. No two fights are the same. And I'm super confident in my skills. You know, I didn't get here by accident. I didn't get a handout to get to a title shot. And I'm not saying Peteyon's not good.

He's a badass. But I can't wait to beat the badass down. Yeah. This guy, Dylan Val, he's an, I don't know if you can see this. He gave 20 bucks. He is a broke ass fighter and he always gives money to the show he just had his first fight he's got his next fight in January thanks Dylan you're awesome and I have a whole bunch of different people on here not just

fighters mostly not fighters I try to get one guy from the UFC every week but it's mostly other people but this guy's awesome Dylan thank you Jermaine, where were you born? Long Island, New York. And when your parents brought you home from the hospital, I know you have a shitload of siblings. And I got to hear some stories. So they bring you home from the hospital. And were your parents still married at the time when they brought you home from the hospital? How many were your parents still married at the time when they brought you home from the hospital?

I have a very extended and broken family in the sense of I think we're a lot closer now. But growing up, we were pretty dysfunctional. And I think that's pretty common in like Caribbean households, at least the ones that I've known. My dad was married with my brother's mom. When they got divorced, my dad and my mom was married with my brother's mom uh when they got divorced my dad and my mom got married and then there's about three other or maybe four other baby mothers in the picture so it's a it's a pretty wide family you know so is it is it is it normal is it like just american ugly american projection to project onto that that that's like not normal you know like some people be like oh the mormons have five wives that's fucking crazy but like i'm sure from

the outside people are like these fucking americans they get fucking married once at 18 and stay with the same chicken dude for 50 years i mean is it normal in your if if we went back to your parents are both jamaican yep is that normal in jamaica is that part is that culturally normal so when you say dysfunctional is it dysfunctional from the american viewpoint or you're just saying yeah period i don't give a fuck it's dysfunctional uh from the american viewpoint is it's uh dysfunctional um i don't know it's right or wrong i think everyone's entitled to their own choice you know so i don't pass judgment on anybody you know whether or not you want to have one you want to have two you want to be like the

muslims and have up to four that's's whatever, whatever makes you happy, you know. So, yeah, my dad's had a lot of women in his day and he's got a lot of them knocked up. So I have a very big family. I think I have about 20 or 21 siblings at this point. So it's a pretty big family. And in terms of full i have seven full brothers and sisters and then my mom's side alone she has 10 kids just my mom she has 10 kids on her own so your your mom and dad had seven kids together eight including me right and um and you guys all lived in the same apartment or house uh my side yes with my full side yes and then some of my half brothers and sisters i think at the most we might have had like 14 or 15 living in the house

at a time uh it was a pretty chaotic but fun time yeah so um how many bedrooms do you guys just pile in together? Like I have three little boys, seven years old and two four-year-olds, and they've been sleeping in the same bed since the day they were born. And I'm just like wondering – but sometimes I think, oh shit, what if all three of them want computers at the same time? That's $10,000. Yeah. What if all three want cars at the same time? Yeah. What if they all want Honda Civics at the same time? I'm out all want honda civics at the same time i'm out 150 grand by the time they drive like how am i gonna do that so so what happens in a house with that many kids do you do christmas uh we we did um religion was a very shifty thing in our household

so uh depending on the time period things sometimes it would change like we did a lot when we were like in elementary school then when we got older when we moved in with my dad things started to change a little bit not as much traditional christmas with like the whole christmas tree we i think we did it for a couple years then it kind of changed um so yes or no. Uh, but it was never anything like my dad was a very, um, complicated man. Uh, we still butt heads to till this day, probably I would say. Um, but I understand a lot of things he did. And even though I don't agree with a lot of it and it caused the friction between us and just the kids growing up. it caused the friction between us and just the kids growing up. He kind of pitted us against each other a lot and kind of made us, instead of us being close brothers and sisters, we kind of had it out for each other or trying to get the other one in trouble or trying to beat the other one up and all,

because that's just the way he kind of raised us. He might say different, but I'm like, dude, you, you raised us to be against each other and that's kind of why the family is the way that it is today but outside of that I mean Christmas was good and bad we had some good times we had some bad times like whenever I try

to reflect and think back to what it was like growing up I don't have a lot of like great positive memories to go like oh remember when we did this because I kind of like blocked all of it out i almost feel like so um because it was that bad because it was that fucked up see my perspective might be completely different from my brothers and sisters you know but in my in the back of my mind like i i felt like it wasn't that memorable. I mean, sometimes my dad would give us money to go shopping and that would probably be the most memorable thing that I could

remember. There wasn't no like, Oh, I remember my dad did this or took us this place or like something like that. I don't have those kinds of memories, you know? So it's a, it's kind of a shame. And I hope that when I have my kids, it's going to be completely different, you know? Cause I, when I hear other people talk about certain things like that and they actually can remember in detail what things were like, I'm like, man, I, yeah, I got nothing. I, I got nothing to contribute to this, uh, to this story. And how old are you now? 32. Was there ever a time when you were, um you you talk about it so openly you know most people don't don't have 10 siblings let alone 21 siblings and you talk about it so openly was

there ever a time when you were like hey i'm not gonna talk about this i'm embarrassed about this i'm ashamed of this i'm gonna hide this no i've always been like an open book, man. I think that's one of the one things that the fans did gravitate about. Like the one thing the fans gravitated to me about was because I was such an open and honest guy. I feel like a lot of things I would post and talk about, whether it was Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, would be super relatable. would be super relatable. And I think that's the one thing that people really, really liked about me that I was willing to talk about. And I still am still willing to talk about a lot of things and sharing some of those things that people might find difficulty in. Because at the end of the day, I feel like we're all human. We all go through some stuff. Even now, people might think I might have the most perfect life, but there's days I wake up and I'm so stressed out with some of the things that I got to take care of. And I'm like, man, I got to figure out how I'm going to make this work. I got to figure out how I'm going to make this happen. And you would think that everything's all sunshine and rainbows over here,

but it's not, you know? And I think that's one of the things that people really do appreciate about me. So I was never really ashamed of talking about my family. I don't, one thing like, like even with my fiance, she wants to make sure we don't repeat that cycle. And that's one of the things I told her too, is like, I don't want to do the same thing. You know, I want to kind of, I want to change the revolving door and have things a little bit different. I want my kids to have both their parents and their lives and go to their events and stuff like that and actually be there, like physically there,

not just like, here, here's some money. Go do what you want to do kind of thing or like that and actually be there like physically there not just like here here's some money go do what you want to do kind of thing or like that that's cool and all but there's no relationship there you know this is just like anybody can do that and i think the difference is the emotional investment spiritual and uh and you know yeah i think that's all important and by the way i didn't mean to say i want to And by the way, I didn't mean to say, I want to be super clear about this. I didn't mean to say it as if there was a reason to be ashamed. But if you have 21 siblings or if you have a nose that's bigger than all the other kids, sometimes you try to hide that shit because you don't fit in. You know what I mean?

It's not that you should be ashamed, but you're like, man, I'm going to wear a mask today to hide this nose because it doesn't work. Or I'm not letting anyone know i have 21 siblings because that those everyone else only has two um yeah it was always a good talking point like people were always uh fascinated by that because they're like like how like your mom i'm like no no not just my mom but you know i just in total there's just a lot of us so people were always wondering and curious about how that worked and like the sleeping arrangements like we didn't have our own rooms we had bunk beds and we slept in the same beds with each other and uh we would fight we would fight for the remote we'll fight for the one computer that we had we'll fight to get on the house phone to call our girlfriend or our crush and happen to say hello good night good night. Can I please speak to

so-and-so? Kids these days would never understand what that was like in terms of that era of growing up. And those types of things I can actually remember and appreciate. So I guess those are the very few little positives. I don't want to say positive but things that i can remember and weren't like bad memories altogether you know my my dad was the oldest of 10 and uh two of his siblings died and he grew up in uh outside of beirut lebanon in a small town called anjad and they lived in a listen there's 10 fucking kids well two of them died and the parents in a i think it was a 10 by 15 or 10 by 10 concrete hut no electricity no running water that's where he was raised in the outhouse the bathroom was like you know 15 20 feet away and he resented the shit out of my granddad

his dad because he kept uh my grandmother pregnant all the time he said like after after watching um my grandmother give birth to 10 kids he's like hey man that's like just ridiculous to put a woman under that much duress and my wife had three kids and i don't want to speak for her but man that's a lot of work that puts a fucking lot of that's like put your body through a lot right yeah so your mom was like always pregnant pretty much the last one she had were twins and i think oh holy shit i think number five or number five or six number five i think was one that the doctor told her to have an abortion and not have the baby because it would kill her and she went through with it still, still had the baby.

Thank God, you know, nothing happened. And that's why for her, she's like my superwoman, you know. So, like, even now, like, I just fixed her kitchen, and it cost me a pretty penny to fix the kitchen, the garage, and a couple other things in the house for her. And I just feel like she deserves it, man. Obviously, she's worked so hard and gave up a lot of her life to just raise us pretty much being a stay-at-home mom. And it's time for her to have something that's her own. Her and my dad

are no longer together. So they've been going through a divorce for seven years. So just imagine what that's like trying to get ready for fights. And then you have to talk to a lawyer and doing all this. I'm like, dude, this is like the most craziest thing. And my teammates will always tell me like, and my coach too, he would tell me like, I feel like you thrive in the chaos. I'm like, yeah, it seems like there's nothing crazy going on and things just aren't right in my world, you know,

because I'm just used to something always happening that's just like, why am I having right in my world, you know, cause I'm just used to something, something always happening. That's just like, why am I having to deal with this? You know? So thank God that's all over. And, um, I'm just glad I've been able to do just the very bare minimum for her and my eyes in terms of like what I've been able to make over the years. Good thing I saved my money. And I'm just glad I've been able to give her something like that, that she can appreciate.

And just for me showing my appreciation for her being there for me all those years, even though we don't, we never had the much of a emotional connection growing up as well. Um, she used to beat the shit out of me, you know, but, um, uh, my dad, when he beat me, it was a different type of feeling, you know, cause it almost feels like a stranger coming in and just whooping your ass. Um, yes. What does that, what does that mean to get beaten by a parent what do you mean like hit with a spoon or like no unconscious it would be like either smacked or smacked a couple times or the leather belt will come out or the hanger or the extension cord kind of you call that up a couple times you tape it up yeah um you you ever you know the cable wires that run through your walls into your tv in the old school days yep those go excellent they would tape that up and um brooms uh like little little tree things like we we've got did all the kids get it did was there any

kids that didn't get it did the boys girls everyone get it all of us except for the younger ones the younger ones kind of got they kind of they were kind of born into this era of uh i mean i'll call cps on your ass you know so right right right so it's a little different so things weren't not as bad for like my twins growing up now they're seniors in high school right now um and as parents get older they stop that shit like i'm i'm 49 if i would have had kids when i was 39 i would have been a spanker at 49 no one gets a spanking you get like your ear pulled or some shit yeah and i don't think there's anything wrong with a spanking but this what what we would get was a straight up like you're getting your ass beat today you know and it would be over like the dumbest things, like leaving the TV on or something

like that. Like, yo, seriously, you're kicking my ass over this. Like, I don't understand, you know? So especially you get older, it starts to make more sense. Like, yeah, we grew up kind of, kind of rough, man. But yeah, so I just, I'm just back to what I was saying. I was like, I just appreciate my mom for, for everything that she had to go through dealing with my dad and raising that many kids pretty much on her own because he was barely home the guy would just like i said drop off money hang out in the room never really come out to like like spend time with the kids and like bonding like there's don't get me wrong there's some things he did with us but i don't remember a lot of those things you know so my mom for me is my superhero. So I make sure I take care of her.

And what do you mean you're saving your money? How do you do that? What do you do? Well, I don't buy stupid shit. I bought three houses. I've been with the UFC for 30 years. Say that again. You bought three houses and what?

Sorry, I interrupted. I've been in the UFC for three years and pretty much the main thing I spend my money on is houses, renovating the houses. I bought a car. I bought two cars, actually. in the ufc for three years and pretty much the main thing i spend my money on is is houses renovating the houses um i bought a car i bought two cars actually one of them was kind of a a friend kind of gimmicked me on it had me pay about 4500 over the asking price over the friend good friend yeah we we he actually messaged me one time on instagram to to ask me about buying something else and promoting him. And I was like, you can't be serious, bro.

And he's like, what, what, what? Like, pretend like he didn't know what happened. And I was like, dude, you scanned me from my car and then pretended like you had no idea what was going on, as if you don't know that your boss was going to do exactly what he did. And then, oh, I'm sorry, man. But that friendship is dead. If I see him him it's just high and by that's it you know i haven't seen him in years but i haven't i have no desire to

keep people like that in my life those are leeches and snakes but then fast forward i bought another car i bought a tesla and that was like a treat to myself i think it was after the pedro muñoz fight um so i actually got something nice for me to drive and it got ripped that other car so i actually got something nice for me to drive do you like and it got rid of that other car so i didn't have to think about my friend that uh that sold me that shit you like your tesla i love it i got the three and it's a little tonka toy man i think zips around everywhere um take off it's like a little spaceship anytime i take somebody for a ride i always give them the zero to 60 in three seconds um tour you know so i always gotta always gotta give them that so they can feel their head hitting the back of the seat just trying to hold on feeling like you're traveling throughout a space your your ocd isn't

like you get to 100 miles and like fuck i gotta plug this thing in i gotta plug this thing in i gotta plug this thing in yeah yeah but i usually only do that like after i like give it a fresh charge for the most part i drive it pretty regularly now. In the beginning, it was just like, I got to go here really quick. I got to go here really quick, zip around the corner. But I take pretty good care of it now. But I mean, you're never worried that you're going to run out. You're chill.

You know your routine. You're never like, oh, shit, I'm going to run out of a charge, or I got to plug this thing in, or fuck, I forgot to plug it in. Yeah, I've only done two road trips, onelanta city to go watch some of my guys fight and then the other one was to virginia to go to my friends's house for the for the weekend and we did that drive um that was interesting outside of that it's just usually usually to the dream um the gym my mom's house my fiance's house or running errands you know so i So I never run it like super low. Cause I think that's, uh, that can be scary when you start to see that and you see all these gas

stations and you're like, yeah, that doesn't help me right now. So yeah, I'd be smart about that. I'll tell you for me, I had a 15 year, really good run in life financially. And, um, and I did the exact same thing you think you did. I basically bought every cent I had, I put into houses and then shit hit the fan a couple of years ago. And if I didn't have the, now I have houses that are paid for and people were like, Oh, you don't need to pay your houses off. Get as many houses as you can. I'm like, nah, I'm going to, I'm going to pay the mortgage twice a month, you know? And I did that for all my houses and they

paid off really quickly and now shit hit the fan and i have three little kids but i got rent i got rent money i collect rent money and i can't tell you how happy it makes me to hear you say that yeah houses are it's an asset man if you do it the right way it's a huge asset crazy and you know who else i think has done a good job with that do you know james krauss i was right about to say that. He's the man. He's killing it right now. I had him on the show, and man, he just seems solid as a fucking rock. You know him? You're friends with him? I'm friends with him. Where did we train? We trained out when I fought Rafael Sonsal in 2017 in Denver, Colorado. I went out to Factory X and he came out there and that's when I met him. We rolled, I think once or twice, and he was really shocked by my grappling. And ever since

then, we always stayed in contact and he asked me a couple of things and just about the grappling. And when I found out that he was into real estate, I was like, dude, this is freaking amazing. We were talking about it at the PI randomly one time. And then I overheard my real estate ear started tingling the senses. And we started talking about we exchanged numbers and we were supposed to do something. But then COVID started and then I ran into a little bit of a tax situation. And this was one of those things I talk about. It's like I thought I was doing really, really well with my money management.

One of those things I talk about is like, I thought I was doing really, really well with my money management. And then when I bought the Tesla, for some reason, the way I had it in my head, I was like, oh, this is going to be a write-off. I don't have to worry about it. And then I did it completely wrong in my head. And I still had to pay taxes on the money that I spent, not realizing I don't get that deduction right away. So that kind of put me in a little bit of a hole and I had to refinance my house. So this is just like some of my little issues that I had to figure out how to troubleshoot and how to get around some of these things. So I don't end up on crazy back paying taxes and keep myself current. And it's super easy to do that when you get large lumps of money

and you got to try to budget it and manage it yourself and understand what is tax deductible for your LLC, S Corp or C Corp, whatever you do have and trying to just do things the right way. So we never got to get anything going on that. I'm hoping after this next fight, I could do hopefully two properties. I got a real estate guy out here who's from Long Island, been living out here in Vegas for about 10, 12 years now, I think. And he's selling my house. He sold my Rob, his house, like right down the block from me. And I'm hoping that we could get a couple of properties out here because he makes really good cashflow on a monthly basis. And I'm trying to get in on that. That's what it's all about, man. I didn't bust my ass to have all these surgeries,

neck surgery, and have my body decrepit and beaten up and have nothing to show for it. So I want to make sure when I get out that I don't have to go back to working. And there's nothing wrong with this, going back to working a regular nine to five job, even though I have a degree. But I don't want to have to go back to a schedule and being forced to do it. If I do it, it's because I want to do it. You know what I mean? So I think that's what it's all about, being able to have those options, open up these

doors through the success of being in a sport like this that can be man can take a serious toll on you and i've seen a lot of guys get chewed up and spit out by the machine and you got to make sure that you're doing right by yourself because no one else is going to look out for number one like like you are so sometimes people don't have the right people in the air and uh i hope a lot more of these fighters are starting to get a little bit more educated on that alain, what do you, what is your stance? What is your stance on things on, on, on the man? I want to try to say this without being biased at all. And I have such strong opinions on the subject that it's hard for me to present it in a fair way, but you work really hard. Here I go. I i'm being biased i'm trying to

manipulate you i apologize i just can't help it it's who i am uh you worked really hard for everything you got nothing was fucking given to you and and nothing can be given to you because when you get into the ring that's the name of your game someone is trying to turn your lights out and take everything from you and you see in my opinion a whole society or a whole media giant media conglomerate um trying to take people and by the way first i want to say this you said something very interesting that with your with your fiance you want to make sure you don't relive the cycle there's this narrative that there's um uh black people and white people and asian people and mexican people in this country and that that's like a or in men and women and that that's black people and white people and Asian people and Mexican people in this country

and that that's like a or in men and women and that that's a really good way to break the world up and look at demographics I disagree I think that the main demographic that we should all be looking at is who had a mom and dad at home because that's one common theme that it doesn't matter what fucking color your skin is if your mom and dad weren't at home the odds and my and my mom and dad were divorced same as yours but but things are different for you things are different 85 of the people in jail they didn't have they didn't have a mom and dad at home and 85 it's the same thing with the obese people it's the same thing with type 2 diabetes same thing with people who had cancer like anything bad that can happen to you you're on that that is the correlate that's do you do you does it bother you at all how do you

manage this thing that you know that you could never play the victim and yet there's this whole pressing um uh if you're aware of it narrative that's like hey black people should be playing there's a bit of a victim uh narrative being pushed on them or do you think i'm just full of shit uh i i do hear that some from time to time and i think it's just your perspective on life man and i used to be like this i think it's super easy to to blame everything around you like i think at the end of the day, the one thing you can understand is you've been dealt a hand. Now, how are you going to play it? And I think that was the easiest way for me to kind of realize that I need to

make a change for myself. And that's when I decided I'm going to go to college and be the first one to graduate and get a degree. My sister, she went to college, but she didn't finish when she was supposed to. I think she ended up going back and finishing, but that's another story. But I was the first one to finish, like go in, finish, get it done. My brother follows suit, my younger brother, Troy. Congratulations. I was an undergrad for seven or eight or nine years and I didn't make it. Oh, wow. It's tough, man. It's not easy.

People think you just go to school. Like some people just don't function in those type of learning environments. And sometimes it's just not for you. Sometimes it's a trade. But that was what I wanted to do to try to give myself a different kind of future. I didn't want to sell drugs. My brother was in a gang. I thought about that for a little bit. We would play around and

flirt with the idea of getting jumped in and hanging out with those guys in that crowd all the time. And then I would see some of those fights and I'm like, yo, this shit is real, man. Like guys are really getting hurt and guys are getting shot, stabbed, and people are dying. And I think that was my wake up call, like looking around my surroundings, looking at my older brothers and sisters. And I'm like, what the hell am I going to do different to change the cycle? Cause it doesn't seem like, at least I don't hear them talking about it. I don't see them doing anything different other than what's going around in the neighborhood. And I made a difference. I made a decision

and it was a conscious decision that i'm gonna do this i'm gonna take this wrestling sport to get me out of the hood and i'm gonna use this opportunity to ride this train as long as i can and then i found mma so in terms of like just black folks playing the victim i i think not even black folks playing the victim, but that narrative being held. I don't want to accuse black people or white people or anyone this blanket statement, but that narrative is being pushed out there, and it's not just for black people. It's being pushed out there for women. They tried to give it to Asian people. It didn't stick so good.

There was the Asian one for a while, Stop Asian Hate or something like that. so good you know there was the there was the asian one for a while stop asian hate or something like that um but how about one for dudes who are five five in armenia with giant noses who can't get any pussy like can there be one for me i mean like uh so so that you know yeah that's what i'm saying like did did you did you was there an evolution for you did you used to be in that space like fuck whitey. Fuck this. I can't get ahead. The fucking whole world is out to get me.

And then all of a sudden – Oh, yeah. Yeah. 100%. 100%. I was the same exact way, angry at the world. Obviously, my parent, my dad – like I said about my dad, and I felt like the way things were were the way things were. And I didn't really see much opportunity for change. And how was that? And who told you? When you say things were the way they were, i didn't receive much opportunity and how was that and who

told you when you say things were the way they were what was the narrative that you were told like your parents would tell you hey you're black white people aren't gonna aren't gonna be nice to you it's gonna be harder for you you got to do twice as much work like the same thing jewish parents tell their kids everyone hates a jew um well they never even told me that i wish they did at least have a conversation with us about cops and things like that. Because we kind of found out about cops on our own. I didn't learn from my mom or my dad, like you get pulled over. Yes, sir. No, no, no, sir. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. I didn't learn any of that and not be like the end the the deciding factor of how someone

perceives you which could ultimately lead down the path that you lose in your life and that's that's a harsh reality that people that are outside of that type of demographic will never understand and then it's so easy for people like that to go well you should have known better or you should have not resisted and i'm like yeah i was taught all that by the way that's what you said i was that was beat into my head but people don't realize it's like the way we grew up we didn't it's just not you don't learn that so it's so ignorant to go out and just say something like that and have no type of empathy for for people to have ended up in situations like that where they go south really, really quick. Now, on the other side of the coin, there are

some people I've seen that just get straight up ignorant right out of the gate. And I'm just like, yo, bro, what are you doing? I've been in the car with people like that. I'm like, yo, dude, what are you doing? You want to go home? I want to go home. Why are you making this more confrontational than it needs to be? And I think that just gets to the point where you, you, you feel like you've been profiled or you feel like a certain way. So it's kind of hard to, to hide those emotions when you put in certain situations like that.

So it's, it's different, man. I just think it's not a, a one thing fits all. And I think sometimes that tends to get lost in translation. I think people tend to think that you just do one thing and everything changes overnight.

This is a systematic thing that can't be resolved by just, hey man, if you had both parents, things would have been so different. Sometimes you have both parents and things just aren't as good still. You know, so- And look at you and me. We didn't necessarily,

well, I mean, both my mom and dad were around, but your parents weren't both always around, at least your dad, and look at you. and that's another thing people need to understand the true really greats at the top of the fucking food chain their lives were hard yeah you just figure out a way is whether or not you intrinsically want change and that's what i ultimately wanted and uh like i said i think it's easy to easier to play the victim and say like, this is because of this. And even though those things may be true, whether it's to a certain extent, and we can go down a nitty gritty history thing and start talking about this. But

when you start to talk about resources of what, what this one demographic had over this demographic, you can understand why some people are in the situations that they're in. Because if you start that, if you start behind, uh, from the start point, like if everyone starts at the, the, what would you call it? The race line and you start a couple of yards behind that person ahead, who starts at the beginning is always going to, for the most part, always win that race. And that's a different kind of race. That's just a metaphoric type of thing.

So I think people have to look at their situation, evaluate it. What can they change? What won't change? How can they get around it? And if things are tough, like I always tell people, like, some people say, like, oh, I can't do anything now because I'm too old or because I have all these kids. I'm like, yes and no,

to a certain extent. If you really, really want something, you're going to figure out a way to either take away this thing so that you have more time for this, whether it's online schooling to get your degree, whether that might take you two, three years, as opposed to, or maybe even four years, as opposed to someone who has all the free time in the world, who lives at home, doesn't have any bills and responsibilities. They could finish that program in a year or two or something like that, accelerate a course. Those are the type of nuances we're talking about. But at the end of the day, if you want to take one credit at a time and chip away, it can be done. So it's all about perspective. Nothing is going to be easy. And that's why I

think when I talk about certain things like this, it's easier to say, well, it's easier for you to say, or, well, you didn't have to deal with this. I'm like, yeah, but I had my own obstacle and I had to troubleshoot it and I had to figure out how. You have an obstacle, troubleshoot it and figure out how. Don't just end your life and say, and not end your life literally, but don't just cut yourself short of your dreams and say, because I made this one mistake 10 years ago, things could never change for me. And this is what it is for me. Like, why can't you find happiness at 40? Why can't you have happiness at 50? At the end of the day, we're still living. We're still chasing goals and dreams. So make it work for you. And I think that's the type of mindset I have. And even like when it goes, like just not to go too crazy off topic, like with the whole trolling thing and

people thinking like, when I respond to people on the internet, they're like, Oh, he's in your head. I'm like, dude, you guys have no idea how bulletproof I am up here.

Like I, I say all the most ridiculous things for a response. And I engage for a reason. I've always engaged. I enjoy it. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't get under my skin. And I think that's just the type of

mentality I've always had because I've dealt with so much. I've overcome so much that I just feel like I'm comfortable in my own skin. And I know if I want something, I'm going to go get it. I'm going to go work hard for it because that's the only way I do know. I don't know handouts. I don't know anything saying like, you're going to get this because I just like you today. I'm like, I always had to bust my eyes. College wrestling, my senior year, my junior year, coach didn't want to give me the starting spot. And I had three wrestle-offs.

Normally you compete, you wrestle each other in the tournament, whoever places higher in the tournament is common opponent. You have the beginning of the season wrestle-off, and that's when the two guys on the team compete, competing for a starting spot. They wrestle, see who's the number one guy on the team because you can only send one guy per weight class 10 weight classes one guy per weight so you're talking about a school systems where you can send a couple kids into a college tournament to qualify for the state tournament and now you go to college where there's only one guy only one guy can go and represent the school and the week of the tournament before um before conferences um this is actually my sophomore year and coach

made me wrestle this kid who was a returning national qualifier but he's been injured a lot i beat him out in the spots i did better in tournaments i competed more than him and coach told me i just i beat him and coach told me he doesn't think I'm the right guy for the spot. I actually beat him twice in one day, and then he brought me into the office two days later on a Wednesday, so I'm already cutting weight thinking, like, the spot's mine. I won. I won by one point, then I won by two points,

and then he said, I just don't think you're the right guy for the spot with his arm crossed while practice is starting. I was fuming, fuming. I'm like, this is the type of shit I'm talking about where people, it always feels like you're fighting an uphill battle and trying to get things that you deserve or you earn and people are trying to take it away from you and give it to another person because of whatever reason. And I still look at that and I'm still stolty about it, but at the end of the day, I'm thankful for it because it made me challenge myself to be better i pushed myself for greatness and i ended up beating that kid by i

think five points this time on that uh that wednesday and uh oh so you had another time that was the third time so after two he said you're not the right one so then there was one more and you just beat the shit out of him well it was two in one day normally you only do one so he did one in the beginning of practice and then in the middle practice he made his wrestle again okay so it looks like he's trying to give that guy a chance every opportunity and i beat him the kid just couldn't beat me just head to head because i was just better stylistically it was just one of those he probably beat different kids that i couldn't beat but stylistically that kid just could not beat me because i felt like i was just whatever but then two days later he tells me i don't think you're the right guy for this spot. So we ended up wrestling again and I beat him.

I earned the spot again for the third time. I go to nationals. I don't place. Long story short, I was always doing things my way. And I think that's what coach never liked about me because I was winning, but I wasn't doing things his way. And maybe he saw more potential and I just never did what he wanted me to do. And then after I lost that final match and I didn't doing things his way. And maybe he saw more potential and I just never did what he wanted me to do. And then after I lost that final match and I didn't get the wild card to go to nationals, I told coach, I go, whatever you tell me to do, I'm going to do. I'm in. I'm in. I didn't come here to be second. I didn't come here to not get on the podium. I came here to be a national champ and everything changed after that.

So I was, I was super emotional after that. And I came back the next two years and all American twice, my junior and senior year. So I think, like I said, man, you're going to, you're going to go through adversity. You're going to go through hard times. There's going to be obstacles in your way, but figuring out a way to go about it. Like obviously not everything's going to result in conflict, like, like a wrestling match. wrestling match where you could go one-on-one with the person to win it and figure it out. But life is just like that

in some type of degree or sense. Life is just like that. Just figuring out ways to troubleshoot your problems or figuring out how to get something. If you want to go on that vacation, I guarantee people are going to figure out how to make that vacation happen. You want to get turnt up and get lit this weekend. You want to figure out how to get something. If you want to go on that vacation, I guarantee people are going to figure out how to make that vacation happen. You want to get turnt up and get lit this weekend. You want to figure out how to make that extra payment to go spend $70 on that bottle

of Henny. You know what I'm saying? So these are the type of things that I can never understand. Like even now, I have my friends, we're trying to do like an Airbnb business together and I can do it on my own, but I want to help these guys start to build themselves up so that we can all share a seat at the table and be on the same playing field so that I'm not going to be the only friend in the group that's going to be super successful in my sense of the way. Cause I, sometimes I feel like they look at me differently because of where I am and I have to remind them. They do. We all do. We all look at you differently at you differently and i have to tell them like dude treat me like the same fucking knucklehead kid that you remember from middle school and and high school talk shit to me keep me keep me humble

don't make me feel like i'm like the man i don't want to feel like the man around you guys i talk to you guys because it makes me feel human like i feel normal around you guys. I don't feel like people are looking at me in this type of pedestal where it's like I got to uphold some type of image. Like, yeah, when I talk to you guys in this group chat, I want to shoot the shit and have a good time, man. But at the same time, I do understand time is money. We got to be elevating ourselves. I want to help them elevate. And, you know, so at the end of the day, I'm trying to figure out how to help these guys make these goals and checking in. And hopefully we get this thing done by next year, early next year.

That's the, that's the plan. And everyone saves up their money and we can jump in and get this done. You know? So again, it's, they, they make their excuses like, ah, man, I don't know. This might be hard to do. I'm like, dude, if you want to make it happen, you're going to make it happen. Whether it's you got to cut this this weekend or cut these two things this weekend, there's checks and balances. And it just depends on what's important to you. When I was coming up in college, I would not go to those parties because I was training for professional and amateur fights.

Amateur and professional fights while I'm in college as a full-time student. So you're trying to tell me there's not a way to do all these things and juggle all these things. It's about priorities man and again i'm not saying it's that easy but you get in what you put in so but but you said something that was just really first of all you weren't all american twice right yeah yeah um so listen so so i made the joke tongue in cheek you're five foot five you got a big nose you're armenian you can't get any pussy well you know when you don't get pussy if you're five foot five you don't get you don't get pussy at the bar so i realized real quickly i'm never going to go to a bar and pick up on a girl and the girls that

i do pick up i'm never going to have one night stands with because it's too much work i'm not interested in putting in fucking a week's worth of work talking to girls sleep with their moms i need like like for all that work i need i need a little bit of a relationship and so when my friends were going to the bar in college and that stuff, I didn't do that. You know what I did? I went over to the rec center and worked out because that, although it put off my goal for getting girls, it did up my chances the next day when I was at the beach with my shirt off playing Frisbee and it worked. I ended up having a ton of girlfriends, but I knew that the bar was not the place to go

for me to get to that goal. And it's kind of like what you were saying, like, Hey, you got to find ways just because everyone else is getting girls at the bar and one night stands is the way they're doing it. That's not that you, you, you got to innovate. You got to be willing to put in the work. You got to be willing to work hard and get what you want. I know it's not nearly as cool as what you've done with your life, but man, I i just chased girls from when i was seven to i don't know 35 yeah dude i mean my fair share of that but it was all within uh respect to what i was trying to do like after i had my fight after i finished that exam or after that wrestling tournament, depending on how I did, I was going nuts that night, you know, and after that it's back to work, you know? So it's like I said,

checks and balances, you got to have a balance and know what you can do, what you can't do. I use my refund check money to fund my training so that I can drive 45 minutes to an hour, sometimes to training just to get to the gym sometimes twice a day. And it was a lot of money man you know for a broke college kid i would cut hair and things like that i would try to do private lessons you cut hair yeah i cut my own hair even to this day i still cut my own hair lineups facials

and all that stuff but did you cut other people's hair yeah i made i made decent money when i wasn't how did you learn how to do that? Just fake it till you make it. Uh, college, uh, high school. I practiced on my brother. He would practice on me.

And then, my dad wouldn't pay for us to get our haircut every two weeks. So, um, which is understandable when you have that many boys to pay for all of us to get our hair done is it's a lot of money, um, to get trimmed up,

to look good. Uh, so you can, are you still close with that brother? Uh, yes and no we have like a i feel like a love hate relationship but i hope i hope at least on my end there's more love so um we just kind of grew apart um but hopefully he finds his way and does things the way he wants to do it um i want to tell you guys a stat who are listening uh for those of you who are tuning in

late uh it's we have aljermaine sterling on uh he's top of the food chain 135 pounds the bantam weight class in the ufc it is a crazy road to hoe um it's not uh you have to have tons of basically you have to be an outstanding wrestler you have to be an outstanding wrestler. You have to be an outstanding athlete. And then you have to do this underground basic fight scene, which is the regional circuit. And it's just a nut. It's nuts to make it into the UFC. And then on top of that,

he's at the very top of these 15 guys who are ranked in UFC. And you would none, no one listening wants to be locked in a cage with any of these guys anyway of the last five guys um that peter beat before he fought um or sorry that al jermaine beat before he got to uh peter their record was 84 and 7 so the five guys he fought prior to fighting for the championship and winning. Their record was 84-7. That is nuts.

That is nuts. By the way, I wish I could remember the guy's name I took that stat from. There's a – I don't know what ethnicity he is. I don't know if he's Asian or what. He's got long hair, and he made this, like, 14-minute video about you on the internet. And it's got, like, all your accolades. It's really cool check that out um in 2017 you were you did you debate retiring i never heard it come out of

your mouth but i read it somewhere that you were debating retiring in 2017 no not true i that might have been like uh 2015 because I couldn't get a fight. And I fought my third UFC fight. I fought Takeya Mizugaki, who was ranked sixth in the world at the time. I submitted him in the third round from the bottom with the arm triangle choke. And from there, it's like I just couldn't get a fight. It took really, really long to get a fight. And every time I was just asking, I just wanted to stay busy. You know, I didn't get a fight it took really really long to get a fight and every time i

was just asking i just wanted to stay busy you know i i didn't want to fight a ranked opponent i was supposed to fight manny gambirian he pulled out and i wanted to do it kind of like what omali is doing like just build up the highlight reels get more experience fight these these guys who aren't really super dangerous so i could kind of get my feet wet in the striking department i learned how to strike on the job. I knew how to strike, but I learned more comfortability in the octagon throughout the years of me competing. I didn't really learn in the room because in the room I would just wrestle everybody down. So in the fights, I kind of got my licks coming up and learned how to get a little bit more comfortable in my own skin with the small gloves, learning that my chin could hold up. I could take a shot,

try not to take too many of them, but you can take a shot and learning how to trust that. But yeah, when it was that, I was like, man, I could have been making more money as a teacher at this point. The starting salary in New York at my high school, my alma mater would have been $56,000. And if I was coaching, which I was, I was coaching and fighting and subbing at the same time, you know? So when anyone tells, try to tells me like I ever had an easy road, it's laughable. Cause I know what I did just to get here, you know, working overnight jobs and, uh, man, but, um, how did you meet your fiance? She's from my high school.

We just never talked. And then how did you – you saw her on the street then years later? I actually sent her – was it a MySpace? I think it was either a MySpace message first, and then that's when Facebook was becoming the thing. I don't know whatever happened to Tom. Tom just disappeared from MySpace. Tom just left. He just left.

Who's Tom? Was that the owner of MySpace? Yeah. Oh, I don't even remember MySpace. Yeah. And we were talking and she was interested in my amateur fights. And I sent her videos and she actually had like conversation with me and I thought like all right this girl is cool because any other girl was just like kind of like a I don't want to say airhead but it was just like not the most intellectual

conversation and she actually brought some substance to the table and not because she was talking about me but in terms of everything we talked about you know so i actually felt like we connected and from there like my chasing of girls after fights it kind of went down and down because we were we were starting to talk and then eventually we became official and like i think it was 2011 oh wow yeah wow so we were with each other for about 10 years before we got engaged this past January. Wow. Relationships aren't easy. 10 years, man.

That's impressive. A lot of ups and downs, man. I'm talking peaks and valleys. Yeah. It's worth it though, right? I hope so. I mean- It feels like every fight you get through, it makes the relationship richer.

I think I agree with that. I would agree with that 100%. I think you get to a new level of relationship richer. I think I agree with that. I would agree with that a hundred percent. I think you get to a new level of understanding and appreciation for each other because she's done a lot for me, man, along the way. And I, I know I've done a lot for her along the way as well, especially in the beginning when I was a broke kid coming from college, just had surgery. I wasn't working. My friends would be going out. I didn't have money to go out. She would offer to pay for me to go out she would offer to pay for me to go out and things like that and i just as a man i told her like one time we got

into an argument because i told her like i can't take your fucking money like i'm not taking your money as a man i'm supposed to be if anything i'm supposed to be taking care of you that's just how i felt you know not saying like she couldn't be independent but i i just didn't feel right as a man to have the female like paying for my nights out and shit like that was like dude that's kind of i just felt like i would be a complete loser in my book if i if i allowed that to happen my uh if it makes you feel indifferent when i met my i'm 49 i met my wife when i was i don't know 23 uh super long courting period but anyway i was homeless at the time i was homeless for a couple

years and then and we basically started dating when i was living in my car and now i'm 49 and rich and she stayed with me through the whole fucking thing and i was living at her house living on her couch yeah weed in her closet yeah and that and she she she made it i mean but but but like you man she saw it like i i wasn't a i wasn't i wasn't fucking around i was a hard worker i wasn't into drug i was i was fucking grinding you know what i mean i was a man on a mission not wrestling i wish nothing that cool um what do i got here do you like doing the show with Ariel Hawani? Um, yes and no.

I use it for what it is. And emotional basis. I think his style of journalism and he may feel however he feels about this, but this is how I feel. And I think a lot of fighters feel the same way. I think sometimes his way of getting a headline or story is is a little, I don't want to say childish, but it's a little, it's almost like an instigator in high school. It's just that kid you just don't like who does that, you know? So I use it for what it is, knowing that that's what he's going to do. So for the most part, I kind of tend to have my answers semi pre-plan of like kind of what i

want to say and um at first when i was on the regional scene i would listen to his show and i'd be like yeah this guy's an asshole man like he's kind of like saying things in a way where it's like trying to like evoke emotion and make it like a negative thing. And I get it. He's getting you to talk and be a little bit more vocal. And that's cool. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think sometimes it comes off a little bit mischievous. Yeah, mischievous a little bit where it's just like, yeah, I know what you're doing, Ariel. And I'm just not going to take the bait right now kind of thing.

So I don't know if he's a guy that i would ever like hang out with and have a beer with i don't know i i don't know he seemed i don't know i don't know what our relationship really is outside of the fighting landscape like at the end of the day none of these media guys are my friends at least i don't think so there's only been one guy actually hung out with and that was oscar and that was in london we did a whole thing and he was actually cool got to know him a bit and like really, really hung out with him. I've hung out with other guys playing some golf and before, but for the most part, Oscar was the only guy who does like the Mac life.

Super down to earth, super chill, but oh yeah, I hung out with the small too. I didn't. Yeah, that was a good time. But yeah, you gotta, you gotta be cautious because sometimes i feel like you might think that and people gotta i think people forget that fighters are people and we tend to forget that um we have emotions too and we're not just like super hardcore 24 7 like we get emotional man we get angry we get like triggered and i think sometimes people forget that and they think

you could kind of just say whatever you want to say and think like, like even when I do my podcast, like I try to be very conscious of how I say things unless I'm drunk and I'm just talking shit, but I always make sure I give a disclaimer kind of thing. But at the end of the day, I don't ever want to say something that I know would annoy me. If someone says where I feel like I'm going to approach this person, i if i see them in person you know so i try to be very professional in that regard that's just not my style because i know if someone did to me i would be pretty um irate about it you know so that's kind of how i feel about ariel like he might be a good guy or a great guy i don't know but from his journalism

standpoint he gets the scoop on things and he breaks the news that's always cool but uh i don't like i said i don't know if he was a guy i would go hang out with and and have a beer with because i i just feel like it wouldn't be real i don't know well that that's that's what was in that what's what's interesting about him so i respect him the fact that he's he he he clawed his way to the top right there's no doubt he's he's probably the hardest working dude in in the in the biz but every the every interview i see him do there's a veneer to him there's something insincere about him there's something really trippy going on there's like he's he's telling you a question and he has i it's it's hard for me to put a finger on

but i but i do respect and basically he's the only game in town too. I mean, even with the UFC fucking with them, even with ESPN fucking on him, the guy's still thriving. Right. I mean, he's fucking killed his, his, the numbers on his shit are out of control. Everyone does his show. Um, but, but when I watched, I don't enjoy watching too much of his show. Um, I really don't watch it at all, but, um, but when I did watch his show with you and i was like oh man there's just something not authentic about this guy

and i don't know what it is but hard work there's no doubt he's working hard right yeah yeah and i i can't knock him for that part, like you said. But it's just like you said, it just comes off like, I don't know. And for me, I tend to keep my circle with people that I feel I can trust outside of the fight game, you know, because it's one thing to be cool with people when you're in the spotlight and everyone wants to be around or they want to come with you to training and they want to do this and they're kind of using you for this and using you for that. But when the lights go dim,

like who's going to really be around. Right. I always keep that in the back of my mind with anyone I build a relationship with. Cause I always have to ask myself and even sometimes I'm with my friends and I ask people like, what do you think about this guy? Like,

you know, like what's your honest opinion. And just to make sure, like I'm not getting like the wrong vibes or projecting what I think they might be about. And I can be completely wrong, you know, but if usually if I get a sense about someone, I'm usually right. And I usually try to keep the relationship as short and distant as possible. Like there's no reason to small talk. And I've had a relationship with guys where I thought they were really cool in the beginning. And then they start to become like little flaky and things.

And then I just slowly but surely, like try to like distance myself a little bit. Cause it's just like, well, I don't need more friends. You know, I'm not looking to build a relationship with the world. You know, the end of the day, the only people that matter are my, my friends, my family, and my, my, my fiance, you know, so that's, that's the main thing. And obviously when I have kids, same thing. On some level, we're all using each other, right? So I had this,

I had this friend, he was, he loved Frisbee. I love Frisbee. And that was our whole relation. We spent three hours every day together playing Frisbee on the beach and drinking beer. And then I forget what happened, but one of us got busy with something else and our relationship distanced because we used each other to play Frisbee. him a bunch of weed. He'd sold the weed. He owed me $4,000 for it. He told me, Hey, come down to my house and pick up the $4,000. I said, yeah, okay, cool. Two months, two months go by and I go, Hey, I'm coming down to your house. Cause he lived like four hours away. He said, come on down and pick up the, uh, or I said, Hey, I'm coming down to pick up the money. He goes, dude, I don't got your money anymore. I told you to come by two months ago. I'm like, where is it? Cause I use it to pay my rent. I'm like, okay. And I had to make a decision like this is someone i was friends with for 10

years i can't just throw the relationship away but the next time he wanted me to front him some weed i go hey dude i can't front you we like i know it was partially my fault you told me to come down there i shouldn't have left four thousand dollars with you for two months like i get that you know what i mean and we were just we were kids right we were kids, right? We were in our twenties. And so it's just, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it on some, on some levels I get it. You got to like evaluate, like, you know, and I've had, I had, I had a roommate who was a heroin addict in college and it was like, if you left your bike unlocked at the house, this motherfucker was going to steal it. And like you just knew. And then you come home and your bike's gone. You're like, where's my bike? And he's fucking nodding off on the couch. And you're like, God, my bike's in your veins right now.

And it's like, but but I wouldn't hate those guys. But you're right. You kind of got to like navigate distance, figure out. Speaking of guys, do you is your, is your manager Oren Hodak? Did I read that right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know who that is, but I also saw that he represents Earl Spence. He does.

And I work with him just as, um, being very transparent. I work with him and I also work with, uh, Lloyd Pearson over at Venus sports. Um, they actually used to work together together then they split kind of a ugly little breakup but oran was the one who brought me to the table when they were at the other company valenji together and i couldn't just up and leave him you know so um we managed to work something out that we can still work together you know so is it um i didn't mean to bring up a sore subject i was just excited it no it's not not for me it's not sore but it's just kind of kind of annoying because i'm the guy who's stuck in

the middle you know right and your parents are getting a divorce again yeah yeah that's what it felt like um what's earl like have you have you hung out with him no i never met him what they haven't got you guys together it's actually a good idea that's actually a very good idea what the fuck yeah dude dude they got to get you guys together i think that'd be a cool little thing to do oh my goodness that would be so amazing you're both at the top of your game holy shit do you know where he lives probably texas i think and and he and um he got in that nasty car accident do you know about his history very much i heard about the car accident i saw the the picture of the car and everything but um other than that it's hard to follow boxing man if it's

not one of the big big fights that they're promoting over everything then you really don't hear about the next up-and-coming guy unless you you really have your ears down to the streets you know so right for me i know like the canellos the mayweathers the uh tiofimas lomachenkos devin haney errol spence like crawford like i don't even know like the main guys promoting um but belenga belenga guy from new york who's undefeated um is that the is that the oh the 170 pound dude i don't know how much he weighs something belenga um he had like 15 first first round knockouts that guy yeah something yeah something something like that but um i know he's pretty good he's actually been down here at the pi and i

was like i didn't know who he was i just knew he boxed because that's what they said and i looked at i was like this guy looks familiar like i actually watched one of his fights and i pulled up the picture and they're like yeah that's him i was like oh wow but um yeah so i i don't really know anybody i don't really know when these guys are fighting and right it's hard to keep up because it's all these promotions and divisions and i got this belt, but you're the champ of this weight in this division. I'm like, wait, what? Yeah. How can it be so many champs and then you got to unify the belts?

It gets, I don't know, it gets a little wacky for me. Well, fuck it. Who gives a fuck about that anyway? Because, yeah, that shit's a mess. I think thec is better than boxing although i really think earl spence is cool obviously i think crawford's cool and canel is cool and loma chinko is fucking super cool um so but anyway it would be cool to some sometimes see you guys together and i was i was like really impressed that wow they have the same manager

because in in earl spence obviously has a huge fight coming up somewhere. I mean, it's getting – at the top up there, it's getting weird. And him and Crawford are going to have to – I think they're going to have to figure it out. I think there will be enough money for them to figure it out. What are they, in the same promotion or something? They're basically – there's this argument that who's the best pound for pound, Crawford or Canelo? I mean, I think that's the, now that Lomachenko's out of the picture, he's not, I wouldn't say out of the picture, but people say that. Is it Canelo or is it Crawford? And I think one of the things that people need to see Crawford do is fight Earl Spence.

And when he fights Earl Spence, I think that's going to be, I think that might nudge him. I don't know, but man, Canelo is going to go up another weight class, I think I's going to be I think that that might nudge him I don't know but man Canelo is going to go up another weight class I think I read this morning so it's fucking nuts yeah it's too it's too much and don't let me even get you interested in it at all stay focused at your shit I have no desire good um my last question for you is this um Rob Font is just kind of I feel like just popped on the scene and i and because i have you in my google alerts an article popped up the other day where he's talking a little bit of smack about you um did you see that or did you hear about it yeah yeah he said something like

i have no rhythm which is kind of hilarious i was like i don't even know what you mean like then he started explaining what he meant i was like this don't really make no sense like one you don't want to have a rhythm when you fight you have a rhythm it's easy to catch on but i just put like a troll post or something like that um under the ufc's uh under the interview that he did because he said something oh i think it might have been the ufc's post of him drilling with cater and i see him all the time down here when he's getting ready for his fights. I've hung out with him, his coach, and Cater at a house. And we were all super cordial watching the fights.

But at the end of the day, I know there's a chance we're probably going to fight each other at some point. Our paths will cross. He's talked shit about me in the past. And it's a fight game. It is what it is. But he posted something. I forgot what I said, but at the end of the day, it was me trolling and just making another joke, and then exactly what I wanted.

I had over 150-something comments in a couple of seconds, so it was pretty funny, but at the end of the day, it's planting the seed to build a fight for that. It's planting the seed to build a fight for TJ. It's planting the seed to build a fight with the rematch for Piotr. I think when people are more invested into seeing if your mouth can cash that check, I think it's a bigger payday for everybody if you're getting pay-per-view points. Or at least it gives you more leverage to bring up your popularity because at that point now you could try to negotiate for a bigger, um, salary on your contract. Cause we get paid per, um, per fight based on the contract. We don't get a new actual contract per fight.

So it was like, you have four fight deal. You get only X amount of a pay bump if you win. So it's, it's really, you have to win to even increase that payday. So if you get super popular, have a ridiculous viral knockout, your pay rate stays the same. So you have to understand what you're doing and try to leverage the game. And I think that's the one thing I've been able to do pretty well. And I get paid more, the other guys get paid more, it's all good for everybody. So at the end of the day, we're going to punch each other. Let's have a reason to want to punch each other. You know, you said this. Let's figure it out. And you're obviously sitting on the very, very top branch of the tree. And so everyone's looking up. And so everyone, if they want attention, the fastest way to get attention is to talk shit to you.

attention is to talk shit to you and and i guess that all they want is you to yell their name from the top right so if i'm the if i'm the 10th rank guy and i talk shit about you no one will hear it until you say something back so then i guess you decide whether you want to they're like they're they're over here i'm talking shit about you al jamae will you please yell back at me so i can put on a thousand followers and yeah it makes sense when is your when is do you have a fight do you have a date for the fight they said february or march i'm just waiting for confirmation on the location so i don't know what's going on i was supposed to find out today via the matchmaker but uh hopefully when i turn my phone on i have some type of direction so i'm just trying to plan out my training camp.

Today was like the official start date, and we're going to ease our way into it. I actually had my very first sparring. Well, not today. Yesterday was. I had my very first sparring today, and I had to wear the face bar to protect my stitches. So I pulled the nose bar down so it protects my mouth. But then you can't see anything that's coming underneath, you know, so it's a very dangerous way to spar with guys that are throwing front kicks or they're throwing head kicks because it's harder to see those strikes that are

your blind side because this is pretty much your window that you're fighting with. So you can't see nothing down here. But yeah, day two of training camp. And for me, what am I, if it's February 19th, I'm about 12 weeks out from this saturday so i'm just getting myself ready to go and um i i can't wait man i'm excited i'm super confident in my skills and ability man i didn't get here by accident i know what i'm i know what i can do and i know what i've done to people outside of my weight class so people think that this peyote guy is a demon in the cage and can't wait to exercise him. And Aldo and Sanhagen might be on the undercard?

Well, it depends on who wins between Aldo and Font. Right. Oh, right, right, right, right, right. Okay. I thought I saw it being advertised. Have you heard anyone else who would be on your card with you? No, no, I haven't. Okay. I don't have a fight date or location, so I have no idea. They said they don't know where the fights are going to be. This is what they're telling us.

So hopefully they figure it out soon because it would be nice to actually know how long I'm going to be in Vegas and then when I need to travel back to New York. I think you're going to sleep Piotr I I think I'm going to take him down at first round and I think he'll probably survive probably um I think he's going to do a lot uh back take defense for rear naked choke finishes but I think the second round he'll be very very cautious cautious of that and I do think when i do take him down that time it's going to be completely different the first takedown i got in the last fight was the super easy takedown and if you watch how i got it it's like well why can't you do that all the other times and then you watch the other takedowns and you see me slipping and falling all over the place it's like all right

there's clearly something going on why you could get that takedown that easily, but all these other ones look like shit, and you're slipping and sliding all over the place when he kicks your ankle. I'm like, that doesn't happen in any other fight. I've had my ankle kicked multiple times. Pedro Munoz, I don't go flying and falling on my back like that. People can think what they want to think. I know what I was feeling when I was in there.

You can see when Peter Jan is taking his deep breaths because he was getting tired just defending those half-ass takedowns. So imagine when I actually put the squeeze on him and really put the pressure on him and I could pin him against the cage the whole time. What's he going to do different? I honestly want to know, what's he going to do different? His most dangerous thing is trying to fight him in the clinch. I understand he has very dangerous knees and elbows. When he breaks, he now starts to like doing spinning shit, which is good. And other than that, I think he's very basic with his striking, just very efficient.

The most dangerous thing that he's going to do is in space, if I sit there and let him get a clean strike. But when I'm moving, I'm using my lateral footwork, using my feints and getting him some level changes to think about. He's got to be conscious of me coming back with those flying knees again because I will bring those back and use those again. And I think it's going to be a very, very different fight. This time I know where to put my feet.

Even if the cage is that slippery again, I know how to make those adjustments this time. And it's one of those things that we're accounting for. And I'm going to make sure I eat food before the fight and be an actual athlete and not get tired after one exchange in the first round so i'm excited man i really am excited for this opportunity and i like when i am the underdog because i get to make my friends a lot of money and i get to prove a lot of people wrong yeah you guys are too also very clearly the two best in the field so that's also also really cool. So when you do win, it's not like,

um, I mean, you beat the best. And if, and if he wins, he beat the best. I mean, I mean,

it's a, it's a, it's a real championship. Yeah, exactly. May the best man win. I think that's going to be me. It could be him.

Things happen. But then at the end of the day, I really don't think, I think there's a very small chance that he wins this fight and that's self-belief. Aljamain, thank you. Thank you. What a great show. 90 minutes.