The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 97. Michael Chandler: The Reason He Walked Away From The Conor McGregor Fight

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

How a UFC fighter's mindset can transform your career. Human biologist Gary Brecka sits down with UFC superstar Michael Chandler for an intimate and inspiring conversation about life, fighting, and th...e pursuit of greatness. Chandler shares the power of gratitude in high-pressure situations and reveals his unique approach to recovery and peak performance. The conversation takes an unexpected turn as Chandler discusses his experience waiting for the Conor McGregor fight and his decision to move on. Whether you're a fight fan, an aspiring athlete, or someone looking for motivation to chase your dreams, this interview is packed with insights you can't afford to miss! Connect with Michael Chandler: Listen to “The Michael Chandler Show” on Spotify here!: https://spoti.fi/47vJChX For more information on Michael Chandler visit: https://bit.ly/3B78rVu Follow Michael Chandler on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3zkMcLf Follow Michael Chandler on Instagram: https://bit.ly/4ett5xD Follow Michael Chandler on Facebook: https://bit.ly/4gvpIIj Follow Michael Chandler on TikTok: https://bit.ly/3zaqt8V 00:00 ​Intro of Show and Guest 05:37 ​The Ultimate Fighter 09:48 ​Michael Chandler’s Dream and Mentality 15:46 ​University of Missouri Chapter 19:55 ​Mentorship and Motivation 23:48 ​Michael’s Faith as His Cornerstone 28:44 ​Keeping Up the Grind with Gratitude 31:12 ​How Michael Found His Wife 35:40 ​Adoption of Their Children 38:35 ​Michael’s Regimen 43:38 ​Hydrogen Gas Generator 47:28 ​What’s Next for Michael? 54:35 ​Being in the Octagon 1:00:31 ​Final Question: What does it mean to you to be an “Ultimate Human?” Get weekly tips from Gary Brecka on how to optimize your health and lifestyle routines: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU PLUNGE - Use code “Ultimate” for $150 off your order of the best cold plunge & sauna in the US: https://bit.ly/3yYE3vl EIGHT SLEEP - Use code “GARY” to get $350 off Pod 4 Ultra: https://bit.ly/3WkLd6E ECHO GO PLUS HYDROGEN WATER BOTTLE: https://bit.ly/3xG0Pb8 BODY HEALTH - Use code “ULTIMATE20” for 20% OFF YOUR ORDER: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV KETTLE AND FIRE PREMIUM & 100% GRASS-FED BONE BROTH - Use code "ULTIMATEHUMAN" for 20% OFF YOUR ORDER: https://bit.ly/3BaTzW5 Discover top-rated products and exclusive deals. Shop now and elevate your everyday essentials with just a click!: https://theultimatehuman.com/amazon-recs Watch “The Ultimate Human Podcast with Gary Brecka” every Tuesday and Thursday at 9AM ET on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Follow The Ultimate Human on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3VP9JuR Follow The Ultimate Human on TikTok: https://bit.ly/3XIusTX Follow The Ultimate Human on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3Y5pPDJ Follow Gary Brecka on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs Follow Gary Brecka on TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo Follow Gary Brecka on Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H SUBSCRIBE TO: https://www.youtube.com/@ultimatehumanpodcast https://www.youtube.com/@garybrecka Download “The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka” podcast on all your favorite platforms: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0 The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The Content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm 38 years old. You're not supposed to be fighting at this high of a level at 38 years old. Are you ready to take the shot? The news is just exploding over the Conor McGregor-Michael Chandler fight. What's going on there? Conor McGregor, yes, of course I want to fight him, but I do not need Conor McGregor for my legacy. The Chandler-McGregor fight will happen eventually, it's's just not now where does faith fall into the picture for you it's been revealed to me
Starting point is 00:00:29 so many times over my entire life in all these different seasons how god has had me in the palm of his hand and even in the seasons where i feel like everything's over right when i lost three fights in a row that's when you start to question things but then you look back and you say man i needed that talk a little bit about what your regimen is like to have your body in top physical condition. What we have been starting to work together, the Hypermax Oxygen, the Cold Plunge, the Pymf Mat, and the Red Light.
Starting point is 00:00:54 This was the best I have ever felt in my entire life. At 38 years old. What can the fans expect next out of Michael Chandler? We got a date set now? The next step. Today's guest, Michael Chandler, is a three-time Bellator lightweight champion and one of the most electrifying fighters to ever fight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Starting point is 00:01:24 You're really going to get to know him during this podcast. to ever fight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. You're really going to get to know him during this podcast. He's relevant in the news right now, trying to get this Conor McGregor fight to really happen. And he talks about his road to the championship and how it's actually not going through Conor McGregor anymore. He's going to talk about what he thinks about Conor McGregor, when and if that fight's going to happen, and how he's going to get to his next UFC title what's really amazing about this podcast is you're really going to get to know who Michael Chandler is you're going to get to know the family man the father the D1 walk-on championship wrestler you're
Starting point is 00:01:55 going to really get insight into the fabric of who this gentleman is I have so much respect for him after this podcast it's going to be one of the most enjoyable podcasts for you guys to watch. Even if you are not a fight fan, there's so much to unpack here about the man, Michael Chandler. Listen and enjoy guys. Hey guys, welcome back to the ultimate human podcast. I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brekka, where we go down the road of everything anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in in between and today's guest is unless you've been in a coma and maybe even if you have been in a coma you know my next guest because he has all over the news right now it is the biggest thing going on in fight sports we're out in las vegas with my good friend michael chandler welcome to the podcast brother thank you i'm super pumped
Starting point is 00:02:43 to have you on. Me as well. This is awesome. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I mean, you and I have had a little bit of a journey together, and we're going to talk about that on the recovery side and everything else. But we scheduled this podcast, and I came out for the UFC 306 at the Sphere. I'm all excited to go to the sphere and dude the news is just exploding over the conor mcgregor michael chandler fight i think that dana first leaked it out you know by accident that the fight was off um so tell me man in your own words like what what's going on there what's up with you so yeah so i've i've known for about four weeks that we were going
Starting point is 00:03:23 to make make a pivot and i wasn't sure when they when it was actually going to get announced i was hoping it was going to get announced this oh so you knew it was off for a while yeah yeah well i've known so the fight was never off unless i wanted to to make it be off necessarily or just wait for connor and i was just at some point you know i don't want to ever look back and say, I wasted too much time. I gave it the old college try. I gave it a good enough try. Me and Connor got us a contract signed to fight in June 29th. And then he pulls out and then they gave him the opportunity and said, Hey, well, there's Charles Oliveira is waiting in their wings. He needs a fight. Um, that's a big fight. It's a rematch fight for you yeah i mean it's it's one of those you know in mixed martial arts you want obviously you want the biggest fights possible and you want the
Starting point is 00:04:09 right fights at the right time this is the right time to fight charles olivera it'll be a number one contender fight and then i go from being a guy who sat out a little bit waiting for the connor thing which i had the huge promotion of the ultimate fighter and had a lot of growth over the last year didn't take any damage it was all really good but then now coming into this fight and waiting for connor and i'm going to be able to come back beat charles olivera and then become the number one contender get the opportunity to fight for the title if i want next right or if connor can finally get his house in order string together a training camp proves to everybody that he's going to come back and is serious about making
Starting point is 00:04:43 the greatest comeback in combat sports history then we can finish the chandler versus conor mcgregor fight that it was supposed to happen i believe that fight will happen at some point and his road back to the ufc goes straight through nashville tennessee to fight me that's that's it he's he he can't just come back and pick and choose who he wants to fight so i'm gonna take a little detour go continue to chase my number one goal, which has always been my number one goal to become the number one guy in the world and fight for a world title, win the world title. And, uh, I got to be Charles Oliveira first to do that and then go beat Islam or Connor. And the thing about this Connor fight is that, you know, Connor's not on the pathway to becoming a world champion. I mean,
Starting point is 00:05:21 he's, he's, it's probably the fight that the media most wants to see that the fans most want to see. I mean, it would arguably the biggest, you know, fight in, in, in UFC history, but is that really a fight for Michael Chandler? I mean, is this really something for your career or? Yeah. I mean, obviously I knew, I knew that going into when Hunter Campbell called me to do The Ultimate Fighter in January of 2023, which I had to leave in February, come here to Vegas and film it, I knew that. I was like, hey, everyone's talking about this fight. This is a fight that makes sense.
Starting point is 00:05:54 He wants to do The Ultimate Fighter. Would you like to do The Ultimate Fighter? The answer is yes. Because of The Ultimate Fighter, the history of it, the platform of it, 12 hours, 12 weeks on ESPN and everything that came with it was a huge opportunity. Plus, the biggest combat star on the planet is Conor McGregor. Yes, of course I want to fight him. I knew it wasn't a fight that got me toward the title athletically.
Starting point is 00:06:19 Or career advancement-wise. But it kind of is, too, because too because yes this is a sport but it also depends a lot on how big your name is how much weight is behind your name a win over conor mcgregor with that many eyeballs you know the proof is in the pudding it puts you more towards you know being uh in the position to fight for the title so i understand understood the the fight the fighting side of it didn't really check that box to get me toward the title, but it did from a promotional standpoint. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:48 And ultimately, I'm here to make the biggest impact I possibly can. So the more people who know my name, the more people who see me, the more people who hear my voice, that's how I make the greatest amount of impact. So that's the way I kind of weighed the pros and cons of it all. But me and Connor will fight eventually. I just, not next. Not next.
Starting point is 00:07:04 Not next. You know, I remember the, you know know the first time that the uh you know the fight started getting on wobbly legs um when did you how did you first i mean i think there was a presser that was get that got canceled and you know you i guess you could think hey they can cancel a presser and fight still on but i remember that a presser got cancer canceled overseas and then the rumors started swirling and there's a hole i mean i i actually went down deep down the rabbit hole and all the mma sites before you know before jumping on the podcast and there's all kinds of stuff out there about connor um you know good and bad about you know why this fight has been delayed so many
Starting point is 00:07:40 times i mean everything from his injuries to partying to he had a big financial score, um, to, you know, is he even going to get back in the ring again? Um, and they all seem to have some measure of credibility. Yep. Um, what's your take on, on this yo-yo position? I'm not calling him a yo-yo. The yo-yo. The up and down. Connor, I did not call you a yo-yo. No, the up and down nature of it. Similar to a yo-yo. Yes. Man, it's always interesting, right? Because you can read the headlines and you can look at it all and you can take this big pie chart that is who Conor McGregor is and say, well, because of these reasons- Definitely a dynamic character, for sure.
Starting point is 00:08:14 Yeah, he's a dynamic character. And like you said, all of those things have been talked about, whether they're true, not, overblown, underblown, whatever. But I always like to say, yes, me and Conor live two completely different lifestyles and we are two different types of people, but I've also never walked a mile in his shoes. Give me that kind of fame, that kind of fortune, that kind of notoriety. And let's see what kind of guy I am. Right. I think I have a sneaky suspicion. I'd be very similar to the guy I am currently right now. But I also cannot judge a man when it comes to his propensity and willingness to come back and fight i think it's i think it's still there and that's why i was willing to bet on that horse throughout
Starting point is 00:08:50 this process i think it is still there not necessarily because i believe conor mcgregor believes he's gonna win a world title or he's still who the connor from 2021 or 2020 and 2018 when he had became the double champ and all that i don't think he believes he is that guy anymore but i do believe that he needs the sport of mixed martial arts like he needs oxygen yeah i believe he needs to continue to fill a void inside of him that only one thing can ever ever give him the money won't give it to him the fame won't give it to him he needs to step inside of an octagon and stand in the middle and do this and feel like a God. He needs that. That's what he wants. That is his breath. That is his oxygen. Um, so I've always bet on that spirit of the man more than I actually bet on the man of
Starting point is 00:09:33 himself. Um, currently I have been proven wrong, obviously, but I do believe at some point he's going to come back. And that's why it was so important for me to attach my name to that contract. And it's undeniable at this point, if he comes back, he's got to come back. And that's why it was so important for me to attach my name to that contract. And it's undeniable at this point, if he comes back, he's got to fight me. So that's what I believe. You know, you say that you don't think that he believes that he's that man anymore. And I want to drill into that for a second because, you know, I work with a lot of top athletes, you know, people that are very much in the public eye, A-listers, celebrities, what have you. And what's always fascinated me about a phenomenal athlete is not a phenomenal athlete that's able to be good once, but someone who dominates a sport over a prolonged period of time. Someone like a Lance Armstrong or Michael Jordan, you know, Tom Brady.
Starting point is 00:10:20 And that mindset of belief or who you are. I mean, talk a little bit about the mindset, like how, how do you stay focused? Cause look, you might not have the fame and the fortune of a Conor McGregor, but you are still a very well-known fighter. Yep. Um, you're very well-respected fighter. You're very much in the public eye. Um, you've had to now be camp ready three different times, um, you know, for this fight
Starting point is 00:10:44 at some point, what gets inside of your head? Where was the tipping point for you where you said, I got to go back to doing what Michael Chandler's dreamed of doing and whether it means I put this fight off or not, this is the tipping point for me. I'm going back to my dream of chasing the title. Yeah, no, it's, it's a really good question. Cause it's been an evolution over this last, you know, year, year and a half. And there's been times where I was a hundred percent focused. Yeah. It's a hundred, a hundred percent. Hey, this fight's happening. We're good. It's going to go. And then all of a sudden he would
Starting point is 00:11:17 throw a tweet out or it would be, you know, the media would say this or some report would come out and then it's like, okay, now the fight looks like it's in jeopardy but then ultimately we got the fight booked um and i trained i mean that's that's just one thing about me and it's my journey in mixed martial arts has been very very unique and i love my journey and it's why i love fighting in the ufc so much because i know what it's like outside of the ufc and i've fought so many guys that you and everybody else listening right now they're not household names they don't know who these a lot of guys that you and everybody else listening right now, they're not household names. They don't know a lot of guys that I have fought in my past. You're talking about Strikeforce days, Bellator.
Starting point is 00:11:50 Strikeforce and Bellator. Yet, I still trained just as disciplined, just as hard, left no stone unturned, never cut corners, did everything perfectly to the best of my ability. When I was fighting a nobody or I was making 500 bucks in my first fight or I was making very little money my first fight or I was making very little money very little promotion in a smaller promotion outside of the UFC all the way into now coming to the UFC training just as hard and just as disciplined for world titles or now fighting Charles Oliveira or if I would have fought Conor yeah so to me it's it's not about
Starting point is 00:12:20 who you're fighting or where you're fighting or when you're fighting dictating how you prepare or the professionalism that you keep. It's the standard that you have set and it's a non-negotiable and it doesn't matter. So once, once the fight kind of fell through, fell through for the first time, well, not for the first time, but this last time with the broken pinky toe. The second time or the third time. Yeah. This, this pinky toe. Yeah. Oh, the pinky toe toe that was my favorite one that was yeah i i talked to hunter campbell about that and i was like what was going through your mind when you you know saw connor come out and it was a broken
Starting point is 00:12:53 pinky toe and he was just you know he's like no comment right yeah because ultimately before that as of right now in my entire career i've never missed weight and i've never pulled out of a fight never pulled out of a wrestling match never did not show up and compete um never miss weight never miss weight really that is d1 for oh never and that's hundreds of hundreds of times wow um and it's because it's it's not that hard to just do the right thing if you do the right thing if your discipline is not that hard yeah right you know um and like i said i don't take a lot of credit for it mike and betty chandler from high ridge missouri they built me into the young man that I am through osmosis and watching them and how hard they train or how hard they worked. So it's just ingrained in me.
Starting point is 00:13:33 But a guy who had never pulled out of a fight before, Connor, and has fought injured. He's got his little documentaries that came out and then he always showed every time he had an injury or broken this or broken that. Yeah, I remember the picture of the toe and, you know, and I mean, I'm a human biologist, not a, I'm not a surgeon or a doctor, but I got plenty, plenty of orthopedic friends. They're like, do you break a toe like that? You tape it to the next toe and you move on. Yeah. I kind of made the joke, you know, going to the bathroom and hit, kicking the, you know, kicking the plate on my bed.
Starting point is 00:14:01 I made the joke too about, isn't there a certain segment of the population who has that like hanging toe syndrome where like the toe doesn't even touch the ground so you're like you basically don't even have a pinky toe or some of the people going right um well not me i got gorgeous feet everybody talks about yeah i'm really white shoes off right now it would throw the whole podcast off because then that'd be like the biggest thing the biggest focal point yeah um but i uh you know so he had never pulled out of a fight and i was just obviously almost like hey it's it gives me an opportunity and i think you never quite know how your legacy and how your story is being told
Starting point is 00:14:35 because you're just living it and then someday people are going to look back and see the way that i operated and how i handled myself throughout this process i agree with and i believe it's going to be a shining light to how people handle adversity, and it would be a blueprint for getting knocked down metaphorically, picking yourself back up. That's always been my walk-on mentality, my walk-on story. And there's just another chapter in it, but the Chandler-McGregor fight will happen eventually. It's just not now. Ever wonder how elite athletes recover faster and stay energized? It's the science of cold water therapy. Hi, I'm Gary Brekka, and I want to introduce you to Plunge. Plunge helps to soothe your sore muscles,
Starting point is 00:15:10 boost your energy levels, and improve mental clarity. It's a powerful way to support your immune function and enhance your mood. Ready to transform your health? Take the Plunge. Change your life. Visit plunge.com and shop now. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. And I think, you know, you epitomize to me that type of fighter that people want to see win. I think that, you know, fighters take on all kinds of personalities and people follow them because they love them or they hate them. But, you know, when you look back at your career, your career reminds me of, you know, the starving young startup entrepreneurial career that actually built it into a, you know, a billion dollar company, or, you know, that, that, that struggling marriage that wasn't really handed anything that just turned out to be this, this beautiful
Starting point is 00:15:56 relationship. And, you know, when you go back over your career, and you see that, you know, you walked on as a division one wrestler, I mean, I don't think that many people understand if they're not in it, if they haven't played D1 sports, what it means to walk on it at a, at a division one school. I mean, you weren't there on a full ride. You weren't there on a scholarship. I mean, you had a solid career as a high school wrestler, but to go into division one, I mean, that's like your D1 to the NFL, right? mean that's the big game and to and to walk on and have been as successful and then as you moved into your the rest of your career you know as i looked at it i saw you know someone that rose through the ranks in bellator for example and then left bellator at the height and then came in and fought the toughest five fighters in the UFC. It was like, almost like, give this dude a break. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:50 It almost, and it, and it seems like every time that you've championed in your life, you've championed or conquered in your life. It's, it's not something that was handed to you. Yeah. And it was, and it was taking a huge risk and it was betting on yourself. And I thank God every single day that for some reason, this little 18-year-old kid who didn't believe in himself took the opportunity to bet on himself to walk onto the University of Missouri. Tell me what that was like.
Starting point is 00:17:18 Honestly, it doesn't actually compute in my head because I know for a fact that I didn't believe that I deserved to be at the University of Missouri and mom and dad were telling me not to and coaches around me and teammates and everybody from my little small town in High Ridge Missouri was was like dude what are you this is this is a crazy you just wrestled at that level because you were can I say small town wrestler small town and in very very average ish you You know, like I was, I was ranked high in the state my senior year, but still fell short, sabotaged myself, didn't win a state title. And, uh, and I had scholarship offers from smaller schools, local locally. And obviously that would have paid for my, my schooling. So my parents, you know, probably wanted me to do that. Right. Yeah. Um, but so there was everybody around me saying, this is probably a bad idea because you either, you're either a not going to make it.
Starting point is 00:18:05 You're not, you're going to quit be your, or you're going to ride the bench and just go there and be a human punching bag. Why, why go do that? When you can go maybe be a starter at Missouri Baptist or Linwood or one of these other schools. And thank God for some reason, this 18 year old little kid was like, no, I'm going to go chase that dream. I'm going to go climb that mountain. And that was the first time I bet on myself.
Starting point is 00:18:24 And obviously it worked out well, um, ended up becoming an all American and the hardest weight class in the country. Um, and a four year, four year starter, four year national qualifier, three year team captain, just, just a guy who started at the bottom coach. Didn't even know my name. Didn't even look in my direction. Didn't even talk to me the whole first year, the lowest guy on the totem pole. And I think I still, I still am that guy. I still, even when I beat Charles Oliveira and then I go beat Islam and I'm the UFC champion and we sit here and we do this podcast again and we'll run it. Yeah. It's, I still have this yearning to, I have this yearning to continue to find the best version of myself, but I also don't see myself as better than anybody else because I know where I started and starting at the bottom and starting at the bottom of the totem pole was
Starting point is 00:19:09 the greatest gift I ever could have gotten in my entire life. And then betting on myself to come over to the UFC when it was a huge risk. And I had that, I had great money, great platform, great relative security in Bellator. And I said, I just, I'm not going to be able to sleep at night unless I go climb, climb this crazy mountain. Cause that was the next, I mean, that strike force to Bellator, Bellator to the UFC. And that's what I told Hunter too. Like you said, I fought the toughest five guys. I sat in his office here in Vegas and I said, Hey, I'm completely content coming over here. And I want you to throw me against the toughest guys right away. And if I lose my first two fights and you need to cut me, that's fine. But at least I can prove to myself, I need to
Starting point is 00:19:43 prove to myself either I am, I am who I say I am or I'm not. And now here we are. Where was Oliveira in that lineup? He was number two or number three. He was, yeah, number two. Well, yeah, because Khabib was the champion. He was about to fight Justin Gaethje. I came in as the backup.
Starting point is 00:19:58 And then Oliveira was ranked second, but really ranked third. And then that was the reason because Khabib retires. Poirier and Conor were stuck in their trilogy. So they had to fight each other. So then all of a sudden now that was me and Oliveira fighting for the title in my second fight, because it all worked out perfectly serendipitously. So it's, it's just so funny how God keeps the door closed and you're trying to break through it and you take a sledgehammer to it and you're trying to kick it down and you, you're asking him, why won't this door open? I deserve it. I deserve it. But it might be the right thing. It just might not be the right time. Yeah. Right. So when, when the door is not a virtue that a lot of great athletes
Starting point is 00:20:32 and competitors have either. Exactly. So when the door opened, it didn't just open it, it, it was wide, it was completely wide open in it. And I walked into the greatest scenario I ever could have asked for coming into the UFC. And it was just, it was perfect. Did you have any mentors or guides? Um, you know, wrestling is a very individual sport. I mean, it seems like nobody's getting you up in the morning. Nobody's putting you to bed at night. I mean, you're, you're very motivated. It's not a team sport as like other sports. It is because your, your, your team, you know, wrestles, wrestles on behalf of your, your institution, but it's not like an organized sport where those days where you're not motivated.
Starting point is 00:21:15 Yeah. Um, you're motivated because you got to show up for everybody else. You only have to show up for yourself. Yep. And I have, I have a lot of respect for that because people that find that, that motivation, that self-discipline, it's more, probably more disciplined than, than, than motivation. You can't wait to be motivated. You just have to, you know, that you have to do these things every single day in order to compete at the level that you're at. Where did the
Starting point is 00:21:39 motivation come from? Where the guidance come from? Like, who were you looking up to and and getting guidance or advice from at that it's a good good question so to start with the and this is one of my superpowers i believe and and why me walking on and being the lowest guy on the totem pole was so important because i was so grateful to be there so you had blue chip yeah it's a big blue chip recruits state champions studs guys guys who were sitting there with 15 different scholarship offers. They're the cats meow. They walk into the University of Missouri like, okay, hey, I'm here. Take care of me.
Starting point is 00:22:12 But then all of a sudden the grind punches them in the mouth and they realize, oh, this is tough. I don't really want to be here anymore. I'd rather go work for my dad back in Pennsylvania or whatever. Whereas me, I walked in like, shoot, if anybody even talks to me or even knows who I am or even wants to drill with me, man, I'm excited. I'm grateful to be here every single day. I woke up, it was never, ever late. I was always, I immediately started becoming a leader on the team because I just, I did the right things, but I did more than what was asked of me. And I didn't have to be told what was right and wrong. Right. And I was just so grateful to be
Starting point is 00:22:44 there. So that's, that's one of my superpowers is I still, to this day, I'm so grateful that I get to do what I do every single day. I'm 38 years old. You're not supposed to be fighting at this high of a level at 38 years old. And with all of the fights I've had, the wars that I've had, the awards that I've won, the world championships and the ups and the downs and the tears and the, and all of the things I've been through, but I'm still so grateful for the opportunity. And with that, I had some great mentors and university of Missouri with Tyron Woodley, I wrestled with who ended up becoming a UFC champion, Ben Askren, who was multiple time world champion outside of the UFC came to the UFC and fought a couple of fights.
Starting point is 00:23:21 And great, great coaches. I had a Bible study leader named busustar Box, who was the first person who started to open my mind to, because I was, I grew up very, hey, we're in High Ridge, Missouri. And if you have money, if you're, or if you have status or you have nice things, or you have a nice big house, whatever, you're probably a pretentious, you know, person who, who isn't, isn't full of giving, right. And then gratitude and also just generosity, right? You want to keep it all to yourself. That's how people get rich.
Starting point is 00:23:50 They just keep it all to themselves and they're very selfish. And I saw the way that he served his wife and I saw the way he served his two daughters. He would, we'd have Bible study on every Tuesday night. By the time we would get there, he would be, they would just get done eating dinner and he was sitting there with his daughters,
Starting point is 00:24:02 doing homework with them and just loving on them and serving them. And he was such a great servant leader and he was sitting there with his daughters doing homework with them and just loving on them and serving them and he was such a great servant leader and he was so generous everybody in the whole community in columbia missouri knew who he was and all of a sudden i started thinking wait a second he's an orthopedic surgeon owns an orthopedic practice very successful very very successful has money has status has nice things yet he has the biggest heart i've ever seen and he started to open that up started to open that in me to think wait a second where am i playing small where am i playing scarcity where am i playing lack and that really started to open it up and then getting exposed to the kids from california kids from pennsylvania coast to coast around the entire country and seeing different
Starting point is 00:24:38 ways that everybody grew up and it started to just really mold me into the young man that i was and then full of gratitude and just, I would run through that brick wall for you if you wanted me to. And I will do it harder and faster and I'm willing to die for you coach. Like that was the kind of guy I am. And I'm still like that, which is kind of dangerous and scary because I am that guy inside the cage. So that's kind of the origin. You know, that's, it sounds to me, this is kind of where faith enters the picture. Right. And, and maybe talk a little bit about how that shaped your role as an athlete and your aspirations and your tenacity, maybe in those moments where you don't have that mentor by your side and you're, you're a little bit alone in your decisions.
Starting point is 00:25:23 Cause at the end of the day, you know, fighting is a very individual sport. I mean, you've got difficult decisions to make on your own for you, you know, you got to make decisions for yourself and not necessarily for the media, not necessarily for the fans. If you were doing that, you'd still be waiting on the counter fight. Right. Yeah. Well, where, where does, where does faith fall into the picture for you? It's, it's obviously, yeah, it's the cornerstone of who I am and what I do, right? Because being a fighter is great. It's what I do, but it's not who I be. Who I be is a man who was put on this earth to reach people and to serve people and to
Starting point is 00:25:55 be a servant leader and also be a shining light. You know, I would say like fighting is my shiny object that gets people to look and they say, oh man, he's cool. He's got cauliflower ears and he fights in a cage. And I saw his highlights, right? You do have cool cauliflower ears. Thank you. I actually like those.
Starting point is 00:26:08 Right. You know, so it's, that's the shiny object that gets people to look, but then they, then they're able to say, okay, now that I'm looking, let me go ahead and peel back the layers of who this guy is and how he operates. And speaking about my faith, I don't, I don't like to do it in a way that is necessarily unbecoming or, or too over, uh, I guess, you know, I just, I want, one of my
Starting point is 00:26:28 favorite quotes about faith is preach the gospel at all times, but only use words when necessary, right? And I want to be a person who operates a certain way. And you say, there's something about that guy. I don't know exactly what it is. It's not, it's not necessarily as fighting, but there's something else going on. And I'm, he's a desirable individual for me to want to look to. Right. Um, and I just know it's been revealed to me so many times over my entire life in all these different seasons, how God has had me in the palm of his hand through every single season. And even the seasons where I know you don't see it at the time. No. And even the seasons where I questioned him and even the seasons where it seemed like the devil was winning. And even in the seasons where I feel like it's all about to go to hell in a handbasket and it's all about to just catch on fire and
Starting point is 00:27:07 everything's over. Right. When I lost three fights in a row and it's, that's where you start to question things. But then you look back and you say, man, I needed that. That was exactly who I have become who I am today because of the man I was then. And I was so upset at that man and whether it be his lack or his, his scarcity or whatever it is, but I needed to be that man to know that I never want to be that man again. Yeah. You know, and then just watching the way that he has galvanized me through the fires of what I've had to go through. And sometimes, sometimes it's,
Starting point is 00:27:35 it's being the tallest nail that gets hammered and people, you know, people say, people say, I'm going to start using that. Yeah. You know, the tallest nail always gets hammered first. Right. And so true. And I, I like to be that guy. The tallest nail that gets hammered. The tallest nail always gets hammered first, right? So true. And I like to be that guy. It's a blessing. It's a really, really cool place to be because it means you're doing something impactful.
Starting point is 00:27:54 You know, I've watched your career and you never really have been that guy that's played the victim mentality. You know, you hear it a lot, even from the most accomplished fighters. You know, you've never talked about getting robbed. You've never talked about being taken advantage of. You never talked about not being given what you deserve. And, you know, you could look at, you could take a step back and say, well, you know, there's, there's fighters that came into the UFC. Alex Pereira, for example,
Starting point is 00:28:18 comes in and gets four fights in the time that goes from virtual obscurity to, you know, a household name in the fight business, you know, in the fight game during the timeframe that you were waiting on this one fight, but you never, you know, or took that woe is me attitude. You know, you never played that victim card. I think at some point you just reached that tipping point and you said, I've got goals and aspirations that, that I'm, I'm going to go after and I'm going to put Connor to the side. And like you said, I like what you said the other day. I'm, I'm not, uh, Connor's not my next opponent, but I'm, I'm his. Um, and that was, uh, you know, that, that statement says a lot about who you are. You're like, I'm not running from
Starting point is 00:29:05 this fight. I'm still ready for this fight, but I, at some point I've got to do what God put me on this earth to do. And that's to be the best version of myself. Um, and I, I, I, you know, I, I study a lot about the, um, the human mindset and, and I study how it affects, you know, the cells in our body, because, you know, the cells in our body, because, you know, for a long time, people would talk about the universal law of energy and these concepts of your emotional state having no impact on your, on your physical health. But we know that to not be true. Now, we know that what goes on up here has a lot to do with what goes on down here and our mindset and our mentality and what we think about and whether
Starting point is 00:29:45 we wake in gratitude has a lot to do with how healthy, how conditioned, how focused we are. And you've been able to maintain, in my opinion, this fight ready level of conditioning over, over a long period of time. I mean, tell me how that grind, when the goal keeps taking, gets taken away from you, how do you just keep up that grind when the goal keeps taking, gets taken away from you, how do you just keep up that grind? I think once again, it's just gratitude. Because you get after it, man. I mean, I've seen your workouts. I mean, they're nasty.
Starting point is 00:30:13 Yeah, I think it's just gratitude. And I mean, it's so hard and it's, you know, there's a reason that depression is the number one disability in the United States. Isn't that true, right? Depression has now become one of the number one disabilities. And it's... Don't get me started on that.
Starting point is 00:30:27 I know, exactly. That's a whole podcast. Exactly. But this idea that we can sit here, and we're both Americans in this beautiful country with all the freedoms and liberties, and you can go down the list of a billion things that we have to be thankful for.
Starting point is 00:30:40 Even the fact that I have two capable arms and two capable legs, that millions, and I mean legs that millions and i mean millions and millions of people would trade to give anything to trade a hot shower right to trade simple things to trade places with me and i and i look at it as though to give anything less than my best is to sacrifice those gifts these gifts that i've been given and i have been given so many great gifts and mike and betty chandler my mom and dad my high risk Missouri works two and three jobs. We're up every single morning, never complained, never cut corners. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. I, I get so much credit for
Starting point is 00:31:14 how hard I work and how disciplined I am. And yes, I have to do it. I have to make the decision every single day to do the right thing, but I almost don't have a choice because it just becomes so natural to me because of how the example that my parents set for me, you know, and it's so whether, whether I have a fight booked or I don't have a fight booked, I still have another day to live. You know, I still have another hour to live. I still have relationships and I still have a choice every single day to do the right things or do the wrong things. And the simple fact of the matter is we all know the right things and the wrong things to do. It just, are you willing to admit that you do, or you don't know those things? You can't play ignorance is bliss, or you can't play, um, ignorance to the things that, you know,
Starting point is 00:31:53 you need to do. You got to do what you need to do instead of you, what you want to do, because too many people, people are just driven by emotion. So I take the emotion out of it and say, here's my standard that I have set. And I have a, I have a duty to myself, to my family, to my, my creator, to my onlookers, to my, this, my one life that I get to live to do the right thing. So it's just this intrinsic hope and peace coupled with a tenacity. Yeah. You've been tenacious about everything. In fact, there's a really funny story I want to ask you about that. I actually hope actually hope it's true because it's a great story. My wife loved it. About how you met your wife.
Starting point is 00:32:28 Oh, gosh. Tenacious. Tenacious. Slash stalker. Literally emailed her. I think it's illegal in 14 states what you did, but it worked out for you. Yeah. But you went full-blown stalker mode.
Starting point is 00:32:43 You emailed her every day for what? Two years? Not, not every day, but, but well, I mean, I would have, if she would have responded to me, I would have emailed her back every day, but she, she being the wonderful, very self-confident, very self-sufficient person that she is, didn't need me or want me or any man for that matter, because she was married to medicine. She was an 80 80 hour a week critical care residency at the university of missouri er and she was living her dream that was what she wanted to do and she didn't need me or anybody else one of my favorite biohacks outside of breath work by far is mineral salts baja gold sea salt it's got all of the trace minerals that the body needs you know most of us are not just protein deficient, meaning amino acid deficient or fatty acid deficient. We are mineral deficient. So a quarter
Starting point is 00:33:28 teaspoon of this in water first thing in the morning will make sure that you get all of the essential minerals that you need. It tastes amazing. In fact, I made a steak today. I actually made a grass-fed steak with grass-fed butter and I put just mushrooms and a little bit of rosemary and I sprinkled Baja Gold Sea Salt all over the over the top try it it'll be your new favorite for cooking too it's the cheapest and one of my favorite biohacks i don't know a 15 or 20 bag of this will probably last you five years and it's literally the world's best biohacking secret now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast um so she would take like two months to to respond to my email and i'm checking it every i'm checking it every day checking it every day because once i got the first one I'm like you're telling me there's a chance um so I'm just like
Starting point is 00:34:09 we're checking every day we're checking every day and then as soon as it would come through I'd email her back and then sit there and wait two months and you took two minutes yep yep oh less probably less than two minutes um but the origin story is you know going back to bus tar box my bible study leader his bible study leader was a man named Kent Willett, who had a phenomenal reputation around town. And he was also a dentist. And I got this tooth knocked out, thank God, in college. And I went to his dental office. And I knew of his reputation.
Starting point is 00:34:41 And I saw pictures of him on the wall. And I saw this cute little brunette girl with these beautiful dark brown eyes. A picture? Yeah, a picture on the wall. I said, that girl's beautiful and that's his daughter. If she's anything like him, I want to marry her someday. Wow. Then, thank God, through the beauty of Facebook, I went and got my tooth fixed.
Starting point is 00:35:03 I didn't go get creepy and say, hey, your daughter's beautiful. Can I take her out for a date or anything? And you didn't send her your picture with your tooth still. I got it still there. Um, and, uh, so then, you know, I looked her up on Facebook and thank God we had a bunch of mutual friends. And then I, I went to another Bible study that was more of a, um, a college age Bible study and everyone kept bringing this girl's name up. They kept saying her name, Brie Willett, Brie Willett. And cause everybody knew her. And I was like, that's that girl. Like that is that girl that I saw in that picture. And now I've been kind of seeing on Facebook and seeing if I'm ever going to run into her. Cause she, she went to PA school in Illinois and she was just coming back
Starting point is 00:35:38 around that when I was in college. Um, right. I guess she was in college, but she was out of town. I had actually been to her house. She wasn't't there i went to her house for a guy's birthday party who was in our bible study and yes in the back of my mind i was like i'm definitely going to that bible study because it's at dr willett's house and maybe brie will be in town she never was but the funny thing was i pictured myself fishing in the pond in their backyard like someday i'm gonna fish on this pond because i'm gonna marry this girl and now i married her and i fish in the pond in their backyard. Like someday I'm going to fish on this pond because I'm going to marry this girl. And now I married her and I fish on the pond. So it's crazy. But finally, yeah, finally she, uh, we kind of Facebook friended each other. I sent her a message on Facebook and then she said, Hey, I'm deactivating my Facebook account
Starting point is 00:36:18 because I'm applying for residencies. So we started emailing and she would email back like every two months. then finally i would hounded her enough to say hey can we go to coffee together and she finally said yes and then since january 20 24th of 2013 when she walked into caldi's coffee we've been together ever since 2013 2013 that's amazing when did you guys get married uh 2014 2014 yeah so we we were we were dating for 11 months engaged for five months wow Wow. And I tricked her and I trapped her. She ain't getting out. She ain't getting out.
Starting point is 00:36:49 She doesn't know how tenacious you are. So, and then you've, you know, you've gone on to, you're building a beautiful family. You've adopted two children. Yep. Um, and how did it come about the, you know, how does the discussion start that, um, you want to adopt, you know, children? I mean, how does that, um. That's, uh, so that started because we were in San Diego. Cause we, when we got married or when we were first dating, I had just moved to San Diego and we, we both, we got married in San Diego, bought our first house in San Diego. So you, you were fighting.
Starting point is 00:37:25 Yeah, I was fighting. And she had never seen a fight before. She never wasn't following it, like, which was good. I liked that about her. Did you just lay that on her in the beginning when she was like, well, you know, well, what do you do? And she's like, I'm working in the ER. And you're like, well, I actually, I fight in a cage. I think that was the problem, which is, which is awesome. Like, you know, we have this preconceived notions of who fighters are,
Starting point is 00:37:47 how they operate, what their goals and what their morals are and what type of people they are. So she was kind of like, well, number one, I don't need a man or want a man right now. I'm married to medicine and I definitely don't want that guy. I never want to be a professional athlete's wife. Number two, a professional athlete who fights in a cage for a living there's probably some red flags that i probably am not interested in so i think that's why it took so long that's what i mean yeah yes um two months to respond to an email exactly um but eventually my my character or who i was kind of shown through i guess in my some of my emails but um once we started dating we were in san Diego, we were laying on a little blanket at this cool little dog park watching planes fly over. And she first told me, she said, yeah,
Starting point is 00:38:30 you know, I've always, always wanted to adopt. And, and it caught me off guard a little bit. Cause I had never really thought about it. And quite frankly, I was like, well, I've never thought about this, but I'll do anything to marry you. Like I'm completely on board with that. Cause ever since she was a teenager, like 14 years old, she had it on her heart to adopt. She used to, she used to serve at an inner city mission in Columbia, Missouri. She used to go on these mission trips to Jamaica and she just loved children. And, but she also knew she, she, when you go on mission trips, obviously you see the hurt in the world and you see fatherlessness and you see, you see orphans and you see, yeah, you know, and, and so I think that was always ingrained in her and everybody around her knew Bree Willett. Someday she said, you know, if I, if I ever get married and I marry a good man, I want to adopt children. I want that. That's how I want to build a family. And, uh, you know, obviously after praying about it and seeking wise counsel about it and thinking about it a lot, obviously I was like, hey, I'm on board.
Starting point is 00:39:29 Let's, you know, let's do it. And we adopted our first son. And then what was the distance between adopting the two children? Hap was 2017 and then Ace was 2022. So it's like five years. Wow. And they're not siblings. No.
Starting point is 00:39:42 Yeah. That's amazing. God bless you. This is incredible. So I want to switch gears a little bit because, um, I want to talk about, uh, what you do in addition to your, your typical fighting regimen to, to have your body in top physical condition. Um, you know, I mean, you're obviously a physical specimen. Um, so you're, you're no stranger, obviously growing up, you know, D1 wrestler, high school wrestler, D1 wrestler, cage fighter. But you're getting, you know, 38 years old.
Starting point is 00:40:12 You have to pay a lot more attention to recovery than a fighter does when they're 21 years old, 22 years old. I mean, at that age, you can't be killed by a bullet. And, you know, and the knees and hips and shoulders and rotator cuffs and the low back, just don't, don't ache the way they do when, when you get older and you've, you've, you've, you put some miles on yourself in the ring. You've probably, you know, you've had a lot of, um, you know, a lot of contact, a lot of heavy weights. Um, talk a little bit about what your regimen is like. I mean, obviously we, we lot together with 10X Health, but what is your regimen that you would say for recovery is outside of what you see going on with your peers? I mean, most people are strength training and obviously doing their jujitsu and stand up and what have
Starting point is 00:40:55 you. I would say, I mean, my emphasis towards strength training is so much higher than everyone else in the sport. I believe they use it as a very small supplement to the sport, but I believe my body is so durable because I've put it under heavy load constantly, day after day after day since I was in high school. And obviously the college wrestling environment, we lifted weights and we lifted heavy and we were constantly wrestling because in these in this contact sport where you're constantly getting
Starting point is 00:41:28 pulled on and contortionists and elbows and and joints and stuff going different ways and load bearing in these weird little positions it's so important to be strong in those positions so um strength training to me has been a superpower for me, probably doing it too much in a lot of people's eyes. Yet, I still keep my explosiveness. I'm still able to make weight because I don't put on a ton of muscle mass on. I have a good amount of muscle mass, but it's also my body armor. Right. And then also, yeah, similar to what you said about being young. young, as soon as I hit 27 years old or so, I realized I was starting to get closer to the end
Starting point is 00:42:06 of the career than I was the beginning of the career, which started at 2022. And that's when I really started emphasizing body work, getting body work every single week in my own manual therapy via a roller. So I'm one of the only, one of the only guys at my gym who started rolling out every single day before practice um for 20 30 minutes getting there early getting a good little stretch and actually rolling it out getting my body moving and then all of a sudden the young young guys start kind of seeing me do it and they're all getting on their rollers and stuff now um so those two things rolling you're doing red light yes and then so then now with when we have been starting to work together, um, the hypermax oxygen, the cold plunge, the pimp mat and the red light.
Starting point is 00:42:52 Yeah. Um, and that this last camp, um, as we talked about, this was the best I've ever felt in my entire life at 38 years old, 38, 38 years of scar tissue and all these things. Yeah. Um, my endurance, my recovery. And yes, there's, there's always. 38 years old, 38, 38 years of scar tissue and all these things. Yeah. My endurance, my recovery. And yes, there's, there's always. Because people talk about your gas tank because you have so much muscle.
Starting point is 00:43:11 Yeah. They're like, you know, the later, the later he goes that, you know, the more gas he gets because, you know, he's carrying all that muscle into late rounds. Yeah. And you're, you're conscious of that and combating that by trying to recover and increase your VO2 max and improve your gas tank. Yeah, it's been awesome. And I have the Hypermax in my house in Florida where I do my training camps and then also in Nashville. So even when I bounce back and forth, I've got everything set up.
Starting point is 00:43:37 And then the red light and the pimp, it's taken. Because, you know, like you said said speaking about the highest level athletes we all to a certain extent we all train hard we're all pretty disciplined there's certain little differentiators but how do you get that one that extra little one percent better that whether it's explosiveness or cardio or um endurance or even more important than all of those things is recovery because your current workout is only as effective as your recovery was from the previous workout or the previous damage that you have done to yourself. So every single day, just the revolving door of redlining yourself and then recovering and then redlining and recovering.
Starting point is 00:44:14 And I think we're so good at redlining ourselves. I mean, you know, most athletes have their strength training down. They have their stand-up training, their jujitsu training down, but it's whether or not their body is keeping up with the, with the damage that they're making. And one of my favorite recovery devices is the, is a red light therapy bed. And I know when you started using it, you saw a parabolic rise in your recovery. Hydrogen water is another one. Good call. I'll fire that up right now. Yeah. So I, yeah, I just started doing this a couple of months ago now. I'm just having one of these. You'll notice delayed onset muscle soreness, you know, inflammation, recovery joints especially.
Starting point is 00:44:51 I even have a little surprise that I got for you to help close that last 1%. Can we bring that over here? I like surprises. I know. These are recovery surprises. Yes. here i like surprises i know these are recovery surprises yes um so uh you know i'm obviously enormous fan of the pemf the pulse electric magnetic field you know keeps your body alkaline using the ewot the exercise with oxygen therapy this is my newest recovery love right here um
Starting point is 00:45:20 brother you're gonna love this um so this is. So this is a hydrogen gas generator that you put into your bathtub. And what it does is it saturates the bath with hydrogen gas, just like this water bottle will do, but just in higher concentration. And we know that this gas can go transdermal. It goes right through the skin. So inflammation, circulation, what we call vasomotor activity, which is your micro-circulation. Only 30% roughly of our circulation is actually done by our heart. The other 70% of our circulation is done by something called vasomotor.
Starting point is 00:45:59 It's kind of like a snake swallowing a mouse, right? It's the microvasculature moving blood around so this is the way that we heal and repair at phenomenal wolverine rates i cannot wait to hear how you respond when you start 20 minutes a night you're going to be in a hydrogen bath um it feels great it's that you keep the bath at 102 degrees we saturate it with hydrogen gas you sit down in that bath that gas is right transdermal and then it's is it little the little bubbles it's yeah it's a little micro bubbles kind of like the bubbles you see in here yeah but um um and some of the things we talked about with your son too yeah i think this will really help your son too with some of the topical
Starting point is 00:46:36 that's a game changer because that's that's one of the toughest things in my life right now with him i know we've had many to talk about it. And if there's anything that I can do, you know, to serve you, it's such a blessing to be able to work with you. Then, you know, I pray that this is going to be the solution that your son needs. And I really think that we'll be. Yes.
Starting point is 00:46:57 Sounds like I got a date. Yeah. 20 minutes a day. I'm going to give something to another man to use in the bathtub. Whatever. You're a UFC fighter. You're secure in your manhood.
Starting point is 00:47:07 I'm a tough guy. I can give you a bathing device. I play a tough guy on TV. Yeah. It's better than a rubber ducky, man. That is awesome. Thank you. I'm excited about that.
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Starting point is 00:47:36 is necessary for complete protein synthesis without the caloric impact. But if we want perfect protein synthesis, we need to look at the process of protein synthesis itself. Because if the process is faulty, we won't get the correctly made protein, collagen, fibrin, or the red blood cells in our bloodstream or our muscles.
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Starting point is 00:48:39 these. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. So what can the fans expect next out of Michael Chandler? We got a date set now? Yep. November 16th, Madison Square Garden, the world's most iconic arena. The main event. So Charles and I are the co-main event, five rounds. Main event. I don't know if it's been announced yet, so I don't know if i should maybe say it but obviously there's speculation out there fighting somebody else wouldn't that
Starting point is 00:49:09 be the biggest kick in the teeth right that would be the biggest kick yeah you're like okay well the main event at this point nothing would surprise me but um uh so and uh he could fight himself maybe for the first time well he loves himself enough to probably fight himself because he's nobody else deserves to be on the ticket yeah um and so that will be the you know the next step in me pursuing and also then achieving what i believe has been my my goal not just my goal but my destiny the entire time and maybe this is the way it was supposed to be the entire time beat charles olivera which why beat him the first something about redemption yeah why beat him the first time if there's even a better storyline you can beat
Starting point is 00:49:52 him the second time and beat him on a rematch and beat him at the right time to then go fight for the title and then good old-fashioned passionate division one missouri american wrestling versus dagastani sambo islam uh mahache, who I have a ton of respect for, but I believe I will, I match up well against him. And then, uh, and then, and then if the Conor fight happens, if he can get his house in order, that, uh, that is a fight that I obviously want. Cause I want to, I want to finish that chapter. I feel like it's, there's, we waited and there was so many ups and downs and, you know, I went through things with it when it, when it comes to all of the, you know, being away from my family but then not actually getting to fight was very
Starting point is 00:50:28 tough like yeah it wasn't wasted time i would never say it's wasted time right and anybody who's listening or you you've had times in your life like man that was a wasted time but was it it wasn't really wasted time because of the man i became from it um my wife and i talk about that a lot a lot a lot of the a lot of the things at the time that we found to be, we built a business together and it wasn't always a successful business. And along the road, you know, when you're in a business with your spouse, your relationship is very much tied to the business. You have a good day at work, you have a good day at home. You have a bad day at work, you have a bad day at home. I meet all kinds of people that are like, oh, you can separate your
Starting point is 00:51:04 business from your personal life. No, you can't, right? No, you have a good day at home. You have a bad day at work, you have a bad day at home. I meet all kinds of people that are like, oh, you can separate your business from your personal life. No, you can't, right? No, you cannot. Well, and especially when they're your biggest fan and you're their biggest fan and they're your best friend, it's almost you want to always share every single thing with them, every single update, right? And I've found myself trying to protect my wife, Brie,
Starting point is 00:51:20 a little bit more with not giving her half truths or half informations until everything is 100% concrete because this whole experience has been up and down in the media and everything. She's like, Hey, I heard this. And Hey, I heard that. Hey, what did Hunter, what did Dana say? But then it's like, yeah. So we were constantly in it and there was a constant update or non-update and sometimes no news was good news and sometimes bad news was good and all of the different things. So, yeah, we've gone over through that this last year and a half. And what, so I want to close that chapter. I want to punch this guy in the mouth and I want to finish him.
Starting point is 00:51:52 But if it never happens, it never happens. One thing that I did also realize, and I've always realized it and I always knew it. I just wasn't public about it. I do not need Conor McGregor for my legacy. I do not need Conor McGregor. I don't need this Conor McGregor. I want this Conor McGregor fight. I desire this Conor McGregor for my legacy. I do not need Conor McGregor. I don't need this Conor McGregor fight. I want this Conor McGregor fight. I desire this Conor McGregor fight.
Starting point is 00:52:08 I think it's great for me in a lot of different things from a career-wise to the biggest lights, to the most amount of money, to the brightest lights. But I don't need it. But I want it. So that was one thing that I can finally stand firm in and say, Hey, I'm passing up on it. It is going to set you up for a title fight. I mean, and that's, that's ultimately your goal, which is the most important thing, right? And, you know, because that's always the question. And the funny thing is there's always this public perception and
Starting point is 00:52:37 there's all these lies out there when it comes to other fighters of what their motivation would be. Everybody wants this counter fight, by the way, every single one of them, whether they say they wouldn't fight him or they say chandler's an idiot for waiting everybody wants it and i don't think a lot of the fighters would have the the cojones to to step away from this and go fight a killer and charles olivera i do believe i'm a guy who's making a decision that not a lot of guys would do whether they say it or admit it or not so i can put that feather in my cap and I can go out there at Madison square garden. I know it's hard to look to the other side of that fight,
Starting point is 00:53:11 but if you were to take a, a view beyond the Olivera fight after you finish him, who are you set up for to fight for a championship? Who are you set up with? I believe it's Islam. I think Islam versus Arman is a fight that's already, it's not booked, but they're booked together. They just don't have a date.
Starting point is 00:53:31 I believe that fight was supposed to happen in December. I heard there might've been an injury. I want to fight Islam because I believe- Islam's going to, yeah, I mean- He's a stud, man. He's good. He's a dangerous fight. He's gaining momentum.
Starting point is 00:53:44 He's getting better with every single performance. Um, life is all about challenging yourself. Life is all about throwing yourself into a sets of circumstances that the probability of you losing or falling short is higher than you feel comfortable with. And I love those type of opportunities. I love, I'm not a prove a guy wrong type of guy. I'm not like, Hey, well you say I can't do it. We'll watch me do it. I love, I'm not a prove a guy wrong type of guy. I'm not like, Hey, well, you say I can't do it. We'll watch me do it. I love that about Dana. That's kind of Dana's mentality. That's why very much. That's why people love him. Right. I'm not really that guy, but I'm more of a prove my supporters and my believers correct more than proving the doubters wrong type of guy. But in these types of scenarios, it's the DAC would be stacked against me. And
Starting point is 00:54:24 there'd be a lot of people who I would, would not believe that I can beat Islam. Just like nobody believed I would beat Eddie Alvarez whenever I came into the sport and he was ranked number five and the whole world thought I was going to get beat by this big world-class guy. And I looked across the cage and said, Hey, this guy's better than me at fighting. He's got more skills than me at fighting, but I was destined to be here and I'm about to be this guy. And I believe, I believe that. You remember thinking that. I remember thinking that, but I also remember thinking I was crazy. I also remember thinking, why do you believe you're about to beat this guy?
Starting point is 00:54:51 He's beaten all of these guys. He's ranked number three, number five in the world. You're not even supposed to be in the same cage with him, but for some reason, and really going back to, you know, playing small and sabotaging myself. I did that to myself in the sport of wrestling so many times that I made a promise to myself. I remember being at this arena in St. Louis and I took my singlet straps off for the last time. And I remember the relief that I had that finally this thing is over because I kept putting so much pressure on myself.
Starting point is 00:55:21 But then also the hope that I had because I knew I was going to mix martial arts and I made a promise to myself that i was going to stop playing small and i was going to never self-sabotage myself again yeah and then 18 months later i'm standing in an octagon or standing in a bellator cage against opposite eddie alvarez a guy who was arguably people thought he would go to you would go to the ufc and become ufc champion and ultimately he did um and I beat him that night. And it was just, I stopped playing small. That must have been, you know, I've often really like truly wondered what it's like to be in that octagon for a fight. I don't care how many
Starting point is 00:55:58 fights you've had, but when that cage locks and the crowd is going crazy and you know, there's somebody on the other side of that octagon who's actually only there to hurt you. That's really one goal. They have one goal. And it involves you and it's not a, it's not a good, it's not a good ending for you. And, um, you know, on a much different scale, you know, I, I've done a lot of public speaking and I don't know that I've ever gotten completely used to walking onto a big stage, you know, and I've spoken on, you know, small ballrooms, but I've spoken in stadiums that have had, you know, basketball stadiums with 30,000 people. And for me, when I'm, you know, when I walk out on that stage and I look at the crowd,
Starting point is 00:56:35 you know, I, I get this, um, sort of tightness in my chest and I've realized, shoot, I got to actually say something. Yep. Right. I mean, I'm, I'm by myself. All the eyes are on me and I don't have the pressure. Nobody, nobody's actually there to hurt me. Right. So just put us in that, put us in that moment. Um, what, what, what that's like, cause that's gotta be the best and the worst and the craziest. And I mean, it's gotta be a drug, like nothing else in the world. It is. Yeah, it is. And, and the craziest. And I mean, it's got to be a drug like nothing else in the world. It is. Yeah, it is.
Starting point is 00:57:07 And the beautiful thing about it is, is I know I was born for this because when I go in there, there is no apprehension. There is no lack of- You're calm. Yeah, I'm just so calm because everyone's like, hey, man, what do you listen to? What do you got to do? How you got to get pumped up? The last thing I want to do is get pumped up.
Starting point is 00:57:24 I know I'm in the right state of mind when I'm listening to music and tears are starting to fill up in my eyes because I'm so grateful for what I get to do and who I get to do it for. Um, and I think about my wife and I think about my kids and I think about, I think about what I get to do in this masterpiece that I'm painting for my sons to see my kids to see and the millions of people around the world that get to see it um that's where I want to be and it's it's you don't want you don't think well tears in your eyes and your heart full and you're coming right now right you don't really think that's that's where you want to be if you're going to go get into a physical
Starting point is 00:57:58 altercation in your underwear you know with no barely any clothes on with no shoes in front of millions of people locked into a cage. You wouldn't think that, but that's exactly where I feel I need to be. That's where that's my homeostasis to be able to get into my flow state. Um, and when that door closes, there's this, you know, you've been to so many fights now, you, you know, what the octagon kind of smells like. Cause you, you, you're right there. That smell, that smell put, turns me into a different person. And it happens to me every time I go to the fights, you know, I'll be at the spheres tonight and you'll smell it and you'll smell the air and you'll feel the
Starting point is 00:58:33 air and you'll feel that you'll feel the energy. And you, you know, obviously tonight the guard is down cause I get to go watch the fights and not actually have to fight. But that smell brings about something in me that I just become a little bit of a different person and the lights are bright and you can hear the chatter and you can hear the cheers and you can feel the energy and it's it's so then does it all kind of then yeah then is it just tune out and you're only your opponent in front of you or are you ever distracted by somebody just bellowing through the cage because i mean there's some people sitting next to me at these fights are yelling their ass off yeah right most
Starting point is 00:59:10 of the time not and mainly because my fights are so crazy there's there's never all of my fights are edge of your seat type of non-stop action non-stop violence type of fights so there's never a lot of time where it's like you never hear footsteps in my fights whereas there's some fights where you can hear the footsteps because the crowd's kind of just watching two guys point fight. And they're not watching one guy try to, you know, absolutely damage somebody like I, the way that I fight. So most of the time it's so loud in there that you're just, you're just focused on targets and threats and the two arms and two legs and a head and the torso of a body. And obviously there's the referees in there. You never see the referee, you know, obviously cause they're good at getting out of the way, but you're just trying to limit your distractions and honing in aim small,
Starting point is 00:59:55 miss small on your opponent. Wow. That is amazing, man. I mean, never had somebody put me in that perspective before, but, but public speaking, I can't, I've spoken at a lot of different places, nothing like that big, but what's great about it is you can have confidence going onto the stage and speaking, but you're only as good as how well your audience is accepting and receiving what you're saying. Right. So there's so much more, there's so much more propensity to feel like you're failing in that scenario because you can't see the instant feedback unless people, it's awesome when you actually see a crowd laugh or they're smiling or they're nodding or they're taking notes, but that doesn't always happen. You're just sitting there thinking, man, is anybody listening? Is this falling on deaf ears right now? Whereas in a fight is that when I land a punch,
Starting point is 01:00:41 I felt the punch land and hear the crowd, you know, it's there's, and I'm so much more in control of what's happening in the fight compared to speaking on a stage and just hoping that people are listening to what I'm saying. You know, I always say, you just got to get the first, you got to get the first minute of your speech down, you know, so you can get through the jitters. Um, and you got to have a really good grasp of your topic because if your mind goes blank, you're just going off of what you really truly know. Everybody's biggest fear. Yeah. Um, that's why I never do i never have um notes and i don't really go off a slide presentations i just try to speak from the heart that's awesome but um dude you're amazing man i mean this has this been an un unbelievable podcast i'm gonna come back we're gonna run it again after olivera you're gonna walk through oliveira let me not walk through
Starting point is 01:01:22 them but you're gonna you're gonna finish i'd like to walk through them. That'd be great. I'm due for an easy fight. That'd be awesome. I'm going to put that out to the universe, brother. Olivera, I'm sorry, brother. My wife would love if I walked. Just walk through it. No more
Starting point is 01:01:38 cauliflower in the ears. She's like, there's enough. Exactly. I end every podcast the same way, and there's no right Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I end every podcast the same way and there's no right or wrong answer to this question. But I ask every guest, what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? I believe being an ultimate human
Starting point is 01:01:56 isn't exactly where you are today or what you're doing today, but having the confident expectancy that if I continue to do the right things and I try to get the most out of the gifts that I was given, we all have unique gifts. There's, there's a certain list of things that we need to do. There's a certain, there are certain, um, roads that we need to go down. There's certain things that we need to do to optimize ourself. Um, but ultimately the best version of yourself, and not just physically,
Starting point is 01:02:28 you know, I'm obviously a guy who I'm always trying to be the best physical version of myself, but it's there's nothing more important to me than when people say, Hey, I love who you are, not because of your veins, your abs, or you look like a super, super hero, or any of these things you fight in a cage, but because you're a good human being and you want to become the best version of yourself and you want to see other, other people become the best version of yourself because that version of yourself is out there. And sometimes you need to go through tough scenarios to get there, but he, he, or she is out there. It just depends on whether or not you have the courage to go through the mud and the muck and the valleys and keep on climbing. Yeah. You know, I got to tell you, I mean, I wasn't planning on telling
Starting point is 01:03:09 this story, but, but to your point, when you walked in here today, you know, my, my private security guard is also a very, very close friend of mine. he's a former professional uh mma heavyweight um i'm walking by and i overhear him pull you aside and tell you what a difference he you've made in his life as an athlete he told you that you had the greatest influence over him to get kind of pull his shit together in his relationship with his with with his girlfriend and, and, and put her in his relationship first. And I just, I overheard the conversation and, and, um, you know, this is, this is a, um, someone that did seven combat tours, you know, um, former Marine, you know, MMA fighter, um, you know, big burly dude. And he, and you had touched his life in that way.
Starting point is 01:04:04 And I don't think you guys have ever met. So your message is resonating brother. Yeah. I got to hear it today firsthand. Those, those are those moments, man. It's, and, and, and once again, just goes back to gratefulness and gratitude and that I get to do what I get to do. And there's, there's, there's a calling on my life and, and for me to not give every single ounce of my human to it yeah is is really bastardizing those blessings well i know everybody in this room and everybody on this podcast cannot wait to see the olivera fight can't wait man i'm getting pumped i'll be there for florida tomorrow or monday and camp time camp time baby awesome brother well best of luck man michael chan i hope to have you back man thank you for having me that's just science

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