Transcript of #2384 - Mark Kerr

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Mark, what's happening? Yo, dude, the movie's fantastic. And I know I told you outside, but I wanted to save it when I kind of have a. Had a little bit of a prejudice when I went to see the movie, I was like, okay, it's gonna be an MMA movie. Yeah, but it's not. It's a movie that happens to be about mma. But it's a great movie.

Oh, I appreciate it.

It's really good, man. It's. It's like, you know, it's very gripping and the performances are fantastic. And the way the Rock did you was nuts.

I, like, I can't explain it. It. I. I keep using the word surreal, but it doesn't describe it. Like, I was saying that my son, when he watched it and just flipping out, like, talking to me, like, on the side. Like, I was saying, like, literally just going, dad, dad, he's got your mannerisms, he's got your speech pattern. But you imagine like, I'm. I'm picturing my son, he's in New York when he watched that. And so I'm picturing him in the corner of the lobby of the theater, talking with his back to everybody, going, oh, my God, Dad. Like, it's like a doppelganger. He's got all of it, you know, like, full blown. Like, it was like the, The. Because a lot of my saying for myself is, I'm. I can't see the forest through the trees. I'm in the middle of it. My looking at it objectively. Am I really looking at. Or am I seeing something and hear my son say, oh, my gosh, dad, he nailed it, right?

No.

Unbelievable.

He really did nail it. I, like we were saying in the lobby, like, I didn't know the Rock could act that well. You know, it's really good acting. It's not like blockbuster movie acting, which is. He's great at that, but it's a different thing.

It's. So with dj, I kept trying to say to him, you don't have to do this, dude. Like, you don't have to do this. And he would. He would stop me and he would go, yeah, I do.

What do you mean by you don't have to do this?

So. Meaning that, like, he's. He's at a place in his life where he can just keep doing blockbusters and be perfectly fine with it. There's. There. I mean, he says it himself. There's always a place for that. There's always going to be a place for blockbuster movies and. And for that. But he needed to do something different. He needed to do something different.

Well, it's a perfect role if you want to do something different for him, because it's a very complex role, and it's about a giant dude, and that's him. So it's like really, like, the perfect way, because otherwise, if you're built like he is, it's very hard to get work as a serious actor. This might be like, the only opportunity to show people, like, hey, I can actually act.

Ye. Yeah.

I think he did it. He did.

He did an amazing job. I mean, amazing to the point where, like, Emily. Unbelievable.

She's great. She plays such a crazy.

Oh, my God, man, she's so good. Oh, my God.

She's so good at playing crazy.

Oh, my God.

It gave me anxiety. Like, some of it sometimes, like when you're getting ready to fight, she's starting arguments.

I'm like, oh, my God.

Getting anxiety.

So here's what was he so vet. So I saw a. A 80% complete version of the film in. In January of this year. And then. And then the first time I see a complete version of it was in Venice. And so I'm in Venice, and there's Benny on my right, and there's DJ on my left, and there's Emily next to DJ in the last scene of the movie. Right. That intensity of that scene, I'm just telling you, it was like I. I said it was therapy for me because I think for the first time I could actually. I could actually see my part in it. Like, I could see my part how hard I was on the people around me, you know, how just singularly driven I was to accomplish something at all, at all cost. And the person that paid it the most was Dawn. She paid a heavy price, you know, and, you know, anybody that's successful, you know, for me, I was trying to raise everybody up, you know, everybody around me, and it was just a selfish endeavor. And I could see it in those moments, I could see it. And what.

Who DJ was, you know, and who Emily was in the intensity. I was like, fuck.

Well, it's such a crazy task to try to be an elite MMA fighter at a time where there was no. No one even knew what it was.

No, I mean, you.

When you first. I met you in 97, there's a crazy photo of us.

I saw that.

Dude. 97, that's like 30 years ago almost, isn't that nuts.

So this is what's crazy. So trying to describe what I did back then. Like, people, their jaws would hang open, right? They would go, you do what?

Like, why would you do that? That's us, 1997. Dude. That's so crazy.

Oh, my God.

So crazy.

Oh, my God. Were they even paying you back then?

A little bit. They paid me a little bit.

Oh, my.

It wasn't a lot of money, but it was for me. It was just for fun. It was like I was a giant fan of the sport. And what happened was Campbell McLaren. Do you remember Campbell? Yeah, he. He was good friends with my manager, J. And they were just talking and he said, we need a guy to do backstage interviews, post fight interviews. And he goes, joe really loves the sport. He's like, really? He goes like, oh, yeah. He follows all the fights in Japan and he's like. And so for me, it was just fun. I mean, it wasn't. It was actually costing me money, which is why I wound up quitting, because I quit. And I did it for like a year and a half, two years maybe. And then in 98, I was like, I can't do this anymore. I'm just. It's just actually costing me money.

And.

And so then when I started doing Fear Factor, that's when Zufa bought it. I wound up working for them again. But in those days, for me, it was a dream, because as a lifelong martial artist, when I was a kid, there was always the big question, what was the best style? And no one knew until Hori and Gracie put it all together and decided to create the ufc. And then all of a sudden, we get to see it. And then obviously you had Japan, Vale Tudo, and then Pride, and all these big events over in Japan. And. And it. It became, to me, it was like, finally someone did it.

That was so part of my first fights in Brazil. I was still brainwashed by the idea that, oh, he's seven foot tall or six, nine, he's the toughest dude in the room.

Right?

Because. Because you. Because that's how I grew up, right? Or 10th degree black belt, same thing.

Right, right, right.

Oh, no, no, no, no. Don't mess with him.

Yeah.

And in one where. Where that first time I fought, I was still under the delusion that that was the truth. And so my trainer kept going, trust me, you're gonna. You're gonna do fine. Trust me, you're gonna do fine. And it's just like, he understood what, what, what I was as a wrestler, you know, that I Can impose. Like I said to tell you the best definition I've ever had for a wrestler is I can hold a grown ass man where he doesn't want to be held for as long as I want to hold him there. And he can't do a thing about it.

Exactly.

That's a wrestler.

And you can dictate where. So if you come a wrestler like Chuck Liddell.

Yep.

Then you say, no, no, you can't take me down. So I'm just going to beat the fuck out of you standing. And there's nothing you could do about it.

Not, Not a single thing.

It's the most important skill.

Oh my God. It's foundational.

Foundational.

And that's why there's so much success for, for the deck. I'm going to blank on the names. But the, the wrestlers are. It's a resurgence of like really what a foundational piece it is.

Yeah.

And how important have a high high. You know, what they're able to do too. As a wrestler. I always just look at the Russian wrestlers and go, what makes them so good? They could flurry in succession more times than I could. Like Kurt Angle. Right. Where I wrestled against Kurt. Kurt trained at a level that I wasn't training at. He could sustain a flurry to the point where I would just make mistakes because I would be to exhaustion. And you watch him. These, they'll string these moves together and string them like Hamza.

Yeah.

My God.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable. Because you'll see, you'll see him shoot, reshoot, shoot again, get up, stand up, fake, shoot again. And you can't keep up with it.

Yep.

You just inevitably you just make mistakes or you just give into the exhaustion of the moment. Right?

Yeah.

And it's just like, okay. Nothing you can do about it.

When a guy has insane cardio with those kind of skills, it is the toughest combination. To be like Cain Velasquez in his prime, you know.

Oh my God.

Insane cardio. Elite wrestling and then elite MMA stand up skills as well.

Everything scary.

The cardio is the scariest thing because when you're scared to hit the gas like three more minutes in the round and you see Kane is just bob, bobbing around like he's not even breathing heavy in between rounds. His stomach's not even heaving.

He's a big dude.

He's 240 and he's not even tired. It doesn't make any sense.

Yeah. It defies logic.

But there's guys like that that have that insane cardio, you know. I mean, I Don't know how much you're following the ufc, but this is kid Anthony Hernandez in the middleweight division. That's nuts. And then you got Marab, Rob, Dabash, Willie, who's like, the best example of it. Unstoppable.

So this is kind of, again, one of these things where. Where there's certain athletes that have a gear that nobody else has.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's just how they're built. It's just how they're built.

Well, I remember when you came along and when Coleman came along, all of a sudden everybody's like, I gotta get on steroids. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Yeah. But it's like, I gotta get bigger. I gotta get bigger.

That's what Vitor got up to, like, £240. He was big.

He was big.

Way too big for his frame. You're talking about a guy who eventually wound up fighting at 185.

Yeah. Right.

I mean, he finished his career up at 85, and he was there at 240 when he fought Randy the first time.

Yeah.

Which was bananas.

So that night was my last UFC, that UFC 15.

Ah. Wow.

And that's when Randy beat Vitor. And as one of those where I'm like, oh, just wait. I know, because I know what Randy is. Right? Randy's cardio. Randy's like, he can take it. And he. It was one of those things where I was like, I don't think Victor's gonna win.

Right.

It's just.

That's what we call him back then. His name was Victor.

Yeah.

When he first came into the ufc, his first fight, when he was fighting in Hawaii, he was Victor Gracie.

Oh, snap. Yeah.

Yeah. He was going by the. The last name Gracie. And then I think he got sued or threatened with a lawsuit, and then he changed it to Victor Buffer because, like, Horian was very litigious, you know?

Yeah.

He was, like, very protective of the Gracie name. And so he fought John Hess in Hawaii and beat the living Rumble on.

The Rock stuff or whatever.

I don't think it was Rumble on the rock. That was BJ's promotion. And that was later. This was, like, really early on. This was. I don't know who the was doing that event, but it was just in a ring, and Vitor came out and blitzed him with punches, and nobody had seen anything like that before. Like, oh, God, this is a. Because everybody thought Brazilian jiu jitsu, black belt.

Yeah.

You don't think you're going to have a guy who has hands like that.

Oh, my God. His Hand speed was unreal.

He was so fast.

Unreal and accurate.

Yeah.

Like, you could be fast, and that's one thing, but fast and actually hitting the target, when the target's bobbing and weaving, it's like, oh, my God, man.

He's an interest. Case study, because he's like, first of all, pioneer. Right. First fought in the UFC when he was 19 years old.

Crazy.

And, you know, went through. Won the tournament at 19, which is just bananas. And then when we got to see him, kind of. He got off the sauce, and his body kind of faded out. And then they brought back testosterone replacement. And then when testosterone replacement came in, all the sudden it was TRTV Tour, and he was the scariest motherfucker Al, for like, five fights or whatever it was before they killed the TRT exemptions. And then it all went away for him. It's just like. That should be a commercial for testosterone replacement.

Yeah. I mean, it really could be, you know, part. You know, back then, because there was so much myth surrounding mixed martial arts that you felt like if you didn't do something, it was like the saying is like, oh, you're going to a gunfight with a knife. Right. It was. That type of mentality back then was also.

Everyone was on it, and there was no testing.

Yeah. Yeah.

And in fact, in Pride, when Ensign was on the podcast, he told me that in large letters, it said, we do not test for.

Yeah. Oh, my God.

They're like, yeah.

So they.

So they would literally.

They would do this. They would hand you a cup and go, urine. And you go, who's clean? You just look around, you just. You just hand the cup off going, hey, can you piss from here? And you literally walk back to the medical and go, here's the P. Yeah, here. And, I mean, that's the. But that's the era. It was.

So your first fight, was it. Was it in Brazil?

In Brazil, yeah.

And the crazy thing is they reproduced that arena, that. That conference room.

Yeah.

Perfectly.

Yeah.

Like, because I saw your first fight. I saw all those early fights, and then to see that in, like, the movie, I was like, oh, they did it. This is perfect.

Yeah.

Because, you know, sometimes they fudge a little. You know, they.

So. So here's what. So I was in Vancouver for the set when they had the setup, and I sit there, I was laughing with Benny about it going, all right, who came up with the pyramid in the door opening with fog machines? Because it's like. Like, I can't even imagine the brainstorm going, you got any Bright ideas of how to introduce the. Yeah, let's do a pyramid and let's have a trapdoor fall. You know, it's like, what the fuck? Hair in the bigger picture of stuff are going. But they reproduced it to the tea.

It was perfect.

Oh, my God. It was amazing.

It was really great because in. In the movie they did about Mark Schultz. What was that movie again? Fox Catch. That's right.

Yeah.

That. That movie had a lot of shenanigans in it. There was a lot of stuff that wasn't.

Wasn't accurate.

It wasn't accurate.

Yeah.

Like, he fought Big Daddy Goodrich in his one MMA fight, but in the movie, he's fighting some Russian dude. Didn't make any sense. No, Completely different. Cat fought a white guy in the movie. Wow. Yeah. He fought Big Daddy Goodrich, and Big Daddy was wearing the ghee.

Like, wow.

Yeah. Remember?

I mean, not only that, but it was a.

Big Daddy Goodrich is a legend.

Yeah.

Like, how do you leave him out when that was his only MMA fight? Like, why did you change the guy he fought? That doesn't even make any sense. But they just did. Hollywood shenanigans, yo.

So, you know, that was a huge part from the beginning of this when. When DJ and I. DJ and I talked back in 2019 is just the. Like, the trust factor.

You guys started talking about this.

Yeah. 2019. Wow. Yeah.

Six years.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Here's what's crazy. So. So he says, hey, you know, we're gonna move forward with this. And. And I. So, for me, I hadn't even thought about any of this, like, it being a movie. He wants to play me in a movie. And he goes, I'm gonna make the announcement. Madison Square Garden at the BMF belt. He goes, this. We had this beautiful conversation, and it was just like this. Do you trust me? And it was like, yeah. Yeah, I do.

He's a fucking great dude.

Oh, my God. Solid. He's. By the way, he says, say hi. He left me a great message on the way over here. I was listening to him, and he's just. He's. He's a rare human being.

He is. I'm going to call him after this just to tell him what a amazing job he did, because I wanted to watch it right before I saw you.

Okay.

So I watched it today, and I was like, God damn, it's a good movie, man. And I just. I was just blown away by how well he captured the chaos of the Pride Organization, although the weirdness of the contract negotiations, everything Off.

So, so Benny from the beginning said, the only way we're going to be able to do this is have that authenticity to the point where I sent them watches, rings, necklaces, posters, everything I could find, picture wise, everything to their props and production.

Oh, wow.

Reproduced everything. Oh, wow. So, Joe. And when, I mean, like when I went up to Vancouver, like, and walked into some of these sets, like, literally going, holy.

Did he flashback.

Oh, my God. Like, like you'd walk into a room and there. There'd be from one corner all the way to the other on the wall, just pictures of me and my house in my. This and this outfit, this and these in my house and this and. And then production saying, okay, was this accurate? How did this. It was this. It was this unbelievable, painstaking. They rebuilt my life 25 years ago. So when DJ got into carrot got into me, he actually was. That was. He was me. Wow.

Yeah, it seemed like it, man. I mean, it really did because, you know, it's just. It's hard when a guy's so famous to pretend that he's someone else. Yeah, he has to, like, be really good to get you convinced. And I was all in. I was all in.

So, first time I saw him in, in Vancouver, like, nobody told me, nobody said, hey, listen, we're going to do prosthetics, we're going to give him your cauliflower ear, we're going to make his brow. And nobody told me this. So I was up there for fight week and they're getting ready to shoot the scene where they're introducing everybody to the finalists for the Grand Prix. And so DJ is the last one to walk in and I'm watching the ring. I don't know. He's behind me and I turn around and it's like this, Like, I see him as me. Like, this is Joe. This is what I did. I'm like, fuck you. Like, fuck you. Like, oh, my God. And it's this moment where I'm looking at him and I'm. I'm looking at my. Like, myself. Yeah, I could still see him in there, but I'm like looking at a. Like a mirror picture myself and it's this experience where I'm like, oh, my God, man. Like, wow. Like, like you're going. Like, this is you going to a place that nobody even thought you could get to. Right? Like, it was. It was incredible.

Well, you're, you're such an important part of the history of MMA that I think this movie did that. It really honored that. It really did. It Justice. Because at the end of the movie, when it talks about how fighters today.

Make millions of dollars, I'll cry. Go on. I'm sorry.

No, it's okay. It's like. But that you guys paved the way. If it wasn't for you guys just doing it for very little money. Like barely getting by. Putting your whole life on the line and barely getting by. Oh, and I love that you had Alexander Usyk.

Oh, my God.

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So Benny signed him before he beat. Before he became the undisputed champ.

Oh, wow. Right? 2019.

Yeah.

Wow.

So. So it's one of those things where everything just kind of lined up in a way where you're like, all right, this is like. This is manifest destiny. Right? This is like. This is like Joe Dispenza, you know, like. Like really, like. Like you're really tapping into something that's bigger because it's pulled all these people together.

Usyk did a great job.

Oh, my God. He did that. Spinning back. I'm like, he's a boxer. He's not supposed to. Yeah.

I mean, I didn't even know he could do that.

No, neither die.

It's kind of crazy.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I guess that guy could kind of do anything.

Yeah. Oh, my God. He's. He's. You know how many rounds he trained prior to. To fighting Tyson Fury?

No.

600. Jesus. With three different training partners. So every dude came in every third round, he had a fresh guy on him.

I know that he was doing 15 rounds a day. And he made a deal with himself that his back touched the ropes. He would have to do Another round, an extra round.

So that's one that. I didn't hear that. But he said he would do rounds where he wasn't allowed to punch.

Oh, wow.

At all. He just had to do bob and weaving defense. I'm like, okay, like. Like, he. He takes. He's like one of us. Like, he just takes it to a level that is just unbelievable.

He's a genius. Like, a literal boxing genius. Again, I don't use that term lightly. Like, what he did to Dubois, I was like, oh, my God. Because when you see Dubois, when Dubois knocked out Anthony Joshua, you're like, wow, this kid might be the future.

Yeah.

He is a fucking destroyer. He's seek and destroy, brutal power, giant guy, incredible athlete. And Usyk just pieced him up, just took him, dismantled him and took him apart and did it with all skill.

Like, literally, like, understanding. He's not the biggest dude in the world. No, he's big, but he's not, like, 6, 9, right?

No, he's not Tyson Fury. No, he's not Dubois.

He's not Dubai.

He's not Anthony Joshua.

Joshua. None of them. No.

Now he's a cruiserweight. He's a cruiserweight that beat everybody and knew that the only way to make real money is to go up to heavyweight.

Yeah.

And really have a. Leave a real legacy, because he could have been one of those guys that retired as an undefeated cruiserweight. And boxing fans like myself would talk about him, but everybody else would be like, who? Who?

Yeah.

Meanwhile, now he's in the conversation of one of the greatest.

Oh, for sure.

Tyson Ali. He's like. He's in there with that conversation, and it's just.

Consistently an overachiever. Consistently an overachiever.

And he's fucking 38. Right.

Which is even.

Even crazier because he's like. He hasn't shown any slipping in his skill level at all, or his endurance or enthusiasm or his discipline. Just. Well, also, it's like, he was so fortunate to have been trained by Lomachenko's dad.

I didn't know that.

Yeah. So he's like a giant. Lomachenko.

Oh, my God.

Because Lomachenko, so agile, so much footwork and movement, and that makes sense. He's basically like the heavyweight version of it.

Wow.

Yeah.

That makes actually more sense.

Makes more sense, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Because his movement for such a big guy is just extraordinary. It just doesn't exist anywhere else. Because it's not just the light on the feet. It's the angles he takes after punches and then the shifting of the weight back to center when you don't expect it.

And that's like my son. Actually, it's my son's birthday today.

Happy birthday. What's.

Bryce.

Happy birthday, Bryce.

Yeah. 21. Right. I go, it's a birthday to wait for. But he's already doing all this stuff that you.

They all do.

Yeah, I know, right? It's that age bracket, but. So my son loves the science of boxing. You know, even 10 years ago, when he was, like, 11, 12 years old, he'd be on YouTube watching the Footwork of boxers, and I'm like, I. Because I didn't get into that science of it and footwork and all that until I started doing mma. Like, understanding. Like, I understood wrestling. But boxing on that level is just. It's a whole nother complex set of skills.

Well, you were so deep in wrestling, though, it's almost impossible to pay attention to anything else at the level that you were competing at. Yeah, you have to. That has to be everything. You eat, breathe, sleep.

Yeah. Singular.

Yeah, it has to be. Singular. Yeah, it has to be. It's almost like you can't go down any rabbit holes.

No. And that's one of those where, you know, my mentor, the guy that. That really brought me to another level is a guy named Chris Campbell. He was Dan Gable's first NCAA champ. When Dan Gable's coach at Iowa, he made the 1980 Olympic team that was boycotted, won the 1981 World Championships, voted best technician in the world, and then retires and then decides he's gonna make the 90. 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. So he's. At 37 years old. He wins a bronze medal that year in Barcelona. 37.

That's pretty impressive for amateur wrestling.

Oh, my.

People don't know. That's unheard of.

It's. I think, still to this day, he's the oldest Olympic medalist. Wow. Because you just don't. You just. I mean, wrestling's just so demanding. It's such a young sport. Oh, yeah, it is. It is. So he ends up. He ends up. He ends up just really taking me by the hand and understanding, like, singular devotion to something. It's. He would. Back then, he did tape study, which wasn't a huge, huge deal, but literally watching the Russians wrestle and some of the tapes. His nemesis was this guy Kadartsev. And you look and watch the tapes, you go, I don't see anything. Once you slowed it down, you go. You can't move him out of position. He doesn't. When he attacks and Retreats. He's never out of position. And, you know, you look at it and go, wow. Because it was just these little things. Little things.

It's amazing that the Russians achieved that level. And not just wrestling, but also in mma, also in any combat sports.

Yeah.

Boxing.

Yeah.

Russian kickboxers are super technical. They're all known for being so technical. It's really interesting, you know, and it's.

And again, I would think that somewhere in there, there's a root, there's a common. Like, there's coaches and mentors. Because the only way I've learned how to wrestle or MMA is through mentorship. You know, somebody really going, hey, let me. Let me show you. And they had a mentor. And they had a mentor. It's this lineage that's passed along. And I know I went from being a good wrestler to being a really good wrestler when Chris took me under his wing. You know, we drill the same thing thousands of times, and it would be like the difference between holding my hand here and holding it here, and I'd go, it's two inches.

Right.

What's it? And you go. When you speed it up to full speed, those two inches become six. Right. And so the leverage points. Yeah. And so I need them to be here. Perfect. Because once you go full speed, you're going to miss it, but you're only going to miss it by this much.

You know, it's interesting that George St. Pierre, although he never wrestled in high school or college, his training in Montreal was with Russian wrestlers. It was all Russian nationals who had moved to Canada. Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Gsp. I was just talking to a friend of mine and I said, he's probably in my book, one or two.

Yeah. Of all time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's. He's certainly in the conversation. It's so hard to say who because, you know, Mighty Mouse, I think, never got the credit that he deserved because he was a 125er. And then people forget how good Anderson was when he was in his prime. People. And then BJ Penn. BJ Penn when he was in his prime. I feel like you really have to look at a guy when he's redlining, like, when he's really at the peak of his abilities.

Yeah.

You can't judge him by the fights. They fight after their prime. Yeah, you can't, because it's not fair. You just got to say, like, who? When they were champion, when they were running shit.

Yeah.

Who exhibited a level of MMA that's above and beyond everyone else. And George is certainly in that conversation.

Oh, he's for sure. I mean, part of. Part of what? I like Jon Jones. Right.

Like.

Like when you get somebody that. At that level, at his peak. Right. And he can make other professional fighters look like they're amateurs, they look silly.

Yeah. They don't belong in there. And he was doing that to guys when he wasn't training. That was.

Yeah, it was crazy. Crazy.

He was off and barely in the gym and still dominating in world title fights.

Sometimes I get a little upset because I'm like, you know, how many fights he. Probably as a spectator, as a fan, like, how many fights we missed because of his shenanigans. Yeah, yeah. Just like.

But it's also. I mean, you know, what happened with you and what happened with him and what happens with a lot of guys is, like, the pressure of life sometimes. And what makes you a great fighter in the first place? There's a certain wildness.

Yeah.

And with a guy like John, that wildness, it's like, it's hard to keep on a leash.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know how that feels.

Yeah, I'm sure. Well, I remember I had no idea, and I don't think anybody had any idea until the Smashing Machine documentary came out. And when that documentary came out, everybody was like, holy shit. First of all, kudos to you for allowing people to see you like that.

Thank you. Raw.

Completely honest about all of the addiction problems, all. Everything. And no one would have expected it. Then they saw you. They just saw this fucking dominant destroyer, this guy who was, like, smashing everybody. And you just thought, oh, well, that guy's just. He's just a machine and just so mentally strong. And he just gets out there and gets done. And then you allowed them to show you were in the. The making of the documentary. It was what they were essentially trying to capture was you at your prime.

Yeah.

And what they caught you was you, where your life was falling apart. Just fortuitously.

Yeah.

It was just kind of random luck they caught you at that time.

So. So when John Greenhalt, who's a producer, I went to Syracuse with him as we were on the wrestling team together, he's the one that called me, said, hey, I want to do a documentary. At that point, my vision of what it was was a little Best Buy camera where they're like little flip screen, and they show up and they go, okay, we're filming a documentary. I got changed tape, you know, and they show up in Japan for my voltage and fight with 2, 10,000, 15,000, whatever. They were digital Sony cameras. A boom mic in like five people. I'm like, oh, fuck, you're. You're like, you're really going to make a. Like you're gonna make a documentary. And so he was. Right from the get go, John could see. John could see what was the contrast? Like, me as a fighter and me as a person, that contrast. And so that's what he was after is, is like just to really show this contrast and like, you can do this for a living and be this kind, sensitive, you know.

But that was what was weird about you. It was a very weird contrast because you're very soft spoken, very kind, always very considerate to people, very nice. And then you get into the cage and it's like, who the fuck is that guy?

You know? You know what the feeling is? The feeling is like the question I always had in my head is going, okay, if somebody's gonna go, you, me in a room, who the coming out? And I never was able to answer that question for myself. I know I was competitive, right? But I didn't know if I had that switch, that thing and then start fighting and going, oh, man, they're. There's a switch in there. And I figured through that process, what I was really trying to get is your will. I was trying to take your will. And most people don't want to give it. Like, when you get a high level fighter, it's like, Fabio Gigelle didn't want to give me his will. Headbutted him, dug into cuts, did all this, beat him mercilessly. And he didn't want to give me his will. He wouldn't give it to me. And it frustrated me. I didn't know how to take it from him. I'm going to. I'm out of answer waiting for him to break. Yeah, he doesn't break.

Yeah, some people don't break. You can break their body, but their will, you can't break.

No, he was one of them. He was one of them. And it's still to this day, I mean, the next day his wife calls me and I have lunch at his house.

Wow.

Which was crazy because my first fights. Don't know. Everybody in the audience was there for him. And when his wife calls me in the next day, I literally go, oh, man, here it is. He's gonna have all his boys up at the house.

He's gonn.

He's gonna fucking get his due. Right? Like, because I didn't know, right. And so I go, okay, what do I got to lose? And so I go up and we sit down, just like we're sitting here, and his wife interprets the whole entire time. And it was this, it was actually beautiful. It was beautiful because here's, here's what it set for me. It set a standard of how I was going to carry myself as a fighter. What happened in the ring is in the ring, right, the second you're out, you're. You can. That's different.

Well, that speaks to his character, why you couldn't break his will in the first place.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because he's such as locked down.

Absolutely. It was, for me, it was, it was one of those, like, revelations of like, okay, this is, this is how you do this as a professional. Yeah.

Well, you know, also, like, Brazil had a much longer history of these kind of fights, like going way back to the Elio Gracie days. And. Yeah, this is an ad by Better Help. When you have a problem, when you're feeling down, it's nice having someone to turn to, like a partner who could cheer you up, a friend to vent to, a parent who can give you advice. Even having a nice conversation with a stranger can be uplifting. Whoever you like to turn to, though, probably won't have all the answers. That's where therapy comes in. There are some things that you can get from therapy you can't get anywhere else. Like, if you're struggling with anxiety or depression, a therapist can help you develop positive coping skills. Or if you're struggling with how to be kinder to yourself, therapy can help you take a step in the right direction. And thanks to BetterHelp, matching with a credentialed therapist is easier than ever. Just head online to fill out a short questionnaire, and Better Help will set you up with a therapist based on your needs. If for any reason it's not a good fit, you can switch to another therapist at no extra cost.

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And that's like the, okay, I'm gonna carry myself. You know, part of it was, you know, I wanted to change the narrative of, like, when you looked at the early ufcs, it looked like some, some guys were just scraped off a bar stool and thrown into the octagon. Right. And so when I came there, I was like, okay, I want to be considered professional. Right. I want to carry myself as a professional. I'm going to be articulate. I'm going to dress as a professional. I'm going to. Because I wanted up the ante. I wanted to, like, raise the standard, Right. Especially when I went to Japan, it's like, you know, press conference, Everybody's in sweatsuits. I'm in a. You know, I can afford it. But I was in $1,000 Calvin Klein suit on a charge card. Right. But I wanted to change the narrative. I wanted to be. I wanted to be a professional because if I was a professional, treat like a professional, I could ask for, pay like a professional.

Mm.

Not like some dude that was just scraped off a bar stool and thrown into a ring.

So what was. What was the Pride experience like? So you. You had fought in the UFC and then did. Did you have a contract that expired? Like, what happened?

So, oh, boy. This is. So I signed a three fight tournament deal with the UFC. I did 14 and 15, and I still had one tournament obligation on the contract. So after 15, the Japanese had seen enough footage, and I got contacted by Pride, and they're like, hey, we want to fly you over. We want to. We want to have you as a key piece to build this organization. So I'm like, okay. So they fly me first class over first class hotel. I meet with. I meet with a guy named Mr. Ishi Jaka, who. His real name is Kim Ducksu. He's a Korean guy. And Mr. Ishii, who owned K1.

Wait a minute. A Korean dude was pretending to be Japanese.

You had to have a Japanese name. Whoa. You couldn't do business in Japan without a Japanese name.

That's crazy.

So signed all of his documents. Signed all of his documents, legal documents. Kim Ducksuit. Wow. But every single person called him Mr. Ishijaka.

Wow.

Yeah.

So he had to learn Japan Japanese.

Yeah. And it's still with an accent because he spoke Korean too. So it's just one of those. Were understanding, like the. The culture back then just. It was still stuck, you know, and hadn't really progressed. Wow. So Mr. Ishii owned K1, and Mr. Jacques started Pride. And it was called KRS at the beginning before it turned into Dream Stage. Oh. And so here's. Here's where it gets a little sticky. So I go over there. I take for Pride 2. It's supposed to be me and hoist Gracie, him and I. There's still fight posters that have signed of him and I facing off with each other. Signed the Contract to fight for way more money than was being paid for the. In the ufc. And when I get back to the States, I get served with. I get served with papers to appear in court in New York City. The UFC suing me. It's when Bob Meyerowitz still owned it and Art Davis was involved, and so they were suing me for breach of contract. And it was like one of those things where I was like, okay, I didn't. You know, like one of those experiences where I was like, oh, shit, you know?

And the Japanese said, okay, we still want you. You need to sort this out. So it took. It took four months, five months to sort out the differences between what the UFC needed and if they're going to let me go and all this other stuff. In that time frame, Hoist got hurt, and so Hoist had to step out, and they put Bronco Cicate in there, and I ended up fighting Bronco and Pride, too. Oh, wow. Yeah. So if everything. If. If everything would have went as everything, I would have fought Hoist, Gracie in the Tokyo Dome. Him and I. Main event, me at my peak. Hoist still in his prime.

Wow. That would have been insane.

Oh, my God. It would have been, like, thinking about it going, because people have asked, like, who would have won? I'm like, I don't know, but I would have given it every single thing I could. That's it. That's the poster.

Wow.

Yeah. Signed, inked, everything.

You had at least 80 pounds on them.

Oh, at least that.

Yeah.

But. But this is it. This is the transition from not knowing what I was getting into, going, I can't carry that much weight at all and be cardiovascularly. I just can't.

What were you at your heaviest?

280, 285. Jeez. Like, 6% body fat. Yeah.

That's hard to breathe.

Like, if I did. If I didn't get a hold of you and squeeze the life out of you in the first, like, couple minutes, I was. I was completely. You know.

Yeah, well, that was kind of the case with Coleman as well. Like, when he was really, really big.

I was in the corner when I was cornering him when he lost Marie Smith.

Oh, okay. Yeah, Yeah, I was there for that one. That was. That was a. A real game changer.

Oh, that changed the narrative for everything because Maurice.

What Maurice brought to the game was Maurice was training with Frank Shamrock at the time, and so he had extreme cardio. He was doing a lot of swimming, he was running hills. I mean, he was really cardiovascularly at an elite level for an MMA fighter at the time.

Frank and I used to talk about heart rate training way back when. Like, like, literally like functional training and going, okay, how do. How do you. How do you approach something and come up with a formula where you can get through a training camp and still be viable at the end of that training camp when you have five minute rounds? Right. How do you do it? There wasn't a formula for it. Right. So Frank was like, I started doing this heart rate training and heart rate recovery and all this stuff. And I was like, oh. And then I run into these trainers. When I was in California at Gold's Venice, there's a guy named T.R. goodman, and he was training hockey players, and hockey players have to have that burst recovery. Burst recovery, wow. Very similar cardiovascular system to fighters. So TR Took over my training when I was in California, and that was a whole nother level because I never really had the functional training implemented the way he did. And that's when my weight came down. It's like, I really tried to fight between like 2:30. 235 and 240 was ideal.

Yeah, that's much better. That seems like the ideal heavyweight.

It is, it is.

It's very weird that, first of all, that the heavyweight division has a weight limit.

Yeah. Oh, my God. It's really weird.

Especially the ufc, because it doesn't really. In Japan and some other organizations, they'll allow the super heavyweight division. And in boxing, you can be heavy as you want. Like, TYSON Fury's been 290 before, but when the UFC has this 265 pound weight division, it seems like the best elite guys like that 240 range, that's.

For me, that was like. I knew I had a good training camp. If I came in 235, 240, if I didn't train hard enough, I was 250. If I overtrained, I was under 230. You know, like, for Pride Grand Prix, I think I weighed in at 229, because right before that you felt overtrained. I felt overtrained because in between when I fought Ensign and the Pride Grand Prix, I did Abu Dhabi. And so I won my weight class that year, and I won the all around.

So you got super conditioned.

Oh, my God. Super conditioned. But. But you. You lose. I lost a little bit of what I needed was that physical dominance. You know, I could have the endurance, but again, it's one of those where it's like going into it. When I fought Fujita, there's so many Factors that were just, you know, that I didn't account for. And my calorie intake just wasn't where it needed to be. And like a lot of times leading up to a fight, like my appetite just diminishes as I get towards it. Especially that fight, fight weak. And that's interesting.

Why do you think that is?

Nerves. Nerves. It gets to a point where it's like that, that morning, I know, like fight morning. I have a small little window where I could digest food or I could take food in. It's not like I could sit and.

Eat all day and then nerves start kicking.

Yeah, it just starts kicking in like my, like, like literally. And it's controlled focus, right? Because it's like you can't have all my nerves running everywhere. But it's controlled focus. But that controlled focus, my body goes, I don't need digestion. I'm about to fight. What the do I need to digest? Food.

Right, right, right.

You know?

Yeah. A lot of guys have made those. Al Jermaine Sterling said he made that mistake when he first fought Pyotr Yawn. He just, he didn't eat.

It's brutal. So, so that last scene against fujita as an AS100 hypoglycemic crash. Laying there, can't move my body. And if you watch the documentary, what I'm saying on the way back is I need sugar, I need sugar, I need sugar. That's all I could think about was like, any sugar, any sugar, any sugar. Because my blood sugar levels had just crashed to this. Like, I can't move.

Geez. It's so crazy too, the watch, the evolution of the training methods from back then, from 97 to like what we're seeing today.

Yeah. Oh, incredible.

It is really extraordinary because there's not a real. Another sport that has gone through that much of a metamorphosis.

Not, not even close really in that time frame. Because it's a short, it's a short time frame because, because again it's asking the question of like, okay, championship fight, 25 minutes, five five minute rounds. How do you train for it?

Right? Because the reality is no one can go full blast for 5, 5 minute rounds.

Can't do it.

Maybe marab can.

I wouldn't fucking doubt that he might.

Be the one, the only guy because he doesn't seem to get tired.

You get. So this is, this is like observationally, usually in that championship fight, if it's a striker against a wrestler, usually the first two rounds, strikers usually have that advantage in the third Round. If you go back and watch this third round, the grappler starts to impose a little bit more on him.

Right.

And then fourth. Fourth and fifth round is the grappler completely just takes that fight over. Because it's one of those things where you. It's that grind.

Yes.

It's.

That's also a big part of being able to stuff. Take. Do you want some coffee?

Yeah.

A big part of being able to stuff takedowns is having energy.

Oh, my God. It's everything.

Guys trying to you up and take you down. There's so much energy involved in trying to stuff a takedown. And then when you don't have it, you're like, I'm just let him take me down. Just like take a break here and then work back to the. But no, like, with some guys, like, you're not getting back up.

No.

Elbowed in the face, that I'm just.

Gonna grind you into a pulp. And that's that thing. Right. Part of, part of what I. I go, like, if I look at my fighting going, I was never going to be the best striker, like, never going to be the best kicker puncher. But if I could turn you into a wrestler, that's. That was the secret sauce for me.

Yeah.

I just need to make you wrestle me.

Yeah.

And I'm good. Right. Because I know I can beat the. Out of you wrestling.

Yeah.

The key was transitioning to make you wrestle me.

Yeah. It's the specialist, specialist thing. It's like if you want to be a specialist, being a specialist at wrestling is by far, by far. When you see what Khamzat did to Drekus, oh, my God.

And that's the example. I get perfect. Elite, elite, elite wrestler against a world.

Champion MMA fighter who's been dominating everybody and who's very difficult to take down. And Hamza just ramped it up, kept it up attack.

And like I was saying that that Russian, Dagestan, Uzbekistan, it's this ability to sustain an attack repeatedly because it's that cardiovascular system born at 6,000ft in altitude, 7,000ft in altitude, a little bit more of an advantage. Right. And so you end up with these attacks where you can sustain them beyond your ability to defend them.

It's also having such a technical game that as you're implementing the first attack, you've already got three attacks on standby. And then as he counts, you've anticipated the count. You have a counter to his counter and then a counter to his readjusting after your counter. And you're just Hitting him over and over. He just can't keep the rhythm.

I literally. I text my son. I was at that fight, I text my son and go, this is what an elite wrestler could do to a professional fighter.

It's nuts. It's nuts because it was like, a lot of people thought it was boring because it just didn't get to a decision. It just went to a decision. But you just kind of appreciate that level of dominance against a world champion. It's kind of crazy where the guy before the fight, Drekus, was being looked at as one of the greatest middleweights of all time. I mean, look at what he did to all these guys. He knocks out Robert Whitaker. He beats Adesanya. He fucking beats Sean Strickland twice. Like, oh, my God, he might be one of the greatest of all time. And then after that fight, you're like, I don't think he's ever going to beat that guy. I don't think he's ever going to beat that guy.

Isn't that crazy?

It was like, I don't think there's enough time in the world to bridge that gap.

You can't. You can never catch up. You know, like, I would never pretend, stepping into the Octagon, that I would be able to get elite striking skills. Right. You know, like, that gap could just. It's constantly just something you never can get to.

It's also, you know, it's like Sean.

It's like Sean o', Malley, right?

Huh?

He's gonna. The only way that he's gonna be able to get a championship back is somebody else needs to beat. Yeah.

Yeah. And then it's got to be stylistically.

Stylistically match up. Right. That's. That's that conflict of matchup, because skills, you're not gonna do that.

You mean he got better for the second fight?

He did a lot better, but still did Barab, though.

That was part of the problem. That guy's not. He's not stopping.

God. How old is he?

Marab? I think he's 34. How old is Marab? Dwarves, Willie? 34. 34. So he's, you know, he's in his prime right now. In his prime for another few years at least.

Yeah. I. I would think that it's one where there's going to be a lot of people that think they can, but that's just a different animal.

Yeah. It's going to take someone who's that kind of a wrestler who maybe has a striking advantage.

Yeah.

Who could beat him.

Yeah. But then, you know, that's an anomaly.

It's just. It's such a crazy sport to watch that, you know, from 1994 to 2025, it's almost unrecognizable. The difference in the gap.

Like. Like there was a period of time where I couldn't. I couldn't watch. I didn't watch the UFC probably about like seven, eight, nine years. And over the last five, six years, I watched it almost religiously. Right. And just realizing the fighters today, oh, my God, man, they hit a level. And it's that. It's that mutation. It's like this first generation, second generation.

Yes.

And they're advancing so fast that you're looking at these new fight. You're like, where. Like, it's such a unique set of skills to do this. Incredible set of skills, unique to any other sport in the world.

I know. It's. And it's also. You're really fighting three different sports as one sport.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is really nuts. You're fighting grappling, you're fighting jiu jitsu, and you're fighting striking all together in one sport.

It's like, wow, it's like playing soccer, football, and baseball at the same time. It's like how the. What you do.

Yeah. While getting kicked and punched and elbowed. It's. It is, but without guys like you, it would have never gotten here. Because if there weren't people that were willing to fight for very little money, travel overseas, have these crazy events and, you know, and beat your body up and do what you did and what Coleman did and a lot of those guys did in the beginning, without you guys, there's. There is no UFC today. It's just not. It's not the same.

It was, you know, one. Like being in the hall of Fame and being in the pioneer Wing and understanding that. Like I said to myself, you know, even if I advance a sport, you know, this much, it needed this much at the time to get to where it is today. Right. Like, Coleman advance a sport this much?

Well, you guys brought in the new element, and the new element was elite wrestling with enormous muscles.

Yeah, yeah.

And especially in the early, early days, because Coleman would get on your guard and just headbutt the. Out of you. Because head. Yeah. Legal, like. And bare knuckle. Like, when I first did his. I interviewed him after he beat Dan Severin when he became the first UFC heavyweight champion. Total bare knuckle.

Yeah.

He had a little bit of tape on the. On the hands. Try to keep the bones from snapping in half.

That Was it frightening? Wild? Like, people, I, you know, they watch it now and, you know, this, this film, right. It gives, it gives people a little bit of a look inside of, like, what it was. And, you know, for me, the cool part about it is understanding. Like I said, I'm just a little piece. But that little piece is necessary to be able for me to watch some of the guys do what they do now.

Well, it's different than any other sport in that these little pieces had to be there before people could figure out what to do.

Yeah, well, Dana put them all together.

Yeah.

You know, when I, when I actually talked to him when I was in Newark, that's one thing I said. I said, look what you built. You can feel however you want about, you know, him personally. Look what you built.

Yeah.

Like, no one could even imagine this.

Well, you have to be a madman to do what he does. Like, he, that guy works so hard and he works so many hours and he fucking loves it.

It.

He loves the sport. Like, truly loves the sport. He and I have, like, long conversations on the phone, I would imagine, about fights.

I would imagine just about, like, I'll.

Go, what are you gonna do about this guy? Oh, when's that? When's this happening? You know? Is this true? Does this guy really get hurt? He did, yeah.

Oh, my God.

Oh, it's minor. Okay. Six weeks. Are you rescheduling it? Okay, good. Yeah, you know, we have these long ass conversations and I'll tell him about kickboxers that I've been watching, or tell him about these guys. I mean, that's one of the ways that we became friends and one of the ways that I started working for him in the first place is because we would have conversations. When I first met him, when I was on Fear Factor and I wasn't even working for the ufc, I'd be like, you got, you watched the fights in Japan? Do you ever watch Japan? Valley Tudo? Do you know about this guy? You know about Hicks and Gracie? Do you know about this guy?

Yeah.

And I was just rattling off different names and he was like, what do you, how do you know all this? Like, I don't know. I don't know the rules to basketball. I don't know what's happening. I know when the ball goes in the net, it's good. I don't know the rules to football. I don't know the rules.

Yeah, exactly.

I just, I only have room for combat sports. But, you know, ask me about Marcelo Garcia.

Yeah, I can answer those.

Rattle off some Stuff I know some about fighting, but to me it was like, it was a. Eddie Bravo and I, when we were kids, while we were young, young fellas, we, we were hanging around, working out. We would said to ourselves, like, you know what the sport needs? To some crazy billionaires who love the sport that's just going to dump a bunch of money. Because we knew at the time, we were like, this is the most exciting sport in the world, right? So all it needs is for these really rich guys to be fans of sport. And it's almost like it manifested itself because that's what happened. The Fertittas came along and they were just really rich guys who loved the sport and they took a crazy chance. They were $40 million in the hole. 40 million in the hole on the UFC. And it was just losing money. Los money. And they just hung in there year after year after year until they were almost ready to fucking sell. And then they decided to go forward with the Ultimate Fighter.

That's the game changer.

That was it.

That 2005. Personalized it. Yeah, that personalized it.

Well, people got to see it on Spike tv. And then it became. The fights were so wild that people were calling their friends and they were saying, you got to watch this. So as the, the, the show is on. And this is like before social media was really.

Yeah.

So as the fight was on, the, the ratings kept going up and up and up and up. And it was like Spike TV was like, holy, we got, we got a hit.

Yeah.

And Diego Sanchez won the 185 pound division. And then the fight between Stefan Bonner.

And Forest Griffin, that's the fight that changed everything, changed the game. Because that's one of those, if you ask just a marginal fan, they'll refer to that.

Exactly.

They'll refer to that.

Because at the time it was. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. They didn't know what MMA was. And here it is on tv. And these two guys were so evenly matched. That was the best part about it. They both had trained together in the house for all those fucking weeks. They'd all be talking shit to each other and all. And they knew they were gonna fight in the final. So it was like this long build up and they were perfectly matched and it was just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Swing, wheel kick.

I mean, there's so much in there.

That fight just went on and on and at the end of it, the.

Whole crowd was like, yes.

And, you know, I was the one, I was the first person to suggest. I was like, they both should have a fucking contract. This is crazy. You can't take a contract away from one of these guys for this fight. And Dana, to his credit, gave both those guys the contract.

Yeah.

And it was. All of a sudden, the sport was hot. And then Chuck Liddell was the poster boy.

Yeah.

Because he was the perfect guy to be the most famous champion at the time because he was a destroyer.

Oh, God.

Destroy. And he had an iron chin. And he just. And he would just stare at you with a serial killer's eyes and just.

You know what? When you watched him, like me watching him, he was so awkward when he held his hands and punched. It was so, like, even. Watch it. Now it's going. He was just hunting. He was just hunting.

Yeah.

And hunting and loading up. And he would hunt. And it wasn't like.

No, it was.

Every single thing was thrown with intent.

Yeah. Everything was shown. Thrown to shut you off.

Oh.

And he could do it. And he could do it for five rounds, too, which was crazy. Which is in his property. The thing about that style is it's unsustainable.

Yeah.

He never ducked a punch in his life. He took a burnt and blasted right through. He had an iron jaw. It was iron.

Yeah.

But everybody's iron jaw gives out after a while.

It just.

You can't. And he cleans it.

You can't sustain it. It's just one where. Yeah. So when the Fertittas first bought the ufc, I was living in California, and a friend of mine who was helping me at the time said, hey, listen, they're up at Big Bear having a training camp. I'm like, okay, let's go up. So get my truck, drive up. It starts snowing. It was like February. They're gonna do their first big push with Tito. Right. And I get hit by a drunk driver at 11am in the morning on the way up. So my attorney was in the car with us. He. I literally. The tow truck takes us up to the top of the hill. I still get to talk to Dana. I still get to talk to Frank and Lorenzo. And I'm like, yeah, I got it. By drunk driver. Like, well, we're going to Beverly Hills wheelchair tomorrow. Why don't you just jump in the limo with us and we'll take you down? I'm like, okay. So I get, like, this three hour drive down the mountain with Frank and Lorenzo, the new owners of the ufc.

Wow.

And we're just sitting there talking. They're. They're like, hey, you know, how is it working in Japan, they knew everything about me. How is it working in Japan? How do they do this? How did they do that? And it was just this really cool conversation, really cool experience to be able to go, okay, maybe this has landed in the right spot.

Oh, they were the right guys. They were the right guys because they were like, Frank and Lorenzo are rabid fans.

Yeah.

Rapid.

Yeah.

And they would train and they would beat the fuck out of each other. And that's where they met Frank. Frank. They brought Frank in to help them. They've kind of erased Frank. So Frank Shamrock, in my opinion, is one of the all time greats and also one of the most important in terms of the metamorphosis, in terms of the evolution of the sport. Because Frank was the first guy with elite cardio that could do everything. He could submit you off his back. Like, remember when he fought Kevin Jackson?

Yep, yep.

Caught him in an arm bar, bang, first round, right off his. He was elite everywhere. And his cardio was off the charts. When he fought Tito Ortiz, Tito was much bigger than him.

Yeah.

Not just a little bit bigger than him much. Frank's not a big frame guy and Tito is a. A house. And he just overwhelmed him. Beat him down with cardio. And then after that fight, Tito taught everybody. Cardio is number one. It's number one. He, when he was teaching, when he was coaching on the Ultimate Fighter, he told everybody it's cardio.

Yeah.

Without cardio, you have nothing. And his cardio was legendary, too.

I mean, they say, what, fatigue makes cowards of us all.

It's true. Yeah, it's true.

I mean, it's just one of those. And again, this goes back to what I was saying about Frank and I having conversations back then about heart rate training. 25 years ago, you go, heart rate, what? Little polar. You know, watch and, you know, keep. And like, oh, we need to recover this many beats in a minute, but actively recover. Right. Like, you had to still continue to do and recover. And this is what Frank was saying. Yeah. I started doing this. I'm like, like, what the fuck?

He was a very smart. Well, he is a very smart guy.

Yeah.

And I don't know why they had some kind of a falling out, but they. But they don't highlight him anymore. They don't talk about him at all. And I think pivotal, pivotal. I think you got to let that go. Just for the honor of what happened, the honor of the sport. Because the. For the honor of the sport. When you look at Frank, like, when you look at his fights, like he Was elite, man. He was.

He was ahead of his time. He was.

He was ahead of his time by.

By far.

He was the first really, truly complet mixed martial artist.

I agree.

You know, and people see him, like, the fight that he fought when he was fighting in Strike Force, you're not teaming the same guy. You're seeing him. It's later in his life. You see when he fought Nick Diaz, you can't. It's like I said about goats.

Yeah.

You want to look at BJ Penn. You look at BJ Pen when he fought Sean Shirk.

Yeah.

Look at BJ Pan when he fought Big Daddy Stevenson. That's one of the scariest guys.

Yeah.

Who's ever stepped in an octagon at 155 pounds, period. I put him with all of them, and I don't know what happens. And then there's Khabib. Same.

Oh, yeah.

You put that guy with any 155 pounder who's ever existed, and I don't know what's going to happen.

Yeah.

How are you going to beat that guy? Yeah, you know, there's. There's a few guys like that, and Khabib has to be in that conversation, too. When you look at his dominance over, like, the way he was winning fights, I'll never forget when he fought Edson Barbosa. It was in the first round, and Edson had this look in his eyes like, oh, my God, I've got to.

Get through how many more rounds with.

This, because he was just already exhausted in this animal from Dagestan, which is.

On him, on him, dragging him to the ground, man.

I'll never forget, we had Michael Johnson down the ground. He's beating Michael Johnson up, and he's like, quit, quit. You know, I need. Title shot is mine, you know, title shot is mine. You know, I deserve this quit. And he's just beating the out of him, trying to be nice. He gets him in Kimura. And I'm to going, going, please. I'm like, please tap, please tap. Because I'm seeing that spiral fracture. When they get that spiral fracture coming, I'm like, please tap, please. We've already been through that with Frank. When Frank got Minotauro in that.

Yeah, here it is.

He's talking to him. He's like, listen, give me some volume. I need to fight for the title. You know, I deserve this. Come on, buddy. I don't want to have to hurt you.

Oh, my God.

My God, look at this.

I mean, he's never seen what every.

But this Is speaks to your point. See, everybody agrees. The people are cheering. Look, I need to fight for it.

Look at. He's.

He's trying to be nice to him. That's such dominance. It is trying to be nice to a nice guy. Like, come on, you know what the. Is going on.

Yeah.

And again, to his credit, he didn't. I think he could have just ripped that arm apart.

Heart.

He let him tap. He let him tap. I think, wow.

This is like. Again, we're seeing, like taking somebody's will.

Taking it. He was a will taker. Like what he did to Connor when he got on top of Connor, he's like, let's talk now. Let's talk now. Just beating his face in going. Come on, you want to talk? Let's talk now.

You talk about. About humble pie. Like having to sit back and like. Yeah, because that. That's at a level where. Where because you're a bad to begin with. And somebody that's. Even a batter who just dominates you just. Oh, my God.

Just could kill you. Same size as you. And basically he could kill you if he wanted to. You're dead.

Yeah.

You're not gonna live. He's gonna live.

He could just literally choke you unconscious.

Yeah.

And just keep choking you to your.

He was gonna break his neck. He had him in that fulcrum choke. That is such a nasty choke. Look, here's where he gets it.

It.

So he's getting it and he's holding on to it. Look, he's not. He's not doing. He's not going all through.

No. If he wanted to, he could have just ripped.

Drop that right hip down, pull that left arm up, and that thing's snapping like a twig. It's so scary. That's my scariest tech other than guys when they break their shins.

Yeah. When they go shin to knee and.

The shin snaps in half like silver.

Breaking is like, oh, it's horrible. Weidman was the worst that, like that stuff. I. One watch is good enough.

It was. So when Weidman.

You don't need to pull. You don't need to pull that one.

And Weidman's. Yeah, don't pull that one. Weidman's went through his calf. His bones snapped through and poked out of his calf, which is real dangerous too, because then you run the risk of heavy infection.

Yeah. All of that.

All that. You're on the dirty mat, you got an open wound and.

Oh, no. Some of that stuff is just like, gosh, man. It's other.

Do you feel weird that you did it. Like, now when you look back on. You've been removed for so long, you're like, you beat the out of something. I remember when you took Dan Bovish down, you stuck your chin.

Oh, my God, man. First and the only one still exists.

Right.

Is this mission by chin and eyeball joke.

Yeah.

I don't know if you call it.

Joke, but I'd never seen anybody do that before. I'm like, that's genius.

You know what? It wasn't illegal.

It wasn't illegal.

And it. I know it hurt like a. For him.

Why would it be illegal? Why is it okay to elbow the eyeball, but it's not okay to shove.

Your chin in there? Chin. I don't know.

You know, those are the headbutt days. So headbutts were legal, so why wouldn't it be legal? You could chin butt a guy if you wanted to, I guess.

Yeah.

So if you.

You use.

I mean. But the thing is, it's a real weapon. Yeah, it is real. It's very effective. Like, I don't think we should poke to eyes because.

Yeah, yeah, that's a different.

Eyes are so vulnerable. But that is also obviously a real weapon. Like kung fu guys point to that all the time. They go, look, these guys are the toughest fighters in the world.

You poke them in the eyes, they're right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I don't know how good you are at eye poke. And you have to be pretty.

Yeah.

That's not something you count on.

No, no.

Yeah, here it is.

Yeah.

You shove your chin right in his eyeball.

He's just like, bro. And I know. So. So when I'm down there, you could. I could hear him.

Oh, like, that hurt. Oh, it was horrible, dude. It was horrible. But it's again, it speaks to what we're talking about. The. The dominance of elite wrestling and how elite wrestling, it surpasses all martial arts. It's the number one most in an elite wrestling wrestler can learn jiu jitsu. Okay. An elite grappler can. You could easily teach them how to do head and arm chokes, triangles, all that. All that. That's not. You're already used to manipulating.

So part of my participation ADCC was. Was to represent wrestling, right?

Yeah.

Because the first year when I got approached to go over there, I'm like, like, what is that? Like submission grappling. Like, I don't know, like Gillis grappling. Gillis jujitsu. Right. They're like, hey, listen, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna give you X, you know, come over. And it wasn't a ton. It was like $15,000 to go over. And I was like, okay. I was like, all right. He's like, I don't know.

But while you were fighting?

Yeah, while I was fighting. And so I'm like, okay. I just go.

Just as a sort of surprise.

It was one of those where I was like, okay. Now that it's explained to me, I go, well, wrestlers need to be represented there, right? Y. I go over there and it was one of those things where it was like, well, I can actually show everybody here in this world that thinks their shit's dominant. Like, no, this is a skill set you need. You need elite wrestling skills, Right? You can have jiu jitsu, black belt and all this stuff, but if you're missing this piece component to it, you're fucked.

You're fucked. You're fucked.

And so it was all about control.

Did you see the most recent fight with Mauricio Ruffian?

No.

Okay, so Mauricio Ruffie, who is one of the most dynamic strikers in the sport, he's literally like a big Conor. I mean, it doesn't make sense that he's in the same weight class as Conor, because I think he's 6:1.

Oh.

But he's real tall. He's at least 6ft tall. He's real tall and long and just elite striker. But he fought this cat, Benoit San Denis, who is a judo black belt, elite on the ground, super fucking strong, and he just dominated him, man. He got a hold of him, ragdolled him, got him to the ground. And Mauricio had his moments in the fight standing because Benoit San Denise is a French special forces guy.

He's a hard.

And so he did stand with Mauricio for a little bit, but he got dinged up a little bit. But once he got him to the ground, it was just full domination. And then it left everybody in this position where we were looking at Mauricio Rufi as being like, that guy's a future world champion. To, like, oh, no. Like, that gap's too wide.

Yeah.

Like, he's got to learn so much to be competitive with the elite. Now they're gonna know. Yeah, imagine, like, Kamaru in his pride.

No, you know. Yeah, that's that gap we were talking about.

Like, you.

There's no way to make that up. There's no. There's not enough time in your career. Well, we got to do that.

Kamaru was like, 38 now. Okay. And he just fought Joaquin Buckley and dominated him. Dom. And Buckley is another one. Who is this guy who is dominating everybody at 170? We just knocked out Wonder boy. We're like, this guy might be the.

Yeah.

And then all of a sudden, 38 year old Kamaru Usman shows how fucking important wrestling is.

It's everything.

It's everything because you can be defensively responsible. Like he's very defensively responsible standing. You know, other than the Leon Edwards kick, he very rarely gets cracked.

Yeah.

You know, Gilbert got him a little and dropped him. But very rarely gets in trouble standing.

But once he gets you, the gap is so big. You can't make the gap so big.

Big.

Yeah, that's, you know, and again, this is, this is one of these things where fundamentally also wrestling gives you a cardio base that you can build off of.

Not only.

Not only. Because that's the other missing component. Right. It's like this because at an elite level, it's intense. It is really intense. Like Kurt, when he was on your show, he's talking about, yeah, I trained till exhaustion and then I trained.

Yeah.

You know, it's like that's how he. Because at one point when Kurt and I were competing against each other, like 93, 94, I just, I just was bigger, stronger and, and I could just defend his attacks.

He won the Olympics with a broken.

Yeah, fuck, man.

With a broken neck.

Come on.

With a broken neck.

I was there at nationals when, when he literally hit the mat and I'm like, like, literally. I watched when he, when his neck broke at freestyle nationals and he got hit with an arm spin and he gets arm thrown and his head gets almost like separated. It was nasty. And. And I'm in the stands going, oh, he's not going to be in the trials. Like, there's no way he's going to be in the trials. And sure enough, like five weeks later, he's in the trials. I'm like, what the fuck, man? There's no way he should be fucking able to wrestle.

There are guys like that in the world and people need to know. You need to know there's levels to everything. And there's levels to mental strength. There's levels to guys who just will go. And it's really kind of a crying shame. It's. Look, he had an amazing career in wwe. He's loved by everyone. Everybody loves him. That's great. But it's kind of sucks that people don't know like at, at real wrestling.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Man, he was the shit. He was so good for a heavyweight.

He was so. So he was always undersized.

Yeah.

But this, like, the years that I beat him. And then 95, when we wrestled in Freestyle national, and I beat him four. Four times in a row at that point. So we. We wrestle in the 95 freestyle nationals, and I get a hold of him for the first time, and something was different. I was like, oh, fuck. Like wrestling, going, oh, man, something's different with Kurt. And he ends up beating me. And then in the freestyle nationals in 95, and I'm like, oh, there was just something different. I'm like. Because he. He could stay on an attack longer. Stay on an attack longer. He was stronger. He hit a gear that I have. Wow. Like, I go, oh. Like, looking back on. I'm going, oh, I totally missed that. Like, most guys at. At 220 pounds, which you're wrestling at, they. They would have these attacks that they would initiate. It's like, grab a hold of you, hold on to you, and then initiate an attack. Kurt was constantly probing and attacking and.

Attacking, which was the benefit of being lighter.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. And lighter and quicker.

Lighter and quicker, but still wicked strong.

Oh, my God. He could still get in. If. So it's these attacks that he just sustained, and he just wear you out of position. So this counts. An attack, attack, attack. And all of a sudden, it was just this little. Little angle that he was hunting for the whole time. And then he hits that attack and takes you down. You're like, what the.

It's just. There's levels of. Of drive, there's levels of discipline levels Will. There's levels of wanting something, and that's what scares people. I think that's why people get really terrified of, like, truly special athletes, because they don't want to know how lazy they really are. I think it's one of the things that drives people nuts about seeing, like, some insanely disciplined, like, elite, top of the food chain, grappler or striker or whatever it is, MMA fighter. Because it's like, you don't want to know that someone's willing to work that much harder than you are, than you.

Ever have at anything I know.

At any thing.

That's. I mean, Kurt. Kurt was one of the. Where. Where he opened my eyes, I was like, fuck, there's. There's another gear.

Yeah.

I thought I was training fucking hard.

That's what's crazy. It's. We're kind of seeing. We've had this conversation recently in regards to Merab because we're saying, okay, is Merab just physically gifted? Because I think Kane had a, some sort of a genetic advantage with cardio. Because DC would talk about how he would take three months off, off and come back in the gym and everybody up with, with like cardio.

Somebody that size, it's an anomaly. It's an anomaly. It's an anomaly.

But Marab swears that when he was young he had bad cardio. He said, no, I, I smoke cigarettes.

I can imagine he's like Sakaraba smoking cigarettes.

He said he didn't take care of himself at all. I'm like, really? And he, it's just hard work and discipline. And then. So I have a bunch of friends who do 100 milers, you know, and, you know, I'm real good friends with my friend Cam Haynes. And Cam Haynes, he just did 100 miler like two weeks before we went elk hunting. Like he does 100 milers all the time. He's done 240. He's. What is the Bigfoot? 240, is that what it is? He's done a bunch of these through the mountains with thousands of feet of elevation and decline. He's done a bunch of these that are 200 plus miles.

That's not.

And you gotta build up to that. But once you get to that, you, if you're sustaining it, you can do those things. So he does those things on a regular basis. He does multiple ones a year. So that didn't, you didn't used to think that that was possible. They used to say that if you ran a marathon, like you were destroyed for like two weeks. No, he was running a marathon a day while he worked a full time job. So he was getting up in the morning at dark. He was running 13 miles. He was going to work during his lunchtime. He would eat after lunch, after work he runs another 13 fucking miles.

He would be one where I wouldn't want to look at him because, because I think I'm lazy.

That's the thing. That's why there's a thing about, like, I think I'm lazy and I love him. He's my friends, but I think I'm lazy when I, when I like watch what he's doing. And Goggins is another one.

Yeah. Oh my God.

Goggins is even more insane because he ain't doing it for nothing. He's not preparing for elk hunting. He rarely even competes in races. But yet he's doing the A level of cardio where he brings world champions like Israel Adesanya comes to train with him, and he's throwing up in a bucket. He can't keep up. And Goggins is 50. 50.

Oh, my God.

He's 50.

Wow.

How old is Goggins?

50.

50.

Oh, my God.

And he's got two terrible knees.

Oh, my God.

He's had many knee surgeries. Knees are destroyed, and he does not give a. He forces them to work.

Golly. So that. So again, this is like. That's a level, which is just exceptional.

Yeah. Because there's just a weird level.

It is. Because that's a pocket. It's just a pocket of people that have that. That.

There's only a handful.

There's only a handful like that guy.

Because it's not just that he broke the world record Chin up competition once. Like, he's.

He's done.

He's done a ton of things that are just, like, physically insane, you know, he was a smoke jumper. He didn't even tell anybody about it. He did it just because it was hard. This is why he's famous. So while he was famous, they take him up in a helicopter. He parachuted to fight forest fire because it was hard to do. Yeah. I'm not you, man.

Oh, my God.

He sent me a photo once. He text me a photo of a grizzly bear track, and he goes, we just landed near this. I mean, it's a track like, that big. And he's out there with a backpack.

And a shovel fight.

And only because it's hard. He's a multi millionaire.

Yeah.

He's a multimillionaire who's getting parachuted to fight fires. And here's the thing, man, if I didn't talk about it, maybe I'm out of school. People wouldn't even know. You have to know that. Maybe he doesn't want people to know. They need to know that.

That's insane. That is beyond insane. That's like one of those where it's like, you know, the wiring that exists in him. It. It doesn't happen by chance. That's. That's. That's. You have this genetic ability.

But he was fat when he was young, and he is lazy. He was drinking milkshakes. He talks about it, okay. He said the first time he decided to enlist, when he went, like, to run. To go running. He couldn't even run around the block. He was totally out of shape. He's got. He has photos of it. He shows you. Like, this is like, no, I made myself this. So this is my thinking about fighting. Like, have we Just accepted that you can't really fight full blast for 5, 5 minute rounds. Or is it that no one has built themselves up to a level. Level where you can. Like when you were talking about how Kurt. Or the gear that Merab is clearly on right now, or Hamza, there's, there's that gear.

Yeah.

What, what if, like, we're gonna push that even further where there's guys that can sprint for five, five minute. Like there's a few flyways that can do that.

Yeah, yeah.

Like Pantosia can kind of sprint from 5, 5 minute rounds.

You can go. So they'll eventually be a fighter that can do that.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too.

And because it's just one where, like I was saying from where I started from ago, and the training methods and how archaic they were and how little knowledge was out there right now, knowledge is advancing at such a rapid rate and they're understanding how to recover, understanding all these different factors that just weren't there.

Yeah. And if you add in a bunch of stuff like hyperbaric chambers, so these guys have access to hyperbaric chambers and, and training with hypoxic chain chambers and like that, there's, there's levels and levels and levels that can be reached. It's. You just have to be a complete psycho and go through all the levels.

Yeah.

And get.

It's like Donkey Kong. Yeah. Like, measure all your food, all your.

Electrolytes, everything throughout the day. Have your sleep environment perfect. Wear a mask.

I'm telling you, there's guys out there that'll do it.

There's guys that'll do it.

They'll do it.

Well, they have to, if that's where you get the edge. Right.

Yeah. I mean, it's becoming, it's becoming to a point now where the financial benefit is worth the sacrifice. Right?

Yes.

That you'll end up going, okay. Because what, what started to happen when I was fighting is that once the financial piece started getting in there, it started attracting more talent.

Right, right, right.

So that talent, it brings the level of everybody up.

Yeah.

And then all of a sudden it's like a little bit more money. Talent that could have maybe went and did something else. They're going, no, I, I'm gonna go do this because I can make money.

Yeah. This is the thing, right. If you're a young kid and you're really good at baseball, but you also like jiu jitsu and MMA and you, you know, have an amateur fight maybe, and you're thinking about what you're gonna do with your career. You could be so rich playing baseball.

Oh, God.

You could be so rich. If you're really good at baseball, you can be rich as fuck. And nobody's trying to kill you.

Yeah.

Nobody's trying to beat you over the head with elbows. Nobody's taking you down in front of everybody and humiliating you. You. Well, let's play ball.

Seriously? Seriously. I play baseline. Heartbeat, man.

Yeah. So that's the problem with mma, is, like, you hear, like, what is it to fight in the ufc? Like, what is the bottom scale? What's, like, the lowest contract that you get in the UFC in 2020? And this is not even saying they deserve more, because this is just how the sport works.

Yeah.

And it's way better in the ufc, by the way, than it is in boxing. When you watch a boxing card.

Yeah.

Most of the money's at the top. There's very little spread out.

Yeah.

There's guys that fight in the UFC undercard that make excellent money, but when you first start, you don't. I think it's like, 10.

It's one of those things where it's like, what I expect to, like, start at Microsoft. Right?

Yeah.

And go on. Yeah. I get a million dollars a year. Fuck, no. You work your way into. And that's one of. One of the things about the sport, as long as it has the opportunity to let somebody grow into it, you know, and still gives them financial incentive to grow in. Into it. Right, right. And just one where it's like, I wouldn't expect, like, hey, I'm a good fighter. Pay me a million dollars. It's like, well, that's not how fucking works.

No, I wouldn't say a million dollars. But wouldn't you say, like, let's make this argument. Wouldn't you think that for young, struggling fighters, if they got paid more for fights, they could put together better camps.

They could.

They could get better recovery and nutrition, have less stress.

Yeah.

And be able to perform better. So it would make the product better.

So here. Here's where. Here's where my career transition, I call it internally funded. My first four fights, I was using that money to get to the next fight, to get to the next fight, to get the next fight. Then all of a sudden, I get in Japan and they pay me enough money for the one fight that the next day I woke up and I was a professional fighter, because it was. The only thing I had to do was train as a fighter.

What was the biggest check you got in Japan?

A Little over half a million. Damn. Damn. Back then, that was cash. Yeah.

How did you get it out of the country?

Dude, that was.

How did you get it?

Here's what's up about it, right? So, so my first couple times over there, I'm like, I put like, first time I. I got. I put 40 something thousand in one cowboy boot with the tube socks. I put 40,000 in the other cowboy boot with the two socks. I'm serious. Because it was straight out of the cartoons how you got paid paid. Because the next day you would go up to a room and. And you literally would have a room. You'd have an adjacent room, usually Japanese guys in black suits smoking. And then you'd have this room, which is where you get paid. They had these, you know, suitcases that had your pay. You could choose your currency, right? I'm getting paid in American dollars. So they have your contract. Slide your contract over and then go, okay, this fight, you get paid. This is the dollar amount, blah, blah, blah. And they would literally take it out, count it, you would sign on it, it, and then they would just hand you the cash. First time they ever did that, I'm like, it's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash. And I'm like, I'm like, I'll be right back.

I go to the, to the bedroom. That's. It's in the hotel room. And I grab the case to the pillow and I go over and I just scrape the money, put it in the pillowcase and I go, okay, thank you. Go. Head out. I don't know what to do. Do you know? I'm like, I'm like down in the elevator, like holding the money. Like, I don't know what to do.

Big giant guy with 150 grand.

No, no, it does not, man. It's.

It's like, what did they expect you to do with it? They give you any advice how to get it out of the country?

Oh, no, no, that was not. That was. It was your responsibility. Oh, my God. So literally I'm like, oh, man. I get on it and like in my head I'm playing all these movies, right? Like on this movie, Got Caught at the Border, you know, I'm like, you know, I know that's going to be this one, you know, it's like. So I end up just going, oh, cowboy boots, tube socks. Like, 40 grand in one boot, 40 grand in the other. Put it in and like walk and like. You got anything to declare? No, just like walk through. But realizing that eventually when I claim Money, they handle claim form. They go, okay, you're claiming 140,000, say. Okay, thank you. Have a good day.

Oh, you just have to claim it.

You have to claim it because they want to send it. They want to send that receipt to the irs.

Oh, okay.

So when you go through customs, I.

Thought it was just a function of not being able to take that much cash.

So. No, when you declare it. When you declare it, there's that situation, too. Right.

But when everybody's going to go, where'd.

You get a half Exactly.

I guess back then, could you even go, no. You couldn't even, like, YouTube yourself?

Oh, no, there's.

You couldn't say, look, this is me, man. I just won. No, look, aren't I awesome?

Exactly. This is how I really did win. Right.

Back then, it was hard to get.

Oh, my God. You know what? The. The, like, example. Example I give is like the corner video store next to the shutters.

Yeah.

Where all the porn was. Right next to that was the VHS tapes.

Everybody can hear it when you went through. You dirty pervert. You gotta go see faces.

Yeah, yeah, that was. Right. Literally, those were where the UFC tapes were. Those are the Pride tapes were.

I remember. I remember I was living in Hollywood. I just moved there. It was 94. It was when UFC 2 was available on VHS.

Yeah.

So I'd heard about UFC 1, but I didn't see it. And then UFC 2, I saw on tape. I rented it from my.

Some.

One of those video stores, and I was like, holy, they did it. I couldn't believe. I'm like, holy, they did it. Because this was always. This was always the dream. This was literally Bruce Lee's conversation. Bruce Lee's conversation. I mean, his whole. He was the first guy to be completely outside of the norm in terms of, like, sticking to your style.

Yeah.

Because that. You were like a traitor. If you 100% certain kung fu styles or certain. Certain karate styles. He was the first guy to say, no, use. Use what's useful. Put it all together.

Judo Gene LaBelle, he got with. Yeah. With Chuck Norris, he got with all these other. That was the first thing. Like, like, this symbol is a kanji for a dragon. Right. Bruce Lee was Enter the Dragon. Right. Dragon is all these parts to make one mythical thing.

Yes.

And that's that. Enter the Dragon. That's that. Bruce Lee was the first one. If people don't realize it, he was the first one to go. This is incomplete.

Complete. Exactly. And so fortuitous that he ran into judo gene LaBelle. Yeah. And because I think once you grapple with that guy, you're like, oh, my God, I'm helpless. And then it's just like, oh, this is super important.

Yeah.

You know, because, like, Gene was one of the first guys to ever have, like a mixed fight. So there was a guy, was a boxer and he had a judo gion. And he chases the guy and gets the guy into a grappling exchange and strength tangles him. But.

Okay.

He had like a boxer versus. You never saw that?

No.

See if you can find it. Jamie. I want to say it's in the.

So way back 60s. So this is going to be way back when.

Way back when he was.

So this is Mark Coleman, and I did a clinic in North Carolina that was a Judo Jean LaBelle clinic that he brought us in for.

What year is this? 63.

Oh, my gosh.

So Milo Savage. So the boxer looks like he's Okay. I remembered it wrong. The boxer's bare knuckle. And he made him wear a judo gi, though, which is. I would have said, fuck you. I'm nowhere in this gi. He probably doesn't understand that that's a weapon.

Oh, my God.

See him take him down.

Oh, that's.

Did they show him taking him down?

Oh, my God.

Don't skip through it. I want to see the technique.

He.

Because once he grabs. Here it is. So Milo throws up, but that's it. So once Jean's got a hold.

Oh, it's over.

It's over. I mean, you don't know what that even feels like until you feel it.

Oh, my God. So I. So I rolled with Higgin Machado and. Oh, my God.

He's just putting him to sleep with the collar chokes.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, he's mangled. He's just mangling him. This poor guy. And Gene is. His style was very, very brutal.

Oh, my God.

Like, he had a very almost like, catch wrestling style base submission. He had a lot of like, very, very painful moves that he would do on you.

Oh, my God. You imagine just not understanding what you're agreeing to.

No, he just got choked unconscious. No, you. I mean, you can't know until it happens. I mean, I don't know how much cross training people did. I bet he probably thought I was just going to go in there and use my boxing.

Yeah. And be good. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. It's just. You don't know until you know and then you go, wow. But it's just so wild that even at the highest levels, like at the wrestle, the. The level that you were wrestling at, a guy like Kurt Angle can go.

Well, let's check it out another notch, man. And that's the crazy part. You always find, like. Like me being a fan of MMA and UFC and watching it, there's. There's always an outlier, right?

Always.

Always an outlier that you go, that doesn't make sense. How the. Is he getting to there?

Yep, yep.

Right? And that's like he's just found a new way to do it. He's found a new gear. He's found a new, you know, way to just go, okay, this is. This is what I'm gonna do. It's like a Dave and Goggins thing. I'm just gonna run 125 miles.

Yeah, yeah. And to be able to maintain that drive, that's what's the. Probably one of the hardest things, because you. You have to have almost no rest, and you're maintaining an insane drive for years and years and years while sharks are nipping at your ankles. They're all coming up.

Yeah. All chasing you.

All chasing.

Yeah.

And everybody's scary.

Well, I used to tell my training partner, I go, the getting there, that's one thing. Staying there, that's the secret. Secret.

Yeah, that's the.

It's so hard to stay at that level because everybody else is building on your. Your experience, right. They're going, well, this is what he did. This is what he's incorporated. These are the things he's doing. You know, I'm just gonna build on it.

Yeah.

You know, there's some weird rules to.

This fight that they had agreed upon too. And Gene LaBelle said that Savage had brass knuckles in his gloves. Oh. Oh, What? Yeah, start reading. Like, here, the rules.

He couldn't punch or tackle or.

Sorry, he couldn't kick or tackle him. And in exchange for that, Savage offered to wear a judogi. A judogy. Oh, sorry.

Oh, that's how they wrote it, right? Yeah.

No, it's a judo.

That's a new outfit.

He wrote a karate one instead, because they didn't know the difference. Okay. So in the parent belief that Lel was a karateka. So that's interesting. So that he made a rule that. That Gene couldn't kick him. So because he thought that he was gonna use, he couldn't tackle him and he couldn't take him. So Kidna Temple tack tackles or takedowns under the waist.

Oh.

So you had to only hip toss them or only drag him to the ground. Everything had to be above waist. That's kind of silly.

Yeah, it's really silly because it's one of those things where it's like. It's like Greco. Greco.

Yeah.

They're doing like.

Yeah. A thousand dollar bet.

Yeah.

It's.

Anyone who could prove that boxer would.

Be beat by a martial artist, I think, in a straight fight.

Wow. This is way ahead of it.

I wonder. Yeah. I wonder if the brass knuckles thing is true. Yeah, I don't know. It's.

I'll try to look that up.

According to labelle and other. So he was a bad gene labelle.

Ahead of his time again and again.

That fortuitous man. Meeting him and Bruce Lee getting together with Bruce Lee was like, you know, the most famous martial artists on earth, the guys who's turning people on to martial arts, had the most open mind.

Yeah.

And had this philosophy of using everything that's useful. And then meets this guy, it's like.

Oh, here it is.

Yeah, he would have loved mma.

Oh, my God. He would have been totally jazzed on it.

Oh my God. He'd be at every fight.

Yeah, that's one of those things where, where, you know, again, it's just somebody being ahead of their time way.

Yeah, way ahead of time. But not just like the first guy that became a world famous martial arts person. Like, there was no real world famous martial arts people before Bruce Lee. You mean you had to be into martial arts to know martial arts. Yeah, but Bruce Lee, like, everybody knew Bruce Lee.

Yeah, yeah.

Changed martial, igniting martial arts all over the world.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's one of those things where I look back on it and I've read like part of, part of the history and stuff and you understand it obviously way better than I do. But, you know, like ahead of his time. Just like when Gracie came along. Ahead of his time, you know, and presenting something where he's knocking down all these stereotypes.

Yeah. And they had rigid stereotypes back then where you'd have, you'd have to like get in gang fights to protect the.

Style that you were do, you know, like, like. So I started training at Beverly Hills Jiu Jitsu Club. Right. In California.

I remember that spot.

So, so, so, so Boss would have me. Boss would have me out there. Avi Rubin is the guy that owned it. And I would go out there and I would teach wrestling a couple days out of the week. It's how I got introduced to Boss. Olek Guitar, Marco Houas and Pedro Heo. They were training out of there as well. So you would get These guys, Jiu Jitsu, guys that would sit on the outside, wait until the other students were gone, draw all the blinds, lock the doors, and go, can you teach us wrestling? Because they were so afraid that if they got caught there with me, it was like a traitor.

Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah, that's hilarious.

So you would get like, that's so crazy. It was one of. It didn't make any sense to me because you would figure sharing information would be better.

Yeah.

And it was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Jiu Jitsu. We're not sharing. We're not. You can't participate. You can't. It was so archaic. Like, like the outlook. And it's like, like looking back on and going, God, like, wow, that's dogma. That's like this. Like, it's weird. Yeah.

They didn't all have that, though.

No, they didn't.

There's some guys who were open to teaching people everything. But there was definitely some schools for a while that were holding back techniques 100%. Like, I remember when Hoist Gracie, one of my friends said that when Hoist Gracie caught Dan Severn in a triangle, that he asked his instructor to show it to him. He's like, you're not ready for that. I'm not gonna show you that. Like, why don't you just show him something that works?

I rewound that tape probably 50 times, and I still can. I'm like, what the is he doing? Like, what the is he doing? Like, you could figure it out. Like, what the is he doing? Because all of a sudden Severin goes from beating the out of him going, he's tapping out.

Yeah, yeah, Nuts. We couldn't believe it.

I didn't. I didn't know there's a name for it.

You could submit a guy off your back.

Like, what the? Like what? But if you look at it like the space where he had dance head and arm is like that big. Yeah, it's like that. Like when you, when you do a triangle like this, that's not a very big space. It's like to have Dan, cuz he's big dude, going, oh, I get it.

And your legs, you can hold your legs in place for a long time. Your legs carry you around all day.

Oh, that's like.

Especially if you actually get that foot under the knee where it's like really locked in. It's not pressing on the end of your foot. You could hold on to that for a long time.

Oh, my God. And then he's like pulling on the fuck.

I'm like pulling on the nuts changed everybody. Like, oh, my God, you could win off your back.

It literally I'm. I still remember to this day just looking at it with my mouth hanging open, going, oh.

I think it was one of the things that made MMA so popular because Hoist wasn't a big, big. Like, he didn't look like you.

Right.

So if you were dominating everybody, it.

Would be like, okay, yeah.

But Hoist was. Just looked like an athlete.

Yeah.

It's like a thin. He was 175 pounds, which is so crazy.

So you know what's a good.

So crazy.

I had a conversation with Hoist probably about four or five years ago, and I'd never spoken with him outside of a competition or event or anything like that. I cried. He's such a good person.

Oh, he's a great guy. He's a great guy.

Like, he was so, just like talking to him and he was just so powerful and so inspirational and just having this conversation with him was just, just like amazing. I was just left the conversation, hung the phone about him going, wow, what a. What a. Just an amazing human being.

Yeah, he's a.

He's a really good guy.

And the most important guy ever in terms of like the spread of empire mma. He's the most important guy.

Oh, prolific.

He's the guy. When he won the first one and you looked at the way he did it, everybody's like, that guy?

Yeah.

And everyone was like, what's he doing?

Yeah. No one knew what it was.

What is this stuff he's doing to these people? The thing changed everything.

Yeah.

Made everybody instead. Because it, like, it went from this idea that it was just the most brutal person would win. It was the Tank Abbots. Like, yeah. But no, no, there's this one guy and he's doing everything with technique and he's not physically imposing at all. All. And he's handsome.

He didn't make. Yeah, he's good.

Look at some fella.

And he wears that fancy ghee thing, you know.

He'S a bad. And he's choking everybody out. It's.

God, it was incredible watching that for the first time. I said like, literally it was like, oh, this is new.

Yeah.

Like, this is. I mean, because you've never seen it before.

No, nothing like it. And then this. The sport explodes. But the sport was getting so hard back then by all these organizations that didn't want it ever to become sanctioned.

Yeah.

Like. Cuz boxing was very threatened by it and everybody had businesses with people and then there was. There was so much. They kept it, like, it was out of New York until, like, 10 years ago.

So we were. We were on. Me and my brothers, we were on our way to see a UFC event in New York, and it got canceled and it got moved downstairs south.

Yes. To Dothan, Alabama.

Yes.

UFC 12.

Yeah, we're on our way. We're on our way to go see it.

I was on my way to work at it.

Oh, my God.

That was the first one I was going to work at.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. And it got moved.

Yeah, it got moved. And so New York was like, nope, nope. Ain't having it happening. Well, they.

They kept it out for the longest time, though. There was. The guy who took it was really fighting to keep the UFC out of New York. Eventually got. He got brought up on corruption charges.

Oh, yeah, shocker.

Yeah, it was like. It had more to do with, like, unions and the fact that Zufa, who owned it, they also owned hotels and didn't have unions. Exactly.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there was a lot.

A lot going on. A lot to make. You know, I went. You know, I went to the first sanctioned. The UFC flew me out to go to in New Jersey when they had their main. Main. Main card in New Jersey, their first big event that was sanctioned by the New Jersey Boxing Commission with Tito, and they flew me out to that event.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. Yeah. Flew me out to that event. And actually, this is. This is at the time they offered me to fight. After that, they offered me to fight Pete Williams. Oh. And it was one of those where they go, yeah, we're offered to fight Pete Williams. You might have to take a little bit of pay cut, but you have to believe in what we're doing. And I'm like, okay, let's pay cut. They're like, well, we'll give you, like, an appearance fee of, like, 15 grand to fight. To fight.

15 grand to show up, and then.

It would be doubled if I won. And I'm like, I'm making, you know, a lot more in Japan. Like, why would I go do it? Like, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a terrible offer.

Yeah. So that's one of the worst offers I've ever heard. And it's one where. Where the whole idea behind it would be, hey, we just. If you believe in us and you believe in direct, you're going, look, we just got sanctioned in New Jersey, right?

Yeah.

So. So that's the. The. The. The steps we're taking to move this to Vegas. And to do this and in one is like, you know, like most fighters, it's like, I have X amount of fights and I don't have more. Right, right. I only have X. So that would have been one off my X number.

Right.

And I'm like, oh, man, I can't do it. And they only ask once. At that time, the UFC was like, we're going to ask once, and that's it.

Okay.

Yeah, just leaving that alone. Just leave that one alone. That one's one. Like, okay, yeah, why not?

Why not ask me a second time. Are we negotiating? I don't know if you're. If you were at Pride, then.

Right.

So, like, what. What year are we talking about?

2002.

Okay, so this was in the UFC was still hemorrhaging money.

Yeah. And stand.

That crazy. How much you want to still.

Oh, gosh, man. It should have failed.

It could have.

I mean, one is, they didn't have Charger. Yeah. If anybody else was. Yeah. Because it's crazy.

Had no idea how much money you were getting in Japan.

Oh, they had no clue. They had no clue. So you know what's crazy with Japan? Here's what I ended up doing. I said, listen. I said. They said, what do you need? And I said, I need consistency. And they go, okay, what does that look like? And I. And I said, pay me X dollars per month, and then every time I fight, pay me a bonus on top of that. And they go, okay, how much do you need? And I said, okay, I need this amount per month. And they go, okay. And that was just another stabilizing thing where I knew that every month I had X amount of dollars coming in, that I could pay my bills, I could do my stuff, not worry about that, because it allowed me to transition to, like, it's not a house, you know, I'm not like, it. Fighting. And then I go to work. You know, it's like, this is what I do for a living.

Yeah. I was the. The point of thinking about money investment, like, by giving them more money and they get better camps, wouldn't you think the product would be better? Yeah, I mean, I don't like to be. Think of people as products, but it is your program.

Yeah.

Now, I guess you don't have to pay for it. You're going to just pay for the subscription to Paramount, which is pretty badass.

Yeah.

We don't have to pay for a pay per view every time. But, you know, if they had more money, they'd be able to do a better camp. They'd be in better shape all the way around.

All the way around.

They'd be better recovery, they have better nutrition.

It's investing in what your product is. And your product is elite athletes. Elite athletes. In order to get elite athletes, they need funding, they need tools. The only way they can get tools is through money. You know, better coaches, better recovery facilities. But, and, and I don't know that the, you know, I obviously, let me ask you this.

If you're, if you were like looking like, say if your son wanted to start fighting or someone wanted to look to you, would you, if you were giving a young fighter advice, would you say go right into the UFC or would you say no, the best case scenario is go into another organization like the pfa. Build, build your style up. Yeah, build it up on maybe a slow little, slightly lower level of competition. Although not necessarily.

Yeah, still elite guys, submission grappling, that's. I literally, I go, ghost, you fundamentally you need to build a base of what you, what you're going to become, right? So submission grab, ADCC. If a young kid, like 16, 17 year old kid, even 18, 19, 20 year old kid, I go, you need submission grappling because you can participate in those at a competitive level. That teaches you how to compete, it teaches you how to prepare to compete, right? And it teaches you without the impact of striking and punching and all of this. So that's like the first foundational piece, and this is just my opinion, right? Foundationally is like if you, you have to have a mechanism out there which allows you to compete without having the physical impact that fighting does. So that would be the first thing like submission grappling, ADCC stuff, you know, all of that really teaches you how to compete, to train to compete. And it starts building that base and then you start adding pieces and going, okay, I understand this. Let's add the striking components into it now and let's do these little like PFLs or let's do this, let's do that.

And it just allows you to build out something where you're not just throwing into the fire because that doesn't work. I mean the fighters have become so good now that you can't just throw somebody in there because it, you get up, it might your confidence up and. Right, I just, I'm done. I ain't ever doing this.

Yeah, you could definitely reach an opponent that you shouldn't be reaching.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

I wonder that if you also, if you build yourself up in another organization, then obviously you have at least a name and the hardcore fans know who you are.

Yeah.

So, like, like, Rhynier, Dirty Ritter, another example.

Okay.

Who's elite right now? I can't. I say middleweight, but I can't believe he's really a middleweight. He's so big, but he's a fantastic grappler. But he was already a champion in one, so he's a champion in one fc. And then when he comes over to America and he starts fighting for the ufc, people are already hyped for. So he's, like, immediately getting tossed in there with Kevin Holland, immediately getting tossed in there with, like, very elite fighters. Fighters. And so, like, maybe there's a. An argument for if you were, like, managing a fighter, saying, like, don't just. If you're. If you fight well in the ufc, you might be three fights in and in the waters that you really can't swim in.

Yeah.

Because the level gets high very fast.

It does, it does.

Like, maybe you'd be better off getting a few years in at a different level of competition to really tighten your skills up and make sure that when you finally do, you see you've been.

Bring side for this. You see when a young fighter, when he clicks and he gets it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he understands how to compete at that level, it's brilliant.

It's amazing.

Like, watching it, you're like, oh, my God. He's like.

He's in there.

Oh, my God. It, like, gives me goosebumps to think about it, because it's that moment that I can look at and go, oh.

And you know, it's a beautiful creation. It's like a testament to the amount of hours worked. Like, you know it better than anybody alive. When you see someone perform at, like, a super elite championship level, you go, you know how hard that motherfucker had to work to get to what you're seeing right now?

It's. It's even. And this just brought this up just as a thing, like DJ playing me in the movie. You just don't get there.

Right, right.

It doesn't happen by magic.

Right, right.

That's fucking work.

That's work for him to become work.

Oh, my God.

He became you. Like, he got all of your mannerisms down. Like, down. Not like an assimile. No facsimile. Like, like, creepy down.

Like, he, like, even said he walks like me. He even got my little walk.

I'm like, get the walk like you, man.

I'm like, where? Like, where do you hire a walk coach?

Well, the crazy thing is, like, that story was Made for him.

Yeah, that was made for him.

Because you have to be that big to sell that.

Yeah.

And you can't get that big that quick to take you forever.

So we were talking about this the other day with dj. Is that, like, there's, like, you know, through the history of, like, you know, moviemaking, there's been actors that have, like, I'm getting big, and they go eat, you know, Ben and Jerry's ice cream. And then there's like, watching the whole transition of what DJ Was doing and how he's like, well, I just don't need to be big, because that's one thing. I need to be big. But put on quality. Quality of what I'm doing. And so it's these fast twitch. It's like a wrestler fast twitch fibers. You look at him and go, oh, he just didn't get big. He put on specific muscle for what he was doing, you know, and to be able to go through everything and understand going. He secluded himself. He literally locked himself away for 11 weeks up in Vancouver and didn't bring his family up, which I guess he normally does, and just went through his training. Training camp.

Jesus.

Like, going, like, going, okay. You know, like, every day, same routine. Get up, do the same routine. Do this. I was up there for fight week. Got all of his stunt guys all like, this is. This is foundationally. Because I'm not going to teach him wrestling, 25 years of wrestling in a month, right? Or two weeks or a week or an hour. It's like, okay, but let's get foundational pieces, right? Because the people are going to watch it. They can look at the film. Film and tell whether you put the work in or not, Right?

Especially someone like you. Oh, God. Yeah.

It was one where. Where that was the biggest deal for Benny is to be able to shoot these scenes without stunt double going, how? Because. Because it just detracts from what he's trying to do as a filmmaker, right? How do you shoot this whole entire. Well, well, I'm gonna give DJ foundational pieces of, like, changing your level for a double. Here's where you get in, like, certain foundational pieces you have to have. And then, like I told them, once you get to a certain point, everything from that point on is your own. It's like when you watch wrestlers going, oh, he changes his level. And then all these little nuances that's individual, that's individualized, like Michael Jordan. It's like a. The structure for a jump shot's the same, right? But all these little nuances of, like how to get to the position to hit a jump shot. That's Michael Jordan. Right?

Right.

So I go like a. Like when I shoot a double leg, like lowering your level. That's foundational, fundamental. Right. It's like attacking without my arms out in tight. That's fundamental. But once I hit the person with. With the attack. Right. Double leg, everything from that point going on is my own. Whether I tip him this way till them this way, run them forward, run them backwards, sit down, change that. It's all these little new. I go, we need to do foundational. And then you're good. So. So it was a lot of work for him to get to that foundational.

But point.

And once he got there, it's like, okay, you're good.

It looked very realistic. The fight scenes were excellent.

Yeah.

Like, really well done to the point where it looked like the historical fight.

Yeah, they did. And again, this is Benny, you know, just like him and how he wanted to shoot it.

And I really appreciate that because it's like, that's hard to do. It's hard to. Hard to really capture. Like, you watch a documentary or a docu drama, rather, on a person's real life when that person's a famous person like yourself. And I've seen you compete for decades. I'm like, I've seen it. I remember those fights. They got it. They got it real close, man. To the point. Like, wow.

Yeah, this is.

It's really well done. And it also, like, it looks realistic. It doesn't look. You know, sometimes fights look a little corny.

Oh, my God. That was the one thing we're talking about going. There's always going to be a space for a Rocky fight. Right? Right.

Literally, nothing wrong with Rocky.

Nothing wrong at all. But that's not the film they were shooting. They were shooting like, this is. How do we create something that pays homage to.

Yeah.

And something you can build off of. And somebody can look at it and go, oh, wow.

I think it's important. If we're talking about Rocky, though, we have to say Rocky 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Whatever the fuck you got. But Rocky 1 was real.

Oh, my God. I literally. I remember being in the theater and literally watch it and just like, as a kid.

Yeah.

Watching it. And like, I. I wanted to be Rocky, dude.

I drank a raw egg and I ran around the block. Oh, yes. I got home.

Oh, yeah. 100%. I mean, you're like, that's like, holy shit. Yeah.

That was a great movie. Oh, and they tried to push him out. He didn't. They didn't want him to play the lead. He wrote that movie.

Oh, my God. He won an Oscar for that. Right?

It was amazing.

Yeah.

It's a great movie. And it's a weird movie. It's a weird.

It is. It is. Because that, that's. That's the classic underdog dog.

Yeah.

Overachiever. You know. But he doesn't win.

There are guys like that, man. And that's what's crazy. There's guys that, like, are hyper fucking talented, but for whatever reason, they just never. Buster Douglas.

Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Buster Douglas. Buster Douglas got it together for one fight against Mike Tyson and pieced him up and did it artistically.

Yeah.

He was. Was hitting with a jab followed by a left hook. Just.

What?

Wow. It was beautiful. The movement.

Wasn't that in Tokyo?

I believe it was.

Yeah. Tokyo Dome.

Yeah, I believe you're right. Yeah. That was one of the craziest.

Yeah. Fight. I'll never forget that. I'll never forget that.

Because his mom had died.

Yeah.

And he just got it together for this one fight.

Wow.

And this one fight, he showed everybody what he had.

Yeah.

It was amazing.

Never to be repeated.

Never. And then Holyfield knocked him out in the next fight.

Fight. Yeah. Gosh, damn.

But like that one fight, man, he got it together and you go, wow. So there's guys like that out there that, that are supremely talented, but for whatever reason, they just never sustain. Never can keep it together.

It's a mental thing. I mean, all of it is. Right. I mean, just like. Like you're saying like the, like the outliers. It's a mental thing that they have that a level or a gear they can get too.

Yeah.

Everybody else just can't.

It has to be. Or there's. There's got to be something. Something they're doing that's so different and everybody's trying to figure it out. Like, what is he doing?

Yeah.

But it seems to boil down to almost always dedication. It's like how dedicated are you to it? And are you so dedicated that you're really willing to objectively look at what you do good and what you're not so good and, and. And change that and fix it and. And really tighten down your diet and really.

Yeah.

Like get religious with your supplements.

That. That's the ability to be able to be. Just have the self perspective. Right. This in depth honesty. Because a lot of it. Like I literally. Before Chris Campbell. Right. I was just talking About, I thought I was training hard. I thought I, I thought like, I'm training fucking hard. And he just grabbed me by the hand. He goes, no, let me show you what heart is right? And so it was this routine where it's like, in college, my senior year, 6am, I get up, he would pick me up and I wouldn't be a minute late. I had a chair that I put next to the door that I slept in for the last. Because one time being late, he just throttled me. And I'm like, I ain't never happen again. Ain't ever happened again, man. I slept in the chair next to the door. Door. You know, it'd be like, all right. Because he would just give two beeps, beep, beep. And like, all right, I'm up, you know, and out the front door. We go to the gym, we train in the morning. So we do wrestling drills, stuff like that. And then I would do cardio or strength.

He would go to work. He was a full time attorney. He'd go to work all day. I would start practicing with the, the wrestling team, warm up and then I'd wait for him to get off of work. Five o' clock and then we train for a couple hours and then get up and replace, repeat. But it's this level of intensity with everything had intention. There wasn't anything that was left without intent. Right. You know, from how we drilled, how we trained, everything was very focused and intentional. There wasn't anything like, I'm going to do this today. You know, it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Everything has intention. This is why you're doing this, this is why you're doing that. This is why you're doing this.

And that's the difference.

That's the difference. Difference is this intention of every single thing you're doing has this intention for an end purpose.

You know who Gordon Ryan is, right?

Yeah, yeah.

That's Gordon's belt up there. When Gordon trains 365 days a year.

Yeah.

He doesn't take any days off unless he's injured. And if he's injured, he'll still be on the mats watching, watches, everybody. He says, like, I'm still thinking about you.

Jitsu, that's entirely attention.

And it's not just training like hard sparring. It's going over technique, going over counters, tape study all day.

And that's. That is somebody who's living their life intentional. Right? Everything has a, and purpose.

Everything.

And it's why he's been able to do what he's been able to do. I mean, I've looked at it going, if he existed when I was doing adcc, I would never won, you know, because it's just, it's just a different level. And, and that's, that's a skill set I had wrestling. But he's got a skill set that incorporates that plus 20 things more.

And it's nuts because he gives away the formula. He's like, no one's willing to do it.

No, he's like.

And he just says it with confidence.

He.

He goes, I put on all my videos out there for free.

Is that funny, though?

I mean, he put. He puts techniques up all the time, shows you how to do stuff. And he said, sells DVD still. He makes millions just selling instructionals because that's how much he knows about Jiu Jitsu.

Oh my gosh.

And he's only 30.

Yeah.

And he's. Everybody considers him the greatest of all time.

You know, it's crazy. It's funny. This brought this up. So. So when DJ and I connected again in 2023, when this got kicked off, green light from the film. He sends me this picture of Panther videos. Panther Martial arts Seek and Destroy videos that are in V tape. He's got like 10 of them in the picture, right? And it's Mark Kerr, Seek and Destroy. Benny had found them and sent them to D.J. and he's like, study him. So it's this videotape series that I did for Panther production. Here it is. So this is one of these things. Yep. And so, so DJ sends me this picture and it was. I was literally like, okay, I'm in.

Dude, look at the size of you. You look like a superhero.

Oh, dude, I had such. This is. I call, I call it phone. I call it phone booth fighting, right? Like, I like. And like, I could, in a very small space, I could generate a ton of power.

Oh, dude, you were a freak.

Ton of power.

You were a legitimate freak. And I remember, like, watching you fight the first time, I was like, that's going to be a real problem. That's going to be a real problem.

What do you do with that?

It's one thing that you're giant, but it's also that you got elite wrestling skills on top of that.

Like, oh, oh, yeah, this. This might be a problem. Yeah. Oh my God.

All these dudes in karate gays are like, godamn it.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. They're like, phil, I'm turning in my ghee.

And then the gi. The pro. The problem with The GI is. They can. Anyone can grab it.

Yeah.

You know, it makes wrestling even easier if you, like, if you allowed the geese still. I think they're probably. Probably be a few people that get choked out, but also a lot of people get taken down a lot easier.

Yeah. So even so, you can grab the gi. Higgin Machado. Higgin Machado. I've rolled with him, right. Jean Jacques and Higgin. And Higgin. It was like giving him an extra set of hands.

Yeah.

I. I go, dude. I literally. So the. So on Torrance, when I train with him, there's like, there's one room and then another room and there's a door between them. Them. And so he had half of his class kind of all stacked up in the door watching us train. And it was like five minutes with a ghee. And I just looked at Higgin, I go, I ain't never wearing this thing again. Take the key off, man. Here, have it back. Because it was like, it's.

It's a weapon.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, it's a weapon. Especially a guy who's got really good collar chokes. Those guys are terrifying. They get that thumb behind your neck and you're like, oh, crap. Christ.

It was like he was getting me in position. He would tie up an arm, like, with a gi, and I'd be like, now, now he's got like.

Like, yeah.

Like, what the. Dude.

It's a totally different thing. You have to really be aware of grips and position, and you gotta. You can't explode your way out of stuff. That's the. That's what the argument for the GI is defensively, that you have to get out of every position with technique. You can't just pull your arm out, your arm stuck. So you have to figure out. Out the right way to do this. Yeah. Where you don't expose yourself because they have too much friction.

It's been a minute since I've been. I'm like, no friction. Yeah. I mean, you literally. It's all friction. I mean, it's like no slip.

Yeah. It's a problem if you have one. But the thing Eddie Bravo always used to say, why would you want to train in that for mma, though? He's like, that would be crazy. That'd be like saying, if you play racquetball, you're going to be better at tennis.

Yeah.

No, play tennis. You have to play tennis at an elite level. You. You should be. All your grips should be based on control of the body. Gable grips. And.

Yeah.

All that under hooks and overhooks and, like, you can't. Because that's the one thing that we saw with a lot of Jiu jitsu guys in the early days, they were so used to grabbing collars and grabbing sleeves that when they went to the ground, they lost 30% of their game.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, again, that's the evolution of. It's why, like, foundationally, Gillis grappling. Right. Because it just teaches you fundamentally what you're about to do if you're going to get an mma. Yeah, right.

For sure.

Foundationally. It's like, that's where you need to start.

Yeah, I think so.

You know, it cuts even to the point where it's like, you have. Because you have a lot of wrestling in there and you have a lot of moves. Like, my first times at Abu Dhabi, the only thing I kept saying, small moves, small moves, small moves. Like, I didn't like. Like, I literally. If I felt uncomfortable, it was these small, tiny moves. Right. You know, it wasn't this, like, explosion, because it's like. I don't know what I'm gonna explode into, too.

Right, right.

You know, so it's foundationally. It's. It's. Yeah. Geese are. It's a different sport.

It's a totally different sport. But I think there's something to be gained from cross training with the gi. I think the GI is, like. It's a fun thing to do. And in most street fights, the realistic thing is you're going to be wearing clothes.

Yeah.

Especially if you're fighting in a place that is a. Where people wear winter coats.

Oh, God.

Oh, my God. That'd be amazing. So much stuff.

Smorgasborg.

So many things to choose from. So much control available. But for the.

If you.

If you really ever wanted to think about competing, I would say just go right into wrestling. Wrestling and Jiu jitsu. Learn that stuff first. That's foundational.

Yeah.

You have to.

God, man, I can't believe you've been involved in this this long, Joe.

I know. It's so long.

I mean, you're a spectator to history.

I know, I know. I feel super lucky. Incredibly fortunate. You know what? I felt the most fortunate. Fortunate during COVID because everything was locked down. You couldn't do anything. But the UFC was still putting on shows, and you'd get tested, and you'd have to get tested when you got there. Yeah, everybody's wearing a mask until you sit down next to each other. But we were in the apex center, and I Got to watch, like, world championship fights with no audience. I was like, this is crazy. And there's only one of. Maybe. Maybe there's a hundred people in the whole room that are getting to watch these. These fights. Like, when we saw Steepe fight Francis and Ghana. Francis beat him for the world title. There was no one in that room, man.

Wow.

It's crazy to watch.

Wow.

If you watch it today, it's such a weird video because it's an elite performance by Francis in his prime, where he's, like, seeking destroy, going after Steve, impatient, you know, it's when DC started calling him Patient Francis. Yeah. And dude, there's no crowd. And it's kind of in Eerie.

Wow.

It's eerie because when he kos him and he start, you hear people go, whoa. You, like. It's like people kind of freaked out.

Wow, that's. That's unique.

It's very unique. And I was like, wow, there's so few people that get to be here.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

While this fight is happening, like when Justin Gagey fought Tony Ferguson.

Oh, my God.

We were in an empty arena.

Wow.

The arena was completely empty. It was only the UFC crew and only the people that were working around with the. With the ufc.

Oh, my God.

There was no crowd.

Wow.

And if you watch that today, it's bizarre.

Oh, my God. So I even thought, like, my first fights in Japan, how quiet the crowd was, but not that quiet.

There was no one there. The Justin Gagy, Tony Ferguson fight, there might have been a. I don't know, a hundred people, 200 people in the whole arena. It was nuts. It was, like, totally quiet.

So spooky.

It was. It was eerie because you. The. You heard the slaps of the. Of the punches and kicks way different.

Oh, I bet.

Cuz there's no. No people cheering. Cuz there's always people cheering. It's always this background noise. The ufc, like.

Yeah.

And you hear thuds and stuff. And I hear a little better than most people because I'm wearing the headphones and the microphones are in the. But you don't hear it. Like, you hear it when there's an empty arena. When there's an empty array. You. Who the.

I need to go back and watch that. Oh, my God. So that's. So I've sat there with. With a group of people that, like, watching somebody check a kick in here, shin on shin, and just me, nobody in the room getting it but me going, oh, yeah. Like, ow. I don't care. Like, I don't care that hurt. I don't care.

You can poker face that all you want.

Oh, dude, it hurt. That's like a big you, like. I know that hurt, dude. I know that hurt. I know that hurt, man.

I mean, the COVID times were dark times, but it did make me feel very fortunate to be working for the ufc, because to be there live as a, you know, a person who's like, just love this sport since it first started, to be there live while those fights were going on, like, this is nuts.

That is just one of those where, you know, again, money can't buy that. I mean, it's just one of those experiences like, like I've had a couple through this process of filmmaking where it's like no money on earth could buy that experience. Like in Venice, standing there, like, literally, like, I'm crying because like I said, it was at the end of that, it was like therapy. Watch. Watching me and, and literally settling into like, wow, man, I was a dick. You know, I just was really hard on everybody around me. And then having Benny next to me, DJ next to me, feeling their emotions and feeling DJs emotions because they'd never experienced anything like it. I either, you know.

Well, I think anybody trying to do what you were trying to do is got to be a bit of a dick. I don't think, I don't think as nice as you were. And you were always super friendly. There's. You're doing something that's really insane. You know, you're, you're, you're cage fighting for a living in front of the world in your underwear.

Yeah, my God, I tell people it's hot pants. I got numbers in hot pants. You want to know the true. It's like a not pants, you know.

I mean, you were a, a human superhero built like a human superhero, and you're fighting for who the expects you to be normal.

No, they do, though. That's one where I'm like, I'm like, no, I was a selfish, self absorbed. And I look at it, I go, okay, all right, I can accept that. And, and understand. I was trying to raise everybody up. And if you couldn't get with a program, I didn't have patience for you.

Well, you had gone through like, what you were talking about these camps, and you had gone through the kind of training that's required to reach the level that you were reached, that you had reached, you know, that, you know what's in there for everybody. And people that don't want to come aboard, you get mad at them.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's like, you're gonna hold me back.

Yeah. And that's part. That's part of it, like, understanding, like. Like, I just didn't have patience for it because I didn't have time. I didn't have time for it. Right. Yeah. It's understanding, like. Like, I know that X. I only have X amount of fucking fights in me, and I got to try to maximize, and that's not going to work, you know, because a lot of that was assembling people that were accountable to me. Right. And, you know, money can hold people accountable in a certain degree, but at a certain point, it's like, you know, the training partners I had around me, it was like, hey, I can help you get to the next level. Right. That was kind of the enticement.

Yeah.

You just need to make a commitment to me. Me.

Right, right, right, right.

Make a commitment to me, and I'll give you that little piece that you're missing, you know, and that was kind of the. The. The part that I helped, you know, go, okay. My training partners be accountable to me, and. And I'll help you with that little missing piece of how to be your professional, you know, and so I just didn't have patience. I didn't have patience. And it's one where I'm nice, I'm cordial, all this other stuff, but, you know, at the end of the day, I was like. I was demanding.

Do you think that maybe that that kind of drive played a factor in you having an issue with substances?

Yeah.

Because you just wanted relief.

Yeah.

Maybe relief from the mindset.

Yeah, I. You know, part of it was that, you know, you almost, like. I almost buy into the bullshit. And I can never be this perfect being that I was trying to be. And so I'm always falling short. And that feeling of always falling short is. And this just like, you know, I couldn't live up to what I thought I needed to live up to. Right. And so that was hiding. And, you know, I'm just gonna get a little relief from it. You know, it's gonna. So I can unplug, you know, and it was just one of those where it started with pain. You know, realistically, it started like, fuck, I'm doing something that inherently, I'm gonna have pain. Yeah. You know, and it was this progression from that of, like, you know, from pain to. I didn't know what an opiate addiction was.

Yeah. In all fairness, I think we should tell people back when this was all going on, the opiate epidemic, had not occurred yet, and people did not know. And they were also telling a lot of people when they were taking these pain medications that they were not.

Not addictive.

Yeah, they argued it in court. They argued it in court that it was not addictive.

Oh, my God.

Which is really crazy.

Which I didn't understand. Well, fuck. I didn't understand, like, I didn't understand, like, when I took it to the level that I took it when stopped. Tried to stop. I didn't understand what being dope sick was. I didn't understand, like, getting, like, physically sick because I don't have the substance in my body. Like, I would get diarrhea. I couldn't walk from here to the end of the room without having to sit down for a half hour.

It's almost like a parasite.

It is.

It's almost like a parasite that needs you to keep feeding it to stay alive. Because, like, how else could getting poison out of your body be bad?

Yeah.

How nuts is that?

Yeah.

That.

You want it bad.

You want to get it. You want to get the poison back in you. Like, what kind of weird and that biological mechanism is that?

The crazy part is the first recognition of, like, that I'm stuck. Then I don't know the answer of, like, because I'm caught between, you know, like, all right, I'm going through this physical withdrawal and everything else that comes with it, or I'm just gonna go seek the thing that's causing the physical withdrawal because it makes me feel better, you know, so you're caught in this loop of just. Right.

And then you go, I'll just have a little.

Yeah, just. Just. That's it. I just need to feel better just a little bit. And, you know, so it's one of those where it's like, there wasn't the Internet back then. I couldn't get on and like, oh, let's Google something. You know, it's like, wasn't that.

So how did you figure out that? When did you realize, like, I've got a point problem?

God, man. I always. From probably age 14. Really? Yeah. I knew. I knew when I first drank, first had a drink, that I drank until I was drunk, like, because that was this taste of Jack Daniels, and it was like, oh, this feels good. Good. It was, like, not a normal reaction, looking back on it, going, oh, so I've always had a propensity towards it, and then, you know, it functions both ways because I get addicted to the sport. I get addicted to the routine. I get addicted to getting in a ring and Taking someone's will. I get addicted to the crowd, the championship, the adulations, the this. It's like, that's who I am. Right, Right. And it's a. It's a contributor to my success, but it's also a contributor to my. To my demise, you know, in both ways. It's like, you know, from an early age, I understood, like, hey, you know, this could be a problem. You know, and then when wrestling came along, I didn't drink during wrestling. Like, during that whole season, I didn't drink. You know, in college, I didn't drink during wrestling season. Like, doing. You know, when it's like, okay, you know, I'm in recovery.

I have seven years of sobriety now.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

It's. It's. For me, it's. It's one of the. Those foundational things of, like. Oh, that's what I've been missing my whole life.

Yeah. And you keep repeating that term for a good reason. Foundational is everything.

Yeah.

Like having, like. Like morals and ethics. That's foundational.

Foundational.

Having your health. That's foundational.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, because it's one of those. We're understanding, like. Like, those are the building blocks. Because if I don't have those things in place, nothing else stands out up.

Right. Of course.

You know, I mean, it's. It sounds like the duh.

No, but. But it's an important thing to reiterate because everybody should hear it, you know.

And it's a huge part. It's a huge part.

It's. It. With most things in life. Most things in life, you have to have structure, some kind of structure, you.

Know, figuring out, like, my son, what, like, what makes him function. Structure. He. He's told me this. He goes, you should have been harder on me. I'm like. I'm like, okay. I'm like, all right. I didn't. I didn't know.

Hilarious. You know?

I didn't know.

I'm gonna give you four stars, dad.

Yeah. It could have given you fly, but you weren't earning them.

I'm like, that's hilarious.

Yeah, but he functions best with structure. He's just one of those individuals that are built like that. Right.

Well, I think part of that is kind of probably a scene, what you did and genetics, and there's. It's like some learned memory in there.

I think so. I would think.

I think there is. I don't think we totally understand where personal personalities come from. It's a mixture of, like, spirits and Hormones and genetics and where you are born and what part of the moon's facing this.

Oh my God. Yeah.

I always wondered if that shit's real.

Oh my gosh. It's like, yeah, well, Jupiter's orbiting around my Saturn and I always wondered like.

Why are they so into this? Is there something to this? Because if there is, I would feel real stupid if I was ignoring it the whole time.

You know what? Listening to Joe Dispenza, some of his stuff, it changed my whole. It. It's changed some of my perspective of how like just having. We're energy, right? We're energy. And your. Your emotional energy is transferred to me. It's like why I was addicted to dawn. Because of that exchange of negative energy, right? Yeah, back and forth. It's like being an addict, right? I'm addicted to the drama.

You're also addicted to making up.

Yeah, that's the other one.

Yeah.

Cuz that's a feel good too.

Yeah, right? Sometimes people want to get in fights just.

Just to make up. Hell yeah. I mean, it's the whole process of that up. It's how it's all fun. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh my God. So it's. It's that really up part of like understanding, like looking back on it going.

Oh, bro, when you guys were fighting in the movie. Movie. Right before you were about to fight off Chance. And it is, my God, it is such a crazy scene. It's really well done, man.

Oh my God.

It's really well done.

It's. It's how Emily flips that switch of like, you. Yeah, well, you wanted me to come. It's like, oh my God. It's like that's what does it every time.

It's amazing.

Like that little like. Oh, God. I guess they did want her come. I'm. Asshole.

It's amazing. It's so realistic. I mean, they nailed it. They really nailed it. How weird is it for you to watch like a segment of your life be recreated in a movie? Is it so. I mean, it's.

It's so surreal. I've used. I've like. I haven't found another word to explain.

Right. It seems like there's not a word that figured out that one.

There's not. Because it's just one where it's like, you know what's on the other side of it? And this is just me going, you know what? I'm grateful. I. I have a sense of humility. I have a sense of just being like deep, profound gratitude that dj, Emily, Benny, everybody Involved in the film, wanted to take this on.

Yeah, like amazing.

Cuz I looked at it going like a lot of it's self worth going. You really want to do a movie about my life, about me? Like what the. Like really. And then understanding like what they see see in me and the belief they have in the story and everything that's around it. Because at the end of it, it's redemption. It's like where I am today. I'm so thankful that I have my health. I'm so thankful that I have my sobriety. I'm so thankful that I get to experience these things and share, you know, my experience, strength and hope they call it. Right. You know, with other people and give them going, look, look at all the I went through and I'm on the other side of it, you know, so whatever you're going through, anything's possible. Yeah, anything.

Truly, I mean. And the thing about what you did is that like I said, I thought it was so brave that you did it publicly when you did the Smashing Machine documentary. And I was thinking like, did you. Were you happy that you were getting on film? So like, maybe this like would make you get clean? Was there any of that?

Ooh, there's a little bit of that.

That, yeah.

Because part of it is that I didn't, I didn't. At that point, the only person on the planet that knew what I was doing was Dawn. Right. Nobody else on the planet knew what I was doing. And so when John had put the camera down, he's like, dude, what the are you doing? Like, you're not being truthful with us. And I'm like, well, at that moment I kind of went, you get the out of my house, you're done. Done filming. And there was this, there was this moment where it was like I needed to tell somebody. And I go, okay, like, here's what I've been doing. And I don't know who to tell. I don't know how to tell it. I'm just going to show you. And that's when it shows me shooting up. It was that moment where I'm like, you want to know what I'm doing? Well, I'm going to show you. Because it was one of those where it's like it felt like a weight guy lifted, right? Like all of a sudden it's just.

Like, oh, did you ever think about not going through with the documentary?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So here, here's what they ended up doing. So I didn't see one stitch of footage at all until I Saw the complete documentary in Los Angeles at Dolby Sound Studios. So it was like a couple of years. Wow. Not a second a foot footage. So I sit down, the documentary as it appeared on hbo, right? And the filmmakers aren't watching the film, they're watching me watch the film, right? There's like eight of us in the, in the movie theater. I get films done, lights come up, and I literally stand up. And John Greenhalgh goes, what do you think? And I go, I don't have to get back with you. And I just walk straight out, don't say another word, word. Get in my truck, start driving back. Then the phones, you know, like in the car, he's calling me on the phone and I'm, and he goes, you're gonna be okay. I go, I have no clue. I don't know. I, I honestly don't know. Because the agreement we had in place was I had, I had final veto over the content of it. But he never showed you the content until that day. I saw it in the Dolby Sound Studios in, in Los Angeles.

The content, the, the whole film. I didn't see, see any of it until that moment. So literally, I drove home and John was like, what? I go, I, I, you have to give me a day. You have to give me a day. I, I just, I, I said, I don't know. I don't know if I can go forward with that. I don't think I can. I don't think I can. It's just too much.

Okay, so you did have the power to veto it.

Yeah, I did. I did. At the, at the very.

What made you decide not to.

John had said something to me, like, I guess it's like a parable where it's like, if you live your life and you've saved one person's life, you've had a worthy life. Meaning that if somebody watches this and sees your struggles that you've gone through and sees the hope that you have in that and you're recovering, it gives them hope or it gives them. Because what keeps you addicted is shame. The shame of what I was doing. It kept me, kept me quiet. I didn't. Who the am I gonna tell? Right?

Right. You don't, you don't want them to know?

No. You don't want them to know, like, no. And so that shame is what usually keeps people. But if they see me and the family film go through this process and this deep revealing process of what was going on with me, it gives them an opportunity to go, why? I can Ask for help too.

When you got through the film, how long did it take you to get clean?

I got clean off a. Off of. Off of morphine, off of the new vein I was doing right after all the way through the voltage and all the way through the Fujita fight. And I was clean for. Started drinking, which is a whole nother topic. But, you know, I hadn't done narcotics in, you know, probably like three years after that. And then I started up again. And then it was this process of like, start, stop, start, stop, start, stop. And then the thing that predominantly dominating your alcohol because it's socially acceptable, easily accessible, you know, all these different factors.

Yeah.

Of it. And so that's eventually like, I, like I've said my. So my mom passed away September 3rd, 1996. And so my son knows this. And so my sobriety date, September 4th. And so my son asked me that day, September 3rd. He's like, Dad, I know you need to drink today because your mom died, but would you stop tomorrow? And at the time I thought it was just another empty promise of like, yeah, yeah, I'll stop, I'll stop. And next day I got up and there's just something a little different or whatever it was that day. And I stopped asking the questions. Why? Because it's there. Irrelevant. Right. And from that day till today, I'm sober. Wow. Yeah. Makes no sense, but it does.

It's like you get better at sobriety, just like you get better at all other things in life.

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

You get better at figuring out why. And you know, there's also the reality that I think a lot of people need to take into consideration when it comes to fighting is that a lot of guys are. They're self diagnosing or self dispensing something to make themselves feel better.

Yeah.

Because they've taken a lot of damage.

Oh, yeah.

And they feel like shit.

Yeah.

And that's. Alcohol is a big one, big contributing factor. A lot of, A lot of former fighters become alcoholics. Cocaine's another one. Yeah.

Because it's one of those where I thought I literally woke up Joe, and this is no shit, like waking up going, okay, I don't know what's wrong with me, but there's something wrong. Like, there's something wrong with me. And understanding like all this different stuff, head trauma and all these different things and factors. I. I literally thought I was like going off the deep end. Like, I was like, okay, alcohol or drugs was the only relief I got for what the was going on in my head.

So the thing. What did it was. It passed a specific fight.

It was. It was literally towards. It was after 2006, it's like, 2006, 2007, 2008, I stopped fighting. 2009, I didn't know what else to do. All my identity was tied up in being a fighter, you know, and understanding, like, these simple words of, like, fighting's what I did. It's not who I am. Right. I'm much more than that. Right. I'm much more than a fighter and understanding. Once I got to that point, you know, it's like, that's when some of the relief came. But part of it, my head, like, there's something. I don't know what it is. And so I was just seeking relief because of, like, there's something that's up in my head, and I didn't know what it was. Didn't know what it was. Still to this day, I look at it like, you know, it was. I call it a God shot because it was one where it's like, something needs to change because this is unsustainable, you know, unsustainable with the alcohol, unsustainable with what's going on in my head and, you know, get sober, things quiet down. You know, it's actually quiet down. That first year, it took that of sobriety to clear out all the.

That was in my head going, I just need neutral. Right? And once I hit neutrals, like, oh, wow, I can build on this, you know, so it's. It's. It's been incredible. It makes no sense at all, but it makes perfect sense.

No, it does make sense because you're willing to articulate your deep thoughts, your. Your very vulnerable thoughts on, you know, who you are as a guy who was, you know, one point in time, one of the scariest fucking human beings walking the face of the earth. And you're, you know, it's. That's important for people to know and to hear and to that and to recognize that, like, man, a lot of people can get caught in that trap.

They can't think.

You couldn't.

Yeah.

You know, just be a little bit more compassionate and understanding and appreciate people for telling a very difficult truth about their life. Because I think people need to hear that stuff.

They do. They do. Like I said, you know what I understood, like, giving them the permission for the documentary, saying to John, going, okay, if this could change or help one person, then my life has value. Right? Because I helped another person. And then when it premiered at hbo, at the studios, there There's a. This was like the whole crowning moment is having like a 65 year old grandmother come over to me, who I would have nothing in common with, and say to me, you know what? That was beautiful. My grandson, he's got a drinking problem and I don't know what to do. Wow. You know, it's like this, this door had been opened.

Yeah.

Where she felt comfortable to sit down and talk with me about her grandson. And it was like this moment of, of like, oh, fuck this. What, this is what it's about. It's about opening that door up so people can connect and go, well, if he can do it, I can, I can, I can tell my truth. Right. You know, because it's difficult, man. Addictions are just, I mean, shaming and they keep you in a box and it's just this, it's a horrible existence.

Did anybody ever recommend ibogaine to you?

No. I've heard of that though.

So they're doing that now. In Texas, the ibogaine initiative passed through thanks to former Gov. Rick Perry, Republican, who through working with veterans, found that a lot of veterans who struggle with addiction and ptsd, that ibogaine is incredibly effective.

Wow.

And it's not a recreational drug. It's not.

No, no, no.

It's a psychedelic that takes 20, 24 hours and it's apparently like brutally introspective, but literally corrects addictive pathways. Like whatever the connection is in the brain that causes you to be addicted to things.

Yeah.

It can disrupt those in a very bizarre and unique way. And it's something like 80 plus percent effective with one dose of getting people to stay off of narcotics, cigarettes, alcohol. And I think with two doses, it's in the 90s. So if you do two different ibogaine ceremonies. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. They were going. Most people were going. My friend Ed Clay did it down in Mexico and he even had a place that he was running down in Mexico because you couldn't do it in America because it's illegal here, but it literally stops the train of addiction dead in its tracks. They don't totally understand how it does it, but it's very effective. I know a lot of veterans who've.

Had relief, so they've talked like the neuroplasticity of, of drugs like that to create new pathways instantaneously.

Yeah. Like, like I'd like to say those words, but I don't really know what they mean. You know what I mean when I say them? I'm just faking. I know that's how you're supposed to say it. So I'll say it, but respectfully, I.

Don'T know what the going on neuroplasticity.

What I do know is the. My friends that I know that have gone and done. It's been massively effective.

Wow.

Get them off drop drugs. Get them off drinking.

Wow.

Get them, you know, they just change their perspective. They. They go, okay, I get it now. They just realized where they were tripping over their own dick. Like what they were doing wrong.

That's incredible.

Yeah. Quick. I mean, what else is like that where like 24 hours later you can get a totally new perspective in life and be cured of addiction and somehow another. That's illegal. That's illegal. But the stuff that they're addicted to is not.

Oh my God.

That's like.

Yeah, that's bizarro land, right? Oh my God.

Total bizarro world.

Yeah. None of that makes sense, man. I mean it just. That's so. That's a whole nother rabbit hole.

Really doesn't make any sense. Yeah, no, like what we just said makes. No, it's like. No, it should be the opposite. Yeah, it should be the opposite. This is so stupid.

Because it's just one where it's like, if that stuff existed back then, it would have cut short.

Yeah, it did exist, but it just didn't exist here because we're corrupt jobs.

Yeah.

And so they're again, kudos to Governor Rick Perry because what he's done is like open the doorway to right wing leaning people going, oh, maybe we shouldn't dismiss all these things that God put here on earth.

Oh my God.

Maybe some of these things are actually here to heal your brain and we're ignoring them because you can't patent them. That might be the thing too.

Not saying there's anything wrong with, but.

I'm saying that this also might cure you. And it's relatively, it's. It's a plan.

So that's again, in the last five, six years, Alternative Perspectives has been just Paramount. Yeah. In my. Just in opening me up, you know, to, to having a better understanding of like how rigid I was and how. How just this thin line of thinking I had had for so long about stuff like this, you know, and so, you know, it's just been this incredible experience to get to here because I've had to open up. I've had to go, okay, I'm going to do meditation. I'm going to do this. I did, I did meditation for fighting, but it was visual meditation. How the. I was going to dismantle a dude in the ring, right? I would sit and do. But this is meditation to access different parts of my brain, right. To try to get into delta waves and, you know, theta beta, you know, all these different things so I can open different spots in my brain up, you know? And so it's just been this, you know, My wife, she's Nichiren Buddhist, you know, Nam yoho renge ko. She chants every morning.

Duncan does that.

Yeah. So the Buddha you have? The Buddha, the gold Buddha, you have. Yeah, we have one in our house. Not quite that big, but we have. Yeah. So she's Nichiren Buddhist, and it's one of those things where she got me to start chanting. I don't do it as much now, but the first three, four years we were together, it's like. Like, I chanted with her regularly. And it's one of those where it's like harmonics and vibrations and frequencies, you know, and understanding. Like, man, we know so little, but realistically, all this stuff through, like, all the different stuff they discovered in Egypt with the sound chambers and all the different things, I mean, it's a whole different thing where we just ignored.

Yeah.

And it's like. Well, we. We don't even. We're so archaic in our thinking.

Well, I think what happens sometimes is thinking and ideas get connected to people, and you think that the ideas and whatever you're. Whatever you think you know about history or about the way things can be done.

Yeah.

Like, it's all. It's all been solved, kids.

Yeah.

Like, settle down. Everybody knows. Like, no, no, no. I don't think they do. I don't think that you should show me how they built that.

Show me.

Who the fuck figured this out? Like, maybe they knew about medicine that you're ignoring because you can't patent it.

Yeah.

These people have been making ayahuasca for 10,000 years in the jungle. Don't tell me.

Yeah. Oh, my God.

Yeah, settle down. Yeah, settle down. There's all the things that you think are valid, plus other stuff. That's the thing that people have to recognize. You can't be rigid with what you believe. Believe in, because sometimes it's wrong.

That's the part where I can't believe how much I've opened up and been just receptive. And a lot of it's because I'm sober. And it's like. I don't know, man. Like, when you look at the bigger picture stuff, I. I know so little, dude.

Nobody knows that's the scariest thing. There's a bunch of people pretending they've got it figured out, but they're full of too.

Yeah.

Every one of us is a talking monkey flying through space.

That's just a great way to look at it.

Right over our head. We are in a convertible organic spaceship hurling through the universe alone. Once you start with that.

Yeah.

That's your foundational. Okay. This is foundational to your view of the world.

Right. Oh, my God.

The problem with us is that we don't see the stars anymore. That's a giant problem with human beings. We've screwed ourselves up with light pollution. And it's not a coincidence that the people that live in the most populated cities are the most diluted. Ridiculous people that are the furthest away from nature. They're not awesome people. But what I'm saying is like you, you are so far away from nature. You're so diluted from being like a wild animal.

So you know what I've actually done the last couple. I've hugged trees. I've literally hugged trees. It feels beautiful.

Yeah. That's real.

It really is like, like walking barefoot. Right. Like on grass and getting connected. And you know, I. At first you would have said to me 10 years ago, I'm like, yeah, okay, whatever, dad. You know? But it's like, okay, who says it? Who says it's not?

I think nature's a vitamin.

Oh, yeah. I think.

Hey, where did the term tree hugger come from? Did it come from the time where hippies were doing acid?

Probably.

Because then that would make so much more sense. Because if you're on acid and you hug a tree, you would be like, oh, I love you. I love you, tree. You're so amazing.

Oh. That originated a while ago. Oh.

From a series of non violent environmental protests in India, beginning with the Bish Bishnoi. Bishnoi. Bishnoi community in 1730.

Wow.

Who physically clung to trees to prevent them from being cut down. See, those people are probably on mushrooms.

Whoa. I was. Why?

That's why they worship cattle. That's what I think.

I, I would.

Why else would all those poor people not eat cows?

Oh, my God. Cows. So good.

But doesn't that make no sense?

It makes no sense at all.

Makes no sense. You guys have food everywhere and you're starving.

Starving.

And your. Your religion won't let you eat that food, boy. Okay, how'd you come to this? The only thing that makes any sense to me is those cows were giving you the mushrooms.

They had to because that's where the.

Mushroom poop, that's where they grow. The best source of psilocybin is cow poop. Duncan used to live in. My friend Duncan Trussell used to live in Asheville, North Carolina. And the farmers out there used to put a certain kind of feed into their diet to make sure that fungus couldn't grow in their. So that the, the kids wouldn't go in the field and pick the mushrooms. Because there was so many stores in that area, these kids would go just get bags of mushrooms and go to other planets. The farmer had to feed his some anim much because I want to get.

I want to see if it's still there.

I wonder if it is. I bet there's parts of this country where they just grow naturally. I would imagine once those spores get out there.

I would imagine. Yeah, I would imagine I was supposed to actually go down into Brazil and Ayahuasca.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Yeah.

Isn't it crazy? You have to go to Brazil to do that too? That's nuts.

Yeah, a friend of mine, we actually went down to stem cells in Panama. It's called Origins. And so we go down there and he starts explaining like this. For him, it was like seeing the face of God. He said it changed his whole entire, whole entire being. And he's like, it's in the jungle. So there's no. Like, it's. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And he goes, it's, it's. It's life changing.

I just picture Alex Pereira walking towards.

Dude. Totally, man. Totally. Like, that's a scary man. I swear, he's the scariest.

Oh, dude, his walk in is the scariest.

God, man, it's the dopest too. That music starts playing, it's this like, I'm coming to get you and nothing you could do about it.

Yeah, yeah.

He's built for one thing. And I bumped in him in Chicago and it's like he's built for one thing. He's built the fight.

Yeah, he's. He's built to you up.

Oh. He's built to fight. Weird.

Weirdly strong guy.

Oh, yeah. Like, like, literally, it's like, like, like he shouldn't be able to do what he's doing. It's like, you know, I go, there's no wind up in his kicks, his low kicks, nothing. There's no. No tells, no tell. Like you look at it, really sneaky.

But he's got unbelievable power. But the thing is, he puts it together with technique. It's not like he's just waiting after you trying to exchange with you and land first? No, no, he's setting you up. And while he's setting you up, he's taking your legs away. And you're not seeing the towels.

Oh, my God. They're not there at all. Yep, that's it. They don't move. I was trying.

You think it's coming. It's already there. And you're like.

And that's the whole thing is you go, okay, you're. You're thinking you're gonna pick up on it, and it's like, no, you're never going to.

Yeah, he's very clever with that. And he does it with both sides, too. He's just as good with the left leg with a switch kick. When he's fighting a south paw, he just starts chewing up those calves really quick. Man.

I can't believe that even. Even a thing. Is that that nerve? I think, from the.

Yeah, it's a horrible nerve.

Oh, my God.

That wasn't a thing when you were fighting.

No, it wasn't crazy. Oh, my God.

You have to know it now.

Oh, my gosh. Like, looking at it going, oh, my God, he's taking him out. He can't. He can't walk. Look at. It's like five kicks in. You're like, oh, fuck. He can't push off.

Isn't it crazy that you went your whole career without seeing. Seeing that?

I. I like where, like, who discovered it?

Michael Bisping.

Yeah.

Even Michael Bisping said it. I went through my whole career without getting calf kicked. That's so crazy.

Yeah.

World champion. Never, never got calf kicked.

Like that's a good thing.

Yeah, it was just amazing.

Really good thing.

But it's amazing that it came along so late.

It's because it's. It's unbelievable. You would think that something that looks that innocent is so depressed, debilitating.

Well, Benson Henderson was the first guy to start implementing it in the ufc, and then Mighty Mouse did it to Henry Cejudo and made his leg go limp. Did you ever remember that? He started. He started doing it, but this was, like, around the time where it started catching on. There was one fight between Dustin Poirier and Jim Miller. Oh, there was a horrible one. There was a lot of calf kicks in that fight.

Yeah. I mean, that's a copycat league, right? It's a copycat thing. Like watching another photograph. Yeah. I'm gonna try it now.

I see everyone has it. Yeah, everyone has it. You have to have it, and you have. You can't take too many no. No matter who you are.

No, it doesn't matter. I mean, it's just one of those where I.

So vulnerable.

It's. It's one of those where it's like, there's. There's. Other than checking it or getting out of the way, there's not a fucking shit you can do.

Well, Pereira has a very interesting way of checking. Checking it. So he checks it, like, the hacky sack way. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, like, when you throw a kick at him, he just lifts his leg.

Yeah.

He just lists.

Yeah.

He has his knee there, and he just picks his. His leg up.

Yeah.

So the kick just kind of goes with it, and he goes. It takes all the impact away.

Wow.

Because he was saying, as far as checking it, like, you don't want to check it because it hurts too much.

Yeah.

Like, even if you're. Even if you're just checking now that leg is up.

Yeah.

Why check it when you can just do that, like, hacky sack thing? And he was showing us with it, like, see. Oh, that's a different one. He does that one. That's a different hacky sack one where he uses the back of his foot.

Yeah.

But what I mean is he is picking up his leg, like, at the knee. His ankle is coming up parallel.

Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.

You're not gonna see it, but he's just. He's clever. There's a lot of cleverness, and it seems to be very creative. Creative, like the style that he has.

Yeah.

How he figures out how to. Because he knows he's just got to land one, so he's got this very creative little ways to chop out the legs.

Yeah. I still. I still think Sean o' Malley's got the best feints.

Oh, he got phenomenal things.

I mean, just so I. I remember watching him before he got to the ufc, and a friend of mine was like, no, no, you got. You gotta watch this kid. You gotta watch this kid. You know? And watching him going. It would be like this just again and again and again, and just realizing. Oh, fuck. That's what he was setting up.

Yeah.

It was 14 feints, right. To get to what he wanted to get to. And then it was like a faint here, faint on this side, faint hair. And he. All of a sudden, he's got a tendency. And now it's like, attack time.

Did you ever see the Eddie Wineland one? He faints. An uppercut, and he comes over the top of the right Hand.

I've seen it, but I haven't seen it.

Oh, you got to see it.

Yeah.

So pretty. Is one of his prettiest knockouts. He, like. He, like, stepped in, like, fainted. Like he was going to throw an uppercut and turned it into a left hand. Oh, my God, it was so clean.

Yeah, he's done some stuff.

Watch this. Watch how he.

Amazing.

Look at that. He faints a left uppercut and comes over the top with the right hand. God. Watch that again.

And that's one of those words. That is. That's. Oh, my God. That's silly, bro.

That's so.

Oh, my God. That's like one of those things where it's like, you can't teach it. You. You can't teach that stuff.

It's so slick. It's such a slick move.

Cannot teach it.

Did you watch the Terence Crawford, Canelo Alvarez fight?

Yeah, I did. Whoo.

Talk about slick. Oh, my goodness.

Crawford just outbox, man. Like, unreal.

Who's ever done that? Who's ever jumped up two weight classes like that?

Scary. It's crazy scary. So. So realizing, like, watching it going. Carnello has such a bully style, right? He's going to get in. He's going to bang with you. He's going to power. And watching Canelo just. Or Crawford just. Just box.

Just box beautifully.

Oh, like, I watch the whole thing. I'm like, that's art. That is art.

He's so clever. And just like, the way. And it got to a point where he got so comfortable, he's like, pit patting him.

And then what.

You'Re watching, like, wow. Towards the end, towards the final rounds, really started getting comfortable and really started putting it on. I'm like, this is amazing.

You know, one of those rare. Like, that's history, obviously, right? Watching somebody do. You shouldn't be able to do that. You shouldn't be able to fight at that weight for the first time ever.

Against one of the greatest, undisputed greatest.

Of all time fucking and do what you did. It is beyond, like, my favorite, an outlier. You're beyond an outlier. You're something. You're an anomaly.

Yeah.

You know.

I believe he's 37.

Yeah. One of those where you shouldn't be able to do that by. By any account. By any account, 37. My body was so wrecked. I'm like, you. You know, I can barely go bowling. I was.

I watched a video of Dolph Life, London Grid the other day. Like, I. That guy was like, remember in Rocky 3 he was the first guy that was scientifically trained.

Yeah.

Whenever I think of, like, UFC fighters.

Yeah, absolutely.

Talking about guys doing everything scientifically. Dolph lundgren in Rocky 3.

Yeah. Oh, my God, man. That was a Rocky 4.

Rocky 4.

Right. That was a stereotype. That was a stereotype like the Russians, you know. Oh, they're manufactured, you know, like, biologically manufactured. I came from a test tube, you know, type.

He totally looked like a Russian experiment in that movie he did. But that was the first time I saw a Versa climber.

I was like, conditioning.

Look at that.

God, he's unstoppable. Yeah. I was on a Versa climber two days ago. They're brutal. Oh, I hate him. Not a lot of fun. No, not.

Not an enjoyable experience.

I do an Aerodyne Versaclimber, a rower and then a skier.

All the things that suck.

All the things that suck. Like, going just shit. Just, you know, but it's one of those where I'm like, you know what? I don't have to do it for anything other than the challenge of just doing it.

Yeah. You know, I think everybody needs a little bit of a challenge and just getting over the challenge of doing, like, I'm doing 45 minutes on this elliptical machine, period. That's it. Yeah. That's good for you.

Oh, it's huge. It's huge.

It's giant.

Because it's just like, when I trained, it comes small wins. Right. I just need a win. He's like, some days I just need a win. That's it. I don't care what it is. Right. You know, I just need a win, you know?

Right.

Being nice to my wife, you know, being nice to, you know, just whatever it is. I just need something that day. Right. You know, it's like, I'm going to go to the gym. I don't get on a thing that I hate, and I'm going to do it for 45 minutes, and I'm. And that's a win.

And I think if you looked at the proportion, like, if you looked at this, there was a study done on people that are happy versus people that are not in this life. I bet the people that would. Jen, generally say they're happy. Get more of those. Get more those wins and over themselves.

Yeah.

Get more of those. Doing some shit that you did want to do, but you did it there. I'm done.

Yeah.

I feel better in that.

That's. That's the. For me, that's the link to get to where I. I am today, is that I didn't understand how huge those components were. Yeah, because when you're competing and stuff, it's easy because every day you need. You need to get wins, right? And you're stacking them, right? I'm stacking them. I need. Every day. I need a good training day. I need a good training day. And then you get to regular life. It's like, okay, the. I'm not. I'm not. Like, what's.

Not doing anything.

Yeah. What's my win? Letting somebody in on traffic. That's.

That's a giant problem for fighters, too, because you. You're. You're. You're at 9,000 RPMs for years, and then all of a sudden, boom.

Yeah.

And you're supposed to go to normal life now.

No. No. And I didn't. So this is. This is again, where this idea of like. Of like, I didn't understand how much of myself was tied up in it and how much I needed to go. It's what I did, not who I am. And understanding, like, this. Who I am has a lot longer career. Career than this fighter. Right. It's. It's. It's understanding who I like, really getting into the fact that, you know, I'm much more than just a fighter, you know, and understanding, like, okay, what is that? You know, I'm. I'm a compassionate person. I'm empathetic, you know? You know, I try to be kind and understanding the people around me. I try to be bring. I call it emotional sobriety. Right. Like, if I'm emotionally honest with the people in my life, everybody else is. Fits in. If I'm emotionally dishonest, people get up, my environment gets all up. Right, Right.

Yeah.

You know, so it's like. It's understanding these. These aspects about my life going, oh, God, man, I need to make these the important parts of where I'm building and what I'm building in my life. And it's been. You know, it's been a process. It's been. And some days I'm like, this, man, this. And other days I'm like, oh, it's just a day.

As long as you can keep that clarity of knowing that these. This days are gonna pass.

Oh, God. Yeah. Well, I caught. Well, my hall of fame speech, I call it. You know, like, when I was first getting sober, it was like, I just. I would try to get through a minute. Like, I just need to make it through this minute. That's all. And I just need to make it through this next minute. This. I just need to get through this next. Some of them are hard because I just wanted to this. Because I'm so uncomfortable, you know, And I'd get through that minute. I go, I just need to make it through this hour. I need to just make it through this day. And then it'd be this week, you know, and then all of a sudden it's like a month goes by, but I'd still have to go back. I just need to make it through this minute. Right. You know, like it like so like it's just. It's just how I'm built, you know, like this, this just self that just is so restless inside, you know, it's like, you know, amazing.

Do you think that, that that was accelerated by fighting or do you think that was a pre existing thing that drew you to fighting?

I think it was accelerated by fighting. You know, I do, you know, a lot of it just, you know, I'm a competitor. Being a competitor allowed me to fight. But fighting was like hurting another human being to the level that I had to hurt them. That was a whole another experience. You know, it's like I could wrestle, I can compete, I can do grappling. But to physically beat, I. I had to flip a switch and turn into this other person that I'm like, I'm glad I know he's there. But it's like that's not, that's not me. Right. You know, it's just this weird dichotomy.

Or this weird that nobody ever really gets to experience. Except for someone like you.

Yeah. Yeah.

Or maybe at another level, a higher level. Someone at war.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. That's. I mean, that's, you know, I understand why there's, you know, a lot of the veterans and what they go through. It's like, that's normalist not how you're built as a human being.

Right. You're not supposed to experience that.

No.

Then come back and just be normal.

Normal?

Yeah. Like it's like, oh, that movie Hurt Locker. When he's walking around the supermarket, you can tell he wants to go back.

Oh my God. It's because. Because it's just one where it's like, it's not how I'm built. You know, I have a. I have a lot more compassion as you know, for other human beings. But you know, I was glad to know that if I. I got put in a room with another dude, I was coming out. Motherfucker. That was a good thing to know. It's a good, It's a good thing to know. Right?

It's a good thing to know.

Do you.

When you look back, do you.

I mean.

Do. If you would go to give yourself advice, when would you think would have been a good time for you to stop fighting?

After Vegeta.

After Vegeta.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because that was, you know what. And, and like if people understood like that time period, like I got sober, I fought Ensign and then I went and did Abu Dhabi and I, And I won my weight class, won the all around, which is a big deal for me at the time. It was a huge deal. And then if I would have won that championship. Championship, if I would have won the Pride Grand Prix, I would have been. Mic drop. I could have walked away and it could have been a Khabib moment where it's like, oh, I wonder how good he. I wonder how good he could have been. You know, it would have been a complete fucking mic drop. Right, Right. But it's just at that moment I, I knew that something had changed in me that I didn't. Didn't have that thing in me that I needed to do. Because you need a thing in you to do that you do. And that's what we're talking about. Like a gear. You need a different gear. You need a different component to get to that level. And if you, if you don't have it, it's like, you know, say in the NFL, if you're thinking about retirement, you shouldn't be playing the game.

So you were at a point where your dislike of hurting people was interfering with your job.

Job. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I mean, just I had to. I had to just get to a place which is just, you know, just a place that I just didn't like being.

Right. No, it makes sense talking to you, you know, because it's, it's funny. You talk to certain people like yourself and, and George, like George St. Pierre. I was just hanging out with him the other night and he, My friends are always like, he's so normal. This is so weird. Like, it's so hard to believe that that guy is one of the greatest fighters of all time because he's so normal. Yeah. But that, that's also the beauty in it. It's. That's why people are fascinated by fighting, because they want to know, what can a normal person do?

Yeah.

What can a normal person turn himself into? What is possible?

Yeah. And that's, that's the. I answer that question for myself. Right? And it's one where it's like, okay, you know, and to get, for me to get There was. Was so not difficult. But, like, I would watch film of me walking out, and I couldn't even recognize myself. Like, my facial expression, how I walked, how I carried myself. I'd look at it and go, wow, that doesn't even look like me. Like, transforming, like, into a completely different person. And it's understanding, like. Like compartmentalizing everything. Like, no emotions, no nothing. Singularly focused to one thing. Thing. And that thing was, I'm gonna impose my will on you till I take yours. That's it. And for me, it just was a darker place for me to go. Right.

Of course. And probably unsustainable. If you want to be a happy person.

No, you can't. But you can't.

In order to be the Mark Kerr that everybody loved, you kind of had to go there. That's the only way to do it.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's the wildest thing that most people will never understand. Only a person. Person like yourself who's actually experienced it will really, truly understand what those words mean.

Yeah. I mean, it's just one where it's.

A nutty requirement of someone.

Yeah.

A nutty request.

It is.

Hey, you want to go fight in front of the whole world?

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's. It's. You talk about vulnerable. Like, vulnerable, like baring your soul. That's because you. You get to a place of exhaustion. You know, it's weakness. You know, you're showing everybody you're in there. You weren't strong enough to train to the capacity you need to train to. To fight. And look at the studies. Beating the. Out of you. And you got hot pants on. Right. Little insult. Right. Got hot pants on. His beating the. So, I mean, there's that whole thing. It's. It's very vulnerable to fight because there's. It's just. It's just very. Like the loneliest place. The two loneliest places in the world is walking into the ring. And after the fight's over, the two loneliest places I've ever been in my entire life are those two places. Because there's no help when you're walking into the ring. It's just you, and you know that. And after the fight, it's just you, and you have to live with whatever experience you just had. Win, loser, draw. You know, times I won, I felt empty because it felt like I needed to go do something again. It felt like I needed to go achieve something again.

Like, everything was so focused on this thing. Once this thing's over, I need another thing. I need to go chase that thing. Oh, wow. It's this never ending. Like, for me, it was this never ending because I was trying to be enough. I was just trying to be enough, and I could never get. Get there.

Isn't it crazy that that kind of addictive behavior and thinking is almost the only way to make true excellence?

I know. Is it. It's just so up, right? Like, come on. Because I know, I know it doesn't only apply to fighters. I know it's actors and I know it's artists and, you know, people that.

Yeah.

Do you think Steve Jobs had. I mean.

Yeah.

That's, again, singularly focused.

Singularly focused.

Right. I mean, it's just this. It's the, you know, madness and brilliance, you know, are almost of the same vein. Right? And, you know, this driven component of me, the. The bane of that is that once that thing was over, I had to go fucking chase something else. And I could never fucking sit in that moment and be okay with whatever. And, you know, again, it's one of those things where it's like, thankfully I am designed the way I am. Am. You know, because I'm finally in a place where I'm like, I'm okay with me. I'm completely okay with me, you know, and it's taken me a long time to get here.

Well, that's awesome, dude. I'm glad that you got there. And I'm glad to just be able to sit down with you and talk to you and tell you how much I appreciate, first of all, your career. But you've been able to do that Smashing Machine documentary, I think, wasn't just eye opening for a lot of people to realize, like, wow, a lot of these guys are struggling in a way that we. We couldn't even possibly comprehend. It's all they're doing in private. This guy just let us into his life. Holy. Like, how many more stories are there out there? Like, this opens people up to the conversation, but also, like, having the courage to let people, like, look at your life like that, I think it's pretty powerful, man.

Oh, I appreciate it.

And the movie's great. And the Rock, you nailed it.

Oh, my God. He. I mean, the Rock, Emily, you know, she nailed it.

She crazy with it. She got an A plus.

Oh, my God. Yeah.

Exactly. For that craziness. Well, thank you, sir.

Thanks for being in here, man. Appreciate it, man. I appreciate Smashing Machine.

It is out October 3rd, right? Is that what.

Yeah, October 3rd. Yeah, yeah.

It's very good.

I appreciate it, Joe. Thank you.

And boss Root and Kills it in it, too. Yeah, it was great. All right, thank you. Bye, everybody.

All right, cheers.