Transcript of JRE MMA Show #171 with Brendan Allen

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All right, what's happening, brother?

Thanks for having us.

My pleasure. So, Jamie, what were you just saying? I stopped you because it sounds so crazy.

Trump said there's going to be 8 to 9 title fights at the White House UFC event, and that they're, I guess, in quotes, "withholding" famous one-back title fights right now.

Well, there's only 8 weight classes, so how is there going to be 9 title fights?

Maybe a BMF fight. Maybe you add a BMF. Maybe you have all of them in a BMF.

I guess. But that's kind of a crazy thing. We're going to have 20 title fights. All the title fights it's ever been. Did he say any matchups?

No, he didn't say who. He just said they're going to—I'll see if there's even a tweet about it. But I just saw him talking about it. It was like a, I don't know, press conference or something.

Well, if they don't do Jon Jones at the White House, I think it'd be a travesty.

For sure.

They need to do that.

They have to.

Come on. Dana's like, "You can't count on him." You can't fucking count on him. Come on, stop.

When he wants to, he's going to make it happen.

At the White House? Come on. Jon Jones versus—let's see, what does it say here? Donald Trump predicts 8 or 9 championship fights. Okay. It would literally have to be every weight class fighting for the title, which would be nuts. Everyone's a championship fight. Everyone's a legendary type of fighter. He's actually holding back fights right now for 6 months so he can do it on the 15th of June. Trump continued seemingly meaning 14th of June.

It's got to be insane.

Yeah. Are you trying to get on this?

I mean, not really.

Not really?

I can't imagine. Like you said, the security, the behind-the-scenes, how much stuff's really going to happen? I'm just like, ugh.

A lot of weird pressure, too.

Probably.

Because it's like all the security and the protocols, all that extra shit in your mind before you have to go out there and fight.

Yeah, it just seems like a lot. Like a lot more than what it needs to be. I'm sure it's going to be cool to watch. You know, kind of like what was the.

The sphere?

Yeah, kind of cool to watch like that, but.

Also, you're fighting outside.

Yes. Like, what are they going to do? Put a roof over it? Like, what happens if it rains? What are you doing?

What if it's hot? What if it's hot and muggy? That's going to affect people.

I've watched them do outside fights in Louisiana. Oh, man.

Oh, God. Louisiana is the—you can cut that air.

You got to see everyone slipping and sliding. It's so humid.

Oh, that's terrible. Did you ever see that King of the Cage fight that they did where it was raining?

I've seen the highlight of it, but I never watched the whole thing.

Yeah, it was called King of the Cage: Wet and Wild, and it rained out. This was in the day when we used to have to put on fights at Indian casinos. I'm pretty sure Eddie Bravo was doing the commentary back then. And it rained out, and so they were like, "What do you guys want to do?" And everybody's like, "Well, we want to get paid, so I guess we have to fight." So they fought in the fucking rain. I mean, it was crazy.

How do you do that?

I don't remember what the canvas was made out of. It might have been slick. It might have been like a vinyl canvas. It might not have been like a canvas like the UFC's canvas, which is actual canvas. It might have been like a jiu-jitsu mat type situation.

That's what it was in Louisiana with the humidity. I can't imagine the rain. The rain's got to be crazy.

It was pouring. It was pouring down on people. See if you can find some highlights of King of the Cage: Wet and Wild.

It's got to be worse than blood on the canvas. Or blood on the vinyl.

Right. It has to be. It has to be the worst.

It just doesn't stop.

How bad are those fucking logos? Do the logos get problematic when they get wet?

On the canvas?

In the middle? Yeah, in the middle of the octagon?

I don't know.

Here it is. Yeah, look at that. Look at that. That is like—it's hard to tell what it actually is, but it looks like vinyl.

Got rubber shoes on, maybe.

Yeah, these guys are fighting with shoes on, which helps a little. See, this is back when there was like zero rules.

Your man's in a poncho.

My man's in a poncho. That's hilarious. Oh, these guys are barefoot. Look at these guys sliding around. This is so crazy. They're throwing punches and slipping. This is like total like whinos.

In a parking lot of a liquor store.

Imagine everyone didn't know it was raining and be like, "Man, you got rocked like 30 times." No, bro, I didn't get rocked. It was wet. Right. How do you judge what shots do damage? This is so silly. Oh, look, they got a guy come out here with a thing to slide the water off the side. Yeah, that's not helping. This is so crazy. They're doing this—look at the fighters are helping.

That is so crazy.

The fighters are moving towels around. That is so ridiculous.

You get an extra 30 seconds break if you wipe off the canvas.

Yeah, right? That's funny. That's funny. Yeah. So who knows what's going to happen? I guess they'll probably have to have some sort of a roof over it. But what if it's like 98 degrees outside?

It's going to be crazy.

It's June in Baltimore, or in Maryland, rather, in DC.

Yeah.

Whatever that is. It's like DC is—it's not even a state. DC gets hot. It gets hot in the summer.

It's going to be crazy. I always wonder how much behind-the-scenes work goes into for the sphere, for example, because obviously they have everything else down to a science.

Maybe redo that.

That's going to be crazy.

Abu Dhabi. That's right. We did a live one outdoor in Abu Dhabi. I remember that. That was when BJ fought Frankie Edgar.

Wow.

Yeah, and Anderson—oh God.

Damian Maya.

Damian Maya, that's right. That's right. Oh, that's right. That was like Anderson and Damian had real beef, and so Anderson was yelling at him in the first round, trying to kill him in the first round, and then he kind of ran out of gas. And so he just kind of coasted for the remainder of the fight, and Dana was really pissed because he just coasted and won a decision.

I can just put that back out there.

I guess, but that wasn't good, dude. By the way, in Abu Dhabi, they had these bugs that were flying around the side, the small birds. It was crazy. I was like, "This is—" because you're in the desert. It's very weird. Very weird having an outdoor fight in the desert.

It's like mosquitoes in Louisiana, man. They come out of the swamp water, and I don't know what they're doing, but they're huge.

Well, back in the day, they used to have fights like that in Vegas. They used to have boxing matches outside. Caesars Palace used to have them outside. Yeah.

Damn.

See if you can find some of those. I know I want to think they had some good fights outside, like some world championship fights that were outside Caesars Palace.

I think it'd be cool to say you did, but I don't think I want to do it at this level. If something does go wrong.

You're too close. You're too close. Brendan Allen, you're knocking at the door, dude. You're right there.

I'm sure.

You're right there.

This is crazy. I just saw Chimaev made a post today saying that he's only going to do one more at 85, and then he's going up.

What?

Yeah, my wife said it to me.

He's going to go to 205?

That's what he said.

That's crazy.

She translated it for me. It was in Portuguese.

Look at this. That's Caesars Palace.

Dang.

Yeah, that's crazy.

I never knew that. Never.

Yeah.

Wow.

And they had big fights there, too. Look at how big that is. Oh, my God. That's so crazy. But again, Vegas outside must be so hot.

Has to be. That dry heat is something. That's crazy. Imagine being all the way in the back of that thing. You ain't seeing nothing. They don't got no screen up for the TV or nothing.

Who is that right there? Who is that? Oh, Tommy Hearns fought there.

Roberto Duran.

Tommy Hearns and Roberto Duran was outside?

Dang.

That's crazy. In 1984. Wow.

That's way before my time.

Yeah, way before. I guess they probably didn't even have an arena back then that could keep those guys in it. I wonder when they started putting arenas in Vegas.

That's a good question.

It probably started for those big boxing matches.

Yeah, ask Perplexity.

Yeah, ask Perplexity, our sponsor. When did they start putting an arena in Vegas? I'm going to say '90. Because I think Vegas in the beginning was just all about gambling. And if there was a show, it was at a showroom in Vegas. If you went to see Sinatra or something like that, it was probably just a couple thousand people. It probably wasn't that big.

It's crazy to see how Vegas is growing. Even before my time, I'd see pictures. But even since I fought Amateur Worlds in Vegas, I wasn't even old enough to go into casinos, so they had to walk me around in the Flamingo, I believe.

Oh, that's crazy. You couldn't go in the casino?

You couldn't do nothing. If I walked on the floor, they were on me. I'm like, "Bro, I don't."

How old were you?

18.

Oh, wow.

17, 18? No, 18, yeah. 18, about to turn 19. And man, they were on me. I'm talking about they must have had a watch on me. I stepped on the floor just to go across to get to the drink machine.

Well, there was probably a big concern that if you have underage competitors and that they're wandering around the casino, they could lose their license.

Yeah, because we stayed at the link. It was brand new at the time. And then we walked across to Flamingo. We fought there every time until the finals. The finals was in the UFC expo in the middle of the expo, which was cool because they had the Hall of Fame ceremony going on. You were there. I've seen you.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it was cool. But yeah, it's crazy just to see it from there till now, how much it's growing and changed.

Wow.

It's pretty crazy.

When did you first start training? How old were you?

13.

And what did you start with?

Jiu-jitsu. I didn't even really mean to, to be honest. I was playing football. I love football. And my brother came home because he switched schools, and his friend was like, "Hey, you want to do jiu-jitsu?" And we were watching UFC on the weekends. That was like Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell trilogy, and all those guys. So we watched them on the weekends, and he asked, so we went there and looked. And I was still playing football, it was football season. And my dad's like, "You want to try it?" I was like, "I watched the class," and I was like, "Dad, I want to do it." And he's like, "Okay, we'll give you a try-all game."

That's derailed a lot of young prospects.

It definitely got him. It definitely got him, man. That life took him elsewhere, and I don't know. Luckily, I stayed. He would have been better than me, though. He was a lot tougher.

Yeah, but is he the older brother?

He's the older one.

It's usually the younger brother that winds up being the real good fighter.

Yeah, he's a fighter.

That's the thing. That's the thing. You learn resilience. You learn how to be the nail. And the older brother oftentimes is too comfortable being the hammer.

Yeah, but my dad would put him in his place. So luckily, he was used to being the nail a little bit, too. My dad's a big man, so yeah, man. Life is crazy.

So when did you start striking?

Well, my dad boxed when he was younger, and his grandfather taught him how to box. And he did something, won golden gloves in the military or something back when they had the boxing gloves that were made of horsehair.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so he taught my dad to box. And so my dad boxed in high school, so he was kind of teaching me a little stuff here and there growing up. But you know how it is, man. Who listens to their father? Now I look back and I'm like, "Man, I wish I would have listened more." And I say stuff that he was like, "What I told you 10 years ago." But I started striking probably like 15, maybe 15 and a half, somewhere around there. But it was all grown men back then, especially where I came up at. There was no beginner's classes or anything like that. And these guys are 24, 25, 26.

That's the problem with a lot of boxing gyms in particular, is that when new guys come in, they just beat them up.

Yeah, they did. They beat me up.

They don't box you, spar you rather. They fight you. And they know how to fight, and you don't know how to fight.

One of my best friends who was with me, I started with him, was Kurt Holuba. And him and Dustin Poirier were the two biggest where we were from at that time. So I remember Tim Crader reached out to Kurt.

Crazy Tim.

Yep. And he was like, "Hey, why don't y'all come spar? We got Dustin." I think Dustin was just about to go to WEC, or he was right around there at that time. So we're like, "Let's go." Kurt's like, "Hey, you want to go?" "Yeah, let's go." So we go over there for sparring. And I'm sparring this guy, man. He had to be like 5'1". He was tiny, short. And Kurt goes with Dustin, and I'm sitting here trying to watch them go because, I mean, they're throwing. They're fighting. They're not sparring. And this guy's hitting me, and I'm like, "Get off me."

You're three weight classes above him now.

Yeah. Yeah. So I see all the guys like that. There's one guy in particular. If I see him, I told everyone, "I'm whooping his ass."

One guy you don't want to name?

His name's Jay Mart.

Oh, okay.

Great guy, nice guy. But training, I never forget the day he hit me so hard and thought my jaw was broke. And I was little. Now I'm a grown man.

It is so hard to find reasonable sparring. It's so hard to find people that are willing to not hit you full blast and preserve each other. Like, "Hey, we're all in this together. You help me, I help." And if you can get that, my God, you progress so much faster. If you're in there just there's something to be said for going through the fire and understand what it's like to be in a war with guys. But there's something also to be said for learning how to recover and having more training sessions and not getting concussions all the time.

Yeah. It's like Sean Jordan was the first to tell me that. He came and trained, and obviously, Sean's huge, super athletic guy, heavyweight. And I'm talking about I watched him and this other big man. They were sparring, and they was literally touching each other. So I asked him after because everyone else is fighting. And I'm like, "Man, how come you don't spar so hard?" He looked at me and started laughing. He's like, "Brendan," at this time, I think he was like 270, somewhere around there. And he's like, "I'm 270 pounds.

Dude, that guy's scary. Both of you guys, how the fuck are you making 185 pounds? And you're on a smaller side in comparison to him.

Yeah, dude. My weight cuts way harder than his.

Is it?

Yeah. Dude, surprisingly, I asked him before because he has a great physique, right? He's a big guy. When I see him, I'm like, "Bro, how much do you weigh?" He's like, "Oh, like 205." I said, "No way. No way." He's like, "I'll step on the scale right now." Steps on the scale, 206. I was like, "No way."

What does he got, bird bones? That doesn't even make any sense.

I have no idea. I thought the same thing. But me, I step on the scale, I mean, right now I'm probably like 225, but I haven't done nothing since I fought. But I stay around 215, 220. And I'm the runt of my family, so my body wants to get bigger, but I'm like, "I got unfinished business here." So yeah, Joe's a big 85er. Joe Pfeiffer.

Oh, yeah.

He's a hard cut.

He's a huge 85er. He's huge.

He has a hard cut. That's why I'm like, when he gets.

Yeah, how is that guy? How is that guy 185? When I stand next to him, I'm like, "How?"

Same.

I can't believe he walks around 205 because that doesn't even make sense.

That's what I seen him at. Hey, if it's a lie, guys, strike me down now because.

I think he rigged that scale.

Well, we were all using it.

He probably had his heels on the ground.

I was super surprised. My boy Tuco was with me. We was all in the room. And I was like because I called him out on it. Everyone else wouldn't say it. But I was like, "No."

Was it after training?

After training.

Okay. And both of you after training.

Yeah, but it wasn't a hard day. That day was not a hard day. We weren't sweating. It wasn't like a 5, 6-pound practice day. It was a pretty chill day end of the week.

Even if it was, I'd still be surprised. If he was only 211, I'd be surprised.

Dude. But I know when he had other fights, he was a little bit bigger because he wanted to be. I didn't understand. But still, I think, well, the Ritter probably has to be the biggest 85er.

He's enormous.

He was bigger than I expected. And I seen him, but in the gym, I never went close to him because I rowed with him one time in a quick thing. It was like a minute long. But still, I was surprised when we stepped in there, we stepped up to each other at face-offs, and I was like, I was expecting him to be a little bit bigger. I don't know. Maybe I make everyone bigger in my head. But he was really long. Even when we stood next to each other, his hands felt like they touched his knees. I was like, "All right, this is going to be interesting."

Yeah, I was surprised when I first met him in the UFC, when he first came over. Because I saw him fight in one, and I knew he fought at I believe he fought at 205 and 85 over there, right?

Right.

And when I saw him, I was like, "How the fuck are you making 185 pounds? You look like a light heavyweight."

They were worried about that when he came over because he never made a real true 85 because they had the.

Hydration glass.

The hydration. So he can weigh in at 204, but fully hydrated. And they still know how to finesse that. I just learned how they finesse that and stuff.

How they finesse that.

So they drink a whole bunch of water, and then they go. They don't pee. They don't do nothing. They drink that water and then go cut the weight. It stays in their stomach, so when they piss it out, it's clear. It's all good. So they test that hydration. They test that they're hydrated, but they're really not. They already went and sweat out a whole bunch. So they just hold it. That's how all the guys do it. Some guys mess it up, but that's majority how everyone does it.

So you just drink a whole ton of water and just hold your piss as long as possible?

Yeah. They make sure they probably drink like two cups, and then they're just going to hold. And then they'll go cut for like an hour, like sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat. And then they say when they show up to the hydration, I've heard that from like four people that have done it. And they said, "Yeah, bro, I learned from this guy, and I learned from this guy." I was like, "Wow, interesting."

I knew there had to be some sort of a catch to it.

Yeah. And they say it's more unhealthy than cutting weight over here to really make the weight because I don't know. I'm not a scientist or a doctor. But my friends that are into all that stuff were explaining how it works. And I was like, "Man, that's crazy." But he was a guy that never made a true 186, so they were worried. And then he did. And I know for a fact he's come in. I don't know when he came in on my fight week, but I think the one before that, he came in Monday, I believe, at 210.

Well, I think that contributes to the fact that he gasses. I think it's just too much of a strain. And he's talked kind of vaguely, not real clearly, about problems that he's had with his health. And I've got to think that has to do with weight cuts. So many guys have kidney problems.

For sure. For sure. And it's weird because in the fight with him, I knew in the first round to feel obviously, adrenaline's flowing and everything, so everything's intensified, right? So I could feel how tight he was squeezing. I mean, he was squeezing. His legs, everything. He was trying to where I couldn't move. So I just make little adjustments and make him move a little bit. He'd punch very rarely, but I was like, "This is impossible. It's impossible for you to keep this up for 25 minutes. It's impossible.

Well, if he comes out with that mentality, if he's trying to go full blast 100% in the first round, in a five-round fight, like, "Wee."

Right. Exactly.

Nobody can really do that.

Yeah. And like I told the guys, because obviously, he trains where I was training, and they all know me. So it's like if you think you're going to come out here and he said in his interviews, "I'm a front runner. I'm not good long, but I approach a three-round fight differently than I approach a five-round fight." So I was like, "All right, we'll see." And it kind of backfired.

Well, it was a big win for you.

Thank you.

Huge win. You looked fantastic in that fight.

Thank you.

It's like there's just so many talented people in the division. It's so hard to stand out. And sometimes you take a guy like DeRitter who just got done stopping Bo Nickel, and there's a lot of momentum on his side. He looks real good. He beat Kevin Holland, submitted him, looks real good. And then you came along and stole that momentum.

Yeah. It was weird, to be honest, because when he got there, I was like, "I want to fight him," just because things of like he fought one of my friends, which now I guess they're best friends, but.

Who was that?

Ong Lanceng. He took both his titles from him. So there was no animosity, but it's like, "I want to test you're a ground guy. I'm a ground guy. Let's see." And then it happened. He got there to UFC, and I was like, "I want to fight him." I think at the time I was like 12, ranked somewhere around there. But I was like, "Let him get one, two, and obviously, his name's going to carry him." So that came, and I'll never forget. I was leaving an LSU game.

Yeah, he needs a lot of time to make weight. He's another guy in 185. Do you think that it could ever be possible for guys to just fight without cutting weight?

I don't think so.

But wouldn't that be better?

It would be nice.

Just wouldn't it be better overall for everybody?

I think so. Yeah, for sure.

Because if everybody just was honest about what they actually weigh, let's find out what everybody actually weighs when you're in shape, when you're ready to fight, and make a contract to fight at that weight. Because this whole weight cutting thing is just legalized cheating.

It's so hard. And some guys are so good at it.

Like how about Pereira?

Dude, I don't know how he made 85.

He would weigh 226 when he would fight for the 185-pound title.

Crazy.

Doesn't even make any sense.

I don't get how you can put on that much weight. The most I ever put on was this last fight. I was 207.

Bro, he gained 40-something pounds.

I don't get it.

40 pounds in a day.

Blows my mind.

What does that feel like? What does that do to your body?

I always wonder that because this one was tough for me. One month, full diet. Usually, I have a couple of cheats and ease into the diet like I'm starting to do now because I'm hoping to fight in March. So I'm already going to start being cleaner and stuff.

Are you concerned, though, that you could get another of those last-minute calls? Do you think like that, to not get too heavy? Because if somebody calls and says, "Hey, the big Paramount card, somebody fell out. It's January. Can you fight?"

I think where I'm at, it would have to be like an interim title or something like that. Outside of that, right now, plus the reason I'm so big and I was out, I had fractures in my foot, so I had to.

Did you have fractures in your foot from the fight, or just you had them before the fight?

Yeah.

Oh, God.

Yeah, which we didn't know. I just knew it hurt. And to be honest with you, I had them before the fight before that, but I didn't know. I was just like, "Man, it hurts." I thought it was just like a muscle, so I just would roll it out, TheraGun it. That's what I would do.

How many fractures?

They said they saw three, but they're small. There's like right where the toe meets the base of your foot.

Is it from elbows?

I don't know. It was on my lead foot, too. So I was like, "I don't even know." I don't teep a lot because I'm scared of stuff like that. Yeah, but I fought with crazy stuff, man. I tore my whole ACL in half, calves, everything when I fought Paul Craig.

Did you really?

Yeah, that calf slicer, in half.

It just blew your ACL out?

Yes.

Oh, God.

I didn't know. So in the second round, when I go to throw the punch, I think it was Dominic Cruz, he was like, "Oh, they clipped each other." And they showed the replay, and he hits my hand. He never hit my face or anything.

But your knee just buckled.

Yeah, it gave. And you can see me reach down to my knee in that moment.

Oh, wow.

It was crazy. So afterwards, we got that. But I was lucky when it healed. It fell to the bone. If they attach up here, mine just reattached here. So I just have a little bit more play, and it's still attached, luckily.

Really?

Yeah, that's how it healed.

So you never got surgery?

Never. I was very lucky.

Wow.

Insane. There's like three different MRIs that show fine, tore in half, rehealed.

So it was a partial teal.

No, they told me it was in half. It cut in half and then fell. And when it fell, I got lucky, and it fell on the bone just lower at a lower point.

And it healed on the bone?

And it fused to the bone itself.

What?

Yes.

How long did it take to do that?

I don't know. The doctor said it could it says it looked like it was torn maybe like a slight tear before, and that one finished it. And the last MRI was probably four or five months ago because I had to get it for something else. Fused to the bone, perfect. You can see it clear as day. The doctor showed me. I was like, "That's pretty cool."

Did you get stem cells or anything on it?

Yeah, I did. I did do a lot of stem cells through the UFC and stuff. They sent me that.

Yeah, that probably helped. Did you go down to Tijuana?

No, they sent it to my doctor. No, they just.

Oh, they just sent it.

It was nice. And they just sent a whole bunch. My doctor was like, "Man, look how much they sent." I was like, "I don't know what it's supposed to look like."

Fill it up. Let's go.

Yeah, let's go. So we injected that. But yeah, man, I fight with all crazy stuff because it's like I don't know. I don't know how to pull it.

That's the thing that people need to realize that watch, nobody fights at 100% or very few people, very, very rarely.

And I just don't know how to pull. I've never pulled from knock on wood. I haven't pulled on one fight in my career. And I've been pretty messed up. I think my worst was when I fought EM Evolve, to be honest. Physically, as far as how my body was, was pretty good. But I didn't realize how much of a toll because I have a thyroid problem. And I went years without getting it checked. And for a while, I was feeling real sluggish, real tired, no sex drive, nothing. I didn't want to get out of bed.

Really?

Bysinger was the only person that I had to train with. Greg was hurt. Other guys were out. So I had Bysinger every day. I paid him to train with me every day whenever I wanted, sparring, anything. And I asked him, "I do good for the first round, halfway through the second?" After that, I was dead, like dead. And I'm still hitting my runs, my lifts, every training session. I'm doing everything normal. But man, it was terrible. So the fight comes, and the commission kind of did super weird stuff.

Because you're dehydrated.

Exactly.

Do you think they were fucking with you because you were fighting in France against a French guy?

It was me and Morricano. We were the us two and one other person, American.

Was that when Morricano was fighting Benoit Sandeigny?

Yes, sir. He bitched about the same thing, but somehow he had to.

They were fucking with you guys.

Them two were up sleeping in their room, chilling.

Oh, that's so dirty.

But it's not an excuse.

It does not have to be an excuse. That's so dirty.

It was frustrating. But that's why I still think EM Evolve's a cool guy. He's deserved his title shot. I think he's fully earned it. Don't get me wrong. But I want to fight him again where it's like I sparred him like a month after that. He was at the gym, and I showed up at the gym, and we sparred. We had a good time. But I still think he's a nice guy. I think he deserved his spot. But I just want to fight him where everything's equal. And like you said, we're not going to come in 100%. He's not, I'm not. Fine. I don't care if I got a messed up hand, foot, whatever, but just an equal plate.

Well, it just sounds like you were compromised. Look, a good example of that was Piotr Jan in his first fight with Merab.

Man, he looked great this week.

Fuck. What a masterclass.

He looked great. I was so surprised.

When you're going to fight a guy like Merab, that is the masterclass for you to put on a clinic.

Honestly, I didn't think he was going to be able to do that for five rounds. I thought he'd have one, maybe max two. And I thought Merab was just going to do what Merab does. I was so wrong.

Bro, his training camp must have been hell.

Had to.

It had to be hell.

Had to.

I mean, he must have done some I mean, it looked like it. I saw some videos of it. It looked like he was doing some wild strength and conditioning and plyometrics. And he knew what he was in for. That's the thing. If you're going to fight a guy like Merab, it's like you know what the mountain is. You're ready to climb it.

For sure.

And the first time they fought, apparently, he had a fucked up right hand.

That's what I heard.

And he couldn't grapple with it, and he couldn't throw punches with it. So I rewatched the fight after he said that. I was like, "Oh, he's barely using it. Barely using his right hand."

Makes sense, right?

Totally makes sense. And then also psychologically, if you only got one hand, everything, now you have to think. You can't really throw combinations. You have to think.

Can't grab.

Well, know how tough Uriah Faber is? Uriah Faber, when he fought Mike Brown, he broke both hands.

Yep.

Both hands.

I remember that fight.

And he was throwing elbows. Both hands.

He was one of my favorite fighters. He was a guy that I wanted to be just like you could ask my dad. He'll laugh to this day. I was like, "Dad, I don't want to be like " My dad's tall. Everyone's tall. I was like, "I don't want to be tall. I want to be like him." He was like, "What?" Because that was the fight.

He was a beast.

He was a beast back in the day. By the time he was fighting in the UFC, I kind of think he had had some of his best fights already, like in the WEC days.

Dude, amazing fights.

Oh, he was a killer.

I still remember the Mike Brown coming out party, José Aldo.

That's another example of how tough he is. When he fought José Aldo, and José Aldo killed his leg, dude, killed his leg. It is the worst after-fight leg I've ever seen in my life, other than Austin Hubbard. You ever see Austin Hubbard? He got compartment syndrome and had to have his whole leg sliced open from the top to the bottom to alleviate pressure and drain some of the fluids.

No way.

Oh, it's the nastiest injury I've ever seen.

Dude, I'm going to ask him.

Google, excuse me, look up Austin Hubbard images of I forgot the fight. Oh, there it is. Look at his leg. That black thing, that's his leg open.

No way.

Yeah, that's his tissue.

Oh my days.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at that.

Oh my gosh.

How insane is that?

Dude, he trains in Chicago with me. Oh, when I ask him.

Look at that image.

How fucking insane is that image? That's his tissue underneath there, man.

Oh my God.

Look, you have to mature content. You have to click a link in Instagram to be able to see it.

Holy cow.

How nuts is that, man?

Dude, that's gnarly.

So there's a drain, that tube that you're seeing right there. What that is attached to is that drain that's letting liquid drip out of his leg. So compartment syndrome is so bad that sometimes people, when they don't get it treated, they have to get their leg amputated.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

So that was just from leg kicks from a fight?

Just from leg kicks from a fight.

Wow.

I'm trying to remember who he fought.

Jesus.

Can we find out who he fought?

It was a year ago.

Oh, more than a year ago.

This picture was 325 weeks ago.

Yeah, but the fight was more than a year ago. It was quite a while ago.

But what? Is it like a big bruise or?

Well, it says 325 weeks ago.

Oh, 300. Yeah, fucking 325 weeks ago.

325 weeks ago.

Yeah.

So it was quite a while ago. But see if you find out who he fought.

But what? It's just like your leg just stays bruised and swollen, and then you're like.

Not just bruised. Your tissue breaks down. It fills up with fluid.

Damn.

Yeah. And then also, what happens, I guess, when you get that much damage in your tissue is your whole body has to process all of that. So it was Kyle Prepalik. I don't remember that. So it was UFC Vancouver.

Elevator.

Passed out on an elevator. Had to be rushed to the hospital.

That is crazy. I never knew that.

Yeah.

See him at the gym all the time. He's a nice guy, too.

So they had to cut his leg open to reduce the pressure. So that's what that image is.

Damn.

Nuts.

That is crazy.

Yeah. That's nuts. And then Uriah's leg, honestly, in the fight, looked worse than that. I mean, Uriah might have had compartment syndrome and didn't get it drained because I know he spent a lot of time in hyperbaric chambers after the fight.

I want to try that.

It's great.

I want to try that.

It's really amazing. If you have an Oura Ring and you go into the hyperbaric chamber, it will tell you that you're recovered more.

Really?

Yeah, than a normal day. Yeah. Oh, you have very high level of recovery today. Yeah.

I'm going to try that for sure.

Oh, it's legit.

All my friends have been like Jared Gordon got one for one of his fights, and he was telling me how different it makes him feel and stuff. For me, as far as I go, it's like I just started really using more supplements. I think the deal that Thorne made with UFC really helped me because I started using there. And what really helped is I was always scared to go on creatine because growing up, my dad would get so big, and he would back in the day, they'd have all these different things like, "Oh, if you use too much creatine, it's bad for you, bad for your kidneys or whatever."

Turns out all that's bullshit.

Exactly.

Yeah. And creatine's fantastic for you.

And that's been the main thing. I can really feel how different my body recovers, how more almost energized in a way. I wake up, and when I go to lift and stuff, I feel way better.

Well, it's even great for your mind. Creatine is fantastic just for cognitive support.

I need everything for that because I've been getting hit in the head since I was 13 years old. So yeah, sometimes it don't function properly. It's funny. Me and my wife were just joking the other day. I was like, "Babe, you do that on purpose, don't you?" She's like, "What?" I was like, "You try to use memory against me. You'll wait till I forget something, and then you'll be like, 'Oh, remember you said this?'" And I'm like, "I didn't say that." And I have to die on that hill because it's like, "Oh, remember?" But I don't tell her that. I'm just like, "No, I didn't. I know I didn't."

Yeah, Thorne makes great stuff.

Yeah, and they're so tested.

If you get in a hyperbaric chamber, it'll help your memory as well. Hyperbaric chamber is just good for overall recovery, for everything. There was even a study out of Jerusalem. It shows that lengthens telomeres. They did this process where you took 60 sessions of 90 minutes over the course of 90 days. So 60 hour and a half sessions over the course of 90 days, and it showed it lengthened people's telomeres.

Really?

Yeah, that was equal to a 20-age difference. So yeah, 20-year age difference. So it's like your telomeres, as you get older, that's one of the clear marks of biological aging is how long your telomeres are.

That's good to know.

Yeah. It indicates as you get older, they shrink. And there's a few things that they've shown that will increase telomeres, but nothing as dramatically that I've ever heard other than the hyperbaric chamber. That was probably the best one I've ever heard of. Yeah.

Man, I've been trying to learn more about recovery because I'm kind of.

How old are you now?

I'll be 30 in a couple of weeks.

Yeah, that's when you got to start thinking about it. When you're 22, you're just a wild man. You wake up in the morning with rock-hard boners. Everything's fine.

You just show up to training. You don't even stretch. Now I'm like, "Wait a minute, guys. Wait a minute."

The thing is, even if you're 22, you should stretch. That's just useful ignorance. God, there's so many guys that can't. I remember I was talking to I don't want to say his name because he's a good guy. But he's a world-class MMA fighter, and I was trying to show him something. We were talking about guard technique, and he's like, "I can't, and I'm not flexible. I can't get my leg like that." And I go, "What do you mean not flex?" I go, "Why aren't you flexible?" He goes, "I don't stretch." I go, "How do you not stretch? You're a world-class fighter who tries to kick people in the head, and you don't stretch?

That's a choice.

Fucking do cardio, and you'll have cardio. This is crazy.

Yeah, but you're really flexible.

I'm not flexible. Yeah, but it's like I'd never stopped. But I started when I was little. I developed flexibility while my body was still maturing, which is very fortunate because you're not stiff yet. It's like you can get flexible. But I'm 58 years old. It's not easy to stay flexible. I just keep fucking stretching.

I didn't know you was 58.

I'm old as shit, dude.

I didn't know that. I thought you was younger than that. You're older than my dad.

I'm old, dude.

You're in good shape, though.

Thank you. I keep up. I'm scared of death. I'm not scared of death. Death is inevitable. What I'm scared of is being feeble, where you can't do things anymore. You can't go on a hike. You can't use your body. I work out just as hard now as I did when I was 30.

I make my wife always worried because I'm like I don't honestly know if I mean it or not. I'm like, "I don't want to be 80 years old." For instance.

You can't not say things like that around ladies sometimes. They don't like you.

She's like.

She's like, "No, don't say that. I need you. We're a team." And I'm like, "Babe, look what I do for a living. Look what I've done. My body's not like that." And I don't know. Maybe I say that, but then I get out of working out for I haven't worked out in like two months, and I'm like, "I'm itching, like a freaking fiend." I'm like. So when you say, "I haven't worked out," you don't do anything for two months?

I haven't done anything. I went in the gym twice.

Really?

I went in the gym twice. I did one run and one lift. And then we found out my foot had fractures, and they sent me this foot boot. And then the doctor was like, "You don't have to wear that, but don't do anything that puts a lot of pressure on your foot." Then I've been traveling. At the end of the year, I travel a lot going hunting and stuff. And like your meat-eater thing, I love that kind of stuff. So I'm not on that big of a scale and that nice of animals. I'm just a simple white tail kind of guy, but.

I love hunting white tails.

I love it. I got a little property in Illinois, and.

Oh, that's great, man. So I can't believe that you could take a whole couple of months off with nothing. Just don't do nothing.

Crazy, right?

Yeah.

I'm very blessed.

Well, it's probably smart. It's probably smart to do.

It's good and bad.

I heard a few people do that.

It's good and bad. So I only do it this much at the end of the year because it's hunting season and holidays and my kid's birthdays. And kind of my kid's birthdays are right now or back to well, shit, I guess all the time. They're back to back to back. So it's like, "All right, we'll do that. We travel." But it's only end of the year. Usually, I'll take a couple of weeks off, maybe a month max, depending on my injuries after a fight. But then I'm back at it. But it's hard for me at home. I'm a full-time dad and a full-time husband at home right now. I've got so many kids.

How many kids do you have?

I'm about to have five.

Wow. Five, and you're not even 30 yet.

Yes, sir. I have two with my ex. I'm about to have two with my current wife, and she has a son from her previous, so stepson.

Wow.

Yeah. And he's 14. My daughter's just turned six and four. My son's about to turn one, and then we'll have another one in about a month and a half.

So you got a lot of work to do.

Yeah, but it's nice. It's hard right now. Kids have schedules. And now my little girl's do jiu-jitsu. My stepson was playing football for the first time this year, and he's a basketball player because my wife was a pro basketball player. So he's always got something going on. But at my new house that I'm working to build, I have two gyms, full gyms. So I don't have to leave.

Oh, that's nice.

I could bring people in to train. I have my full cage that I used to have for my promotion, so.

Well, even if you realize I only have 40 minutes before I have to leave, but I can get a half-hour workout on real quick, and you could really burn it out for a half an hour just to keep the machine oiled.

Exactly.

But the argument about taking time off, it does reset the brain. You know who used to do that? I know he's not a fighter, but Ronnie Coleman. Ronnie Coleman, as crazy as he used to lift when he was Mr. Olympia, and he was one of the heaviest lifters of all time. I mean, he would do.

He's a freak.

He's a freak. Ronnie, when he would get done with Mr. Olympia, he would be like, "I'm not doing shit." He wouldn't do anything for a couple of months, no training at all. And they'd be like, "Nothing at all?" He'll go, "Nope, nothing, nothing." He goes, "I got to reset. Got to reset." But imagine being so driven that you could train the way that guy trained, and yet so wise that you're like, "I'll get it back. Let me just chill. Let me just chill." And it wasn't like it turned him into a lazy person. That's what everyone's afraid of.

That's what I try, man. I kind of learned because I always have traveled for camps since I was probably three or four and a half as a pro or three and one as a pro. Three or four fights in as a pro, I was traveling. I was going to Rufus Sport for a long time. I stayed there for a long time. Then I went to Florida for a long time, and now I'm not Chicago.

What gym are you at now?

Valley Flow and War Room with Bilal Mohammed.

Bilal, yeah.

And that's been a great change.

Bottom one, dude.

Yeah, man. He's so good. Both the brother. He got a little brother.

Oh, really?

He's a stud. He's a stud.

I believe it if it comes out of that family. Bottom one, dude, is a beast.

He's a stud. The little brother is a stud. He helped me for Marvin's fight, I think. And then Nacho helped me a little bit for this one, this last one.

How did you choose going to Chicago?

I've known Bilal since Rufus Sport, and obviously, we stayed in contact. When we see each other, it's like we never haven't seen each other. And he's always told me like, "Bro, just come down. Just come check it out. You don't have to stay or nothing. Stay at my house, but you don't have to move here or nothing. Just come check it out." So I watched his rise and what he does and his work ethic and his team. And after the Fluffy loss, I kind of sat back, had some conversations with people that are really close to me and explained what was going on with me mentally and where I felt.

What was the problem?

Complacency. I know who I can train with, and I go hard. I'm the coach of my own thing. I'm running my whole camp, basically. I go to Wagner.

Oh, you were running your whole camp?

Basically. I'd be like.

You go to Wagners for jiu-jitsu?

Yeah, I'd go to Wagners for jiu-jitsu. I'd be at Kill Cliff, but I'd be in the corner doing my thing because you had the Russian coach over here teaching some crazy stuff that don't make no sense.

What do you mean?

They'd be teaching some stuff off the wall that would never work.

Really?

Yeah. But the Russian kids that were in the classes, they got young guys like Ansar, Nikita, Bhaisangar. He wasn't even there. Those guys, they were like, "Come over here. Let's do something else." They have real MMA knowledge because they fight, and they've learned from all the guys from where they're from.

So who are these Russian coaches that are teaching while you're training?

There's just one, man.

You don't have to say his name.

Yeah. He's not there no more, but.

But he was a legit coach?

He never fought.

Okay. Did he fight in anything? Kickboxing?

Nope.

Nothing?

I don't know if he even competed in wrestling, to be honest with you, ever. I don't know.

Okay. Does he spar with people?

Nope.

How old is he?

I would say in his 30s, I would say.

What? Really?

I would say, yeah. I would guess.

And he's a coach? But he's coaching unorthodox stuff? What kind of stuff?

Stuff against the wall, but it was like for instance, I don't remember what it was. It was against the wall. I was going with my friend AJ, Aaron Jeffries, and it was some takedown off the wall, right? AJ couldn't get it. I was like, "Bro, this " and I don't say it out loud because I don't want no problems. I'm going to just go with the flow and mind my business. But I've been doing it long enough to where it's like you've realized this move's probably not going to work for my body type or my game, but I'll try it. And so anyway, he was doing it, and AJ's like, "Bro, I don't get it." I was like, "Yeah, because this shit ain't going to work, bro." He's like, "What?"

Is he your size?

He's bigger than me.

Oh, wow.

Throw him.

And so it didn't work?

No. He's like, "Let me try one more time. Let's go full speed." I said, "Shit, that was full speed. Do the exact same thing, but do it the other way now." Boom. Throw him again. AJ looks at me. The coach says something. Then I get agitated, right? Then I'm like, "Man, that's because this shit ain't going to work. I told y'all. Y'all don't listen to me. I just walked off."

Oh, that's not good vibes.

So I just walk off. And I was like, "I ain't taking this damn class."

So how did this guy become a coach there?

Sticking around and translating.

Oh, no. There's those weird guys like that. I'm not saying that this guy's like that, but there are some weird guys like that become parasitic. They're friends with a guy who's a really good fighter, and then they're always there. And then they want to be a part of the team somehow, and then they start contributing. Or they start maybe running conditioning drills or something. You're like, "Why is this guy running conditioning drills with his fucking ?"

That's exactly how it went.

Oh, that's the word.

Exactly how it went. Literally.

There's weird parasitic relationships in any elite-like thing, whether it's sports. I see it in comedy. There's some comedians that have weird parasitic friends that wind up becoming a producer on their thing. And there's just some guy who just like a lamprey, clinging to the bottom of a shark.

It got weird for a little while, especially at the end. It did, when I was still there with that whole thing. Because even some of the other coaches started to catch on. Because at Kill Cliff, sometimes we'd have a lot of guys fighting all over the place. So coaches would be gone, and you'd try to figure that situation out. So he'd step in and try to help. And it just got weird. But again, I'm not the kind of person that really cause a conflict. I'd rather just for instance, if you're causing some type of energy with me, I'm going to just move over here and just stay out your way.

That's smart. The world needs more people like you.

Well, my younger self would have, "I want a conflict. I'm going to show you."

Right. Of course. But as you go wiser, you realize like, "What's the " also, you're an elite professional mixed martial arts fighter. You ain't got shit to prove to somebody.

That's kind of how I feel now. I see some of these younger kids.

That's how you should.

I see some of these younger kids now, and I'm just like, "I'm going to just stay over here."

It gets people hurt. It ruins your life.

And that's what it would be for me. I don't want that to happen because I have kids. I have a wife. I have a good life. I live very nice as far as my lifestyle. I'm here with you right now.

Also, it's fucking pointless. I've seen bar fights where there's young guys, and they just see an opportunity. They want to prove something. And I'm like, "I just want to tell them, 'Hey, man, one day you're going to be 35. You're going to be looking back on this day. And maybe it's the day you got stabbed. Maybe it's the day you got shot. Maybe it's the day you got knocked the fuck out, your head bounced off the concrete, and you'll never be the same person again.'."

Yeah. Exactly what you said. It's just not worth it.

You know Kevin James, the comedian?

Yeah. Yeah. He used to come to the gym.

Oh, that's awesome.

He trains a lot. Good friend of mine. Been friends of mine for 30 years. When I first met him, he told me a story of when he was bouncing. When he was bouncing at a bar in Long Island, one of his friends there was a bouncer, and some drunk kid was starting shit, and he knocked this kid out, and the kid fell down and hit his head and died. And he wound up doing time. He went to jail for manslaughter. One of my best friends got stabbed in the face in New Orleans because he didn't even know. He was talking to this dude's chick, and he didn't know. He didn't know. She didn't say nothing.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Dude came and stabbed him in the face, broke his jaw, stabbed him and ran. He has a nice scar. He's older now, so it's kind of went away, but through his beard. But wired his jaw shut. He was messed up for a while in the face.

And someone trying to stab you in the face is easily trying to stab you in the neck.

Exactly.

Yeah. You just got lucky.

So it's like.

You just got lucky to hit that jaw and not your fucking carotid artery. Oh, my God. I watched a video of these guys in London, and they're yelling at each other and squaring off at each other, back and forth and back and forth. And then finally, they get out of it, and one guy just pulls out a fucking knife and slices this dude's neck. And this dude is just squirting out of his neck. And he tries to fight for a second, then he just gets woozy, and he's just squirting as he goes down. I don't know what happened. I'm assuming he died because I'm looking at the amount of blood loss. If someone didn't jump on that and compress it.

Dude, I think I had.

So stupid.

I've always heard the story, obviously. You know how stories are. But I've heard from a couple of different people. I have a great uncle somewhere along the line. He passed away before I was alive. He was in a bar. I know right where the place is. The building's still there to this day. He was in the bar. He was sitting down having some drinks with a friend. I don't know the relationship between him and the guy. The guy walked up behind him, slit his throat.

Oh, God.

He missed the carotid arteries, both of them, by not even a quarter of an inch. Not even eighth of an inch. He missed both of them. So it was just here.

Oh, shit.

He chased the guy out, almost beat him to death, and then almost died because he couldn't breathe.

Oh, God.

But almost beat the guy to death. Almost. Almost died. So two people almost died.

Bro, nightclubs are so bad.

I've never been to a club. A group of people, I hate it. I get very off-setting.

There's too many people on Coke. There's too many people that are stupid. There's too many people that want to like, "Bro, I fucking see red." There's too many dummies. When I was a kid, when I was 21 years old, I was at a bar, and I watched this guy hit a guy in the face with a Heineken bottle. Out of nowhere, over nothing, I was standing by the bar, and there were these two guys. They were as close as Jamie is to me, and they were talking to each other like loud voices, but nothing crazy. No physical shit. And this guy just takes a Heineken bottle off the bar and smashes it on his face.

It's crazy, man.

There's too many people out there that are fucking stupid, man. And you get sucked into their gravity.

You're like the guys that if they know who you are, they'll be like, "Oh, you can fight? I can shoot." I'm like, "All right. So can I. Congratulations, man."

Let's not fight each other or shoot each other.

Hi. My name is Brendan. That's my thing now. I'm like, "Bro, I don't want to fight or shoot. You just leave me alone and leave my family alone, and we're good, bro. I don't want no problems with nobody."

Well, the problem is there's too many people out there that haven't proven themselves. They don't have a thing in their life that gives them a challenge all the time where they're proving themselves. So every time they go out, they're trying to prove themselves. Every time they go out, they're trying to puff their chest out and be really badass. And it's so dangerous. And here's where you don't see that. Trained fighters.

Dude, I used to bounce at a little something small, and I needed the money, obviously. And I will never forget, man, this little dude. He had to be this tall, short, and fat. I don't know how tipsy he was. I don't know, right? But all the guys know that I was fighting. I was LFA at the time. And they always told me, "Hey, man, don't worry about hitting nobody. If someone swings at you, I got you. Or just hit them and say I did it." And I was like, "I'm good, bro.

So they didn't get you in trouble?

Yeah. They were super cool, right? Who knows if that would have really been how it went. I don't know. But anyway.

If you really fuck somebody up and there was a lawsuit, I guarantee you they're going to drop your name.

Dude, there was a bartender there. I watched it with my own two eyes in the front. This dude and him got into it. The guy slipped because he pushed him, and he slipped. It was a little wet. Dude, he soccer-kicked him so hard in the face. So hard. He got arrested for that.

Oh, God.

But that little kid, he swung at me. And I don't even know if he hit me or hit my hand. He hit something, right? And I'm laughing. I'm laughing. I'm like, "I couldn't believe it."

He had that cocaine courage, son.

He must have. Bro, I'm laughing. I'm literally doing this because I was going to stick him with the right, but he was so little. I was like.

That's so crazy.

No way. And how I saw the punch come, I was like, "Don't do it."

There are some people out there that have no idea how to fight, and yet they still try to fight. They have no weapon. They don't have a good punch. They don't have a background in wrestling. They don't have a damn thing. And yet they'll still decide they want to fight someone and just hope. In today's day and age, how can you hope that people don't know how to fight? I think if you run into 10 guys, one of them can fight today. It's probably the most in human history, other than Spartan days, most in human history. And even back then, how good was their technique?

Exactly.

You know what I'm saying?

It's crazy.

They probably didn't even know about calf kicks.

Dude, it's like my dad grew up boxing, right? So my dad, he would always tell me growing up, he was a little bitch. He was like, "I used to get my ass kicked until he had to move in with his grandfather." And his grandfather, World War II vet, shot twice, grew up boxing. Probably the most rugged man that you'll ever meet. I met him once before he passed away. His voice was so gruff. He's a man's man. One of those doesn't say nothing, really. And so he raised my dad.

That's a fucked-up thing to do to your kid.

Dude, my dad said he didn't care about nothing. My dad said he literally watched his smash his finger flat with a hammer. The nerves flew out. They were still attached. They flew out.

Oh, my God.

Hit his head throwing bales of hay in the loft. Smoked his head on a railroad spike that was in the wood. Cracked his skull. He didn't know till two days later. They said if he were to wait a couple, like 12 more hours, he would have been dead because of all the swelling on his brain. They had to cut his skull off to let the fluid come out.

Oh, God.

Crazy. Just a stubborn old man.

That's crazy, dude, to your grandson, though. Sleeping like that.

Dude, my dad said.

That's so crazy.

My dad said he said we were messing around. He's like, "All right. Quit messing with me." He always told him that. "Leave me alone." He kept on. He kept on. He stepped on his foot, and my dad said, "Quit stepping." He said that's all he remembers.

Oh, wow.

Old school trick. Slept him. My dad said when he woke up, he had the worst migraine. And he was on the porch drinking a thing of, I think, tea. And he was like, "Hey, get your ass up and go clean the dog pen. Get to work."

Those dudes who came up through World War II, that's a different kind of human being.

Yeah. So it's like.

Different kind of human being.

That's just kind of how my dad was. So when he got to high school, he wasn't the kind to go look for trouble, but he was the kind of person my dad told me as well. You stick up for the people that can't stick up for themselves. Or if someone fucks with you, do what you got to do. Just don't. Nowadays, he's like, "Don't put your hands don't punch them first unless they get an arm for each. Then you throw a punch first. Don't ever let someone hit you."

Kind of like you, too. You could just choke somebody.

Yeah. Now, but it's like.

You don't have to hurt them. You can just put them to sleep.

And I'm a good hugger, so I prefer that. But my dad's mean, man. He's different. He was in the military, and he boxed when he was overseas for like 75 bucks because he'd send all his money home to us. So it's like, I don't know. People don't know.

Different kinds of human beings, man.

I come from something that's what I feel like when I fight. I'm different. Honestly, I was telling myself that in the Marvin fight in between rounds, going into the third, because my dad and my brother were both there in attendance for the first time. My brother hadn't been in any of my fights since probably my second pro fight because of his injury. And so I watched my buddy Costello fight for the PFL belt. And he said after the fight, he said word for word, he's like, "I was raised by a warrior. He raised two warriors.

Well, I think just having a coach is really important. It's really important, especially having an elite coach. Having a coach that's really on top of it. I guess a Safe Sayud, Faraz Ahabi, Duke Rufus. Having someone who's really on it, really watching you, really knows what you need, really knows when you need to back off. Because the fact that you did so well and that you were coaching yourself is kind of fucking crazy.

Well, when I say I had coaches.

Well, you had coaches.

Yeah, exactly. But I didn't have a.

Did you have a main coach?

Yes, sir. Exactly.

That's the difference. So for people that don't know, okay, if you're listening to this and you're just interested in MMA, generally, there's a striking coach. Usually, they have some sort of a Muay Thai or kickboxing background. You generally have wrestling coaches. You generally have jiu-jitsu coaches. And if you're a really good gym, you got one guy who knows how to put it all together. And those are the maestros. Those are the guys who are conducting the entire orchestra. And they know you. And a good guy knowing his fighter is like an artist. And I think you can only have a certain amount of people that you're working really closely with because it's a very involved and intensive job.

Get on top.

Get on top.

Tell him what to do.

Stand up.

And I get it. You only have a minute. I get it. And I get it. Everybody's panicking if things are going wrong. I get it. But, my God.

It's been different.

Having a good coach, having a Faraz Ahabi type dude in your corner who just really understands what you need to do is so fucking important.

It's been one of the best changes that I have because I ain't going to lie. I'm not the easiest person to deal with. I like to be very in control of things that I can control. And I know myself. I've done a lot. I've been around a lot. So I know, "Hey, man, I'm feeling it today. My body's kind of done." No, no, no, no. Go, go, go. 100%.

Do you monitor all your shit? Do you monitor your resting heart rate?

Yeah. Now, usually, I have my whip on because I used to have the Aura, but I couldn't train with it. But I just took it off because I was training jiu-jitsu.

Aura's a little bit of a problem when you lift weights, too.

Exactly. I pinch my finger so bad.

Well, have you ever seen sheathing injuries? You ever seen those?

What is it where it rips the skin of your finger off?

The first time I ever saw one, I never saw them in person, but the first time I ever saw one, it was somebody who did jiu-jitsu. And they did jiu-jitsu with a ring on, like a wedding ring, and just fucking mangled their finger. It's called sheathing because it pulls all your skin off the bone like a sheath you would stick a knife in.

Oh, I've seen that. Yeah. I didn't know that's what it was called.

That's what it's called. It's like a sheath. Here's some of these injuries.

I thought.

Bro, look at that.

Dude.

Ew.

The first time I ever seen it was someone in a gi.

Ew.

A gi. It got caught in the gi.

Oh, my God.

Really?

Like you said, took the skin off.

Yeah. He had the wedding ring, and I think he made the grip on the sleeve. And when the guy pulled, it caught that fat, that little muscle or whatever right there.

And ripped his fucking skin off his finger.

The whole skin.

I've never seen that.

Dude, it was so nasty. Like you said, I was like, "Oh, my God." So now I am 100% sure that I don't wear my wedding ring. That's why it's tattooed on my finger because when I go to camp, I don't wear a wedding ring. She knows when I get to camp, I take it off. I put it in my truck. When camp is over and I get home from the fight, I put it back on.

I don't have mine on now because I just came from the gym, but I used to have a silicone one. Well, not used to. I have a silicone one that I use all the time. I can work out with it. I could do anything with it.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah. What is that company? Ridge? Is that what it is? No, that's the wall company. Is that what it is?

Shit. They make an all kind of stuff.

But they've got luggage and everything.

It's a good one. It looks like an Aura ring, too. But it's made out of silicone. So even if you catch it on something, it's no big deal. But even that, I forget which coach it was. I forget which coach. It's like an elite jiu-jitsu coach. He goes, "I refuse to let a guy even train with that." He goes, "I've seen too many injuries."

Damn.

Too many injuries where your finger just gets mangled by having that fucking stupid thing on there.

That's nasty. That's like.

Groove ring.

Groove. That's it. Yeah.

I feel like that with.

Those are legit.

Knee injuries and dislocations.

Oh, dude, you know what creeps me the most is broken shins. When I see that shin check, when the shin snaps, like, "Ah." If there's ever a fight that I think a guy should have pulled out that didn't, and if I was his friend, I would have told him, "You cannot fight. It's Connor." When he fought Dustin. The second fight with Dustin. Excuse me, the third fight with Dustin when his shin snapped in half. They knew that he had some sort of a hairline fracture on his shin.

Really?

Yeah.

I never knew that.

He already had MRIs and everything. They knew something was really wrong with it.

Yeah. Screw that. No, no, no.

Yeah. And it didn't even go shin to knee or anything like that. It usually snaps. That's how compromised it was. If you watch that fight, there is one time where Dustin checks it, and he checks the kick, and he looked at him. He pointed at him like, "I know that hurt you, bitch." He got in his head. And that was also after Dustin had just KO'd him in the last fight. So this was the third fight. And it was weird, man, because in the first fight, it was like, "Nice guy, Connor." It was like, "Nice guy, Connor," even after the fight.

Not the third one.

Not the third one, bro. You guys are.

He chose in my DMs.

Oh, bro. It's so funny. But it's like I know where Dustin he comes from a same vibe that I come from, and same things probably bother him. So when he said that, you could see Dustin, even though he just whooped him, he was like.

It's crazy to even say while you're lying there with a broken leg.

For sure.

A guy could just keep fighting.

He took it well, though. Who took it the best that I've seen personally? Tyrone Sponge. When he snapped his in half, he's just sitting there. We talk about this, too. I'm like, "Bro, how did you sit there just like " he's like. To be honest, I think he said, "To be honest, I was a little in shock at first, and then I was like, 'What am I going to do?'."

It is what it is.

Yeah. What am I going to do? It sucks.

That's wise.

Yeah. He was a G.

That was against Gokan Saki, too. That was a kickboxing fight.

Yeah. I remember it to this day.

It's very rare in a kickboxing fight. Isn't it interesting? It's way more common in an MMA fight. I've only seen it a couple of times in kickboxing. God, thank God. Because of Instagram, luckily, I get to see every fucking horrific injury that's ever happened. God, I've seen it seems like I never saw it until one who was the first time? Was it Corey Hill? I think it was Corey Hill was the first guy who broke his and Corey was a real tall, thin guy. I believe he fought at 145, and he was something crazy, like 6'3" at 145.

He passed away, right?

Yes, he did, unfortunately.

He fought Louisiana a good bit because I remember when he passed away, they were doing some stuff for him there.

So that was also the referee didn't notice it.

Dale? It just says Dale H on the thing I have up for some reason.

Ooh.

Oh, bro, that gets me.

So during the fight, the referee didn't notice it, so they kept fighting. And I put my headsets down, and I got up, and I was screaming, "Stop the fight. Stop the fight." The referee didn't notice it. He didn't notice that the guy's leg broke. So they were still scrapping on the ground.

I hope that was the end because how did you not notice that? His leg is literally in a U.

It's just a bad angle. You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, looking at where the referee's standing, there's actually kind of no excuse.

There it is.

Let's see it falls back. Look.

It's broken. His leg's broken. Stop, stop, stop. Stop the fight. Stop the fight. Stop the fight.

The fight is all over. Corey Hill.

Dang.

Suffered a broken leg. Whoa.

Dale Hart.

You saw it instantly on your monitor.

I saw it instantly in the cage.

Oh.

Dang. I wasn't watching the monitor. I don't even think we had monitors back then.

I was just about to ask that question.

I don't think we had monitors back then. We didn't have monitors for a while. The monitors were my idea.

Really?

I was like, "We have to have monitors. I want to see monitors. I want to see replays. I want to see shit." It was early, early in the UFC. I was like, "We need monitors." And also, the judges should get fucking monitors, too.

Yeah. Now, it's nice. I'll sit behind you sometimes.

Actually, now that I'm thinking of that, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we did have monitors. Maybe I was asking for other things. Because maybe I was asking for monitors for the judges. When did they start having monitors in the UFC? I don't know. But I always try to watch the actual fight. I want to see the actual fight. Yeah. I mean, you get a better view if the cage is there, but I mean, fuck, man. You're five feet away from the best fights on Earth. You want to see it, see it. I don't want to be watching TV. That's crazy.

Yeah. You got the best seat in the house.

Oh, it's the craziest seat ever. So when did they start doing it? 2011. Is that for judges?

Yeah.

Yeah. That was definitely my idea. Well, there was other people that had that same idea, but I'm like, "You need to do this." Because there were some of them that were so bad, some calls that were so bad. It's like there's no way these guys are seeing everything. If there's a pillar here and a guy lands an elbow and you're judging and you don't see it, what do you do? What do you say? That might have been the most pivotal moment in the fight. What are you doing? You have to see it. The judging thing is crazy, man.

Tell me about it.

There's judges that don't even train. They've never trained MMA. They don't have any jiu-jitsu skill. They don't know what's going on. In the middle of a fight once, this lady leaned over to my friend who also worked for one of the commissions and said, "What is he doing?"

No way.

Yeah. It was an Americana. It was a normal move. It was like, "What is he doing?" That's crazy.

I was messing with him.

It was either Americana or Kimura. I'm not sure if I remember.

I was messing with him. I'm like, "He's trying to bite him."

What?

I don't know.

But imagine this is a person that's in charge. So the really horrible thing about a bad decision is not just that you get a loss on your record, but you get half your paycheck, which I think is really fucked up. I think that needs to stop.

That's crazy.

I think you should have a designated amount that you're fighting for. And if you want to have a stoppage bonus or you want to give someone some sort of a bonus for an excellent performance, that's great. That incentivizes them to try harder to stop somebody. But a bad decision that can cost you half your purse is crazy. It's crazy.

I'm getting older, so I try to have a little bit more wisdom. So after I lost to Fluffy, I went back and watched the fight like six times, and I'm like, "I really don't see how I lost on a decision." I can see your point if you use this frame of mind, but based on the unified rules at the time, how? Dude, I reached out to a lot of people that I knew that are in the high up in commissions, and I had really deep talks with them about it, explained my perspective, listened to theirs, the rules.

And it's just really.

That's what the sport's about. And when it's just holding, when a guy holds and doesn't do anything with it, it's like, "Look, it's an effective strategy. And if you're fighting a guy who could fuck you up standing and that's all you could do to survive, I understand." I have no problem with boring fights. I really don't. And I know the fans are like, "Fucking separate them. Fucking separate them." I have no problem with boring fights because I think if you can let a guy just hold on to you, that is a part of the game.

That's some Robbie Lawler wisdom right there.

And from there, I was like, "All right." But then I found out after, one of Fluffy's coaches, he used to be in the commission, so he knows the they explained his pedigree or whatever, and he's very, very, very knowledgeable about what the rules are and all these things. So he strategizes, I guess, certain things around that.

So he strategizes certain things around the rules to try to keep him out.

Yeah. That's what I heard. That's what they told me.

I bet a lot of guys do that.

He canceled. He was in the commission, part of it, I guess, worked for them, and he pulled out of working there because he wanted to be for Fluffy more, which is admirable. But he didn't want to have a conflict of interest.

Conflict, yeah.

So I thought that was pretty cool. But I will say what Fluffy did really good that I was prepared for wrestling like crazy, but I wrestle with guys that are folk-style wrestlers. What he does very well is he don't shoot normal shots. He doesn't shoot a double or a single. He shoots like it looks like it's going to be a double, but he's only at your hips. He's just trying to get your hips. Then he's circling right away if he can or putting you to the cage and working his sequences from there.

He's got a clever style.

He is a savage against Oleksandr.

He's a savage. And he also has a crazy gas tank, man. He melts guys. That guy melts guys. The Oleksandr thing where he grabbed his neck and just like a bouncer at a nightclub just dragged him back to finish him, that was crazy.

Yeah, man. That's one thing I wish I would have put more output because everyone's like, "You're tired." I was like, "Bro, I was having a full conversation like this in between rounds right after the fight. I wasn't tired. I was just complacent." I was like, "Oh, I'm already going to " because I beat Malkun like that because all he did was hold. Literally just held, and I'm hitting him. Bang, bang, bang. How am I supposed to improve my position when you're literally just holding? You're not even moving at all. You're not lifting your weight. You're not doing nothing. So I won that fight because I did more damage and I had fight-ending intentions.

Well, it'll probably happen. It'll probably happen somewhere down the line because it would be a great fight.

Yeah. Well, that's where kind of the hold-up is, I guess, right now of obviously, you know how politics work in this game, but it's like the top five is the champion, Dricus, no, I'm sorry, champion, Dricus, Imovov, Sean Strickland, Fluffy, me. And it's like, "All right, Sean, they just announced Sean and Fluffy."

And Fluffy.

Imovov. Yep, that's cool. And then Imovov's waiting. They both said they're going to wait for that one. So it's just me and Dricus. And then right behind me is Izzy. Who knows when Izzy's going to fight or if he's going to fight or what? So it's like we're waiting on Dricus, and Dricus always has a lot to say when I'm losing, but when I'm winning, he don't really have enough to say. And then I just saw an interview the other day, and it was like he was like, "Yeah, I'd love to beat his head in or something."

About you?

Yeah, about me. And I'm like, "Well, you have the opportunity to do so, and it only makes sense unless you want to wait forever."

I wonder what he does after that Hamzat fight because when a guy dominates you like that, where it's so clear, it's just like one of those gaps that it looks like, "Oh, you're never going to bridge that gap, that grappling gap."

And it's never going to I don't know if you agree, but that should never happen at that level.

It never does happen at that level. That's the reality, except Islam and Jack De La Maddalena. That's another similar situation. Very similar situation. But I think there's guys that you get in there with, and if you're used to a B-caliber guy or a high-level guy, but there's only a few real A's. And Hamzat is a real A.

Yeah. He's good at he's a savage.

I talked to DC about him, and DC said, "Dude, when that guy grabbed me," and he goes, "we were wearing street clothes and everything like that." He goes, "I realized, 'Oh, I'm going to have to wrestle, wrestle to keep this guy off me.'" He goes, "He's fucking strong, man." And it's also because, first of all, how the fuck did that guy make 170?

I don't know, but I don't understand how he talks about going up to 205 because, like you said, you got guys like Pereira. And don't get me wrong. I know they're stylistically different, but I don't know.

I think he could do it. I think he could do it. I think he could do it if he takes the time and puts weight on.

Yeah. If he puts weight on, I think he has a high chance.

Because he's tall. And the thing is, it's like these gaps in wrestling, these gaps in grappling. When a guy's a really good grappler and then you're taking on a guy like Dricus, who's really a striker, who's a good grappler, a good jujitsu guy, but there's levels. And the kind of guy like Hamzat, man, you got to be a fucking Olympic caliber wrestler to scrap with that guy.

Yeah. And it's like I tell people, "I'm not going to go out there and straight beat Chimaev in pure wrestling. It's not going to happen. I'm not stupid. I'm not stupid, but it's MMA. Could I take him down? I mean, yeah, I could. But there's other ways to approach the fight that I think I have the upper hand. You see how other people have approached him and done well with him, but it's like.

You also have very good submissions too. You have a real solid jujitsu game, and you could strike. You've got a very complete package. And I think the thing about his grappling is if you have that hole, if you have that hole, he's going to find that hole, and he's going to smother you.

For sure.

And you're fucked as well.

That's what makes no sense to me with the Dricus fight, right? You're the champion of the world. He took you down. No problem, man. I totally understand. I get taken down a lot. I mean, I know our styles are different, but you didn't try to hip bump. You didn't try to hip escape. You didn't try to scoop the leg and lift and elevate. You didn't try to do nothing. Literally, he didn't try to do nothing. He literally waited for him to establish his position. He'd roll side to side, maybe one hip bump around.

How many times did he put in the crucifix, by the way? That was crazy.

It was crazy. I only had to be once around because he wasn't getting out.

I mean, how many times did he put him into crucifix? In a world championship fight, has there ever been a fight where a champion has been put in a crucifix that many times?

Insane.

It was over and over and over again. We were like, "How is he doing this again? This is so crazy."

And that kind of blew my mind. So that's why it's like.

I just think Chimaev's gap is just so good. And I think also with a guy like Dricus, and you would be the guy to speak to this, when you're down and you realize, "Okay, it's the first round. He's taking me down. He's on top of me. Let me just conserve my energy. There's a five-round world championship fight. I'm going to knock this motherfucker out. He's going to get tired doing this. He always gets tired." But you know the difference with Hamzat in this fight is he trained with Sam Kalavita. Do you know that guy?

Uh-uh.

Okay.

I just already hired someone good.

Yeah. Kalavita is a real elite strength and conditioning coach and legendary guy. And he runs this he just calls it the garage. Okay? It's in Orange County, California, and it's just a fucking garage, and not even a big one, just a small two-car garage with no cars in it. And it's all just machines and equipment. And he's got Armand Sarukian training down there, TJ Dillashaw. When he was in his prime, he was training down there. The reason why TJ's conditioning was at such a fucking high level when he was in his prime was he was training with that guy.

Yeah. I would know that name, the Training Lab, because I was like, "Man, what a weird way."

Yes. That's it. So you see Aaron Pico's there with them. There's Hamzat. So I mean, he's got so many elite guys that are training inside of that gym. There's Juan Ancholeta.

I wonder how they work that in. Obviously, they have their coaches and stuff dealing with it, but how they operate.

Well, I mean, the issue with Hamzat was overtraining. So one of the things about Hamzat is he's apparently you can't kick him out of the fucking gym. He won't stop training. And you got to literally stop him from training. He's a maniac. And when he got COVID, that's what really fucked him up. So he got COVID, and you would think, "Oh, healthy guy like that who gets COVID, that ain't going to be shit for him." This silly motherfucker was training like an animal, two-hour sessions with COVID.

Yeah. I remember hearing that.

Just from training while he had COVID. That's all it was. He just refused to stop training. And look, I don't care what it is, the flu, whatever you have, you're trying to train two and a half hour days when you have a serious lung infection, you're going to fucking die. And DC told me he did one session with him.

Resistance on the bike.

What's that?

Resistance bands.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He uses elastic bands along with a fucking rogue echo bike.

Damn.

Yeah. So those rogue echo bikes, they suck enough to have resistance bands while you're doing it too.

That's crazy.

Yeah. No, Sam's an animal. And again, super knowledgeable, knows what your recovery should be, where your resting heart rate should be, and also super knowledgeable in terms of supplements, diet, and all that stuff. He comes from the endurance cycling world, which is like so cycling, you would imagine Tour de France style cycling. This is probably the most endurance-dependent sport on planet Earth because it goes for so long. You have to really understand how to peak in order to compete at a real insane endurance event like that.

Yeah. He's doing good. Chimaev, like I said, he looked good, but.

I think that was a factor, though, in that fight because there was no fade in that fight where you saw the Usman fight. There was a fade in the third round. Usman won that fucking third round. And after that third round, he was like, "Fuck, I wish this was a five-round fight."

Yeah. But it's like also Usman made him have output. He didn't really have to he had one explosion to take him down.

But Usman can fucking wrestle. That's the difference. He was in there with a guy who's real strong, even though he's a weight class below him. Usman had been competing at 170, and Hamzat had already committed to 85. He's a bigger guy. But Usman can really wrestle, and that's the difference. It's not like a guy that doesn't know what to do, and you take him down, you ragged him. Usman's like, "Okay, you got me down, but this is a long-ass fight, and I'm going to get back up, and we're going to figure this out." And in the third round, he was figuring it out, and he started tuning him up. He was landing good shots.

Yeah. I have a friend that trained with Chimaev. He goes and helps, and he's told me, he's like, "Man, his wrestling's really good." I was like, "How good?" He was like, "It's good." I was like, "He whoop you?" He was like, "No, if he whoop me, why would they bring me in if he whoops me?" I was like, "Touche, good one." But he is good.

But you still got to watch that. You got to watch to see what does he consider whoop.

Yeah.

Let me watch.

Show me the video. Let me see it. Let me see what they got.

Let me go in the room. I want to see in the room.

But I like his demeanor too, the conversation he had with Ian Garrett. He's similar to me.

Well, I don't understand that because I had heard there's another angle that shows that Ian slapped him on the back pretty hard.

Yeah.

Oh, he did.

Yeah. But Ian's that guy. He's trying to get a rise out of you. That way, when you do get a rise, he's like a big brother, nitpicking. He's that guy. He wants you to get a rise out of you so then he could be like, "What are you doing? I didn't mean that." That's why I don't really that's why I don't like Ian at all because he's.

You guys were at the same gym for a while.

Yeah. But I don't know. I know other things and things that happen, and he's just that guy. He's talked shit to me through another person. Me and my boy are at a fight, and he's talking shit to me through his phone. Bro, shut up. Stop letting your wife tell you what to do, bro. Shut up. But yeah, he walks over there, and he says something. Dude, he hits him hard on the back, and Chimaev just looks at him. And then he did what he did back or whatever and shoved him, whatever the case, however you saw the confrontation from there.

Because the clip that everybody saw was after he slapped him on the back. It looked like Chimaev just got really aggressive with him for no reason.

Yeah. There's the other angle. Keeps hitting him. Then shakes him as he walks away.

Yeah. And then he's talking a little shit.

Yeah. "Oh, we're fine. He's not going to do nothing."

So it's a little weirdly aggressive. It ain't that.

It's passive-aggressive.

It's a little weird. He taps him. It was like a little grab his clothes and shove him a little bit. It wasn't like a guy that's, "Hey, brother. All right."

Exactly. And that's what he said. He's like.

Good luck to you.

I have to give it to him. Some things Chimaev says, he fought my boy G, and he talked shit to him in the hallway. I didn't really like that. But hey, y'all two are going to fight. Y'all are grown men. Do what y'all want. Some things he might say or do, I don't like or agree with, but hey, as long as it's not to me, we're good. And other things he does, I fully agree with. As a man, I stand behind him.

One of the things I like about Chimaev, after he fought Gilbert, Gilbert and him went to war, and then he was like, "You're my brother now." You know what I mean? He was really cool with him.

Yeah. There's a young kid, Ansar, that trains at Killcliff, and he is so much demeanor-wise, from what I see of Chimaev, he's so much like that. Dude, I'm telling you, this kid's like 18 years old, and he is a stud. He's 18. He fought for me on my promotion. I think his debut. Dude, he goes and gets in the guy's face. The guy's coming down a weight class. He's going up a weight. Ansar's going up a weight class. Dude, he don't care. Matter of fact, he's in that streamer's video, Neon or whatever.

Really?

Yeah.

18-year-old kid?

Dude, he gives everybody problems. Gilbert was throwing RDR around.

Isn't it wild when there's some weird young phenom that is just so much better than they're supposed to be when they're young?

Dude.

It's real odd when you're around those guys.

There's three or four of them that, dude, I miss them a lot when I'm not when I left Florida. One, they are such loyal humans. You barely find that nowadays, as you know. You don't find too many loyal guys. And when they say, "My brother," they don't care if you're white, black, Indian, what your ethnicity is, what your religion. They don't care. They care about you. And dude, when I got into it with Marvin at the casino, Ansar wasn't even old enough to get in.

Whoa, that's a hell of a shot. Oh, my goodness.

Dude, he is so good.

Oh, my goodness. Look how smooth he took that dude's back.

He just fought a couple of weeks ago and knocked some dude out in the first round at LFA.

That was so smooth, man. Oh, my goodness. Oh, he is on that back so quick.

Ansar's so good.

There's one thing that these guys have in common is they're all from a hard part of the world, a fucking rough part of the world.

Him and his best friend, Umran Jan, they left home at like I think he was 17, 18 years old. They just left home. We asked him, "Hey, bro, why did you leave home? How'd you leave home? How'd you get here?" They both said the same thing.

Look at him. He's out. He's out. Referee.

He's a savage. He trains 100%. He don't know anything other than 100% every day.

Whew.

Multiple times. But we asked him, "Bro, how'd you leave home?"

How old is he now?

I think he's 18, 19 max.

Wow.

Dude, he's a savage.

He looks good.

He's very good.

He looks good, man.

There's another one too.

If you're that good at 18, my goodness.

He's going to be a stud.

What's he going to be like when he's 30?

Dude, I tell him all the time, "Man, if you just learn how to just take a breath and just be a little bit patient in certain positions."

Well, that'll come.

Exactly. But man, he's fighting good guys already. They all want to fight him. Umran Jan was fighting like one or two weight classes up, and he had a draw with a guy, and he thought it was like you would have think he lost the love of his life. He had a draw because he was two weight classes up. And like, "Bro, why don't you fight at your weight class?" "Brother, I just smash. I want to fight everyone. Everyone." And they can't get fights. They can barely ever get fights.

It's hard for phenoms to get fights in the amateurs and in the lower organizations. A lot of people don't realize that. It's really hard.

Yeah. They come to me to match him, and you got to pay the other guy more to fight because they already know what it is. And it was hard. It was very hard.

And so what weight is he at now?

I think he's at 45.

Damn.

45. That's his last one right there. I think. No, no, that's not.

This is just another big takedown. Bro, look at the dude's hair he's fighting.

That's what he does to everyone.

Oh, my goodness. That is a crazy takedown.

He's so exciting.

I can't believe dudes are still holding on to guillotines when people get into sigh control. How many times they watch Ovince Ain't Proof fight. It's crazy how many people still do that. They still keep that guillotine while a guy's in sigh control. That is a death sentence. And some people don't cash in on it, but if you just cinch those hands together, he can't get that ham out. That's it. Turn on your side. That's it. It's almost like giving up your neck.

Exactly.

It's like if someone gave up their back, everybody would be like, "What are you doing?" That's like what you're doing. If you're holding on to a guillotine and a guy's in sigh control, it literally is like giving up your back and exposing your neck. It's kind of crazy.

It is. But I see these kids like this, and I'm just like, "I used to be that kid." But these guys are even better. You know what I mean? It's scary how evolution is. But like I said, man, I asked these kids. I was like, "Man, why'd you leave home? How'd you leave home? How'd you get here?" Him and his best friend left together. Their story both, same thing, different times. Brother, we just left one day. We told our parents we were going to the store, never came back.

What?

You know?

Just moved to America?

Yeah. They somehow got here, and they've been here, and dude, they work during the day. They move stuff. They work for a moving company, and then they train. So they train in the morning. They train, train, then they go work all night, all through the night, moving stuff, whatever they have to do, whatever their work is. But most of the time, I see them moving stuff. And then they come back, train the next day. And they do this every single day, working their ass off, man.

Wow.

It's super impressive, and it's super motivating too, but it just lets you know for me, I used to be that young cat. Everyone was 24, 25. I'm 17, 18, and I'm doing what I'm doing. And now I see these kids, and I'm like, "Damn." So that's what it was like when the older guys were looking at me. But these guys are better.

Some people can forget when they get complacent in their career and they become a journeyman, and they forget what it's like to be young and hungry. And then they'll train with someone, and that'll either make them retire or it'll reinvigorate them.

It's awesome.

Because if you're around people that are that driven, it becomes contagious. It really does, especially if you know that a guy is working all day and training that hard, you got no excuses.

Right.

And it's also like when you're around people like that, there's an energy. It catches you.

For sure.

It moves you when it's weak.

It does. You're right. 100%. Because I get in my modes where I don't want to do nothing. I'm just like, "Man, screw this. I've done this long enough. Whatever." But then I go back and say, today, for instance, I went and trained with Nicky Rod. They whoop my ass. I ain't going to lie to you. They whoop my ass. And I told them after, I was like, "This should be illegal that y'all just whoop me that bad." And they're like, "Yeah, but you ain't done nothing. You don't do peer jujitsu anymore. We're the best in the world, some of the best in the world at peer jujitsu."

It's true.

I was like, "Yeah, but still, I shouldn't be getting walked like that." But it makes me hungry.

Nicky Rod goes out to almost everybody.

I love it, man.

He's so big. He's such a freak.

Dude, I told him today. I was like, "How are you this big and move like this? This should be illegal."

Gordon told me there was a position once that they were doing where they were working from the back, and Gordon had his back, and Nicky flipped over the top of him and wound up behind Gordon. And Gordon turns to John Donaher and goes, "What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? What do I do if that happens?" Well, Donaher was like, "Well, nobody could do that other than Nicky."

Dude.

That's how crazy that is.

He's so sick.

Know how nuts that is to do a back flip from your knees?

I couldn't.

And go over the top of someone who's got your back?

I can't even visualize it.

Separate the hands. Somehow or another, he separated the hands and flipped over him. And Gordon was like, "Okay." Because Gordon would be the first to tell you, even though he's the best in the world and the best ever at no guillotine jujitsu, he's not an explosive guy. He's like, "I'm not a good athlete."

He's intelligent, though. Super, super intelligent.

Super smart.

Yeah, he's super intelligent.

Super smart.

I've listened to some of his instructionals before. And I know he did one at Rufusport a long time ago, and the guys told me after because I was obviously at home. And they were like, "Bro, he was in a wheelchair because I guess he had a surgery at the time, and he was in a chair." And his lady was teaching. She was teaching for him, and he was walking through every single position. Everyone said that was the best seminar they've ever been to.

Wow.

He didn't get down there and teach one move.

That's incredible.

He couldn't.

That's incredible.

I was like, "That's impressive."

Well, if you could do a seminar from a wheelchair, Jesus Christ.

Dude, impressive. Wagner says the same thing. He's like, "Bro, he's the best guy I've ever trained with, learned from, anything. He's amazing." So I've heard it from a lot. I've heard a lot of good.

He's the other guy, though, that's 365 days a year of training. He goes, period. There's no days off. Fuck your Christmas. Fuck your birthday. There's no days off, which is so crazy to think of. But the way they put it and the way Donaher put it is like, "If you are training 200 days a year, that is a lot, but you will not be able to beat a guy who's training 365 days a year because he has 165 more training sessions a year." So over the course of two years, now he has 300 plus, then 400. It keeps going and going.

It's true.

And it's not just training. It's like when they're not physically training, they're going over tape all day, which is like it's hard to do that and to keep your mind focused on that. They're writing things down. They're going over positions. It's not just all hard physical work.

It's intelligence.

It's a lot of breaking things down, a lot of the finer points of technique and positioning.

It's funny you say that because it's like for me, when we were talking earlier about how time off, it reinvigorates your mind. It's like that's what it does for me. I probably do 100 reps in a day of things that I've screwed up on, like throwing a jab wrong or leaving my hand down. In my head, my mental reps. And then somehow, when I do go train again, it's just so weird. My body just automatically does it. Say, I throw the jab, and I just bring it back to my chest. I don't want it there. I want it on my chin.

You just want to let your motivation return.

Exactly. I just want to be with my family. I want to be a normal person because one day, fighting is not going to be there for me. It's always been there for me since I was 13. When I had anxiety about something, stress, heartbreak, whatever it is, it's always been there for me. And that's when I always grew. But the end is a lot closer than the beginning.

Right.

That's where I'm at in my life. And I know that, so I'm trying to make the most of it and try, but.

You think about high end, you got 10 years, if that's really possible.

Maybe.

It's not usually. And usually, the last few are rough because the last few you're like Anderson after he broke his leg, right?

Right.

So I say there's like two Andersons. There's Anderson pre-Wideman and post-Wideman.

For sure.

There's the knockout where Wideman caught him with the left hook, and then there's the leg break in the rematch. And then from then, he's never been Anderson again.

Correct.

And I think the injury has a lot to do with it, but it's also father time. I don't think we got Anderson in the UFC till he was 34.

It was a while because he was already big on the other scenes.

Huge, bro. That was one of them fights where people didn't really know Anderson that well, and he was fighting Chris Lieben. And the odds were Anderson was the favorite, but not by enough. And I was telling my friend, I'm like, "Bet the house on the Brazilian." I go, "Bet the house." Because he was coming off of that, remember Cage Rage?

Yeah.

So he was coming off of the Lee Murray fight. He was coming off who did he fight over there as well? He fought Jorge Rivera. That was a big fight. There was a Tony Fricklin one where he did that crazy step-in elbow.

Oh, yeah. That's all the highlight of that. I didn't know that was the name, but I know the elbow you're talking about.

That elbow, do you know he had a practice with his wife because his coach wouldn't let him try it?

Really?

His coach was like, "Stop doing that. You're not going to do that." He goes, "I'm going to hit him with this." He's like, "No, you're not going to do that. Stop training that." So we didn't want to train that. So he told his wife to hold a pillow. So his wife was holding a pillow at home, and he was going like this, over and over again. He was just practicing.

No way.

He wanted to do some unbox shit.

What a great story to have.

Bro, that was Anderson. People saw him in his prime for sure, obviously, because he's one of the greatest of all time, but they didn't see that transition to him becoming in his prime. And that was in Cage Rage because he had some really good fights in pride. But then when he went to Cage Rage, something flipped, man. You know how it is with Oliveira when it happened to him after he had his kid? Something flips sometimes when a fighter just locks in, and then they become who they really are.

Yeah, who everyone around them knows because they've seen it in the gym, but no one else has seen it. It's weird. I always say that about myself. I'm still not the guy that everyone knows in the gym. I show a little bit more every time, but I'm not even that guy.

Well, maybe this changing of environment and coaching will allow you to hit that spot.

The coaching, like you were talking about earlier, right? It has been the hardest thing for me to let go of control and give it to someone else. But it was kind of one of those things. I met Horacio and Mike, and I have obviously a lot of trust and a lot of faith in Bala. I've known him for a long time, and I see what he's done. But I met these guys and Max too. I met him for five days when I was with Bala. And to sit back and watch them also have my own interactions with them, it just felt like one of those things.

Did you think about other camps as well? Did you think about?

I didn't think I was going to leave, to be honest with you. I didn't think I was going to leave Florida. I was just going there to help my friend and just kind of see what I could do different, what I could change in my own thing. But then obviously, my goal after being there because he was getting ready for Jack, Bala was. So I watched everything. I helped him for a few days, and then I went back. I fought Marvin, and I did two or three weeks at Chicago.

We're dating hates here and that kind of shit. Guys won't fight friends.

Yeah, but I'll fight for a belt, though, anywhere on the whole planet. Godzilla, I'll fight for the whole belt. I don't care. And Gannu, I'll fight him for a belt. I don't care. You know what I mean? It could change my whole life, my families.

Sure. Yeah.

So I'm very realistic because obviously, even if you love to do this at this level, it's about the money too. It's financial freedom.

It's about making intelligent choices because one slip-up could set you back two years.

Yeah, I'm learning that. I learned that the hard way.

Well, that's also important to learn, right? It's also important to have those setbacks. Those setbacks are some of the most important growth points in your career, in anybody's career, if you do it right. Those setbacks are when you feel that ugliness, and then you really have to assess what could I have done differently? What am I doing wrong? Is there something about my mindset? Is there something about my diet? Is there something about my recovery? Am I doing too much of this or too little of that? You have to have that pain. If everything is just going great, the thing going into the fight was Aspinall's every fight, other than the Curtis Blaze fight, was a one-round fight.

I've thought of that. I thought of that, but I don't want to go back to being a carpenter. I'm good with that.

A guy like Tom Aspinall, when he gets to a fight with a guy like Ngannou or a guy who's going to be there, those questions—and I'm not saying that he wouldn't succeed, and I'm not saying he wouldn't win—but those questions might be in your head because you haven't been in those high-profile wars before where you came up short.

I still get those questions. I'm such a perfectionist, and I know nothing will ever be perfect, but I want as close to it as I can get.

It's a great mindset.

I find something. I will always find something to be negative. But what's helped me is I had a sports psychiatrist for a while. He was great. And I learned a lot with him. And for me, it's been about I'm very open with people that I care about and that I know care solely about me. They're not worried about if I win or lose or all that stuff, the fame. They're not worried about that. They care about me as a person. And that was something that was great with Bala and Horacio and all the guys in Chicago, Mike, Max. We talk regularly. "How are you, man?

So your mind was fucking you.

Yeah. Because I find one negative thing, and I just focus, and I make it huge.

I think it's good sometimes. I think it's good sometimes, but it's almost like you have to be critical, but yet also confident.

Right. And I would take my confidence away by focusing on it. But being able to talk about it, again, they had that moment. I have it on my Instagram. They made a clip or whatever for me. And it's just literally, it was two nights before the fight, three nights before the fight. And we're talking, and I'm telling him, "Bro, he could get me down. He could finish me. But if he finishes me on the ground, he's got to be just that good." But I'm nervous, man. I'm nervous that I'm not going to go out here and perform to what I know that I can do. To me, that's the worst.

I think those things that can creep into your head before a fight where I don't want to lose, I don't want to disappoint people, I don't want to do this, then that is a really bad time to have those thoughts. It's not a bad time to have those thoughts when you're working on stuff. It's not a bad time to have those thoughts if you're really trying to motivate yourself to get up in the morning and run or whatever it is, to really get after it in strength and conditioning. But when you're fighting, you have to have a strategy of how to squash those thoughts when they come up. I mean, it's not just fighting. Anybody who's listening to this, anything in life that you have to do that's really difficult and scares you, you got to know how to squash negative thoughts before they burn your house down.

We did a lot of at the beginning of sports psychiatrists, that was one thing, right? I would suppress it right away and suppress it, and it'd try to creep back through, and I'd suppress it again. But then it just gets bigger and stronger to where it can just come out. And you don't know when it's going to come out. It could be the night of the fight. It could be the day before the fight. It could be in the fight. So it's like taking it in, whatever that emotion is for you, dissecting it, literally get to the root of why you think this. Like, "Oh, I think he can knock me out." If I dissect it, "Well, yeah, he's knocked a lot of guys out, but anyone can knock anyone out.

You let a demon sneak into your brain.

Yeah. And once I dissect it, I've worked on it like that so well. And being open and honest with my coaches and the people that I care about and they care about me has been such a great thing for me. I'm kind of the guy sometimes just I've learned about myself is just like, "Just let me talk." Sometimes. I'm not a big talker, but just let me talk. You don't even have to say nothing, but, "Damn, that's all right, bro." That's why Tuko, who I always see me with normally, he's always with me. Bro, he's the best at just listening to me.

It's almost like you have to tell somebody what's going on inside your head. And if you keep it inside your head.

There's the wings. The wings are coming.

Demons. Flying monkeys. Throwing firebombs inside your head.

They're launching them.

Wizard of Oz.

They're launching them, bro. So that's been great for me. That's really helped. And I've had a couple of younger kids that have asked me, "Oh, how's that?" And I turned them onto my guide that I used to use.

What did you do with the psychiatrist? What were the sessions like?

We would talk about things like this. He'd have worksheets and stuff like this. But you know what really, really sunk in? So first, we worked on learning to catch emotions. He called it something, but learning to catch different emotions before they grow so you can dissect them.

And then stop the fire.

Yeah, exactly.

Before it burns your house down.

So recognizing. First is recognizing. Anything you have to recognize. If you recognize it 30 minutes the first time, all right, let's try for 25 the next time. Don't let it you thought on it for 30 minutes, and you're like, "Fuck, why am I thinking about this?" Let's do 25. So keep it until you can get it right away. Then we dissect it, and then we move on about our day. Things that helped me at the beginning were like.

Does it help you talking with a different person, another person about this, rather than just bouncing it off your own head?

Yes, for sure.

Something about talking to another person makes it real?

Yeah. And it just gets it out. I'm holding it in, holding it in, holding it in. As soon as I talk, it's like it's literally leaving my body. The stress just kind of and sometimes they have good things to say, things like that. My sports psychiatrist is the one that told me those things. Like, "Bro, you've done this how many times? You fought these guys."

Did he ever work with fighters before?

He was working with a small team in New Orleans. And now he's got other guys in the UFC now because they would ask me, and I'd turn them on. And he's great. His name's Eric. He's really great. He's from New Orleans.

Because I would think of a guy who was a sports psychiatrist for tennis. It's like some things would carry over, but it's a very different thing.

And he trained as well. He grew up wrestling and stuff.

Oh, okay. Perfect guy then.

Exactly. And it worked out great, man. I learned a lot. I kind of figured out what worked for me. So I was like, "All right." And I get so busy. But another thing he gave me was you read it the day after you weigh in, you read it, and then you finish. It has a part where it says, "Read up to this point." And then you read the rest of the section the day of the fight. And I forget the author. I have it in my phone somewhere that he sent me a long time ago. And I would read it before every fight, every one, like the Apex when we were in the Apex all the time.

Is it a book?

It's like a little.

Pamphlet?

Yeah, kind of.

Do you know who wrote it?

It's in my phone. I could find it.

Well, just so other people can look at it. Because it sounds pretty powerful.

It was great, man.

And if it helped you. There's a lot of hokey sort of self-help stuff online.

"Be a fucking man. Go out and get it done." And there's a wolf inside of you and all that kooky shit. But the reality is there's a lot of wisdom out there too. There's a lot of you could read meditations by Marcus Aurelius and literally learn how to live a better life. There's a lot of stuff out there that's very beneficial. So when someone like yourself has something that really helped them, I think it's probably good to put it out there so other people can get it. It's so crazy. Now I'm looking through the documents and stuff that he sent me. Mindfulness was the word I was looking for when you catch it.

Mindfulness is one of them co-opted words. It's been co-opted like gratitude and spirituality. It's one of them words that too many kooky people use.

Yeah, exactly.

Too many would-be's.

The first time he told me, I was like, "Bro, don't tell me what I think of this crazy shit, bro." I'm not that kind of guy.

How'd you hit me with no mindfulness, son?

Yeah, man. But look, I'm literally going through right here, right? And he would send me stuff, right, before a fight or.

So he'd send you quotes?

He'd send me YouTube links. Look at the second one from the top.

Who is it with me? Who is it?

David Goggins.

Goggins? Oh, that's hilarious.

He sent me that. Stuff like he'd send me stuff like this.

Goggins is a perfect example of that. He says things all the time that I think of. Jaco. When I'm working out and I'm really tired, I think of this one Jaco video where it's called Good. Have you ever seen that video?

No.

You want to get fired up?

Yeah, I want to see it.

Can we play that? We get fired up. This is one of my all-time favorite videos. You know Jaco, right? Jaco Wim.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So Jaco was a Navy SEAL, and he's got a book called Extreme Ownership. And it's just the way he thinks and the way he carries himself, it's so beneficial if you can adopt this that there's sometimes where I'm training, where I'm fucking really tired and I want to quit, I think of Jaco and I go, "Good, you're tired. That means you're going to get stronger." Listen to this. This is fucking amazing.

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he'd say, "Boss, we got this and that and the other thing." And I'd look at him and I'd say, "Good." And finally, one day he was telling me about some issue that he was having, some problem. And he said, "I already know what you're going to say." And I said, "Well, what am I going to say?" He said, "You're going to say good." He said, "That's what you always say.

Oh, yeah.

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

Play that one when you're in the fucking dressing room.

This is what it is.

Getting ready.

I don't know if it's the doctor that sends you.

So these are the things he sends you?

Yeah.

Oh, okay. So it's called How Sports Psychology Can Help You Do Your Best When It Means the Most. Unedited copy. Who's the author? What does it say? Oh, Rob Gilbert. Rob Gilbert, PhD, Montclair State University. Montclair, New Jersey. Okay.

It's pretty cool.

God, I'll ask you to send me that afterwards.

Yeah, of course.

I love shit like that. There's little things like that you can carry in your toolbox, and they can help you. And not just if you're a professional fighter, but in basically everything in life.

It really helped change perspective.

How is Bilal doing? Who fucking gets poked in the eye more than that guy?

Nobody.

Jesus Christ.

That guy has had I think he's had something insane, like nine eye surgeries.

I know he's had three of the hard ones. He told me the story. He had to drive home six hours. Excuse me. His wife came and got him and brought him home, but this is a while back. He had to drive six hours with his head like that because something with the pressure, you can't sit straight up with it. It's crazy. He explained it to me, but it blows my mind.

I couldn't believe he got poked again by Inger. I couldn't believe it. The moment he got poked, I'm like, "I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe it's happening."

Dude, I thought the same thing.

Oh my God. Look at that.

That was the Leon one, right?

Look at that finger deep in his fucking eyeball. That is so crazy. That's so crazy. So he's had major surgeries on his eyes, and then Ian poked him right away. I was like, "This is crazy." I don't know how you feel, but I feel like it should be an instant one-point deduction.

At least.

Every time. At least.

At least.

I like what Tom Aspinall said. He was like, "No, you poked me in my eye. You want me to continue? Okay, no problem. I get to poke him in his eye." I was like, "Eh."

A lot of people are talking shit about Tom, but he apparently still can't see. His eye's still fucked up. No one knows. Here's the thing. The other eye got hurt as well, but not as bad, but it looks way worse. The finger goes way deeper in the other eye.

Dude, eye pokes are crazy.

Bro, he went straight three stooges.

And it's crazy that everyone that talks the most shit has never been poked in the eye, not even a little bit, accidentally.

Oh, it's horrible.

It's like a bolt of lightning in your brain, and then you can't see. And the idea that you can't see, and then you're supposed to fight a guy. Also, you're fighting a guy in Ian Gary who has a fucking nasty left hand. So if you get poked in your eyeball and you can't see that punch coming well, he's got a nasty right hand too. I mean, Ian Gary can strike. Oh, God.

That's been all right there.

Look at that. So look at the right one. Excuse me, the left eye. That's deeper. And that one didn't get hurt as bad. It's his right eye that really got hurt. The left one is finger knuckle deep in his eyeball, man.

Dude, it's crazy. Bilal's one of those guys you talk about, 365, 24/7. He's ready. He's doing something always. I'm even like, "Bro, take a break, bro. You've earned a little break. Take a week off. Be with your family." He won't.

Well, at his stage of his life, it might be the only way to keep going because he's at like 38 now, right?

Yeah, something like that.

That's the same age as Usman. And you can still be a world-class fighter at that age. You could clearly see that with Camaro against Joaquin Buckley. A lot of people counted him out because Joaquin Buckley was fucking a lot of people out.

Yeah, he was.

Joaquin Buckley, bro, woo, that guy's a problem. He's a fucking problem.

I've known him for a minute, man.

He's wild and fast, and he keeps getting better. And he's really fucking intelligent about how to land shots. He knows how to set things up.

And he likes to fight.

He loves to fight. And he's just a dog, just in the fight, man. He's always dangerous. That Wonder Boy fight, he was having a little bit of problem solving that distance and that range until he didn't. Until he didn't, man. Bro, that dude's got hammers in his fist.

Yes.

So when watching Camaro just ragdoll him like that, I was like, "God damn."

Impressive.

Fuck yeah. It looked like Camaro, world champion level Camaro. A lot of people have kind of counted him out because there's this narrative that he puts out there openly about his knees. He talked about it on this podcast. Openly, his knees are fucked. He's like, "I got to go downstairs backwards sometimes because they hurt so much."

I heard he went and did a lot of stuff to redo them, and now he says they're good, but I don't know. I don't know about that.

Well, I know he went to Colombia. He went down to that bioaccelerator place in Colombia. I don't know if he's been to the place in Tijuana, that the UFC uses now, the Cellular Performance Institute, but they're all very similar. We're being held back to such a fucking ridiculous extent in this country by the FDA that you don't realize how many people with neurological conditions, how many people with severe injuries, how many people could be helped by stem cells. And there's no evidence that they're damaging people.

Really?

A lot better. Mel Gibson, his dad couldn't walk. He was almost 90. He was like 80 years old. And then he went down, got his hips done, kneeled his shoulders, his hips, a bunch of other stuff, and did Mel as well. And he's like, "No, my dad was up and walking around like five years later still." He was 10 years younger.

He's a great actor, by the way.

Oh, Mel?

Amazing.

He's the man. He's the man.

He's great.

I love that guy. He's crazy too. He's so interesting. That guy's got a fucking tornado going on in his brain all the time.

Really?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's why he's such a good director, man. Did you ever see Apocalypto?

Yeah. One of my favorites. One of my favorites.

I fucking love that movie.

Same. It's one of my favorites.

It's such a good movie.

I love that movie too, for sure.

Such a good movie, man. Such a good movie.

He plays in great ones.

I mean, he made a movie where nobody speaks English.

Exactly.

And it's a blockbuster.

And it's amazing.

It's fucking incredible. It's fucking incredible.

I love that one. But I like his old stuff too. Braveheart.

Braveheart was amazing.

Everybody liked Braveheart.

Passion of the Christ was really good too, man.

The Patriot was good.

Yeah. Dude, he's the real deal, man. Mel Gibson's the real fucking deal.

What's the one he you're going to think I'm crazy, but I think it's Think Like a Woman. You ever seen that one?

I did not.

Bro, that is freaking hilarious.

What is it?

It's like he gets trapped in he can read a woman's mind. And so because he's basically a guy. He's a journalist or a publisher or something like that. And he's very womanizer. He has women just whatever. And they always talking shit about him behind his back like everyone else. So now he's trying to move up the ranks. He's supposed to be next in line for a promotion. Well, he has his daughter come in, and she leaves the blow dryer.

2000.

Bro, great movie.

The year 2000.

Funny as hell.

Oh, Helen Hunt.

He's been great in a lot of he was great in that conspiracy theory movie.

What's that?

Was it Julia Roberts?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. He was a wacky conspiracy theorist guy.

I don't think I've seen that one.

It's pretty good.

What's it called? Conspiracy theory?

Oh, is that what it's called? That's hilarious.

I didn't see that.

And I think a lot of the things that he talked about now, it's like people openly discuss online because this was all before the internet. What year was that?

'97.

'97. Yeah. So there were no conspiracy theory websites back then.

He has another one.

And a lot.

He has another one where his wife works his daughter, I'm sorry. His daughter works for this company. She comes home, and it's one of those rich companies that hide stuff, but you never can tell because you never have proof. And she's working in a secret department. She comes home all frantic, and the dude yells something, shoots her with a shotgun right on his front door, boom, kills her. So obviously, then he goes and starts trying to figure everything out, and he starts figuring out through the way what the work was doing. It was like poisoning or something. Well, anyway, he finds the guy and ends up killing him, but he ends up dying too because he got the poison from wherever he went into the workspace.

What movie was that?

I don't know.

You know that movie?

No.

Where he shoots his daughter on the front step? That was one of the things that sold the movie. That was one of the previews.

Well, how about Lethal Weapon? First time we ever saw anybody do a triangle in a movie.

True.

Right?

Yeah. Dude, he's crazy.

I like his movies.

I love that scene. That scene, I was like, "What is he doing?" I didn't even know what a triangle was back then because I think that was in the '80s.

I wasn't even alive.

When did Lethal Weapon 1 come out? Edge of Darkness.

That's it.

Lethal Weapon, I think it's like '87 or '88.

Yeah, man. So back then, no one knew what a fucking triangle was other than the Graces. People in Brazil knew. Brazil was so far ahead of the curve, man. They were having MMA fights in the '30s.

Dude, I went there for my boy Tuco. He fought in the favela, right? And yeah, look at this.

Was it Gary Busey who was fighting in the end? Who was the guy who was fighting in the end? I don't remember. I think it's Gary Busey, right? Yeah, it is Gary Busey.

You know he had a headache.

Come on, Rick. Break his leg. Come on.

Movies in the '80s were so wild, dude. We don't need to watch the whole thing. Let's just cut to the triangle. This is silly.

I thought I was coming.

I thought so too.

This guy's back.

Oh, Gary Busey tried to take it to the ground. Outrageous. Mel got swept so easily. Oh, Mel's on top. Everybody was doing cocaine when they were right oh, look at that. He goes right for an armbar. Oh, sloppy. Terrible technique. Terrible left hook. The left leg barely held on there. That was some there it is.

Wow, there it is.

That's not bad. That's not bad. That's pretty good. I like that.

He got a good angle.

Oh, that's not bad at all.

That's tight.

He's cinching it up right there. Everybody at home was like, "What is happening?"

Another man put his legs around another man's head.

I remember when Hoyce Gracie did that to Dan Sevrin. Everybody was like, "What's going on? What is happening?" And then all of a sudden, you see Dan Sevrin tap, and you're like.

What?

What happened? What did he do? He put him asleep.

My friend would know better the lineage and stuff, right? That's why he's my intelligence. But we went to Brazil, right, for his fight. He was fighting in the favela at José Aldo's gym.

Novo Lunhão?

Yeah. It's right on the edge of the favela. It's nice, though.

Yeah, André Pere Neris.

Yeah, he was there. He was super nice.

He's awesome.

He was super nice. Super hospitable.

That guy was a pioneer, dude.

Yes.

He was fighting MMA in early days.

Really? I didn't know that.

Oh, yeah. André Pere Neris, oh my God, man. Yeah.

I just know him. Dude, we met a lot of great guys, but we were there with Daniel Gracie, and I think it's Enzo's mom and then his dad. The whole lineage was there before he passed away. He was there. We went over there, and we were sitting on their couch, chilling, hanging out, talking, meeting all of them. And again, I am absolutely got awful with names, but I knew as soon as he'd come out of the stairs, he was going somewhere. He had a nice jacket. Oh, no, he was doing an interview with he was doing an interview, like a little podcast or something.

Was it Ilya? Was it Carlos? Who was it?

I think it was Carlos, I think. I don't.

Doesn't matter.

It was one of them. I could figure it out, though. But dude, super nice. They were all explaining the lineage. And I started with.

What's that, Jamie?

I'm saying it.

Oh, sorry.

I started with Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. So I used to know that lineage fairly well, but then you know how life is. You just get away and kind of forget. You're not around it as much, but.

Yeah. Well, it's a crazy lineage. I mean, that one family's responsible for changing mixed martial arts.

Dude, they were telling us so many cool stories, things that I had heard through the grapevine from other people when I was younger, but they confirmed it. And they were even asking where the beef comes from in the family, what started that, exactly what started it because obviously, he was in it. Dude, they translated for us, but he was saying how it all got started.

But beef between what parts of the family?

The two beefs that they have? No, it was Carlos and who's the one one of the brothers went out on their own because he was like, "I don't want nothing to do with this part of the family."

Was it Horian?

Maybe it was I know that name. They were saying that name a lot.

Horian started the UFC.

Yeah, it might have been him.

And Horian also trained Mel Gibson for this Lethal Weapon fight scene. There he is, Horian Gracie.

Yeah, I don't.

Horian Gracie in Playboy magazine challenged Mike Tyson to a no-rules fight.

See, I don't want to sound stupid, so I don't like to say too many names, but you're going to make me call my friend and ask him when we leave here.

Well, Ilya was his father. Hickson's obviously his brother. Hoyce is his brother. Hoyler's his brother. I think Hoyler and Hoyce are half-brothers.

Yes, I knew that. They were saying that. But they were just kind of going over old times and stories, and they were talking about that because apparently, they were saying well, Daniel was saying within the family because he's a Gracie, but I think it was his mom or something like that. So he's still a Gracie. But anyway, or his no, his cousin was a Gracie. So technically, he's not a real-blood Gracie. I don't know. They tried to explain it. It's very weird. But anyway, we were there, and they don't talk about it, why there's a divide between this side of the family and this side.

Oh, yeah. I mean, Hickson, there's a video of Hickson fighting somebody on the beach.

Yeah. They talk about it.

Some Luther Libre guy smacks him on the beach.

He talks about it. They were talking about it.

They're fighting in the sand, scrapping on the beach.

Daniel was there for that. Daniel was there. He was the one that brought it up. He was there right he said he they showed a picture of it, and he was right in the back.

Hickson has those little surfer shorts on.

Yep. Daniel explained how it started. I don't remember that exact details, but dude, it was like.

Well, they would dojo storm each other. They would show up at places and challenge Luther Libre gyms, and Luther Libre guys would show up at the Gracie dojo.

Dude, it was like.

Yeah, here it is. Look at Hickson with them beautiful colored shorts on. He just smacks him like, "Come on, baby, it's on." And the dude's like, "Take your shoes off. Come on. Let's go." Like, "There, hold my shoes." Bro, these were wild times, especially when you take into consideration Hickson's widely considered one of the absolute greatest jiu-jitsu practitioners of all time, and that he was willing to have these kind of fights on the beach in Rio, these no-rules fights just surrounded by dudes.

And man thongs.

Yeah. I mean, and not have any striking. Look, see how Hickson's wing and punches? These guys had no striking at all. It's really kind of crazy. I mean, not ever saying there's anything wrong with anything that Hickson ever did because he's one of the greatest of all time. But if you look at the difference between a guy that's just a pure grappler like Hickson, even when he fought in pride, remember he'd come out with this, throw those little stomp kicks, just try to get he's just getting you to the ground. It's all getting you to the ground. There's no one like that now. No one has very little stand-up.

And it's crazy because there is so many stories about Hoyce wasn't even supposed to be the one to fight. He wasn't even supposed to be the one. They were supposed to have the other one.

Well, Hickson was always the champion of the family, and Hoyce had always said that. That Hickson was 10 times better than him. He said, "Hickson tap me every day. Every day I go to the gym, Hickson tap me." But it's just like that's just how it was. But there was a lot of rumors. One of the rumors was that so this is the narrative. Hoyce says it's because he's so beautiful. It's like, "Look at his face. Of course, they pick me." That's what he said on the podcast. It was hilarious because he's so handsome. But Hickson's handsome too, so it didn't make any sense. But it was, I think, it was because Hoyce could show that it was the technique because Hickson was shredded.

I wish you could have heard again because I'm so bad with names, and my memory is not as good as it used to be. But it's one of my favorite memories from fighting. Look at that.

2000?

2000.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's one of my favorite memories from fighting, just sitting there and listening to these guys because the history was freaking insane. The stories were awesome. But like I said, I'm terrible with names, so I'm very bad with.

So look at that. André Pere Neris on that card versus Genki Sudo.

Sure is.

Ended in a draw. And Genki Sudo was a bad motherfucker. That's how good Pede Neris was.

I didn't know that.

Oh, yeah. Pede Neris was legit, man.

Damn, man.

Very legit. Very legit.

Damn, man.

Yeah, and.

I knew he was a great coach. I didn't know he fought.

Fought in the early, early days. I mean, he might have even fought in extreme combat. Did he fight in extreme combat? That was back in the day when Mario Sperry first burst on the scene. He fought back then. Igor Zinoviev. All these dudes that everybody forgot about. They fought in that was John Peretti's card. So John Peretti, who was the commentator for the early days of the UFC, then John Peretti went over and started his own organization for a while.

It's crazy. I think sometimes well, I know. Like I said, I'm bad at names, right? But it's like I went and fought in Seattle last year or this year. I fought in Seattle this year, and they did there was Amanda Nunez, Robbie Lawler, and there was one more. They got inducted into the Hall of Fame this year, and nobody could give really any fights for whoever the other person was, and not many could give too much for Robbie Lawler.

Oh, you mean they weren't clapping?

No.

So here it is. Let me just go over this real quick. Pede Neris, his debut fight, Valley 2-Do Japan. That's what it was. He defeated Ruminosauto and then.

Pat?

Pat Malatich for the UFC welterweight title, UFC 21. We lost in the second round, technical knockout, and then he fought Kow Uno.

He was a savage. I remember that.

That ended in a draw. So Genki Sudo and Kow Uno, two savages, and both of those fights were draws. And the last one with Genki Sudo was his last MMA fight. So how many fights did he have overall?

Four.

Four fights.

But shit, they're all good.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. He fought legit guys, man. He beat Ruminosato. Ruminosato, man, was fucking terrifying back then. KO, soccer kick KO.

Damn.

Yeah.

But yeah, it was like it was just different, man. That time frame is just different.

Well, it's the birth of the sport, and it's kind of amazing to have been there at the very beginning and to be able to watch it. When I first found out about it, I couldn't believe it was real. I had a bunch of friends that told me about it. I think I heard about it from dudes at do you remember Benny Orquillas? Do you know who he was?

No, I don't know him.

Benny the Jet was a famous kickboxer. Now I'm really going back.

I feel like I know that name, though.

He was one of the best kickboxers of all time. And this was way back in the day, like in the early '80s. Benny the Jet was the fucking man in the late '70s and the early '80s. And he had this gym in California, in Van Nuys, California, called the Jet Center. And when I first moved out to California, there's two places I knew I really had to go. One was the comedy store, and the other was the Jet Center. And so I got to work out at the Jet Center. And Benny was there, and his cousin Blinki, he was there, and Blinki Rodriguez, who was another elite kickboxer, who actually knocked out Jean-Yves Terriot, who's one of the best kickboxers of all time.

Made in LA.

Yeah, you moved to LA.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I had a point. I had a point about these early MMA fighters.

Oh, you were saying it's the birth of.

It's the birth of the sport. So watching that, this is what my point was. Watching that where there was not even leg kicks to watching all of a sudden you see Rick Rufus, and he fought that dude from Thailand, one of the most important fights in the history of martial arts because you get to see that dude from Thailand just chop Rick Rufus's legs apart. And then Rick and Duke both learned from that and said, "Okay, we got to incorporate that into our game." Duke becomes a world Muay Thai champion after that, which is like and then Duke becomes one of the best MMA coaches ever.

Ansar.

That guy would have been a world champion.

Easy.

A world champion.

Yeah, easy.

No one would have fucked with him. We would have said, "This is the greatest fighter that's ever walked the face of the planet." And he's a kid that's on undercards of small regional shows now, right? How crazy is that? So when you're seeing these guys in the Dana White contender series, some of these guys coming up, I'm watching them fight for their first fight in the contender series. I'm like, "This guy looks like he'd be fighting for the title." They're complete fighters. They're fast. They have good technique. Everything they're doing is smart. It's like the level has changed so much in such a short period of time. And I feel so lucky to be able to see the whole thing.

It's crazy because you probably hear all the time, right? I was probably watching Fear Factor before I knew the UFC. So when I saw the UFC, I was like, "Dad, look. It's him." He looks at me because obviously, my dad's seen it before. He's like, "Yes, son. He's been around a while. He's been in the UFC." I don't even know if it was longer, but I'm sure it was.

Yeah, I started working for the UFC in '97.

So he was like, "He's always been there." So then obviously, as I get older, I start seeing history and looking at old fights and older fights. And I noticed you there the whole time. And me and my friend Tuco had these conversations, but I was like, "Bro, Joe's a real one, though. He's been here the whole time." How awesome does that have to be for you, Dana, Fertitas, and probably a few others too that nobody knows that have seen this thing grow from what it was to what it is today?

Oh, it's amazing.

It's got to be.

It's amazing.

Yeah, I feel so lucky. I'm so fortunate. It's one of the things I look forward to more than anything in life.

And like you said.

And then UFC weekend, I'm like, "Oh, boy, here we go. I get so excited." I've been doing this forever. I started UFC 12 in 1997. That was the first fight that I ever did backstage interviews. That's what I did, or post-fight interviews too. I think I started doing interviews backstage, and then I interviewed guys after the fight was over. That was early, early.

But how did you start there?

It was a crazy fluke. So I was already doing jiu-jitsu. I was at Carlson Gracey's. This is back before Vitor made his debut. I was training at Vitor's with Vitor's gym with Mario Sperry. I took lessons from Mario Sperry when I was a white belt. It was awesome, dude. Marillo Bustamante was there all the time.

Yeah, I know him.

There was a ton of the Carlson Gracey killers, the two bulldogs fighting each other. And Carlson was there every day. So I got to train there when I was on News Radio, the sitcom. So it was just like 1996. And I just loved that there was this was before Vitor fought in the UFC. So while he was training at the gym with us, he went and fought this guy, John Hess. John Hess was this big, tall he fought in the UFC as well, I believe. I believe he did. John Hess had a style called Safda.

Oh, it was Vitor?

It was Vitor, Amanda Nunez, and Robbie Lawler.

They weren't cheering for Vitor?

No, they were asking the fighters, right? They were asking the fighters, "Hey, do you know who these guys are? If you do, what's your most memorable moment of them? What was your favorite moment?" Anything like that, right? Because obviously, they put it on the montage when they announce it. And they told me that only me and two other fighters on the entire card could give a fight from Vitor. I was like, "No way." I was like, "That highlight that you're talking about when he sprints across, even if you don't know the person, how do you not see that highlight?"

When he did that to Vanderlay, remember we did Vanderlai Silva?

That's the one I said. That's what I said. Vanderlai was that one.

That was crazy, but I think the scariest Vitor of all time was TRT Vitor.

Whoo!

TRT Vitor was the scariest fucking human being that ever stepped into that cage. If they never banned TRT, I think that guy would have been a terror for every fucking human being that weighed 185 pounds.

For sure.

The way he wheel kicked Luke Rockhold, what the fuck are we looking at, man? We never saw him throw a wheel kick in his whole career. All of a sudden, he's wheel kicking guys in the head.

He'd come in the gym because obviously, he lived in Florida. He'd come in the gym, and he is the nicest guy.

Brother, brother, come here. Come here.

Very nice guy.

Let's talk about it. Hey, I think you need to slow down a little bit. These 100%s every days, no good, brother. He said, "Why don't you come? We can have some coffee, have lunch, and let's talk about it." I love the science behind the sport.

Wow.

But super nice guy, right? There's the conversations that I had with him. And if I see him, great guy. Before this, never had a conversation with him, only watched him on TV. But that was the first interaction I ever had with Vitor as a person. I don't know if he knew who I was. He just watched me spar and then come to me after. That was it.

That's very nice of him.

Yeah, super nice guy.

And for a real OG like him that's been, again, fighting since 1997.

Dude.

1997, that's almost 30 years. That's literally crazy.

Did it hurt my heart when they said that people couldn't say fights for him, couldn't even say a highlight.

It's hard. These young guys, a lot of them are 25 years old, 24 years old. They didn't watch the Joshua Bannon 24, right? Didn't watch the sport a lot before they were involved in it. And the fights that they've really seen a lot of have been the last few years.

Yeah. And that's what Josh Bannon, that's why I said his name. He's young, but he says the same thing because they were like, "Why do you think Prince George is the GOAT?" He's like, "I know Demetrius Johnson is what everyone says." He was like, "But I never got to see him. I was too young."

That's crazy too. That's crazy too. Go watch. It's online.

Yeah.

Go see it, Joshua.

YouTube's free, bro.

You're the champ now, Joshua. Go back and watch Mighty Mouse because that motherfucker was extraordinary.

He was.

Mighty Mouse in his time was extraordinary.

Shit. He was so special when he fought that big Brazilian kid and won.

Uh-huh, right?

And he lost one, and then he beat him twice, right?

He lost the first time in one championship, and then he got KO'd and then KO'd him the exact same way with a knee.

Really? Was it?

Yeah.

I didn't know it was the same way.

They both got KO'd with knees and both got KO'd against the cage with knees. It was literally almost the exact same, except Demetrius's was more artistic. It was beautiful. The flow where he was chasing him, he rocked him, and then he's chasing him down. He's like, "Not yet. There it is." And he just launches and catches him with this you've seen it, right?

Yeah, I've seen it.

Oh, my God.

I didn't know it was the same way.

What is that dude's name? The dude he KO'd?

Andre, I don't know.