Transcript of JRE MMA Show #172 with Gable Steveson

Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. All right. What's happening? Pleasure to meet you, man. How are you? Great. I'm great. When you got a name like Gable and you're named after Dan Gable and you go on to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling, that is crazy, right? It's prophetic.

My mom, when I was young, she was trying to find names for me, and she liked Kael Sanderson because Kael was a guy at the time. But she was at a tournament in Iowa with my older brother, and she kept hearing Gable, Gable, Gable. And it was Dan Gable at the time. And Dan Gable was a huge figure in the Midwest for wrestling. And so she was like, Why don't I name you Gable Dan? And the rest was history. Which is really crazy because his whole timeline is my timeline, which is fantastic.

Except for the MMA part.

That, too. Which I wish he would have done.

I think he would have been amazing.

I think he would have been amazing.

But it wasn't around. I mean, when he was wrestling.

Baranaco, maybe. I don't know, do it on the street or something. He could have found a way.

It's fucked that there's no real professional outlet for actual wrestling.

It is fucked. And wrestling needs a real way to go out there and be something big. And I think they have a really good one now with them, R. A. F. If you haven't heard about it. Yes, I have. It's American freestyle. They're trying, and I think they're trying really well. And I think it's going to come to a point where how do you make matchups continue? Because wrestling gets to the point Where in fighting, in a lot of the sports, you can get to the point where maybe you draft a guy, and fighting, there's a next big thing. There's the next guy out there that you can create. And with wrestling, they're trying to create an atmosphere of how can you create that person. And I like it, and I think it might work. And hopefully it keeps going the way it needs to go?

It would be interesting if it were the problem is MMA is so huge now and people associate wrestling with either MMA or pro wrestling now. Those are the two things that they think of. And I think it's one of those things It's like soccer, where soccer should be huge in America. It's huge all over the world. It's a very exciting sport, but... Nope.

You know it's crazy how popular soccer players are. And I feel like in America, We have so many sports that we can't hit that market for soccer. And I think that might be the biggest case. Why? Because if you go overseas, Ronaldo's paid $500 million, and if he scores a goal, he gets a million dollars a goal or something. So he's out here doing bicycle kicks. But we have so many professional sports that LeBron James is our biggest athlete. But even then, I think it's at a point where some people see LeBron and it's not like the crazy wow factor. If you saw a soccer player in Italy or Spain, it'll be like, Man, it's him. Right.

Well, they have less sports, though, right?

I think so. Italy. I think Italy got basketball, soccer.

Well, they're not really known for basketball, though. Soccer's big, boxing. There's a lot of boxers come out of Italy. But other than that, Yeah.

They got a couple of fighters. But other than that, I think we're at a halt with creating that big guy for America.

Well, it's just strange. It changed to me because it's such a... Wrestling itself is such an exciting sport. It really is very exciting to watch, and everybody understands it. It's not complicated.

I really think everyone understands it to a certain extent. But they could learn the points and all the other stuff.

Have you wrestled? Yeah, wrestled in high school. How did you do? Just one year. I was doing Taekwondo at the same time. Why just one year? Because I was doing Taekwondo, and I couldn't do both of them at the same time. And I was pretty good at Taekwondo.

You know what's crazy? I think since you've done Taekwondo, maybe I should try.

If you are such an athlete, you'd probably be awesome at it.

I might be able to pull it off. I don't know if I can get to your level.

Well, you would figure it out, man. You'd figure it out. Are you flexible?

It depends how and what are we doing.

Well, you would get flexible. The thing is, you got to figure out how to get flexible. The flexibility thing drives me nuts because I've tried to show stuff to guys before, MMA fighters, and they're like, I'm not flexible. I'm like, What does that mean? What does that mean? This is not like you're not tall. You can get flexible. You just stretch.

Okay, we can rewind now and I could say, I am flexible. I am flexible.

Well, you certainly could get flexible. You can. Anyone can get flexible.

But it's not, can you get flexible? Do you want to get flexible? That's a good question. Do you want to do something?

This is a good question. It's a lot of work to get flexible. And would it compromise anything? Some people say it compromises some stability to have completely over flexible hips and flexible joints that it could possibly compromise some stability. But I mean, Yoel Romero is pretty fucking flexible.

And he's explosive.

Crazy. Super explosive. Bro, how about that match with Pat Downey?

He went out there and made Pat Downey look like a beginner hustler. And it's crazy because Pat Downey is really good.

Really good?

Yoel is 48. I know. 48 shooting blast doubles. Like he's back in '04 Olympics.

It doesn't make any sense. He's a freak. He's a real freak, man. And he's 48, allegedly. We don't even really know how old he is because he's from Cuba. How old do you think he is for real? Oh, I don't know, man.

35 at this point?

I mean, he's obviously at least 48, but it's just crazy.

But you know what the best part about it is? When guys Guys get older and they get a little bigger, they don't look good in a singlet. And this is crazy to say, but Yoel looks really solid in that singlet.

Oh, bro. He looks solid everywhere, man. He still got a six-pack. Still does. And now he's doing dirty boxing and he's still fight in MMA. He's a freak. And we really didn't even get him in MMA until he was past his athletic prime. Yes. He really started fighting in the UFC. How old was he when he first fought in the UFC? I want to say he's like 35.

I don't know that, but it He came really late because when he was going through Olympics, he was sound in every position. And like you said, in a couple of interviews back, if he would have started that early, just imagine. Oh, my God. Just imagine.

But that's the thing that you have, too, is athleticism. And the thing about MMA is the real freak athletes, they go to football, they go to basketball, they go where all the money is, and they go where all the traditional sports avenues are. And there's not a lot of freak athletes that wind up making their way to MMA. And when they do, they really shine. And when I first started seeing you competing, first, obviously in wrestling. And if you can win a gold medal in the Olympics in wrestling, you have to have everything. You have to be a freak athlete. You have to be unbelievably dedicated, disciplined. Nobody gets there easy. No. That is not like, oh, he's just gifted. It doesn't exist. You got to have everything.

There's got to be a lot of tools. A lot of tools.

A lot of tools and a lot of fortitude. The thing And the thing about wrestling that I've always said is not only is it the best base for MMA, because if a guy can dictate where the fight takes place, that is the most important aspect of fighting, and you can learn everything else. But also it's the mental toughness that wrest have. The ability to grind out those practices, the conditioning that's involved in wrestling. It's above and beyond, I think, all other sports.

Yeah, I think it's a next level thing. And you see in UFC right now, the guys that are dominating and winning are putting that wrestling base first, but making it MMA wrestling. I feel like when a lot of guys, a lot of D1 wrest, come to MMA, they don't make the switch of how to take the right shot and how to finish the right shot and how to use your feet to trip their feet out on the cage. And if you get stuck in a guillotine, how do you move from that spot. And I think you see the guys that are doing the best, the Islams, the Hamzats, are really going out there and attacking and making sure that people can understand that, hey, you got to fear this. And the next, I'm going to come with the hands. And so I think that's the biggest thing that we're working on now is I've wrestled my whole life and I've done great things and won the Olympics and multiple national championships. But I think the main thing is going out there and understanding that you are that bad dude, but when you show them hands, now you have to respect both.

And I think that's where a lot of this is going to come into play when I finally get to that point of reaching that competition.

Now, how long have you been striking for?

I've been going into a little... So I'm from Minnesota, Apple Valley. I'm actually from Portage, Indiana. I moved to Apple Valley, Minnesota when I was 11 years old. And in college, I met a guy named Billy Simon. He's from Prior Lake. He fought nothing too big just on a regional scene in Minnesota. He has a house on Prior Lake, and he has a place in his basement that is built out for MMA and stuff like that. When I was maybe 21 years old, I started hitting the pads. And mind you, stiff as a board, don't really know what I'm doing. But he's started and guided me along the way.

How old are you now?

I'm 25.

So just four years?

Just four years. But I think really, really striking seven months.

That's so crazy.

Really after it- That's so crazy. Really time consuming. Hey, this is what I want to do. I'm not going to wrestle. I'm doing MMA. I would say seven months.

But when you watch your dirty boxing match, I would have never believed that. Except I know what an athlete you are. It's just it's so crazy how someone who really knows how to use their body can learn other things.

What I think the main thing also is I'm all ears. You can't You can't go out there and think that you can do something without putting that time and effort in, like we talked about with the Olympics or like you talked about. But I think the main thing is if I can go out there and be all ears and soak up game from the people that are trying to show me the way, I think I can do a lot of great things. And that's all I do. I'm all ears. I want to show up twice a day. I want to do the best thing that I can. If I got to show up three times a day and I feel like it, I'm going to go do it. It's also to be an elite athlete like yourself.

You have to be coachable. The guys who already know things, I'm going to do it my way. They never get elite.

It doesn't work. No. And I think you got to put that guard down. You got to trust somebody. And if you don't trust anybody, and, Man, I think I can do it alone. I think I can wing it. I think I can maybe not practice today. You got to trust somebody, and you got to put your heart into somebody. And I feel like I have a good group of people around me to put that heart into. And they're not even they're, they're leading me in the right direction, and, Man, I'm grateful.

So you were doing a bunch of different things, right? So you You become an elite wrestler, and then for a while, you were thinking about playing football. So you played football for a short amount of time? Buffalo Bills, yeah. Yeah. How long did you play it for?

I never played football in my life.

Never played?

No, that was the first time. That was the first time I played football, I promise.

That's crazy. First time you played football was professional.

Was in NFL. My mom was always scared. The high school coaches at the Apple Valley High School in Minnesota, were like, Hey, can play football? They were trying to call my mom and dad, and I'm like, You're not going to convince her. She scared of death of football. But the whole time, I'm wrestling. So where do we break this gap at? And I just get done with WEE, and I go out there, and I'm chilling. I get a call saying, Hey, you want to try for the bills? And I tell Sean McDermann and Brandon B. And I said, Hey, don't expect much, but I could put on shoes, but I've never had football cleats on. I never had pads on. I don't even know how to put the tights on. Anything. And I went out there and I sprinted my ass off, though, in that trial. I was sprinting and back and forth. I said, Hey, if I don't know any technique for D-line, you're going to see effort. And McDermann saw effort, and that's all he needed to see, and he gave me a chance.

What was that like, jumping into a completely new sport?

Hard, because it's not just football.

How old were you when you did that?

I just turned 24. I just turned 24. I know you see it. You see that stance? That's the beginner stance. That's the beginner stance. But I came out there no gloves, just winging it. And I told them, just give me a good chance. But football is not just football. It's the playbook. And the playbook is crazy because I went from, hey, go out there and rustle someone one on one to see if the guard is light on his feet or see if he's leaning forward, to see if the center is going to silent count maybe or see if the guard taps the center to snap the ball. There's a lot of different things that you got to know. And I'm out there with this big ass helmet. I've never put a helmet on, Joe. So I'm out there with this big ass helmet. My head's down and I can't look up. And I don't know what I'm doing. But I knew if I gave effort that someone would give me a chance. And I went out there in my first game, I feel like I think I had a tackle, a QB rush, and I was unheard of at the time because I've never played ball before.

But it was crazy. Once in a lifetime experience, most definitely.

And when you got cut, did you think about trying somewhere else? Did you think about doing it more?

Yeah. Once I got cut from Buffalo, I was the last one to get cut from the room. I remember going in to see Bane and McDermott, and they were going to do Practice Squad. But I knew they were going to do Practice Squad. So I was like, Yo, just send me home. I'll figure it out. I'll try again. So my plan was to go back to college in Russell already, but I sat around for maybe a month. Baltimore Ravens called me, and Baltimore was like, Hey, you want to come to a tryout? I said, Okay. I never played football before. Just let you know. If it's a little shaky. I went out there and I dominated the tryout and I had 10 minutes of work, but it was a great 10 minutes. And they're like, Okay, we're going to take your physicals. You're going to be here and stay. Their injury report comes back and the injury report says they need a DN and a linebacker. So you got to compensate for the spot because you need someone to play next week. And I probably needed six weeks on practice squad to play. And so I get sent home.

They said, Give me a week. We'll bring you back. A week comes, don't bring me back. And so I'm like, okay, I see the writing on the wall. Let me move on. I sit for a little bit, Indianapolis Colts call. They just got ran over by a team. They said, We need a run stopper. So I go out there, do this trial, Well, I think it went well. They said, We're not taking anybody today. And then from there, I was like, Maybe this is not it. And so I went back to Russell.

And did you ever think about MMA at that time? Was it in the back of your head?

Mma was in the back of my head since the Olympics. But I wanted to make sure that if I was going to go to MMA, that let me try things first before going all in on something that I need to go all in on. And I did my tryouts, I did my things, and now I want to go in all in on something that is finally here.

And when your mom was scared of you doing wrestling, how did she feel about you doing MMA?

She's shitting off. Oh, my God. She can't even watch. She didn't even watch me wrestle. And so now I'm like, Mom, I got a dude about to punch me in the face. Maybe if he can get to me, are you sure you want to come and watch? And she's like, Yeah, I'll come watch. And she comes, has a good time, has her drinks. And when I step out, I'm like, Where were you? Oh, it was in the back. So you didn't even see me fight? Why you even come then? Out of the three fights I've had, she's sat in the back and she'll be like, John will go and get her and be like, Gable's done. She'll be like, Oh, what happened? And John will be like, Good. It's all day.

So did she get nervous?

Is that what it is? Oh, my God. She's sweating. She's nervous. But I'm just like, I'll give her that look of like, if this is one of them ones, I'm going to tell you. But I haven't given her those looks yet. So she'll know.

So when you make this, so you decide football is not going to happen, WW is not going to happen. You did one televised match with WWE, right? I did, yes. What was that like?

Honestly, I had a great... From me being real and honest, I had a great experience. I have nothing wrong with anybody there. Tkl was great. Triple H, Paul LeVec was great. Stephanie, Vince, everybody was great. I just had a competitive drive that I needed to get out. And so when you have that The gap is there. You can't do both. And I was trying to bridge both, and I wasn't giving my 100 % to the business. And if I'm not going to give 100 % to the business, then you might as well X me out because it's already over with. So that's practically how it happened.

Yeah, no slight on pro wrestling, but it's just like, if you really want to compete, compete.

You got to get it all out.

Yeah.

And so I would love to go back in the future. I would love to do a sport and go out there and dominate.

And then, hey- Maybe after the UFC heavyweight champ. For sure.

Maybe after a couple of times. And so I would love to go. And if it meant well, then I would do it again, most definitely, because I have no hard feelings to them, and that's how it goes.

So when you make the decision that you're going to go into MMA, what is that like? What are the steps that you take?

I got done with N-C-A-A-s, and I said I flew down to Miami. I met with John and a couple of other people, and I said, Hey, I want to fight. John had me in his camp.

So we're talking about John Jones. And did Did you know John before this?

I knew John because I knew John from Instagram. John like wrestling. So I knew John from IG. He sent me a DM. He sent me his number. And if you know John, he don't answer the phone with anything. And it's crazy. But he sent me his number. He said, Call me. So I called him, and this was before he got hurt for the first Deepay fight. He was like, I want you to come practice with us. I want a wrestling partner. I left him and played football. The next year comes. No, I'm sorry. I don't even know where I was at at the time. But Skip, we We go in. He's like, I want you to come back for the second camp. He's going through it. Me and John hit it off like that. Wow.

We hit it off immediately. So when you guys started training together in camp, is that when it really sunk in your head? When you're like, This is what I want to do? Yeah.

I needed somebody to engrave it in me. With the wrestling, I had my father. I had the University of Minnesota. I had a lot of good people around me say, Hey, this is how we're going to do it. This is where you need to go, and this is how it's going to happen. And when I saw I saw that drive of like, damn, this guy's winning and people get close, but they can't get past him. And why is that? So I really sat back and watched his mental and how he went about a lot of things, how he talked to people, how he greeted people, how he walked, how he punched, maybe how he looked when he was in the pocket, when he needed to get out, when he rested his hands. And I saw everything. And I was like, wow, man, this guy's a superstar, super, superstar. And we all know that. And people know that for a long time now. But I really saw him and I was like, damn, I want to be that. And that's what flipped my switch right there.

What an amazing opportunity. You haven't done any MMA and you get to go in there and train with the GOAT.

It's crazy. It's hard to explain. I tell people. People ask me all the time, what was it like seeing John for the first time? Because I'm 25. So when John was like Super peak, I was like 12, 13 years old. And I'm looking at this guy beat Gus of Sin, Reyes, and Tiago Santos, and stuff like that. So it's different. You see a different side of people. And when I saw John, I was like, wow, I've seen you for my whole life, and I get to see you in person. How cool is that?

Okay. If your New Year's resolution was change everything and be a new person, good luck. So instead of pretending you're going to meal prep kale forever or do morning cold plunges, here's one actually realistic thing, AG1. Ag1 is a daily health drink that supports your energy, gut health, immune health, and helps fill common nutrient gaps. Just one scoop in cold water each morning and you're off. It's got over 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and wholefood ingredients in there. So instead of guessing whether you need a probiotic or a prebiotic or sorting through 10 different bottles of pills and powders, you can just do one scoop and get on with your day. It's great because it feels like the grown up move, but for once, it's actually really easy. It takes like 30 seconds, and you'll notice the steadiness that sets you up for the day. Not wired, not crashing, just functional human being energy. I've partnered with AG1 for years, and if you want to give it a try, head to drinkag1. Com/joerogen. For a limited time, you'll get a free AG1 AG1 Duffel bag and free AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order.

Only while supplies last, that's drinkag1. Com/joerogen, or visit the link in the description to get started. For people that don't even know, the close fights that John had, they were really only close because John wasn't training. That's really all it is. That's true. A hundred %. John was partying, and he was what I would call playing with his food. He didn't... To The Gustafsson fight is a perfect example. Didn't train at all for the Gustafsson fight. I talked to Greg Jackson, and he was like, I swear to God, he barely showed up. I'm like, That is so crazy. And then he gutted it out in the last rounds. That's what's crazy. So It's a close decision, but he wins the fight by gutting it out in the final rounds when he's done relatively no strength and conditioning. Nothing.

It's so crazy. It's fantastic to see.

Then really gets motivated for the second fight with Gustafsson. And blows them out. Mokes him. It blows him out. Which is what you expect. When John is in prime form, he's the greatest of all time.

Most definitely.

For you to be able to be a young guy who's thinking about MMA and train with the greatest of all time, now two division world champion. It's crazy.

Amazing opportunity. And it's amazing because you don't see the guy that's... You see the best of the best right away.

We're back. So anyway, where were we? John Jones. Yeah. So you're saying you're talking about what it's like to first start training with them. So you had no MMA training really before that at all. You had just been doing a little bit of striking with this guy.

Joe, I kid you not. I didn't even know really how to defend punches. That's crazy. I didn't know how to defend punches. And you probably saw a video of him throwing the knee at me because I'm so hard-headed. I'm like, Let me shoot on John. But the whole time I forgot he's a national Championship wrestler. So So I didn't even know how to defend a punch. I didn't know how to defend a kick. I didn't know how to do anything. But I went in there and I said, Hey, if you need somebody, it's got to be me. And that's how hungry I was. And I feel like that's how kids should be nowadays about getting that opportunity, man. Just be hungry because someone's going to respect you.

Yeah, for sure. But not a whole lot of people get that opportunity. That's a crazy opportunity. It's also like, John is an elite wrestler as well. And so learning how to incorporate elite wrestling into all the other aspects of MMA and to be able to go right into camp with John is just this is amazing.

Incredible opportunity. Super incredible. I'm grateful for it every day, and especially he's still here in my corner to this day. We talked this morning. He's still giving me all the pointers, all the advice, even when we're not even fighting, just telling me how I should say things, what I should say, how I need to go about life, how I need to go about business, and meeting people, and greeting people. So it's a true opportunity.

That's awesome. That's really awesome. So when you were in camp with him, you're going through the camp, were you planning on MMA then? Or how does it work? What were you thinking? Was it the moment you started training with him? Is that when it really started the fire in you?

Yes. I had a little bit of burn for it.

In the back of your mind?

Yes. But a little burn, you got to have the heart. You got to have the heart. So what was the stamp on it was I went to Madison Square Garden with him, and John was just doing John things, just being a superstar. Everybody knew who he was. And I was like, Man, I got an Olympic gold medal. Maybe I should be getting some, too. John showed me the way a little bit. So I'm trying to have him show me the way. He's bringing me to every place, meeting every person, showing me the opportunities that he has. And he looks at me and he was like, You can have this, too. And that was the cherry on the top. But we can put another cherry on the top and do a double one when he won the fight. And then I'm holding the belt with him. And I see this guy face to face, and he's just the most popular man on Earth for that day. And it's like, wow, you don't really get to see the backstage moments. You get to see the guy go out there on TV and fight. But I got to see the backstage of everyone taking the pictures with him, the superstars.

I'm walking out the next game and I see Queen Latifah, and I'm like, damn, that's Queen Latifah. I'm taking a selfie with Queen Latifah. I'm like, can I send this to my mom? And she's like, yeah, go ahead. And I see Fat Joe talking to him and everybody. And I'm like, wow, this is what it is to be a real fighting star. And fighting is one on one. And people want to watch someone fight. But I think in other sports, like we talked about earlier, there's a full team with helmets on, with jerseys on. But in fighting, people want to meet that badass dude and they want to meet the champ. And that's what I want to be.

Yeah. So what is training with John like? What is the training camp like? You obviously haven't gone in the training camp with any other elite fighters. But one of the more interesting that separates John from everybody else is John doesn't take no short notice fights. John game plans for everybody. He studies tendencies. His fight IQ, I mean, obviously, he has everything. He obviously has all the skills, obviously has all the drive and everything else. But the fight IQ is the big one. That's the big one. Because if you don't have a good driver, who gives a fuck how fast your car is? It's really the mind behind it that puts it all together.

He's sitting in a Ferrari with Ferrari gas. A lot of people sit in a Ferrari with 87 gas and the car don't work. So when I got to see those tendencies of him watching people, and he does it to me now, where he'll send me videos on Instagram of the top UFC guys. They go, watch how he steps. Watch when he throws a punch, how he comes back and he doesn't reset this certain way. And he's already installing those tendencies in me. And so now when I was wrestling, I never used to watch people wrestle. I went out there on a limb and I was just beating guys. Even in Olympics, I never watched anyone wrestle. I never watched their film.

Really?

Never. I told coaches, Don't show me one video because I don't want to focus on that one thing he did. And that was me being hard-headed. If a guy had a great double leg and I'm like, damn, how do I stop this double leg? And I'm worried about stopping a double leg instead of doing my offense. And so I never watch anybody. I went to the Olympics and I said, show me the guys I'm wrestling. And I said, let's do it.

You know what guys right now are doing? I said, let's Wait, come on. Banging their head against the wall, listening to this, going, what the fuck? He's like, damn, he did that to me?

That's crazy. I said, let's do it. I said, It's me or you, let's do or die. And this tournament, I'm not dying. You can't beat me in any way possible. And that's when I was at my best, when I had that mindset, and he's putting back into me, and I feel really good about it.

That's amazing. It's amazing. So when he's sending you videos, do you save all this shit? Do you have a folder where you have all these different fighters and different moves? Because you're basically brand new at something. Let me just tell you what I said. You had a fight, an MMA fight, where you hit that dude with a left hook and then took him down while he was out cold. I sent Dana White a text message. I said, Everyone's fucked. I did.

Well, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Because I was like, that speed is crazy. That speed and incorporated with elite wrestling is crazy. I'm like, what do you... The heavyweight division is so shallow right now. You got Tom Aspenal, Ceeero Gaan, Jon Jones, if he chooses to fight again, Francis, if by some miracle, they can work something out and bring him back to the UFC. Other than that, there's no one compelling for a Championship caliber fighter. There's basically four or five I have guys on Earth that are in this Championship caliber class, and you're already there, which is nuts. You haven't even fought in the UFC yet. When I watched you move and I watched you fight, I was like, Okay, how do you stop that? Who's got the skills to be able to stop that? And in my mind, there's only a few guys where it's going to be a problem. It's like the Francis Nganos, the Cyril Gones, and the Tom Asminal. That's it. There's a few guys and everybody else on the way up. The only problem is going to be you getting fights. That speed is just bananas for a 250-pound man. And when you have that and you're 25 years old, it's a very rare thing that you see in MMA.

And it's crazy because the heavyweight division is, of course, the most prestigious division in the world. The heavyweight champion of UFC is the baddest motherfucker on the planet. Right now, it's a toss-up, right? Because Cyril Ghan had this fight with Aspinal. John is semi-retired. Whatever he decides to do, it's up in the air. He'll probably have one more fight, right?

I want him, too. I think he's got the juice in him. The White House? He would love the White House. He's told me many times he wants to be main event on the White House, and he wants me to be a couple of slots behind him and have us both win. And that's his last leg right there. I would love for him to do one more. If he really wanted to in his heart, he should. But if he doesn't, John's not going to do it.

They should do Alex Pereira and him at the White House.

I told people. I said Alex Pereira would be a great match up for Tom.

A heavyweight version of the BMF belt.

You know what I'm saying? It'll be perfect. There's nothing else to it besides two guys going out there. It's Alex Pereira, the baddest light heavyweight, and that's Jon Jones, baddest heavyweight right now. And regardless if someone else has the belt, John Jones is still What about us, the baddest heavyweight out there.

The belt doesn't mean Jack shit when it's Jon Jones. It doesn't mean Jack shit.

It doesn't.

So many fighters could do that. They could just step away from the belt, abandon the belt, and then come back. It's really just about the fighter. Everybody knows who Jon is. Everybody knows what John does. It's like people will pay. You don't need a belt. A belt doesn't mean anything.

This is a crazy story. I had a French Bulldog that passed away. So I like to go out there and I adopt French Bulldogs, and I give them a better home. And I either ship to a new home or I keep them. And so at the time, I had a baby French Bulldog. He passed away. And I told John, I was like, Yo, my dog died. I got to go home. He let me go home. I came back, and I came back on a Tuesday. I didn't see John until Thursday. And mind you, this is a week before he's going to go out there for Steepe. He's sick, like super sick. And I watched this guy do five rounds on a Thursday, and they shark baited him, five new people, and he's dead tired. And this is when I knew he was unstable. He went out there, nobody could touch him. And I'm telling you, high class PFL ex-UFC fighters, ex-glory kickboxers were going in there after him, and he was just mopping them. And I was like, damn, this dude is beyond next level. And that was like, you got to see greatness. And I see it at the fight.

But you also got to see it when, how does this guy be great before the fight? And I saw that and I was like, God damn. I said, Excuse me, John, you think I can go in there with you? And he was like, no. And I was like, why do you think so? He was like, you don't know how to defend. And it was a funny joke because a partner got hurt. And I was like, I raised my hand. I told Greg Jackson. I said, Greg, let me in there. And Greg was like, not today, Gable. And this is when I didn't know how to defend or anything. He was like, hey, not today. And I was like, man, why? I can go in there and take him down. And he was like, this is different. And when I saw that, that was the epitome of super greatness in my eyes because I like hard workers. I like guys that beat on guys. I don't like guys that go out there and do the little extras to look cool. I mean, just go out there and dominate and let's go home. And I saw that and I was like, Yeah, that's over with for Steepay.

It's going to be a long night.

Well, unfortunately, they met when Steepay had already had a lot of miles on the clock. A lot of miles. And John was still elite. It's crazy that John essentially developed a spinning back kick, a real spinning back kick when he's 36 years old. Crazy. It's so nuts because he tried it earlier in his career, but it was like he would spin instead of go straight. You know what I mean? But when he hit steep A, it was perfect. It was That picture, we showed a video of it and then freeze, froze the heel. It was halfway into his rib cage. It was crazy.

I wouldn't have got up either.

Well, very few people would. Very few human beings can talk. That kick is so powerful. And when it comes from a big guy like John with those long ass legs and all that leverage with perfect technique, and it goes right into the sweet spot like that, good luck. But it's such a brilliant thinking on his side because he's like, okay, I have to fight heavyweights, and I need something that can take them out with one shot. What is that? Well, it's the most powerful kick, which is the spinning back kick. And so he trains it constantly. Constantly. Which is just very few people have the mindset to be able to do... A very few guys develop new skills late in life, late in their career. They start incorporating new skills like that.

I think that's the thing where he's always out of his ears, too. And that's what he's putting into me also. I watched him do a spinning back kick the night before at midnight when we were practicing in the hotel lobby.

So he was just planning on that?

He was planning on it. The showstopper. He told me he wanted to take Steepay down, and then all of a sudden he does a spinning back kick. And I was like, You sly motherfucker.

Did he bring in a Taekwondo coach? How did he develop that technique so clearly?

There's a kickboxing Taekwondo coach named Alex. He's got a long last name because I think he married a Thai lady, so I think he changed his last name. But he's from New Mexico. He works out at Jackson. He's got a lot of tattoos on him. If you saw him, you would never know. But the dude can kick hard as shit, and it's crazy.

And so he worked with John on that? Yes. The only other guy that I would say developed a crazy new technique late in his career was Vitor. When Vitor was like 35 or 36, he developed a wheel kick. It was crazy out of nowhere. When he fought Luke Rockhold, All of a sudden, he's throwing wheel kicks.

Vitor never- Wheel kicks is crazy.

Crazy. Vitor never threw wheel kicks.

Crazy. But I think it's honestly got to be cool because you sit right next to the cage. So it's got to be cool to see people grow up through their career. And then all of a sudden at the end, you see a guy does a spinning wheel kick or a guy does a spinning back kick. And you're like, damn, where'd that come from? And I feel like does it give you a high to see a person grow through a new stage of seeing a new move from them?

I just love excellence. That's what I love. I love when someone shines, when they just figure a way to eclipse everyone else, when they figure a way to... Like the Pyurian/Marabdwabish/willy fight. When you see a guy like Pyurian who loses the first fight to Marab and comes back and dominates in the second fight. I love that shit. I love it. I love watching someone put in an insane amount of work and dedication and then shining on fight night. I love it.

It's cool, too, because you see Peter Jan is the new blueprint for guys that are coaching kids to do moves. I mean, he went out there and threw a fake hook and liver-kicked Marab, and then he goes out there and he hits El Dorogari and trips guys. I mean, what other film tape blueprint can you use from someone else? I mean, he's done everything in all of his fights. His flow state is amazing.

His flow state is incredible, and he's so good at mixing up trips along with inside fighting. His stand-up is so good. He's so hard to hit clean, too. I think the only guy who really hit him clean was Sugar Sean. Sean hit him with a knee, a really good knee, timed it perfectly in their fight and dropped him. But other than that, he very rarely gets hit. And when you do hit him, you're hitting him and he's rolling with it. He keeps that super high guard. He does that high, yeah. Yeah, he keeps his hands straight in front of you. He's something special, And that dude is still only 32 years old.

He's only 32? Yeah.

I know. It's crazy.

What do you think if he doesn't lose- 32 or 34?

How old is Pyotr Yung? He's either 32 or 34. But we've seen him, and I think he's 32. 32? Yeah. I mean, we've seen him in the UFC since he was in his mid-20s.

If he doesn't lose to Marab that first time, where do you think his path goes?

It's a good question. I mean, because he did lose to other guys as well. He lost to Sean, and he lost to... The Aljamain fight was fucked. The first fight was fucked. But the second fight, Aljamain dominated him. But I think he probably overestimated himself in the second Aljamain fight. It doesn't seem like he was just prepared. And the thing about Aljamain is his wrestling is very good, and his back control is the fucking best in the business. When Aljamain gets your back, you're in deep shit. He's so good at back control. He's so good at rear naked chokes. And Aljamain just really struggled to make that 135.

It's got to be hard.

But if he got it right, and he got it right in that second fight, and he just did what he does at his best. It was one of his finest performances. So he lost that fight. But it didn't mean that he was done. It just meant he realized, okay, he had to have a camp like he had for Marab in order to beat Al Jamain. I just don't think everybody's willing to go to that camp every fight.

Marab I went through four.

Yeah, four in a year.

For blueprint, how do you like that? Because I know guys take the two fight, the two fight a year approach, maybe three if you're doing well.

I think that's more sustainable. Alex Pereira did the same thing. He's fought a lot of fights, and he's fought fight short notice. You got to admire that mindset of a guy who's like, I don't give a fuck. Let's fight. But Alex has fought with broken toes.

He's done everything.

He fought with a neurovirus, and he had fucked up hand the first time he fought Ancalyev. But then the same thing. He comes in for the second fight with Ancalyev, fully healthy, and just smokes him. And he's ready. Smokes him in the first round.

What do you think about it? If you gave Alex Perreira a solid, great wrestle, like an Islam of light heavyweight, heavyweight. How do you think that he does?

It'll be a problem. Yeah. I mean, I think less of a problem certainly now than early in his career. If you see his first fight in the UFC with Mikolaitis, he gets taken down in the first round. That's not going to happen now. And if it does, he gets up. It's different. But it gets up against who? Does he get up against a guy like you? There's different levels, right? You really saw that with Jack Dela Madalena in Islam, right? There's levels. And when you got a guy that's at Islam's level, that's just a super elite grappler, unless you've faced that before, you don't know what to prepare your sofa. I tell people all the time. That's the thing with Pyody Yon. He had been in there with Marab for the first fight, and so he knew what to expect. And he had seen all those crazy fights. He saw the fight with Sanhagen. He saw the fight where this was the rematch with Sugar Sham, where he submitted him. He's like, Okay, this guy's a fucking monster. He's a monster now. You got to prepare for Monster, and he was ready. But unless you've experienced that before, there's really no one like that in the light heavyweight division, unfortunately.

There's not some super elite grappler in the light heavyweight division. I think that's one of the reasons why Hamza is thinking about going up to light every week.

And I think he should. I'm a big fan of Hamza. I love his style. I love his intensity. His intensity is the best thing ever.

Oh, it's an animal.

It's the best thing ever to watch because when I was wrestling, I like to go out there and just put the hammer down and dominate. And he's got it. He's got that touch.

Oh, yeah. He's an animal. And that animal part of him almost killed him because he refused to stop training when he had COVID. When he had COVID, he was just showing up at the gym and putting in two and a half hour sessions and vomiting blood. It's a nut.

That's crazy.

Yeah. They said the real problem with Hamzaat was that you couldn't get him out of the gym, and he was always overtrained. So then he brings in Sam Calvita. And Sam Calivita, monitoring his heart rate.

Training lab, right? Right.

So he's monitoring his heart rate. He's monitoring his recovery, and he's working on him with his strength and conditioning, and they're doing it scientifically. And then you've seen the Dreckus Duplicee fight. I mean, he just didn't gas at all.

That was the same thing as Islam and Madalena. Very similar. They tried to do maybe What if? What if he can outbox him? But it's hard when you got to worry about so many things. And I think Islam did a great job of showing the leg kicks, making Jack switch. Jack didn't really push forward. And Islam, when he did, shot the double or he shot an outside single. And that's hard. It's hard when you got to think about so many things.

Yeah. Well, Khabib is without doubt one of the all-time greats, one of the greatest to ever do it. But the difference between Khabib and Islam is Islam is elite stand-up-wise. Khabib was very good stand-up, but Islam knocked out Volkanovski with a head kick. That's not in Khabib's repertoire. Islam is on another level. It's like one more level above. He can knock you outstanding. He can knock you out on the ground. He could submit you. He could take you down. He's fucking huge for the weight class, especially 155. There's so many aspects, and you're always thinking about that grappling when you're striking. So when you say, Oh, who's better striker, Islam or Jack Dela Madalena? Well, it depends, Because if you got to worry about that takedown, your striking is not going to be the same. It's just not going to be the same because everything he does, you're always looking for that takedown. And that factor, it leads to guys getting hit all the time. If you go back and watch old fights like Kevin Randleman versus Crow Cop. Kevin Randleman knocked out Crow Cop because Crow Cop was worried about the takedown. He was worried about the takedown.

All of a sudden, Randleman comes with the big left hook.

And Kevin Randleman was a NCAA champ where?

Ohio State, I believe. Was it Ohio State? I believe he was an Ohio guy.

184 or 187? Was he heavyweight?

I don't know. Three-time, Big Ten, wrestling champ at Ohio State.

He never won the tournament? Heavyweight. Wow, who do you lose to in the tournament? That says heavyweight.

I'll look that up real quick. Okay. But that was the thing about Randlemen is the speed and the takedown was always this big threat. And So because of that, you're thinking about one thing and boom, you get hit with a big shot.

I've seen Kevin Randlemen wear shoes in his matches. What's the difference? I've seen a guy wear shoes now. I was on Instagram and I saw maybe a kickboxing match or something like that. Why can't they wear shoes now? Is there a rule that you can't?

It's not now. All those things are old. Those are old? Yeah, those are all old. Pride used to allow you to wear shoes. Okay. Early UFC used to be able to wear shoes.

I saw that. I remember the first UFC video I've seen was that big Hughes dude and that little dude that knocked him Was he the big black dude? Which guy? It was like an old video.

Super old. That's not descriptive enough. Okay.

Give me a second.

Big huge dude, little black dude. Bob Sat maybe? No, that wasn't UFC.

Who was the big video? And then the white dude came out there and he was just whipping him and the big dude tried to grab him. I might be tripping, but I saw the video.

Well, I don't think you're tripping. I mean, there's been so many fights. It's so hard to figure out what fight you're talking about. But there's an advantage to wrestling shoes for sure, without a doubt. I mean, the grip on the ground. How many times have you seen guys?

Yeah, this one.

Oh, Keith Hackney. Yeah. And Keith Hackney had a very strange style. It was like, I think he was a Kembo guy, and he hit him with a bitch slap. You know what I'm saying? You ever see how he knocked him down? Look at the difference in the size. Emmanuel Yarbrough, who is a sumo wrestler. But Emmanuel was probably like, look at that. See? He overhand bitch slapped him. This is He's crazy. He basically stepped in and palm-strike him to the head.

If he's still alive, you think he looks back at this video and be like, damn, I got slapped?

Probably. Damn. I mean, Emmanuel fought a bunch of different things. I think he fought in pride as well. Oh, they forgot to lock the cage. He flew out the cage. Look at thin, big John McCarthy. He lost to Mark Rylan.

Mark Rylan, a Bible.

Okay. There you That's random what we're talking about. Yeah, the old days were wild, man. It's wild. It's wild to go back and watch those fights. It's like...

Since you've been a huge figure your whole life, have you gone back and watch Fear Factor?

I watched it because my kids were watching it. My kids were watching Fear Factor because there was a whole Fear Factor channel. It was a TruTV or one of those.

Trutv or Spike TV.

One of those things. They had Fear Factor on all day long, and my kids were watching it. They thought it was hilarious.

Man, I was watching it, too. I'm just going to tell you right now. And all the shit they were doing, hell, no.

Yeah, a lot of it is in your head. A lot of the stuff that they had to eat is not that bad. Some of it was fucking disgusting.

Were you trying some while they were trying?

I ate a bunch of things.

What was the worst thing?

None of the things I ate were that bad. I ate a Madagascar hissing cockroach. It's like a cockroach the size of this lighter. Damn. Damn. Yeah.

That wasn't bad? It was just crunchy, huh?

Yeah, this doesn't have much flavor to it. Yeah. What was it more in your head than anything? I'm sorry.

Being on that show, what was the worst thing you saw someone tense up about?

The worst thing was what they had to eat and watching people throw up. I watch people throw up every day. You know how the smell of throw up makes you want to throw up? That went away after a while. It was that bad? Yeah. I saw people throw up every week. Every week, I was watching four or five people throw up. This is totally normal to be around cute.

It was like a candle for you.

Because they were throwing up in front of me, and I was telling them that they'd keep going. I'm like, Don't worry. You can keep going. You can keep going. Don't put that out of your head. This is a task. You want to win? Okay, you can do this. I can help you. I can talk you through this. But you just got to just... You are in control of your body. Force yourself to eat it. Chew it, swallow it, get it down. Let's go. But that was the worst, is the eating shit. Holding your breath underwater is hard. There's a lot of things they had to do that was hard. It's a crazy fucking show.

There was one where they had to jump out a helicopter and swim and grab someone. The helicopter propellers were like, below in the water so they couldn't...

We did a few of the things like that.

Were you ever scared?

For some of them? I was worried when they had to ride bulls. That one scared the shit out of me because I was like, the stuntmen are animals. If you ever meet stuntmen, they are some of the bravest, toughest dudes alive. And the stunt guys had this attitude about the bull. They're like, Oh, that's a stunt bull. That's a practice bull. And I go, Does a fucking bull know he's a practice bull? I bet he doesn't. I bet he didn't get that memo. He don't know that. He's just a bull. That's a fucking huge animal. And you're going to get a hundred pound lady to ride this huge animal. That's crazy. That's over with. And they got launched and almost got kicked. And they rolled the dice a lot and got lucky that no one got seriously injured, I I think. And the bull one was the big one for me. I was like, you can't predict that. If you got a car stunt, you got to jump a car off a building into this big cushion. Okay, cool. You know what's going to happen. This is the thing. This could go wrong, and this is how we're going to prepare against it going wrong or prepare for it.

But you can't prepare for a bull. There's not much you could do. If the bull decides to stomp this person, that person could die. That's a real possibility, especially people that have no business riding bulls. Bull riding is hard for bull riders.

Bull riding is tough. It's crazy. And they got a good seven seconds on that bull if they're great. If they're great. If they're great.

And when you're watching it, you're like, oh, my God. You watch the bull kicking, jumping up in the air.

It's crazy. I know the lower back kills after that?

We had one guy on Fear Factor who was a professional bull rider, and his shoulder was so destroyed. He took his shirt off to show me. He had scars all around his shoulder. He's like, My shoulder pops out all the time. It just will pop out of pocket. He'd go reach for something in his shoulder will pop out of pocket. It was just destroyed. It was hanging on by a thread.

Jesus, disgusting. How do you live like that, though?

I don't know, man. I guess you just deal with it. I guess that's the price you pay for greatness.

Got to pay something.

Yeah, well, they all pay. Every bull rider pays. You see those guys later in their career, they're all stiff because they got fused disks and fucking bolts in their back and shit. They're all fucked up.

Spines rubbing. Oh, yeah.

It's a terrible way to live.

I I can't believe that bull riding is a real thing.

I know.

It's fascinating, though, because you could really see guys go out there and be like, you're facing the devil. The bull is going to win all the time.

Every time. The best you can do is hang on for seven seconds. There's no goat who could just hang on the bull as long as possible. I'll hang on that bull for 30 minutes. He kicking a bitch. He's going to get you off. Everybody goes flying eventually. Everybody.

Everybody. It's going to happen one way or another. Yeah.

There's no human being that could just stay on a bucking bull. No. And just like, when I decide, I'll get off. Have you rode?

No. Okay. I haven't either. Fuck that. I don't think black people do that.

I think there are. Is there a couple?

It's got to be. There is. There is. There is.

There is. Oh, Look at that dude right there. Bam. Ezekiel Mitchell. Look at the size of that thing.

I mean, look at his angle. You know what I'm saying? The bull is so athletic that he damn near doing a handspring with the dude on his back. Exactly. With the dude on his back.

Right. And he 2,000 pounds. He's just throwing his body up and through the air. Fuck all that. Like, right there. You easily could get stomped to death right there. It's the game over. You fall wrong. He lands on your face, and that is a wrap. Your fucking head is pulverized.

I wonder what the size of that thing. I wonder what the numbers are on if a bull stomps the velocity and the mass of it. What is the degenerator force from it?

It's got to be insane. How many guys have died?

None that I know, hopefully.

None that I know. But there has to be an enormous number of guys that have died bull riding.

Since we're on a crazy topic, what is the craziest thing outside of maybe fighting taekwondo that you've done that you're like, damn, that shit felt good?

I never did anything other than... I had three kickboxing fights, but other than fighting, that was the scariest shit that I ever did. Yeah, I mean, I've never done it. I'm not a You're not jumping for it? No, I'm not a bunji jumper. I mean, I've done bunji jumping on vacation. I did zip-lining. I was like, What am I doing? This is stupid. I don't like doing stuff like that. I don't like dumb risks.

No, I'm big. So I went on a zip-lining one time. You know, you got to jump off the thing. You got to jump off the platform. I thought I was going to... Joe, I'm kidding. That might have been my last day on Earth if that line didn't hold me. Right.

Because what do you weigh? About 250?

Like, 255. And it bounces. You're like, oh.

I was in Thailand and I went to do this thing. It was a bunji-comped core thing, and they said I couldn't do it because I was only 200 pounds. And I was like, That's crazy. What happens if you get a guy that lies about his weight? It's over with. Yeah, because people lie about their fucking weight all the time.

I've seen the ones where the guys, they got the squirrel suit on, and they jump off the building or they jump off the rocks and they go down and they come up.

And sometimes they don't.

Sometimes they don't come up.

My friend Andy did that jumping out of a fucking plane. He made it? Oh, yeah. Okay, good. He held the world record at one point in time for the longest squirrel suit flight. What is it called? What do they call those things?

Wingsuit? Wingsuit? Wingsuit?

He held the record for it. It's ridiculous. But Andy's nuts. He's a Navy SEAL. Eighteen miles. Eighteen miles? In one flight.

What do you think he's thinking at, like Mile Nine? Maybe I dropped?

He's a psycho. I don't know.

Eighteen miles is crazy.

Yeah, that's crazy.

I would never do nothing like that, ever.

No, I'm not interested in parachuting. I'm not interested in any that shit.

I might get on a wake boat surf. That's about all.

You fall in the water. That's not a big a deal.

With the life jacket.

Yeah. That sounds reasonable. That sounds very reasonable. It's a reasonable thrill. Falling out the sky is crazy. Falling out the sky is crazy. But at least falling out the sky You have equipment. You check the equipment. You make sure you double-check it. You've done it before. It's done. You know when to do it. With a bull, there's no safeguards. You have some a chest protector on some people. You have a helmet. There's no safeguards. He could land on your hip. You're never going to walk again.

It's over with. Fuck that. His game over. I can't fathom riding a bull.

Yeah. Doesn't Donald do it? Doesn't Donald Cerroni? He rides bulls.

He got the name cowboy. You better do something. He's out of his fucking mind. He got to do something with the name cowboy.

That's a dude that has a real adrenaline problem.

He's got a real- He rightfully so. He looks crazy.

He's got a real adrenaline problem. He told a story about getting trapped in a water. He was diving and he got trapped in a cave. The guy he was with panicked because his cords got tangled up and the water was cloudy and he couldn't figure out how to get out. I knew he was okay because he was right here telling me the story, but it was one of the most terrifying stories anybody's ever told me. But that dude loves that shit. He loves thrills.

I can't. I don't think I can get behind thrills. I can't. No. It's too much. And especially your heart be like... It's just not worth it. It's today my day, and it can't be my This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company.

So here we are. It's the new year, which means it's about time to hit reset. Just because it's January doesn't mean you need to disappear into a cold plunge and never drink again. Just rotate in some athletic non-alcoholic beer. You get the taste, the perfect meal pair, and the night out, but you wake up without the hangover. With over 185 Taste Awards, they brew all kinds of styles: IPAs, Goldens, Hazies, you name it. Athletic is proud brewed in America and sold at over 75,000 grocery or liquor stores, bars, and restaurants across the country. You can also purchase a variety of limited styles exclusively on their website. Go to athletic Brewing. Com/rogan to find stores near you or get brews shipped right to your door. Use code ROgan to get 15% off your first online order. Near beer, terms and conditions, and certain limitations apply. Athletic brewing company, fit for all times. Was fighting for the first time? What was the difference in the way it felt the first time you fought versus wrestling?

When I wrestle, I'm not really nervous. I'm more anxious to perform and put on a good show. When I went out there for my first fight, my heart was beating on my chest because that pin drops and it's like, it's me or you. And I always had the mentality of it's me or you, it's do or die. Today is not my day. You got to go. But But that first time, I could you not, my heart was jumping. And John had to look at me in the eyes and be like, oh, you're good. Rely on what you know. We've been here before. You've done this before. There's 2,000 people here. You've wrestled in front of 20. Just think about it like that. And when I thought about it like that, my heart rate calmed down. You get shaky a little bit. You feel like your legs are not there. And that was my first time fighting. After that, at Dirty Boxing, I wanted to kill that dude.

Which is crazy because you couldn't even rely really on your wrestling in that.

Which is what I wanted. I wanted to go out there and show you that I can throw punches without having to look down at that leg. And that's exactly what we did.

Was that a calculated decision to try to do that as well? To just have a pure striking fight? Mm-hmm. Just so you could show that you could do it and then in your own mind not have your main skillset to rely on?

Yes. I really wanted to handicap myself because I wanted to show the people, and I And I, hopefully, I did show him a great show. We definitely did. I wanted to show the people. I wanted to show the people at home that are a casual viewer who doesn't know Gable. Like, Hey, can I turn on Dirty Boxing? And the mom and dad and kids are sitting there watching saying, Hey, what is about Gable Seefs? And that's special? And he's a wrestler. So what can be special besides wrestling? And then I go out there and I get this knockout and I jump over the ring. That was crazy. And I'm doing the Arthur Jones, Sack Dance.

The crazy thing was the way you leapt over the ring like it was nothing. That was banana. What does it feel like to not have... Oh, there it is. Boom. But this is the nuttiest part right here.

The big jump.

It was nothing. It was nothing. That is crazy athleticism. But what's wild about that is you look like a really good boxer, and you have only been boxing for a very small amount of time.

Just I always had very good confidence in myself. I've always spoke about myself highly. I've always wanted to be over the top, like a W-E. When he gets on a microphone and John Tina is like, You can't see me, or Roman Reigns is like, Acknowledge me. When I go out there, I don't want to have to say those things. I wanted to, When you see me, that's him. And I've always tried to be the bigger than Gable person. But also, if we had a routine combo, you can see, man, he's a real human. You can talk to him. He does real We put on shoes the same way. We put on pants the same way. And I feel like a lot of superstars don't really show people that side of them. And it's up to them if they want to or they're not. But I've always really shown the families and the kids that like, man, look at Gable.

He was a normal human being But when you compete, you're special. It's different. But it's just crazy to be able to do that in a sport that you're relatively new at.

Man, just think big about yourself. I get it. I tell every kid. I tell everybody.

What's crazy about that, honestly, is I know you're just going to get better at it. That's what's crazy. When you watch someone strike that well early in their striking career, your striking journey is so new that the sky's the limit as far as your potential.

Joe, in the nicest way possible, I really want to say this. That's the worst I'll ever be. The worst I'll ever be. And for whoever who's going to watch this, that's the worst I'll ever be. Just think about it. 14 seconds. And then now think about if you're going to put some time into me, some effort into me, and I'm putting effort into myself. That dirty boxing is probably the weakest I'll ever be in the sport of MMA.

I believe you. I believe you. I mean, it only makes sense if you've been training that short amount of time of striking. Now, when you're training striking, are you training boxing? Are you doing Muay Thai? What striking training are you doing? Or are you incorporating it all together in MMA?

I do it all. So a lot of days I go in. So I have a really good schedule right now since I'm not going to go into a fight. So I do every day besides Sunday, some days are two a days because I go to Lifetime and play basketball. I go to Lifetime, I sit in a cold tub and song on stuff. But when I strike, I go in there. One round is maybe boxing. Next round is kicks, teeps, knees, everything, elbows. The next round is the blueprint I have of what moves I need to really do to get in to get to my shots, or I'm going to fake shoot and punch. And then I probably go 10 rounds, 12 rounds of that, five minutes each.

So you always incorporate elaborate all the MMA skills together in a workout.

I tried to.

It's interesting. When I was talking to Ilio Teporia, particularly when he's not training for a fight, he doesn't do that. He is very rare in that when he goes And he works on his boxing. He'll just box. He just boxes. When he works on his jiu-jitsu, he just does jiu-jitsu. When he works on his wrestling, he just does wrestling. Then he puts them all together with MMA training. But he spends an exorbitant amount of time on each individual skill by itself to really hone and tighten those things up, which is an interesting choice. And obviously for him, it's worked out spectacularly. Yes, it has. But there's no real... I guess if you want to be an elite soccer player, I'm sure there's a program that they've devised, this is the very best way to become a good soccer player. They have coaches and they game plan, they know what to do. With MMA, there's all these different approaches. Everyone, Alex Pereira's approach is different than Marab's approach, which will be different than your approach. Everybody's got a different thing.

Yeah. Like you said, it depends a person, and it also depends on the team that you have. I'm just really big on. I'm still very new, so I'm really big on just trying to make sure I can absorb all the information possible. When I go into these fights, these first few fights, I'm going to showcase what I can. And sadly, they have ended early. Not sadly, but in a good way, you know what I'm saying. But just go out there and showcase who I am. And when I go train, I don't mind sitting in there all day. Sometimes me and John will practice for hours just sitting there repeating, repeating. And then all of a sudden we go in at eight o'clock, it's midnight. But I like that, though, because it makes me feel good. It makes me feel like there's someone invested in me that makes me feel like I'm here for a purpose. And it makes me feel like there's someone out of the country, someone in Russia. When I'm asleep, he's up. And I don't like that. He's up working. So when I can get all time possible, I'm making sure I get all that time because I don't want that dude to show up one day and he's got a little inch on me.

I can't think about that happening.

I always have that thought in my head in terms of UFC fighters. There's such a shallow division. The heavyweight division is so shallow. I'm like, there has got to be some elite Russian wrest that are thinking about going the Fedora Emelianenko route. They're thinking about... I know Nemcov, who just won the PFL title. He's a very high old guy. But there has to be some really high-level wrestlers that are considering going into MMA.

Right now, Russian heavyweights are really not as good as people think in wrestling. Really? They got a guy named Abdour, she's set alive. I don't know if you heard of him?

I have.

Dc told me about him. Man, he is crazy. If he came to fighting, it's over with. Not for heavyweights, for the other groups, because he's got to go through me if he comes heavyweight. But Iranians' heavyweights are Really good. I think that's where the heavyweight field should start coming from. As I ran, they got a lot of good. They got two good guys. One's my age, I'm 25, and another one is, I think, 22. They battle for the Olympic spot of the year, but the older one wins just by a little. But the time is going to pass where that guy steps up and he's going to take the spot. So I would watch out for him.

What's interesting with MMA is some guys have a background in wrestling, and then they learn how to strike, and then they fall in love with striking, and then they hardly ever wrestle when they fight. It's weird. It is weird. You would see that a lot in the early... Like, Josh Koshchek is a good example, who's a very good amateur wrestler. And then when he fought in MMA, very rarely wrest. It was mostly striking He can knock guys outstanding. And I think guys fall in love with that. And then there's also the amount of effort. It's so tiring to wrestle along with all the other things that sometimes guys just put that aside and they just decide to stand and bang with people.

I I really like wrestling. I grew up wrestling. And if I had a chance, I would love to go to the 2028 Olympics and win a gold medal. That's how much I still love wrestling. But right now my path is MMA. And I knew the first couple of times that I would get those knockouts. You look at your hands and it's like, you're Spider-Man, you got superpowers. I got lightning in my hands. I would have never thought in my 25 years of life that I would go out there and I would left hook somebody and he would be out cold and I would double leg and flip him. Who would have ever thought that would ever happen? And so you Right. You get obsessed with knocking people out, but I still think my base is wrestling. I just haven't used the best base yet. And I just want to show people that my best base doesn't need to be used because the second best one is just as good as the first.

Well, and the second best one is getting better all the time. That's the thing. And again, I keep going back to this, but if you can get that good at wrestling, you can get that good at anything. It's just a matter of putting in the time and dedicating yourself to that thing. But it's the mindset that allows someone to become an Olympic gold medalist in wrestling. Boy, if that person, that's a scary person. If that person decides to focus on whatever the fuck it is, fucking pickleball, who gives a shit? They'll be elite at it. They just have to put their mind on it. You will.

It's a hundred % of my mindset thing. It ain't nothing else. You can have an athletic ability. You can hard work all day. You can be so disciplined in the world. But if your mind doesn't think it, I feel like that's why I beat a lot of people before I even walked out there is I knew it. You just got to know.

And some people-Championship mindset.

Some people just don't feel it, and you just got to feel it.

I know. I was talking to a friend of mine. I don't want to mention any names because then you're connected to the fighter. But he said, Man, I don't want to fuck with anybody anymore that needs a mental Coach. And I said, Really? Why? He goes, it's just like this. It's just too much. He goes, I want a dude who don't need that shit. You don't need it. It's interesting because some guys do, and some guys that mental coach takes them over the top, and then they find a way to win where Maybe they'd have mental hiccups in the past, but his mentality was, I want a guy who has no problems. If I'm going to coach a guy, I don't want a guy who's a head case. I want a guy who goes in there and already has this I'm going to fucking dominate. And if I don't, I'm going to learn why I didn't dominate, and I'm going to come back and I'm going to get them next time.

Yeah. And I feel like that's the person I am. I just want to go in there and dominate. And I also think that a lot of people rely too much on a lot of outside things to make them feel good about themselves to go out there and perform instead of just putting that switch on and just saying, Hey, we're here.

Outside things like what?

Just mental coaches. You got to get someone else to be maybe a breathworking coach, another coach, another coach. There's so many labels for coaches out there that you don't need. And when I was resting in Minnesota, I had Brandon Eggam, Luke Becker, who's the assistant and head coach, and Trevor Brando. That's all I had. I didn't have nobody else because I didn't want anybody to interfere with the connection that we had. And I feel like when you get a great bond with somebody and then you bring in more people, the bonds get mixed up. People are paying attention to too many different things. Instead of practicing, maybe I got to work on my mind. Instead of working on my mind, maybe I got to go do something else. Maybe I got to take care of something else.

Sort of like when you were talking about not watching video on your opponents because you're thinking about his double, how am I going to stop his double? Instead of thinking about, what am I going to do?

Yeah, I would rather be productive for the team instead of productive for eight different people. And maybe three of them don't care about you as much. They're there just to get a little something from you.

Where are you training now?

Right now, I'm still in Minneapolis. I'm having a baby girl this Sunday. Congratulations. This Sunday, my little girl is coming. I appreciate it. Thank you. That's awesome. She's going to pop out. My lady is hopefully going to deuce that day. If it comes early, it comes early. So that'll be really nice. So I'm in Minneapolis right now. But when I do all the main training, New Mexico, Jackson Wink.

Okay. So in Minneapolis, where are you training?

With that guy, Billy Simon. Same guy?

Yeah.

I've been with him forever.

So you're in this little tiny gym?

I'm in that little gym. Nobody sees us. We got partners that need to come in. But rather than that, I don't want the big lights. When I was growing up, I'm in Portage, Indiana. I had a wrestling mat in the garage, and me and my two brothers would wrestle, and that's where we got the most work in. My dad said, go in there and handfight, and whoever comes out, comes out. And it was definitely not me at the time, but maybe right now it's me. But we were going there and handfight. My dad's philosophy was we had Iowa style wrestling, and Iowa style wrestling was brutal. If his face needs to be run into the wall, run his face into the wall. And that's how we grew up. And if you don't want your face ran into the wall, you better put his in first. Right.

And so when you train with this guy, are you training like, I could get a call in a week to fight and I'm ready to do that? Or are you training like just developing skills constantly?

I just I'm religiously trained to develop skills constantly. I try to never stop. I don't like stopping because I'm a... This is crazy. I'm a thicker body. So if I sit for a little bit, I feel like I'm getting fat, and I want to feel that way. So I just try to always keep myself in shape and try to keep the best look possible. So if you need me on one week, which I don't want to do any short notice, just how me and John do it, no short notice. If you need me in a week, I look good, I'm ready. But we just take our time.

So did John coach you about that? Give you some thoughts about that? Because I I think that's a giant mistake that guys make. The Alexander Vokunovsky fight is a good example. The Islan Makhachev fight. He took that fight on 11 days notice. He's just been hanging around, drinking, partying, just being himself, just chilling. And then all of a sudden, he gets this opportunity for a rematch. First fight was a razor-thin decision. He lost, and he's like, I could do better, but you can't do better without a camp.

You got to have time to be yourself. Yeah.

You have to have time to peak. And one of the things I really I always admired about John is even a fight, like the Chael Sanhant fight, they offered him Chael Sanhant on short notice. He was like, Nope, and they were like, We need you to do this. He was like, Nope. I'm a professional world champion. I prepare for my opponents, and I don't want to fight unless I'm prepared for my opponent, period.

It's the smartest way.

Look at him. He's the goat. I mean, it's just so many guys, they get... I do appreciate that Alex does take those short notice fights, and he wins some of those short notice fights. But how many times he's fought injured, really injured? Like the first Yuri Prohofska fight, he had a fucked up knee, man. And when he stopped Yuri, there's a moment when he's on top of Yuri and he's beating on him and the referee stops it and he goes to step up and he rolls off of him. The reason he rolled off of him, he couldn't support himself on his knee. That's how fucked up his knee was. And he was in a world title fight.

It was bad.

Crazy.

Well, I feel like this is the only sport where they will let that happen. Just because football, you sitting on IR. We don't have no IR. It's either you do it or you say no.

And if you say no, they get upset at you.

A lot of people get timid. And once you get past that barrier, I think right Now, since I'm going to have this daughter, I think my tone and mindset has changed to really be more of a father figure for her, but also if kids want to look at me and be like, wow, Gable's normal also. But I think just you got to say no to a lot of people. You got to be generous in a lot of ways, but you also got to be able to go out there and say, I don't like this. I don't feel this way about this, and this is why. And be cool on both sides. But some people get scared about that moment.

Are you doing What strength and conditioning are you doing?

So I still lift with the college team. So everything they do with wrestling-The college wrestling team? Yes. Everything they do at the University of Minnesota, I still do. I still got the same strength coach with them. Bike sprints, aerodine sprints, Watt bike, Versa climbers, everything. We try to mix it in all. Rowers, everything, just to stay active. And if it's not where we're getting close to a fight, maybe just take longer breaks in between just to keep the heart rate up. But I don't like when my heart rate takes a break. I like to keep it consistent. So when I ramp up, it's already ready to rock and roll.

You already have a very high baseline. Yeah. And when you're doing strength and conditioning as far as weight lifting and stuff like that, are you trying to put on weight at all? No. You like 250?

I like to stay where I'm at. I do a lot of band work, a lot of explosive work, a lot of jumps, a lot of light weights with high reps just to keep the body moving and keep the cutness and the strength there, but not also put too much where you're stiff.

And you're naturally a large guy anyway. It's not like you have to put on a ton of weight. But when you see a guy like Francis, who's 265 natural, and he used to have to cut a little bit of weight to make 265, which is crazy, isn't it? Isn't it crazy? But it's also crazy that the UFC has a weight limit that you have to make at heavyweight. You have to cut weight to make heavyweight.

How different you think it would be if they didn't have 265 and it was just maybe 300?

I think it should be no weight. It's heavyweight. It It should be... What they really need is more weight classes. The UFC, there's gaps that are just enormous. The gap between 85 and 205 is crazy. 20 pound weight gap in between categories, that doesn't make It makes sense to me. 10 pounds. 10 pounds is still a lot, but at least it's reasonable.

How many weight classes boxing have?

A shitload. They have so many. Boxing has so many weight classes.

Boxing got eight champions for each weight, too.

That's a problem. That's a problem. Mma does as well, right? If you think about it, there's the one champion, there's the PFL champion. But the difference is, there's really only the UFC champion in terms of the public perception. We talked about Nemcoff, who's an excellent fighter. Nobody knows who the fuck he Not in America. You go to a regular kid, some kid on the street, and you say, Who is Vadim Nemcoff? And they're like, What?

But I bet you that kid knows I show speed.

I bet they do, right? I bet they do, right?

They probably do.

Right. They know I Show Speed. They probably know who Alex Pereira is. They probably know who Islan Makhachev is. They know who the UFC guys are. That title is worth so much. It's the name. It is the combat sports leader. And if you're not in the UFC, I don't care. Look, you can go to the PFL and you can win that million dollar tournament, and you can make money. And I'm all for that. And I'm very happy for those guys. They get to feed their family, and they provide, and they make a great living, and they can retire with some money in the bank. But the reality is, part of what you're doing is you're trying to be the best. And if you're going to be the best, you have to be in the UFC.

Agreed.

I mean, that's just what it This is what it is.

There's so many great league, but the most prestigious people, you can say PFL, you can say anything, and you can go to any place and make a shit ton of money. But once you get that stamp of he's a UFC champ, people are like, damn, man, that's him.

That's it. That's him. Yeah, that's it. They put that UFC belt on you, and it's on ESPN, and everybody sees it. That's it. The PFL is just another belt. It's like, boxing has so... They have the IBF, the WBA, the WBO, the WBC. It's just so many fucking organizations. It just gets so crazy.

It's like, didn't they try to make Terrence Crawford pay for his belt?

Ridiculous. How crazy is that? Terence Crawler is like, fuck you. I'm the champ. I just beat you. They wanted 300,000? Everybody saw it. Is that what they wanted from him? 300 grand?

Can we get a look on this? Because I might be tripping.

But I don't think I'm tripping. They stripped him. I know they stripped him. It's percentage of purse.

And I think it was like three % of whatever he made.

So it was- That's so nuts. That is so nuts. That is so nuts that they get paid that much, just be a sanctioning body. And what are they doing? They're not doing anything. It doesn't mean anything.

Well, they just get the best looking guy to maybe throw a belt on you. That's about all.

They don't really get nothing else. You get nothing. You get a belt. But everybody knows he beat the brakes off Canelo Ávarez. That's it. Man, I love Canelo. He's the champion. I love Canelo as well. But I love what Terrence did, because what Terrence did was crazy. He goes all the way up from '47 to '68. He had one fight at '54, wins the title at 54, and then goes all the way up to '68. And everybody's like, Canelo is going to be too big. Canelo is going to be too big. ' No way. No. Skill. He's next level. Skill is king. Yeah.

But I think- But he's 38. He's 38. He could do a couple more if he wanted to. I don't think he does. But he don't want to.

I think he's done. He's done. And I love it. I love that he's done. $300,000. Dethroned over a $300,000 fee. Wow. Wow. That's crazy.

Do you think that's right?

No. No? No. Unpaid fees and brief reign as undisputed chairman. It doesn't matter. He's the fucking champion. You can't take the guy's belt because he's not willing to give you money. Fuck you. He won. He's crazy. He won. Fuck off. Fuck off. He won.

Well, now I see, is there going to be a new boxing promotion? Zuffa?

Zuffa? Yes. Sorry. Yeah. So the UFC is doing something with the Saudis, and I think they're launching their first event in January. I think they're launching their first event the night before the big UFC on Paramount event.

So it'll be the 23rd?

Yes. I don't think they've announced anything in terms of the card, who's going to be on it. I mean, that's not a lot of time. That's not even a month from now. So I don't even understand how they're doing that. But they're probably going to do the same thing that Riyadh season is doing, which is really smart.

Riyadh Seasons is great. I mean, it's putting guys into that next level category of, Hey, you are a star.

And Turquyal Sheik is throwing crazy money.

Rightfully deserved for a lot of these guys. Oh, yeah.

They deserve it. Oh, they definitely do. But it's If you do that, you're going to get people to fight that would avoid each other ordinarily. We've seen that already. The Saudis have already been able to do that, get guys to fight, and you're going to put on the most exciting fighting fights. You're going to put on the best matchups. And so I think the UFC is trying to do that same model. And now that the Saudi's own Ring magazine, so they have the Ring magazine belt, which has always been the most prestigious belt. There's always a bunch of different champions in different weight classes. But if you're a fan of Ring magazine like I am, when you would get Ring magazine and they would have the Ring champion, Marvin Hagland, well, that's the fucking champion. That's him. Yeah, that's it. There might be a WBO guy out there, a WBA guy out there, but the reality is that's the guy. That's the guy. And the boxing needs a unified champion thing like that. So when you see Terrence in there with five belts, it's great that he's got all those belts. But why? It should be one belt.

It should be like, this is the super middleweight champion of the fucking planet, period. Fuck all your sanctioning bodies. That's the guy. That's it. One belt is all he needs.

And they're all different colors, too.

It's crazy. They're all cool looking. They're all cool looking. It's cool that he's got them all. I mean, you go over his living room. It's probably dope.

The Instagram picture of the cool.

Yeah, it looks great. It looks great when he was in the ring and he got them on his shoulders and shit, one on his waist. I wonder if they fight over who gets to be on the waist. I'll give you an extra hundred grand if you put it on your waist. But the reality is, it's like the belt doesn't mean anything. The fighter means something. And we all know who the champ is. We all know it's Terrence. If this other guy gets the belt, it's like, okay, you didn't beat Terrence Crawford, so you're not really the 168 pound champion.

But isn't that hard? Do you think for a boxer like that, is that a hard shadow to live in? Or do you think it's a shadow? Or is that labeled as a shadow? Because Terrence leaves and then you step up.

Well, that's different. When Terrence leaves, if he gives up all the belts and he really does decide to totally leave, which I'm not totally convinced, because I think they wanted him to have a rematch with Canelo, and I think he threw a big number at them. This is all I'm reading rumors online. I don't know what's-It's crazy. See, find out if that's true. Did they offer... Did Terrence Crawford demand a certain amount for a Canelo Ávarez rematch? Because he's coming in soon. I'll ask him in person, but I feel I feel like you could probably entice him for one more big fight. Probably could. One more big fight at '68 or maybe even at '54. I mean, really, you could fight at '47.

When do you think there comes a point where people need to just stop? There's always going to be money thrown at you, but when you think there's a point that like-It's different money.

It's different for every person. Here it is right here. So, Bernie Davis revealed that Terrence Crawford's price for a Canelo rematch, and it's massive. According to Davis, Crawford won't return to the ring with Canelo Alvarez unless he's paid $100 million, and he deserves it. Rightfully so. That Crawford earned $50 million for the first fight in September, but after a tactical low-action bout that disappointed many fans. Fuck off. Who Who the fuck did that disappoint? Who did that disappoint? You got to be a casual if that disappointed you. Tactical low-action bout. Who wrote this? I don't know. Fuck off.

I think I could write a better one than this.

I think boxing has some very disrespectful journalists. I see some disrespectful shit they write about boxers. Go back to that little thing, what it said there. Anyway, pressure now with turkey Alashake to decide whether the rematch is worth that money. Fans already calling for other opponents. Benavides, Batabiev, Bivol, fighters they believe bring real action. So this is a disrespectful. It's messed up. Real action.

Why is he dissing? Why are they dissing him like this?

They do that a lot. There's a lot of shit talking in boxing. Which I guess is fine. I like that there's not that much of that in MMA. Mma is much more respectful.

Really standard and respectful.

Yeah. And that guy deserves everything. He's one of the greatest to ever do it and one of the best switch hitters in the history of the sport.

Are you putting him above Floyd?

It's hard. They never fought each other, which I think would have been amazing. If they were both in their prime at the same time, that would have been fantastic to watch.

Because ain't Floyd supposed to fight Mike? Am I tripping? Yes.

I think I'm tripping. But I feel like that's going to be like Mike versus Roy or like Mike versus Logan. It looks more like a sparring. It's a feel good. More like sparring, really, than a fight-fight. How How is Floyd going to fight Mike Tyson?

Have you ever spoke to Mike Tyson?

Yeah, I've had him on a couple of times.

Yeah, he's my favorite. He's my favorite.

Bro, when he was in his prime, there was nobody like him. There was nobody like him because he had that speed. And that's something that you have. The speed of a lighter person in the frame of a heavyweight is an extraordinary gift because so many of these heavyweights, man, they got big power. But like Francis, big power, but they don't move like a lightweight guy. They don't move like a 170 pound guy. When Mike was in his prime, he was so fast. You could see guys trying to calculate and calibrate because it was different. They were used to fighting heavyweights. And all of a sudden, you got this guy bobbing and weaving and moving towards you.

It's crazy.

Your brain is being overloaded with all the possibilities. It was a totally different thing, man.

He's by far my favorite.

Oh, yeah. In his prime, he's the most extraordinary heavyweight that ever existed. Every show was an execution. It wasn't like, oh, my God, is Mike going to lose this one? No, in his prime, it was just all executions.

And I think the best thing about that, being popular back in the day, he was such a big time fighter. I was watching a lot of videos like Will Smith and Magic Johnson were showing up and Jordan and stuff. You know how crazy it is nowadays that we have social media that you don't have to go and watch someone live. But back then, when you see the video of Michael Jackson and in this hotel and you look out and it's like, wow, it's Michael Jackson. That wow factor is super cool. And he had that to the highest degree. Yeah.

Everybody dressed up in the best clothes. They all showed up. Chains on, watches on. Everything. It was an event to be seen at. And if you were one of the people that was ringside, you were an elite celebrity. And that was the Mike Tyson era. It was different. It was different It was different than any other heavyweight since Ali. So you had Ali and then Larry Holmes, who doesn't get the credit that he deserves.

He was fantastic, too.

I watched all these videos, too. Amazing fighter. But he lived in the shadow of Ali. And a lot of people hated him, too, because he beat up Ali when Ali was already done. That was tough to watch. And he had been Ali's sparring partner when Ali was younger. And everybody knew how good Larry Holmes was, and everybody knew that Muhammad Ali was older.

Would you do that? Would you do that? Would you do that if you was a sparring partner for your homie? That's got to be a difficult combo because you burn a bridge.

Yeah, you burn a bridge with the whole society. But part of it is you have to, right? Because if you are the heavyweight champion of the world and they want to set up a fight with Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Ali wants to fight you and they want to give you $10 million and it's going to be on TV and everybody's hyped up about it. What are you going to do? Say, no, I won't fight him. I'm going to relinquish my Crown. What are you going to do? I don't know if he had any opportunity to do anything other than fight him. But it's just like, Muhammad Ali was so beloved, not just as one of the greatest fighters of all time, but also as a cultural figure, that watching that man beat him up like that just beat the shit out of Ali. And then seeing Ali afterwards when he had the shakes and he had Parkinson's, and everybody knew that that was trauma-related Parkinson's. And knowing that Larry Holmes dished out a lot of that, I think in a lot of people's mind, that always... And I think that to this day is why Larry Holmes does not get the credit that he deserves.

He had one of the greatest jabs in the history of the sport.

Great I just saw a video of him, he was flicking it.

Even when he fought Mike. When he fought Mike, he was way past his prime. He had been out for a long time.

Mike did his thing.

But there was a round in that fight where Larry Holmes was popping that jab where it made you think like, Man, what would this fight have been like if Larry was in his prime? It would have been very interesting. I think Mike was on another level, though.

He was. When I see him, he just had the veins. That's my while for people. He was a tank.

He was a speedy tank. And just the skill, too. And also that style, that peekaboo style, was just so different than anything else anybody was doing. So it was so hard to prepare for. Most of these heavyweight boxers were standing straight up. They were throwing jabs and moving like Foreman or moving like Ken Norton or whoever they were. But Muhammad Ali was the only guy that moved like a lighter guy. He was different. But Mike Tyson was crouching and bobbing and weaving and coming at. It was a totally different thing to prepare for.

You can't prepare for something like that. That's like when someone is too athletic. That's like preparing for Miles Garrett right now. You just can't. He's going to have 25 sacs this year. It's like, Why do you prepare for something like that besides try to psych yourself into maybe I can do it? But this is not going to happen.

There's always going to be freaks. There's always going to be these athletic freaks that can just do things that no one else can do.

Now there's even more because you see high school football, 6'5, 280 on an Ohio State.

I'm like, man, what they got going on? People are bigger. Also, people are doing things for their kids at an early age to optimize their growth and making sure that they come out bigger and stronger and faster, getting them training, younger, strength and conditioning, and pliometrics and shit when they're real young to get them prepared for things. You know Vasili Lomachenko? Yes.

The little guy, man, he was fast.

That dude's dad took him out of boxing for two years to have him learn Ukrainian dance so that he have better footwork.

And he was dancing on people. I see. Oh, my God. I watch his highlights on Instagram.

Footwork was insane.

Usik's the same.

Same coach.

Usik's the same person.

Same coach.

I really like Usik.

Oh, my God. Usik's, again, one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. And not a big guy either.

He just knows where to go and when to go, which is nice.

What's also is constantly moving. He's never right in front of you. He's constantly stepping, stepping, stepping, and stepping. And He's setting you up. And he's always downloading and calculating your movements and your reactions to things. It's so skillful. That, to me, is the most beautiful thing about boxing, is that someone could stand in the fire and be so skillful. Like Crawford, I mean, standing right in front of Canelo, there was one point in the fight where he was pitty-patten him. Here's Lomachevko when he's in his prime. The movement was bananas. And it was just his ease of footwork. And it wasn't footwork like trying to get away from you. It was footwork standing right in front of you and stepping off to the side and cracking, like that shit. Like these angles is just... Unless you have tried to do that, you don't know how ridiculously difficult that is.

The conditioning all that is crazy.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Your legs have to be in peak form.

Super peak form.

It's just there's so many guys out there that you could learn from by watching, and they set the bar so high. And that is the difference between watching Keith Hackney versus Emmanuel Yarbrow way back in 1993 versus watching John Jones in 2025. It's like, we get to see now these guys that have seen it all, the Pyodere Yans, the Ilyott Toporeas, the Islam Makhachev. You get to see the elite of the elite today. And these young kids that are coming up now, they get to see that and learn from that and incorporate all these things. And you're seeing these guys that are fighting on Dana White's Contender Series that they look like World Championship caliber fighters, and they're not even in the UFC yet.

Most definitely the latter guys. Most definitely the latter guys.

Yeah, there's so many good guys now. But in the heavyweight division, it's still fairly shallow.

I know.

Which is where Gable comes It's funny.

I think I heard you say shallow about three times, Joe, in the most nicest way because I like to be humble with the words and I like to talk with the confidence. I really think I can go out there and do right by this big promotion and go out there and just be fantastic.

I think you can, too. And I think you can do what Mike Tyson did, which is revitalize the heavyweight division. Because other than John, who's, of course, a superstar, but he's Am I retired? The Tom Aspenal serial gone thing was a fucking disaster. That's a disaster. Tom Aspenal still can't see. He's got a fucked up right eyeball still.

He's really bad, right?

The reality is he might not ever fight again. Who He knows. If he has surgery on his eye and it doesn't go well and he can't see out of the eye, apparently he's still fucked up in his right eye. There's some tendon damage or something. And eyes are so tricky. You never know. Unless you're fucking complete psychopath like Michael Bisping, who fought 11 fights in the UFC blind in one eye, which is so crazy that he did that. Do you know what he did, that crazy motherfucker? What did he do? He memorized the eye chart. He memorized it so that he could cover his left eye. Oh, my God.

So whenever he went to an eye exam, he knew the letters.

They would say, All right, read the third chart. And he would say, A, B, C, D, E. He knew what the letters were.

Oh, he's smart.

He's crazy. Oh, he's He couldn't fucking see out of one of his eyes and still fought world-class fighters. I think 11 fights he had only being able to see out of one eye.

Yeah. I'm not really sure how to engage with the eye talk on Tom Aspenal, but I think he's a fantastic fighter. What do you mean by engage with the eye talk? I feel like getting poked in the eye sucks, and I just don't know how he feels. You know what I'm saying?

We don't know what he was experiencing.

Yeah, and nobody Nobody ever knows. But critiques are going to go online and say X, Y, and Z. But I'm just going to stay in the middle ground. I think Tom is a fantastic fighter. Cyril is great also. And I think a lot of them are also great also. You're going to always say it's really shallow. And I believe it's shallow, too. And I believe I can go out there and do the best I can and really dominate when I need to. But just when I see Tom Aspinal, Tom Aspinal reminds me of a guy from Turkey that I wrestled in the Olympics. He was a 2016 Olympic champ. His name is Tahar Agul. He was 6'4, same size as Tom, same build, same everything. And I went out there and I beat him 8 to 0. And I was in his face for that 6 minutes. And I let him know that I was here. And I feel like in that instance, that's when the tides change. And I feel like with a guy like Tom, I think I look at him as a guy like Taha Akul. He's on top. He's the leader.

He's still fresh. But I think there's another hungry guy that's going to come. And hopefully it's me that's going to come and go out there and do what I need to do.

Well, listen, I hope Tom gets back in because, again, we don't know really what's going on with his eye. And for all the critics, you need to know this, the right eye, that's the problem. But if you look at when he fought, his left eye, the finger went deeper in his left eye than it did his right eye. So if you think he's faking it, he was knuckled deep in that fucking left eye.

He was all up in that eye.

Yeah. I mean, it's horrible to see. To undergo multiple eye surgeries. Multiple eye surgeries.

That's horrible.

By the time a statement goes out, I'll probably have surgery on one eye already. Next surgery is coming mid-January. Neck surgery? So he's having surgery on both eyes?

You know what? It's really messed up. But I think the way the post-fight interview went, because I like to look at how people approach the world also, too. And he was just upset how the people were reacting, saying, why the fuck are you booing? Why are you doing this? I mean, there could have been a great approach to that of him saying, man, I got my eye poked, but I'm going to come back stronger from this.

Well, the problem is people are always going to doubt you when you get poked in the eye. There's always going to be a bunch of people like, oh, you're fine, because people have gotten poked in the eye and they have continued fighting. But is that smart? It's a foul. First of all, I think Every time a guy gets poked in the eye, one point deduction immediately, instantly, maybe even two points. You should never do that to a person. Never. One thing you notice about Pyotr Yant's fight with Marab, he fights like this. His hand is fist. So when he's got his hand up like this and the front hand is extended, he's not doing that.

He's guiding you, honestly.

Well, he's letting you know this motherfucker is coming. And he's also in a shell, very well protected. By having that one hand up like that and have that shoulder, he's got the chin blocked, and then he's doing this with this hand. It's a very good defensive position. Also very skillful because he's so good defensively in terms of his movement and the way he's able to roll with punches and get out of the way in But he never pokes in the eye. He's not doing that. Cyril Ghan has a habit of doing that.

Why do you think that is?

You could speculate. You could speculate all day long. You could say he wants to do it. I mean, ask John. John's poked people in the eyes.

He does it all the time. I mean, even if you would have took the points from him, he still would have won.

Yeah, I know. It's one of those things. It's like, here's the problem. Why are the fingers out in the first place? Why don't they cover that shit up? Why Why don't they have it like one of those everlast bag gloves? Like a mitten. Where it's like a mitt. Yeah. I mean, have the thumb out because you don't grapple with these anyway. You don't do this. You never do this. So why do the fingers have to be loose? If you grapple, you're grappling like this or like this. If you're clenching your hands together, you're never clenching your hands together like this. You never interlace your fingers together. So why the fuck are they open in the first place when it only causes problems? If they developed an MMA glove that covered the tips of the fingers like like a mitten. We would have way less problems with this shit. You'd occasionally probably have a thumb in the eye every now and again, but you would have at least eight less possibilities for each fight of things going into your eye. It just makes sense. And it wouldn't hinder grappling. You just have a thin piece of leather that the padding goes over the knuckles, the piece of leather goes over the tip of the fingers, and have it come down like this, like a mitten.

But it's not hard to design.

If it was a mitt and I'm on top and I grab wrist control, do you think the leather of the mitt sticks harder?

Probably. Yeah, it'll probably aid grappling. It'll probably make fights better. It'll probably do stuff like you'd probably be able to get more takedowns, Maybe. I don't know, man. Maybe when the leather gets wet, maybe it becomes slippery like a finger. We'd have to find out. But at least we would have less eye pokes. And it's not going to hinder the striking at all. There's no No need to have these fingers exposed like this.

No, there's no need. But two great fighters. I mean, accidents happen.

Accidents happen and also purposeful fouls happen. And I'm not saying that Cyril Ghan did it on purpose, but he did it like five times in that fight. I rewatched that fight a couple of times. And every time Aspinal came towards him, he was doing this. Every time. Fingers outstretched, pointed towards the face. It's illegal. You're not supposed to ever do that. Your fist should It's always be balled up when it's moving towards your opponent's face. But we don't have to have these goddamn fingers covered like that or open like that. They should be covered. It's not impossible to do. It could be really easy to design a glove like that. I don't understand for the life of me how the sport has been around since 1993 and no one has introduced gloves like that.

True. Now you're right. A really good thing I wanted to ask you is for someone new coming in to a sport that a lot of people know, how do you think they should bridge the popularity of the sport and also the real life of who the person is? I might be saying this in a hard way.

No, I know what you're saying.

How do you think they should... Because I've been around a lot of people, but you know it always gets bigger and always gets bigger. And how do you bridge that gap of keeping that same mind frame of like, man, I'm the guy, but I need to reset. I always need to reset. I need to make sure Yeah.

Well, it's going to be dependent upon you, right? And it's going to be a rocket ride that you're on. And the pressure and just the overall not being able to go to the mall is going to be weird. It's going to get weird. It'll get weird. You're going to get mobbed at the airport. It's going to get weird. And you're going to have to figure out a way to have your own private time. That's very important. When guys never have private time, they're always surrounded by people. You could lose yourself. You could lose way. And just Fame itself. Fame itself is very complicated. It's very complicated for people, especially for fighters, when your entire identity relies on the way other people perceive you. That's not good. It feels good when you're on top because everybody's like, oh, there's Cable. He's a fucking man. Whoa, you're the man. You're the man. But if you rely on other people's opinions of you for your self-esteem and your self-worth, then the moment you have a stumble, what if you get eye-poked? What if you get eye poked? What if you get eye poked and then also, Gable's a bitch.

Gable fuck. And you're like, what? And then you're dealing with the opinions of morons, and they're affecting your own feelings about yourself. And then there's all the other pressures that come with money and people trying to scam you and business deals and bullshit and this and that. And they want you to do movies and that shit. Look, that's the bane of fighters' existence. When Hollywood gets involved. That in a lot of ways led to the decline of Ronda Rousey, in a lot of ways, Conor McGregor. People start fucking throwing everything at you. You're doing cell phone commercials and all this different shit. And that stuff gets in the way. It gets in the way of your training, but it also gets in the way of your ability to have that deep pressure time, to be yourself and to be alone with your thoughts, which I think is very important just to solidify your own understanding of who you are as a human being. And you don't want to be defined by other people's opinions and perceptions. And then there's also, the UFC does a fantastic job of showing who a fighter really is. The Countdown series, the UFC Embedded series.

So when they're doing stuff like that and you get to see this person interacting with their family, going through training camp, going through the weight cut, and you get to see who they are, joking around with people, hanging out with their friends, laughing. That's important, too, because people really want to relate to you. They don't want this guy who just appears every five months. You don't know shit about him. And then all of a sudden there he is in the rain again. And you're putting all these things on him and imagining what he's like. The more they can get to see behind the curtain, the better it is for you, especially if you're a good person and you're an interesting person. They get to see. It's also inspiring for people. You like to talk about yourself like you're a regular guy. You put your shoes on one foot at a time like everybody else. But like, wow, look at the greatness this regular guy can accomplish. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can do something like that. Maybe whatever I'm doing in life, if I'm a fucking skier, whatever your job is. Maybe I can be great and be a normal person like this guy is.

True. No, 100 %. Well, that's a fantastic answer because I just feel like at some point I'll get to that spot of how do I know if someone's not real? How do I know if someone is in that space of things change? And there's leaches, there's bad people. So it's always a nice thing to have someone that has surpassed that level that you can finally see and be like, man, how did you? How did you change direction?

John's a great guy to talk to about that. Most definitely. Obviously, John's had his stumbles, which is when When people talk about John and the things that John's got in trouble with, I'm like, Listen, do you want a wild motherfucker or not? If you want a guy to be the greatest of all time in fucking cage fighting, he's going to be wild. That's one of the reasons why he's great. When John was, what is he, 22 years old when he won the title? 23. Maricio Shogun Hua, who's an all-time great pride legend, he opens the fight with a flying knee. Who does that? You You got to be wild. You got to be crazy. You got to be a wild fella. That's John. Obviously, there's stuff he shouldn't have done. There's a lot of extracurricular activities, a lot of partying. It's not healthy. It's not good. But That is what comes with being that a guy. John could probably tell you more about this than anybody that's ever lived. Like, what were the stumbles? What could I have done differently? And he probably could help prepare you more than anybody ever.

Most definitely. He's already put a big foot into it. And man, he's amazing with a lot of things now. He talks so well now. A lot of things are in a sense of he's trying to look out for me in business opportunities and places that I need to go. And it's amazing. A lot of people don't do that, especially when you see the peaks and valleys of that person and their public info also. And a lot of people don't want to give people the chance because you see something about someone until you finally meet them. And it's like, man, this guy's a whole different person you would have never expected. And so, man, with John, he's just opened a lot of doors and he is doing that guiding of me.

Well, that's great, too, because John is essentially guiding his replacement, which is really hard for a lot of people to have that self-awareness, know that there's only a certain amount of time that I can do this for. And I see this young, great man who's coming up, and I'm going to help him. And I'm going to give him some advice that maybe it would have been amazing if someone gave me. Because John didn't have some heavyweight champion training with him that could teach him those things. No, he started from scratch. Especially not someone at that level, the level that he's at.

Man, I know he's honored. We're both honored. Like I said, he called me today. He was just, Man, I really think you should just let the world know who you are and just get people the real feel of who you need to be. I've always loved to have, like you just talked about, the UMC Abedded. You see the real human being. I've always liked people seeing a real human being because we all do shit the same way. There's There's nothing special. There's nothing special. Some people just have more money. Some people just have more status. But at the end of the day, hopefully we can all sleep in a bed. And I know some people don't, which is sad to see, but it's just some people live different lives. And I want to live a life where it's happy and healthy with the people I have. And I can meet so many people, and I feel like I'm doing a great job right now. So, man, any input I can get on how to be better, how to be more mature, how to be more sound, especially from John, I'm getting a lot to hear from you.

You get different perspectives of you are in a different realm film than John also. But you guys are also in the same place. You do the podcast, and John's semi-retired. But you see the two different lives of two different well-respected people.

That mindset that you have to really want to acquire that information and really sort it out and know that these challenges are coming your way. The money and the Fame and all that stuff is the thing that everybody focuses on. But really, the focus is on excellence. Excellence. Excellence is what brings you the money. Excellence is what brings you the Fame. And the moment you start thinking about the Fame and the money and not thinking about the excellence, you've lost your way. You've lost your way. And a lot of people lose their way. A lot of people, that money and that Fame, it starts coming. And all of a sudden you're just thinking about numbers. You're thinking about the house you're going to buy and the car you're going to drive and all that stupid shit. And you lose your way. And one of the things that I always try to tell people, I try to tell those young comedians, especially, Is that think of the attention that you have like it has a number value. If you had $100, you know you can only spend $100. Let's imagine your mind only has 100 units of focus.

You have 100 units of focus. Any focus that you have on other shit outside of the thing that brings you excellence is just robbing from excellence. That's all it is. If you're concentrating on haters on social media, or if you got a crazy bitch in your life that's ruining everything, or you got some friend who's a hater and you think he's maybe hoping you fail, all that stuff that's distracting and it's just robbing attention from excellence. And some of it's unavoidable, and some of it actually strengthens your resolve to have a certain amount of shit in your life. Just to understand how to maintain and still be excellent despite of all that. There's probably some resilience building that comes from that. But protect your focus. It's precious. Protect your time. Protect that energy that you have to invest in things. It's so precious. The mind, your focus and your drive, that is everything in your life. That's everything. And anything that steals from that. I remember this was one fighter, and he was a very good fighter that was fighting in pride, and he had this crazy girlfriend. And every time he was going to fight, the day before the fight, the girl would start problems, and she would start fights, and she left the hotel like one o'clock in the morning and went down to the bar.

She wanted him to fail. She wanted to be more important than his fighting career. And his fighting career was so important and so overwhelming that she felt like she wasn't getting the attention that she needed. So she would go get attention from him, and she would steal from him. And it was crazy. And this guy, he never wound up being a champion. And he was a very talented guy, too. I don't want to say his name, but it was one of those things where it's like, man, there are people in your life you got to recognize when you're dealing with that a person. You got to recognize that. You got to cut them out. You got to get rid of them. They're stealing. They're stealing from your focus. They're stealing from your ability to create excellence. And that's what you're in the business of. You're in the business of excellence. And anybody that's trying to steal from that, Like, those are liabilities. You got a hole in the bottom of your boat. You got to patch that shit up. Yeah.

Well, it's just like Mike Tyson said, once you're favored by God, you're also favorite by the devil, too.

That's so true, too. Yeah. The temptations will come. And then also you start believing your own bullshit. I mean, look at John when he wasn't training. But luckily for John, he was so much better than everybody in the division that all it took was a readjustment. Like the Dominic Reyes fight, he I almost lost that fight. Dominic Reyes, as great as he was that night, should not have been beating Jon Jones. I think Jon Jones, with a real focus and a real drive towards destroying Dominic Reyes would be on another level.

I think so, too.

It's like, he is the best guy to be in your corner, man, because he's made all the mistakes and still come out the goat. Like, who Who better to tell you how to do it right?

There's no one better. Man, probably the greatest, of course. The greatest by far.

What do you do for chill time? What do you do to unwind?

Honestly, right now, I like Call of Duty. I play a lot of Warzone. Roni 2K, you know who that is? No. The dude that made the basketball game? Okay. So I got my own player on 2K, and it says, So when I load into the game, it says my real name. And then people know you're playing against me. So it's either I'm playing Call of Duty or 2K. I mentioned before, the French Bulldogs. I like to take care of French Bulldogs.

I feel like- Jamie's got one. You do? Yeah. Oh, he's so cute. Should have brought him today. Should have brought him. What? We didn't know. We didn't know you were in the French Bulldogs.

So I had... Sadly, I had two pass away. I just had one pass away. He had IVD in his neck. And that's a bad-What is that? It's a disk disease that happens in French Bulldogs because they're bred so bad. So my first one had it in his back. He was He was playing all day. And then I turned and he was paralyzed in an instant. And I was like, oh, man, that's not good. So I had to put him down. Oh, that's horrible. And then I adopted one after. This is like, I adopted one a year ago. He just passed away a couple of weeks ago. His name was Archie. B, my little guy. He had it in his neck, and I had him on painkillers for six months. And I looked in, and one day he rolled wrong and he yelped again. And I was like, we got to take him in. Oh, that's horrible. So it was bad. I I got bad attachments to Friends Bulldogs. They're like my... Since I'm having a real baby now, that's like my second baby.

You're going to be amazed how much you love your real baby more than you love your dogs. As much as I love my dogs, it just...

There's just another level.

Oh, it's beyond. It doesn't even compare. One of my dogs went to surgery today. He had a hernia. I have a Golden Retriever, and I have a King Charles Spaniel. He's the cuteest little dog. He's so fucking cute. He's seven months old, and he was born with a little hernia. It's like some of them get that little hernia in their tummy. So they had to stitch them up. But when I was playing with them last night, I was so scared. I was like, What if something happens to him? I can't take it because I love him so much. He's so sweet. When I pick him up, he like, kiss me constantly and he makes noise like, and sometimes he barks while he's kissing And then you're like, God, I love you, too. I love you, too. And his little tail's wagging. He wags his tail with his whole body. Like his whole body's wagging.

Just wiggling all over. Oh, yeah. Mine would go after the ears.

Yeah, he does that, too.

And he would put a whole nibble on the ear and then he would switch sides. And then he would switch sides. Yeah, mine does that, too. I'm like, Oh, let me live for a little bit. But I'm his whole world. And I feel like sometimes we forget that.

Yeah. Well, they're little love devices. They just want love from you and they want to give you love. They never have bad days. They're They're never shitty. They're never in a bad mood. They're always cool. Every day is the same thing. Every day I see them in the morning, like, Good morning. And he's a little crazy. And I get on the ground with them on the carpet and roll around.

Just letting them roll all over.

I love dogs. If it was up to me, I'd have 50 dogs.

I wish we could make them live longer. I know. Making them live longer would be crazy. Like, cats are like 20 years. Why can a dog be 20 years?

Well, I think they are working on that. I think there's actual startups right now that are working on animal longevity. Which would be cool. Yeah. They're working on different medical interventions that can allow dogs to live longer, which is fascinating. And then sometimes people, they clone their dogs.

Tom braided just did that. I don't know how he did it, but I mean. That's weird. Hey, have a good time.

That's a Pet Cemetery shit.

That is. That might be a hereditary.

I don't know if I'm into that.

I don't know how I feel about that.

I feel like every dog has their own unique personality. And as much as I love the dogs that I have now. I had my dog Marshall. He's almost nine, or he just turned nine, rather. And I've had him since he was a puppy. I love him to death. But then I got this new dog Charlie, and I love him to death, too. He's a totally different personality. I don't mind new dogs and new personalities. I don't need the same dog over and over and over again. You know what I mean? I think that's weird.

You just tried Friends Bulldog. They got like 12 different personalities.

I love Carl. Jamie brings Carl in. He's He's a little psycho.

He's got too many personalities.

He runs at you and just wants to play.

They got that bowling ball head.

I know. He's a little ball muscle, too. Carl's jacked. Carl's got... He's getting stacked.

I need to see a picture.

You got pictures of him? Pull up a It fits in. Sure, Carl. He's adorable. He plays at my Golden, and he just throws himself like a meat missile at my Golden. Because my Golden is so gentle, which is great because Charlie is only 15 pounds. My little dog. And so my Golden is playing. And he gently puts aaw over him when they play. There's Carl. Look at that in the face. Look at that in the face.

I just know he does everything extra. Oh, yeah. Oh, look at him sleep.

That's really nice. He's adorable. But when he plays with Marshall, it's really crazy. We got a video of him playing with Marshall.

Did you get his nose done? No. No? Wow, that's perfect. He had a good nose. That's really good.

Some of them have fucked up noses.

Well, they come out like this. Oh, And then they can't breathe. And so they breathe out their mouth. And sometimes they got to get...

They'd like to sauter. They clean that out.

They make a bigger hole.

That's awful.

But some of them have it where you have to go in and help the esophagus because their face is flat. So you got to help the back and cut it to where it can go down the pipe. Oh, no. Crazy. I wish those dogs could live forever. Those dogs got a million different characters.

I know. Well, I love all kinds of dogs, man. I love I love German Shepherds and Belgian Malmois.

Can't Corso be cool?

They're a little dangerous.

That's what I'm hearing. They only lower to one person, if I'm not mistaken?

They don't like to listen.

Well, never mind.

My boy, Mark Delegrate, from Sít Yó Thong Muay Thai. He coach a lot of UFC fighters, Coach Kenny Florian. Great Muay Thai coach, great guy. Works with UFC. He had a Connie Corso. They had to put him down. Bid him down. Bid him down. Bid him down. Bid him down. Bid him down. Down on them. Yeah. And he had it for years.

Out of nowhere?

Well, he was testing them. Sometimes those dogs, and not all of them, but some of them, they will test you. And you just can't have a dog that's biting you.

No, because what else?

What if it bites your kid. Yeah, What if it bites your wife? Facts. What if it bites the mailman?

You never know.

Yeah. It's not all of them. I've had Pitbulls, and I never had a Pitbull that even wanted to bite a person. They were always the sweetest with people. But then you hear stories.

Which is crazy. I know. Because how can I go online and see a Pitbull just not letting go of somebody? But all of a sudden, the next video, I see a Pitbull wearing a Christmas sweater with Paul shoes on.

I know. So it's weird. I know. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't. But it's just like people. Some people are born crazy.

Some people are born crazy. Yeah. Are you big in anything? What do you believe in, conspiracy-wise? What's your big one?

Don't open up that door, Gable. Don't open up that door.

Oh, my God. You all, I got to tell you this- I love a good conspiracy. My dad's diehard conspiracy. If you and him had a talk, what is his big one?

What's the big one with him?

I don't even know. But I know he's really bad. I think the biggest one right now, he just said it, but I don't even know. I don't even want to say it wrong. But that's my thing. But I'm big on conspiracies, too.

What is the subject? Do you remember the subject?

Some about I don't even want to say it. Okay. I don't even want to say it right now.

Okay. We'll talk off air. Yeah. Okay.

But I believe there's a lot of things we don't know as people, and I believe there's a lot of...

A lot of conspiracies are real. That's the problem. The problem with conspiracy theories is some of them are crazy and ridiculous. But the reason why people entertain crazy and ridiculous ones is because some of them are real and they're so nuts that you go, They did what? Just when you find out about US history alone, You find out that the reason why we got into Vietnam was-I don't know this. Okay, it's called the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was supposedly the North Vietnamese, the Viet Cong, attacked one of our ships, but it was fake. They faked it. It's not real. It's called a false flag. And they did it just to have a story so that we would have an excuse to invade Vietnam.

So we sent all those people to Vietnam for nothing?

A lot of people died for nothing. A lot of people died for nothing. And a lot of people made a lot of money. And it probably had to do with drugs, too, because they were removing heroine out of Vietnam. I mean, it was control of the heroine trade was a big part of it. That was also one of the reasons why we were in Afghanistan. While we were in Afghanistan, heroine production in Afghanistan was 94 % of the world's heroin.

And it ramped up after we invaded Afghanistan.

It went up. Heroin production, not only did it go up, but we were guarding poppy fields for the Taliban. Why do we need to guard for the Why do we need to guard them? Well, that's a really good question.

Are we using them for medical here? Or they're just getting used to fuck people up?

No. It's money. There's people, there's dirty money that gets moved around for sure. When you're dealing with something like the drug trade and billions of dollars are going all over, people want a piece of that. And there's high level people that are dirty, and they get involved in that, and they make decisions based on that, and they put people's lives at risk, and people die because of it. And that probably happened in Afghanistan. It definitely happened in Vietnam. And people don't want to believe that. People are hearing this right now. Oh, stop with that nonsense. But it's true. I mean, there's a video of Heraldo Rivera interviewing these military guys that were guarding poppy fields in Afghanistan. And the guy who's interviewing is very reluctant to talk about it, but it was on Fox News. And he had to talk about it because everybody was aware of it. It was becoming a big conspiracy online, and they were coming up with some a rational reason why they needed to guard their heroin production because we need them to tell on the Taliban and like, really? Really? So we're letting the farmers poison young people and heroine addicts all over the world because we want them to give us information about...

Is that really what's going on? Or are you motherfuckers making money out of this?

They got to be making a lotA lot of money, too. A lot of money. A lot of money. Well, I just saw a story about that guy. He was a football player from Australia. He was selling drugs. What was that story? He's not from Australia. He went to USA, quarterback. He was selling drugs? He was selling drugs out of an apartment in Australia for a cartel that was from Tijuana. I forgot his name. It's his quarterback. I feel like a lot of people know it.

Is it a real recent story?

It's a real story. A recent story? From what I've seen, it might be a couple of years older. But, yeah, he got caught because someone along the way was a middleman for a lot of-Yeah.

Wild true story behind cocaine quarterback, signal collar for the cartel. Wow.

And they said he was making like a million dollars a day. And cash And he was trying to move it through Las Vegas casinos. But the middleman, someone messed up the bet and he lost the money. So he had a loan money from someone, and that someone was like an undercover waiting for him a year later and caught him at a McDonald's before he went across the road to Tijuana or something. It's crazy, you know? Drugs control a lot of things, and it's messed up.

Well, it's the money. When you think about how much money gets moved around in the drug game, and people get tempted by that. And then you get a hold of some legitimate businessman and say, Listen, there's a way for you to get 10X return on your money. You invest in this, and we do that. It's simple. You'll never get dirty. All the money goes to offshore accounts. No one will know about it. You can retire when you're 45. Crazy. And then people start getting roped in. And it's also the excitement of doing something naughty. That's part of it, too. Some people like to ride bulls. Some people like to do some shit they're not supposed to do. They get addicted to doing things that they are not supposed to do. They get addicted to the life. Dea agents, a lot of DEA agents become drug dealers.

What's just like that show Narcos, Mexico?

Yes. It's the The same thing. Exactly. Or Cocaine Cowboys. Have you ever watched that documentary? No. What's that about? Amazing. Cocaine Cowboys, one, and then there's Cocaine Cowboys, two. There was so much corruption in Miami during the 1980s, during the cocaine time, that one graduating class of the Police Academy, the entire graduating class, either wound up murdered or in jail.

How do you do that?

Because they were all corrupt. They were all involved in cocaine dealing, all of them, because there was so much money. Everybody's driving a Corvette. Everybody's living large. Everybody's doing blow and wearing diamonds. It's crazy. It's like you get caught up in that life. And if you're involved in, like you're a police officer and everybody around you is dirty, it's more likely you're going to be dirty, too.

Well, now aren't they blowing the Ecuadorian ships up that are coming to here that are having a lot of drugs on them?

Yeah, Venezuela, right?

Venezuelan ships. They're just blowing on them up? I don't even know. I'm not educated on stuff like that. But I wonder if it's to keep the trade here.

No, I doubt it. I think more likely what it is is because Trump genuinely hates that they're bringing drugs into this country. Is there other things involved, too? I don't know. I mean, I'm sure some of it has to do perhaps with politics. I mean, I think that's a reasonable assumption. But Jamie, I just sent you something. Here's what's interesting. One of the things that Trump was saying is they're poisoning our kids and that 100,000 people are dying every year from drug overdoses. We have to put a stop to this. From the time Trump's been in office, deaths by overdose have dropped off a cliff. Look at that. Look at 2024 and leading into 2025. Just going down. These are all deaths from overdoses. I mean, that's crazy. Like, look at that. From all drugs Which is the top one. Look at that drop. I mean, that's crazy. So you see the peak was in 2022 or it looks like actually between 2023 and 2024. That's the peak where people are dying. And then from the time Trump's in office, it's taking a fucking sharp downturn. And why is that? Well, part of it is because they're blowing up these fucking boats that are bringing in all the drugs.

And not just drugs, but drugs that are tainted with fentanyl.

Fentanyl is terrible. Terrible.

Because a little piece can kill you. Exactly. It's smaller than a penny and you're dead.

And people are snorting lines of it.

And they don't even know what's in there. And the cartel, they're buying, they're taking shitty drugs and mixing it with fentanyl so it has an effect. People are getting it from what they think is a Xanax, and it's not a Xanax. It's fake and it's got fentanyl in it, and they're dying from that. They're dying from coke. They think it's coke and fentanyls in that. It's horrible.

There's so much access to things in this world right now that I feel like there's so many attainable things that people don't even think about that. A lot of shit happens in this world that we just have no clue. And it's weird. And I just don't know the variety that I'm bringing to the combo, but I'm just saying it just to say it, just to say it. But it's different. There's like a social media, you can meet so many people and just go in a random places and meeting people, and then you can get roped up in the wrong things. And it's just the downhill of starts.

Yep. You take a bad turn, and next thing you know, you're on a bad road and you keep going. Eventually, I'm going to get out of this game. You can't. No. Then you're in jail or you're dead. Ed Calderon, the guy who's been on this podcast many times. He used to work for the Mexican military. Now he's an American citizen, but he's a cartel expert. And the stories that he's told us about the fucking cartel and the amount of money they have. I mean, essentially, they have a giant military operations. It's all cartel. And they go to war with each other. It's crazy.

Is it Pablo Escobar that had the money in the walls of his house?

I mean, probably. I don't know.

Or who died and he buried it all over in different places? Sure.

They all do that. I'm sure Escobar did that. I think they all do that. They have so much money. That was one of the things of Cocaine Cowboys, was this pilot. They had millions of dollars buried in his backyard. He just take garbage bags, fill it with millions of dollars of cash, dig a big hole in the backyard, and bury it there because he couldn't bring it into a bank.

Why not just give it away?

I'll fuck give it away because they're doing coke and they want more money. They just don't know what to do with it. And they can't just have it all laying around their house, and someone will break in their house and kill them and take their money. It's like, I'm not even going to send this over with. It is a crazy game. But I can't recommend that documentary enough, Cocaine Cowboys. Cocaine Cowboys. You'll watch it. You go, What the fuck?

Where's it streamed at?

It's probably on everywhere. Where is Cocaine Cowboys? Can you get it?

Sounds like Amazon.

I'm sure it's on everything. It might even be on Netflix. But it's incredible because you realize, wow, cocaine built Miami. Miami had more banks per capita. I don't know if it still does, but at one point in time, more banks per capita than any other city in the country. And it's because those banks were laundering money. Damn. They were laundering cocaine money. It was all coming in.

And Miami never sleeps either. So it was all night affair.

Yeah, that is a crazy fucking town. That is not a good town if you want to a fighter and live a low-key, disciplined life. No.

All of a sudden you're here, then you end up here, then all of a sudden it's 08: 00 AM, you're at the beach at 12: 00. It can't be right. No. It can't be right. That's a dark hole that a lot of people should not be in. But How do you get out, though?

I don't know. Ask John. I mean, he seems to have navigated those waters better than anybody because usually it ruins everything in your life. He's obviously had some missteps, but still comes out the greatest, which is not everybody's path. But obviously, John is smart in that he spends a lot of time doing the things that he wants to do, spends a lot of time training his dog, doing tactical stuff. He's always shooting guns and training. You got to have things outside of that life that you enjoy other than just partying. Yeah, you got to have fun.

You got to have some type of gap. Some release. Yeah. And he's got a good release, and he's got a good mentality of what the release should be and how it should go and where he needs to go with it. I've been with him now since we have this close connection. I've been with him to places, and he's always kept me on a straight path, which is really nice. A lot of people that may I like to take shots or like to do something like that. There's always a little, Man, do you want one? But there's never been a time where he's like, Man, I think you should try. And it's great because as a younger kid that's coming up, he sees the potential. And that's all that matters. And I just need someone to see it. And, man, he's been great with it for sure.

Yeah. When you're around a bunch of people that party and they drag you into that world, it's so easy for people to get hooked. It's so easy for people to just get roped into that lifestyle because people essentially, for the most part, imitate their atmosphere. And if you're around that an atmosphere, those are the type of people that you're with, and those are the type of thrills that they're seeking. You can get caught up in that. And it's the bane of every fighter's existence. Is women and partying.

Yeah. He's always been like, Hey, you got to stay clean. Go home. And that's been the best part about it.

That's great, man. That is fucking great. So what is the timeline right now? Have you signed a deal with the UFC? I know they're talking to you.

What's going on? They've reached out many times, but I told them just I'm on the lines. Right now, I'm waiting for my little girl, my baby girl to come out. So January is a dead month for me.

But are you signed with the UFC? No.

No. I'm not signing anybody.

But have they offered you a fight yet?

Yeah, they've reached out about a couple of things, but no one specific. They just offer dates.

Do you want to have fights in other organizations first? Because one of the problems with a guy like you is that you're so talented that you could have one, two fights in the UFC and all of a sudden be fighting a top contender, which I think you would do well. Yeah, I would like to. But if I was a manager of a boxer and a guy with your potential, I would do what Customado did with Mike Tyson. You have them fight a bunch of different guys like you did with Dirty Boxing, small organization, MMA fights, build up those skills, get a lot of experience while you're constantly training and growing and getting better. And then once you enter into the UFC, you're essentially already the champion. It's just nobody knows it yet.

I would really like to debut at the White House. Debut. I would like to debut at the White House. I would like to do one or two more fights before then. And then if I can sign, do a big release. Hey, he signed. Good job. And then I début at the White House. That's my perfect world.

Is it hard to get fights right now?

Maybe a little bit. I don't ask. I just say yes, and then just keep moving. I leave it up to John to watch the people and all the coaches to watch and see what goes on. But if a guy says no, there's no hard feelings. Just keep it pushing and hopefully I can get to the guy that says yes.

That's the problem is that when a guy gets so much hype around him, there's a lot of guys who want to eventually be a world champion in and go, I'm not ready for this guy yet. That's okay. Even good guys are still like, This guy's not... He's on another level right now.

But if they do think that, just whenever you think you are ready, I will be there waiting.

That's terrifying. Just the way he said that.

I will be there waiting.

The way he said that, that's terrifying. A lot of people heard that like, I don't want to wait. Fuck this.

I don't want to wait. Fuck this amount.

But also the smart move might be to get a hold of you now before you get better.

You can try now, too.

But you know what I'm saying? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? To be like, Pick your poison.

I mean, like I said, Dirty Boxing, that last fight in November with that double leg, that's the worst I ever be. And it's need to repeat that to the world to let them get a refresher. That is the worst Gael Stevenson will be, and the best is when he'll come back his next time. But after that, that's the last worst I'll ever be after that.

Do you have a blueprint, like a map of what you'd like to accomplish in your career?

Yes. Long term? Yeah, long term, I'd like to be champion, UFC champion. I think Steepe has about five defenses, if I'm not mistaken. I would like to try to beat that record if I can. And if I can't, die trying. I played in NFL. I won the Olympics. I would just like to be just an overall good man. A lot of people want to look at, like we just talked about, a lot of people want to look at the success, the He was funny. I just want to be an excellent man. You know what I'm saying? I want to look back and be like, damn, Gable did that. And I saw Dana White. He had a picture and he said, Let your last name be the reason that people remember you. And I want the Steve's last name to be something that people remember. And I want them to look at me and be like, damn, through the peaks and valleys, Gable stood up and he became someone in his life. And he provided for his family and he went home healthy. And that's what I want. Championship is going to come, but I feel like a lot of people are so obsessed with I got to do this.

But I'm obsessed with being the best person in the Gable, because if I'm the best person in the Gable, you're not going to be able to beat me.

Keep that mindset and you will accomplish these things, my man. I appreciate it. I believe it. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you very much for being here. Yes, you're already know. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. And I can't wait to see you fight in the UFC. Man, I can't wait. It's going to be fun. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Bye, everybody.