Transcript of JRE MMA Show #176 with Dustin Poirier

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What's happening, bro? Good to see you, my friend.

Good to be back, bro.

Dustin Poirier, the light heavyweight.

It's thick boy summer.

You looking healthy, son.

Yeah, like 190, man.

You look good, man.

I feel good, dude. It feels good to eat and not count carbohydrates and calories.

Yeah, we were talking about that. Were you like still like a little part of you is like looks at meals and goes, oh, well, I mean, for the last 20 years I've been macro and, you know, I knew I had a fight coming up.

Even if I didn't have a fight, I had to be in striking range from 155, right? So I was always looking at the back of every label, being real cautious of what I eat. It's like ingrained in my daughter now. When we go to Whole Foods, she'll grab something off the counter and say, Dad, it only has 3 ingredients. Like she knows what's up.

Well, it's good to think that way anyway, for sure, especially with the ingredients.

Yeah, that's the first thing she goes to. Like, if she wants some chips, it only has 5 ingredients. That's like a thing for her when we're shopping.

Yeah, well, that's smart, man. That's cool. You're raising them right.

Trying to, bro. I'm trying to put the stuff I learned in fighting, you know, all the years. Yeah, good use.

It's, uh, it is kind of crazy. I think it's the worst thing about fighting is the weight cutting. Can you imagine if everybody just— first of all, Tell me if you agree, but I think the UFC needs way more weight classes.

I do too.

Way more.

I do too. Because the gaps are so big. I mean, just if you look at boxing compared to mixed martial arts, the jumps in weight are so big from each weight class. But also all the shows they're putting on, they'd have more titles, more belts, more big fights. But also, man, with that, there's gonna be a lot of people trying to cut a little bit extra, trying to be double champ in every weight class. I think it does cause more confusion.

Yeah, but that's better than the Extreme weight cuts. The extreme weight cuts are terrible. You saw that dude a few, like, I guess it was about 3 events ago, who face-planted and got removed off the card. Yeah, that is crazy. You're getting someone to the brink of death 24 hours before they have an MMA fight, which is the most, if not the most dangerous sport, one of the most dangerous sports in the world, for sure. And you're doing something to your body to extremely weaken it 24 hours before you fight. It's bananas.

Dude, I did it so many times. You preach it to the choir. I know, but there's been so many times I felt like that, like stand up too quick after a weight cut and I'm like, you know, I might go down.

Oh dude, I mean, I can only imagine when you see someone like Pereira that's cutting like 25 pounds and more when he was 185. I mean, that guy was fighting inside the octagon at 225 and weighing in at 185 24 hours before. Right. That's crazy. And even when he's big, he's lean, you know, it's not like he's fluffy. Well, they say that when you're muscular, it's easier to cut weight.

More water.

Water. Yeah. Yeah, which is counterintuitive. You see a fat guy, you're like, oh, that guy can cut weight. But you really can't because you can't deplenish— deplenish your fat, right?

Not in a training camp's time, 8 weeks, 10 weeks. You can't lose like 30 pounds of fat.

But I don't think you can— I said deplenish like it was a real word.

You can dehydrate yourself.

I don't think it is a word. Deplenish? Well, if you can replenish, right? But no one says deplenish.

Can you plenish?

No, you say deplete. But I just threw it out there like it was real. I don't think deplenish is a word. Is that a word? Yeah, it is. Yeah, I don't think I've ever used it that way. Oh, okay.

Nice, man.

Nice. I got lucky. That was just luck. But I talked to Hunter about it, Hunter Campbell, and we're trying to figure out a way. Without— it has to be more weight classes. I mean, California instituted a bunch of different weight classes. I think, I think they were doing it every 10 pounds.

I think California also did like a percentage of your body weight. Mm-hmm. Like, I don't know, what was it, 15, 20%? You couldn't dehydrate more than that. That guy Andy Foster is on the ball, and I think that's good, you know. Yeah, 20% or whatever, some kind of rule where guys aren't cutting 50 pounds.

40 pounds is still crazy. Yeah, it's still crazy.

I mean, if you're— yeah, you're right, 200 pounds, 40 pounds.

I mean, it's a lot of weight. Well, that's another thing that freaks boxers out when I tell them that there's a weight limit at heavyweight, 265. That doesn't make any sense. I go, I agree, why is there a weight limit for heavyweight? That's crazy, dude.

That gap too, like 205, anything over that you can be— 210 to 265, that's crazy.

Crazy. A 50-pound gap that you, you know, but Well, heavyweight in boxing, like, look, Mike Tyson when he was in his prime was only like 220, 215, 220. You know, that's where he— when he was dominating, that's where he kind of fell in that weight limit. I wouldn't—

I think it would be a good idea anything past like 230, 235, super heavyweight.

Yeah, you know, well, the difference in boxing though is the grappling. The grappling in MMA, the gap if a guy gets on top of you is immense. Yeah, if you got a like in Ghana when he was in his prime, was weighing over like 300 pounds and then cutting down to 265. He was a 300-pound natural.

He's a guy who's like a knockdown power for sure, but grappling, like if you get a big guy who's 265 and knows how to grapple very well, wrestled his whole life, they get inside control or half guard, you're not getting up. That's the end of the round.

Yeah, yeah.

Also, if they did do a super heavy, the fights might be either awesome or it completely sucks.

Well, I think it should be heavyweight should be unlimited, and then you'll find out. Yeah, because like Cain Velasquez, no one's holding that dude down in his prime, even when he was 240. When he was 240 and he fought Lesnar, Lesnar was gigantic, but it didn't matter because the cardio that Cain had and the speed and his technique sort of— it—

he was ahead of his time. He was like a hybrid, can do everything great cardio, good athlete before MMA got to where it's at now.

Yeah, the one fight that I always say that we missed is Cain and Fedor in their primes, because they were both in their prime at the same time and they never made that happen.

When UFC absorbed the Pride roster and stuff, I was crazy— it's crazy that Fedor never fought in the UFC at all, man.

Well, they tried. The UFC tried, but Fedor's management were a bunch of very dangerous dudes.

Yeah, you don't mess around with those guys.

Fucking— yeah, man, there was like tense negotiations and they wanted a percentage of the promotion. They wanted a lot more than just a big purse.

Yeah, UFC's not playing that game.

No, they were like, look, we'll give you, you know, a very healthy purse, bring Fedor over here. But the problem was when they purchased Pride, they thought they were getting everyone's contracts, but the contracts were all bullshit.

Well, some guys came over on crazy, crazy money contracts, you know. I think Dan Henderson might have been one. I was a young fighter one time and I was making— this might have been 2013 or something, 2014, I don't know. And they came to give me my check. This is back in the day before they wired. They used to give us checks on fight night. And they had— going through the checks and I saw Dan's and I saw the number and I couldn't believe it. This is before like people posting online fighter pay and all that. And I saw the numbers he was making. I was like, no way, guy's rich.

Does it make you angry?

Nah, nah, because the future— myself looking back, I Or looking forward when guys are gonna be fighting for belts and stuff, the money they're gonna make in 5 years, I'm gonna be that guy like, damn, you know, I got out too early, or you know how it is, the next generation always gets more. Mike Brown tells me that all the time. I was fighting for the belt in WEC, defending it, making this. You guys on the prelims are making more than I was making, you know?

Yeah, there's a weird, that sort of discussion about fighter pay. You know, I've always been of the opinion that fighters should be making more money, period. Because like the same way I feel about like the way I run my comedy club, the comedians make 80% of the money because I feel like that's who you're paying to see. You're paying to see them. We make plenty of money like with drinks and 20% of the ticket sale. It's like it's enough. Like it should be— if we had a comedy club and there's no comedians, no one's coming, right? No one's gonna pay just to sit there and buy drinks. Like, the whole idea is they're paying to see someone's work. If you fight, that's what people are paying to see. They're paying to see fighters.

Without the fighters, there's no show. Without the comedians, there's no show. I understand. But I think the big thing with the discussion of fighter pay is the percentages. When you look at other major organizations like NFL, NBA, the percentages are so, so different.

Yeah, it's not good.

But dude, at the end of the day, I'm all for fighter pay too. I've been fighting my whole life. But you signed the contract, you agree. This is how business is done. Push for, try to get more of what you're worth. You know, you can't sign a contract and complain. Right.

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yeah, I got a buddy Johnny Eblen who was the Bellator champion.

Awesome.

I've been training with him since he started MMA when he got out of college wrestling and stuff. Like, right now he can go to the UFC and give the top 5 guys a run for their money.

Absolutely.

No doubt in my mind. He's only getting better. Yeah, just because you fight in the UFC, that's a great organization to fight for, the biggest, the most known worldwide. But dude, there's great fighters everywhere, you know. Like, on the mats at American Top Team, there's a dozen guys you've never heard of that can make a run in the UFC right now.

That's what I heard is a nightmare about training.

American Top Team, because it's a revolving door, man. There's like 100 professional fighters on the mats at all times. Yeah, different camps. They have dorms, so guys from Russia, guys from all over the world are just in. You never know who's gonna be there, and it's, it's tough rounds, you know. Every practice is tough.

Well, not only that, but I've heard there's like guys coming in from Russia and they'll throw oblique kicks at your knees, and you're like, hey man, like, what are we doing here? We're getting ready for fights. We're not in a fight, right? Yeah, yeah. Like, some of these guys are trying to make their name off of a name guy, and so you have to be very selective in who you spar with.

For sure. And that's any— not just American Top Team, right? Especially guys who are established. Like, if I go to any gym here in Austin and it's open mat or something, I have a target on my back. Of course, you know, that's everywhere.

Of course.

But those guys, man, like at a big gym like American Top Team with the knowledge and the good coaches, those guys get weeded out. That's, you know, you won't stay there long if you're doing that stuff.

The problem is if you're one of the guys that has to weed them out. Like, you find out early on this dude's, you know, throwing wheel kicks. Yeah, yeah, full blast.

And it happens all the time.

Oh yeah, well, just, you know, makes sense. I mean, you're from Dagestan or Chechnya or whatever, you come to America, it's like this is your big chance.

And I do like to train hard to prepare for a fight. You got to fight, but you know, you got to take care of each other. We're professionals, we're feeding our family with this. Yeah, an injury can ruin everything.

Well, there's so many fighters that get concussions in training. And then, you know, they get chinny when they get into the fight. It happens all the time. Yeah, especially the early days. There was a lot of guys who got hit. Me.

Yeah, like the early days, we didn't really have classes that were organized, man. It was just sparring and choking each other out and with 4-ounce gloves sparring.

Like, we didn't know. We didn't know. Isn't that crazy?

Like 2006, dude, we used to beat each other up every day. That was MMA training. And then it wasn't these super gyms where everything was under one roof. I would drive to a boxing gym, drive another 45 minutes to a jiu-jitsu gym. You know, it was put everything together on fight night, but you would train everywhere else because there wasn't mixed martial arts gyms back then, really. I would drive to a kickboxing gym, boxing gym, wrestling, jiu-jitsu. It was all separate.

Well, also, you were in a place that didn't have like a high volume of MMA fighters in your state. Right.

Back then, like, Rich Clementi, Melvin Gallard were the big guys from Louisiana, you know?

Right.

Then Tim Crater came, got Crazy Tim. Crazy Tim got on The Ultimate Fighter, and then I went to his gym once he got out of the TV show. And me and him trained for years and years. He still has a gym in Lafayette, Louisiana.

I love Tim. I've known Tim since I first worked out with him in like '98 at Machado's.

Well, he was in maybe the Navy. So he was in California, stationed there, and I think that's when he started jiu-jitsu. He was Louisiana's first black belt.

Oh wow. Yeah, yeah, I knew him from that. And then he was fighting and he was fighting in the UFC.

He was always around the MMA scene. Him and Yves Edwards were good friends. They opened a gym maybe in Houston or something. He was cornering Yves in Pride, and then I met Yves through Tim. And it's just, it's a big family, man.

Yves is a guy that I always say there was a time where he was the best 155-pounder on earth.

When he beat Josh Thompson? Yes, he's the uncrowned champion.

He should have been the uncrowned champion.

There wasn't a belt.

I know, isn't that nuts? And that's so hard for people to understand, like how crazy it is.

Like being through the lineage of Thug Jitsu, man, it sucks to say like that he can't say he was a champion, but I know he was.

He was, he was, he was the best of the best at one point in time. He was the best.

He lived out here before he moved to LA, so Before I moved to South Florida to train at American Top Team, I used to drive 6 hours here and stay with Eve. He always had wrestlers down here. This is like beginning of my WEC days. I would drive down here and train with Eve, man. He's— he was another guy who was ahead back in the day. Yes, because he comes from NHB, like hook and shoot, the crazy days.

Yes, yes.

And he was doing it all— good jiu-jitsu, good kickboxing. He fell in love with wrestling. I was such a big fan of Eve, man.

He invented some moves too. You remember that one thing that he would do where guys were on a single and he hit a dude with a flying knee, a jumping knee?

That was, uh, dude, I'm an MMA historian, bro. That was EliteXC, I believe, maybe.

Was it?

And you know, that was Edson Berto.

Was it?

I think Andre Berto's brother, the boxer.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

But that, he had a single leg, he was hopping, and then jumped up and out cold.

Yeah, it was crazy. It is a lead. I say, look at you, bro.

I mean, play that again.

Look at this. This move is brilliant. That's brilliant.

That's Edson Berto. Well, and I believe Andre and Edson's dad was a mixed martial artist.

Oh yeah, that's such a slick move.

Yeah, he's so crafty, man.

Oh yeah, well, that head kick that he landed on Josh Thompson from the middle of that wild crazy scramble, jumping roundhouse kick to the head, dude.

And they still play it every opener of the UFC. Yeah, they still play it, as they should. I mean, it was incredible.

Absolutely. Yeah, I gotta— you gotta give credit to Yves. He's—

he was one of the real pioneers for sure, and way before this was cool. Yeah, way before.

Yeah, but to be stuck at like 155, like that was his weight class, and then there's no title.

Yeah, they were the two best guys in the world at that time, him and Josh Thompson.

Yeah, Josh Thompson's another one doesn't get the credit he deserves. That's it, boom. Like, what a slick move, man. But that was Eve, very creative, you know?

Yeah, man. Josh Thompson, like peak Josh Thompson for me, what was it, Strikeforce, when him and Gilbert Melendez maybe were going back and forth? Didn't have like a goodness. Yeah, they might have had a trilogy, might have been 2 or 3 fights, but every fight was amazing.

Gilbert Melendez, another guy doesn't get the credit he deserves, dude. Legend, legend, legend. All those guys, they were the groundbreakers. You know, a lot of these young kids coming up, you bring up Gilbert Melendez, they're like, who? Like, bro, you need to know your history. You need to know how this thing got started.

Go watch even more newer stuff. Go watch him and Diego Sanchez, right? Slug it out.

Diego Sanchez is another guy that I say is a tweener, right? Because welterweight, yeah, I mean, he really wasn't really a welterweight. And he, you know, and lightweight, and he tried to get down to 45 for a while, but that was just brutal. He was killing himself getting down to 45. I remember seeing him making weight for 45. I'm like, oh, this ain't good.

This ain't gonna last long.

No.

Yeah.

But if like there was a 165-pound weight class, Diego Sanchez might have been the champion of the world. Right.

Honestly, man, like when I was competing, if they had a 65, I might have entertained it. 70 is just too big of a gap because I trained with 70s in the UFC and I know they're 200-something pounds. And my heaviest, I was like 182, 183 maybe. They're just too big, man.

Well, you got guys like Rumble Johnson. When Rumble was alive, Rumble got up to 230 pounds in between sets.

No, he was huge, man. Huge. Huge. I can't believe he made 170. He was living in South Florida, so I see him every now and then. He was huge.

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And muscle.

Yeah, like a heavyweight.

And he went up to heavyweight.

Yeah, yeah, which is crazy. He was a legit heavyweight.

Yeah, dude, Andre's still fighting.

I know, and winning the bare-knuckle champion, winning He's the bare-knuckle champion. Like, how durable is that motherfucker?

For the years and the miles that that guy has, I have to say, like, taking shots, receiving damage— I don't know if he takes it like he— obviously he doesn't take it like he used to, but his mobility and his movement for all the wars he's had in the years he's been fighting— when I watch him in the gym, dude, he's light on his feet, flexible. Yeah, he moves so well.

And enthusiasm— still has enthusiasm for the game. Yeah, which is crazy.

He loves it.

He clearly loves it. I mean, he was what, UFC heavyweight champion in 2005?

Yeah.

Was it like 2005?

2005 or 2006, I think he beat Tim Sylvia maybe.

When he was the champ, first of all, that motherfucker had a piston for a right hand. I remember when he KO'd Paul Buentello. Oh my God.

That's a Texas guy.

Paul Buentello, another dude.

I believe he's from Galveston area or Corpus Christi or something. He's from Texas.

Well, if you think Arlovski from 2005, and he was a top 10 heavyweight as recently as like 2023.

Well, when he came back to the UFC after that long gap, he went on a streak. He had a bunch of great fights. I think he knocked out Travis Browne.

He beat Travis Browne, which is crazy.

Did he fight Bigfoot? Did him and Bigfoot have—

UFC 51 is when he won. 2005, February 5th, 2005. That is bananas, man. That really is bananas, man.

Back in the day, Tim Sylvia used to train at ATT. When I first got there, he was the most uncoordinated, unathletic guy. I couldn't believe he was a UFC champion, man.

I know, he was like goofy, pigeon-toed, but down to fight. Oh, down, down to fight.

Yeah, for sure pigeon-toed.

His knees were weird. Yeah, yeah, they went in.

I don't—

I tried to talk to a trainer about that. He goes, that's learned, like you can correct that.

I was like, what, the knee? The knee?

Yeah, the knees bowed in like that was— he said that's a learned— you could correct that. I was like, really? How do you— what?

I never heard of that.

Oh yeah, I didn't understand how you—

It seems like something they would do maybe when you're born, surgery, like reposition the bones or something, no?

Well, I don't know if it is— I don't know. I mean, I'd have to— I don't want to speak out of turn. I'd have to bring in that guy and have him explain to me how you could correct that. But he's like, that's something that could be corrected. That's like learned behavior. Huh, it's just from being so big.

But dude, watching him with his toes pointed out doing the ladder drills and stuff, you know, the ladders on the mat in and out, like, it was—

well, big guys have their toes pointed out like that. Like, Jelly Roll went from 500 pounds and he's down to the— he's in the low 200s now, which is crazy.

Yeah, I saw pictures of him, looks completely different.

He's lost like 300 pounds and he did it the right way. Yeah, no Ozempic, just like diet, exercise, runs all the time. But he has a problem when he walks, his toes are pointed he's trying to correct it. He's trying to be aware of it. When he runs, he runs the right way, like feet pointed forward.

You see it too on the bigger guys' shoes. The corners of their shoes are always flat, like flat tires on the outside. They just walk that way, man.

Well, you gotta think, you have so much weight, you gotta kind of stretch out to kind of balance yourself. But I always point to Tim Sylvia when he knocked out Rico Rodriguez, that— Oh, that Tim Sylvia was a beast, dude. That was back when all the Mexican supplements were allowed. There was a lot of dudes who are very juicy. Oh yeah, and Tim had giant traps and huge fucking shoulders. And yeah, I remember he struggled to get down to 265 for that fight.

Yeah, back in the day with the juice was just free-flowing, man. I just worked, uh, the UFC desk with Bisping in Vegas when Max and Charles fought, and we started talking about the same thing we're talking about now, and he was like, oh, I fought Vitor, I fought them all in the height of TRT, right? You know, he's fought a lot of guys.

Legal juice, which was bananas.

I mean, Alistair.

Oh yeah, that was the juiciest fight of all time. Alistair versus Brock was the juiciest fight of all time.

Yeah, I recently watched the Mark Hunt documentary, and he's trying to like push back and do a lawsuit against the UFC for all the juicing and stuff, but I mean, it's such a—

yeah, that's a tough, that's a tough road because how much can the UFC do?

And it's on the athletic commission as well, right? Wouldn't the lawsuit be against the state, not the UFC?

I think his position is that the UFC knew that, um, but how would they know that Brock was juicing?

I don't know. This is before random drug tests, I believe.

Yes, it was before.

So that would— I feel like that would fall on the state athletic commission.

Maybe it wasn't before. Because he did get popped, you know, but it wasn't random. They weren't— no, no, no, show up in camp.

No, no, that the back in the day you would get tested on fight night, right? You know, they wouldn't knock at your door.

Well, it was super clear that Brock was doing something. It was super clear. Like, he was like in his late 30s, built like a fucking— like the side of a barn.

I mean, there's a bunch of guys back then. Yeah, yeah, but it wasn't frowned— it was okay. Everybody was doing it.

Well, it was and it wasn't, right? Because it was illegal, but it It was like when you have fight day drug tests, that's an intelligence test. That's all that is, right? That's whether or not you have good people in your corner, right? And whether or not you have a chemist.

It's gonna take this amount of weeks to get out of this many days to get out of your system.

Well, there were certain camps that would employ scientists, and these scientists, the crooks are always gonna be ahead, you know. Mm-hmm.

They're always gonna be coming up with something new, trying to stay ahead of the curve and get away with stuff. And I still think they're probably doing it, man.

Yeah, there's probably something that we don't know right now and it's going to come out in the future. That's why they hold on to the drug tests for a prolonged period of time.

Yeah, they ask you your consent. You have to do an extra signature if you let them test it or use it for—

what happens if you say no?

I don't know. I never said no. I always give it to them.

Well, it's good for you because you're clean.

Yeah, I competed my whole career clean, man. Nothing, nothing. I was even scared of certain creatine. Like, I got the Trusted by Sport on everything because I was so scared to be one of those guys. 'Cause every time I see it, tainted supplement, yeah, sure, buddy. But, you know, sure, tainted supplement, but it could be, you know, I don't wanna be one of those guys.

Well, for sure there are tainted supplements. That's a real thing. And, you know, I know that for a fact because as one of the owners of Onnit, when we were doing, when we were doing third-party testing of some of our supplements, we would find stuff in there that's not supposed to be in there. And so we'd have to contact the distributor, the manufacturer, the people that like mixed our stuff. So the way like Onnit works would work is like Alpha Brain has a bunch of different ingredients that enhance your, you know, your mental focus and clarity. And we would give them the very specific numbers of what's supposed to be in each batch. And then we would third-party test. We find a bunch of shit in there that's not supposed to be in there. And it's because, you know, if you're getting it done overseas, they have these vats where they mix all the stuff in, and they don't even clean the vats, man. They dump it out, and then they dump the new stuff in there without cleaning it.

There's residue in there, and then also the level level of drug testing, how high these things can sense anything, right? Even if there's a tiny bit, they'll find it, right?

With Jon Jones, right? It was picograms.

We got introduced to the term picograms, like a grain of salt in a swimming pool. They could find—

they say, yeah.

So the testing is legit, and I'm glad, you know, we're fighting, we're kneeing each other in the face. If we were running track or something, I would—

exactly.

But we're fighting, you can get seriously injured, man. So exactly, I've always been against doping, but I'm retired now, Joe. I'm retired now.

Yeah, I love when guys get— well, Cowboy got real jacked too afterwards, but then he talked about coming back and then he got off of everything.

That's the thing though, like always back in the day, all the TRT guys, like if you change your body's natural production of testosterone with exogenous testosterone, you have to be on it for the rest of your life.

Well, you don't have to because there's things called HCG, and HCG and clomiphene can restart your body's production of testosterone.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because I know your testicles will stop producing once you introduce foreign testosterone, right?

Well, for a period of time, especially when you're a young man, you can restart it. But you know, my production— I've been on TRT since I was like late 30s. Like, it's not coming back. Yeah, I'm shooting blanks. Yeah, pow pow.

But you're good.

But two of my daughters were born while I was on TRT. So it does work. I just had a limited amount. I had soldiers, just one fucking special ops guy.

The only one was marching, but he got through. Black ops.

Yeah. So if you think about like all of the time where people were allowed to dope, it is a giant percentage of the history of MMA.

Like Pride, the further you go back, for sure, for sure, for sure.

Pride, it was juicy as juice. Yeah, like that. Like Ensign Inoue, when he was on the podcast, told me that in the contract it said in all capital capital letters: we do not test for steroids.

We aren't looking. I've heard, I've heard other people say that as well. We aren't looking. Thumbs up, green light, let's go, shoot up the juice, come fight, we'll pay you cash, get out of here.

They wanted you to juice, they wanted you to fight better, which is like, it becomes a spectacle.

But man, people can get seriously injured.

You can, especially. But then also the thing is like, does it make you more durable? I think it does prevent you.

I think it does, man, because Just one that right off the top of my head, when Bigfoot Silva was TRT or whatever he was on, right, he was so durable. So him and Mark Hunt had those crazy fights, but when he got off, he started getting knocked out, right?

You know, but there's also the switch. There's something that happens when you've had a certain amount of concussions where it's another—

another guy that comes to mind, remember Eric Silva? Yeah, welterweight, who's huge dude. Whenever they started doing the USADA stuff, he was getting knocked out and just wasn't himself.

He didn't look the same.

And I wondered what the, like, medical reason for that is. Is, but I think it has something to do with confidence and like self-belief with the testosterone. They just— I think that's a big part of it.

It's definitely a part of it, but also there's a part of it, your vitality. You're just more durable. I mean, when you're jacked up on testosterone, you're just more fucking durable. Yeah, everything about you is more— Alistair's a great example of that, like animal mode, man. Yeah, man, dude, I think Alistair Overeem, when he was Uber Eem, I think that is the best argument for TRT ever. Looked like a superhero, bro, when he was in K-1 and he he was shelling up. How are you getting through that? How are you getting through that?

Remember how small he was though back in K-1? He was like a 205 or—

well, no, Pride.

Pride.

Pride, when he was fighting at light heavyweight, when Chuck knocked him out. Yeah, Liddell knocked him out when he was a legit light heavyweight, and he was skinny.

Yeah, and young and skinny.

He just decided, time to get big. Yeah, look at him back then when he fought Shogun.

Still pretty jacked though.

Oh yeah, man, he was shredded. He was shredded. But he was a shredded light heavyweight. You know, I think he's a vegan now. Look at that. Come on, son. Come on, son.

That's ribeyes. That ain't vegan, right?

Go back to that other one. That's what I'm talking about. I mean, that's what a UFC heavyweight champion's supposed to look like.

Hell yeah.

Come on, son.

I mean, put that on the White House card.

Not just that, but highly skilled.

For sure.

He wasn't just jacked. He was highly— I mean, there's like K-1 Grand Prix champion. I mean, that dude was the cream of the crop at kickboxing. He was the cream of the crop in MMA, and he even won the Abu Dhabi European Trials as a pure grappler.

Yeah, people don't know about that about Alistair. His grappling is high level.

Very. He had one of the best guillotines in the game. Like, Alistair in his prime, when he went over and he fought Brett Cooper over in— was it Bert Cooper? Who do you know? Who do you fucking fight in Strikeforce? Like, Rogers. Brett Rogers. That's right. Sorry, I'm thinking of the heavyweight boxer, Bert Cooper. Bert Cooper fought— he had some crazy wars with Evander. Evander Holyfield.

I think Evander's down in South Florida too now. I don't remember Cooper.

He was a really—

it was—

he was a tank. He was a tank. He was a super jack guy. But Brett Rogers, when he fought Alistair, Alistair like immediately hit him with a low kick, and you could tell he was like, what is this? Yeah, like it was a different kind of low kick because you're dealing with the tree trunks of Alistair with perfect technique. And that guy was as good a kickboxer as has ever entered into MMA. And when he was saucy, he was a problem. Yeah, he was a real fucking problem.

Speaking of kickboxers from that era coming to MMA, dude, didn't Gokhan Saki come over? Oh yeah, I thought he was gonna do, you know, so much better, but he's—

he was older. He was older, and he was at a time where it's like, you know, he had had so many fights in K-1, you know, he had had so many wars. And he fought Khalil when, you know, Khalil's fast. Yeah, fuck.

And I mean, good kickboxing, real good kickboxing, Thai style.

Khalil cracked him in the first round and knocked him out.

Yeah.

Yeah, which was a big fight for Khalil because, you know, Gokhan was the Turkish Tyson, was coming over here, you know, was one of those guys like Mirko Cro Cop was like an elite kickboxer who's entering into MMA, and everybody always gets excited about that. Obviously Pereira is the best example of that. Yeah, yeah, but he was a guy I knew. I told everybody, I was like, that guy's gonna be a nightmare for everybody because there's something about him, man. I don't know what the hell is going on with his bone structure, his DNA, and his intelligence. Like, he figured shit out that other people didn't like the way he threw that low kick, like the way he throws that calf kick with zero tell, no turning of the hips. Like, he fucks up guys' calves better than anybody on the planet.

We had like a huge rush of the calf kick. I saw it for like a year and a half, 2 years. Everybody was doing it. Now it's kind of fading away. I've noticed that.

It is, but not with him. It's not with elite guys, guys that are really good at it.

It does so much damage, man, so quickly.

It's crazy.

And it's so much— it's less commitment, so you're not giving— you don't have to turn your hips over as much. So wrestlers aren't grabbing singles as easy.

I remember your fight with Jim Miller.

It's just like, oh dude, tore me up.

Yeah, that was, that was one of the first examples of calf kicks being really fucking dangerous.

And I've never felt it before. And I'm a southpaw, so they land good calf kicks. You'd have to fight another southpaw, right? And that doesn't happen too often, especially with one who's throwing those. So I didn't know what kind of black magic he was doing, bro. I was like, I got a, I got a flat tire. What is going on?

What is this? I know, you know. Isn't it crazy that it took that long for people to figure that out? Ben Henderson was a guy doing it early, but it wasn't that effective for some reason. Yeah, he was doing it, but it wasn't having the devastating damage.

I'm trying to think of who's the first guy to really— Edson Barboza would do it every now and then. Mm-hmm. Trying to think of somebody who really brought it over.

Well, it's made its way into kickboxing now. It's because they were saying like the Muay Thai guys are not susceptible to calf kicks, and everybody was saying that. I was like, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. They are light on their front foot, so that front foot is They are, but there's times where they have to plant, like when they're throwing a right kick. There's a guy named Yuki Yosa who fights for ONE. He's a Kyokushin guy, and he is fucking everybody up with calf kicks. Yeah, he fights like high guard, tight inside, and again, no pivot of the hips. He's essentially throwing his calf kick almost like he's kicking a soccer ball right straight up the middle.

That's, that's the way I like to do it as well.

Mm-hmm.

Just clip the top of the calf. There's no commitment. You don't have to pivot your hips or plant to turn. You can just snap it out like a jab.

Yeah, well, a great example of the changing of technique was you in that Conor fight.

Yeah, calf.

Yes, and it was also southpaw versus southpaw. Same thing. You just destroyed that calf. Yeah, and you could tell he didn't know what to do because as good as he was and as many fights as he had, two-division world champion, he had been calf kicked, right? Which is a crazy transition when you see like the history of the sport. That is one of the clear differentiating— the differentiation— that's another word that's fake. That's the clear line in the sand where the techniques changed.

Yeah, and it's one of those things, like before it happened to me, I saw it and I was like, ah, it might be uncomfortable, but until it happens, then you have a different respect for it. So Conor probably learned a lot that fight, man. Like Oh, this is for real. Calf kicks are for real.

What's fucked, that it's just one shot. That's what's crazy about it, because a thigh kick, like, you can get a hard thigh kick and your leg goes dead for a couple seconds, but it comes back. Yeah, calves don't really come back that quick.

They explained it to me at the hospital after the Jim Miller thing. Apparently your calf doesn't have the chambers for the fluid to drain, so that's why it gets compartmented.

Oh, compartmented.

That's why it's so painful, because it— you can't like go out through— the swelling can't go out through your whole leg, so it sits in one pocket and fills up, and it's just uncomfortable. It can stop nerves.

And do you ever see what happened to Austin Hubbard?

Dude, that's what they wanted to do after the Jim Miller fight. They wanted to cut me at the— like, no way. No filet you to release the pressure.

Well, another guy, Uriah Faber, when he fought Jose Aldo, his leg blew up like a balloon.

Yeah, apparently if it gets that bad, compartment syndrome, and the swelling is bad enough for long enough, you can lose function of your ankle and foot.

Yeah, they're just crazy, right? Right. Well, Uriah was one of the first guys to implement going into— what, why can't I think of it? The fucking chamber, oxygen chamber. I have a very hyperbaric— what's wrong with me today? I'm making up fake words, can't come up with things that I know. But he was using the hyperbaric like exclusively to recover from that and documenting it. And I was like, yo, that's interesting.

A lot of good brain benefits for hyperbaric. Oh, I don't have one. I've done it before, but it's never been like a routine thing.

What's— you have to have access to it.

And also the tent, the tents, the zip-up tents at home, not as strong.

Yeah, you need a solid, you know, you need like one of those propane tank ones, those big thick-walled ones, the glass, like it's— yeah, really good high pressure. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, you got to be careful in those things. You can't— no sparks.

Yeah, dude, I saw a story that a kid was in one, and you saw that? That was a couple years ago.

Horrible. Yeah, horrible story. Yeah, but hyperbaric is awesome for recovery. It's also— it lengthens— there's a protocol that developed— one of the universities in Israel developed it where you do 60 sessions over 90 days and it lengthens your telomeres that's commensurate with— I think it's like a 20-year difference in your biological age. Wow. It's nuts. It's super effective. Like, when you get a lot of oxygen into your system like that, it just helps everything recover for sure. Like, if you have an Oura Ring or a Whoop strap and you go into one of those things, it shows you. Yeah, it's like, oh, you have an amazing recovery day.

Yeah, man, the metrics we can track now with all the wearable devices, it's pretty awesome, dude.

Well, it gets you to understand— like, I think you can get a little addicted to those things for sure. I—

so when I was competing, I stopped using them. Because every day wasn't ready, need to rest, red, red, red every day. So when I retired, I got back to it. Now I'm using them. But like, when you're training for a fight, you can't—

isn't that interesting?

Not taking 2 days off. I need to train. The fight's coming up. Like, if I'm in the red zone, I still need to train.

I know, isn't that interesting? Like, there's a wearable device would tell you you're not supposed to train, but yet, you know, in order to reach MMA peak physical condition, you have to push when you're not ready so that your body's forced to recover quicker.

I know this guy's training. That's use it or didn't use it.

Well, it's weird because like, what if you listen to it? Like some people say, like Terence Crawford was talking about, like there's times where he wanted to push where his coaches told him not to, and then he realized they were right.

Yeah, maturing through fighting, man, pulling back got easier as I got older. When I was a younger fighter, I didn't want to take any time off. I needed to be as many reps, as much time on the mats as possible. But as I got to like mid-30s, 36, I was like, you know, this is— I got to take days off.

Complete days.

Complete days. Not just an easy day or a technique day. I just need to be out of the gym.

Just relax.

Yeah, reset my mind to where I want to be there.

Just hard for fighters because you operate on momentum of the conditioning and the training and the discipline. It's like, yeah, you're in there, and then to have a day where you're not, you feel like you're slipping backwards, right?

And you show up to fight week with that momentum, like I did everything I could. I bust my ass every day. Like, it just gives you so much energy and so much confidence going into fight week.

You've turned over every stone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the worst thing though is seeing a fighter fight flat because, you know, they overtrained. And the one thing that I always point to is when Tim Kennedy fought Kelvin Gastelum, and he had gone through two solid camps in a row. So he went through one camp, peaked, and got ready for the fight, and then the fight got canceled, and then went right back into camp for it to train for Gastelum and didn't give himself the chance to recover. And, you know, he's too tough. Yeah, too tough, too disciplined, and his body broke down.

You're redlining that engine over and over and over. I mean, we just saw with Merab, I think, you know, not that taking anything away from Jan, but, mm-hmm, you know, you stay that busy, those kind of fights, those training camps, I mean, it's hard to do. That's what makes things like Jon Jones could be so impressive to me, man.

Mm-hmm.

To get on top and stay on top that long, you know?

Yeah, I know, it's nuts. There's so few guys have been able to do that, especially in MMA.

Too many variables, too many ways to slip on a banana peel, get caught, you know?

I know. I kind of love that Khabib went out on top and never came back.

Respect. That's awesome.

And they offered him a lot of fucking money to come back. He's like, nope. Yeah, nope.

Good for him, man.

Yeah, good for him. Yeah, that's the way to do it. And then you go out, all your faculties, everything's fine, undefeated, go down a legend, right?

Yeah, like, I think Floyd should have did it, you know, like that. Now he's fucking fighting Mike Tyson. Dude, come on, man.

I know there was some rumors around that Floyd was gonna have a rematch with Conor, which is crazy, but I think Conor would probably do it, especially any drug testing involved.

I wonder if he's gonna come back at— for sure, yeah. But man, to heal from an injury like he had, you probably need a bunch of stuff to I don't know the ins and outs of that, but you probably need some help to heal.

He definitely needed some help to heal. The problem is once you get used to that help and you enjoy it—

yeah, I mean, I'm getting used to the help.

Yeah, I know. That's what I thought about Cowboy when he got jacked and then he was like, he's gonna— in the— he slimmed back down again. He said he was gonna fight again, but I think he might have abandoned that.

I got hooked up with Brigham and Ways to Well. They did all my blood when I retired and got me— I turned down no testosterone for me, so I'm not on any testosterone. I just don't want to mess up my natural production because wasn't low. I'm just scared to mess with it, you know?

Yeah, you don't need it. And it's— peptide 37 can do a lot for you.

Yeah, I'm on a bunch of peptides.

Yeah, peptides are the way to go, and I feel great.

Honestly, I wish I could have been on this shit when I was fighting, man. I know, you know, especially like the growth hormone-releasing stuff, like, like tesamorilin.

Exactly.

Like, I could have pushed hard every day, man. As I got older, it got harder, man.

I know. And all it does is help your body recover. It's not like it gives you some sort of a performance-enhancing boost —definitely helps with like fat mobilization and stuff like that.

But just being able to push hard every day is huge in fighting.

But just BPC-157, which offers no performance enhancing but would help you heal soft tissue injuries— because you're getting injured, you're just getting small injuries every day training. Every time you get leg kicked, every time you get punched in the stomach, armbar, shoulder— everything, everything.

Your joints are always messed up.

Always. Always. And if you wanted fighters to perform better, something that would allow them to heal better is only good. And it's not— it's not gonna make you run faster, it's not gonna make you jump higher, it's not gonna make you an Uber Eats. We're not talking about that.

I'm not even sure if that's banned. I haven't checked.

It is. BPC-157's banned. Wow. Yeah, I mean, unfortunate.

Yeah, creatine, protein powders, that's the same stuff. You just recover better. Well, I don't understand why creatine's not banned.

Thank God. But creatine in the 1990s was thought of the same way as steroids, right? Yeah, yeah, I remember people thought like creatine's cheating. Oh my god, you're taking creatine. They literally put it in the same category as steroids. Then they realized, oh, it's actually a part of food, great for your brain, good for you, great for everything.

Yeah, you know, just talk— I just talked my wife into starting creatine. Women need it more than men, I was reading, right? You know, read that. So my wife's just started.

Yeah, I think the key is to like make sure you're hydrated too and to make sure you're not taking too much of it and make sure you get your blood checked and so you're not putting a lot of pressure on your kidneys. Yeah, but like dehydration and kidneys, that like, that is one of the big things that happens to a lot of fighters that cut a lot of weight. They start getting kidney stones. I mean, Jose Aldo dealt with that. DC famously got pulled out of the Olympics. Oh yeah, yeah, cuz he was having kidney failure. Yeah, yeah, your kidneys, man, they don't like you being drained out like that.

I've had a few weight cuts where I felt pain in my back, and I think that's kidneys. 100%. Kidney shots didn't happen often, but I've definitely had it. Tightness, it feels kind of like cramping in a weird place you never had before in your back. That's spooky. You're drying out your organs and then fighting for your life, crazy, 24 hours. It was nice though when I started making it to the top of the cards, co-main event, main event, because then you have like 30-something hours to rehydrate. If you're fighting early prelims in Vegas, right, 2 or 3 in the afternoon, right, you know, it's right, not too long, especially back in the day when weigh-ins were at 5 or 6 PM. There wasn't a morning and ceremonial. The real weigh-ins were at 5, and you were gonna fight at 2 the next day.

Yeah, those were nuts. That was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy when guys would like shuffle to the scale for the real weigh-in.

You'd see them all like, like a skeleton, and you're facing off with your opponent trying to be tough, like, I know, both dying.

Well, I always remember Jose Aldo versus Conor. Conor looked like he was one of the Walking Dead. Yeah, he looked like a zombie. He was so skinny.

His face bones. Yeah, see if you can find that.

And he was also crazy, like, yeah, like flexing, always crazy, hyped up with no, like, no body fat, no water, just completely dehydrated. Like, look at that, look at that, the eyes, eyes sunken in. That is nuts. That guy weighed 145 and he probably weighed 170 or at least 165. When he got into the actual octagon that day.

I wonder if he does come back, I wonder what he's gonna come back at, like lightweight or welter.

Well, the real key is if— if— I mean, he's had a lot of opportunities, and I don't know.

I thought the Chandler fight was a layup for him.

That's the fight.

A great matchup for him.

Great fight technically. It's a great fight stylistically. It's a great fight age-wise. Chandler's got to be, what, 39 now?

He's up there, 38 or 39. Yeah.

I mean, and then there's the hype of The Ultimate Fighter.

True, but it's just a layup for Conor. Chandler's hittable, covers distance, not that technically, you know, huge movements, right? You jump in, you get carried out. Conor's a sniper, man. I just think that's a great matchup for him. It's also a great matchup for Chandler because he's getting paid and he gets that, you know, because he sat out for 2 years waiting on Conor.

It's also like, remember him with Oliveira? Even in the fucking 3rd round, that dude is carrying Oliveira up and throwing him through the air and body slamming him while he's on his back. Yeah. Yeah, like the dude has— he has incredible endurance and incredible discipline. He's always fit. Yeah. And that's been Conor's Achilles heel, is that Conor, he's so explosive and so fast that if you're sprinting in that first round, guaranteed you're not gonna have that same kind of energy in the fifth round.

Yeah, but some guys are just designed like that. You know, you saw Tyron Woodley's a guy who has huge explosion, but they don't necessarily keep that for 25 minutes. But on the opposite side of that, you got a guy like Nate Diaz who keep that same pace from round 1 to 5. Round 30, yeah, that dude could— right out of a cannon, you know, and then slow down. Mm-hmm. Just the way muscles and fibers are put, you know, connected. I don't know what does that to a human.

Well, the only guys that figured out how to fight with all that bulk and just— is like Yoel Romero. He fought very smart. It was just He's still fighting. Still fighting, dude.

Still fighting. Jacked. 50 years old, jacked. More jacked than ever.

Yeah, 48 years old, 49 years old with abs, looking like a fucking super athlete.

I think he's doing bare knuckle maybe.

Yeah, he did bare knuckle, he did dirty boxing. There's a fight where he had in dirty boxing where he's touching the dude up and then out of nowhere he just leaps up into the air. He does like a vertical vertical. He is like this 5-foot vertical, lands on his feet and just starts putting it on. Dude, like, I'm tired of this, let me show you what I can really do.

I've had fun playing with the food.

I've had fun.

He's a crazy— he's been on the mats a bunch at American Top Team as well, and, uh, just a freak athlete, man.

Freak. He's the freak of all freaks. Just a freak athlete. Yeah, I mean, he came out of that Cuban— they build them different over there. Yeah, they build them with science. Yeah, yeah. But he also figured out how to pace himself. You know, he figured out how to like explode out of nowhere but not explode the entire time. Like, he had this casual— almost, he would lull you into a false sense of security and then just pounce on you, right? With that knee he hit Weidman with, dude, that was a perfect example. Perfect example. Because you get used to this kind of pace and then you get into the rhythm and then you just break it up.

But also, he didn't fight like like, obviously he's a wrestler. He didn't wrestle too, too hard and really gas himself out. He fought smart to do what he's good at, explode.

Rarely used his wrestling in MMA, which is so crazy. Yeah, it's really crazy if you think about how good of a wrestler he was, right? Because he was one of the best wrestlers to ever compete in MMA. I mean, that dude was elite as a wrestler, and in MMA, he's just starching people. Yeah, Luke Rockhold, starched Luke like that was crazy.

Luke's another guy still fighting.

I think, I think he might be done now. You know, when he got knocked out by Darren Till in the boxing, I think, oh yeah, I think that might be it. And Darren Till's got a resurgence, man, as a boxer. He looks fucking fantastic. I saw the highlights of that, but I haven't seen the whole lot, bro. He looks real good.

He looks—

he's always been a good striker, very good striker, and his Achilles heel has been his knees. You know, he's had some serious knee problems and it really impeded him from being able to train hard. He wasn't the best grappler in the world, and so that was always his problem. But as a striker, I mean, that guy was like very, very good. And you're seeing him now in boxing, like he's making a real run. I think it's very interesting because if you watch him box Rockhold and you realize like Rockhold's a really good striker, but against Darren Till, he looked like he had no business in there.

That's something I would like to do, man. Box. Still? I always wanted to have a couple before I've, you know, but I'm still under contract even though I'm retired. I still have a contract with the UFC.

Do you think the UFC will let you out, or they have Zuffa Boxing?

So they don't— trust me, I already pitched it to them. Did you? Me and Nate Diaz, Zuffa Boxing, let's go. Let's go. 170, whatever, 168, super middleweight, let's do it. They don't want any crossover. What? They— I think Zuffa wants to be taken as serious. Do they hate money? They must hate money. Do they hate money? They hate money. Why do they hate money? I don't know. They want to be taken by the boxing world serious, and I think if you open that door of an MMA guy fighting under Zuffa Boxing, every guy on the roster, every girl on the roster is gonna want to do the same. Mm-hmm. It just becomes a mess, I think.

I don't know about that. Yeah, I don't think it's a mess.

I think there are some really fun MMA boxing matchups you can make.

Yes, fuck yes. Especially when guys get older and, you know, you don't want to go through the training camp with wrestling and leg kicks and all that shit.

That's the thing, like, thinking about a a boxing training camp, dude, with no grappling, no wrestling, just run, condition, and box, it would be smooth sailing. I'd be on the beach. I'd love it. Isn't that funny?

I'm on the beach. As tough as boxing is, like, for you, like, oh, this is going to be so nice.

I only have to box. That's great. Yeah. Honestly, man, in training camp, those are my favorite days. Striking, sparring is my favorite days. Like, the wrestling class is 2-hour mako on Monday. It's like brutal, bro.

Well, it'd be great for you because you've always had great hands. Like, for you, that's a perfect Well, I started—

I started boxing before mixed martial arts. Mm-hmm.

That would be a perfect way for you to get some other fights in. I don't understand Zuffa.

Yeah, I would just love to lace them up and box professionally once.

I know they want to like redo boxing, and I know they want to like— and I think there's probably some real merit there. Obviously what the Saudis have done with Riyadh season has been amazing, you know, making matchups that no one can make I'm a big Conor Benn fan too, man.

I'm excited to see him fight in Zuffa, and the guy he's fighting is from New Orleans. Like, I know the guy. Like, you know, it's fun.

It is exciting, and it will definitely— I think they will elevate boxing, and Dana is throwing all of his cards into that, so I'm sure it's gonna work.

Yeah, I'm glad we're seeing more boxing, Zuffa boxing, and less Power Slap on my feed whenever I go to online stuff, you know.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan. I've never been the one, but man, it's just Not my, not my jam.

Yeah, when we— when I fought my retirement in New Orleans, Mike Brown went to the power slap they had there and he said it was awesome in person.

Oh sure, it's awesome to watch someone get slapped, but like, I'm not interested. I'll watch it on my fucking phone every now and then. I'll see—

I mean, the highlights are good enough.

You see the knockouts and the crazy stuff, but it's great TikTok content for sure. You know, you watch someone get slapped and they're they go forward and their head hits the desk and they fall backwards. But it's like, it's a concussion.

You're watching and you can't— there's no defense. There's no— like, you can't flinch or you get a penalty if you do.

That's crazy. That don't make any sense to me. I don't, I don't get it. But I think they've missed out on the opportunity to have a Muay Thai league. That's what I think.

I do. America just doesn't buy into it that big. I don't think that's true.

No, no, no. I just think—

well, I mean, one, one is doing it on Amazon and yeah, you know, but it's like, who's watching Amazon?

That's the problem. Yeah, you have a show on Amazon, like, I know guys who've released comedy specials on Amazon, like, good luck finding it. Nobody cares. That's just the reality of this platform. Whatever. I mean, look, Amazon is a phenomenal platform for buying stuff. I love it for buying. Oh, do I use it all the time? Every week. It's great for buying books, audiobooks. It's great for buying products, but for watching content, it's kind of a mess. I had a couple big shows like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Terminal List. The Terminal List. Those are great shows, and those brought a lot of people over there. But I mean, you know how big The Terminal List would have been if it was on Netflix? As big as it was on Amazon? More people watch Netflix for sure than are ever gonna watch anything on Amazon.

That's why what Jake's doing with the Netflix and bringing boxing, MMA there, like, it's, it's big, man. Mm-hmm. It's big. So many people are gonna be watching this.

100%. But I think that if one was somewhere else, I think it would have been— there you go. On the way here today. What?

Yeah, yeah, that got announced this morning.

An MMA fight? That's what that—

yeah, it's the third fight on that card now. That's the Rousey card. Yeah.

Wow, interesting. That's very interesting. That's very interesting. That's a good fight, dude.

You said a lot of people don't go to Amazon to watch TV. I just went— I just went down a rabbit hole for weeks because I have a newborn at home, so I did the night shift and I ran out of shit to watch on Netflix and on Hulu.

Run out of shit to watch on Netflix, dude.

Staying up till 4 AM every night with a baby boy is like Hours of documentaries, hours of stuff. I switched over to Amazon and it was like a whole new world, man.

Well, there's a lot on there. It's just they don't have the same viewers. Like, our podcast is on Amazon. The numbers that we get from Amazon compared to everywhere else is so small. Yeah, it's just the reality of the way they've sort of marketed it. And Amazon Prime Video just doesn't have the audience that everything else does, right? And it's such a big platform, you think it would be crossover from I think it's a mistake on their part because the, the, the product side is so big, and like Amazon for buying stuff is so big that it's almost like an afterthought, and they have video money in it but not the same sort of focus. Also, the interface when I've gone to it is a little weird. It's hard to find things. It's not as simple. Like, the interface on Netflix is like, the algorithm is great. It's really good at recommending you things. It knows what you like. It shows you things. It's easy to find things. For sure. Amazon's like a little tricky. You go there and you're like, what? But see, the ONE FC thing faces the same problem the PFL has.

Like, look, PFL is on ESPN Plus. You would imagine PFL would get the same sort of audience that the UFC got, but it doesn't. No, of course not, because the UFC brand is like NFL, like the machine. It's just—

yeah, they own that space.

But the fights on ONE FC are fucking amazing. Like, especially the Muay Thai fights with the small gloves. Oh my God, man. And I was trying to pitch this to Dana, so I started sending Dana— he goes, send me some. So I started sending him all these like high-level Muay Thai fights and high-level kickboxing fights, and they're fucking phenomenal. Look, he didn't like the Charles Oliveira— this, excuse me, this Max Holloway, Charles Oliveira fight. He didn't like it. Like, it was the BMF fight. The fight wasn't that good. I was like, I thought it was a great fight.

It was impressive if you were a fan of technique and a fan of how hard it is to do that to somebody like Max.

Like, super impressive. And I was a fan of Max's defense. I mean, Oliveira was on his back in the first round.

A lot of people would have finished first minute and a half. Yes, you know, dry, right? I got finished there. Yeah, I mean, I think Oliveira is one of the greatest submission artists that ever competed in the sport.

Yeah, not the best. Numbers—

I mean, numbers prove it.

Yeah, and against elite guys like you and like Justin. And like, he's—

and then Gamrot, dude. Gamrot is— I trained with him for years. He's a wrestler, but his grappling is incredible, man.

He got tied up in knots. Yeah, Oliveira. Yeah, Oliveira's a nightmare.

I knew it could happen, but I didn't think it would be that. I was stunned too.

I was like, God, he's good. He's so good on the ground. So like, props to Max for surviving. But if Dana didn't like it— so I started sending it for the—

I mean, when you have the title, the BMF, like, you want to see some violence.

I understand, but it's still just a fight. You can't fight outside of your—

just because the BMF belt's on the line, you can't go out swinging for the fences.

But I get it, I get what you're saying. Yeah, but I mean, on the feet, I think Oliveira was winning on the feet.

Dude, he hurt Max in the first. I think he hurt him in the fifth.

We definitely heard him in the fifth when they did the point down on the ground. Yeah, and then he cracked him and rocked him.

Oliveira's fucking cool. He is, man. He is. He's just known— we put the label on the grappler because he's finished so many guys and so many bonuses, but he can strike, man. He's good everywhere.

Like with the Chandler fight, he almost gets finished in the first round, comes back and hits with a clean left hook in the second. Yeah, he's fucking good, man.

Yeah, knocked him out. Even when I fought him, like, he did a good job of picking where the fight happened. He wouldn't fight me in boxing range. It was either all the way in clinch or out where he was keeping my body, staying long kicking range or clinching range is kind of where he fought me. The times I did have success was in the boxing range, but he didn't let that happen.

You know, it just shows you how fucking good Ilia Topuria is. Fuck.

Goddamn, dude, I love Justin. I love— I'm a fan. I don't like this matchup for him.

Well, you know what I mean? Justin knows what he's getting into, and it's hard to count that dude out. He's such an animal. Yeah, he can land the shot, but it's in the White House. Who knows? Who knows what's gonna happen, but that dude has the touch of death. Yeah, he has the touch of death, and he's not a big guy.

I've never seen him in person, but I was talking to somebody recently and they said nice, 5'7", you know, he's small, man.

He's not big. Yeah, I mean, there's a photo of me standing next to him when we did the podcast. We're standing next to you. He's much smaller than me, and bro, he puts people into the shadow realm. Yeah, it's just technique and confidence. His confidence is crazy. He had a, he had a victory party for the Oliveira fight the night before, drinking wine.

I saw, I saw. I don't think he was drinking wine.

I think he was drinking water the night before, but he has drank wine in weigh-ins. Yeah, when he's getting ready to weigh in, or what is the weight cut. He only did that for 2 camps, he told me though. He said it's too much, it's like fucking hungover the next day, like what am I doing, right?

And you're about to get your brain beat up, you're dehydrating, you drink, come on.

Well, I think he's dehydrating himself, and he said the wine actually helps you get dehydrated. Yeah, alcohol definitely Yeah, which is— but it's— nobody does that. Nobody drinks wine for the weigh-ins.

That's crazy. No, bro. I'm like, I'm so— I'm not drinking anything. I'm so depleted by that time, you know?

I know, and he's getting hammered.

Lucky. And winning world championships.

Well, it was only 2 fights he did that for, so it became like something where people were pretending he does it every weigh-in.

He's got all these young fighters out there in the world drinking on weigh-in day. I'm gonna be like the champ, man. Yeah.

But he's, he's, he's crazy talented for sure, in a weird way.

Whatever it is, he has it.

Yeah, he has it. He's got it in his mind, he's got in his technique, his grappling. I watched a video of him grappling with Merab and he was all over Merab, and that's crazy.

That's what they say, his grappling is just as good if not better than his stand-up. That's where he started. I've never seen him grapple though.

Well, he finished Bryce Mitchell on the ground and he's finished a few people on the ground. He's like— he does clearly have phenomenal submission ability. What are you showing me here? What is this? Him? He says he's done it for a long time.

You can see his face is already sucked in a little bit.

He said that when he was on the podcast though, that he only did it twice 3 years ago. That's hilarious. He's all tipsy and drunk.

Look, I tell this to young fighters, there's no right— I mean, obviously don't I don't smoke crack before a fight. There's no right or wrong way. Everybody's different. Whatever makes you feel comfortable to perform and compete— like, everybody's different. If there was a cookie-cutter perfect way to work, everybody would do it. Well, look at Carlos Protes.

Yeah, exactly. Smoking cigarettes like the day of the fight. He's sitting there smoking Marlboro Reds. Darts. Who was the boxer fucking everybody up back in the day? Oh yeah, Mayorga. Mayorga. Ricardo Mayorga. Yes, yes.

He was smoking cigarettes. Yeah, drinking And fucking Carlos drinking whiskey, smoking cigs.

Like, he's like, I'm gonna party and always gonna fuck people up. Respect. Yeah, I mean, he's gonna fight— is he fighting Jack de la Maddalena? Is that the fight? I'm not sure. I believe that's the fight in Perth. That is a very good fight.

Yeah, a tough one for Jack to come back to, man. I was in MSG when Islam took the belt from him, dude. Complete domination.

Well, that's another guy. Completely dominated that guy.

And Ilia was talking about about fighting him too. You know, the size difference would be so big. So big. Islam is huge. He's huge. He's huge.

He's too big for 55, and then you see him at 170, like, how did you ever make 55, right? Because he's so dominant at 170. Yeah.

Hunter, uh, from the UFC, I was in his office not too long ago, and they keep record of all the weights fight night. They don't release them all, but they keep it. And we were talking about the Islam fight when I fought Islam, and he was telling me his weight. I I was like, that's— what did he weigh? 192 or something, I think.

The day of the fight?

I think so, yeah. That's something— 190, 191, something around there.

That's crazy.

I was 176. That's great.

But it looks like it in the cage.

Like, whenever I look across under those spotlights and they had veins in his shoulders and shit, I'm like, fuck, this guy's huge.

The ones where I'm like, how? Gregory Rodriguez is the one where I'm like, how? Yeah, how? How are you 185? How? You're 6'3", you're built like a Greek god. How? How do you ever weigh 185? How is that even possible? Whenever I interview him, I'm like, how? Right, because I'm standing next to you and I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, this doesn't— you're not a 185-pound guy.

You're huge. Like, in his prime when Luke Rockhold was a champion, he's huge.

Huge, huge, huge. 185? Yoel Romero's the best example. Like, how? How are you 185?

Built like an anvil, dude. Solid all the way through.

When he came in to do the podcast and Joey Diaz translated for him, he was like 230. Yeah, just like his neck starts at the top of his head. Just, just a tank. And shredded always.

No, no jiggle, dude. Shredded always. Veins in his abs like crazy. Yeah, he was talking about the Cuban program.

I'll never forget, it was like talking about like like how they have the, the lower-level guys only eat twice a day, but the, the top-level guys eat 3 times a day. And so everybody is competing literally for food.

Crazy you say that. In Angola Prison in Louisiana, there's a boxing league. If you're on the boxing league and get accepted into it, you get more meals and stuff. So the same thing, these, these prisoners are like trying their best to stay on this boxing league. You get more meals, more time, more free time. Time. Wow. They actually fight other prisons, man. Whoa. I was thinking this would be a great documentary to come out with.

That would be a great document.

And it's CCTV to the other prisons, so other prisons can watch in their cells. Whoa. They bus them to Angola, other prisons in Louisiana. They box. They put out a schedule every year. If you ever want to go to one, it's invite only, but I, I'd rather watch at home. It's, bro, it feels, it feels illegal, dude.

It feels illegal. Well, it might not be legal in other states.

Yeah, it might not be legal in Louisiana. I might be getting in trouble for saying this. Is anybody any good?

Hell yeah. Yeah, you think Bernard Hopkins came out of jail?

I mean, the guy obviously Tyson beat him, but the Black Rhino was an Angola boxing prisoner who got out or pardoned to fight Mike Tyson. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. I did not know that. Mm-hmm. So did they have a program where they have coaches? And they have to to. Do they have equipment and everything?

Wow. And different— according to the schedule, they'll bus them to the other prisons to fight, and it's played through all the prisons in Louisiana.

Man, you find a highly skilled guy who's in that program, and they let them go.

Nothing to lose. The refs, they're legitimate refs, but they let the fights go, man.

What kind of nutrition are they getting though? They're getting prison food? Yeah. Are they getting any better food?

No, prison food, but they get more meals. They get to eat extra Still terrible food, right? Yeah. Yeah, Angola's a crazy, crazy prison, man. Grow all the food there, make all the clothes there.

They grow their food there?

Yeah, self-sustaining. I'm sure they ship a bunch of stuff in, but they do have crops. And it's such a big operation that the guards and the staff live on the prison grounds. There's an elementary school. Really? Yeah, there's the worker— the guards' kids and stuff go to school on the grounds.

It's wild, man. Oh, that's crazy. Can't be good.

It's wild. Every October they have the rodeo there.

Article about that boxing association from 2011. What? Some photos and an interview with some people I think that were part of it. Well, you want to focus. You know, women weak in legs?

Ain't no women in there, dog. Hell no. That's crazy. Yeah, serious business, man.

I did not know that. That's nuts, man. Yeah, how come no one's done a documentary on this? Or have they? I know.

Well, Bhop was a prison boxer in Philly, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this would be a great documentary, man.

Interesting. Yeah, Bernard learned— I mean, learned like real discipline in prison and also learned that he never wants to go back, which is as important.

And I think Angola is like maximum security. So you don't go there if you have less than like 25 years or something. So these guys are in there for a long time just trying to find things to do. Doing boxing, eating extra, getting more free time. Why wouldn't you do it?

Also get in shape, keeps you focused. You have something to concentrate on other than the fact that you're in jail.

Yeah, yeah, it was wild, bro. They set up a ring like in a cafeteria. I went there once to watch it. It was insane. Wow. It felt like I was doing something wrong. It felt like I was doing something wrong.

Were the guys good?

Fuck yeah, some of them were good, man.

Wow, really good. Wow. Fuck, that's interesting. They pardoned that guy.

There's titles too. They have belts. The Black Rhino.

Clifford, maybe? ATN? Yes, yes, that's right.

That's so— he was in prison boxing in Angola and he fought Tyson.

Wow, no shit. Yeah, I mean, why not, man? At least it gives them something to focus on. The idea is like, oh, you're gonna make a more dangerous felon, bro. They're dangerous. Yeah, they're dangerous. They're in there for murder. What do you think think— what do you think? They're in there for armed robbery, murder. Like, let them fight, right?

Doing life, like, right?

Exactly. Like, also, we trying to pretend that that's not going to improve the quality of their life and improve them as a human being. Like, doing something difficult, even if it's difficult and violent like fighting, will make you a better human being for sure. Make you tougher, smarter, more disciplined, more focused. Also release all the aggression there so you don't have aggression in regular altercations nearly as much.

Yeah, that's where I'm at right now, like leaving fighting in the rearview. It's like, what do I do with my life now? Dude, I've been traveling so much, twice a week maybe, you know. If I'm home on Friday, I do open mat jiu-jitsu, a couple kickboxing classes if I can make it. But I've just been traveling so much, man.

Why have you been traveling so much?

Sponsors, appearances, cornering buddies, like just Saying yes to everything that I couldn't before, you know, right? I'm more busy now, I think, because before I would shut everything down. Like, I got to get ready for this fight, I have to focus on this. No, I can't do anything, black out these dates. Now it's like, you're really good on the desk, man. I enjoy, man. I really do. You can tell.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the best things that the UFC does with former fighters is they give them this opportunity to do stuff on the desk. I think that's huge.

I hope they keep bringing me. I just signed a contract for the year. When it was ESPN, I was kind of doing like independent contractor stuff. They would ask me, I would say yes, but I'm on contract with UFC for a year, so hopefully they keep bringing me, man. I— all the people behind the scenes, just being around the event that I've, you know, I've fought at for so long, it just makes me feel good. Yeah, and I get nervous because it's live TV. You can't fuck up. Uh-huh. You know, live TV is different.

Well, I would like to see they allow more of you guys to take the spots doing fights in commentary. Oh, like color? Yeah, yeah. I mean, right now it's just Dominick Cruz, Paul Felder, Michael Bisping, and DC. That's essentially it. Yeah. I mean, those are the only former fighters from the UFC that are doing it, and I really think there's room for more guys. Yeah. Dan Hardy was great. Yeah, for sure. He was awesome at it. Yeah, he was. I don't know what the fuck happened with him and the UFC. They had some sort of a squabble and he left. But he's fantastic over at PFL. He's still with them? Yeah, yeah, he does that. He's really good, man.

He's just— he breaks stuff down. He's very good.

Yeah, very good. And he's a great guy. I've known him forever. He was a 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu guy, so I've known him since like, fuck, I must have met him 20 years ago.

Wow. Yeah, I didn't know that.

Yeah, before he was fighting GSP, before he's fighting any of those guys, I knew him. Him. Yeah, he would come over from England to train in America.

He was such a knockout artist, we never really get to see him, right, do jiu-jitsu.

Yeah, no, he was good at jiu-jitsu too, man. I mean, he trained hard, and he's just a very smart dude who knows a lot about the sport.

Yeah, it seems like when he's breaking down stuff, you can tell he's studied.

He's also just like a very skillful commentator because he's very intelligent in his— the way he describes things. It's exciting. I mean, I think he's I don't know what happened with them.

And when I'm on the desk with those guys, I try my best to not break things down too much, like on the stat side. I try to make it seem like a conversation, sit on the couch watching fights with your boys, where I talk about experiences that I've had and stuff. Because they explained it to me, like, that's what fans want to see. If they want to look up stats, they'll go look it up. They don't want to hear you talk about submission attempts and exact stats. They want to know your experience. Yeah. So like each rep I think I'm getting better, you know, open it up and being more myself. I'm trying to do a good job, man. I really, really enjoy it.

I think stats are interesting sometimes, but what's really more important than that is like a technical breakdown of abilities, right? Because stats, it's, you know, it's variable depending on who you're fighting. Like, like you take Charles Oliveira's stats and then you say his fight with Islam Makhachev, and you say, okay, well, where's the stats? Like, it's, it's like, it's, it's really dependent upon skill sets, who's your level of competition, who you're competing with. Go. You know what I mean?

That was a quick submission though. The stats are one submission to Tim, one submission, bro.

He's got a crushing squeeze. It's different, bro.

It's different. Yeah, yeah, he strangled me. And the way he did it— I think Moicano filled in last minute to fight Islam and got caught with the same choke. Mhm. It's kind of like a D'Arce choke, but he locks it on his forearm. He doesn't go to the bicep. I know. And the squeeze is different. He's pulling to his chest. It's not like angle squeeze. It's different. So the defense is different. When I got my legs out and tried to walk around, he hooked my leg, but like the squeeze was completely different. Mm-hmm. Completely different. You know, you belly down and kind of get some space to breathe. You can't when the way he does it.

Craig Jones broke it down.

It's like a front choke, almost like a— mm-hmm, like a squeeze to your chest. It's not an angle that you use for a normal D'Arce choke.

I know, I was shocked the first time I saw him do it. I was like, maybe he just like couldn't cinch up the bicep. Then I saw him do it a second time. I was like, no, no, no, this guy's He grabs right here. Yeah, yeah. And Craig Jones pulls to his chest breakdown of it on YouTube where explains why it's effective and what's so good about it.

And it— when he gets the grip locked in, like, it's complete immediate blood shutdown. You know, usually you feel it slowly fading away. It was like right away. Wow.

So that dude's got a back like this.

The whole story, drive-through movie on the darkness started coming in like as soon as he got the grip. Really?

Yeah. Yeah, he's so fucking strong, man. There's like something about those Dagestan guys, man, like the discipline those motherfuckers have. Yeah, you know, there's Dagestan guys that are making their way into Muay Thai now too. There's this dude Asadullah Iman Ghazaliev. I talk about him all the time, but I can't talk about him enough. He's one of those ONE FC guys that is fighting, um, in Muay Thai from Dagestan. This fucking kid is 22 years old and he's knocking out like multiple-time world Thai champions. I've never seen him, bro. This dude is a freak. I mean, he's a— he's just putting people into the shadow realm every fight.

Dude, it's so wild to fight 4-ounce gloves in Muay Thai. I know, but I mean, you could throw elbows and stuff and knees, so it's perfect.

It's like 4-ounce gloves. I mean, look, you're throwing elbows, knees, everything else in the clinch. It allows you to grapple better.

It just makes it so much more dangerous for the blocking, you know. You don't have the gloves covering all the space around your ears.

But this cat is special, man. He's special. Nasty. And he's from Dagestan. It's like, okay, imagine this motherfucker gets into MMA. Everybody's fucked if this guy can wrestle at all, which you know he can if he's from fucking Dagestan.

Well, they do a lot of kickboxing, sambo, right? Yeah.

This dude's something though. He's something new. Oh my god, cuz he's 22 years old. Old, and he's like world Muay Thai champions. He's sleeping them all. Yeah, it's nuts, man. What weight is that? Uh, 145. I think he's 145 or 135. 145. Probably tall, tall. 132. Is that what it says? This thing right here says, uh, on screen weight limit 132.7. Interesting. 5'10". Interesting. 60 kilograms. 22 years old. Well, at that weight— well, and then you think about one has some crazy thing. Look at this: win, knockout, win, knockout, win, knockout. He's a freak, man. And that one dude that made it to the unanimous decision is this kid from Morocco who's just tough as shit, but goddamn, he took a beating.

They have such a great product, man. I wonder how many, like, viewers and how the ratings are.

I mean, it's big in Asia, but there's— they have financial struggles. I don't I don't want to speak to it because I don't know enough, but there's a lot of talk.

I know they wanted to start doing shows in America.

They've done a few. Yeah, I know they did one in Colorado. They maybe have done multiple, I'm not aware, but it's a great product. That's the thing. It's like, I love watching their kickboxing fights on YouTube. And that kid Yuki Yozo that I was telling you about that throws calf kicks, he's fucking everybody up with calf kicks. And there's another guy from— a lot of these Kyokushin guys, especially in kickboxing, So like they have different rule sets over there. And one, you can fight kickboxing where they use big gloves, or you could fight Muay Thai where they use little gloves. And I think they've had Muay Thai fights where they have big gloves too. So in the kickboxing, you're not allowed to clinch, not allowed to throw elbows, but in the— but you can throw knees, but you can't clinch and just continue to throw knees, and you can't sweep and can't take guys down. It's a little confusing. I think Muay Thai is the way to go. But the thing about kickboxing in Japan is like, they just wanted to— that's what K-1 was. They were like, let's just take out all the clinching and make this as exciting as possible.

What's the best way to do that? And the elbows— elbows are very effective, obviously, and knock a lot of guys out, but also cut a lot of people open and stop fights prematurely, which is why Pride didn't allow elbows, which is really crazy. When you think about that, because yeah, well, it's soccer kicks and stomps.

But you were fighting multiple times. True. Cuts, you know, if you get cut in the first fight, it could change everything. I think that makes sense. I kind of—

but I mean, soccer kicks, stomps and soccer kicks, elbows. Yeah, it's hard to say because for any knees to a grounded guy— yeah, yeah, it's ground and pound. Elbows are so effective. It's so important. I mean, it really— like, guys that think they're comfortable and safe in the guard, you're not. You're not when a guy can still bust you up with elbows from a short distance. It's a very effective technique. Yeah, very damaging.

Yeah. But yeah, it is a very, very damaging technique.

Well, there's a real problem with the cage, and the problem is the wall. Like, the fence is an artificial structure that keeps you from being able to move. And I've always said this, that I think it should be an open mat. It should be a large mat, and you should— you should not—

like a wrestling mat? Yeah, like a big wrestling mat.

Like, think about a basketball game. Like, think about how much space is on a basketball court, and you still get 16,000 people in there to watch a basketball game.

Guys would be, I would think, running, running around a lot of—

you know, maybe you get penalty, penalty for moving too much. Maybe you have like—

yeah, you have a red, yellow card, or—

well, you have a, you have a center that you're supposed to stay in, and then you have a red zone outside of it, and then you have a black zone outside the red zone where you get points taken away. You enter into the red zone too many times, you get a warning for the first time, Another warning for the second time. Third time, you get a point taken away. So you could use it once or twice to evade, but then you got to go back into the area we're supposed to fight.

I think that would be— that would be cool. How big of an area you talking? Basketball court. That's too big, man.

That's too big. How about football? How about football fucking field? That's too big. They're doing that with no-rules fights. Yeah, yeah, I watch a lot of no-rules fights. They're hard.

The Russian—

the Russian stuff, they're so scary because guys just mount guys guys and gouge their eyes out. Yeah, they're mounting people and just shoving their fingers in there, and guys are screaming and tapping. And it's like, oh, I run across some pretty crazy stuff on IG sometimes from those. But they're fighting in parking lots, they're fighting on phone booths.

Yeah, cars upside down, underwater. They're fighting everywhere. They're fighting everywhere. I saw them on a cargo container floating on the— on top of water where you get knocked off. And that's crazy. It's so ridiculous. American Gladiators.

KO'd and you fall into the water, you just breathe water and they don't rescue you in time.

Just fight with those kid floaties on. If you get knocked out, you just float to the top.

Instead of those Muay Thai things. Yeah, yeah, blow them up.

Your corner's blowing them up.

Yeah, but I think the cage— I'd like, like, you know how like the UFC BJJ, that sloped surface? Perfect karate combat. Karate combat does that sloped surface. That's a good one. And that's a big space they fight in karate combat.

Yeah, something like that I think would be good.

It would be better. There's something about the— but the problem is then you're backing up and you hit that ramp and you fall down.

Or what was the old karate— it was like, I don't think it was Chuck Norris. Yeah, Chuck Norris, his league, something like that.

Yeah, I think it was World Combat League or something.

I went to see that WCF.

Yeah, something like that. World Combat Federation. Yeah, I think the first guy to do a slanted thing though was Frank Shamrock. You know, a lot of people don't realize that Frank Shamrock had an organization for a while, and they fought in like this sloped sort of thing, like in Kumite. I think he might have been the first guy. Frank was way ahead of his time, way ahead of his time. And he's another guy that got erased from— because he had a falling out with the UFC, and he got kind of erased from the lineage of like elite fighters from the past.

Fighting older in Strikeforce, like still bodied up. And I know he was a student of martial arts.

Yes, yes. But by the time he got to Strikeforce, his kind of best days were behind him. Like when Nick Diaz beat him up. Yeah, it was— he wasn't the same guy when he fought Phil Baroni. He wasn't the same guy. He had a lot of knee problems and it's like, it's just not— after a while it's like he might have been like 40s in Strikeforce or— I don't know how old he was.

Late 30s, 40s, late 30s for sure.

But when you go back to his fights in the UFC, I mean, he was a pioneer, man. When he fought Tito Ortiz, he was nowhere near Tito's size, and he just beat Tito with cardio, just cardio and defense, and then eventually wore his ass down and beat him up and changed Tito's entire strategy for fighting after that.

He was one of the guys early was like super fit, super, you know, really focused on his health and nutrition and supplementation and everything. Back then you didn't see a whole lot of that, but he was one of guys for sure.

Well, the Lion's Den, you know, Ken Shamrock's— his— the thing that they put guys through, this gauntlet that they put guys through in order to make the team, to make the fight team, was hell. It was just hell. They wanted guys to break. And so extreme conditioning, extreme mental toughness, like all that was emphasized. Yeah. And so Frank was the best example of that though, because he would was— he was elite everywhere. He was really taking guys down. He had great submissions. He had great striking. And you know, he fought some wild fights, man. He fought Ensign. I don't remember where that was. Was that in K-1? But he beat Ensign with knees. Like, he'd fought in multiple organizations. Obviously started out in Pancrase. Yeah. But he had only been training for like a year or something like that when he fought Boss Rutan in Pancrase. He was super fucking talented, man. Why'd they let him wear boots, right?

Or some kind of leg—

yeah, you had some weird shin pad deal with— well, you had wrestling shoes with shin pads, right? And the open hand slaps, you know? Yeah, yeah, it was always palm. Uh-huh. Yeah. So what is this in? Does it say what it's in? 2011. This says UFC. It's not UFC. Oh, it's Vale Tudo Japan. Yeah, this was before 2011. Yeah. Okay, so this is Vale Tudo Japan. So Vale Tudo Japan, I wonder if it's the same Vale Tudo that Hickson fought in. So Hickson was, you know, the champion of Vale Tudo Japan early on. What, that was like the— in the documentary Choke? You've seen that, right? Huh? A long time ago. Yeah, documentary rules. That documentary rules. So that's how Hickson became a legend back in the real NHB.

No, yeah, yeah, no rules, right?

Well, the first UFC that I went to was UFC 12 in Dothan, Alabama, and you could wear wrestling shoes, you could punch guys in the nuts, hair pulling, yeah, grab their clothes. No weight class. There was two weight classes back then. Like, because Vitor won the heavyweight tournament back then. I think they had two weight classes back then, so they still recognize there's some smaller guys and some big guys, and smaller guys are real talented, but they're never gonna beat the big giant guys. So let's have a weight class for them.

Yeah, I remember renting VHS tapes with my dad of the old UFCs, dude. What got you into the sport?

Like, how old were you when you first started martial arts training, period? 17? 17. That's late. Yeah, if you think about it, right?

Well, I mean, if you want to call wrestling— I wrestled for 2 years when I was 10 and 11 for a private club. We did like traveling Texas a lot, Louisiana, small club meets. But other than that, no combat sports, no martial art experience. How'd you get into it? Boxing. When I was 17, I wanted to box. Always wanted to box. Started going to a boxing gym, met some MMA guys there, didn't know they had MMA where I was from, then went to the MMA gym and never went back to the boxing gym. So what year are we talking? 2006, maybe.

Okay, so this was right when the UFC first started.

This is like— I remember when Stephan and Forrest did the big thing. This was like beginning around the time I was training boxing and mixed martial arts. So that wave, like, I just never stopped. Wow. Yeah, man. What was it? They World Combat, like Chris Horadecky was over there, Ben Rothwell's over there. Remember, what was that? Yes, the team organization that was big at the time, right? IFL. IFL. Yeah, everybody had teams and stuff. That was weird. That was real big around that time. Yeah, I didn't know.

That's where Dan Miller, Jim's brother, landed the grossest guillotine I've ever seen in my life. Have you ever seen this? I don't think so. Oh my god, it's the worst guillotine of all time. He gets this guy in a guillotine, traps his head in his chest, and bends his chest so his head is connected to his own chest sideways. So like this, his head went all the way down and touched his chest. I don't even know how he stayed alive. Yeah, watch this, watch this, watch this guillotine. There it is. Check this out. No, watch this guillotine. Look at that, look at that, bro. Jesus, bro, how's that guy alive? He's— look at that, look at that. How is he alive? Have you ever seen that before? Ever? Like, that's crazy. That is the craziest guillotine I've ever seen in my life. That's so crazy.

Looks like his neck's broken, bro.

How is he alive? Yeah, like, first of all, why did it take so long for the referee to stop? Who's the referee?

Steve Mazzagatti.

I don't know who it is, but you could have probably stopped that a couple of seconds earlier. But I mean, it's just hard to imagine that a neck can go in that direction. Like it's so— that doesn't show it. The other angle that you showed is really what showed it. Yeah, the other angle where you see it from the side, where you see his head, like when it— when he cinches it up here, that is crazy. That— you're not supposed to bend like that. You know, your ear's never supposed to touch your chest. No, I don't know how it does. I don't know. I mean, it just seems like everything would break. It seems like you would never walk again.

Again. He's not— Dan's not fighting anymore. No, Jim's still— Jim's still rolling, man.

Jim's still fighting, still rolling.

It's crazy.

Most fights in UFC history and still fine. No surgeries, no nothing. Yeah, still durable. Did get beat up.

Was his last fight Bobby Green? That was the last time I think I saw him fight.

I don't know if that was his last fight. He definitely got beat up. That was— he definitely lost a step. I mean, he's 40 years old. Yeah, but man, dude still loves it. Still loves it. Respect to him, dude. Yeah. I mean, he sent me a cookbook.

He came out with a cookbook. He's a big cook and hunter and stuff, you know. He sent me a cookbook and a spatula. Oh, that's hilarious. Captain Redbeard or Jimmy Redbeard on the spatula, it's like engraved into it.

Fuck yeah, he's quite a character.

Yeah, I like him. I like him, man.

I like him a lot too. He's a very fun dude and also complete wits about him. Doesn't have any problems mentally, you know. He's like, seems like a hard worker.

He's always on his farm doing stuff. Like, you would never think he was a fighter. If you didn't know.

I know, right? Yeah. Yeah, he's a fascinating character. Well, the thing about this sport is that it— like, exceptional humans are exceptional at fighting. Like, to be an exceptional fighter, you have to be an exceptional person. There's really no way around it. There's like— it's too hard to do. You have to be a very unique kind of human being that can get through those camps, that can perform under the big lights, that can figure out how to keep getting better and evolve for sure.

And that type of stuff is like— the last time I was on the show, I was talking about it's like a gift and a curse, man. It's like you have to be all-in at something. Those kind of people who are built like that, whether it's fighting or drinking or whether it's good or bad, you're going all-in. It's dangerous.

Yeah, the problem is like we see with Conor, when they don't have the fighting, then they go all-in with the other things. Yeah, yeah, right.

Fighting was always, for me, always pulled everything together, you know. That's why I like— retiring is scary Man, days are long. I have a lot of time. It's— I don't have to get ready for a fight. I don't—

you know, you're still a young man too. You still have a whole lot of life ahead of you. 37, man. Yeah, so it makes you think like, what do I do now? What do I do with my future? What do I do? What do you want to do, dude?

I kind of got like, for a week or so, I wouldn't say depressed, but I kind of got into like a funk. Like, what the hell am I gonna do with my life? Every day I would wake up for the last 20 years, how can I be a better fighter? How can I— what's new in fitness? How can I push myself? Yourself, I want to be the champion, and then boom, you lay the gloves down and you wake up and you're a fucking civilian. Like, right, it feels crazy, you know? It's like I'm relearning who I am. Like, I always knew fighting was just something I did, it wasn't who I was. But after 20 years of doing it, even though you know that and you think that, like, it— fuck, I don't know who I am without fighting. How long did it take? I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm a lot of things, right? But like, fighting a cloud in my mind that never went away for 20 years, right? And now I wake up and it's gone. Like, what do I do? I'm still trying to find out, Joe. I don't know.

Did you still get nervous when you would go to events? You know that feeling that you get like you— when I competed? Competing? No, no, no. Yeah, dude, you go to other events for other people. Yeah, just feeling like you might have to compete.

Do my hands are sweaty. Yeah, yeah, that's weird, right?

For sure.

I mean, obviously it just happened to me last couple weeks when Max fought Charles. Those. I was nervous. I had armpit stains. My hands were sweating. I'm like, dude, I hope those people don't see this, right?

Because you feel like you're still there. I'm connected to both these guys for some reason.

Well, you are forever.

Yeah, that's the thing. That's what's so interesting about watching like old fighters, even old boxers, when they go to like Hall of Fame ceremonies and they're seeing each other and hugging. Like, those guys are connected in time forever.

Yeah, Max came up to the desk and I was like— we spent an hour of our lives fighting each other, you know, as hard as we could. He didn't even know. He's like, no way, an hour? Like, yeah, dude, we went to two decisions, two five-round decisions, and we fought. The first fight was one or two rounds, so it's an hour of fight. Yeah, we spent an hour beating each other up.

That is crazy when you think about it.

An hour is a long time. And that was a long time to fight another man, especially bearing your soul in front of the world.

It's not a regular hour, right? Yeah, out at the beach, it's the biggest hour Yeah, yeah, and it's an hour you're prepared for for months each time.

But because of that, like, like you were saying with the boxers, like, we know we have an unwritten thing we know about each other. Yeah, you know, something we never spoke about, but we know each other better than a lot of people do.

Yeah, you know when a person breaks and who doesn't break. Max doesn't break. He doesn't break. I mean, you see it in that fight. I mean, how's he— how does he go through that whole round and not get submitted? Yeah, dry. With Oliveira on his back and got close a few times, like, first crush.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, like that old shin-yao-ki where you go the angle, you can choke through the jaw.

Oh yeah, guys go to sleep.

Neck crank, it'll choke you to sleep.

Well, even just a rear naked across your face, I've seen guys go to sleep. Yeah, they just go to sleep. You try not to tap and you just wake up and you're like, how did he choke me out over my face?

Because it's like a You get enough torsion and crank, it'll cut off the vein or whatever, you know. It'll, it'll put you out.

It's enough. It's— which is nuts.

And it's so much pain on the jaw too.

Oh, it's horrible.

Choking, getting lack of oxygen to the brain is one thing. Like, the jaw binding up against the bones, like, you know, that sharp pain you get when somebody's face cranking you in your jaw. Hell yeah, it feels like it's gonna dislocate.

Yeah, well, that was the thing with Khabib and Conor. We did that torque, that torque crank where he got his neck and he cinched it up with the forearm behind the neck and pulls back like this. Like, that is hell.

And those guys' squeeze is different. Those guys' squeeze is different.

What is something about lifelong grapplers? There's like a density to them that's different.

The density, the strength, and just like the knowing of where to put the pressure and what angle to turn your hips to make a big difference. You know, people outside don't even see it, but it's so, so crucial in the moment. Yeah, somebody's on your back and they just turn a little bit with the elbow, you know, rather than just squeeze straight on. Small things like that, or, you know, what win fights.

I'll tell you the fight that I'm really looking forward to, really looking forward to, because I don't know what's gonna happen, is Khamzat versus Strickland. I'm very interested in that fight. Strickland is a fucking nightmare standing up. For sure, he's a nightmare. For sure. What he did to Fluffy Hernandez, I was like, holy shit, man.

The body shot, the finish. But he made Fluffy fight. You know, he fights at a slower pace. He has his own pace in there, and he kind of forces the other guy to fight. His opponent has to fight this pace with him. I think the best, the best chance is to blitz him, do unorthodox things, because he wants to jab, circle, throw a kick, jab, circle. He keeps a very slow pace. He's not sprinting or trying to blast you out of there. He He just— well, he doesn't get hit much. Chips away. High guard.

Good shell. Yeah, very good shell. His defense is extraordinary. He, you know, one of the things he was telling me is like, I spar more than anybody and I get hit less than anybody. And that is true. Like, if you think about how much that guy spars, it's a giant part of his training.

Look at James Toney. He was hard— he was hard to hit and all he did was spar. Yeah, you know, right? Perfect example. There's something taught in that, in those moments.

100%. Yeah, understanding of distance, timing, pattern recognition. You're constantly in there moving around, right? It's like— and then there's also the cardio that comes from sparring. Yes, it's different. Yeah, like, because his cardio is almost entirely based on sparring, and that motherfucker doesn't get tired in there, right? And the Fluffy fight was like— I thought Fluffy was gonna be a problem. I'm like, Fluffy's really good, man. You think he submitted Adolfo Vieira, he's got all this fucking crazy cardio. He puts a pace on guys, and Strickland made it look like he just did not belong in there.

He's so heavy on that front foot though. I can't believe guys aren't smashing that calf, man.

I know. Well, he's hard to hit, man. And he also knows how to do that, that fucking, that hacky sack thing, or, you know, like you're bending your knee upwards, you know what I mean? Check it. Yeah, well, you don't even check it, you just kind of like relax your leg and lift it up. You know who showed me that is Alex Pereira. He's like, instead of checking it, it was like, if you check it, it still hurts you for sure. But he just lifts his leg up, he just goes heel to knee on the opposite side. And so like a hacky sack, right? Right.

I've seen guys take thigh leg kicks like that.

Yeah, I don't let it swing a little, but he does it with the calf. So it's like he sees it coming, instead of doing that, stepping out and checking it, he just Like, look at this. Yeah, that's it. Well, that— I think in this instance, I think that was probably the— I don't know if that was the first fight or the second fight, but Izzy's calf was already done. He was really happy. He told me after that fight, he goes, when he got stopped in the first fight, he goes, dude, I wasn't even that hurt. It wasn't that. He goes, I couldn't move. He goes, my calf was—

it doesn't, it doesn't go away.

Yeah, that was crazy. That, that's hard to do. That's kind of silly. Soccer move. That's hard. That's kind of silly. I don't think he really does that.

Block it with the bottom of your foot.

He could though. I'm very interested in that fight too, him versus Cyril Gane. That's very interesting. For sure, for sure.

And I know the power is gonna translate over to heavyweight. Oh, that's not going anywhere. He'll be able to flatline heavyweights 100%, especially with zero weight cut. Yeah, he's probably 230, 240 walking around. 230-something maybe.

He's 240.

Yeah, dude, come on. He's 240 walking around. That's a legit heavyweight. He's a legit tall, long long. Fucking guy fought at 85. So is Cyril, man. Cyril's good. An athlete heavyweight, not just a big guy fighting at heavyweight.

He's a legit heavyweight. It is a crime in the sport that that fight with Aspinall got stopped the way it did, that he eye-poked him. It's a crime. Yeah, because that fight was playing out in a very interesting direction because Aspinall was having a really hard time touching that. He was bleeding, he was getting busted up, he was getting touched up a lot.

Cyril's jab is legit, and that's what I was most excited for. I wanted to see Tom have to come back, lose a round and come back. I've never seen him— obviously I've seen him fight, but I've never seen him in a real fight where you have to fight your way back into it.

Or how many times has he even been in the second round?

Twice, maybe. Yeah, something crazy like that.

Nuts.

And that's why the fan base kind of blew me away. I was like, these guys are so high on Aspinall right now. Like, for a few months, everybody was talking about Aspinall, how good he is. I've never seen it. Not that he's not— he might— I mean, he has to be good to be where he's at. Yeah. But I haven't seen it?

Well, my thought was the real problem that Aspinall is going to present is in the grappling. He's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt. He's a big fucker. He's fast. He's got a power double. I mean, he explodes. But when he's standing there and trying to stand with Cyril Gane, this is the first time that he was ever in front of a guy who was agile and quick and very technical, right? Cyril Gane was doing a lot of sneaky shit. One thing he does is he keeps his hand low and he pops that jab out, so you don't know where it's coming from. Up jab. He does a lot of weird shit. He has a front leg too.

He's pretty quick for his size.

Real quick. Yeah, real quick. He's a good mobility, good hips. Yeah, man, Cyril's a great athlete. Like, it's not just that. I've seen him dunk basketballs and shit. Like, he's— he can move, right? But it's just the fluidity of his striking is so efficient. Like, that's his world. If you just want to strike with him— yeah, I mean, Jon Jones is so smart. Jon's like, fuck all this, guillotine. Even Francis. Francis, well, he had a blown-out knee in that fight, but Francis just like took him down every round and beat him up. Yeah, man. But that's a different Cyril. That's a Cyril that wasn't concentrating enough on his grappling and probably never thought that Francis could employ that tactic, right? And then really worked with a lot of wrestlers and tried to evolve his game.

And I think Francis is on on that Nate-Jake card as well, right?

You know, right? He's fighting Philip Linds.

He has an ATT guy. Yeah.

Yeah. How good is he?

I've never really watched him train that much. I know he made it to the UFC for a stint, then he maybe went PFL.

I'm not sure how good he is. Yeah, it's—

I've seen him at the gym, but I've never watched him.

Fortunate that there's not another big name for him to fight. Like, I was hoping they could get a big name. Bob Sapp. I mean, who would be the big name? Like, who's that heavyweight? Yeah, at heavyweight. That's still talented? No one. Yeah, heavyweight is the most shallow division in the sport, period.

Kane's out of jail, get him in shape.

Nah, Kane's got crazy back surgeries and knee surgery and shoulder surgery. Kane was like too tough for his own body.

And all the years of wrestling, man. Mm-hmm.

Wear and tear. Wear and tear. Well, also just never giving his body a break, just constantly grinding and pushing, and that's why he was so good.

I think in his prime the best. I think he was the best heavyweight.

Well, he was certainly in the argument. In my mind it's him and Fedor, but honorable mention always I give to Fabricio Verdum. Yeah, it's Fabricio Verdum. People want to think about losses, think about peak performances. Fabricio Verdum tapped everybody. He tapped all the legends. Great try. He tapped Minotauro, he tapped Fedor, and he tapped Cain. Like, just that Just that alone, he tapped all the legends.

I don't know why his name didn't— like, when I was thinking about heavyweights, why his name doesn't even come in.

I always want to give him respect. I always put it out there because the same way I do with BJ Penn, because people for— they only want to think about BJ Penn maybe when he fought Frankie Edgar or when he fought Yair Rodriguez. Go back to BJ Penn when he fought Sean Sherk. Go back to BJ Penn when he fought Diego Sanchez. That BJ Penn was a motherfucker.

Joe Stevenson. Yeah. Yes, Joe "Daddy" Stevenson.

You got to think about the guys when they're in their prime, when they're at— when they're redlining for X amount of years at peak performance. When you're talking about like all-time greats, I get it. All-time greats, you got to think about guys like Jon Jones and Khabib. Never lost. They stayed flawless their entire career. You're right. But for peak performance, when they're at their best, how good were they? I put prime-time BJ Penn at 155 against almost anybody.

You're right, man, bro.

He was so good, and his jiu-jitsu was so good, and he can knock you out, and he was an animal. Just when he was training with Marv Marinovich, when he went over there and was like really learning how to get in insane shape, and he would come there carrying rocks underwater and all that shit. Yeah, I think the carrying rocks was him. Marinovich had him doing a lot of like crazy plyometric stuff, and Marinovich's strategy was, you already know how to fight. Fuck all this fighting. You know how to fight. What we're gonna do is just give you the most insane gas tank, so your fight training is like secondary. What's really important is just having the most spectacular gas tank so you never get tired. Yeah, but he hated those camps, man. He hated it.

And he only did it even in the peak of his shape. He was still a little soft. He was never shredded.

Like, he's pretty shredded when he fought Joe Stevenson. Was he? Look at— yeah, he had a six-pack. Back. He looked good. I mean, he was— it was different, but at 55 it was different, and everybody's body type's different, you know. Well, at 70, he was never really a 170, you know. He was never— I mean, he was much smaller than you. Yeah, yeah, he's a— he was never really a 170. He was just so tough that he went up to 170 and beat a prime-time Matt Hughes.

Yeah, I mean, he stuck around longer than he should have.

He definitely did. He did. And that's what we really thought, without training well sometimes. And that's the thing people remember. Yes, I hate They remember that one fight we fought on his tippy toes. Remember that? Yeah. Yep. Yep. Crazy weird shit. Mm-hmm. But you got to think about him in his prime. That's what I always say. Don't look at it like Fabricio Werdum. Don't look at all the fights. Look at the fights when he was in his prime. He was putting it all together. He was a nightmare. He was a nightmare. Like when they hit their stride.

That's what I was scared about, staying around the fighting too long. Like I retired at 36. I'm like, perfect. How much more athletic am I gonna get? How much faster am I gonna get? How much, you know, power is the last thing to go, but durability, speed, reaction time, everything that I need, like, and if I'm not right in line for a title shot or knocking on the door of it, like, what am I doing, right? I'm fighting just to fight.

You know, it's really crazy.

That's when I had to look myself in the mirror, you know, like, okay, this is it. I'm gonna— you did the right thing. Be healthy. Leave my faculties for the most part.

The age that you retired was the age that Yoel Romero entered into the UFC. FC. Yeah, yeah, isn't that nuts? Yeah, it really is crazy if you think about it, because that's, that's really what happened. And there's a few outliers out there in the sport, like in boxing, Usyk is the great outlier. Terence Crawford is another great outlier. Do—

what about Usyk and Rico? Crazy. Rico's a super nice guy. I love Rico, man.

Super nice guy. He's a nice guy, but without leg kicks, the fact that he's gonna just box and he's gonna box Fox, maybe the best technical heavyweight that's ever lived. I don't know, man.

I learned my lesson, dude. I bet $5,000 on Fury. Did you?

Yeah, the second fight. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. If anybody could beat him, it's Tyson Fury. If anybody can beat Usyk, it's Tyson Fury, because Tyson Fury was beating him in the first fight. He just got clipped. He got clipped, and then I think it was the 9th, he got really— I don't remember I don't remember what round it was, but he got really badly hurt and dropped. But who's it? It's just so slick. Yeah, man, his footwork, his movement, he's like— and the fact that he's essentially a blown-up cruiserweight and he's beating all these giant heavyweights like Dubois. Like, Daniel Dubois is terrifying. What he did to Joshua. Yeah, yeah, just charged forward and just put fucking leather on his face.

Yeah, Rico's a real heavyweight, but he's not pure boxing.

No, I mean, he can hit hard. I mean, there's that, but he's such a great kicker.

You're taking a weapon away. It's interesting. It's a spectacle. I'm watching for sure.

But I just— I'm sure he's boxed with a lot of like really elite boxers in the gym. I mean, but yeah, over the years, for sure. Yeah, the payday is probably bananas. I'm sure they're fighting in Giza in front of the pyramids. Nuts. Crazy. Who's putting this together? No, together? I have no No idea. Yeah. Aliens. Aliens. That's where they're going to land. Do they need to do a Coliseum fight?

MMA or boxing where they set it up either in the Coliseum or right in front. You know, that would be crazy.

Well, they were talking about doing that with Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. They were talking about that fight in the Coliseum. A real fight. I know. That's so crazy. Dude, that would be so crazy. Have those guys be the first fight in the Coliseum.

Do that one at Meta headquarters or something. Don't do that at the Coliseum. Don't disrespect Don't disrespect the Coliseum.

No, no, I know that's silly. So where— who's live at the Pyramids of Giza? WBC World Heavyweight Championship, DAZN. But like, I wonder who the promoter is.

WBC? I don't—

is that their faces? That's so ridiculous. Look at their fucking— with their circular golden gloves on. Glory in Giza. It's gonna be interesting, man.

I'm excited about it. I wonder who's gonna buy that.

How much is that gonna cost? I'm gonna buy it, but I mean, I mean, how many people are gonna buy that, you know what I mean? Yeah, because it's— I love Rico. I've had Rico on the show. I mean, I think he's the greatest heavyweight kickboxer of all time, for sure.

I feel like the way combat sports has kind of intertwined all different stuff— boxing, MMA, how big mixed martial arts is now— you're gonna get a lot of cross— crossover. Before, you'd get a of hardcore boxing fans buying this pay-per-view, but now you're kind of gonna get a little bit of everything— kickboxing, MMA, boxing fans.

Glory has such a small audience, unfortunately. And this was the, you know, this is the argument that Dana said to me about kickboxing in America, that they tried with Glory. I just don't think they got the right promotion. I think if the UFC—

I mean, it's nonstop action, it's highlights the whole time.

Why would you— why wouldn't you— I feel like if the UFC got behind kickboxing in America, it could be gigantic. Organic, especially kickboxing with MMA gloves. Like, that Gazaliyev guy was fighting in the octagon. You know how fucking gigantic that would be? Yeah. Or Yuki Yosa. There's another guy, Masata Inoue. There's a bunch of guys. There's a bunch of guys that are like really elite that are fighting. Yeah. Oh, a bunch, man. A lot, a lot. Yeah, Masaki Nouri. Usyk open to fighting Jon Jones in crossover MMA fight. What? Wait, okay, now you got me interested, dude. If the UFC comes up with the cheddar, you better start wrestling now.

Yeah, you better start wrestling right now.

Is that real? Did he say that? Rico is first, second is whoever wins between Wardley and Dubois. Dubois in the third fight? Is my friend Greedy Belly Tyson Fury? So he's not— a rematch with Dubois is a tough sell. He just starched him. The Tyson Fury fight is the big fight because Tyson Fury is the only guy that in my eyes makes sense. Says a fight with Jake Paul in MMA at this stage is not being considered, but we're always open to creative and interesting collaborations in the future. If we were talking about crossover fights, a very interesting matchup could be against Jon Jones in the United States.

Whoa, I don't know what John's gonna do, man, with all the stuff going on with the UFC. He might be done. He might— who knows?

He doesn't want to be done. I know he got stem cells on his hip. I know because I helped him get it. He got it over at— he's talked about it. I wouldn't have talked about it, but he talked about it. He got it at Wasted Well, and so he's feeling a lot better. He does have arthritis in his hip. It bothers him, but it doesn't bother him enough where he can't fight. And, you know, he's the greatest of all time, period.

I did stem cells and PRP in my hip. I didn't notice anything from that.

Well, it really depends on where you're getting the stem cells, what technology they're using. There's a bunch of different kinds of stem cells. Yeah, yeah. Talk to Brigham about that.

He can explain it. I got—

maybe you had a labrum tear, right? It was pretty significant.

Yeah, and I had to get the head of my femur reshaped, like a resurfacing. It was kind of egg-shaped and didn't need to be round rounded, so it tore everything off the inside of my hip.

So how do they do that?

They take your leg out of socket, they shave the top rounded, and then they micro— they put like a bunch of small holes in it to where it cracks, and then stem cells leak out of your body to create a new surface out of your bone.

How long did that take to recover?

I couldn't put pressure on it for 8 weeks. Wow.

Yeah, because it's like— so you're just walking around on one leg for 2 months? Yeah. And then once you start walking again, how weird was it?

Very weird, because I had to sleep in like a motion machine where my leg wouldn't stop moving at night. Oh my God. Because your hip capsule is like tricky. If you— if it heals up too tight, your leg won't have any, any range of motion at all. So while it's healing, you need to be in perpetual motion, I guess. That's crazy. And every week they would send a new code for my wife to type in the machine, and it would be a little bit different angle. Whoa. Yeah, so my— what a nightmare. For those 8 weeks, I was sleeping in this metal brace that moved my leg all night. How did you sleep? It was horrible because it went up to like your, your junk and inside your leg and the outside of your leg. So it's like you had a wedgie by this machine and your legs just motion all night.

Oh my god, it sucked, man. That's terrifying.

But I'm fine now. It healed up good.

That's crazy that it worked. Yeah.

Wow. Resurfacing missing. Whoa. The guy actually who did it in Vail, Colorado invented the surgery. GSP's had hip surgery there. Really? Yeah, he invented this surgery.

And GSP had to do the same bullshit?

I don't know if he had exactly what I had, but he, he had surgery there on his hip.

God, that sounds like 2 months of no sleeping. How'd you sleep? Did you get used to it?

Well, the first week, pain medicine and stuff, you're on all that stuff. It was after, like, when I stopped taking all That pain medicine must have been fun. Triple Z, dude. I was having dreams and getting the best sleep of my life.

Yeah, that's the time where it makes sense to take that shit. Like, you're in a fucking crazy brace, let's party. Yeah, for sure. Watch Netflix and just not give a shit about my leg.

Yeah, sleeping in this machine, hamster wheel, for real.

Where the hell is happening with my leg? I was on one of those. I always— my knee reconstruction. Infected.

You've had a bunch of knee surgeries.

Yeah, but my left knee, uh, they put— I had a patellar tendon graft and they put me on one of them things where it does this, like when I was in the hospital.

So that's, that's how I was feeling.

Drip. So you could press the button to get more morphine. I was like, boink, boink, boink, boink. Dude, it's flying out. I had the same thing on my hip.

They put an epidural and then they had a nerve block through my stomach, so I was like completely paralyzed from the waist down, but I had the button thing. I don't think it was working anymore because I, I revved it up. It was— you redlined? It was shooting blanks, man.

That's hilarious. It is weird though to see your like knee constantly moving forward, but I only had to do it like a couple of nights.

I can't imagine. I did it for weeks.

I can't imagine. That must have been so hard to sleep, man.

Yeah, the motion wasn't so bad because it's kind of slow. Oh, okay. It was the metal in my groin. Oh yeah.

Yeah, it probably rubbed it raw. Yeah. Oh God. Yeah, man. Fuck, man.

But like I said, I was on the pain medicine, so.

It's crazy that it all worked though. Yeah, dude. Shout out to that doctor. Shout out to all these doctors. I say that all the time. Like, both my knees would be fucking completely useless if it wasn't for amazing doctors. Right. Shout out to these doctors.

I was just talking about—

Figuring shit out.

I worked with Paul Felder at that Vegas show, and he just had a hip replacement.

Yeah, he had the real deal, right? But it's so—

Yeah, no, he had a replacement replacement.

Replacement. Why did he have to do that versus what you did?

I'm not sure exactly. It's something to do with the spacing, I think, inside your hip, how much spacing you have. Because my spacing was good. I wasn't a candidate for a replacement.

Well, Paul went full nutty after he stopped fighting and started doing Ironmans.

Yeah, dude, he was telling me he travels with a bicycle. He does— like, still does that cycling for 5 hours, like, in a hotel room, like crazy.

That's not good. That's not healthy. Crazy, man. That's not healthy. Penalty. Yeah, why are you doing that, Paul?

5 hours, he told me.

Well, the same kind of drive that made him a great MMA fighter made him want to like be the best Ironman dude in the world. You need something like that, man. Way before the surgery, just a couple years ago when he first got, um, diagnosed, I guess, with some injury. Yeah, it's a range of motion, my right hip. Reached out to her, Dr. D from the UFC, to help with an MRI. Long story short, I have the hips of an 80-year-old man. No soft tissue left grinding bone on bone. The problem is once they put an artificial joint in you, you have that artificial joint forever, right? It's never going back. Yeah. And as biologics get better and stem cells get better, they're better and better at rehealing or healing that, that actual tissue. And if you could just hang in there— this is the kind of the conversation that I had with John— because if you could just hang in there, they're so close. They're injecting stuff into disks now and making the disks larger, right? So like people with back problems where the doctor's like, look, we got to take some of your disk out.

Hang in there. Hang— and also look into other therapies. Decompression. There's a lot of different things that you could do that can create space where your, you know, disk is pushing against your nerves. You can alleviate a lot of that.

Surgery is the absolute last step.

Absolutely. Look, if you have a—

of course they're gonna cut you They'll do it anytime. Yeah, you know, it's good business. Cut you open, then the medicines, this, the hardware, everything. It's a, it's a, it's a racket. That's the last step.

That's the problem. When, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And, you know, and when doctors get paid for doing surgery, they want to do surgery because that's where they make their living, right? And it's, it's a real problem with stuff like the back because I don't know anybody that's had a back surgery and been better, right?

Right, you know, the only big one I could think of— I remember Nate Quarry was a big advocate for some company.

Remember, he had a— they had an artificial spacer. Yeah, he had artificial disks put in his back way back in the day.

Yeah, he's the guy I think about back surgery.

But he also like got— it was an intense pain because of that, and I think it wound up like becoming a problem later on. Like, I know guys that initially had some relief because of back surgery And then it started getting way worse after that.

That's the same— follow-ups. Always the same story. Like, mm-hmm. Same thing with necks. Like, you lose strength. It's always bothering you for the rest of your life. Like, Mike Brown has a fusion where they went in through the front. Fusions are rough. My buddy Alan Gilbert had a neck surgery where they— Kayla Harrison just had one. Like, once you have that, something—

Kayla have done?

I don't know exactly. I don't think she's telling anybody. I know that. I'm pretty sure they went in through the front, right?

But I don't think she's telling anybody what exactly happened, because, like, Aljamain had a disk replacement. Replaced, and he came back and beat Petr Jan in the rematch and looked fucking great and fought really well with that neck issue. And you don't hear him complaining about it. No, I mean, he said it's great. Yeah, I think that the new artificial disks that they're putting in the necks, a lot of them, it works out really well. I know quite a few people that have had those.

I've been fortunate, man.

I haven't had any neck— She had to repair herniated disks in her neck. So the thing is, what they usually do is just take some of the, the disk out, and then you have less disk. So it's not bulging anymore, but you have less disk now. So now you have more degenerative disk issues. And I just think there's other options, and one of the options is decompression. I don't know if anybody ran that by her, but I have a fucking neck harness. Yeah, I, it's attached to a chin-up bar, and I put it around my neck. It straps under my chin. In and I put my weight on it. I just like stretch my neck out. Yeah, it works, you know, relieve— I hear it pop. Like, yeah, yeah, pop, pop. This is— they replaced the disk. Oh, she had to replace. Okay, so she got that thing that Aljamain got done. Yeah, how's she gonna fight that quickly? Oh yeah, yeah, look at that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I wonder what her turnaround time is. I mean, International Fight Week, maybe her and Amanda?

What she's fighting— isn't she was supposed to be fighting at the White House? Yeah, yeah, but they're supposed to— they decided not to do that.

Yeah, so maybe this summer, maybe, because it's gonna be— I mean, that's a big fight, her and Amanda.

It's a big fight, but I mean, there's a possibility that you do something like that and you're never the same again. So she might have a surgery. Yeah, yeah, it's like you're— whenever you're dealing with your spine, it's very tricky. Yeah, you know, it's just one of those things.

It's like, urgh, shoulders, knees. Mm-hmm. There's some things, man, you don't want to injure.

I don't think anybody's ever come back from a knee replacement and fought MMA. I've never heard of that. I've heard of disk replacements. I've heard of a lot of knee surgeries. Guys come back. Modestus Bukakis was the worst. Remember that? He fought Khalil and Khalil sidekicked his knee sideways and hyperextended it. Oh, it went sideways.

John does that knee stomp thing too. I don't know how I feel about that, man.

Well, Ian Gary did it to Shavkat. I don't know how I feel about it. Fucked Shavkat's knee up. I know, it's kind of fucked because look, yes, it's effective, but so is eye pokes.

I feel like it's— that's what I was about to say. I feel like it's kind of dirty. Like, legalize eye pokes.

It is dirty. I mean, so are nut shots. Like, nut shots are effective too. Are we gonna allow those? No. I mean, why are we allowing someone to do a technique that you can't?

We do have 12 to 6 elbows now, so So that's— at least we're getting somewhere. Yeah, I like that.

Yeah, but I'd rather have knees to a grounded opponent than kicking the knee sideways. It just seems like it takes a year off of your career, at least. So can a kneebar.

So can an armbar. Like, you could tap. True, true, true.

You get a kneebar, you could tap, right? Inside heel hook's the scariest because you only got a couple of like microseconds to tap. When you get that one, that one's so nasty. The knee across, you you have no time. You just gotta tap. Yeah, you just gotta know when you're done. You gotta know when he got you and not let it— did you ever see when Mikey Musumichi fought some cat in—

I think, I think I know what you're talking—

the dude would not tap. Yeah, he was just ripping his knee apart. And Mikey was talking about it afterwards. He was so gross. I was like, why did you make me do that to you? All right, why didn't you just tap? He mangled that guy's leg.

I think I saw a highlight of that.

It was horrible. It's so horrible to watch. You got it? Yeah, show me. Yeah, let's see this. Here it is. Like, look at this. Look at his leg, bro. Bro, that is almost as nasty as watching that armbar or that guillotine from Dan Miller. Look at this. This dude won't tap. It's so crazy. And Mikey is just a master at destroying your knees. Any normal human being would have tapped. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And he does this like 7 times in this match where he rips this guy's leg sideways, left ways, right ways. The guy's knee's destroyed. Like, look at that. Look how nasty this is, man. This is so nasty. Look how— that angle too. That angle's so awful. The fact that this dude is just tolerating it, like right there, that's destroyed. Yeah, that is destroyed. I don't know if that dude ever competed again afterwards.

You might never be the same.

No, you know, the same. He won't be the same. He won't be— it'll never be 100%. Like, you get your shit ripped apart like that, for sure there's some meniscus, ACL, meniscus, MCL, everything. Fuck that. Heel hooks, that changed.

I've been fortunate, man, with my knees. I have a torn meniscus in my right knee but never needed surgery, you know. Had a partial tear on my ACL when I fought Islam um, he pulled me off against the fence and my knee slid and I felt it tear. It felt like fire in my knee, you know. And when you feel pain in a fight, you know it's bad because you usually don't, right? But I felt it burning like fire.

Um, but you didn't need surgery? Didn't need surgery.

Did a bunch of physical therapy. Uh, I had a partial tear. There's something called maybe a ligamentum or something that connects where your ACL is. Every time you tear your ACL, the ligamentum's completely torn, always. And, uh, mine had a partial tear in that. So I must have took the weight off or we switched the position right before it tore my ACL. Oh yeah. But I had like bruising, you know, back of my leg was all bruised up. Couldn't bend it for a little bit.

But now it's 100%. Yeah, I feel great. Yeah, that's interesting. Like Arnold— out— no, who was it that was telling me that? Like, there's different people that have had different levels of tears, and then in those levels of tears, like, some of them you can come back from 100%. Fant, but some of them— okay, this dude, a broken ankle too. Oh my god. So this dude that— try saying his name. How do you say his name? Gentimer? By endurance? Duran? So this is the guy, Mikey Musumeci. He was torn ACL, torn MCL, torn meniscus, and a broken ankle. That's crazy.

That's crazy. He did like a toehold or something?

How'd he break his ankle? So it was— oh, was it Brendan Allen? Was Brendan Allen— was in the podcast, he was telling me this. He tore his ACL completely and never got it fixed, and it reattached. Wow. Yeah, I got a slightly different angle, but reattached. Like, it tore off, but it was still hanging in there, and it rehealed. Huh. I was like, that's not— I never even heard of that before. But I know some people that have had like a 3/4 tear and it heals, but it's not really the same, right? It's still a little funky.

You know, Brad Pickett fought his whole career with the torn— no ACL in one of his legs.

I think Justin has that situation.

Yeah, yeah, like Brad would sit on the ground on the mat and then grab his shin and slide it forward. You could see like that, the movement.

How does that not chew your meniscus apart?

So many fights like that.

Oh my— well, Rico Rodriguez did too. Rico always had a blown-out ACL. Jail, huh?

And he fought— Rico was down in Louisiana for a while, man. Rico Rodriguez was. Oh, he was one of the first Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts. I trained with him at Tim's gym before.

Yeah, he was really good on the ground, man. Rico was really good on the ground, and he was a UFC heavyweight champion at one point in time. I know, I know.

People forget, dude. I didn't even know who he was. I was sparring him, and Tim was like, that's crazy, he was a heavyweight champion of the UFC. Like, no way.

I know, isn't that funny?

He was out of shape, you know. I was like, who's this big tattooed guy? Let's go.

There's a lot of guys that people forgot, they slept on. It's interesting when you think about that.

He was running a gym in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I don't know if he's still—

Rico was?

Yeah, he had partnered with Baton Rouge— in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He took over an LA Boxing. They turned it into a UFC gym now, but he was part owner or something. He was running it. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

It's a hard road when guys retire and people don't even remember them. Like, at least you have a giant name. Like, you're always gonna be able to do seminars. You always— people are always gonna want to bring you into events. You have a career no matter what.

Yeah, I've been doing a lot of watch parties where I get with the fans and watch the fights. It's fun, man. I enjoy it. That's cool. It's sometimes a little awkward because I think the fans will stick around too long. Like, I'm watching the fights with you, but you come sit at my booth and like we run out of things to talk about, it's like, okay, man, let me get your number. Like, hey bro, all right, my buddy's on FaceTime, can you talk to so-and-so? So like, dude, just chill.

I know some people just can't hang, dude.

But I fought, like I said, 19 years. I say 20, but it's 19 years that I fought until that Conor fight. Like, that's when things changed for me, recognition-wise. Yeah.

Wow, that's interesting.

That's crazy because like the door opened for seminars, for appearances. That's— that changed, changed. That's so weird. And I had been in so many UFC main events. I had fought for the belt, done all this stuff. Tough. But this— that guy's name, Jen, isn't it nuts? I just—

personality got him so— well, obviously very skilled. For sure. Eddie Alvarez fight, that's Conor in his prime form when he was in the house.

Yes, Eddie.

The, the Aldo fight was great, but because it was one shot and he's—

and, and nobody's done that to Aldo ever, ever. And since—

that was amazing. But, but the Alvarez fight was him in The Matrix. When the punches were literally touching his nose and he's firing back those combinations. He was just in the zone. He was— that was— and Eddie's no Conor. Walk in the park. No, he's good, man. He's tough as fuck. When Eddie beat Dos Anjos, I was like, holy shit, man.

I was always a big Eddie fan. Oh, he was always—

bro, his dream fights with Chandler— you want to talk about taking years off your life? Yeah, those fights that those two had that nobody was watching watching other than the hardcore guys. Those were— to this day I tell people, you want to watch some chaos, watch Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler in Bellator. There's some of the best fights of all.

Knockdown, drag out, both guys.

If you're a fan of chaos, watch those fights. Those fights were fucking bananas. And so that's what we anticipated when Chandler came over. And then we knocked out Dan Hooker in the first round. I was like, oh shit, he's here.

Same card, same card as me and Conor.

But I think that it was too late. I think he had already suffered so much punishment and been so— if we got a hold of Michael Chandler like 6, 7 years before that when he was fighting in Bellator— this is the problem with PFL, this is the problem with Bellator, and I don't think it's a problem because I think these guys are prizefighters. You know, like, I think Francis Ngannou said it best when he was talking about this Netflix card. They're saying— someone said to him, do you think this fucks with your legacy? Legacy. He goes, legacy? Whose legacy? For, for you? He goes, fuck, keep your legacy. Give me my money, right? Give me my pay. This is what I'm supposed to be getting. I'm Francis Ngannou. I think he's right, but he's Francis Ngannou. He's already the UFC heavyweight champion, left as the UFC heavyweight champion. But for a lot of these guys that are starting their career, their best years are in these other organizations, and not enough people know. Like Johnny Eblen, perfect example. You were talking about before, he knocked out Leon Edwards' brother. I mean, he's fucking good.

Beat Musasi. I cornered him when he beat Musasi. Musasi's a legend. Grew up watching him.

A legend. There's a guy, another one, good guy that people forgot about. Gegard Musasi was a—

by the time he made it to the UFC, I was already such a big fan, but like the casuals didn't know who he was.

Oh, he was so good, dude. Gegard was so good, so smart, right? Just so smart. Smart and so— and unassuming.

Was it him who upkicked Jacare? Yeah, yeah, into a triangle. Yep. Yeah, man. Yep.

Yeah, I think that was in Dream. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gegard was a beast, man.

He was a beast. Eddie Alvarez and Dream was a bunch of good fights.

And Gegard stopped Weidman in the UFC. Really good fundamental boxing, great jab.

Yeah, great everywhere. Yeah, good wrestling, good wrestling defense, but just super smart too.

Just a very, very intelligent guy. But he got put on the shelf with that Bellator deal. He got put on the shelf, and I don't know what's going on with him.

When was the last— I don't know. He might not even— last fought— he might not even still be under contract with the— with PFL or whatever.

Well, I think he's 40 now.

Yeah, he was old in the UFC.

Yeah, he's got to be close to 40, if not older. Where— where's Gegard Rossi these days? Uh, oh, he got drafted in the Global Fight League. Oh, that thing.

I knew that was gonna fall apart from the jump.

Whatever.

It was weird when I was talking to coaches at American Top Team and they were telling me like all these ex-UFC fighters, what their contracts were with this company. I was like, dude, they haven't even put on one show and they're signing guys to these kind of contracts.

I mean, the money was crazy. So 2023 was his last fight. How old is he now? So he lost to Fabian Edwards, the same guy that Eblen knocked out.

40. Yeah, cornered Eblen. Dream catcher. In that fight, dude, he got cut so bad with an elbow, like I can see the vein in this. I have it in my phone. It was crazy. I have it in my phone. The vein's still intact. It didn't cut the vein, but you can see it.

Oh boy.

It's pretty, pretty gnarly. And then he stopped him. Yeah, elbow. Yeah, that was— we were in Ireland.

Yeah, Eblen's a tough guy, man, and I think he's like one of those guys that's like at the very top of the heap at 185. But again, I know about him, but how many people do? That's unfortunate. Yeah, you know, because he's been fighting— he's got another fight for how many, how many years now?

He was Bellator, Bellator, and then they bought him.

Yeah, for how many years now?

A long time. I mean, I think he might have had 1 or 2 fights when Bellator signed him. He got in early at Bellator, but he's a student, man. He's gonna keep getting better. He's pretty young, young still.

Submitting Marcon's crazy. That's crazy. Right, anything? How small he is. He's fought at 185 in the UFC and he submitted 260-pound Mark Hunt. Ghegardi Musasi was a fucking beast. He was just technique. Yep, just technique. Technique, toughness, and intelligence. Just so crafty, just so good everywhere. Good on the ground, good standing up, and super patient, man.

Methodical. Yeah, yeah, I've always been a fan of him.

There's a lot of those guys that just got— people forget about about. They forgot, you know. Yeah, it's a bunch. I always say people— one guy that people underestimated because they didn't get to see him when he was in his prime, or they just forgot, is Masvidal. Oh, people forgot how good Masvidal is. Masvidal knocked out Yves Edwards with a head kick. You remember that? In Bodog. Yep. Yeah, bro, Masvidal in his prime was a motherfucker. He was good. When he knocked out Darren Till, remember that shit? That switch step. Oh my God, yeah, of course, switch step. I think he caught him with a left hook and knocked him out cold.

Cold head. And he was a dog, like when he started focusing on his wrestling, he was a dog in Strikeforce, man, at 55. Like, yeah, oh yeah, he was a dog back then.

No, Masvidal was a beast, man.

And he's good everywhere, man. He's good everywhere. He has good jiu-jitsu, good wrestling, good kickboxing.

Yeah, he's good everywhere. I mean, when he went up to 170, that's not really his weight class. His real weight class was 55.

Yeah, but I think as he got older, he's— it was hard. He's a big guy. He's a big guy. He has really thick legs and he's a little bit taller, taller than me for sure.

But like, when he was really competitive, I feel like it was at 55. Yeah, but I mean, like, he gave guys problems at 70. Like, the, the Darren Till fight was at 70. He fucked a lot of guys up at 70. Cowboy. Yep, Cowboy.

Was that at 70? Body shot, 170. Damn.

Yeah, no, Masvidal, people forgot. There's people— and then, you know, he was having those backyard fights in the Kimbo Slice days, which is crazy. The bare-knuckle Kimbo fights, Kimbo Slice fights.

Yeah, man, Kimbo used to come to American Top Team, used to bring his kids and stuff. It was crazy talking to him because I grew up watching his fights.

He was like the first guy to become a legend on YouTube.

Yeah, you know, everybody knows who he is.

Plus he looks so cool, the bald head and the beard and the hair in the back. Yeah, everything was great.

The braids in the back.

Yeah, super jacked. Packed and just fucking people up in the backyard. Yeah, like they were moving around like—

I think he was a bodyguard or a driver for a guy in Miami who started a porn company, and that's how it started. Exactly.

Yeah, and they organized these fights. Yeah, well, they were just no warm-up, just, all right, let's go.

No, you get out the car in the front driveway and walk to the back and just start scrapping. I know, it's crazy. But as a kid, like when that stuff came out, as a kid, that was such a big thing to watch, you know, that we had to download it illegally on like LimeWire or something back Yeah, you know, that was wild times. And then to see him in the UFC and The Ultimate Fighter, dude, what a journey that guy had.

I know what balls it took for him to do that, to enter into the UFC with like basically zero grappling. Yeah, I mean, like really just kind of learning the sport.

But, you know, so good boxing, but I don't think like gym— not trained boxing, just natural ability.

And well, he definitely had some training, right?

The way he moved was— even in the bare knuckle, the way he moved was like a boxer, a shell you know. Yeah, like a Mike Tyson movement.

Yeah, but it was like kind of rudimentary. Remember when he fought Seth Petroselli? Yeah, yeah, like last minute Petroselli comes in last minute. Like Ken Shamrock had some sort of a dispute with them and maybe got cut backstage or something, said I had a cut. So like last minute they swapped out Seth Petroselli and he knocked him out.

Yeah, I called that one.

What, I called that one on camera? No, I wasn't doing it, the commentary I think it wasn't Liddick's.

I think that bankrupted them or something. I don't know how— like, they—

that fight bankrupted them?

I don't know if it bankrupted them, but after that happened, they didn't have many more shows after that.

Well, I think they were going under anyway, unfortunately.

I don't know how that fight would have bankrupted them, but—

well, they had some guy who was a boxing guy who was running the whole thing. Was his name Gary Shaw? I don't know. Back then, I don't remember either. But, you know, like, it's hard to make money in these things, man. Like, those things are hard. It's cut— like, the UFC doesn't get the credit it deserves in terms of the promotional machine. Like, that's a smooth-running machine. Oh yeah, that machine's been around for a long time. It's so polished between the production, all the guys in the truck, the directors, the producers.

They're the best of the best.

Yeah, it's hard. And then you got all the best fighters, and it's like the product— so when they have a fight like Holloway and Oliveira and like, oh, this fight wasn't good, like, that's a great fight, man. It's just You, you can't be a casual.

People are just bloodthirsty.

Yeah, you know, like this— listen, to do that to Max Holloway is crazy. Do you not appreciate that?

Go watch baseball. Wrestlers, great grapplers have never done that to him.

I know, it's nuts. It's nuts if you think about it.

Yeah, it's exciting, man. The UFC is definitely the best at it. With this whole Paramount thing, I was kind of— we'll see how it turns out. I was kind of worried, like, if you take pay-per-view off the table How much is UFC gonna put the biggest fights together? They don't need to sell pay-per-views, they're guaranteed money, you know. I was just wondering if that would not water it down, but it would get a bunch of weaker cards. And I'm still waiting to find out, man.

What is weird, right, because with pay-per-view you're always building it up so that people buy it. And then also points, like the fighters get paid points. So how are fighters getting paid? That's—

I've been asking every show I've I ask everybody. I want to know because I've, you know, my last few years in the UFC, I was always telling you nobody's telling me anything. They're keeping you in the dark. Keeping me in the dark. Keep them in the dark, man. Because, you know, I was pay-per-view partner multiple fights with the UFC. Mm-hmm. If there's— and that was always the thing they kind of— in this, in, in discussion about contracts and about future fights that they kind of held over you, like, right, you win this fight, one day you're gonna fight for the belt, you're gonna get pay-per-view, your life's gonna change. That was always a carrot they hung, like, to to make, you know, to do anything. That was the goal, to one day fight for the belt and get pay-per-view money. But now that that's gone, I mean, Conor's not gonna fight. Even Justin at the White House, there's no way these guys aren't fighting with that backdoor money. So they must be just guaranteeing them a bigger purse, I don't know.

Well, I think Justin would fight no matter what because it's for the title, this is his last fight.

Well, that, yeah, the title, the title.

It's the title, it's at the White House, he's a patriot, it's the last fight. You know, I think he would fight no matter what. But like, you know, Ronda Rousey, you know, she's promoting the Netflix fight. She made— I don't know if you saw what she said, but she had this big long speech about the UFC selling for $7 billion, these fighters aren't making enough money. And you know, look, she made some good points, and the most important thing is that she gets the conversation out there and it puts pressure pressure on the UFC to pay people more, you know. And if Netflix can become successful at MMA, if they could become successful putting cards together and pulling fighters away— like right now they're doing a one-off, right? It's one-off and it's kind of a gimmicky thing.

And listen, this payroll is going to be crazy.

It's gonna be crazy.

You got Ronda, Francis, I know, these— everybody's getting crazy money. The payroll is gonna be nuts.

But if anybody's got that kind of money, it's Netflix. They throw around a lot of ridiculous money. They make so much money, so they can kind of do that. The question is, are they gonna do that more than once? So if they do that more than once, then what happens is it's all about the name of the fighters, just like boxing. Like, if boxing— no one cares if it's Golden Boy. No, of course. Nobody cares about that. What they care about is who's fighting who. Is it Benavidez? Who's he fighting? Is he fighting Bivol? Let's go, that's a great fight. So if Netflix can kind of do the boxing thing on Netflix with like big-name stars, they can be a major player, and that will elevate everybody's pay scale. So as a lot of people like, oh, Ronda, how could you turn her back on the UFC and talk shit like that? If she's— what she's saying doesn't make any sense, she can't say it, right? So if what she's saying makes sense makes sense, then you have to go, she's got a point. Yeah, she's got a point. She's got a point. They sold it for $7 billion or whatever it is.

They got this billion— $7 billion deal, whatever the fucking deal was with Paramount, not even selling it, sold rights to it, right? That makes sense. She's making sense. And so if she's saying this and Netflix listens, and if someone comes along and they're a shrewd businessman, they go, look, and there's a lot of people, their contracts are coming up. And when these people's contracts are coming up, let's get into negotiations. And then also some people start drifting over. Yeah, so if like you get like an Islam Makhachev starts leaving and they leave and go fight on Netflix, and then they can talk 4 or 5 top major contenders into doing— look, it's a big ask.

Look, I love the UFC, spent most of my professional career there, but I love seeing these other organizations come up and people making money. It, right, like you said, it rises every, every It's more places for people to work, you know, it's— yeah, it's great. It's only good.

Olivier Albon Mercier, it's only good. A million dollars, come on, in the PFL. Yeah, and I think he did it more than once, right? Didn't he win the tournament twice or something like that? I'm not sure. He definitely won it at least once.

So like, Canadian gangster, right?

A guy who's not in the top 10 of the UFC goes over to another organization, makes a million dollars, right? Okay, I don't know if that's sustainable for them. I don't know how they came up with that money.

They got to be bleeding money out, right?

Have to be bleeding. Nobody's—

or even guys like Pettis, who was a former world champion, who, you know, his contract was good in the UFC, right? Didn't choose not to re-sign with the UFC and he went to PFL. They had to be paying him big money.

They have to be, you know. So it's all competition ultimately is good for the most important thing, which is paying the fighters.

Yeah. So I'm in places to work, like if the UFC cuts you or something, you back it, you know. 10 years ago, there's only place to make money, right? They cut you, now you got to get a job, maybe fight, try to get back in part-time fighting, like try to get— now you can pivot and still have a career.

Well, that's the thing with Francis. When Francis left the PFL, everybody's like, well, now he's fucked because he can't fight in the UFC. Can't— like, I wanted him to come back to the UFC. Yeah, I was like, come on, can we figure out a way to make this happen? But Dana just does not want to have anything to do with him. Like, apparently they they did not get along very well, which is like, I'm like, come on. Yeah, I don't— come on, can I help? Can I fucking get you guys in a room together and fucking calm everybody down? But at the most important thing is he's still a guy I want to watch. Oh yeah, you know, I mean, he's the legit heavyweight champion if you think about it. He never got beat in MMA as a heavyweight champion, you know, and then he fought Henan Ferreira PFL. Yeah, it's another ATT guy, but it's another one where it's like, who's watching that? I mean, and if you're watching it, you're just watching hardcore Francis. Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, I wanted to know, like, what were the numbers for that fight? It's probably the biggest fight they ever put on.

I don't think I've ever seen any numbers from PFL. And I think, like, the craziest—

he was like getting $20 million a fight, and he wanted his opponents to get a huge amount too. I forget what the he had like a minimum amount his opponents would get in his contract. Respect.

I didn't know that. Yeah, that's—

yeah, that's part of his contract. I forget what the number was, but it was substantial. So Henrique Ferreira got a giant payday for that fight too. Good. It's like, how are they— where are they getting— I guess they have Saudi money.

I think they did for some of the shows because they went to Saudi to do some shows, but I don't know if they're backing them the whole the whole company.

You, you're gonna need something like Netflix, and Netflix can kind of pull it off because Netflix has a massive promotional machine. And but they need big names. So like, now that they have Nate and Mike Perry on the card too, like, okay, okay. So you got Nate, Mike Perry, you got Francis, Philip Lindz, you have Rhonda and Gina. Okay, now you have 3 interesting fighters Yeah, you're gonna need a few more, and it's on Netflix, so it's gonna be free.

But even if Nate and Mike Perry was the head of the headliner, yeah, I would have bought that pay-per-view 100% when you don't have to buy it.

Exactly. Netflix. Yeah. So this is what gets interesting. So if this fight goes on Netflix and gets 50 million views, it's gonna get a lot. Yeah, it could get more views than any fight ever. Yeah, it could. It's very possible that that— because Netflix is bigger than any anything. If they got more views than anybody ever, that would be fucking— but then YouTube might come along. Most views on a mixed martial arts event?

Hey guys, we're YouTube.

We're even bigger than Netflix. YouTube is bigger than fucking Netflix. YouTube is everywhere. And if they come up with some crazy— if more players get involved in this and more people become free agents, it could get very interesting.

Dude, it's crazy to see how far the sport has come, because like back— all these big companies wouldn't want to touch this human cockfighting back in the day. I know. Now everybody wants a piece of the pie. I know, it's nuts. It's cool now, they know.

Yeah, it's wild, right, that cage fighting became something that like corporate America wants to get involved in.

Dude, I'm in the airport, I'm in the grocery store, grandmothers, old, you know, ladies are walking up to me talking about fights, which is insane. Insane. Insane. My wife's mom loves it. 15 years ago, bearded guys with tattoos would be in the grocery store, psst, we'd whisper about it, you know? It was frowned upon. We'd talk about it Fight Club, you know. Yeah, now it's like soccer moms. Did you see the fight last weekend? The armbar? I'm like, what are you talking about?

Well, that's all the UFC. UFC with that one deal— the Fertittas have such huge balls because they were down $40 million when they made that deal for Spike TV to do The Ultimate Fighter. And they were like, we're fucking hemorrhaging money. And they were talking about selling it.

And just a perfect storm stepped in. And the world was watching, man, and it felt special. I remember being at my mother's house. I knew I was watching something special.

Yeah, like, this is special. I know, it was crazy being there live too. It was so nuts. It was so nuts to watch it evolve and watch it burst out. And by then, by 2005, I had already been working for them for like 4 years because I— well, I started in '97 with the old owners, and I did like the backstage and post-fight interviews. Interviews. And then I did it for a little bit, and then I had to quit. I was like, this is costing me money. Yeah, I made more money going to a comedy club for a weekend than I would flying to Dothan, Alabama, to do— Bossier City, Louisiana. But I was happy I did it because it was fun and it was exciting. And I remember me and Eddie Bravo back then, we were like, man, you know what the UFC needs? This is like literally a conversation we had in like '98. They need some crazy billionaire trainers that love the sport to just dump a bunch of money in it, because we know it's exciting. It's just the rest of the world doesn't know. And along came the Fertittas, and they did it.

Did they saw it and rode that vision out, and it paid off.

It's nuts. Paid off literally like exactly what we said needed to happen. And then for that fight to happen in The Ultimate Fighter between Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin, because it was a perfect kind of fight, was it was so evenly matched, it was so chaotic, and they knew each other so well from being house together. They just went after it for 3 solid rounds. At the end, both guys were like, oh, but dude, nothing.

How could the idea of the actual Kumite idea of putting the best fighters from all over the world, whatever discipline they train in, let's find out who's the best— that's— I mean, it has— it's— of course it's gonna succeed. It's chaos. Yeah, it's everything you want to see.

And the crazy thing, it was really kind of invented as a showcase for Gracie jiu-jitsu because 'Cause the old Horian was like, you know, like, look, jiu-jitsu's gonna prevail. And he was kind of right.

No, I mean, at first. Dude, Royce was in there against giants. Dan Severn. Dude, come on. Kimo. What'd he weigh, 180 pounds, 190 pounds?

Yeah, maybe, not even. I think he was 176. Fighting these bodybuilders? And I asked him why'd they pick him. He goes, look at this face. Look how beautiful I am. I'm so good looking, that's why they picked me.

Wearing pajamas, we didn't even know what a gi was. Was?

Well, I had no idea jiu-jitsu was that, that effective. I was so confused. Yeah, I was like, someone's gonna kick him, he's fucked, someone's gonna punch him. And no, like, he's just taking dudes to the ground, that stomp.

And like, no idea of anything that they're doing, just letting them pass guard, letting them— oh yeah, do anything. You don't know any—

he's choking guys with the gi too, he's grabbing his own lapels. I'm like, oh, this is wild.

That's one thing I do, like, I gotta away from the gi. So from white belt to brown belt, I competed IBJJF every tournament I could, would do my weight class, would do absolute, get the reps. I love jiu-jitsu, but I probably around 2011, 2012, I'd stop putting the gi on, you know. It was all mixed martial arts training because I was getting— before I would use jiu-jitsu to prepare for fights at a small school I was at, but when I went to American Top Team, I didn't need it anymore because I had such high-level guys guys on the mats at all times. I was doing jiu-jitsu no-gi every day, but it's been so many years since I've put on a gi and had like a jiu-jitsu practice, man. And even the practices I do now are all no-gi. It's fun. I want to get back in the gi.

Gi's fun, but Eddie Bravo said it best. He goes, if you were a professional tennis player, would you practice for tennis by playing racquetball? No, you wouldn't, right? You would play tennis. You would do the thing that you do. If you want to get really good at MMA, jiu-jitsu, you need to do no-gi. Gee. Yeah, and he's right.

I mean, he definitely helps as well, but you got to do no-gi.

What gee does is it teaches you that you have to be technical with your defense because you can't muscle out of things. Yeah, but the reality is like you should just be technical with no-gi for sure. That's the thing, like get out of the thing. Like, I always say that the best jiu-jitsu is to learn jiu-jitsu from a small guy, like all technique. Yeah, like, like a Barrett Yoshida, Royler Gracie, Eddie Bravo. Like, learn jiu-jitsu from small people. Yeah, because they're all technique. They can't muscle out of things. Exactly. Learn Brazilian jiu-jitsu from some big giant motherfucker. Like, their, their game is gonna be so different because they're so strong, right? But like, look at like the sambo guys. Look at the Makhachevs and Khabibs. Like, that, that's the game of no gi. That's no gi. It's like their, their no gi game is finely polished. Yeah, finally. That's— it's not gonna help them to wear a gi. Their game wouldn't be better. Like, Khabib's game wouldn't have been better.

It's all top. You never see these guys on their back in the guard. It's a different— it's a different speed. It's jiu-jitsu, but it's a different, different game. Yeah, what they do. Small, small changes on the locks, like we were saying with the D'Arce choke, grabbing your forearm. They do things a little bit different, man. Even their wrestling, like, is different. It's not collegiate fundamental wrestling that you would teach at a wrestling camp. It's just chain wrestling that they kind of developed and have their own style, man. It's different.

It really is interesting. And then, you know, when I've talked to Daniel, he's like, dude, I've seen Khabib put it on, like, high-level amateur wrestlers in the gym, put it on them. And I believe it too. I mean, he's just— his discipline when he was in his prime, man, his discipline was just above and beyond. His discipline, his drive, his focus. And there's something to be said for those guys too, because they're super religious. So there's no partying, there's no drinking, there's no chasing women, there's no bullshit. It's just drive, drive, drive, drive, right? You know, in that collecting the legs that he does with the triangle underneath the legs when he's in mount against the fence, so hard to get out.

Everybody's doing it now, you know, the wrist ride, the handcuff he's doing. Everybody doing it. Yeah, dude, he—

I mean, it's been really interesting to watch like these dominant forces come along and like sort of remap the landscape of the game, you know. And we've seen it with them, especially in such a high-stakes game.

How do you do it that many times without catching a heel to the face, without catching a knee? You know, the guys he's fought, so many dangerous guys, he's just drowned them, you know.

I know. Well, you know, Islam got caught in that one fight and got knocked out. Adriano Martins. Yeah, right, but it just shows you as a human being, yeah, it can happen to anyone, can happen to anybody. And the Gleason-Tibau fight with, with Khabib, I feel like Gleason won that fight.

Oh man, I know a lot of people always talk about that.

I feel like Gleason won that fight.

Me and Tibau have been training partners for so— we beat each other up so much. He's such a fun guy, man. Oh, he's such a good dude.

He's another guy like, how the fuck are you 155?

So much energy, dude. Never complains about anything. He could have a 50-pound weight cut, smiling in the sauna. Just happy to be here. Just hope— he just hope both teams have fun. That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Just a happy-go guy, man.

Just— I watched that fight again because I was like, am I talking out of school? Should I shut the fuck up? And I watched it again. I go, no, I think he won.

Was it a split?

I don't remember.

I don't remember if it was split, but he was stopping takedowns.

Yeah, and he was a tank. That guy was a tank. He was big. Big. He was big and jacked, dude.

Probably 5'8", 5'7". Little sausage. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe. I don't know. I don't know either.

I don't know. Skillful, super skillful, you know. Solid striking, solid jiu-jitsu. Oh, great jiu-jitsu. Very good everywhere. Black belt in jiu-jitsu. Strong as fuck.

And just, you know, they knew from an early age because I think his middle name is Herculino. I'm serious. That's hilarious.

Yeah, Herculino.

Brazilians have some of the funnest nicknames. Yeah, he might have 8 names, you know. I bet. Yeah, yeah. Gleason, Tiba, Alves, Herculino, a few other things that I'm missing, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm serious though. Johnny Gleason, maybe Tiba. I don't know, he has a few names. That's funny. I'm being serious.

Really? Yes. A bunch of names that nobody knows? Mm-hmm. That's hilarious, man. Well, at American Top Team, man, you probably have seen more elite talent come through those doors. Shout out to Dan Lambert. Dan's a man. That motherfucker put the money in, put the time in when there was no money to be made. There was no—

that guy was— he just loved it.

It was a passion thing. And just think, it's just like what we said with the UFC. We need a rich guy to come along and just throw the money at it. Yeah, like that's what Dan did with American Top Team. I remember when he was putting together the, the new American Top Team facilities and you show me we're gonna have dorms, we're gonna have this. I'm like, I was like, this dude's trying to go broke. Like, what are you doing?

It's huge. And that area is crazy expensive. It's on a huge piece of land.

I need to get Dan in here. I know, for sure. I talked to him about it before, but he deserves—

he deserves the credit because that guy, dude, honestly, like, him building the gym and asking fighters for 5%, which is, you know, crazy, unheard of. Other gyms are taking crazy amounts, you know. He's giving you all these amenities, giving you a place to stay. Yeah, at one point he had houses as well. Fighter houses that he bought, and he would put fighters up in the houses for camps and stuff. Dude, I've heard of him paying, covering medical bills that fighters didn't have money for, never getting paid back. Yeah, like, oh, he's done so much stuff, man. He— yeah, a good— good for the sport. Solid, amazing for the sport.

And if he didn't put together that super gym, who knows how many of these super gyms would have ever evolved? Because he kind of set the blueprint for what, what a gym could be. To this day, that's still the best gym in the world in terms of like—

super gym. So much knowledge, man, right?

And so many— so much equipment.

It's so big, it's so well-made, and you never know who's gonna be on the mat at any time. You walk in and do an MMA class, there's literally thousands of mixed martial arts bout experience on the mat. Was Robbie his first world champion? I was there for every camp when Robbie came over over?

Uh, I feel like it might have been like— there was like, everybody was like, Dan Lambert deserves a world champion. Someone's got to be a world—

Robbie might have been the first, dude.

I think it might have been the first.

I mean, Mike Brown was WC. Yeah, there's been—

but UFC champion, I think, was Robbie Lawler, was number one. I remember when he came over, man. Hey, how is Pantoja? Do you know how is—

I don't know how the injury is, but it has to be bad if they're skipping him and going with this, uh, I know, other title fight. I know. I was there like 2 weeks ago. I went down to help some buddies. I spent a week there. I didn't see Pantoja at all. So it was so nasty.

But what was really weird was like when Megan Olivi was talking to us, they were saying that he dislocated his shoulder, and I was like, what? What? Like, what are you talking about? His elbow went out. Like, I'm watching his elbow.

Yeah, it looked like the elbow.

They said no, but I think they— the doctor had misspoke, and I'm 99% sure that it was actually the elbow that went out because the elbow clearly really moves and it caves in and gives out, right?

And when that happens, ligaments, muscles, everything gets damaged. But I just don't know the extent.

Well, it's too bad because also Pantoja is older, and he's older and dominant in flyweight, which is very hard to do.

It sucks at any time to see a fight end like that. Terrible. But especially a title fight, especially a title fight, especially on the streak he was on defending the belt. Like, it just—

fuck, man.

Not just that, and he's such a hard worker and such a quiet guy and just a good dude, you know.

He's a a fucking savage too. I think he's one of the greatest of all time. The post-fight, Dana said something about the shoulder also. They popped his shoulder back in. I thought it was the elbow. Well, it was the elbow. It says it's not the elbow, it was his shoulder. It's his elbow as well though. It's gotta be. That's weird. Yeah, follow-up post said there was no ligament damage, but I was trying to find, uh, updated. So even if there's no ligament damage, there could be cartilage damage. Oh yeah, a lot of other shit.

Anytime something bends the way it's not supposed —to, and soft tissues, his weight and Joshua Van's weight all on one arm posted, and that arm gives out.

But damn, dude, when he fought that Japanese cat, who was that guy, ran through him.

When Pantoja did?

Yeah, like, you just see how good he is. When he fought Kai Kara-France, ran through him, I was like, this dude is on fire right now.

He's good, man. He's on fire.

I think Pantoja is one of the best of all time. Time.

And dude, not loud, not flashy, quiet. He'll walk in the gym, go be in practice, you won't notice him. Just working, always does his work, just working. Yeah, just fucking focused, just a soldier. I love to see that though, man, cuz like a few years before he was the world— I mean, the flyweight champion, he was driving Uber or Uber Eats, like just trying to make, you know, scrapping to get bills paid. And you see a guy become— that's what makes fighting so special though, you You know, like Teddy Atlas has a speech about it, but it's like, where else can you be from any discipline, any creed, anything, any background, and call yourself the champion of the world? It's true. So powerful. On any given night, you can go against the odds and be a Buster Douglas or be an Uber Eats driver and be the world champion, you know, a couple years later. Like, it's just special, man. Fighting combat is special.

It is special, and it is the end-all of all sports. Sports. Like, if someone shoots a basket and they make a 3-pointer on you, you're like, okay, but I could still fuck you up. You know, no one says after you fucked them up, yeah, but I could score a basket on you. No one cares, dude. It's the end of all sports. The end of all everything.

The middle— the best middle school comeback. Somebody can be— can't beat me though. Yeah, can't beat me though. That was like the comeback for anything. Can't beat me though. Like, that's the top of the line. The best— the top challenge. Exactly. The top challenge.

Doesn't matter if you're better at backgammon, right?

Yeah, you dumped on me, but I'll beat your ass.

Yeah, beating someone's ass is the— that's the end goal. That's what all sports aspire to be. Yeah, is combat sports. So do you have plans for stuff you want to do outside of fighting now? Like, now that you're retired and now you're settling in?

Be a good dad, be a good husband. That's my— that's my goals always. But I have a few other businesses, you know, I've had for I got a documentary.

Got a great hot sauce.

Got a great hot sauce.

That hot sauce is legit, dude.

Well, let's— that— thank you, man. It's legit. Poirier's Louisiana Style Hot Sauce. It's not white label. We made this. We developed it.

It's very good, dude. It's very good.

Thank you. I'm proud of it.

I'm proud of it. Yeah, when you sent it to me, I was like, okay, I'll try it. I'm like, oh shit.

It's legit. Vinegar-based. Vinegar-based cayenne pepper. Very good.

Yeah. Very good hot sauce.

Thank you, man. I put a little celery in there. I could tell you put some work into that. Yeah, I didn't want it to— there's so many vinegar-based space hot sauces on a shelf. You know, you get lost in that, and the shelf space is so hard to get. I learned— I'm learning all this business stuff as I move forward, you know. And now that I'm done fighting, I get to really see where the hot sauce is, because every fight, every promotion, I got to talk about it, and sales always around every fight were great. But now we're gonna level off and see what kind of stride we have.

Well, it's legit, man. It's— I, I recommend it highly.

Thank you, man. It's very good. Besides that, I have a few businesses in Lafayette And I'm really getting excited to have a documentary coming out this year. The same guys who made my first documentary, Fightville, I don't know if you've seen it, came out in 2011. It was on Netflix. Actually did a premiere here at South by Southwest. Showtime picked it up. But the same company that did that, Pepper and Bones, is doing my retirement documentary. So they did the whole last training camp filmed. They live in Germany, so they would fly down, stay within camp. They did the whole fight week in New Orleans. Then they came back down for Thanksgiving, this recent Thanksgiving, and finished up the documentary. And they have hundreds of hours of footage unreleased from when I was 17, 18 years old. Whoa. So they got the— they got the whole journey. Whoa. Just randomly, this guy was filming a war veteran who turned— he was doing a— him and his wife, a documentary, Makers, and they were following this guy who just got back from the Middle East, and he happened to be a fighter. And I met the guy at a fight show I fought on.

He was filming the other guy for a war film, started talking, then he just— man, I'm interested in you, let me start— started filming me. And then, dude, now I have all this hundreds of hours of footage of me fighting amateur, small shows, behind the scenes, at my house, like as a kid.

Oh, that's incredible.

Yeah, so we're gonna put it all into this documentary.

Dude, that's awesome. That's amazing. Well, listen, brother, whatever you do, you know, if you put the same energy that you put into becoming a great fighter, you'd be great at anything you do. That's just the beautiful thing about doing the most difficult thing is everything else is definitely gonna be easier.

I want to go back to the difficult thing.

I don't want the easy path. It's so hard to let it go, right? It's hard to be—

it's like, like I tell my wife, I say this a lot, be a civilian, to go and coming from fight life every day for so long to being a civilian, it's like I'm relearning who I am.

Maybe a couple boxing matches. Maybe the UFC will let you out.

I would love to.

Do you think the UFC will let you out of contract, do some boxing matches? Nope, I don't think so.

Unless the pot was big enough to where— I don't think so. Ah, they should. But I'm not fucking fighting Floyd Mayweather. The pot ain't gonna be big enough. Right. You know? 'Cause there was a Russian company that wanted me and Nate to box.

Oh, and UFC said no?

I didn't even bring it to him. Ariel Helwani hit me up and said, hey, any interest in this? I have interest, but I didn't want to bring it to Hunter and Dana. I didn't want to ask them.

Give it a try. Yeah, give it a try. See what happens after this.

I tried to do the benefit. I tried to— let's do it in Zufu Boxing.

Yeah, that's silly that they don't want to do any crossovers, but I get it, dude.

I don't know if I want any more head trauma either, Joe. Yeah, yeah, I want to raise my son. Fine.

And that's true too. That's true too.

I have 50-something fights, right?

That's true too. Maybe just let it go. It'll never be gone. Keep it in the back of your head. Just work out. It'll never be gone.

I want to take— I want to take care of my head.

I'm never gonna stop. I'm never gonna stop.

And I hope William's there tonight.

Yeah, he'll be there tonight for sure.

I didn't— I didn't message him.

Oh, he was there. William Montgomery. Shout out to William. I didn't even catch that you were saying that. And when you were jumping guillotines— oh, in Miami. I didn't realize. And then everybody online told me, oh, he's doing William Montgomery.

I was like, oh my God, how did I miss that? I was 100% doing William Montgomery. But also, I give you the benefit of the doubt, dude. My delivery was kind of bad. It wasn't the exact— I was just so focused.

When I'm doing post-fight interviews, I'm just always so focused in trying to get everything out of the fighter that they want to say. That's all I'm thinking of. Is what can I ask him that can help them better express themselves after this big victory.

Yeah, you know, so it's like I was the underdog and Mike, every time I went to the corner, he's like, stop jumping guillotines, you're giving up takedowns, you're not gonna get—

cut it out, don't do it. I'm like, no, was that the Ben Walsall? I'm never gonna stop.

Yeah, yeah, that was a great victory too, man.

That was a good one.

Yeah, with the streak he's on, this aging, aging well, aging well, man.

Very well. Listen, brother, you're an all-time great. It's an honor honor. So cool to have you here again. Thank you for having me. And, uh, congratulations on an amazing career. Thank you, gentlemen. And like I said, you're gonna kill it with whatever you do, whatever you do in life. Try to be—

I'm gonna try to do the desk work and see where that goes, man.

Yes, and buy his hot sauce. It's legit. You heard. All right, thanks, brother. Bye, everybody. Aber was ich noch erzählen wollte: Meine Nichte kämpft sich ja ganz schön durchs Studium. Semesterbeitrag, Laptop, Bücher, Software, Handy, Internet.

Ey, so ein Master ist echt teuer.

Ach, sag ihr, sie kann sich das zurückholen. Ja, du meinst von der Steuer absetzen, ne?

Aber sie verdient ja nichts. Egal.

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