Transcript of JRE MMA Show #183 with Rico Verhoeven

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All day.

Good to see you, champ.

Yes, sir.

We were just trying to figure out how long it's been. What year? When was the last one we did together? I think it was 2017. Almost 10 years.

Yeah.

Or maybe it might have been '16.

Yeah, I think. Yes.

Was it really?

No. Yeah, yeah, he has the data. He's got it. I was like, maybe we just got punched to the head a little bit too much.

A little bit. Well, listen, man, uh, I want to tell you that, uh, that fight with Usyk was one of the craziest things that I've ever seen in my life. Never in my life did I think a guy who would go straight from kickboxing— did you have any professional boxing matches?

One.

One? One professional?

I've been boxing for 15 years.

Of course. Well, also, you're arguably the greatest kickboxer of all time.

Thank you, thank you, appreciate that.

And you have a fight with arguably the greatest boxer in the heavyweight division ever. He's in the conversation.

100%.

100% in the conversation of the greatest boxer in the heavyweight division ever. And you won 10 fucking rounds, man. You won 10 rounds.

Yeah, close to that, yeah.

I mean, I don't give a fuck what those judges were saying. Those judges were trying to say it was close, like it was almost like you were up. I think one of them had you up by one round, and the other ones had a draw.

Yeah, I think that's—

That's a crime. If that went to the scorecards and somehow or another you lost that decision, that would have been a crime. A crime.

I know, and I gotta be honest, I think, like, we're straight jumping into it, so, and like, ah, I think that's the hard part of it. It, like, I don't like losing, but I don't, if it happens, it happens. But I think that's the part that, mm, that makes it even harder, that I've, it felt so unjust and—

It felt unjust, the stoppage felt unjust. It didn't seem like it made sense. No, but like— It was like they were looking for a way to stop the fight.

Exactly, but next to that, like, you say this as a combat sports commentator for years and you've been in the sport for so many years and all other professional boxers and commentators, etc., they all see the fight a certain way, like you saw it, like how I experienced it, and then when we look at the scorecards, we get like a totally different fight. Like, what is going on there? And that is for me where the toughness is of the whole experience.

Right. It's very difficult to accept. And if you had lost by decision, it would have been insanity. And we've seen those insane decisions before, and I never know what's going on. You know, I don't want to think it's corruption, but it's almost worse if it's incompetence.

Yeah.

If you have someone who's judging a fight, which is like the most pivotal fight arguably of your career. You think about how long you've been reigning as the heavyweight champion of kickboxing, for like a decade, which is crazy at the highest level. Like, especially at the heavyweight division, it is so hard to stay at the top. Nobody does. Everybody's like, even in the UFC, it's like 1, 2 fights and then they fall off.

Yeah.

For you to be the heavyweight champion and have fucking wars like Jamal Ben Saddiq, that fight, like some of these fights, you've had wars.

Yeah.

And to come out on top every single fucking time.

Yeah.

And then you have this enormous fight and you have terrible judging. Terrible judging. And it's like, it's almost worse if it's incompetence because if you've got these people that don't know what they're watching and they're calling it like their eyes, their decision makes a difference about whether it's a W or an L and it doesn't make any sense. It's not fair. It's not right. I think at this point in time, they should really seriously consider having alternative scoring. I think there should be more. One of the things I like about Glory is that Glory has more than 3 judges. What do they have, 4 or 5?

Mm, 5, I believe. 5.

Yeah, I think 5 is the right number. I think 3 is too few. Yeah, because you could have 2 people fuck it up and one person gets it right, and then— but if you had 2 more judges, the odds are they're gonna get it right too. They're usually the people that fuck it up, it's the minority.

Yeah, but if you ask me, like Next to us as athletes putting our health on the line, which makes it very, very hard thing to cope with, but also for the people watching the fight, right? It's like it— like you said, it feels unjust. And I definitely feel like, especially in the time that we're in now, everybody wants transparency. If we look at the World Cup that just finished. Like, even there, when something happens, the referee is still a person. He can make, like, a mistake. He can look at the foul and he like, I saw it this way. But now what they're doing, they're looking at the VAR. They're looking at the cameras. And multiple people are looking at it and like, hey, we can interpret it, the rules, like this because this happened. We can see this. And this is wrong. So even it's gonna be a card or it's gonna be a penalty or whatever, there is— this is what's happening. But within this situation, it's just like, if you ask me, and it's still possible, it's a human being, the referee made a mistake, and that is possible. But there should be people or a situation where it's like, hey, sorry, ref, but "Hey, you made a mistake.

This wasn't the right call." So we can overturn it in a split of a second. Yeah.

The only thing that's really hard to do with that subjectively is fight stoppages. Because sometimes, at least in MMA, a referee sees things in a fighter that you might not see things watching it on television or sitting at my seat as a commentator. A referee will see a guy's eyes roll back in his head. He'll see something that I don't see. And I'll go, "Oh, I thought that was a little quick." Mm-hmm. They're right on top of it. They see, they see certain things that you might not be able to see.

Yeah, but that's the thing. We, uh, I appealed it. I appealed it.

Mm-hmm.

And, and everything we appealed upon, we got— they said like, you guys were right. We got stopped after the bell.

Yes.

The right after the, after the stoppage, the doctor came. He's— I wasn't disorientated. Didn't have no concussion or whatever symptoms. So everything, everything we, we got, they, they're like, no, you're right, you're right, you're right.

But they never overturned.

They never overturned nothing.

Also, how would they overturn it? Would they go to the judges' scorecards? And if they did go to the judges' scorecards, what would it be, a majority draw? Because if, if you are down or you're, you're even on both cards and then up on one, And then did they count the knockdowns in the final round? Because if they did, you might have lost that fight, which is even crazier.

Yeah, but then you have something like, hey guys, let's look at the scoring cards again, and that like other people, other judges look at the scorecards and look at the fight and score it again. Because, well, here's where it doesn't make any sense.

Here's where you know it's crazy. It was the most competitive fight of Usyk's career. As a heavyweight champion. Yeah. And they're not even talking at all about a rematch.

No.

That's kind of— This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the home of my website, joerogan.com. If you want to level up your business, you got to improve your website. Squarespace gives you everything you need to get a fully custom website, offer services, sell products, and get paid all in one place. Go to squarespace.com/rogan for a free trial, and when you are ready to launch, use code ROGAN to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Crazy, right? Isn't that kind of crazy? They're saying Deontay Wilder, which all love to Deontay. Yeah, but Deontay is not Deontay Wilder of 2019. No, he's a different guy now.

That's a good— that's a good thing that you just brought that up, because before this fight, you heard the whole conversation Okay, we're gonna do Rico. After that, I want to fight the winner of Dubois-Wardley. And after that, I want to fight Tyson Fury again, right? You know, the other two are not in the conversation anymore. So without taking too much credit for it, I think like with this fight, he saw like, hmm, this was a little harder than I expected. Yeah, so let's take it— let's take a different route. And for me, I don't want a rematch just to have the rematch. I would like the rematch because it makes sense. There's a story within this rematch.

It's huge.

And it's something that— it is unfinished business.

Yes. And it's a Rocky story, a real-life Rocky story.

100%. And that's why for me, where I'm looking at now, I'm like in the fall of my— or maybe in the winter of my career as an athlete, and I just want to do big fights that make sense. And then you're like, ooh, this is what I want to see.

Not only that, as a promoter, what makes more sense than that fight? Yeah, the Deontay Wilder fight. Again, all respect to Deontay, I love that guy. He's one of the greatest knockouts in the history of the heavyweight division. He's not the same guy. No, he's not the same guy for whatever reason. This, it happens to everybody, right? I think he's 40 now, right? It happens to everybody. You just got off of a crazy performance.

Yeah.

And the whole world got to see it. If any fight warrants a rematch, it's that fight.

Yeah.

That fucking rematch would be gigantic. It would be so huge. It's the ultimate Rocky story. I was watching that fight on the edge of my seat.

Oh, I love it.

The fight starts, I'm like, how's this gonna go down? How's this gonna go down? I'm like, whoa. First of all, I'm like, holy shit, Rico's fucking huge. You realize how big you are. And, you know, Usyk is a cruiserweight. He's a cruiserweight to put on weight.

He's a big cruiserweight.

Yeah, he could still make cruiserweight if he wanted to. If you want to get really lean, he could still make cruiserweight easily. You're way bigger than him. I'm like, that's a giant factor. And then it's your experience, your world championship level experience. You've been in so many big fights.

100%.

You look so calm and so relaxed and so in the moment. And I was like, holy shit, he might pull it off. And then it got into like the 3rd, 4th, and 5th round. I'm like, I don't see this changing. I'm like, this is crazy.

It was so funny. If you hear the commentators, they were like, okay, Rico's moving a lot and he's feinting and he's doing this and he's doing that, but how long can he keep this up?

Well, they don't know about your cardio. Exactly.

There was one commentator that also commentated for Glory.

Well, Alistair. Alistair was there.

Yeah, he was also there. He was also there. But the commentator for Glory, that he knew like that cardio-wise, I live in the gym. That's what it is. And you know as well, like, I love this. So I don't— I'm never gonna lose on cardio because then I lose for myself.

So you're an anomaly in terms of like 260-pound men. Yeah, there's very few guys that are as big as you that push a pace like you did. So I wasn't— when they were saying that, I was like, you guys, you know, you guys don't understand what you're saying here. He's gonna be able to do this all night long.

Yeah.

And, you know, credit to Usyk for finally catching you and rocking you, but the fight was stopped too quickly. It just was.

100%.

And you were still okay. You got in a world championship fight that's that close.

If it just—

not even really that close. You were that far ahead. You got to give someone a chance.

Yeah, but let's reverse it. Let's reverse it. What if he was in this position?

There's no way they would stop that fight. No way. Look, it's either incompetence or corruption, and I tend to think corruption. This is like, I think these guys want to keep judging fights and they want the favor of the promoters, and the money is in Usyk. Yeah, Usyk is a huge name. He's a, he's their big star in the heavyweight division.

They don't, they don't want like a guy coming in from a different sport and one professional boxer exactly making the biggest, making the biggest upset in boxing history. That would be, yeah. Yeah, that would be pretty crazy.

It really almost was the biggest upset in boxing history. I mean, it was crazy. It was really crazy to watch, man. But you were the perfect guy to do it because of the pace thing, because of the fact that you are so big and you can push that insane pace and keep it up for the 12 rounds. Exactly.

And also game plan-wise, we were so smart on the game plan. We did something that he has not seen before, that he has not experienced before, even though he fought the best boxers in the world. But all the boxers, what they were trying to do is outbox— the heavyweight boxers were trying to outbox a cruiserweight. How in the hell are you gonna do that? He's lighter, he's smaller, and he's faster. So how are you gonna out—

super technical.

Exactly. So how are you gonna outbox him? Did you just— you just gotta have a super strong game plan, and that's what we had.

So what— when you looked at it, when you first got the offer, first of all, how far out did you get the offer? How far out away from the fight? How much time did you have to prepare?

Well, did you— do you know the story how I got into this whole thing?

No.

Okay.

No.

It's a crazy story. Okay, let me tell you. So, it all started with the Canelo-Crawford fight. And Jason Statham is a good friend of mine, and I saw he was in Vegas for that fight. So I texted him, I was like, "Yo, you were there for that fight? Oh my God, yeah, this is gonna be crazy." So we went back and forth. It's like, yeah, bro. So he told me, brother, you need to be in boxing, because he was at the tournament when they did the 8-man tournament a few years ago. And so he comes to my fights and he's like, oh, you, you gotta be, you gotta be in here, you gotta kill these guys. I said, yeah, yeah, I think I could do pretty good. He's like, you know what, I'm gonna throw it out there and let's see what happens. Okay, so that was Let me see, that was Vegas time during the day, so Amsterdam time it was nighttime. So the next morning I'm on the treadmill, I'm running, the phone ring. Jason said, yo bro, I'm on the treadmill, let me call you back. Listen, I put your name out there, I showed your videos and they're going crazy, they want you.

So I jumped off, I was like, what do you mean? They said they want to do something, they're going to call you, I gave them your contact, like, Okay, so that's, that's how it started. Um, a few days later they call me, Rico, we want you to fight, blah blah, we love what you do, and we want you to fight Anthony Joshua. So I'm like, okay, let's go, I'm ready for this opportunity. But I was on the set of Roadhouse 2, so it was like, oh shit, now we gotta combine everything. I got my trainer coming in like during Yeah, during takes and like, okay, we do some pad work and, and then finally we were supposed to fight in February. So I think the deal came around October, October, November. So I had like around 10, 10 good weeks to train. And then finally I finish off the movie in December and he— but in between, Joshua got the offer to fight Jake Paul. For a crazy amount of money. He was like, of course, right? I'm gonna do that. And then after that, I'm gonna, gonna do the Rico fight. Perfect. Okay, he does the Jake Paul fight.

Well, that went like how it went. And then they reached out like, can we push the fight a little bit instead of February to March? Like, I'm good. The more time I get, the better, right? So to train, to, to transition into boxing. So That happened, and then the end of the year, like 2 weeks later, that tragic accident happens. So there was—

yeah, we're talking about Anthony Joshua. Yeah, he was in Africa, terrible car accident, killed 2 of his friends.

Yeah, terrible. So that derailed that whole situation, but I had a whole training plan scheduled. I was going to Spain to train there for a month, but I didn't know what was gonna happen, so I just did what I had to do and I just continued training. So I was in Spain training, training, training, and then at the end of that training camp, they— we were talking about it and they said like, yeah, we don't think— and also with, with this manager Eddie Hearn, like, I don't know if he's gonna be back soon, so what do you want to do? You want to wait or you want to fight? Like, I'm already training, so I would like to fight somebody, but we don't know what makes sense. Now let's think about it. So we thought about— we thought about it, they thought about it.

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And then we were talking about, hey, what about, what about Usyk? Does that make sense?

Was it your idea?

Yeah, it was our idea. I'm like, yeah, that makes sense, why not? Because he's the, he's the top dog. It's like undisputed kickboxing champion versus the undisputed boxing champion. Like, there's a story there. Yeah, it's like, let's just throw it out there and let's see what they say. Okay, pick up the phone, call them. Yo, yo, guys, yeah. We have an idea. So I pitched him the whole idea, Undisputed vs. Undisputed. Silence. Oh my God, what did I just do? Then the first thing I hear back, we love it. Whoa. I said, okay, what does that mean? What does that mean? So, uh, then he said, you know what, We're gonna talk to Usyk's team and we're gonna come back to you. So like, and then in 2 weeks they went to Usyk. Usyk loved the idea as well. So again, big shout out to him for taking that fight as well because he had hundreds of options and he took this fight, uh, outside the box. So I love it. Also to, uh, to His Excellency Turki Alashaikh for setting this whole thing up.

Oh, he has set up so many great fights. He's so important to boxing right now.

Super super much respect for both of them and thankful also to Jason, of course, for setting this whole thing up. Jason, yeah, and getting me into the— yeah, getting me into the conversation. Um, and then like, so that was after 2 weeks, and then at 2 weeks later, we, we were on a FaceTime call for like a minute, and yeah, after that they got it done. It was like— and then, and then afterwards they said like, oh, it's gonna be a title fight, and then the whole world went crazy, of course, like, oh my God, how is this guy gonna go for a world title fight? It doesn't make any sense. I was just like Let's go, we're gonna shock the world.

Well, you know, it's not like you hadn't had a lifetime of striking. It's only the difference is removing the kicks.

Yeah, but the thing is, like, the boxing fans, the straight-up boxing fans, they're not too much into MMA, and they're definitely not into kickboxing, right? So they had no clue, right? They had no clue of like, right, right, who is this guy? What did he do? And that's why also the WBC, they also had their Muay Thai department. So for them, It made sense. It's like, hey, Rico, with his credentials and what he did into— into— in kickboxing, it makes sense to make it a world championship fight. But we just have to tell the people.

Well, you know, it drives me nuts as a fan of combat sports, is also a giant fan of kickboxing. The kickboxing does not get the love that it deserves in America. It doesn't make any sense because in MMA, the casual fans love stand-up, and when fights go to the ground, they boo.

Mm-hmm.

So like, it, it makes no sense to me how you have boxing huge.

Yeah.

MMA huge. Kickboxing almost non-existent in America. There's no big kickboxing leagues.

No, but maybe because they, they want to see, yeah, their own people win. Maybe.

No, no, it just hasn't been promoted right. It doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense because their own people don't win in MMA. I mean, there's very few American champions. There's Justin Gaethje and Sean Strickland.

And yeah, but at least they're really competitive. And in kickboxing, they're—

right, that's true, but we don't care, honestly, in the MMA. No, I mean, Alex Pereira was the biggest star in the sport. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But Brazilian, doesn't speak English at all, only speaks Portuguese and whatever other language, his tribal language. And so then you have Islam Makhachev was fighting next weekend. Huge star, you know, from Dagestan. No one in America— all they care, are you the baddest motherfucker on earth? Yeah, that's all they care. And I really genuinely believe that if someone came along— like, I really wish Zuffa would do it. Yeah, because they're doing it with boxing, they should do it with kickboxing. Because kickboxing or Muay Thai, whichever they decide, you know, I think is the most exciting stand-up sport in the world. I don't think it's even close.

100%.

I love Glory. I fucking watch it all the time. I watch all the events. Yeah, it's so exciting, man. It's so fun. And the fights are so chaotic. And if you're a fan of— as brutal, brutal and technical at the same time. I mean, some of the most amazing fights. I mean, that's how I knew about Pereira, was because I was such a huge fan of Glory. Yeah. When he came over to the UFC, I was like, everyone's fucked. I'm like, you don't understand, everyone's fucked. This guy's different, man.

Yeah, he is.

He's different.

He's amazing.

But it was because I knew him so much from kickboxing, and he was so exciting in kickboxing. Like, kickboxing should be huge in America. It should be. It really should be.

Yeah, 100%, 100%. And it's, it's a part of MMA. So I think a lot of—

a giant part of MMA, the most exciting part of MMA. Yeah, is the kickboxing, for sure.

Yeah, 100%, 100%.

So makes no sense. It's a— it's a— it is an untapped market. There's somebody figured it out and dove in and made it, it would be gigantic. Yeah, it would have to be like the UFC though, because they— you have to have the kind of publicity machine, the kind of media machine that the UFC has. Yeah, to build up the stories and show these guys and show like all the champions.

100%. But I think that's in every big fight and every big organization is where the strength is, is the storytelling. Yes, that is where I think we're— and also if you ask me, like when I was in Glory, where it lacked on, on experience, like the storytelling, right? That where does this guy come from, what is his background? And like you want to get to know the person instead of just like The guy that throws punches and kicks.

Exactly. The UFC does an awesome job with that. They have a whole series called Embedded. So like next week when the Ian Garry-Islam Makhachev fight takes place, they're going to have one on Monday. So you get up Monday morning, it'll be there on, on YouTube and everybody will watch it and they're like, oh shit, you watch that one and you watch the one on Tuesday. You see them training, see them eating, see them in the sauna cutting weight. Yeah, you see them doing all their press stuff. You see them You get hyped, man.

You get hyped, but you get drawn into like, oh yeah, this is the guy exactly behind the fighter.

Exactly.

I think that's so much more interesting.

And then they have the countdown show, which is an hour. Yeah, countdown shows, like highly produced and all this different stuff. So the interviews and conversations with their family, yeah, it's fucking amazing. And it just gets you so jazzed up for the fight. If the UFC did something like that with kickboxing, I think it would be gigantic. You know, they tried Glory in America for a while. It was doing pretty good on Spike TV, remember? Yeah, like they had the Last Man Standing tournament in Los Angeles. Los Angeles. Yeah, I went to that. It was awesome. It's just, it just never fucking caught on.

No, you know, it was, it was hard. It was— yeah, it's too bad. So, and then after the last few years, we were just in Europe more, in the Netherlands. That's where we—

yeah, one is doing a good job with kickboxing, ONE FC. And I don't know, you don't know them? No.

Yeah, and I know about them, but I don't know.

No, I don't know if they're doing good or not in the lighter weight divisions because they get a lot of guys from Thailand and a lot of guys from Japan. Yeah, they're more Asian Asian-based, right?

They're not—

yes, yes, more Asian-based, but they have a lot of stand-up fights now. A lot of like either they have Muay Thai with MMA gloves on. Yeah, in a cage, brutal. And then they're also having kickboxing in a cage and kickboxing in a ring. They mix it up between rings.

Okay, that's great.

Yeah, I mean, I personally think the ring is better. I really do, because I think that there's a lot of weird stuff with the cage. You know, like the cage, especially with MMA, I don't like it because you could, you could use it to get back up. Yeah, you could like get your back against it and pull yourself back up. You could also use it to take people down. It's harder to take people down with the ring.

Yeah, I believe 100%. Yeah, so but that's why it's good for me now. Like, yeah, I know there was a free agent.

Yeah, there was a talk about you fighting Derrick Lewis. Yeah, I remember that. And then you got this, who's the offer to box? And it was so much money.

Yeah, the Joshua fight. Yeah. Oh, that's right. That's where it started. So yeah, so we were in talks because I was a free agent. I vacated the belt.

How many MMA fights you have? You at least won one?

Yeah, just one. I did some grappling years ago, but I just have one, one professional MMA fight. So, so after that, vacating my belt, I was a free agent. So we're like, okay, let's, yeah, dip our toes in different water. Let's see Yeah, let's see what's, what's on the landscape now.

Why did you decide to vacate the belt? Because you had done everything you needed to do.

I did it all.

You cleaned out the division.

I did it all. So I was like, I wanted, I wanted it to make sense. And first we talked within the organization of like, hey, I'm looking to do big stuff, different stuff. So like crossover events, because that was getting more and more talked about, like the big crossover. And I think, yeah, in my opinion, I am one of the baddest men on the planet, so it made sense to do it. But then, yeah, within the organization management, wrong management, like we just, yeah, didn't get it. We just didn't get to a place where it works out. So I was like, okay, let me just leave it then. So I left it, and then we talked with UFC to see, yeah, what was going on there. But then, yeah, I got the other offer and it made more sense.

Now, was the other offer a one-contract fight, a one-fight contract? So you're free?

I'm a free agent again.

Oh, wow.

So, and that's why—

was there any conversation at all about a rematch?

Yeah, right away. His Excellency came into the ring and he said, you're gonna fight this guy again. That's the first thing he said. But Khabib Nurmagomedov also came into the ring Ajit Kobayashi, the WBC interim champion, and now the champion because Usyk vacated the belt as well. So he also wanted his shot. So there was like a lot of talk, and like at that moment I was there, but it was just like, I don't know, chaos. Yeah, chaos. And for me, I was just like, wow, did this—

they just fucked it.

Yeah, this really just happened. And it took, it took me like at least 6 weeks before I watched the fight back for the very first time after the fight. Wow. Because it, it, it still hurts. So, um, so yeah, so now I'm like a free agent and I— we got so many, we got so many offers.

Now what is it like watching it and watching the fight get stopped after the bell?

It still hurts. It still hurts. I'm like, wow, what What did you— what did you want me to do? You want me to move around? Did you want me to punch back or whatever? For me, like, you know, I've been in trouble multiple times within my world title kickboxing fights. Yeah, I was behind multiple times and I still came out on top. So there was— for me, there's no conversation in like 'Okay, could he continue? Is he gonna continue?' I never stop.

They don't know you. Exactly. The conditioning thing, like, your conditioning is so good, you bounce back so quick. And there's been so many times where guys try to empty the tank to put you out. Yeah, you're not going nowhere.

No. And it was just a few seconds, and a referee should know that. So next to that, like, with all the experience, you know, that I have within the combat sports, Like, it's just a few seconds, let it go, and let me at least— give me the opportunity and give the fans the opportunity to see that 12th round, right? So I would have been so excited. Yeah. Oh my God. But also looking now, looking back at it, because there was also open scoring, and I love open scoring because within that gives you the right position and gives the fighters the position Like, okay, where are we standing within this fight? But now looking back at the fight after 8 rounds, because after every 4 rounds we hear what the scoring is. After 8 rounds, my trainer Peter Fury says, okay, we gotta really start winning these rounds now. I was like, what? I was like, am I hearing this right? I feel like I'm already winning these rounds. He said, no, we're equal. We're equal on the scorecards after 8 rounds. So I was like, okay, so in the 9th round, I—

even the commentators are like, what?

Yeah, exactly. But then I really started pushing even more, but I was pushing already. But if you know you're like 8 or 7 rounds ahead and you feel like you're getting tired the last 2 or 3 rounds, just move around. Yeah, tip-tap. And maybe you lose it, maybe it's a draw, whatever, and then still you win because you were like 5 rounds ahead, then it doesn't make any sense. But now we had to keep pushing, and then, oh, it's like walking straight into that uppercut. Like, oh, still, it still gets me. Oh, I'm gonna look back at it, it's like, oh. And then that last part, that's what I find so hard, and I feel like I need to work on that as a human being, for myself, as a person. I can only look at that, at that one mistake I felt I made at the end because I gave them the opportunity to pull this card. That's what— that's, that's how it feels for me.

Mistake being that you push too hard, or—

yeah, yeah, the mistake. Like, there was one mistake that I made running into that uppercut, like walking straight in, swinging. And we said in the, in the, in the whole prep, I tried that a few times, like Oh, that's dangerous. Don't do that with Usyk. And still, for whatever reason, I did that at that exact moment. And that, that's what frustrates me if I look back at it, because I'm only— I'm not looking at what he did well, because that uppercut was amazing. I'm just looking at what I, what I'm responsible for. And I'm responsible for myself. And I gave them now this opportunity by making that mistake. And that's like, oh, so hard to get over that for myself, but I need to work on that because I had the same with the Jamal Ben Saddik fight with the eye. Everybody's like, oh, Rico, you showed them you're never giving up. But I know I got that. I know I got that from the inside, but I never have to show that because the skill set is so, so big that I don't get in, I don't get in trouble. So I don't have to show that I can continue and I'm never giving up.

But I can only look at that, oh, that one mistake. Why did I do that? Then I get the eye, like, you're stupid. So I can only look at that. Yeah, it's—

and that guy fucking punches hard. Yeah, and he's a big fella.

Yeah, he's bigger than I am.

Jamal Ben Sadiq is huge, powerful, powerful.

So it's— that's, uh, that, that's hard for me, but I got to work on that for myself.

Like, yeah, but that's also why you're great. Yeah, I mean, you have to, you have to hate mistakes. Hate them. Yeah, like they're poison.

Yeah, they are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, but you got— yeah, yeah, you should have seen me after the fight. Like, I was, I was like a big baby. I was crying in my, my hotel room like a big, big baby. I was like, oh my God, I was so close of like shocking the world. And yeah, now this happened. It was like, oh, it hurts so bad.

It still hurts to a certain extent, but at least you could laugh at it a little bit now. Yeah, I can only imagine. To me, watching it as a fan of yours, I was like, oh God, he's gonna fucking pull it off. Yeah, I was on the edge of my seat. And when we're going into the 9th and 10th round, so I was like, I don't see how Usyk can win.

No.

And then when they started talking about the scorecards, I was like, what the fuck are they watching? This is crazy.

They're looking at a different fight. But that's so—

but for me, either corrupt or incompetent.

Yeah, if I look at it now, and, and for us talking about it, and for you being so long into combat sports and being a commentator and doing it yourself, Wouldn't it be something? Wouldn't you be maybe a spokesman, or a part— could you be a part of a way how we can make this whole judging thing and this whole transparency better?

Well, I think one way to do it is to have more judges like Glory does. I think 5 is probably the right number. I think another thing to do is maybe have a bunch of people online that are recognized experts, like top trainers, top commentators, people, people that really understand the sport. And maybe they get an app. Maybe there's like a special app that those guys can judge on. So you have a collective expert opinion and you get to look at that as well.

But that's what we had now. Like, if you look, the professionals, the trainers, the commentators, they all saw the fight a certain way, but the judges saw it something totally— they were looking at a different fight for some kind of reason. And that's, that's crazy.

A problem like we talked about, it's either incompetence or it's corruption. And I think it might be a little bit of both. Yeah. And I think maybe the corruption isn't even conscious, but it's like they know who the promoter wants to win. They want Usyk to win because Usyk is where you can get the next Tyson Fury fight or the Anthony Joshua— well, not Anthony Joshua, but whoever he would decide to fight. Yeah, you know, again. Yeah, and now it's gonna be Deontay Wilder, which nobody's calling for.

I don't know if it's gonna happen.

Where is that? See, signed? Can you please find out if the Anthony Joshua— or excuse me, the Deontay Wilder-Alexander Usyk fight is signed? Because people were talking about that being— I think they were saying like December or something.

They were trying for it. At least I know that's what I— yeah, that's what they were trying for. But for me, I Like, that's why for now it's not officially signed yet.

Okay, a plea to His Excellency, Turkey Al Sheik, this is the fight. But here's the question, does Usyk want that fight? That's the question.

I don't know.

I don't think a really tough fight like that fight, and then, you know, they ask you to do it again, this is your last time out. He's calling— I mean, this is— he's calling this is his last fight. Yeah, if this is his last fight and he almost lost to you and he has the potential of losing again, they'd have to entice him with— they'd have to fucking—

yeah, pull out that paper. Then he's like, "Shrink!" Big bag of gold. Then he's like, "Oh, okay, if I lose, it is what it is." Exactly.

Just—

now, but that's why it's so good for me now to be in this position. I'm a free agent. We got offers from the biggest organizations across the world, like, after this fight, and I'm just like taking, taking my time.

What offers have they given you that's exciting? Can you talk about them?

Not really.

No? Tell me afterwards.

Yeah, no, so they—

I know a lot of people talked about you possibly boxing Francis Ngannou.

Yeah.

Or having an MMA fight with Francis Ngannou.

Yeah.

So was that on the table?

Yeah, no, so to be honest, like 2 weeks before the Usyk fight, there was the, the MVP card.

Right?

But then they approached me like weeks before, uh, MVP, to MMA versus Francis. And then I was also like right on the edge of like closing the deal with Usyk. And so I had the two options on the table. And yeah, to be honest, like the, the other, the, the, the MMA deal, like they kept on like stacking up, stacking up, like Rico, it's like, "Mwah, okay, what if we give you the—" "Mmm." "Okay, but what if you give me the—" "Okay, let me look at this option again." So, but then, yeah, I just look myself in the mirror like, I respect His Excellency and Jason gave his word and His Excellency gave his word that they were gonna do it and if I look at myself, I'm looking at legacy and that Francis Ngannou fight is still gonna be there after the Usyk fight. But how crazy is that, as a kickboxer coming in fighting for a world championship within boxing and potentially winning? Because that's how I— I only have one, one plan, and that's winning. So that's how I went into that fight. And, you know, we saw how that went. And there was—

didn't you wish you could kick him? No, not really. Not at all?

No. Didn't you wish you could just a few low kicks? No, because that— he's definitely not gonna make it to the end. But that was so It's so funny because everybody's like, Rico, you've been kickboxing for so long, like what happens if you head kick him? Like, just like, don't you have that feeling? Like, like, guys, like I've been boxing next to doing kickboxing like for 15 years or something. I've been working with Peter Fury for so long and I'm used to this, but I know for, I think that's what made me such a good kickboxer as well, that I was into boxing.

But there's a giant difference between working with a kickboxer and even being a kickboxer and fighting arguably the greatest heavyweight of all time. 100%. Crazy. 100%.

But the crazy thing was, I think, I think it was around 5 or 6, I was like, he was jabbing me, I was just ticking it away, and I was like, bum bum bum. I'm like talking to myself in the fight, I'm like, am I outjabbing the champ? This is crazy. And then my trainer, I had a trainer, my trainer Dennis, Rico, just keep doing what you're doing. You're winning this fight. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Because he also didn't want me to take too many risks. Right. He's like, okay, you won this round and then continue from there. Because that's how they were experiencing it, the fight and the rounds on the side. Well, let me ask you this.

When you first started formulating a game plan, did you watch a bunch— I'm sure you're already a fan of Usyk's. Yeah, 100%. But did you rewatch him and try to find patterns? How did you formulate this game plan?

Of course, with Yeah, my trainer Peter Fury, with these— yeah, he's crazy. He's the very, very, very best at what he does. And we were just like analyzing these fights, like, so first he already had the thing in his mind and he asked me like, what do you see all these boxers do and what they shouldn't be doing and what do you think they should do? So I look at it, I look at it, I look at it, and I think it basically started with if somebody is a southpaw, why would you stay right in front of them? That's one thing. And because you cannot go— if somebody's orthodox, you move to the right, but you cannot move to the right with a southpaw because you're walking straight into a left hand. So Why is nobody moving to the left? Because then as soon as you move to the left, you're walking away from— right— that strong arm.

I think, and that's where he's at exactly, which is crazy. It's just so many people are so stuck in their patterns, exactly the way they like to move. They like to move to their right. Yeah, that's what they like. They feel good. They want to move to their right and throw a right hand, but you're just running into that power hand. It's just crazy that It's not just that too. It's also the size difference. Like, that was one thing. It's like you were so big in that ring that you were smothering him and you on top of him and you were throwing those shots in tight.

Yeah, but the combination of those two, getting him out of that position took away so many, so many of his tools. And then, like you said, smothering and getting into him and using my size. Because if you ask me, like, all the guys he fought are way— they're my size. They're way bigger than him, right? But because the way they fought, they couldn't use their size on him. But the way I did it, I could.

Tyson Fury did a lot. He used his size a lot, you know, and he's a different kind of big though. He's big and long where you're fucking thick. Yeah, you know, it's a different thing. You're very lean and huge. Is a different— it's like the, the mass of you when you were on top of him pushing him, you could see that it was a factor. It's like he was recognizing it. But it's so hard.

Like, if you look at that fight that you just mentioned, is how are you gonna get— he tried to use his size, but how are you gonna get close to him walking straight into it? Because he's then— he's just gonna keep moving, right? Because he's so fast on his feet. But that's what we tried to do. We try to be fast on our feet and move to the side and then get into it and then get close. Because then as soon as you— he's a southpaw, you keep moving this way and just keep getting closer. Somewhere you're gonna, you're gonna be there, you're gonna reach him. Yeah, but it takes, it takes some time. And I didn't think— if you look at the heavyweights, what they all want to do is they want to— bam! They want to hit, maybe boom boom, one-two. Versus the very— of arguably one of the best to have ever done it. And then especially in a cruiserweight, how are you gonna hit him in step A, right? It's gonna be at least step B, C, or D when you're gonna hit him. You gotta have multiple plans. Like for me, I was just throwing, throw, throw, throw, throw.

And I know I'm gonna— I was the first time I was gonna hit him was maybe in punch 6 or whatever, because then the distance is gonna be closer. So I didn't even think about trying to knock his head off. That's what I said. I said, okay, that's what I'm gonna do, try and knock his head off. Of course I'm gonna tell him that, because that— this is definitely not what we're gonna do. I was just gonna get close, right, and keep, keep working, keep working volume. And then finally, when you're there that's the moment you're gonna put in some power. But that's like maybe punch 7 or 8, but the first 3, 4, you're not even gonna hit. It's gonna— you just got— you're just hitting air because he's too fast, right?

He's like a giant Lomachenko. Exactly.

But that's how we thought about it. Don't try and hit him in the first 2 or 3 punches. Throw them so he has something to look at and something to think about. And then we're gonna get there. And as soon as you get there, you smother him. Boom, punch him in the body.

What heavyweight boxers have you worked with over the years?

All the top fighters. Of course, that's how I got with Peter Fury. I started with Tyson Fury. I trained with, with Ajit Kabayal because he was also in that, in that camp back then. Mm, Hughie Fury, Peter Sun. He's— I think he's also— he's been going up and down because of his health, but he's definitely one of the best. And he— if we're gonna see more of him, because yeah, he's such a good competitor, such a good boxer as well, great skill set. So there's been a bunch of fighters that I— that we worked with.

That's so massive. Because he, you know, sharing all that gym time with elite guys like Tyson Fury. Yeah, you know, and Kobyev, though, having that kind of experience in the gym must have also been a huge confidence boost.

100%, 100%, especially now in this whole last thing, is trying to get like some good South Pole fighters. Oh my god, that's the hardest thing, the hardest thing. And then we have one big guy and we had one One smaller guy. It was so hard. And then mixing that up. So we started off with first 6 with the big guy, Moses Jolie, and an amazing boxer, but he's big, he's big, he's heavy. He's not an Usyk. He's like twice as big as Usyk, but he's a southpaw, so he has that power and we could really compete. And then after that, we jumped in with James Branch. And he's like 90 kilo South Pole, so he's like, pfft, pfft, pfft, he's like throwing rapid-fire punches, like, what the fuck? So, and that change within sparring, so doing first 6 with one and then 6 with the other, oh my God, that was next level. It was like 6 months of pure hard work. Wow. But it was so cool. It was so cool. And it, yeah, it just opened up my mind to a whole different, to a whole different world. And it's for being in, in combat sports since I was 6, and after all these years saying like, okay, this kickboxing chapter within the book is, I think that's, that's done.

Let's start a new chapter.

Well, there's no big kickboxing fight that can compare with what you just did.

No, exactly.

How old are you now? 38? 37. 37. Yeah. So at that age, like, you've gotta, you gotta like look at what you've already accomplished. Yeah. In kickboxing, there's no fight that everyone's calling out for, like, oh yeah, you know, it's not like Badr Hari's at the time, in the prime. No, it's not like one big fight. No, no.

So there was like, hey, especially with the whole crossover fights being at the biggest attention right now, it's like, hey, I think this is something we got to look at.

So after the fight is done, yeah, Turki Alashiq comes into the ring, says you guys gonna fight again, and it's been a couple months now. So what has happened? What, what, do you talk to anybody?

Has your management talked? Yeah, they talked to her because it's been crazy. Like, all the, the biggest organizations reached out Hey, we were looking at this fight, we're looking at that fight, right? But what about what makes— what makes sense for us? And that's where I'm looking at now, because like I said, I mean, I believe I'm in the winter of my career, so I'm just looking at big fights. Do you have a timeline when you want to get out? No, no, it's not set in stone. But let's, let's see, let's see. But like I said, I feel like I'm so excited. I'm so, I'm so happy and I'm so grateful to be in this position right now. So let's, yeah, make history.

Yeah, I mean, it's all about legacy, right? They fucked you over, but you did win. You got a big win out of it in that you performed way better than anybody expected. And, and then there's also this element where people are rooting for you because they do think you got fucked over.

Yeah, 100%.

I think you were getting fucked over in the scoring and they got— you got fucked over with a stoppage. Yeah. And so it's very marketable. And so what my question though, what I'm asking is, has anybody talked about the rematch other than that one time?

I knew this was gonna come. I mean, that's the fight. What I want to know is— that's the fight. Oh, he's talking about the rematch.

That is the fight. That is— I know. That's one of the biggest fights in heavyweight boxing right now. I know, 100%. If not though, it's got to be— other than Tyson Fury versus Anthony Joshua is gonna be big for England. Yeah, right.

For them, that's an all-time 100%.

Two of the all-time greats in England, two of the greatest British heavyweight champions ever. A little bit late, but it's a little late, especially after Anthony Joshua's last fight. That was a scary one. I was like, whoa.

Yeah, but both of them— yes, both of the fights they did— yes. Yeah, it's not—

they're not the same guys.

No, but, but still, it's still super exciting. Exactly, they're legends, and it's a huge fight that finally got made.

Other than that, the fight is a rematch. Yeah, you and Usyk is the fight. That is the fight in the heavyweight division right now. There's no one else out there that's like, you know, there's Moses Itama, who people don't really know about enough. Not yet. Yeah, but he's the future, 100%. That guy's good.

Ooh, dynamite, dynamite, dynamite.

Yeah, so good. Yeah, and he's so slick in how he moves in and out. Yeah.

Oh no, that's a That's the next generation.

He's the future. Yeah, he's the future. Yeah, I mean, he's like our generation's Mike Tyson. Yeah. Well, you watch him, he's 21 years old, he's coming up, you're like, holy shit. He's like— But other than, I mean, but he doesn't have enough experience yet and doesn't have enough name yet for what he really is and what his potential is. Not yet, no, exactly. It one day will happen, but for you and for Usyk, that, and for heavyweight boxing, that's the vibes.

Yeah, 100%, 100%. I wish I was a promoter. Yeah.

Maybe we'll get Dana White to get Zuffa involved. Oh, that would be crazy. I don't know, what is— does— is there some sort of a deal that Usyk has with anybody?

I don't think so, because I believe that is one of the reasons as well why he vacated those belts, because he doesn't want to deal with anybody else. No, because when you have those belts, you get forced into fights, right? Like, okay, you're mandatory to fight this guy. And that was the— I think for him the position that he was in fighting me, he could like— that was a voluntary defense, and he decided like, hey, I would love to do this on my terms versus another guy. And I think they looked at it like, this may be gonna be an easier fight, so this is nice to do. That didn't go the way he planned, but, but still, I think I think that's where his mind is at now. Like, he's like, "I just wanna do what I wanna do," which makes so much sense after what he has accomplished as a—

After what he's accomplished, he should be able to call his own shots, and I want him to make the most money possible because he is a legend. But that's—

this is then the fight.

But the problem is, it might be too hard. Yeah. It might be too hard. It might be one of those ones which is why maybe, you know, no disrespect to Deontay, but he might be looking at Deontay thinking Deontay's a little softer.

Yeah, and we're gonna ride into the sunset.

Yeah, go out with a big spectacular knockout.

Yeah, but it's also then, like you said, it's not gonna be the big money grab that—

because if you ask me, people gonna pay for that? No, exactly.

They're not gonna be paid that crazy money for it.

It's not a big pay-per-view fight. That's the thing. It's like, people will watch it just because he's an all-time great, and anytime Usyk fights, people are gonna watch. And Deontay still Yeah, he's still the greatest one-punch knockout artist in the history.

Yeah, you should never know what's gonna happen when he fights.

Lose is the power. Yeah, his power is fucking crazy. Yeah, he can finish you in the 10th. Yeah, but one shot, yeah, coming out of nowhere. He hit Ortiz on the top of the head and put him out. I was like, that is nuts. Yeah, he's so— level of power, different level of power. But again, 40 years old, it's twilight of his career, and this hasn't looked good in the last, you know, last few years. But for Usyk to want that fight signals to me that he just, you know, wants to just go out with one more payday and that's it. And I don't know if that was his choice, that fight. Maybe that's just the internet talking. Yeah, maybe that's Deontay Wilder's team wants that fight. I don't know.

I don't know either. But like I said, I got, I got all the options. They gave me all the options, like, hey, you want to fight this guy, you want to fight that. So if they talked to you about MMA as well, Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I'm keeping the options open, but you're leaning towards boxing. Yeah, because I've been in the boxing game now and I've enjoyed it so much. And that's like, for me, like I just said, like I came from kickboxing from being 6 years old and doing it for over 30 years, and then now getting really into boxing. I was always boxing, but I was boxing to kickbox. It's a totally different game. I had to rewire everything that was in there. So, now that I did it and I performed the way that I performed, it was like, "Yeah, this was fun." This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

You've probably heard about BetterHelp before, but maybe you haven't heard from those who have actually used BetterHelp. That feedback can tell you everything you need to know. Go to betterhelp.com/reviews and check out the feedback feedback from hundreds of people saying how much they love this service. It's easy to see why. To get started, all you have to do is answer a few questions. You'll get matched up with a therapist based on your needs, and if it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time. See the reviews, see what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com/jre. That's Better H-E-L-P www.gymshark.com/JRE. I really enjoyed that. Also, that is the glory division, no pun intended, of the heavyweight division— is the heavyweight division of boxing, rather— is the heavyweight division. The heavyweight division is where the real money's at, always. Yeah, that is the baddest. It's always been there. It's always been that way. And for you, after that performance, I got to think there's a lot of options for you.

Yeah, like I said, we— they threw so many stuff at us. But we're like, hey, we take our time, look at the different options. And of course, still, His Excellency has our first preference because they gave us the opportunity, right? When— yeah, we had— we had—

what was it like to fight in front of the pyramids? That's crazy too. Insane.

Outside, it was insane, Joe. It's like Let me tell you another story. So that happened also while I was in this camp. It's not a nice thing to say, but my mother passed away during the moment I was in camp for this fight. And well, that happened. It was hard. And then we had to clean out her house. And then finally doing that and cleaning everything, and then we come by a bunch of pictures. And yeah, you can see it on my Instagram. And then I see the pictures of my mother 30 years prior being in front of the pyramids. It's like, wow, why do I see these pictures now knowing that this fight is in front of the pyramids? It was mind-blowing. And so for me, it was like full circle. Going back, I like literally made the same pictures my mother made 30 years prior before the fight in front of the Sphinx, in front of the pyramids, and that was like goosebumps. So for me, having that whole experience, being in front of the pyramids, doing that was like full circle.

When did they come up with that idea to have you guys fight in front of the pyramids? Well, The way they look at that. Yeah, that's crazy. That really is crazy. Wow. Wow. Yeah, that really is wild. Yeah.

Still, I don't know, still like, of course, of course.

Yeah, so when did they come up with the idea of having a heavyweight title fight in front of the pyramids?

Yeah, so the communication is always like really like straightforward and they don't say too much, so The way it began, like the first thing I got was just like a WhatsApp picture. We're thinking about this location. That was the thing. Because first I saw the picture, I opened it. Oh, it's the pyramids. Nice. And then after that, I looked at it. We're thinking about this location. I'm like, okay, but how are you going to do that? Like, to me, it didn't make too much sense. And then afterwards, they sent me a video like, yeah, we're going to do it here. It's gonna be outside and it's like, oh my God, it's gonna be outside in front of the pyramids. It's like mind-blowing. And that was also a thing. That's what I said, like it was like the Rumble in the Jungle. Right. But then with that being said, what people thought like, what is this guy talking about? Is he putting himself in the same category as Ali and Foreman or whatever? What is he— No, that's not what I'm saying. I mean about the location. I never put myself in that. Everybody knows me, like I'm super humble, so I never would say something like that, but that's what I meant.

Like it was something like the Rumble in the Jungle because we're talking about the location. Right.

The location was a part of the experience. Exactly.

It was insane, Joe. Like, and then for me, they asked me like, Rico, can we ask you to do like a certain choreography? Okay, I don't want to do too much. I want to focus on fighting Usyk. So, okay, only thing you got to do is like punch the ground and then the ground is going to crack open and then we're going to like for the first time that evening, boom, we're going to turn on the pyramids. So that's cool. That sounds good. I'll do that. So I did that. But so I punched the ground. I turn around, and for the first time, you see like the ground cracking open, and then, choof, then the lights shine onto the pyramids. Wow. Wow. It was a goosebump moment.

Was that your first time being at the pyramids? Yeah.

Yeah, so that's why this whole picture and this whole thing was for me, was like a full circle, like, wow. It was such a special moment, such a special event. And then, okay, then I turn around, then my whole theme song comes up, you know how I run to the ring. Yeah. But that wasn't like a real catwalk. And during the day, I already went to see like what they expected from me and like how I'm gonna— and there was like some small steps, like down, like 5 or 6. But then I hear my song, boom, boom, boom, I do my thing and I do, "Rah!" And I run to the ring. But I was like walking straight onto these steps. I'm like, "Am I gonna take these steps fast?" I'm like, "No." Fuck him, I'll just jump down. I just decided that at the moment. And then I landed, it was like, ooh, this was higher than I expected. And I just kept on running. It's like, just think about like, maybe I just like sprained my ankle or something, like jumping from the crazy, like that. Oh my God, it was so funny because afterwards, the cameraman, he walked up to me, he's like, I almost missed you.

You were jumping down. It's like I was looking at you, looking at you, like, whoa, you were gone. That was wild. Yeah, it was. It was wild. It was outside and it was— the temperature was actually pretty good. What was the temperature? I think it was like 20 degrees Celsius.

So that's Celsius. What is that? It's like 70-something. Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's real swirly in that, in the real mid part. Yeah. Yeah. What's that, Jamie? Because I mean, 100, you know, is boiling, and 212 is boiling for Fahrenheit, but like 0 and 30, I don't know what, yeah. Somewhere in the middle. Put it in the— I will. Here, I'll do it right here. I have this on the screen, I can't. What is 20 degrees Celsius in Fahrenheit? 68. Oh, perfect.

So that was nice. So you're like, ah! And I run, and then whoop! I just jumped down. Wow, that was so cool.

Did it feel any different than any other fight you've had before? No, no, we've had so much. What is— how many kickboxing fights have you had?

75-something. 75? That's crazy.

Yeah, that is crazy. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. That's a giant, huge advantage of having so much combat sports experience.

Yeah, but, but where everybody was leaning towards was like a This guy has one professional boxing fight. What is he doing there? This doesn't make any sense. My guys, I've been in and around the ring for quite a while.

I have a bunch of friends of mine that are just boxing fans. Yeah, and they were talking all kinds of shit.

Like, you know, also I had so many apologies. Rico, I was so many famous boxers. I'd be like, I didn't know what you were capable of. But damn, this was, this was crazy. Like, oh, thank you, appreciate that.

Quite honestly, I didn't know what you're gonna be capable of either, because I knew you as a kickboxer were one of the greatest of all time. Yeah, but as a boxer, I hadn't seen— I'm like, you're taking away one of his biggest weapons. Yeah, which is the low kicks. I mean, your low kicks are phenomenal. You have tree trunk legs. Yeah, you know, so I was like, that's a giant weapon that's removed from him. Like, we'll see. He's also fighting one of the greatest of all time, if not the greatest boxer of all time in the heavyweight division. But to have that kind of a performance and to do it the way you did it, it's like, man, it was, it was amazing to watch. It was— as a person who likes watching combat sports, it was one of the most exciting things I'd ever watched.

Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate that. But for me, I think what worked in my advantage the most was if you look at kickboxing and it's logical, like physically is like you're so square on. And everybody thought that was what I was gonna do. Mm-hmm. But I was boxing always to kickbox. So, but Peter Fury has been telling me to do— get more on the side for years. But how, as a kickboxer, am I gonna be more on the side? You can't. They're gonna kick my leg off. Yeah. Because I can't block anymore. Yeah. So I was constantly trying to find the balance within that. And now Peter was super happy because now finally he could teach me boxing to box right.

So now I had the proper stance every time.

Like, okay, go more to the side, more to the side, because you're too square on it, right? Go back. So I needed the 6 months. Mm-hmm. It's so much hard work we had to put into that.

Did you find yourself like having to correct it mentally, or did it get to a point where it was instinctive? The stance and the positioning?

We had to— I had to definitely correct, and they had to tell me.

But were you correcting in the fight? In the fight, was it down? Was it— No, I think it was— you got it. We got it down.

But within the whole prep, it was—

you really do need the 6 months for 100%. Yeah, 100%.

So for me, this, this whole experience of getting into boxing, like It was perfect. It was perfect. For everybody around it, it was really terrible, of course, where Anthony Joshua went through and everything. So that was the most horrific thing ever. But for me, getting into the transition to boxing, I needed that time to get, like, a clean transition. And that's why I was super happy with the 6 months. And the change of fights. Still, I believe like the Anthony Joshua fight is still a big fight that we could do, but yeah, getting the opportunity to fight for a boxing heavyweight title is on another level big, of course.

Oh yeah, it's gigantic. And also, I've gotta think that from that experience, you're even better now. 100%. You have to be better. You just were in there with the best guy ever.

Yeah, 100%, but the funny thing is like, uh, that's why I made the meme of, uh, of Jim Carrey, like, because everybody was like, he's moving pretty strange, what is he doing? But we knew that that thing would work versus, uh, versus Usyk. And but we got so many more tools in the toolbox that we can pull out because in another fight versus a different fighter, we're gonna show a whole different Rico again. But if we're gonna fight Usyk again, it's gonna be slightly different, but it's still like basically the strategy, the strategy works.

Well, you gave him so many things to think about constantly. Yeah, there was no time to set. No, there was always chaos. There was always hands moving. There was always your bodies moving. You're moving forward, you're shuffling around. It was so much activity that his mind has to constantly process all these different things.

But normally that is what he does. Yes. And that's— if you look at the whole heavyweight division, all the— his previous fights, he was in control. He was showing them so much. And if you have something to look at the whole time, it's like, mm, it keeps you— it gets your mind out of what you want to do because you're constantly anticipating what your opponent is doing. Yeah, that's— yeah, what we try to do, we try to take that from him.

What were you doing for conditioning? Like, I just want to know what your conditioning is like in general because you are such a big guy. And to be that big and have that kind of cardio is very extraordinary.

Do I agree? Do I agree? Maybe partially I agree with that, because to be honest, at the top, Joe, everybody works hard, right? That's what I do. I just work incredibly hard, but I believe that mentally, when you get tired or when your body gives signals of starting to feel tired, how do you cope with that in your mind? That's, that's where I think the biggest difference is. Because if at the moment I feel I'm getting tired, then I know my opponent is feeling fucked, right?

Right, right.

Because I know how hard I work. To be fit and to do everything possible to be in the best shape ever. Because if you look at training schedules or whatever, from my schedule versus another guy's schedule, and I find it hard to believe that I'm training so much harder than all the other top guys. Yeah, that's my opinion. I find that hard to believe. So for me, it's just like a mental thing. As soon as I start start feeling it, like, okay, now the fight starts.

Well, there's certain, certain people have genetics that lean towards better cardio and conditioning. Yeah, like in the UFC, Cain Velasquez was famous for that. He's a monster. He just had insane cardio for a heavyweight. But for you, are you— what I'm getting at, how much time are you spending on strength and conditioning versus skill work? I think it's pretty balanced.

It's pretty balanced. But for example, everything I do is based on endurance. So even the power— I don't have to do £300 bench press, right? I don't care. I know I'm already big, right? I'm— I know I'm not the hardest puncher within the game. I don't have to be the hardest puncher in the game. But as soon as I hit, I'm still a heavyweight, still like £260 behind it. So when I hit you, you're gonna feel it. So that's how we approach it. I don't— yeah, just lean into what works for you. I'm not the strongest puncher. I also don't believe I'm the most skillful, but I'm definitely the hardest worker. And that's what we try to emphasize, like like, just keep working, keep working hard so we— yet the pace is high, we can show a lot, we can do a lot.

Do you have a guy that's just a strength and conditioning guy? Yeah. So what kind of work were you doing? What kind of things are you doing?

You want to know it all, right? Yeah, I do, I do a full body, full body workout 3 times a week, and just a lot of reps, a lot of reps.

So this is more strength than conditioning, or is it both at the same time? It's both.

It's both the same because what we do is we have a— for example, we do chest and I do like 20 reps just the beginning, 20 reps. Then we get to another exercise and then again I do 20, 20 reps. So we do 40 reps each, and those reps are gonna go up the closer we get to the fight. But the rest between the exercise is just 30 seconds, and then we change exercise and we go to a different muscle group, and then we go back to chest, and then again we do 20-20, 30 seconds. Okay, we go to a different muscle, then that's again 30 seconds. So it's— the pace is incredibly high, and I think that whole training takes maybe 35-40 minutes. Max.

Yeah, that's got to be a giant factor because I don't know how many people are doing that that way. You know, a lot of guys are doing strength and/or conditioning. They're running, they're hitting the bag, they're doing different things. Yeah, but for me, like, I'm not focusing on—

when I'm focusing on strength, I don't want to be big. I feel like I'm already pretty big, right? And the more muscles I have, I have to just carry them with me. And all those muscles, they, they want and they need oxygen. So then my heart is gonna be like pumping just to get, get that oxygen there. No, I just focus on that. Boom. And then I start with 20, and then I get to 22s, and then I get to 24s, and then with the same exact weight. So you get so much stronger at the same time you get so much fitter, right? And that combination just— I don't know, it's just, it's just been working for us throughout the years.

So are you using apps and heart rate monitors and things along those lines?

Yeah, yeah, these heart rate monitors. I do running in different, different ways. We do the interval running, we do the endurance running. Sometimes you just run for an hour and then you do the interval running.

Is this mostly treadmill work?

Yeah, yeah, because like my body's, yeah, been through a lot, right?

So running on the concrete, running outside, yes, rough on the knees.

No, it's, I don't believe it's smart. So I have this special, uh, treadmill which I'm— I can take some of my own weight off. So I have this big balloon around me.

Oh, okay, I know what you're talking about. I've seen those before.

Yeah, so I got that, uh, since I had the ACL surgery on the knee, and ever since I've been using it, and I love it. I love it. So I can do the, the running experience. And because I love running, because it's so hard, it's so heavy on the body, and mentally it's so hard. But then I don't have the full force on my joints, like, right, right, right, right. It's just like, yeah, it's not good.

Well, I mean, you gotta think of all those years of leg kicks.

Leg kicks. And oh my God, especially when I got the ACL, I was like, oh my God.

How long ago did that happen? 3 years ago. 3 years ago.

Yeah, I thought, I thought I was done. So much pain, so much pain. I was like, why? I'm like getting close to the end of my career, now this happens. Like, and then getting back from that within 6 months, that was like— because I had a bucket handle meniscus and at the ACL.

I had exactly the same thing. Yeah, it was terrible. Did they remove the meniscus? No, they just stitched it up.

Stitch it back. So the first— harder.

Yeah, they know that now.

Yeah, but the first 6 weeks you're not allowed to put too much pressure on it. Right, right.

But oh my god, they used to think that you should cut the meniscus out. Now they're— they've done studies and they find that there's no benefit to that. Of course not, because it's—

your meniscus is right between the bones, or else it's just bone on bone.

It's exactly—

so they said, especially with, with me, me being so heavy and so big, like, oh, and within 10 years you're gonna have trouble if we're gonna take it out.

Yeah, I have trouble on my left leg because of that very reason. They took a big piece of it out when I had the bucket handle tear, and it's just that, that area hurts all the time. Yeah, just, it is what it is. They do cadaver grafts. Well, they'll take a cadaver meniscus and put it in place. Yeah, they take a piece of meniscus out of a dead guy, but it's doesn't always work. And, you know, you really have to be young for it to work more effectively. I guess they say that, but that also could be dependent upon what you're doing with it. Like, are you using peptides? Are you using stem cells? Are you using hyperbaric chamber? Yeah. Are you using red light therapy? Are you using all the different modalities that could help you heal quicker? Yeah. But yeah, they do. I know a guy who got it done.

You definitely use everything because you haven't aged a day since we did the last show. So I use everything. I don't know, I don't know how you do it, but after the show you gotta give What's your recipe?

I probably do a lot of the things you do, because I know you do cold plunge every day. I love it. I do that every morning, and I do a lot of sauna work, but I do a lot of red light therapy. I do that at least 4 or 5 times a week. I try to do it. I've done— I have a hyperbaric chamber. I do that a lot. Yeah, I try to do that as many days a week as I got done that 2 days in a row now. I like to do it 3, 4 days a week. If— when I'm really feeling better is when I'm doing it 3 or 4 days a week. And just constantly training, like, you have to— can't get out of shape.

You do it all, right? You do?

Yeah, you can get out of it. You get out of shape, you can't get back in shape. But if you stay in shape, it's remarkable how much you could keep it going. Look at Bernard Hopkins. I mean, he was performing at a world-class, world championship level at 50 years old as a boxer, which is nuts. That's insane. And it's just because of his discipline, you know, never got fat, never got out of shape, always stayed in the gym, never ate bad food.

And also mentally, it keeps you just in balance. Yeah, just being there because That's what I believe why just training in general for everybody is so good, because that's me time. Yep. That's the time that you're working on what is good for you and for your mental health, and you're not thinking about, hey, I'm at work, I'm making money to provide for the family, or I'm doing groceries for this. No, I'm in the gym and I'm working on me. I can turn your phone off. Yep. Listen to some music and just like work on your body and your mental health. It's, it's so good.

And the effect effects of it afterwards, the alleviation of anxiety and pressure and just how good you feel, the endorphins. Yeah, I just wish people that don't do it could understand that, because so many people, they just have an aversion to the hard work. They have an aversion to like getting there. They just like, oh, I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it. But if you just do it, you'll feel so much better. And then everybody wants to talk about discipline, and discipline is very important. It's the most important thing, probably. But almost equally important is momentum. And once you have a few good days in a row, the discipline is not as hard anymore because now you have momentum.

Yeah, 100%, you're right. But the thing is, what happens— same with the cold plunge that we do multiple times a week, almost every day— is like some days, the same as going to work or whatever, you just wake up and you just do not feel like doing it. Yeah, but then the discipline comes in. Like, I do not, I do not feel like doing it, but I am gonna do it. Yeah, because if I can do it on the days that I do not feel like doing it, every other day is going to be easy. Yes. And that's the— for me, what I felt like, like I was just, uh, sharing with you, like what I find so hard, for example with the losing and the mistakes that I made. That's what I've been doing, like, to be honest, my whole life. That's what I'm trying to work on now, is like everything that happened in my life. Like, it's been some crazy— like, my mother passed away within this preparation, and I do not take the time to really take that, to take it in, like, what just happened. Happened. And I had the same thing with my father, was like right before the Ben Saddik fight.

And I just take it and I continue, because what I do, I take it and it's a certain emotional pain, and I use that to put it in physical pain so I can use it as fuel for what I do in the ring and whatever, for as my But I feel like personally, in relationships and just in general, in just living, I think that's not the way to cope with it.

So that's what I'm trying to work on now. So it's very difficult to be balanced if you also want to be excellent. Yeah. If you want to be the best, you know, if you want to be and accomplish what you've accomplished, you have to be obsessed. And if you have to be obsessed I guess it's almost impossible to be balanced. It's almost impossible to have a balanced life and also be obsessed on a goal. No, 100%.

But it— I don't feel like it's, it's so much about the balance, but it's just not the way to, to cope with, with life in general, next to being an athlete and being a fighter, which is a big part of what you do. But just like in general, like, okay, how do How do you cope with things, especially now with this, for example, with this loss? It's like, how do I find a way to give this loss a way of like, okay, that I can work with it without like feeling frustrated or like, oh, I got robbed or whatever. And I feel like that's getting better. So I watched my mom's funeral back, like, I think like 4 or 5 weeks ago for the very first time. So she passed away in February. That's when I watched it back for the first time just to take it all in again. And again, I went like all the way through it and I'm like, okay, I need to do that more to get— I don't know if it's balanced or just, I don't know. I don't know, just to get like a way of feeling like, yeah, I can, I can take that, that emotion in.

Because now I just, every time I was pushing that emotion away and just using it as fuel to be a fighter and be the best version of me within the ring. But like, as a, as a person, I don't feel like it's, it's a healthy way to just keep pushing everything. No, I'm pushing it down.

Well, it's great that you recognize that though, and that will definitely help you as you transition from being a fighter to being a retired fighter and doing whatever else you want to do. You have so much time left in your life to do anything. Yeah, 100%. But recognizing that that is an issue is huge for you, for your ability to move on to do other things. Yeah, 100%. That's a giant struggle for a lot of fighters, the struggle, especially fighters that have competed at your level You know, the glory, the excitement, the, the, the chaos of it all is so huge. Yeah, that to step away from that, it's very, very difficult for a lot of guys.

Yeah, that's why I'm so happy. And I also believe that what gave me this is that I found my new passion within acting. But so being on, on set with Jake Gyllenhaal with Dave Bautista, with Aldis Hodge, and those guys being so excellent at what they're doing as actors, and then just talking with them about this, I think that also gave me more and more that realization of, hey, instead of just like pushing it away, I can use those emotions and that feeling to be an actor at a certain point. So, and I always said, like, I just, oh, just kept pushing it away. I don't want to feel it. I don't want to feel it. As soon as I feel it, I turn it into physical pain so I know I get to be a better version of me within the ring. So I hear what you're saying, but if you want to get into acting, it's good to feel, because as soon as you feel, it's even better. It's gonna transition even better on camera. Because then we see that you're feeling something. And if it comes out of your own experience, it's even better.

It hurts still, but you can turn it into something positive. And that's where I'm really happy about. Like, after being a fighter, I really found my new passion within acting because it's so much fun. That's great. So much fun to be on set and— yeah, being great at something else.

Yeah, that's great that you found something else that you're excited about. That's really important. Very important. So how many movies have you done?

Uh, I did a few, did a few. I think like a handful. And I think the, the most recognizable things I did was, uh, Den of Thieves, Pantera, Den of Thieves 2. Nice. Uh, with Gerard and O'Shea Jackson Jr. And the last one, Roadhouse. So, and now of course I've been, uh, you've been talking with Jason like for quite some time now to do something together. So we're looking at different options, like, "Hey, we could do this." But he's like, he has a certain focus on what he sees. Like, "Hey, Rico, I want you to do this type of movie, and I want you to be this type of character because I don't want you to die, and I want you to do this, I want you to do that." So it's, yeah, for him being so experienced within that world, I just—

Well, also him coming as an athlete, athlete as well. Exactly. He was a world-class diver, right?

Yeah, yeah. So, and he's a martial arts fanatic. He loves it. Yeah, he loves it. Yeah. So, uh, so that's— yeah, now that's, that's amazing. So, and then, yeah, telling him that, like, hey, I love to act. So I— he comes to my fights, I visit him on set, like, hey, I just look at what he does and how he does it. It's— yeah, it's out of this world.

It's the next level. Well, that's so good that you have something that you're really excited about as you retire, like transitioning into and that you already have some success with that. Yeah, 100%. Huge. 100%. Dave Bautista is another one, like, right? Like, huge success in WWE, went on to do that, and now he's done a ton of movies.

Yeah, and he's, he's really good. Yeah, he's really good.

He's a very good actor.

Yeah, it's not just like, oh, he's an athlete that tried to do some acting. No, he's, he's a really good actor, and he showed so many different sides of himself. He was great in that—

was it The Glass Onion? Was that what called? Yeah, the— what is that? Yeah, Knives Out, Glass Onion, right? That's what it was called. He was great in that. Yeah, he's great. He's— I mean, again, it's like you see these big guys and you say, oh, they're big and they're just gonna play a brute. But no, it's like he's a human. Yeah, human beings have depth. You could do a lot of different things.

Yeah, exactly. So he's got a—

he's losing weight now, just like show.

He's like, yeah, but he looks amazing. Yeah, he's still big. He's still 200.

I mean, like, oh, he's so small.

He's 240. He's huge. No, he's huge, and he's in great shape. He's in great— I mean, he's the nicest guy as well. Oh, that's cool. He's the nicest guy. So we had— no, we had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. So it was such an honor to be there on set with them, and on such a big production.

It's like, wow, he's looking Yeah, so how do you balance that out? Like, now that you— like, as you said, you're in the winter of your career. Would you accept a movie role right now if you knew that a big fight could potentially happen? No. So you have to be careful, right?

Yeah. Yeah, for me, it's like I'm focused on finishing that, and as soon as I have a movie, like, okay, but then I'm not gonna do a fight. That's— it's gonna be hard. Hard. So, and especially within the other one, I didn't really get the option because I was on Roadhouse, and then I got the Anthony Joshua fight. But back then, I was just the kickboxer, right? The kickboxer world champion. But that didn't really say too much. So I was in the underdog position. I was in the passenger seat. Now I show what I can do So now I got a little more like, yo guys, I got a movie, so can we push the fight a little bit further so I have the time to get ready for it? Right. So that's, that's better now. But for me, I would never blend those two together, or like, hey, okay, let me finish this movie real quick and then get straight into a fight camp that's gonna be like 2, 2 and a half months. I need a good, like, clean 4 months to get ready for a fight. I this magnitude, right?

So when you talking about these different conversations that people have had with you, is the door completely closed to the UFC? Because I know that they did contact you and you were talking— they were talking about you fighting and that they were gonna try to do that Derrick Lewis fight. I was excited about that. Yeah, but the money was nowhere near, I'm sure, the money. Exactly.

So I believe that, that the gap is even bigger. Yeah, sure. So I think that's, that's where, that's what the actual problem is, just to be completely transparent. So for me, it doesn't make any sense to, right, go around the bush and go backwards. No, financially, yeah, if, if they would want to do something, it really has to make sense. But yeah, we all know that, yeah, that's not really like how the UFC works. So I don't believe that that is an option.

Well, that's interesting because their heavyweight division is so— have you ever worked with Tom Aspinall?

Of course, he's a very good friend of mine.

Oh really?

We trained, we trained video of you guys. Yeah, we trained so much already for like, I think close to 10 years, man.

He got a bad deal. He got really fucked over for that, that fight. You know, the way people got upset at him for stopping stopping the fight with those eye pokes. That's— to me, that drove me crazy. Like, what do you expect the guy to do? He's defending the heavyweight title, he gets poked in the eyes and he can't fucking see. And he's had 2 eye surgeries since then. And he's the nicest guy.

He's the nicest guy and he works incredibly hard. And he would never, never even— because I understand where it comes from, from the people, to a certain extent, because they feel like, Hey, Gane was doing so good in the beginning of the fight, but it was just the beginning of the fight. It was just like the first round or whatever. So it's possible that, hey, because of some ring rust, he had to get into it. And then the fight ain't over till it's over, right? So you can have an opinion about that, the first round, and I would get an eye poke. Oh, now he's gonna stop because he knew he was behind or whatever. He would never, never in whatever world do that because he has—

no, find your heart. That the eye poke is not— he was knuckled deep in his eye. Yeah, it was like gone. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, Cyril Ghon has a history of doing that.

He's done also, and definitely, I truly believe, because I know Cyril as well, he's also a very nice guy, and I do not believe he's doing that intentionally to fuck with people or whatever.

It's just a bad instinct that keeps happening. Yeah, maybe it's a habit or whatever. Yeah, you're doing this. Yeah. And running right into eyeballs. It's just, they, they need to stop doing it, you know. I mean, there's, there's a bunch of different conversations about how to stop it. Yeah, one of them is change the gloves. You don't need open fingers like that. They don't have— you don't need that for grappling. No, they could cover the tip of it like a mitten, you know. And there's, there's a way to do that where it would probably eliminate a lot of the eye pokes. Another one is, is a guy named Trevor Whitman from Onyx Sports, who's Justin Gaethje's trainer, who makes a much better glove. Glove. Okay. And his glove, your hand is in this position all the time instead of the UFC glove. You have to glove your hands like this. Yeah, your fingers have to pull it down. Yeah. To tighten up the fist. And this, with Trevor's gloves, it's curved like this. So this is a natural place. So you would like— when Muay Thai fighters like Cyril Gane, they frame off like that all the time.

Yeah. Right, you know that. Yeah. So when you have those UFC gloves, you're framing off like this. Yeah, that's when you're running into eye pokes. Yeah, you know, so they try to tell you keep your fingers up, which is great, but sometimes it doesn't work that way.

Exactly.

You can't— you're leaning away. Yeah, you know, I don't think Cyril Gane's a dirty fighter. I just think he's trying to finish fights. Like, Alex Pereira thought he was dirty for hitting him in the back of the head, and I watched the fight over again to watch it, and what I saw is Alex is moving, Cyril's trying to hit him, and sometimes when that happens, some of the shots are gonna land.

Yeah. Yeah, but what is it, the referee that needs to like say like, hey, stop it? Yes. Yeah, we're fighting, so you gotta try and punch whatever you gotta punch.

It's hard because you're also like, you, he might not have the best position to see it because it's chaos. And also like, if you're trying to hit like a guy right here and then his head moves and then you hit the back of the head, yeah, whose fault is that? Is that your fault? You're supposed to pull back? You're in the middle of a shot. It's very difficult to stop. Yeah, it's hard to say. But when you look at his performance in that fight against Alec Pereira, it was fucking extraordinary. Yeah, he's— we were— there's a group chat I have with a few friends of mine, Dean Thomas and Matt Serra and John Rallo. We do a podcast together and we were just talking about how basketball is a phenomenal base for some of these guys. Because Cyril Gane, I'm gonna show you— I'll send you this video, I'll send it to Jamie. Cyril Gane can fucking move, man. And some of the—

he's light, light feet as well.

And he's £250. Yeah, but it's the way he moves is so extraordinary. And I think some of that is because of basketball, because— yeah, well, no, it's not that one. Brand new video. He's playing against an NBA center. Oh man, there's multiple videos of it then, because he's— I mean, he's pretty sick.

Yeah, but that's one of them. I was with him. We did a little moving, moving around together on Den of Thieves. 2. Oh, okay. He was in there. We were in a scene together, so that was fun.

It's just having a guy—

he's such a nice guy. He's like so light, so light.

He moves around so like— and so hard to hit, man. Yeah, doesn't— he's never been in trouble in the fight. I mean, he got finished by Jon Jones, but that was a submission. Yeah. And Francis Ngannou just beat him by grappling. Yeah. But he's never been like rocked or staggered. He hardly— no, because his movement is so—

exactly, especially for a big guy. But that's That's why I believe— but Tom has that as well. Yes, he has that move. He is like—

well, his blitz is extraordinary. Yeah, his ability to cover distance is insane. Yeah, and he's got one-punch knockout power. Yeah, he's so explosive, like boom.

He can— that's— I believe he can, but he can be a good boxer, but he can also be a good kickboxer, and he's a good MMA fighter. Yeah, he's so all-around because when he, he comes to kick— when he came to kickbox Wow.

Well, I just hate that fans reacted the way they reacted, and it's the casual ones, it's the shitheads. You know, I— for me, I was like, God, you got to give the guy some grace. He got his eye poked out. I mean, he literally was knuckle deep in his eyes. For him to— for anyone to think that he should be fighting with one eye like that, who cares, keep fighting, that's insane. He got fouled. It's not because of a punch, it's not because of he got kicked or an elbow, it's a foul. And so no, the fight should have been stopped the way it was. And that's— everybody should understand that it's not his fault, it was his opponent's fault.

But how he got to this was like, because of the whole deal he has, like, how much sense does it make for me to, to get into the UFC? Because Conor got like a great deal now for his last fight.

No, for you, boxing makes the most sense, especially at this point in your life financially. And you know, for, for Tom, I mean, he, look, he has a potential career in boxing as well. And now that Eddie Hearn is managing him, which is very exciting, yeah, because, you know, Matchroom being behind him, he's gonna have a gigantic hype machine, gigantic promotion. Look, I think it's huge. And that they're at odds with the UFC like, for me, I care about the fighters making the most money possible. Exactly. And that's how he's gonna make the most money possible.

Yeah. But like you said, that's what I believe, like, all the fighters deserve— the fighters that, that bring in the viewers, that are exciting, yeah, they should earn a little bit more, right? That is— oh, everything should be in balance.

100%. And that's, um, I mean, this is where Turkey Alasheikh has really really ramped up the game, really raised the bar. Yeah, because the— he's getting guys to fight that didn't want to fight each other.

No, exactly.

And he's like, how about this amount? Exactly.

Okay, okay, there we go. But then— but that's how we, we got the biggest fight. But, but next to that, with him giving me the opportunity as well, what he does is he thinks outside of the box. Outside of the box. And that's what I love so much about what he does, because we had also the Francis Ngannou-Tyson Fury fight. Right. And that was also like—

Crazy, right? I don't know about that. Zero professional boxing matches for Francis. Exactly. Right.

So that decision was also a little bit controversial. Very controversial. I don't know. So, but that's why I like what he does. He thinks outside of the box. Hey, no, I like this idea. Yeah, let's just try it.

Terence Crawford versus Canelo Alvarez, that's way outside the box. Yeah, you got a guy moving up two weight classes. Yeah, to fight an all-time great. I mean, it was— and a lot of people thought Canelo was too big. Canelo's too big.

Wow, there was an amazing fight.

Oh my God, Terence Crawford is one of the greatest of all time. 100%. He is so smooth. It's so good when he was just pap pap pap pap rip. Yeah, doing that to Canelo. Wow. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it's amazing to watch, to watch a guy that's that skillful and have those skills and, you know, move up multiple weight classes. Yeah, incredible. And pull it off against a guy like Canelo.

And again, everybody said like, oh, he's not gonna get— he's not gonna have a shot because Canelo's gonna be too big. As soon as he— as he— yeah, he's gonna get rocked. And he's like, no, I think that was— that was incredible. And they would— they were all at the fight in pyramids, by the way. Yeah, that was also pretty cool.

Terence is very smart, and Terence prepared for that fight for like a year. Yeah, and put on some weight, but not too much, you know. He did a lot of weightlifting, but just enough. Yeah, but just also he was healthier because he didn't have to cut so much weight. No, that's a thing to take into consideration. You got a guy who's cutting all that weight to make all the different weight classes that he was champion in, all the way up to 154, and also he doesn't have to cut weight. Well, guess what? He's probably walking around 176, 177 anyway. Yeah. So, so it was probably a better performance for him physically. He probably felt much better. Yeah. And he's also used to faster guys, and he's so light on his feet.

100%. I don't know, it's so exciting. So that's what— yeah, what he does, he makes the fights that otherwise would have been made.

Right.

So, and I think I respect him for that so much, and I'm thankful for that as well. So let's see what he's gonna pull out of the hat this time for me.

Well, I mean, for sure now people are gonna be excited about you fighting again, and it's even more marketable by far than the first fight was. I just hope it's a rematch. I really do, because I think that's the justice —fight to have. That's the correct fight to have, a rematch. When a fight is that close and ends that controversially, and then the judging is— the scoring is that bad, the right thing to do is to have a rematch.

Yeah, and then in a different— like I said, in a different environment, in a different situation.

Vegas or Madison Square Garden?

I gotta be honest, Joe, they're both still on the bucket list. Yeah. I fought in New York New York, but it was like in the— I don't know, in a ballroom, something. I don't— I can't even remember what it was, but it's, I think, 2012 or something. So, uh, yeah, Madison Square Garden and Vegas are still on the bucket list.

Vegas is great, but Madison Square Garden is iconic. Yeah, there's something about being in that building. Every time we have fights, we do a UFC in that building.

It's like, wow, we're in the Garden.

Like, that is a special place.

There's so many things that happened concerts and basketball, everything.

Yeah, so many concerts, so many fights, so many everything. It's just— and it's also in New York City. And as much as New York City is crazy and it's like, it's beep beep and honk honk and fuck you, it's still New York motherfucking City. Yeah, to have a great world championship fight in New York City is something special. There's something— you feel different when they say live from Madison Square Garden.

Yeah, it's Oh shit, yeah, you feel it.

Yeah, you know, it's when you're in the room, when we have fights there, being in the room feels different.

Yeah, 100%. But that's also one of the things that he did— a fight on Times Square. I know, who thinks of that? Like, no. And the thing is, is for him, I believe that whenever you— when he— when you hear something, you say, nah, that's not possible. I think that's the right trigger. He does the— exactly the trigger he needs. Like, I'll make it possible, I'll make it happen. This is the same with the pyramids, and then with the Times Square, he's like, nah, I don't think that's gonna happen.

Well, they have a bottomless bank account. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, they can just—

they make things possible.

They just throw so much money at guys, like, and that is exciting. I mean, that's something that boxing has needed because It's— look, it took so long to get Floyd Mayweather to fight Manny Pacquiao. Yeah, right. That was a gigantic fight. It took forever, and arguably Manny was past his prime when they wound up actually fighting again, which pissed a lot of people off. If they had been around back then, if Turki Alasheikh had been around back then, they— and Riyadh Season had been around back then— they probably would have made that happen when they're in their prime. 100%. That's what, that's what boxing needs. That's what MMA needs. That's what everybody needs. Yeah, the UFC does that in MMA. They kind of force guys to fight. You can't get away from it.

No, only the payday is different.

But yes, but you know, at the highest levels, guys like Conor, they're making similar money. But it's just that, that needs to change in terms of it has to be like, it has to be enticing enough that you're gonna get the best athletes that realize like, hey, I don't have to go into basketball, I don't have to go— what I really like is fighting. Yeah, and like, and the— and there's enough money in fighting now. Yeah, 100%. Like everything else.

But that's the problem, like we just talked about. We started off with the whole kickboxing. There's no money to be made, right? That is the problem.

So, well, I mean, maybe they can figure that out because, you know, they're, they're dedicated to entering into the MMA space now, and they just merged with the PFL. Yeah, well, I think it's very exciting because I think competition is good. Competition is great, and the more competition the better. And definitely better for the fighters to have options. And they've got guys over there in the PFL now that are fucking world-class, man. They've got some world-class fighters. Yeah, so it's exciting. It's exciting to have— it just— they just need to get bigger in terms of the public's recognition. Exactly. So right now everybody thinks of UFC being MMA, UFC, and it's like PFL for the average casual is like, what? Who's that?

Yeah, exactly. What do they do, right? Yeah. But I think, to be honest, Joe, if we look at 10 years ago, combat sports is at its all-time high. Boxing, MMA, kickboxing, everything is like, right, going through the roof.

So I think everything is bigger now.

I think we're in a, we're in a very blessed position.

Well, 20 years ago, nobody even knew what MMA was. 21 years ago was the first Ultimate Fighter, season 1, 2, 2005. Yeah, and that was really when MMA kind of made it onto the map in terms of the general public understanding of it. Yeah, from The Ultimate Fighter and that Stephan Bonnar-Forest Griffin fight. Yeah, but you could see a world where kickboxing could enter into that, you know, 10 years from now, be in the same, a similar category. And I think it should be, I really do.

And it's just because of the, the modern-day world, because of social media and and so many different people coming into the sport. And people can say and have an opinion about it, but for example, with Jake Paul and etc., and all the influencers, but they're bringing a lot of new eyes to the combat sport, to boxing.

A lot of new eyes. So I think— Could you imagine if an organization got behind a guy like Ramon Decker? And showed him to the American public when he was in his prime, people would be like, holy shit, who is this guy? Yeah, this fucking monster, this animal. Yeah, this technical animal, you know? Yeah, like, that's the thing. That's the thing about where you come from too. Like, for people that don't know, kickboxing in Holland, that is the epicenter of world championship kickboxing. I mean I mean, Rob Kamen, Ernesto Hughes, you, I mean, so Peter Aerts. Oh my God, you could go on and on and on and on and on. So many of the greatest kickboxers, of course Ramon Deckers, but so many of the greatest kickboxers of all time came from Holland. 100%. You know, I mean, we mentioned Badr Hari. I mean, so many of these great— Melvin Manhoef. Yeah, so many of these great guys came out of Holland. Yeah, it's kind of nuts if you really think about it.

Yeah, that was such a small country, but— and everybody exchanges their intelligence with each other. And I believe that because we're such a small country, that's what increases the level so much. Everybody trains also with each other. Go there, we go sparring with them, we go sparring with them, we go sparring with them. And then you learn this from that guy, you learn that from that guy. And if you do that for For example, in the US, you want to train with somebody out from New York, you got to fly all the way there. You're not gonna stay there too long. I think it just takes too much time. And because in our country we can just drive anywhere, and it's— but it's also one of the reasons why pay-per-view never worked there, because if they, if they wanted to, to, to visit an event, just drive there. Like, I'm not gonna stay home and pay for it. That doesn't make any sense. I'll just drive there and just go watch it live.

Well, that's also why the crowds were so huge. Yes, you guys got massive crowds. Yeah, arenas. And yeah, people don't know in America, they don't know how big kickboxing is in Holland, in the Netherlands. It's gigantic.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's like, I think, number 2 sport.

That's crazy. Soccer. Isn't that funny? Yeah, yeah, it's kind of crazy if you think about it. It's such a small— how many people even live in Holland? 60, 70 million. Yeah, that's nuts. It's a small country with the greatest kickboxers of all time. It's like, it's an anomaly. It's very weird. Yeah, very weird how it happened.

Yeah. And also, like, I think this now, for the last— I think after, like, for the last 10 years, it's— we've been so good in kickboxing for the last 25 years or even longer, but now since the last 10 years, it's been recognized as well. Well for the public. We've always been good at it, but it's always been like, I don't know, a little bit shady or whatever. And now since the last 10 years, since me and Badr like put it on the map, just exploded, and everybody just, yeah, went behind it like, wow, oh, this is cool, this is cool to watch, we're good at this, we're, we're, we're the best in the world at this sport.

Are there gyms all over the place in It's, it was crazy.

At a certain point, it went, it was so crazy that every random guy could become a kickboxing teacher. So now, because it's big, because it became so big and so public, they started to do it like, okay, you got, you gotta get like an, like a diploma and a certificate to become a kickboxing trainer. You cannot just random say like, hey, I'm a kickboxing trainer, start kickboxing teaching people. But at a certain point, that was, that was the case. Wow. Yeah, it was crazy. But it's— so what happened?

How did Holland become so big in kickboxing?

I think they— yeah, with Ramon Dekkers and everything, they went to, yeah, to Thailand and just like sucked all the information out of that. And we had, yeah, fighters, trainers going there, and they took like the Muay Thai of it, and they took that to the Netherlands, and then like exchange— like I said, because the country is so small, they exchange everything with each other. Like this guy learned that, that guy learned that. And if you exchange that with each other, you just get better and you get smarter.

But it also has to be something about the culture, maybe just mentality of the heart. Yeah, we're pretty big people.

Yeah, pretty big people.

But Rob— can't— I mean, excuse me, Ramon Deckers was not— no, he was not big. He was not big, which was one of the most extraordinary parts of his career, was that he was competing against Thais at their weight, but in Muay Thai.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that was, that was insane, with elbows, and it was brutal.

But his boxing too was a giant factor. It's so explosive, so explosive, and his style was so aggressive. Yeah, he was like, just kept on going. He was feral. Yeah, just like The people who haven't seen, please go to YouTube and watch Ramon Decker's highlights. Yeah. Whoo. Yeah, it is. Oh my god, some of the highlights of his knockout highlights, like, holy shit, man, it's incredible. Everything was designed to kill you. Yeah, every shot, every leg kick, every liver shot, every punch to the face, everything was just with full speed ahead, power, explosive, smack. Yeah, his ankle was so fucked up that his doctor told him like, you can't keep kicking with that thing, like you're gonna like lose your ankle. Yeah, fucking taped it up.

I'm still blasting people like a kid, and I was watching these, these fights like, oh my god, it was— and then with him being so explosive and then kicking on a, on a block, on a knee or on an elbow, she's like Just right, it's just like, oh, it's just bone on bone.

Uh-huh.

Oh, just, just by looking at it, just hurts.

Just destroyed his ankle because of that. I mean, in his later fights, later in his years, like when he fought Dwayne Ludwig, I mean, he had to have his ankle taped all over the fucking place. Big thing was like hanging on by a thread.

But that's, that's what we were talking about like earlier. It's like we as fighters years putting our health on the line for entertainment.

I mean, forever. He died young.

Yeah, he died young. But okay, that, that happens. You do, you do that because you love the sport. But then, yeah, everything needs to be transparent and it needs to be safe. And with the judges, yeah, it needs to be, it needs to be better money-wise and with the judging and everything just needs be— yeah, needs to be right because what we do is out of this world. Yes. And it's not just kickboxing, it's boxing, it's MMA. That's what— that's what we do.

Reason why it's so exciting. It's part of the reason why it's so exciting is we know how dangerous it is.

Exactly. But, and that's why I feel like it has to be— it has to be fair and it needs to be compensated the right way. Yeah. So everybody's like, oh, he's making so much money. Yeah, okay. Hey, but he can't do that till he's 65 or whatever. So, yeah.

Yeah, there's such a small window, which is one of the things that's so extraordinary about your career, that you've managed to stay on top for so long. Because generally when we look at world-class fighters, there's a rule that a lot of experts supposedly have said is that it's about 9 years. You can only really compare compete in your prime for 9 years. You've shown yourself to be an exception to that rule because you've been competing in your prime for a lot longer than that. Yeah, 12. Yeah, and you're not dropping off at all, and you weren't dropping off— you're still dominant in kickboxing when you decided to step away. Yeah. So it's like, even though you are an outlier and that you've been able to extend it longer than anybody, it's still— there's a window. You're not gonna be able to do this when you're 50. No, you know, you're not gonna be able to do this when you're 60. It's like you have a small window where you can compete, and it's— the people are paying to see you. They're not paying to see the promoter. They're not paying to see anything else. They're not paying to hear the commentators.

They're paying to see the fighters perform at the very highest level of the most exciting sport on earth.

Yeah, but that's why I'm saying this, because it's, it's not as much for me anymore anymore because I'm close to being finished, right? You know, like we said, I'm in the winter of my career, but it's for the next generation. Yes, the next generation should be excited to get into combat sports and feel like, hey, I want to do this because I can, and it is fair, it is transparent, and I'm fighting, but I can make a very good living out of this. And I could like build like generational wealth with it.

Well, that's what's really good about like this MVP-PFL merger and having a bunch of hype on that. Like the more competition, the better. The more it's— the more eyes on the sport, the more people watch the sport, the more money will be in the sport. And then the more the fighters will have options for who to fight for. Yeah, yeah.

And I think that's the best thing, like you just said, like options.

Yeah, no, it's phenomenal.

You have options, that's the best thing ever, right? Yeah, like, hey, we got this, we got that. And it's not that you gotta like play them out against each other, but still, it's— it is a good thing because if you just have one option, it's like, hey, take it or leave it. Exactly. This is what it is. And if you get like, ah, the other guy's saying this, so let me go there.

Reality is we could use one more, you know, not just MVP but also another. I wish one was doing better, you know, if one was doing better and they were a viable option as well, because I know some guys did go over there with great success, like Mighty Mouse went over there with great success. We need more, we need more options for fighters. And you know, it's, it's unusual in that in boxing, for instance, what's really important is the name of the fighters. That's what's important. You know, if Dmitry Bivol is fighting, it's, it's— people are going to— they don't give a fuck who the promoter is. They want to see Bivol fight. Yeah. You know, if it's Artur Beterbiev, they want to see him fight. That's all, that's all everybody gives a shit about. In MMA, it's UFC. Yeah. And the only exception to that was of course this last MVP card where Ronda Rousey fought. So everybody's like, oh my god, she's a legend, she's fighting. And that— and Francis Ngannou was on the card. So a lot of eyeballs got on that. So we need more of that. More of that is good for everybody.

Like, build— like, like we just talked about, build stories around those people. Yeah. Who are those people next to being fighters? Okay, they're incredibly amazing at what they do in the ring or in the octagon or whatever. Okay, but who is the person behind? Right, right. Okay, oh, he's a father. Oh really, he has two? I never knew.

Oh, he used to play chess. Yeah, exactly.

So that gives them so much more depth, and I also believe that that makes them more human.

Yes, for sure. Seeing their family, seeing them interact with their kids.

Body gets like closer to, oh wow, this guy could be my neighbor, right? Right. Because he also has kids. Oh, he brings his kids to school.

And when you're invested in him, yeah, like you like him, you want to win. 100%. Yeah, I mean, that's a big part of it, and that's something that they need to do. And that— I think you're right about Glory. They really never did that. That was not really a part of the Glory promotion.

No, they were just like, put up fights, put the best versus the best.

And listen, for me It works. Yeah, great. I love it. I'm a giant Glory fan, man. Every time there's a card, I can't wait. But I watch it and people like, what are you watching? I'm like, Glory's on. Like, what the fuck is Glory?

Yeah, I heard about that.

It's like, even my friends in MMA don't, don't understand. No. Wow. The real—

the people that— the trainers and everybody, they— a lot of times they get like the Glory fighters in to prepare their fighters to to get into UFC. Yeah, yeah, for big fights or whatever, because like, hey, they know that their stand-up is, you know, elite level.

Yeah, elite. I mean, and like I said, ONE FC has a lot of elite fighters there. They're there, especially at the lighter weight classes. There's a lot of real— Jonathan Haggerty, he just beat Yuki Yosa, who's another guy. This guy from Japan is a Kyokushin guy, fucks up people's legs. He's really good. And then there's this guy from Dagestan who might be the best striker alive. Azadullah Iman Ghazaliev. This dude, he's really tall and he fights at £135. He's fucking nasty, man. He's so technical, undefeated, and he's from Dagestan. There's so many savages that are coming out of Dagestan, just straight-up killers, man. There's a dude who just won in the PFL, Magomedov, who just won in the PFL this past weekend. Another guy, he fights like Iman Ghazaliev. Yeah, real similar, both guys from Dagestan. Pakistan. Similar styles, man. I love it. It's question mark kicks and the elite stabbing front kicks and just real slick stand-up, you know. But in, um, ONE FC, they're having these guys fighting, and, you know, they're— it's really big in Asia, but it just has not caught on in America.

No. And I, I think that's also where, where the problem is, I think, with them, but also with, uh, with Glory. They're just like pouring in money, pouring in money. At a certain moment, it's like— I also understand, like, the one that's investing into, like, how much money am I gonna need to pour in this, right, before it's gonna do something?

You know, they asked me to be— they, they asked me to be a part of that at one point in time. They wanted me to be like the Dana White of Glory. I'm like, I don't have that kind of time. I don't have that kind of time.

Exactly. Because if you were gonna say I don't have that type of money, I'm not gonna look at you like, come It's the time.

It would be the time.

You're so busy. You're so—

you would have— I know how hard Dana works. Yeah, Dana works all day, every day. That guy's always doing something. He's always got deals going. He's always on the phone. He's always meetings and headaches and canceled fights and this and that, trying to make things happen. Yeah, promotions and press conferences.

And it's like, I don't want to change.

I would never half-ass something like that. And you can't do that. To be a promoter is a lot. That is a full-time—

it's a full-time job. Yeah, you gotta go.

And, you know, Dana set the bar very, very high, and he's the best ever. I think he's the— I think he's the greatest promoter of all time. And to me, for me to do that, like, I couldn't— there's no way.

No, that's why it's so cool that he jumps into boxing now. Yeah, he's gonna give that— yeah, very excited.

And yeah, well, I mean, there's people who are, you know, always nervous when a new guy steps into sport, but I think it's only better, especially with his reputation. Yeah, it's only— yeah, with money with, you know, like, and the amount of money they're throwing at the boxers, the MMA guys are like, hey, what are you doing? Fuck, where's that money for us?

But yeah, I just don't need to build up.

It's all good for everybody. The more money there is in the sport, the more attention, the more excitement. It's better for everybody.

Yeah, but how cool would that be if there would be a world where MMA fighters, UFC fighters, would also be able to get into Zuffa? And like, hey, you're, you're a good boxer. We see, like, maybe there's something.

It's possible that they would do that, but right now they're not concentrating on that. They're just concentrating—

they first need to, yeah, position themselves as— but like, for the future it would be.

But then if you got a big star, like, say if you take a guy like Max Holloway or something like that, he decides he wants to box for a while, that means he's not gonna be able to fight an MMA fight. So that would like cut off their own access to him as an MMA fighter, and he's a huge star.

Yeah, but maybe then he attracts different, different eyeballs.

Yeah, but to do it right, you got to do it like kind of like when Conor did it with Floyd. He took a whole year off. Yeah, he was just boxing. I mean, really, really concentrated on that. You can't like go back into MMA again because then kind of messed him up. Yeah, it kind of messed him up going back in MMA again. He didn't have the same momentum. It wasn't the same amount of training. Training lost with grappling doing, and especially with kickboxing, yeah, you know, like, oh, we are only doing boxing, that training lost. Like, you have to recalibrate your whole brain. It takes forever. Yeah, and I was just—

it was just excitement. Yeah, that's my excitement.

Put it out there. But listen, for some guys it might be a good option, you know, and for some guys, especially after knee injuries, yeah, you know, where boxing is not as hard on the knees, you know, but you could say that especially when it comes to grappling and leg kicks, especially like those guys that throw those sidekicks to the knee. Oh my God, those calf kicks. Yeah, I know, crazy. Oh my God, crazy.

Oh, it's crazy. But they also, after that, uh, after we— they saw that within, uh, UFC, within MMA, kickboxing, they also start trying doing that.

Isn't it nuts that it took forever for the calf kick to be a potent weapon like that?

It's so dangerous. It's, it's also dangerous too because you, if you hit the shin, it's like, oh, the last kick you throw. Yeah, but if you do it right—

yeah, if you do it right, like Alex Pereira destroys people's legs.

Yeah, destroys them. I don't even know how. It looks like he kicks him with the foot, with the side of it. Yes, it's not even really like a low kick or whatever.

It's weird. Yeah, that's it. Weird. And he does it with no tell. No, no tell, no switching of the hips at all. Yes, throws the leg out there, and it only takes a couple couple. Yeah, there's a couple, and then your leg's fucked, and then you see guys switch his stances. Yeah, then it's moving funny, then it's over. That kid that I was talking about in Japan, Yuki Yosa, he's phenomenal at that, man. His calf kicks are insane. He's just in every exchange, every exchange, he's kicking the calves inside and outside. He Kyokushin guy. Yeah, so it's just all just hard style, inside, outside, inside, outside.

What do you— what is your opinion on that? Because me and my trainer, we debating the, the calf kick, because next to it being super effective, it's also a long, long-term injury when you get put out by calf kicks. Yeah, because that injury stays there for quite a while. Oh yeah, it's brutal. It's brutal. So do you, do you think like it's a thing that should stay? 100%.

It's, it's effective. I mean, it's really— listen, if you can kneebar a guy a guy. You could heel hook a guy. You can rip his knee apart. Yeah, you've got to be able to calf kick. Yeah, you know, this is— it's a weapon. To take away that weapon when we know how effective it is— you got guys who are always used to standing heavy on that front leg. Now all of a sudden they can't do that anymore. Like Conor, perfect example. In the window between Conor taking time off, fighting Floyd Mayweather, getting— fighting Khabib, and then getting back in MMA, then the calf kick came along. Long. He never fought with— there was no calf kicks before. Dustin Poirier destroyed his leg. Yeah, in that first round. By the time the second round was rolling around in their second fight, he was already wobbling on that front leg. Yeah, crazy. Yeah, crazy that it took so long for that one technique.

Yeah, yeah, it's just the thing you, you see, okay, that's effective, and everybody started doing it.

But again, dangerous, like you said. You go— I mean, this is how Chris Weidman broke his leg. Yeah, you know, he threw a really hard low kick and he caught the knee, caught the shin right below the knee, snapped his leg in half. Yeah, if it gets checked and you've hit it the wrong way, especially the low part of yours and the high part of his where it's thick and dense. Yeah, that's the hardest part. Yeah, but it's so effective, it has to stay. The thing that bothers me more— okay, I'm happy I like the sidekicks to the knee. Bother me more. Oh, that's— yeah. Did you ever see Khalil Rountree and Modestus Bokoskas? You ever see that? Oh, it's the worst one of all time. You see the leg like it turned sideways. He threw a sidekick, caught him on the front leg, and just turned his whole leg sideways, and he screamed.

And the fight was over. Rip everything apart.

Oh yeah, he had surgery, had to have surgery after the fight. His leg was destroyed. Yeah. When Jon Jones fought Thiago Santos— I think it was Thiago Santos, I it was. Yeah, Thiago Santos, he blew out both his legs. He had to have knee surgery on both legs after the fight. Both legs. That's crazy. Crazy, cuz just throwing those oblique kicks and the sidekick to the knee. Yeah, blew out both his knees.

That's, that's a kick I don't like.

When Ian Garry fought Shavkat Rachmanov, who's a top welterweight guy, one of the top contenders, he hit him with an oblique kick in his left knee knee, and his knee's been fucked ever since. And he had to have surgery, had a second surgery, and he's still out.

Yeah, yeah, it's about it.

That's what bothers me about that, is that you might not ever recover if your knee gets ripped to shreds, your meniscus gets torn apart, your ACL, MCL gets blown out. So this is the— this is Khalil Rountree. Watch this. Oh, oh, oh yeah. Watch it from this angle. Angle. Look at how— oh man, it screams horrible, horrible. I wonder about that one. Look at that. Oh, look, because I feel like that one maybe is too much. Yeah, because it's just like, it's just career, a career, and a career ender. Yeah, I mean, if we're— I don't know, I'm torn because on one side, one hand, it's like it doesn't happen that often and you should be able to defend against it, and you knowing it exists, you have to be able to defend against it. But the thing is, one kick could change and you're out for a year. Yeah, like we said, a fighter really only has X amount of years to compete. So it's one whole year gone from one kick. It's kind of crazy.

Yeah, by the way, it's pretty extraordinary how you do that and how you know all the— all those names and fights from I don't know how long ago, and you're just like, yeah, but I don't remember a lot of other things.

Really good, but also kind of unreliable with some things.

It's just focused on—

focus on the things I care about, which is a lot of it is combat sports. But the knee one, that's the only one that really bothers me. That, and I think knees to the head to a grounded opponent. I don't know.

That's not— no, that's— you don't think they should be able to do that?

No, I don't think you should be able to turn—

even stomp on somebody's head. But they're not allowed to do that anymore.

You can't stomp, but you can in Rising. Rising allows—

yeah, like back in the day, they They did, they did that.

Yep, they used to be able to stomp and soccer kick. But yeah, they think when a guy shoots on your legs and just curls up in a fetal position, it just holds on. You shouldn't be able to do that. You should be able to knee that guy in the head because he doesn't have to hold on to that. If your knee is free and he can knee you in the face, you should have to adjust. Yeah, that should— that's a— it's too legitimate of a technique. Yeah, you know, it's, it's hard. Yeah, if somebody's on the ground The problem also is the cage versus the ring, because in a ring, soccer kicks make more sense and knees to the head make more sense because you can move around and you can get away from it because you could go under the rope. Like, if a knee's coming to your head, there's movement, whereas the cage— yeah, you're stuck right there. Yeah, I think that, that's an, another element of the fight that's an unnecessary element. I think maybe even what karate combat's doing. Yeah, the best way to do it. Those, those— yeah, yeah.

What is this? It's a mat. Yeah, yeah, it looks nice.

I think that might be the best way to do it. The only problem with that is when you get to the edge, you're stumbling because you're—

it's like half, you fall over it.

And yeah, but, but learn how to adjust to that. And that's better than a cage because a cage is just a fucking physical wall. Yeah. So the thing about the ramp, the bowl that shit doesn't help you get up at all. No, like if somebody takes you down against that, that's— you're not— that doesn't help you. Where a wall fucking helps you. And there's guys that are doing workouts now where they put their back up against a wall and they're doing kettlebell get-ups where they're just— to feel like— yes, they're lifting up heavy kettlebells and they're doing it in stages, getting up from the ground just to emulate that position. But it's a It's an element.

Yeah, but that's why I feel like everything has— the ring has certain things, right? I feel like if you do MMA in a ring and somebody shoots or whatever, then maybe they go through the ropes. They shoot. That's true. So that's, yeah, that's dangerous.

But, and then you see boxing, like when Bernard Hopkins fought Joe Smith Jr. and he went through the ropes and fell and landed on his head. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, so that's how the fight ended. Yeah, like there's, there's— but I think that was just shitty planning. I think they should have pads around the ring and you should, you know, in case someone fall. You shouldn't just hope they don't fall. Have some— or have a larger apron too. Yeah, that's— you could, you could fix a lot with a much larger apron where the guy falls out, there's something around the edge of the ring. But I think a cage— the problem is, in most people's eyes, UFC equals cage. Yeah, like you fight in a cage, and the mindset of it is pretty cool.

Yeah, because you get locked up. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Like, you're not going nowhere.

Yeah, so something to be said for that.

Yeah, so it has something, but yeah, I hear what you're saying, but it's like we just talked about, everything has— yeah, it's pros and its cons.

Everything has its pros and its cons, and everything is exciting in its own way. Like boxing on its own, like there's elements of boxing that you would not see if they were allowed to do leg kicks and elbows and all that. So there's something beautiful about just pure elite boxing. 100%. And there's something pure about elite kickboxing, and then there's something pure about elite Muay Thai. Yeah. And then there's something pure about MMA, about watching it all together. So, and then, and jiu-jitsu as well. See, that's the other thing. The UFC is doing UFC Brazilian jiu-jitsu, so they have these big UFC jiu-jitsu matches. Oh really? Yeah. So like, cool, kickboxing. Yeah, let's try it. Right there.

Yeah, right there, guys.

I keep sending Dana White fights. I send him fights because I'm trying to get him to do this. I'm like, you should get involved. I think he's too busy. Yeah, he's too busy. He's also got that slap fight shit, so he's doing that.

It's crazy. Yeah, like, fuck off. It's fun to watch, but it's like, oh my God, it's fun. It's like, well, why just stand there and just take a punch? I just like try to move around and just slip and slide, you know.

You just stand there, stand there with your hands behind your back holding on to a thing thing, just take it on the face. Like, yeah, yeah, you're pretty—

you're a pretty big animal if you do that. You're— yeah, no, but that's why for me that, like, now experiencing boxing, I really— I can really genuinely say that I see boxing as an art. Oh, for sure. And kickboxing is— it's been my life. It's brought me everything, so it's so much fun. But it's more intense, it's more brutal, and it's quick. It's like the pace is so fast. And in the championship fights, we're just 5 rounds, right? So if you lose one round, you're like, oh. And now it's like, like I said, it's an art. You have 12 rounds. And I saw the Bivol, better be a fight. And then for the first so many rounds, better be it for so much better. And then later in the round, and then Bivol still got the win. Like, wow, how cool is that? Well, if you look at the fight, you think, oh, this is not gonna go well. And then he adjusts and it changes. So it's like I said, I really feel like boxing is so much of an art, and you have 12 rounds to paint your masterpiece. Yes. So I know it's—

and if you appreciate that art form, if you really understand and appreciate it's beautiful to watch. Like, it's beautiful to watch, like, Floyd when he was in his prime, 100%, would barely get hit. And Floyd, unlike anybody else, was standing right in front of everybody. He was barely getting hit. He was standing right there. Yeah, he wasn't running away and moving around. He was right in front of guys. They couldn't hit him. Extraordinary.

And that's what I also liked, or still like, about Canelo, because after that fight, you saw the whole transition Canelo mate. And he took— so I think I truly believe that he took so much from that fight with Mayweather. Oh yeah, he started applying it himself, unquestionably. Oh, I love that.

Yes, unquestionably. Yeah, his head movement got much better after that fight. I mean, that's the thing that happens when you fight the elite. You get— Daniel Cormier always says you get the rub. Like, you fight an elite guy, win, lose, or draw, you get the rub. You like like some of it rubs off on you. Yeah, exactly. So that's why I'm excited to see you fight again too.

I'm so excited to compete again, but let's see who it's gonna be.

Well, let's hope this podcast gets the wheels turning. We planted some seeds. Yeah, maybe His Excellency will hear this and he'll decide that it's time to go.

I'll call you right after, yo Joe, it happened, thanks. Yes, we did it!

That would make me very happy if we somehow or another motivated them to get back to the negotiation table.

But just let's make an agreement now. Let's just make sure you're gonna be there then.

What was the last conversation you guys had about it?

Uh, I think a week, a week ago, week and a half ago. But it was more of a general conversation. Hey, we're looking at what's next.

And what did you say to them? Did you say, "Rematch!" And what did they say?

Like, yeah, yeah, but yeah, you need to— you need two parties for that. I said, I know, make it happen.

Yeah, so you gotta roll up to Usyk's house with the Brinks truck, just back that thing up. Exactly. Get the armed guards, open the door, show them all the gold.

That's maybe my name and my face on it. Okay, I'm gonna put it in first.

I think that's the fight, and I hope you get it. I really do. But either way, your performance was extraordinary, and you've had a fucking incredible career, man. You should be proud. Yeah, really incredible career in kickboxing. Greatest heavyweight kickboxer of all time. Thank you so much.

I really appreciate that. And it's not just for me being here and sitting here now, because I've been seeing you and hearing you talk about it for, yeah, for years already. So like I said, it is a— it really, really, really means the world coming from you because you're an expert. You look everything, you look at everything, you see everything, the different organizations, so you know where to place certain guys and from history and from now. So it means the world.

Thank you so much. My pleasure, brother. It's an honor, an honor to have you.

And again, thank you so much again for being here. So it's, it's been a while, but we're back.

Well, I had to reach out after the fight. I was like, oh my god, we got to do this, we got to talk. I was like, holy shit, man. I reached out immediately. I was like, how the fuck you had it?

Oh yeah, yeah, I saw the episode you guys did about it. Yeah, talking about it.

I was like, oh my god, I know, it was incredible. But listen, brother, congratulations on everything, and I really, really, really hope you get that rematch.

Rematch. Good seeing you, brother.

Good seeing you too, sir. Thank you very much, man. Thanks, sir. Thank you, everybody. Bye.