Transcript of JRE MMA Show #184 with Aljamain Sterling New

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night.

All day. Remember, uh, what's with the gold teeth?

What's going on? The one—

give me a smile. Oh, you got it top and bottom, man. What did you do?

It's amazing. I've always wanted to have money so I could get one of these when I was a kid growing up.

Now, is that one of the ones you could take out, or is it Okay, that's good, cuz that's such a commitment, you know. One day you got to go to the White House, right? You got diamonds and gold in your teeth. That's crazy.

It might be a first time, you know.

How does it fit? It's like, like a retainer?

Yeah, so they, they fit it, they mold it. Um, I got it done in, in, uh, Dallas actually, and, uh, they just fit it, mold to your teeth, and then you could pop them in. It's almost like wearing a retainer.

Texas loves grills.

Yeah.

They love girls.

We gotta get ours.

We gotta get Paul Wall.

Yeah, Paul Wall said he's gonna hook us up.

Just go, "Hey." Yeah, I'm not sure.

I just, I remember, what was the one episode with Theo and you asked about the headphones and he said something like, "It's like sitting there with the condom and then she's just looking at you," or I forget exactly how the joke goes. But it was funny. It's like one of Theo Von's greatest moments where he says all these things. He was like, when I feel like saying it, I just write it down. I don't know if you saw this clip, but it's hilarious.

I mean, I'm sure I was there when it happened, but he says so many ridiculous things I can't remember. Here it goes. Over here.

I just see you put it on.

On. I feel like I'm alone here. Headphone land.

Yeah, it is weird, huh?

Now you're back.

It's like when you put a condom on and then the other person's just still looking at their phone. You're like, oh, this is weird.

And the person I mean is a woman. You gotta tell everybody, huh? Well, I'm just saying, I'm just saying. There he is.

Yeah, that's why we said the headphones. I just— that just came to my head like immediately.

Yeah, sometimes I have them off, sometimes I have them on, but it's better to have them on. It locks you in, locks you in, you know.

I feel that.

Did you watch the UFC this past weekend, the Apex?

I watched the main event, co-main.

Bro, the main event, Salchow is legit.

I wasn't too sure about him, but now I'm very sure.

As a man who has one of the best back controls in the sport, you, you had to appreciate that back control.

Oh, it was amazing. He took him down, which I was kind of surprised. I was like, why is he going for the takedown?

Crazy.

Proving a point.

Proving a point because his stand-up is so sick too. Yeah, that guy's so complete, man. And do that to Gamrot?

That's what I was gonna say.

Crazy.

He's a sick grappler in his own right. I thought he was gonna get out that one, that one moment where he had the leg, uh, hiked up. He had the ankle and all he had to do was swim inside, but he kept it too long, allowed him to hit the ground, and he was able to readjust and, uh, lock in that figure four and it was over.

Well, when he reached over and grabbed the far arm and used that to hang on to the back, like, that is slick. Yes, that was slick. He was He was fucking slick, man, and just, just very high level. Everything was like, like an elevated level. I was— I had a very high opinion of him before the fight, but now I'm like, oh, this dude could do it. He could do it.

He knows ball. Yeah, I was really surprised with that. And the fact that it went so quick— all his fights have been in the first round.

Then these scrambles, these scrambles from this position. Now generally in this position, it's so hard to keep back control. Like right here, grabbing the arm and this adjustment Bro, that's, that's really skillful.

There's a seatbelt. Yeah, just the way he's able to adjust it. Gamrot's trying everything, but once he gets to that position, it's over. You're back, you're back in his backpack.

And he's got a lot going on, man. He's, first of all, real tall for the weight class.

Huge.

Over 6 feet tall, long, excellent reach, excellent strike. The other thing that he did that was really slick, he pretended to get up off of his back and So Gamrot explodes and he exposes his neck right there. Watch that, back that up just a touch. Look at that, this is so slick. Like, look, he's hanging on his back, they're struggling, and he said, let me just sit up, and he'll sit up, bam, right there. That's so nasty. This kid—

This is slick as fuck, man.

That's so slick. That's such a good sneaky move, 'cause the guy's like, oh, now's my time. You know, those moments where you feel like you can move. Yeah. Like, he got, he give you some space, like, I'm gonna go.

And then I'm— anytime I'm in training, someone has my back, I always try to make sure I'm always aware of the choke. Matt Serra always says, always protect the choke first. And that's the main thing I always try to focus on. Protect the choke first before you start doing anything else that's crazy.

Mm-hmm.

At the end of the day, it just takes that little split second to get under the neck, and that could be the fight.

Yeah, it's like sometimes people just get— they, they, they get a little too urgent, you know? They get a little too they just want to make something happen without just being safe all the time. Always be safe. And that's— then in Gamrot's situation right there, that was the moment. Because who knows if he could have made it out of that position and survived all those choke attempts and got to the next round. Who knows, you know? And if he got on top, who knows? And Salkild, I mean, you presume he has great endurance, you presume, but we really don't know yet.

We haven't known. It's just a wild unknown about him. Yeah, that's why I'm just like, I don't know how good he actually is, but I could tell you what, first round He's a motherfucker.

He's a motherfucker.

That guy is good.

It's interesting, like, these guys that have the unknowns, you know, like some guys get really far, like Tom Aspinall becomes heavyweight champion of the world and it's kind of an unknown whether he can fight in the 4th and 5th rounds. Kind of crazy, right? We just know he's a blitzer, we know he's big and fast, but we really rarely see him get out of the 1st round.

Yeah.

Kind of nuts.

It's a gift and a curse.

Right. That's a good way to put it.

Because you get both your paychecks, you get done really, really early. But then if you get into the, you know, you run into the wrong one and the fight starts to get tough, you don't know if you can actually push that envelope because training is different.

That is the most bullshit part of the UFC. You get both your paychecks. Fuck off. Fuck off with that. I hate it. That drives me nuts.

I know the boss. We could talk to him.

He's not going to listen. He would— I've said this 100 times already. It should be you get paid what you get paid. It shouldn't be— first of all, if, if judges were perfect every time, maybe you could make an argument for that. But I still don't think you should make an argument for that because I think guys fight as hard as they can to win. There's no one who's fighting harder because you think you're gonna get a win bonus. You know, you're fighting as hard as you possibly can. Yeah, at the highest level. And so it's— you're not incentivizing people to fight harder. You're just, you're giving too much of their career, too much of their future, too much of their actual, like, how they gonna feed their family to the whims of people that sometimes get it wrong.

100%. I do remember one incident where I was, situation I should say, where I was going to fight harder, and that was UFC 300 against Calvin Kattar when Dana announced the bonuses were gonna be $300,000. And I got super pumped up, and everyone always points at it, they go, You got so excited that you went there and you fought like that. I go, listen, it takes two to tango. If he wants to sit there and hold me, it's not much I could do. I can't really just fight. I thought about it, I was like, I'm gonna just go out there and just start swinging for the fences and take him down and maybe get a crazy finish. And it didn't go that way, but I tried. I thought about it.

Guys cancel each other out too. Yeah. That's the thing, you know, people want exciting fights. Everybody wants exciting fights. Of course, of course. But there is a reality to skillful guys going after each other, and that sometimes they'll cancel each other out and make a boring fight.

Yeah.

That shit happens.

It really does. There's no rhyme or reason either. Nope. I mean, who was it? Like Francis Lewis, Francis Lewis, Francis Ngannou and Derrick Lewis. Derrick Lewis, oh my God.

One of the worst fights of all time.

But we all thought that was gonna be just a quick fight.

Madness, madness, and guaranteed madness. Two of the biggest knockout artists in the history of the heavyweight division.

An exact opposite.

Nothing, nothing happened. But it was hell.

These fights happen, and then the fans get on you about it. I'm like, listen, you go take a punch from that guy, that guy is gonna send my consciousness to a whole different universe.

Well, you had Francis coming off the loss to Stipe, and I think he was a little rattled mentally. And then you had Derrick, who realizes like he's looking for his one big shot, and and he's not willing to wade in and get clipped. And so he's, you know, waiting to play the role of the counter-striker, and then no one does nothing.

Yeah.

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It's—

I think it might be worse because I think that was 5 rounds. We went through 5 rounds of that shit. It was 5 rounds. That was worse than Derek Lewis and Francis Ngannou would have been the worst because of expectations. But it was only 3 rounds. Yeah, this was 5 rounds of what the fuck is going on.

And it's not a knock on the fighters, of course not.

There's two of the greatest flyweights, right? No, strawweights. Strawweights.

Strawweights.

Two of the greatest strawweights of all time. I mean, Rose Namajunas, when she knocked out Zhang Weili with that fucking head kick, holy shit. When she starched Joanna, hit her with that left hook and took her out, like, dude, Rose is a beast, man. She's a beast. At one of the absolute most exciting fighters, champions of all time. In those, those, those particular exchanges, like some of the fights that she's had, they've been amazing, amazing fights. But that just fight, that fight sucked. Yeah, for whatever reason.

It happens, just happens sometimes. Can't explain it, but sometimes you just feel something when you're in there. You're just kind of like, well, I'm not gonna go. And they're like, well, I'm not gonna go if you're not gonna go. That's just a staring contest.

I don't know what was going on in that fight. It was very strange. But I also think there's a time when you've been in so many wars, you know, you've been— you've had so many wars that your willingness to exchange is different. Your drive to attack is different. It's not there anymore. Yeah, and some— especially people who fight in wars, and Rose has been in some wars.

And that's why I fight the way I fight now, so differently, because those wars that I had leading up to where I'm at I mean, I had that barn burner with all these other guys on the way to the title, and I had to change it up.

Yeah, you got to stay alive. Smart.

I'm joking. My fights are not barn burners like that.

No, but they're different. Your fights are the best. You have the best back control I think I've ever seen in this sport. There's— when you get on someone's back, I'm like, oh shit, this is getting crazy.

Yeah, I did want to say I appreciate 'Cause I do hear the episodes where you guys talk about it, I'm like, yeah.

Dude, your back control's nuts. The Sanhagen fight is nuts. When you know how good Sanhagen is, and you just got that back, and that was nighty-night. It was so slick. You've done that to so many dudes too, and you could see, you know, like, obviously redemption for you was the second Petr Yan fight. That was redemption.

Felt so good.

Cool! I remember you came in right afterwards and was like, everybody's gotta shut the fuck up now. They all gotta shut the fuck up.

It was a split decision. I go, shut up, shut up.

Yeah, please. Yeah, you, you, you really showed everybody in that second fight. The first fight was just nonsense. The first fight was just that kind of a move to hit someone when they're down on one knee like that. Like, what the fuck are you doing, man?

That was a rough time.

Crazy. And then you having already had a bulging disc in your neck, your neck was already fucked. It's also kind of crazy that you could compete at the level that you compete at with a fake disc in your neck.

Yeah.

Do you ever think about that thing?

Oh, 100%. I still have like nerve damage in my tricep from it. Like, if I do like a Pilates or just a plank, you'll see it just this side shaking. It's so bad.

Wow.

Even till this day, it's a lot better than what it was before. But this is what people don't understand, that some of these fighters, us, like, we go through a lot. Just to make it. And you're gonna hear the other side of it, well, no one told you to do it. It's not even about that. It's just like we're trying our best to chase something great, something that's crazy in the sense of the word, right? And, uh, you put your body through hell to get there. And, um, I just— I know there's great fans out there who appreciate that, and there's the other ones who are more casual and they don't really understand. But I wish they took the time out just to train, to do a week of training and understand what we put our bodies through day in at a high level against other high-level guys.

Listen, you need the casuals. You need everybody to buy tickets. It's all great. Yeah, but the reality of the casuals, all you haters, you are doing yourself a disservice too. You're saying ridiculous shit. You're acting like a fucking retard. What you really should do is do better in your own life, and you wouldn't be a hater because almost all haters are losers, 100% of them, and the people they're hating on are doing way better than them. And there's legitimate criticism, but legitimate criticism can be handled respectfully. And the people that don't handle legitimate— people that don't dish out legitimate criticism respectfully, it's because they haven't been smacked, right?

Yeah.

Or they haven't been smacked by the guy they're talking shit about.

Yeah. Or they see him and then they change their tune real quick. Of course. It's such a weird thing.

People are so crazy. They talk about literal professional fighters and call them pussies. I can show you.

I got a lot of DMs.

It's so delusional.

One guy said, I'll fold you in half, like recently, because I don't—

yeah, but they're just trying to fuck with your head. They don't even believe that. They're trying to get a rise out of Aljamain Sterling. They can get a rise out of a UFC champion. You know how when they're 16 years old jerking off Cheetos all over their fingers, you know how exciting that must be to have direct contact with you?

Yeah, that's why I try not to engage as much as I used to, because before I would— I think we talked about it before— I would engage and go back and forth.

Don't do it.

And I kind of got away from it, but the old version of me would like to just say all kinds of crazy shit. But I'm, you know, a little bit more mature now.

There's no benefit in it, and it wastes energy. That's the problem. And then it also wastes your— you get distracted. Like, what did he say back? I just want to see what this motherfucker responded to. I'm going to get him again.

I do check. I do check.

You saved a bunch of pictures of him from the Instagram.

Let me see your ass in person, in real life.

Yeah, before he deletes it, let me screenshot these.

Yeah, people are people, so I get it.

Yeah, people are people, man, and I would have done the fucking same thing if I was 15 years old and somebody gave me an Instagram account and I could talk shit to whoever. I would talk shit to everybody. Whoever it was.

I'm trying to think if I was like that. I don't know if I was ever like that as a kid.

It didn't exist when you were a kid. The access didn't exist. If that access existed, I guarantee if you and your friends like, bro, Trey, talking shit with me. Yeah, you and Drake are going back and forth, you're like, fuck you, pussy. Of course you would do it. Everybody would do it. I would do it 100%.

I guess it's just human nature.

It's 100%. But I think that when you get to the level that you're at, a literal world champion and a professional fighter of the highest caliber, that's— you do yourself a disservice. You do, like, I love Sean Strickland. He's crazy as fuck, but he gets in there with everybody all the time.

I love it.

He gets in there all day long talking shit with people. He gets in there, but it somehow or another doesn't distract him. I wouldn't give him the same advice. Something's fucked up about his brain that, like, for him to be in that kind of conflict all day, it doesn't seem to bother him at all.

I think it, like, fuels him to, like, want to keep going more, like driving.

Bro, Goggins plays a recording of all the shit that all of his haters have said to him while he runs.

I wouldn't do that, but you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, like there's people that are wired different, and they think Sean is very, very much wired different, and whatever, for whatever reason, you know?

Yeah, I sometimes— I always— but I like it. I like— he should have a segment like how Ray Longo has like the Ray Longo Minute. He should have like a Strickland Minute. Well, I was telling him, you know, we were talking when he was out here.

He went to Ways to Wealth as well to get his shoulder work done after the Khamzat victory. And I was saying, you 100% could do a podcast. It would be hilarious. It would be great. You could have guests on, you could do whatever the fuck you want. Like, you have a real future outside the sport. Like, once— and he's also very smart with his money. As crazy as that dude is, he saved a ton of money. He gives great investment advice on Twitter. Like, he gives investment advice. You're like, who the fuck is this? Yeah, this is the same guy. He's telling you how to invest your money, you know, S&P and all this shit. Like, oh, what?

He's not as crazy as he comes off.

He's a lot smarter than people give him credit for, but he uses that as like— it tricks you, and it tricks you into thinking that he's like a silly person. Yeah, you know what I mean?

But he'll say whatever comes to mind. Yeah, that's him.

But the motherfucker can fight.

Yeah, and I respect—

at the end of the day, that's the thing, that dude can fight. Like, he can fight, and he fights in a weird way. Like, his very weird style, like, nobody has that style. This episode is brought to you by Ketone IQ. I've tried a lot of supplements, but for years there's been one thing that I've been obsessed with to keep my brain locked in, and that's ketones, an energy molecule our brains naturally create when pushed to our limits. Ketones used to cost thousands of dollars a shot and were only used by super elite people, but now, thanks to a $6 million research contract with the military, Ketone IQ had a breakthrough and you can finally get ketones online on Amazon or at Target for $5 a shot. They don't taste good, but damn, do they work. Trust me, if you rely on your brain for your day-to-day success like I do, take Ketone IQ. I take it and I love it. I feel sharper, I make better decisions, I have faster memory recall, and I'm more productive. Your brain thrives on ketones. Go to ketone.com/rogan for 30% off your subscription order, or Find Ketone IQ at Target stores nationwide in the protein and electrolyte aisle and get your first shot free.

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Um, by the way, do you have a lighter? Yes, of course.

Well, you want some cigars?

I got some.

Oh shit, Al Jermaine brings gifts. Let's go.

We bring gifts. These are fighter cigars too.

Fighter cigars?

Yeah, I'm like part of that, man. Uh, so it's different fighter lines. I know you got a Foundation.

Uh-huh.

If I could ever open this, I think it's all cold now. Let me use my fighting muscles.

Fuck it up. You need some help?

I might. You might. You got the bear claws. It's weird.

I broke it. I broke the— oh, I broke that too. What the fuck, dude?

It's supposed to just pull open. Should I open it this morning?

That's weird. Did something happen to it?

Got cold.

I got a knife in here somewhere. Where's some big-ass knives that used to be here, Jamie? Oh yeah, why? Oh, when the vice president was here? Yes. Lucky I always carry one. If we can't get these open, Al Jermaine, bro, this is like hermetically sealed. All right, here we go, there we go.

So we got different ones. You got a Jude Dober in there, you got a Funkmaster.

Which one's this?

I think that's the Funkmaster. So I don't know if you like, like light or dark.

I like them all. This is you. We gotta smoke yours. Come on. Triumph cigars. So who's, who's making these? Where are they making them out of?

Uh, so he gets them from different places.

Uh, on the back of that too.

Sick.

He gets it from different places?

Like, yeah, like Cuba.

Uh, really?

Nicaragua.

Cuba. Really? I believe it's Cuban because Cuban cigars are banned. Or hard? No, no, no, they're not really bad. Pop the top. Have you ever— do you know how to smoke cigars, son? You know what are you doing? What are you doing?

I don't know.

Give that to me. Oh shit, that's the clipper, bro. This is high.

This is some high-level shit right here.

Calibri. Um, wow, a lot of, a lot of fake Cuban cigars.

You got one?

I got one. And then put the top— there you go.

So you got like maduros and different kinds. I'm like new into cigars, and these are the Funkmaster.

That might be dead. Here, I'm sorry. This one's good. This one's good.

Jamie, you smoke cigars? No. Damn.

Jamie's strictly blunt. Oh, but now he's got to stop because he doesn't want to be a felon. Can't do it here. He's got to cross state lines, gotta go to Oklahoma and get high.

Do you, do you actually—

once a day? Yeah, he takes a flight Southwest to Oklahoma, get some bong rips and hops back on the plane. This is good. This is very good.

So the feedback on them has been great. They're good quality cigars. They make it from like people that make them and they get them to make our own different like lines of them. So pretty cool. Mm, I like them.

Well, we used to perform in Miami. There was a place that you could go, we could watch them hand-roll cigars, and they'd sell you cigars like hand-rolled. It was pretty dope. You watch these ladies like roll everything out. Yeah, long knife, and they slice it up. And they—

you rolled yourself? Have you?

Oh no, no, no, no, no.

They taught us how to roll down in Miami. I don't want to ruin it.

I don't want to do brain surgery on myself either.

It's fun.

Get an expert. Somebody's got to be good at this.

Mm-hmm.

You got a rum line too, right? Mm-hmm. Is that it? Funk Harbor on your neck?

Funk Harbor, baby.

Look at you.

I got money now, Joe.

You know that song? Bitch, I got money now.

I was supposed to bring my Sharpie. I didn't know if you wanted it like signed or whatever, but sure. But we won multiple medals and things like that.

Multiple medals?

There's medals for like competitions? Yeah, for rums. Yeah, we got 2 double goals for this. We got 2 double goals for the silver.

Jamie, can you get us some ice cubes and some glasses? Let's fucking party, Al Jermaine.

Then we're gonna go to the Mothership. I love that name, by the way.

Thank you. Yeah, we were trying to figure out what to call it. We had a bunch of different, you know, Mitzi Shore, that lady who ran the Comedy Store. Yeah, the painting up there, that's her. She was the, the owner and founder of the Comedy Store. She used to say about the comedians, "The inmates are running the asylum." So we were gonna call it the Asylum, but I thought that sounds corny, a little corny. There's something about it. It's like a little like, "Oh, we're crazy," you know? And then I thought, well, what is this? One of the things that Ron White— he was the first, right? Ron White was the first guy to move here. And, you know, I knew Ron real well from LA. And Ron said, you know, I love it. It's in the middle of the country. You could fly out. What's the matter? You want one, Jimmy? He's got work to do. He won't get hammered with us. He goes, it's in the middle of the country. You can fly out. It's only like 3 hours to New York, 3 hours to LA. It's perfect. And I was like, well, that would be like the mothership.

And then you could fly out all your, all your ships could fly to different parts of the country, but that would be your base. The mothership would be the base.

That's pretty cool.

Plus, obviously, I'm alien obsessed.

That's what I thought it was. Of course.

Yeah, I mean, I'm obsessed for whatever reason. Um, which one, dark or light? What's the difference?

So this one's our limited edition. It's got the number 1 on it. We're gonna be coming out with some different ones. We're actually going through a rebrand right now. This one's aged 2 to 5 years, but they're all Jamaican origin. This one's aged under the tropical sun. Unaged is a silver.

Well, bust out that aged under the tropical sun.

And this one we use, uh, ex-bourbon cask, so drinks really nice if you like bourbon.

Oh, okay.

It's a little bit— it's like I don't say sweet, but it's not as harsh when you drink it.

Are you a rum guy? Is that your thing? Is that why you started a rum company? Yes. You've always been a rum guy?

My parents are from Jamaica, so I want—

my parents are from Italy, but I hate grappa. That shit's nasty.

Grappa's not—

that stuff's nasty. I'm gonna take the big one. Mm-hmm. All right, cheers, sir.

What do you guys say?

Salute.

Salute. I think I said something else in Italy.

I don't know. I just got back. I was just there last week. Yeah, 2 weeks ago. Yeah, 2 weeks ago. It was— it's awesome. I love it there.

We still haven't gone. We want to go so bad.

Oh bro, if you want to eat, that's the place.

Pasta. I just hear everybody talking about it. I would love to do that.

I gained £3. I ate nothing but carbs. I ate so much food. I ate till I was hurting every night. I was like, I'm gonna ignore my diet completely. I worked out every day, but I was like, I'm gonna ignore my diet completely and just, just eat for pleasure.

But it's not as bad though.

It's not as bad for you. The food is not as bad.

But wait, calories are calories though.

But it's just the volume. I'm a glutton. I ate 2 pizzas I ate linguine with clams. I had burrata and tomatoes. And I also had, what else did I have? Something, oh, a bunch of pieces of bread. I ate so much in one setting that I got home that night when we sat back and I was like, I can't move. I've eaten myself to a place where I'm like, you ever see one of those lions that eats too much and they just lie there like, roar. That's how I felt.

Trust me, that— those were— those were my 135 days. As soon as the fight's over, I'm going in, bro.

I remember one time I ran into you at the Apex and I was like, what do you weigh? And you said 176. I was like, that's crazy. Yeah, you gotta lose £40. That's crazy.

The fascinating part is when I went up to 45, I got down and I was lighter in my natural walking around weight, still eating the same way I always did. And I was walking around about 168, sometimes 166 to about 172. And I'm like, this is— doesn't even make any sense how much lighter I am from 135.

Maybe it's just less anxiety about making the weight.

That too.

Your body didn't hold on to it as much.

Yeah. So the body kind of just recognizes what's happening. Like, oh, this is a nicer weight cut.

Yeah. You're healthy now.

Yeah.

Even though it's still a weight cut.

I was gonna say, but I just checked my weight last week. When I got— well, actually, 2 days ago when I got back from my house.

Let me guess, you're at least 170.

I'm heavier than that.

175?

North.

80?

180? I was 78. That's when I checked. And I didn't look fat. I was like, this is crazy. It's happening again. It's happening all over again.

There's people that don't understand it. Like, I have to explain to my normie friends. They're like, how does he lose all that weight? He doesn't have anything to lose. I'm like, well, you're sucking your muscles dry. That's what's crazy. And your organs. That's what's really dark. Oh, it's dark, dude. It's dark. It's the worst part about fighting.

I still think same-day weigh-ins.

Well, same-day weigh-ins would change a lot, but also guys would get really hurt because people are still gonna lose the weight. They're still gonna do it.

But I think that's gonna be a, like, a phase. Like, people gonna realize how stupid this is. They go, oh, I actually feel better Just competing at my weight, perhaps.

But I think you would have to have multiple weight classes added, many weight classes added. There's too many gaps that are too ridiculous.

The 15-pound gap would be the most challenging from 55 to 70.

What about 85 to 205? That's nuts. 85 to 205 is crazy. £20 is crazy.

I always thought there should be an in-between for that one.

100%. There should be every £10. Every £10 is smart. You know, go 125, 35, 45, 55, 60, blow up in the ones that are, you know, like when you get to 70, make 70, 75, you know, 85 is already there, make a 95, make a 205. And then it gets weird with heavyweight. I think you might want to have like a bridger weight, like a 220, 225, and then giant fellas. And then after that, it should be as big as the fucking you want to be. Because that's the weird thing, is like—

Heavyweight's limited.

I remember Tim Sylvia, when Tim Sylvia was saucy. There was a time when Tim Sylvia was big. He was a big fella. And he was cutting weight to make 265, hardcore. He was barely making it. He was so big back then, man.

He's a big man.

He's gigantic.

Yeah.

And that was when he was fucking thick. And he, uh, I remember watching him struggle to make the 265. I'm like, that's crazy. Why are you making the heavyweight's cut weight. That doesn't make any sense.

It takes away from what heavyweight actually—

yeah, the biggest, baddest motherfucker alive. Yeah, you know, when Mike Tyson was fucking everybody up, he weighed 220.

He was— I don't say small, let me not say small, for heavyweight. For heavyweight, he was—

yeah, I mean, it doesn't matter. Kane, when Kane was fucking everybody up, he was 240.

He was light too.

Yeah, Fedor, same thing. He was never real big. Fedor was fairly small compared to a lot of other heavyweight heavyweights.

But then you got a guy like Rosibelis Despen.

Oh, that guy's crazy.

He's huge.

7 feet tall. He's gigantic.

Huge. That guy is—

That range is nuts.

He's like the modern-day Neanderthal. Like, he's Amazonian.

He's a giant. A literal giant. He's one of those guys where, when I saw that fight that MVP did with him and Junior Dos Santos, I said, please don't do that fight. That fight's not right. That's one of those fights where you're like, "That fight's not right." Yeah. This is just too much of a changing of the guard. Yeah. There's one guy who is coming off of karate combat, first of all. It's one thing if Junior was a wrestler. If Junior was a sick wrestler and, you know, "Oh, you know, maybe he's gonna take him down, ground and pound. This is kind of— even though he's older, he's been knocked out a bunch of times, he's still very dangerous." But, you know, Junior had seen his best days back when he knocked out Cain. Which was like, what year was that?

Ooh, 2016, 2015.

Was it even?

I got signed in 2014. I don't— I remember Cain— not Cain.

So yeah, it was the big Fox card. It was the first card on Fox because I remember they made Cain fight with a blown-out knee, or they encouraged him to fight with a blown-out knee. Cain's knee was fucked before that fight. And Junior caught him with that perfect right hand. What, 2013?

Okay, that's his debut, right?

No, that's that fight. That's the fight where he knocked out Cain Velasquez. Oh, that's the second one. What's the one where he beat Cain? Is right before that. No, right before that.

Oh, so he got signed before—

yeah, the Fox one, 2011. Okay, so 15 years of wars. Yeah, 15 years of the Stipe Miocic fight, which was horrible to watch, right? That was a brutal, brutal fight. And then you have the second Cain fight, which was horrible to watch. And then I think there was a third Cain fight too, correct?

With JDS?

Yes. Yeah, which was also horrible to watch. You know, it's that—

tough fights back-to-back, bro.

You— if you don't take Cain out in that first round, that storm never ends. Yeah, never ends. You're like, we're gonna ride this storm out. No, there was no rhyme. Prime Cain was a motherfucker, dude.

I, man, when I'm— I've always been conflicted with him and DC because it kind of reminded me of Murab and I. And I always said like, if DC stayed at heavyweight, he could have arguably potentially have been the greatest heavyweight of all time. But I do know DC always says in the training room Cain was the man. Yeah, he was the guy.

Yeah, he told me always, Cain beat his ass. DC should have been a middleweight. How about that?

I don't know if that guy's making middleweight.

Discipline DC.

Him and his chicken.

DC went to Dagestan. If DC went to Dagestan for 3 years, he's not gonna forget. Yeah, forget.

3 years.

If he— if DC made middleweight, and he could have made middleweight, A lot of guys who are way leaner than him have made that weight.

So I saw him at my UFC debut, UFC 170, at Mandalay Bay in the back room, uh, cutting weight, doing the workouts, and he looked like he was dying just to make 205.

Mm-hmm, true.

So I don't know how he would have done it.

Well, he would have had to change his diet.

No more Popeyes.

Yeah, no more nothing, no more garbage. And he would have had— I love DC too. He's my favorite person to do commentary with by far. He's the best.

He's fun.

He's— we have such a good time. We have such a good time. He's such a fun dude, like genuinely happy, fun dude. Look at him. That's 205 DC. So 205 DC though, you're telling me that like Alex Pereira, if he was built like that, couldn't lose £20? Of course he could. Yeah, I don't know, cuz he's not— look, if you see the guys that fight at 85, like Joe Pfeiffer— Joe Pfeiffer is a giant. Dricus, Dricus Du Plessis is a fucking giant.

He's big.

He's gigantic. He looks like a heavyweight, but he makes 85. What does that mean? He's sucking it in. He could have made middleweight. He could have made middleweight if he had like the real— if he just had the drive and did it as a lifestyle change and like did it over the course of like a year. And like really leaned himself out, got on like a ketogenic diet, leaned himself out.

But then how often would he be able to fight?

Depends on how much he actually gets his body weight down to. That's the thing, like DC's only like 5'11", 5'10". How tall is he?

I'm gonna give him 5'11".

Maybe, maybe, I love him. Might be 5'11".

5'8".

But there's guys with his body that could have, but it's not like a thing where you, you can make the weight by just dehydrating yourself. No, he's too big. But if he had, with his frame, if he had slowly but surely leaned himself out and did it healthy, smart, over like the course of a year, he'd have to take some time off and really just dedicate himself to just getting lean. His gas tank would be better. Who's gonna fuck with that guy at middleweight? Do you remember what he was doing to Dan Henderson? Do you remember that fight?

Flipped him like a burger, bro.

He threw him around like a rag doll, and Dan Henderson's a monster. He's a monster. That guy's a beast. He's such a tank. And DC just ragdolled him. Just ragdolled him.

That was 2 of 5, right?

Henderson came up.

Henderson came up. 4, 5, 8, 9, 8, 9, 0, 1, 0, 1, 4. Schluss mit dem ewigen Abtippen von Kartennummern. Dank Visa Click2Pay, ohne 16-stellige Kartennummern einzugeben, Passwörter nachzuschlagen oder extra Apps herunterladen zu müssen. So kommst du beim Online-Shoppen direkt ans Ziel. Mach Online bezahlen einfach, schnell, sicher mit Visa Click2Pay. Einfach beim nächsten Checkout auswählen. Yeah, you know, cuz when I would cut down, and I wasn't always this big at 35, but when I would cut down to 35, I would have to do it in stages. So I couldn't do a 3-month turnaround like I did for the one fight.

How much time do you need?

I needed— 4 months is ideal.

That's crazy.

It's ideal.

So long.

Because I could slowly get down and then I could start chipping away because I'm at my natural state. I'm fat and happy, and it's not even fat. I'm just at my normal walking weight. And then I get down from 70 whatever to 70. Then I get the next week or the week following down to 65. After that, I get down to 60. And that's like the optimal weight I want to be at. And then I get to 55, and this is like where I'm going to be when I'm stepping into the octagon. So to do that over the periods of time, like, you could do it really quick because I, I have the wrestler's mentality. I can do it fast, but doesn't mean everything's going to be where it should be. And I also felt my cardio in rounds 4 and 5 in comparison to doing rounds 4 and 5 in the training room, severely different. My gas tank, you would think I was Murab. Right? And just for comparison's sake, right? And then I'll go into the fights and rounds 4 or 5, I'm like, I gotta conserve some energy because I'm slowing down.

I can feel it, but I'm trying not to show it.

Is there a difference between when you were allowed to use the IV and when they took the IVs away?

I used IV once.

Only once?

And that was in like 2015. I thought it was stupid. It took forever to get it. I'm like, I could have been eating right now and I'm the same weight that I was when I just ate. I'm like, I'd much rather just stuff my face.

I think the idea is that it hydrates you more efficiently because instead of having to go through your stomach, it goes right into your veins and then it hydrates your muscles more efficiently.

I didn't really feel like a performance difference, if I'm being honest.

Interesting.

But I'm different. Some people call me an anomaly and they say you can't do what I do. I drink in training camp and people think I'm crazy. Really? Yeah, I drink the night before the fight.

What?

Yeah, come on. I have one glass, sometimes two.

Really?

Three is like we're getting crazy.

But the night before the fight, after you've cut weight? Yeah.

Why do you do that? I'm not Jon Jones. That guy's built— I'm built different, but he's built different than me.

Well, I think Jon is just so fucking talented and so fucking smart that he was able to get by and dominate at a world championship level by putting himself at a deficit like that. Whereas if John— you say that, but John's a different person. Like, he wouldn't be the same guy. He's wild. There's something about John that's one of the reasons why he's so good, is that he's wild. He's intelligent and wild at the same time.

And that's why you can't compare. It's like, whatever makes you happy. When people— I remember Kyle Dake said something like, he'll eat ice cream not right before a match, but in his training, he's like, because it makes him happy. I want to have a drink because throughout the training camp, I'm already going through this hard grind after sparring, and I feel like I hit a threshold where my conditioning is at a place where I want it to be. It's like a checkpoint. I'm like, okay, this is my checkpoint. I hit it.

Have you ever worn an Oura Ring or a Whoop strap or any of those things?

Yeah, that thing's stupid.

Well, they lie to you.

That thing's attacking me every day.

Because what it's saying is that the alcohol is affecting your sleep.

Yeah. Stop attacking me. I took that shit off and threw it in the corner somewhere.

Fuck you with your facts. Facts and data.

I remember I brought out Adrian Yanez. I brought him out twice. The first time though, it was for the Piotr Jan rematch. And he stays at my house for about a week. We spar. I think it was a Thursday. I take him to Johnny McGorry's. And I bring him to my guy Rishi.

What's Johnny McGorry's?

It's a pub.

—Okay.

—On Long Island in Massapequa. They got 2 now. But, um, I bring him over there, and the guy I talk to over there who I deal with, Rishi, he's the man. He's good friends with Weidman and Volante from, like, the college days back at Hofstra, and he's a big MMA fan. So I love that. So instantly we kicked it off when I met him the first time. So I bring him over there, and it's at the spa. I'm like, yeah, we're gonna get some food. We go there, and then he sees me, and I order a drink, and I was like, yeah, get one for him too. He's like, yo, bro, what are you— like, he's like, what are you doing?

I was like, no, no, this is normal. Trust me.

He's like, you— he looks at me, he's just like dumbfounded. He's like, you drink in training camp? Like it was the biggest like taboo thing on earth. I'm like, yeah dude, like we just had some good rounds today. This is my reward. You deserve one too. Like you're in shape, I'm in shape. Let's have one or two. And, uh, and I always get my Thai chili wings over there. And so whenever I go in Long Island, I'm finishing up a camp on the East Coast. I'm fighting home on the East Coast. Um, Rishi will always hit me up. He goes, "We're gonna do the ritual." Get the Thai chili wings, you get my IPAs, and yeah, but like I said, everyone's different. Whatever makes you feel comfortable. If you're gonna do it, you can't— like, for me, like, having a drink the night before the fight and people go like, "You're not worried it's gonna affect your performance?" And I go, "If I lose because of this one drink, I wasn't supposed to win." Point blank, period.

Okay, well, let me, let me push back on that. Imagine you're fighting a guy who you and him are like that, neck and neck, neck and neck. Moser. Neck and neck, yeah, right? Neck and neck. And the difference is whether or not you got that extra REM sleep the night before where you could push when you lay off, when you lay back on the gas, when you really maybe could, like, if you were a little bit more rested You could just one extra move, one extra transition, one extra guard pass, one extra attempt at a submission, one extra thing that gets you the round. You know what I'm saying?

I take my naps before the fight. I take my naps before the fight. Recharge that battery.

Well, listen, Ilia Topuria used to drink wine at the weigh-ins. He was weighing in while he was cutting weight. He was drinking wine. There's no perfect formula. Yeah, there's no perfect formula. I mean, it also— there's something to be said for doing what makes you happy. Always. I think enthusiasm is a very important thing. Enthusiasm and joy is a very important thing. It's underrated. Yeah.

So my friend Dennis Buzukia, he just fought in the Albania card. Bad stoppage by the ref. And I like Jason Herzog, but bad stoppage. He said he tapped, he didn't tap. But I remember his second contender fight, he's cutting weight. And Merab is having a party at his house in Vegas.

That tap, that was a weird one. That tap was weird.

He went from locking his hands to finding his leg and pushing off the leg, and he ruled it as a tap.

I just don't understand that tap.

I go, I go, Jason, we've— I've trained with Jason, and I'm not, I'm not attacking him because I don't want people thinking— I don't like to attack people unless they really deserve it. But I go, if you're not sure, because he said he wasn't sure, he said it looked like a tap. So I go, if it— if you think it looked like it, you weren't sure Why not just wait? Because if it was, he would do it again. Yes, but his immediate action after pushing off the leg was to grab between his leg where you kind of lock your hand from the head and arm. And I have the hardest time ever finishing Denis, and I'm a pretty good black belt in jiu-jitsu, and that's a good position for me. And I had— I struggle. I could count on my hands how many times I probably finished him in that position. It's also—

it's the classic defense. Yes, you grab the leg And that's the best way to prevent the guy from putting all the pressure on the neck with the head and arm. Do you ever go to— do you know what the impaler is? Eddie Bravo calls it the impaler. To get out of that position, you, you slide the knee to the sternum and you finish with the knee on the sternum.

For the bottom guy?

For the top guy. So when the guy's defending, yes, yeah, you go knee to sternum. It's fucking brutal, man.

Brutal. You're being attacked on two different fronts.

Uh-huh. You're being crushed, your sternum's being crushed, and this defense does not work as good anymore. It still gives you a little bit— the grabbing the leg and looping over like that gives you a little bit— but there's something about that crushing on the sternum and along with the squeeze of the head and arm choke. Yeah, it's nasty.

The difference with that, I would imagine you— at least when I've tried it, I try to get it before they get on their side, because once they're perpendicular with the ground, it's a little bit hard to get the exact pressure point of what you want. And I go, I try this literally the very next day and I go, there's no way you could submit somebody with your ass in the air. You could be squeezing as hard as you want, but if your ass is in the air and this guy's on the side, it's going to be really difficult to make somebody tap in that position.

Very hard, depending upon your squeeze ability, right? That too. Did you see Amasov? When Amasov finished that dude, he did that thing. He's a nasty grappler, bro.

And it's crazy because he lost to Jason Jackson. And I'm not saying that as a slight, bro, but just like, how good is Jason Jackson? Jason Jackson's real fucking good. And that's my Jamaican brother. He's not signed. Real good.

He needs to be signed to the UFC, 100%. That guy's crack. And he took him out, man. He took him out. He didn't just beat him.

Yeah, I wish they got Masov out. Cross-promote. Well, I know it's not gonna happen, but I wish Santa Claus was real. Yeah, but I was like, why don't we just find out who's— make it like boxing, you know, where we could find out who's actually—

look at this, how he finishes. DC and I were actually talking about this because he looked— he goes knee to the belly. See how he does that across? Now if you're grabbing the leg, so if he was grabbing his leg, you would go knee across the chest and you put it right down on the sternum. But he did that to make sure he was flattened out. Yes, to make sure that he couldn't go to the side. But this dude, this was so good.

Wicked. Joel's just looking like, I can't do anything about that.

Of course he can fucking— of course he could breakdance, bro. Breakdancing is a great base for jiu-jitsu. We had a bunch of guys, Richie Martinez and Gio Martinez, these guys that came into 10th Planet way back in the early 2000s. And we were all like, oh shit, breakdancing. Like, we never even thought— gymnastics, everybody knew. Like, a guy who could do gymnastics, a guy who was like really good at tumbling, that kind of explosive ability and balance and control and body strength totally translates to jiu-jitsu. Yeah, but we didn't think about it. Like, breakdancing is kind of like gymnastics. You know, these dudes are doing weird shit where they're on one arm with their legs lotus position above their head and they're hopping around on one arm. That's crazy.

It is, because I try to do it, I'm like, yeah, I can't do that.

Eddie started doing breakdancing practice as a part of like strength and conditioning training for jiu-jitsu. He started trying breakdancing moves. Eddie's so open-minded, he's always willing to like try something out, like Thing about Eddie's classes too, if somebody finishes somebody with something, Eddie will like stop the class. What did you do? And it's like, oh, I do this and I grab my foot here. And he's like, okay, everybody look at this. Come over, come over. And he'll bring everybody over, he'll show it to us. Show us how you set it up. And he'll show them how he set it up and they go, who thinks they can get out of this? Who thinks they got to move to get out of this? And then they would all practice different ways to get out of this. And they go, well, what if a guy does this? What if a guy does that? And they break it down like He is very, very like open to new moves, you know, and it makes his classes very interesting in that regard. You guys still train? I don't. I haven't trained in a while. I was training with Gabe Tuttle out here for a little bit, but I got one knee, man, that just keeps fucking up, and I do too many— I like to do too many things to want to go through another surgery.

Yeah, or to deal with something. I just don't want to do— it's like Everybody I know that gets to my age that still trains gets a disc replacement, gets another surgery, gets another surgery. And then when you start getting like back surgeries, or like Matt Serra just got a knee replacement recently, we start getting to that range. It's like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, this shit's forever. Yeah, you got to walk around, you got to play with your kids, you got to be able to go hiking, you got to be able to do things. And if you break your body down, especially through grappling. I still hit the bag. I still, still train like kickboxing. I still do a lot of working out. I work out constantly, but every time I start doing jiu-jitsu again, my knee starts throbbing.

Yeah, that's, that's kind of similar to Al Iaquinta. Yeah, I always, I always go like, I wonder how much more he had in the tank.

But he gave Khabib a hell of a fight on no notice. Yeah, no notice.

And the Khabib fans don't give him any credit for it. They go, he was playing with him. I go, really? Tell me one fighter who goes out there and tells you that they're just going to play with their opponent.

Primetime Al was a beast. Yeah, he was a beast. He was tough as shit and game, you know. Isn't he selling real estate now? Mm-hmm. Shout out to Al Iaquinta.

Yeah, he's doing really well, man. We were working together for a little bit, but then it got to the point where I was like, dude, I just don't have the time. It's— I got to make a decision. And that's when I started doing the rum company and everything. And you see how fast time gets absorbed with things.

Yeah, with everything. Yeah, I wish I had multiple lives so I could do multiple different things, multiple different lives.

You might be in another dimension.

Uh, maybe. I would love to, but in this dimension, I have too many interests. I almost wish I didn't have as many things that I love to do. I could whittle them down to a few.

Yeah, you know, I, I still want to— I want to learn how you do your spinning back kick. I throw mine, but I know you do yours a little bit of a different way. I remember the video you did with GSP showing him how you do yours, but it's— I like to spin. I like to spin to win.

Listen, if it lands, the amount of torque that you get off spin is crazy.

It's, it's not good. What do you do different than the way I do it? I don't know. I know you supposed to step, turn the heel, look over the shoulder.

You can jump as well. You don't have to step at all. The whole thing is just getting it out in a straight line. Yeah, and the problem with most people that didn't train like in a classic Taekwondo school is that they— it's a circle. Circle can land, it can land, and it can be really powerful if it lands, but it's not going to be as powerful as the way I do it. The way I do it is a turn, and then I always say spinning back kick when I do commentary because everybody understands that. Yeah, but it's a turning sidekick is the way we talked about it in Taekwondo. It's a turning sidekick. You hold the damn bag. Yeah, I'm getting maximum amount of energy, maximum efficiency. It's the difference between throwing a punch like this. You can knock somebody out if you throw a punch like this, like a crazy arm punch, and you could hurt them and knock them out 100% of the time. And you could do that once and say that's the way to throw a punch.. Or you could learn how to throw a punch Tommy Hearns style, where you're fucking turning your body into it and you got all that torque and bang!

It catches you on the end in a straight line. Yeah. And Tommy would just starch people with that. Or Deontay Wilder, right? Straight, straight down the pipe. That's the difference between a turning sidekick and when people spin in a circle. So when you spin in a circle, of course it's gonna have power. You have giant legs. Your legs carry your body around all day long. You've got the— you're pushing off the other leg, you're spinning with all your torso. Yeah, it's gonna have power, but it's not gonna have as much power as the way I do it. The way I throw it, when it lands, it's— everything's going in a straight line, and I'm pushing off my back leg, and I'm getting all my abs into it, my hips into it, and it's just straight thud. And I know that if I hit you with that, you're going nowhere. You're going down. You're going to the hospital. Like, you're not gonna make it, man.

Yeah, I saw you hit the bag, and I was like, holy shit, that's a fucking kick and a half right there.

There's only one video of me online fighting. It's from when I was 19. I was at the US Cup in Connecticut, and I hit this dude with a spinning back kick and sent him through the air, sent him flying through the air. And I knew the moment I hit him, I'm like, this fight's over. I turned around, just walked off casually. I did, because I would like to do that, like fuck with people's heads. But I do— I knew that one move has too much power for your body to absorb. There's no way you can take it. It's just too much. It's like getting hit by a car.

That's nasty, man. It's a nasty kick.

Like when Jon landed on Stipe. Yeah. Just caved his body in. Like, Stipe's one of the toughest human beings that's ever walked the face of the earth. But he takes that to the body. Like, that's— you're not going nowhere. You're not going nowhere. And Jon's so smart. Like, Jon practiced that specific technique because he was going up to heavyweight. He was like, I need something. 'Cause I can't knock guys out with one punch at heavyweight. I can maybe kick him with— but what's the most powerful kick? And he realized it's the spinning back kick. So he just drilled it. So 3 days a week, that's all he would do is just drill the spinning back kick. 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 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.

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Yeah, and one thing about Jon, man, he's such a like His IQ has always been through the roof.

His fighting IQ is crazy.

He understands fighting, and I think that's what sets him apart from everybody else. He understands himself. Like, if you look at him, he could go, I'm not probably gonna knock anybody out at heavyweight with the way I punch, so— right— develop something else. And it worked.

Then that's just reality. That's just the reality of his frame. I mean, you know as well as anybody, it's weird how some people can just punch They're like, from the moment they get into the gym, the first time they're hitting the pads, like, what the fuck? It's a natural gift. Punching power is a weird natural gift. Yeah. And either you have it or you don't. And if you don't have it, you can only develop it so much.

I'm still trying to figure out if I have it.

It's physics, man. A lot of it is like the size of your hands.

And my arms aren't that long. Yeah. So someone like a Topuria has like, he's not as long with his, his, uh, big-ass fists. But I always like imitate the taporia and the Conor McGregor. A little taporia. It's just fucking funny shit.

Well, Conor's another example, like big fists, man. Yeah, look at that dude's fist. They're giant.

That's a big thing. Yeah, I got a little, uh, these hands.

You gotta do what you gotta do.

These hands are meant for grabbing things.

Yeah, well, they're really good at that. But that's the beautiful thing about MMA as opposed to boxing. Like, there's a whole bunch of different ways to finish a fight. Yeah.

What did you think about the fight with Yusuf before the fight happened? Like, in terms of like a— I used to text you like, like asking like your opinion, like, what do you think? You know, so I'm curious to know what your thoughts were before the fight. Obviously hindsight, because I know what I thought going into—

what did you think going into the fight?

I thought it was gonna probably be one of the hardest fights for sure. We've trained together multiple times back in 2017. We trained together a couple times within the last 2 years, and, uh, I always knew he moved well in the feet, lateral footwork, great calf kicks. And I, I said to myself, if I get chopped down with a couple of these calf kicks early in the fight, it's gonna be a rough night, especially if I can't move and do what I do, which is I'm also good at lateral footwork. And he has those nasty knees up the middle that are very quick to end the fight or put you on skates and could get you out of there, right? And, uh, he did submit me that one time, so I think that really gave him a lot of confidence coming into it. So those were my thoughts. I was like, for me to win this, I got to stay on the outside and then put pressure on him when I could put pressure on him, take away his calf kicks when I can by putting him on the back foot, making it a little bit more difficult to land that calf kick with authority, right?

So That was my two cents on that. I knew if I could take him down first, um, it should go my way.

Well, it worked.

Yeah, it was a little easier than I thought it would have been, but, um, I think you're a different beast.

Yeah, I think you're just tight. I can't see that.

I mean, like, I was like, oh, I ain't playing for this. I didn't play for this one. Yeah, that was tight.

Yeah, but you got out of it, and I think you're a different beast at 45. You know, I think you just have more resilience at 45. You're more durable at 45.

More energy too.

Yeah, that's where it comes from, right? It's— again, I wish we could eliminate weight cutting completely from fighting, and I've had conversations with the UFC about doing it, but there's no real roadmap that makes sense. I think once guys get it ingrained in their head that they're gonna cut weight, they're just always gonna cut weight. They're gonna— even if there is weight classes, they're just gonna fight dehydrated. They're gonna figure out a way to be bigger.

I mean, we did it for wrestling and we competed 2 hours later, sometimes an hour. I know you're not getting punched and kicked in the head, that's the difference. That's why, that's why I feel if they did same-day weigh-ins, kind of like what you do for an amateur, you could get as big as you can get, which is gonna be very little, maybe £5. Mm-hmm. So I go same-day weigh-ins, you give them 4 hours so this way they can eat and have a nice meal, digest, and then it can still warm up and have a enough time to prepare for the fight.

I think for the fighter's own safety, you almost have to protect them from that. And that's why they have the weigh-in the day before, for their own safety, because there's guys that are just gonna be stupid, and the fights are gonna suffer. They're not gonna be as good because you're gonna be more depleted.

I just, I just think there's gonna be people that understand you can't cut £20 the day of the fight and go and compete. I think that's gonna be the end, like the end-all be-all.

Like, you're gonna come to the realization, like, hey, they'll just lose, and then it'll weed out the people that are doing that.

And then they'll go, okay, so that didn't work, right? I have to go up in the weight class, and this makes more sense for me. Wouldn't it be better if we—

look, we have random drug tests, right? They just show how many times you've been randomly drug tested.

Um, with USADA, probably a lot. Um, I know they have it on the website. You could check how many times people have been tested and whatnot.

So it's just random. Now imagine if they did random weigh-ins.

That'd be cool.

Yeah, but then the problem would be what happens the day of the fight? That's it, you know, like what do you— what if the guy doesn't make weight? You bank his career. Yeah, what if you have a giant pay-per-view or a giant numbered card? Is that dead? I was about to say. You have a giant numbered card and the guy doesn't cut weight or doesn't make weight. What do you do? Do you still have the fight?

I mean, we have the fight now. Yeah, but I mean, what changes?

It would be different if you only had to cut a few pounds though. Like, if it's— so if you did it that way, random weigh-ins and then weigh-in day of the fight, even if a guy was heavy, like you weighed in, you know, 137 or whatever, you're like, well, you got to lose £2. Anybody could lose £2 the day of, and it's not that big a deal. Yeah. If you're not cutting weight already. Yeah, if you're not cutting weight already and you're fully hydrated and you weigh on the scale at 137, 135 is easy.

Or just penalize them the same way we penalize them now.

Yeah, guys are just gonna take the penalty and fight bigger.

But it's like, you're ready, you're like— for me, if we did same-day weigh-ins, I would have to fight at £155. There's no way. Possibly even 170 because that's the weight class. 165 would be the sweet spot where it's like, this is nice, I don't have to cut. I'm probably gonna fight guys more than likely my size, and, uh, I'm gonna feel good, I'm gonna have the energy to compete, and I'm not dehydrating myself severely. Or 155, where I could diet a little bit, I could still get down, I hold myself for a meal, step on the scale, I can have my meal, now I feel good, I go compete. But I'm not dieting all the way down to £135, £145, right? So that's a 10-pound gap. You see I'm saying? So that's why I think the same day, it makes sense because you're not as depleted, where it wouldn't be as severe in comparison to what we're doing now.

I think that would be smart, but I think the only way that's really gonna happen is if you have more weight classes, like at least every £10. I mean, look at boxing. Boxing has so many more weight classes than the UFC. Like, how many weight classes are there in boxing? Too many.

There's a lot. There's like every £3 sometimes.

Well, the lighter weights, right? When you get down to like atomweight and strawweight and flyweight, like their flyweights are fucking tiny, you know? Like their bantamweight is what? It's not 135. It's lower. Yeah, it's like 126 or something. What's bantamweight? 118. That's crazy. Minimum weight. That's crazy. Imagine telling a lady that in the bar. What do you do? I fight. What weight do you fight at? Minimum weight. I've never even heard of that.

Minimum weight is crazy.

Yeah, I mean, but this is also why Manny Pacquiao was able to go up and win world championships in 8 different weight classes, which is fucking bananas. It's cool though. It's crazy. But so go back to that again, please. So look at the difference in the gaps when you get to the top. You got 122 to 126, only £4. 130, another £6. 35, another £5. It's kind of random. 5 more pounds to 40. £7 to welterweight, 47. That's another stupid thing that we do where we have— you have welterweight in boxing, which has existed since the beginning of time, and it's always been 147. Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, all those people. Roberto Durán, 147. Our welterweight, 170. Like, it doesn't even make any sense. Come up with another name. Yeah, what's a welterweight? You just— it's something somebody made up. Doesn't make sense.

I just think we're, we're like the Americans versus the Europeans. We just want to go against the grain. Like, we have inches instead of centimeters, like what we use in metrics, and pounds versus kilos. Like, we just, we just said, fuck everything you're doing, we're gonna do everything different. We're just gonna challenge everything that you're doing.

There's a little of that too, but I think they just wanted recognizable names when they came up up with weight classes. Because remember, there was only two at one point in time.

Was it lightweight?

And I don't remember, but when Frank Shamrock was fighting in his day, it was like 200. Yeah, he fought at 200. And then there was heavyweight.

So yeah, I don't even know. I don't know what those weight classes— I used to watch, but I didn't know shit. I just watched.

I think it should just be the number you weigh. It should be fighting the world champion at £170. That's what it should be. Like, wrestling doesn't have names for the weight classes. No, you just have weights. We don't have weights. That's what it should be. Like, this is stupid. Fuck is a welterweight? What the fuck is a strawweight? What's an atomweight? You know, shut up. What's a flyweight? Fuck off. Very— you know, you don't weigh with a flyweight. This is stupid. Flyweight's a dumb name. The 125-pound champion of the world.

Minimum weight is a ridiculous name.

Ridiculous. Nobody wants to be minimum weight. I'd rather fight fat.

Minimum weight. I never even knew that was a thing until just now.

Yeah, it's probably tiny little dudes. There's a few dudes that fight in atomweight in ONE FC in their kickboxing division that are wild, man. It's incredible to watch. They're so fast. It's like they're defying space and time. You know, and they're super skillful.

Yeah, there was, there's the one guy I saw, the Japanese fighter. No, not Japanese fighter, the guy doing Muay Thai. The, um, well, there is a Japanese fighter, the guy in Risen who fought Patchy Mix.

Oh yeah, dude, that dude's a beast.

What the fuck was that? That dude was a beast. I was like, this guy's been hiding over here the whole time and the world doesn't know who this man is. This guy is a savage.

Yeah, he lit Patchy on fire.

That was incredible. Paddy's not a striker, but he's competent enough. Yeah, but that was like, he exposed like everything, every flaw that he has as a stand-up guy. He took full advantage of it. I was like, dude, this guy's fighting like he's in The Matrix right now.

There's a bunch of those guys that exist out there in the world now, you know. It's, it's a different world that we live in.

The daggy standing guy, I think that's that guy. A lot of them.

There's a lot of them. There's the, the guy who fights in the PFL, Magomedov. Who's fucking nasty, man. And he fights exactly like the guy who I think might be the best striker in the world, who's just a Muay Thai guy, Azadullah Iman Ghazalieff. I think that's the guy.

Yeah, I can't say that, bro. I can't say that.

It's a tough one to say. That guy's nasty. But this, this guy Magomedov, did you see the PFL?

I didn't get to watch it last weekend.

He fought in the PFL and he fights just like Iman Ghazaliev, and they're both from Dagestan. So guarantee you these guys are training together.

That was the one last weekend, right? Uh-huh. Yeah, we had one guy on that card, his name is Levan. He's nasty, from Ossetia, the Caucasus regions. Hmm. But he's, he's a nasty striker.

There's so many of those guys right now that are coming up that no one knows, and they're world-class. They're like elite world-class fighters, and no one knows who they are. It's kind of crazy. Yeah, it's like the amount of like world championship caliber, potential world championship caliber fighters out there never been higher.

Imagine talking shit to that guy. All because you didn't know who he was.

He just like, ah, it's a problem out there in the world right now. There's so many guys who could fight.

Just be nice. Just be nice.

Just be nice. Don't talk shit. Yeah, don't talk shit.

Everything will be okay.

Yeah, I mean, how hard is it? So tell me what you think about this weekend. Islam versus Ian Garry.

So what's fascinating about this matchup is how well Ian Garry can control the range. I think he's gonna be much bigger than Islam in a sense of height, reach advantage. In terms of size, I never thought Ian was the biggest welterweight. I still don't think he is.

Well, he can't be. He's so tall, he can't be thick.

No, but in a sense, even when you're talking just from a weight standpoint, from what he was walking around at, right? I forgot what he told me he walked around at, but he wasn't cutting a whole lot of weight. No, I want to say off the top of my head, maybe £10, which is why he's so healthy.

Yeah, he has such energy.

So I go, you're cutting just this and you're going out there and doing this to these guys who are, you know, essentially bigger, heavier guys, um, but he's got the speed advantage, uh, The thing about Islam, he's such a complete fighter, he could do everything, but this will be the first time he's got a test with a guy who's a long man. And can he get inside, take him down? I don't think he's gonna stand up and strike with him. He can, but I just don't think that's the path to victory against a guy like Ian.

I don't think he has any plans of standing up and striking with him other than as a means to an end. Yeah, and his grappling is so high level. Islam's grappling right now is at the top of the food chain.

I always want to grapple with those guys just to see where I'm at. You should go over there. I remember when Al fought Khabib, and Al might have been like the only guy who was able to like escape certain positions multiple times where most guys, they kind of just concede defeat and they just fold. Mm-hmm. And we were talking afterwards, he goes like, I think you would actually do really well grappling with him. I'm like, Bro, you're trying to get me killed right now. You're trying to get me killed by the bear. But, um, whenever he— when he said that, it kind of stuck with me. I'm like, man, I just— from my own, like, experience, not like an ego thing or anything like that, just be cool to see. And I would like for them to put it on me just so I can see, like, where I'm at, see if I'm— how my strength measures up with theirs positionally, um, IQ, knowing when to transition to certain spots. Of course, the weight's going to play a big advantage. But it's still cool because I grapple with bigger guys. I've grappled with Weidman, and I always tell Chris, like, I wish we were the same size because you would have been my main training partner, bro, you know, because that would have been cool, like, kind of coming up that way.

But, you know, obviously Merab was my guy, Al was my guy, Denis.

Well, having Merab as a training partner must have been an awesome advantage. Oh, it's the greatest.

This is like— there's no replicating that. And I see guys outside of— like, they'll watch and they'll think like, you know, he's kind of like all over the place, he's not really— and then they'll go in there with him and go, ah, yeah, it feels a little different now that you've been in there with the guy. It's, it's a whole different beast to watch from the outside. You're like, what is he actually good at? But it's just like the chaos that he brings, always constantly challenging your nervous system. Reacting to his feints, his movement. He's just, he's just always giving you something to think about. And I remember GSP talked about that, just saying like you want to use your feints to challenge the nervous system, get guys to react, because eventually you start to slow. Like in the beginning, we're quick, twitchy, right? We can react to everything. We're super sharp. As time starts to go on, those reaction times start to go a little bit slower. You don't react as fast or as quickly. And things that were landing— weren't landing are now landing.

Firas talks about that a lot. Yeah, I think that's where George got it. Yes, Firas, very smart dude. So very smart dude when it comes to like strategy and understanding like what's going on with fighters and why they're reacting to certain things and what to do and how to counter. It's not guesswork, it's like a very intelligent structured system of what to do. Yeah, you have to be like that.

Yeah, I think some guys, they train and then go and fight without any goal in mind. And I try to preach this because I used to coach at Longo's a lot before, you know, running a lot of my own practices, training camps, and stuff like that. So I took over the, the role of, you know what, we're gonna add these two MMA classes in, and when we come in, we're gonna work on specific things for my fight. And anybody who has a fight, and if I'm not fighting, we're gonna focus on you guys. And even if I have a fight, we'll also work in positions that you guys need to work on. And I always try to explain to guys, like, when you're coming in, you should have a mission. Don't just waste an hour, hour and a half of training just to say, 'I trained.' That's cool if you don't have a fight, but you should always be looking for something to get better at, something that you can improve at. When you're sparring, hey, you're not just going in there to spar. There should be an intent. Your sparring partner should be looking to give you a look for the fight, and you shouldn't be looking to be a complete asshole and kill your sparring partner because then nobody wants to spar with you, right?

They're doing you a favor, and you need the favor from them to get where you want to be, to make sure all the things that you're drilling on the pads, drilling with your partners one-on-one, and then we go into sparring and putting it together. Pull it from 100%, pull it down to like 70%. This way you can work in real time. I call it guided discovery. I learned this at SUNY Cortland when I was studying to be a PE major. I did guided discovery. Yeah, so you're working on certain things, and say we're doing wrestling and you're learning the position. I show you a high crotch. You grab the tricep, or you post it, you shoot the high crotch, which means your head is on the outside, and I attack the leg. Two hands are now locked on the outside leg. My head is on the outside, and I'm in a strong position. My posture's straight. And now you're learning defense. Okay, so from a defensive position, a guy shoots this shot super clean, super perfect. What are my choices that I can make? What are the options? I could turn the head to the inside, stuff the head.

I could push the head further to outside and stuff the head to the outside where his head already is and look to cut the corner. Or I could use my— stuff the head and use my, my whizzer or tight waist, plugging the, the hip, stuffing the head and rotating my hips. And if he puts me down to the mat, what is my responses from that? So then you're chaining everything together and you gotta— you kind of got a system of my responses. So I'm not just doing stuff based on instinct. Instinct is good, but you should also have instinctual habits, if that makes sense. Like stuff that you know will work, right? And then you fine-tune it to know this is my line of defense. If he goes here and I feel him going this way, I go this way. And if he's starting to turn the other way, then I know I need to do this and turn his head the other way. Put my pressure on my weight, um, in another position so that I can now create this space so I can escape and get my leg out, right? And a lot of guys, they're not trained like that.

They're going, they're sparring, they're just throwing a bunch of punches. Maybe they're throwing set combos that they hit on the pads, but how are you setting it up? Are you feinting, moving him towards the cage, looking for the, the gap where the octagon kind of changes, where it's no longer like a flat surface and it's cutting at an angle where you take away a little real estate? And then you're trapping them where there's not a lot of room for them to get back from. But now you can set up your strikes and know where you're trying to go. But if I'm cutting him off and he constantly does this and he maybe juke steps me and goes back the other direction, I'm starting my combination, now he's gone. So it's like, how do you set up all these things that you know exactly where you want to go? Because he's gonna have an option in the fight in real time, but in training is where you should be working out the kinks and understanding this. And I, I truly feel this is one of the things I'd done so well early on in my career and why I was teaching class, because I felt like the guys needed it.

I was taking these guys down at will. There was no resistance. I'm like, I'm good, but how good am I actually? Because these guys just, they just don't know. They don't have the information. Okay, let's level them up. Now these guys are leveled up. It makes it harder for me. Now I have to improve what I'm doing and I have to bring a different approach. Okay, he knows how to do this now. So when I do this, I can't just get an easy takedown where I'm just gonna sit him to his butt. He's now challenging me with the whizzer, stuff in my head, breaking my posture. Now I'm elongated, I'm on the ground, maybe I'm on both knees. How do I readjust, post my hand, get height again, attacking the legs, taking them back the other way, or coming through the middle, through the crotch, and finishing a takedown like what we call— some people call it Iranian, or we call it an All-American finish. But there's just so many little nuances, and I feel in MMA people are still training just to train. And I think that's the difference between understanding your timing. You know the same moves, but if I know it faster, if I know how to react faster than you, I'm going to win that position or the situation every single time.

Unless you throw caution to the wind and it's just some random wild card that I just get caught by, which if I'm aware, it should— the chance of that should very, very low.

Well, that's the benefit of teaching the people that you're training with everything you know. That way you must come up with a new solution. Not— and you're forcing it. Not everything. What do you hold back?

What do you hold back? Not everything. Get close.

But that's also world champion mindset versus someone who's just a fighter who fights and does well and is a good fighter. But there's so many times where I watch guys fight and And I watch exchanges and they're wading towards each other and throwing bombs at each other and one guy wins and one guy loses. But I'm like, this is not the ultimate way to do this. This is a— you can do it. You can be a battering ram and a blunt force object and you can get it done. You know, we've seen so many fights that have just been insane first-round wars. And then we've seen guys that just are slick and they're moving around and switching stances and doing wild shit that you don't expect and overwhelming the other guys. Nervous system and, and not getting hit and doing things where you're like, oh my God, that's so sweet, that's so smooth. And those are the guys that are gonna excel, and those are the guys that are gonna really take it to the next level. Yeah. And I think when you're talking about all these guys, like the Caucasus guys, these Dagestani guys, these so many guys that are coming up right now that are so fucking high level, like, you can't have any flaws in your game anymore.

You can't just be a guy who wades at someone and tries to throw bombs and hopes they land. I mean, maybe that works on a regional scene. Maybe that works with training partners that are a lower level than you, but you're gonna get pieced up if you fight someone who's really good. But there's levels and levels and levels, and the levels are changing all the time. The levels are moving up all the time. If you just go back to The Ultimate Fighter season 1, that's 2005. That's not that long ago in regular sports. 2005 boxers look pretty similar. To 2026 boxers. Yeah, you know, pretty fucking similar at the world championship level. And MMA, man, there's no comparison. It's nuts.

Night and day.

Night and day. And these guys are getting better all the time. I see guys coming off the contender series, I'm like, okay, this guy looks like a world champion like right now. It's crazy. That Ethan Ewing kid, that guy comes out of nowhere. Matrix. And he's fighting so smooth and so slick. And so intelligent, and the footwork and the feints and the movement and knowing what to do at any given time. And you're like, these guys are just so good now.

They're so good. I was bummed out when he got hurt for that fight with, uh, Farid.

Yeah, that was a bummer.

Farid did have a tough fight though, but I was curious to see how that one was gonna go because Ian, to me, is the dark horse in that division right now.

Yeah, easily. Yeah. Um, yeah, he's— the Wellmaker fight was a big wake-up call to people. And then he fought that Brazilian cat and just lit him on fire.

Two undefeated guys back to back.

And it's the way he did it too, man. It was so slick. And you realize like there are levels and these guys coming up right now, they're already at a level that's above and beyond world championship level of 15 years ago. Yeah, it's crazy. It's two fights in the UFC and, you know, 20 years ago you would have said he was the GOAT.

But what's fascinating is like from a striking standpoint, you could see that and look at a guy and go, this guy is the real deal. But then you kind of wonder like, well, what happens later in the rounds if a guy does take him down, and how can he adjust to those takedowns in terms of a cardio standpoint, lactic acid buildup? Can he turn it around and still be as efficient, as effective? Right. So there's so many like variables when it comes to things like that. And when people are game planning and approaching fights Those are the things I like to think about. First round, everyone is dangerous. Everyone is so skilled. But it's like, "Okay, if I can get out of the first round, what does the fight start to look like?" How do I paint the picture? If it goes in this direction, he's able to get off a couple of these things and I'm beaten up a little bit, what are my— what are my fallback defenses to try to turn the tide a little bit and get it back to going where the ball's now back in my court?

Well, that was why I was so interested in seeing what happens in the Conor McGregor— Max Holloway fight, which was crazy. That, that the result was ridiculous. But take that away, um, I was interested because I was like, if Conor can't take him out quickly, Max Holloway does not get tired. He does not get tired. And he's so accustomed to that 5-round pace, he understands when to hit the gas, when to back off. He knows when to move, when to and he's always moving and side— it's like, you want to talk about getting overwhelmed, like Max Holloway overwhelms people with pressure, pace, and feints and skill. Yeah. And he's not going anywhere. You guarantee he's gonna be fighting in the 4th round just like he was fighting in the 1st round. He's not gonna fade. Yeah, it's one of the worst matchups for Conor if he couldn't take him out of the 1st round.

I was hoping we got to see more. I think the world was hoping to see more.

Well, you were hoping we got to see anything. We didn't see anything.

But it's crazy, 'cause he threw that same kick in the back room, but this time he runs at him and he throws it and lands, and it's like, "Oh, come on, man." Well, he threw that kick—

When you're hitting a pad, it's very different than when you're kicking the air. You never throw that kick in the air. You throw that kick jumping in the air, the amount of torque that is on your supporting leg is bananas. You're just hoping and praying that your knee stays together. Look, if you throw a jumping sidekick, that's a different thing. You're landing on the ground, you're landing in a linear way, right? When you're rotating and kicking and flying through the air at the same time and your opponent adjusts, so you're trying to like change the arc in midair, try to catch him as he's circling off, it's the worst kick to jump and throw. So I gotta stop doing that.

What, jumping roundhouse kicks?

Jumping roundhouse kicks are great if you're close enough to land them. Yeah, you know, if you're close enough to land them. Who's that guy that landed it on Bonfim? No, not on Bonfim, on James Vick in Karate Combat. Did you see that? He throws that jumping switch kick.

Brazilian guy? Yes. Yes.

Gabriel? The turn. What is his name? Alves. Rafael Alves. That was close. It was one of the worst KOs I've ever seen in my life.

But why is James Vick still fighting?

He likes fighting, I guess. Oh, he's only 37.

I'm 37. My bad, bro.

He's had a lot of KOs. My bad, cuz. Unfortunately. And this dude, he hit him with this, this jumping just right before that.

But he looks like a tank compared to him.

Well, it's just the height. His speed is crazy. James Vick is tall and very skillful too, but it's just This kick would have knocked him out at any point in his career, any point in his career, and any human being. Like, this is too much. There's the amount of force that he lands when he lands this kick. When he throws that, he throws the jumping roundhouse kick, touches him with the right leg, and then comes up top with the left and just clean across the chin.

They're doing some good stuff at Karate Combat.

Yeah, man. Well, Robelis was fighting there right before that, Jamie.

I think he had a little further ahead.

Go to like right below before where the Brazilian flag is.

Rebelo's combined fights in karate combat was like what, less than 2 minutes?

I know, it just— there it is, there it is. So let's watch that again. Back it up again. So watch how he throws it. Boom. I mean, it is clean shin to the jaw. I mean, there's no— why is he pointing at him?

I don't know, he's talking shit. Now he's bowing and praying.

Well, I mean, he realized after it was over how serious it was. So watch this— touches him with the right and then the left comes. I mean, it's literally perfect. That probably would have KO'd him at any point in time in his career. And when James has been in the amount of wars that he's been in—

and then your head hits the canvas is the worst part.

He could have died. That was one of those ones where he could have died because I think he was in intensive care for quite a while after this fight. Really? Yeah, he was hospitalized for quite a while after this fight. I think it was pretty simple, pretty serious. That sucks. It was a bad head kick. That was a bad one. It's a rough sport. It's a rough sport.

And there's times fighting, you don't play.

There's times where guys get KO'd and they're never the same again, you know, like Terry Etim when Edson Barboza hit him with that wheel kick. Yeah, Terry Etim was a real contender before that fight, and we never really saw him after that. He never really achieved those levels again. I don't even—

did he even fight after that? Maybe once, maybe, maybe.

I don't know, I'm not sure. But that fight essentially ended his career because it was so— I mean, and again, that's one of those kicks though. The wheel kick has so much torque, bro.

I remember my fight with Marlon, and I thought I was gonna be one of those guys. I was so like— I don't say paranoid, but nervous, concerned. Any adjective that you could use to describe it, I was just like, man. After the fight?

After the fight. Of getting hit like that again?

Yeah. Yeah. Not even getting hit like that again, if I could even take a shot. And mind you, I have my phys ed degree. I could have went and just been a gym teacher. I would have been summers off, pension, I would have had health insurance, the whole nine. And I decided to chase a crazy dream. Thankfully it worked out and I'm blessed for this life. All that good stuff. But after that fight, man, to tell you, like, the concern I had if I would be able to make another 2 paychecks— I was like, I'm gonna do one more, whatever happens happens. If I get knocked out, I'm just done. I gave it a good shot, I've rolled the dice, thanks for coming, see you later, thanks for the memories. But, um, thankfully it worked out and I was able to keep on pushing. I remember after that fight, I didn't spar for 3 months, and the next fight I had with a lot of people—

think you should take even more time off than that.

I needed the money, and that's the shitty part about this, this gig, right? You need the money, you need the money. I'm living in New York at the time, so Long Island's fucking expensive, and I'm subbing as a teacher, I'm coaching wrestling. And when the training camp came up, I was fighting Brett Johns, undefeated, 3-0 in the UFC, just came off a 30-second calf slicer submission over Joe Soto. Mind you, Joe Soto submitted me probably, I think, 5 times in 5 minutes. So I'm looking at this guy like, this guy is a wizard, you know what I mean? So this is my perception of him going into this fight. And I told the guys, hey, I'm gonna spar these last 3, 4 weeks. I'm gonna, I'm gonna just circle and I'm gonna wrestle. I was like, you guys try to hit me, but just know I'm— I don't want to get hit in the head, but try to hit me. I still want to have like my awareness. But the whole— that whole last 3, 4 weeks Everything was just grappling before that, striking, hitting pads, cardio. I was like, I'm gonna just use my footwork and whatever I could do.

And thankfully it worked out. How much time between the Marlon fight and that fight was there? April— December 9th, 2017. So it was 4 months? Just about, yeah. Wow. Which was scary. It was scary. They offered me to fight. I was like, I don't know if I'm supposed to be doing this right now, but I kind of need the money, so Well, you needed the money, but if I could give advice to like Volkanovski, I would have said—

first of all, I would have said never take a fight with Islam Makhachev on 11 days' notice. That's just crazy. Never. Especially when you're not training at all, you're just kind of chilling, and you take a fight with one of the best pound-for-pound fighters, if not the best on the planet, and you get head kicked. And then to fight Ilia just a few months after that is kind of crazy.

Yeah, and he was looking good in that first round until Ilia does what he does, traps you against that black line against the cage, and he puts those combinations on you and puts the lights out. And yeah, I agree, he should have taken more time. 100%. He would have been okay with taking more time.

You've got to take more time. You have to. You just have to realize that as tough as you are, your body is a machine, and if the machine's broken, it's got to be repaired, and it's gonna take time to repair. It's not as simple as as like, go to the shop, you get a new carburetor, you're good to go. You gotta, you gotta give your body time to heal. And with the head, it's hard because you don't know. Yeah, you don't— it's the wild card.

Yeah, it's like, and everyone is different. Mm-hmm. And I kind of wonder if that's something to do with like the way people grow up, if maybe they dropped on their head a couple times when they were kids.

Sure, football, play football in high school, get KO'd a few times doing that.

You know, you get KO'd a few times doing stupid shit with your friends, and then you get older and now you're trying to compete and you realize, I can't take a shot. Yeah, as much as I thought I could have. And like, you see a guy like Diego Lopez and you're like, dude, you gotta— his chin is granite, bro. It's like, what can you hit him with that can actually put him down? It's crazy.

Well, if he continues getting hit, there'll be a time, right? Like, remember Chuck Liddell? Chuck Liddell in the early days was bulletproof. He was bulletproof. He would just wade at guys, bite down his mouthpiece, eat shots to the head, and take guys out. And he didn't give a fuck. He had full confidence in his chin and would force guys into these chaotic wars.

And then it goes away.

And then one day, you get hit, and it just goes.

Well, left hand, broken hand from Rich Franklin that hit Chuck.

Well, yeah, he broke Rich's arm.

Yeah, and then yeah, and with that broken hand he hit him.

Is that what he knocked him out with, the broken arm?

From what I remember, that's what he hit him with, that left hand, and put him out. And I was like, that was—

he was done at that point. Yeah, and was done. I mean, after Rampage KO'd him, that was kind of— that was the big one. That was a nasty one. That was a nasty one.

Yeah, I always wanted to be like the mini Rampage, but I was like, but I'm not knocking anybody out, so it's, uh, it's hard to do that.

Rampage with the chain and the wolf. Yeah.

Oh. Always wanted to do that.

And Rampage did it all natural, whereas everybody else was doing juice, especially in Pride. You know, he was fighting all juice monsters. Everyone was a juice monster in Pride. Yeah, you know, it's different time back then. He still has the craziest slam KO of all time. Of all time. Arona, right? Yep. When Arona didn't let go of the triangle. Yeah. And he takes him over the top of his head like a pillow and slams him down. Oh my god, that was another one. Arona was never the same again after that fight.

What about Cyborg and that knee from MVP? That was the craziest.

Freaking dented his cranium, crushed his skull, literally crushed his skull, broke his skull open.

So this is gonna sound like a joke, but I go like, what do you do, plunge it to pull it back?

You gotta reconstruct it. You ever see what they did to it? Now all these plates in his head. Yeah, he had all sorts of screws and plates and everything to piece his head back together again because his skull structure has been compromised. What does it do to your brain?

Your brain is now squished.

Not good. I mean, he said after the fight, I'll be back, but everybody's like, no, you won't. No, that's what it looked like. I mean, that is literally crazy. Yeah, bro. I saw a Muay Thai fight recently online where a guy did that to a dude with an elbow. And he caved his head in, and you see like this giant hole in his forehead where his head's dented in. And the referee's like, "Stop the fight." He's like, "Why are you stopping the fight?" He's like, "Bro, you need to see what you look like." You're not seeing what I'm seeing.

Yeah, your head's dented.

Your head's broken. Like, you have a broken head. Yeah, it's amazing how few times that's happened if you think about it. Yeah, this is it. This is it. Look at that.

Oh, that might be worse than the other one.

It's right up there. If you back it up, you can see the elbow the dude lands right there. Boom. That was it. And then he looks at him, he's like, um, hey. And then the referee gets a look at it, and the referee gets a look at it.

As soon as the referee sees it, he almost doesn't even want to hit him again.

He's like, fuck, yeah. I mean, crazy. The referee stops. He's like, hold on a second, let me get a look at you.

It's like, you should stop now, my friend.

Brings in the doctor. What's going on here? Tomahawked him. That was what was so impressive about Zanyukov. Chonko and his— John Pork.

Yeah, why do they call him that?

I have no idea. Chonko, they call him Chonko because that's his town. That's the town we grew up in. Okay, but man, that dude's elbows were so slick. He's, he's slick.

Fun to watch. He's slick.

His elbows in the clinch and in tight You know, he's a Muay Thai world champion, and you know, that was his original discipline, which is interesting when you see these guys who start off as strikers and then they get to Dagestan training room with Khabib and Islam and all those guys, and they learn the wrestling, but they start off with just this elite level of striking.

Yeah, and now the guy wasn't bad. He gave back some, some resilience.

But yeah, man, he dropped him, remember? Yeah, well, no, that was his first fight. Yeah, no, he didn't drop him. This was his first fight in the contender series. He got dropped. He's a, he's a dangerous guy, man. Super dangerous. Chonko's fucking— he's for real, man. And so high level with his striking. His striking is just so elite, especially those elbows in tight, man.

Elbows are nasty. I, I'm like Chael Sonnen. I can't let you get close. I can't let you get close. 'Cause nah, you're not about to do that to me, bro. That's— I ain't trying to look like that. Yeah. Like, you know, I want to continue my acting career and, you know, I got a whole lot of things I want to do, but it's gonna be a little tough if you get a couple of those. Yeah.

Well, elbows are— it's kind of funny that your gloves protect your hands and your knuckles, but not your elbows. Or knees. Or your knees or shins. It's kind of nuts that we have the padded thing is the thing that's the least likely to hurt you, if you really think about it.

It's a crazy sport. It is the craziest. I love it and hate it sometimes.

How much longer you think you're gonna do it? You're 37 now. Yes, you must be thinking, you must be thinking, how much more am I going to do this for?

Yeah, you know, I'm just taking it one fight at a time. I would like to end my career with the UFC, um, you know, hopefully I guess it's an option that you might not? I don't know, you know, you never know what's gonna happen.

Somebody comes up with a big number?

No, not even that. Like, you just never know. Like, I know I sometimes piss off the brass from time to time. Do you? I guess. I've been told this. How? That sometimes I don't say the right things. What have you said that's fucked up? I'm a very honest person, so sometimes I just tell how I really feel about certain things. And people, these media outlets, they know what they're doing. They're asking me these questions because they know I'm gonna tell them the clickbait clips that they want.

Who are you talking about specifically?

Which one?

The media outlets that fuck with you? All of them. They all try to get you upset?

They all, all of them. They ask these questions. They'll go from fighter pay, and I've been in the headlines for fighter pay many times, many, many times.

It's a legitimate argument.

It is, but for some reason when I, when I talk about it, I am— and maybe because I'm not the crazy guy like a Sean Strickland, because Strickland has talked about it and he's always been He's known as the crazy guy, but when he talks about it, he makes it a very logical, understanding bit where I go, how come he's not getting— maybe he is, maybe I just don't know, I don't ask. I'm like, for some reason when I say it, I feel like I'm a little bit more scrutinized. So what did—

does the UFC get upset at you? Do they say that they're upset at you? You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to. This is a real issue. It's gonna get in trouble. No, I— because you're— we have a great relationship. You're— you are— look, when Evloev and Alexander Hernandez when, when they fight. Yeah, this is very soon. Volkanovski is defending his title against finally Ivluev. Like, yeah, that fucking guy has been waiting forever. Yeah, everybody's booked.

So I don't really know who's the clear-cut guy for me to face unless it's Lerone Murphy. I was told he was hurt.

I think he's booked. I heard Lerone's got a fight. I heard he was hurt. Oh really? Yeah, maybe he had a fight scheduled and It doesn't anymore. Yeah, but I thought he has a fight coming up.

Yeah, I was told he was hurt, so he's gonna be out for a couple months. I don't know how long, I don't know how serious of an injury, but everybody else is booked.

And who did he just lose to? Lerone Mosar.

That's right, which was crazy. I thought that fight should have been scored a draw with the point deduction. Should have been scored a draw.

What was the point deduction for?

I think it was a low blow. But they gave him, they gave him 4 rounds. They gave Mosvar 4 rounds.

I'd have to watch it again. I didn't think it was a bad decision when I saw it. I'd have to watch it again.

It was a competitive fight. Mosvar didn't decide to wrestle him until round, the end of round 3, and he just goes to show he could have taken him down anytime he wanted. I'm just like, fuck.

Well, I think Mosvar wanted, he wanted to show his striking.

Yeah, he does have striking, but because of that he made it He made it more controversial to the overall fan base because he decided to use his wrestling a lot later on in the fight.

Yeah, but I think he needed to show that he's not boring in order to get a shot at the title, and now he's got a shot at the title.

But the stand-up fight between rounds 1 and 2 was still like, there's nothing happening. I thought it was pretty good.

I thought it was pretty good. It's a chess match. It was a chess match. But it wasn't like, "Oh my God." I think it was opening up Laronne to shots that I don't think he expected were coming at him, because I think he probably anticipated shot takedowns, takedown attempts, and instead Mozfar was getting off on him. Yeah, he could strike, he can, but it's like you, it's like, why do it when you're better at grappling? If you can get a hold of him, why do it? Why, why roll the dice? And you know, when people say, like, like a lot of people were upset when Merab beat Sugar Sean Yeah, and they were saying like, that was boring. That was just like, listen, this is the sport we're watching. If a guy like Merab can take you down and give you noogies for 5 rounds and you can't do shit and you lose your title, that's how it goes. You can't say that's boring and he should fight differently because Sean's got to come up with a solution. He's got to figure out how to deal with that.

Styles Make Fights is about the story. Yep. How'd you do against this guy? Islam Makhachev versus Ian Garry, same thing. How does he do with this guy? Conor McGregor versus Khabib Nurmagomedov, same thing about the storyline. Yeah, Conor was protected his whole UFC run. Now he's fighting a good high-level grappler, probably arguably, arguably the best grappler from the top position, clinch position ever, ever. And it's the storyline. Can Conor McGregor overcome this? Can he land a perfect shot? It's what gets you to buy into it. But if you're gonna be pissed that the machine is gonna come in and your guy can't land the perfect punch, whose fault is that? It's like, but this is why you're watching. You're tuning in. You're not tuning in to watch a slaughtering of the lambs. You want to watch a competitive fight. You just want to watch one-sided fights. I don't know, like, what do you want?

Yeah, I mean, it was one-sided in the— in that he was able to take him down at will. But also, the problem was Sean fought that fight with a fucked-up hip and really probably shouldn't have been fighting. Like, he had a tear in his hip.

Yeah, but we all have stuff. Of course. I went to the fight with Sean injured coming into the fight. He gets injured during the training camp, and then he uses that, "I had a busted rib." I go, "Bro, we all have stuff, but you were in a better position to win this fight than I was coming into the fight." The same thing. When he hurt his hip, I don't know. But then they fought again and it was worse. It was worse.

So, well, Merab was like super confident coming in the second fight. Yeah, that he's gonna be able to take him down. And then also he had that championship level confidence.

Of course, you get that level up, get that level up. Yeah, so it's like, it's not knocking Sean, it's not knocking the fans, but it's like, yo, this is the game that we're playing. No one's coming into this. I was talking to the guys at Weigh So Well, they're like, it's fascinating how many of you guys are so beaten up. I'm going down a list of my injuries and everything I got going on. Like, I got an MRI for this, I got an MRI for this, this hurting, that's been bothering me for 2 years, this has been still ongoing, and I still go fight. And you would never think it, but that's just what it is. Like, we got to do what we got to do. We're never gonna be 100% going into it. 100%.

Like all sports, guys have fought in world championships with blown-out knees and won, you know. I mean, when Alex Pereira beat Yuri Prochazka, he had a fucked up knee in the first fight. Yeah. And that's why when you see him get on top of him when he's finishing him, he rolls over, like rolls instead of stepping up and standing over. He rolled off of him because his knee was blown out. Carlos Oberg. Yeah, that was crazy, but that was on Yuri. That was such a blunder. Such a blunder. Well, that's Yuri's craziness where it's not good, you know. Some of Yuri's craziness is great, like when he fought Jamal. I felt for him so bad. I did too. I was just like—

it's not like saying I wanted him to win, but I felt for him. Like, damn, bro, you made the biggest mistake that you could have possibly made in a situation like that.

It's literally the only thing he can hit you with.

Fuck it, he lands it. It's the only thing he can hit you with.

He can't— he doesn't have a right leg. His right leg is completely gone, but he could still throw that left hook, you know.

That's his best punch. Lightning. I always tell people the way he leads that, that he just leaves out that lead hand and he's measuring, stiff jab, and he's stepping back and he takes that sidestep pivot, that L-step, and boom. It's just, he's clean with that.

That division is on fire right now. How about Navajo Sterling?

I'm about to say, what happens with those two guys?

Oh, I know, right?

Same camp, no? I know, he just beat Blachowicz.

What happens? And he stopped him. Yeah, that was crazy. I know, watching that was extraordinary. I was like, this kid is something. He's something, man. That right hand was— whoo! The distance he covered to land that right hand too. And Jan's got a chin made out of iron. To take Jan out like that and drop him like that, very, very, very impressive.

He's 43 now. Yeah. So it's also— I'm not taking anything away from him, but it's like—

I think that's how old Glover was when he beat him. Really? Glover was like 42 when he won the title. Fuck, he was in his 40s. It's doable.

It's doable. Ain't easy, but it's doable.

Yeah, it's not normal. No, I mean, Glover was the boogeyman for 6 years before he could ever get to the UFC. Everybody had talked about Glover like he was scary, but he was trapped in Brazil. He couldn't— visa issues. He couldn't get a visa to come to America and fight. And during those 6 years, he might have been the best light heavyweight on the planet.

Yeah, I remember you talked— because when he got signed, he got signed pretty What is like late 20s, maybe 30s.

Mm-hmm. I think he was in his 30s.

Yeah, and I didn't know about him until he came over and made that debut and was against Fabio Maldonado, I think maybe. Mm-hmm. But yes, sometimes it just goes like that. Even like Pereira, he came over so late, started so late I should say, and for him to do what he has done in such a short amount of time is like unreal. Unreal.

Yeah, pretty extraordinary. How impressed were you with Cyril Gane though? Very. How many heavyweights can move like that, dude? Zero.

And that's the whole thing with the Aspinall fight that I was saying. I was like, dude, this guy played basketball. It's a different type of athleticism. Quick twitch muscles, knows how to pivot, fake, hit his jukes.

It's like plyometrics, like giant man plyometrics. Yeah, yeah.

And he's great at just holding the range outside of the eye pokes. But great at holding the range.

Also, the dude never gets hit. Yeah. When was the last time we saw— I mean, think about it. Gane is fighting in the heavyweight division. He's fighting guys like Tai Tuivasa. He's fighting, you know, these elite guys, these big heavyweights, and you never see him get cracked. Even against Ngannou.

I was about to say, even against Ngannou, he did a good job.

Didn't get cracked. I mean, that's kind of crazy that he's so good at avoiding getting hit. He's probably like the least hit clean heavyweight in the division.

I think that fight with Jon Jones made people think less of him than what he actually is. It's just, that's how good Jon is. That's how good Jon Jones is.

You can't do that. It's not the same. Especially if Jon gets a hold of your neck, he's gonna finish it. And the way he did it, you know, taking him down like that in the first round and guillotining him, I mean, phenomenal. But it's just you have to deal with that speed and that movement standing up before you could ever get that to happen. And Jon figured it out. But I think Ciryl has tightened up his takedown defense considerably since that fight. Yeah. Because I think he realized, like, this is the big hole in his game. I know he brought in a lot of real big wrestlers, but when it comes to kickboxing, when it comes to Muay Thai, he's so hard to fuck with. And he— that style is different than everybody else's style. He's nasty. Light on his feet. He does a weird thing too from his side. Yeah, that front kick. Does he?

I be watching.

That twisting front kick from the front leg.

It's the way he stands. He stands almost like this bladed, but it's like not really bladed, but it is, and it allows him to have that dexterity and the flexibility where he could just look like he's throwing a front kick, but he's arcing it and coming back.

It's a twisting kick.

Yeah.

There's a kick in taekwondo called a twisting kick, and that's what it's like. It's from this position you throw it out like that with the ball of the foot. So you're standing completely sideways and your left— your front leg comes up and it twists and goes like that. And that's what he's doing to the body. He's throwing a twisting front kick to the body. It's nasty. See if you can find it in here. Well, that's his round kick, but it's, it's off of his front leg. He throws it off the front leg and he throws it completely sideways. And when you get to moving, he's gone. Yeah. And then— and also you might try to like overemphasize those movements and he counters, catching you coming in because he's faster than you. And that's what he did to Alex. Yeah, he caught him with that. He caught him with a jab. I mean, that's what he really rocked him with.

It was a right jab. Alex was big, that huge freaking ass. I was like, yo, this is like distracting, bro. You got a fucking badunkadunka that's fucking blocking my vision of the screen right now, Alex. Like, "Move! Turn the other way!" It was the worst matchup for Alex to step into heavyweight.

A guy who is bigger than him naturally, moves faster than him, is lighter on his feet, and is also an elite striker, a world championship caliber striker at a heavyweight level. 'Cause like, you know, Alex has been 185. He's a thinner guy. And he definitely put on mass to get up to 250, but that's not necessarily where he was naturally. Yeah, whereas Cyril Gane has a natural frame to be at 248, and he's more stationary.

Mm-hmm. The stationary guys never do so well against the guys who can move very well. It's just right hard for you to chase him down, track him down, to learn the perfect punch. Had a hard time landing his calf kicks, which slows fights down for him and allows him to land that big chama left hook. Mm-hmm. I don't know, even if they were to have a rematch, I don't know what he would have to work on to make that adjustment? That's just a hard fight for him stylistically.

It's always gonna be a hard fight for him because Ciryl Gane's so agile. He's so hard to hit. Yeah, he's never in front of you unless he caught him, like maybe through those high kicks right in the beginning. Yeah, he could have caught him with something like that, rocked him, and that would have been a different story. But he didn't, you know, and Ciryl's like, he's great at blocking shit too. And if you get to him, his reflexes are excellent. Yeah. And it's just that movement and speed is extraordinary. It would've been very interesting to see what happens if the Aspinall fight didn't end the way it ended. That was a heartbreaker.

It was a heartbreaker. I got a lot of flak for that 'cause people were saying I should've taken his side because I got fouled too. And I'm like, "I'm not not taking his side. What I'm saying is the only person that knows how bad he truly, like, was hurt is gonna be Aspinall." Yes. You know, so if he's saying it, I take it at face value. It is what it is. I can't go and say, I'm in your eyeballs, I've seen guys get poked all the time, and they continue. Yes, we see it all the time, but not all eye pokes are created equal. No. And he got all them Three Stooges fingers up in there. Yeah, it was bad. Terrible, terrible. I can only take what he's saying. I was like, but again, it's really up to him. Can he have said— if he was winning the fight, my pushback was devil's advocate. If he was winning the fight and having his way, would he have said, you know what, I'm gonna suck it up and try to fight through this even though I still can't see? You never know. If he was—

if he was having— I don't think he should, and I agree for a foul. I think it was— he was— he made 100% the right call because look, he didn't lose that fight. It was a foul, although controversial. He doesn't get knocked out. He doesn't get head kicked. He doesn't get flying knee in the face. If you can't see out of one of your eyes, it's hard. There's all sorts of shit that's coming from this direction that you're just not gonna see coming. And in wild exchanges where your peripheral would catch it and you would duck under, you're not going to be able to see it. Yeah, and you're gonna get rocked. And it's also, you're thinking now, oh my god, I can't see out of one of my eyes. Fuck that. Yeah, he did the right thing. He did the right thing. And I think, you know, he should have got more support. He should have got more support from everybody for that. From everybody. From everybody. Yeah, I mean, I tried to give him as much support as I could. I think he got fouled and they did the right thing. And I think you got to take one point away every fucking time someone touches an eye.

One point every time, and they won't do it anymore.

It looks like he's doing better now. Well, I'm hoping he gets to compete again this year. Two fucking eye surgeries, man.

So that— remember, remember when you got knocked out by Marlon Marais? How in the back of your head you're like, oh shit, I can't get hit. How about him? Two eyeball surgeries, and now every time a finger comes towards his eye, he's thinking about his eyes, losing his eye. Look at Michael Bisping. He doesn't have an eye. He has one eye that's missing, right? So you got to think that. Am I gonna not be— I'm gonna look at my kids through one blurry eye for the rest of my life? That's fucked. That's fucked, you know. It's so— for the— being in the position that he's in right now is kind of terrible.

I want to talk about the Islam fights for this weekend, for 3:30.

Can we take a piss break? Yeah, take a piss break. We'll be right back. And we're back. Jamie, pull up that card, the, the one this weekend, so we take a look at it. Yeah, um, what do you think about the Ian Garry-Islam fight? If you had to predict— if I had to predict—

like, on the UFC desk and they put you on the spot Okay, Islam Makhachev did a really good job neutralizing, uh, JDM's boxing. Didn't really give him an opportunity to do anything. He chopped his legs away with the, the calf kicks, um, controlled him in the clinch. The takedowns were relatively easy. He didn't really have to set it up with like hands. He kind of just shot and just took him down at will. Um, Ian Garry, now on the other hand, he's done a good job of showing takedown resilience. We saw that with Belal Muhammad. Is Belal Muhammad Makhachev? No, no, he's not. No, but it definitely showed something. He did a good job with Shavkat as well, who's a bigger guy, was able to defend a bunch of times. I forgot if it was Shavkat who had his back, but he was able to defend.

Shavkat's the guy who beat him, so Shavkat is the one loss that he has, and it was the grappling that Shavkat got him with. But he also blew out Shavkat's knee. Yeah, like that's why Shavkat has had all these surgeries. That oblique kick Mm-hmm. That kick is so nasty. That's the one thing that I wonder, like, should we not have that? You don't like any.

I remember you don't really like that one. It's—

you can't— I mean, you can defend it by not getting hit by it, but the problem is if you get hit by it, like Khalil Rountree and Modestus Bukharkis, when he went— turned his knee sideways, he stomped that thing, stomped it. And that's, that's a career changer. Like, it could be a career ender.

Bukharkis came back, but But this is 2 years now, right? Yeah, for, for Shavkat that he's been out. Yep. He said multiple surgeries.

He had it done and then it blew out again, had to get it done again.

Yeah, I just don't know the range, the reach advantage. I think Ian does a great job of using his lateral footwork. Mm-hmm. Makhachev is not the fastest guy. No, but what he is, he's imposing. He knows how to cut you off. That southpaw stance. I think causes some problems for a lot of people. He's only lost, what, one time to the, to the Adriano Martins with the head kick knockout. A punch.

Was it a punch? Yeah, he got punched.

Oh, I thought it was a head kick. But either way, I think Ian's gonna have to look to something like that, see if there's maybe some of those old tendencies that that punch was able to land. That was also such a younger version of Islam. I just don't see him making those mistakes again. Yeah, that was a long time ago. How does Ian win? He's gonna have to point fight and sit on the outside and hope not to get tired going backwards the whole time, right? And he got tired doing that against Carlos Prates. So this is a tough one for Gary. Can he get the upset? Of course, it's fighting. We just saw this with Gaethje and Topuria. But I would say Islam has the one shortcut way to win. Push him against the cage, take him down. And even if he presses him against the cage, I'm curious to know if— curious to see if Gary can do damage in the clinch. Whenever I'm in the clinch with somebody, I always tell the guys, look for your knuckles and hit the eyeball, hit the nose, hit the soft spots. That's gonna make this guy uncomfortable in the clinch, not looking for his foot sweeps, where he's comfortable just resting on you, looking to set up his takedown, his next transition.

And I learned this from Brian Caraway. My first pro loss in the UFC after being 5-0, we clinch, I take him down, but in the clinch while I'm going for the single leg, I have his leg up in the air, he's leaning over my back, back, and he's taking his knuckles and he's just hitting me in the eye. Swollen up my whole eye. I was like, what the fuck is he hitting me with? And I go back and I watch the tape and I get to see, and I learned that. So I always like share these little tricks and stuff with guys when I'm teaching them. So if Garry could land some good damage in those positions, kind of deter Islam a little bit or make him a little bit more sloppy on his finishes, it could cause some chaotic scrambles where he could potentially get to a good position, and maybe we see Islam on his back again, kind of like what happened with Volk. And when he was there with Volk, it did not look good. Right. And of course, it's round 5, so it got to be—

it's also a fight where the time was all fucked up and he didn't have as much time to rehydrate. Oh yeah, they did say—

they did say something.

Yeah, it was not— he didn't— he was compromised in that fight because of that, because he didn't have as much time to rehydrate because they're fighting in Australia and they were trying to fight on US time.

This one is the one that I'm really excited about too, because Jillian is so fucking good on the ground. Mm-hmm. Top position, even off of her back. Mackenzie Dern is great off of her back. The top position too, um, she's more decorated in terms of like the jiu-jitsu space. On the feet, she's more reckless. Like, she's throwing caution to the wind because she doesn't care. She's not afraid to get her pretty face messed up. She's gonna go in there and go after you. She's attacking. Yeah. Jillian, on the other hand, not as physical on the feet, um, not a big puncher, not a big kicker. She sets everything up looking for the takedown or the clinch to, to take you down, get to the back. But when she gets there and she gets you down, she— her ground and pound, it's nasty.

The question is, is she going to be able to do it to a world champion like Mackenzie Dern?

To a good position, like some of those other girls, she gets the back mount or full mount and she's able to land these solid elbows, beat them up in that position.

McKenzie's a jiu-jitsu world champ. Exactly. It's a different, different world. That's the whole interesting— it's gonna be interesting. Um, go to the other rest of the card, go back to it, because I'm interested to see how Abdul Malik recovers from his last fight against Bulgari. Bulgari's a monster, dude. There's— that's a guy in the 185-pound division that's a real fucking problem. Yeah, he's a world-class striker. He has a victory over Pereira in Glory.

Yeah, that is— that's the— yeah, that's the guy.

Yeah, one victory, and then he got starched in the rematch.

But the thing with Malik is he was trying to go for the takedowns, but the setups were like, in my opinion, from a wrestler standpoint— so I may be a little bit unfair with this criticism, but I just didn't think they were that good.

And he was also dealing with striking that was like way above and beyond him. Yeah, and that was part of the problem, is that in the transitions, like trying to get close close to him, you're dealing with a guy who's gigantic. He's one of the tallest guys in the division. He's so fucking big for 185, so long and so tall, and on top of it, world-class striker. And he's coming into his own as an MMA guy. And part of the reason is because he's down there in Connecticut with Glover and with Alex, and he's doing camps with those guys. So like, his grappling's now on point, much more confident on the feet, much more stable. But before that, I thought Mansour was a real potential world champion.

Yes, but it's just so crazy. You could see somebody in one fight and see him in the next one.

You're just like, alright, it was a bad loss too. It was a bad— wasn't good. It was a lot of like—

see if you can find that fight. Leg kicks, jabs.

He got beat up. So it was— the thing was the amount of damage that he took, cuz he's so tough. The amount of damage he took before they stopped the fight was pretty extraordinary. There was a lot of damage.

I was hoping he could get the fight down at least once, right? But yeah, he couldn't. It was, uh, it was a tough—

there's a lot of guys at 185 that are a fucking problem, man. A lot of guys at 185 that are a real problem.

But we need that in those divisions because those divisions have been so thin for so long. Like, there's a couple of guys, right? But now you're starting to see more, like, even like the lower weight classes. A guy who's unranked, like Ethan Ewan, right, right? And you're like, I'm excited about this division because I want to see how far he could go. You got a guy like Mansour, and I can't say the other guy's name. Abdul? No, that's Mansour. Bouguerie. Bouguerie. Mm-hmm.

You got these two guys coming out. You got Ottobah Gauthier. How about that motherfucker? Yeah, he puts guys into orbit.

He fought our guy Ozzy Diaz, the last one. Yeah, that was a tough one.

It's a tough one. Yeah, this is the fight. I mean, Mansour is so tough that he was able to keep this fight going where a lot of guys would have got taken out early. But look at that. Yeah, the elbows and the clinch, everything. He's just getting destroyed.

You see how he's even trapping the wrist and then stepping in with the punches or stepping in with the elbows. Clean right hand, elbow.

It's just, Mensur is so tough, man. He's so tough. He's just absorbing so much punishment. And finally they stop it.

But before he waited all for him, the ref's like, get out of here.

Before the stoppage, I think that was the end of a round.

I don't even know if that was the end of the round.

Yeah, that wasn't the actual stoppage. So if you keep going in the fight, it gets even worse. I mean, the thing about stand-up is when you're dealing with a guy who is a world championship kickboxer and you can't take him down and he's got really good takedown defense and he's got a reach advantage, it's like everything possible that's terrible about what could happen is going on.

Oh, that split right hand. Oh my goodness. Oh my gosh, I'm surprised he didn't just faceplant after that. Well, he's so tough, man.

But the problem— the durability. And but the toughness is— your problem is you get so many holes punched in your card in one fight. Mm-hmm. In one fight. Whereas if he got hit with one shot, one big shot is bad, you get taken out, but it's not as bad as a prolonged beating over 3 rounds.

I always say, I call them dings. There are so many dings you can have in your career.

Yeah, this is it. This is the final bot. His body just couldn't— as tough as he is, and he's so tough, but the problem is that's the kind of fight where in boxing you wouldn't have— if you were a manager and he was your guy, you would not have had him fight him at this stage of his career. Not at all. This is not a fight for you right now. We've got to really get our striking better. We've got to there's, there's growth to be had before you fight that guy. But you got to know that.

And I think sometimes fighters, we could be so egotistical, right, that we're— I could beat anybody. But sometimes it's nice to be like, you know what, I could beat him, but just not right now. Let me beat somebody else. We'll get there when we get there. But it takes—

the UFC does not give you that opportunity. The UFC is like, here's the wolves.

You can say no though.

You can, but you might get shelved for a long fucking time if you say no. And a lot of guys know that, and they also know some guys have taken advantage of those opportunities, those short notice opportunities. Jon Jones. Yeah, Jon Jones got— I mean, what was the fight with Shogun?

It was very short notice after he just beat— oh man, who did he beat?

He beat everybody, but who did he beat?

Rashad Evans had just gotten hurt, and then he stepped in and took and took that one, right, for the title.

Exactly. And that's when him and Rashad were training partners. Yeah. And that's— that shows the wildness of Jon. He's fighting Shogun, who's a legend, who's the light heavyweight champion, opens with a flying knee. Yeah.

At 22.

And beats him down, beats him down, and wins the title. He has to be studied. Listen, man, he should be coaching for sure. Definitely should be. I mean, he is now. With Gable. Yeah, Gable Stevenson is— he's a real fucking problem.

But the other thing is this: you can show all the technique in the world, and I always say it comes back down to what do you do when you're in there under those bright lights? And that's the most important thing. And if you can't dial it in, it's a scary place to be, because I can't make you confident. You could be as confident as you want when you're talking to me, but only you truly know what's like— what's really going on between, between those ears, you know? So, right. That's where it gets like tricky. It does.

It gets very tricky. It gets very tricky and it's complicated. And I mean, there's only so much a mental coach can teach you on how to handle those situations. They can give you some tools, but either— I mean, I think it's something that's born out of your life.

You like mental coaches? Excuse me? You like mental coaches?

Um, I think there's nothing wrong with tightening up every single aspect of your game. However, I don't think they could fix a leaky boat. Yeah. What do you think? I think— You said it like you don't like mental coaches. I think it's a chicken and an omelet.

I think it's a chicken and an omelet. If I know you have a mental coach, I'm coming for that ass.

Okay, but what if you found out that Alexandre Pantoja had a mental coach? As savage as that dude is. Good for him.

I might be like, okay, he's not fighting me, right? But you know what I'm saying? That's what I'm saying. But you know what I'm saying?

Like, imagine if you, you found out Petr Jan had a mental coach. It's cool. But you know I'm saying, like, if a guy is elite already and already a dog and you give him just some different things to concentrate on, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. What I think is, if you need it it shows me that there's an issue. And sometimes that issue can never be fixed. There's some guys that when the going gets tough, they find a way out.

That's, that's where I'm getting at. I agree with you. If you need it, there's nothing wrong with it. But I also know that there's a place in there that if I could get the right key to unlock that door, it's gonna be bad. Yeah. It's gonna be bad.

You're already Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. And I don't know, I mean, Sean Brady had a mental coach, and you know, there's moments where Sean Brady is a motherfucker. Yeah, right, like the Joaquin Buckley fight, like holy shit, dude, that Leon Edwards— oh my god, extraordinary. But then Morales— but the problem is Morales is a fucking light heavyweight. He's huge, giant. Gigantic. You want to talk about the one guy that is like the poster boy for cutting weight, it's Morales. He's so big for 170. It's— it doesn't even make sense. Yeah, you see him in the octagon, you're like, that's a light heavyweight, or at the very least a very big middleweight. Yeah, for sure, he's a big dude and he's welterweight.

And seeing him and Brady in there, I was like, this is not the same weight class.

It seemed like it wasn't. He got the—

he got a big back.

But I'm looking at him like, look what Brady did to a former world champion in Leon Edwards, who's a good grappler. I mean, Leon took down Kamaru Usman. Leon can grapple, he's a good grappler, but there's levels, and Sean Brady's on another level when it comes to that. And what he did to Buckley was just bananas. It looked like he was in a training room, you know, right when he was on top of him. It was like he was like working a heavy bag drill. It was crazy. Yeah, I got no fear whatsoever of getting shook off. It's like, there is not a chance in hell you're getting me off of you, so I'm just gonna work my cardio and beat your ass.

Which is fascinating because he's so strong and explosive, you would think he'd be able to get up. 223, bro. He's weighing in for the—

as the backup for this fight, so he's cutting weight. 223 is heavyweight. Weight. He's a heavyweight. He's down to 193 now. Yeah, but that's probably after training. Yeah, you know, that's not the morning. He's really over 200, I guarantee you.

No, I see him in person, he's a big motherfucker. He's enormous.

How are you making 170? And his power is fucking extraordinary. He has to cut 20 or more pounds this week. Yeah, but listen, he can do it. He's young, he's done it before. He started out, he was a wrestler That's his original discipline. Really? Yeah, he knows how to cut weight.

I didn't know that.

Wrestling and judo, I believe. See, go find his Wikipedia. He can grapple, man. That's the thing. You don't see it from him, which is crazy.

I see his videos. Yeah, not the one where he's dressed up as a girl.

I think that's a tradition down there. Yeah, I know, I know. They get silly. I know.

It's a little— blowing kisses. It's a little sus.

I think they do. It's a traditional thing they do down there. I don't understand it, but I don't have— I've never seen Cheetos doing judo since he was 5 years old.

Yeah, see, there you go. I want to see him in Islam.

His mother was what, third dan judo black belt? Yeah, when she was 42. Wow. He switched to wrestling when he was 10. Yeah, watch out for the little mama. So he's got a background in grappling. Yeah, that's where he started out. But the thing is, the dude's got lightning in his hands.

I want to see him in Islam.

I want to see him and Carlos protest. That's what I want to see. Fuck yes.

I just— I want to see—

protest is the truth. I just don't want— dude scares the fuck out of me.

I don't want nobody to knock each other off yet. I understand what you're saying. That's what gets hard, right?

Because that's the storyline. That's 100% a great world championship fight, you know? And we'll see what happens.

Listen, if Islam may retire I can feel him.

I can feel he may retire. He's done a lot. He's, he's competed in two different weight classes and won world championships in two different weight classes. If he beats Ian, if he submits Ian and says, I've had enough, I'm gonna do what Khabib did and I'm gonna coach now, I could see that. And then I could see Morales protest and protest for the fucking undisputed title. Yeah, that's the way to go. Protest scares the fuck out of me, dude.

'Cause I— He's— to me, he's the scariest.

Because he does weird shit in there where, like, he sets you up with stuff. Like, he does that setup where he fakes a punch and dives in with that left knee to the body. Yeah, nasty. And his punching power is fucking crazy, man.

All while his hands are down here.

Hands down there and having fun. Having fun, relaxing. Like, when JDM took him down, he's like, "Why are we wrestling, my friend? People don't want to see wrestling.

Come on, let me up." But JDM's the boxer, so I thought it was gonna be more competitive. JDM's pretty complete.

You know, JDM supposedly in the Islam fight had a really bad back. It was pretty fucked up and really struggled with wrestling, getting ready for that fight. That's the word. And, you know, even if he didn't, there's levels, and Islam's level is the highest level. He's the highest level when it comes to grappling. There's no one higher in that division than Islam. His fucking His squeeze is extraordinary.

That's what I want to train with those guys. Yeah, just give me a week, 1, 2 weeks and forget.

Send them to Dagestan, 2, 3 years, forget.

I'll be good with that.

Would you want to go down there and train with those guys?

I would go down for a bit. Why don't you go down? I got this. I got the cigars. Listen, I got my training partners.

I understand, but time is of the essence. There's not much time left. If you want to find out, it has to be now. I know. You can't go down there when you're 40.

Or maybe I'm like Mighty Mouse. When I'm retired, I go train everywhere. Or George.

George St-Pierre does that. He's down here all the time training with Gordon Ryan.

Yeah, that'd be fun, you know.

But George is like a real martial artist, you know what I mean? Like, never got out of shape. He's a man. He's the man. And he's so cool. He was— he, you know, he plays chess at a really high level. I play chess. You play chess too?

Yes. Are you about a 1400? I'm out of 1350 to 1400. 120 Elo. Is that good? It's supposed to be good, decent for like— I'm not like a grandmaster, which is like 2500 or some shit, or 3000. How often do you play? Every day. Really? Every day. But I play 5-minute games because it's similar to like a fight. Like, you got to know and make your strategies, make your attacks. Some guys, they play 10-minute games. I'm like, bro, I'm too busy to play 10-minute games. I gotta— where did you learn? I started playing after COVID, during COVID when Queen's Gambit came out. I used to think chess was like, oh, that's a gay— that's a gay thing. This is like so stupid. Play checkers like a man.

And like, oh, play checkers like a man is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Yeah, then I realized real quick, I was like, oh, this is— this is some high-level shit. This is not for stupid people. This is for intellects. Like, you have to understand what you're actually doing, strategizing, setting people up, kind of like a fight. It's a fascinating game.

George was playing James McCann. James McCann is a hilarious comedian from Australia. Georgia, and James is very smart and really good chess player, and George and him were going to war in the green room of the Mothership, and we were all like, oh shit. Yeah, yeah, they had a board. Yeah, man, guys play at the Mothership all the time. Bryan Simpson and Tony Hinchcliffe play all the time. Okay. Yeah, they get serious about chess.

Challenge accepted.

Yeah, man, I don't play, but I'm scared. I'm scared to play. Yeah, yeah, it's addictive.

That's the problem. It's because then you want to, you want to know the openings, you want to know the strategies, you want to know, okay, if I do this sacrifice and there's so many. Now, did you learn by reading books?

Did you learn by watching videos?

How'd you learn? Um, I downloaded the app during COVID and that was it. I was hooked.

And so how did you learn how to move?

Um, the game. So the game, you could start like beginner level. It tells you what pieces like does what, like the pawn can only go forward, it can only capture sideways, the knight can only do like this L-shaped thing, forward, backwards.

So you just learned from the app?

Yeah. Oh wow. And then I started watching videos, and then I was watching hour-long videos and tutorials. I was like, alright, the hooks are in.

Bro, we had Magnus Carlsen on the podcast, and Tony sat in with it because, you know, Tony plays, and it was like watching a guy and talking, watching his mind move and just talking to him about how he does it and how he strategizes. And, you know, he's the greatest of all time. Yeah. So having him, like, explain the game to you, you just go, whoa, there's just so many— there's so many moves. It's so complex. There's so much going on. There's so many theories, steps in advance you're playing. It's cool. Yeah, it's cool. But it's something you play forever too. Yeah. Regardless of your physical ability, you know, you don't have to ever worry about getting out of shape to play chess. Yeah.

Uh, I wanna— I, I have some of my friends, uh, that did some time, and that's where they learned. That's where they learned how to play. And, uh, we'd play from time to time. Uh, but then I come to find out, like, they were really good at the time because I wasn't really good. I thought I was good, but I really wasn't. And then really quickly I realized, oh, these guys really— they're like, they're —low level, you know. So it's a very intellectual game. That's why I really, really enjoy it.

When I was playing pool in New York, there was this kid who was a young player who, like, when he was really young, he was playing tournaments all over the place. He was like really good. And there was a dude who got out of prison and learned how to play in his head in prison because they didn't have a board. And so this kid and this old dude were sitting there playing chess in their head, and they would call out the moves. And they had the whole board mapped. I was fascinated. I was like, this is crazy.

That's hard. That's really hard to do.

Yeah, and you also have to agree where the pieces are.

Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? I'm not that good.

You got to rely on— and, you know, this one guy had played so many times in prison in his head that he could keep track of the entire board, and this kid was a wizard at it. And watching these two guys call out moves and just sitting there staring at each other. They're trying to figure out who's winning. I'm like, you guys are playing an invisible board.

This is crazy. Yeah, that's, that's next level.

That was my first introduction to chess. I was like, this is nuts, man.

You want to try the silver?

Sure, I'll try it. I still have some of this left though. It's water now.

Yeah, I know it is. Agua. It's still chilled too, so I like this one. Chilled. You do ever do like a green tea shot? What's a green tea shot? It's like with bourbon or whiskey. It's like a little simple tea. Yeah, they call it green tea. You see a lot of the girls, they drink it at the bars and stuff. So we did this with like a— we call it silver tea. It's a silver rum. What is rum made with? Sugarcane. Sugarcane, uh, or molasses. Uh, I think the other one's agricole.

But no matter where people are in the world, they find a way to get fucked up.

Yeah, from the Pirates of the Caribbean. Is that what— no, no, but that's what the pirates would drink.

Why did, uh, why are pirates— why were they so into rum? I couldn't tell you, you know what I mean?

Hey, like, I don't know.

That's like rum is like associated— they probably learned from the Caribbean. Right? That's where it originated, right?

Yeah, you get it from sugarcane plants and the whole distillation process. This is like pot still, pot still and column still for both of these. This is just a Jamaican blend. Like, some of them are mostly—

Pirates did drink rum, but the stereotype is exaggerated, says Perplexity. During much of the 1600s, Caribbean pirates often drank wine and brandy more commonly. Rum became far more available and popular in the early 1700s as Caribbean sugar production expanded. That makes sense. Mm-hmm. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

You know what I never understood is like, we know the big players in the rum market like Bacardi, Captain Morgan's, Malibu, but when we go on vacation, we go to the Caribbean, we drink all the different rums from, from the islands, and I always tell people like, you have such a great time drinking rum, like, why don't we bring that here to that, to our culture and make it more of an inclusive thing versus just only when I go on vacation, that's the only time it's really associated. And I go, I want to change that narrative and let people— rum is for year-round. You could have sipping rum, you could have it for Vegas pool parties, you can have it with a cigar. Like, there's so many different ways you can enjoy it. It's not just for vacation time. It's For me, I want this to be something that makes you feel like you're back on the island. And we want to make sure this was 100% Jamaican rum. Didn't want to piss off my people in Jamaica, 'cause that's the one thing when we were doing this. So I went through the whole process, like the branding, the labeling, my money invested in it.

So it's like actually my company. But with that said, one of the things I spoke to some of the guys at the distilleries, the one we went to mainly was Worthy Park. And they were saying the main thing you don't want to do is call something Jamaican rum if it's not 100% Jamaican. I was like, I had a feeling, but I want to make sure so we didn't toe that line and piss anybody off. So it's been a— this has been a fun project, and we've been having a good time just getting some bigger distributors and stuff. We should get one in California soon. My guy Kevin Folkler from King Seafood, he has a bunch of restaurants down in Cali and Vegas. He brought us in, but he's a Long Island guy. He heard me talking about it on the Ariel Show and reached out, and I thought it was like a prank email. I was like, let me just see where it goes, and it turns into something. I was like, oh, this is actually a legit guy, actually had a legit business and everything, and it's been cool. So this has been fun.

It's my passion project.

Well, it's a smart thing to do to prepare for your retirement too, to have a real legitimate business going, like, as you're still fighting.

Yeah, it's not just my name on a label, like trying to do a quick money grab or anything like that. So that's awesome.

So where are you right now in terms of like your next fight? Are you in a holding pattern?

Yeah, everyone's got a fight. Lerone's the only guy who would make the most sense in my opinion. But like I said, I heard he was hurt. I think Diego Lopez is supposed to have somebody. He's fighting lightweight now.

That's what I heard. I heard Diego was moving up, which makes sense because he's big. He's a big dude. He's big. And after he beat Steve Garcia, which was a crazy fight I got my thoughts on that. What's that?

I got my thoughts on that.

What are your thoughts on that? Think about it while you're lighting that cigar.

Pause. So, come for that ass. I'm coming on that ass. Yo, I'm coming for that. I still get those messages till this day, bro. It's the funniest thing. I was like, yeah.

You just got done with a fight.

What are you gonna do? My adrenaline was through the roof. I'm on cloud nine. I just submitted the boogeyman of the division. Even back then, my managers, I heard talk that they thought he was gonna be the first champ for their management company. And I took that as, as Michael Jordan would say, I took that shit personal, you know? So, and I was so glad I proved the point and Yeah, I was just on a whole nother level. But yeah, Larrona's out. Garcia just lost. Arnold Allen just had a great fight with Costa. He lost to Gene Silva before that. Mostar and Volk, we know that. I fought Mostar already.

And Gene Silva's got a fight too now, right?

He's supposed to be fighting Yair. That's at least those are the rumors I saw circulating. Yeah, that's right.

That's an interesting fight.

That'd be fun one.

Yair is always a wild card. Yeah, that dude can kick.

I was gonna say, his kicks— whoo! There's a guy I don't want to fight, is that motherfucker, because I know what the kicks do, and I'm like, I don't want to— I don't want to be on the receiving end of that.

Yeah, his kicks are crazy.

Baseball bats getting swung at your head.

And he's so dex— he's got so much dexterity, like he can whip those kicks around from anywhere. He's so light on his feet, man. Those kicks are extraordinary. Yair is one of— he's one of the best kickers in the sport. By far, 100%.

People think I have like a kicking background. I'm like, no, I just watched a lot of VHS tapes when I was a kid and played White Tiger, White Lion, and all that stuff with my brothers growing up. Is that how you learned how to kick? Basically, we just really see what we did on the, on the TV and just start imitating it, and then we have these battles, right? I'm a family of 20, so I got a huge family. Wow, that's crazy. That's huge. Yeah, all the boys, we Went to war with each other, and you just learned from watching movies. We learned from watching movies. We didn't, we didn't do anything traditional, like no martial arts traditional background.

So when did you first like get like someone teach you technically how to kick?

I forget the guy's name, but when I was at Team Bomb Squad in New York when I was in college, and I was just starting off as an amateur and early pro, we had this Muay Thai guy come up, Stone something, I want to say. But, uh, that's the first— he was working with Jon Jones. He was the first guy like showing Jon the elbows, the knees and stuff. And that's where I first, first started learning how to do like traditional Muay Thai kicks. Then I worked with this other guy named Primo Bellarose. He was really good for me to work with. Irish guy, had a ton of Muay Thai fights. And then when I came to Long Island, I didn't really have like a— I still don't even have like a set Muay Thai instructor or anything like that. I just kind know what I know from back then, and I kind of just blend it in where it makes sense. I know you train in Vegas sometimes too.

I've seen you at— I live there. You live there now? 100%. Yeah. Wow. What made you decide to do that?

Yeah, my home's always going to be in New York, but I live in Vegas now. It's the fight capital of the world. Um, business for me over there, it's doing really, really well.

And, um, is it because you get more training partners, more training partners, more coaching?

—Uh, you know what—

—Are you still at Syndicate? No, I was—

Murad was at Syndicate. Right. I would go to Syndicate to help him.

That's where I saw you training.

Yeah, I would go down there to help him out for his fights. I started at XC. That's where I trained with first, with Niksic. The training times were a little bit odd for me. It was like 3:30, pro classes and stuff like that. Um, but I think this sport's still kind of backwards. People doing all these classes, I think in the beginning is good, but I think eventually you have to get to that one-on-one Ilya Topuria, O'Malley, Henry Cejudo, Mighty Mouse, the way these guys are doing it.

Tailored structured training camps for you.

Like a boxing camp, right? And even when I was back home in New York, that's basically how we essentially ran it. You know, I was running all the stuff that we were doing, and, you know, Ray and those guys would come down and for sparring, and I go to Sarah's for BJJ, working a lot with Jason, Jason Rao, who's got his own school now too. I don't know if you know him, but he's like the boogeyman everyone talks about in the training room. But for some reason, in competition, he's just never really showed what he can truly do. But he's so talented, could walk you through everything and explain everything at a high level. But yeah, that's kind of how I ran everything. But it's centered focus, and I felt like that's the best— Our gym was on a run where everyone was killing the game.

So is it also because Murab's in Vegas that you wanted to go to Vegas?

I went— I moved before him. Really? And then he moved in and he found a house right next to me. Oh, that's perfect. That's amazing. Literally like across the street from each other.

Oh, that's amazing. Pretty cool. That's, that's actually great. And where are you training? What gym are you training at there? The Q. I don't know that place. It's a brand new—

before it was kind of like nomad's land. We're training most of the classes at the PI, but you can't charge anybody, right? You're using someone else's facility, so you can't be running a class and on top of that charging people. And right, so that whole thing. So my coach Mateus, he was eventually able to find a place, and now just about all the undergrads are now graduates. Most of them are just about all signed to the UFC now. So we have Diony Barbosa, we have Jean-Paul Lembosséné. I can never say his name. Um, Jean-Paul, I just call him JP. Um, John Powell, I think he's supposed to be getting signed. Shane Collins just got signed. He had that debut against Otari, the Georgian, which was also a friend of mine, which kind of sucked watching that fight because I was like, ah, I don't wanna see nobody get hurt. I don't see nobody lose. Ozzy Diaz. And I think Merab is now gonna be shifting over to doing most of his camp. He's still gonna be working with Syndicate, but he's gonna be doing most of his camp with us. And there's a few other guys— I'm sorry if I'm missing some other people.

Don't Don't be mad at me, I'm sorry. I'm just a man. No worries.

And so you have Mateus— not Mateus from London.

No. What's Mateus's last name? Nakashe. Nakashe. He's from Novo União. He grew up with Aldo and those guys, Henrique Beral, Johnny Eduardo. He's like, bro, you fight all my Brazilian friends, you beat all my coaches. Because I beat Johnny Eduardo, I forehanded Barrera, I beat him. And, uh, he's like, bro, I remember I was there and you beat my coach. It's like, fuck it, sorry, I'm sorry. But it's a good gym. You know what it is? It's a lot of the drills that we do, even in the classes, is practical. We're not doing 8, 10 punch combinations. We're doing real life practical stuff, scenarios that happens in the fight. So I don't mind doing the classes with this, but I also like to do my one-on-ones afterwards, especially when it's fight-specific that we need to work on, right? I think they do a good job.

Now you were saying you had thoughts on the Steve Garcia, uh, Lopez fight. Again, another pause.

Light one up for my boys. Yeah, 145. Yeah, Steve Forte. I always said Steve is the dark horse of the, of the division.

He looks so good in the early going, bro.

If you watch some of his other fights The one fight— the few fights he lost where he was knocked out was him just being more reckless than he probably should have been. Big frame for the weight class. His reach is fucking stupid. Crazy long. Crazy kicks. When he gets you on the ground, his ground and pound is ferocious. Like, almost reckless to a point, right? And then he's fighting a super smart fight with Diego Lopez. Diego Lopez now comes out for round 2. He flips the switch and says, fuck this technical shit, and just pulls him into a barn fight. And man, he clipped him. And he's been knocked out before, right? So if there's any way a guy who has a granite chin who could rely on it is a guy like Diego Lopez. And I even said, I saw Diego Lopez at the PI, and I told him, I was like, congrats on the fight. So we had a little, little beef, but it was more so about who should have gotten a title shot. I thought he was gifted a title shot. Okay, cool.

The second one, you mean?

The first one. The first one. I thought it should have been Mosar.

The second one was ridiculous.

The second one was ridiculous.

Didn't make any sense.

But congrats to him.

Do you think they gave him the second one as a gift because he fought short notice? Possibly. Yeah, it kind of seems like it. This one don't like me.

But my whole thing is, that's why we kind of bumped heads. We did train together one time. We were friendly, cordial, and the whole nine, and That kind of set a little riff in the relationship a little bit. We both fought at UFC 300. We took a picture in the back, um, but that's, that's what I said. It's like I always speak my mind and on things, and sometimes it gets me in trouble. And turned to a whole thing with his manager and myself and Twitter beef and all this whole thing. And I thought the fight should have went to Mosar, just being fair, based on merit, should have gotten it, tied up the, the division, jammed up fights that probably should have been different directions, right? But I thought— I told him, congratulations, you fought a smart fight. You pulled him into your style of fight, and that's how he got the job done. If he fought him on a technical standpoint like that, I think Diego would have probably ran away with it. Not Diego, Garcia. Garcia.

Well, he just unfortunately went in when Lopez started chasing after him. He engaged in that kind of—

yeah, yeah. And that's what he does. I'm like, if I'm fighting Diego, I'm not doing that shit. Yeah, I'm sure I could take a punch, but that guy's got mitts. There's one, and he knows he could rely on his chin, and he's probably looking at me like, I don't think this guy can knock me out, so I'm gonna risk it, right? So square jaw, dude, you have to understand what you're getting into. Yeah, and that's what I was saying before about like some of these guys, you have to understand thyself, you know? When you look at Diego, he—

that's good. Yeah, yeah, looks like he's designed to take a shot. Yeah, like one of the Mark Hunt type chins. Mm-hmm. You know, designed to take a shot.

So that's why I go like, if I were to fight him, like, I know how I would approach the fight. Obviously the path of least resistance for me is always gonna be the ground, but he's, he's good on the ground. Very good. He almost got Ivlov, remember the kneebar, the triangle, armbar?

Yeah, you could make an argument that he could have won that fight because he was closer to finishing multiple times, and those should count. Those submission attempts, close submission attempts, should count in a big way. And just because a guy got out of it doesn't mean he was almost dead. Like, that's— that means a lot. That means just as much as rocking a guy.

It should. It should. But judges are judges.

It's— that's a bad aspect of judges because it's very difficult to get to a position like that where you're almost submitting a guy multiple times. Yeah, like, those are— those were like very close. And if you were looking at that in terms of a jiu-jitsu perspective, like, yeah, he's got the advantage. 100%. 100%.

So that's why that would be a tough fight for me. But it's the— I want to fight the biggest names.

Well, Diego's moved up, so Diego's 55 now. Yeah, from what I understand, which makes sense because he's fucking big. It was probably a real struggle for that dude to get down to 45. Yeah, a real problem. Yeah, but 55 is such a fucking lion's den too. What did you think of the Taporia-Gaethje fight?

I thought it was amazing, man. Like, for Gaethje to come out and It kind of reminded me of the Tony Ferguson fight, right? The boogeyman. He did what he needed to do, had a perfect game plan. And what Gaethje said was the most spot-on thing. I was talking to one of my friends, they said, um, they like Gaethje on the podcast, but they were like, uh, I thought he came off a little like a little cocky or arrogant. I was like, I was like, as he fucking should.

He's the champion of the world.

The world was trying to shit on him and gave him no chance to win the fight. If anyone relates to that, it's me. I understand. I understand exactly where he's coming from. Fuck, let him fucking talk his shit, 'cause if the other guy won, best believe he would've been his white rose like he said he was gonna do. He's had beef with his dad. Like, there's a lot of built-up animosity, whether it was fake, whatever, it was there. So let him have his time in the sun. But with the fight, I thought the thing he said that made the most sense to me, that resonated, was he changed people's perception of the fighter, where before people were kind of going in there hesitant, scared, and they kind of knew what they were walking into and it was gonna be a bad night. Mm-hmm. And going in there and doing that to Ferguson changed Ferguson's career. Yeah. Going in there doing this to Topuria— can Topuria bounce back and be the same guy and have that same aura, same persona, that people are gonna step in the octagon with him and be a little hesitant to want to go in there with him because of what he's done in the past, but then also knowing that that, "Yo, he's just like us, man.

He puts his fucking pants on the same way we do. One leg at a time." Unless he could jump and put both on at the same time.

I think there's a physics element to it too. The reality of Gaethje and Topuria is that Topuria is much smaller. Yeah. He's a much smaller person. Look, he's got death in his hands. Death. And a lot of people would've folded in that second round. But Gaethje is so fucking durable. He's so— and you can't make him quit. It's not— he's not going to quit. You might beat him. He's been beat before, but it's not because he doesn't believe in himself, and it's not because he can't endure. It's because he gets caught. Yeah, you know, and you think about the way Ilia put it on him in that second round. He emptied the gas tank, emptied the gas tank, and Gaethje was still there. And that's the problem, is you cannot empty the gas tank on that guy.

I think he tried he got ahead of himself too. I felt like he was trying to put an exclamation point bowtie ribbon on the finish where he could have submitted him or maybe just go for the TKO, but instead he went for the Khabib-like mounted triangle that he could be hit on Gaethje, and he was in the same position, was going for the same sequence, and I go, brother, this is either gonna be really dope or is gonna be the reason you lose. And he lost the position. Yeah, she gets back up and man, just everything he did in the approach. If they had a rematch, maybe the fight goes different. Maybe Taporia, if he does, he takes him down and does what he's also really good at and submits him.

Or maybe he's more patient with his attack. I'm moving his head more, kind of like empty the gas tank in the second round when he has him hurt. It was Justin's attitude is so crazy too, like when he got back to the corner like, good body shot. He's like, help, like congratulating him on hitting him with a good liver shot.

Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, and he, man, he, the way he hit him, I was like, the fact that he didn't just go down and curl up in a ball and just say, all right, I'm just gonna take my paycheck and go home. Nope.

Well, it was his last chance at 37 to be a world champion, and he did it, and he did it in the White House, which is crazy.

So you're saying this, we There's a chance.

37?

He's saying there's a chance.

Of course there's a chance. You've already pulled it off before. You 100% could be a world champion at 45. You know it.

Bro, that would be the Cinderella ending for my career, bro. Yeah. Like, I can't even put into words, like, what that would feel like. Like, I get, like, goosebumps even, like, thinking and talking about it because it's—

Well, you're better and smarter than you've ever been before. Yeah. All your experience— the Zulal fight's a great example of that. You're at a, you know, world championship level at 45 for sure. Yeah, 100%. It's, it's a matter of whether or not you get that shot.

I, and I think they should hopefully— let's say I don't get booked because there's not a lot of options, but let's say they have their fight. Hopefully it's in Abu Dhabi sooner rather than later.

I think that's when it's supposed to be, right?

Yeah, that's what I've heard. And hopefully I'm the next guy because then it's okay to wait. If not, then, you know, I'd rather stay active, stay busy, make money, and the whole nine, because that's, that's, that's ultimately what it comes down to.

So they haven't talked to you about any potential fights or offered you anything?

They floated names. Pico's now booked with Zalao. Oh yes, interesting. There's Vallejos, but with Vallejos, that's going so far back again for me. It's like, it's not a fight that makes a ton of sense, but Whatever these guys want to do, but I've never said no. Maybe that's a problem.

But ideally you'd like to fight for the title.

Ideally I would like to fight for the title next.

And I think that makes sense, especially you as a former world champion at bantamweight. It makes sense, especially if Volk wins.

Yeah, it's like, that's the fight. This is a big fight you can make. Two OGs of their weight classes. Everything I've done at the bantamweight division, set the records. Why not? Mm-hmm. You know, so Well, I mean, he—

after Larrone knocked out Pico, he was saying, I'll see you next, and we thought that was gonna be the case.

And it changed. Yeah. So hopefully, hopefully it changes, but it's—

Larrone loses to Ibleev, and you know, and then the whole thing is just upside down now, cuz Larrone, after he knocked out Pico, looked like the man.

Yeah, I mean, it wasn't looking like the man before that, but—

well, Pico's a bad motherfucker. Yeah, he didn't give no fucks.

I was like, dude, you gotta slow down.

He was so reckless. This. I mean, it makes him so exciting. But listen, he adjusted in the Pitbull fight. Yeah, in a perfect way. I mean, he looked like world-class in the Pitbull fight. That left hook he has is beautiful. It's nasty. Oh, it's beautiful. It's perfect. Like, they should study it. They should teach that left hook, the Aaron Pico left hook. Him and Ilia— Ilia's left hook is fucking phenomenal. That left hook to the body.

Ilia just does such a good job. Once he gets going and he hits a slip and he's just like bing bing Bink, bink, bink. It's almost like Conor-esque, the way he just lines up his shots. Vintage Conor. Vintage Conor, like Eddie Alvarez Conor.

Oh my god, that was when he was The Matrix.

Who is it? Uh, they did a side-by-side, Juroš Miđić with D-Rod. Yeah, I saw that, bro. I was like, there's no way this is like the same exact combination. Close, except for the knee.

Yeah, yeah, Juroš Miđić look good, man.

He's another motherfucker.

He's another motherfucker and another guy who was cutting too much weight. At 55. Yeah. Yeah, at 70, that's perfect for him because he's big, man. He's so tall.

I think all first rounds too. Uh-huh. Just starching guys. Serbia is a wild place too, man.

They're wild people. Brother.

Brother, it was hostile. They were nice to me, but my Albanian friends— Oh, I'm sure. Because there's still a lot of history that wasn't too long ago. And I always tell my friends, I'm like, yo, we are blessed to be in this country 'cause the shit we bitch about and complain about, these are luxuries, liberties, and freedoms that a lot of these countries do not have. Right. And all it takes is a short trip overseas and you'll see, hey, I can't wait to go back home and I'll kiss the ground. It ain't perfect, but we got a lot, you know?

Have you ever seen those Serbian basketball games?

I heard about it, I didn't get to see 'em though. I heard, they were talking about, I think we were supposed to go to one or something like that.

War. Like, the chants in the audience is crazy.

The flares and everything.

Well, it's the chants. It's when they're chanting, you're like, Jesus, it's like daunting. It's, it's very different than anything you ever see in America. Yeah, it's like that. First of all, their national pride. Give me some volume on this. Yeah, the flares, bro. Serbian basketball. Yeah, they're lighting that place on fire. I mean, it might as well be a riot.

Now, is this actually basketball like how we know it, bro?

Basketball, not Dagestani style. Good. No, no, no, tackling each other. The Dagestani stuff is crazy. Like, listen to the crowd, bro. They get into it. Look at that stadium.

I know, amazing.

It's like war. I mean, the energy, the fucking crowd. It's— the energy is like the energy in an American NBA game times 10. Shout out the Knicks. It's crazy. It's crazy how much— like, look at all the movement in the crowd. I mean, these people are active. I mean, it's kind of nuts.

Yeah, we don't— that's the one unfortunate thing. I feel like our sports isn't as like, um, like our fan base is— besides New Yorkers who will beat you up for beating a rival team in the playoff finals, wearing the wrong jersey, you better take that shit off. Um, we don't really get like, like we don't— that kind of pride. Yeah, that's like—

well, those people have been to war pretty recently.

It's different. Yeah, so different. Yeah. Yeah, but it makes you appreciate. That's why, that's what I was like, I go back to like, it makes me appreciate like what we have here and the fact that we can achieve basically whatever it is that we want to. It's gonna be, it's not easy, but we can. Yes, we can try. We have the option to try anything.

Yeah, I mean, this is literally the land of opportunity. But when you see people that come from Serbia, we see people that come from Dagestan, we see people that come from these like war-torn Chechnya They're different because their, their childhood was different, like different mentality. Yeah, it's a different mentality. It's a warrior mentality. It's very different.

Yeah, like I've seen it. I've learned a little bit from Merab and going to Georgia, learned the history about them and Russia and the whole, the whole war and everything, and the political side of things. And then going to Albania, going to Kosovo, and then going to Serbia and and seeing how like the Serbians are coming up to my Albanian friends, introducing themselves basically, or asking my friends where they're from. And then just straight up just saying Kosovo, Serbia as an introduction. I would go, are we just trying to start a fight right now? Like, I don't even understand. Can we just be like, can we just be cool? We're in your country. We just accept one another for what it is. We're here for the fights. We're not here to fight. Just let's have— Oh, before I forget this. So we were at a, we were after one of the nights, I think we went to one of the clubs on the water and we go out to this food spot to go get food. It's called Good Food or whatever. And we're there, we're with some of the staff, the UFC staff, we're hanging out.

These guys are always great. We're having a good time, couple fighters. And I guess one of the guys came over and was talking to one of our friends and he goes to him like— our friend looks straight up Dardanian, like he looks like a straight-up Illyrian bloodline, like he looks straight up Albanian. And he asked him where he's from. He tells him, oh, I'm Albanian, I'm from— I think he says he's from Kosovo. And they start talking, but then sure enough, the guy I guess starts reaching into his pocket and he says whatever he says. They don't speak Serbian, it's a different language. And we have a Serbian friend with us, and he translates for them, and he tells them, he says, if you guys don't clear out in 10 minutes, I'm gonna blow this place up. Brother, what? I'm taking a piss break around the corner outside somewhere because I'm like, been drinking all night, I gotta find somewhere to go. I come back and they explain this to me. So we start telling the girls, he says, when the guy starts going down the steps. He's like trying to talk to the guy.

He keeps taking a step back. He said he starts sweating profusely. He's got his hand in his back pocket and he moves it to the front. And, um, he's just like waving, whatever, saying whatever he's saying in Serbian, telling everybody they better leave. And he said he thought it was a gun. And then he asked our Serbian friend, he said, no, it was a grenade. I was like, what? He's just casually walking around with a fucking grenade? Are you kidding and just because they were Albanian. Brother, this is, this is life for these guys. It's— and I know people are gonna be, they're gonna criticize, uh, we're not all like— of course not everyone is like that, but there's still some crazy people out there that still have this pent-up resentment and anger for everything because of the separation of the lands and all this. But this, it's almost like the Israel-Palestine thing. It's all the lands get divided from years ago, and then you did this to me, but then you did this to me, but then you did this to me first, but then you did this to me back then. And I'm like, what are you gonna go back to, to BC?

Like, what the fuck are we talking about? Can we draw a line in the sand and go, okay, this is where we all agree that this is what it should be, and just make everybody happy, so, or somewhat happy, so that we can go on with our lives in peace? You know what I mean? It's just the problem is the war is so recent for them. Yeah, yeah, I was so— I was so like broken up about it. Comes like, dude, I did not know it was like this, man. This is like, because you're from this country and this guy had a pleasant conversation with you, he's gonna fucking pull out a fucking grenade. He's going— walk— I'm like, nah, it's crazy.

But yeah, don't take any fights over there. That's Albanian.

God bless America. Well, Dennis is Albanian. Albanian. That's crazy. And the chance he was getting, basically what they told me to translate to was kill Albanians. And I'm laughing because I don't understand everything. I'm just laughing because I'm like, yo, this is sick, you're in the main event. This was like me fighting O'Malley in the main event. The crowd was packed, they could not wait for Denis to make that walk. Booing, you hear chants, Kosovo Serbia, Kosovo Serbia, Kosovo Serbia. And, um Yeah, unfortunately, but I told Dennis, I was like, you handled it well. Like, you know, even in hostile territory, you came in like a champ. You didn't piss anybody off. You were just doing what you normally do. You do your ego every fight. You're not looking to provoke anybody. And it was nice to see even after the fight, whatever the fucked up stoppage, he got a better reception on the way out. There was still some— That's good. Like angry fans, like—

Well, luckily he didn't win. I was like, bro, if you had won this fight, Fight here?

I don't know, man. We had to run. They might have blew up the hotel.

Oh my God. Right? I mean, imagine you fight Uros Medić over there and you, you beat him, right?

I don't even know if I, I'm supposed to say this, but his dad was told when he got to the, I guess, the hotel that he wasn't welcome here. He had to go all the way back to Albania. Really? He drove all the way down, had to drive all the way back.

Wow.

That's because his last name Holy shit. Yeah, they told me you're not welcome here. This is— God bless America.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, here's the thing, like, in America, like, when Russians fight in the UFC, everybody cheers.

Oh my God, nobody got the biggest reception.

I mean, even now, yes, even now in the middle of the Ukraine war and all that shit, like, when Russians fight over here, nobody cares. If you could fight, they'll cheer you. Yeah, there's a few people that yell out USA, USA, and that's all good. Because it's just, it's not that bad, you know? It's just they're cheering for the American, but they're not saying death to the Russian, you know what I mean?

Yeah, we don't have a phrase, have a statement, right?

But would you fight in Russia right now? Imagine if you were fighting a Russian in Russia right now, how scared.

I got offered a RAF match in Russia.

What's a RAF match? RAF. Oh, I thought you meant like raft, like you fight on a raft.

No, no, that'd be crazy.

You see, Murab was sparring with Zuckerberg on a raft, baby.

He did the sparring kick off the raft and then he picked him up and slammed him into the water.

So you got offered one of those matches?

Yeah, in Russia, my second one. The first one was with Benson Henderson. That was a fun match, more so for me. But yeah, but I was just like, it was a really good prospect, 12-0 guy. I think he fights at PFL, tough guy. But I'm like, dude, I'm leaving Albania, I just left Baku. I have no desire to go all the way back overseas again. I want to prepare for a fight. I want to sell some rum. I want to fucking sell some cigars, help my training partners. It's like, and I got a wife. I gotta make sure that I'm— you're home, kind of home. Like, give her some attention and some love, you know, some TLC.

Well, it's also— there's a reality of wrestling matches that you have the potential of blowing a knee out.

That too. That's real.

So You know, who was the Russian guy blew his knee out?

I was a Georgian guy. Is that what it was? Yeah, the big, the big heavyweight guy. Yeah, yeah, Georgian guy. He was like a silver medalist in the Olympics.

I mean, you can, you can blow a knee out in these matches and then you're fucked. And all the injuries in MMA are basically—

what were you doing? Wrestling.

Wrestling, yeah, the culprit. Well, listen, Aljamain, it's always good to have you on here, brother, and good luck with the rum company. It's called Harbor— what is it called?

Funk Harbor Rum. And we actually got a community app now too. It's called joinfunkharbor.com.

And what is the website if people want to go and see the rum?

Well, if they want to join the community, it's joinfunkharbor.com. If you want to purchase, funkharborrum.com or funkharborspirits.com. Pretty easy. And we're looking for distributors, more distributors to keep growing this thing as best as we can. And the best thing about it is we're actually giving people an opportunity to help grow this thing from the ground up. We're 2 years in as of August 1st. And we doubled our sales from last year. So we're in a really, really good spot. So I'm excited about that. And anyone that's been following me from the beginning of my career, they get an opportunity to now take the ride with us. And we got perks and stuff like that all listed on the Republic campaign for the crowdfunding.

Beautiful. I'm so happy that you have something like this. It's really cool. It's good. It's smart too. Yeah. It's really good to invest in something like that. Yeah.

So far so good.

And good luck in whatever happens happens in the future, because I really do hope you get another title shot. Oh my God, that'd be— it would be the— that's the right way. The right way is— yeah, because again, you're 37. This is— this is the time. Clock's ticking. Yeah. Thank you, brother. Appreciate you. Always good to see you, my friend. Always. All right, bye everybody.