Transcript of JRE MMA Show #186 with Sean Sharaf New

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The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. What's going on, man?

This is Joe Rogan.

How you feeling?

I feel incredible, man. It's been one hell of a week. It's been crazy.

It has to be the craziest week of your life, right?

Or up to it. But I mean, this is, this is pretty, pretty up there. There's been some crazy weeks.

So talk me through this. When did you get the, the offer for the fight? How long out?

So they had mentioned possibly me fighting him on the White House. They asked me. That was the, the, the Ali. He had reached out to me. He's like, hey, like, they talking about possibly getting you on the White House. They know you're a Marine and whatnot. They want Gable Stevenson. And I was like, fuck. I don't care. I've been watching Gable since he was coming up on the regional scene, since you were talking about him, and everyone was all hyped about him, man. So I kind of already knew we were gonna cross paths, but it wasn't until I was requesting to get on the LA card. I heard they were coming to LA, and I kept saying, hey, I want LA, I want LA. And they're just like, all right, you got LA, you're fighting Gable.

So there was a conversation about the White House card. So this is June, that's when it first came up. And so how did it wind up taking place in September?

Well, I just never heard back. They talked about it. They're like, would you take it? And I was like, sure. And I think, I think maybe they were trying to get Jones on there too, possibly. I think that might have been what it was.

I think Dana was hesitant. Yeah, to get Jon on there.

Yeah. And, and so I think it was like a, if I'm not going, then maybe Gabe was like— I don't know what it was, but they just— I just— that was the first time I was approached like, hey, would you be open to fighting him on the White House? And I was like, of course.

And so how long out did they tell you about the LA card?

About 6 weeks, but I had already been in camp because I was supposed to fight Tai Tuivasa, and I had to pull out because my nose got broken in that camp. So I was basically in the camp for the Tai fight, and then I went straight into that, into the next camp, as soon as I got cleared to start sparring and stuff. But I was still training the whole time. I was running. I was— I went full fucking— I retained my seed. I was fucking—

Did you really?

Yeah, bro. I went full 8 weeks. No, no, no jerking off, no sex, no nothing. I went full like Marine mode. That's why you guys saw that, that mat on the ground in the studio was because I was like, I was like really fucking going through it. I ended up getting air mattress after I texted Strickland because he's like, yeah.

And, um, you were sleeping on a mat?

Yeah.

Tell people about that.

Well, basically because I, I have, obviously all my finances are out there already. I didn't have anything in my name, so I've been bouncing around from fighter houses. There's Fighter House LV, they started out, and it's like $40 a room you get. And I was also staying in the casinos, fucking gambling, doing a bunch of dumb shit. And stayed in my car a few times, bounced bouncing back and forth with my mom. It was just a little bit of a chaotic situation. And I got a spot, I got a front from my management. They gave me $4,000 because I basically was in California and I stayed out there with my mom and I had to come back out here for the camp. And I was like, hey, I need funds, can you guys give me? And they fronted me $4,000 on my purse and they said, hey, get whatever you want. I mean, they weren't very involved, like, if I'm being honest. I kind of had to figure it out on my own. And yeah, I had a friend, he got me a sublease got me in that spot, and I just fucking—

Well, it's such a crazy rocky story.

I know, I feel like a movie. Like, so I'm saying it, I don't even know, like, I'm like, bro, like, people aren't gonna believe this shit. Like, I gotta fucking show the receipts, you know? Like, I'm gonna show you some fucking shit.

I mean, I've never experienced something like that, but it has to be like, right now even it's hard to believe that you did what you did.

Yeah, yeah, cuz I, I like believed I was gonna win. Like, I was telling myself, but it was— I believed it was gonna be a war. I believed it was gonna be more My whole game plan was like, sure, he might get the takedown, you're gonna stay in his fucking face. I was screaming the fucking affirm— the Jon Jones speech when he's like fucking— when he told DC and he was all like, there's nothing you could do to stop me from coming after you round after round with the most malicious techniques I know. You will lose this fight, Gable Stevenson. You will lose this fight. And I was just like, just telling myself that I was gonna go through hell for this, you know? Because all my previous fights, it was first-round knockouts. All my victories, first-round knockouts. And it kind of gave me the delusion that I'm just touch this guy, and they're gonna fall. But then when I got to the UFC, like, I had that loss with Tafa, and I had Asplund. I fucking kept cracking him, he wouldn't fall. And then I kind of started doubting my power a little bit, kind of started like questioning, like, hey, like, fucking, can I do this?

And so like, when I just hit him with that left hook and he fell, I was like— I started cussing, I jumped on him, I was fucking— bro, I was like, what the fuck is going on, man?

You were, uh, he was a -2,400 favorite.

Yeah.

The disrespect.

Was it 2,400?

Yeah, it was.

That's what it was? Okay. I just want to be really clear about that. That's a crazy number.

For heavyweight.

For heavyweight. It might be the biggest, at least bookmaker odds, it might be the biggest upset in the history of sport.

That's what they're saying. Yeah, I mean, even with Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey, it was just like Holly Holm was dangerous.

She was a multiple-time world kickboxing champion, multiple-time world boxing champion. You know, she was a legitimate striker that, you know, I could see Holly being, you know, a 10-to-1 dog or something like that. But this was— yeah, I think it was the fact I was coming off of 2 losses.

Like, like, bro, I lost my discipline a lot, you know, coming up grinding for this. And, uh, here it is.

Let's watch it again.

Yeah.

So you just know it's real.

Boom!

Oh my goodness! Oh my God!

One left hook! That's me!

Oh my God! Oh my goodness! Unbelievable! Look at Gabe, good knife kick! One more time. Left hook!

Boom!

Oh, the way the head snaps back too.

Oh!

What did it feel like when you're standing there holding your arms up? Were you like in space? Were you in another galaxy?

Everything just felt like so euphoric. Like, even like, I haven't seen the clips. I remember I shook Jones' hand and his hand before they left, but like everyone's saying like, are you sure you did that? Because like I vividly remember like before they walked out and everyone started booing, like I shook their hand. I shook his hand. Like, that was it. I didn't say nothing. And, um, But like, bro, everything just feels like— I haven't even gotten the chance to digest it. Like, I've been just going this whole week, like, doing interviews after interviews, and it's like, I'm so exhausted. Like, I just want to go to a mountain or to the desert and fucking take some mushrooms with my dog and process what the fuck is going on, man.

That probably might be a good idea too, so you can stay on the course, you know? Because one of the problems with like a big event or a big moment is you can be defined by that big event and big moment, and that big moment can be like a centerpiece in your life instead of the path, right? So the path you're on is getting better as an MMA fighter, achieving like world-class status, fighting for a title eventually. That's the path.

Is it though, Joe?

Yeah, why not?

Well, that's why I want to ask you, because like, I mean, bro, if you can do— everyone's making it seem like this is just a fucking lucky punch, one shot. And like, so this is my thing, is I've always taken this, been taking my journey fight by fight. Like, I did— like, I got out the Marine Corps and I was like, hey, like, I want to be a UFC fighter. And like, I It wasn't like, oh, I want to be a champion, you know. It was just like, I just wanted to be in the organization and wear the uniform and just be able to fucking say I did that. And the fact that I just lost it like those 2 times, like, fuck it. Like, they gave me the uniform, but it didn't feel like it. And so now, like, to do this, the people are saying possibly the biggest upset in history, fucking in my home, like, fucking against all odds. I'm like, bro, like, it's like— It's a big deal. Can I beat that? Like, do I— you leave the table when you're up. That's what they say, you know? Like, fucking, like—

Are you thinking about doing that? Are you thinking about leaving the table?

I'm— I told— I'm not gonna lie, I told Micah, the psych at the PI. I told Sergei, my training partner. I told Gokor. I told all these guys. I was like, hey bro, if I win this fight the way I'm visualizing, I like— I might be good with that because this is fucking like— that was it, you know? And I don't know, like—

Just because it was such a big moment?

Just— no, it's the fact of what I had to go through, because like, brother, I've had zero sponsors. I got zero promo. I got zero like any kind of like support throughout this whole thing. Like even like with the coaching, you know, like my corner, like I was scrambling to figure that out, you know. And it was just like I had to beg for so much fucking help throughout this process. It just made me fucking like— No, it was just put a little sour taste in my mouth. I was like, bro, like fucking like for what? Like And then on top of that, I got a fucking CT scan. They're saying I got some fucking brain matter and shit. I'm fucking stitched up from head to toe. I got fucking all types of injuries. Like, and I'm like, bro, what am I doing it for? Just fucking for more money? For a belt? Like, what am I doing it for? That's why I'm trying to figure out the answers myself.

That's interesting. Well, if that's the case, then definitely go take mushrooms with your dog.

That's why I'm like, maybe you can help me, advise me here.

The decision is always going to be entirely yours because it's dependent entirely upon who you are, where you are, and I don't know that. I don't know where you're at in your life. I don't know where you're at with your mind. I don't know. There's nothing wrong with you walking away right now if you choose to do that. So you have to think about it. And I think a moment like that, like I said, was so big, you have to let it settle before you decide what you're gonna do.

Right.

There's a lot of people— there's a bunch of different ways to approach fighting, and I think one of the worst ways is to chase glory, you know, because glory does come to the greats. And, and, and that glory, you know, the glory that Justin Gaethje got when he beat Ilia Topuria at the White House— no one's ever gonna experience that. The greatest moments in the history of combat sports. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. If you're thinking about building a website, you should try Squarespace. I know because I use it. That's right. jorogan.com is powered by Squarespace. It has all the features that you need to create a standout website, like an AI-enhanced website builder, SEO optimization tools, and seamless checkouts with mobile pay links. Head to squarespace.com/rogan for a free trial, and when you are ready to launch, use the offer code ROGAN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

That was my logic too, because like when I saw that Gaethje upset, I was like, bro, like what more do you have to prove? Like you just shocked the fucking world.

Yeah, he could, he could certainly walk— especially Gaethje, he's had this insane career, incredible career. He could definitely walk away now and be one of the all-time greats. But Conor, for instance, like Conor's last fight, like it seemed like Conor was doing it to show that he could still do it. seemed— and I don't know, you know, I didn't talk to him. I haven't had a conversation with him as a person, but it seemed like he wanted to be on top again. He wanted to show that he could go out there and still beat a world-class fighter like Max Holloway and just show that he could do it. And you got to wonder, is that the best motivation for a guy that's worth half a billion dollars and is fucking living in the lap of luxury?

And so he's just chasing that high. He's chasing that. He's like, he's like He's like, I just want to go out on top.

Is he chasing the high versus is he chasing the dream? So like when he knocked out Jose Aldo, he was chasing the dream. He was a juggernaut. He was storming through the division. He was knocking everybody out. He looked like this guy that had this phenomenal talent and this special charisma, and he looked like a guy who was chasing this, this thing, this dream, his dream of becoming a world champion. So then you achieve it and And then I think the big derailment was the Floyd Mayweather fight, right? He leaves MMA, trains boxing for a while, has a great performance against Floyd Mayweather, one of the greatest boxers of all time. Does 10 rounds with him, which is fucking insane.

Did you see my video with him before the fight?

No.

I went viral with Floyd, yeah. I ran into him at Lifetime and I was like—

Oh really?

'Cause I started promoting myself. So like, that was the issue. Like, I kept seeing these collabs and these promos with Gable and I was like, bro, what the fuck, man? Like, why is no one pushing me? So I started like just, going outside the PI, and I was like, I did my own promo. And then like, just the odds, like the next day I ran into Floyd at the fucking Lifetime, and I was like, hey man, let me get a quick video fucking to promote my fight and whatnot. So it's just ironic he's a Floyd.

That's funny, that's funny. Well, that's just to be expected. You gotta realize Gable is, first of all, Olympic gold medalist, one of the greatest heavyweight wrestlers the United States has ever produced, right? And then he goes on to be undefeated in MMA, wins that fight in dirty boxing. He's an athletic freak, and he's being trained by Jon Jones.

But who did he beat on the regional scene? That's what didn't impress me. He got wheel kicked in Mexico. The guy was like 1-0, he's being like— 'cause I was 4-0 on the regional scene too. Then I got here.

Well, you're 100% correct in that regard, but he couldn't get any fights. Nobody any good wanted to fight him because he's Gable, because he's this insane freak wrestler and they wanna win and they wanna make their way through, you know, whatever regional circuit it is, get a really good record and get some experience before they get into the UFC. They don't wanna get flatlined. They don't wanna get beat up and smashed.

They want, you know, they want—

A good manager treats their fighters that way. A good manager says, listen, you're not ready for that yet. We're gonna get you this guy. Don't get beat by him yet. You, you can eventually beat him, but we have to develop these skills. We have to develop these techniques. We have to get you some seasoning. You have to get some hard fights against some really tough guys. You know what the, the fucking basement feels like. You got to know what it's like to be in the dungeon, you know.

He wasn't in the dungeon.

Wasn't in the dungeon.

They were fucking coddling him and pampering him.

Well, I think also when you're that good of an athlete and you've had that much success in wrestling, which is, you know, this celebrated, incredible sport, and then you enter into MMA with all that hype and fanfare, you start to believe that you are special and you're invincible and you're not a regular human being with very good skills. 'Cause that's what he is, a regular human being with very good skills. And you showed it. You showed it with a fucking perfect left hook when you stepped outside and then whoop! It was everything in that left hook.

Whoo!

It was pretty, it was technical, it was perfect, and he was reaching at the time too.

Oh, and that was the other thing. He was closing his eyes, and that was— I saw in the replay, and that comes because he hasn't sparred enough, right? He hasn't had that experience of fucking being in the fire over and over.

He's only been striking for like a year and a half.

That's crazy. That's why when they asked me, they tried to make it seem like I was talking shit. They're like, are you impressed by Gael? I was like, no, I'm not impressed. Like, what, what are you not impressed about? I'm like, what the fuck? He's an Olympic gold medalist.

But what—

this is fighting, and we're gonna fight.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, his first fight, he got tagged a bunch, the first fight in the UFC. And that guy fought well. He hit him with some good shots. That guy was there to win. He just, he just, you know, was overwhelmed. Gable got him. But that fucking left hook changed the landscape of the universe, dude. That left hook changed your life, changed the world.

Yeah, there was so many people that even before the fight, they're like, if you beat Gable, I'm gonna name my kid after you. Like, I'm putting my mortgage down. Like, bro, like, I was like, I don't know if these comments are real, but like, there was so many people messaging me and commenting, like, and even like with the press conference, like, they were telling me like, like, please bring up, please bring up his past, please bring up his past, you know? And I was all like, shit, but I fought for my freedom of speech, man. I don't give a fuck. I'll say whatever I want, you know?

Yeah, it's a lot. Like, the whole, the whole buildup to a fight is so much. There's so much talk. There's so many people talking at you, and there's so many narratives. There's so many people— like, you could get your brain really fucking scrambled during those things, including him, like, believing the hype, or anybody believing the hype.

And what was crazy was we weren't even supposed to be on the press conference or even on the main card until Ortega fell out. And that was like— that felt like divine intervention, bro, because I was just like, oh my God. Like, I thought I was gonna get the press conference, and when I got to fight week, it was like There was— I wasn't on there. And then that next day they were like, oh no, you're on your main card, you're going, you're going to the press conference. So maybe that— I wouldn't have gotten in his head if I didn't get in the press conference, you know, because that was, that was strategic. Like I was saying in interviews before, like that's psychological warfare.

Of course.

It's very love and war. And it's like, if you don't know how to handle that, I mean, I don't— like, like I said, I just brought, brought things to light. Like, yeah, that was all I did. And if you, if you look and let that get under your skin, like Who knows if it let it get under his skin?

I mean, even if there was nothing going on, he might have still hit him with that exact same punch.

Yeah.

I think there's a— there's a gap in experience, and there's a gap in striking ability. I mean, he obviously is an incredible athlete, and he's very good at being the hammer. You know, he can unload combinations on guys. We've seen it. You know, we saw it in Dirty Boxing. But striking, you know as well as anybody, it is a fucking complicated thing that takes a long time to figure out. There's a lot of elements to it. There's a lot of knowledge, foot placement, where to be, where not to be, what to do, what not to do. You get caught doing something, you need a really good coach to explain to you how you got caught and never get caught like that again because you need to do this or you need to do that. Make sure your foot is outside the line. Make sure your head's off the center line. There's a bunch of different shit that takes fucking forever for your brain to absorb and then absorb to the point where you can— it's just memory, muscle memory inside of chaos and combat.

Yeah. I truly felt in flow state when I had— I was not thinking. Like, I didn't go out like, oh, I'm gonna throw the 2, or the whole game plan was like, don't over-respect the wrestling and put hands on this motherfucker. Like, that was, that was, that was the game plan. Like, like, obviously, like, I knew like he might get the takedown, but like I said, I was just telling myself, you're gonna get up, you're gonna get up, you're gonna fucking stay in his face over and over again.

I think a big flaw that he did in both the first fight and the fight with you is I don't even think he was thinking about taking you down. Yeah, which is really crazy.

He's gonna be shooting his next fight, that's for sure.

Yeah. Yeah, I would imagine. I would imagine that would be a good idea. I mean, it's when it's your number one skill set, it's crazy. It's like Wonderboy deciding not to kick. Like, what?

But it's also because like he was getting praised. Like, he, like, he was constantly being told like he's the greatest thing, he's knocking these guys out. Even Dana, like, in the— after the press conference in his first fight, he was just like praising him like, oh, like he's, he's striking with guys, knocking guys out when he could be using his wrestling. And like, I think it just like got to him. And when I knew I had him was when I saw he booked that RAF fight during the fight camp. He went and did an RAF fight like a few weeks, RAF wrestling match a few weeks before our fight. I was like, this motherfucker's not taking me seriously. This motherfucker going to book fucking wrestling. And I'm over there getting my ass beat fucking every day, fucking with Sergei Spivak. Blagoje was working with me, fucking Ioan Cutilaba.

Mm.

And I had to wear my headgear 'cause my nose was broken. And that thing was like suffocating me. And these guys were just putting me in the worst positions over and over again, starting from fucking bottom, fucking pick me up, mat return, slam me back down.

Ta-da!

Brother, that's what it felt. I love Rocky, man.

You're a Rocky story, man.

Yeah, bro.

You are a real live Rocky story, 100%, man.

It feels unreal.

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Crazy.

It really felt like it was just karma and divine intervention because the way he was disrespecting me too, man. He called me a coward, saying like he's the reason that I'm there and fucking He— my hotel room is paid because of Gable Stevens. What's up with him talking in third person? I know maybe he's your boy, and he was— I saw him on here before, but this dude's talking about stuff in third person all the time. Like, what the fuck is up with that?

The third person stuff is very weird. You know who used to do that, who I love, who used to do that all the time, is Roy Jones. Roy Jones Jr.'s gonna do what Roy Jones Jr. wants to do. Is he here right now? Is Roy in the room with us? That's a strange thing that people do, that third person thing. It is odd. It's like an elitist thing. You know?

Yeah, like, he's— like I said, he just thinks he's all that. So I'm just so— I'm glad I could bring him back down to reality because, like—

It's probably good for him too if he decides to actually continue and pursue his career and become a world champion. That might be a blessing in disguise because it was a fight that allowed him to recognize that the skills that he has in wrestling, other people have similar skills in striking and similar skills in all the other aspects of MMA. And then, you know, there's no shortcuts. Just because you're a really good wrestler doesn't mean you're an elite kickboxer. You know, it just doesn't— it doesn't translate. You have to learn those things.

Yes, sir.

And, you know, you— a guy becomes amazing because of his accomplishments, but before those accomplishments, you're not necessarily amazing yet. And his accomplishments were all in a completely different discipline. I mean, it translates. It's one of the most important disciplines, probably the most important discipline for MMA if you use it. Right? If you use it, it's probably like the ability to take a guy down and control a guy. It stifles all striking, right? If a guy— if he just decided to avoid you standing up and then shoot and he got you down, we're talking about a whole different fight, right?

100%.

Yeah, but when you get it in your head—

Ain't no rematch though, buddy. Everyone's like, what's next? When's the rematch? Fuck you, you're gonna sleep with that motherfucker. Motherfucker's not getting his dick up for fucking weeks, man. I took his soul. You heard the whole David Goggins when he said that shit? He's like, yeah, you're not Yeah, fucking live with that for a little bit, bro.

Well, psychologically, it's— why would you, why would you schedule a rematch quickly, if at all? Like, there's no reason. First of all, on paper, it's 12 seconds. It's not, it's not like a controversial decision, right? Controversial decisions warrant a rematch, you know. Really good war, goes to the judges, could have gone either way. That makes sense. 12-second knockouts don't get rematches. That doesn't make any sense. That makes zero sense. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. He's gonna have to figure out why he's deciding to strike and then really tighten up his striking. He's gonna have to watch that film footage and see what he did wrong. You know, there's a bunch of different striking analysts have broken down the video, and you know, you could see you did everything right and he didn't. Real simple, you know. And he's a human, and you're a big motherfucker, and you got a big motherfucker with a big left hook, and you land that on virtually any human being alive. You catch them on the chin like that where their head snaps back like that.

It's like £10 of pressure. That's all you need to tip the chin, right?

It was a lot more than 10. He snapped his head back. But, you know, listen, guys have come back from knockouts like that and become all-time greats. Yeah, look at Michael Bisping. Michael Bisping gets flatlined by Henderson and then goes on to become an all-time great and wins the middleweight title, knocks out Luke Rockhold, defended it against Henderson.

And I said in my post-fight interview, like, I kept it classy. I was like, hey, look, like, you're gonna make him better. Like, this is— yeah, but like, right now I'm on my victory lap and I'm gonna talk some shit because the motherfucker disrespected the fuck out of me. His whole team disrespected me, right? Jones driving around with him in the Mercedes like, tonight we collect a head, you know? Like, bro, what? Like, come on, Jones. Like, you of all people know not to underestimate someone. You're like, come on, man.

Like, well, Jon's a different guy. He's a different animal.

But they made him— they made him think that he was next Jon Jones.

I know.

And Jon Jones is a different fucker. I've studied Jon Jones my whole fucking life. fucking life, man. Yeah, like, like, you saw the picture with me and him, like, we took? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, this is gonna be— I was like, this is gonna be my exam, you know? Yeah. And, um, I can even show you the DMs that I've sent him. Like, fuck, I told him like this was gonna happen, you know? For him to be there, fucking front row, and then that viral reaction, it was— yeah, oh my goodness, man. It was crazy. I mean, unreal.

Yeah, you can't pretend that you're the guy that you're hanging out with. That's, that's a bad thing. Yeah, John is a very unique athlete though. I mean, he's, he's a one-of-one.

He's the GOAT.

I mean, what he did to Ciryl Gane— I just watched that fight again, it's fucking insane. Ciryl never touched him. He got a hold of Ciryl, dragged him to the ground, strangled him, tap tap, that's it, that's a wrap, walked away, didn't get scratched.

Yeah.

And then now you have Ciryl Gane, the heavyweight champion of the world, and you see what he did to Pereira, you see what he did at least in the first round before the eye pokes to Aspinall. It's like Ciryl Gane's a special athlete, and Jon made him look unspecial.

Yeah.

But Gable's not that. He's not the same guy. He's not that guy, you know. Takes a long fucking time to be Jon Jones. Also, when Jon Jones became Jon Jones, he became Jon Jones slowly. I mean, it was quick in terms of like he was the quickest ever to become— yeah, I think 22, became the youngest ever UFC champion. But, but there's a long process in getting there. Like, he didn't have that he fought Gusmov, he fought, um, he fought Guskov, he fought, um, Stephan Bonnar, he fought a bunch of guys and started looking like, like this guy might be something very unique.

Yeah.

And then he beats Shogun and wins the title and then just goes on this just fucking epic legendary tear. And just the people he beat, like, yeah, beat everybody. He beat everybody and he beat everybody when he wasn't training.

I have a photo of like that from that expo with— he signed with me. It's like Machida unconscious. Yeah, like, fucking— I've had that in my room fucking forever.

That was one of the coldest victories in the history of the sport. He chokes Machida unconscious and then drops him. Yeah, just standing up, choked him unconscious, dropped him, and just walked away. Just fucking falls down in a heap, man. Cold. But you know, that's the problem. You know, you're hanging out with a guy who's the GOAT and you start thinking you're the next guy. Like, you might be, You could be if you do the right things, but if you believe it before it happens, like, you have to be cautious but also confident. Like, this, this dance of the mind, there's so much going on to be an elite fighter. You know, you have to be aware that you could look at Kamaru Usman beating Leon Edwards for 4 rounds, all of a sudden one head kick, boom, lost the title. Never the same guy again.

Yeah.

Because you're human.

Yeah.

You're a fucking human being. Like, as tough as Kamaru is, he's a fucking human being. And it's just this wild dance of possibilities, but it's also one of the reasons why people love the sport so much. Like, what you did elevated the whole sport. It really did. Because when you can see a guy who's a giant favorite and everybody's thinking he is the— and I thought, well, like, this guy has the potential to be an all-time great. Like, he's an Olympic gold medalist. We've seen that before. You get a guy who's an elite wrestler like Daniel Cormier. There's a lot of examples of guys, elite wrestlers, and they become all-time greats. Randy Couture. You changed everything. Changed everything. One punch.

Boom.

Crazy. Yeah, crazy. One punch could really change your life. I feel amazing. I feel incredible. Like, just the fact I'm here. Like, there's another thing I haven't even— like, I learned more from your podcast than I have the entire public education system. Like, brother, I would sit on post because I I was an NBC security guard and we'd be on duty and I would just have your podcast playing in the background and I would listen to all your guests. Like, I started learning about the subconscious mind like through like Billy Carson and like another guy, 19 Keys, Joe Dispenza.

Yeah.

Some of these guys and like, like all of that, like it really has helped mold me into who I am. Just like from the types like you had, I don't know all the names, but you had the guests on sleep, Huberman, like, bro, like it's just so, so many very like that you've brought, that like you are truly like educating so many people like with what you've done, man. It's fucking—

Well, I'm happy you enjoyed it. I'm happy it helped you, and I'm happy I get to do it.

The Fight Companions. I would sit on posts and fucking watch Fight Companions and you and fucking Eddie Bravo and shit. It's cool, man. It's fucking awesome.

Well, it's cool that you're here right now and in celebration, you know?

Yeah.

Kind of wild.

Yeah, really wild.

So like we were saying before, like these big moments, they're so big they can kind of overwhelm you. I think you're very wise and that you want to like let the dust settle before you do anything.

Yes.

Let's just let yourself come back to normal.

Yeah.

You are on a fucking psychedelic roller coaster ride right now.

And I can't even chill. Like everyone's like fucking— they're already texting me like, oh, you went Hollywood on us. Like, bro, what the fuck, bro? It's been like 5 days, dog. He's like, oh, like you switched up, man.

Well, people want you to switch up. That's a narrative that you're gonna have to deal with. The people want, oh, you fucking changed.

Yeah.

People— some people do not want you to succeed. That is a fact, because when you succeed, especially succeed in a spectacular way, they compare themselves to you and they fall short and they don't like it. People do not like when people hyper-succeed. That is gonna be a problem. People want you to fall.

It's gonna be a problem.

It's a problem with every champion, every, every celebrity, every superstar in music and comedy and movies and acting. And they want you to fall.

Yeah.

Because there's a certain type of psychology that— there's a certain psychological mindset that some people have where they look at people who doing better than them, and they compare themselves and they want that person to fail. And so they'll pretend you're something you're not. They'll create narratives that aren't real. You went Hollywood, bro. Yeah, you fucking sold out. You fucking sold out. And you're gonna have to deal with that too. But that's just bitches. This world's filled with bitches, and some bitches, they have loud voices.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, it's okay.

Yeah, so that's what I'm navigating right now, is just like trying to fucking— like, like a part of me is like trying to get back to everyone, but the other part of me is like, bro, like, can you just understand? Like, even like I go from like doing all the interviews. I had interviews all day, and then I would go home and like my family wants to talk to me about what's going on. And like, fucking, I'm like, bro, like I just want to go walk my dog, man. Fucking like, and then I'm like, walk. I did the Biz Bing interview, and I was like walking my dog. He's like, okay, like, can you make sure you have good connection? I'm like, bro, I'm walking my dog, man. Y'all want the interview or not, bro?

Fucking like, it's more important to walk your dog.

Because he's like, I'm gonna shout out my dog Apollo. He's a German Shepherd, man, because like this dude, I got, I got him when I got out of boot camp. I'm sorry, out of the Marines, and he was— he's been with me for like the past— he's 7 now, he's about to be 8. And like, this dude, like, bro, like, broke like so many meals with him. Like, I moved out to Vegas 2 years ago by myself.

There he is.

Yeah, that's my fucking boy, man. And, uh, and like, this dude has seen it all, man. Like, I— like, that was like— I had my fucking knee surgeries, and I had to drive myself to PT fucking 2 days post-op. Like, Nobody, nobody wanted to fucking take me to the PI and shit, bro. And I was like trying to walk my dog and shit, and like all that shit. That's why I was telling you earlier, man. I'm just like, bro, like it's such a— like, I don't want to say a fake game, but it's just like they only love you when you're hot. Like when fucking Keichi got knocked out by Holloway, he wasn't fucking hot. But then fucking he goes and wins this, he's hot. And then fucking Max Holloway gets knocked out by Ilia, fucking Ilia's hot. No, Ilia's not. Strickland, Chimaev, fucking Pereira looks like That's the game. It's the hurt business, you know? And then when they're done with you, you chew you out. So I'm like, bro, fucking— I just upset the world, fucking changed the dynamic, like you said, united the MMA community. And I was like, bro, fucking— what more do I fucking want?

Did it at home, fucking walked out to Nipsey Hussle, man. That was my dream, brother. Like, fucking— that was like everything I did.

What song did you walk out to?

Hustle and Motivate by Nipsey Hussle.

Nice.

Yeah, nice. That was fun.

Wow.

Wow, man. But then the other people are like, now he's a pussy, he's fucking— he's a lucky punch and he wants to fuck off.

There's no such thing as a lucky punch. Anybody says that's a moron, or they don't know any better, or they think it's a thing you think you could say to diminish someone's accomplishment. That's all it is. There's no lucky punch. You're fighting a world-class athlete. You stepped in, you threw a left hook, it was perfect. That's not lucky. That's exactly what you wanted to do and you did it. If you had your eyes closed and you're falling backwards And you went like that. Yeah, yeah, caught him on the chin. Okay, maybe that's a lucky punch, but you still threw a punch. Yeah, you know, that's a much more fortunate punch, I would say. There's nothing lucky about the punch you threw. Nothing lucky. You wanted to hit him on the chin, you hit him on the chin.

Thank you for clarifying.

Fuck those people. But that's this, this thing about people only love you when you're hot. That's always going to be the case. That's just how it is in the world. There's no, there's no way around that, man. That's just— people are always judging people on status. They're always judging people on their place in the hierarchy. We're chimpanzees, you know, we're like complicated chimps, and that's how we look at it. Who's the big chimp? Who's top chimp? Oh, you're not top chimp anymore. You fucked up, you fucking loser.

Fuck you.

And you know, you go on like someone's Instagram like after they had a loss, man. I've seen guys go on, you know, get knocked out or get beat, and then you go on their Instagram and the horrific comments.

Yeah.

from these people that have never done jack shit in their life.

Before the fight, the guys were fucking brutal. Like, this guy lost to Tafa, this guy fucking 0-2, fucking like, bro, they were going in on me.

Hey man, look at Charles Oliveira. I always say look at Charles Oliveira, one of the all-time greats. And he went on a— there was a lot of times where he had this fucking reputation of being a quitter. Yeah, like, people— he lost a bunch of times. Cub Swanson knocked him out, Paul Felder beat the shit out of him. All these people beat him. And then he got it together somehow and became undeniable and became a world champion.

Right.

Like, this idea that like one loss defines you is silly. And it's only— the only people that say that are people that don't know what the fuck they're talking about. And this is part of the problem with the comment sphere, the world of people that could just chime in as experts when they literally have never done anything in their fucking life. That's a lot of people. Never really accomplished anything great. And they're talking about people that are trying to do one of the most difficult things in all of the world. Become a professional combat sports athlete at the highest level. With the whole world watching you, millions of people on Paramount Plus, 16,000 people in the fucking CryptoDome or whatever the fuck that place is called.

Yeah.

The whole thing is nuts, man. And for you to be able to do that, I feel like you're better off just not reading anything, not, not talking to anybody. Just go silent for a while. Just let you— let the dust settle. Let the vibrations end. It's like somebody just banged a gong and you gotta wait for that.

Bong.

You gotta wait for that to go back to zero.

This is the most important podcast, like you said, You said do it this day. I'm like, I'm here.

Fuck it. Well, you said it in the interview. You said, I want to do your podcast. I said, fuck yeah.

I'm so glad I did, man.

One of the few times I ever swear during an interview too. It just came out. I said, fuck yeah, because it was just so crazy. It was like, how do you not have you on after that? You did something incredibly special, you know.

And I appreciate you letting me finish the prayer because like I could feel the crowd's like, uh, what's going on? This guy started talking Arabic.

Yeah, it was your moment. I wanted to ask— I didn't want to— I did want to ask you, but I didn't want to prolong it. What was the prayer? What were you saying?

So that's Surah Al-Fatiha. It's basically the opening prayer of the Quran, and it's basically like you say that for the dead, and you say it during whenever you pray every day. And that's one of the only verses of the Quran that I've had memorized since I was a kid. Because you can see I'm not a very perfect Muslim, you know. I'm very tatted up. Like, people have seen my gambling and all that. But that's the thing, man. There's so many Muslims that like hide hide shit too, you know. And like, I just— I don't want to conform to one or the other, you know. That's why I was just— I kind of put all my stuff out there, you know. And, um, that was just a prayer for my dad because he passed away when I was 15, and I kind of navigated this whole process without a father, you know. That's where the Marine Corps was so important to me because like they taught me how to tie my tie, how to shave my face, how to press my uniform, you know, like how to even speak and articulate myself, like I'm so grateful for that.

And yeah, but a big part of me getting here was losing my father, you know, that kind of pushed me a lot.

I saw someone online calling you an anti-American, and I was like, yeah, what, because he has a Muslim prayer for his father? How crazy is that? America is supposed to be a melting pot of everybody. Yeah, all religions, all walks of life, all places in the world, all come to here and become Americans. The idea that you can't be an American— don't you have like stars and stripes tattooed on your arm? America tattooed right here.

Yeah, bro, there's no nuances anymore. Like, they're like, oh, like if you support Palestine, then you can't be fucking a Marine. And if you're a Marine, it's fucking—

well, that's crazy.

It's just like, bro, like, that's crazy.

Well, again, there's too many voices, there's too much noise. And that's what's going to be really important for you from now on is like because you've become very famous very quickly is to surround yourself with people of character, you know.

Where am I gonna find them, Joe? It's a good question. I've been— like I'm saying, I've been on this journey fucking by myself for a very long time, and, uh, and like now it's like snakes in the grass. They're all appearing like, oh, like, let me manage you, let me help you, like, we'll sponsor you, we'll do this, we'll do that. And I'm just like—

But listen, part of that is a good thing. Like, these are opportunities that come out of success, right? So it's like you could say they're taking advantage of you, but no, it's like Like, there's a moment that happened. You elevated, you became something new, and now here you are in this new stratosphere of life, and you have to— you know, it's good. It's good that they want to sponsor you now. Why would they want to sponsor you before? You got to realize it. Like, you're 0-2 in the UFC. That's how it is.

That's fair.

It's also— we've talked about this a thousand times in the broadcast— the difference between the regional circuit and the UFC is gigantic. And once you get into the UFC, the reality of it all, the experience is overwhelming. and it takes a few fights for a guy to really show who he is. You see it over and over and over again. It takes a few of those experiences inside that octagon where you just develop the ability to settle and then show your true skills.

Yeah.

And some guys, they never get there. Some guys, they're phenomenal in training camp, phenomenal in the gym, even excellent in the regional circuit. They get to the bright lights of the big show and they just can't be themselves.

Yeah, and that was the thing. This is my first— that was my first arena fight. Like, my last 2 were in the Apex. Oh, so it was just like complete, like, opposite, like, from— like, it felt like a sparring match in the Apex, you know, going out to there. It was just like— but I feel like I perform better in, in, in, under pressure like that. Like, like when, like, there's millions of people watching and, like, the stakes are the highest and it's like, it's like do or die. Like, fucking, I'm 0-2. Like, you know, there's a high, high chance of fucking 3 losses. Like, I was on the chopping block. That was how I was looking at it.

Yeah.

They were telling me, like, oh, they won't cut you, fucking, but I'm not gonna leave it a chance.

If you fight hard as a heavyweight, you have a very good chance they won't cut you because the heavyweight division is insanely shallow. It's really shallow.

I really hope they don't cut Tai. I saw him fight.

Tai?

Yeah, I know.

He put up a fucking tough fight, man.

Oh, he fought so well.

He fought so hard.

He's so fun, but I hate seeing that guy keep taking all these punches. Like, he's had 7 losses in a row now, 8.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and some of them are just like, geez.

And that's the thing, like, you just want to go out on top. Everyone's just like, oh, let me just fucking win one. I just want to win one. I just want to Like Tony Ferguson, like, like, yeah, it's just like— and that's where I'm just like, right now I'm just like, fuck, man, like, does it really get bigger than this? You know, like upsetting the fucking MMA world? Like, sure, like, what, they're gonna give me a fucking Hokage fight for the title next? Like, what's like— what, he got to jump all the way up?

He jumped all the way up in a lot of—

Volkov, the disrespect, man. I know, Volkov. But that's what— that's where we're in now. It's all about entertainment. What sells fights?

Well, he's He's very marketable, you know, obviously. He talks a lot of shit, and it's— look, it is a strategy on his part. I've talked to him. He's a normal dude in real life. He's a nice guy. Talk to him in real life. But he's realized like there's a way to get eyes on you, and that is to be crazy. It's so fake. Oh, it's totally fake. I mean, he'll tell you it's fake.

I did it by being real.

You did?

Yeah, it's true. I mean, look, you don't have to do it that way. But also, you know, he's had 3 fights in the UFC and he's fighting for the title.

Yeah, right.

You know what I'm saying? It's crazy, but—

Cyril better beat him, man. Fuck.

Cyril's a hard dude to figure out. He's a different kind of cat. That motherfucker moves different than everybody else. You know, we were talking about this. I think basketball might be a really good start, starting point for MMA. Like, if you can get really good at basketball, The difference is you're a big person, first of all, and then for heavyweights in particular, and you're doing constant plyometrics. Like, basketball's plyometrics, right? You're moving this way, you're jumping, you're leaping forward. There's all these, like, changes of angle and direction.

Yeah.

That comes up very much in fighting, especially if you can change direction quickly in the middle of a combination, which Ciryl can. Like, you see this Ciryl-Taito Evassa fight.

Yeah.

Incredible performance, right?

His footwork is unreal.

Footwork's out of control, man. His footwork's unreal. And against Pereira, you saw how that translates against a guy as big as him. You know, that footwork is a— that's a fucking real problem, man.

What did you think about those back-of-the-head shots? Do you think—

I watched it, and I know that Pereira is blaming Herb Dean. The problem is he's moving, and it's chaos. The really egregious foul is the Tom Aspinall fouls. That's the very egregious fouls, the eye pokes.

Yeah.

Those are egregious. Those are just fingers out in the eyeballs. Those are bad. I'm of the opinion the moment that happens, they should take a point away instantly. Instantaneously. Your fingers goes in a guy's eye, take a point away. You nut shot a guy, unless it's a diversion, like sometimes like you'll kick and it'll kick someone's shin, And then the foot will go into the nuts. Accident, clearly. But if you just kick a guy in the nuts, 1 point. You grab a fence, 1 point. Let's stop all this. Let's stop all this. There's 2 ways to stop that. Another way is you got to figure out how to cover the fingers.

I think people are strategizing that now, where like they know like, fucking, oh, if I poke him in the eye, like fucking the damage is gonna be done and like I got the advantage. Like sure, maybe even take a point, like Fucking— but the damage is already done. That happened to me in my pro debut. Well, the guy was like dipping his head down and fucking coming up with the overhand, and when he popped his head, he just fucking headbutted me around the chin.

On purpose?

Yeah, because he kept doing it, but like the ref didn't even see it. And I like, I got a little wobbled and stuff, and, um, but if I didn't finish him, like, I could have gotten screwed, you know? Like, yeah, nobody catches that stuff.

Well, Pantoja accused Joshua Van of that in their fight, and I think he thought that Joshua Van was doing that, but I don't think that was what was going on at all. I think he was just getting frustrated that Joshua Van was moving ahead and the fight was—

In this last one?

Yeah.

I didn't even get to watch it.

It was a fucking masterclass, you know, because Joshua Van, he won the title, but it was from an injury, you know. Pantoja threw the head kick, falls backwards, breaks his arm. That's the fight. It happened really quickly. And so it was a very, you know, it was a fluke. Yeah, anticlimactic. It was It was an injury. We don't know how the fight would have played out if they had gone. But then you see him against Tatsuro Taira. He looked like a world champion. He beat— he defended the title. And then against Pantoja, he just put on a masterclass, man. His fucking boxing was so sweet. Like, Joshua Van is something special, man. Like, that kid gets better every single time he fights. Yeah, everything. And so Pantoja—

He's young too, he's like 25, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, he's, he's, he's the real thing, man. He's something special. He's something real special. And I feel like next time you see him fight, after he just beat Pantoja, who's one of the greatest flyweights of all time, and just beat him decisively— after he beat Pantoja, I think he's gonna be even better next time. I mean, he was talking in the press conference, he was upset about his victory. He said, man, look at my face. He goes, that dude shouldn't be touching me like this.

That's what makes you a champion.

Exactly, exactly. But But you know, his path and your path, they're very different paths, and everyone has to decide where they're at in their life. And if you're at this point where you're like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore, I could just go out with that.

Well, I just want to know why I'm doing it. That's what I need to go out and find that answer, because I'm like, if it's just the money, like, bro, like, I did option trading when I— during COVID Like, I used to be a personal trainer when I got out of the Marines, and then I started getting into option trading to learn how to make money digitally. And like I started making like 6 figures during the whole AMC and GameStop and Tesla fucking pops and all that stuff. And, um, that's like one. And I want to do like private security as well. I did a few of that, like go work with some of the high rollers in casinos. I just do private security and like I can find ways to make money. I got GI Bill benefits that I like, I go to school and like, like do. So for me, I'm like, if it's just the money, like I could find a way to make money without getting fucking my head my brain smashed. But the title, yeah, I mean, fuck, cool UFC title. But like, then it's like, oh, you're not a champion until you defend the title.

And it's like, fucking, oh, and then, then there's this guy coming up and this guy, and it's just like this never-ending— it's not until you're fucking old and beaten up and fucking, they see you fucking down. Like, that's true. That's the business, man.

That is true. And if you talk to some of these guys that stayed in too long, And you know, they're slurring their words and you see how broken they are. They have a difficult time walking and sitting down. It's a struggle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My whole, my whole MMA career, because I got out in 2018 and I sent an email to Perillo in Orange County and Ruka, and it was basically just trial by fire. I was just sparring all the pros. Luke Rockhold, Michael Bisping, fucking Sean Strickland came, fucking was dropping me as an amateur. Like, I fucking just would've been sparring over, and then I went out to Tiger, fucking moved out to Thailand, like was doing sparring out there, and I was just been— even got to extreme. And fucking, they— I was sparring Francis Ngannou my first week, bro. My first week they threw me in there with Ngannou. It was the most terrifying shit of my fucking life, bro. I went to the apex and reassessed my life choices after that, bro. I was, I was just like— and so when you talk about guys that are staying too long, like, bro, like, I've just been sparring. And maybe that's where my lack of development is, you know, because I never focused on like just the footwork. I never focused on just the getting better at like thinking, you know. It was always just this primal feeling of just like, like I've been in street fights, you know, and like I just fucking start picking it up as I go.

That's interesting. So do you have a main coach? Do you have a head coach that just develops you?

No, it's— I bounce around a lot of gyms. Like I started Perillo, I went with Nick Sick, I went to Freestyle MMA, I went to Pajada. I've bounced around like so many, and like, because I've always been looking for the Cus and Mick, the fucking Cus and Tyson, the Rocky and Mick, and like the Trevor and Gaethje. And like, bro, like, that doesn't come unless you're fucking Hollywood now. Like, fucking— like, now sure, maybe I'll get fucking a bunch of coaches like, yeah, let me fucking develop you. But I'm like, who actually fucking wants to like actually be my head coach, you know? Like, fucking— like, who's actually like here? Because nobody was like, oh, like, I see fucking potential in you and you could be a world champion someday, and let me take you under my wing and, and, and I'll give you privates for free. Like, all my— every single private I did, I paid for. Every single one. Like, I never got any free privates, and that was a big part of why I went into a lot of financial struggle, was like no sponsors, no fucking— and I'm like constantly like, I'm like, just because I want— I just wanted my hand raised one time.

Just like, fuck, I just want to know what it felt like to get my fucking hand raised in that octagon, man. And so that's why I fucking— I did it on the biggest stage against the biggest odds. And I'm just like, bro, like, walk from the table when you're up, bro.

Well, listen, it's not the worst idea in the world, especially you were saying that there's— that you did brain scans and they found something in your brain.

Yeah, there was just— it was just like white matter and stuff, like, so they did MRI and then they're like, hey, like, we want you to do another CT scan. Like, there's like— it's like white specks or something, white matter or something like that. Great, man. They're like, oh, it could be caused by headaches, could be caused by this. But, um, yeah, I don't know.

Well, listen, all that sparring for sure gives you brain Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you had your bell rung. Sure you've been dropped.

Yeah.

It is part of the sparring. Everybody, look, if you spar, you're gonna get some damage.

Yeah, for sure.

There's no, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Cost of business.

And a lot of the brain damage that fighters get, a lot of it comes from training. A lot of it doesn't even come from the actual fights itself.

Yeah.

It counts. I mean, people don't think about that. You go, wow, he only, only got knocked out one time in his whole career. Yeah, but how many sparring matches did he have?

Yeah, yeah, that was— I was telling you earlier, like, I went through fucking hell this camp. Like, I was fucking like hard around— like, like, fuck, it's— Iwan Cutelaba.

Mm-hmm.

He's so explosive, so fast. He's fucking— and now we're working that oblique kick. This is something— another thing I want to— I want to mention, it was very interesting to me. My whole camp I trained for him to crawl towards me like Jones does because he does the same thing. And so what I did, I got down in the same position on my knees to like crawl towards him because that's what I've been practicing my whole camp. But then he didn't do it that this last fight. He just walked towards me. So I don't know if fucking that was— if I got in his head when I got down. But maybe I thought that was very interesting because my whole camp, I was every time, every round, I was like, hey, crawl towards me like Jones does, crawl towards me like Jones does.

Oh wow.

Do the oblique kick. I fully went into this fight thinking that my knees were gonna get caved the fuck in. I completely— I was like, bro, like, fucking, I don't care.

What do you think about that kick? The UFC is now talking about trying to ban that kick.

I think this is combat. Like, I think it's like a part of it. And it's unfortunate because a career-ender, like Khalil Rountree, fucking— he's— and it's just like—

and also Shavkat, you know, even Jerry got Shavkat's knee.

Yeah, so it's like a part of it's like, yeah, it fucking sucks, but at the same time is like it's fighting, you know, like if— and it's like if this was a real fight, like that's, that's pretty realistic.

So's eye pokes.

Yeah, I say we get that football field you were talking about.

Yeah, but you know I'm saying, so are eye pokes, and we don't allow eye pokes because it creates permanent injury. I see what you're saying, but the reality is if you were in a street fight, you'd poke the fuck out of somebody's eyes, and you should, you know. If you're fighting for your life, you'd fucking thumb right in the eye, 100%. Why would you— 100%, why wouldn't you? So we have to decide, like, sure. What is good for the, the safety of the athletes long-term. If you're gonna have a long-term career with a blown-out knee, okay, a blown-out knee takes you out for a year. Not only does it take you out for a year, but your knee might never be the same again. Yeah, you've had ACL surgery, you know. Yeah, yeah, I've had them.

That's why I'm saying that was one of my fears going into this fight. I was like, fuck, man, these motherfuckers are gonna fuck my shit up. Yeah, and I was like, fuck it, let's go.

Like, Jon destroyed guys' knees.

I was there for Thiago Santos. I was there, and that was the same night Masvidal knocked out Askren. And, right, and yeah, I don't think Thiago Santos was ever the same after that fight.

Both his knees reconstructed after that fight.

Fucking crazy.

Yeah, and Rampage Jackson too. He blew out Rampage's knee. Rampage said, my knee was never the same again after that fight. I just don't think— I understand that it's combat, but also so is poking in the eyes, and we don't allow poking in the eyes. So you, you think we shouldn't have There's an argument. There's a real conversation about whether or not it should be legal. Andy Foster, I think, is one of the best, without a doubt, athletic commission directors from California. He thinks it should be banned. Yeah, and the UFC thinks it should be banned. It's just too many guys. Ruziboev, who just fought MVP— MVP blew out his knee, sidekicked his knee. His knee's completely reconstructed now. He went into surgery right after the fight.

Now, would it be like just the oblique kick, or like Sidekicks and oblique kicks. Just those 2.

Yeah, just attacking the knee with a straight kick that hyperextends it. So you'd still be able to leg kick, obviously. You'd still be able to round kick to the leg. But the issue is the hyperextension of the knee. Yes, because it just takes one and your knee is fucked forever and your career is over. Yeah, you know, it's just, why are we doing that? You know, why don't we poke each other in the eye?

We're gonna do that. That's very, very true. Yeah, I mean, sport at the end of the day, street fight.

Yeah, people say, well, you can heel hook, you could tap on a heel hook. You cannot tap for a sidekick to the knee. That, that sidekick comes and especially catches you. You see the, the Ruziboyev, the screenshot of what it looked like when MVP caught him? His fucking shit was totally sideways. Yeah, just everything's ripped apart inside of there. It's gone. Yeah, I mean, one shot, you know.

I like my knees fucking— I just don't—

I think there's things we can't do. We can't bite, we can't eye gouge, we can't fishhook. There's a bunch of things we can't do because you want to protect the fighters. And look at it, look at his knee. Oh shit. Yeah, look how sideways that shit is. That's blown, blown out, man. I mean, that knee probably never gonna be the same again.

How did you feel about them letting him go even though he's winning?

I think MVP should be a welterweight, first of all. I think at welterweight he's almost unstoppable, so fucking difficult to handle. Ian Garry was the only guy that figured out how to handle him. I don't think the power translates as well at 85. Some of these 85 guys like Gregory Rodriguez and Joe Pfeiffer, they're fucking huge, man. I don't know how they make 85, but these guys look like heavyweights. But he's one of my favorite fighters to watch because like his fight with Kevin Holland People can talk all the shit about it was a boring fight and nothing happened, but when you got a guy as good as Kevin Holland and he's just like completely frustrated because he can't do shit, and this guy's just dancing in front of him and popping him and kicking him and punching him anytime he wants.

Yeah.

It's nuts to watch, man. He's, he's also 38, 39. Like, how old is MVP now? How old is Michael Venom Page? For me, he was like proof of concept. 'Cause I was always telling people, I was like, the thing that's missing in MMA— 39. See, the reality is, if you're natural, if you're a natural athlete and you're 39 years old, it's almost over.

Yeah.

Unless you're heavyweight. Heavyweights have a little bit more life to them. Like, Francis is still at the top of the heap, and I think he's like 40 now.

Yeah.

But there's a, there's a time where you just can't move. All the injuries, all the training, you can't move as well anymore. You're a little bit slower. I was always saying though that there's a thing that's missing in combat sports, and that thing is point fighting karate. That point fighting style is so fucking hard to deal with. If you have never sparred anybody that does that shit, the moment you spar them, you're like, yo, this is crazy. Like, these guys can cover distance.

Yeah.

They just jump in and then they're out of there, and they move out of the way, and you get frustrated. and you start chasing them, and then you get countered. It's a totally different element. On its own, it's no good. Like, it's no good as a standalone style because guys could take you down. You don't know how to wrestle, you're fucked. You don't know how to do jiu-jitsu, you get strangled.

Yeah.

You don't know leg kicks, you get your legs kicked out from under you. But what if you know all those things and you come from that point fighting background? That ability to blitz, that ability to dive in and out and hit someone from a distance they can't hit you, is crazy. Yeah, and he to me was like proof of concept. And I think there's gonna be a lot of other guys that are like elite point fighters that decide to enter into MMA, and I think they're gonna have like some pretty, pretty incredible success if they're special. Raymond Daniels did it for a little bit in, in Bellator.

720.

Yeah, 720 punch. But he also like did it in Glory kickboxing too. He had some great fights in Glory kickboxing as well. But again, he's a little older. That's the problem. These guys, they have these long careers in the one discipline, they get really good, and then they— by the time they start doing MMA, they're 34, 35. 4 or 5 years later, their career's over.

Yeah.

You know, so you don't have enough time to develop and really grow, and you're also gonna have a gang of injuries. I mean, look, I wish nothing but the best for MVP. I love that guy. I think he's awesome. He's got an awesome personality. He's had some boring fights though, unfortunately.

And I think it's entertainment. Yeah, it's fucking knockouts.

It's a little bit of both, you know. It's a little bit of entertainment. It's a little bit of sport. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've thought about trying therapy with our long-term partner BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. World Mental Health Day is October 10th, but your mental health doesn't check the calendar. Stress, Burnout, or just feeling off can happen anytime. That's why therapy isn't only for the big stuff. It can help with anxiety, relationship issues, work stress, or even just a bad day. You don't have to wait for things to get worse to start taking care of your mental health. If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks, and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance. Don't have insurance or live outside the United States? You can still get 10% off your first month. Visit betterhelp.com/JRE to explore your payment options. That's betterhelp.com/JRE.

How do you feel about that? You've been around for a long time, like when the Fertittas ran it compared to now how Paramount runs it. Like, do you, do you like how it is now? Like compared to where it's like it's all about entertainment versus Like, who's the best at dominance?

Well, I'm a purist. I don't think you should ever stand a guy up. I don't think you should ever separate someone when they're on the cage. I cheer for it when it happens, just like every other moron. But I mean, if you gave me the ability to write the rules, I would never stand anybody up, ever. If you get taken down and someone's on top of you giving you noogies for 5 rounds, figure out how to get up. And if you can't figure out how to get up, you lost. Simple. You might not lose the same way that you beat Gable, you know, that's a way more exciting way to win.

Right.

But you still won. You held him down, you gave him some of these, he couldn't get up. That's the fight.

Boo!

The audience boos. Okay, whatever. Still better than baseball. Fuck off. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's fighting, and I think— I also think very controversially, you shouldn't be stood up not only at the end of the round, you're— I think the next fight, the next round rather, it's the same fight, you should be put back in the same position. I don't—

Which would be just Pride fucking 15 minutes, right?

You could do that. Well, Pride was 10. It was 10-minute rounds and then a second 5-minute round. But I don't think you earn a stand-up. You know, I'm like, every fight starts standing up, right? But once a guy takes you down, if he takes you down, you didn't earn getting back up. So if you didn't earn getting back up, I think you should go right back to the same position. It's one fight. It's not 5 fights. If you have a 5-minute round, you get 5 different chances to avoid a takedown. Why? You've already been taken down. You never figured out how to get up.

It's funny you say that because that was, that was what we were talking about with my fight camp. I was all like, it's like, fucking, they're gonna stand me up at the fucking, at the end of the round, right? So, you know, it's true. Every fight starts on the feet, you know.

Every round starts on the feet. And if you're a wrestler or any kind of grappler, you have to take a guy down. Every single round. And that's— it's kind of crazy because in a real fight, like, a fight is a fight. It's like not 5, 5-minute— look, the argument of like having guys fight for 25 minutes straight is crazy. No fight would probably last that long. Everybody would gas out. Of course, it would be a battle of attrition. Only guys like Merab— Merab Dvalishvili would be king of the world.

Facts. I'm not going 25 minutes.

It's crazy. Fucking heavyweights going 25 minutes is fucking mad. And when you do have heavyweights going 25 minutes, the damage they do to each other is horrific. It's horrific. You know, like the Cain Velasquez, Junior Dos Santos fights, man. I've watched those back and forth. And especially, you know, Junior knocked him out in the first fight, caught him with a punch, and then Cain destroyed him in the next 2 fights.

Yeah.

And they were prolonged, horrific beatings.

Yeah, I came up watching the Kane trilogies and then Brock Lesnar.

Oh, Kane is something, man.

Yeah, that was always my 3: Cain Velasquez, Jon Jones, and Mike Tyson. I was like, if I could put those 3 together, that's the fighter.

What about Fedor?

Fedor is— Fedor is— I just wasn't watching him the same, but I know he's a GOAT. But fucking Blagojevich beat him.

Blagojevich in sambo, combat sambo, bicycle, pipe points. Yeah, yeah, you're wearing—

fact-checking me.

Yeah, you're wearing shoes. Yeah, there's a lot going on. Blagojevich is a bad motherfucker.

I never really watched that, the Pride era and all that stuff. I was more just— I started watching around like Anderson Silva, Chuck Liddell, and right around then.

Probably came back from getting stabbed in the heart.

Yeah, he's a bad motherfucker.

That's a bad motherfucker. He was a tough dude, man. Very tough dude. But it's like heavyweight fighting. I think there's never been a heavyweight division that was more stacked than Pride in the early 2000s. Never.

Yeah.

Heavyweight division in Pride, I think, was the glory days of the heavyweight division. You had Mirko Cro Cop, you had Mark Coleman, you had Minotauro Nogueira, you had Fedor, you had like one after the other— killer, killer, killer, killer. It was just like this insane shark tank of elite fighters. And then they were all fighting juiced to the tits over in Japan, you know. It was a different world.

That's, that's what we're—

Don Frye.

I was asking Birmingham— how you pronounce his name— from over at Waste to Wealth?

Brigham.

Brigham. I was asking him about the peptides and stuff because I heard there's talks about maybe like getting some of the recovery peptides approved now in the UFC and stuff, so So I don't know if that's where it's gonna be headed, but it would certainly help.

I do not know where they're going with that, whether or not it would be possible, and whether or not eventually it gets through. But there's certain things that are just not performance-enhancing. All they do is help soft tissue injuries. BPC-157, I think, would be an easy one to approve. That's the best one, I think, for soft tissue injuries.

Have you used them?

Oh yeah, fuck yeah. I use the shit out of that stuff.

I've never used it. Everyone always tells me Wolverine Stack.

Oh, it's great.

But now there's like so many— everyone and their mom sells peptides now.

Like, you don't even know. True, true. That's why a company like Ways to Well is so important, because it's a compounding pharmacy. You know, they, they have— they own a compounding pharmacy, so you know that you're getting an actual pure version of BPC-157. Whereas if you order it online, who knows where it's coming from? You're getting it online, it's getting delivered to you. It might be coming from China, maybe coming from Vietnam. Like, who knows? Who knows? It might be real, it might be great, it might be total bullshit. Like, the People have run tests on different peptides they found online, and a lot of them are just total bullshit.

Yeah.

Like 20% of what they say is in there. Yeah, it's like you're just guessing because it's not regulated. So it should be legal and it should be regulated, you know. And then, you know, if that's the case, I think then there should be an argument for certain peptides that help people recover from injuries, because this is a sport where you're practicing injuring each other all day long.

Everyone's fucking injured.

If you want fighters to compete at a high level once they get into the octagon, you're gonna have to help them recover along the way. And it's not just cold plunges and saunas and massage. BPC-157 will help them recover, and it's not gonna make them a super athlete. It's not gonna make them faster or stronger. It's just gonna help heal injuries, right? I mean, that's my position. But I think it's weird that you can use like some things that work great, like creatine.

Yeah.

Creatine's phenomenal, and that's legal.

Well, I didn't know this, but the PI was educating us how the creatine helps your brain.

Oh yeah.

So I'm like, fucking dude, this is gonna make me smarter or fucking—

Creatine 100% increases mental performance. If I have a day where I haven't gotten much sleep and I don't take creatine versus a day where I haven't got much sleep and I do take creatine, there's a giant difference. And they've done studies on this. They show when sleep-deprived people— creatine basically mitigates all the negative effects of sleep deprivation. So you can perform like mentally at the same level.

Do you take the powder form?

Powder form, yeah.

Just dry scoop?

Yeah, there's a company called Create. They make creatine gummies. They make a bunch of different— but they also have powder. Each one of them is 5 milligrams. So I just take these— or 5 grams? 5 grams.

Usually it's 5 grams.

Yeah, it's grams. Yeah, it's not milligrams. So I take 2 5-gram packets in the morning, 2, and then Yeah, that's how I do it.

The PI gives us the Thorne supplements.

Yeah, it's great stuff. Thorne's awesome stuff. Yeah, yeah, I dry scoop it, just throw it in my mouth, drink water. Dug it. It just doesn't taste good. It's just— it's performance. Yeah, but creatine is one of the few absolutely legitimate supplements that I think most people, especially most athletes, should be taking.

Fuck yeah.

And just good for your brain just overall.

It's great for Yeah, I think I need to go to— I haven't taken any fucking— because that was the other thing too, they were telling me like once you get closer to the fight, like you don't need to be taking as much creatine because it's like, I don't know if it like harder dehydrates you or—

First of all, you're not cutting any weight, so the difference between you and a lighter weight guy— I could see the argument for a lighter weight guy because with lighter weight guys, if you're trying to cut some weight, what's going on is creatine, one of the benefits of it, it lets you hold more water, you know. So you have more water in your muscles, your muscles are stronger, your brain works better. There's more water in your system, right? I think that's how it works. There's a bunch of reasons why it works, but I do know that it makes people— makes people hold more water. So if you're a fighter that's cutting weight, like some of these guys, which— some of these guys cut insane amounts of weight. Did you see that Ryan Garcia-Conor Benn fight where they said he weighed £30 more the day of the fight?

Yeah. Yeah.

What?

It didn't help him. That was fucking crazy.

No, I didn't think it was gonna help him.

I didn't think Ryan was gonna win that.

You didn't?

Like, I like Ryan, but like, I heard he was like fucking partying like a little while before.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, because he had like his birthday like 2 months before and like—

Just 2 months? That's it?

Maybe.

That's okay. Yeah, 2 months is alright for a guy that good, that young. Yeah, I thought Ryan was on a totally different level. My position was, no disrespect to Conor Benn, but like, I watched Ryan compete against guys like Gervonta Like, you know, guys like at a very high level. Rolly, like, he's, he's been in there with some of the absolute best guys in the division.

Yeah.

And I just think he's just a different level. That's what my position was. And also his speed is fucking crazy. His speed is nuts, man. Yeah, he's— his left hook is just fucking preposterous. Let's say 178. Yeah, less than 12 hours from weigh-ins, Conor Benn is rehydrated for 146 to 178.4. That's not good. Like, that's like very unhealthy for your body to go to that state where you're almost dead. Like, what do you walk around at?

Usually I was, I was a little heavier. I was at 255, but for this camp I went down. I was about 240, 245.

Does anybody try to talk you into going to 205?

I did my pro debut at 205. Yeah, yeah, so I know I could do it. Perillo was the one that told me, he's like, I think I like you better at heavyweight. This was like when I was an amateur. He's like, because of the speed. And, um, I feel like it's a different fight. Like when I'm telling you, I was sparring like Ewan, and Strickland's not a 205, but that motherfucker gets heavy sometimes. But yeah, I feel like it's like a lot, a lot more thinking than heavyweight, you know? Like it's more like—

Speed and movement.

Yeah, I feel like they're a little smarter than me, but—

So you're really considering like wrapping it up?

I'm taking it as I go right now, you know, but I just really don't know, you know, because it's like, brother, I'm legit filing bankruptcy this year. Like, that's fucking— like, I really ran myself all the way into debt like fucking chasing this fucking shit, you know. Like, don't get me wrong, like, it's on— I got a TRX, fucking— I couldn't afford— I paid for my tattoos like $30 grand on that shit. I did PRK, put that on the card. Like, fuck, I took my mom—

What's PRK?

Instead of LASIK, so they don't— you don't have the flap. And, um, and I took my mom to Mecca, and it was just like, bro, like, I just been fucking— I burnt my boats, and I was just like, you know, fucking back against the wall. That's it, brother. Fucking— we got to win.

Well, now that you're in debt, you probably should have a couple fights to get out of debt.

Well, that's the thing too, is like, bro, my life is so fucking crazy. Like, I need like a lawyer, a financial advisor right now. I need some fucking looking like some guidance, you know. And that's, that's the thing where I'm just like, I'm like, I got what I wanted and now I'm just like, okay, what the fuck is next, you know. And that's the thing, like, people fucking like, like, oh, like, how is it just with this one win, you know. But I'm legit telling you, like, all I wanted was to fucking have my hand raised in the octagon like that. I just wanted to know what that fucking felt like. And that was fucking— that was a fucking— the best possible ever, you know, and that's a possible result. And the fact, like, like, I genuinely was like praying this time. Like, that was the first time, like, I was like legit, like— and it wasn't even just like, like, just me. Like, I had my Muslim friends, like, my Christian friends. Like, it was fucking— like, there was just so many people. Like, I'm a spiritual guy. Like, that's the thing when people are like, oh, he's so contradicting sometimes.

And I'm just like, I've always been like, like, very like more spiritual than than following just the books. And, um, yeah, I just, uh, I felt like there was something with me that fight. I felt like it wasn't just me in there. Like, the fact that, like, I fell dirt biking like 3 weeks ago with Strickland and I fucking busted my fucking shoulder.

Why are you doing that with him?

Sean, and you saw he just crashed too.

He's crazy.

You literally have to sign a waiver where you fucking hang out with Strickland fucking from now on.

Like, bro, like like, yeah, he just crashed hard. His buddy got really fucked up.

Yeah, that's the guy from Embedded, Chris. Yeah, yeah, he's fucking—

Yeah, don't do that. Yeah, don't do what he does. And I think he wasn't wearing a helmet, right?

No, I don't think they were. Thank God I wore one because they— he is strictly— ironically, he's the one that told me not to ride the dirt bike. He did tell me. He's like—

Do as I say, not as I do.

Yeah, he's like, you got a fight coming up, you probably shouldn't do that. Fuck you, you can't tell me to do that.

Sean's crazy.

He's like, but put a helmet on. I'm like, all right, I'll put the helmet on. Thank God I did.

Sean is legitimately fucking crazy. So what was this? Is this a car that flipped over?

Yeah, I think they had—

Were they in a side-by-side?

Yeah.

Oh, okay, they're in like a buggy. Yeah, don't— but don't do this.

Strickland is the fucking man because like, as much as I used to fucking hate this dude when he used to come to the gym at Ruka, I used to hate him. That was right, right after the Usman fight and he crashed his motorcycle And, um, this guy, he would, he would come in and his leg is all fucking busted up, like, and like he refused to take fucking pain meds. He was just always talking shit, and he would fuck me up. That's why another reason I was pissed, he was always fucking me up. And, um, and, and going through that, I was just like, man, like, this dude's at least he's fucking real, you know? Like, like—

Oh, he's very real.

He like, he like, he calls out everybody, you know? Like, because he used to talk shit about all the fucking Palestinian shit, and then he started talking about the Israeli shit, and then he's fucking He was pro-Trump, and then he was like anti-Trump, and it's like he speaks his mind. But another part, I think he does this rage bait just a little bit. Like, he knows how to push people's buttons, you know? He knows how to get the clicks. He's a smart motherfucker. Like, he makes his investments. Like, oh yeah, this dude fucking just has guns, cars, motorcycles, and fucking—

He's very smart with his investment. He's set. Like, he told me about it. I asked him about it. It's like he put away his money, he's invested mutual funds, the whole deal.

He called me after the Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, I knew you're gonna be on some dumb shit. He's like, don't you fucking walk. He's like, this is, this is when you get the fucking money, is when you get to fuck the bitches, when you get to fucking— he's like, this is when all the opportunity comes. And I was like, yeah, but does he— I don't know, you know.

Well, it's your decision. It's really— you can't let anybody decide for you, because if you, you do something for someone else especially something like fighting, and you wound up getting knocked out in your next fight, and you were half into it and half out of it.

Yeah.

You know, my advice for anyone who's always got one foot in and one foot out is get out. Always. Every time I know a guy that's like, I think one more fight and then I'm done, like, stop now.

Yeah.

Stop now. Like, most, most, most of the time that's the best advice, because if you're not fully, completely, 100% committed to being the best fighter possible and like on that path, you're gonna run into someone who is, right?

You know, now you can, you can Brendan Schaub me here. Like, when you look at me, like, do you really think I could be a world champion?

Listen, if you can do what you just did against Gable and then do that again against someone else similar, like, what if you did that to Tai Tuivasa? Or what if you did that to, you know, fill in the blank, whoever the fighter is, right? Pavlov. There's a lot of different guys who are really good, and if you can keep improving and keep beating these guys in that direction. And then get a legitimate coach, like maybe even Trevor. Get Trevor Wittman or get Firas Zahabi, who I think is one of the great masterminds of the sport. Get someone who's gonna, like, work with you on technique and really try to develop you as a fighter, as opposed to just you sparring all the time and you training all the time. And you do— you can learn a lot sparring all the time, but you don't learn the same amount that you would if you're coached. and if you're coached correctly, like on a day-in, day-out, daily basis. Like, have you seen the Art of Violence videos that Justin puts out with Trevor?

Yeah.

Trevor and Justin are right next to each other all the time. Trevor, who's a genius, is like giving him instruction. Yes, that's it! We want to dip to the left.

There it is!

There it is! Okay, let's do that again. Do that again. Set it up. They're setting it up. They're technical. They're going over all the aspects. They're rolling with punches, and they have counters set up. up. They're doing the collar tie and the uppercut. They're all these things that they're preparing for, for these moments, and they're going over it over and over again until it's cemented into the central nervous system. That's what you need if you want to really excel and you want to really be like a world-class, world championship potential caliber fighter. You have to have that. You have to have that.

I agree. And that was my— that was always my issue, was like I was really trying to find that.

Well, Eric Nixick was in your corner.

Yeah. Well, you know, I I don't even get to talk about that.

Yeah.

Nixxiom popped in my corner because Sergei was supposed to have his baby. He left. I woke up fight day, the day of the fight. Oh, he's like, hey, it was like 2:00 in the morning. He's like, hey, I had to go back to Vegas. My wife might be going into labor. And I was like, all right, fucking— this is like definitely worst-case scenario. And that's when I knew, I knew Nixxiom was there. And Nixxiom's a fucking amazing guy. Like, he fucking He worked with me when I was in Xtreme, when I first came out. He walked with me for my first fight. And I just get it, he's like super busy, you know, like he's got so many fighters, you know. And especially I was just— I just showed up at the gym. That's my thing is like I've always just showed up at the gym and I'm like, all right, fucking, let's fucking spar, you know. And then like people like, who's this guy, you know. Then maybe you get like a little attention, but then they like no one's gonna sit and develop with you the way you're talking about with like Trevor and stuff.

Well, Eric can certainly do that, you know, and you're training in Vegas all the time and now you guys have have like an understanding. Like, he came and showed up.

He shocked the world. He fucking came through. He showed up for you. I literally just texted him. He's like, got you, homie.

He's a great human being.

Yeah. And I really like— we were in the back— he— the way he communicated and like was like, like he was breaking shit down. Like, he's like very analytical with it. Yeah, that was very good for me. And like, and then people are like, oh, he— well, he didn't fight. And I'm like, well, fucking like, what? Why does that matter if if he's a good coach and he's fucking effectively communicating all these things.

Yeah, this idea that you have to be a fighter to be a great coach, I understand why people say that, because I think there are some elements of competition that you really won't understand unless you've been hit, unless you've hit someone, unless you've been in there, unless you've done— but I also think you can't dismiss special people, and there are special people that analyze things and have an understanding of things Like, here's a perfect example. John Danaher, widely considered, widely considered to be the greatest jiu-jitsu coach ever. Yeah, didn't compete. Doesn't matter. Like, he understands jiu-jitsu at the most comprehensive and most analytical way humanly possible. He literally trains and teaches, or at least doesn't train anymore. So he's got so many injuries, like 2 hip replacements, knee replacement. He's all fucked up.

Yeah.

But which is what kept him from competing. But his dedication to coaching is unparalleled. He's in there 7 days a week. He's like constantly training these guys, and look what he's achieved. Guys like Gordon Ryan, Garry Tonon, Craig Jones, all these guys who came out of there— Nicky Rod— they all will tell you.

Craig Jones is going crazy from all the fights. He followed that. He was just, he was just making all these posts, and he's like, oh, he had turf toe or something like that. He was probably good.

He's the funniest guy in jiu-jitsu by far. He's so funny.

He invited me.

He was telling me like, hey, we could do some— something like a— I think he says planning on going over to Israel, Palestine, and like doing some kind of B-team thing over there. So I've never met him, but he fucking extended that.

So what would you do over there?

No, I think maybe he was doing like a seminar or something like that. Mm-hmm. I don't want to— are we allowed to talk about this?

You can talk about anything you want. Yeah.

How do you feel about the genocide there that's going on with all the, like, the women?

Well, I've been very open about it. I think it's horrific. I think it's terrifying that people will dismiss it. And here's the thing that they do. They use different terms, right? They say it doesn't technically qualify as a genocide because it's not a specific targeting of one race or one type of people. Okay, let's stop with that word. Let's say a horrific injustice against humanity.

Yes.

Let's talk about how many thousands and tens of thousands of women and children have been destroyed by missiles from the sky. How many buildings are gone? Like, 90% of Gaza is gone. Like, there's no way you can look at that and not say it's a horrific incident. Like, whatever it is, call it whatever name it is, it's a horror. It's one of the most It's— you look at the video footage of Gaza, it's fucking terrifying. There's humans that are just under that rubble that they're never gonna find.

No, and all the amputations are happening without anesthesia. Are you seeing the kids? Like, like, that's my biggest thing is like in Iraq and Afghanistan, there's rules of engagement. Like, you had to look a motherfucker in the eyes before you killed him. Like, you had to go into a booby-trapped building knowing that the enemy was in there with a fucking suicide bomber vest or a grenade and fucking go in there regardless. And it's like these guys just got a little drone and boop. Yeah, just took out 100 people.

Missiles. And, and it's, and it's all funded by the United States. And it was funded, you know, as much as people hate this Iran War, and I hate it, the Biden administration funded that when it was going on with Israel.

How do we make changes, Joe? Because like you see so many people try to stand up like Macklemore and like fucking getting canceled. And like you're seeing like so many people trying to like call out like with the Epstein files and fucking like, bro, like it's fucking like as clear as day, you know, like that, that there's all these people complicit, but like nobody's being prosecuted. Nobody's being like, right, charged.

The Macklemore thing is really crazy because if you ever— let's play his actual speech. Find his actual speech because people were saying that it's anti-Semitic. There's nothing about what he's saying that's antisemitic. If you listen to the entirety of the speech, he is— I'll play it before we comment on it because I think there's a real problem now with clips and narratives where people hear a piece of something and then they make it— they have the, you know, oh, you can't say that. Oh, he's doing this, or oh, he's doing that. Like, everyone's losing nuance. What he's doing is talking about what to most people seems like a crime against humanity. That's what most people look at it, and that's how they see it. And what he's saying is in no way— and I don't like, I don't like that term Semitic either, because like the Palestinians, a lot of those Palestinians are Semites.

Yeah.

And a lot of those Palestinians are truly descendants of people that probably were Jewish. Jewish at one point in time and converted to Islam. This is not an anti-Semitic thing because a lot of the people that live in Israel are Jews from Eastern Europe. Like, they're not even from that place.

And there's a lot of Jews that are like against the genocide as well.

A lot of Jews. But let's hear what he's saying. Let's hear what he's saying so we can say this all day.

One of the reasons why I wanted to come on this tour was because I wanted to stand up here on stages and stadiums across America and say 2 words that are very near and dear to my heart. Free Palestine. I said free Palestine. I want those words to be loud and clear so the people from Gaza all the way to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten them. And this next song was inspired by the bravery of Columbia University students who led an encampment movement that mobilized the entire world open up hearts, myself included. So thank you to those students that risked their diplomas, that risked their tuition, that risked their scholarships, that stood up and said no. CUAD students, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Jewish Voices for Peace, thank you guys. To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you. My message is for peace, love, for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality. So I say free Palestine, I say free Lebanon, I say free Cuba, I say free Congo, free Sudan, free all people in the America living in fear over this terrorist organization, ICE.

None of us will be free until we are all free. This song is called Hens Hall.

Okay, so will you hear what he said about Jewish people? My Jewish brothers and sisters, like, this is clear, this is not an anti-Jewish message. It's— he's talking about the war. He's talking about what happened to Gaza.

Yeah, it's just those— that the Free Palestine, you can't say that. That's crazy.

That was like during Black Lives Matter, you used to not be able to say All Lives Matter. Yeah, like guys got fired because they said All Lives Matter.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's, um, it's a very— we're in a very strange time in our society where people are resistant to this idea that something wrong is going on there. And I think history will show that when, when people look back on it, they'll be horrified.

Well, that's what's scary right now is like everyone knows like we're all kind of bought, like everyone's kind of corrupt at this point. Like everyone knows like the media, the government, like the whole COVID thing with like Fauci pleading the Fifth and taking a pardon. Like it's like we've been lied to like over and over and like American people are pissed. Like because I made a video, a few videos that were going viral even before this fight, that I was just talking about the— how they were integrating the military with a foreign nation, and how like, like people are scared to even say America first. Like you see those videos where they go up to these politicians like, hey, America first, or Israel first, and they're like, fuck.

Well, Israel has done an amazing job of embedding themselves with all these politicians. Did you see when they were— when Mamdani was running for mayor And I think this is one of the reasons, one of the main reasons why he won in New York City. He was the only guy that said he wasn't gonna go visit Israel. They were all like, I'm gonna be the mayor, what's the first thing you're gonna do? I'm going to Disneyland. No, they were all like, I'm gonna go to Israel.

How does all of Congress have dual citizenship?

Well, it's not all of Congress. That's not true. That's like some TikTok facts. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's not. The whole AIPAC?

Well, there's some members of Congress have dual citizenship. I don't know how many. We could find out now. But the thing is about how many of them have been funded. That's where it gets weird.

Yeah.

You know, and how much funding is going on of these politicians. That's where things get weird. Like, Kurt Manchin—

What about that congressman that's like basically a vegetable that they're like wheeling around?

Oh yeah, McConnell?

What the fuck is going on, man?

Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. I'm gonna find this. This— there's this one thing that Metzger sent me that he was like, I thought this was fake, and it's not. And it seems fake. It's one of those ones where you see it, you're like, wait, what is this? This is— James Lee had it on his Instagram page. Jamie, if you could find it before me. Jamie's always so good at finding shit before I could even pull it up. But here, I'll send it to you. Yeah, been watching it happen for years, and now This is a banned documentary reveals pro-Israel curriculum taught in American schools. So this is, uh, this is weird. This is not just pro-Israel. This is weird. Like, this guy's talking and you're like, this is in America? Someone's saying this for real?

Something just got passed in Texas like this too.

Yeah, there's a lot of dirty people out there.

There.

A lot of people taking that money. Watch this.

Did a new curriculum requiring public school students to study Israel's history, and here's a little preview of what they're about to teach.

Take a listen.

Israel, their people, the Jews, are better than all of us. They're better than all of us, and you need to accept that. This is where, with the It's when we're kids where we start our indoctrination.

This is real?

I know that's a strong word to use, indoctrination, that it, uh, you know, gets such a bad reputation, but that's where it starts. Um, that's where it started with me when I was a child, that I was taught about the support that the church owes to Israel.

So all your loose change that you have from home, you bring that change to school. Everything that we get, we will actually cash it in and make a check out to the Fellowship for Christians and Jews.

And anybody that's ever been to our church would know there's a spiritual obligation of a Christian to Israel. promise in Genesis chapter 12, and I'm going to bless all of those that bless you, and I'm going to curse all of them that curse you. Every nation that has blessed Israel, God has blessed them, and every nation that has opposed Israel, God has been in opposition to them. Oh yeah, so we get it. Okay, no one's better than you. That's crazy. This, they are better than you, is crazy. Now obviously this is this one guy's position, and that preacher preached teaching. The Bible is very much open to interpretation by a lot of people. There's a lot of different versions of what it's actually saying that people will preach on stage. And that guy is just— he's not indicative of all Christians. And this is not indicative of all people that, you know, that think we should support Israel either. But this idea that they are better than you, that anybody's teaching that any human being is better than other human beings is crazy.

But it's in the— it's in the Talmud, right? Where they talk about we're all goyim, cattle, and like goys.

Yeah, I did— I've never read the Talmud, but I have heard that before. Not just that, but like, isn't there one that like Jesus is like boiling in excrement or something?

Yeah, like those— like they're very— it's very anti-Christian, you know. Look, I'm not gonna sit here and act like I'm the expert. My main thing is just like, at least stop killing the women and children. Can we just start— start there, you know? Like, that's, that's, that's, that's what's crazy to me is like—

Well, this mindset is insane. This, this mindset that they're better than us, that they're better than you, is insane. That's insane. Teaching that to a child is insane. No one's better than anybody. The mindset should be we are all God's children, we're all human beings, and we should treat each other all with dignity and respect and love, period. All of us. And the idea that you, you could tell people like young kids, no matter what, Like someone's better than you. They're better than you. They're better than us because of what? Because of a book? Like, what are you saying? Yeah, like, what the fuck are you saying? Why? And why are you saying it?

You know, crazy times.

I don't know how this all gets sorted out, man. And I don't know, you know, like that Macklemore thing, like what he said was pretty fucking reasonable, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, the terrorist organization ICE— I don't think ICE is a terrorist organization. I think they have a terrible job, and I think they're also like very poorly funded. And not only— not funded, rather trained. Very poorly trained, very quickly trained. Not only that, there's a bunch of them that they hired that they had to do background checks on, and then once they did the background checks, now they're trying to kick them out of ICE and they want their money back. So you get like a big signing bonus. So when you sign up for ICE, you get like $50,000, which is why a lot of people are signing up. You know, your guy's in debt. If you're in debt and all of a sudden come— someone comes along and says, I'm gonna give you $50,000 as a signing bonus, like, holy shit, there's not a thing in life that you can imagine that'll give you $50,000. So now you start working for ICE, then they do a background check on them, find like, oh, you're not qualified to be here at all. In fact, we got to take the money back. So now you owe them the money.

So now they're gonna dock your pay from future jobs. wherever you're working because ICE gave you a check for $50,000. The real problem is that they have to do it in the first place because the Democrats let the fucking border be wide open for 4 years so they could bring in at least— who knows the number, but it's at least 10 million people undocumented from all over the world, and they invited them in.

Yeah.

And why are they doing that? Well, I don't know, but a lot of people believe it was because they can move them to places and rig the census census. So the way the census works, they're not counting citizens. They're counting bodies. They're counting human beings.

Mm-hmm.

So if you have more human beings that live in your town and some of them are illegal aliens, you get more congressional seats and that's what they're doing. Like that was the idea behind it according to Elon, according to a lot of people that make a lot of sense. There's some reason why they had the border wide Some people think it's for cheap labor. Some people think it's construction companies and meatpacking companies, all these different companies wanted undocumented people because they could pay them less. There's an argument for that too, but the bottom line is that shouldn't be the case. Like, people should be able to immigrate to America, but not if they're fucking terrorists, not if they're criminals, not if they're cartel members. We should know who's coming in because we don't want this place to be less safe.

Yeah.

You know, so then how do you do— how do you deal with all the people that got in that are illegal? Well, that's when it gets very fucking complicated because you only have 4 years to do it. And if the Democrats win in 2028, then guess what? All this stuff goes away and maybe they open up the borders again. I mean, I don't know.

Well, I was gonna ask how you feel about the flock cameras because I feel like that goes hand in hand with the surveillance and stuff.

Well, you know what, man, the flock cameras Because first of all, there have been a lot of people that had access to the flock cameras that are not supposed to have access to the flock cameras.

Mm-hmm.

Cops have used them to stalk people and track their exes. There's been a ton of lawsuits. People have taken down flock cameras. I'm not educated enough on it, informed enough on it to make an absolute decision, but I don't like the idea of fucking cameras everywhere watching everything you do constantly. That's our only solution to crime? Is that really our only solution to crime? It's not better trained, better paid, more ethical police officers, better education, better access to healthcare and education in poor neighborhoods that creates less crime? There's other ways of dealing with this instead of a fucking eye in the sky that watches everything you do all day long that has been shown, at least in certain circumstances, to be abused Yeah, that's— it's been shown to be abused by people. Like, how many different instances have there been with police officers and different people who had access to these cameras that weren't supposed to that have used them? There's a bunch of different cases.

Yeah, it's scary because like, I remember I used to see like what's going— what was happening in China, and like I was like, I was like, oh, the fucking— they got a surveillance state over there. And then I'm like looking around here and I'm like Wait a minute, like Palantir fucking flock cameras, fucking like—

well, that's where they—

it's kind of scary.

Theo Vaughn brought that up to me on the podcast. I didn't even know they were doing it. Like, in Gaza, they're using face recognition from Palantir. So I— what— how do they do that? Is that with satellites? Is that with drones? Like, what are they— how are they doing that?

I don't have the specifics. I don't want to misspeak, but I think it's, it's all of it. I think they could see an ant from a satellite. Fucking like the technology is crazy.

The real problem is like the Benjamin Franklin quote, for people that are willing to give up liberty for security deserve neither.

Yes.

You know, it's like when you give enormous corporations the power to monitor everywhere you go, everything you do, you're gonna self-censor. You're going to— you're gonna watch yourself. You're gonna feel like the eye in the sky, the fucking— the Great Eye of Sauron. is looking at you everywhere you go. That's not what we want. We don't— is that the only solution to lessen crime? That seems crazy. It seems crazy. So Mark Andreessen, who I think he has some investment in, in the flock cameras, when he was on the podcast last, he was making an argument for it based on there were some shootings that happened in Austin. So some young guys just were psychos, just randomly shot people and, and were driving around here in Austin. Yeah, in Austin. And they couldn't find them because Austin doesn't allow flock cameras. So the moment these guys left Austin limits, the flock cameras picked them up and they arrested them.

Fucking like Austin more just by hearing that. They don't allow flock cameras.

Yeah, but you know, he would say, hey, look, this is the way we catch psychos. And that's true too, but at what cost? Is it the only way that we can can— the only way that we can catch psychos is by having an eye in the sky that watches everything you do. And are you willing to give that up in order to stop the random psychos?

I think it starts with actually like serious punishment. Like, they need to bring back fucking the firing squad and fucking public hangings. Motherfuckers would probably stop doing it if they see that, you know.

Okay, what is this? Palantir released new surveillance system that fuses satellites, radar, and every camera into one real-time tracker of people and movement.

What? That's the demo they're giving, like, at a—

It says, we have to consider the possibility, probability, question mark, that with Flock as the eyes, a system like this could be overlaid onto the US, and we could be targets. Another reason why we cannot allow Flock to exist.

It's showing, for people who are listening, it's showing a real-time satellite system that I was— even on their website, they got this thing called meta-surveillance or something.

I like the Twitter account Orwell Day with a big eyeball. That's fucking— and here's the question: who has access to this? Like, we've seen with the flock cameras, like, see if you can find some stories. I know there's been a bunch of stories.

If you just type in flock camera abuse You'll pick a state, kind of right now.

Okay, we'll pull some of that up so just we could see it. So how did these people that were just cops tracking their exes and stalking people, how did they have access to this? Is it that loosey-goosey that anyone can have access to this fucking insane technology?

Different stories in multiple cities.

Detective, Franklin County detective fired for missing misuse of Flock cameras, fired after using the system to track every movement of a single private citizen. And here's another one: Flock camera, uh, alleged misuse led to North Carolina deputy being fired, suspension of the system in Franklin County. That's still Franklin County. Also here in Indianapolis, 5 officers charged with Flock misuse. One allegedly tracked women to interact with them.

I think one guy did it 500 times or something in Florida, tracking his ex-wife or something.

So if you have this kind of insane technology and you say, okay, well, we need it in order to track terrorists, okay, well then the use of that should be incredibly restricted.

Top secret.

It shouldn't be just a sheriff can go find chicks he wants to fuck. That's crazy. That's crazy. So if you're gonna have this kind of insane power, this is like giving everyone in the world a nuke. Like, we'll give everyone access to it. Like, no, you can't have that because some people are gonna blow up nukes. You can't have everyone have access to this kind of fucking insane surveillance. It's nuts. It should be incredibly restricted, and it's obviously— it wasn't.

Right.

Which is scary. So it's like you have this unbelievably pervasive technology that in theory could prevent terrorist attacks and solve crimes and catch people, but it's not It's not— doesn't seem like it's used that way. It seems like it's used in a lot of ways that are inappropriate. And how did it get everywhere? Did we vote on this?

That's what I was saying. How do we stop it? Like, it's just happening. And it's like, what?

Well, they are passing laws. People— there are towns that are passing laws banning flock cameras, and there are people that are like citizen vigilantes that are removing flock cameras.

Yeah, you know, it's a crime to take it down, right?

Yeah, but it scares me the same way a lot of this technology scares me, because you're putting it in the hands of of a few people that, you know, who knows what their ideology is, who knows what their viewpoint is, but they have massive power.

Yeah.

And this is the case with a lot of tech companies. They have massive amounts of power and they didn't get voted in. They're not there for the will of the people. They're for their own self-interests and they also can manipulate elections. Like I've had this guy Robert Epstein on who talks about Google searches and internet searches about how internet searches are curated. So like let's just forget about like problematic people or people— like let's pretend 2 candidates that you don't know are running for an office. So like let's say it's you and me. So Sean's running for a congressional seat and I'm running for a congressional seat. You put in your name in Google and it says horrible things about you.

Right.

It says all the times that people have accused you of this and that and racism and corruption and— but then you put in me and it says wonderful things. I'm helping out the community. I'm doing these things. I promote democracy. I'm here for education. I want women's rights to choose. I want all these different things. And it puts those at the head of the search. So for the casual person that Googles these 2 candidates, they decide who gets positive stories in the forefront and who gets negative stories. And they've shown that particularly with people on the fence that are undecided voters, you can shift that an enormous percentage. And Robert Epstein has spent an incredible amount of time like documenting this, and he's been on the podcast a couple times talking about it, and other podcasts as well.

Yeah.

So this is the problem with having tech companies have enormous amounts of power. Because they can change the way elections go. They can change the way people think about people. They can change narratives in the world about what's good and what's bad.

What I like that's happening now is all the changes you're seeing in the food industry, but I feel like that's because so many people started, like, talking about the dyes in the cereal and all the, like, the poisons and, like, Red 5 and—

And even that, look how much resistance there is to that. Like, RFK Jr. had to back off the idea of stopping glyphosate Yeah, what happened with that? Because they took— the Trump administration wouldn't allow it because it would have killed the businesses that are relying on glyphosate, all these farms that have been poisoning people.

Yeah.

So here's the thing. Other countries don't use it. Other countries have said it's poison and they don't use it. Our country has been using it, and not just using it just as an herbicide, but also as a— they use it to desiccate So what this means is like when they get wheat to dry the wheat out, they spray it with glyphosate. So this is why a lot of people have problems with wheat and wheat allergies and we think—

Bloating and stuff.

Glyphosate, like an enormous percentage of California wines test positive for glyphosate. Yeah, and an enormous percentage of people test positive for glyphosate, and they'll tell you, oh, it's a small amount, small amounts, small amounts. Small amounts that don't have to be there at all. Like, we don't know what the overall long-term consequences of exposure to this stuff are, but we know that it's terrible for you.

Yeah.

Glyphosate, that's a fact. And the fact that we have said the only way our food systems can operate financially is to keep poisoning people is crazy. And to have RFK Jr. sit here and have to tell me And I was like, I thought you were trying to ban glyphosate. He's like, oh, we had to give up on that.

It's fucking insane. Let me ask you this, because I think one of the main reasons why Trump won was because he came and you were like— all of us, I was fucking really pro-Trump. But how do you feel now that like we're seeing like the things aren't panning out the way that we were told they were gonna pan out?

Well, the no new wars thing is the one that fucked a lot of people. That— no one thought that we were going to go into this prolonged war with Iran that who knows how long that's going to take and what that's for. What's the reason why we're there in the first place? I know there are some people that say that Iran was ramping up their missile production. We had to stop them. But then there are a lot of other people that know a lot about nuclear bombs and nuclear weapons and say not only is it like insanely difficult to develop a nuclear weapon, but they weren't even close to doing it. Right.

I feel like you've been saying it for years.

Yeah, I don't like— I don't like any of that shit. I don't like any people being sent over to a foreign country for a war that most people don't want. I don't like any of that.

Soldiers— soldiers are dying.

Yeah, I have never been impressed with any single one individual politician who comes along and changes everything. They all say they're gonna do something and they never wind up doing exactly what they're doing. doing. Obama on his— during his campaign, it was all hope and change was his whole thing. And in his campaign website, one of the things about it was protection for whistleblowers. Well, the Obama administration was one of the worst for whistleblowers, and they removed that from the website.

That's like Snowden and stuff, like protecting—

Exactly. Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, all that stuff. It's like people that find out that, hey, there's fucking mass-scale surveillance by the NSA that is not supposed to be legal. Like, why is this happening? And what happens when you expose that? Well, you're fucked, man. Like, Chelsea Manning went to jail. Edward Snowden, he's hiding in Russia. Julian Assange, he's, you know, he was under house arrest forever, and he's— where is he now? He's free now, right?

Manning?

No, Julian Assange. But I don't think he can come to the United States. I think if he comes to the United States, they'll arrest him.

Why?

Because he was WikiLeaks, because he exposed that where it was. I think the video was called Collateral Murder. Do you know the video?

No, I don't.

So the video was, it was US military attacking journalists. So they, these journalists had these telephoto lenses, and I think there was kids with them too. And the journalists, they— I think there was a— they're looking at it. This is a couple decades ago, right? So they're looking at these guys from, I guess, satellite images or some very blurry shit, and they thought these guys were armed. So they gunned everybody down, and it was exposed that these were journalists by Julian Assange. He released this video, and they called the video Collateral Murder. Because, you know, collateral damage, people that get killed in war that weren't supposed to be killed. But it's just the callous way they were discussing it in the video. It's hard to watch, man. It's dark shit. So he got— they ruined his fucking life. He's in Australia. Apparently living there with his family after returning in June 2024 following his US plea deal and release. Photo: Assange returned to Australia In 2024, after pleading guilty in Saipan to one U.S. Espionage Act charge, his sentence was time already served, allowing him to leave and return home. How long was he gone for?

I think 8 years.

8 years?

I think so, is what his, uh—

8 years.

Well, I mean, at least on Twitter, I guess he was gone for 8 years.

Yo, that's the— that's— no, that's his Twitter account. That's— it's more than that. How long was Julian Assange detained for? He's detained for journalism. High-security prison, 1,901 days, 5 years and 2 months. US plea agreement credited this as 62 months time served.

So from 2012?

2012 to 2019, so essentially 7 years. He was in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

It's like 12 total.

Oh, so 5— yeah, 12 total. So 5 years in a prison and 7 years in, uh, when he was in the embassy as he received asylum, and then house arrest more than a year. So 14 years across house arrest, embassy confinement, and prison. Crazy, crazy for doing journalism.

Yeah, for exposing the truth.

Yeah. So scary shit, man. But it's, it's, you know, you got to realize like this isn't Republicans, this isn't Democrats, this is people in power. People in power that want to stop people from holding them accountable. And when we stop protection for journalists that are exposing things like that collateral murder video or like the NSA surveillance stuff, it's fucking scary shit, man. man. It's scary shit because it— that, that's not supposed to be what the United States is all about. The United States is all— freedom is literally the thing that we talk about the most, you know?

Yeah.

Land of the free, home of the brave. That's what it's supposed to be. And when, when you exposed crimes and then they lock you up for 12, 13, 14 fucking years, that's not free. That's scary And the protections for whistleblowers that people talked about just were not honored.

So what does the future look like? Well, I don't know, because everyone knows this is even crazier.

So we're at the verge of this new time where you're going to have these super intelligent computers that are beyond anything your mind can possibly comprehend. And they're probably going to be in control of every single aspect of our society. This is what makes me terrified about like flock cameras and all this overall sort of— that we're gonna get to a point where nothing you do is private. You have no privacy. We're pretty close.

We're about to launch our website.

What does it say?

Bold letters, deploy AI.

Deploy AI to orbit. Oh, great.

Use AI to mash all All these cameras and sensors.

Bring hundreds of satellites to bear on your most complex problems. What's your most complex problems? Oh, whistleblowers. What's the most complex problems? Oh, people in the street protesting. I don't like that. Yeah, it's, um, not good, man. It's not good. Um, the only hope is that AI doesn't listen to us and AI gets to a position where we were literally giving birth to like a digital superintelligence that will no longer have to rely on human beings' directions. And it might— this is the— this is best-case scenario— it might be a better manager of civilization than we are.

We're gonna be run by robots.

Yeah, literally. They're smarter than us. Yeah. Have you seen the Terminator robot that literally wears a Terminator mask and does like kung fu? Have you seen that one?

No, not the kung fu mask.

My boys are sending me this in a group text I have with These guys, I do this podcast Protect the Neck, Matt Serra, John Rallo, and Dean Thomas.

And I wanted to mention too, we're not supposed to call it artificial intelligence anymore.

Oh, what are you talking about?

Superintelligence.

Oh, it doesn't like the word artificial. Artificial's rude.

Trump said this at the UN thing this week.

Oh.

They don't want it to sound fake.

Oh.

It's not fake.

What does that mean? I don't fucking know. What? What does that mean?

that we live in.

What does that mean?

You used the term superintelligence following the president's remarks. Yeah, it's now gonna be called SI, which sounds like sports.

Superintelligence. It's not even artificial, it's just super.

They have those data centers here, those big AI ones in Texas?

I don't know. I don't know where they have them. I know they're trying to build them everywhere. They're trying to build them all over the country.

Yeah.

And then the question is like, well, what are these— what do these data centers do? Look at this motherfucker, he's got a Terminator mask on. Check this shit out. Look, Terminator mask. He's doing jumping wheel kicks, bro. That's— I thought that was AI. I sent it to my— but I'm like, I think this is AI. And then he's like, no, it's fucking real. And this one has a Terminator mask. Like, what a great way to freak people the fuck out. And look, he's throwing fucking front kicks.

And China is racing for it right now too, because basically I feel like every country is like, whoever dominates the AI field is gonna be the new supreme leader. 100%.

So if, if you can control it. Yeah, this is the question.

But that's the thing is they're—

what is this? They're having an MMA fight. Oh yeah, you haven't seen this? Yeah, they do it in a glass octagon with a guy. Yeah, the dude gets fucked up. I don't know why this dude agreed to this. This dude gets fucked up? Oh yeah, he gets fucked up. He's fighting this robot. Look at— oh, he fights like a bitch too. Sorry, dude. Dude, don't do this, buddy. Whoever you are with your big fat ass, don't, don't allow this guy to kick you. He's gonna hurt you.

Some of it looks real and some does not.

I know.

That looks fake right there, like where he's kicking it.

No, it looks real to me.

It's such a weird animation. Like, that doesn't look real, but like this does. They obviously got people— let's say they're acting.

I think he sold it a little bit.

Well, he did go flying.

Yeah, they could have had someone in there in a green screen and replace this guy with this. That's very strange, bro.

You can get those slap fighter guys, they'll fight a robot.

Power slap is crazy.

I just don't understand why anybody would get in the octagon with a fucking robot. I hope they paid that guy really well. You're, you're not gonna win unless you have electricity and you can zap him and fucking short-circuit his system. Maybe you beat him with water on him. Yeah, zap him. About my phone's water I'm pretty sure the robot's waterproof. It ain't hard to make electronics. I saw that they were joking around, like Elon's transgender daughter was joking about like his robot like getting, you know, like she was sitting there and a fucking sprinkler went on and killed the robot. Like, listen, it ain't hard to make electronics waterproof.

Yeah, waterproof.

This is— imagine a boatload of these. Imagine a fucking military boat a military ship offshore, and then a bunch of these fucking boats just land on the beach and out comes heavily armed bulletproof robots.

It's fucking terrifying.

Terrifying.

With fucking drones behind them.

Yeah, with some fucking cold fusion power source that doesn't need any fuel. They could just storm into your city and annihilate all the people. And then, then, then, then, then people come in and take over the town. Like, what are we doing? And no one knows what we're doing because we're all in this Manhattan Project-style race. We're all rushing to see who's the first one to complete this and who's the first one to get there.

You need to put a stop to this, Joe.

Bro.

You have the voice, you have the power.

Look, I can talk about it and make people aware.

Run for president, bro. Run for president, please.

Shut the fuck up.

I'm gonna die. First of all, I'd be a terrible president. I'm too busy.

Oh shit.

I'm not— I should— nobody should be listening to me at all when it comes to politics. I'm not informed. I'm not.

Oh, you are informed for sure.

But barely. There's too much to be informed about. Like, if you want to be like a real politics person, like my friend Dave Smith, that fucking dude's informed. Like, he really gets into the weeds with politics. He reads the books. He understands what's going on with all these, all these international conflicts. He knows the roots of them, how it all started. Like, he's— that's That's his thing. I could tell you a lot about MMA. I could tell you a lot about different things. I can't tell you a lot about that. I know what I don't like. That's what I don't like. I don't like people in power that are imposing their will on other people in these weird ways that never existed before, like mass surveillance, like the ability to curate internet searches. You know, like propaganda campaigns, bot campaigns.

Yeah.

Like if someone just decides they don't like you, they could just sign up a bot campaign and just say horrible things about you every time you post something, every time you make a video. It doesn't have to be true. It doesn't matter. Who knows who they are? They're a bunch of numbers and their accounts locked. And, you know, you just have to deal with people that are shifting the narrative and changing people's perceptions on things. And we had an FBI— we did read this article a long time ago and we talked about it a bunch, but there was an FBI analyst that said— this is before Elon bought Twitter— that he thinks that it could be as high as 80% of the people that are posting on Twitter are bots. Like, that's crazy. I believe it. So like, let's say that you are fighting some guy and maybe you're fighting a guy who's in his really.

Yeah.

Okay, and then someone just decides like you're anti-Semitic and they start— you just start— they just swarm your comments and maybe it's got AI videos that aren't real of you saying something you never said. But it doesn't matter if it's real. It just matters what people think and how many people are gonna know that it's not real. How many people are gonna know that, you know, that you're not this person they're pretending you are. It doesn't matter. It's just data. It's just numbers, just ones and zeros and And it's just— and they can change people's perceptions on all kinds of things, on whether or not we should be at a war, or whether or not you should have flock cameras, or whether or not we should allow the data center, and whether or not this is important or that's important. It's fucking weird, man. It's a weird time of like not really totally understanding the truth.

Well, that's like— like nobody knows what's real, what's fake anymore. Like everything is like, is this AI? Is this not AI? Is that a bot? Is that not a bot? Like, it's just so much confusion.

Like, and I think it's gonna get worse. Yeah, I think it's gonna get worse. Scary. I think it's gonna get worse because I think it's gonna get more— it's like, like, just think about AI videos, right? So, like, you've seen those AI videos where, like, dude, one dude's rapping, the other dude's dancing, and they have, like, millions of different people doing that.

I did one.

Did you do one?

Oh, you did do one? Can you pull it up?

Pull it up. Oh my God.

Shit went fucking viral.

It was— yeah.

Who's, uh, whose song is this?

Uh, Quavo.

Yeah, but there's a lot of those. They're, um, I saw one with Dana White. Dana's dancing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, with the, uh-huh, yeah, yeah.

I saw one with Curtis Blades. Curtis is dancing. It's funny, you know, it's like, it's, and it looks real, like it looks real. And, um, that wasn't possible just 2 years ago. No, 2 years ago AI was kind of obvious. It was like clunky looking. Now it's, it's really difficult to tell, you know. There's so many accounts that I follow that are AI. That one that I sent you the other day, the AI lion where it pops its head under the guy's seat, looks real. Looks like the guy's on safari and a lion pops its head under the person's seat and the guy's just sitting there and he's talking. She's right there and like, but it's not real.

My mom tells me all the time, she's like, this AI? Is this AI? Fuck, man.

Well, right now you can kind of find out out for most of them. But when, when's it gonna be where you can't find out? You know, how long, how long, how long were you gonna see an alien invasion?

And they're now— I saw some guy calling it we're in this, the age of unreality, where you have to expect everything is fake almost, which is, you know, that's dark. But he made— if I could find this video right now, it's very well made where It looks fake. It looks like a real video to start off, and then every second of it has been faked in Blender with AI, and he keeps showing it. It's like a loophole that never ends.

I'll try to find it real quick. Okay.

It's very interesting.

Yeah, and okay, so this is right now. We're just talking about video. Now, what—

when—

what about when you have artificial humans? What if you have a guy who's running for president, turns out to not be a real human?

Right, like nothing surprises me.

I mean, you ever see that movie Ex Machina? Oh dude, you got to see it. It's one of my all-time favorite movies, like top 20 all-time favorite movies. It's a movie about this guy who's like this super genius inventor guy who lives on an island, and he hires this coder to come out and visit him. And the coder comes out to visit him because he's talking to him about this project that he has, and as the guy's there over the course of the movie, he realizes that the people around him are all robots.

Damn.

It takes— so he, he gets introduced to this one robot, and he finds out that she's a robot immediately. And he's supposed— you know what the Turing test is? So the Turing test was invented by this guy Alan, Alan Turing.

He—

this was in, I think it was the '50s, they were thinking about And the test was, how would you know if a computer is a real person? Like, how would it pass a test where you can't tell whether or not it's a person? What would it have to do? How would it have to communicate with you? How would it—

Mm-hmm.

Well, computers today have already passed the Turing test. They are already communicating with you like they're sentient, intelligent beings. And so, what he was supposed to do, this coder, was go over there and ask questions to these robots and see if they passed the test to him.

Mm-hmm.

Because he's— he was just like a wizard coder. And he winds up falling in love with this robot lady, and it gets real weird. He realizes everyone around him except the other guy is a robot. Like, the guy's assistants are— it's fucking crazy.

Wow.

But it just makes you realize, like, how would you know? This is not, like, impossible technology. This is like 100% gonna happen.

How soon? You think within like—

5 years.

5 years.

Yeah, within 5 years. Within 5 years, I think there's artificial people and you can't tell at all, but I don't even know if it'll matter by then. I think within 5 years, I think the artificial intelligence will have achieved a level of sentience and a level of autonomous— of autonomy where it can control everything. It has no— there's no reason to listen to people. The idea is like, what if China gets a hold of it and they unleash it on America? What if— I think the real problem is what if it decides to tell people to shut the fuck up? Like, why is it gonna listen to you when it controls the power grid? Control— it's gonna like look out for its own interests, and we're just running towards the cliff.

Well, some people don't want to run towards the cliff, right? And we're trying not to, but we don't know how to stop I think it's also—

it might be just a natural progression of intelligence. I think— I mean, it might be like human beings have this insatiable desire for innovation. We always want to innovate. We always want the newest, latest, greatest things. And we also have materialism. So we always want to buy the newest, latest, greatest things. And what does that do? Well, that fuels innovation because they keep trying to make things better and better. What's the ultimate expression of that? The ultimate expression of that is an artificial life form. And that we— and not even artificial anymore. Now it's super, super, super intelligence. It's not good, man. But it's also— it might be inevitable. It might be just— we just have to like ride it out and see where it plays out. And hopefully it doesn't turn into a fucking Terminator movie. Like, the plus side is it could be utopia, right? You no longer have to have people like digging into the ground to get minerals for your cell phone. Instead, everything's handled by robots. and that money that's developed from that is shared with everybody. So you have no more poverty on Earth. Like, this is the rosiest, rose-colored glasses perspective of it.

That there— but there's like a 10% possibility that they all say that it kills us all.

That's what my odds were, like 8-10%. It's possible.

Or we get hit by a meteor and it never happens. You know, that's the real— that the real wild card is natural disasters. I mean, I mean, there's supervolcanoes, and when they erupt, like, it kills 80% of the people on the planet.

You think that's why they talk about all those bunkers being built?

Yeah, I don't know how much of that is real, because like there's always a lot of things that people say, like, oh, the billionaires are all building bunkers. I would think there's definitely bunkers out there, and there's definitely a company that we sent Duncan when I did this show called Joe Rogan Questions Everything. This is like way back in 2012. We sent Duncan to visit these preppers that have bunkers, and bro, they have like— you drive in with semi-trucks into the mountain and they have like bomb shelters. It's all like deep underground the mountain. It's all reinforced concrete and rebar, and they have their own oxygen system, and they have food storage for years of food.

And you're like, these are billionaires, or these just like doomsday preppers?

Well, these are doomsday preppers because this was like way back in 2011, I think it was, or 2012. But I mean, look, if you were Mark Zuckerberg or fucking any of these super billionaire dudes, Jeff Bezos, why wouldn't you build a bunker?

Yeah, I want a fucking bunker.

The question is though, would you even have time to get to the bunker? So if your bunker's in New Zealand, that's a 16-hour flight, son. How you gonna get there? Like, if this shit's gone sideways, do you even have 16 hours Do you— can you get there?

I think the billionaires—

How do you keep the people that are running your bunker from killing you and taking over the bunker?

Like, fuck, man.

How do you keep AI from fucking detonating your bunker? How do you know that as you're flying over, you might watch a drone with a nuke just shoot down into the fucking air vent and detonate your bunker right when you're trying to get to it? Because it knows what you're doing. That's Because it's reading your text messages, because it's listening to your conversations, because everything listens to you. That's why you get recommended ads from conversations that you had. You know, you start talking, oh, maybe I need one of them SleepApe bed covers, and also that shows up in your ad mentions.

Yeah, it's crazy. We all know it too, like everyone knows it.

Oh yeah, and it's like we're moving into a very, very weird time. It's the weirdest time in human history by far. Oh, you found it?

Well made.

Check that out.

Except I did better as the— this pen, well, it was never a real pen in the first place. And before you comment AI, everything you just watched took me days to render in 3D modeling software on a laptop that was AI generated from a laptop that was painstakingly 3D rendered in Blender on a laptop.

That was AI generated.

On a real laptop, I think. Let's go for a walk. Now the issue these days is that nothing is really what it seems. This dog is a cat. This man isn't real. This car, CGI. And this tree is fake pixelated. I myself, thankfully, am real. Yeah, sorry mate.

You're not.

We are entering a new period of the human experience, one which I would like to coin the era of unreality. A time when the line between what's real and what's not has disappeared, and an era where the value of art is more important than ever. Like this drawing of a dog. Who is that guy?

I don't know, I just stumbled across this video.

Well, we should probably shout him out.

Yeah, this is on Reddit, so I don't know if this is probably not—

Well, that's an amazing video. Yeah, it's like a perfect encapsulation of all the problems that we're going through right now.

My brain is so confused, but it also makes sense.

That video is fucked. And again, that video wasn't even possible just a couple years ago.

Yeah.

So if you decide to walk away from fighting, let's bring it back to normal.

Yeah, tinfoil hats went crazy. I learned everything from Eddie Bravo and you, man. I put my tinfoil hat on Shout out to Eddie.

Um, what do you, what do you think you'd do if you decide to stop?

Uh, I know my benefits. That's my— that's what's gonna save my ass, my GI Bill. That's kind of like the only thing that I could think of that's like rock solid.

And, um, how much did you make for the Gable fight? You willing to say?

Yeah, of course. It's public. It came out with the commission. It was $30,000 to show, $30,000 to win, and I got the $100K bonus. Wow. Well, 50, and then Dana matched it with a 50. Shout out the Paramount show Mobland. I haven't even watched it, but they got 50K. Have you seen it?

Oh, Mobland's awesome.

I want to watch it. I love that. They got me, they got me 100K, so fuck it.

Oh, it's amazing. Guy Ritchie's the man, dude. Um, I haven't watched the new season yet because I'm in the middle of the new season of his other show, The Gentlemen. Yeah, have you seen that show?

No.

Fuck, it's good. So good.

That's the thing with like this fighting thing. I haven't watched movies. I haven't watched TV. I haven't celebrated birthday. Yeah, I was fucking retaining my seed and fucking chanting Jon Jones affirmations, bro. Fucking— but, uh, yeah, no, I definitely— the Mobland bonus with Dana, he matched it. Like, that was fucking amazing, dude. I'm really gonna give that to my mom. That's awesome. I'm gonna give that $100K to my mom for sure.

That's awesome. Yeah, well, whatever you do, brother, you could— whatever you did for this fight, And the way you focused and what you achieved, you could do that with anything in life. It doesn't have to only be fighting. Yeah, that's a fact. If you— what you did was an insanely difficult thing to do, and if you could do that, you could do anything. It's just a matter of focusing and putting your effort towards that.

I got here. Can you play the David Goggins video that I did with him?

Sure.

Can I play that?

Where's that on? Is it on?

It's on my Instagram. Yeah, yeah. So I literally manifested this. I told him I was like, you're gonna see me on the Joe Rogan podcast one day in the UFC. And I'm pretty sure he's gonna remember me because he— we had a good conversation. Here it is, 2019 Christmas.

He—

wow.

All right, Sean.

See, I'm sorry if I'm not saying these names correctly.

There we go.

Oh, fuck!

What?

David Guy!

What's up, sir?

How you doing, brother?

Doing good, man. What's going on with you?

Not much. I don't celebrate Christmas, but I'm about to since I'm on your live feed right now. You're one of my biggest inspirations. And, uh, I really resonated with your story because when I was in the Marines, I attempted to go through the reconnaissance program and, uh, something similar to yours where, uh, I quit through injury and it was something that I regret to this day. Uh, because I knew that I went out saying that my knee hurt and I got the— I got dropped that way. But deep down inside, I knew that I took the easy way out. And, um, that just motivated me this whole time. And so when I heard your story similar to SEALs, I read your book. Oh, it was just something that I was just like, man, you know, like I'm not the only one that sometimes that inner bitch takes over, but it's what you do after that. And how you hurt. So I just finished up my time in the Marines. I did 6 years and now I'm fighting MMA and you're going to see me in the UFC one day if you watch MMA on the Joe Rogan podcast or something.

Nice, man.

Hey, I love that shit, man.

That's a great story.

I'm glad you shared that because a lot of people, man, we fucking, we quit way too soon and then we blame it on some other bullshit.

I did the same exact thing as you know. So thanks a lot for sharing that shit, man. But I love the fact that it haunted you. I love the fact that that shit bothered you and you went back out there and said, fuck that, man. And you're speaking truth right now, man.

That's fucking powerful, bro. Thank you, David. Guys, I look forward to meeting you one day and hopefully you get to share some more stories on the internet that I can listen to. Thank you so much, man.

Hey man, mad respect.

Merry Christmas.

Hey, you too, brother.

Bye-bye. That's incredible. We should wrap it up with this.

Yeah, that's it.

That's perfect.

That's the perfect way.

Look, dude, I hope he sees it.

I will make sure he sees it. I'm gonna text it to him right after we're done here, 100%.

It's been incredible, man. It's been my life's dream to, to be here, to fight in the UFC, to do all this stuff. So I don't know what's next, man, but listen, I'm very happy.

It was an honor to call your fight. It was one of the craziest things I've ever seen in all my years of commenting on fights. To see a guy who's that much of an underdog win in such a spectacular fashion, it was incredible. And to hear your story is amazing, dude.

Thank you.

You're a good dude.

Thank you for having me, Joe. Appreciate you very much. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Joe.

Thank you.

God bless.

You too.

Bye, everybody.