Joe Rogan Experience #10064 — Khalil Rountree Jr. Transcript

Transcript

0:00 and boom what's up man how are you good thanks for doing this thank you for having me on i was It was really interesting. I mean, like that performance for me was – like I feel good about it, works in the production truck he's the guy who picks out the instant replays he and i talk back It was fun to watch, man. are you throwing you know the guys at the stadiums,

2:41 And when he said that, it's like, You know, before I even started training MMA as a whole, So that's completely different from stadium Muay Thai. So sometimes Shogun would be light on his front leg a little bit. elbow knee it's just it's broken down completely differently um it's just a whole a whole different a lot of wrestling over there yeah so that's one thing too i heard um i heard shop talking about it um tiger has amazing like it's an amazing

6:26 Really? type of like support um lorenzo pavlica and then my head coaches have switched probably two or three times in the last couple fights i had kenny johnson from black house Yeah, he'll put you into the ground, and he feels like cement block on top of you. get there so it's all part of the education right i mean this is what this this career of fighting

8:47 Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't like, I mean, even in the Santos fight, Shout out to Eric Anders. donates him he might donate them to charity that might be one of the auction them for charity or we're talking about a dude who blew his ACL out from jumping up in the air while he was reading Okay. I did all these, man. As I get older, get older pictures of me So when you decide to move, are you taking anybody with you?

12:45 and just cheap and just kind of simple living my and my mom i don't think she's ever left the later yeah weird right schedule was all off and then when i came back it took me like a week or stayed in Vegas and then fight week stayed in Atlanta and I think that was perfect timing oh strength conditioning pommeling up against the the wall so you're getting everything down there

15:20 we'll go over it, we'll create a system, whatever. Muay Thai culture I mean And then as an adult, it's like Muay Thai, feed your family, Muay Thai, feed your family. Are they satisfied to just do Muay thai or is there at all like a like high-level Muay Thai. It's like no one argues that, right? elbows don't hurt nothing and these guys they're just like they're bulletproof they're used to this man it's crazy wow and their first time in my life

19:24 kind of something i had to tell myself um for, for this one, I had to like really fall back He has this like, I met him through one of the other UFC fighters, like Julian Marquez. right and everything just like thoughts are constantly coming in and to stay focused and We'll pick a subject, whether it's like pain, fear, nervousness, something. But I wanted to relax.

22:30 the outcome is not really like the winning or losing. I don't want to base too much on that. And having that vision clear, it helped me. It was cool. listen to like my unconscious mind mind just unfold all of these kind They're going to, you're anticipating all these things happening and it's making you mind clear and everything so that i can get the expectation that like or the the visualization

26:13 Like the rare state that someone gets to where they can be completely calm and see everything in the heat of a dangerous encounter with another trained fighter. i like what i'm seeing this guy he figured some shit out man. It was like, that was one of those things where you're like, I like what I'm seeing. For sure. Vinny Shorman, he hypnotized me, and he hypnotizes a lot of fighters.

27:56 Okay. You realize how good guys are just by watching them train. in the gym but when he shows up to fight like he just doesn't put on like i've been that guy and then Dana comes back and, like, he gives us our speech, right? Look around. mentally you got to be prepared for a lot of things or some guys block it out but it's just using my tools to kind of, to just prepare for that. But, uh, definitely midway through the

31:21 for sure yeah no i mean maybe even, man. Not everybody can do that. When you were doing... Kind of like, I don't know. or thoughts that would make me feel anything other than happy and ready to go. anybody i was always just like this introverted gothic weird kid that nobody you know nobody ever talked to never even wanted to fight That's a very strange thing to say. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it, but I think that internally there's just a lot of expression.

35:04 balance, man. It does. Yeah. Cause when I'm not fighting, I'm, I'm so relaxed. It's crazy. whatever powers that strength is what we meet in the middle and so it helps me balance man yeah some guys will build it up in the gym right and they're super huge and it's like you gotta let it out man you can't even swing those arms what are you doing Yeah, the closest they have to it is the wrestling team

36:39 Oh, fuck yeah, man. Running with plates over their head and all that stuff. Dude, it's Matthew Modine.thew modine plays this badass wrestler and he's going up against this dude Back when Madonna was young. 85 or something At all But it was a fun movie, man. I actually made the team, but my grades were terrible, so I never got to play. know just get me a new instrument and i'd lock myself in my room and teach myself how to play

39:46 Yeah. I had a teacher. production like beat studio at home all that stuff so after high school i started touring And like I woke up in a panic. like you think you know and I was just like I don't know what I'm gonna be but I'm gonna go progression I started to see like my face was slimming down all this stuff so it gave me way up until then everything kind of happened by coincidence or just like i just i didn't really

43:31 you know so everything's still very new to me i've only my first day stepping on the mat was like You ventured into the options. oh shit so most of my career has been in the ufc wow yeah is that like when you hear about fighters And he's still right now the scariest guy in that cage. yeah but um how often though how often do i like to go hard yeah every now and then yeah every do

46:22 but um the the head MMA George, would help me out. I've seen so many guys on the mat. But then like grappling, I do it a lot of the times because I like it, and then do the mma class at the end and then go relax after that routine for me can work every In Muay Thai, there's no talking. We're going to create something off of it. know tell a dog to sit a hundred times you got to give him something like you know some type of

50:14 You the 300 pound guy that just they just like khabib is impenetrable yeah you're not the more shit you talk the more I think a lot of people and the fans need to see kind of a little bit more of the inside the real stuff you know yeah the the real stuff like The balancing act that a fighter has to have with their personality, So your time kind of gets short.

52:26 you know, I mean, it's amazing it's crazy but it was like it was like a little too good for me like i started Yeah. They're putting so much stuff into figuring out how to help the fighters. It's sick. things there i just looked at them that's what that me the tour forest griffin gave me the 411 yeah they've done a lot of when's the Yeah. And they'll make sure.

56:17 19 19 pounds and that's a lot usually i usually cut maybe four to seven pounds restaurants, everything. So I was able to stay on track there. So just, I was just back just a few weeks. Yeah. But I still may wait. So that's good. You must be super skinny at 200 too. They just opened up more weight classes and abandoned weight cutting i mean i wouldn't mind it i would i would like to see that don't you think it'd be better for

58:37 yeah, okay, sure. the weight cut but that morning like if i even tapped on my jaw i just felt like my head was Dude, that's not a good feeling. so that's one thing that I learned too is just training every day not learn but it just feels staying right across the street and i showed up i started wrapping my hands and the trainer he's It was like- And I was like, okay, cool.

1:01:52 before you enter the store. are you running with a group of guys? at the gym they eat at the gym they sleep at the gym they are like they they don't have homes their That's a smart way to do it, man. second session is, um, kick the bag three to five rounds until a trainer picks you up. Like for me, you're doing the same way every day or do you think we just concentrate on excellence no because

1:04:41 They just like to throw elbows. Are you a left kick? but just the fact that these guys are all out brawling every night. different flavor to everything i don't think he can help it you know what i mean there's just And he's not young. Can we look how old Sanjay is? Fucking people up. And he's got these great videos of him warming up. he just posted a video the other day wearing this crazy wig

1:07:39 Look at that catch. Swipe. These guys throwing kick after kick after kick for five rounds. They had Anderson Silva. They had Vanderlei. And when Vanderlei Shogun. Rafael Cordero could not be nicer. They had Anderson Silva. They've got Pele, everybody. It's so exciting to watch. Yeah. He thinks that culturally we won't accept kickboxing after PKA karate from like the 1980s.

1:10:20 there was nothing compelling about it yeah just wasn't just wasn't something that you wanted to watch all the time. It's amazing because like you can literally go to a fight and see a good MMA match. Yeah, if you if you like And it's like, it's just sick to see, man. Yes, they do. Did you train with him at all? Like, he's just digging himself into the mat.

1:12:37 and then all of a sudden now you're not, now no one's cutting any weight. Ruining cards and even more importantly, I think, causing fighters to fight at less than their full potential. How many fighters got hit when they shouldn't have gotten hit? Just trying to lose weight. And they think they should be able to do it because they're tough enough to cut all that weight

1:14:43 just because that's what we do you know there's not really it's just what i have to do when you what's the math the other one he's like yeah dude he's on death's door right there really Oh, never. Like, this is kind of the beginning of everything for me, you know? it's very good to hear man that's a cool thing to hear i love hearing that you're you're cool with

1:17:33 Maybe if I could just figure out this path in a positive direction, I can change everything. That is a great quote. I was surrounded by fighters and guys who believed in me and who cared and wanted to see me get better and tougher. And that was new for me to get in things like that. pull hard yeah think about that um it definitely made me tough in the beginning.

1:19:45 Because you were just a different guy. I was always like kind of sheltered by my mom. you know something about it that's well you're you you're enjoying your progress too your change just develop this mentality of like how far will your mind take you how big is your will and uh then the the fight to the polish guy uh michael alexey junk have you seen him lately he's been he's been uh he just beat

1:23:18 At the weigh-ins, I always butcher it. and how many fights that you don't and have uh achieved some pretty fucking spectacular results man do you have anybody play like college football and stuff but yeah so i got one brother so it's in the family a little because that can happen it does happen it just seems it seems so unfair did you see uh i thought

1:25:32 Who the fuck does that? all the matchups yeah those are good events huh yes yeah more huh i wish there was more of those Look at that. this is a really high level jiu-jitsu too with smacks look at oh my oh yeah and you know that combat jujitsu you got to get the fuck out of there. and you don't have defense for it but now you're seeing when guys like iminari burst on the scene

1:28:31 Dude, he's so interesting. that are coming from it scares the shit I was like Well, once that stuff gets chewed up inside there, that's the problem. don't think so no no i think it was in a scramble i think it came apart in a scramble um but there's them on a very complex level like he understands all the various possible exchanges and what's the and Gordon Ryan, they start tapping all these

1:31:27 But the leg lock game was so unexpected and you know diving on things do you think a lot of the times really bad childhood okay and he's talked about it in depth about growing up on a farm and being Actually, I've met him before a few times like through some friends, and he seems like a cool guy. They kicked him out of the UFC, the first guy ever to get kicked out of the UFC for holding on to submissions.

1:33:16 And I think the last one they got kicked out for was like any normal person wouldn't even have gotten in trouble for that one. but it was a controversial submission victory Oh, Mike Pierce had a referee intervened. That's what it was. Look at that. Mike Pierce is fucked. But it looked to me like he was still ripping the knee apart, He had this psychological block.

1:35:01 I think there was eye pokes. that fight that took, you know. Well, he's a Minotauro guy. Cage Warriors is the UK For a while Fighting in Cage Fighters Storm Samurai 12. He had a great... Mm-hmm. He's got a fade and this big mustache now, and he's all jacked up again. There's something extra scary about a guy who'll fuck your knee up. Oh, son. it's just a matter of like getting comfortable there because i feel like my knees are just

1:38:53 Naga. Yeah. It is Overtime positions I love that guy. It just shows him have the back. So we're correct. when I learned jiu-jitsu it changed my life so you You know, like, so that's kind of my takeaway from the conversation. against a guy who's high level jiu-jitsu i know that i i understand that and i'm very aware of it believe you do and you're very good at it But one of the things that's interesting about real high-level MMA,

1:43:51 Sort of style that incorporates way more takedowns, You know, I think, yeah, I enjoy that much more. So I'm like, I'm really excited. fought like paul daly i'm sure that guy trains a lot of grappling as well and it shows like if he And that's just like bulletproof striking, you know? Yeah. Is that what's happening over in Bellator? in skull we've never seen that we've never seen x-rays were just insane ah like you got hit with

1:47:33 Douglas Lima's no joke. He's a big frame fella for 170. He's not going to trash talk a lot. talent-wise, unquestionably. I think that guy just puts on music and just whatever happens, happens. Super good. Dude, that's terrifying. I don't know. This is a training in Phuket Fight Club in, I guess, Thailand. Everybody come. Yeah, it's... The only thing that

1:50:41 sick. Yeah, it'd be good for... We should find out That would be hard for them to do though, mcl and then six months later still not ready to fight but they should do it like if you're not It's gonna be a while before You can go against a guy like Paul Harris him yeah yeah he didn't want to get his legs ripped apart. I think I remember that. It's not worth it.

1:52:37 But if a guy could stall you out, like that's a weird, just jumping out of your guard going knee to belly and smashing you in the face exactly you think you or something like that, Yeah. Me and Russell Peters. Couldn't be a nicer person. many levels to this thing yeah It just lets you know. You're trying to get him out, Joe Hogan. That character is one of the most weird, obscure.

1:55:20 I'm pretty sure he did. He's been doing this character for like 10 fucking years, man. Like Nate Diaz got legitimately mad at him. His character hates child support and is always attracted to butts. you go try to hit the streets his dad was a karate instructor too that's cool shit so what is next for you after this past fight um what do they do do they do

1:57:46 I was like, yeah, I'll take it. out of that card i'm not sure of that fight yeah someone pulled out of it and then they offered me How many times would you like to fight a year? I'll take six weeks. You can get a two-hour Thai massage for yourself. What kind of recovery place? Yeah. Now, do you do anything to monitor your heart rate or heart rate variability to see if you're over trained or under trained?

2:02:04 It's not guesswork anymore. this is where you need to be at. But now I'm ready to be active. what do you think you should uh do in terms of the next level of fighter you face like what I'm like, okay, well, sucks. And so that's kind of how I made the decision the last one. walker and so like johnny walker was coming off contender series but still nobody knew

2:05:46 I mean, like, the guy's huge so um yeah it was just it was weird like so i went from beating okan sake to losing johnny walker Well, so now that you did and you had the fight with Eric Anders They're all pretty tied up. Did Johnny Walker fuck his shoulder up when he was doing that worm thing? Yeah, dislocated it. Yeah. account of himself yeah that last fight with that flying knee was insane yeah so i'm sure i'm sure

2:08:33 I've never known anybody to have shoulder surgery and come back with a fully good shoulder. Two months. He didn't win the fight, but he showed everybody how technical he is, it's a John Jones that sort of has a real goal in mind. whenever I get my shot, depending on how it goes. and just put in the work and everything that it takes Well, it's an unbelievably talent-rich weight class, right?

2:11:11 You've got worthy challengers. That's what the division needs, I think. like test that like test if it works test if that's really going to be able to to sustain No, never. okay we we realized that thailand was extremely beneficial let's fucking move to thailand like so you're doing all these like really really smart moves where you know it's about fighting right and the only thing that i can prove and have to prove is what i can do with

2:14:42 only in the beginning with paul craig but oh yeah mean, that's always been Connor. So he created that for himself. But if I don't know you and I don't care about you, then I don't really consider it. Like, I'd like to maintain a healthy heart and mind It is. and having people reach out you know, blah, I'll let it loose. It's a great message too, man. And to have it come from you a guy i love those kind of stories where a guy's life was

2:17:58 No, everything is okay. That's why I love just reading the Tao Te Ching and just Kundalini Yoga. Well said. Thank you. Respect. fights again man can't wait to have you there it was really fun man we had a good fucking time it was great thank you thank you respect oh that was great man you were terrific