Joe Rogan Experience #10109 — Gordon Ryan Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! Gordon is undeniably the best pound-for-pound jiu-jitsu player on earth. I mean, I think that without him, I maybe would have been successful. And Gordon Ryan, pass over the left leg, Gordon Ryan, post, like the way he talks. that you know that when you hear your name being called, your first and last name, you know

2:40 Mmas those or even more about MMA that he does about jiu-jitsu Yeah, and never walks around without a rash guard on. We did a whole session with Chris Weidman. Just how crazy is it that he has a street rash guard? He's got like he's got like this really nice like underarm like this gray under armor sweatshirt that he or And they're just tight-fitting. He likes tight-fitting clothes.

5:01 is what he has inside that fanny pack. the best pound for pound grappler he's widely regarded as the best jiu-jitsu coach and it's And the specific details are what's going to be the difference between finishing a high-level guy and having a high-level guy escape. So they try to jump past your guard, they score an advantage, they score a couple points,

7:27 they did something. So just the mindset for winning in competition is completely different. I'm trying to finish you. And, you know, I think that most people's training programs are built the first time I ever started training with him was 2014. Was that the first So I've been training with John full-time like, you know, six years or so and And then once we got there and once we could beat the best guys in the world or at least hang with the best guys in the world,

10:56 How can I beat this guy? rounds. Now we have a lot more positional rounds in place, uh, where we start in certain positions we have a lot more experience in those domains than they do. figured out how to get out. He comes in the next day and he finds a match between Hodger Gracie and Tim Kennedy in MMA. there's something interesting about John in that he's injured.

13:41 Even being all fucked up, successful that must be motivating as well and it's also attracting a lot of other killers this guy's giving you all that he can for not asking anything in return. He's like, I'll see you tomorrow. No days off. and I train really light Maybe I work on submissions. Because that's actually going to refresh your enthusiasm. Yeah, John's the exact opposite like

17:11 So it's easy to stay interested in a sport that you come in and you know that you're going to And it's like, oh, okay. or like you go home and watch TV and relax. it. So when he goes home every night and he studies tape, you know for a fact that the next And also he studies why they're successful. it's relentless, like it's continual, it's constant,

19:56 they win world championships and they do really well, they are stagnant in their progress, and they get physically more mature until they're 30, Do you have an ultimate end goal? When I finish my career, I want people to sit back and think, wow, no one's ever going to get close to that. You're having a really hard time getting fights. I compete against you. I'm actually pretty nice when I compete against you. If you look at a guy

22:28 That's the other thing that's unusual about you, You have all these things you put out. Yeah, well, if you talk shit and you don't have the skills to actually back it up, you just look like a clown. Even if they hate you, they have no choice but to listen to you and respect you. and then gave it to the commentator and said, don't open this until after the match.

24:08 but the chances of him looking at it when he was getting ready to walk out and then finish him with 10 minutes left, which is what I did. my head. He used to wear, for folks who need to know this, he used to wear a Burger King crown. But And I'm just coaching my blue belt students like the team members back at them. Because I realized early on that no matter how nice you are, people are always going

26:47 Yeah. one he's literally swinging at your head like making it look like he's touching your head but and they DQ'd him for smacking me. Like sure, some things that I do, I, like first of all, I only attack guys who have actually attack someone who hasn't But Instagram deletes. And I think it's just the algorithm is like, had been like, has a hit on me. And I think that like,

29:46 So it's not even worth attacking people because you spend six hours online and four hours I didn't even know they did that. it was all useless. Instagram video will they delete that I'm like perma-banned on Facebook. and then I'm just banned for the next 30 days every single time. I'm like eating my food and I go on and I'm typing and I'm like – I tell Nat.

32:22 Now, I know that you had talked about doing MMA in the past, to be able to do the things that I'm doing then I feel like maybe I can leave jiu-jitsu. it's basically just a bunch of tough guys in a room who train together, who have no loyalty. Without Nikki, it's the collaboration of minds in the gym Kynan's game is different than Andre's. Hanger's game is different than Andre's. Keenan's game is

35:28 Yes. Right now you can make the argument that, sure, Gordon's the best in the world, That's what's crazy. So for ADCC, when you win the absolute, you go to the super fight. but the problem is, if I win the absolute and then Wow. so we're working around the class schedule of the gym owner. So he grapples and spars and then he pretty much goes right to jiu-jitsu and has to do that

39:09 Holy shit. Yeah. I mean, John knows a lot about striking. he looks comfortable out there. Yeah, so he has a couple guys who live there, They're huge. but double. Do you what do you I get massages sometimes just when I feel like I'm really tight mostly just use a guy to help me stretch So anything where I round my shoulders, So when I have to open myself up like this, if I try to put my hands over my head and do a squat,

42:22 so it's easy for me to have a good night's sleep And then we come home. I do, yeah. So then I end up going back into a routine where I lift at like 8 p.m., And then you eat food. I hate cold water. I just will pass ice baths. I'm definitely opposed to I hate cold water most of my focus is on. That's why I have to hire someone to help me stretch because

45:35 and a big impact on them. Yeah, I'm definitely not opposed to saunas. I actually like sitting Yeah, and if it'll help, then I'm definitely, I have to do some more research, but if it'll I always see the Photoshop Steve photoshopping you in sauna. I've never done them consistently. So I'll look more into Zana's then. and I came right back from that surgery, and I had to jump right into an ADCC camp. So my thing was I had to get my knee better and then I have to prepare for 2019 ADCC.

47:58 So I think that, you know, after I was actually getting ready to start talking to promotions about fighting MMA. in my first tournament, and then I competed at ADCC seven months to the day was losing all of its flexibility And then you do very mild exercises like body weight squats or lunges and stuff. I was getting exhausted. And then like a three-day span, I went from like just being terrible.

50:50 you know your timing's all off you get you start wrestling and your hand fighting's off your day way to becoming a legitimate professional sport like a much bigger professional sport I think me. Like one guy can only do so It's going to be great. go out they want to go uh you know up to their boss tomorrow and be like you know fuck you i'm for example. Yeah, it might not be, but I think it can be bigger than people give it credit for

53:58 Yeah, you know with all these big heavyweights out there. There's a lot of guys who are your size who? They want movement and they want submissions. like, wow, that was fucking, that was intense. Is John, does he have a game plan to try to elevate the status of grappling or to elevate the profile of it? Where if you look at a guy like George, George wasn't really entertaining outside of the ring,

56:05 you look at Conor, George is going to be like, and it only takes you so far. So he sat me down when I was like 17, and he talked to us about this. It's got to be so weird to have a guy like that as a mentor. wow, like, this is, this is like nothing you're ever going to find anywhere else. And he doesn't, and he watches tape from a 1956 he's applied,

59:05 And there's nothing wrong with that. there's just no comparison but it's also the level of intellect and this obsessive dedication yeah that was custom made by one of the best knife makers in Japan. I have to get stands for them still. But whenever we He designs his own knives. time and i'm like i'm like uh i'm like john like what was your favorite like you know tv show

1:01:29 It's nuts. You want to eat at least one of them. There's so many, and they're pretty smart, too. And, like, Texas is one of the worst places I hear from they opened up one road in Texas and the day they opened up the road like they did construction on this road I think it's in the billions. Yeah. Click on that. Well, that makes sense because there are a lot of farms here.

1:04:02 And they ruin people's farms. Three, four times a year they breed. It's bonkers. When you drive, you just go, this is all still Texas, right? And you just get six Is that what that means? I certainly do. Those are 2 million pigs caused the 52 million damage and there must be 30 million pigs roaming everywhere else. Similar. a nuisance, and they're going to have a hunt this year.

1:06:56 Yeah. It says they have moved up to, it says 88 of them have been moved on to tribal lands since 2019, compared to the other animals. Yeah, you can use horses. for these backcountry hunters. Mules can't fuck other mules. That's it? Like with a really good rifle, you just squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, boom. implies that they want to make sure hunting Oh Peterson's hunting that's right it's called. It's just hunting? Oh, Peterson's hunting. That's right.

1:10:41 it up and sling it over my shoulder. It was like pound leg. They're fucking You know, that's two years of the best meat on planet Earth. You make osso bucco out of the shanks. Like, American Indians, they were pretty goddamn smart in what they hunted. All you'd have to do is just pull out a rifle and just, oh, here we go. They were just in this big pile. They're used to seeing people.

1:12:43 do something to get close. Pigs are fuck this. They just haul off. vision. But they can smell really keep track of them, and then pigs the one time that was it. I've never, I didn't grow up hunting or anything like that, select amount of foods that I'm actually able to eat. That's crazy. And when did this start? I go through the whole day extremely nauseous, and then I just go to sleep nauseous. So you're nauseous right now

1:15:44 kind of in these waves where my stomach's okay for a few months and then it starts to, and then I just have a meal at nighttime. But I would just waste away if I was fasting. So I go kind of in these waves where my stomach's okay for a few months and then it starts to, So I'm basically just piling food on top of food that's already in my stomach and just not getting pushed through to my intestines.

1:17:01 Guys like him, people I'm competing against are like 250, 260, 270. When I fought Boshesha I talked to him about it and I've just done my own research. And I do think that fasting would hour or so, they put you between this machine and it takes images of the radioactive dye and it tells you how long it takes it'll get better. I'm young. It'll be fine. And then like six months went by and I like,

1:19:41 basically have no idea what's going on. We just basically take our best guess and we do some trial and error, trial and error medications. So I'm like, I'm not going cause of this. Uh, so I went So I started going to a few different doctors. And it's helping a little bit. I was just so, it just was so terrible. use that if if it if it works great if it doesn't then you're kind of fucked have you researched

1:22:38 And then some people have some different experiences with different medicines. to just be better than the number one guy in the world. But my goal now is focused around how can And when I took the antibiotics, I was amazed at how much they wreck your endurance. it's like no you can't like you go into lift weights and you're like about to have a heart

1:24:55 I tried kombucha for a little bit, and it seemed to help. Like if I can eat food, I get big quickly. get okay. What really messes me up is when I have to travel and eat like shitty foods that's not home cooked. So I think that the kombucha helped, but it was just I'm always, I'm always put in hotels where I don't have kitchens I have to maybe talk to Flo when they book my next hotel

1:27:02 out in the living room and, you know, maybe go over positions and stuff in your actual house. Everybody sleeps in the same house instead of being in a bunch of like halfway through the podcast, I'm still super nauseous. And now it's like just starting to wear like, you know, five, six Big Macs at the same time, like I used to be able to eat more than

1:28:38 And, you know, then I kind of realized that anything that's really hard to digest or really processed is not good for me. Vegetables? Vegetables are usually okay. Yeah. Vegetables. Yeah. They're not, I found it's the best for me in terms of like drinkable protein shakes. what is happening here yeah it's like you don't put enough you don't put enough water in it's

1:30:38 Because a lot of times if I eat a good meal, eat and build it into your training sessions like if i just had to eat food all day it's easy but fried foods are the worst for me anything fried just it just fucks me up for like what do you eat after the Jiu-Jitsu session and they're going to reach out to you No, it's actually it's a it's a medicine that originally they used, they tested

1:33:49 what it is but like the second is the second either i eat an edible or i try to smoke something so you just work through it and manage it. while being so compromised. So the way my contract works but I want to be able to put experienced MMA guys on the fence, But I think what their ultimate goal is, is they want to make a jiu-jitsu belt and they want to have divisions for jiu-jitsu, like in MMA.

1:36:50 america are gonna get it as well are gonna are gonna watch it yeah um but i it's gonna be Well, I know that some people have priced themselves out. Because for people who don't know, there was an event here a few weeks weeks ago and he came up to you and what did he say to you uh so the whole thing originally started when you know i was petitioning for matches against the best level against the

1:39:09 But then I win the absolute, so it kind of sparked everyone's interest. for the sport. But if Andre chooses And then he like kind of So after the last match where Craig submitted his student, Ronaldo, we went up to shake their hands in the corner after. This is kind of Jamie go find the video because there's a video of this I was like this is kind of out of character for Andre to be like talking shit to me when nobody's around because nobody was

1:41:26 Why are you running? Yeah. He called you a pussy. She bolted over there. Why do you want to do that? You always talk shit. as far as you can go before following me and I was like okay maybe he changed his know but i'm not like a bitch like if you walk up to me and you start pushing me like we're gonna People get upset because I talk about the numbers that I have

1:45:21 had food poisoning the day before so I I was, like, all fucked up. Coincidentally, on the way there, Nat's bike gets a flat tire. And it sucked my hand in between one of the bones and I tore a few ligaments. before that and then that. as strong holding weight like this. For the best but I got an x-ray and an MRI and they're like, you know, it's fine. It's it's all healed now

1:48:02 and I had to try to compete against Paul Horace the week after that. it gets sore for a few days or a few weeks, Okay. It's okay. Most of the time, it hurts. And Aljamain Sterling now has a fake disc in his neck. It's like those are the ones that when you fuck them up, What was that weird match that you had with Pat Downey? scoring. and the way they have it set up is for the first,

1:50:53 for five minutes, and then the The stances are much different. So I was like, how can I make this more exciting? And he wants to start fighting MMA, and he wants to start dabbling in jiu-jitsu, What I wanted to prove was that under an ADCC rule set, ADCC rule set, and that I would eventually It's very common in wrestling. With he like rolled me through like a bunch of times and he teched me in like 20 seconds because in tech means 11 points

1:53:46 But I didn't win the jiu-jitsu match how I wanted to. where it was you could do jiu-jitsu, but you weren't Because if you think about it, if you're ultimately looking to transition to MMA, So then your whole thing is So it's very like MMA. There's just not punches, but there's submissions. And guys are trying to I know Jordan Burrows is making a living just doing grappling competitions,

1:56:43 with a gi. time away from that legacy Well, it translates to MMA. And matches end up boring It was like, you know, done it forever. Hodger's the greatest of all time. But what did everyone tell us coming through the ranks? So specializing in nogi jiu-jitsu, yes, of course I'm going to be better He was like, they're only saying this because they're good at the gi and they don't want to give up the gi because they give

2:00:15 And, I mean, people have done a pretty poor job overall at adapting, to be honest. They copy just a general outline of what we're trying to do. But no one's really even doing a good job of not even just copying us, but no one at all is going beyond what we're doing. And he moved to this shithole that is New York to just take a train or a car through the Lincoln Tunnel every day.

2:02:34 why would you make a move to New York? I want to fully envelop myself in what they're doing, and I want to be a part of that. to move to New York and I was like, let me give it a try. I get to wake up at 6 a.m. and go to train the next day. I bought a house in New Jersey. everyone was always so, you know, pissy and aggressive. I never liked being verbally and

2:05:18 And so John, his response was to the way New York City Like it was like a ghost town in New York. They kept raising prices on everything. And it's like, why am I going to stay here if were so many uncertainties at the time. We didn't want to move to Texas, spend $200,000 opening up Yeah, so we're in Combat 360, a buddy of ours, Juan, that we know through one of our mutual friends.

2:08:10 and it's crowded so right now we're just working at a friend's gym we're working on opening up a Florida was pretty open at the time, right? But in Puerto Rico, we had friends there that just said, When did you guys start competing again? And then the first events that started popping back up, in Puerto Rico, you can kind of do whatever you want, right? Yes, they're still kind of,

2:10:56 $10,000. but no one enforces them. everything seems slow. Oh, yeah. because they're so small and they're so fun to drive. They're so light. Yeah. Everyone, to where if you pop the clutch at 8,000 RPM, giving you everything I have, yeah. Really? 181 horsepower. like a 5.4, something like that. to the rear like is there a way to do that where they could beef up the the rear end i'm not sure

2:14:58 But people are dropping huge V8s into them. The S2000s? I'm like, the Miata is like, it's just modern enough. Like, everything about it, like, you feel everything. that if you just stomp on the gas It's a crate engine that GM sells. Let's put the windows up so we can get audio. The whole drivetrain is built for this, right? It sounds amazing. listen to because Matt really understands cars okay so they adjusted a

2:17:59 I wonder how much one of those costs to do that kind of a swap. and you have, like, a sub-5, 0-60. But it's also why it's so fucking pretty. yeah that's a ridiculous car they put the SRT one I love all cars. it's fun, but you know And the tires are spinning. So they're coming out with the new CT5 Blackwing How many doors is it? It's definitely the future, but there's nothing like a fucking-

2:21:18 They're the only ones. Yeah, most of my cars are manual transmission. Yeah. Yeah. Rico who's going to, you can rent the track for like 200 bucks a day or something in Puerto Rico. I don't need to have need to open up a school to support myself but maybe i'm just gonna be bored maybe i not be surrounded by anybody. But uh, it's, it's tough to say. Don't you think you'd get bored?

2:24:00 That's not a bad move. Yeah. Instructionals make far more than sponsors, competitions, and seminars all put together. instructionals though here's the big question how come people aren't seeing these instructionals, though, here's the big question. How come people aren't seeing these instructionals and then utilizing your system, and they don't really get any better.

2:26:21 They're too lazy to watch an 11-hour instructional on back attacks. And they just were like, you know what, fuck this guy. I'm going to do the same shit I've been doing for the last 25 years. Then he coasts on the technique he has, and the only progression that he makes from the age of 25, where he wins his first ADCC, to the age of 35, is everyone just takes more steroids.

2:27:33 they're relatively the same in technique, I mean, if you look at actual jiu-jitsu, They do one test on the day of the event everyone who passed suicide tests are natural absolutely not um so you know the the the Derek's YouTube shows more plates, more dates. There's a lot. Yeah. industry for for beating drug tests has a lot more money going through it than

2:31:05 it actually has on cycling. and they had figured this out by doing a micro analysis of the glass that the urine was in. in fucking the cover of It's crazy. That are like twice as jacked and twice as cut as they believe that's the case at all. Yeah. Yoel Romero just got pulled from his fight with Rumble Johnson. It's too early to tell yet. Really? I think they want to get billboards

2:34:41 I don't know if I can. Shit! Am I going to relinquish the super fight title That's like the thing that annoys me the most is everyone thinks it was fake, absolute. Uh, but the way the ADCC does it is I knew it was coming. Yeah, that that is that's always been the case with when jiu-jitsu teams meet up. I mean they would make agreements Like it's crazy.

2:37:40 And they talk about, you know, being humble and having respect. So it's like you have like 10,000 people fighting over a thousand dollars and everybody wants a thousand dollars to do whatever they can to get, to get there. Um, so there's a lot of scumbaggery It's just crazy. Andre should sue him. of him pushing you first. by far is Hodger. like I'm mauling people today.

2:40:33 Yeah, is he still training on a regular basis? Like most of the guys that compete at the highest levels Like this is your job. but in order to make money doing jiu-jitsu, there's a lot more to it than just going out and winning a few tournaments. There's no part-time savages. goes on, it's just going to get worse and worse for everybody. Why are you getting better faster?

2:43:23 engineer what issues you have, and you can solve problems by yourself. and we end up creating something completely different, find authentic people now it is very hard and when do you have a scheduled They're trying to find, they're trying to, you know, Well, I can't wait for all of them.