Joe Rogan Experience #10185 — Ethyn Ewing Transcript

Transcript

0:01 Joe Rogan podcast, checking out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Good to see you. It's a good to be here. I like your shirt. I appreciate it. Professor Faneser. Is that your Professor Fennesser line? This is one of my designs of my Professor Fennesser line. Got the cross guard there. I like it. That's dope. We got a couple different symbols. Something that I'm building up, I want to get out to the people. It's a cool nickname.

0:32 It's unique. For sure. It came about a funny way, but I like it. It's the mantra that it brings to the fight game and to who I am is perfect. Well, it's finesse, and you fight with a lot of finesse. So we should start from your UFC debut because that was when you really burst onto the scene. You fought this guy, Malcolm Wellmaker, who's a killer, vicious knockout puncher, and had a ton of hype behind him because of his performance. Was it the Contender Series We had the big performance? It was all three of them Yeah

1:17 And nobody had heard of you And that's one of the craziest things About this sport Is that there can be a guy like you That's learning and growing In the shadows And then they get the call And on I think it was Two Days notice Yeah So two days notice you fought above your weight because you're abandoned weight normally and you fought a feather weight. And dude, you just, it wasn't just that you fought a guy who was this vicious striker. It was the calmness and the technique and the smoothness of it all that was so impressive. And I was like, this guy's different. Like the way you fight is very intelligent. And I love that.

2:31 it's like you said I like to fight with finesse I like to hit and not get hit and champions don't take return fire so I hope to have a lot of longevity with this game and yeah that's why I fight that way that is the formula for longevity I was having a conversation with Fador the guy who's sitting next to us who's one of the best pool players in the world and he's getting we just got back from ways to well so shout out to Brigham and all the people ways to well for taking care of us but he and I were talking about fighters and about it's very similar to, I think, everything, whether it's pool or golf or, and there's the people that really focus on technique

3:11 and fundamentals and really objectively look at what they're doing and refine it. And we were talking about guys who just stand in front of each other and blast each other. I'm like, look, the crowd will cheer. They will love to see you, but your career will be shorter And then I see who he's fighting. I'm like, oh, God. Like I don't want to see this guy take any more punishment. I don't, you know, enough is enough. and those styles of just face first, just attacking, boy, the audience loves you, and that's a trap. Right. That is a real trap. Yeah, I mean, 100%.

4:11 And I think that's, it's almost a little frustrating that the general public gives that kind of energy to that kind of a match. Sure, I get it. It's exciting. You want to see blood spill. Like, people just really enjoy the chaos of all that and all the movement and the energy that goes into it. But, yeah, you're four guys. going that whole technical aspect, like the perfection of controlling the dance from the beginning to the end and everything in between, you know, it's, and it's almost just like a, like an educated

4:41 street brawl. You're getting in there and just swinging and going crazy. And to me, that's not what martial arts is. I mean, it's, it literally is the, the chase of perfection to it of, you know, like the hit and don't get hit that is the art of, of boxing, but the art of striking in martial arts. You know, you want to be, yeah, near perfect in the way you engage in this is laying the damage and be able to cut those angles, move your head, pull out the distance, and not take any of that in return. And yeah, a lot of guys get cheered on initially. And so it's unfortunate that maybe it's not unfortunate, but you just see it a lot that, yeah, those guys get hyped up off the beginning and then all the other things happen, like you said.

5:25 Well, I mean, look, they are exciting. I love when guys fight like that, because it's just crazy to watch. But I have to set aside the rational part of my brain that says this is not smart. It's not a good thing for them. And there's no future in this. Eventually, it's going to catch up to you. Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, if I watch these guys get after it, like Roman Puga versus his opponent on the Dana-White contending series this last Tuesday, I believe it was.

5:50 Oh, that was crazy. Dude, I mean, I've trained with Roman a little bit here and there. He's from the same area as me. and yeah, the guy's very skillful, but at the end of the day, both those guys walked out of there just busted up. I mean, they went straight to the hospital, and it's fantastic to watch, but from a fighter's perspective, at least from someone who's engaging in this on the same level as they are, yeah, I don't know, that's why I like, you know, a little bit more of that precise style with the boxing specifically, I guess. I've really drawn a lot of aspects from it. Oh, for sure. I mean, there's an art. to like a fighter that fights with style and a fighter that fights with finesse.

6:30 Like I always go to Izzy in his prime. Atosanya in his prime, when he was just styling on dudes. I mean, it was a beautiful thing to watch. It was like a dance. It was almost like he was coordinating them. Right. He was moving them into his strikes and everything was like faints. They were all like very specific to gauge reactions. And he put it all into the, computer and the next thing you know he's tuning you up right yeah I mean uh he's dancing his way out yeah into the octagon and then he's dancing in there you know yeah yeah it's it's um and I think the other thing that the general public doesn't understand about this game is that it's a smart man's game yes it's not a tough man's game well that's one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you because I've seen a lot of your quotes online I've seen you talk you're obviously a thoughtful person and I think you have to be to have that kind of a style because it does take a lot of

7:25 of thinking. It takes a lot of like what you're doing in there by constantly overloading your opponent's nervous system with movement and and and and constant counters and being like right out of range but then right in range and then right out of range. There's a lot of intelligence involved in that. Right. And for someone like me who really loves the art of it, I love watching a guy like you fight because I really wish young fighters would emulate people like you. Young fighters would see a guy like that like that's what I want to fight like. I don't want to this guy who goes in there and the end of my career my face is just a road map of scars and i got

8:00 cTE but boy people remember back in the day when i knocked that guy out or when we had this fight of the night and yeah yeah and um it's taken a lot of experience a lot of growth a lot of seeing different things because when i was a wrestler it was the iwood style of wrestling that i emulated and that i hope to emulate which is it's just get in your face it's break you down break spirit, break you physically, just completely wipe you out with just outstanding pressure, you know. And I think I suffered with the finesse, with a little bit of the technicality of set things up and being smooth because I was just clubbing on your head, snapping people down, going, going, going, going. And I refined that. I've pulled back from that almost too much, I would say,

8:48 to where if I'm striking with someone, I don't even want to engage in, like, a battle of physicality. These guys try to push and move and get up and I'm like, you know, I'll sit and I'll dance and I'll roll up and I'll shut them down real quick and I'm steering them off and I'm throwing really quick and they try to get physical where they're really trying to make it, you know, a high pace and and just more physical. I don't want to engage with that at all. I want to steer from beginning to the end. I want to keep my heart rate as low as possible. I want to land shots and then I want to be back to sitting and like you said, covering a distance, controlling everything where I can sit, I can take my breath, and I can see what's coming next, and then I can

9:28 move accordingly. And so, you know, after being out for a little bit of time, I'm now even elevated another, yeah, to another greater extent in my own mind that I'm now starting to combine the two things to where before I, I wouldn't say I shied away from it. You know, I'm a tough guy if we want to get physical and if it needs to go to that, I'm there all day. You know, don't get me wrong with that but um i'm finding that middle ground where i was i was too much of that iowa style without the finesse now i was trying to be all skillful all finesse dance around the mohammed ali shuffle throw that flicker jab be out of range you know and and not want to engage in the physicality too much and now i've elevated once again to where i'm finding that perfect middle ground that

10:16 you know my i'm letting my ego go in the gym to where if we do get to that physicality you or someone gets me with something. If it doesn't look perfect, I'm not sitting there thinking, oh, I need to look perfect and avoid these things. Now I'm just sending it and getting after it. So, yeah, it's an ever-evolving game, and I'm just getting better all the time with everything. So you'll never see me go in there and brawl anybody,

10:39 but you'll see less hesitation. You'll see more precise shots, and then all the other finesse will always be there. Well, it is a constant work in progress, right? And I think that's one of the more interesting things about MMA, is that you see a fighter when they first start fighting in the UFC, and then you see as fights go on, and they get more fights, they get more confidence, they get more experience,

11:00 and they also get significantly better. You know, it's kind of rare that you see athletes in a sport, generally speaking, when they get to a certain professional level, they're kind of already at their peak. And they might get a little better, but in MMA in particular, you see dramatic improvement in fighters over the course of four or five years. especially if they have good management and good training.

11:24 And one of the things that you're talking about is like letting your ego go in the gym. It is so important. It's so important to recognize that training is for learning. You're not trying to win every training session. You're not trying to win fights. You're trying to get better at winning actual fights. And sometimes getting better at winning actual fights is addressing whatever weird weaknesses or weird places where you're not as comfortable and getting comfortable there. And the best way to do that is just force yourself in those situations.

11:50 Yeah, 100%. It's hard to do, though, because guys want to be dominant. They want to, you know, you don't want to lose a training session. You don't want to give, you know, this guy that you're sparring with, the impression that he can kick your ass. Right. So you want to get it back on them, but sometimes it's smart to not. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I'm over there, the Ritola brothers are training over there at CSW with Eric Paulston right now.

12:12 And, yeah, it's like. Those guys are phenomenal. Yeah, they're the best in the world at what they do, you know? They're so fun to watch. could put jujitsu on the map. Oh, yeah. Because the Ritou brothers, like, when they do jujitsu, it is like this chaotic, exciting, like very kinetic, very technical path to your neck. Right. You know, that's what it is. It's just this constant path to your neck. Dude, and they got these monkey arms that it can just wrap around your neck and get that darch choke from anywhere, man. It's ridiculous.

12:45 Long arms are awesome. The long arms are insane. Such an advantage. Like Hodger Gracie had that. Yeah. A lot of guys have that. A lot of, like, the best dars guys. Hamzad has that. Right. Those long arm guys, fuck, man. Yeah. And then, like you said, like, their ability to... They almost, like, enforce the chaos because that's where they thrive at, you know? All that scramble situation. They're running, doing crazy jumps, like crazy sweep setups. Was it Kate or Thai?

13:12 I think... I don't know I say it was Thai when he ran and he bounced off the cage or the ropes. And he runs back in and double legs. Yeah. Like, the dude, like a WWE match. You know, they're like thriving off of that chaotic energy. Scambles. Yeah. They're so good in scrambles. You know, and it's really interesting watching. Is it Ty that's doing one FC that is it doing MMA fights now? They're both fighting. They're both fighting now. And that's, it's going to be exciting to have those guys enter into the UFC someday. Hopefully they will. Yeah.

13:41 For sure. They're just freak athletes, you know. It's something that they've been around since they were super, super young. And, yeah, I mean, even they're striking, you know, it's not super technical quite yet. They're very brand new in it. But they're just, they got long reach. They're very methodical. They're athletic. They understand distances from the jihitsu world of setting up takedowns and, you know, closing that distance. So, but yeah, what I was saying is, like, going with that kind of a guy, it's like the last thing I want to do is engage in, like, a grappling position with them in the jihitsu or in the MMA. And, uh, but it's like, yeah, the more I do that, I'm only going to get better at doing that kind of stuff, you know? A hundred percent. Kill the ego. Engage full head on into what you're bad at. That's the only way to get good at anything. Another great thing about those guys is they're totally natural. And in the jiu-jitsu world, that's rare. Right. That's really rare. Jiu-jitsu's a dirty sport, man. Yeah. Or, you know, I mean, is it dirty if everyone's doing it? No. Let me say it this way. It's an enhanced sport.

14:48 Right. For the most part, the elite guys are on some Brazilian supplements. It's legal, but they're all doing it. Yeah, they're all juiced up. I mean, it's kind of legal. Like, Abu Dhabi doesn't test. A lot of places don't test. So it's like, and you see these guys, there's no way. Some of them. And, you know, kudos to guys like Gordon, like Gordon Ryan, who talks very openly about it. He's like, everybody's on performance-enhancing drugs. Why would not be on performance-enhancing drugs? Right. My goal is to be the absolute best that I could be, period. Right. You know, and the idea that the only reason why he's so good is because of steroids is also equally ridiculous.

15:25 Because when he was younger and when he was much smaller, he was winning tournaments left and right and beating world champions. Right. And he was totally natural. Yeah, I mean, there's no way you can say someone like Gordon Ryan isn't the highest prowess of skill set for jiu-jitsu. You know, like his technicality and his abilities there are unquestionable. Yeah, what, I mean, what are you going to do? If everybody else is on that level, you're now at a deficit if you're not taking it. So there's a few guys that don't.

15:56 And maybe, I don't know, obviously there's maybe some strength skill or strength deficit there. But that's why, again, going back to my style and what I like to do with, like the technicality and having that ability, there's just so many aspects to everything. But if you're that much more technical than someone, then that can negate size to some extent. That can negate strength to some extent. Like there's a lot of equalizers there. Now, you know, on the opposite end,

16:29 someone who's got that one hit or quitter, they could be less technical, but they're always dangerous. If they hit you one time and you go to sleep, then all sins are forgiven. They could have got beat up for two rounds straight and they knock you out. That's all the crowd remembers. So there's a lot that goes into it. But if you're that much more, you know, skilled in your technicality, that's, that's, you're going to, to me, that's the best you can do. That's what you're chasing. For sure. The really dangerous guys are the guys who have that one hitter, quitter power, and then they get real technical. Yeah. Those are the scary guys. Oh, for sure.

17:04 I mean, that's, now you have it all. Yeah. That's the pitiful. Often not the case, though. That's what's interesting is power can be a curse, as can talent. talent can be a curse too because you don't work as hard because you fuck everybody up in the gym and so you don't show up for practice sometimes you still fuck these guys up they're just not on your level physically or for whatever reason yeah and then there's guys that have that power that

17:28 always just rely on that power and never really develop the fundamentals and so like dionte wilder is a great example of that dante wilder who i think is the greatest one-punch knockout artist in the history of the heavyweight division yeah that fucking guy who and not a big guy Yeah, but his power is nuts and Teddy Atlas has the greatest Definition of it the description of it he said it's the greater racer Any mistakes he makes one shot erases them all yeah it's so true oh 100% Yeah it's uh I agree I mean But could you imagine if Deontay could move like Tyson Fury right if Deonti could box like Tyson Fury yeah with also with that crazy insane power

18:12 Yeah, it's it's game over for That's game over for everybody. Or Ussack. Who stands in front of that guy. Yeah. Not a single person, you know. This episode is brought to you by Blue Chew. Man, let's talk about Blue Chew. They're already the number one brand for better sex. But what they're doing with Blue Chew Gold is completely next level. Gold is a four-in-one formula designed to make your bedroom noisy again. Obviously, it gets you hard, like you're back in your 20s. And everything is handled 100% online. But gold boosts your arousal. Getting you ready for sex physically and mentally. Plus, it dissolves under your tongue for faster absorption, so you get that spontaneous

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19:19 Check it out. This ad and the products being advertised are intended for a United States audience. Yeah, if he could move like Us-I mean, it's a tall fucking order because no one can move like Usik other than Usik. But imagine if he could move like Usik. Right. You know? I mean, N has that crazy? Stop! Bang! One shot. You're in another fucking dimension. Yeah, and that's, you know, there's, and then. That's obviously, like, at a personal level. Like, some people are blessed with that talent, like you said, or a skill set or athleticism. Well, the power thing is just, it seems like it's a gift.

19:55 Yeah. No, it is. I mean, I think it was for us. I was talking about Connor and he was talking about how the muscles connect to the muscle head differently. It's like a long or short ones. And then you either have like that real explosive power, but then your cardio suffers, whatever it is. He's going into it. It's a gift. I mean, can you develop it to some extent? Yeah, of course. Now, the other thing with punching, with striking is it's not always like power that knocks people out. It's a shot that you don't see coming that knocks you out. Sure. You know? And so, you know, then you can kind of equalize on that playing field, I suppose, to some extent,

20:32 if you're getting people guessing, you're getting people fainting, you're hitting them with shots that they're not seeing, then you're going to get similar, you know, knockout finishes like that. There's a lot of guys that knock a lot of people out that don't have one point. much power for sure. Max Holloway is a great example of that. Like Max is never, even though he has knock guys out with one shot, it's generally like after a bunch of damage. Right. But I mean, Max talked about it pretty openly about guys like Connor and Josealdo and he's like, they just get tired quicker because of the speed and power. They're so explosive. It's so much energy to try to close the distance that quick and land those big nuclear bomb shots. But you only have a few

21:10 of those in a whole fight. Yeah, I feel like Max's perspective on those two guys may be construed just because of, I mean, he fought Connor the first time, I guess, when Connor was in his prime, you know, and he was almost before his prime. It was on that rise. They were both kids. I think Max was 20 at the time. Yeah, he was, I think he was like the youngest USC fighter at that time or something close to it. He was a different human back then. For sure, but I just think, so like, because Connor's cardio is something that I have noticed. It wasn't, it wasn't super poor, like initially. When he was fighting at 145, I mean, to me, he never, like Chad Mendez, they had a lot of grappling exchanges. Chad took him down. Chad hit him with shots. You know, Connor just stayed nice, calm, cool,

21:57 and collected, and he got back to the striking where he could do that. But to me, he never was, like, gassed out. But then you watch the second Dia's fight, and he's running around the cage for five rounds. Now he's gone up in a weight class. So then it goes back to, you know, what's his training regimen look like? He's not cutting as much weight, so he doesn't have to be as much as discipline. His diet changes. There's a lot of aspects. So, like, I don't know.

22:23 The Connor one was weird to me just because I saw a change in it. When he was at 145, he didn't have poor cardio. As soon as he left that weight class, his cardio waned. And then Joseo Aldo, I mean, that guy was undefeated for what, 10 years? years, a champion for 10 years, and you never saw him get tired. And I never saw him get tired. Yeah, Max fought him at a certain point when he's a little bit older, this and that. So I don't know, maybe that's just Max's perspective on that.

22:51 I'm not saying Max is incorrect in what he's saying. But I don't know. To me, there's just, I haven't pinpointed exactly what's the right and wrong way to do everything, just because there's so many variables, especially in MMA. I mean, we were kind of discussing a little bit earlier is it's not just solely that you have, like, good cardio that allows you to continue to perform in that fight. There's another aspect of how calm, cool, and collected you can be because, you know, like we were talking, hitting the midst and something. If you're real tense and you're just trying to kill them, yeah, you're going to burn yourself out. But if you're fast and snappy, you're producing just as much, if not, more power.

23:33 And now you're being more efficient with it, you know? And so, I don't know, the cardio one is a funky one in combat sports to me. It really is. But I think if you look at Jose Aldo, Jose Aldo, when he was on top, when he was the king, he was wrecking everybody. And he was the hammer most of the time. And he was so athletic and so fast and had some of the best leg kicks we had ever seen. Like the Uriah Favor fight, how fucking tough is Uriah Fabor? Yeah.

24:03 Because, like, that guy, many, many, many humans would have been stopped a long time ago just from those light kicks. And I just kept trying to the very last second of the, even though he was way behind the scorecards, never folded up his tent. He was still trying. But Aldo wasn't the nail. You know what I'm saying? Like there was very few moments in a fight where someone had really started overwhelming him. And one of the things that Max has always been so good at is knowing when to hit the gas and knowing when to just slug. Slowly ramp up the pressure and you see guys start to fade and Max is a cardio fucking machine. I mean super disciplined guy

24:41 Right and great camp those guys in Hawaii really prepare him well. He is always like 100 like the fight with Gachi Fighting in the fifth round of a fucking crazy chaotic war just the same exact pace he was fighting in the first round Right. So it's the experience of knowing what your body can do when you can hit the gas when you need to back off when to move when not not to and when you feel your opponents start to fade a little bit you see the mouth being open a little bit more you see the movement looks a little sloppier right oh 100% that's yeah no one went to rest is is a big aspect of that as well because you go and you mean that's why a lot of the training you do is is that short burst you know you hit like your sprints um you know you might maybe hit the straight away on on the track and then you jog and maintain because in a fight you're never

25:27 completely resting you're always moving a little bit um so yeah i mean that's that's that's a huge thing. The experience, I think his style and just what he's created, like you said, in his camp, is a high output, high volume individual, so you know, his body's probably become used to that, and that's how he performs. Yeah, I was shocked that Connor wanted to fight him in his first fight back after years off. I mean, five years is a long time to not fight. And then to come back and fight a guy like Max, who's been constant

26:03 fighting the best guys in the world and knowing that Max is a guy who never fades and he's in very different I mean the only guy has really gotten him out of there is Ilya and you know Ilya caught Max when Max went down from 55 down to 45 which I think was a mistake he was so big he got so big to get up to 55 to fight Justin and he did it over a long period of time put a lot of mass on and then you essentially you're starving yourself to get down to 45 again your body's going to be weak no matter what you do it's not like he was when he was fighting at 45 he maintained a lower weight class knew exactly when to cut and would make it no problem each time that last cut to 45 was a nightmare it was a horror show and so when he got in there with ilia and then

26:48 you're fighting el matador that motherfucker you want to talk about technique right technique and strike the smoothness and efficiency and the one punch go night night power i mean that guy has it above it. Who the fuck did that to Charles Oliver the way that guy did? I mean, that's nuts. He's got, and up to 55, when Oliver was a big 55, too. Yeah. I mean, yeah, him moving up to 55, there's some

27:12 big dogs right there. Big. Especially when you look at him and Justin, when him and Justin were like facing off with him, I'm like, that's a way bigger dude. Like, Justin's bigger than me and Ilya's smaller than me. When I stand next to two of them, I'm like, this is crazy that Ilya has the kind of power that he's just wrecking guys even that are way bigger than him. yeah i mean his his his skill set is is amazing combined with the power that's that's someone you talk about has a skill set and the punching power you know and encompasses both of those things it's yeah he's he's got it all i mean um and and the thing with him too is he's just so he's so calm cool and collected i think that's also something i mean i i do a lot of like comparison from from moitai boxing to the MMA world because, you know, I'm in MMA, so I understand that there's so many different aspects to it where, like, someone could take you down, and that's going to affect your striking skill set, you know?

28:10 If you've got someone who's real dope wrestler and you're a way better striker, if you're sitting there and worried about them taking you down and smothering you, your striking goes out the window a little bit because now you have a whole different set of weapons that you're worrying about. And you can get caught easier. Yeah, especially if you're, like, just loading up on them. Yeah, you're going to get ducked under and, you're going to get ducked under and double-legged and then taken down and that's that's the whole thing but um i forgot

28:37 where we even started this train i thought but uh yeah i mean i think it's his his collectin is too but i was i was saying there's comparisons to all these and that's what like boxing you see these guys they might have a couple more rounds but they come out in like the first round maybe uh the second round is is a feeling out round you know it's it's a slow buildup where they're They're collecting data. They're setting traps. They're doing a lot of that. And you see that in MMA, just not at the same level.

29:06 Obviously, there's a greater skill set. There's more weapons to worry about. It is different. But I don't know. Obviously, I'm reaching for peak perfection with everything. So if we're coming and we're looking at distance control, I think the boxers do it better. If we're looking at setting up faints and working off a jab especially, I think that's the most frustrating thing when I watch.

29:29 MMA or UFC fights and watch the majority of the guys never ever use a jab and it's always just this big overhand right I'm like like what are you doing like you have two hands like that's crazy you have the jab set it up now I'm not saying that's everybody but I see I see many people doing that but that going back to Tuporia that's one thing that he does so well is he's a shorter guy he sits back on that back foot he's throwing that jab he's he's understanding your distance control so he can get in and then that's where he's got that power and he lets that go.

30:00 It's going to be interesting to see how he rebounds because that was a lot of damage. Two fractured orbitals. You know, they had to stop the fight in between rounds. Yeah. And he took big punches from a guy who's got fucking rocks in his hands. Yeah. I mean, Justin can crack. Well, they call him what, the most violent? Yeah. The most violent in the game, and I think that stands true. Yeah, that's a hard one to bounce back from. It's going to take extra time of him really letting all his injuries heal and be fully recovered before he even thinks about sparring again, you know, ever get touched

30:35 in the face again. Yeah, I don't know where he's at now, you know, but I know that he's still recovering, and it'll be a while. I mean, the fight was in June. We're doing this right now. It's August 30th. Was it 30th or 31st? 31st? So, you know, he's had a couple of months, but, you know, he probably needs like six months before he's even sparring again. Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah, I mean, it's going to take some time. It's going to take some time, and the that I really hate to see is when you guys you have undefeated individuals like that who have gone undefeated their whole career feel invincible and then sometimes that one takes them off their pedestal you know like Josie Aldo's a great example of that of I mean and he came back and he fought tough but he just never was the same right he was never that untouchable um you know there's probably

31:22 many people that I can touch back on but yeah hope I think hopefully that's that's the main thing he's going to need is that mental indestructibility and to come back and just be like I'm the same person, that one fight doesn't change anything and I'm ready to go do it again. Well, he's a very mentally strong guy. I think he will bounce back in that regard. There's also just the reality of how much damage

31:48 and only he knows how much damage he actually took in that fight. You know, how that affects him as well. Because you know as well as anybody that there's only a few of those kind of fights that you could have in your career. And you've got to be very careful how you recover from those. And a lot of fighters, a lot of great fighters have made a mistake of coming back too soon. Volcanovsky is one that I point to all the time, who's arguably the greatest featherweight of all time. He is one of the most masterful fighters in the game. He took a short, short-notice fight with Islam in the rematch and got

32:22 head kicked. And then I think it was only four months later that he was fighting Ilya. And that is crazy. That's a crazy thing to do. He took a full head kick, shined of the dome, gets caoed, and then four months later he's fighting the fucking scariest challenger that he's ever had a face. Right. Yeah, 100%. You can't rush back into those things. I mean, especially when you're that cemented, you don't really need to rush back into it. Right. You know, you have your legacy behind you. Well, you shouldn't even even taking that fight with Islam. There's no way. You should take a world championship fight when you're hanging out with your buddies, drinking beer, you know, eating fish and chips or whatever the fuck he was doing.

32:59 He's hunting with bulk over there, you know? He's having a good time, but he wasn't in training. He says there's no way he was in training. He didn't look like he was in training physically, like his body didn't look the same. Not like he looked out of shape, but he definitely looked smoother and less ripped than he usually does. There's a difference to be in a two or three-month fight camp of day and day out, two, three practices a day. The diet's set. The mentality is set versus I'm just training on the outside of that.

33:26 When you came in on two days notice to fight Wellmaker, were you in training at all? Like, what was your scenario? I was doing a food eating championship training. I was killing double doubles and three by threes. No, but with that one, I was fortunate because I stay strict pretty much year-round. So I had fought in January at the beginning of the year. And then I was supposed to fight multiple times. And I just had two or three opponents pull out.

33:54 And then I fought November 7th for the title fight for the A1 combat, which was literally the weekend before. So fortunately, I did, I was, even though people were falling out, I kept to the course, I stayed strong, I stayed in a fight camp mentality. That November 7th fight ended up happening. So I had a strong two months. Now, still, even that one week difference of go and be in a fight camp and then I have a couple of drinks at the casino. know, I'm eating food. And I thought to myself, because January was, it was a similar thing where they said February, Australia, get ready, get your passport, let's look into this, blah, blah, blah. You know, I had a, had a nice knockout finish there. But then, yeah,

34:42 just that one week of being off of eating whatever I wanted to and just kind of doing whatever. I ran once. I showed up to sparring and light touch barred. I had gone to one. I had gone to other practice because in my mind I was like I need to be somewhat ready for this like I can have I can have a week I've been in fight camp all year long I can have one week and then that's the week that they call and say 48 hour notice MSG 10 and no undefeated Malcolm Wellmaker you want it and then of course I'm gonna can't say no to that one so would you fought the weekend before the wellmaker fight I fought November 7th yeah wow that's actually good it was you didn't get hurt yeah well it was a minute and 30 seconds. I knocked him out in the first round. So it was, it was, to me, it's just the stars aligned. I mean, don't you think it's also good that you just had the experience like seven days prior to the whole thing, getting in the cage, cage shuts? You just fought. So it's much more comfortable for you than if you had, like, Connor, taking five years off. Is elite as Connor is, double champ, one of the greatest of all time for that. Even a guy like that, you take five years off and you could see like what it did to him. It's like, it's like, it's. fucked with his head. Oh yeah. You could see it. There wasn't the same Connor energy going into it.

36:00 Of course, I always want a quick turnaround, like, after I fight, just for that very reason. I cut the weight. I know what that's like. I warmed up in the back with all the anticipation, you know, and that energy flowing through my body. I walked out in front of the crowd. They announced my name. I got there. I actually fought someone. So, yeah. If you have that going for you, then that's, yeah, it's way, way better for sure. Yeah, the more active you could be, the more comfortable you could be with the experience, as long as you're not getting hurt. Here's a stat that I was reading about Izzy. And people forget about this.

36:39 When he was the champion, he defended his title a lot, man. He was the guy that they can go, hey, we need someone to headline this card, and Izzy would step in. And I think he fought three times. He defended the world title three times in one year, which is crazy. Because I don't think the middleweight title since he's gone has even been content. Like how many middleweight fights have there even been for the title since he's been gone? There's only been a few fights. I think there's only been.

37:10 I mean, there's Sean and Drickus, Sean and Drickus 2, Drickis and Hamzot. And then Sean and Hamzot. And Sean and Hamzot. I mean, it might literally be like maybe five fights, six. since he's lost the title, and fuck, he defended it more than anybody. Right. Yeah, which is crazy. He defended it three times in one year. Yeah. And then you have this huge span of time in between defenses. But then there's a question of, like, what is the, when does it become a benefit and when does it become a detriment? Like, when, when you're fighting too many times a year, like the Marab Dawish-Willy fight, one of the things that a lot of people talked about after Piotr-Yon beat him in the rematch was, what about the strength of schedule? I mean, Marab was fighting constantly. He was fighting, he fought so often and for so many years that you've got to think that at a certain point in time,

38:04 maybe he's doing himself a disservice by being so active. Yeah, I mean, for sure. I don't know. I mean, that's something you've got to feel out for yourself. Yeah. It's something that you have to know in your heart of hearts, and nobody else can tell you that. Your coach can't be like, no, you're training. really well these days you're super sharp this and that like if something's off realistically you should be perfect going into your fight especially at a at a world championship caliber um it's just i mean i keep making these comparisons but it's another thing that i i go back to at the boxing world is these guys look at as a business like look at floyd mayweather like everything was like he made sure that the the cage was his side he picked the gloves it was certain people at certain times and there's there's some things to be said about that but it's a business mindset it's a very smart approach to it you know i'm fighting when i'm ready i'm not fighting injured which is which is more of the main thing is like people go in there with injuries and you know get hurt or or lose even

39:06 it's like that's that could be detrimental on your record i think the mama guys are a little bit more on the the tough side instead of the the business side of things where they'll they'll fight anyone anytime which I mean that's how you got to be but that's how you build your team around you you have a team that tells you hey you know this time isn't isn't necessarily the best to go into it and this and that and just being a little bit smarter about your schedule it's like yeah us fighters are going to sit there and go I'll fight anyone any given time um doesn't matter but yeah this is this is a business is not just um fighting like getting in that cage solely It's a lot of aspects that go into it.

39:45 Don't you think it's way more difficult to go into a fight perfect in MMA than it is in boxing, though? In boxing, it seems like it's much easier to avoid injuries. For sure. There's differences. I just, I reflect back to that. I like the way that they conduct themselves. I think it's, and there's a lot that's to be said to that because it's a longer-standing sport. There's been more time and experience into it.

40:09 But, yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, I was, before. this April fight, the first round of the day of sparring, I was just going light with Calum Bisping for literally one second. We moved around and he's a heavyweight. We moved around. He tried to take me down. I stuffed him. He took me down and I kind of just sat with it because I didn't want to get caught in any knee tweaking positions or anything because he's just so much heavier than I am. And I sat into a butterfly, which is typically how I would do that, elevate the hips immediately and try to make a scramble and my my meniscus.

40:43 just popped instantly right then and there. First round of the day, barely had done anything, barely started, and it wasn't even like a crazy position, but yeah, now I've sustained injury. Now I don't go against heavy weights anymore because it's stupid. Yeah, you should never be doing that. It's stupid. As a bantam weight, you should not be sparring with heavy weights.

41:01 Well, that's why I go the first day, or not the first day, but the first round, and I'm just trying to warm up. There's a lot of things to be said. I grow and I learn and I get smarter every time. I think you should only spar with guys that are reasonably close to your weight period. 10 pounds is probably a maximum above you. You know, you shouldn't be going with anybody more than that. Yeah, I get smarter with these things. I do dumb things, and I figure, for most of my history, I've had to learn the hard way with things, so I'm getting better at it. I'm getting smarter, so. But like I said, it was just a freak thing. It wasn't like we were going crazy hard or anything.

41:35 Like, it just was the first round. I just trying to move, and then some little thing happens like that. How bad is it? It wasn't a full tear, but it happened. back in like February-ish, right before that April one. So leading up to the Esteban fight, it's like I didn't grapple until the last maybe, maybe month of it, maybe a couple weeks. Oh, so it was bothering you even before that far.

41:56 It was all the way up to it. I mean, that's when it happened was the April fight, which was the Esteban fight. So, yeah, it's very difficult to avoid everything, you know, like there's a lot of different things that won't even seem like a detrimental position, but yeah, you got grappling, which can tweak all sorts of different parts of the body. a simple cut from striking can happen very easily so for sure it's it's much more abundant in the mma world because there are more weapons there's a lot of variations of things to watch out for but that being said i like to carry like i said this is a smart man's game i like to carry a

42:33 level of of business wise and smart wise to this and that's so though though the exact functions may differ, it's the mindset that I like to carry from it. Right. Well, what you said is perfect, that it's a long business. Boxes has been around for a long time. And the really elite trainers, the really elite coaches, they know how to prepare their fighters, and they know what fights to take and when to take them. Right.

43:01 And unfortunately, with the UFC, like, sometimes you get a call like the Malcolm Wellmaker fight, you know, and you're like, Oh shit. It would have been nice to get two months to prepare for Malcolm, but I have two days. Right. And I just fought, fuck it, roll the dice. And you also were coming out of nowhere. And I don't think a lot of people had time to prepare for you. Because as good as you are, when you fought Wellmaker, when you fought, how do you say his name, Estevan? What is this? Raphael Estabon. Rastavale Estabon. He was also undefeated. And super skillful. He was a. really good fighter and still is.

43:42 But to have those two performances in a row the way you looked, you looked like a guy like if you were 20 years ago, you would have been a fucking alien. Like no one had seen anybody like you before. That's how much this sport has grown just in 20 years. You go back to like Ultimate Fighter season one. There was fucking nobody like you. Nobody like you back then. Right. You know, it really wasn't until Anderson burst onto the scene shortly after that that we really got to see that kind of elite level of striking. Yeah.

44:14 I mean, yeah, talk about an alien for that time. That was Anderson Silva. That's one of the top to ever do it. There's no question. Oh, my God. People forget because maybe they see his later fights in his career. Yeah. You go back and watch him when he was in his prime. I remember when he fought Chris Lieben. And Chris Lieben is a murderous puncher. Like one of the hardest punchers it's ever fought in the UFC. He's one of those guys that's got that fucking God-given crush. And he's just such a warrior. I mean, wades into the storm, you know. But that style is Taylor made for him. And when I was looking at the odds, a friend of mine was there, I go, bet the house on the

44:53 Brazilian. I go, bet the house. I go, listen to me, this is a motherfucker dude. Just wait. Because that's when he really came into his own over in cage rage. Right. When he, that's when he really became Anderson Silva. That was a yellow cage? Was that cage rage? Yes. That's when he did that. The elbow, the crazy elbow? Yeah. Yeah. What was the, it was like a upkick, like a Crescent Upkick? Was that Pride or was that the Cage Ranger?

45:22 He was on the bottom and he whipped his leg over the top. It wasn't like a straight up kick. He kind of like brought it over. Ooh, I don't remember that one. Yeah, I don't recall either. Who was he fighting? I don't know. I'm not good at names always. So in Pride, it was, who was he fighting here, Jamie? Yushan Okami Oh, Yushan Okami This was Rumble on the Rock This was BJ Penn's promotion Look at that oh Yeah, he's just doing things that like Yeah

45:50 Nobody had ever thought of at that time He gets that right leg loose Ties his hands up Babao! That's crazy And O'C was a beast And they fought again in the UFC later And he killed O'Kami Yeah stuff like that The elbow you're talking about Just like Just a pioneer for it You know It's not like he's watching film, he's not sitting on YouTube, watching people do these things prior. He's the one that's coming up with this guy. Yeah, this is the crazy elbow.

46:17 You know the funny story about this elbow? He was training that, and his coach told him, stop doing that. You're not going to do that. And so he made his wife hold pillows at home. And he was practicing it at home. He was having to hold a pillow, and he was just working on the mechanics of that elbow. It's like he wanted to prove his coach wrong. Right.

46:34 And he wanted to get the knockout with that technique. And lo and behold, he did it. Well, he had some great fights over there, particularly the Lee Murray fight. Did you ever see that fight? Probably. I probably asked him. He's the British dude that became a bank robber? Was the bank robber, Craig. Biggest heist in UK history? Yeah. Yeah. And that was a bad dude, too. At the time, everybody was scared of that, dude. Well, that guy could crack. He was another guy had crazy power. And just a vicious dude, just an absolutely vicious guy. He was a legitimate criminal. Yeah, exactly. He had that whole aura and persona to him.

47:12 Yeah, he was a real gangster. Yeah, that brings a little bit more of like this, you know, I don't want to say fear, but like, who's this guy, you know? The fucking guy was an elite fighter and he was also an elite criminal. Right. Yeah, he's multi-talented. I mean, that's something in a movie. Like a guy who's a top-tier criminal who also competes and wins in the UFC. Right.

47:37 Yeah. And won by triangle. He beat Jorge Rivera by triangle. Yeah. And it's crazy. Yeah, I know. And you have Anderson come in and just demolish this dude. He just wrecked him. And he wrecked him with technique. And a lot of it was leg kicks. Yeah. He just, Anderson's Moy Thai was at such a different level. It was so artistic. Yeah. I think that's the perfect word to describe that was artistic because it's just beautiful. The way he said things up, I mean, he made elite guys look very brand new.

48:07 in the cage. Mm-hmm. I didn't see very many close fights with them until later in his career. Yeah, it's a later in his career thing. And I always say that with fighters, you really have to look at them when they were at their highest RPM, whatever. Generally, it's only a few years. Right. But that few years, like, judge them by that. Judge them by those performances when they were just on fire. Yeah. And I tell people you have to always go back and watch those Anderson fights. When he front-kick Vitor in the face. Right. First time anybody had ever won by knockout with a front kick to the face in the UFC. Now people do it all the time.

48:42 Right. But I didn't even think that was a good option. Like there's a video of, and I grew up kicking. There's a video of me and Eddie Bravo were working with one of those bob dummies. And he's like, what do you think about a front kick to the face? I'm like, it's better the body. I mean, you could land it to the face, but I don't really see very many guys do it. It's much more wrong.

49:02 It's perfect. Just watched Anderson Silva fight. And everybody does it now. So many guys get knockouts with a front kick to the face because you don't see it coming when it comes straight up the middle. If everything's coming around and all of a sudden something comes straight up the middle and catches the bottom of your chin. For sure. I like that sidekick to the body to the liver, throwing that heel on the liver. I think that's more of a natural motion, but I have been working with the front kicks. I like them a lot, especially with the weight on the back leg a little bit, and especially with these calf kicks, people are really trying to bear down

49:35 and throw the calf kick hard. That's what was going to be my technique. And my last one was when that cap kick comes off the very beginning because that's what footy does. It just comes out. He looks for his distance and he bases down and he throws that calf kick almost every single time against every opponent. And I was like, you know, especially because I was playing on going there one-handed.

49:57 And I was like, I'm just going to pull this front leg up, front kick to the face and it's going to land. It's going to be beautiful. But yeah, I've started to work that. Like you put all that weight on that back leg. This one comes up fast. And the one I like better, especially with the boxing as I come down here, is kind of getting that lean forward and you're stepping back. And then when people think your face is in range forward, you just pull back and throw that one straight up the middle.

50:21 And you're talking about the front leg? On the back leg on the second one. You're kind of basing out here and you're stepping back onto the back leg. And when they open up like they're going to throw something, you lean back and throw it up the middle. Yeah. You're changing the distance there People don't expect it For the calf kick You're just light on the front leg And you're throwing it off the front leg Are you sliding forward Are you just picking it up and stabbing? I'll just pick it up and stab it Because they've got to close a little bit of distance To get that calf That one's um

50:48 You know the kick is a longer range But that one you have to come a little bit closer For me to throw it appropriately Some people smack it with the foot Or whatever it is I don't like that I like that Dutch style almost like a soccer kick Just you're raising it straight up And that shin bone is touching that soft soft calf and so to do it that way I get a little bit closer distance but then that's where you know you set it up and all the other stuff be a little safer doing it that way yeah the calf kick is interesting because a lot of guys are kind of just going straight up right you know like you ever see yukyosa fight uh he's one of my favorite guys to watch fight that's that's probably like the perfect example of throwing yeah a very um deliberate and and technical calf kick is how he does it he destroys people his legs, destroys them. And he's kicking up. He's kicking up all the time and there's no pivot and it's so fast. It's so fast and there's no tell and he's throwing it in every combination. So he's hitting you with a jab. He's inside low kicking you. The left hook. He's outside low kicking you. He's like, yeah, he's smacking you from all the different levels. Constantly. And taking out your base every time. Every time you're close enough. He's taking out your base every time, every time, from all angles. I love watching this guy. He does that cool thing too. Like what he just did? Check out that. Watch it. gave him trouble for that because you're not supposed to do that in kickboxing see he does that he hooks the guy's leg so he throws like a half speed kick so back it up again so you can see that he throws like a half speed kick holds it and then trips him my dad was actually just talking about that one with me that's that's a very clean technique but he is such a wild guy to watch because of the damage that he does to guy's legs so this is what i love about the artistic aspect of it and the technical aspect when people figure out okay what do you do when you're fighting a guy's

52:33 like this. Well, Jonathan Haggerty figured it out. It's constant switch stances, constant knees to the body, moving, jabbing, constant movement. You never let him get set up for those. You know, and he took a lot of leg kicks in that, but he landed way more than he took, and he won the decision against Yosos. It was a big win, but it was also like a blueprint. Like if people got to see that fight, they see it. So you can find that fight. Jonathan Hagerty and Yucke Yosa. He did a really good job of picking that front leg up. And that's going back to MMA is something that it's still developing, but I don't see a lot of guys defend the calf kick. I see

53:07 a lot of guys willingly eat them. And it's like you do that with the shing guards on, you could probably spar all day and take calf kicks, you know? Sort of. If they're landing clean, like really clean, yeah, you're going to feel it. Yeah. But for the most part, you pick the leg up, you pull it back a a little bit, it doesn't land super flush. You could take it with shingards on. You take one good one with no shing guards on, it's a completely different game. It takes, you know, you're that leg away from you. This episode is brought to you by Superpower. Your doctor spends eight minutes with you and your insurance decides what blood work you get. That's not health care. It's a broken system.

53:41 With superpower, you take control. It starts by testing over 150 biomarkers. But what really sets superpower apart from other blood testing companies is what comes next. They connect your blood work with real-time, wearable data, health history, and genetics to uncover patterns, other miss and deliver personalized guidance you can't get anywhere else. This is healthcare built for individuals, not institutions. Go to superpower.com slash rogan to save $50 on your membership. Yeah, so look how Jonathan is never stationary.

54:17 Constantly switching stances. Look, I mean, literally, constantly and constant movement. And then when you're thinking about the legs, the jab, the step forward knee, everything is constant movement. There's never a chance for Yosa to set up and, Nice spinning back kicks the body there. That's so close, too. I know. He's wicked, man. This dude's wicked. But Haggerty figured him out, man. Look at that. Outside low kick on a hop. I mean, in constant stance switches and that switch knee to the body, look, Yosa's looking for those, man.

54:46 You could only take so many of them from this guy, too. He's got fucking stones for shins. Yeah. Yeah, you've got no nerve endings on anything below the knees. It's really incredible, man. Watching this fight is a real masterclass. in striking and this is one thing that I always give credit to one for I think one has the absolute best strikers when it comes to just pure striking right and the exciting guys that they have over there uh Azadullah imangazalea have you seen that guy fight yeah he's my favorite I fucking love watching that guy fight like it's like Jesus Christ he's good and one of the guys that he trains with just fought in the pfl Megamadoff did you see that fight no I forget how to say his name It's like I think it's Abu or I forget his name But he put on a master class in striking and he looked just like Like Azadula Imagazalea like the way he was fighting like that style

55:43 Long tall striker and these Dagestan guys man that you got Dagestan's got elite moitai too That's it's crazy. Yeah, that's it dude Amru Amru Magamato Well speaking of that show me a little bit of that because this cat he fights just like Asadullah, like very similar. And I know they're from the same place. You talk about artistic. That's like Zabit.

56:06 Yes. Yes. Sharipo is another one. Yes. Yeah, and he was kind of the first of those guys that you go, oh, I think of these guys as wrestlers. Yeah. But look at this guy. He's throwing 360 roundhouse kicks and wheel kicks. He was doing like, I don't know, not kung fu, but one of those practices before he was ever wrestling. Yes. Yeah, it was like sand shoe or something. But you watch this cat fight. He fights just like Azadula. He's got that long reach, slick striking, wicked kicks. He throws a lot of high kicks. And that dude Alvarez that he's fighting was tough as shit, dude,

56:43 because he took a lot before he finally wilted. You can see he was hurting from the lay kicks already before that. Oh, he's getting destroyed. This cat's vicious. Being a long guy like that is just so much more beneficial. That's why everybody thinks it's all these big muscle heads, It's like the OG UFC, that's the fighter build. The guy on top of the world who is missed.

57:05 It's like it's the tall, long, like skinny guy that can strike well. Like that's the perfect like MMA build. Yeah, because they can strike you from six inches away from where you can strike them. That's a crazy advantage. Yeah, that's a back to where it was with Ty on Thursday, whatever it was. And he's like, I want to say he said 78 inch reach. Wow. He's like, he's like, I have a.

57:27 78 inch reach. He's like, so I can touch you guys from this and that, any Southpaw and blah, blah, blah, but I'm like, well, yeah, like... That's like a light heavyweight reach. Yeah, it's like, well, no, dude, both of those guys have crazy long reach. It's ridiculous. Real long arms, real long legs. Perfect for triangles, perfect for any kind of dars. Right. Geotines, anything. Rear naked's, we're naked with an arm in. Yeah, and then you fight Southpaw like this. It's like, you can touch from a million miles away. That's what me, I'm the opposite. My whole style is all the way out or all the way in. I got to get in and get to work in there. You know, And there's something to be said about that too because those two styles cancel each other out. If you have a long guy, he's not going to fight as well on the inside. It's not saying that he can't, especially with the Muay. The way they clinch is actually very efficient. And with the boxing stuff, opening stuff up and being able to get your longer limbs in there is perfectly viable as well. It's just you got to play off of your God-given talents and your assets.

58:25 And so the shorter guy is going to negate the long guy by getting inside. And if the long guy can maintain the distance and keep him there, then he's going to win that all the time. Yeah, there's benefits to all body types. It's just knowing what to do with that body type. Like, look, Mike Tyson is arguably the greatest heavyweight of all time. He's in the conversation with Ali and Joe Lewis. And there's a few guys that you could put into that category as the greatest heavyweight of all time. and I think Mike Tyson

58:56 certainly in his prime was right there you know Lennox Lewis you got to put Lennox Lewis in that conversation even prime time Larry Holmes you got to put him in that conversation but Mike Tyson was 511 you know as a heavyweight that's crazy and he was only like 215, 220 in his prime but that bombing and weaving and constant movement he would just overwhelm guys you see the tall guys putting their hands out they just they were just dealing with this fucking Wolverine that was running towards them. Yeah, and I had just seen something from him or read a quote, and he said it wasn't my physicality that was my greatest asset. It was my elusiveness. It was that I was so elusive that I could

59:36 get in and I could get to work, you know? Yes. And a lot of people, unless you're like a real practitioner or, you know, a student of the sport, they don't see that. They just see, they just see, they just see the bombs coming and they attribute that to he's got punching power, he's this monster, but there's just so much more intricate, you know. It's like you said about Anderson, like this is an art form. This is, it's a game of setting things up. It's a chess match, you know? Everybody looks at it like it's checkers,

1:00:07 but there's so many more moves that could be made and that need to be made to be the best at this. And you really want to be appreciated by the people that understand that. You don't want to be the guy that gives into the howls and the cheers of the casuals. the real feeling, the good feeling that fighters get is when someone is a true student of the game who really understands what they, like, I love when you're doing this, I love that thing you do when you do. There's, that's what guys want to hear.

1:00:34 They want to hear, like, from their fellow fighters. Right. Like if, you know, like when an elite fighter goes up to another elite fighter, it's like, bro, I fucking love what you're doing. You can see they're like, thank you. Like, it's like, it hits different. Oh, 100%. It means more. when you know that a guy is really operating at a very high level.

1:00:52 Right. Yeah, because of the rest of the people have never stepped room into even a gym to spa or, like, go a couple rounds of grappling. You know, so it's... They oftentimes they don't know what they're seeing. They have no understanding of it. Sometimes they think when the guy's missing, it's because he sucks. You know what? It's funny is that even I have had that realization because, like, growing up, it was like me and my pops watching UFC.

1:01:12 And to me, you know, that was my thing. But I would always sit there and go, well, why doesn't this guy do this? It's right there. Just do that. It's right there. It's like, dude, you're not standing in a cage, surrounded by thousands of people. You don't have the same fatigue. You don't know injuries you're going into it. You don't know what you practice leading up to it that you even have the capacity to think about and to act on. It's like there's just so many things. So like I watch stuff now and I'm so much better at that because I'm sitting there going, he could do that. But I don't know what he's seeing. You know, I don't know what's going on in his mind. So, yeah, there's different levels to it. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's a very complex game.

1:01:52 It really is. I wanted to ask you a question. Do you think that it was a benefit for you to lose your first two fights? Do you think there's maybe something to that? Because we were talking about your first two opponents in the UFC being undefeated until they fought you. They had never experienced loss as a professional before. And then they get on this crazy big hype thing. And there's something about being undefeated as well,

1:02:15 especially when you're a guy like well-makers, not just undefeated, but a knockout artist. People get really, really jazzed up and excited about that. Do you think that maybe having that bad feeling of loss earlier in your career maybe grounded you more? Yeah, certainly. I went 6'0 undefeated as an amateur, but I can tell you at that time, I was not living a fighter's lifestyle to the fullest. At that time, I would let me go to practice in the morning and then I had to go to work at night or whatever but I was like man fighting's the best you just go wake up practice once you get to kick it the whole rest of the day you get to go fight make all this money and live your dream that's all it takes this is cool and I went in all these amateur scene fights which that's what the amateurs are for for learning and getting your experience but yeah it really showed me that there was change that needed to be made in what I did

1:03:15 with fighting and what I did outside of fighting. And outside of fighting was arguably more important. You know, there was a lot that I needed to change, a lot that I needed to refocus on and make right by. And it wasn't until I did those things that I saw this drastic change, you know. It wasn't until I that I erased all the negatives and then filled it with all the positives that I'm able to be on a 10-fight win streak doing what I'm doing now because who knows i mean maybe maybe i would have changed that but i don't think it would have been as drastic

1:03:51 if i hadn't experienced those two losses the way i did so before those two losses your first two professional fights were you kind of fucking off yeah for sure yeah what were you doing just everything i mean drinking party partying smoking drinking being a delinquent being not the best partner how old are you back then i came back from college in 2017. I tore my meniscus in a dual meat, and then my coach was... Same knee?

1:04:23 My right knee. Different knee. Coach is an asshole about it. Snapcackle popped all the rest of the season. It wasn't until after I got a shit. In what way? Like, you didn't want to admit that you were in. He just ignored it, like, completely. He just pretty much told me suck it up. Like... Oh, what a great coach. And, yeah, exactly. That's why I didn't go back. I mean, it was a lot of things. I was in Bristol, Tennessee. So it's like...

1:04:44 There's not a whole lot to do out there coming from SoCal. So that was a culture shock. I was on my own for the very first time. And then, yeah, I got hurt. So then I started, I don't know, everybody else is out there partying and stuff. I never partied. I grew up very religious. I was very strict. All throughout high school, I didn't touch anything. I didn't look anything. I didn't want to partake in anything. I just wrestled. My only drug was wrestling back then. You know, that's all I did. And I had a lot of success then. And it wasn't until I deviated from that course.

1:05:14 and I started finding fun or enjoyment or just maybe just trying to fill time and numb some of the things that I was thinking about or worrying about or like that wrestling thing. It might not have been the biggest thing to people, but for me, like, that was my first time experiencing where I had just placed like eighth in the California State. I was fifth at the national tournament. I was just doing everything right. You know, I had won the U.S. Open for my age division. And then I go to this and I'm on my own for the first time.

1:05:45 and I have all this adversity, and it's just like, I don't know, I just felt like, like, why is this happening to me, you know? I felt like I had been abandoned at that point, and maybe other people would have recovered from it better, but that was the first time experience for me. So, but yeah, I was barely 19 years old around that time. I think I probably started fighting around, and the amateurs around 20. So I was relatively young, but. So that's when you started partying? I was, as soon as I tore my meniscus, I finished out the wrestling season, and then, I remember, like, even school, like, slouched off.

1:06:18 Like, I didn't really caring about school too much. We had finals. I didn't really even try too hard. And then I went, I remember that day. As soon as the last final was done, we all went to my buddy's house, and that's the first time I ever got drunk, like, ever. And so, and it's not to say that those things are like the end of the world if you're controlling them, but I certainly wasn't, you know.

1:06:39 I had, like, a lot of compounding things being first time, and that carried over. It was like that all the way up until. So, yeah, it was after that second loss, I was probably still not doing what I needed to be doing to be a disciplined athlete, a respectable, just like, you know, good person, really. I wasn't being a good person. And yeah, there was a lot of change, a lot of growth. You know, I had a lot of people guide me back into that. And as soon as I made those changes, yeah, now I'm here. haven't been able to live and experience it because that's the best teacher out of all of them.

1:07:21 You know, you can go and watch a YouTube video on how to do something, right? Like, fix a car. Oh, I know exactly where the alternator is. I know where this pump is. I know how this connects to this. Then the second you open it up, it's like, okay, well, I didn't know I needed this tool. And wow, this is really way harder to pull off. And it's the experience.

1:07:39 It's the hardship and experience that teaches you things. So 100%. If I hadn't gone through that, who knows where I'd be. and what I'd be doing right now. When you hurt your knee in college, was that the first time you'd ever done where you had an injury where it completely compromised your ability to perform where you realized, like, oh, like my body's very vulnerable. So I had actually sprained my ankle. It's called the OC Dules. It's like the number one and number two in Orange County face off. And I had tore up my ankle pretty good. and that was going into league and then CIF and all that stuff.

1:08:19 And I had almost worried that I wouldn't be able to wrestle, which is a big thing. Luckily, I was able to wrestle on that. But yes, I guess the meniscus was probably the first time where it really took me out of my game like that. And to me, it was more of a, I don't know if it was a vulnerability of the body. Like I had come to terms with that. I understood that. I don't know. Maybe I thought there was a higher power like protecting me. And at that moment, like, I was no longer protected. And I had been abandoned. And that's kind of what got to me, honestly, is I thought like God had abandoned me essentially at that time. Really? You didn't think like maybe God, did you even consider that it was a challenge?

1:09:06 I can look back on it and say with certainty that it is. You were young. I was young. And that's why I said. I clouded my mind with a bunch of other things. and set a focus on it and thinking about it clearly, I just moved farther away from the issue. So, like, at that time, that's what I thought. Now being a mature man, having grown my relationship with God, having read and studied and understanding that, like I said, that those hardships are what build us.

1:09:33 That's what tests our faith and what really brings us closer to God. Now I see that it wasn't as big as I had made it, you know. But I learned and maybe fall in far. down the path taught me even more. Yeah, I think it does. I think failing is actually a very good teacher. I really do. I think in all aspects of your life. And especially when you're a young person, you have this idea of who you are, having that get knocked down where you have to rebuild is very important. Because once you rebuild and you realize like, okay, now I know what I'm capable of. Now I know that there's going to be ups and downs, but I must maintain the path. Right. Did you have to get your knee fixed? Did you have to do anything to it? Yeah, they did a scope on it, so they shaved the part that was hanging away, which to me I wish I had never done.

1:10:23 Yeah. Because that knee gave, as gives me issues to today, like any of this inversion, like a triangle choke with the right leg going over, that meniscus, it was my lateral meniscus outside. It rolls over and it catches, so then I got to bring my leg straight and pop it back into place. And it's gotten better. You know, I get through it quicker these days, but. They tell you to not even get that surgery now. Well, so my second professional fight where I got ankle locked, I got a, I think it was like an outside reap, and I went to sit up to grab it, and he had the position locked, and my knee just went like eight times in my ear real bad. And it was in the same exact spot, that lateral meniscus, the outer, which I don't know what other ligament is on the outside there.

1:11:10 but to me it was like exactly where the meniscus on the right leg had happened. But I grabbed up or sat up. I grabbed his arms. I kept trying to fight through it. And then he switched it over to the heel hook on the other side. My ankle popped twice as I rolled and I finally tapped then. But I didn't even get an MRI on that one. I tried to. It took so long that I was doing the knees over toes and strengthening. And I was starting to move on it that by the time they're like, okay, we can get your MRI in a week. I'm like, dude, I'm already moving and exercise. and doing stuff on this. Like, I was cool. But, yeah, I never did anything with that. And that knees really never given me any issues. And then the one I got the scope on still bothers me to today.

1:11:52 Yeah, they don't recommend that anymore because they did a study of people that have had meniscus surgery versus not having meniscus surgery and just rehabilitation. And it shows that rehabilitation seems to be the better path. Yeah. I mean, especially for like, I have one that's been scoped and it bothers me all the time. the one I got shot up today. Okay. It always bothers me.

1:12:13 It's like there's a missing padding on one side of it. It's missing. But I had a bucket handle tear and in jujitsu. It would lock and my leg would be stuff, like stiff and I could, like push it back into place. It was excruciating. It was like stuck locked out. Yeah. Yeah. It would go back eventually, but it would take, sometimes it would take a day before and it would swell up, you know. But if I need, first of all, this is a long time ago. unfortunately there was no stem cells available back then. Right. I would have 100% just done stem cells, and now would have done the knees over toes stuff, and a lot of cycling, like stationary bike cycling at not high resistance. It's a fairly low resistance.

1:12:53 It's just repetitive motion. It's really good for getting the blood flow to the knees and really good for strengthening up the tendons and the ligaments and everything, but without load. You know, it's just you do it at like a very low resistance and just for a long time. Right. And that's really good for your knees. Sweet. Yeah, I mean, there's so many things. Like, I think even, like, leg extensions would probably be, like, a good little exercise for the knees. I mean, it's a pretty deliberate spot. I think, you know, like, backpacking. I think, like, a controlled version of that because there's a lot of times, you know, you're dropping down, like, pretty heavily, this and that, which is probably not the best impact on the knee. Yeah.

1:13:30 Yeah. But if you were doing it, like, because that's kind of the knees over toes is he's doing some similar motions. If you had some, maybe not as much weight, some weight on your knee. your back and you could slowly kind of find that and then have a soft landing like right i don't know i was backpacking recently and i was just thinking about this like like in a controlled setting like in a gym like on a machine that i'm like maybe not as much as like a steep incline or decline like something like that would be really good and then the range of motion stuff is i've had you know with with

1:13:57 my injury and stuff and time to step away i've had like a lot of opportunity to think and i feel like i've i've grown tremendously and it's like yeah all the little tiny things like the knees like they're fine like I do it I really don't have an issue too much like maybe if I get into that position it'll do it but it's like you know what happens when I do get into like a position let's say a leg lock position for example or like a straight knee bar and you know what if my my flexibility is an issue there or just simply like a wizard position where the knees getting popped up like just any there's a there's a million and one positions that the knees could be compromised there and so yeah it's going back doing a lot of range of motion stuff a lot of

1:14:37 strengthening on the knees. Do you do Polyquin step downs? Do you know those? No. Charles Poliquin, seeing you find Polkins, very simple. You're essentially doing it. Either you're doing it from an incline board with like a little bit of elevation or you're just doing it from a straight up step. And what you're doing is you're just lowering yourself down. So one foot is above on the step and the other foot. You're lowering like that, like there. There you go. He's doing it on plates. Very simple. Very simple, right? I mean, you're literally only going like 10 inches,

1:15:11 but you're going up and down like that, and it's just controlling the body weight like that, phenomenal for knee strengthening and for knee stability. It's excellent. It's one of the best exercises. You're doing backwards pulls with like either a sled or on a treadmill? Do you walk backwards doing that? I'm not doing like really any exercises weight in like,

1:15:36 I mean, I do little things, but for strength and conditioning after boxing, but I stay away from the weights. But it's not even for the weights. I'm talking, you do it on a treadmill. Okay. You do on a treadmill, just basically keep the treadmill off, and just with your own resistance, you step backwards. Okay. So you put your back to the screen and hold on to the bars, and you're basically just pushing with your legs going backwards. And it's really good for strengthening your knees and also for blood flow.

1:16:02 That's a knees over toes guy thing. Okay. All right. His page is phenomenal. I'll go to the 24-hour fitness and burn out their treadmill. Yeah, yeah, you can do that, or you could use a sled. You know, we do it with a sled here. You know, you put the sled, you put like a waist strap, and you just back up and pull the sled. It doesn't have to be a lot of weight. It's not a weight thing. It's really just a circulation thing and a strengthening thing. He has another one that you get the band around your back, and then you're kind of, I forgot how he did it. You're essentially, like, leaned over and then straightening the leg. You're like in a lunge, I guess, actually. You're going to lunge, the knee goes over the toes, you have the resistance on the back,

1:16:42 and then you're pushing and essentially doing the same thing as probably walking back with the sled. The band is attached in the front or in behind you? It's attached in the front, so your resistance is pulling you forward. Okay. And you're lunged over the knee, the knee over the toe, and then you're extending that leg, and it's just hitting that knee perfectly. It's very similar to the one you're talking about, I'm sure. Yeah, because so much time you spend pushing forward and not a lot of people spend much time pushing backwards but pushing backwards is really important right it's really important to just add overall knee strength right i think i think the side to side stuff too is like i was almost like let me get in the sand and i do a lot of like working out in the sand just for the boxing for the for the for the footwork and being able to stand a stance but like that little like side explosion stuff would probably start strengthening those those muscles on the

1:17:31 side and the ligaments going that way and then i'm trying to think like You know, how do you get that motion? I mean, you could get a band and probably, like, do kind of, like, a lateral extension or pull it up into your, like, an inward extension. You know he used to do a lot of weird shit with bands? B.J. Penn. Oh, yeah. He did a lot of weird shit in his prime.

1:17:51 Yeah. With, like, flexibility stuff and developing strength from weird positions with bands. Huh. Yeah, I see, I don't know if B.J. was a part of that program, but, like, the Raphael de Sanjos, all the fascia kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Raphael Dosangos was training with Nick Curzon. Nick Curzon was a student of Marvanovich. Okay. And Marv Marinovich is the guy who trained BJ

1:18:16 when he was like in his prime. Okay. When he really got super serious about cardio, but it's a very controversial approach. The Marinovich's approach was you already know how to fight. So forget about fight training. We're just going to give you the most fucking insane gas tank you've ever had and that way you'll be able to execute everything you want. And so the primary

1:18:35 focus was just pliometrics and their conditioning program and it was hell right and vj did not like going through it but when he went through it he was like unstoppable yeah because he just never gassed right and it's that's the interesting thing about conditioning in general is we have these ideas of what the threshold is like what a human body's capable of doing for five minutes for three rounds or five rounds like in terms of what kind of pace that you could put up and then you have certain guys that come along that sort of redefine what the threshold is, like Marab. Marab comes along, and here you got some guy whose gas tank is fucking superhuman. And he makes the best fighters in the world just wilt under this constant pressure being taken down.

1:19:21 And his strength and his skills as a wrestler is just this constant attack, constant, constant, constant, constant. And you wonder, like, okay, how long did it take to build up that reserve? How long did it take to build up that gas tank? That's not something you can achieve in just one camp. Right. Like that's something that takes literally years to develop. Oh, for sure. That's why, I mean, like I said, going back to wrestling,

1:19:45 my what I would say, my superpower, my most utilized skill set was my cardio, my gas tank, you know. And I don't know. What is it, anabolic versus anaerobic, like the striking versus the grappling cardio? Mm-hmm. I think there's something to be said about. that wrestling cardio, like just that, like, strict, you're just grinding out 24-7, you know, you're always colliding, your muscles are always tensed up. I think there's something to be said about that, that if you had great wrestling cardio,

1:20:18 you could do almost anything in the world. Yeah, it builds up a foundation that's kind of unstoppable. Right. If you can maintain that kind of work ethic. Right. That's the other thing about it, is the mental toughness that comes from wrestling. Right. There's some, like, when a guy has, like, an elite wrestling background and he enters, in the UFC, I always say they have an advantage. They have an advantage over everybody else because whether or not you choose to put yourself or you get coached by someone who puts you through hell in camp, with wrestling you don't have a choice. Like everyone's going through hell. There's no one's get, there's no easy

1:20:51 path to get on a fucking wrestling team anywhere in the country. Right. You have to wrestle for your position. It's literal, you got a battle for that spot, you know? And then the practice is once or twice a day of just purely grinding it out. Staying in a wrestling stance alone is extremely tough to do. Now you're doing it at elevated pace. Now you're doing it with something snapping on your head. Now you're doing it's like, and then you go and you do live wrestling and then finish it up with sprints. Yeah, to me, to me there's nothing that beats that. And I think the style of it is like go, go, go. Like even jihitsu, you're finding places to rest.

1:21:28 You know, you can throw in the guard and you can rest in certain entanglements. striking is all about being able to have an explosive motion and then find your way to be defensive to slow down what they're doing you're either you're getting in stuff in it you're at a distance where you can be a little bit relaxed because they can't reach you or you know you're you're moving off making the miss where there's no resistance there you know just with wrestling you don't have any of that there's there's no chance for a break especially if you got someone like rob who's just on you 24-7 and so to me that's you know back to the cardio thing we talked about earlier, I don't know.

1:22:06 I think if you got elite wrestling cardio, then you could do all the rest of it. You'd be able to strike. You'd be able to do the jujitsu entanglements. You can hang for that duration of time with great cardio. It's also if you could figure out how to be a great wrestler, you can kind of figure out anything. It's just a matter of taking that same focus that turned you into a great wrestler and applying it to whatever it is, MMA, whatever else you're trying to do.

1:22:31 It's if you're willing to go through what it took. took to become a great wrestler, that's an extraordinary human. That's very few people ever reach a very high level of wrestling. It's just too fucking hard. And it's the best foundation for combat sports, for sure, for MMA. Because if you could take a guy down and he can't take you down, that's a massive advantage. Right. Massive.

1:22:51 You dictate where the fight takes place. And if you develop elite striking on top of that, it's a perfect combination. Oh, for sure. I mean, anybody asking me personally, I would say get a real. wrestling background, get some boxing, you can figure out the rest of it. You can figure out how to check kicks, block kicks. You can do the rest of it. But if you have those two fundamental core bases, yeah, you're pretty good against most people. I would say that too, but I would say another thing is, and this is very controversial, if I was teaching a young kid, I would say,

1:23:22 get into point karate. Learn point karate. Because if you could learn how to move the way those guys move, the things that those guys, when you see like Michael Venham Page just stump people, they're just stumped. Like I don't have any, like Kevin Holland, who is, fights everybody. He's fucking competitive with everybody he fights. With MVP, he was just stumped. Like, what am I going to, what the fuck am I doing? I can't even touch this guy. Right. That is a giant skill set. And I always said before MVP came onto the scene, I'm like, one of these guys, one of these really elite point fighter guys is going to come in and start fucking everybody up because you can't hit them. Yeah.

1:23:59 Yeah. And that goes back like him and like Wonderboy. Mm-hmm. They're both the prime examples of a karate-style individual. Yes. And they're really long, so, you know, they can utilize that a little bit to their advantage with that lungy in and out. But to be honest, yeah, that's something that, like, I've wanted to delve into a little bit more with myself. Because I like, I can throw kicks really well, honestly.

1:24:22 I have good flexibility. I have the ability to throw them with speed. with power but having something like that where you can throw it nice and fast and snappy those little side kicks and the way that they throw the kicks is great yes I mean the only other relation I would have to that is the the Savat style I like the way the Savat style guys throw their kicks I'm not very familiar with Savat the only thing that I I don't utilize myself is a lot of the toe stuff because I'm not wearing shoes oh like they kick with the body

1:24:52 they're they're like stabbing you with their toes right everything like they'll even they're even kicking like your leg. Well, you know, Yosa does that. Yeah. He stabs guys in the body with his toes. It's like the ball of his foot, right? But like, he's going in with the toes, man. Yeah. There's a lot of, like, slow-mo videos of him stabbing guys in the liver with his fucking toes. You know who else is really good? They're conditioning their toes. Yeah, well, that's the thing is you better have some, you're probably have many, multiple breaks on each toe, you know, to that, yeah. Yeah, because it's just, that's why we were talking about the front kick to the body is good if you do it like a traditional

1:25:24 moitai where you're going up and out which is fantastic you can produce a lot of speed and power but i think everybody does this this kind of shovel up toes into the body kick nowadays in the mma world that's what i see more so i mean Connor cunner utilized the heck out of that most guys bring the toes up it's and you better be very precise with that because all it takes is one elbow blocking down and your toes out yeah and i see uh Rodriguez's toes after he fought Fluffy? Yeah. Do you see that picture?

1:25:57 Jim, pull that picture up. It was off Gregory Rodriguez, his Instagram page. After he beat Fluffy, he showed a photo of his... You haven't seen it? I haven't seen an action. Oh, you're going to cringe. It's hell. Is it like a John Jones break where the... Worse. The bones aren't sticking out, but it's halacious. You look at what happened to his toes. Dude, that one, like, that takes it out of you. You start smashing your toes like that, and you've got to continue fighting. Oh, yeah. Or you've got to continue to a fight.

1:26:24 camp with like broken toes yeah yeah that's what one of my wrestling camps i was chasing my brother in the front yard the day before and his heel came back and my pinky toe was like this straight sideways went to the family doctor you put it like oh yeah i have a picture just like that actually with my fingers my toes throwing west side oh look at that jesus ow yeah that's that's terrible those feet have seen some elbows son right it's got a big old bunyan's everything on there Yeah, that's tough. He did in really good fashion, too. Yeah, there's a guy that's just, I don't understand how he makes 185.

1:27:05 Right. I don't understand it. Whenever I interview him, I'm like, you're 220 pounds, sir. Yeah. How are you, you're at least 220 and shredded. I know. It's like, I guess the bigger guys have a little bit more to lose. They probably float a little bit. They definitely do. Well, all that muscle, you have water to lose for sure. Right. If you're shredded, I mean, that's one thing to be said. But especially like heavy weights, like the Alex Panthers, I'm sure he gets a little bit looser, goes up to 220. But that's still 40 pounds. I mean, that's a lot of weight. Yeah, it's a lot of weight to lose. But I don't know. I mean, look at Aljo cutting to 135. Yeah.

1:27:46 He's like 175 pounds. Yeah. You know? I mean, I think. But he doesn't do it anymore and he feels way better at 45. For sure. and he had to move up because of that. I think a lot of the bantam weights get up to relatively that weight. I think everybody, I think that's why I've started seeing people try to comment the whole weight bully thing. They've said it to me on Instagram, this and that. They saw one of my training pictures where I was a little loose, and they're like, the funniest comment was someone was like, like hire a nutritionist ASAP. And I was just cracking up at that. Like these guys are roasting me. but yeah, I think everybody cuts relatively the same amount of weight. How big do you get? Like, what's the heaviest you get in between?

1:28:29 135. No, that's what you weigh, son. When you thicken up, what's the heaviest you've ever been? Like 175 is probably, give or take. Maybe like 178 if I'm just full of food, eating and being a delinquent. But, yeah, I get out there pretty big. But when you're in camp, like the week before, what do you like to be at? I've had all my cuts right around 150.

1:28:51 I don't really get much lower than that. That's not too bad. It's not the end of the world. I mean, 149, 148, 145 would be beautiful. If I could just do 10, it would be no problem. But this last time we did 11 in one night, and it was smooth sailing. I just keep, that's another thing. You experience it more, you get better and better at it. And I've gotten wiser that the sauna doesn't have to be a million and 10 degrees, you know? Like the USC portable sonnas, I think I maxed out at 150, it said. Hmm. And I could sit in that for 22, 25 minutes. Is that a red light sauna? The portable ones? It probably is, right? Probably is.

1:29:33 I don't recall, but I'm sure it is. But that with the emergency blankets, and then cooling off in between, that's something that I had to get wiser to as well. You know, like, because everybody tries to tell you, you're already there. You're already sweating. Like don't lose the heat. And it's like, no, dude, this isn't a sprint. This is a marathon.

1:29:51 We're taking this nice and easy. So like this last time I was taking all my gear off, putting ice on the body, cooling the body temperature back now, which is arguably the most important aspect of the whole weight cut is the body temperature versus the dehydration. Because the body gets dehydrated and it has more of a capacity to deal with that than it does to overheat. If you overheat, you're done for it. It is what it is. So is the overheating, does that drain? you more in terms of like your ability to recover for the next day like so when you're cutting weight

1:30:21 if you're doing it like 180 or something like that something high and is it that like because it does wear you out obviously like if I do a sauna session for 20 minutes when I get out I'm tired yeah so you've got to think if you're doing multiple ones of those if you're trying to make weight and then you have to fight the next day you went through a lot physically right as opposed to what you're doing if you got it at 150 it's not that bad it's just just sucks a little yeah because it's not I've done both. And that's, you're throwing a sauna suit on as well. You know, the sweet sweat, the sauna suit.

1:30:53 And then you get in that portable sauna. But it's like before I was doing that with a pair of, I don't know, like a spandex, you know, like top and bottom and then a jacket and then sweats and then a big jacket. And then I'm getting in the 180, 190 degree 24 hour sauna and sitting there for 15 minutes. It's like, dude, yeah, I felt there's been weight cuts where I just feel like a, like, terrible atrocious. I look terrible, you know. And then I have some of these more recent ones where I lower the temperature down. I extend the duration of how long the weight cut is itself. And there's a major difference in it for sure. That's really good advice. Work smarter,

1:31:33 not harder. Oh, dude, you've trained for two months over just pushing your body to the absolute limit. You're going to go fight somebody for 15 minutes, you know, possibly 25 minutes. There's all this hard stuff already happening, you know, that part should not be hard. It's going to be hard, but you should make it as easy as possible. That should be the mindset to it. Yeah, it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. Did you see the Moses It Toma fight this weekend? I don't think so. Do you know who he is, right? No. No? Okay, he up until this fight was probably the most promising prospect in the heavyweight division in more than a decade. He is a young guy. He's only 21 years old, and people were talking about him being able to break Mike Tyson's record

1:32:20 of being the youngest ever heavyweight champion. Oh, wow. So he missed that mark, and then he finally got a title fight this weekend. Look phenomenal for the first few rounds. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yes. And he was fighting this big Croatian cat. I forget his name. Yeah, yeah. Philip Hergosvich. And he. He couldn't. Stunt on it at first. Yeah. At the beginning, he was tuning this guy up. I mean, he was so fast and so late.

1:32:50 But he had never been into deep water before. Every one of his fights, he'd been able to stop people. And he hadn't had any, like, real good decision wins where he fought a bit. And he's not the biggest heavyweight, but he's wicked fast. I mean, just wicked fast and beautiful technique. But as the fight went on, he started to fade. And in the eighth, you could see him, like, really slowing down. and just really tried to take this dude out, but couldn't.

1:33:17 And thought he could. It was emptying the gas tank. Instead of boxing him and just outpointing him and being skillful, he just was inexperienced and he emptied the gas tank. And then Philip came back, man. Yeah, he finished him in a weird way. It was almost exhaustion. Yeah, he just stumbling over him. Yeah. Because they're both exhausted because it was a war. There's a nice right hand, and he stung him there. Well, did you see their little, like, table table table? talk where they're sitting across from each other. And he's all like, it's not about, you know, like how many times you can get hit or you can hit it. It's about how many times you can get hit and keep coming forward. Yeah.

1:33:56 And then that Moises is like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. He's like, why would you base your fighting style off like how many times you can get hit? And then lo and behold, you know, like this comes across. That's why, you know, I talk about technicality and finesse and skill set and it's a game of hit and don't get hit. But, dude, you could just have someone. who's just so tough and just so willing that this is a perfect scenario of that that's that's why there is so many aspects to this fight game well it was really funny because he was basically quoting rocky yeah yeah he really did quote well it ain't about how hard you hit it's about how it's hard you can get it right and keep moving forward exactly and he you know and and he pulled the rocky

1:34:36 he literally did exactly what he said he was going to do but it's all these things it's like youth and hubris and thinking you're the greatest of all time and and and and you're the greatest of all time and and looked like the greatest vote. Pull up a Moses Itama highlight reel. Because if you look at his highlight reel, you're like, this guy's the second coming. Like this guy is something really special, man. When you watch how he fights, I mean, his hand speed, his knockout power,

1:35:01 and for a young guy, you know, this fight, I think he was 20, and you look at his highlight reel, you're like, oh, my God, the sky's the limit for this kid. He's just putting everybody out. But, you know, he wasn't really being tested. You know, and then he finally, I think, was it Derek Chesora? Who did he fight before this fight? He finally beat a top-level guy, and he took him out.

1:35:26 And so, but, you know, it was a guy who's a real veteran, been around a long time. And he kind of thought that he could put it on everybody and knock everybody out. But, you know, this is like one of the things about any combat sport is you have to know when to hit the gas. when not to, and you have to have those experiences of these long, grueling fights, and he really didn't have that yet. So his first experience with a, yeah, Dillion White, that's who it was. And his long, his first experience with a real, no, it was, it was Chasora, I think, because I think it was Dillian White first, and then Chasora was the next fight afterwards.

1:36:06 Am I right about that? It was just his chaos on this video. What is it, Bull up his record? Who is his last fight before? before Hergovich. But I mean, I still think he's got potential to be a world champion for sure. I mean, the kid's only 21 years old. Dillion White right there, that's it was. It wasn't Derek Chesora, it was Dillion White. And Jermaine Franklin was right after that. So every fight has been TKO, TKO, TKO, TKO, TKO, TKO. I mean, if you watch his fights, I mean, they're fucking stunning performances, but it wasn't really really, really being tested in that way

1:36:48 with a really big, durable heavyweight who could take a shot who, you know, has a ton of experience. And, you know, now he's got his first loss, but he'll be back. Yeah. He's only 21. Well, that's, you know, on the... That's how they do in boxing. They feed these guys, build them up, and then when they're solidified, now you fight somebody who's substantial, you know? Yeah. And that's, you know, I've done a lot of comparisons, but that's to me where the MMA guys are just more down to go and do their thing. They'll fight anybody at any given time.

1:37:23 Is that by decision though or is that by necessity? Because the UFC, you know, if they call you up and say, hey, in four weeks, do you want to fight for the world title? I know you've never fought in the UFC before. In boxing, that's unheard of. That would never take place. Right. But in the UFC, if you're a pretty good fighter and you're doing well and you win a bunch of championships and other organizations, and all of a sudden this opportunity arises,

1:37:50 we've had guys with their first fight in the UFC fight for the world title. That is true. I mean, that's what you get when you have a melting pot of things, though, because those guys are well-established in their own personal careers. Maybe wrestling or kickboxing or whatever it is. Or rising. Yeah, it's not like you're pulling out like the local kid and telling him, let's go fight for a world title.

1:38:15 I mean. But they would put out, pull out the local kid and fight a guy who has 10, 15 fights in the UFC. For sure. That does happen. That happens all the time. Well, that's what I'm saying is like, I think that the boxers would be more hesitant to take something like that. Like you're saying. But the MMA guys are always down to do that kind of stuff.

1:38:32 Well, the boxers, though. It's a different culture, I suppose. It is, but it's also the fact that no one gives a shit who the promoter is in boxing. No, if someone's going to watch Jervante Davis fight, they don't say, well, who's performing that? Wait, hold on. Is this for Bob Aram? Is this for Golden Boy? No one cares. Right. It's just who are the fighters? With the UFC is a very different animal. So if you get a call for the UFC, like, oh, my God, we're in the big leagues.

1:38:57 Right. And that's different. 100%. Yeah. They have all sorts of different promotions and different people you can fight for in boxing. But UFC is the pinnacle. It's, yeah, if you get the call from the UFC, that's where you want to go. So there's a whole lot of differences to it. I just think whatever it is, that, yeah, the MMA guys are more willing to step in on their short notice and put their careers at risk and put their, you know, opportunities to continue fight streaks or whatever at a risk. So that's how I see it.

1:39:28 That's what I picked up from those two different things. Yeah, it's definitely a different culture, right? It's a culture of accepting those risks and also of probably people that are just, they're much more willing to take a chance, it seems. Yeah, exactly. That's what I think, like, that's us a little more patted up to it. A little bit more wild to be fighting the MMA anyway. That's, yeah.

1:39:52 That's a little bit more wild for sure. And that's a little bit more of a business, I would say, in my opinion. The boxing. The boxing is. Which. Well, you've got a lot of, like, very smart people involved in boxing that are, like, managers and trainers that are, like, really working to build a guy and turn him into a prospect, turn them into a contender. Yeah.

1:40:13 And then turn them into a champion. And the U.S.C. You only have the one organization doing that. Exactly. And they're managing all the weight classes and all the prospects. And they're picking and choosing. Not only that. They schedule fights around cards. They don't schedule cards around fights. Right. So, like, say, if Canelo Alvarez is fighting someone, it is, whenever Canales is ready to fight, that's when the card takes place. Yeah. Right. So Canelo Alvarez wants to fight September 12th. Okay, great. September 12th, let's put together a fight card around Canelo-Avres.

1:40:46 With the UFC, the UFC's coming to Salt Lake City, October 3rd. Who's there? Right. Who wants a fight? Right. We're going to have a fight. Who's going to be on the fight? Who's going to be on the card? And then you put the card together. So it's a different animal. Yeah. No, they're different, for sure. I mean, I try to draw wisdom from all aspects of everything. So I'm constantly delving into all the different realms myself. Do you read a lot? Are you a guy who, do you, like, read anything?

1:41:13 things on psychology or on warrior tactics you ever get into like book of five rings or any of that shit for sure i'm reading uh it's called hogakari right now and it's essentially um it's a it's a single individual yamamoto it's like tunishi or something i forget his name exactly but um he served for like the the reigning leader at the time his leader passed away he wanted to commit sepico because he was of that mentality, that warrior mentality, but his leader had commanded that no one was allowed to do that, this and that, but he's taking a lot of storylines, inspirations from all these samurai,

1:41:57 because it's going into a time period where the samurai weren't a necessity anymore. And so the ideology, the lifestyle, what it meant to live that Bushido lifestyle, had changed a little bit, and their purpose was different. and my boxing coach gave it to me actually when I was kind of in this limbo state of like it's essentially saying how should a warrior live outside of the fight you know like what does he need to be doing on a daily basis and but then it's it's I like the real life like storyline because now you're getting a bunch of different perspectives from all these people that were samurai all were warriors who lived that who you know fought in battle and now you get to see like a lot of different things like someone says you should do this and someone says no don't do that and to me i like that because i get to kind of delve through all the mindsets and then apply what works best to me you know but uh i love i love reading all that stuff i'm not been so good at staying off the phone and and you know i watch a lot of youtube which is it's always fighting

1:42:58 or some kind of gun channel or hiking or camping or hunting or spear fishing or something but um yeah i'm trying to get way better at that trying to stay off the screens like i i want to be more interactive with the world around me, learning things constantly. And so picking up a book and reading it is along that set of goals that I have is continuously be doing that. Yeah, I think there's benefits to a lot of stuff on YouTube. I think YouTube is not social media, and I think I learn a lot on YouTube. And I just get, for me, I like to wind down on YouTube, just watch some ancient history

1:43:36 thing or watch a professional pool match or something like that. It's just a wind down time. but it doesn't feel like I'm wasting time. Whereas if I'm looking at Instagram or Twitter or whatever, it feels like I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing that's not beneficial. Oh, 100%. That's, to me, as I'm building up my platform and whatnot, I understand it as a business.

1:43:57 And so I understand there's some necessity for me to be into it, producing content, not necessarily taking in content. But yeah, 100%. It's something that has affected our culture. in a large way it's all the the uh what's it called like the short term like media you know you're clicking through it it's just it's killing our attention spans it's it's just uh like you know your dopamine is is firing at all times going crazy it's just it robs you're at focus yeah you're getting this like that's where that's where i love the youtube but i almost

1:44:36 have to recognize that just because i'm watching a spear fishing video doesn't mean I'm getting in the water and going in spear fishing. Because sometimes I feel like I get my fix a little bit by doing that. But then I have to remind myself, it's like life has lived and your actions and your experiences. So sitting and watching the TV screen, somebody else experienced that, you know, you get the inside scoop. You get to kind of be there under the water, watch what's going on. But yeah, you're not actually living it. So I like it.

1:45:04 I love to learn from that. Social media. Yeah, it's, it sucks. It's zapping everybody. It's certainly not a part of the warrior lifestyle. Yeah. As you were talking about, as a samurai lives. Because then, like, you want to think about, like, your meditative aspects of, like, how often are you delving deep into your own brain and just figuring out things about yourself and asking those questions and pushing beyond? And when you got a phone screen, stealing all your attention, how are you ever doing that? Right. Yeah. Absolutely. You're not.

1:45:33 Yeah. You're not, you know, if you're spending so much time doing that. You're spearfisher guy, huh? You really like spearfishing? I like to spearfish. It's been some time since I've been back in the water. I had a buddy that we used to go all the time, and then he moved up to Washington. And I don't know. Where are you guys spearfishing? We go local, like, there's a Cronidlmar beach, and then there's a smaller kind of hidden beach that you walk down, and it's got plenty of structure and all sorts of fish out there. Laguna's got the kelp, forest. So I've just been going shore diving, and going over there, grabbing lobster when it's lobster season,

1:46:10 grabbing down to the honey holes and just grabbing them with their hands. So it's all the shore stuff right now. I haven't been off a boat. It's for my friends that have been hunting, they say they love it because they say it's like hunting underwater. Right. That it's not really like fishing. You call it spearfish, but it feels like you're hunting.

1:46:28 It's, yeah, you're in the action, you know. You get to pick and choose which fish you're going to take, which one to let to let go and uh yeah you're also i like it because i like the primitive aspects like we talked about like a little bit of bow hunting before i'm really enthralled with the bow hunting stuff over the rifle hunt because dude you can sit at like three four sometimes guys are shooting about like a 500 yards with this big old rifle and you're just smacking something it's like that thing didn't even like ever know you were there you know you're just like propped up and there's a place for it i suppose but having a bow and have to get up 30

1:47:05 yard, give or take, and having to make sure they're not catching your scent and having to perform the stock. I like the primitive stuff. I like it. I like something that involves a skill set instead of just like a technological prowess. No, I agree with you, obviously. I'm a big bow hunter. I don't think there's anything wrong with rifle hunting, and it's definitely the best way to acquire meat. If you're just going on a meat hunt and you just want to get your meat for the next few months, a rifle's a way to go. But if you want a real, challenge, there's something that's way more special about a

1:47:39 bow hunt. It's more difficult. It requires more practice. It requires more of you. Like, I went out a pig hunt about a year or so ago with a friend of mine in California where we had had a successful elk hunt and then we went pig hunting. And I hadn't shot a rifle in two years, a year and a half, two years. Not one shot with a rifle. Ace this pig at like 90 yards like it was nothing. Boom. dropped him in his tracks. That was so easy. Right.

1:48:08 And compare, I mean, all you have to do is get the crosshairs on them, don't flinch. Squeeze the trigger slowly. Make sure you're in a good position. Yeah. And know how to shoot a rifle. And once you know how to shoot a rifle, I mean, I'm not taking 1,000-yard shots, but you know how to shoot a rifle. It's pretty easy. If I was bow hunting, I wouldn't even imagine if I hadn't shot a bow in a year and a half. I've even thinking about shooting something with a bow. Right. Not a chance in hell. I wouldn't even think about it for like months. I would say I need to practice. I need to hit targets all the time. I need to make sure my shot is at.

1:48:40 I need to get my technique down. I'd want to film myself. Make sure I'm not doing anything stupid. Like let me look at my form. Why is my elbow to the right? It should be above. I would never imagine. Rifles way easier. But the feeling of taking an animal down with a bow is a completely different feeling. It's so much harder to do. It's so much more exciting. And if you fail, it doesn't, you know, many a hunt where you seven days nothing happens okay that's just part of the thing right but at least you know we're out here getting after it and trying and you succeed or you fail but at least you're in nature and the experience of it is still really fun even if you're totally unsuccessful yeah no for sure i mean that's why with the spearfishing stuff like these free divers that can hold their

1:49:28 breath up to four or five minutes you know and they're diving 40 50 60 70 feet so i'm of these guys out there in the middle of the blue water and they're going down to shipwrecks or whatever structure is down there and they're shooting these big old fish it's like yeah there's like there has to be a skill set to that it's something you had to work for to achieve you know it's something you had to build up to so yeah i love all that stuff i haven't been like bow hunt i haven't even been rifle hunting it's something that i really want to get into i like all that outdoor stuff we can help you we can help you get into that yeah definitely i'll connect you with some people I love all that.

1:50:04 You know, I like to a backpack. I just did Mount Whitney last year in August. And I just love being out there in nature. So, you know, being able to engage in it that way, too, is, like you said, the excitement, the buildup, the work you have to put into it, the knowledge you have to acquire, the people you have to bump into. The meals are a lot different, too. When you eat a meal that you prepared yourself, that you went and hunted, it's just a completely different feeling. Oh, for sure. And you're living in California now.

1:50:33 and California is a giant pig population. There's a lot of pig hunting to be had in California, pretty much all year round. Yeah. Yeah, because they're invasive species. Like, that's one that I'll get in the helicopter with the rifle and just take those guys out because I know they're just destroying animal, like, you know, like habitat and eating all the food and destroying the geography. Oh, dude, there's millions of them here in Texas. Yeah. Literally millions. Yeah, and they breed like no other, too. You know, they just multiply. Three times a year?

1:51:03 They have litter sometimes. Wow. At least twice a year. I have some friends mine and I, we have a hunting lease out here. And as you're walking through, like, the woods, you hear them. They sound like demons. Yeah. You hear them, like, fighting with each other in the bushes and shit. You're like, what the fuck am I getting into? Right. They sound like monsters, man. And they're everywhere. Yeah. Like, you go to every one of these ranches out here is infested with pigs. Yeah, they're just destroying. They have to hunt them.

1:51:34 They bring in people to hunt them. A friend of mine has a huge ranch out near Fort Worth. And he brought in a bunch of Navy SEALs to kill pigs, and they set it up like an operation. They literally decided to use it for training. Yeah. And so they, you know, and you can blow them up with like thermite. You can do all kinds of, not thermite. What's that shit that they use?

1:51:55 Tannerite. Tannerite, that's it. Thank you. I've seen that video. Yeah. Oh, that's crazy. It's fly up here there. It's ridiculous. Yeah. But you can basically do whatever you want to them because they they're just encouraging people. They're saying, listen, other than like declaring war on the pigs and bringing in the military and literally going through every state and trying to kill them. Like we've got an economic war where these pigs are destroying people's crops. Right. I mean, literally billions of dollars worth of damage every year they're doing to these farms. Yeah. And they just keep, there's more of them every year.

1:52:29 More of them every year. They're not going to stop fucking. and they're just going to keep reproducing. Just going to keep reproducing. And it's really been a few hundred years since they've been introduced to this country. And boy, they're in every state now. Yeah. I mean, and what are you going to do? Just let them continue to Rome. They're in every state. Are they like New York state and place like that? They have wild pigs? How many states have a wild pig population? Let's put that into perplexity and see what they say.

1:52:57 Our AI sponsor. I'm a guess. Let me say 30. I say 30 states have a wild pig population. That's my guess. 30 out of 50. Are my close? Am I close? How many? 35. Figure first to states with documented feral swine presence. I like that term. Farrell swine presence. This does not necessarily mean that every one of these states has a large self-sustaining population. 35 states, population established a number of, can be lower. Some states have only have occasional sightings, small localized groups.

1:53:34 Well, it really depends on where they have farms. States with farms have the real problem. In the southwest, especially Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina. Yeah. Wild. It's such a crazy animal, too, because they're, you know, they're so smart. They're so smart, and they're very durable. Right. Yeah. Some of them get gigantic, like 1,000 pounds, right? I mean, you seem to... Not really. See, I used to think that, too.

1:54:06 Those are not really the wild pigs. What those are is domestic pigs that got loose. And, you know, the thing about domestic pigs, when they get loose, they kind of become wild. Their nose lengthens, their fur gets, like, thicker and busier, and their talons, or their tusks, rather, actually grow. Which is nuts. Yeah. They actually metamorphosis. Well, that's...

1:54:28 I mean, that's what, like, a fairer... pig is, right? Mm-hmm. Was a domesticated animal that became wild? The opposite. It was a wild animal that they took and domesticated, but then when you let them loose in the wild, then they become wild again. Oh, okay. That was weird. It's like they originally were wild animals. And such a crazy transformation. Yeah. All covering hair and big tusks and stuff, and then like the pigs you see in the farm, like... Same animal. Yeah. What's nuts is it happens quick.

1:54:55 Apparently the metamorphosis starts to take place. Look this up. See how long it's. takes before pigs start transform it I think it's like six weeks or something crazy like it starts to begin yeah or six weeks where they have to feed themselves where they're to forge for themselves they're like all right I guess I'm wild yeah and then they start the transformation yeah it's it's a very weird animal I don't know of any other animal that will last perplexity of that I don't know if there's any other animal that does that domestic kid become feral and

1:55:24 behavior within weeks to months of escaping becoming wary of people nocturnal mobile and able to forage and survive without care, but it does not literally turn to wild boar in one lifetime. But it does have physical changes. What is the physical change? Radically different skull is overstated. Adult pigs can become tougher, leaner, hairier, and more elusive as conditions change. What major inherited traits become more common when the animals survive and breed pass on advantageous variance over successive litters. Evidence on feralization emphasizes that these changes are shaped by both environments and multi-generational selection, not an instant biological reversal. Not instant, but they do physically change. I don't think this is totally accurate. But if you see the biggest pig that they ever shot that was a wild pig, I think it's called Hogzilla. Have you ever seen that picture?

1:56:24 I think so, yeah. It looks like a domestic pig. It looks like someone was feeding that thing a lot, and then it got out and became wild pig. Right. I don't know how big that was. There's a photo of it, but it's one of those perspective shots where the guys like behind it. You stand all far behind it. Yeah. Make it look 10 times larger. Yeah. But it looks crazy. See, there's one of them where one of them is hanging from a tractor. Uh-huh. And I don't give a fuck how close you are to that thing. I think is giant. Yeah. Like how big is Hogzilla?

1:56:55 That's like some of the gators or the crocodiles, I mean, that they're finding in. Africa and stuff. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the pictures sit next to those things, and they're like 20-plus feet long, you know, like ridiculous. Yeah, crocodiles get big. I think the biggest ones they've gotten are, like, close to 20. See, that's the one thing about spear fishing is, you know, you know, the sharks are there,

1:57:16 you know. Do you ever see them? I have not seen, I've seen leopard sharks, but that's nothing crazy. You never saw a great white? I've never seen a great white. If you do, that would that be the last time, you go spear fishing? I want to say no, but I don't know. I'll have to get there first. If you have to hit one on the nose. Yeah. If it's like getting crazy, it's probably like, all right, I'm cool on that. But they have all sorts of different things. Like the Ocean Guardian. Okay, that guy's definitely behind that thing. But that fucker looks like he's got tusks. Well, look that one to the left.

1:57:48 The giant 36 stone. Yeah. Oh, you know that one too. I said this one was maybe 1,200 pounds. It was originally thought of to be a hoax. There was a documentary about it. This was back in 2004 and 5, though. What's that one on the upper left? That dude's resting his arm Is that a real picture? That's like a little kid though But the upper left, the kid It's way too close for that guy Yeah, that one's closer than the guy The guy's behind it But that kid is...

1:58:15 Well, that looks like... Oh, he's not resting his arms on it He's resting his arms on it. He's resting his arms. Yeah, it is the same. That's a fat fucker though Look at the size of that thing. That looks more like a domestic pig though Like that one right there That's a good example Go back up a little so I could make it small. Yeah. Look at his snout. It's actually kind of long. They're also still behind it too. Yeah.

1:58:37 Hard to tell how far, but. Why do people do that? It's big. It's big. I know, but it's big. I like how that one says 36 stone. That must be an English. Yeah, it's the mirror. That's crazy. That's a big pig, but it's not. Like, what is the biggest reported wild pig that was shot in Texas. Let's ask that. I think that's a porno. Turn that off. It's on IMDB.

1:59:05 The other white meat bites back. Did you say the biggest one shot in Texas? Let's guess. I'm a guess like 500 pounds. That's my guess. That's just a guess, though. No official. Largest ever shot, most credible. 790 pound boar. Holy shit. Captured Not Shot near Deleon in Comanche County, January 2015, weighed on certified mill scales. That's fucking crazy big. Seven-90s, nuts. That's so big. You imagine millions of 790-pound wild pigs running through this country? Yeah, that would not be.

2:00:00 Not ideal. Yeah. So never been hunting. I've shot some birds with the pellet gun or something. That's about it. But you want to? I would love to, yeah. What would you want to go hunting for? Do you have a thing in your mind that you think would be? I think something like a deer is probably like a good starting point. Do you know how to shoot a bow? Or would you want to use a rifle? I haven't shot compound too often. I shoot a recurve. It's definitely not something I'm super practiced with, but I'm pretty good with it. I went to archery competition pretty recently and did pretty good with it.

2:00:34 Did you really? With a compound bow? With the recurve bow. Don't hunt with that. Yeah. It's too risky. You're not going to. That would be. You've got to get real good. You'd have to, yeah. A lot of practice, a lot of hunts and a lot of experience. How far are you from San Diego? An hour, two hours if there's traffic. There's a really good archery shop in San Diego. I think it's a performance archery. Is that the name of the place?

2:00:59 But it's one of the best shops in the country. Okay. Yeah. If you want to get a compound bow and want to. get someone to really make sure that it's size correctly, that the draw length is correct and everything like that. Yeah. Performance archery. Why are you showing a map? Yeah, just go back to the... Doesn't show you anything there. Yeah, I've been there before with John Dudley. It's a great place. Like, really elite 4.6 stars on Google. Yeah. It's, you want to go to a really good place.

2:01:33 So they make sure they set you up correct. Like, that's a big thing with bows. It's like, you know, I couldn't shoot John Jones bow, you know. He's really tall. I'm short. The length would be different. Right. My peep site would be different. It has to all be measured out to your size, and everyone's different. So you'd have to really make sure that your bow is set up for you correctly. And it's just like martial arts in that you want to learn correctly first. You don't want to unlearn it and try to learn something the right way because you're always going to fall back on the way you got comfortable with doing it the first. time. Right. So that's a good thing to do. Nice. Yeah. I've shot a compound bow here or there, but I like all that stuff. I'm really, like I said, I'm big into continuing to learn lots of different skills, especially in that realm. And yeah, I'm all about it. Do you think of that as a way

2:02:29 to like just advance your mental function in just an all of life that will help you're fighting? the more different things you learn, the more different things you do, that you can take things from that and apply it to fighting? Or do you just do it because you enjoy it? I have to say I do it because I enjoy it. It's probably not directly related to fighting, but more of the self-reliance and the self-preservance. To me, like I'm at home making my own like Kitex holsters

2:03:03 and my leather holsters and doing all that kind of stuff is a good start. I have this old truck that I want to tear apart and learn how to work on it from the ground up. Being able to hunt and provide. Like, just, I'm always thinking, like, when shit hits the fan, I better be ready for it, you know. And so being a martial artist, being a warrior, encompasses a lot of aspects, you know. Hand-to-hand combat is only one of those things. There's a lot of different aspects to self-perseverance. So I think about it a little bit that way.

2:03:33 I do it because it's fun. and it's just exciting to learn a new skill and then have an end product, something that you made yourself. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's always a good idea to be self-reliant. And also, like, if you have a garden, that's another great thing. Like, you have a place where you can grow your own food. Yeah. So you're not getting any pesticides or herbicides or bullshit on your food. 100%. I mean, the end goal for me is to have, probably would not be the only property because my wife just loves Southern California.

2:04:05 so much. But Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, go get a couple acres up there, move the family, maybe some close friends, and just have our own little self-reliant thing up there with some crop, some wildlife, the ability to hunt up there on our land. A lot of the stuff I'm seeing up there, they have stocked lakes and the rivers have fish as well, so something like that is... You're really thinking about a possible catastrophe. It's always on my mind. No, I just, I want to get away from the hustle and bustle of everything. Just be out there in nature is really kind of the hopes for that. Are you stuck in California because of your wife and what you do outside of MMA?

2:04:46 Or have you ever thought about moving to a different place to train? Well, training is kind of the main thing that keeps me there, honestly. Yeah. My team is there. All my coaches are there. Of course, I can bounce around. Which are you out of now? I'm all over the place. I train at the den training. and your Linde, I train at CSW, Fullerton with Eric Paulson. I love Eric. Yeah, he's... Didn't your dad train with Eric? He did. That's how I got over there in the first place, because Ben was running the fight practice at CSW then.

2:05:18 Bro, Eric's an OG. He's an OG, dude. He's such a cool guy. Eric Paulson was, I remember back in the day when he had like a crazy ponytail in the days where you could grab hair. Yeah, well, that's why I cut it all. I think it was Sean Shirk, he was fighting him, bare knuckle, and the only he kept grabbing his ponytail and holding him there, and that's the only reason why, and I think right after that fight, he went and chopped it off and had short hair from that point.

2:05:46 I know it's nice to be good looking with long, flowy locks, but that shit is, especially back in those days when you could grab hair. You remember Hoist Gracie versus Chemo? Hoyst had a fucking handful of hair when he was on the top and just blast him. That's, I mean, to me, cut the hair man cut it or braid it especially if it's the old UFC days where you can actually grab hair

2:06:09 if you could grab it yeah yeah you know people complain all the time about guys grabbing their shorts and it does happen all the time guys grab shorts I'm always like why are you wearing shorts right I don't know if you wear shorts do you wear spandex you wear shorts spandex yeah why are you wearing shorts why are you wearing anything someone can grab and especially like everybody likes to lose like the high slate cut shorts nowadays so I mean so easy to grab it to grab onto, yeah. Yeah, I just don't understand it. Here it is.

2:06:36 Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. Oh, yeah, man. This is bare knuckle headbutts. Hey, and then you could kick him on the nuts and all that stuff back then. Bro, wrestlers were a fucking nightmare when you could headbutt. If you go back and remember, like, the Mark Coleman days, he would get in your guard and head butt the shit out of you. Right. Yeah, and how are you getting off of your back against a high-level wrestler like that? I know, it's crazy. It's just grabbing his hair like it's a wrist lock. I know. It's crazy. He had his hair and then I don't know if Eric escapes or if the time goes out, but Eric ends up finishing him at the end of it. What is this? A floor time count you had to get up if you're on the ground for too long?

2:07:16 Is that what it is? That's WCC. That's crazy. I wonder how much time. Oh, it's counting down. Yeah, I want to see what happens if it gets up here. Right. Do they stand them up? Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. That's crazy. Wow. Yeah, but Eric Paulson is such a legend of the game. Oh, yeah, he is. There's not a day that I go in there and learn submission flows from him that I'm not just, like, blown away. That's crazy. I forgot they did that. Interesting.

2:07:47 Well, I think back then in the early days of fighting, there was a lot of promoters that were trying a bunch of different tactics to try to make the fights more interesting. Right. That would be the only reason. Like, I don't want you to sit and lay there anymore and get up and start throwing fists again. I hate stand-ups. I hate them. Yeah. I hate them with all my heart.

2:08:03 I don't think in a five-minute round you should ever be stood up. There's a lot that can go on there. I mean, especially if you're holding position. You're regaining like your breath a little bit. You're setting up a pass or something. You know, it doesn't always look apparent to the crowd or to the ref. Even if you could hold them down. Like, who cares?

2:08:23 You could hold a guy up against a cage, right? Okay. And all you have to do is, like, land a few knees and a few punches occasionally and they'll let you stay in that position. I feel like they're breaking that up even more and more. I don't think you should break up anything. I think it should be reserved for fouls. I think if someone commits a foul, then you stand them up and then you assess whether or not someone gets a point taken away

2:08:41 or whether or not that person needs time. But if it's a place where you don't want to be and the guy's putting you in a place where you don't want to be, he's winning that exchange. If a guy can hold you down and you can't get up, if you don't like it and you can't get up, then he's winning. Right, yeah. We lose as an audience, the audience loses. There's a 10-minute limit for ground time. What fight was this? This is WCC? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was it called? World Combat Championships. Is that the one where HENZO? Yes. Henso Gracie fought Ben Spikers.

2:09:13 Do you remember that one? Oh, dude, this is one of the reasons why elbows to the back of the head are illegal. Because Hensow, this guy, was calling Hensow. There's you, dog. Look at that guy. Hensow was in his hotel room, and this guy was. was calling him every fucking 10 minutes, like to try to wake him up. And Henzo had to take the phone and shove it in a drawer.

2:09:39 Like, he was fucking with him constantly. And Henzo got his back and elbowed the fucking shit out of him from rear mount. So this isn't the same fight. It is. Yeah, right here. Oh, here it is. That's it. So Henzo gets his back. And here it is. Look at these elbows, dude. Just ferocious elbow. So this dude was a judo champion. I was going to say, why would you wear a ghee against... Against a guy like Henzzo. And Hensio doesn't have a ghee on. And then Hensel steps off and then gets on his neck.

2:10:17 Oh, shit. Yeah. Ow, that was crossing the line. After he just elbowed the shit out of him. See, you know what's funny is like the 12 to 6 rule, everybody fantasizes about, like, how much better that is. And sure, you got some cutting, but your force that you can deliver in my perspective, Straight down with an elbow like that is so much more tremendous than you do on this.

2:10:40 Yes. This was only, you know why it was outlawed, right? Why? Big John McCarthy has got a great story about this. When the ESPN people or the Athletic Commission people, rather, were first deciding whether or not they were going to sanction MMA, they had seen these ESPN karate breaking demonstrations at like two in the morning. These fucking guys, yeah! And they break a bunch of bricks.

2:11:04 And they're like, you have to outlaw that. That should be illegal. People could die. That's literally what they thought was the most powerful strike was the 12 to 6 elbow. Yeah. So you couldn't even do a 12 to 6 elbow standing, which is crazy. Right. You couldn't tomahawk. So you couldn't come down with a tomahawk 126. Yeah. It had to be at a slight angle. It had to be some kind of angle, which is the fucking dumbest thing ever. Chop of my half. This by far across, like it's rotating your shoulders into it like a punch. Yeah. It's the most power.

2:11:34 Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you might get more cutting. It's available if a guy's doing this. If a guy's covering up like that and you can go straight down. But to eliminate it as an option, the only reason why I was missed this. So the WCC had two different brackets. Grapplers bracket, strikers bracket, strikers bracket. Grapplers could be on the ground for up to 10 minutes.

2:11:53 Strikers only had two minutes. And submissions were illegal. What? In a strikers fight? Yeah. So it said, and then the idea was the winner of both brackets would fight. at the end. Oh, that's so crazy. Yeah, it only made it that one tournament. That's so crazy. What year was that? 94 or 5, 95 maybe. Okay, so this is right after the UFC burst onto the scene. UFC was 93.

2:12:20 It just says they were trying to be different than the UFC with different rules. They're doing something like that again where it's like striking only MMA where, I don't know, if you go back to the ground, they stand you back up or something. Where's this? I don't know. I saw it on Instagram. I mean, what is one FC's doing at the right way where they just have striking fights. Yeah. They have MMA fights and striking fights. Right. Dude, I've been trying to talk Dana into doing that for years, you know, because I know they got into zoo for boxing, which is great. You know, I'm like,

2:12:47 why not? Like, when people boo, when things go to the ground, how about have striking fights? Just how... But in his mind, kickboxing in America has a stink on it. From the PKA karate days, you know, which just wasn't that good. They weren't allowed to leg kick. It was all above the waist. Right. And, you know, there was great fighters back then, like Rick Rufus and a few guys that were, like, really elite. But for the most part, the skill level wasn't that high, and people never really got into PCA karate. And never really got into kick. It never really became the kind of success that boxing was. And so I think in his mind, that's how people look at kickboxing. Right. I think it's the most, it has the most possibility in terms of, like, a sport that is not being taken advantage of, like, that it has the most potential. far. I mean, like you say, you look at the one championship guys that are over there, kickboxing

2:13:39 boy tie, and they're even doing hybrid fights for that DJ versus Rotang one. Yeah. They're switching it up all crazy and I don't know. I mean, that's getting pretty good traction over there, so. It is. I heard, you know, they have some difficulties and I hope they do really well. The world needs more organizations. The MMA world needs a bunch of options. Right. And you know, this PFL merger where PFL has merged with, what is his... MVP? Yeah, Jake Paul's production company, MVP, yeah. That's great.

2:14:12 We need more of that. Netflix is involved, fantastic. You need more. You need more options, more fights, and it's just going to make more MMA fans. Right. Just for me, when you see a guy like that cat that I was telling you about Megamatoff who fought for PFL, like, more people need to know about these guys. Like, there's so many guys out there that are fucking killers, man. No, the talent pool is so deep.

2:14:36 Like, outside of the U.S.C, it's extremely deep. You got people coming out of Russia, these Brazilians, like, people all over the world that nobody's ever heard of just because they haven't been on that big stage quite yet. So, I mean, I mean, I think it would be really cool that we did, like, champion versus champion kind of fights. It's never going to happen. Yeah. The U.S. would never do that. Why would, what if their guys win? Fuck you.

2:15:00 The benefit of it for the UFC is like it's so outweighed by the negatives. Right. Especially since they're number one. Yeah. And they're not number one like a little bit, you know. Right. Like for the casual, MMA is UFC. You know, it's like Q-tips. It's not a cotton swab. It's a fucking Q-tip. Yeah, from a business perspective, I understand it. I think as a fighter, it would be cool to challenge yourself once you get to that pinnacle, if you have title defenses and you're kind of taking everybody out, it's like, hey, I really want to be the best on the world, let me fight, all the top guys in the world. So it may never happen, but it's a cool ideology. The only way it could happen if something like MVP got to a level of prominence in the public eye where they developed a roster of champions

2:15:47 that was equal to the UFC, then it would make sense. Then no one's losing. Yeah, because then it brings in all the crowds from everywhere. Right. And then you do a co-promotion for like a gigantic super fight. like, you know, the UFC's version of Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Pack, yeah. Right. You know, you have something where these guys are so huge. It's just like, let's make this happen. Everyone's going to get rich. Let's go.

2:16:11 Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. It has to be something of that caliber. Like, it has to be a Connor McGregor-level champion where that, you know, people are coming from all over anywhere to sign on to buy the fight at home or to show up in person. And I think you'd have to have two level, two guys of that. level to bring some of that traction to it. Do you think Connor fights again? I don't know. It sounds like he sounds like he's going to. I think he does. I think he does

2:16:39 the one more and then he's done with it. Yeah. I hope, you know, it just, that's what like you say guys stay in it too long. It's like, and some of these guys, that's all they know. It's the only thing they've ever found success in or found the ability to put food on the table or provide for their families. And so like what else do they know? They gave everything to fighting. Well, with Connor, it's not that. But that's not Connor. He's, he went from such a high place to, like, doing what he's doing now in the fighting world.

2:17:06 It's just like, why even step in and do that anymore? I think it's just because he still can for a little bit more time. I mean, he's 37, 38 now. Realistically, he's got two years left, maybe, you know? If you really take care of yourself and we both know, there's parted a little bit. I don't think he's going to get back to. to that level of training and like mindset to it though you know it's very difficult to know because he was capable of doing it at one point in his life and it doesn't mean that he can never

2:17:38 do that again just because he's rich right and i think you could underestimate a man's character and say that he can't ever reach those heights again a guy like connor's a special guy the special it takes a special type of person to put on a performance like he did against eddie alvarez like that was he was in the fucking matrix man. Right. To be there live when he was doing that, I was like, good Lord. Yeah.

2:18:02 That was special. Yeah, he's pulling in. Just, Eddie's like skinning his nose, blah, blah, blah, and coming back with him. And he's countering instantaneous with perfect precision. Yeah. He was on fire. If he can reach that height, as long as his body holds up, but here's the problem is, both of his ACL's been torn, both of his meniscus has been blown out, you know,

2:18:23 now with this, the crazy one with that crazy jumping roundhouse kick. Like, who knows, man? Who knows what he could still do? There's, I will never say never. It's not that he couldn't do it. Right. It's just that will he do it? Will he put that time and effort to recollect and to be of that zen, of that Bushito like he used to be? Because like the way he used to talk and be philosophical and stoic about training, the way he explained it and delved into it, that's what drew people to Connor before anything. The way he talked about the warrior lifestyle and he didn't care about anything else and he lost his mind to it, those are the things that intrigued the people. people, this real true warrior persona. And that was the biggest question with his last one. Everybody's like, oh, do you think Connor's going to do it? Do you think Connor? And it was the same answer. Do I think he can do it?

2:19:11 For sure. But the problem with that is Connor's so good at talking that he could convince you that he's doing, he can doing anything, you know? So I'm like, I'm not there in his camp. I'm not seeing what he's doing behind the scenes. I really can't. I really can't make that guess, honestly. Yeah, and much like you, I want to believe. You know, you hear him talk. You're like, I want to believe. I want to see him pull it off. Of course. Yeah, we all did, you know. He was a very important part of fighting. He was a really special person that came along and brought a lot of attention to the sport that would not, it wouldn't have been the same without him. That whole era of time from 10 years ago or whatever it was when he really burst more than that.

2:19:56 But I think he won as, what year was? did he win his first title? When was against Joseo what year was that? At the end of 2015, it was December 2015. Yeah, so 11 years ago, really when he became Connor. You know, that one punch knockout of Joseo Aldo was really when he became that guy. I mean, he was huge before that, but that was the one. And then, of course, the Eddie Alvarez fight was another one. I mean, it's 10 years, man. That's a long time. Right. A lot of booze, a lot of partying, a lot of fucking off.

2:20:32 You know? A lot of luxury, you know, not waking up. That's hard to go running. Also, the difference, as you said before, between 45 and, you know, and going all the way up, now he wants to fight at 70, you know. Yeah, and he's also on, that's a weight class of killers right there. You talk about Carlos Prattes and these and this and that, and I'm like. Morales, bro.

2:20:53 Yeah, yeah, Morales. That guy's giant. Those guys are all huge. Huge. Even Ian Gary, you saw him sparring Connor, and he's far bigger than Connor is. Connor's not that ginormous of a guy From my understanding He gets pretty like thick But he's not really like that big of an individual No 55 is really probably as heavy as he should be fighting at Realistically when you think about those guys Yeah but then is he going to cut the weight to do that Like it's hard Is he going to do all that stuff Well if he doesn't want to do that

2:21:22 It really probably shouldn't be fighting I mean he the only thing with that is that He can kind of pick who it is he's fighting To an extent And so he can get away with the weight class thing a little bit. He can. You can do whatever the fuck he wants. But, you know, if I was in his... It's also at his age, should he even be cutting that kind of weight anymore? Maybe just pick the real fight is 170 with Michael Chandler. Like, have that fight. You want to have one more fight and go out, you know? That would be beautiful for him, yeah. Because Max is a tough, it's a tough matchup for him. It's tough. If he doesn't get Max out of there in the first two rounds and good luck with that.

2:21:57 Like, Max is going to... I mean, Max's whole strategy goes, we're going to... drown him. Yeah. That's what his thoughts were. Yeah. Yeah. That's a tough one. Max is as tough as they come and he's fighting the top of the top consistently. So he's only getting better. He's only getting more experienced. I think Michael Chandler would be great regardless. I think it draws the crowd. I think it brings the energy to it. I think that's a good skill level for Conner. They already went through the whole ultimate fighter thing together and talked all the shit to each other.

2:22:29 It's like it's crazy that Chandler's. sat in the shelf for like two years waiting for that fight. And then finally he's like all right, I guess it's not happening. Right. Yeah, and he got fucked. He did. Chandler to me is like, he's very physically tough. I just, you know, I don't think he is as skillful as Max or some of these other guys, so I think that's a great fight for Connor. I think that's a good one for him to come back on. Yeah, I mean, Chandler's a wild dog. He is a wild dog, but he relies on that too much, is what I've seen. It's like he comes out all crazy.

2:23:02 And it's just like, dude, like, that's the same thing. Start with a jab. Start. Oh, and it's, who am I to say it quite yet? You know, he's there doing his thing. But from my perspective, you know, there's needs to be a little bit more calculation there. Well, it's not going to happen at this stage of his career. But, yeah, if you go back and watch his Eddie Alvarez fights back when he was fighting in Bellator.

2:23:21 Yeah, that was, like a war back and forth, you know, like both those guys hit the canvas like three or four times each, you know? Those fights were insane. Yeah. Some of the like like for people that like you want to see a great fight you probably never saw before If you only watch the UFC go back and watch Michael Chandler versus Eddie Alvarez one and two Those fights are nuts right. Yeah like I said it's just like a like a war back and forth But that's that's that's also

2:23:48 And Chandler is a very physical guy. He's very explosive And just think like back at his prime you know how much more explosive he was how much power he had how much energy he was delivering to to that fight. And that's why he was performing like that. But like a lot of fighters, you know, like the Roy Jones and stuff, is you can't always rely on that, especially in your later years. Like that's back to this. You've got to be thinking

2:24:11 with this, especially as your body starts to get a little bit slower and not as explosive. So I don't know. He's over there getting after it. I mean, that gaugie fight, he was definitely not on the winning end of it, but he stayed in it and fought hard and then the Poillet fight. He's had some great fights. He's had some great fights for sure. I mean, you fight a guy like Rufie. Rufi's just on a tear right now. If you don't take him down to the ground, there's not a lot of people that beat him on a pure striking match right now anyway. He's so good. Yeah, he's, see, that's another one. That's another like individual that you look at it, like a work of art, you know, someone who really understands what it means to be a striker.

2:24:52 Yeah, and super creative. Like, he does a lot of wild stuff in sparring. There's some awesome sparring footage of him like pulling off Crescent kicks when he's like two inches from you Yeah he's like back fist Yeah he's artistic I mean he's very creative when he's in there It's beautiful to watch He's got a great fight coming up Who is he fighting Why did I blank on it He's fighting Someone Oh Armand Sarukian Oh yeah Yes About two or three weeks

2:25:23 Yes Armand Sarukian and they're fighting in L.A. That's a good fight. That's a really good fight. And that's, yeah, that's the whole thing with him. He's got to make sure he doesn't get taken down against someone like Armant-sur-Rukia. That's a tall task right there. Yeah, absolutely. That guy's one of the best wrestlers in the sport. It's interesting to see him stay relevant outside the UFC when the UFC hasn't been offering fights. That's great. Yeah. Very smart. He's doing his thing.

2:25:51 He's doing his thing. It's very smart what he's doing. And, you know, getting into the RAF matches. and doing a bunch of different things on social media. He just stays out there. Yeah, he's hanging out with all the Twitch streamers and stuff. And it's not like he needs money, you know. Right. He's good on that part. That's weird. It's weird for a guy to be that good who's rich. Right. He's so good. It's so tough. Yeah, two trains of thought there. It's like either have all the amenities to do so or like you have all the amenities

2:26:17 so then you're... You're a pussy. You don't need to do anything. Yeah, you're soft. You just sit around, but not him. He's fucking shredded and he grew up rich. Yeah. Yeah, like stupid rich. He's literally Bruce Wayne. He's the USC Bruce Wayne. He's Bruce Wayne. I mean, he's always got Ferraris and shit. You know, you ever watch his video series on YouTube, his training series? Which one? Like the logs or? Yeah, so they're rolling into a town.

2:26:42 Like, it rolls into L.A. First thing he does is goes and rents a Lamborghini. So when he shows up a training, he's driving around a rented Lamborghini everywhere. He's got that kind of scratch. Right. And yet he's training like a fucking absolute. animal and he's a great fighter right i mean he has no flaws in his game no flaw in terms of heart he doesn't quit it's like that his first fight with islam was fucking chaos he gave islam

2:27:06 one of the toughest fights of his career right i think that's i think that's probably the closest i mean besides obviously islam's loss yes he really got tested like that you know absolutely that was a short notice wasn't it for armand yes yes yeah so he's he's got all the skills he's he's he's a top contender for sure and when you think about uh rufei The real problem that he had in the UFC was that one fight with Benoit Sandini. We got taken down. And, you know, Benoit is obviously very elite grappler. So it would be interesting to say if he can avoid Armand.

2:27:40 That's the big question right there, for sure. I would think that that's what his camp is surrounded around his takedown defense, getting up off the bottom, blocking some chokes. and being able to get back to the feet. I mean, that's the thing. That's, you know, for the MFA striker guys, it's not like you have to be like the dopeest wrestler, like, all around, but you do need to be really good at defending takedowns.

2:28:07 Yeah. And you do need to have one, two, three escapes off the bottom, a sweep, some kind of ability to stand up, you know, and then, yeah, get back to your feet and make this a close fight. If you get stuck on the bottom, then you're done for it. You're screwed. And I think for a lot of these guys that are elite strikers, it takes that one fight where you do get dominated on the ground to really have a wake-up call. And I think a good example of that might be Cyril Gahn, when Cyril Gahn fought John Jones.

2:28:36 Yeah. You know, and also Francis. Francis beat him up on the ground as well. Right. But the John Jones one was, I think, a real humbling wake-up call because John essentially avoided getting hit completely, took him down and strangled him real quick. Right. And then he's sitting there like, fuck. and from that moment on, that dude's been on a tear.

2:28:56 I mean, and you see how he performed on the White House lawn against, you know, what we thought is arguably one of the greatest strikers that's ever fought in the UFC, Alex Pereira. And he certainly was at middleweight and light heavyweight, but zero gone at heavyweight is something special, man. There's a good example of a guy that you were talking about who hits and doesn't get hit. We've literally never seen him get rocked. Right. Which is crazy. And he's got that. Savat-ish style.

2:29:23 I wouldn't say it's completely Savat, but he bounces. It's almost like that karate savant. He moves really well in and out. Dude, if you can do that at the heavyweight, you're that big and you can move like that, it's going to be very difficult for a lot of those guys to track you and keep up with that. Absolutely. And, you know, we were talking about, like, point fighting. Like how point fighting has, like, such a, like, I think it's a great skill to learn. Another great skill to learn is basketball. And that's what Cyril Gahn did. He played a lot of basketball. And if you think about a big guy where you're,

2:29:51 constantly exploding and moving and all this different changing directions. Yeah. That would definitely benefit you with footwork. Yeah, there's all sorts of hand-eye coordination. You've got to be very quick and, yeah, to be able to move your hands and your feet in succession. Because look, nobody, no heavyweights move like that guy. Right. He's the gold standard for, like, elite moving heavyweights in the UFC.

2:30:11 It's zero gone. And then there's no close second. Like, who's the close second at heavyweight? You got to go back to Travis Brown when he was in his prime. Travis Brown, when he's in his prime, was very light on his feet and moved very well. But I think Cyril Gahn is like a new level, a new level of like elite mobile heavyweight who also has ridiculous knockout power. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I would say the only person that rivals his speed and agility would be maybe like a Hokka.

2:30:40 I don't know. I haven't really seen. Hoket's fast. But don't think he's got that kind of footwork speed. Not at all. There's no comparison on the skill levels of that movement and the striking. He just has similar speed and agility. What Hogan has is elite wrestling, though. And a lot of shit talking. A lot of shit talking. He gets people riled up. I don't know. I think that's also something that Connor did really well is that you got these guys going into a fight going, I cannot get beat by this guy. He just did. He said this and this and I have all this pressure, and you can see it. Like, you saw it on Joe's say, although.

2:31:15 What's the other Brazilian he fought? I don't know. It starts with an R. He's spot him before. Maybe it was a second fight? I don't know. I'm blinking on his name. Yeah, I know who you're talking about. You can see him in my head. He runs out all crazy. Like, just everybody. He gets him where all that. If you have that added pressure, it's a psychological effect. And I think Hokka does the same thing. He takes people out of their comfort zone. Now everything's extra tense.

2:31:46 Everything's guarded. You're not making any, like, you're not taking any chances or risks or stepping out of line. You're just, you're very, very safe and secluded. And fighting, you know, you have to be loose when you're fighting. You can't be thinking that. And you probably didn't sleep good the night before because you fucking hate this guy. Yeah. And then you're like, yeah, riled up, pissed off.

2:32:07 All I want to do is take his head off. You're not thinking about technique. You're thinking about taking his head off. That's it. One big overhand. It's like, dude, when you fight angry, then you had all this skill and your emotion could take it right out of you. See, that's another aspect of this striking game, of this MMA game. Do you think that that should be taught more, the mental aspect of the game of just being able to stay in your own head and not get affected by these outside influences, not get affected by, and understand what these things are? So when you encounter them, you know, have a coach, I think, that could teach you not just how to fight, but also how to maintain your peace of mind and how to maintain your focus and not get distracted.

2:32:50 Oh, 100%. I don't know. Like, everybody's individual, you know? It's hard to have a program because you have guys that go to like athletic therapists or whatever, like performance therapists, and they sit and they do all that stuff. I think a little bit is you're born with it. You have the ability to control, like, emotions better than others. Some people go through, again, back to like just hard life experiences is the best teacher. So a lot of people learn that way. I don't know. I don't know what it is for each individual person. Me, like, the third person I train with is my boxing coach, Dale Roybal, out of his, we let he train out of his garage in his front yard, you know.

2:33:31 And, like, we talk spiritually beyond, like, just boxing. We talk about the world. We delve into the spirituality of the gospel and God and what that means to us. us. He's a big time recurved guy. That's who I went and did my archery competition with. He's a big time leather working guy. And so we just sit and talk about what it means to be a warrior, the philosophy and the

2:33:57 psychology behind that, what it means to control your emotions. When you're engaged with certain aspects in life, how do you come out on the other side of it? Like every day, I mean, oftentimes we stop and we're just sitting and talking about things. And, you know, my wife's always like, you're just sitting there talking, hanging out with So, like, this is part of training, baby. We talk in psychology, you know, like it's something we've got to spend extra time doing. And, but I do.

2:34:20 Like, I get there and we'll sit and talk for 30 minutes sometimes before we even warm up. I'm stretching and we, then we get into it. He starts wrapping hands. Like, we're always just, like, adjusting and constantly talking about it. So. That's a great resource. To me, that's fantastic. Like, it's, it makes fighting spiritual to me. It makes it, like, it takes it another level up, you know? And so, and then. Yeah, I mean, I got him. We really connect on a lot of things. Eric Paulson is an absolute legend of the game. I have a lot of experience that I learned from him, a lot of mindset. He's the same way. Ben Jones, he's the guy that you want to go into battle with.

2:34:57 He's the one that you guys hear in the corner that's super loud. He's the kind of guy that, yeah, he's putting you through that hardship mentally and physically in the room. And if you can endure that, then you can go out and fight. So I think there's different levels to it. You got to get it in different ways, but it's interpersonal, you know, and you got to delve into that, and it's got to be its own practice, its own training for the day. So 100%. I mean, yeah, if you get riled up by the littles thing and then you go out there and you try to go crazy,

2:35:27 and you're just like a kindergartner in this fight game, you've lost everything, and emotion can do that to you. So, yeah, you mean, you have to be on top of that. It's, you know, I say there's so many levels to this. There's the cardio, there's skill set, there's, there's, there's, being relaxed, there's an emotional aspect that you have to think about. Like, you know, because everybody gets hit and like, what's the natural reaction? I want to get you right back.

2:35:50 But the best fighter can get hit and just not even think about it, not even get riled up one heart. You know, their heartbeat doesn't even go at one level. Bam, bam. The game plan stays the same. Bam, bam, bam. I'm intelligently blocking. I'm doing my stuff. I've never deviated for what I'm doing. And if you could do that, it's beautiful. You got it. That's an awesome mindset, brother. I can't wait to see you inside there again. And thank you very much for being here. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.

2:36:15 It was a great experience. My pleasure. Good luck in the future. I'm sure I'll be calling one of your fights soon. Yes, sir. All right. Beautiful. Bye, everybody.