Joe Rogan Experience #534 — Robin Black Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! I tend to try to do stuff that I like. You work for the Fight Network in Canada, right? them and isolating them. To spend hours sitting there and look at how beautifully in the most dangerous and most the most high-stakes sport I think in the world approaches to overcoming those variables are so gigantic like uh the rise of superman no oh dude you have to read this book immediately so this guy goes and

4:18 five times and stuff. Because those guys, if they are not in that state, they die. Right? So the level now, like, there's exponential Now, every day, 10 guys do I wonder if you ever could do that because if they were in that highest moment of combat what you want to check with that EEG or something what's happening in the brain, The top guys, Carlos Condit is operating at that level.

6:39 are both in that state. And you know that I'm starting to recognize patterns you can lay traps for me by make you pay for having such a good performing brain you know what i mean like your brain performs, the different I have to approach to make you pay for having such a good performing brain. being a bunch of neurotransmitters are flowing together in the optimum levels.

8:28 yeah and the jaw and yeah the shape of a man's face exactly like so start looking at what that They're rare and fleeting, but when they come, it's like you can't miss. you're probably in that state almost always when you're hitting it in comedy. of my mouth. I know it's my voice. I know, I know technically I created them. I wrote them, but one of the aspects of flow state is that you you interpret time differently so you'll hear that

11:13 For days or weeks or a fact you're popping your head. Like just absolute, utter failure. Like now when I look at these elite level fighters who can do that every day, I have such a marvel in what they're capable of. you your intensity is so much higher because the stakes are higher because you know that this a Trying to stay comfortable is a terrible, terrible path.

13:39 And I've got a killer wife, and I live in Canada. You'll go for things. All you can do is put your head down and try to do good work. can't do anything else nothing you can't kiss anybody's ass I was talking The world needs push and pull. That's in us. This just feels terrible. you can accomplish things that you felt were insurmountable before. You need to face the fire to understand what it's like to be under extreme pressure.

17:37 like you're training a 10th planet jiu-jitsu or something like that you got just a whole room I'm in trouble. ragdolls you and you like what the fuck and like your ideas of who you are change because you you It's going to be fucking street golf. So they don't understand that other guys have an understanding of physics and understanding shit they have in their head and it's just a prop it's like it's like a

19:37 of who you were were so screwy. to that they have this bizarre belief in their ability to fight that's awesome i don't know what it is it's wrong most of the time if you know even if it's wrong It costs like 80, a hundred thousand to strip it out, put this stuff down, put, what the Even escalators. Because in a world like that, let's go see what happens when we see the opposite of that.

21:35 every day, and he's objective, and he's got a real of the body itself and the long history of combat that's ingrained in our genetics our dna has this Because of the fact that they have no insecurities when it comes to that stuff, their focus when He's a bad motherfucker. So this guy was bigger than Tate. room it's like i got my key right here and i'm gonna use the key and uh cake take goes take it

25:07 Just a big bully. So Tate is standing in front of the dude, and the dude is the dude is like oh shit this is really happening right and then tate And when I said, don't worry, he's just going to put him to sleep, His friends pick the guy up, bring this up because it was so ridiculous. It was like in a restaurant or something, right? That's the thing about training is you're used to struggling essentially for your life.

27:23 Or my arm would have broken in half and then you'd have killed me. And then you move on to the next guy who's going to kill you. They don't know about any of the good things about martial arts. It's beyond fucked that a guy could beat a woman. So that's all I could say. So these guys come into a big gym, and they're new, and they're tough guys. high level MMA fighter.

30:27 And this is the third one. It's a weird one, too. sitting there and trying to figure out what the thing was Jaron's cool. will be like your Demetrius Johnson break he goes well you know tell me what else you saw and where i'm having a beer and whatever and uh i said Like this referee that was reffing the main event picked up on this one that basically

32:23 in the pocket, I looked at his fights. I'm a big Matt Hume fan. Duke is right up there with him. up and down and you start responding up and down he makes you believe that he is playing with your Dwayne Ludwig chugs Alpha Brain. I sat down with him at lunch the day TJ fought Burrow. And TJ's a sponge, man. Yeah. His cup is empty. And Dwayne is completely ego free when it comes to teaching him.

36:11 It was real. Yeah, it was incredible. we're calling classic pancreas. It's super cool, man. You'll be in eight, ten different positions. It was back when Hicks was still thinking about fighting. things like big goofy movements you know with big openings he would two years ago he was doing it in 1994 well he had good muay thai too matt hume had very good muay

39:12 And it's like if it is not finished, you win because I grabbed the rope once. And that's, a lot of that has a history because of pro wrestling. we suddenly, Ram Dean and I are colonies I mean, you can't do that. and the winner was the winner who could wrestle. that was Pancrase. That's really interesting. It's also an interesting thing that we were saying this that I don't think there's ever been a sport that has changed so much and grown so much in just a period of 20 years.

42:09 the level of endurance, It's like, I don't care. okay, well, that doesn't work anymore. That changes. to win a fight and if you put yourself more in danger so the crowd roars and you know like we'll the puzzle in striking is about technical striking it doesn't't mean no knockouts. There's a lot of You never see him slugging it out and fucking dropping his hands and like, come on, bitch, come on.

45:21 him because he's epo to the fucking gills and who knows what else fatigue yeah why he didn't finish him is because he's EPO'd to the fucking gills. And who knows what else. They didn't fatigue. Well, that's the Nick Diaz strategy. the fucking Pacific Ocean get like he'll even mentally get you pulled in there. You know Jack Slack? There's a little group of people out there.

46:50 He does great breakdowns. It's like that as well. When Jimmy Smith, his contract was going up with Bellator, I called Dana White I go, he should work for us. I mean, it's a really tough gig There's not that many guys out there. The guy, he's always been one of my favorites because he's a regular guy who just figured out How to get the answers To the shit he needed to get to

48:31 If I can just figure out Is he did this striking compared to old It must be Jack because Jack's the best guy out there. but nobody knows who he really is and uh does anybody know what he looks like no i think he They'll show what happened at the line. you know but it feels like in a lot of other sports there are they have spent time to develop who does that um dominic cruz dominic cruz does a great job of it to speak and like you're talking

51:44 and then he's countering you off to the right, When someone is head straight up in the air, So like when Dominic did a great breakdown of what Franklin did wrong and where the errors were. And there's a really wild, heavy case of it And the way for him to draw that out and going, no no shit he wants me who's such an elite grappler. and really had bad striking in the beginning.

54:47 And now destroying people with stand-up. elbow did you see that oh pull that up jamie jacare elbow surgery pictures he had um before Like there's a cup of all the things that they removed from his elbow. who's been training you and Eddie and shot. it's a vicious sport well it's a sport that i'm realizing like one of the things that i did to armor up your body, just to armor up your joints.

58:00 Strengthening your hamstrings to prevent knee injuries, concentrate on that. bad back injury leads to something like that. I have a black belt in Taekwondo. people ever on Earth. Winnipeg to go train three times a week for my whole – as a kid, teenager. And I enjoyed it. they stick their hands in their belt and it's all spin kicks and hook kicks and shit it's super cool

1:00:13 But so I did a lot of that. the Philippines, and there was a chunk, a little red dot in the middle of Canada. Check it out. I mean, like you can't even like block. an interesting thing as a teenager to see and then i got i started playing in a rock band in my 20s And late, mid-20s, I started playing in a band, And somewhere between David Lee Roth and the New York Dolls, you know? like it was super like David Lee Roth style yeah exactly exactly and somewhere between

1:02:12 and we so I could do that Whoa. I felt terrible for like 10 hours. And then apparently, it was like a minute or something. months. And then people kind of knew me a little in Canada, like on television doing stuff. The second I kind of had been not living a crazy lifestyle, all I wanted to do was martial arts. Oh, yeah. give me i'm enabling folks give it a go i i feel like um it's always like a weird thing when you mix an upper and a downer too, right?

1:05:25 You can't? I don't know. There's this buddy that we know that makes these, they're called jambos, these organic edibles. become like a martial art, right? It is to me. I think of, especially Olympic lifting, that's a things in the world to be able to just really hit one it's such a full body exercise too Yeah. apparently they made a bunch of ridiculous claims that aren't necessarily true but i still like them

1:09:14 Hey, have you ever seen that on the internet? It is fascinating. was all coming from his ass it was called from his toes down pushing off and all his quads and his How do you make, what do you walk around at? like that i had to go in and do it also you want to you become a better person going and doing that And then you cut weight. And then you've had your couple of days to eat pizza and burgers and stuff.

1:12:13 but a lot of these guys celebrate the way that you deserve to celebrate Like, look, George Foreman won the heavyweight title at 45 years old, 46 actually, Have you got to know him? Like 2007 or something like that? Jesus Christ. I mean, he was goddamn shredded and just a beast at 48. He might be fucking with people. In fact, he looks like a 25-year-old guy in his prime.

1:14:39 Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? They have weird laws when it comes to hormones, even hormones that are prescribed by doctors that don't show any negative effects on the body. Interpretation. Medicine's weird. It's ignorance. It's not the science or medicine that's weird. It's the ignorance. Exactly. where he has some unfair advantage. It is weird.

1:17:18 about the barry bond situation it's been about mark mcguire it's been about all these people cool you know that's it's motivated by finance what a commerce yeah but i mean i don't that's and you're shredded, like who gives a a shit let the guy do whatever he wants well what if Smoke and cigarettes, there's a direction to keeping some a society not super active and

1:19:35 These laws happen for this reason. but they were never testing for it until recently. When Chael Sonnen got popped for human growth Yep. time and they take the blood from your body. It's such a large thing. but you can't take EPO, which will do the same thing. Well, that's where like the Balco guy came in. now he's kind of working hard to stop doping in sports which is like really a weird position to

1:23:19 versus the recent vitor who's off testosterone, and he has shrunken. Chris Weidman comments on Vitor Belfort TRT and look for a photo. Oh, yeah. Look at this. Don't lose that shit. Yeah, yeah. I mean, is that— hours uh human growth hormone is out of your system within 10 hours. You can't even test, to win then try to win every little scenario. And the

1:27:23 the business but vitor still in it So imagine somebody, I don't know what it would be like to have your testosterone at that level, And it was making him super confident. And he's like, man, you look at that guy. He's genetically better than 97, 99% of all men on earth. He's got the best coaches. I know I'll have to beat him twice. And then he went and got that Regenikine done in Germany.

1:30:43 That's the other thing about Weidman. I want a better paddle. He's not a ping pong guy even. He just is you know like that that's that quality that makes them a great fighter hating losing yeah once and stuff. And when he got in there I love that people are into a fight. guys putting together their lifetime of everything but i think each other on a stage i hated that stupid like like two of the best athletes in the world and

1:34:08 Yeah, that's the thing about that, This could be around the world. dudes in your division know that you're the fucking king. I mean, you've seen the science where they looked at the smiles at the weigh-ins. For real. And it is a smile of I'm going to fucking kill you. Isn't that fascinating, the difference in like understanding the facial expressions like human beings kind of get when

1:36:54 but that still means there's 32% the effect that that has on fighting. therapy why don't guys just posture all day? There's traps. And it was the worst performance he's ever had. All each of these guys who wear red win a slight percentage larger. It's probably something that you see in the wild when you see, you know a certain color in nature and it has an effect on you

1:39:50 and then you add on They both have half a percentage a slightly larger percentage of time They also say that red sports cars get pulled over more. T-Rex or some shit. It's like you start to combine them. You got the evolutionary the evolutionary hand and you got the jaw and you got red winning Anthony Rumble Johnson, who fought at 170 Broke his jaw, I think.

1:42:06 Couldn't take Phil Davis, couldn't take him down, I remember seeing him in Ohio, and I was sitting in the stands. It's probably... But I saw him, and there was these hot girls, and like eight UFC fighters walked over. They might have fucking had a real job. So, but yeah, I mean, the weight cutting thing. that really work, if we're going to score For me, I mean, all of this was a learning experience

1:44:02 and everyone else was like, we got to do this. But everybody wants this advantage. but it's not a contact sport in terms of concussive blows. There was one recent one that was a heavyweight bout had depleted themselves they dehydrated themselves and then they got beat up yeah if there's there's But it also is like a kidney trick, where it's actually tricking your kidney to perform a certain way.

1:46:34 You want to just fight at 170? It just doesn't make any sense. for some reason that's safe, this is the way they're going to do it. He feels like IVs are cheating. Yeah, but putting it into you a different route is not okay. sideways and you elbow him when you're defending the single, that's a BJ Penn. And he's a, you know, two-division champion. deep into the fight that he did at the beginning of the fight.

1:49:53 And the other side of the debate, that's one of them. Frankie Edgar at 155, him at 170 is theoretically his interpretation of the same approach. just size and athleticism. He's in shape. But his physical, the correct weight for him, I will always think is 155 pounds. Yeah. It doesn't matter what you were born with. If you outwork everybody, you'll be the man.

1:52:27 You get the elite of the elite when you have the best of both worlds. really hard. And look how close he got. Close, but not quite there because he just didn't have Like, he had all of it. Matt Hughes and his brother. And one of them is just so big. Super athlete. kinds of stuff. This one's small and this one's just engrossed in He breaks his hands all the time,

1:55:19 There's these guys that have that knockout He was one of the guys carrying his bucket and learning from him. And so his thing is with a guy like Anthony Johnson is that Henry Hooft is – we'll say to him, you know, you got to be ready. when you throw a punch, these techniques they go together like bread and butter they just like you and bang ledwig and fighters and and people in the i wanted them to do it for people like you and Bang Ledwig and fighters and people in the business.

1:57:53 Jiu-jitsu is something I trained a lot for a while. Wow. And I trained. the whole thing You know, there's an entire universe of stuff to do. and I had trained with Eddie. all that kind of basic stuff. You take one class with him, because there was something but i'm on his back right and i'm behind him and then i can i catch triangle there yeah it's kind

2:01:32 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 96 um well there was a few purple belts i mean i started out at um um carlson gracie's yeah so i started working for him, baby-faced. Maybe, hopefully you do that but that you nuances of positions to people that are watching at home especially when it comes to the ground the color guy will say well he needs to do that or he says the what and he says the how and the why yes and when i worked with morrow i did like a few dozen shows with morrow and uh he uh explains to

2:05:29 Why doesn't he put the hooks in? grappler to understand the nuances and you've i think you also should have some competition in guillotine like he didn't know one time guys didn't know yeah but that's hilarious it's crazy but what For sure. yeah, and that's why he's such a good play-by-play guy and And you've got to take care of that what the fuck was going on.

2:08:20 Really? cool well there was also a scene recently where someone was trying this old boss root and neck It didn't work, and you didn't want The intensity, It was more about jiu-jitsu before then. Right. didn't know that you could get out of positions and he thought that when you got into a position like holding the head there and just boom, In the beginnings were just people trying their style out and finding out that it didn't work at all.

2:11:50 Yeah, okay, really? Your go-to move didn't work. Yeah, and that's sort of the thing you've seen it definitely say that that guy's only job is to survive one round and he's got it well not only that it's a Really likes to have an exciting fight. Yeah, and it changes things. competing at their very best like using all of your like if guys played chess and they just said you know fuck all this

2:14:25 When do you back off? You know? Yeah, there's a lot of those fast twitch muscle fiber His wrestling, his physical strength. Fuck. travels we talk about uh hendrix and how he can close distance this guy even more so yeah um but But I think that's how that level of athletes I mean, he just went after Anderson that first fight Except for a guy like Mighty Mouse, which is crazy.

2:17:37 the guy in the skateboard who jumped over the Great Wall of China, is he has to suspend reality to even fucking give that a go I don't know. Yours is different in the moments where you bring this brain chemistry together in a state of flow. I'm fascinated by that shit. You create a state where if you do not believe for one moment, you're dead. I could spend months learning how to spend 20 minutes of yoga

2:19:54 fuckers and they climb up these things free climbing it's almost like a different animal going through it and you're putting the the powder in your hands you're sticking your hands in cracks Well, I don't think they do that too much. fall and he's going to die when he does and you know this guy's kind of freaking the fuck out but He sleeps in the bed.

2:21:57 I'm sure there are damaging things about it. I would train in the middle of the night because I knew that no one else was training. and that kind of insanity like i didn't have anything else going on in my life everything what i mean the genetics and the obsession must come together in the perfect storm because if Tears his shoulder apart in the first round with some new move that he had been thinking about doing.

2:24:56 in the place where Glover thought that he was going to dominate. You know, Glover had this loose underhook, so John just wrenched it, Well, John is just, he's always adding new wrinkles. That's right. Because John can kick you from a range where you can't even touch him. So he's out there kicking the shit out of you and you can't even touch him He's used to the big event.

2:27:23 than, oh my God, this is it. Here we go again is very different than, oh, my God, this is it. And I love his attitude after the Gustafson fight. He knows what happens. It was a bummer when Gustafsson hurt his knee. What's the bigger fight, though, in your opinion? No one's ever done that to Dan Henderson. until january i mean we should go back to that yeah in theory that should be the fight but everyone

2:30:00 You know? It's a wrestling thing. to do that yeah and there's a few guys like keenan cornelius that You know, that is a brute. All of those things depended so heavily on him He's like, I'm fine. He had his arm cranked up behind his back. Sakuraba had him in that deep, deep Kimura, and the referee stopped the fight, and he was furious. He won the fucking Abu Dhabi's at 145. How the fuck? And fought those giants, incredible. I mean, just unbelievable. He won the fucking Abu Dhabi's at 145.

2:32:23 And it's like, I weigh 140. back then. What if they knew it? they used to have this guy that like did their security he was this fucking fake karate guy If a guy gets on top of you and mounts you and you just bit him, he's going to fucking kill you. it's dangerous. But if real MMA. calls himself a kung fu fighter to you a lot too, that people will come up to him and say, hey, George, you know, you

2:35:24 This guy really fucking believes that. There's a bunch of knuckleheads out there, man. George wants to work on the mechanics and people go, get the fuck out of here. That's true. And I'm like, this sounds so stupid. Yeah, right. But when he saw me kick a bag, when you kick a 200 pound bag and it goes flying and then it puts it in your head, you go, oh, I get it.

2:38:26 Like, I'm fucking horrible. You're doing a TV show about taking some guy who wears eye makeup and trying to teach him to fight. Yeah. and that's exciting yeah well that's the beautiful thing about martial arts is that there are so many was no wheel kicks up until terry edam fought edson barboza but you know there is a there is a Humans do this. Front kicks to the face now.

2:40:59 That sideways karate stance is a totally different thing. I better watch out for the side kick. kick and it was the hip was flared enough that he was probably you didn't it was the round kick And we predict the future all the time. When you go to open a door handle, the reason if it was He trains Sarah Kaufman, but he's also kind of a secret weapon for Greg Jackson. He's up in Victoria, B.C., and he sends guys up there to do certain things.

2:43:26 the things they're on heavy, is training you to expect certain patterns, chunking those thinking this. Dude, we're out of time. I really appreciate you doing the podcast, too, and we've got to do this again, man. We'll do it again. It's in Canada. And thanks to our sponsor. month's first box. Thanks