#2384 - Mark Kerr

Joe sits down with retired mixed martial artist and wrestler Mark Kerr. Kerr is the subject of the A24 feature film "The Smashing Machine," directed by Benny Safdie and starring Dwayne Johnson. Look for it in theaters on October 3, 2025. https://a24films.com/films/the-smashing-machinewww.markkerr.com Buy 1 Get 1 Free Trucker Hat with code ROGAN at happydad.com This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit https://BetterHelp.com/JRE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The Joe Rogan Experience.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Training by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

• 0:12Joe Rogan?

  Good.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Mark, what's happening?

• 0:14Speaker 03

  Joe.

• 0:15Joe Rogan?

  Dude, the movie's fantastic. And I know I told you outside, but I wanted to save it. When I kinda had a little bit of a prejudice when I went to see the movie. I was like, okay, it's gonna be an MMA movie.

• 0:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 0:26Joe Rogan?

  But it's not. It's a movie that happens to be about MMA, but it's a great movie.

• 0:31Speaker 03

  Oh, I appreciate that.

• 0:32Joe Rogan?

  It's really good, man. It's like, you know, it's very gripping and the performances are fantastic and the way The Rock did you was nuts.

• 0:42Speaker 03

  I like, I can't explain it. I keep using the word surreal, but it doesn't describe it. Like I was saying, my son, when he watched it and just flipping out, like talking to me like on the side, like I was saying, like literally just going, Dad, Dad, he's got your mannerisms, he's got your speech manner. But you imagine, like I'm picturing my son, he's in New York when he watched it. And so I'm picturing him in the corner of the lobby of the theater, talking with his back to everybody going, oh my God, Dad, like it's like a doppelganger. He's got all of it. You know, like full blown, like it was like the, the, the, cause a lot of my saying for

• 1:26Speaker 03

  myself is I'm, I can't see the forest through the trees. I'm in the middle of it. Am I looking at it objectively? Am I really looking at it or am I seeing something? And to hear my son say, oh my gosh, Dad, he nailed it.

• 1:37Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  Unbelievable.

• 1:39Joe Rogan?

  He really did nail it. Like we were saying in the lobby, like I didn't know The Rock could act that well.

• 1:44Speaker 03

  You know.

• 1:45Joe Rogan?

  It's really good acting. It's not like blockbuster movie acting, which is, he's great at that, but it's a different thing.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  It's complete, so.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  With DJ, I kept trying to say to him, "You don't have to do this, dude." Like, "You don't have to do this." And he would, he would stop me and he would go, "Yeah, I do."

• 2:04Joe Rogan?

  What do you mean by "you don't have to do this"?

• 2:06Speaker 03

  So, meaning that, like, he's at a-

• 2:07Joe Rogan?

  Totally being me?

• 2:08Speaker 03

  He's at a place in his life where he can just keep doing blockbusters and be perfectly fine with it.

• 2:13Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  There's, there, I mean, he says it himself, "There's always a place for that." "There's always gonna be a place for blockbuster movies and, and for that." But he needed to do something different.

• 2:24Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  He needed to do something different.

• 2:27Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's a perfect role if you wanna do something different for him, because it's a very complex role and it's about a giant dude.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:37Joe Rogan?

  And that's him.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:38Joe Rogan?

  So, it's like, really, like, the perfect way. Cause otherwise, if you're built like he is, it's very hard to get work as a serious actor. This might be like the only opportunity to show people, like, "Hey, I can actually act."

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:53Joe Rogan?

  I think, I think he did it with flying colors.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  He did, he did an amazing job. I mean-

• 2:57Joe Rogan?

  Amazing.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  To the point where, like, Emily, unbelievable.

• 3:02Joe Rogan?

  She's great. She plays such a crazy bitch.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  Oh, my god, man.

• 3:07Joe Rogan?

  She's so good in it.

• 3:08Speaker 03

  Oh, my god.

• 3:09Joe Rogan?

  She's so good at playing crazy.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  Oh, my god.

• 3:11Joe Rogan?

  It gave me anxiety. Like, sometimes, like, when you're getting ready to fight and she's starting arguments, I'm like, "Oh, my god." I'm getting anxiety.

• 3:22Speaker 03

  So, here's what, so, Vet, so, I saw an, a 80% complete version of the film in, in January of this year. And then, um, and then the first time I see a complete version of it was in Venice. And so, I'm in Venice and there's Benny on my right and there's DJ on my left and there's Emily next to, uh, DJ. And the last scene of the movie, right? That intensity of that scene, I'm just telling you, it was like-

• 3:54Speaker 03

  I said it was therapy for me. Cause I think for the first time I could actually, I could actually see my part in it. Like I could see my part, how fucking hard I was on the people around me. You know, how just singularly driven I was to accomplish something at, at all cost. And the person that paid it the most was Dawn. She paid a heavy price. You know, and you know, anybody that's successful, you know, for me, I was trying to raise everybody up. You know, everybody around me. And it was just a selfish endeavor and I could see it in those moments. I could see it in what, who DJ was, you know, and who Emily was in the intensity that I was like, fuck.

• 4:37Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's such a crazy task to try to be an elite MMA fighter at a time where there was no, no one even knew what it was.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  No.

• 4:47Joe Rogan?

  I mean, you, when you first, I met you in 97. There's a crazy photo of us together.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  I saw that.

• 4:55Joe Rogan?

  Dude, 97, that's like 30 years ago almost. Isn't that nuts?

• 4:59Speaker 03

  So this is what's fucking crazy. So trying to describe what I did back then. Like people, their jaws would hang open.

• 5:06Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  They would go, you do what?

• 5:08Joe Rogan?

  Like, why would you do that? That's us.

• 5:12Joe Rogan?

  1997, dude, that's so crazy.

• 5:15Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 5:17Joe Rogan?

  So crazy.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Oh my God. Were they even paying you back then?

• 5:21Joe Rogan?

  A little bit. They paid me a little bit.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 5:23Joe Rogan?

  It wasn't a lot of money, but it was for me, it was just for fun. It was like, I was a giant fan of the sport and what happened was Campbell McLaren, do you remember Campbell?

• 5:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:33Joe Rogan?

  He, he was good friends with my manager, Jeff. And they were just talking and he said, we need a guy to do backstage interviews. You know, post-fight interviews. And he goes, Joe really loves the sport. He's like, really? He goes like, oh yeah. He follows all the fights in Japan and he's like, and so for me, it was just fun. I mean, it wasn't, it was actually costing me money, which is why I wound up quitting. Because I quit and I did it for like a year and a half, two years maybe. And then in 98, I was like, I can't do this anymore. I'm just, it's just actually costing me money. And so then when I started doing Fear Factor, that's when Zuffa bought it and I went up working for them again. But in those days, it was, it was, for me, it was a dream.

• 6:15Joe Rogan?

  Because as a lifelong martial artist, when I was a kid, there was always the big question. What was the best style? And no one knew until Hori and Gracie put it all together and decided to create the UFC.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 6:28Joe Rogan?

  And then all of a sudden, we get to see it. And then obviously you had Japan Valley Tudo and then Pride and all these big events over in Japan. And, and it became to me, it was like, finally someone did it.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  That was, so part of my first fights in Brazil, I was still, uh, brainwashed by the idea that, oh shit, he's seven foot tall or six nine. He's the toughest dude in the room.

• 6:51Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  Cause, cause, cause that's how I grew up, right? Or 10th degree black belt, same thing.

• 6:55Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  Oh, no, no, no, don't mess with him.

• 6:58Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  And in one where, where that first time I fought, I was still under the delusion that that was the truth. And so my trainer kept going, uh, trust me, you're gonna, you're gonna do fine. Trust me, you're gonna do fine. And it's just like, he understood what, what, what I was as a wrestler. You know, that I can impose, like I said, to tell you the best definition I've ever had for wrestlers. I can hold a grown ass man where he doesn't want to be held for as long as I want to hold him there and he can't do a fucking thing about it.

• 7:30Joe Rogan?

  Exactly.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  That's a wrestler.

• 7:31Joe Rogan?

  And you can dictate where the fight takes place always. So if you come a wrestler like Chuck Liddell.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 7:36Joe Rogan?

  Then you say, no, no, no, you can't take me down. So I'm just gonna beat the fuck out of you standing and there's nothing you could do about it.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  Not, not a single thing.

• 7:44Joe Rogan?

  It's the most important skill.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Oh my God, it's foundational.

• 7:47Joe Rogan?

  Foundational.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  And, and that's why there's so much success for, for the, um, I'm gonna blank on the names, but, uh, the.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  The wrestlers are, it's a resurgence of like, really what a foundational piece it is. Yeah. And how important it is when you have a high, high, you know what they're able to do too as a wrestler? I always just look at the Russian wrestlers and go, what makes them so good? They could flurry in succession more times than I could. Like Kurt Angle, right? When I wrestled against Kurt. Kurt trained at a level that I wasn't training at. He could sustain a flurry to the point where I would just make mistakes. Cause I would be to exhaustion. And you watch him, these, they'll string these moves together and string them together. Hamza Chimaev is a great example of that. Oh my god, unbelievable.

• 8:39Speaker 03

  Unbelievable, because you'll see, you'll see him shoot, reshoot, shoot again, get up, stand up, fake, shoot again. And you can't keep up with it. Yep. You just, inevitably you just make mistakes or you just give into the exhaustion of the moment, right? Yeah. And it's just like, okay. Nothing.

• 8:57Joe Rogan?

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• 10:00Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by the mosquito bowl. Here's a story that's pretty incredible. After Pearl Harbor, four of the best college football players in America walk away from promising NFL careers to enlist in the Marines and fight in World War II. And the craziest part, it's a true story. These guys had their whole lives ahead of them, but traded the glory of the gridiron for the brutal reality of combat where the stakes were life and death. Directed by Peter Berg, the guy behind Friday Night Lights and starring Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis. The Mosquito Bowl, now playing in theaters. This episode is brought to you by the Apple Sports App.

• 10:44Joe Rogan?

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• 11:29Joe Rogan?

  fast and simple. Download Apple Sports for free on the App Store or find it on your new iPhone. You can do about it. And when a guy has insane cardio with those kinds of skills, it is the toughest combination to beat. Like Kane Velazquez in his prime. Oh my God. Insane cardio. Yep. Elite wrestling. Yeah. And then elite MMA stand up skills as well. Like get everything.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Scary.

• 11:55Joe Rogan?

  The cardio is the scariest thing since when you're scared to hit the gas like I three more minutes in the round. And you see Kane is just fucking bobbing.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  Bobbing around me.

• 12:04Joe Rogan?

  Like he's not even breathing heavy in between rounds. His stomach's not even heaving.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  He's a big dude.

• 12:08Joe Rogan?

  He's 240 and he's not even tired. It doesn't make any sense.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, it defies logic.

• 12:13Joe Rogan?

  But there's guys like that that have that fucking insane cardio, you know? I mean, I don't know how much you follow in the UFC, but there's this kid Anthony Hernandez in the middleweight division. That's nuts. And then you got Marab, Rob Dobish Willie, who's like the best example of it. Unstoppable.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  So this is kind of again, one of these things where where there are certain athletes that have a gear. That nobody else has.

• 12:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:38Speaker 03

  And it's just how they're built. It's just how they're built.

• 12:40Joe Rogan?

  Well, I remember when you came along and when Coleman came along, all of a sudden everybody's like, I gotta get on steroids.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh my God, yeah.

• 12:47Joe Rogan?

  But he's like, I gotta get bigger. I gotta get bigger. That's when Vitor got up to like 240 pounds.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  He was big. He was big.

• 12:53Joe Rogan?

  Way too big for his frame. I mean, you're talking about a guy who eventually wound up fighting at 185.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:58Joe Rogan?

  Right? I mean, he finished his career up at 85 and he was there at 240 when he fought Randy the first time.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:05Joe Rogan?

  Which was bananas.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  So that night was my last UFC, that was UFC 15.

• 13:10Joe Rogan?

  Ah, wow.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  And that's when Randy beat Vitor. And it was one of those where I'm like, oh, just wait. I, because I know what Randy is.

• 13:20Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Randy's cardio. Randy was like, he can take it and he, it was one of those things where I was like, I don't think Victor's gonna win.

• 13:28Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  It's just.

• 13:28Joe Rogan?

  And that's what we called him back then. His name was Victor.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:31Joe Rogan?

  When he first came into the UFC, his first fight when he was fighting in Hawaii, he was Victor Gracie.

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Oh, snap.

• 13:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah. He was going by the, the last name Gracie. And then I think he got sued or threatened with a lawsuit and then he changed it to Victor Bofford because like, Horian was very litigious, you know? He was like very protective of the Gracie name. And um, so he fought John Hess in Hawaii and beat the living shit out of him.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  Rumble on the rock stuff or whatever it was?

• 14:00Joe Rogan?

  I don't think it was rumble on the rock. That was BJ's promotion and that was later. This was like really early on. This was uh, I don't know who the fuck was doing that event, but it was just in a ring and Vitor came out and blitzed him with punches and nobody had seen anything like that before. Like, oh god, this is a, because everybody thought Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black Belt. You don't think you're gonna have a guy who has hands like that?

• 14:22Speaker 03

  Oh my god, his hands speed was unreal.

• 14:24Joe Rogan?

  He was so fast.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  Unreal, inaccurate.

• 14:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  Like you could be fast and that's one thing, but fast and actually hitting the target when the target's bobbing and weaving, it's like, oh my god, man.

• 14:35Joe Rogan?

  He's an interesting case study because he's a, like first of all pioneer, right? First fought in the UFC when he was 19 years old.

• 14:42Speaker 03

  Crazy.

• 14:43Joe Rogan?

  And you know, went through, won the tournament at 19, which is just bananas. And then when we got to see him, kind of, he got off the sauce and his body kind of faded out. And then they brought back testosterone replacement. And then when testosterone replacement came in, all of a sudden it was TRT Vitor and he was the scariest motherfucker alive. For like five fights or whatever it was before they killed the TRT exemptions and then it all went away for him. It's just like, that should be a commercial for testosterone replacement.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it really could be. You know, part, you know, back then, because there was so much myth surrounding mixed martial arts, that you felt like if you didn't do something, it was like the saying is like, oh, you're going to a gunfight with a knife. Right? It was that type of mentality back then.

• 15:35Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's also, everyone was on it and there was no testing.

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Yep, yep.

• 15:39Joe Rogan?

  And in fact, in Pride, when Ensign was on the podcast, he told me that in large letters it said, "We do not test for steroids in the contract." They're like, ha.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  So they would, so they would literally, they would do this. They would hand you a cup and go, urine. And you go, uh, who's clean? You just look around and you just, you just hand the cup off going, can you piss from here? And you literally walk back to the medical and go,

• 16:08Joe Rogan?

  Here's the pee.

• 16:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, here. And I mean, that's the, but that's the era it was.

• 16:14Joe Rogan?

  So your first fight, was it, was it in Brazil?

• 16:17Speaker 03

  In Brazil, yeah.

• 16:18Joe Rogan?

  And the crazy thing is they reproduced that arena, that, that conference room.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:25Joe Rogan?

  Perfectly.

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:26Joe Rogan?

  Like, cause I saw your first fight. I saw all those early fights. And then to see that in like the movie, I was like, oh, they did it. This is perfect.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:35Joe Rogan?

  Cause you know, sometimes they fudge a little, you know, they.

• 16:38Speaker 03

  So, so here's what, so I was in Vancouver for the set when they had the setup. And I, I was sitting there, I was laughing with Benny about it going, all right. Who came up with the pyramid in the door opening with fog machines? Cause it's like, like I can't even imagine the brainstorm going, you got any bright ideas of how to introduce the, yeah, let's do a pyramid and let's have a trap door fog. What the fuck, where, like where, where in the bigger picture of stuff going? But they reproduced it to, to the T.

• 17:11Joe Rogan?

  It was perfect.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  Oh my God, it was amazing.

• 17:13Joe Rogan?

  It was really great because in, in the movie they did about Mark Schultz, what was that movie again? Um, true. Hmm. Fucking Foxcatcher, that's right. That, that movie had a lot of shenanigans in it. There was a lot of stuff that wasn't.

• 17:28Speaker 03

  Wasn't accurate to it.

• 17:29Joe Rogan?

  Wasn't accurate.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:31Joe Rogan?

  Like he fought Big Daddy Goodrich in his one MMA fight. But in the movie, he's fighting some Russian dude. Didn't make any sense.

• 17:38Speaker 03

  No.

• 17:38Joe Rogan?

  Completely different cat, fought a white guy in the movie.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 17:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. He fought Big Daddy Goodrich and Big Daddy was wearing the gi.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 17:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Remember? I mean, not only that, but it was a, Big Daddy Goodrich is a legend.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:51Joe Rogan?

  Like, how do you leave him out when that was his only MMA fight? Like, why did you change the guy he fought? That doesn't even make any sense. But they just did Hollywood shenanigans.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  Yo, so, you know, that was a huge part from the beginning of this when DJ and I talked back in 2019 is just the, like the trust factor.

• 18:14Joe Rogan?

  You guys started talking about this in 2019?

• 18:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, 2019, yeah.

• 18:16Joe Rogan?

  Wow, six fucking years.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:20Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  Here's what's crazy, so, so he says, hey, you know, we're gonna move forward with this. And, and I, so for me, I hadn't even thought about any of this. Like it being a movie, he wants to play me in a movie, and he goes, I'm gonna make the announcement. Madison Square Garden, at the BMF Belt. He goes, this, we had this beautiful conversation, and it was just like this, do you trust me? And it was like, yeah, yeah, I do.

• 18:50Joe Rogan?

  He's a fucking great dude.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  Oh my god, solid, he's, by the way, he says, say hi. He left me a great message on the way over here, I was listening to him, and he's just, he's, he's a rare human being.

• 19:01Joe Rogan?

  He is, I'm gonna, I'm gonna call him after this, just to tell him what a fucking amazing job he did. Cause I wanted to watch it right before I saw you.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 19:09Joe Rogan?

  So I watched it today, and I was like, god damn, this is a good movie, man. And I just, I was just blown away by how well he captured the chaos of the Pride organization, all the weirdness of the contract negotiations, everything.

• 19:24Speaker 03

  Off, so, so Benny from the beginning said, the only way we're gonna be able to do this is have that authenticity, to the point where I sent them watches, rings, necklaces, posters, everything I could find, picture wise, everything, to their props in production.

• 19:46Joe Rogan?

  Oh wow.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  And they reproduced everything.

• 19:49Joe Rogan?

  Ah, wow.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  So Joe, and when I, I mean, like, when I went up to Vancouver, like, and walked into some of these sets, like, literally going, holy fucking shit.

• 20:01Joe Rogan?

  Did he flashback?

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Oh my god, like, like, you'd walk into a room, and there, there'd be from one corner all the way to the other, on the wall, just pictures of me and my house, and my, this and this outfit, and this and these in my house, and this, and, and then production saying, okay, was this accurate, how did this, it was this... It was this unbelievable pains taking they rebuilt my life 25 years ago. So when DJ got into character, got into me, he actually was, that was, he was me.

• 20:34Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:35Joe Rogan?

  It seemed like it, man. I mean, it really did because, you know, it's just, it's hard when a guy's so famous to pretend that he's someone else.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:46Joe Rogan?

  He has to like be really good to get you convinced and I was all in, I was all in.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  So first time I saw him in, in Vancouver, like, nobody told me, nobody said, hey, listen, we're gonna do prosthetics. We're gonna give him your cauliflower ear, we're gonna make his brow and then, nobody told me this. So I was up there for Fight Week and they're getting ready to shoot the scene where they're introducing everybody to the finalists for the Grand Prix. And so DJ's the last one to walk in and I'm watching the ring, I don't know he's behind me. And I turn around and it's like this, like I see him as me, like, this is, Joe, this is what I did, I'm like, fuck you, like, fuck you, like, oh my God, and it's this moment where I'm looking at him

• 21:34Speaker 03

  and I'm, I'm looking at my, like, myself.

• 21:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  I could still see him in there, but I'm like looking at a, like a mirror picture myself. And it's this experience where I'm like, oh my God, man, like, wow, like, like you're going, like, this is you going to a place that nobody even thought you could get to.

• 21:58Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  Like, it was, it was incredible.

• 22:02Joe Rogan?

  Well, you're, you're such an important part of the history of MMA that I think this movie did that, it really honored that. It really did it justice because at the, the end of the movie, when it talks about how fighters today,

• 22:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:16Joe Rogan?

  make millions of dollars.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  I'll cry, I, I, just go on, I'm sorry.

• 22:20Joe Rogan?

  No, it's okay, it's like, but that, you guys paved the way, if it wasn't for you guys, just doing it for very little money, like barely getting by. Putting your whole life on the line,

• 22:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:30Joe Rogan?

  and barely getting by. Oh, and I love that you had Alexander Usyk.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 22:36Joe Rogan?

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• 23:18Joe Rogan?

  Go to your local liquor store or visit happy dad dot com. And for a limited time, use the code ROGEN to buy one Happy Dad trucker hat and get one free. Enjoy a cold Happy Dad. Must be 21 plus. Please drink responsibly. Happy Dad Hard Seltzer and Tea. Malt alcohol, Orange County, California. That was amazing.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  So Benny signed him before he beat, before he became the undisputed champ.

• 23:46Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow. Right, 2019.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:49Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  So, so it's one of those things where, um, everything just kind of lined up in a way where you're like, all right, this is, like, this is manifest destiny, right? This is like, this is like Joe Dispenza. You know, like, like, really, like, you're, like, you're really tapping into something that's bigger, because it's pulled all these people together.

• 24:10Joe Rogan?

  Usyk did a great job, too.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  Oh, he did a phenomenal job. Oh, my God, he did that spinning back. Like, one day, I'm like, he's a boxer, he's not supposed to.

• 24:18Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I mean, I didn't even know he could do that.

• 24:20Speaker 03

  No, near or die.

• 24:22Joe Rogan?

  It's kind of crazy. Well, I guess I could kind of do anything.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh, my God, he's, he's, you know how many rounds he trained? Prior to, to, uh, fighting Tyson Fury?

• 24:32Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  Six hundred.

• 24:35Joe Rogan?

  Jesus.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  With three different training partners. So every dude came in every third round. He had a fresh guy on him.

• 24:43Joe Rogan?

  I know that he was doing 15 rounds a day, and he made a deal with himself that his back touched the ropes, he would have to do another round. An extra round.

• 24:50Speaker 03

  So that's one that I didn't hear that, but he, he said he would do rounds where he wasn't allowed to punch.

• 24:57Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 24:59Speaker 03

  At all.

• 24:59Joe Rogan?

  We just had to do defense.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  Bobbing and weaving defense, I'm like, okay, like, like, he, he takes, he's like one of us. Like, he just takes it to a level that is just unbelievable.

• 25:11Joe Rogan?

  He's a genius, like a literal boxing genius. Again, I don't use that term lightly. Like, what he did to Dubois, I was like, oh, my god. Because when you see Dubois, when Dubois knocked out Anthony Joshua, you're like, wow, this kid might be the future.

• 25:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:25Joe Rogan?

  He is a fucking destroyer. He's seek and destroy, brutal power, giant guy, incredible athlete. And Usyk just pieced him up, just took him up, dismantled him and took him apart and did it with all skill.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  Unbut, like, literally, like, understanding, he's not the biggest dude in the world.

• 25:44Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  He's big, but he's not like 6'9", right?

• 25:46Joe Rogan?

  No, he's not Tyson Fury size, he's not Dubois size either.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  He's not Dubois, he's not.

• 25:50Joe Rogan?

  Not Tyson, Anthony Joshua.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Joshua, none of them, no.

• 25:53Joe Rogan?

  No, he's a cruiserweight.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 25:55Joe Rogan?

  He's a cruiserweight that beat everybody and knew that the only way to make real money is to go up to heavyweight.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:00Joe Rogan?

  And really have, leave a real legacy. Because he could have been one of those guys that retired as an undefeated cruiserweight and boxing fans like myself would talk about him, but everybody else would be like, who?

• 26:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:11Joe Rogan?

  Meanwhile, now, he's in the conversation of one of the greatest.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  Oh, for sure.

• 26:14Joe Rogan?

  Tyson, Ali, he's like, he's in there with that conversation.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  And it's just consistently an overachiever.

• 26:21Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  Consistently an overachiever.

• 26:23Joe Rogan?

  And he's fucking 38, right?

• 26:25Speaker 03

  Which is even like.

• 26:26Joe Rogan?

  Even crazier, because he's like, he hasn't shown any slipping in his skill level at all, or his endurance, or his enthusiasm, or his discipline. Just, well, also, it's like, he was so fortunate to have been trained by Lomachenko's dad.

• 26:41Speaker 03

  I didn't know that.

• 26:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, so he's like a giant Lomachenko.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Oh, my god, yeah.

• 26:44Joe Rogan?

  Because Lomachenko is so agile, so much footwork and movement, and

• 26:49Speaker 03

  That makes sense.

• 26:49Joe Rogan?

  He's basically like the heavyweight version of it.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 26:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  That makes actually more sense.

• 26:55Joe Rogan?

  Makes more sense, right?

• 26:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:58Joe Rogan?

  His movement for such a big guy is just extraordinary. It just doesn't exist anywhere else, because it's not just the light on the feet, it's the angles he takes after punches, and then the shifting of the weight back to center when you don't expect it, and then, oh.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  And that's like my son, actually, it's my son's birthday today.

• 27:14Joe Rogan?

  Happy birthday, what's his name?

• 27:16Speaker 03

  Bryce.

• 27:16Joe Rogan?

  Happy birthday, Bryce.

• 27:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, 21, right? I go, it's a birthday to wait for, but he's already doing all this stuff that you, you know.

• 27:26Joe Rogan?

  They all do.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, right? It's that age bracket, but, uh, so my son loves the science of boxing. You know, even 10 years ago, when he was like 11, 12 years old, he'd be on YouTube watching the footwork of boxers. And I'm like, I, cause I didn't get into that science of it and footwork and all that until I started doing MMA. Like understanding, like I understood wrestling, but boxing on that level is just, it's a whole nother complex set of skills.

• 27:56Joe Rogan?

  Well, you were so deep in wrestling though, it's almost impossible to pay attention to anything else. At the level that you were competing at.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:02Joe Rogan?

  You have to, that has to be everything you eat, breathe, sleep.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:06Joe Rogan?

  It's like, yeah, it has to be singular. It has to be. It's almost like you can't go down any rabbit holes.

• 28:12Speaker 03

  No, and that's one of those where, you know, my mentor, the guy that, uh, that really brought me to another level is a guy named Chris Campbell. He was Dan Gable's first NCAA champ when Dan Gable was coach at Iowa. He made the 1980 Olympic team that was boycotted, won the 1981 world championships, voted best technician in the world and then retires. And then decides he's gonna make the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. So he's at 37 years old, he wins a bronze medal that year in Barcelona, 37.

• 28:46Joe Rogan?

  That's pretty impressive. For amateur wrestling, for people who don't know, that's unheard of.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  It's, I think still to this day, he's the oldest Olympic medalist.

• 28:54Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  Cause you just don't, you just, I mean, wrestling's just so demanding physically.

• 28:59Joe Rogan?

  It's such a young sport.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, it is, it is. So he ends, he ends up, he ends up just really taking me by the hand and, and, and understanding like singular devotion to something. It's, he would, back then he did tape study, which wasn't a huge, huge deal, but literally watching the Russians wrestle and some of the tapes, his nemesis was this guy Kadartsev. And you look and watch the tapes and you go, I don't see anything. Once you slowed it down, you go, you can't move him out of position. He doesn't, when he attacks and retreats, he's never out of position. And you know, you'd look at it and go. Wow, cuz it was just these little things, little things.

• 29:41Joe Rogan?

  It's amazing that the Russians achieved that level in not just wrestling, but also in MMA, also in any combat sports, name it boxing. Russian kickboxers are super technical. They're all known for being so technical. It's really interesting, you know?

• 30:00Speaker 03

  And again, I would think that somewhere in there, there's a root. There's a common, like, there's coaches and mentors. Because the only way I've learned how to wrestle or MMA is through mentorship. You know, somebody really going, hey, let me, let me show you. And they had a mentor, and they had a mentor. It's this lineage that's passed along. And I know I went from being a good wrestler to being a really good wrestler when Chris took me under his wing. You know, we'd drill the same thing thousands of times. And it would be like the difference between holding my hand here and holding it here. And I'd go, it's two inches.

• 30:36Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 30:37Speaker 03

  What's it, and he'd go, when you speed it up to full speed, those two inches become six, right? And so.

• 30:45Joe Rogan?

  The leverage points.

• 30:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, and so I need him to be here, perfect. Because once you go full speed, you're gonna miss it, but you're only gonna miss it by this much.

• 30:54Joe Rogan?

  You know, it's interesting that George St. Pierre, although he never wrestled in high school or college, his training in Montreal was with Russian wrestlers. It was all Russian nationals who had moved to Canada.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. Wow.

• 31:06Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  GSP, I was just talking to a friend of mine, and I said, he's probably, in my book, one or two.

• 31:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, of all time.

• 31:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:16Joe Rogan?

  He's certainly in the conversation. It's so hard to say who, because, you know, Mighty Mouse, I think, never got the credit that he deserved because he was a 125'er. And then people forget how good Anderson was when he was in his prime. People, and then BJ Penn, BJ Penn when he was in his prime. I feel like you really have to look at a guy when he's redlining, like, when he's really at the peak of his abilities. You can't judge him by the fights they fight after their prime. You can't, cuz it's not fair. You're just gonna say, like, who, when they were champion, when they were running shit?

• 31:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:48Joe Rogan?

  Who exhibited a level of MMA that's above and beyond everyone else? And George is certainly in that conversation.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  Oh, he's for sure, I mean, part of. Part of what I like John Jones, right?

• 32:02Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:03Speaker 03

  Like, when you get somebody that at that level at his peak, right? And he can make other professional fighters look like they're amateurs.

• 32:13Joe Rogan?

  They look silly.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:14Joe Rogan?

  They don't belong in there. And he was doing that to guys when he wasn't training. That was crazy.

• 32:19Speaker 03

  Crazy.

• 32:19Joe Rogan?

  He was fucking off and barely in the gym and still dominating in world title fights.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  Sometimes I get a little upset because I'm like, you know how many fights he probably as a spectator, as a fan? Like, how many fights we missed because of?

• 32:33Joe Rogan?

  His shenanigans?

• 32:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  Just like, ah!

• 32:36Joe Rogan?

  But it's also, I mean, you know, what happened with you and what happened with him and what happens with a lot of guys is like, the pressure of life sometimes. And what makes you a great fighter in the first place, there's a certain wildness.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:51Joe Rogan?

  And with a guy like John, that wildness, it's like, it's hard to keep on a leash.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know how that feels.

• 32:58Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I'm sure you do. Well, I remember, I had no idea, and I don't think anybody had any idea, until the Smashing Machine documentary came out. And when that documentary came out, everybody was like, holy shit. First of all, kudos to you for allowing people to see you like that.

• 33:18Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 33:18Joe Rogan?

  Raw, completely honest about all of the addiction problems, all, everything. And no one would have expected it. Then they saw you, they just saw this fucking dominant destroyer. This guy who was like smashing everybody and you just thought, oh, well, that guy is just, uh, he's just a machine and just so mentally strong and he just gets out there and gets it done. And then you allowed them to show you where in the, the making of the documentary was what they were essentially trying to capture was you at your prime.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:51Joe Rogan?

  And what they caught you was you where your life was falling apart, just fortuitously.

• 33:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:56Joe Rogan?

  It was just kind of random luck they caught you at that time.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  So, so when John Greenhalgh, who's the producer, uh, I went to Syracuse with him. I was, we were on the wrestling team together. He's the one that called me, said, hey.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  I'm gonna do a documentary. At that point, my vision of what it was, was a little Best Buy camera, where they're like little flip screen and they show up and they go, okay, we're filming a documentary. I know I gotta change tape, you know? And they show up in Japan for my Volchancian fight with two 10,000, 15,000, whatever they were, digital Sony cameras, a boom mic, and like five people. I'm like, oh, fuck, you're like, you're really gonna make a, like, you're gonna make a documentary? And so he was, right from the get-go, John could see, John could see what was the contrast, like, me as a fighter and me as a person, that contrast.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  And so that's what he was after, is like, to really show this contrast and, like, you can do this for a living and be this kind, sensitive, you know?

• 35:06Joe Rogan?

  But that was what was weird about you. It was a very weird contrast. Cause you're very soft-spoken, very kind, always very considerate to people, very nice. And then you get into the cage and it's like, who the fuck is that guy?

• 35:19Speaker 03

  You know, you know what the feeling is? The feeling is like, the question I always had in my head is going, okay, if somebody's gonna go, you, me, in a room, who the fuck's coming out? And I never was able to answer that question for myself. I know I was competitive, right? But I didn't know if I had that switch, that thing, and then start fighting and going, oh, fuck, man, there, there's a switch in there. And I figured, through that process, what I was really trying to get is your will. I was trying to take your fucking will. And most people don't wanna give it.

• 35:52Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 35:53Speaker 03

  Like, when you get a high-level fighter, it's like Fabio Gajal, didn't wanna give me his will. Head-butted him, dug into cuts, did all this, beat him mercilessly, and he didn't wanna give me his will. He wouldn't give it to me. And it frustrated me. I didn't know how to take it from him. I'm going, I'm out of answers.

• 36:09Joe Rogan?

  You're waiting for him to break. He doesn't break.

• 36:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, he doesn't break.

• 36:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, some people don't break. You can break their body, but their will, you can't break.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  No, he was one of them. He was one of them. And it's still to this day, I mean, the next day, his wife calls me and I have lunch at his house.

• 36:23Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  Which is crazy because my first fights, don't know. Everybody in the audience was there for him. And when his wife calls me in the next day, I literally go, oh, fuck, man. Here it is. He's gonna have all his boys up at the house. He's gonna fucking get his due, right? Like, cuz I didn't know.

• 36:45Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  And so I go, okay, what do I got to lose? And so I go up and we sit down just like we're sitting here. And his wife interprets the whole entire time. And it was this, it was actually beautiful. It was beautiful.

• 36:57Joe Rogan?

  That's awesome.

• 36:58Speaker 03

  Here's, here's what it set for me. It set a standard of how I was gonna carry myself as a fighter. What happened in the ring is in the ring.

• 37:09Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  The second you're out, you're, you can, that's different.

• 37:14Joe Rogan?

  Well, that speaks to his character, why you couldn't break his will in the first place.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 37:19Joe Rogan?

  Because he's such locked down.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Absolutely. It was, for me, it was, it was one of those like revelations of like, okay, this is, this is how you do this.

• 37:30Joe Rogan?

  As a professional.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:31Joe Rogan?

  Well, you know, also, like, Brazil had a much longer history of these kind of fights, like going way back to the Ali O'Gracy days and.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:40Joe Rogan?

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• 38:23Joe Rogan?

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• 39:06Speaker 03

  I mean, culturally, understanding way different. And that's like the, okay, I'm gonna carry myself. You know, part of it was, you know, I wanted to change the narrative of like, when you looked at the early UFC's, it looked like some, some guys were just scraped off a bar stool and thrown into the octagon, right? And so when I came there, I was like, okay, I want to be considered professional, right? I want to carry myself as a professional. I'm gonna be articulate. I'm gonna dress as a professional. I'm gonna, because I wanted to up the ante. I wanted to like raise the standard, right? Especially when I went to Japan, it's like, you know, press conference, everybody's in sweat suits.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  I'm in a, you know, I couldn't afford it, but I was in a thousand dollar Calvin Klein suit. And put on a charge card, right? But I wanted to change the narrative. I wanted to be, I wanted to be a professional. Because if I was a professional and treated like a professional, I could ask for pay like a professional. Not like some dude that was just scraped off a bar stool and thrown into a ring.

• 40:11Joe Rogan?

  So what was, what was the Pride experience like? So you, you had fought in the UFC and then did, did you have a contract that expired? Like what happened?

• 40:21Speaker 03

  So, oh boy, this is, so I signed a three fight tournament deal with the UFC. I did 14 and 15 and I still had one tournament obligation on the contract.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  So after 15, the Japanese had seen enough footage and I got contacted by Pride. And they're like, hey, we want to fly you over. We want to, um, we want to have you as a key piece to build this organization. So I'm like, okay. So they fly me first class over, first class hotel. I meet with, um, I meet with a guy named Mr. Ishijaka, who, uh, his real name is Kim Duk-su. He's a Korean guy. And, uh, Mr. Ishi, who owned K1.

• 41:09Joe Rogan?

  Wait a minute, a Korean dude was pretending to be Japanese?

• 41:11Speaker 03

  You had to have a Japanese name.

• 41:13Joe Rogan?

  Whoa.

• 41:14Speaker 03

  You couldn't do business in Japan without a Japanese name.

• 41:18Joe Rogan?

  That's crazy.

• 41:20Speaker 03

  He signed all of his documents, signed all of his documents, legal documents, Kim Duk-su.

• 41:25Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  But every single person called him Mr. Ishijaka.

• 41:28Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:30Joe Rogan?

  So he had to learn Japan, Japanese.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's still with an accent, because he spoke Korean, too. So it's just one of those where understanding, like, the, the culture back then, just it was still stuck. You know, and hadn't really progressed.

• 41:46Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  Um, so Mr. Ishi owned K1, and Mr. Ishijaka started Pride. And it was called KRS at the beginning, before it turned into Dream Stage.

• 41:55Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  And so here's, here's where it gets a little sticky. So, um, I go over there, I take, uh, for Pride 2, it's supposed to be me and Hoist Gracie. Him and I, I, there's still fight posters that I've signed, of him and I facing off with each other. Signed the contract to fight for way more money than was being probably paid for the, in the UFC. And, um, when I get back to the States, I get served with, uh, I get served with papers to appear in court in New York City. The UFC's suing me. Um, it's when Bob Meyerowitz still owned it, and Art Davis was involved. And so they're suing me for breach of contract.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  And it was like, one of those things where I was like, okay, I didn't, you know, like, one of those experiences where I was like, oh shit. You know, and the Japanese said, okay, we still want you, you need to sort this out. So it took, it took four months, five months to sort out the differences between what the UFC needed, and if they're gonna let me go and all this other stuff. And in that timeframe, Hoist got hurt. And so Hoist had to step out and they put Bronco Sigate in there and I end up fighting Bronco in Pride 2.

• 43:05Joe Rogan?

  Oh wow.

• 43:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, so if everything, if everything would have went as everything, I would have fought Hoist Gracie in the Tokyo Dome. Him and I main event, me at my peak, Hoist still in his prime.

• 43:20Joe Rogan?

  Wow, that would have been insane.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  Oh my god, it would have been like thinking about it going, because people have asked like, who would have won? I'm like, I don't fucking know, but I would have given it every single thing I could. That's it, that's the poster.

• 43:35Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, signed, inked, everything.

• 43:40Joe Rogan?

  You had at least 80 pounds on him.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  Oh, at least that.

• 43:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  But, but this is it, this is the transition from not knowing what I was getting into, going, I can't fucking carry that much weight at all. And be cardiovascularly, I just can't do it.

• 43:55Joe Rogan?

  What were you at your heaviest?

• 43:57Speaker 03

  280, 285.

• 44:00Joe Rogan?

  Jeez.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  Like 6% body fat.

• 44:03Joe Rogan?

  Oof.

• 44:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:04Joe Rogan?

  That's hard to breathe.

• 44:05Speaker 03

  Brutal. Like if I didn't, if I didn't fucking get a hold of you and fucking squeeze the life out of you in the first like couple of minutes, I was fucked. I was completely fucked, you know?

• 44:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, well, that was kind of the case with Coleman as well, like when he was really, really big.

• 44:19Speaker 03

  I was in the corner when he lost, when I was cornering him when he lost to Maurice Smith.

• 44:24Joe Rogan?

  Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, I was there for that one. That was, that was a, a real game changer.

• 44:31Speaker 03

  Oh, that changed the narrative for everything.

• 44:33Joe Rogan?

  Because Maurice, what Maurice brought to the game was Maurice was training with Frank Shamrock at the time. And so he had extreme cardio, he was doing a lot of swimming, he was running hills. I mean, he was really cardiovascularly at an elite level for an MMA fighter at the time.

• 44:49Speaker 03

  Frank and I used to talk about heart rate training.

• 44:52Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  Way back when, like, like, literally like functional training.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  And going, okay, how do you, how do you approach something and come up with a formula where you can get through a training camp and still be viable at the end of that training camp when you have five-minute rounds?

• 45:10Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:11Speaker 03

  Right? How do you do it? There wasn't a formula for it.

• 45:14Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  So Frank was like, I started doing this heart rate training and heart rate recovery and all this stuff. And I was like, oh shit. And then I run into these trainers when I was in California at Gold's Venice. There's a guy named T.R. Goodman, and he was training hockey players. And hockey players have to have that burst recovery, burst recovery. Wow. Very similar cardiovascular system to fighters. So T.R. took over my training when I was in California, and that was a whole nother level because I'd never really had the functional training implemented the way he did.

• 45:48Joe Rogan?

  Mm.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  And that's when my weight came down. It's like, I really tried to fight between like 230, 235 and 240 was ideal.

• 45:57Joe Rogan?

  Mm. Yeah, that's much better. That seems like the ideal heavyweight.

• 46:02Speaker 03

  It is. It is.

• 46:04Joe Rogan?

  It's very weird that, first of all, that the heavyweight division has a weight limit.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, my God, it's really weird.

• 46:09Joe Rogan?

  Especially the UFC.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:11Joe Rogan?

  Because it doesn't really, in Japan and some other organizations, they allow the super heavyweight division. And in boxing, you can be as heavy as you want. Like Tyson Fury's been 290 before. But when the UFC has this 265-pound weight division, it seems like the best elite guys like that 240 range.

• 46:27Speaker 03

  That's, for me, that was, like, I knew I had a good training camp if I came in 235, 240. If I didn't train hard enough, I was 250. If I overtrained, I was under 230. You know, like, for Pride Grand Prix, I think I weighed in at 229.

• 46:43Joe Rogan?

  Mm.

• 46:44Speaker 03

  Because right before that-

• 46:45Joe Rogan?

  And you felt overtrained?

• 46:46Speaker 03

  I felt overtrained because in between, when I fought Ensign and the Pride Grand Prix, I did Abu Dhabi.

• 46:52Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 46:53Speaker 03

  And so I won my weight class that year, and I won the all-around.

• 46:57Joe Rogan?

  So you got super-conditioned for that?

• 46:59Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, super-conditioned. But you, you lose, I lost a little bit of, what I needed was that physical dominance.

• 47:09Speaker 03

  You know, I could have the endurance, but again, it's one of those where it's like going into it when I fought Fujita. There's so many factors that were just, you know, that I didn't account for. And my calorie intake just wasn't where it needed to be. And like a lot of times leading up to a fight, like my appetite just diminishes as I get towards it. Especially that fight week and.

• 47:30Joe Rogan?

  That's interesting. Why do you think that is?

• 47:32Speaker 03

  Uh, nerves, nerves. It gets to a point where it's like that, that morning, I know, like fight morning, I have a small little window where I could digest food. Or I could take food in. It's not like I could sit and eat all day.

• 47:45Joe Rogan?

  And then the nerves start kicking in.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, it just starts kicking in like my, like, like literally, and it's controlled focus, right? Cause it's like, I can't have all my nerves running everywhere, but it's controlled focus. But that controlled focus, my body goes, I don't need digestion. Fuck, I'm about to fight. What the fuck do I need to digest food for?

• 48:02Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 48:03Speaker 03

  You know?

• 48:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, a lot of guys have made those mistakes. Al Jermain Sterling said he made that mistake when he first fought Piotr Jan. He just, he didn't eat.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  It's brutal. So, so that last scene against Fujita as an, as 100% hypoglycemic crash. Laying there, can't move my body. And if you watch the documentary, what I'm saying on the way back is, I need sugar, I need sugar, I need sugar. I, that's all I could think about was like, I need sugar, I need sugar, I need sugar. Cause my blood sugar levels had just crashed to this, like, I can't fucking move.

• 48:34Joe Rogan?

  Jeez. It's so crazy too, to watch the evolution of the training methods from back then, from 97 to like what we're seeing today.

• 48:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh incredible.

• 48:45Joe Rogan?

  It is really extraordinary because there's not a real, another sport that has gone through that much of a metamorphosis. Not, not even close, really.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  In that timeframe, cause it's a short, it's a short timeframe because, because again, it's asking the question of like, okay, championship fight, 25 minutes, five, five minute rounds. How do you train for it?

• 49:05Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 49:07Joe Rogan?

  Because the reality is, no one can go full blast for five, five-minute rounds.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  Can't do it.

• 49:11Joe Rogan?

  Maybe Marab can.

• 49:14Speaker 03

  I wouldn't fucking doubt that.

• 49:16Joe Rogan?

  He might be the one. He might be the only guy, because he doesn't seem to get tired.

• 49:21Speaker 03

  You get, so this is, this is like observationally, usually in a championship fight, if it's a striker against a wrestler, usually the first two rounds, strikers usually have that advantage. In the third round, if you go back and watch this third round, the grappler starts to impose a little bit more on him.

• 49:38Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  And then fourth, fourth and fifth round is the grappler completely just takes that fight over, because it's one of those things where you, it's that grind.

• 49:49Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 49:49Speaker 03

  It's that fucking grind.

• 49:51Joe Rogan?

  It's also a big part of being able to stuff takedowns, do you want some coffee?

• 49:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you.

• 49:54Joe Rogan?

  The big part of being able to stuff takedowns is having energy.

• 49:56Speaker 03

  Oh my god, it's everything.

• 49:58Joe Rogan?

  Because if a guy's trying to fuck you up and take you down, there's so much energy involved in trying to stuff a takedown, and then when you don't have it, you're like, I'm just gonna let him take me down, and just like, take a break here, and then work back to the, but no, like with some guys, like, you're not getting back up.

• 50:12Speaker 03

  No.

• 50:12Joe Rogan?

  Just gonna get elbowed in the face.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  That, I'm just gonna grind you into a pulp, and that's that control thing, right? Part of, part of what I, I go, like, if I look at my fighting going, I was never gonna be the best striker, like, never gonna be the best kicker, puncher, but if I could turn you into a wrestler, that's, that was the secret sauce for me.

• 50:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 03

  I just need to make you wrestle me.

• 50:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 50:35Speaker 03

  And I'm good, right?

• 50:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  Because I know I can fucking beat the fuck out of you wrestling.

• 50:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 50:41Speaker 03

  The key was transitioning to make you wrestle me.

• 50:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's the specialist, specialist thing, it's like, if you want to be a specialist, being a specialist at wrestling is by far.

• 50:52Speaker 03

  By far.

• 50:53Joe Rogan?

  When you see what Hamzat did to Drakis.

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Oh my god, Hamzat, and that's the example, I get, that's elite, elite wrestler.

• 51:01Joe Rogan?

  Against a world champion MMA fighter who's been dominating everybody, and who's very difficult to take down, and Hamzat just ramped it up. Kept it up.

• 51:10Speaker 03

  Attack, and like I was saying, that, that Russian, Dagestan, Uzbekistan, it's this ability to sustain an attack repeatedly. Cause it's that cardiovascular system, born at 6,000 feet in altitude, 7,000 feet in altitude, a little bit more of an advantage, right? And so you end up with these attacks where you can sustain them beyond your ability to defend them.

• 51:35Joe Rogan?

  It's also having such a technical game that as you're implementing the first attack, you've already got three attacks on standby. Like, and then as he counters, you've anticipated the counter, you have a counter to his counter, and then a counter to his readjusting after your counter. And you're, you're just hitting him over and over. He just can't keep the rhythm.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  I, I literally, I text my son, I was at that fight, I text my son and go, this is what an elite wrestler could do to a professional fighter.

• 52:03Joe Rogan?

  It's nuts. It's nuts because it was like, a lot of people thought it was boring because it just didn't get to a decis-, you know, it just went to a decision. But you just kind of appreciate that level of dominance against a world champion is kind of crazy. Where the guy before the fight, Drekis was being looked at as one of the greatest middleweights of all time. I mean, look at what he did to all these guys. He knocks out Robert Whitaker, he beats out Asanya, he fucking beats Shawn Strickland twice. Like, oh my God, he might be one of the greatest of all time. And then after that fight, you're like, I don't think he's ever gonna beat that guy.

• 52:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:38Joe Rogan?

  I don't think he's ever going to beat that guy.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  Isn't that crazy?

• 52:40Joe Rogan?

  It was like, I don't think there's enough time in the world to-

• 52:43Speaker 03

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• 53:09Speaker 05

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• 53:20Speaker 00

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• 53:41Speaker 05

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• 54:07Speaker 00

  Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.

• 54:13Joe Rogan?

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• 54:56Joe Rogan?

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• 55:13Speaker 03

  You can't. You can never catch up. You know, like, I would never pretend, stepping into the octagon, that I would be able to get elite-striking skills. Right? You know? Like, that gap could just... It's constantly just something you never can get to.

• 55:29Joe Rogan?

  It's also...

• 55:29Speaker 03

  You know, it's like Sean... It's like Sean O'Malley, right?

• 55:32Joe Rogan?

  Uh-huh.

• 55:32Speaker 03

  He's gonna... The only way that he's gonna be able to get a championship back is somebody else needs to beat...

• 55:38Joe Rogan?

  Murab.

• 55:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, Murab.

• 55:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and then it's gotta be stylistically.

• 55:42Speaker 03

  Stylistically matchup, right? That's, that's that conflict, the matchup. Cause skills, you're not gonna do that.

• 55:48Joe Rogan?

  You mean, he got better for the second fight?

• 55:50Speaker 03

  He did a lot better, but still.

• 55:52Joe Rogan?

  So did Murab, though. That was part of the problem. That guy's not, he's not stopping.

• 55:57Speaker 03

  God, how old is he?

• 55:58Joe Rogan?

  Murab? I think he's 34. How old is Murab?

• 56:03Joe Rogan?

  Murab Dwawish Willie, 34. Yeah, he's 34. So he's, you know, he's in his prime right now. In his prime for another few years at least.

• 56:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I would think that it's one where there's gonna be a lot of people that think they can, but that's just a different animal.

• 56:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's gonna take someone who's that kind of a wrestler, who maybe has a striking advantage.

• 56:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:25Joe Rogan?

  Who could beat him.

• 56:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:26Joe Rogan?

  But then, you know.

• 56:28Speaker 03

  That's an anomaly.

• 56:29Joe Rogan?

  It's just, it's such a crazy sport to watch that, you know, from 1994 to 24, 25, it's almost unrecognizable. The difference in the gap.

• 56:42Speaker 03

  Like, like there was a period of time where I couldn't, I couldn't watch. Uh, I didn't watch the UFC, probably about like seven, eight, nine years. And, uh, over the last five, six years, I've watched it almost religiously, right? And just realizing the fighters today, oh my God, man. They're, they hit a level and it's that, it's that mutation. It's like this first generation, second generation.

• 57:06Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 57:07Speaker 03

  And they're advancing so fast that you're looking at these new fight, you're like, where, like, it's such a unique set of skills to do this. Incredible set of skills. Unique to any other sport in the world.

• 57:22Joe Rogan?

  I know, and it's also, you're really fighting three different sports as one sport.

• 57:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:27Joe Rogan?

  Which is really nuts. You're fighting grappling, you're fighting jiu-jitsu, and you're fighting striking all together in one sport. It's like, wow.

• 57:35Speaker 03

  It's like playing soccer, football and baseball at the same time. It's like, how the fuck would you do it?

• 57:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, while getting kicked.

• 57:43Joe Rogan?

  Like he kicked and punched and elbowed. It's, it is, uh, but without guys like you, it would have never gotten here. Because if there weren't people that were willing to fight for very little money, travel overseas, have these crazy events. And, you know, and beat your body up and do what you did and what Coleman did and a lot of those guys did in the beginning. Without you guys, there's, there is no UFC today. It's just not, it's not the same.

• 58:11Speaker 03

  It was, you know, one, like being in the Hall of Fame and being in the pioneer wing and understanding that, um, like I said to myself, you know, even if I advance a sport, you know, this much, it needed this much at the time to get to where it is today. Right? Like Coleman advanced a sport this much.

• 58:30Joe Rogan?

  Well, you guys brought in the new element and the new element was elite wrestling with enormous muscles.

• 58:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:38Joe Rogan?

  And everybody was like, oh, this is a real problem. And especially in the early, early days because Coleman would get on your guard and just headbutt the fuck out of you. Cause headbutts were legal. Yeah.

• 58:50Speaker 03

  Legal.

• 58:50Joe Rogan?

  Like, and bare knuckle, like when I first did his, well, I, I interviewed him after he beat Dan Severn, when he became the first UFC heavyweight champion. Total bare knuckle.

• 58:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:59Joe Rogan?

  He had a little bit of tape on the, on the hands, try to keep the bones from snapping in half.

• 59:04Speaker 03

  Isn't that, isn't that frightening?

• 59:06Joe Rogan?

  Wild.

• 59:07Speaker 03

  Like people, I, I, you know, they watch it now and, and, you know, this, this film, right? It, it gives, it gives people a little bit of a look inside of like what it was. And, and, you know, for, for me, the,

• 59:27Speaker 03

  the cool part about it is understanding like I'm, like I said, I'm just a little piece. But that little piece is necessary to be able, for me to watch some of the guys do what they do now.

• 59:38Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's different than any other sport in that these little pieces had to be there before people could figure out what to do.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, Dana put them all together. You know, when I, when I actually talked to him when I was in Newark, that's one thing I said, I said, look what you built. You can feel however you want about, you know, him pers- I'd go, "Look what you've built."

• 59:58Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 59:59Speaker 03

  Like, no one could even imagine this.

• 1:00:01Joe Rogan?

  Well, you have to be a madman to do what he does. Like, he- that guy works so hard, and he works so many hours, and he fucking loves it. And he loves the sport, like, truly loves the sport. He and I have, like, long conversations on the phone.

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  I would imagine.

• 1:00:14Joe Rogan?

  About fights.

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  I would imagine.

• 1:00:15Joe Rogan?

  Just about like, I'll go, "What are you gonna do about this guy?" "Oh, when's that?

• 1:00:21Joe Rogan?

  When's this happening? You know, is this true? Did this guy really get hurt?" "He did. Fuck."

• 1:00:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh my god.

• 1:00:26Joe Rogan?

  "Is he out? Oh, it's minor. Okay, six weeks. So you're rescheduling it? Okay, good."

• 1:00:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:30Joe Rogan?

  And, you know, we have these long-ass conversations, and I'll tell him about kickboxers that I've been watching, or tell him about these guys. I mean, that's one of the ways that we became friends, and one of the ways that I started working for him in the first place is 'cause we would have conversations when I first met him, when I was on Fear Factor, and I wasn't even working for the UFC. I'd be like, "You got- you watch the fights in Japan? Do you ever watch Japan Valley Tudo? Do you know about this guy? Do you know about Hicks and Gracie? Do you know about this guy?"

• 1:00:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Joe Rogan?

  And I would just rattle off different names, and he was like, "What? What do you? How do you know all this?" I'm like, "I don't know. I don't even know the rules to basketball. I don't know what's happening. I know when the ball goes in the net, it's good." "I don't know the rules to football. I don't know the rules to anything."

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:01:09Joe Rogan?

  I just- I only have room for combat sports, but, you know, ask me about Marcelo Garcia.

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can answer those.

• 1:01:16Joe Rogan?

  I'll rattle off some stats. I know some shit about fighting. But to me, it was like, it was a- Eddie Bravo and I, when we were kids, when we were young, young fellows, when we- we were hanging around, working out, we would say to ourselves, like, "You know what? This sport needs some crazy billionaires who love the sport that's just gonna dump a bunch of money." 'Cause we knew at the time, we were like, "This is the most exciting sport in the world, right?" So, all it needs is for these really rich guys to be fans of sport. And it's almost like it manifested itself, 'cause that's what happened. The Fertitas came along, and they were just really rich guys who loved the sport, and they took a crazy chance. They were forty million dollars in the hole.

• 1:01:58Speaker 03

  Debt, yeah.

• 1:01:59Joe Rogan?

  Forty million in the hole on the UFC, and it was just losing money, losing money. And they just hung in there, year after year after year, until they were almost ready to fucking sell, and then they decided to go forward with the Ultimate Fighter.

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  That's the game changer.

• 1:02:13Joe Rogan?

  That was it.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  That person, that personalized it.

• 1:02:16Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  That personalized it.

• 1:02:17Joe Rogan?

  Well, people got to see it on Spike TV and then it became, the fights were so wild that people were calling their friends. And they were saying, you gotta watch this. So as the, the show is on, and this is like before social media was really a thing.

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:34Joe Rogan?

  So as the fight was on, the, the ratings kept going up and up and up and up. And it was like, Spike TV was like, holy shit, we got a fucking hit. We got a hit.

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43Joe Rogan?

  And Diego Sanchez won the 185 pound division and then the fight between Stefan Bonner and Forrest Griffin.

• 1:02:50Speaker 03

  That's the fight that changed everything.

• 1:02:52Joe Rogan?

  Changed the game.

• 1:02:53Speaker 03

  Cause that's one of those, if you ask just a marginal fan, they'll refer to that.

• 1:02:58Joe Rogan?

  Exactly.

• 1:02:59Speaker 03

  They'll refer to that.

• 1:03:00Joe Rogan?

  Because at the time, it was, nobody had ever seen anything like it. They didn't know what MMA was. And here it is on TV and these two guys were so evenly matched. That was the best part about it. They both had trained together in the house for all those fucking weeks. They'd all be talking shit to each other and all, and they knew they were gonna fight in the finals. So it was like this long buildup and they were perfectly matched.

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:23Joe Rogan?

  And it was just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, fucking swing, wheel kick, punch.

• 1:03:28Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean, there's so much shit in there.

• 1:03:31Joe Rogan?

  That fight just went on and on. And at the end of it, the whole crowd was like, oh my gosh. And, you know, I was the one, I was the first person to suggest. I was like, they both should have a fucking contract. This is crazy. You can't take a contract away from one of these guys for this fight. And Dana, to his credit, gave both those guys the contract.

• 1:03:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:50Joe Rogan?

  And it was all of a sudden, the sport was hot and then Chuck Liddell was the poster boy.

• 1:03:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:55Joe Rogan?

  Because he was the perfect guy to be the most famous champion at the time. Cause he was a destroyer.

• 1:04:02Speaker 03

  Oh, God, he was unreal.

• 1:04:03Joe Rogan?

  Seek and destroy. And he had an iron chin and he just, and he would just stare at you with a fucking serial killer's eyes and just march.

• 1:04:12Speaker 03

  When you watched him, like me watching him, he was so awkward when he held his hands and punched. It was so, like even watching now going, he was just hunting. He was just hunting.

• 1:04:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:25Speaker 03

  And hunting.

• 1:04:25Joe Rogan?

  And loading up with everything.

• 1:04:27Speaker 03

  And it wasn't like,

• 1:04:28Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  It was every single thing was thrown with intent.

• 1:04:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, everything was shown, thrown to shut you off.

• 1:04:36Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:06:34Joe Rogan?

  One of the most important in terms of the metamorphosis.

• 1:06:38Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 1:06:39Joe Rogan?

  The evolution of the sport. Because Frank was the first guy with elite cardio that could do everything. He could submit you off his back, like remember when he fought Kevin Jackson?

• 1:06:47Speaker 03

  Yep, yep, yep.

• 1:06:48Joe Rogan?

  Carving an arm bar, bang, first round, right off his, he was elite everywhere. And his cardio was off the charts. When he fought Tito Ortiz, Tito was much bigger than him.

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:58Joe Rogan?

  Not just a little bit bigger than him, much, Frank's not a big framed guy.

• 1:07:01Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 1:07:02Joe Rogan?

  And Tito is a fucking house.

• 1:07:04Speaker 03

  Tito's, yeah.

• 1:07:05Joe Rogan?

  And he just overwhelmed him, beat him down with cardio. And then after that fight, Tito taught everybody cardio is number one.

• 1:07:15Speaker 03

  King, yeah.

• 1:07:15Joe Rogan?

  It's number one. He, when he was teaching, when he was coaching on The Ultimate Fighter, he told everybody, it's fucking cardio.

• 1:07:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Joe Rogan?

  Without cardio, you have nothing. And his cardio was legendary, too.

• 1:07:26Speaker 03

  I mean, they say what fatigue makes cowards of us all, right?

• 1:07:29Joe Rogan?

  It's true.

• 1:07:30Speaker 03

  Yeah?

• 1:07:30Joe Rogan?

  It's true.

• 1:07:31Speaker 03

  I mean, it's just one of those, and again, this goes back to what I was saying about Frank and I having conversations back then about heart rate training.

• 1:07:38Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:39Speaker 03

  Twenty-five years ago, you go, heart rate, what, like, little polar, you know, watch and, you know, keep, and like, oh, we need to recover this many beats in a minute, but actively recover, right? Like, you had to still continue to do shit and recover. And this is what Frank was saying, yeah, I started doing this. I'm like, what the fuck?

• 1:07:56Joe Rogan?

  He was a very smart, well, he is a very smart guy.

• 1:07:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:59Joe Rogan?

  And I don't know why they had some kind of a falling out, but they, but they don't highlight him anymore. They don't talk about him at all. And I think-

• 1:08:06Speaker 03

  Pivotal, pivotal.

• 1:08:07Joe Rogan?

  I think you gotta let that go, just for the honor of what happened.

• 1:08:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Joe Rogan?

  The honor of the sport.

• 1:08:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:13Joe Rogan?

  Because the, for the honor of the sport, when you look at Frank, like, when you look at his fights, like, he was elite, man. He was top of the food chain.

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  He was ahead of his time. By, by far.

• 1:08:25Joe Rogan?

  He was the first really, truly complete mixed martial artist.

• 1:08:28Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 1:08:29Joe Rogan?

  You know, and people see him, like, the fight that he fought, when he was fighting in Strikeforce. You're not seeing the same guy. You're seeing him, it's later in his life, you see when he fought Nick Diaz, you can't, it's like what I said about goats. Yeah. You wanna look at BJ Penn, you look at BJ Penn when he fought Sean Shirk. Yeah. Look at BJ Penn when he fought Big Daddy Stevenson, that's one of the scariest fucking guys. Yeah. Who's ever stepped in an octagon at 155 pounds, period. I put him with all of them and I don't know what happens. And then there's Khabib, same. Oh, yeah. You put that guy with any 155 pounder who's ever existed and I don't know what's gonna happen. Yeah. How are you gonna beat that guy? Yeah. You know, there's, there's a few guys like that and Khabib has to be in that conversation too. When you look at his dominance over, like, the way he was winning fights,

• 1:09:13Joe Rogan?

  I'll never forget when he fought Edson Barbosa, it was in the first round, and Edson had this look in his eyes like, "Oh my god, I've gotta give you how many more rounds with this motherfucker?" Cause he was just already exhausted and this fucking animal from Dagestan was just on him, on him, dragging him to the ground. I'll never forget. We had Michael Johnson down the ground, he's beating Michael Johnson up, and he's like, "Quit, quit, you know I need Title Shot, it's mine. You know Title Shot is mine, you know I deserve this, quit." And he's just beating the fuck out of him, trying to be nice. He gets him in Kimura and I'm going, "Please tap." I'm like, "Please tap, please tap," cause I'm seeing that spiral fracture.

• 1:09:55Joe Rogan?

  When they get that spiral fracture, I'm seeing it coming, I'm like, "Please tap." We'd already been through that with Frank, when Frank got Minotaro in that. Here it is, he's talking to him, he's like, "Listen, give me some volume."

• 1:10:08Joe Rogan?

  "I need to fight for the title, you know I deserve this. Come on buddy, I don't wanna have to hurt you." Oh my god. Look at this, I mean, he's doing what every... But this is, speaks to your point, see, everybody agrees, the people are cheering.

• 1:10:26Joe Rogan?

  I need to fight for it. Look at he's, he's trying to be nice to him. That's such dominance.

• 1:10:32Speaker 03

  It is.

• 1:10:33Joe Rogan?

  Trying to be nice to a nice guy. Like, come on, you know what the fuck is going on?

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:38Joe Rogan?

  And again, to his credit, he didn't, I think he could have just fucking ripped that arm apart. He let him tap. He let him tap. I think he could have. He was so dominant, man.

• 1:10:47Speaker 03

  This is like, again, we're saying, like, taking somebody's fucking will.

• 1:10:51Joe Rogan?

  Taking, he was a will taker. Like what he did to Connor.

• 1:10:54Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:10:55Joe Rogan?

  When he got on top of Connor, he's like, "Let's talk now. Let's talk now." Just beating his face in. Going, "Come on, you wanna talk? Let's talk now."

• 1:11:02Speaker 03

  You talk about, about humble pie, like fucking having to sit back and like...

• 1:11:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:08Speaker 03

  Cause that, that's at a level where, where, cause you're a bad motherfucker to begin with. And somebody that's even a batter motherfucker?

• 1:11:16Joe Rogan?

  Who just dominates you.

• 1:11:17Speaker 03

  Just, oh my god.

• 1:11:18Joe Rogan?

  Just could kill you. Same size as you, and basically he could kill you. If he wanted to, you're dead.

• 1:11:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:24Joe Rogan?

  You're not gonna live, he's gonna live.

• 1:11:25Speaker 03

  He could just literally choke you unconscious.

• 1:11:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:27Speaker 03

  And just keep choking you till you're...

• 1:11:28Joe Rogan?

  He was gonna break his neck. He had him in that fulcrum choke. That is such a nasty choke. Look, here's where he gets it. So he's getting it, and he's holding on to it. Look. He's not, he's not doing, he's not going all through.

• 1:11:41Speaker 03

  No, no, no. He could have just ripped it off.

• 1:11:43Joe Rogan?

  Drop that right hip down, pull that left arm up, and that thing's snapping like a twig. It's so scary. That's my scariest tech, other than guys when they break their shins.

• 1:11:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:54Joe Rogan?

  When they go shin to knee and the shin snaps in half.

• 1:11:58Speaker 03

  Like Silva breaking his leg.

• 1:12:00Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it was horrible. Weidman was the worst.

• 1:12:02Speaker 03

  That, like, that stuff, I, one watch is, is good enough.

• 1:12:06Joe Rogan?

  It was so, when Weidman was so loud. And Weidman, yeah, don't pull that one. Weidman's went through his calf. His bones snapped through and poked out of his calf. Oh, which is real dangerous too, because then you run the risk of heavy infection.

• 1:12:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, all of that.

• 1:12:23Joe Rogan?

  All that. You're on the dirty mat, you got an open wound, and oh.

• 1:12:27Speaker 03

  No, some of that stuff is just like, gosh, man, it's other level.

• 1:12:30Joe Rogan?

  Do you feel weird that you did it? Like now when you look back, you've been removed for so long, do you like, you beat the fuck out of somebody, dude. I remember when you took Dan Boish down, you stuck your chin in his eyeball.

• 1:12:42Speaker 03

  Oh my god, man. First, the only one still exists, right, is this mission by chin and eyeball choke.

• 1:12:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:48Speaker 03

  I don't know if you call it choke.

• 1:12:49Joe Rogan?

  I'd never seen anybody do that before. I'm like, that's genius.

• 1:12:52Speaker 03

  You know what? It wasn't illegal.

• 1:12:54Joe Rogan?

  It wasn't illegal.

• 1:12:55Speaker 03

  And I know it hurt like a motherfucker, for him.

• 1:12:58Joe Rogan?

  Why would it be illegal? Why is it okay to elbow the eyeball, but it's not okay to shove your chin in there?

• 1:13:03Speaker 03

  Chin, I don't know.

• 1:13:04Joe Rogan?

  You know, those were the headbutt days. So headbutts were legal, so why wouldn't it be legal to shove? You could chin butt a guy if you wanted to, I guess.

• 1:13:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:11Joe Rogan?

  So if you use, I mean, but the thing is, it's a real weapon.

• 1:13:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:16Joe Rogan?

  It is real. It's very effective. Like, I don't think we should poke to eyes, because, you know,

• 1:13:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a different thing.

• 1:13:21Joe Rogan?

  Eyes are so vulnerable, but that is also, obviously, a real weapon. Like, Kung Fu guys point to that all the time. They go, "Look, these guys are the toughest fighters in the world. You poke them in the eyes, and they're fucked." They're right!

• 1:13:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:35Joe Rogan?

  I mean, I don't know how good you are at eye poking. You have to be pretty fucking accurate.

• 1:13:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, you have to be really good.

• 1:13:39Joe Rogan?

  It's not something you can count on.

• 1:13:39Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 1:13:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, here it is.

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:42Joe Rogan?

  You shoved your fucking chin right in his eyeball.

• 1:13:45Speaker 03

  And he's just like,

• 1:13:46Joe Rogan?

  Bro.

• 1:13:46Speaker 03

  And I know, so, so when I'm down there, I could hear him, "Oh, like, fuck, that hurt."

• 1:13:52Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it was horrible, dude. It was horrible. But it's, again, it speaks to what we're talking about, the dominance of elite wrestling, and how elite wrestling, it surpasses all martial arts. It's the number one most, and an elite wrestler can learn jiu-jitsu. Okay, an elite grappler can, you could easily teach them how to do head and arm chokes, triangles, all that. That's not, you're already used to manipulating bodies.

• 1:14:15Speaker 03

  So part of my participation in ADCC was, was to...

• 1:14:21Speaker 03

  Represent wrestling.

• 1:14:22Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:24Speaker 03

  Right?

• 1:14:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:24Speaker 03

  Cause the first year when I got approached to go over there, I'm like, ah, what like, what is that? Like submission grappling, like, um, like giless grappling, giless jujitsu?

• 1:14:34Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:14:34Speaker 03

  They're like, hey, listen, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna give you X, you know, come over. And it wasn't a ton. It was like $15,000 to go over. And I was like, oh, okay. I was like, alright. Fuck, I don't know.

• 1:14:47Joe Rogan?

  But while you were fighting?

• 1:14:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, while I was, while I was fighting. And so I'm like, okay, I just go.

• 1:14:52Joe Rogan?

  Just as a sort of pride to wrestle?

• 1:14:54Speaker 03

  It was one of those where I was like, okay, now that it's explained to me, I go, well wrestlers need to be represented there.

• 1:15:00Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:01Speaker 03

  Right?

• 1:15:01Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:15:02Speaker 03

  And so I go over there and it was one of those things where it's like, well, I can actually show everybody here in this world that thinks their shit's dominant, like, no. This is a skillset you need. You need elite wrestling skills, right? You can have jujitsu, black belt and all this stuff, but if you're.

• 1:15:21Joe Rogan?

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• 1:16:47Joe Rogan?

  Healthy alternatives exist and trust me, I know. I buy one, the Farmer's Dog. I use it for both my dogs. They love it. They eat it up quick. It smells good to them. It smells good to me. It's human-grade food. The Farmer's Dog makes fresh food for dogs and my dogs love it. Their recipes are made with real meat and fresh vegetables that are gently cooked to retain vital nutrients. They also portion out the meals to your dog's nutritional needs, which helps avoid overfeeding and makes weight management easier. And isn't getting more time with our four-legged best friends something every dog owner wants? The answer to that is yes, obviously.

• 1:17:27Joe Rogan?

  So try the Farmer's Dog today and get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food. Plus, get free shipping. Just go to thefarmersdog.com/rogan. This offer is for new customers only. Missing this peace component to it, you're fucked. You're fucked. You're fucked. And so it was all about control. Did you see the most recent fight with Mauricio Ruffi? No. Okay, so Mauricio Ruffi, who is one of the most dynamic strikers in the sport. He's literally like a big Connor. I mean, it doesn't make sense that he's in the same weight class as Connor because I think he's 6'1". Oh.

• 1:18:07Joe Rogan?

  But he's real tall. He's at least 6 feet tall. He's real tall and long and just elite striker. But he fought this cat Benoit Saint-Denis, who is a judo black belt, elite on the ground, super fucking strong, and he just dominated him, man. He got a hold of him, ragdolled him, got him to the ground. And Mauricio had his moments in the fight standing because... Benoit Saint-Denis is a French special forces guy, he's a hard motherfucker. And so he did stand with Mauricio for a little bit, but he got dinged up a little bit, but once he got him to the ground, it was just full domination. And then it left everybody in this position where we were looking at Mauricio Ruffi as being like, that guy's a future world champion. To like, oh no, like that gap's too wide.

• 1:18:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:52Joe Rogan?

  Like, he's gotta learn so much to be competitive with the elite. Now they're gonna know.

• 1:18:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Joe Rogan?

  Imagine like Camaro in his prime.

• 1:18:59Speaker 03

  Oh god, no, forget it.

• 1:19:00Joe Rogan?

  You know?

• 1:19:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's that gap we were talking about.

• 1:19:02Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:19:03Speaker 03

  There's no way to fucking make that up. There's no, there's not enough time in your career.

• 1:19:08Joe Rogan?

  Well, we got to see, Camaro was like 38 now, okay? And he just fought Joaquin Buckley and dominated him. Dom- and Buckley's another one, who is this guy who is dominating everybody at 170. He just knocked out Wonder Boy, and we're like, this fucking guy might be the one.

• 1:19:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:23Joe Rogan?

  And then all of a sudden, 38-year-old Camaro Usman shows how fucking important wrestling is. It's everything. It's everything. Because you can be defensively responsible, like he's very defensively responsible standing. You know? Other than the Leon Edwards kick, he very rarely gets cracked.

• 1:19:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:41Joe Rogan?

  You know, Gilbert got him a little and dropped him, but very rarely gets in trouble standing. But once he gets you, the gap is so big.

• 1:19:50Speaker 03

  You can't make that up.

• 1:19:51Joe Rogan?

  The gap's so big.

• 1:19:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, you know, and again, this is, this is one of these things where fundamentally also wrestling gives you a cardio base that you can build off of.

• 1:20:00Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:20:01Speaker 03

  Not only, because that's the other missing component, right? It's like this, because at an elite level, it's fucking intense. It is really intense. Like Kurt, when he was on your show, he was talking about, yeah, I trained till exhaustion and then I trained.

• 1:20:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:16Speaker 03

  You know, it's like, that's how he, because at one point when Kurt and I were competing against each other, like 93, 94, I just, I just was bigger, stronger, and, and I could just defend his attacks.

• 1:20:29Joe Rogan?

  Bro, he won the Olympics with a broken neck.

• 1:20:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, fuck, man.

• 1:20:32Joe Rogan?

  With a broken neck.

• 1:20:32Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 1:20:33Joe Rogan?

  With a broken neck.

• 1:20:34Speaker 03

  I was there at Nationals when, when he literally hit the mat, and I'm like, like literally, I watched when he, when his neck broke at Freestyle Nationals. And he got hit with an arm spin, and he gets arm thrown, and his head gets almost like separated. It was nasty. And, and I'm in the stands going, oh fuck, he's not gonna be in the trials. Like, there's no fucking way he's gonna be in the trials. And sure enough, fucking like five weeks later, he's in the trials. I'm like, what the fuck, man? There's no way he should be fucking able to wrestle.

• 1:21:08Joe Rogan?

  That there are guys like that in the world and people need to know. You need to know, there's levels to everything and there's levels to mental strength. There's levels to guys who just will go, and it's really kind of a crying shame. Uh, it's, look, he had an amazing career in WWE. He's loved by everyone. Everybody loves him. That's great, but it's kinda sucks that people don't know like at, at real wrestling.

• 1:21:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:35Joe Rogan?

  That guy was the shit.

• 1:21:37Speaker 03

  Oh my god, man.

• 1:21:37Joe Rogan?

  He was the shit. He was so good and small for a heavyweight.

• 1:21:42Speaker 03

  He was so, so he was always undersized.

• 1:21:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:46Speaker 03

  But the, like, the years that I beat him and then 95 when we wrestled in the freestyle nationals, and I had beat him four, four times in a row at that point. So we, we wrestle in the 95 freestyle nationals and I get ahold of him for the first time and something was different. I was like, oh fuck, like wrestling going, oh man, something's different with Kurt. And he ends up beat me and then in the freestyle nationals in 95 and I'm like, oh fuck. There was just something different. I'm like, cause he, he could stay on an attack longer, stay on an attack longer. He was stronger. He hit a gear that I didn't fucking have.

• 1:22:24Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:22:25Speaker 03

  Like I go, oh fuck, like looking back on it, I'm going, oh shit, I totally missed that. Like most guys at, at 220 pounds, which you're wrestling at, they, they would have these attacks that they'd initiate. It's like grab a hold of you, hold on to you and then initiate an attack. Kurt was constantly probing and attacking and attacking.

• 1:22:44Joe Rogan?

  Which was the benefit of being lighter.

• 1:22:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:22:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:46Speaker 03

  Lighter and quicker, lighter and quicker.

• 1:22:49Joe Rogan?

  But still wicked strong.

• 1:22:50Speaker 03

  Oh my god, he could still get in if, so it's these attacks that he just sustained and he'd just wear you out of position. So he just counts and attack, attack, attack, and all of a sudden it was just this little, little angle that he was hunting for the whole time. And then he hits that attack and fucking takes you down and you're like, fuck.

• 1:23:09Speaker 03

  Like what the fuck?

• 1:23:10Joe Rogan?

  It's just, there's levels of, of drive. There's levels of discipline, there's levels of will. There's levels of wanting something, and that's what scares people, I think. That's why people get really terrified of, of like, truly special athletes. Because they don't want to know how lazy they really are. I think it's one of the things that drives people nuts about seeing like some insanely disciplined, like elite top of the food chain grappler or striker or whatever it is.

• 1:23:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:39Joe Rogan?

  MMA fighter, because it's like, you don't want to know that someone's willing to work that much harder than you.

• 1:23:44Speaker 03

  Harder than you are.

• 1:23:45Joe Rogan?

  Than you ever have. Than you ever have at anything.

• 1:23:47Speaker 03

  I know.

• 1:23:48Joe Rogan?

  At anything.

• 1:23:49Speaker 03

  Fuck. That's, I mean Kurt, Kurt was one of the, where he opened my eyes, I was like, fuck, there's, there's another gear.

• 1:23:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:57Speaker 03

  I thought I was training fucking hard.

• 1:23:59Joe Rogan?

  That's what's crazy. It's we're kind of seeing, we've had this conversation recently in regards to Marab. Because we're saying, okay, is Marab just physically gifted? Cause I think Kane had a, some sort of a genetic advantage with cardio. Because DC would talk about how he would take three months off and come back in the gym and fuck everybody up. With, with like cardio drills.

• 1:24:23Speaker 03

  Somebody that size, it's an anomaly.

• 1:24:24Joe Rogan?

  It's an anomaly.

• 1:24:25Speaker 03

  It's an anomaly.

• 1:24:26Joe Rogan?

  But Marab swears that when he was young, he had bad cardio. He said, no, I smoked cigarettes.

• 1:24:33Speaker 03

  I can imagine that.

• 1:24:34Joe Rogan?

  It's what he said.

• 1:24:34Speaker 03

  Like Sakuraba smoking cigarettes.

• 1:24:36Joe Rogan?

  He said he didn't take care of himself at all. I'm like, really? And it's just hard work and discipline and then, so I have a bunch of friends who do hundred milers. You know, and, you know, I'm real good friends with my friend Cam Haynes. And Cam Haynes, he just did a hundred miler like two weeks before we went elk hunting. Like he does hundred milers all the time. He's done a 240. He's, what is it? The Bigfoot 240, is that what it is? He's done a bunch of these through the mountains with thousands of feet of elevation and decline. He's done a bunch of these that are 200 plus miles.

• 1:25:09Speaker 03

  God, that's not.

• 1:25:10Joe Rogan?

  And you gotta build up to that, but once you get to that, you, if you're sustaining it, you can do those things. So he does. Does those things on a regular basis. He does multiple ones a year. So that didn't, you didn't used to think that that was possible. They used to say that if you ran a marathon, like you were destroyed for like two weeks. No.

• 1:25:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:29Joe Rogan?

  He was running a marathon a day while he worked a full-time job. So he was getting up in the morning at dark. He was running thirteen miles. He was going to work. During his lunchtime, he would eat. After lunch, after work, he runs another thirteen fucking miles.

• 1:25:46Speaker 03

  He would be one where I wouldn't want to look at him because I think I'm lazy.

• 1:25:50Joe Rogan?

  That's the thing. That's why there's a thing about like, I think I'm lazy and I love him. He's my friends, but I think I'm lazy when I, when I like watch what he's doing. And Goggins is another one.

• 1:25:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh my god.

• 1:26:00Joe Rogan?

  And Goggins is even more insane because he ain't doing it for nothing. He's not preparing for elk hunting. He rarely even competes in races, but yet he's doing the, a level of cardio where he brings world champions like Israel Adesanya comes to train with him and he's throwing up in a bucket. He can't keep up. Goggins is fifty.

• 1:26:19Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 1:26:20Joe Rogan?

  He's fifty.

• 1:26:21Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:26:22Joe Rogan?

  How old is Goggins?

• 1:26:23Speaker 03

  Fifty.

• 1:26:24Joe Rogan?

  Fifty. Fifty. And he's got two terrible knees.

• 1:26:29Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 1:26:30Joe Rogan?

  He's had many knee surgeries. His knees are destroyed and he does not give a fuck. He forces them to work.

• 1:26:37Speaker 03

  Golly. So that, so again, this is like, that's a level which is just exceptional.

• 1:26:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:44Speaker 03

  Cause there's just.

• 1:26:45Joe Rogan?

  What's a weird level?

• 1:26:46Speaker 03

  It, it is because that's a pocket. It's just a pocket of people that have that.

• 1:26:50Joe Rogan?

  There's only a handful. There's only a handful like that guy because it's not just that. He broke the world record chin up competition once. Like he's, he's done, he's done a ton of things that are just like physically insane. You know, he was a smoke jumper. He didn't even tell anybody about it. He did it just because it was hard.

• 1:27:10Joe Rogan?

  This is why he's famous. So while he's famous, they take him up in a helicopter and he fucking parachutes to fight forest fires. Because it was hard to do.

• 1:27:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:20Joe Rogan?

  I'm not shitting you, man.

• 1:27:21Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 1:27:21Joe Rogan?

  He sent me a photo once, he texts me a photo of a grizzly bear track. And he goes, "We just landed near this." I mean, it's a fucking track like that big. And he's out there with a backpack.

• 1:27:33Speaker 03

  Pack and a fucking shovel.

• 1:27:35Joe Rogan?

  Fighting fires. And only because it's hard. He's a multimillionaire.

• 1:27:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh my god.

• 1:27:42Joe Rogan?

  He's a multimillionaire who's getting parachuted to fight fires. And here's the thing, man, if I didn't talk about it, and maybe I'm out of school, people wouldn't even know. You have to know that. Maybe he doesn't want people to know. They need to know that. That's fucking insane.

• 1:27:55Speaker 03

  That is beyond insane. That's like one of those where it's like, you know, the wiring that exists in him. It doesn't happen by chance. That's, that's, that's you have this genetic ability.

• 1:28:08Joe Rogan?

  But he was fat when he was young, and he was lazy, he was drinking milkshakes. He talks about it openly. He said the first time he decided to enlist, when he went like to run, to go running, he couldn't even run around the block. He was totally out of shape. He's got, he has photos of it. He shows you. He's like, this is like, no, I made myself this. So this is my thinking about fighting. Like, have we just accepted that you can't really fight full blast for five, five-minute rounds? Or is it that no one has built themselves up to a level where you can? Like when you were talking about how Kurt hit a new gear, or the gear that Murab is clearly on right now.

• 1:28:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:46Joe Rogan?

  Or Hamzah. There's, there's that gear.

• 1:28:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:48Joe Rogan?

  What, what if, like, we're gonna push that even further, where there's guys that can sprint for five, five-minute rounds? Like, there's a few flyweights that can do that.

• 1:28:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:57Joe Rogan?

  Like, Pantoja can kinda sprint for five, five-minute rounds.

• 1:29:00Speaker 03

  He can go. So they'll eventually be. A fighter that can do that.

• 1:29:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too.

• 1:29:06Speaker 03

  And because it's just one where, where like I was saying, from where I started from 25 years ago. And the training methods and how archaic they were. And how little knowledge was out there.

• 1:29:16Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:29:16Speaker 03

  Now, knowledge is advancing at such a rapid rate. And they're understanding how to recover.

• 1:29:21Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:29:22Speaker 03

  Understanding all these different factors that just weren't there.

• 1:29:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and if you add in a bunch of stuff like hyperbaric chambers.

• 1:29:28Speaker 03

  Oh, all that.

• 1:29:29Joe Rogan?

  So these guys have access to hyperbaric chambers and, and training with hypoxic chambers and shit like that. There's, there's levels and levels and levels that can be reached. It's, you just have to be a complete fucking psycho and go through all the levels.

• 1:29:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:45Joe Rogan?

  And get.

• 1:29:46Speaker 03

  It's like Donkey Kong.

• 1:29:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, like measure all your food, all your electrolytes, everything throughout the day. Have your sleep environment perfect, wear a mask.

• 1:29:56Speaker 03

  I'm telling you, there's guys out there that'll do it.

• 1:29:58Joe Rogan?

  There's guys that'll do it.

• 1:29:59Speaker 03

  They'll do it.

• 1:29:59Joe Rogan?

  Well, they have to if that's where you get the edge, right?

• 1:30:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's becoming, it's becoming to a point now where the financial benefit is worth the sacrifice, right?

• 1:30:09Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:30:10Speaker 03

  That you'll end up going, okay. Cause what, what started to happen when I was fighting is that once the financial piece started getting in there, it started attracting more talent.

• 1:30:18Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:30:19Speaker 03

  Right?

• 1:30:20Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:30:21Speaker 03

  So that talent, it brings the level of everybody up.

• 1:30:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:25Speaker 03

  And then all of a sudden, it's like a little bit more money, talent that could have maybe went and did something else. They're going, no, I'm gonna go do this because I can make money.

• 1:30:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, this is the thing, right? If you're a young kid and you're really good at baseball, but you also like jujitsu and MMA and you, you know, have an amateur fight maybe. And you're thinking about what you're gonna do with your career. You could be so rich playing baseball.

• 1:30:47Speaker 03

  Oh, God, yeah.

• 1:30:48Joe Rogan?

  You could be so rich if you're really good at baseball, you could be rich as fuck and nobody's trying to kill you.

• 1:30:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:53Joe Rogan?

  Nobody's trying to beat you over the head with elbows. Nobody's taking you down in front of everybody and humiliating you. Wow.

• 1:31:01Joe Rogan?

  Let's play ball.

• 1:31:03Speaker 03

  Dude, seriously. Seriously, I fucking play baseball in R and B, man.

• 1:31:06Joe Rogan?

  Fuck yeah.

• 1:31:07Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 1:31:08Joe Rogan?

  So that's the problem with MMA is like, you hear like, what is it to fight in the UFC? Like, what is the bottom scale? What's like the lowest contract that you get in the UFC in 2020? And this is not even saying that deserve more, because this is just how the sport works.

• 1:31:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:21Joe Rogan?

  And it's way better in the UFC, by the way, than it is in boxing. When you watch a boxing card.

• 1:31:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:26Joe Rogan?

  Most of the money's at the top.

• 1:31:27Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:31:28Joe Rogan?

  There's very little spread out.

• 1:31:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:30Joe Rogan?

  There's guys that fight in the UFC undercard that make excellent money. But when you first start, you don't. I think it's like 10.

• 1:31:37Speaker 03

  It's one of those things where it's like, would I expect to like, start at Microsoft, right?

• 1:31:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:43Speaker 03

  And going, yeah, I get a million dollars a year. Fuck no. You work your way into, and that's one of, one of the things about the sport. As long as it has the opportunity to let somebody grow into it. You know?

• 1:31:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:55Speaker 03

  And still gives them financial incentive to grow into it. Right?

• 1:31:58Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:31:59Speaker 03

  And just one where it's like, I wouldn't expect like, hey, I'm a good fighter, pay me a million dollars. It's like, well, that's not how it fucking works.

• 1:32:04Joe Rogan?

  Now, I wouldn't say a million dollars, but wouldn't you say, like, let's make this argument. Wouldn't you think that for young, struggling fighters? If they got paid more for fights, they could put together better camps.

• 1:32:17Speaker 03

  They could.

• 1:32:18Joe Rogan?

  They could get better recovery and nutrition, have less stress.

• 1:32:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:32:22Joe Rogan?

  And be able to perform better, so it would make the product better.

• 1:32:25Speaker 03

  So here, here's where, here's where my career transitioned. I call it internally funded. My first four fights, I was using that money to get to the next fight, to get to the next fight, to get to the next fight. And all of a sudden, I get in Japan, and they pay me enough money for the one fight, that the next day, I woke up and I was a professional fighter. Cause it was the only thing I had to do was train as a fighter. What was the biggest check you got in Japan? Uh, yeah, a little over half a million. Damn, back then, that was a lot. Cash. Ooh. Yeah, fucking. How did you get it out of the country? Dude, that was. How did you get a half a million out of the country? Here's what's fucked up about it, right?

• 1:33:09Speaker 03

  So, so my first couple of times over there, I'm like, I put, like, first time I, I got, I put forty something thousand in one cowboy boot with a tube sock. I put forty thousand in the other cowboy boot with the tube socks. I'm serious. Because it was straight out of the fucking cartoons how you got paid. Because the next day, you would go up to a room and, and you literally would have a room. You'd have an adjacent room, usually Japanese guys in black suits smoking. And then you'd have this room, which is where you get paid. They had these, you know, suitcases that had your pay. You could choose your currency, right? I'm getting paid in American dollars. So they'd have your contract, slide your contract over and then go, okay, this is how you get paid. This is the dollar amount, blah, blah, blah.

• 1:33:53Speaker 03

  And they would literally take it out, count it, you would sign on it. And then they would just hand you the cash. First time they ever did that, I'm like, it's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash. And I'm like, fuck, I'm like, I'll be right back. I go to the, to the bedroom, that's, it's in the hotel room, and I grab the fucking case to the pillow. And I go over and I fucking just scrape the fucking money, put it in the pillowcase. And I go, okay, thank you. It's just a fucking, go ahead. I don't know what to fucking do. That's crazy. I'm like down, I'm like down in the elevator, like fucking holding the money. Like, I don't know what to fucking do. Hundred fifty grand in a pillowcase. Like, who is that guy? I don't know what to fucking do. Big giant guy with a hundred fifty grand in a pillowcase. That does not look good.

• 1:34:38Speaker 03

  No, no, it does not, man. It's, it's like. What did they expect you to do with it? Did they give you any advice on how to get it out of the country? Oh, no, no, that was not, that was, it was your responsibility. Oh, my God. So literally, I'm like, oh, fuck, man, I like get on it and like in my head, I'm playing all these movies, right? Like, oh, in this movie, he got caught at the border. You know, I'm like, fuck. You know, I know that's gonna be this one, you know, it's like, so I end up fucking just going, oh, cowboy boots, tube socks, like fucking forty grand in one boot, forty grand in the other, put it in the fucking, and like walk and like, you got anything to declare? No, just like walk through, but realizing that eventually when I claim the money,

• 1:35:19Speaker 03

  they hand a claim form, they go, okay, you're claiming a hundred forty thousand, this is what it is, okay, thank you, have a good day.

• 1:35:25Joe Rogan?

  Oh, you just have to claim it?

• 1:35:26Speaker 03

  You have to claim it, because they wanna send it, they wanna send that receipt to the IRS.

• 1:35:31Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 1:35:32Speaker 03

  So when you go through customs-

• 1:35:33Joe Rogan?

  I thought it was just a function of not being able to take that much cash anywhere without like an explanation.

• 1:35:39Speaker 03

  When you declare it, there's that situation too, right?

• 1:35:42Joe Rogan?

  Because everybody's gonna go, where's your gonna have a minute?

• 1:35:48Joe Rogan?

  I guess back then, could you even, no, you couldn't even like YouTube yourself.

• 1:35:52Speaker 03

  No, no, there's no-

• 1:35:53Joe Rogan?

  You couldn't say, look, this is me, man, I just won, look, aren't I awesome?

• 1:35:59Speaker 03

  Exactly, this is how I really did win.

• 1:36:00Joe Rogan?

  Right, back then it was hard to get tapes, man.

• 1:36:03Speaker 03

  You know what, the like example, example I give is like the corner video store, next to the shutters, where all the porn was, right next to that was the VHS tapes.

• 1:36:16Joe Rogan?

  Somebody can hear it when you went through, you dirty pervert, you gotta go see Faces of Death. There's Faces of Death, UFC.

• 1:36:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was right, literally, those were where the UFC tapes were, those were the pride tapes were.

• 1:36:30Joe Rogan?

  I remember, I remember, I was living in Hollywood, I just moved there, it was ninety-four, it was when UFC two was available on VHS.

• 1:36:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:38Joe Rogan?

  So I'd heard about UFC one, but I didn't see it, and then UFC two, I saw on tape, I rented it from like some, one of those video stores, and I was like, holy shit, they did it. I couldn't believe it, I'm like, holy shit, they did it, because this was always, this was always the dream, this was literally Bruce Lee's conversation. Bruce Lee's conversation, I mean, his whole, he was the first guy to be completely outside of the norm in terms of like sticking to your style.

• 1:37:08Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:37:08Joe Rogan?

  Because that, you were- Like a trader, if you left certain Kung Fu styles or certain karate styles. He was the first guy to say, no, use, use what's useful. Put it all together.

• 1:37:19Speaker 03

  Judo Jean LaBelle he got with, he got with Chuck Norris, he got with all these other. That was the first thing like, I like the symbol is a kanji for a dragon, right? Bruce Lee was enter the dragon, right? Dragon is all these parts to make one mythical thing. And that's that enter the dragon, that's it.

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• 1:38:06Joe Rogan?

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• 1:39:24Speaker 03

  Bruce Lee was the first one, if people don't realize it, he was the first one to go, fuck, this is incomplete.

• 1:39:28Joe Rogan?

  Exactly. And so fortuitous that he ran into Judo Gene LaBelle.

• 1:39:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:34Joe Rogan?

  And cause I think once you grapple with that guy, you're like, oh my God, I'm fucking helpless. And then it's just like, oh, this is super important.

• 1:39:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:42Joe Rogan?

  You know, cause like Gene was one of the first guys to ever have like a mixed fight. So there was a guy was a boxer and he had a judo gi on and he chases the guy and gets the guy into a grappling exchange and then strangles him. But he had like a boxer versus. You never saw that?

• 1:39:59Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:40:00Joe Rogan?

  See if you can find it, Jamie. I want to say it's in the.

• 1:40:03Speaker 03

  So way back.

• 1:40:04Joe Rogan?

  Sixties?

• 1:40:05Speaker 03

  So this is gonna be way back when.

• 1:40:07Joe Rogan?

  Way back when. He was.

• 1:40:08Speaker 03

  So this is Mark Coleman and I did a clinic in North Carolina. That was a Judo Gene LaBelle clinic that he brought us in for.

• 1:40:20Joe Rogan?

  What year is this? Sixty-three.

• 1:40:21Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 1:40:23Joe Rogan?

  So Milo Savage, so the boxer, looks like he's, okay, I remembered it wrong. The boxer's bare knuckle. And he made him wear a judo gi though, which I would've said, fuck, you don't know where in this gi. He probably doesn't understand that that's a weapon for Gene.

• 1:40:39Speaker 03

  Oh my God, it's an extra set of hands.

• 1:40:41Joe Rogan?

  We didn't see him take him down.

• 1:40:43Speaker 03

  Oh, that's just.

• 1:40:43Joe Rogan?

  Did they show him taking him down?

• 1:40:45Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 1:40:46Joe Rogan?

  Oh, don't skip through. I'm gonna see the technique. Cause once he grabbed right here, here it is. So Milo throws up, but that's it. So once Gene's got a hold of him.

• 1:40:53Speaker 03

  Oh, it's over.

• 1:40:54Joe Rogan?

  It's fucked, Phil.

• 1:40:55Speaker 03

  It's over.

• 1:40:56Joe Rogan?

  I mean, you don't know what that even feels like until you feel it.

• 1:41:00Speaker 03

  Oh my God. So I, so I ruled with Higgin Machado and, oh my God.

• 1:41:06Joe Rogan?

  He's just putting him asleep with a collar choke.

• 1:41:08Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 1:41:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he's mangling him.

• 1:41:11Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 1:41:12Joe Rogan?

  He's just mangling him, this poor guy.

• 1:41:14Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 1:41:15Joe Rogan?

  And Gene is, his style was very, very brutal.

• 1:41:19Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 1:41:20Joe Rogan?

  Like, he had a very, almost like catch wrestling style, base submission. He had a lot of like, very, very painful moves that he would do on you.

• 1:41:32Speaker 03

  Oh my god. You imagine just not understanding what you're agreeing to?

• 1:41:37Joe Rogan?

  No, he just got choked unconscious. No, you, I mean, you can't know until it happens, I mean. I don't know how much cross-training people did, I bet he probably thought, I'm just gonna go in there and use my boxing.

• 1:41:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, and be good.

• 1:41:48Joe Rogan?

  And I'll fuck him up.

• 1:41:49Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:41:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's just, you don't know until you know. And then you go, wow. But it's just, it's so wild that even at the highest levels, like at the wrestle, the level that you were wrestling at, a guy like Kurt Angle can go, let's take it up another notch.

• 1:42:04Speaker 03

  Another notch, man. And that's the crazy part, you always find, like, like me being a fan of MMA and UFC and watching it, there's, there's always an outlier, right?

• 1:42:15Joe Rogan?

  Always.

• 1:42:16Speaker 03

  Always an outlier that you go, that doesn't make sense. How the fuck is he getting to there?

• 1:42:22Joe Rogan?

  Yup, yup.

• 1:42:23Speaker 03

  Right? And that's like, fuck, he's just found a new way to do it, he's found a new gear, he's found a new, you know, way to just go, okay, this is, this is what I'm gonna do. It's like a Dave and Goggins thing, I'm just gonna run 125 miles, yeah.

• 1:42:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and to be able to maintain that drive, that's what's probably one of the hardest things. Cause you, you have to have almost no rest. And you're maintaining an insane drive for years and years and years, while sharks are nipping at your ankles. Cause they're all coming up.

• 1:42:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, all chasing you.

• 1:42:55Joe Rogan?

  All chasing you. And everybody's scary.

• 1:42:58Speaker 03

  Well, I used to tell my fucking training partner, I'd go, fuck, the getting there, that's one thing. Fucking staying there, that's the secret.

• 1:43:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:06Speaker 03

  That's the fucking, it's so hard to stay at that level, because everybody else is building on your, your experience, right? They're going, well, this is what he did, this is what he's incorporated, these are the things he's doing. You know, I'm just gonna build on it.

• 1:43:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:22Speaker 06

  There's some weird rules to this fight that they had agreed upon too, and Gene LaBelle said that Savage had brass knuckles in his gloves.

• 1:43:28Speaker 03

  Oh!

• 1:43:29Joe Rogan?

  Oh, what?

• 1:43:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, I start reading like, uh, here, like, the rules, he couldn't punch or tackle, or sorry, he couldn't kick or tackle him. And in exchange for that Savage offered to wear a judogi.

• 1:43:42Joe Rogan?

  A judogi.

• 1:43:44Speaker 06

  Oh, sorry. Oh, that's how they wrote it.

• 1:43:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, no, it's a judogi.

• 1:43:48Speaker 03

  That's the new outfit.

• 1:43:50Speaker 06

  They wrote a karate one instead because they didn't know the difference.

• 1:43:52Joe Rogan?

  Okay, so in the parent belief that LaBelle was a karateka. So. That's interesting. So he made a rule that, uh, that Gene couldn't kick him. So because he thought that he was gonna use, he couldn't tackle him and he couldn't take him. So it kidnapped tackles or takedowns under the waist?

• 1:44:14Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 1:44:15Joe Rogan?

  So you had to only hip toss him. Or only drag him to the ground. Everything had to be above waist. That's kinda silly.

• 1:44:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's really silly. Cause it's one of those things where it's like, it's like Greco.

• 1:44:26Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:26Speaker 03

  They're doing like Greco.

• 1:44:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. A thousand dollar bet?

• 1:44:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, to anyone who could prove that a boxer would be beat by a martial artist, I think, in a straight fight.

• 1:44:35Speaker 03

  Wow. This is way ahead of its time.

• 1:44:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I wonder if the brass knuckles thing is true.

• 1:44:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, I don't know. I'll try to look that up.

• 1:44:42Joe Rogan?

  According to LaBelle and other, so.

• 1:44:45Joe Rogan?

  He was a mad motherfucker, Gene LaBelle.

• 1:44:47Speaker 03

  Ahead of his time, again.

• 1:44:48Joe Rogan?

  And again, that fortuitous meeting, him and Bruce Lee getting together where Bruce Lee was like, you know, the most famous martial artists on earth, the guys who's turning people on to martial arts, had the most open mind and had this philosophy of using everything that's useful and then meets this guy and it's like, oh.

• 1:45:07Speaker 03

  Here it is. Yeah.

• 1:45:08Joe Rogan?

  He would have loved MMA.

• 1:45:10Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. He would have fucking been totally jazzed on it.

• 1:45:13Joe Rogan?

  Oh, my God. He'd be at every fight.

• 1:45:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's one of those things where, where, you know, again, it's just somebody being ahead of their time.

• 1:45:20Joe Rogan?

  Way, yeah, way ahead of time. But not just that, but like the first guy that became a world famous martial arts person. Like, there was no real world famous martial arts people before Bruce Lee. I mean, you had to be into martial arts to know about.

• 1:45:37Speaker 03

  Martial arts, yeah.

• 1:45:38Joe Rogan?

  But Bruce Lee, like, everybody knew Bruce Lee.

• 1:45:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:42Joe Rogan?

  Changed martial, like, igniting martial arts all over the world.

• 1:45:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where I look back on it and I've read like part of, part of the history and stuff and you understand it obviously way better than I do, but you know, like ahead of his time, just like when Gracie came along, ahead of his time, you know, in, in presenting something where he's knocking down all these stereotypes.

• 1:46:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and they had rigid stereotypes back then. You'd have, you'd have to like get in gang fights to protect the, the style that you were in. They would, they would fight.

• 1:46:16Speaker 03

  Do you know, like, like, so I started training at Beverly Hills Jiu Jitsu Club, right? In California.

• 1:46:21Joe Rogan?

  I remember that spot.

• 1:46:22Speaker 03

  So, so, so, uh, so Boss would have me, Boss would have me out there. Avi Rubin is the guy that owned it. And I would go out there and I would teach wrestling a couple of days out of the week. It's how I got introduced to Boss, Oleg Kitarov, Mark Huas and Pedro Hizo. They were training out of there as well. So you would get these guys, uh, Jiu Jitsu guys that would sit on the outside, wait until the other students were gone, draw all the blinds, lock the doors and go, can you teach us wrestling?

• 1:46:52Speaker 03

  Because they were so afraid that if they got caught there with me, it was like a traitor.

• 1:46:58Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that's hilarious.

• 1:47:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:47:00Joe Rogan?

  That's hilarious.

• 1:47:02Speaker 03

  So you would get like-

• 1:47:03Joe Rogan?

  That's so crazy.

• 1:47:05Speaker 03

  It, it was one of, it didn't make any sense to me because you would figure sharing information would be better.

• 1:47:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:10Speaker 03

  And it was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Jiu Jitsu, we're not sharing shit. We're not, you can't participate. You can't. It was so fucking archaic, like, like the outlook and it's like, like looking back on it going, god damn, like, wow, that's dogma. That's like this, like, ah, and it's like, yeah.

• 1:47:28Joe Rogan?

  They didn't all have that though.

• 1:47:29Speaker 03

  No, they didn't. They did.

• 1:47:30Joe Rogan?

  There's some guys who were, were open to teaching people everything, but there was definitely some schools for a while that were holding back techniques.

• 1:47:38Speaker 03

  A hundred percent.

• 1:47:39Joe Rogan?

  Like I remember when Hoist Gracie, one of my friends said that when Hoist Gracie, uh, caught Dan Severn in a triangle, that, uh, he asked his instructor to show it to him. He's like, you're not ready for that. I'm not gonna show you that. Like, why wouldn't you just show him something that works?

• 1:47:53Speaker 03

  I rewound that tape probably 50 times. I still can, I'm like, what the fuck is he doing? Like what the fuck is he doing? Like you could figure it out, like what the fuck is he doing? Cause all of a sudden Severn goes from beating the shit out of him going, he's fucking tapping out.

• 1:48:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, nuts. We couldn't believe it.

• 1:48:10Speaker 03

  I didn't, I didn't know there's a name for it.

• 1:48:12Joe Rogan?

  You could submit a guy off your back with your legs?

• 1:48:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, like what the fuck? Like what, but if you look at it, like the space where he had Dan's head and arm is like that big.

• 1:48:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:23Speaker 03

  It's like that fuck, like when you, when you do a triangle like this, that's not a very big space. It's like that fucking Dan, cause he's a big dude going, oh, I get it.

• 1:48:32Joe Rogan?

  And your legs, you could hold your legs in place for a long time. Your legs carry you around all day.

• 1:48:38Speaker 03

  Oh, that's like-

• 1:48:39Joe Rogan?

  Especially if you actually get that foot under the knee.

• 1:48:42Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:48:42Joe Rogan?

  Where it's like really locked in, it's not pressing on the end of your foot. You could hold on to that bitch for a long time.

• 1:48:48Speaker 03

  Oh my god, and then he's like pulling on the fuck, I'm like, what the fuck?

• 1:48:51Joe Rogan?

  Nuts. Changed everybody, like, oh my god, you could win off your back.

• 1:48:55Speaker 03

  It, it literally, I'm, I still remember to this day just looking at it with my mouth hanging open going, huh, fuck.

• 1:49:02Joe Rogan?

  I think it was one of the things that made MMA so popular. Because Hoist wasn't a big, like, he didn't look like you, right? So like if you were dominating everybody, it would be like, Jesus, look at him.

• 1:49:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:13Joe Rogan?

  But Hoist was, just looked like an athlete. It's like a thin, he was 175 pounds. Which is so crazy.

• 1:49:20Speaker 03

  So, you know what's a good-

• 1:49:21Joe Rogan?

  So crazy.

• 1:49:22Speaker 03

  I had a conversation with Hoist probably about four or five years ago. And I'd never spoken with him outside of a competition or event or anything like that. I cried. He's such a good person, man.

• 1:49:36Joe Rogan?

  He's a great guy.

• 1:49:37Speaker 03

  Like, he was so just, like, talking to him, and he was just so powerful and so inspirational. And just having this conversation with him was just, like, amazing. I was just left the conversation, hung the phone up and going- Wow, what a, what a, just an amazing human being.

• 1:49:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he's a.

• 1:49:55Speaker 03

  He's a really good guy.

• 1:49:56Joe Rogan?

  And the most important guy ever in terms of like the spread of MMA. He's the most important guy.

• 1:50:01Speaker 03

  Oh, prolific.

• 1:50:03Joe Rogan?

  Cause he's the guy, when he won the first one and you looked, the way he did it, everyone was like, that guy?

• 1:50:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:08Joe Rogan?

  And everyone was like, what's he doing?

• 1:50:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:10Joe Rogan?

  No one knew what it was. What is this stuff he's doing to these people?

• 1:50:14Speaker 03

  That thing.

• 1:50:14Joe Rogan?

  Changed everything.

• 1:50:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:16Joe Rogan?

  Made everybody instead, cause it like, it, it went from this idea that it was, uh, just the most brutal person would win. It was the tank abbots, like, but no, no, no, there's this one guy and he's doing everything with technique and he's not physically imposing at all. And he's handsome.

• 1:50:32Speaker 03

  It didn't make, yeah, he was good.

• 1:50:34Joe Rogan?

  Handsome fella.

• 1:50:35Speaker 03

  And he wears that fancy gi thing, you know?

• 1:50:39Joe Rogan?

  He's a bad motherfucker and he's choking everybody out. It's incredible.

• 1:50:43Speaker 03

  Watching that for the first time, I said, like, literally, it was like, oh, this is fucking new.

• 1:50:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:49Speaker 03

  Like, this is, I mean, cause you've never seen it before.

• 1:50:52Joe Rogan?

  No, nothing like it. And then the, the sport explodes, but the sport was getting fucked so hard back then by all these organizations that didn't want it ever to become sanctioned.

• 1:51:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:03Joe Rogan?

  Like, cause boxing was very threatened by it and they had businesses with people and then there was, there was so much bullshit that kept it, like, it was out of New York until like 10 years ago.

• 1:51:13Speaker 03

  So we were, we were on, um, me and my brother, we were on our way to see, uh, a UFC event in New York. And it got canceled and it got moved down south.

• 1:51:26Joe Rogan?

  Yes, to Dothan, Alabama.

• 1:51:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:51:28Joe Rogan?

  UFC 12.

• 1:51:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. We were on our way, we were on our way to go see it.

• 1:51:31Joe Rogan?

  Uh, I was on my way to work at it.

• 1:51:34Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:51:35Joe Rogan?

  That was the first one I was gonna work at.

• 1:51:36Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:51:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and it got moved.

• 1:51:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, it got moved and so.

• 1:51:39Joe Rogan?

  New York was like, nope.

• 1:51:40Speaker 03

  Nope, ain't having it.

• 1:51:41Joe Rogan?

  Ain't having it.

• 1:51:44Joe Rogan?

  Well, they, they kept it out for the longest time though. There was the guy who took, who was really fighting to keep the UFC out of New York. Eventually got, he got brought up on corruption charges.

• 1:51:55Speaker 03

  Oh. Yeah.

• 1:51:56Joe Rogan?

  Shocker.

• 1:51:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:58Joe Rogan?

  It was like, it had more to do with like, unions and the fact that Zuffa, who owned it, they also owned hotels.

• 1:52:05Speaker 03

  Didn't have union.

• 1:52:06Joe Rogan?

  Exactly.

• 1:52:07Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:08Joe Rogan?

  So, there was a lot.

• 1:52:09Speaker 03

  A lot going on.

• 1:52:10Joe Rogan?

  Lot that makes you go.

• 1:52:11Speaker 03

  You know, I went to the first sanctioned, uh, the UFC flew me out to go to, in New Jersey, when they had their main, main, main card in New Jersey.

• 1:52:19Joe Rogan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:52:20Speaker 03

  Their first big event that was sanctioned by the New Jersey Boxing Commission, uh, with Tito and, um, they flew me out to that event.

• 1:52:28Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:52:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, flew me out to that event. And actually, this is, this is, at the time, uh, they offered me to fight, uh, after that, they offered me to fight Pete Williams.

• 1:52:39Joe Rogan?

  Ooh.

• 1:52:41Speaker 03

  And it was one of those where they go, "Yeah, we're offered to fight Pete Williams. You might have to take a little bit of pay cut, but you have to believe in what we're doing," and da, da, da, da. I'm like, "Okay, what's the pay cut?" They're like, "We'll, we'll give you like, an appearance fee of like, 15 grand."

• 1:52:54Joe Rogan?

  To fight?

• 1:52:55Speaker 03

  To fight.

• 1:52:56Joe Rogan?

  15 grand?

• 1:52:57Speaker 03

  To show up. And then it would be doubled if I won. And I'm like, "I'm making, you know, a lot more in Japan. Like, why would I go do it?" Like, why?

• 1:53:07Joe Rogan?

  That's crazy.

• 1:53:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:53:10Joe Rogan?

  That's a terrible offer.

• 1:53:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, that's bad.

• 1:53:12Joe Rogan?

  That's one of the worst offers I've ever heard.

• 1:53:15Speaker 03

  And it's one where, where the whole idea behind it would be, "Hey, we just, if you believe in us and you believe in the direction you're going, look, we just got sanctioned in New Jersey," right?

• 1:53:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:25Speaker 03

  So, so that's the, the, the, the steps we're taking to move this to Vegas and to do this. And, and one is like, you know, like, most fighters, it's like, "I have X amount of fights and I don't have more."

• 1:53:38Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:53:38Speaker 03

  Right? I only have X. So, that would have been one off my X number.

• 1:53:42Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:53:42Speaker 03

  And I'm like, "Oh, man, I can't do it." And they only ask once. At that time, the UFC was like, we're gonna ask once, and that's it.

• 1:53:51Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 1:53:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:52Joe Rogan?

  Just leaving that alone, just leave that one alone. That one's one of like, okay.

• 1:53:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:56Joe Rogan?

  Why not? Why not ask me a second time? Why aren't we negotiating?

• 1:53:59Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 1:54:00Joe Rogan?

  Um, if you were, if you were at Pride then, right? So like, what, what year are we talking about?

• 1:54:05Speaker 03

  Uh, 2002.

• 1:54:07Joe Rogan?

  Okay, so this was in the UFC was still hemorrhaging money.

• 1:54:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:54:11Joe Rogan?

  And still, that crazy, hemorrhaging money is still...

• 1:54:14Speaker 03

  Oh, gosh, man, it should have failed.

• 1:54:17Joe Rogan?

  It could have.

• 1:54:18Speaker 03

  I mean, one is they didn't have, yeah, if anybody else was, yeah.

• 1:54:22Joe Rogan?

  Cause it's crazy, they had no idea how much money you were getting in Japan.

• 1:54:25Speaker 03

  Oh, they had no clue, they had no clue.

• 1:54:26Joe Rogan?

  That's, that's nuts.

• 1:54:27Speaker 03

  So you know what's crazy with Japan? Here's what I ended up doing. I said, listen, I said, they said, what do you need? And I said, I need consistency. And they go, okay, what does that look like? And I said, pay me X dollars per month. And then every time I fight, pay me a bonus on top of that. And they go, okay, how much do you need? And I said, okay, I need this amount per month. And they go, okay.

• 1:54:52Speaker 03

  And that was just another stabilizing thing where I knew that every month, I had X amount of dollars coming in. That I could pay my bills, I could do my stuff, not worry about that, because it allowed me to transition to like, it's not a hobby. You know, I'm not like fighting and then I go to work, you know, it's like, this is what I do for a living.

• 1:55:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that was the, the point of thinking about money investment. Like by giving them more money and they get better camps, wouldn't, you think the product would be better?

• 1:55:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:22Joe Rogan?

  Like, I mean, I don't like to be, think of people as products, but.

• 1:55:25Speaker 03

  It is, it is.

• 1:55:25Joe Rogan?

  But the show, the program.

• 1:55:26Speaker 03

  Program, the show, yeah.

• 1:55:28Joe Rogan?

  The program, that you're, now I guess you don't have to pay for it, you're gonna just pay for the subscription to Paramount, which is pretty badass.

• 1:55:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:34Joe Rogan?

  Where you don't have to pay for a pay-per-view every time, but, you know. If they had more money, they'd be able to do a better camp. They'd be in better shape.

• 1:55:42Speaker 03

  All the way around, all the way around.

• 1:55:44Joe Rogan?

  They'd be better recovered, they have better nutrition.

• 1:55:47Speaker 03

  It's investing in what your product is. And your product is elite athletes. Elite athletes. In order to get elite athletes, they need funding.

• 1:55:58Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:55:59Speaker 03

  They need tools. The only way they can get tools is through money. You know, better coaches, better recovery facilities. And I don't know, the, you know, I obviously.

• 1:56:09Joe Rogan?

  Let me ask you this. If you were like looking, like say if your son wanted to start fighting, or someone wanted to look to you. Would you, if you were giving a young fighter advice, would you say go right into the UFC? Or would you say, no, the best case scenario is go into another organization like the PFL. Build, build your style up.

• 1:56:31Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:56:31Joe Rogan?

  Build it up on maybe a slow, little slightly lower level of competition, although not necessarily.

• 1:56:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:56:39Joe Rogan?

  Still elite guys.

• 1:56:40Speaker 03

  Submission grappling. That's, I literally, I go, you fundamentally, you need to build a base of what you're going to become, right? So submission grappling, ADCC, if a young kid, like 16, 17 year old kid, even 18, 19, 20 year old kid, I'd go. You need submission grappling because you can participate in those at a competitive level that teaches you how to compete. It teaches you how to prepare to compete, right?

• 1:57:05Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 1:57:06Speaker 03

  And it teaches you without the impact of striking and punching and all of this. So that's like the first foundational piece. And this is just my opinion, right? Foundationally is like if you, you have to have a mechanism out there which allows you to compete without having the physical impact that fighting does. So that would be the first thing, like submission grappling, ADCC stuff. You know, all of that really teaches you how to compete, to train to compete. And it starts building that base. And then you start adding pieces in going, okay, I understand this. Let's add the striking components and do it now. And let's do these little like PFLs or let's do this, let's do that. And it just allows you to build out something where you're not just thrown into the fire.

• 1:57:52Speaker 03

  Cause that shit doesn't work. I mean, the fighters have become so good now that you can't just throw somebody in there because it fu- you get fucked up, it might fuck your confidence up and you go, I just, I'm done, I ain't ever doing this.

• 1:58:04Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you could definitely reach an opponent that you shouldn't be reaching.

• 1:58:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure, for sure.

• 1:58:09Joe Rogan?

  I wondered that if you also, if you build yourself up in another organization, then obviously you have at least a name and the hardcore fans know who you are. So like, uh, Reinier De Ritter is another example. Who's elite right now. I can't, I say middleweight, but I can't believe he's really a middleweight. He's so fucking big, but he's a fantastic grappler, but he was already a champion in ONE. So he's a champion in ONE FC and then when he comes over to America and he starts fighting for the UFC, people are already hyped for it. So he's like immediately getting tossed in there with Kevin Holland, immediately getting tossed in there with like very elite fighters.

• 1:58:51Joe Rogan?

  And so like, maybe there's a, an argument for if you were like managing a fighter, saying like, don't just, if you're, if you fight well in the UFC, you might be three fights in and in the waters that you really can't swim in. Because the, the level gets high very fast.

• 1:59:06Speaker 03

  Oh, it does, it does.

• 1:59:07Joe Rogan?

  Like, maybe you'd be better off getting a, a few years in at a different level of competition to really tighten your skills up and make sure that when you finally do run into-

• 1:59:18Speaker 03

  You've been ringside for this. You see when a young fighter, when he collects and he gets it.

• 1:59:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:26Speaker 03

  And he understands how to compete at that level, it's brilliant.

• 1:59:30Joe Rogan?

  It's amazing.

• 1:59:31Speaker 03

  Like, watching it, you're like, oh my god, he's like-

• 1:59:33Joe Rogan?

  He's in there.

• 1:59:34Speaker 03

  Oh my god, it like gives me goosebumps to think about it because it's that moment that I can look at and go, oh fuck.

• 1:59:40Joe Rogan?

  And you know, it's a beautiful creation. It's like a testament to the amount of hours worked. Like, you know it better than anybody alive. When you see someone perform at like a super elite championship level, you go, you know how hard that motherfucker had to work to get to what you're seeing right now?

• 1:59:57Speaker 03

  It's even, and this just brought this up, uh, just as a thing, like DJ playing me in the movie. You just don't get there.

• 2:00:05Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 2:00:06Speaker 03

  It doesn't happen by magic, right?

• 2:00:08Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:00:08Speaker 03

  That's fucking work.

• 2:00:09Joe Rogan?

  That's work.

• 2:00:10Speaker 03

  That's a lot of fucking work. Oh my god, a lot of work.

• 2:00:13Joe Rogan?

  Like, he got all of your mannerisms down, like down, not like a simile.

• 2:00:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:00:18Joe Rogan?

  A facsimile, brother, like, down, like creepy down.

• 2:00:22Speaker 03

  Like he, like he even said he fucking walks like me, he even got my little fucking walk.

• 2:00:27Joe Rogan?

  He did get the walk like you, man.

• 2:00:28Speaker 03

  I'm like, where, like, where do you hire a walk coach?

• 2:00:33Joe Rogan?

  Well, the crazy thing is, like, that story was made for him.

• 2:00:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was.

• 2:00:36Joe Rogan?

  That was made for him, because you have to be that big to sell that.

• 2:00:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:00:41Joe Rogan?

  And you can't get that big that quick, it should take you forever.

• 2:00:44Speaker 03

  No, we, so we were talking about this the other day, uh, with DJ, is that like, there's like, uh, you know, through the history of like, you know, movie making, there's been actors that have like, ah, I'm getting big and they go eat, you know, Ben and Jerry's ice cream. And then there's like, watching the whole transition of what DJ was doing and how he's like, well, I just don't need to be big, because that's one thing, I need to be big but put on quality of what I'm doing. And so it's these fast twitch, it's like a wrestler, fast twitch fibers. You look at him and go, oh shit, he just didn't get big, he put on specific muscle for what he was doing. You know, and to be able to go through everything and understand going, he secluded himself. He literally locked himself away, uh, for 11 weeks up in Vancouver

• 2:01:28Speaker 03

  and didn't bring his family up, which I guess he normally does, and just went through his training camp.

• 2:01:33Joe Rogan?

  Jesus.

• 2:01:34Speaker 03

  Like going, like going, fuck, okay. You know, like every day, same routine, get up, do the same routine, do this, I was up there for Fight Week, got all of his stunt guys all, like, this is, this is foundationally, because I'm not going to teach him wrestling, 25 years of wrestling and fucking a month, right? Or two weeks, or a week, or an hour. It's like, okay, but let's get foundational pieces, right? Because the people are going to watch it, they can look at the film. And tell whether you put the work in or not.

• 2:02:02Joe Rogan?

  Right. Especially someone like you.

• 2:02:04Speaker 03

  Oh, God, man. It was one where that was the biggest deal for Benny is to be able to shoot these scenes without stunt double. Going how, because it just detracts from what he's trying to do as a filmmaker.

• 2:02:18Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:02:18Speaker 03

  How do you shoot this whole entire, well, I'm gonna give DJ foundational pieces of like changing your level for a double. Here's where you get, and like certain foundational pieces, you have to have, and then like I told them, once you get to a certain point, everything from that point on is your own. It's like when you watch wrestlers going, oh, he changes his level, and then all these little nuances, that's individual. That's individualized. Like Michael Jordan, it's like the structure for a jump shot's the same, right? But all these little nuances of like how to get to the position to hit a jump shot, that's Michael Jordan.

• 2:02:51Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 2:02:52Speaker 03

  So I go, like, when I shoot a double leg, like lowering your level, that's foundational, fundamental, right? It's like attacking without my arms out, in tight, that's fundamental. But once I hit the person with the attack, right, double leg, everything from that point going on is my own. Whether I tip him this way, tilt him this way, run him forward, run him backwards, sit down, change. It's all these little nuances. I go, we need to do foundational, and then you're good. So it was a lot of work for him to get to that foundational point. And once he got there, it's like, okay, you're good.

• 2:03:27Joe Rogan?

  It looked very realistic. The fight scenes were excellent.

• 2:03:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:03:29Joe Rogan?

  It was like really well done, to the point where it looked like the historical fight.

• 2:03:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, they did. And again, this is Benny, you know, just like him and how he wanted to shoot it.

• 2:03:39Joe Rogan?

  I really appreciate that, because it's like, that's hard to do. It's hard to really capture. Like, you watch a documentary, or a docu-drama, rather, on a person's real life, when that person's a famous person like yourself, and I've seen you compete for decades. I'm like, I've seen it. I know, I remember those fights. They got it. They got it real close, man, to the point like, wow.

• 2:04:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:02Joe Rogan?

  This is, uh, it's really well done and it also like it looks realistic. It doesn't look, you know, sometimes fights look a little corny.

• 2:04:10Speaker 03

  Oh my God, that was the one thing we're talking about going, there's always gonna be a space for a Rocky fight, right?

• 2:04:16Joe Rogan?

  Sure, sure.

• 2:04:17Speaker 03

  Literally.

• 2:04:17Joe Rogan?

  Nothing wrong with Rocky.

• 2:04:18Speaker 03

  Nothing wrong at all, but that's not the film they were shooting. They were shooting like this is how do we create something that pays homage to?

• 2:04:26Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:27Speaker 03

  And something you can build off of and somebody can look at and go, oh wow.

• 2:04:32Joe Rogan?

  I think it's important if we're talking about Rocky though, we have to say Rocky two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, whatever the fuck they got to. But Rocky one was real.

• 2:04:40Speaker 03

  Oh my God, I, I literally, I remember being in the theater and literally watching it and just like as a kid.

• 2:04:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:47Speaker 03

  Watching it and like, I, I wanted to be Rocky.

• 2:04:51Joe Rogan?

  Dude, I drank a raw egg and I ran around the block as soon as I got home.

• 2:04:53Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, 100 fucking percent. I mean, you're like, that's.

• 2:04:57Joe Rogan?

  You're like, holy shit, that was a great movie.

• 2:05:00Speaker 03

  Oh, unbelievable.

• 2:05:01Joe Rogan?

  And they tried to push him out. He didn't, they didn't want him to play the lead. He wrote that movie.

• 2:05:06Speaker 03

  Oh my God, he won an Oscar for that, right?

• 2:05:08Joe Rogan?

  It was amazing.

• 2:05:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:05:10Joe Rogan?

  It's a great movie and it's a weird movie. It's a weird movie.

• 2:05:13Speaker 03

  It is, it is. Cause that, that's, that's the classic underdog.

• 2:05:17Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:17Speaker 03

  Overachiever, you know, but he doesn't win.

• 2:05:20Joe Rogan?

  There are guys like that, man, and that's what's crazy. There's guys that like are hyper fucking talented, but for whatever reason, they just never. Buster Douglas.

• 2:05:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh my God, yeah.

• 2:05:32Joe Rogan?

  Buster Douglas. Buster Douglas got it together for one fight against Mike Tyson and pieced him up.

• 2:05:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:05:37Joe Rogan?

  And did it artistically.

• 2:05:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:05:39Joe Rogan?

  He was, was hitting it with a jab followed by a left hook to his, wah wah. And it was beautiful. The movement.

• 2:05:47Speaker 03

  Wasn't that in Tokyo?

• 2:05:49Joe Rogan?

  I believe it was.

• 2:05:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, Tokyo Dome.

• 2:05:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I believe you're right. Yeah. That was one of the craziest.

• 2:05:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. I'll, I'll never forget that. I'll never forget that.

• 2:05:59Joe Rogan?

  Because his mom had died.

• 2:06:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:06:01Joe Rogan?

  And he just got it together for this one fight, man. And if it's one fight, he showed everybody what he had.

• 2:06:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:06:07Joe Rogan?

  It was amazing.

• 2:06:08Speaker 03

  Never to be repeated.

• 2:06:09Joe Rogan?

  Never. And then Holyfield knocked him out in the next fight.

• 2:06:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, gosh damn.

• 2:06:14Joe Rogan?

  But like, that one fight, man, he got it together and you go, wow. So there's guys like that out there that are supremely talented, but for whatever reason, they just never sustain, never can keep it together.

• 2:06:26Speaker 03

  It's a mental thing. I mean, all of it is, right? I mean, just like, like you're saying, like the outliers, it's a mental thing that they have that, a level or a gear they can get to, but everybody else just can't?

• 2:06:39Joe Rogan?

  It has to be, or there's gotta be something, something they're doing that's so different. And everybody's trying to figure it out. Like, what is he doing?

• 2:06:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:06:49Joe Rogan?

  But it seems to boil down to almost always dedication. It's like, how dedicated are you to it? And are you so dedicated that you're really willing to objectively look at what you do good and what you're not so good? And change that and fix it and really tighten down your diet and really like get religious with your supplements?

• 2:07:11Speaker 03

  That's the ability to be able to be, just have this self-perspective, right? This in-depth honesty. Cause a lot of it, like, I literally, before Chris Campbell, right, I was just talking about, I thought I was training fucking hard. I thought I fucking, I thought like, I'm training fucking hard. And he just grabbed me by the hand and he goes, no, let me show you what hard is, right? And so it was this routine where it's like, in college, my senior year, 6 a.m. I'd get up, he would pick me up and I wouldn't be a minute late. I had a chair that I put next to the door that I slept in for the last, cause one time being late, he just throttled me. And I'm like, that ain't never happened again. Ain't fucking ever happened again, man.

• 2:07:56Joe Rogan?

  You slept in the chair?

• 2:07:57Speaker 03

  Slept in the chair next to the door, you know, it'd be like, alright, fuck it. Cause he would just give two beeps, beep beep, and like, alright, I'm up, you know, and fucking out the front door. We'd go to the gym, we'd train in the morning, so we'd do wrestling drills, stuff like that. And then I would do cardio or strength. He would go to work, he was a full-time attorney, he'd go to work all day. I would start practicing with the wrestling team, warm up, and then I'd wait for him to get off of work, 5 o'clock. And then we'd train for a couple hours and then get up and repeat. But it's this level of intensity with everything had intention. There wasn't anything that was left without intent.

• 2:08:33Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:08:33Speaker 03

  You know, from how we drilled, how we trained, everything was very focused and intentional. There wasn't anything like, I'm gonna do this today. You know, it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Everything has intention. This is why you're doing this. This is why you're doing that. This is why you're doing this.

• 2:08:51Joe Rogan?

  And that's the difference.

• 2:08:52Speaker 03

  That's the difference. It's this intention of every single thing you're doing. Has this intention for an end purpose.

• 2:09:00Joe Rogan?

  Hmm. You know who Gordon Ryan is, right?

• 2:09:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:09:04Joe Rogan?

  That's Gordon's belt up there. When Gordon trains 365 days a year.

• 2:09:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:09:10Joe Rogan?

  He doesn't take any days off unless he's injured. And if he's injured, he'll still be on the mats watching. Watches everybody. He says, I'm still thinking about jiu-jitsu.

• 2:09:18Speaker 03

  That's intention.

• 2:09:19Joe Rogan?

  And it's not just training like hard sparring. It's going over technique, going over counters, tape study. All day.

• 2:09:27Speaker 03

  And that's, that is somebody who's living their life intentional, right? Everything has a end purpose.

• 2:09:34Joe Rogan?

  Everything.

• 2:09:35Speaker 03

  And it's why he's been able to do what he's been able to do. I mean, I've looked at it going, if he existed when I was doing ADCC, I would have never won. You know, because it's just, it's just a different level. And, and that's, that's a skill set I had wrestling. But he's got a skill set that incorporates that plus 20 things more.

• 2:09:53Joe Rogan?

  And it's nuts because he gives away the formula. He's like, no one's willing to do it.

• 2:09:57Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:09:58Joe Rogan?

  And he just says it with confidence. He goes, I put out all my videos out there for free.

• 2:10:06Speaker 03

  Isn't that fucking funny though?

• 2:10:08Joe Rogan?

  I mean, he puts techniques up all the time, shows you how to do stuff. And he sells DVDs still. He makes millions just selling instructional. Because that's how much he knows about jiu-jitsu.

• 2:10:19Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh.

• 2:10:20Joe Rogan?

  And he's only 30.

• 2:10:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:10:21Joe Rogan?

  And he's, everybody considers him the greatest of all time.

• 2:10:24Speaker 03

  You know, it's crazy. It's funny to brought this up. So, so when DJ and I connected again in 2023, when this got kicked off at green light for the film. He sends me this picture of Panther.

• 2:10:38Speaker 03

  Videos Panther martial arts, seek and destroy videos that are on a VHS tape. He's got like 10 of them in the picture, right? And it's Mark Kerr, seek and destroy. Benny had found them and sent them to DJ and he's like, study him.

• 2:10:57Speaker 03

  So it's this videotape series that I did for Panther production.

• 2:11:00Joe Rogan?

  There it is.

• 2:11:01Speaker 03

  So this is one of these things where.

• 2:11:04Joe Rogan?

  Seek and destroy.

• 2:11:05Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 2:11:05Joe Rogan?

  No holds barred fighting techniques.

• 2:11:07Speaker 03

  And so, so DJ sends me this picture and it was fucking, I was literally like, okay, I'm in.

• 2:11:15Joe Rogan?

  Dude, look at the size of you. You look like a superhero.

• 2:11:18Speaker 03

  Oh dude, I had such, this is, I call, I call it phone, I call it phone booth fighting, right? Like, I like, and like I could, in a very small space, I could generate a fucking shit ton of power.

• 2:11:31Joe Rogan?

  Oh dude, you were a freak.

• 2:11:32Speaker 03

  Shit ton of power.

• 2:11:33Joe Rogan?

  You were a legitimate freak. And I remember like watching you fight the first time, I was like, that's gonna be a real problem. Like, that's gonna be a real problem. What do you do with that? It's one thing that you're giant, but it's also that you got elite wrestling skills on top of that, like, oh, fuck.

• 2:11:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, this, this might be a problem, yeah.

• 2:11:52Joe Rogan?

  All these dudes in karate gays are like, god damn it.

• 2:11:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh my gosh, you're like, Phil, I'm turning in my gi.

• 2:11:58Joe Rogan?

  And then the gi, the problem with the gi is they can, anyone can grab it.

• 2:12:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:12:01Joe Rogan?

  You know, it makes wrestling even easier. If you, like, if you allowed the gi still, I think there'd probably be a few people that get choked out. But also, a lot of people get taken down a lot easier.

• 2:12:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, so even, so.

• 2:12:13Joe Rogan?

  Cause you can grab the gi.

• 2:12:14Speaker 03

  Higgins Machado, Higgins Machado, I've rolled with him.

• 2:12:17Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:12:18Speaker 03

  Uh, John Jak and Higgins, and Higgins, it was like giving him an extra set of hands.

• 2:12:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:23Speaker 03

  I, I go, dude, I literally saw the, so in Torrance, when I trained with them, there's like, uh, there's one room and then another room and there's a door between them. And so he had half of his class kind of all stacked up in the door watching us train. And it was like five minutes with the gi and I just looked at Higgins and go. I ain't never fucking wearing this thing again.

• 2:12:45Speaker 03

  Take the gi off, man, fuck it. Here, have it back. It was like, fuck, it's.

• 2:12:50Joe Rogan?

  It's a weapon.

• 2:12:51Speaker 03

  Oh, my god.

• 2:12:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's a weapon, especially the guy who's got really good collar chokes. Those guys are terrifying. They get that thumb behind your neck and you're like, oh, Christ.

• 2:12:59Speaker 03

  It was like he was getting me in positions. He would tie up an arm, like with the gi, and I'd be like, fuck, now, now he's got like, like, like, what the fuck, dude?

• 2:13:08Joe Rogan?

  It's a totally different thing. You have to really be aware of grips and you gotta, you can't explode your way out of stuff. That's the, that's what the argument for the gi is defensively, that you have to get out of every position with technique. You can't just pull your arm out. Your arm's stuck. So you have to figure out the right way to do this. Yeah, where you don't expose yourself, because they have too much friction.

• 2:13:30Speaker 03

  It's been a minute since I've been, I'm like, no friction. Yeah, I mean, you literally, it's all friction. I mean, it's like, no slip.

• 2:13:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's a problem if you have one, but the thing Eddie Bravo always used to say, why would you want to train in that for MMA, though? He's like, that would be crazy. That'd be like saying, if you play racquetball, you're gonna be better at tennis. No, play tennis. You have to play tennis at an elite level. You should be, all your grips should be based on control of the body, gable grips and.

• 2:13:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, all that.

• 2:14:00Joe Rogan?

  Underhooks and overhooks and like, you can't, because that's the one thing that we saw with a lot of jujitsu guys in the early days. They were so used to grabbing collars and grabbing sleeves that when they went to the ground, they lost 30% of their game.

• 2:14:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And that's, again, that's the evolution of, it's why, like, foundationally, gi-less grappling, right? Because it just teaches you fundamentally what you're about to do if you're gonna get in MMA.

• 2:14:26Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:14:26Speaker 03

  Right?

• 2:14:26Joe Rogan?

  For sure.

• 2:14:27Speaker 03

  Foundationally, it's like, that's where you need to start.

• 2:14:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 2:14:31Speaker 03

  You know, it cuts even to the point where it's like, you, because you have a lot of wrestling in there and you have a lot of moves. Like, my first times at Abu Dhabi, the only thing I kept seeing is small moves, small moves, small moves. Like, I didn't, like, like, I literally, if I felt uncomfortable, it was these small, tiny moves. You know, it wasn't this, like, explosion, because it's like, fuck, I don't know what I'm gonna explode into.

• 2:14:52Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:14:53Speaker 03

  So, it's foundationally, it's, it's, yeah, geese are.

• 2:14:57Speaker 03

  It's a different sport.

• 2:14:58Joe Rogan?

  It's a totally different sport, but I think there's something to be gained from cross-training with the gi. I think the gi is like, it's a fun thing to do and in most street fights, the realistic thing is you're gonna be wearing clothes. Especially if you're fighting in a place that is where people are wearing winter coats.

• 2:15:12Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 2:15:13Joe Rogan?

  Oh, my God. That'd be amazing. So much stuff.

• 2:15:15Speaker 03

  A smorgasbord.

• 2:15:17Joe Rogan?

  So many things to choose from. So much control available. But for the, if you, if you really ever wanted to think about competing, I would say just go right into wrestling. Wrestling and jiu-jitsu. Learn that stuff first. That's foundational. You have to.

• 2:15:31Speaker 03

  God, man, I can't believe you've been involved in this this long ago.

• 2:15:34Joe Rogan?

  I know, it's so long.

• 2:15:36Speaker 03

  I mean, you're a spectator to history.

• 2:15:38Joe Rogan?

  I know. I know. I feel super lucky. Incredibly fortunate. You know when I felt the most fortunate? During COVID. Because everything was locked down. You couldn't do anything, but the UFC was still putting on shows and you'd get tested. And you'd have to get tested when you got there. If everybody was wearing a mask until you get to sit down next to each other. But we were in the Apex Center. And I got to watch like world championship fights with no audience. I was like, this is crazy. And there's only one of maybe, maybe there's a hundred people in the whole room that are getting to watch these fights. Like when we saw Stipe fight Francis Ngannou, Francis beat him for the world title. There was no one in that room, man.

• 2:16:17Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:16:18Joe Rogan?

  It's crazy to watch. If you watch it today, it's such a weird video. Because it's an elite performance by Francis in his prime, where he's like seek and destroy, going after Stipe and Patient. You know, it's when DC started calling him Patient Francis. And dude, there's no crowd. And it's kind of eerie.

• 2:16:36Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:16:37Joe Rogan?

  It's eerie. Cause when he KOs him and he start, you hear people go, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're like, it's like people are kind of freaked out.

• 2:16:43Speaker 03

  Wow. That's, that's unique.

• 2:16:47Joe Rogan?

  It's very unique. And I was like, wow, there's so few people that get to be here.

• 2:16:53Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh, yeah.

• 2:16:54Joe Rogan?

  While this fight is happening. Like when Justin Gagey fought Tony Ferguson.

• 2:16:58Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. That's another.

• 2:16:59Joe Rogan?

  We were in an empty arena.

• 2:17:00Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:17:01Joe Rogan?

  The arena was completely empty. It was only the UFC crew and only the people that were working around with the, with the UFC.

• 2:17:08Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 2:17:09Joe Rogan?

  There was no crowd.

• 2:17:10Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:17:11Joe Rogan?

  And if you watch that today, it's bizarre.

• 2:17:13Speaker 03

  Oh my god. So I even thought like, my first fights in Japan, how quiet the crowd was. But not that quiet.

• 2:17:19Joe Rogan?

  There was no one there. The Justin Gaige, Tony Ferguson fight, there might have been a, I don't know, 100 people, 200 people in the whole fucking arena. It was nuts. It was like totally quiet.

• 2:17:30Speaker 03

  That'd be so spooky.

• 2:17:32Joe Rogan?

  It was, it was eerie because you, you heard the slaps of the, of the punches and kicks way different.

• 2:17:39Speaker 03

  Oh, I bet.

• 2:17:40Joe Rogan?

  Cause there's no, no people cheering. Cause there's always people cheering.

• 2:17:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:17:43Joe Rogan?

  It's always this background noise, the UFC like, ha!

• 2:17:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:17:47Joe Rogan?

  And you hear thuds and stuff, and I hear a little better than most people because I'm wearing the headphones and the microphones are in the, but you don't hear it like you hear it when there's an empty arena. When there's an empty arena, you hear the thud.

• 2:17:59Speaker 03

  I need to go back and watch that to see if I can.

• 2:18:01Joe Rogan?

  The thud of Shin hitting me.

• 2:18:03Speaker 03

  Oh my god. So that's, so I've sat there with, with a group of people that, like, watching somebody check a kick and hear Shin on Shin.

• 2:18:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:11Speaker 03

  And just me, nobody in the room getting it, but me going, oh geez.

• 2:18:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:15Speaker 03

  Like, ow.

• 2:18:16Joe Rogan?

  I don't care, like, I don't care, that fucking hurt.

• 2:18:20Speaker 03

  That hurt.

• 2:18:21Joe Rogan?

  I don't care.

• 2:18:21Speaker 03

  You can poker face that shit all you want.

• 2:18:23Joe Rogan?

  Oh dude, it fucking hurt. That's like a big fuck you. Like, I know that hurt, dude.

• 2:18:27Speaker 03

  I know it hurt.

• 2:18:28Joe Rogan?

  I know that hurt.

• 2:18:30Speaker 03

  I mean, the, the COVID times were dark times, but it did make me feel very fortunate to be working for the UFC because to be there live as a, you know, a person who's like, just loved this sport since it first started, to be there live while those fights were going on, like, this is nuts. That is just one of those where, you know, again, money can't buy that. I mean, it's just one of those experiences, like, like I've had a couple through this process of filmmaking, where it's like, no money on earth could buy that experience. Like in Venice, standing there, like, literally, like, I'm crying because it, like I said, it was, at the end of that, it was like therapy. Watching, watching me and, and literally settling into like, wow.

• 2:19:12Speaker 03

  And I was a dick. You know, I just was really hard on everybody around me. And then having Benny next to me, DJ next to me, feeling their emotions and feeling DJ's emotions, because they'd never experienced anything like it either. You know?

• 2:19:26Joe Rogan?

  Well, I think anybody trying to do what you were trying to do has gotta be a bit of a dick. I don't think, I don't think, as nice as you were and you were always super friendly, there's, you're doing something that's really insane.

• 2:19:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:19:41Joe Rogan?

  You're, you're, you're cage fighting for a living in front of the world in your underwear.

• 2:19:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh my god, I tell people, it's hot pants. I go, fucking, I'm in hot pants. You wanna know the truth? It's like an hot pants, you know?

• 2:19:52Joe Rogan?

  I mean, you were a su- a human superhero, built like a human superhero, and you're fighting for, who the fuck expects you to be normal?

• 2:19:59Speaker 03

  No, they do though, that's one where I'm like, I'm like, no, I was a selfish, self-absorbed, and I look at it, I go, okay, alright, I can accept that, and, and understand that I was trying to raise everybody up. And if you couldn't get with a fucking program, I didn't have patience for you.

• 2:20:15Joe Rogan?

  Well, you had gone through, like, when you were talking about these camps, and you had gone through the kind of training that's required to reach the level that you were reached, that you had reached. You know that, you know what's in there for everybody, and people that don't wanna come aboard, you get mad at them.

• 2:20:30Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:20:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's like, you're gonna hold me back.

• 2:20:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's part, that's part of it, like, understanding, like, like, I just didn't have patience for it, 'cause I didn't have time, I didn't have time for it, right?

• 2:20:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:41Speaker 03

  It's understanding, like, like, I know that X, I only have X amount of fucking fights in me, and I gotta try to maximize, and that's not gonna work. You know, 'cause a lot of that was assembling people that were accountable to me, right? And, and, you know, money can hold people accountable in a certain degree, but at a certain point, it's like, you know, the training partners I had around me, um, it was like, hey, I can help you get to the next level.

• 2:21:09Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 2:21:10Speaker 03

  Right? That was kind of the enticement.

• 2:21:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:12Speaker 03

  You just need to make a commitment to me.

• 2:21:15Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:21:16Speaker 03

  Right? Make a commitment to me, and I'll give you that little piece that you're missing. You know, and that was kind of the, the, the part that I helped, you know, go, okay, my training partners be accountable to me, and, and I'll help you with that little missing piece of how to be a professional. You know, and so, I just didn't have patience, I didn't have patience, and it's one where I'm nice, I'm cordial, all this other stuff, but, you know, at the end of the day, I was like, I was demanding.

• 2:21:41Joe Rogan?

  Do you think that maybe that, that kind of drive played a factor in you having an issue with substances?

• 2:21:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:21:50Joe Rogan?

  'Cause you just wanted relief?

• 2:21:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:21:52Joe Rogan?

  Maybe relief from the mindset?

• 2:21:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, you know, part of it was that, um... You know, you almost like I almost buy into the bullshit and I can never be this perfect being that I was trying to be. And so I'm always falling short and that feeling of always falling short in this just like, you know, I couldn't live up to what I thought I needed to live up to.

• 2:22:15Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:22:15Speaker 03

  And so that was hiding and you know, I'm just gonna get a little relief from it, you know, it's gonna, so I can unplug.

• 2:22:21Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:22:22Speaker 03

  You know, and it was just one of those where it started with pain, you know, realistically, it started like, ah, fuck, I'm doing something that inherently I'm gonna have pain.

• 2:22:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:30Speaker 03

  You know, and it was this progression from that of like, you know, from pain to, I didn't know what an opiate addiction was.

• 2:22:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, in all fairness, I think we should tell people, uh, to, back when this was all going on, the opiate epidemic had not occurred yet.

• 2:22:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:22:47Joe Rogan?

  And people did not know. And they were also telling a lot of people when they were taking these pain medications that they were not addictive.

• 2:22:53Speaker 03

  Not addictive.

• 2:22:54Joe Rogan?

  And they, yeah, they argued it in court, they argued it in court that it was not addictive.

• 2:22:58Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 2:22:58Joe Rogan?

  Which is really crazy.

• 2:23:00Speaker 03

  Which I didn't, well, fuck, I didn't understand, like, I didn't understand, like, when I took it, the level that I took it, when I stopped, tried to stop, I didn't understand what being dope sick was. I didn't understand, like, getting, like, physically sick because I don't have the substance in my body. Like, I would get diarrhea, I couldn't walk from here to the end of the room without having to sit down for a half hour.

• 2:23:23Joe Rogan?

  It's almost like a parasite.

• 2:23:25Speaker 03

  It is.

• 2:23:25Joe Rogan?

  It's almost like a parasite that needs you to keep feeding it to stay alive. Because like, how else could getting poison out of your body be bad?

• 2:23:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:23:35Joe Rogan?

  How nuts is that?

• 2:23:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:23:37Joe Rogan?

  That you want it bad, you wanna get it, you wanna get the poison back in you? Like, what kind of weird biological mechanism is that?

• 2:23:45Speaker 03

  That crazy part is the first recognition of like, that I'm stuck. That I don't know the answer of like, cause I'm caught between, you know, like, alright, I'm going through this physical withdraw and everything else that comes with it. Or I'm just gonna go seek the thing that's causing the physical withdraw because it makes me feel better.

• 2:24:06Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 2:24:07Speaker 03

  You know, so you're caught in this loop of just bullshit, right?

• 2:24:09Joe Rogan?

  And then you go, I'll just have a little.

• 2:24:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, just, just that's it. I just need to feel better, just a little bit. And, you know, so it's one of those where it's like, there wasn't the internet back then, I couldn't fucking get on and, well, let's Google something, you know, it's like, wasn't that?

• 2:24:22Joe Rogan?

  So how did you figure out that, when did you realize like, I've got a problem?

• 2:24:25Speaker 03

  Um, God, man. I always, from probably age 14.

• 2:24:35Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 2:24:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I knew, I knew when I first drank, first had a drink, that I drank until I was drunk. Like, cause that was this taste of Jack Daniels and it was like, oh, this feels good? It was like, not a normal reaction.

• 2:24:55Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 2:24:56Speaker 03

  Looking back on it going, oh, so I've always had a propensity towards it. And then, you know, it functions both ways, cause I get addicted to the sport, I get addicted to the routine, I get addicted to getting in a ring and taking someone's will, I get addicted to the crowd, the championship, the adulations, the this, it's like, that's who I am, right?

• 2:25:16Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:25:17Speaker 03

  And it's a, it's a contributor to my success, but it's also a contributor to my, to my demise. You know, in both ways, it's like, you know, from an early age, I understood like, hey, you know, this could be a problem, you know, and then when wrestling came along, I didn't drink during wrestling. Like during that whole season, I didn't drink. You know, in college, I didn't drink during wrestling season. Like when, you know, when it's like, okay, you know, I'm in recovery, I have seven years of sobriety now.

• 2:25:43Joe Rogan?

  Congratulations.

• 2:25:44Speaker 03

  And so, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, for me, it's, it's one of those foundational things of like, oh, that's what I've been missing my whole life.

• 2:25:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And you keep repeating that term for a good reason. Foundational is everything.

• 2:25:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:25:57Joe Rogan?

  Like, having like, like morals and ethics, that's foundational.

• 2:26:01Speaker 03

  Foundational.

• 2:26:02Joe Rogan?

  Having your health, that's foundational.

• 2:26:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:26:04Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:05Speaker 03

  I mean, cause it's one of those where understanding like, Like, th- those are the building blocks. Cause if I don't have those things in place, nothing else fucking stands up.

• 2:26:14Joe Rogan?

  Right, of course.

• 2:26:15Speaker 03

  You know, I mean, it's, it sounds like the duh.

• 2:26:17Joe Rogan?

  No, but it's, but it's an important thing to reiterate because everybody should hear it. You know, and coming-

• 2:26:22Speaker 03

  It's a huge part. It's a huge part.

• 2:26:24Joe Rogan?

  It's it with most things in life. Most things in life, you have to have structure, some kind of structure.

• 2:26:29Speaker 03

  You know, figuring out like my son, what, like what makes him function, structure.

• 2:26:34Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 2:26:35Speaker 03

  He, he's told me this. He goes, you should have been harder on me. I'm like, fuck. I'm like, okay. I'm like, alright. I didn't, I didn't know.

• 2:26:44Joe Rogan?

  That's hilarious. That's hilarious. I'm gonna give you four stars, dad.

• 2:26:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:26:50Speaker 03

  Could've given you five, but you weren't fucking hard on him. I'm like, fuck off.

• 2:26:53Joe Rogan?

  That's hilarious.

• 2:26:55Speaker 03

  But he functions best with structure. He's just one of those individuals that are built like that, right?

• 2:27:00Joe Rogan?

  Well, I think part of that is kind of probably seeing what you did and genetics and there's, it's like some learned memory in there, probably.

• 2:27:09Speaker 03

  I would think so. I would think so.

• 2:27:09Joe Rogan?

  I think there is. And I don't think we totally understand where personalities come from. It's a mixture of like, spirits and hormones and genetics and where you are born and what part of the fucking moon's facing this way.

• 2:27:22Speaker 03

  Oh my god, yeah.

• 2:27:24Joe Rogan?

  I always wondered if that shit's real.

• 2:27:26Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh, it's like, yeah, well Jupiter's orbiting around my Saturn and like, fuck.

• 2:27:31Joe Rogan?

  I always wondered, like, why are they so into this? Is there something to this? Cause if there is, I would feel real stupid if I was ignoring it the whole time.

• 2:27:37Speaker 03

  You know what? Um, listening to Joe Dispenza, some of his stuff.

• 2:27:41Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:27:42Speaker 03

  It, it changed my whole, it, it's changed some of my perspective of how, like, just having, um, we're energy, right? We're energy. And your, your emotional energy is transferred to me. It's like why I was addicted to Dawn, because of that exchange of negative energy, right?

• 2:27:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:59Speaker 03

  Back and forth. It's like being an addict.

• 2:28:01Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:28:02Speaker 03

  I'm addicted to the drama.

• 2:28:03Joe Rogan?

  You're also addicted to making up.

• 2:28:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's the other one. Cause that's a feel-good too.

• 2:28:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:08Speaker 03

  Right?

• 2:28:08Joe Rogan?

  Sometimes people wanna get in fights just so that they can make up.

• 2:28:12Speaker 03

  Hell yeah. I mean, it's the whole process of that fucked up shit. It's how fucked up-

• 2:28:17Joe Rogan?

  It's called fun.

• 2:28:21Joe Rogan?

  What, do you hate fun? Yeah.

• 2:28:24Speaker 03

  Oh my god. So it's, it's that really fucked up part of like, understanding, like, looking back on it going, oh shit.

• 2:28:30Joe Rogan?

  Bro, when you guys were fighting in the movie, right before you were about to fight Fuchanchen.

• 2:28:34Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 2:28:35Joe Rogan?

  It is such a crazy scene. It's really well done, man.

• 2:28:39Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 2:28:40Joe Rogan?

  It's really well done.

• 2:28:41Speaker 03

  It, it's, it's how Emily flips that switch of like, fuck you, motherfucker.

• 2:28:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:46Speaker 03

  You, well, you wanted me to come. It's like, oh my god, it's like, fuck. That's what does it every fucking time.

• 2:28:53Joe Rogan?

  It's amazing.

• 2:28:54Speaker 03

  Like that little like, oh god, I guess I did want her to come. I'm fucking asshole.

• 2:28:58Joe Rogan?

  It's amazing. It's so realistic. I mean, they nailed it. They really nailed it. It's how weird is it for you to, to watch like a segment of your life be recreated in a movie? Is it, I mean?

• 2:29:11Speaker 03

  It's, it's so surreal. I've used, I've, like, I haven't found another word to explain it.

• 2:29:16Joe Rogan?

  Right. It seems like there's not a word that they figured out for that one.

• 2:29:19Speaker 03

  There's not. Cause it's just one where it's like, you know what, on the other side of it, and this is just me going, you know what? I'm grateful. I, I have a sense of humility. I have a sense of just being, like, deep, profound gratitude. That DJ, Emily, Benny, everybody involved in the film wanted to take this on.

• 2:29:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing.

• 2:29:39Speaker 03

  Cause I looked at it going, like, a lot of it's self-worth going, you really want to do a movie about my life? About me? Like, what the fuck? Like, really? And then understanding like, what they see in me and the belief they have in the story and everything that's around it. Cause at the end of it, it's redemption. It's like where I am today. I'm so thankful that I have my health. I'm so thankful that I have my sobriety. I'm so thankful that I get to experience these things and share, you know, my experience, strength and hope, they call it, right? You know, with other people and give them going, "Look, look at all the fucking bullshit I went through and I'm on the other side of it." You know, so whatever you're going through, anything's possible.

• 2:30:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:25Speaker 03

  Anything.

• 2:30:26Joe Rogan?

  Truly. I mean, and the thing about what you did is that, like I said, I thought it was so brave that you did it publicly. When you did this matching machine documentary and I was thinking like, did you, were you happy that you were getting on film? So like, maybe this like would make you get clean. Was there any of that?

• 2:30:48Speaker 03

  Ooh, there's a little bit of that.

• 2:30:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:50Speaker 03

  Cause part of it is that I didn't, I didn't, at that point, the only person on the planet that knew what I was doing was Dawn. Right? Nobody else on the planet knew what I was doing. And so when John had put the camera down and he's, he's like, "Dude, what the fuck are you doing? Like, you're not being truthful with us." And I'm like, "Well," at that moment, I kind of went, "Fuck you. Get the fuck out of my house. You're done filming." And there was this, there was this moment where it was like, I needed to tell somebody and I go, "Okay, like, here's what I've been doing and I don't know who to tell. I don't know how to tell it. I'm just gonna show you." And that's when it shows me shooting up.

• 2:31:32Speaker 03

  It was that moment where I'm like, "You wanna know what I'm doing? Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you."

• 2:31:39Speaker 03

  Because it was one of those where it's like, it felt like a weight got lifted.

• 2:31:42Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:31:43Speaker 03

  Like, all of a sudden, it's just like, "Oh, fuck."

• 2:31:46Joe Rogan?

  Did you ever think about not going through with the documentary?

• 2:31:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:31:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah?

• 2:31:50Speaker 03

  So here, here's what they ended up doing. So I didn't see one stitch of footage at all until I saw the complete documentary in Los Angeles at Dolby Sound Studios. So it was like a couple of years.

• 2:32:06Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 2:32:07Speaker 03

  Not a second of footage. So I sit down, the documentary as it appeared on HBO, right? And the filmmakers aren't watching the fucking film. They're watching me watch the film.

• 2:32:20Speaker 03

  Right?

• 2:32:20Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 2:32:20Speaker 03

  There's like eight of us in the, in the movie theater. I get films done, lights come up, and I literally stand up and John Greenhall goes, "What do you think?" And I go, "I'm gonna have to get back with you." And I just walk straight out, don't say another fucking word, get in my truck, start driving. Back then, the phones, you know, like in the car, he's calling me on the phone and I'm, and he goes, "You're gonna be okay." I go, "I have enough fucking clue, I don't know, I honestly don't know." Cause the agreement we had in place was I had, I had final veto over the content of it.

• 2:32:55Joe Rogan?

  But he never showed you the content?

• 2:32:57Speaker 03

  Until that day, I saw it in the Dolby Sound Studios in, in Los Angeles. The content, the, the whole film, I didn't see any of it until that moment. So literally, I drove home and John was like, uh,

• 2:33:13Speaker 03

  what, I go, "I, I, you have to give me a day, you have to fucking give me a day." I, I just fuck, I said, "I don't know, I don't know if I can go forward with that, I don't think I can. I don't think I can, it's just too fucking much."

• 2:33:24Joe Rogan?

  Okay, so you did have the power to veto it?

• 2:33:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I did, I did, at the, at the very-

• 2:33:28Joe Rogan?

  What made you decide not to?

• 2:33:30Speaker 03

  Um, John had said something to me like, um, I guess it's like a, a parable where it's like, if you've lived your life and you've saved one person's life, you've had a worthy life. Meaning that if somebody watches this and sees your struggles that you've gone through, and sees the hope that you have in that, in your recovery, it gives them hope, or it gives them, because what keeps you addicted is shame. The shame of what I was doing. It kept me, kept me quiet, I didn't fuck, who the fuck am I gonna tell?

• 2:34:09Joe Rogan?

  Right. Right, you don't, you don't want them to know.

• 2:34:13Speaker 03

  No, you don't want them to know, like fuck no. And so that shame is what usually keeps people, but if they see me in the film, go through this process and this deep revealing process of what was going on with me, it gives them an opportunity to go, "Well, I, I can ask for help too."

• 2:34:33Joe Rogan?

  When you got through the film, how, how long did it take you to get clean?

• 2:34:40Speaker 03

  Um-

• 2:34:42Speaker 03

  I got clean off of morphine, off of the nubaine I was doing. Right after, all the way through the Volchanchin, or all the way through the Fujita fight. And I was clean for, started drinking, which is a whole nother topic. But, you know, I had done narcotics in, you know, probably like three years after that. And then I started up again. And then it was this process of like, start, stop, start, stop, start, stop. And then the thing that predominantly dominated me was alcohol. Cause it's socially acceptable, easily accessible. You know, all these different factors of it.

• 2:35:22Speaker 03

  And so that's eventually, like I've, like I've said, uh, my, so my mom passed away September 3rd, um, 1996. And, uh, so my son knows this. And so my sobriety date, September 4th. And so my son asked me that day, September 3rd, he's like, Dad, I know you need to drink today. Cause your mom died, uh, but would you stop tomorrow? And at the time, I thought it was just another empty promise of like, yeah, yeah, I'll, I'll stop, I'll stop. And next day I got up and there's just something a little different or whatever it was that day. And I stopped asking the questions, why? Cause it's irrelevant, right?

• 2:36:08Speaker 03

  And from that day till today, I'm sober.

• 2:36:10Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 2:36:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:36:14Speaker 03

  Makes no fucking sense.

• 2:36:16Joe Rogan?

  But it does. It's like you get better at sobriety, just like you get better at all other things in life.

• 2:36:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:36:21Joe Rogan?

  Right?

• 2:36:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:36:22Joe Rogan?

  You get better at figuring out why. And, you know, there's also the reality that I think a lot of people need to take into consideration when it comes to fighting. Is that, uh, a lot of guys are, they're self-diagnosing or, or self-dispensing something to make themselves feel better.

• 2:36:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:36:41Joe Rogan?

  Because they've taken a lot of damage.

• 2:36:43Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:36:43Joe Rogan?

  And they feel like shit.

• 2:36:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:36:44Joe Rogan?

  And that's, alcohol's a big one. A big contributing factor. A lot of, a lot of former fighters become alcoholics. Cocaine's another one, yeah.

• 2:36:53Speaker 03

  Cause it's one of those where I thought, I literally woke up showing, this is no shit. Like waking up going. Okay, I don't know what's wrong with me, there's something fucking wrong. Like, there's something wrong with me. And understanding like all this different stuff, head trauma and all these different things and factors. I, I literally thought I was, like, going off the deep end. Like, I was like, okay, alcohol or drugs was the only relief I got for what the fuck was going on in my head.

• 2:37:19Joe Rogan?

  So, the thing, what did it, was it past a specific fight?

• 2:37:24Speaker 03

  Um, it was, it was literally towards, it was after 2006. It's like 2006, 2007, 2008, I stopped fighting in 2009, I didn't know what else to do. All my identity was tied up in being a fighter. You know, and understanding like these simple words of like, fighting's what I did, it's not who I am.

• 2:37:43Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:37:43Speaker 03

  I'm much more than that, right? I'm much more than a fighter. And understanding, once I got to that point, you know, it's like, that's when some of the relief came in. But, part of it in my head, like, there's something fucking, I don't know what it is.

• 2:37:56Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:37:57Speaker 03

  And, so I was just seeking relief. Because of like, there's something that's fucked up in my head. And, I didn't know what it was. Didn't know what it was. Still to this day, I look at it like, you know, it was, I call it a God shot, because it was one where it's like, something needs to change. Because this is unsustainable. You know, unsustainable with the alcohol, unsustainable with what's going on in my head. And, you know, get sober, things quiet down. You know, it's actually, it quieted down, that first year it took, that, of sobriety, to clear out all the bullshit that was in my head. Going, I just need neutral. Right? And once I hit neutral, it's like, oh, wow. I can build on this. You know, so. It's, it's been incredible.

• 2:38:41Speaker 03

  It makes no sense at all, but it makes perfect sense.

• 2:38:44Joe Rogan?

  No, it does make sense, because you're willing to articulate your deep thoughts, your, your very vulnerable thoughts on, you know, who you are. As a guy who was, you know, at one point in time, one of the scariest fucking human beings walking the face of the earth. And you're, you know, that's important for people to know and to hear. And to, that, and to recognize that, like, man, a lot of people can get caught in that trap.

• 2:39:07Speaker 03

  They can.

• 2:39:08Joe Rogan?

  Don't think you couldn't.

• 2:39:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:39:09Joe Rogan?

  You know, just be a little bit more compassionate and understanding and appreciate people for telling you very difficult truth about their life. Because I think people need to hear that stuff.

• 2:39:20Speaker 03

  They do, they do. Like I said, you know what I understood, like giving them the permission for the documentary, saying to John going, okay, if this could change or help one person, then my life has value, right?

• 2:39:34Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:39:35Speaker 03

  Because I helped another person. And then when it premiered at HBO at the studios, there's a, this was like, the whole crowning moment is having like a 65-year-old grandmother come over to me, who I would have nothing in common with, and say to me, you know what? That was beautiful. My grandson, he's got a drinking problem and I don't know what to do.

• 2:39:58Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 2:39:58Speaker 03

  You know, it's like this, this door had been opened.

• 2:40:01Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:02Speaker 03

  Where she felt comfortable to sit down and talk with me about her grandson. And it was like this moment of like, oh, fuck, this what, this is what it's about.

• 2:40:11Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:40:12Speaker 03

  It's about opening that door up so people can connect and go, well, if he can do it, I can, I can, I can tell my truth.

• 2:40:19Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:40:20Speaker 03

  You know, because it's difficult, man. Addictions are just, I mean, shaming and they keep you in a box. And it's just this, it's a horrible existence.

• 2:40:30Joe Rogan?

  Did anybody ever recommend Ibogaine to you?

• 2:40:33Speaker 03

  No. I've heard of that, though.

• 2:40:36Joe Rogan?

  So they're doing that now in Texas, the Ibogaine Initiative passed through thanks to former Governor Rick Perry, Republican.

• 2:40:44Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:40:45Joe Rogan?

  Who, through working with veterans, found that a lot of veterans who struggle with addiction and PTSD.

• 2:40:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:40:52Joe Rogan?

  That Ibogaine is incredibly effective.

• 2:40:54Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:40:55Joe Rogan?

  And it's not a recreational drug. It's not fun.

• 2:40:57Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 2:40:58Joe Rogan?

  But it's a psychedelic that takes 24 hours and it's apparently like brutally introspective, but literally corrects addictive pathways, like whatever the connection is in the brain that causes you to be addicted to things.

• 2:41:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:41:10Joe Rogan?

  It can disrupt those in a very bizarre and unique way. And it's something like 80-plus percent effective with one dose of getting people to stay off of narcotics, cigarettes, alcohol. And I think with two doses, it's in the 90s. So if you do two different

• 2:41:30Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:41:30Joe Rogan?

  ibogaine ceremonies, yeah.

• 2:41:32Speaker 03

  That's incredible.

• 2:41:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they were going, most people were going, my friend Ed Clay did it down in Mexico. And he even had a place that he was running down in Mexico because you couldn't do it in America. Because it's illegal here.

• 2:41:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:41:44Joe Rogan?

  But it literally stops the train of addiction dead in its tracks. They don't totally understand how it does it. But it's very effective. I know a lot of veterans who have had.

• 2:41:54Speaker 03

  So they talk about like the neuroplasticity of drugs like that to create new pathways? Instantaneously?

• 2:42:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:03Speaker 03

  Like, like.

• 2:42:04Joe Rogan?

  I'd like to say those words, but I don't really know what they mean. You know what I mean? When I say them, I'm just faking. I know that's how you're supposed to say it, so I'll say it, but respectfully, I don't know what the fuck's going on in your brain. What I do know is my friends that I know that have gone and done the ibogaine.

• 2:42:20Speaker 03

  It's been effective.

• 2:42:20Joe Rogan?

  It's been massively effective.

• 2:42:21Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:42:22Joe Rogan?

  Get them off drugs, get them off drinking.

• 2:42:24Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:42:24Joe Rogan?

  Get them, you know, they just changed their perspective. They go, okay, I get it now. They just realized where they were tripping over their own dick, like what they were doing wrong.

• 2:42:32Speaker 03

  That's incredible.

• 2:42:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, quick. I mean, what else is like that where like 24 hours later? You can get a totally new perspective in life and be cured of addiction? And somehow or another, that's illegal? That's illegal, but the stuff that they're addicted to is not.

• 2:42:46Speaker 03

  Oh my God, that's like, yeah, that's fucking Bizarro land, right? Oh my God.

• 2:42:51Joe Rogan?

  Total Bizarro world.

• 2:42:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, none of that makes sense, man. I mean, it just, that's, so that's a whole nother rabbit hole.

• 2:42:58Joe Rogan?

  It really doesn't make any sense.

• 2:42:59Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:43:00Joe Rogan?

  Like what we just said makes, no, it should be the opposite.

• 2:43:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:43:03Joe Rogan?

  It should be the opposite. This is so stupid.

• 2:43:08Speaker 03

  Because it's just one where it's like, if that stuff existed back then, it would have cut short.

• 2:43:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It did exist, but it just didn't exist here because we're corrupt.

• 2:43:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:43:18Joe Rogan?

  And so there, again, kudos to Governor Rick Perry because what he's done is like open the doorway to right wing leaning people going, oh, maybe we shouldn't dismiss all these things that God put here on earth.

• 2:43:30Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh.

• 2:43:30Joe Rogan?

  Maybe some of these things are actually here to heal your brain and we're ignoring them because you can't patent them. Like that might be the thing too. Not saying this

• 2:43:39Speaker 03

  Just saying, right, right.

• 2:43:41Joe Rogan?

  But I'm saying that this also might cure you and it's readily, it's a plan.

• 2:43:45Speaker 03

  So that's again, in the last five, six years, alternative perspectives has been just paramount.

• 2:43:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:53Speaker 03

  In my, just in opening me up, you know, to, to having a better understanding of like, how rigid I was and how, how just this thin line of thinking I had had for so long about stuff like this. You know, and so, you know, it's just been this incredible, um, experience to get to here because I've had to open up. I've had to go, okay, I'm gonna do meditation, I'm gonna do this. I did, I did meditation for fighting, but it was visual meditation, how the fuck I was gonna dismantle a dude in the ring, right? I would sit and do, but this is meditation to access different parts of my brain, right?

• 2:44:34Speaker 03

  To try to get into delta waves and, you know, theta, beta, you know, all these different things, so I could open different spots in my brain up.

• 2:44:41Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:44:42Speaker 03

  You know, and so it's just been this, you know, my wife, she's Nichiren Buddhist. You know, num yo horangay ko. She chants every morning.

• 2:44:52Joe Rogan?

  Duncan does that.

• 2:44:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, num yo horangay ko. So the Buddha you have, the Buddha, the gold Buddha you have?

• 2:44:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:57Speaker 03

  We have one in our house, not quite that big.

• 2:44:59Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 2:45:00Speaker 03

  But we have, yeah, so she's Nichiren Buddhist and it's one of those things where she got me to start chanting. Um, I don't do it as much now, but the first three, four years we were together, it's like I chanted with her regularly. And it's one of those where it's like harmonics and vibrations and frequencies, you know, and understanding like, man, we know so little, but realistically, all this stuff through, like all the different stuff they discovered in Egypt with the sound chambers and all the different things. I mean, it's a whole different thing where we just ignored.

• 2:45:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:33Speaker 03

  And it's like, well shit, we don't even, we're so archaic in our thinking.

• 2:45:39Joe Rogan?

  Well, I think what happens sometimes is thinking and ideas get connected to people. And you think that the ideas and whatever you're, whatever you think you know about history or about the way things can be done.

• 2:45:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:45:56Joe Rogan?

  Like, it's all, it's all been solved, kids.

• 2:45:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:45:59Joe Rogan?

  Like, settle down, everybody knows. No, no, no, I don't think they do.

• 2:46:02Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:46:02Joe Rogan?

  I don't think they do. You should show me how they built that.

• 2:46:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:46:05Joe Rogan?

  Show me who the fuck figured this out. Like, maybe they knew about medicine that you're ignoring because you can't patent it.

• 2:46:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:46:13Joe Rogan?

  These people have been making ayahuasca for 10,000 years in the jungle.

• 2:46:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:46:16Joe Rogan?

  Like, you, don't, don't tell me.

• 2:46:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh my god, yeah.

• 2:46:21Joe Rogan?

  Settle down.

• 2:46:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:46:22Joe Rogan?

  Settle down. There's, there's all the things that you think are valid, plus other stuff. That's the thing that people have to recognize. It's, you can't be rigid with what you believe in. Cause sometimes it's wrong.

• 2:46:35Speaker 03

  That's the part where I can't believe how much I've opened up and been just receptive. Um, and a lot of it's because I'm sober and it's like, fuck, I don't know shit, man. Like, when you look at the bigger picture of stuff, I, I know so little.

• 2:46:49Joe Rogan?

  Dude, nobody knows shit. That's the scariest thing. There's a bunch of people pretending they've got it figured out, but they're full of shit too.

• 2:46:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:46:55Joe Rogan?

  Every one of us is a talking monkey flying through space.

• 2:46:59Speaker 03

  That's a great way to look at it, right?

• 2:47:02Joe Rogan?

  No roof over our head. We are in a convertible, organic spaceship hurling through the universe. That alone, once you start with that, that's your foundational, okay? This is foundational to your view of the world.

• 2:47:15Speaker 03

  Right, oh my god.

• 2:47:16Joe Rogan?

  The problem with us is that we don't fucking see the stars anymore. That's a giant problem with human beings. We've screwed ourselves up with light pollution and it's not a coincidence that the people that live in the most populated cities are the most diluted, ridiculous people that are the furthest away from nature.

• 2:47:31Speaker 03

  Nature, right?

• 2:47:32Joe Rogan?

  Not that they're not awesome people, but what I'm saying is like, you, you are so far away from nature. You're so diluted from being like a wild animal.

• 2:47:40Speaker 03

  So, you know what I've actually done the last couple, I've hugged trees. I've literally hugged trees.

• 2:47:46Joe Rogan?

  Feels good.

• 2:47:46Speaker 03

  It feels beautiful.

• 2:47:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's real.

• 2:47:48Speaker 03

  It, it really is like, like, uh, walking barefoot, right? Like, on grass and getting connected and, you know, I, at fir-, he would've said to me 10 years ago, I'm like, yeah, okay, whatever, dude. You know, but it's like, okay, who says it, who says it's not?

• 2:48:03Joe Rogan?

  I think nature's a vitamin.

• 2:48:05Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:48:06Joe Rogan?

  I think plant. Hey, where did the term tree hugger come from? Did it come from the time where hippies were doing acid?

• 2:48:13Speaker 03

  Probably.

• 2:48:13Joe Rogan?

  Cause then, that would make so much more sense. Because if you're on acid and you hug a tree, you would be like, oh, I love you. I love you, tree. You're so fucking amazing.

• 2:48:27Speaker 03

  Oh shit, that originated a while ago.

• 2:48:30Joe Rogan?

  From a series of nonviolent environmental protests in India, beginning with the Bish, Bishnoi? Bishnoi? Bishnoi Community in seventeen thirty.

• 2:48:39Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:48:40Joe Rogan?

  Who physically clung to trees to prevent them from being cut down. See, those people are probably on mushrooms.

• 2:48:45Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 2:48:46Joe Rogan?

  That's why, that's why they worship cattle. That's what I think.

• 2:48:49Speaker 03

  I, I would.

• 2:48:50Joe Rogan?

  Why else would all those poor people not eat cows?

• 2:48:53Speaker 03

  Oh my god, cows are good.

• 2:48:55Joe Rogan?

  But doesn't that make no sense?

• 2:48:56Speaker 03

  It makes no sense at all.

• 2:48:57Joe Rogan?

  It makes no sense. Do you guys have food everywhere and you're starving? And your, your religion won't let you eat that food? Boy, okay. How'd you come to this? The only thing that makes any sense to me is those cows were giving you the mushrooms.

• 2:49:12Speaker 03

  They had to.

• 2:49:13Joe Rogan?

  Cause that's where the mushrooms grow. That's where they grow. The best source of psilocybin.

• 2:49:18Speaker 03

  Is cow poop.

• 2:49:19Joe Rogan?

  Duncan used to live in, uh, my friend Duncan Trussell, he used to live in Asheville, North Carolina. And, uh, the farmers out there used to put a certain kind of feed into their diet to make sure that fungus couldn't grow in their shit. So that the, the kids wouldn't go in the field and pick the mushrooms. Cause there were so many spores in that area. These kids would go and just get bags of mushrooms and go to other planets. So the farmer had to feed, the farmer had to feed his cow some anti mushroom.

• 2:49:50Speaker 03

  I want to see if it's still there.

• 2:49:53Joe Rogan?

  I wonder if it is, I bet there's parts of this country where they just grow naturally all over the place.

• 2:49:57Speaker 03

  I would imagine.

• 2:49:58Joe Rogan?

  Cause once those spores get out there.

• 2:50:00Speaker 03

  I would imagine. I would imagine. I was supposed to actually go down into Brazil and ayahuasca.

• 2:50:07Joe Rogan?

  Oh, really?

• 2:50:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:50:09Joe Rogan?

  Isn't it crazy that you have to go to Brazil to do that too? That's nuts. Did all these things.

• 2:50:13Speaker 03

  A friend of mine, uh, we actually went down, um. To stem cells in Panama, it's called Origins. And so we go down there and he starts explaining like this. For him, it was like seeing the face of God. He said it changed his whole entire, whole entire being. And he's like, it's in the jungle. So there's no like, it's. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And he goes, it's, it's, it's life changing.

• 2:50:39Joe Rogan?

  I just picture Alex Pereira walking.

• 2:50:43Speaker 03

  Dude, totally, man. Totally. Like, that's scary, motherfucker, man. I swear to God.

• 2:50:48Joe Rogan?

  He's the scariest. His walk in is the scariest, bro.

• 2:50:51Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, man.

• 2:50:52Joe Rogan?

  It's the dopest, too. That music starts playing.

• 2:50:55Speaker 03

  It's this like, I'm coming to get you. Ain't nothing you could do about it. Yeah, he's built for one thing. And I bumped in him in Chicago and it's like, he's built for one thing. He's built to fight.

• 2:51:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he's, he's built to fuck you up.

• 2:51:10Speaker 03

  Oh, he's built to fight.

• 2:51:12Joe Rogan?

  Weird, weirdly strong guy.

• 2:51:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, like, literally, it's like, like, like, he shouldn't be able to do what he's doing. It's like, you know, I go, there's no wind up in his kicks, his low kicks.

• 2:51:25Joe Rogan?

  Nothing.

• 2:51:25Speaker 03

  There's no, no tells.

• 2:51:27Joe Rogan?

  No tell.

• 2:51:28Speaker 03

  Like, you look at it, it's really sneaky.

• 2:51:30Joe Rogan?

  But he's got unbelievable power, but the thing is, he puts it together with technique. It's not like he's just waiting after you, trying to exchange with you and land first.

• 2:51:39Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:51:40Joe Rogan?

  No, he's setting you up. And while he's setting you up, he's taking your legs away and you're not seeing the tells.

• 2:51:45Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, they're not there at all. His hips, yup, that's it. They don't move.

• 2:51:50Joe Rogan?

  By the time you think it's coming, it's already there and you're like, ugh.

• 2:51:53Speaker 03

  And that's the whole thing is that you go, okay, you're, you're thinking you're gonna pick up on it and it's like, oh, you're never going to.

• 2:51:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he's very clever with that. And he does it with both sides, too. He's just as good with the left leg with a switch kick when he's fighting a southpaw. He just starts chewing up those calves really quick, man.

• 2:52:10Speaker 03

  I can't believe that even, even a thing is that, that nerve, I think, from the.

• 2:52:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's a horrible nerve. That wasn't a thing when you were fighting.

• 2:52:19Speaker 03

  No, it wasn't a thing.

• 2:52:20Joe Rogan?

  Isn't it crazy?

• 2:52:21Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 2:52:21Joe Rogan?

  You have to know it now.

• 2:52:23Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh, like, looking at it going, oh, my God, he's taking him out. He can't, he can't walk. Look at, it's like five kicks in. You're like, oh, fuck, he can't push off of it.

• 2:52:33Joe Rogan?

  Isn't it crazy that you went your whole career without seeing that?

• 2:52:36Speaker 03

  I like where like who discovered it?

• 2:52:40Joe Rogan?

  Michael Bisping.

• 2:52:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:52:41Joe Rogan?

  Even Michael Bisping said it. I went through my whole career without getting calf kicked. That's so crazy.

• 2:52:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:52:46Joe Rogan?

  He was world champion. Never got calf kicked.

• 2:52:50Speaker 03

  Like, that's a good thing.

• 2:52:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:52Speaker 03

  That's a really good thing.

• 2:52:53Joe Rogan?

  But it's amazing that it came along so late.

• 2:52:56Speaker 03

  It's because it's unbelievable. You would think that something that looks that innocent is so debilitating.

• 2:53:02Joe Rogan?

  Well, Benson Henderson was the first guy to start implementing it in the UFC. And then Mighty Mouse did it to Henry Cejudo and made his leg go limp.

• 2:53:11Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 2:53:12Joe Rogan?

  Did you ever remember that? He started doing it, but this was like around the time where it started catching on. There was one fight between Dustin Poirier and Jim Miller. Oh, that was a horrible one. There was a lot of calf kicks in that fight.

• 2:53:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, that's a copycat league, right? It's a copycat thing, like watching another fight and going, yeah, I'm gonna try it.

• 2:53:33Joe Rogan?

  Now, see, everyone has it.

• 2:53:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:53:34Joe Rogan?

  Everyone has it. You have to have it and you have, you can't take too many.

• 2:53:38Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:53:39Joe Rogan?

  No matter who you are.

• 2:53:40Speaker 03

  No, it doesn't matter. I mean, it's just one of those where I-

• 2:53:42Joe Rogan?

  So vulnerable.

• 2:53:43Speaker 03

  It's one of those where it's like, there's, there's, other than checking it or getting out of the way, there's not a fucking shit you can do.

• 2:53:50Joe Rogan?

  Well, Pereira has a very interesting way of checking it. So he checks it like the hacky sack way? Do you know what I'm talking about? So like when you throw a kick at him, he just lifts his leg.

• 2:54:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:54:01Joe Rogan?

  He just lifts his, he has his knee there and he just picks his leg up.

• 2:54:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:54:06Joe Rogan?

  So the kick just kind of goes with it. And he goes, it takes all the impact off it.

• 2:54:09Speaker 03

  Taken away. Wow.

• 2:54:10Joe Rogan?

  Because he was saying, as far as checking it, like you don't want to check it because it fucking hurts too much.

• 2:54:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, my God.

• 2:54:15Joe Rogan?

  Like even if you're, even if you're just checking, now that leg is fucked up.

• 2:54:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:54:18Joe Rogan?

  Why check it when you can just do that like hacky sack thing? And he was showing us with it, like, oh, that's a different one. He does that one. That's a different hacky sack one where he uses the back of his foot.

• 2:54:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:54:29Joe Rogan?

  But what I mean is, he is picking up his leg, like at the knee, his ankle is coming up parallel.

• 2:54:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:54:38Joe Rogan?

  To the floor.

• 2:54:38Speaker 03

  I know exactly what you're talking about.

• 2:54:39Joe Rogan?

  You're not gonna see it, but- He's just, uh, he's clever. There's a lot of cleverness and it seems to be very creative. Like the style that he has, like how he figures out how to, cause he knows he's just gotta land one. So he's got these very creative little ways to chop back the legs.

• 2:54:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I still, I still think Sean O'Malley's got the best feints.

• 2:55:01Joe Rogan?

  Oh, he's got phenomenal feints.

• 2:55:02Speaker 03

  I mean, just, so I, I remember watching him before he got to the UFC. And a friend of mine was like, no, no, no, you gotta, you gotta watch this kid. You gotta watch this kid, you know, and watching him going, it would be like this just again and again and again and just realizing, oh, fuck, that's what he was setting up.

• 2:55:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:21Speaker 03

  It was 14 feints, right? To get to what he wanted to get to. And then it was like a feint here, feint on this side, feint here. And then all of a sudden he's got a tendency and now it's like attack time.

• 2:55:32Joe Rogan?

  Did you ever see the Eddie Weinland one?

• 2:55:34Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 2:55:35Joe Rogan?

  He feints an uppercut and he comes over the top with the right hand.

• 2:55:38Speaker 03

  I've seen it, but I haven't seen it.

• 2:55:39Joe Rogan?

  Oh, you gotta see it.

• 2:55:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:55:42Joe Rogan?

  It's so pretty, is one of his prettiest knockouts. He like, he like stepped in like fainted like he was gonna throw an uppercut and turned it into a left hand.

• 2:55:51Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 2:55:52Joe Rogan?

  It was so clean.

• 2:55:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's done some stuff.

• 2:55:54Joe Rogan?

  Watch this, watch this. Watch how he feints.

• 2:55:57Speaker 03

  It's amazing.

• 2:55:59Joe Rogan?

  Look at that. He feints a left uppercut and comes over the top with the right hand. Watch that again.

• 2:56:05Speaker 03

  And that's one of those where, where that, that is, that's, oh my god, that's silly.

• 2:56:10Joe Rogan?

  Bro, that's so beautiful.

• 2:56:11Speaker 03

  Oh my god. That's like one of those things where it's like, you can't teach it. You, you can't teach that stuff.

• 2:56:18Joe Rogan?

  It's so slick. It's such a slick move.

• 2:56:21Speaker 03

  Cannot teach it.

• 2:56:22Joe Rogan?

  Did you watch the Terrence Crawford, Canelo Alvarez fight?

• 2:56:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I did.

• 2:56:25Joe Rogan?

  Woo, talk about slick. Oh my goodness.

• 2:56:29Speaker 03

  Crawford just outboxed, man, like fucking unreal.

• 2:56:32Joe Rogan?

  Who's ever done that? Who's ever jumped up two weight classes like that?

• 2:56:35Speaker 03

  Scary.

• 2:56:36Joe Rogan?

  It's crazy.

• 2:56:37Speaker 03

  Scary. So, so realizing like watching it going, Canelo has such a bully style.

• 2:56:43Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:56:43Speaker 03

  Right, he's gonna get in, he's gonna bang with you. He's gonna power. And watching Canelo just, or Crawford just. Just box.

• 2:56:52Joe Rogan?

  Just box beautifully.

• 2:56:54Speaker 03

  Oh, like I watched the whole thing. I'm like, that's art. That is art.

• 2:56:59Joe Rogan?

  He's so clever and just like the way and it got to the point where he got so comfortable. He's like pit patting him.

• 2:57:05Speaker 03

  Un- un- what? Ba ba ba bang. It's like wow.

• 2:57:09Joe Rogan?

  Like wow, towards the end, towards the final rounds, really started getting comfortable and really started putting it on him. I'm like, this is amazing.

• 2:57:16Speaker 03

  You know, one of those rare, like that's history, obviously, right? Watching somebody do. You shouldn't be able to do that. You shouldn't be able to fight at that weight for the first time ever.

• 2:57:27Joe Rogan?

  Against one of the greatest of all time.

• 2:57:31Speaker 03

  Fuck it. And do what you did. It is beyond like my favorite, an outlier. You're beyond an outlier. You're something, you're an anomaly.

• 2:57:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:40Speaker 03

  You know, something really special.

• 2:57:43Joe Rogan?

  I believe he's 37.

• 2:57:44Speaker 03

  Yeah. One of those where you shouldn't be able to do that by, by, by any account. By any account. 37, my body was so wrecked. I'm like, fuck you. You know, I can barely go bowling.

• 2:57:57Joe Rogan?

  I was, I watched a video of Dolph Lundgren the other day. Like I, that guy was like, remember in Rocky III? He was the first guy that was scientifically trained.

• 2:58:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:58:09Joe Rogan?

  Whenever I think of like UFC fighters like you.

• 2:58:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 2:58:13Joe Rogan?

  Talking about guys doing everything scientifically, Dolph Lundgren in Rocky III.

• 2:58:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh my God, man.

• 2:58:19Joe Rogan?

  It was Rocky IV, Rocky IV, right?

• 2:58:20Speaker 03

  That was a stereotype. That was a stereotype. Like the Russians, yeah, oh, they're manufactured. You know, like biologically manufactured. I came from a test tube, you know, type.

• 2:58:30Joe Rogan?

  He totally looked like a Russian experiment in that movie.

• 2:58:33Speaker 03

  He did.

• 2:58:34Joe Rogan?

  If it, that was the first time I saw a versa climber. I was like, whoa, conditioning. Look at that. He's unstoppable.

• 2:58:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was on a versa climber two days ago.

• 2:58:44Joe Rogan?

  They're brutal.

• 2:58:45Speaker 03

  Oh, fuck, I hate him.

• 2:58:46Joe Rogan?

  Not a lot of fun.

• 2:58:47Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 2:58:49Joe Rogan?

  Not an enjoyable activity.

• 2:58:50Speaker 03

  I do an aerodyne, versa climber, a rower, and then a skier.

• 2:58:54Joe Rogan?

  All the things that suck. All the things that suck.

• 2:58:57Speaker 03

  Like going, this is shit. Just, you know, but it's one of those where I'm like, you know what? I don't have to do it for anything other than the challenge of just doing it.

• 2:59:06Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:06Speaker 03

  You know?

• 2:59:07Joe Rogan?

  I think everybody needs a little bit of a challenge and just getting over the challenge of doing like I'm doing forty-five minutes on this elliptical machine, period.

• 2:59:15Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 2:59:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's good for you.

• 2:59:17Speaker 03

  Oh, it's huge. It's huge.

• 2:59:19Joe Rogan?

  It's giant.

• 2:59:19Speaker 03

  Because it's just like when I train, it comes small wins, right? I just need a win. It's like some days I just need fucking a win. That's it. I don't care what it is.

• 2:59:29Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:59:29Speaker 03

  You know, I just need a win.

• 2:59:31Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:59:32Speaker 03

  Being nice to my wife, you know, being nice to, you know, just whatever it is, I just need something that day.

• 2:59:38Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:59:38Speaker 03

  You know, it's like, fuck, I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna get on a fucking thing that I hate and I'm gonna fucking do it for forty-five minutes and I'm, and that's a win.

• 2:59:46Joe Rogan?

  And I think if you looked at the proportion, like if you looked at this, if there was a study done on people that are happy versus people that are not in this life, I bet the people that would gen- generally say they're happy, get more of those.

• 3:00:00Speaker 03

  I guarantee.

• 3:00:00Joe Rogan?

  Get more of those wins in over themselves.

• 3:00:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:00:02Joe Rogan?

  Get more of those doing some shit that you didn't want to do, but you did it there. I'm done.

• 3:00:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:00:08Joe Rogan?

  I feel better.

• 3:00:09Speaker 03

  And that, that's, that's the, for me, that's the link to get to where I am today is that I didn't understand how huge those components were.

• 3:00:18Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:18Speaker 03

  Because when you're competing and stuff, it's easy because every day you need, you need to get wins.

• 3:00:23Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 3:00:23Speaker 03

  And you're stacking them, right? I'm stacking them. I need every day, I need a good training day. I need a good training day. And then you get to regular life, it's like, okay, what the fuck, I'm not, I'm not like, what's my?

• 3:00:35Joe Rogan?

  Not doing anything.

• 3:00:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, what's my win letting somebody in on traffic?

• 3:00:39Joe Rogan?

  That's a giant problem for fighters too, because you're, you're, you're at fucking nine thousand RPMs for years and then all of a sudden, boom.

• 3:00:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:00:47Joe Rogan?

  And you're supposed to go to normal life now?

• 3:00:49Speaker 03

  No, no. And I didn't, so this is, this is again where fucking this idea of like, of like, I didn't understand how much of myself was tied up in it and how much I needed to go, it's what I did, not who I am. And understanding like, this who I am has a lot longer career than this fighter.

• 3:01:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:11Speaker 03

  It's, it's, it's understanding who I, like,

• 3:01:16Speaker 03

  really getting into the fact that, you know, I'm much more than just a fighter.

• 3:01:23Speaker 03

  You know, and understanding like, okay, what is that? You know, I'm, I'm a compassionate person, I'm empathetic, you know? You know, I try to be kind and, and understanding the people around me. I try to bring, um, I call it emotional sobriety, right? Like if I'm emotionally honest with the people in my life, everybody else is, fits in. If I'm emotionally dishonest, people get fucked up, my environment gets all fucked up.

• 3:01:48Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 3:01:48Speaker 03

  Right?

• 3:01:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:49Speaker 03

  You know, so it's like, it's understanding these, these aspects about my life going, oh, God, man, I need to make these, the important parts of where I'm building and what I'm building in my life. And it's been, you know, it's been a process. It's been, some days I'm like, fuck this, man, fuck this. And other days I'm like, oh, it's just a day.

• 3:02:11Joe Rogan?

  As long as you can keep that clarity of knowing that these fuck this days are gonna pass.

• 3:02:15Speaker 03

  Oh, God, yeah. Well, I call, well, in my Hall of Fame speech, I call it, you know, like when I was first getting sober, it was like, I just, I would try to get through a minute. I go, I just need to make it through this minute, that's all. And then I just need to make it through this next minute. I just need to get through this next. Some of them were fucking hard, because I just wanted to fuck, fuck this, because I'm so uncomfortable. You know, and I'd get through that minute, I'd go, I just need to make it through this hour. I need to just make it through this day. And then it'd be this week, you know, and then all of a sudden, it's like, a month goes by. But I'd still have to go back, I just need to make it through this fucking minute.

• 3:02:52Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 3:02:52Speaker 03

  You know, like, like, so, like, it's, it's just how I'm built. You know, like this, this just self that just is so restless inside, you know, it's like, fuck. You know? Amazing.

• 3:03:06Joe Rogan?

  Do you think that that was accelerated by fighting? Or do you think that was a pre-existing thing that drew you to fighting?

• 3:03:14Speaker 03

  Um, I think it was accelerated by fighting. You know, I do.

• 3:03:22Speaker 03

  You know, a lot of it just, you know, I'm a competitor. Being a competitor allowed me to fight. But fighting was like hurting another human being to the level that I had to hurt them. That was a whole nother experience. You know, it's like I could wrestle, I can compete, I can do grappling, but to physically beat, I had to flip a switch and turn into this other person that I'm like, fuck, I'm glad I know he's there. But it's like, that's not, that's not me.

• 3:03:48Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 3:03:49Speaker 03

  You know, it's just this weird dichotomy or this weird.

• 3:03:52Joe Rogan?

  Then nobody ever really gets to experience, except for someone like you.

• 3:03:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:03:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Or maybe like at another levels, a higher level, someone at war.

• 3:04:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God, that's, I mean, that's, you know, I understand why there's, you know, a lot of the veterans and what they go through. It's like, that's normally, that's not how you're built as a human being.

• 3:04:14Joe Rogan?

  Right, you're not supposed to experience that.

• 3:04:15Speaker 03

  No.

• 3:04:16Joe Rogan?

  And then come back and just be normal.

• 3:04:17Speaker 03

  Normal.

• 3:04:18Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, like.

• 3:04:18Speaker 03

  It's like, oh, fuck.

• 3:04:19Joe Rogan?

  That movie Hurt Locker, when he's walking around the supermarket, until he wants to go back.

• 3:04:24Speaker 03

  My God, it's, cause, it's just one where it's like, it's not how I'm built, you know, I have.

• 3:04:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:30Speaker 03

  I have a lot more compassion as, you know, for other human beings. But, you know, I was glad to know that if I got put in a fucking room with another dude, I was coming out, motherfucker.

• 3:04:44Speaker 03

  That was a good thing to know.

• 3:04:45Joe Rogan?

  It's a good thing to know.

• 3:04:46Speaker 03

  It's a good thing to know, right?

• 3:04:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's a good thing to know. Do you, when you look back, do you, I mean,

• 3:04:55Joe Rogan?

  if you were gonna give yourself advice, when would you think would have been a good time for you to stop fighting?

• 3:05:05Speaker 03

  After Vegeta.

• 3:05:06Joe Rogan?

  After Vegeta?

• 3:05:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:05:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:05:08Speaker 03

  Cause that, you know what, and, and. Like if people understood like that time period, like I got sober. I fought Ensign and then I went and did Abu Dhabi and I and I won my weight class, won the all around, which was a big deal for me at the time. It was a huge deal. And then if I would have won that championship, if I would have won the Pride Grand Prix, it would have been a mic drop. I could have walked away and it could have been a Khabib moment where it's like, oh, I wonder how good he, fuck, I wonder how good he could have been. You know, it would have been a complete fucking mic drop, right?

• 3:05:46Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 3:05:46Speaker 03

  But it's just at that moment, I knew that something had changed in me, that I didn't, didn't have that thing in me that I needed to do it. Cause you need a thing in you to do that. You do. And that's what we're talking about, like a gear. You need a different gear. You need a different component to get to that level. And if you, if you don't have it, it's like, you know, they say in the NFL, if you're thinking about retirement, you shouldn't be playing the game.

• 3:06:15Joe Rogan?

  So you were at a point where your dislike of hurting people was interfering with your job?

• 3:06:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause I mean, just I had to, I had to just get to a place which is just, you know, just a place that I just didn't like being.

• 3:06:32Joe Rogan?

  Right. No, it makes sense talking to you, you know, because it's, it's funny. You talk to certain people like yourself and, and George, like George St Pierre, I was just hanging out with him the other night and he, my friends are always like, he's so normal. This is so weird. Like it's so hard to believe that that guy's one of the greatest fighters of all time because he's so normal.

• 3:06:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:06:53Joe Rogan?

  But that, that's also the beauty in it. It's, that's why people are fascinated by fighting. Because they want to know what can a normal person do?

• 3:07:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:07:02Joe Rogan?

  What can a normal person turn himself into? What is possible?

• 3:07:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that's, that's the, I answered that question for myself, right? And it's one where it's like, okay.

• 3:07:14Speaker 03

  You know, and to get, for me to get there was, was so, not difficult, but like I would watch film of me walking out and I couldn't even recognize myself. Like my facial expression, how I walked, how I carried myself, I'd look at it and go, wow, that doesn't even look like me. Like transforming like into a completely different person. And it's understanding, like, like compartmentalizing everything, like no emotions, no nothing singularly focused to one thing. And that thing was, I'm gonna impose my will on you till I fucking take yours. That's it. And for me, it just was a darker place for me to go.

• 3:07:57Joe Rogan?

  Right, of course. And probably unsustainable if you wanna be a happy person.

• 3:08:02Speaker 03

  No, you can't.

• 3:08:03Joe Rogan?

  But.

• 3:08:04Speaker 03

  You can't.

• 3:08:04Joe Rogan?

  In order to be the Mark Kerr that everybody loved, you kinda had to go there. That's the only way to do it.

• 3:08:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:08:12Joe Rogan?

  That's the wildest thing that most people will never understand. Only a person like yourself who's actually experienced it will really truly understand what those words mean.

• 3:08:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's just one word.

• 3:08:22Joe Rogan?

  It's a nutty requirement of someone.

• 3:08:24Speaker 03

  Fuck, yeah.

• 3:08:24Joe Rogan?

  A nutty request.

• 3:08:25Speaker 03

  It is.

• 3:08:26Joe Rogan?

  Hey, you wanna go fight in front of the whole world?

• 3:08:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Cause it's, it's fucking, you talk about vulnerable, like vulnerable, like fucking bearing your soul, that's, cause you, you get to a place of exhaustion, you know, it's weakness. You know, you're showing everybody you're in there, you weren't strong enough to train to the capacity you need to train to, to fight. And look at this dude, he's beating the fuck out of you and you got fucking hot pants on.

• 3:08:54Joe Rogan?

  Boo.

• 3:08:55Speaker 03

  Right? To add a little fucking insult, right? You got fucking hot pants on, he's beating the fuck out, so I mean, there's that whole thing, it's, it's very fucking vulnerable to fight. Cause there's, it's just, it's just very, like the loneliest place, two loneliest places in the world is walking into the ring and after the fight's over.

• 3:09:15Joe Rogan?

  Mmm.

• 3:09:17Speaker 03

  The two loneliest places I've ever been in my entire life are those two places. Cause there's no help when you're walking into the ring, it's just fucking you and you know that. And after the fight, it's just you. And you have to live with whatever experience you just had, win, lose or draw. You know, times I won, I felt empty because it felt like I needed to go do something again. It felt like I needed to go achieve something again. Like, everything was so focused on this thing. Once this thing's over, I need another thing. I need to go chase that thing.

• 3:09:48Joe Rogan?

  Ah, wow.

• 3:09:49Speaker 03

  It's this never-ending, like, for me, it was this never-ending, because I was trying to be enough. I was just trying to be enough, and I could never get there.

• 3:09:59Joe Rogan?

  Isn't it crazy that that kind of addictive behavior and thinking is almost the only way to make true excellence?

• 3:10:05Speaker 03

  I know. Isn't it fucking, it's just so fucked up, right?

• 3:10:10Joe Rogan?

  It's so fucked up.

• 3:10:11Speaker 03

  Come on! Because I know, I know it doesn't only apply to fighters. I know it's actors. And I know it's artists and, you know, people that...

• 3:10:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:10:21Speaker 03

  Do you think Steve Jobs had fucking, I mean, that's, again, singularly focused.

• 3:10:27Joe Rogan?

  Singularly focused, yeah.

• 3:10:28Speaker 03

  I mean, it's just this, it's the, you know, madness and brilliance, you know, are almost of the same vein. Right?

• 3:10:37Joe Rogan?

  Yep.

• 3:10:37Speaker 03

  And, you know, this driven component of me, the bane of that is that, once that thing was over, I had to go fucking chase something else. And I could never fucking sit in that moment and be okay with whatever, and... You know, again, it's one of those things where it's like, thankfully, I am designed the way I am. You know, because I'm finally in a place where I'm like, I'm okay with me. I'm completely okay with me. You know, and it's taken me a long time to get here.

• 3:11:07Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's awesome, dude. I'm glad that you got there, and I'm glad to just be able to sit down with you and talk to you and tell you how much I appreciate, first of all, your career. But you being able to do that Smashing Machine documentary, I think, wasn't just eye-opening for a lot of people to realize, like, wow, a lot of these guys are struggling in a way that we couldn't even possibly comprehend. It's all they're doing in private. This guy just led us into his life. Holy shit. Like, how many more stories are there out there like this? Opens people up to the conversation. But also like having the courage to let people like look at your life like that. I think it's pretty powerful, man.

• 3:11:42Speaker 03

  No, I appreciate it.

• 3:11:43Joe Rogan?

  And the movie's great. In The Rock, you fucking nailed it.

• 3:11:45Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. He, I mean, The Rock, Emily, you know.

• 3:11:49Joe Rogan?

  She nailed it.

• 3:11:50Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 3:11:50Joe Rogan?

  She nailed crazy with it. She got an A plus.

• 3:11:53Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. Yeah, exactly.

• 3:11:54Joe Rogan?

  Shaq's kiss for that craziness. Well, thank you, sir.

• 3:11:57Speaker 03

  No, I appreciate it, man. I appreciate it.

• 3:12:00Joe Rogan?

  The Smashing Machine. It is out October 3rd, right?

• 3:12:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, October 3rd. Yeah, yeah.

• 3:12:06Joe Rogan?

  It's very good.

• 3:12:06Speaker 03

  I appreciate it, Joe. Thank you.

• 3:12:08Joe Rogan?

  And Boss Rutan kills it in it, too.

• 3:12:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:12:10Joe Rogan?

  It was great. All right. Thank you. Bye, everybody.

• 3:12:11Speaker 03

  All right. Cheers.

• 3:12:26Joe Rogan?

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• 3:13:10Joe Rogan?

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