JRE MMA Show #178 with Dan Hardy

Joe sits down with Dan Hardy, a mixed martial artist, host of the “Full Reptile” podcast, and commentator for the Professional Fighters League.www.youtube.com/@DanHardyFRwww.pflmma.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Try ZipRecruiter FOR FREE at https://ziprecruiter.com/rogan Get Visible for just $20/mo for 1 year. Use code FRESHSTART. Switch & see terms at https://www.visible.com 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.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, my man.

• 0:14Joe Rogan?

  Good to see you, brother.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  Great to see you, man.

• 0:16Joe Rogan?

  What is this around my neck? What is that?

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Oh, this is moldavite. Have you heard of moldavite before?

• 0:20Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  So a meteorite hit in the Czech Republic millions of years ago. And the particular tectite that was created from the earth matter falling back down to the ground became moldavite. And it's, most tectites are like a black or a brown, but moldavite's green. Let me show you.

• 0:40Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  It's really interesting.

• 0:43Joe Rogan?

  Oh, Jamie's got some on the screen already.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  There we go, hold it up to the light.

• 0:47Joe Rogan?

  Whoa, oh, that's fucking dope. So it's basically like nuclear glass?

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Exactly that, yeah.

• 0:53Joe Rogan?

  Same type of, wow.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  And then that's the case my wife had made for me and it's wrapped in an old chain that belonged to my dad.

• 1:00Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that's so dope.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, keep with me all the time.

• 1:03Joe Rogan?

  That's fucking cool, man.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  I used to have a piece in, you know, the old tie amulets with the little bronze? I used to have one in that, took it out, I put it, I took the butter out and put a piece of moldavite in it wrapped in a piece of UFC canvas and I wore it just all the time. But then my wife upgraded me as she tries to do all the time.

• 1:24Joe Rogan?

  So the UFC gave you a chunk of canvas?

• 1:26Speaker 01

  I have a whole canvas.

• 1:27Joe Rogan?

  Ooh, nice. From which fight?

• 1:31Speaker 01

  It was Vadum Volkov from UFC London and it's just, it's covered in Vadum's blood. He got his nose busted pretty badly. So, but it had to be in quarantine for like 12 months until they gave it me.

• 1:43Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:44Joe Rogan?

  Cause of the blood?

• 1:45Speaker 01

  It's a biohazard.

• 1:48Joe Rogan?

  So does it all die after 12 months?

• 1:51Speaker 01

  I guess so. I mean, I guess so. It was kept in a warehouse and then they, yeah, they dropped it off for me.

• 1:55Joe Rogan?

  Do they have to check it?

• 1:56Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:57Joe Rogan?

  Make sure it's not?

• 1:57Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't lick it, but it looks fine to me.

• 2:00Joe Rogan?

  What could possibly be in the blood? I mean, doesn't everybody get tested before the?

• 2:05Speaker 01

  That's a good point. That's a good point. Maybe there's just some kind of rule. I think they incinerate them all now, don't they?

• 2:09Joe Rogan?

  Do they?

• 2:10Speaker 01

  I don't think they keep them. I mean, they keep the, they've got the pieces with the names, but I think the rest of it gets disposed of now.

• 2:15Joe Rogan?

  Huh.

• 2:17Joe Rogan?

  I wonder if there's any logic to that.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 2:20Joe Rogan?

  Or if it's just people being scared.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe, maybe. It's a cool thing. I've actually got it on the wall of my house, believe it or not.

• 2:25Joe Rogan?

  Oh, really?

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had it in the gym, but then it's on the wall of my house now.

• 2:28Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that's nice. That's pretty cool.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just a nice thing to have, you know?

• 2:32Joe Rogan?

  Dude, what happened with you in the UFC? Like, I don't know the story. I know you got into it with Herb Dean.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:41Joe Rogan?

  About a stoppage, a late stoppage.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44Joe Rogan?

  And you, you were upset. This was during COVID, right?

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, this was, I think it was Fight Island three. Um, and it was, it was the second fight of the night where it had happened. There was a heavyweight that had gone down and just take, just took a bunch, too many shots before the fight was stopped. But the, the Jai Herbert, Francisco Trinaldo one was the, the one where you heard me shout up and yell, stop the fight. Um, and it was just, it was a weird circumstance. And look, you know, caveat, Herb's a great referee. He's refereed me a lot. But every now and then people do make mistakes. And in Fight Island, everyone was tired. It was quiet in the arena as well. So you can, I mean, you can hear me yelling. It wasn't the first time I'd done it, though. I yelled at him in Moscow for a C B Dalloway fight.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  And it's, the thing is, there's a point where I'm there for the knockouts. I'm there for the blood. But I'm also there to make sure that once it's done, it's done and those fighters are protected.

• 3:40Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  You know, and the way that, that, that Jai Herbert fell, it was just, you do, you get the reads. You know it.

• 3:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  You see him fall and you're like, man, there's something not right about the way that he's falling. And then as he landed, he was looking up at the lighting rig, but his arms were kind of stretched out.

• 3:58Joe Rogan?

  So he was gone.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  He was gone. He was out of it. And then there was this, and I think of course, because it was quarantine times, it was silent in there. The time, it was like you could hear a heartbeat in the air. And there was just this moment where Trinaldo stood over him and looked at Herb. And Jai's still on the floor, kind of not fully conscious. And Trinaldo just, just started cracking him with more shots. And that was the point where I stood up straight away and I'm yelling and Paul Felder was doing the same thing next to me. You actually see Herb look at me through the cage and point at me and tell me to shut up. The thing that annoyed me about it was the miscommunication about what had happened. Because the message that got back to Dana and everybody at the top was that I left my commentary desk.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  I went over and I was stood outside the cage. And I wasn't, Herb came to me. So like, I'm at my desk, we've got this piece of Plexiglas because it's all Covid.

• 4:53Joe Rogan?

  Hilarious, the Plexiglas.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  That stopped everything, didn't it? And then, and then we had another desk in front of that. So Herb's basically, and Herb doesn't move very quickly most of the time. He's a big old boy, but he was moving at pace towards me. So I stood up, took my headset off and put them down or had them in my hand. And he came over and he started yelling at me and, you know, you stay out of it, can't be shouting and this and that. And that's where you see me go, that was two times, that's the second time of the night.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  After the, I mean, as it's going on, and this was when we're not doing interviews in the cage as well, right? So I'm standing up.

• 5:30Joe Rogan?

  Also hilarious.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Also hilarious, yeah.

• 5:32Joe Rogan?

  Guys just breathing at each other, sweating and bleeding at each other.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  And we're shaking hands in the hotel and everything and it was kind of odd. But because I'm not going into the cage, I'm now turning around and my interview camera's behind me. So basically what the USC wanted me to do when Herb's marching over to me was to stand up, turn my back on him and put my headset on. Me as a martial artist, I'm not going to turn my back on someone when they're moving at me with the kind of pace that he was. So I, I, everything got a bit delayed because I was having an interact with, interaction with Herb. As soon as the event was over and I was on my way over to the ESPN desk, Herb and I bumped into each other. And we had just had a brief minute conversation. Everything was cool. I said, look, I respect you as a referee. You left that one too late, there was no doubt. And it was the second one the night.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  And there are other instances where it's happened, right? Nobody's perfect. I would make mistakes as well, of course.

• 6:26Joe Rogan?

  Very difficult job.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Very, very difficult job. The thing that annoyed me though, and for me, it was done then.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  When I got backstage, someone from the production team confronted me about approaching Herb. I tried to make sure that the narrative was set correctly, that he actually came over to me. But that never got escalated up the chain. So it was always, you know, you approach an official, et cetera, et cetera. And it just so happened to coincide with where someone had approached Mark Goddard and pushed him at another event, UAE Warriors. So the whole thing kind of got convoluted and bundled into the same thing.

• 7:01Joe Rogan?

  Was that the Connor situation?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  No, that was in Bellator, but there was another one, it was UAE Warriors. And I think someone had kept hold of a choke too long. And then Goddard had separated the fight. And then he came over to Mark and he's trying to push Mark and stuff. And when Dana actually made the statement about if you approach an official, you'll be gone. That was actually in reference to the other thing that happened, but it was linked in with me as well. The thing that pissed me off is when I got to the, back to the hotel or to the airport or whatever. Herbert posted this video and he was like sitting at the airport, you know, trying to justify what had happened and. But it was just like, if, he was saying things like, if you think you're the smartest guy in the room.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  And just like poking at me just constantly. And I'm like, I've got a bunch of hours sitting on a plane on the way back to the UK now. And you know what I'm like, I'm pulling this apart and I'm like, did I, did I step out of line? Did I say something I shouldn't have said? And, and I'm, and I'm assessing it and then I'm going, no, hang on a minute. Like my intention is to protect that fighter that needed protecting, right? His family are at home sitting watching that. They don't want to see him getting smashed in the face unnecessarily. They know the risks of the job already. So I kind of sat on the, on the plane on the way home and I'm like, how am I going to deal with this? So I dealt with it the way that I would always do. I get all the facts on the table. I try and organize my response.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  And what I did was I created a video that I put up on YouTube, which the UFC actually contacted YouTube and had them delete off the back end. And it was about, it was about an hour and a quarter long. It was a decent chunk of, chunk of information. But I went through what had happened on the night, other circumstances where Herbert maybe not pulled the trigger quick enough. Or times when he'd been indecisive, like Cowboy Masvidal, not sure whether you remember that one. Cowboy went down at the end of the first round and they actually helped him back to his stool and sat him on the stool and Greg Jackson's going, "Hey Cowboy, you're okay, everything's fine." Then he went out and got TKO'd at the start of the second round. But if you remember that, Herb jumps in and waves the fight off at the end of the round

• 9:09Speaker 01

  and then decides to restart it in the second.

• 9:11Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  So I pointed out a bunch of things where he could have maybe done a better job. I also gave him the benefit of the doubt in like the Robbie Lawler, Ben Askren fight, where to me that wasn't stopped early. You could see Robbie Lawler's arm fall for a second. I think he went out for a split second in that moment.

• 9:28Joe Rogan?

  And then came back.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:29Joe Rogan?

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• 12:16Speaker 01

  So in that moment, and you can

• 12:17Joe Rogan?

  Hard to tell.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Very hard to tell, but you can see Herb in that situation going, oh, man, I'm sorry. I thought you were out. Like, those, those things are gonna happen. I would always rather the fight to be protected than just kind of leave it for the benefit of the down, just let them take. It's different with a submission, of course. But the point is, I was trying to create something that was quite balanced. And the other thing as well was, you know, it was Fight Island. Like, we're getting tested every other day. Like, we're quarantined in our rooms sometimes. We were doing fights at weird hours of the day, so people were kind of foggy and fatigued. And it was just a weird environment. So I gave Herb and all the officials the benefit of the doubt that, you know, you're not gonna be at 100% at 4 o'clock in the morning.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  But it was the way they responded to me which pissed me off. And then the way that the UFC kind of pulled all their support for me, you know? And, and they contacted me and they said, hey, we're gonna organize a conversation with you and whoever. And I said, I just wanna let you know, I've got this video ready to go and I am gonna post it because it, it vindicates what I did, in my opinion. But it also It also offers some understanding of what Herb was trying to do and the job that he has and how difficult it is. And unfortunately, I mean, it got a couple of hundred thousand views before it was taken down. But it's just, it's still on the channel now. If you look at it, it's just a little gray square with three dots and there's just nothing on the back. They literally went into my channel and took it away.

• 13:47Joe Rogan?

  That's so weird that they could take down something that doesn't violate any laws or rules. You know, that's kind of weird.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  I don't know whether they contacted YouTube and said, hey, you know, he's used some UFC footage.

• 14:01Joe Rogan?

  Did you?

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did. But at the time I had permission to use UFC footage. They were allowing me to make war rooms and all kinds of stuff.

• 14:07Joe Rogan?

  Right, because it only helps them.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  That's it. I mean, I was an ambassador for Europe as well as being a commentator. So my job in my mind was to spread the word of MMA, right? I'm trying to educate everybody as much as I can. And I could make a lot more content through my channel than I could rely on the UFC to make content. So I was just trying to churn extra stuff out to keep drawing attention to it. So they'd given me permission to use footage on my channel. And I'd built a company off the back of this. I'd employed my Raptors. I think you remember meeting those guys. And all that was gone, you know? And the thing is, it was like, I understand that the UFC are not going to fire me for shouting up to protect a fighter. But I knew on that day my card was marked, you know?

• 14:51Speaker 01

  And I knew that my card was marked on that day because I was too stubborn. I didn't wait for the UFC to tell me what I should have said and this and that. I posted my video. I wanted to clear my name. And I wanted to back up the reason why I'd said that because it wasn't the first time I'd done it. You know, it was the first time I'd done it in a quiet, empty arena. But if you go back to, I think it was Moscow with C B Dalloway. And he was fighting a guy called Murat Zaliev. And for about a minute fifteen, he was just curled up in a ball on the floor. And he was just getting pounded. He went from fetal position to completely belly down to fetal position on the other side in the space of that minute. And at the end of the round, Herb just stood over him. And he's lying there like a corpse on the floor.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  I'm like, this fight should have been stopped easy thirty seconds ago. Even C B Dalloway came out and said that he didn't feel protected by it. But the difference was that we've got twenty-five thousand people in the arena, so you can't really hear me shouting, stop the fight in that scenario.

• 15:50Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  It's just an awkward situation, because I like Herb. I would never have him referee my wife. I always make a request to make sure that he doesn't. But that's more because of the history between me and him. I don't want to put him in a position where I'm going to get angry at him again for not doing his job.

• 16:06Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  You know, but I was just, I was disappointed that the UFC kind of pulled all support for me and backed Herb in that situation.

• 16:15Joe Rogan?

  Was there a situation backstage where you got into it with someone else from the staff? Because that's what I had heard, that someone said something to you and you yelled at someone backstage.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  I did, yeah, I did. But in the scenario, I just left the ESPN desk, and this is like five o'clock in the morning or something now, after the broadcast, and I walked backstage. I won't mention his name. I love him. He's a lovely guy. But everyone's kind of ragged and tired in Fight Island, you know what I mean?

• 16:43Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  And as I'm walking back to my dressing room, he came flying at me. And he's like, "Hey, you can't ever approach an official and blah blah blah." I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a fucking minute." And like, just the intensity that he came at me with just spiked my adrenaline again.

• 16:57Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  And I'm already kind of like, I'm heightened because the fights have just ended. You know what it's like with adrenaline. I'm like, three days, I'm like excitedly shaking after a good event. And it was just the energy that he came at me with just pushed my energy up. So then we had this back and forth where I'm like, "Hey, you need to get your facts right. He approached me and blah blah blah."

• 17:17Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  And I don't know whether that information had already been passed on to people above him to say, "Dan Hardy's just approached Herb Dean after the fight," when in actuality that just never happened. And because that was the perspective that the guys in the truck had got, like, I automatically felt like I'm going to get in trouble here. Like, I've done something really wrong.

• 17:37Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  You know, and, I mean, the thing is, it's like, I've been working with that man for a long time, the guy backstage I'm talking about. I love him. He's a lovely guy. We've always got on. If I saw him now, we'd have a good conversation. It was just, you know, you know, it's like.

• 17:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Heightened experience and and just the energy that he came at me with, especially with the misinformation of me. Now, you know, being the guy that took my headset off and marched over to the door to wait for Herb as he walked out.

• 18:05Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  I just didn't do that. Like, I'm there to do my job. But ultimately, above my job and above everything, UFC and everything included. I'm there, I'm there to make sure that MMA is stable and the fighters are safe.

• 18:17Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Because that, that's, that's my instinct, you know? Everybody that gets in that cage is someone's son or daughter, or father or brother, you know what I mean? And and in those moments, the people in the cage, they go from being the best fighters in the world to a very, very human victim. That is not being protected by the referee. And and from a fighter's perspective.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  I want to feel that warlike feeling when I step in the cage. I want to feel like I can throw everything at my opponent. And I also want to feel safe that they can throw everything at me. Right? I don't want to have in my mind, oh, hang on, do I need to pull this punch because the referee's not going to jump in? Like, there are three people in there, and one person's got the job to protect both of us. Neither of us have a, have a responsibility to protect, protect each other. We don't have a responsibility to pull a punch after a knockdown. We don't have a responsibility to stop when the bell rings, right?

• 19:09Joe Rogan?

  Who was the referee with Anderson Silva and Michael Bisping?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a good question.

• 19:15Joe Rogan?

  Because that was a weird one, right? That fight should have been over.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:19Joe Rogan?

  Right? Anderson hits him with a flying knee and then hops on top of the cage. And they didn't stop the fight. Was that Herb?

• 19:25Speaker 01

  It might have been. It might have been. Look, the thing is, I mean. Herb's refereed me a bunch of times and I, and I like Herb.

• 19:32Joe Rogan?

  But that obviously was Anderson's beef. That was Anderson's issue. Anderson should have followed up. Until the referee stops.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 19:40Joe Rogan?

  But you could have easily said, this fight's over. I mean. Yep.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. That's a crazy situation. So, Michael, I think, had lost his mouthpiece.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:52Joe Rogan?

  And this is also when Michael was blind in his right eye, right? So you have to take this into consideration. So, Michael loses his mouthpiece, and at some point in time, he points like that he wants his mouthpiece back.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  And look at the time. We're into the last 20 seconds.

• 20:10Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  And it's a beautiful knee that Anderson lands as well.

• 20:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, so he, he, he points his mouthpiece.

• 20:22Joe Rogan?

  That's you, buddy.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Uh huh. One of my favorite fighters to have called. Bang.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Right on the bell.

• 20:36Joe Rogan?

  Okay, the fight's not over. He's saying the fight's not over.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  But in this situation, Mike-

• 20:41Joe Rogan?

  That, that actually makes sense because he was still conscious and he was still up and he had his hand down. Yeah, that was Anderson's fault.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure it was. For sure it was. And, and unfortunately for Anderson, he, he had the adrenaline dump of thinking he'd won the fight. Got up on the cage, started celebrating, and then had another 10 minutes. And this is where Michael Bisping is just a gangster.

• 20:59Joe Rogan?

  He's pointing, he's pointing to his mouthpiece. And he's communicating with Herb, but Herb didn't stop the fight.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  I mean, the thing is, this, like, there's seconds left. Anderson Silva's got no responsibility to pull any punches, right?

• 21:14Joe Rogan?

  What a perfect fucking flying knee, too. God, he was a master in his prime. And this is post-leg break, too.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:20Joe Rogan?

  This wasn't even prime Anderson, you know? This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. It's good to be passionate about something, exploring what interests you, adds more color to your life. Makes it more fulfilling in a way. And that's not just limited to your personal life. If you run a business, you know how much of a difference it can make when the people on your team are excited about what they're doing. And if you don't, well, it's time to find out with ZipRecruiter. Try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/rogan. It's been rated the number one hiring site based on G2, and that's because ZipRecruiter- recruiter is always looking for ways to improve the hiring process, including its newest feature that lets you see the most qualified and more importantly, most interested people

• 22:04Joe Rogan?

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• 22:30Speaker 01

  still one of the best fights I've ever called this and max holloway calvin cater one of the best fights I've ever called it was a privilege to be sat cage side for it but like bispings you know coming out now with 10 minutes left and stamps his authority on this fight which was very, very impressive but it was just it was this was just a messy situation and I kinda didn't really mind this because of the circumstance that had played out I mean herb was very clear in him saying he I didn't stop the fight

• 22:56Joe Rogan?

  right, right, right

• 22:57Speaker 01

  but then if like if you remember the um the cowboy soroni masvidal fight

• 23:02Joe Rogan?

  I do remember that one, that was different

• 23:04Speaker 01

  right, he gets dropped bad, and herb's bad habit at the end of the round if there's an engagement he steps in he waves his arm that's a signal the fight's off

• 23:12Joe Rogan?

  right

• 23:13Speaker 01

  right, you don't wave off the round you wave off the fight

• 23:16Joe Rogan?

  right

• 23:16Speaker 01

  so, so at the end of the round the referee's job is to get in between the fighters

• 23:21Joe Rogan?

  right

• 23:21Speaker 01

  right cowboy was on the floor masvidal's already wandering off I mean this is like that's and watch this so, so this is the problem right you have to leave the fighter to get back to their stool you can't touch him herb's holding him up there right and then they come out they they come over they put the seat down the stool down he sits down and then greg jackson's saying hey cowboy it's okay this always happens to us like he's just not conscious for this whole minute he goes back out and gets TKO'd almost immediately afterwards But but Herb has a habit of waving the fight off.

• 23:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but that didn't look like he was waving the fight off. That looked like he was signaling the end of the round. He didn't do this.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Potentially, but then if you've got one arm in between and you're waving with the other one.

• 24:06Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  You know, I just don't, you don't need to, you don't wave at the end of the round.

• 24:08Joe Rogan?

  I think by his hand movements there, I don't think that qualifies. I think he's saying, stop, stop, stop.

• 24:16Joe Rogan?

  I think he's putting his hands out. He's got a hand on and a hand out.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  No, the other hand's waving, that right hand's waving.

• 24:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but I think he's. Well, hmm, yeah.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  I just, it's just, it's an unnecessary motion. And I'm, I'm okay with the debate about it. Like, doing the breakdown of the Jai Herbert finish, I learned something really important, which I don't know is, I've asked lots of referees and most of them have not heard about it. Fencing response, right? Have you heard of this?

• 24:42Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  It's a concussion symptom. And it's, it's a weird thing. In a newborn baby, when you turn their head to the side, their arms come up like a boxer.

• 24:50Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Right? It's a weird, I don't know exactly where it comes from, but it, but it's something that happens when people get concussed.

• 24:55Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Like, you will have seen this before in K1. There was a really famous one where a guy gets kicked in the head. And as he's going down.

• 25:01Joe Rogan?

  You see it in football a lot.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Yes, you see it in football a lot.

• 25:04Joe Rogan?

  So there's one with Marlon Marat, yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, see, arms go out straight.

• 25:07Joe Rogan?

  I have seen that, yeah. You've seen a lot of that.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  You want, you want the judges, you want the referees to know about fencing response, to be able to recognize all of the different, um, uh, tells of a concussion, right? So, and I didn't know about fencing response until after the Jai Herbert fight, but I had, in my video that was taken down, I had lots and lots of different versions of fencing response from K1 to football to rugby, all kinds of stuff.

• 25:32Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  It's a tell of concussion, right? Like, consciousness is not removed immediately with every punch, is it? Like, you've got a, everything's on a spectrum. You're either completely conscious or completely unconscious, but the window in which the fight needs to be stopped is probably five or 10% towards the end of that spectrum, right? The point where someone's unable to defend themselves or not intelligently defending themselves.

• 25:55Joe Rogan?

  And it's very subjective.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  It's very, very subjective.

• 25:57Joe Rogan?

  The problem is, like, when a referee stops too early, it's very frustrating. And we have seen many instances. And then we've also seen some instances where it looked like a fight could easily be stopped and the fighter comes back and wins. Frankie Edgar, Gray Maynard.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  What if, what, I mean, but fights.

• 26:15Joe Rogan?

  Crazy fights.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:17Joe Rogan?

  Crazy fights, but in the one where Frankie won, where he KO'd him, that it looked like he was out before.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Like three times in the first round.

• 26:26Joe Rogan?

  Oh my goodness. I mean, Gray Maynard was a beast. He was a big, strong, powerful wrestler, really big for 155. And Frankie famously did not cut weight. Frankie was one of the rare guys that fought at 155 and essentially weighed like maybe 160.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:42Joe Rogan?

  If that, you know, and he was just fast and because of that, he was very durable. And this is a thing that we need to, I mean, I fucking hate weight cutting. I hate it so bad. I really do. I think it's, I think it's sanctioned cheating. I think we should have figured out a way to eliminate it a long time ago. But you know, honestly, when I watch One FC, I don't think they've figured out a way to do it either. Like it's not, it's almost like it's ingrained in the culture to, to the point where I don't know. Other than like random USADA style weigh-ins, you know what I mean? Instead of a drug test, like, hey, Dan, get on the scale. Oh, but I've been eating and I don't give a fuck. Get on the scale.

• 27:23Joe Rogan?

  Like, what do you weigh? You're, you're fighting 155. You weigh 190. This is crazy. Oh no, I'm just four weeks into camp, you know, the next five weeks, I really tightened up my diet. Get the fuck out of here, bitch. You're huge.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:37Joe Rogan?

  You're way too big for 155.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, we'll look at Anthony Johnson, you know, one of.

• 27:41Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Rest is.

• 27:42Joe Rogan?

  Rumble.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Like, he was 214 on the night when we fought. We both weighed in at 171. He was 214. This was before the, the days of IVs, you know?

• 27:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  But like you have to, you have to wonder what it does to people, you know?

• 27:54Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it destroys you. It probably had some sort of an impact on his health problems that he had.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:59Joe Rogan?

  Because he was an enormous guy. I ran into him one, one time at a lobby at the hotel. And I go, how much do you weigh? And he goes, two thirty. I'm like, bro, get the fuck out of here. That's crazy. You're gonna lose sixty pounds? Six zero is nuts. That's and he was, he was two thirty, built like a house. I mean, he was a fucking stacked dude. It was crazy. And unfortunately, those big muscular guys can cut more weight because muscle is more water.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:33Joe Rogan?

  Um, but it's horrible. Like, I, I, I mean, look, Izzy landed a perfect punch on Pereira. But I feel like Pereira at middleweight just could not take the same kind of shots that Pereira can take at light heavyweight. It's just, you're dehydrating the shit out of yourself. He would weigh in forty pounds more than he weighed than like on Fight Night. Fight Night, he would be forty pounds heavier.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  That's crazy, isn't it?

• 28:57Joe Rogan?

  I think he was forty one. I think he was two twenty six.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:01Joe Rogan?

  Which is bananas. That's just bananas.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  I mean, e- even if I think about it, I was getting up to like, like one eighty six, one eighty eight. And that felt like a lot for me, cutting down to one seventy.

• 29:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  I mean, I, at the time, I was fairly big for the weight class, you know what I mean? Compared to some of the other guys around, but it just didn't work for me. You know what I mean? Like, I, I, I invested too much in getting bigger and stronger and, and because when, when I was fighting before the UFC, I mean, I was fighting, you know, ten, twelve times a year. And I needed to stay close to weight, so I, I was always, I was always within about ten pounds. There were very few fights before the UFC that I cut a lot of weight. Um, and even, and then when I was fighting out in Japan, because I couldn't use sauna. Like, I just didn't wanna, you know, put myself in a position where I was having to trash bag and, you know, sweat out in the streets of Tokyo. So my weight was always-

• 29:49Joe Rogan?

  Why couldn't you use sauna in Japan?

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Because of my tattoos.

• 29:51Joe Rogan?

  Isn't that crazy? I got kicked out of a gym in Japan.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Did you really?

• 29:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I had to go back up to my room and put a long sleeve shirt on.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 29:59Joe Rogan?

  That's nuts. The gym in the hotel. I'm like, I'm staying here.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:02Joe Rogan?

  They said, no, you can't have exposed tattoos. I'm like, oh my god, that's so wild. Do you have a Yakuza gym that I could go to?

• 30:11Joe Rogan?

  That's what it is. It's all about Yakuza tattoos.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:15Joe Rogan?

  Like, look at me. Do you think I'm Yakuza?

• 30:17Speaker 01

  I know, right. It's crazy. I mean, I think it's changed a bit now, but this was...

• 30:20Joe Rogan?

  I don't know, man. This was not that long ago. I mean, I guess it was. Maybe it was 15 years ago. When was the last time the UFC was in Tokyo?

• 30:27Speaker 01

  I'm not sure.

• 30:28Joe Rogan?

  I think it was more than 15 years ago, I believe. I want to say it was like, shit. It might have been like 2009 or something like that.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Mine was 2007. I was out there fighting for cage force.

• 30:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:42Joe Rogan?

  Crazy.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:43Joe Rogan?

  I mean, that was back when they didn't have those options, like those small portable sauna options that they have now. Like, there's some of them, they have these hot boxes where it's like, they have a little tiny heater in there and you zip it up and you're in this little thing and you can kind of carry it with you on the road and you can check it with your bags.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. The blankets are really good. Veronica used that for her last couple of cuts. They're really good. But people use hot baths now. No one was hot bathing in my day.

• 31:07Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Like, if you were sweating, you were working out, you were running, you were in a sauna. You know, they were the only ways people were cutting weight. Hot bathing came in kind of towards the end of my career.

• 31:17Joe Rogan?

  What's better?

• 31:18Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, for me, I never used the hot baths. I tried it one time. I didn't really like it. And that's partly a psychological thing, I think, because for me, the hot bath was the reward after the fight. You know, so I didn't want to feel like I was relaxing the day before the fight. I was cold showered. I wanted to feel like a feral animal, to be honest.

• 31:37Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  You know, so I would cut weight on my own. I would, like, it was a process of me preparing for the fight. I always imagined it like, it's like, you know, you grab your shield and your spear and it's the march to the battlefield, you know? You don't walk out of your tent and you're on the battlefield. There's a process of getting there and the weight cut for me was a part of that. It was the suffering to get to the fight. So, like, for me, it was hot sauna, cold shower, you know?

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Treadmill, pads if I needed it. I mean, Tokyo, I didn't even have a treadmill. I just put trash bags on, cut the corners off. The old school Thai boxing way.

• 32:12Joe Rogan?

  How much did you weigh before that fight?

• 32:14Speaker 01

  I cut seven pounds and that was, and that was one of the reasons why I changed the way that I was doing it because like I should have stopped that guy in the first round and I didn't have the power to it and that was his last fight. Like he went, he passed out after the, after the fight, went to the hospital. He had a bleed on his brain. And he, he retired completely after that. He was.

• 32:33Joe Rogan?

  Who was that?

• 32:34Speaker 01

  His name was Daiso Ishige.

• 32:36Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I remember him.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was the king of pancreas. He was like twenty, he was the favorite to win the cage force tournament and I pulled him in the first round. Um, and I, I, I went out there just with the intention of doing a normal weight cut, you know, six or seven pounds. Exactly what I would normally do. I had a little bit more to cut because of the flight, but

• 32:55Speaker 01

  I honestly, hand on heart, believe that if I'd either not cut the weight or I'd cut the weight in a better way and rehydrated, I would have been able to stop him and he wouldn't have had the da, the brain damage that he, he ended up with. You know, cause like I look back to that third round and I just, I just didn't have the power. It was like a bad dream where I'm just punching him and he's just bouncing around. He's a bloody mess.

• 33:15Joe Rogan?

  Took repeated subconcussive blows.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Way more than he needed to.

• 33:20Joe Rogan?

  Oh yeah.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  And I don't know whether he cut weight as well, but certainly the thing that played into the damage that was done to him was my weight cut. You know?

• 33:29Joe Rogan?

  That's crazy. Isn't that crazy to think of?

• 33:31Speaker 01

  I just didn't wanna, I mean, and it, but again, like I have no guilt associated with that because we knew what we were doing when we got in there and I would not hold it against him if that had happened to me. You know what I mean? But in, but in hindsight, pulling the whole thing apart, like I could have been a better version of myself as a martial artist and it would have actually probably saved him some of the damage that he ended up taking in the third.

• 33:52Joe Rogan?

  My position is that the UFC and I think MMA in general, PFL, all of them, they, we need more weight classes. I don't think there's nearly enough weight classes. I think the gaps are enormous. I think the names are stupid. It's very stupid to have welterweight one seventy when welterweight has been with boxing at one forty seven forever.

• 34:14Joe Rogan?

  For a hundred years and all of a sudden the UFC comes along and decides welterweight is 170? Like, why is it called welterweight then?

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:21Joe Rogan?

  You know, imagine if you go to another country and you buy a hammer and it's a sandwich? No, I wanted a hammer. I need to build a house. What the fuck is this? It's like a totally different thing. Like, why is it 170 welterweight? Why not just call it the 170-pound division? That's what wrestling does. They just, they have divisions.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 34:38Joe Rogan?

  It doesn't need to be like a name.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:42Joe Rogan?

  The name seems silly.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  That's, that's a good point, actually. I'd not thought about that. I've actually, I actually developed a, a system of introducing weight classes over the next several years for the PFL. I mean, obviously, the problem that we have is that some weight classes are just not filling out because the fighters are just not there, unfortunately.

• 34:57Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  You know, um, but I also think that's a, that's a bit of a, that's a result of, of the monopolization and the kind of killing off of the grassroots of the sport. Because the sport's not growing like it was in my day. You know what I mean? It's, it's very, very different now.

• 35:11Joe Rogan?

  What do you think's the cause of that?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  I, I think, I think the control and the monopolization of the sport by the UFC, unfortunately.

• 35:17Joe Rogan?

  How's that stop small organizations?

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Well, because anything that starts to gather some momentum, they, they buy them out and they got rid of them. Some-

• 35:25Joe Rogan?

  Well, they certainly did buy out a bunch of organizations back in the day, right? Like, bought out Strikeforce, they bought out Pride, but they sort of bought out Pride. They got fucked.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:35Joe Rogan?

  Like, they thought they were buying out Pride. Do you know the whole deal behind that?

• 35:38Speaker 01

  They, they-

• 35:38Joe Rogan?

  All the contracts are bad.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Is that right?

• 35:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they got a fucking DVD library. Look, over time, I'm sure it's been worth it, right? But I, I believe they paid 60 million for Pride. I might be wrong about that number, but that's what I recall. And they didn't have any contracts. Like, you know, they, the contracts were all fucked up. So, like, they thought they were gonna get Fedor, they thought they were gonna get everybody. And so they got a lot of the guys to come over and sign new contracts with the UFC, like Cro Cop and Noguera and a bunch of other people. But I don't think they got nearly what they thought they were getting.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's interesting. I mean- Obviously, you know, I I love the UFC and I I've I've always held Dana and the UFC and what they've created for us in very, very high regard. But there there has, in my opinion, we've passed the tipping point now. Where now we're starting to see some of the negative effects of them kind of locking down everything. Because like there are certain organizations that are they are connected with the UFC and they're enabled by the UFC through Fight Pass. And then they become almost like the feeder leagues.

• 36:41Joe Rogan?

  Like LFA.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Exactly. But then a lot of these, a lot of those shows are now starting to get dropped off of Fight Pass. Right? And the reason for that is because Contender Series is replacing them.

• 36:50Joe Rogan?

  So which shows have been dropped off Fight Pass?

• 36:52Speaker 01

  I think LFA has just been dropped, hasn't it?

• 36:53Joe Rogan?

  Oh, has it been?

• 36:54Speaker 01

  I think so. I mean, Invictus was on there a long time ago. I think they moved away themselves, but like there are Ares was dropped a period. You know, my my wife's commentator on Ares. They they were dropped a while ago.

• 37:04Joe Rogan?

  What was Ares?

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Uh, it's the French promotion. Ares. I always say it wrong. Ares is the.

• 37:09Joe Rogan?

  And they were dropped from Fight Pass?

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I think they've been picked up again now, but you know, but this this is the this is my my thinking behind it, right? And I remember back in the day when I was fighting on Cage Warriors in in the UK and the UFC were coming over once or twice. Like, it started to kill off all the other shows because everyone was like, I'll just save my money. I'll wait for the UFC to come. Before the UFC came over and start and like state to claiming in the UK, we had a lot of shows that were kind of, you know, popping up on weekends. I was up and down the country and across Europe all the time. But then when we started having two or three UFC events a year, a lot of the smaller shows just just dropped off, died off.

• 37:48Joe Rogan?

  Do you think you so you're saying you save your money, meaning as an audience member?

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but you can't fault the UFC for that.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Oh, no, absolutely not. And look, and what they did when when the UFC landed in in Europe, they legitimized the sport. And then, you know, so so we the perspective started to change very quickly. Like when I was doing, when I had my title fight in 2010, I would say at least half of the interviews that I did was trying to justify the sport and why I was allowed to do what I did, right? That was 2010.

• 38:17Joe Rogan?

  So this is back when everybody thought it was human cockfighting still. It's football season and Uber Eats is delivering deals every game day. This week, buy a four. Signature chicken from Popeyes and get another one free on Uber Eats. When your watch party gets hungry, order in and keep everyone's attention where it matters on the game. Order a four piece signature chicken from Popeyes and get another one free. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score great deals on Uber Eats all season long because it's not football without food. Popeyes offer valid through November 1st. Add eligible menu item to order prior to checkout. Taxes, fees and terms apply. Product availability varies by region.

• 39:02Joe Rogan?

  Exclusions may apply. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Visible. As fall hits, we enter another season of change. Time to shift gears, drop the dead weight and upgrade the wardrobe for the drop in temperature. But one thing that doesn't need to change? Your phone. The smartest upgrade this season isn't a new phone. It's a better wireless plan. Switch to Visible, the ultimate wireless hack. You get unlimited 5G data and unlimited hotspot powered by Verizon for just $25 a month. That means keeping the phone you already have, ditching your overpriced phone bill and pocketing some savings for yourself. All the perks of big wireless for half the cost.

• 39:45Joe Rogan?

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• 40:04Speaker 01

  I was getting into debates with journalists about the human cockfighting thing and trying to explain.

• 40:09Joe Rogan?

  Ew. Those debates are so ew.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  But like, and imagine trying to like attach power slap onto the side of UFC when it was then. It would have just buried us, you know?

• 40:19Joe Rogan?

  I do not like power slap.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  I hate it. I hate it.

• 40:21Joe Rogan?

  I do not like it.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  And the thing is, and I'm very much, you know, as long as you're not, as long as, as long as you're not hurting anybody else or you've, you're agreeing to hurt each

• 40:29Joe Rogan?

  Right, I'm all for your ability to power slap each other.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Just separate it from MMA.

• 40:33Joe Rogan?

  And I've watched a bunch of clips. I've watched a bunch of people get Flatlined and bounce their head off the podium and fall backwards and I don't like it. My whole thing about martial arts is it's human chess. It's high level problem solving. It's you're, you know, you're working up to a moment and you're doing your very best to not get hit and hit them and a flawless performance like it's one of the things that was most impressive about Hamzat during his first few UFC fights. I think he fought like three or four fights where he took like three punches.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, Reese McKee, John Phillips, I can't remember the other one. I called a couple of those.

• 41:11Joe Rogan?

  Gerald Mershard, he took nothing.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  That was one punch.

• 41:14Joe Rogan?

  One punch, flatlined with one punch. I mean, it was, that was the craziest thing about him. It's like, look at this guy. He's not even getting hit. Like this is nuts. And when you would grab guys, they'd be helpless. I, I like skill. There's no skill in having a big hand and a fat face.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:31Joe Rogan?

  And putting, and I don't even understand why you have chalk on your face. Why do you have, or your hand?

• 41:36Speaker 01

  For grip? I don't know.

• 41:37Joe Rogan?

  Is that what it is? Is it just to like the powder flies through the air? And you know, I don't get it. Maybe dunk your head in water? I don't know.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Hey, they used to do it in the Kung Fu movies, didn't they? They used to put talc on people. So when you hit them, you get a cloud of.

• 41:50Joe Rogan?

  Did they do that?

• 41:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And hitting the watermelons with the mallets to make the noises. But again, like power slap can be, it's thing and exist, it just away from MMA, you know? And what I hate to see is the likes of Herzog and Mark Smith and Forrest like catching these unconscious guys as they're falling. It just, it attaches the sport that we've worked so hard to develop to something that is gonna, it, it does an injustice to the MMA fighters and how hard they work and how much of, of human chess MMA is.

• 42:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's, it's literally like taking, what are those fucking smash them up derby racing events? Where they crash into each other? Demolition derby, yeah. It's like a Formula One driver and being involved in demolition derby. Like that's fucking crazy.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  There's actually a reason for the chalk. It's so that they can see where the hit was made.

• 42:43Joe Rogan?

  Oh, indication of where the petition strike lands. Well, can't you see that though? They're not like moving at the speed of light.

• 42:51Speaker 03

  They're also not allowed to have excessive chalk and they can't use water. There's no excessive water. As you said, put your head in water.

• 42:56Joe Rogan?

  The idea that's.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  They're not allowed to do it.

• 42:58Joe Rogan?

  They have rules. The idea they have rules is so crazy. It's so crazy.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  But it is a reflection of how solid the UFC is right now, right? Because you go back to 2010, they couldn't have done that without having a real negative effect on the sport.

• 43:13Joe Rogan?

  I think it has a negative effect on the sport now.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  I agree with you. I just, I just think it's not, the UFC is so powerful and so strong now that like they can even take a liberty and advertise power slap off the back of it.

• 43:23Joe Rogan?

  Well.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  And get away with it.

• 43:24Joe Rogan?

  It's that, and then it's also we're in the TikTok era where it's just really all about clips. I mean, is, is power slap, does it air anywhere? Cause it aired on television for a while, right?

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Didn't they force it into the Paramount deal in some way?

• 43:37Joe Rogan?

  Did they?

• 43:38Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 43:38Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. I think it's much more digestible in these very short clips. Uh, you know, I don't think there's a person like, there's some fucking hardcore MMA fans who can tell you about guys that are competing in the amateurs and tough enough. And they're making their way to the UFC and they're fighting in the LFA. There's, there's guys who are coming in their debuts and you can watch YouTube videos of guys breaking down these guys' skill sets. And you never even heard of these cats, guys who are fighting in Russia, guys who are fighting in Brazil and. There's no power slap hardcore fans. There's no like this guy, fucking, you gotta see him slap. You gotta see him take a slap. You gotta see the way she stares down her opponent before she gets slapped like.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:22Joe Rogan?

  It's not the same, man. It's not, I mean, you can watch it. You could do it. I don't have a problem with it. This is America. I believe in freedom. But don't do it. That's what I'd say. I'd say, don't do it. You come to me, I'm saying, don't do it.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  As a recommendation, you can do it, right? Like, don't like, you know, whatever you would recommend, but like.

• 44:40Joe Rogan?

  Well, I'd also say, don't do jackass. And I have those guys on my show all the time.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:45Joe Rogan?

  Every time I talk to Steve, I'm like, fuck, can you do it, man? Why are you doing that?

• 44:49Speaker 01

  He's a special type, man. He's a special type.

• 44:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Johnny Knoxville told me he's been knocked out 16 times, out cold. Like, that's way too many. That's way too many.

• 44:59Joe Rogan?

  That's nuts.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 45:01Joe Rogan?

  I mean, you have zero fights on your record. I mean KO'd 16 times. That's, that's real bad.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Hey, he's got well paid out of it though. He's, you know.

• 45:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  You find someone else that got knocked out 16 times and uh.

• 45:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, right. That's a good point.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  How much did they make from it?

• 45:15Joe Rogan?

  That's a good point, yeah.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  I mean, that's the other thing with these power slap guys is like, they're making pocket money.

• 45:21Joe Rogan?

  How much do they make?

• 45:22Speaker 01

  I don't know, three and three, five and five.

• 45:25Joe Rogan?

  Three?

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was chatting to someone in Vegas and, and she, she didn't want to do it, but she was like, I, I don't have a choice. I can't get MMA fights.

• 45:33Joe Rogan?

  Why?

• 45:34Speaker 01

  She just couldn't get MMA fights. Too, she was too big for most of the weight classes.

• 45:37Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  You know?

• 45:39Joe Rogan?

  But. That's a problem.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:41Joe Rogan?

  Look at poor Kayla.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:44Joe Rogan?

  She's gotta make 135. Every time I see her in between fights, I'm like, how? How do you get to 135? You're as big as me. This is crazy.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Crazy. Yeah, I saw, I saw her the other week in Pittsburgh and she's, I mean, she's, she's huge.

• 45:56Joe Rogan?

  She's gigantic. Yeah, she's got phenomenal genetics. Yeah, she's got that neck scar. Yeah, she got an artificial disc. Which is, it's really interesting that they could do that now and guys go, look, Al Jermain did it and came back better than ever. I mean, that was, I mean, everybody was so upset at him, the way he won the title with Piotr Jan. But he had a legitimate neck issue going into that fight and that illegal knee that he took to the head really did fuck him up.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:21Joe Rogan?

  And then he went and got an artificial disc put in his neck and then came back and dominated in the rematch. And then, did you see him in his last fight?

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:30Joe Rogan?

  Fucking dude, man. That guy has the best back control in the game. His back control is so elite. He's, it's, it's really incredible. Cause he gets a hold of your back, man. It's like, my god.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. See that, and I don't, I don't mean to keep picking on officials, but that is a, that's another situation where I actually feel quite bad for Aljo. That he had to put on that performance and damage his brand in such a way because he didn't want to continue fighting.

• 46:56Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Right? Like, and, and the officials are put in a circumstance where they don't have the confidence to just go, no, hang on a minute, that was bad.

• 47:04Joe Rogan?

  Fight's over.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Fight's done.

• 47:05Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right. Well, you want to give a guy the opportunity to fight still. So you don't, this is the thing about damage. You don't know, looking. Some guys can take a shot like that and then they bounce back and they're fine. Look, Bisping, Bisping came back and won that fight after that flying knee. You know, and you really gotta kind of like let the fighter, if the fighter's conscious, you gotta let them decide whether or not they can, because you don't know. It's not possible to tell by looking at someone what kind of damage they've got, especially Aljo with the neck. Neck situations are so bad, man. But, but the crazy thing is that with these artificial discs now, like Weidman got one.

• 47:45Joe Rogan?

  Um, there's a few, quite a few guys that have gotten artificial discs in, in their neck now. And then they go back to finding, which is crazy.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  I wonder how that changes the way that the head twists.

• 47:56Joe Rogan?

  I don't know.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Like, one thing I noticed on Joel Romero.

• 47:58Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, that's different.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Twist, but he's got, his neck's fused, right?

• 48:02Joe Rogan?

  His neck is fused to the ba- base of his skull.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  So like, how do you, how do you turn his head to, to cause concussion?

• 48:08Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. Well, there's a good argument that it makes him more durable. Do you remember when Derek Brunson head kicked him?

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:15Joe Rogan?

  He hit him with a neck kick, like right here. He didn't even budge. Because you're, you're hitting a steel bar.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  So then, so then think, didn't Tiger Woods have some kind of eye surgery so his eye was 2010? So he has better edge and, uh, better depth perception for golf? I'm pretty sure he did.

• 48:31Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure he had something done to his eyes.

• 48:33Joe Rogan?

  Put that into our sponsor, Perplexity Chain.

• 48:38Joe Rogan?

  What did they do? They could do that?

• 48:40Speaker 03

  He got Lasik.

• 48:41Joe Rogan?

  So did he have bad eyes and he got them better? Or did he have good eyes and said, what can you do? Can you make me have fucking superhuman eyes?

• 48:49Speaker 03

  Uh, to correct nearsightedness, it improved him to 2015 vision.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  2015. So he wasn't improved to 2020?

• 48:57Joe Rogan?

  The problem with that. Is with these surgeries, if you have macular degeneration and it continues to progress, you are going to need it again.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 49:07Joe Rogan?

  Or it's gonna get worse. Like Ari Shafir got Lasik and he's like, oh, it's amazing. I have 2020 vision because he had terrible vision before and then it started going to shit after a while because it just kept deteriorating. And now his eyes suck.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  The thing is, you know, athletes, like if, I mean, and I think it was a poll done a while ago with Olympians, like if you can win a gold medal, but you're gonna live to 30 or 35, would you take the gold medal? And a good portion of them said, yes, they absolutely would. Most athletes, in order to achieve their goals, would do absolutely anything.

• 49:38Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  So if I, if I all of a sudden discovered that having your neck fuse like your Romero means that you've got a 30% chance of, you know, less chance of getting knocked out, how many fighters do you think would have their neck fuse, just to give them the advantage, right?

• 49:52Joe Rogan?

  How about that Tommy John surgery that people get electively so they could pitch better? Before surgery, he was extremely nearsighted. He had an 11 prescription. I don't know what that, minus 11, essentially legally blind without glasses or contacts. Whoa. And one of the greatest golfers of all time, if not the greatest. First Lasik was done after his 1999 PGA Championship win.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, here you go. Results and impact on his golf. Woods reportedly achieved about 2015 vision, better than the standard 2020, meaning he could see more detail at distance than the average person.

• 50:27Joe Rogan?

  Interesting. He described the cup and ball as looking larger and said his ability to read greens improved and he went on a notable win streak, winning five PGA Tour events in a row right after the surgery. Wow.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  But that, that links into the stoned ape theory, though, if we're going in a massive circle, right? Because microdosing mushrooms gives you better edge and depth perception.

• 50:49Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  So then the theory was that you would have better chances of surviving.

• 50:54Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Either as, you know, not becoming prey or finding prey.

• 50:57Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Right?

• 50:58Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, better vision would make you hornier. So it'd make you more likely to breed and it also makes you more creative. And, you know, Terrence McKenna and Dennis McKenna link it to the creation of language.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Fascinating.

• 51:11Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it's very fascinating.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  I I used to remember when I was in Vegas, I had a a room in my house, which I think we talked about it before, which was the mushroom. And I would like, once a week, I would like, clear the day and I would have ceremony on a Saturday in the evening. I'd get up on Sunday morning and go out into Red Rock and I'd do trail running. But like, at the point where, you know, I took six or seven grams the night before, so now I've probably got the equivalent of two, three grams in my system. But I'm I'm running in Vibram's downhill and I'm I'm I'm like, like a cat. I can I can see the ground in a much different way to how I would if I was completely straight. So, you know.

• 51:47Joe Rogan?

  That's exciting.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  There are some fighters that have been microdosing through fights as well. I won't throw them under the bus.

• 51:52Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I know a few.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Joe Schilling talked pretty openly about it.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  He's got a fight coming up.

• 51:57Joe Rogan?

  Does he? Joe's back?

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Fighting in Brussels.

• 51:59Joe Rogan?

  Is he doing PFL?

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:01Joe Rogan?

  Interesting.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:02Joe Rogan?

  Interesting. How old's Joe now?

• 52:04Speaker 01

  I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I I sparred with him at Frank Mir's gym in Vegas a few years ago, Suffer. Obviously, I knew Joe Schilling, who he was, and, you know, the gym that he created in L.A. had a real reputation and all that kind of stuff.

• 52:16Joe Rogan?

  Forty-two. Damn. Wow.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  But he was just, he was standing outside the back, just smoking a cigarette, came in, put his gloves on and just beat the snot out of me, you know what I mean? Such a good fighter.

• 52:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he's a beast kickboxer, man. I I was at the Last Man Standing event in L.A. when he fought. Like, that was really crazy, because you had to fight multiple kickboxing fights in a day. And, you know, this was Glory. This was like, who used to run Bellator? What was the guy who ran Bellator?

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Not Scott Coker.

• 52:47Joe Rogan?

  No. Yeah, no, it is Scott Coker, because there was a guy before Scott, right?

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Was it Bjorn? Bjorn Redman?

• 52:53Joe Rogan?

  Right. So he left and then Scott took, and Scott was also involved in Bellator.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:57Joe Rogan?

  Or, excuse me, with Glory, right?

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Was it Strikeforce?

• 53:02Joe Rogan?

  Scott Coker ran Strikeforce?

• 53:04Speaker 01

  He founded Strikeforce.

• 53:04Joe Rogan?

  So who ran Bellator?

• 53:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, Bjorn founded it and then Scott Coker.

• 53:09Joe Rogan?

  Right. Okay, right. So that is correct. Okay. I think he was involved in Glory, too.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:15Joe Rogan?

  And I think I remember I went up to him and I said, this is awesome, but don't do this. Don't have people fight multiple times in a night. It's just like, because you get a concussion and no one even knows about it. Like, there's been a lot of fights where guys got concussions and they didn't get knocked out. And then you have to fight again in an hour, and then you fight again forty-five minutes after that, like. Man, that's a recipe for people getting fucked up. I know they did it back in the old days in hardcore and all that stuff, it's all great, but man, don't do that.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  But you look at some of those first round matchups when they were doing that, and you're like, hmm, okay, I can see what you're doing here. You know what I mean?

• 53:50Joe Rogan?

  Give people easier fights in the beginning.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  So they're ultimately trying to-

• 53:53Joe Rogan?

  Sometimes, but it's, I think it's kinda random, you know, sometimes you get a tough one.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Especially with the heavyweight K1. I mean, you know, like some of those guys, you fight Hung Man Choi or Bob Stapp, no matter how confident you are in your skillset, just the sheer size of them is a problem.

• 54:05Joe Rogan?

  Yes, those had, the fucking K1 tournaments were bananas, man. Woo, they were so good.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Especially the lightweights.

• 54:13Joe Rogan?

  I had a friend of mine in Canada that, uh, used to get me VHS tapes back in the day. I don't, I think he had like a satellite dish or some shit, I, I forget how he was getting them, but he was getting them and then he was sending them to me. K1, Heroes, all these, uh, like real obscure events he would send me.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 54:30Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I had a, I don't know where the fuck they are now, I think they might even be in my LA house. But I had a giant box filled with VHS tapes. There were all kinds of old school fights.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  I used to have a, I used to have a, like a CD, like a zip CD thing that used to take with me. And I had a guy at my gym and he would, five pounds, he would burn me Pride or K1 Heroes or whatever, and he was finding them online and just ripping it and, you know, selling them in the gym. But I had a whole database of stuff, IFL and, you know, all those old shows, K1 Heroes, I loved.

• 55:01Joe Rogan?

  You know, that's kind of partially how I got the job with the UFC. Um, when I first met Dana, like he just, he got me tickets because it was the, I was on Fear Factor. And the UFC, they just purchased it, so this is 2001. This is, uh, right post 9/11 when Tito Ortiz fought Vladimir Matyushenko, came out with the American flag, everybody went crazy. And, um, I started talking to him about like Japan Valley Tudo, and do you know about this guy, do you know about that guy? And I was, I was just like rattling off all these fighters that he had never heard of before. I was talking about all these guys that are fighting out of Russia, all these guys in Japan. And then we started talking, and then next thing you know, he's like, do you wanna do commentary? I was like, oh, I just wanna, I just wanna watch.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  And you never thought about it? Before commentary.

• 55:47Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 55:48Joe Rogan?

  No, well, I worked for the UFC before that.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:50Joe Rogan?

  As the post-fight interviewer, but that was in ninety-seven, UFC twelve.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  I remember.

• 55:54Joe Rogan?

  And so I did it from ninety-seven to ninety-eight, and then it was costing me money. Cause I would make way more money if I'd go work out at a comedy club for the weekend than I would doing this. But it was fun. So I did it for a little while, but then it was like, I think it was UFC Japan. They wanted me to fly to Japan. And Frank Shamrock was fighting Kevin Jackson? Is that who it was? Um, I think he won by first round arm bar. And I was like, I'm not going to fuck in Japan, man. I can't, no, I'm done. So I quit. I was like, I love you guys. It was fun. Good time while it lasted.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  Did you feel like it was gonna go where it went though?

• 56:32Joe Rogan?

  No, I thought they were fucked.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Really?

• 56:34Joe Rogan?

  It was funny because, you know, Eddie Bravo and I were backstage at one of these events, like way, you know, I met Eddie way back in the day. So it was like, this is like ninety-seven, ninety-eight. Eddie and I were backstage, like, we were like, you know what this fucking sport needs? Some crazy billionaires with a ton of money who love the sport. Who just, because we know it's so exciting, and we know people would think it's so exciting. It just needs to be in everybody's face. And then who comes along? The Fertitas. It's like we manifested them.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:01Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It was crazy, cause like, you know, uh, the, one of the, the first events that I did for the UFC, I did for free. I did like the first fifteen events for free. And I just said, just get my friends' tickets. So it was like Eddie and I would go and, uh, you know, we'd be like, bro, it's fucking happening. It's actually happening. But even back then, it wasn't famous. It was just, it was in Vegas and it was, you know, it was kind of getting a little bit of attention. It wasn't until two thousand and five that, that Forrest Whitaker, that the, the main event, um, of, um, rather, excuse me, Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner, main event of, um, the Ultimate Fighter, that one fight changed everything.

• 57:42Joe Rogan?

  It was really crazy where like, the stars align with one fight, the whole sport takes off.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:49Joe Rogan?

  Cause it really was that. Can't believe I called him Forrest Whitaker, but.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did the on commentary. I called Robert Whitaker Forrest Whitaker live on commentary.

• 57:58Joe Rogan?

  I've called people, I fucked up Juliana Peña's name once. I've, I've fucked people's names up. It's like you have so many names in your head. That's what people don't understand. Like, we, you and I, between you and I, we probably have 500 fighters' names in our head. And then plus jujitsu guys, plus wrestlers, plus boxers. Like, oh my god, there's so many names in your head.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then project that into the history of the sport now, because we've got the history of the sport and the history of boxing on top of that as well.

• 58:26Joe Rogan?

  The way I describe my memory, it's like I have a whole bunch of boxes of folders. And if I find that box, I can open that bitch up and talk to you about Marvin Hagler versus Juan Roldan, and it'll tell you, like, the dock down was fake and this and that, and Hagler went on to stop him. I'll, I'll tell you details. But if I don't have that folder in front of me, I'm like, uh. I don't know the why. I don't know why I can't, like, immediately remember sometimes. But sometimes I could pull that box out and it's right there, and I can just get that folder out and boom.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Do you, do you remember the first time you sat down at the commentary booth and put the headset on?

• 59:01Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes. That was UFC 37 and a half.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  London?

• 59:06Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Oh, no, of course.

• 59:08Joe Rogan?

  It was...

• 59:08Speaker 01

  It was just after that, though, right? UFC 38 was London.

• 59:11Joe Rogan?

  Well, it was 37 and a half because it was like a, it was an event they put together for Best Damn Sports Show.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:19Joe Rogan?

  So remember Best Damn Sports Show, which was on Fox Sports, I think? Fox Sports Net? And so, um, what it was, was they had this opportunity to do a show, and this is when Dana asked me to do commentary, and I just did it as a favor. He goes, "It'd be great if you did it, because it was the Fear Factor days, and it was Chuck Liddell versus Vitor Belfort." And I said, "Oh, fuck yeah, I'll do it." And I think, oh, I don't remember who else. I think Robbie Lawler might have made his debut.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Steve Berger versus Robbie Lawler.

• 59:47Joe Rogan?

  That's right. Thank you, sir. Yeah, um, so it was, uh, it was fun. And I did it once, and then they asked me, "Would you do it again?" I'm like, "Uh, okay, I'll do it again." But it was really just, I just kept doing it. It wasn't a job. Like I, like I said, I didn't even ask for money. I did like 15 of them, and then finally Dana says, "Look, I wanna..." Signed you to a contract, I want to pay you, I was like, okay. Alright, I was like reluctantly got dragged into being a commentator.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:17Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by Visible. Ah, spring is in the air, which means time for some spring cleaning. We're cleaning out the garage and finally tossing those mystery cords. But while you're cleaning out your junk drawer, take a look at your wireless bill. Don't fall for wireless traps, tacked-on fees, confusing bills, and empty promises. Join Visible and cut out the nonsense. With Visible, you get unlimited 5G data and hotspot on Verizon's network for one flat cost. Just $25 a month, taxes and fees included. It's everything you need and nothing you don't.

• 1:01:00Joe Rogan?

  Plus, for a limited time, new members can get the Visible Plan for just $20 a month for one year using code FRESHSTART. Refresh your wireless with Visible. Head to visible.com to get started. Terms apply, limited time offer, subject to change. See visible.com for plan features and network management details.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  That's kind of cool, yeah, it's similar to me though, really. I mean, I was, because I'd been sidelined, because, you know, because of my heart situation, and they wouldn't clear me in California, so then the UFC just wouldn't match me anywhere. Um, and I'd had a, I'd had like a month or two of just kind of wallowing and being depressed and, you know, avoiding MMA gyms and, uh, Lorenzo had invited me into the offices on Sahara. And, and I'd gone and sat with him and we were chatting through and he said, hey, you know, I'm gonna send you out to California, I want you to go and see my specialist, you know, my family specialist, and get a second opinion, etc. But he said, also, we've got another plan for you. Uh, he said, I won't spoil it, at some point you'll see Dana, and Dana will tell you what the plan is.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  And as I was, it was like a movie, as I was walking out of the offices, a stretch monster Hummer pulled up.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Literally, I'm like, what's going on here? And Dana got out and, and, and he was like, hell, just a fucking blah, blah, blah. I just wanted to see. He was like, I want you to go to the UK. I want you to be an ambassador. I want you to do commentary. And I said, that's great. You know, let me know what I need media training. He's like, no, none of that. I just want you to be you sitting cage side. And I remember getting to the first UFC London event and sat down at the desk, just fighting imposter syndrome bad. And seeing all the, all the fans starting to trickle into the arena. And then someone on the, on the, from the truck came through and he, and said, oh, I've just realized we've not practiced any post-fight interviews. I said, oh, I'd not really thought about it, but it's just talking to fighters. I'd be fine. He said, no, no, no, I would, I'd feel better if we practiced. I said, okay.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  He said, okay, uh, Brad Pickett wins by knockout. Go. I'm like, how did you knock him out? Was my first question. And it was weird because it was like, I'd not even thought about it up until that point. But when they raised the, when they, when they, they asked me to do the, the kind of practice rehearsal with not any scenario that was realistic. Then all of a sudden I started to panic. Cause I, but I, I, I remember sitting there feeling like a, like a 14 year old. Like someone's going to tap me on the shoulder in a minute and throw me out.

• 1:03:33Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  So weird, yeah.

• 1:03:35Joe Rogan?

  That's funny.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Felt really weird.

• 1:03:36Joe Rogan?

  That's interesting. I don't remember if I felt imposter syndrome. I think because I wasn't getting paid, I probably thought it was just fun.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:44Joe Rogan?

  I probably didn't think it was a job. So I probably thought like, oh, they just want me to do this because I'm famous and it would be good to, for the sport. If the Fear Factor guy is enthusiastic about the sport. So that's how I thought about it. And so like, I would go on like the Howard Stern show and stuff and we'd wind up just talking about the UFC. And this was, again, I wasn't even working for the UFC. I was there to promote Fear Factor. But I was talking about how much I loved UFC and I just, I think it's awesome. And back when I was competing, no one knew what the best sport. It's so hard for people to recognize that today because it's not that long ago, you know? Like when I was, last time I fought was like 88 or 89.

• 1:04:29Joe Rogan?

  You would think like, we kind of had it sorted out back then, but you didn't, no one knew. No one knew like, what was the best thing to study? I remember I went to this gym. A friend of mine was teaching at this university and I would go and train with him and his students sometime. And I would go there and they had a judo program there and I'd be like, look at these suckers practicing this stupid judo. Like this is useless. You can't even kick anybody.

• 1:04:54Joe Rogan?

  Meanwhile, all those guys would have killed me. They would have just grabbed me and fucking thrown me on my head, but I didn't think that. I was totally delusional. I thought I was gonna kick them into the fucking shadow realm. And no one knew what the right thing to study was. If you took kung fu, you thought kung fu was the shit. Bruce Lee, right, I'm wearing a Bruce Lee shirt. He was really the only guy that was wise enough to realize you just gotta take a little bit from everything. And having one style, whether it was his initial style, which was Wing Chun or, you know, whatever it is, karate, that's not the way. The way is the right way to win. In close quarter combat, you need to learn how to grapple. You need to learn boxing. You need to learn how to block correctly. You need to learn how to kick correctly.

• 1:05:37Joe Rogan?

  Back then, we didn't know and we always wondered, like, what would happen if they did like a fucking, put a bunch of guys together? And I knew Benny the Jet had competed in some weird stuff in Hawaii, but no one really knew. So when it was finally happening, to me, I was like a little kid. I was like, oh my god, it's happening. It's really happening. Yeah. And I was like, please let this work. Please let this work. And then to watch the evolution of it from the beginning, which is just Hoist going in there and dominating everybody, because no one knew jujitsu. And he had the gi on, so he had all this friction. It was amazing. And then everybody took jujitsu, including me. I'm like, I gotta learn jujitsu.

• 1:06:17Joe Rogan?

  And then to watch the evolution, like these giant juiced up fucking wrestlers come along, like Mark Coleman, Smat and Mark Kerr, smashing everybody. You're like, oh my god, you've gotta get on the sauce. And so everybody, you know, Vitor got up to like 240 pounds and his fucking neck started at the top of his head. 18, do you remember that, 18? Oh yeah, bro. I was training at the same gym as him when he made his UFC debut. So I was training at Carlson Gracie's Gym.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  So you kinda knew what was coming then?

• 1:06:42Joe Rogan?

  Well, I didn't. I knew he was awesome. But I didn't know how good his hands were, cuz I only saw him doing jiu-jitsu.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:06:50Joe Rogan?

  Right? But I knew he was a beast, like, and he was a black belt in jiu-jitsu at the time and, you know, a phenomenal athlete, just so fast. But then I saw a video of him, he fought John Hess in Hawaii. Do you remember John Hess?

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:07:03Joe Rogan?

  Safda fighting?

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:05Joe Rogan?

  So John Hess was this giant guy, he's like 6'7" or something like that, and Vitor just fucking took him to the ground and bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing! Hit him with like 30 fucking unanswered punches in a row, like, in three seconds, like and put him away. And then they're screaming, "Jiu-jitsu, jiu-jitsu!" And I was like, "Wait a minute."

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Joe Rogan?

  This is not, I mean, I get it, you know jiu-jitsu, but that was boxing.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Joe Rogan?

  You used, you used striking. But it was like, to be there at the very beginning and watch this evolution. There it is. There's Vitor. Look at this. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  Look at his legs shaking.

• 1:07:40Joe Rogan?

  My god. And look how thin Vitor was back then.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:44Joe Rogan?

  That was Vitor at like, you know, 199 pounds, maybe.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Terrifying.

• 1:07:48Joe Rogan?

  Maybe 190. Oh, he was so fast. And so that was there for his UFC debut. So that was UFC 12. So, he fought Trey Tellegman, and Trey Tellegman like had no idea that this guy could box that way. Like, no one did. They thought, "He's a Carlson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu black belt," it was like, "Okay." You know, avoid the takedowns, this guy's really good on the ground, and he just starts tuning people up with his hands.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Tellegman was Lions then, wasn't he?

• 1:08:13Joe Rogan?

  Yup.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  He was one of Ken Shamrock's guys. Did he ever miss in PEC?

• 1:08:16Joe Rogan?

  Yes. He was in a car accident, I believe, when he was a child.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Oh, is that right?

• 1:08:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And he, his PEC was not attached on one side. He was fucking jacked, dude. And then he fought Scott Ferroso after that, who was like a giant fat guy. He was also like a tank, you know, like a huge fucking knockout artist. And Vitor tuned him up too, just the speed he had. So this is like, you know, nineteen ninety seven. And it was, it was wild and that was in like a high school auditorium in Dothan, Alabama. It was like really weird.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 1:08:49Joe Rogan?

  Like this is so, these place, these are, it's so strange. These events were so bizarre. You know, I was hanging out with the Lions Den guys, we'd go drinking together and stuff. It was fun, but it was just weird. It was like, what is this thing that we're doing? This is it. The Dothan Civic Center, that's what it was. Look how small it is. Look how little that place is.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  Ninety seven.

• 1:09:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  So that would have been the time when I was, I was at art college.

• 1:09:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  And I would, I went to, I went to Virgin Megastore, there you are, look.

• 1:09:17Joe Rogan?

  Jeff Blatnick, he was the fucking man.

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  I went to Virgin Megastore and uh, look how, you're beautiful, man, look at.

• 1:09:24Joe Rogan?

  I was so pretty. And no one taught, no one told me what to do. No one gave me any instruction, nothing. They gave me a microphone and then said, we're gonna come to you backstage. I'm like, what do you want me to say? Like literally, it was fucking nothing. It was nothing.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  You probably knew better than everybody else, though.

• 1:09:43Joe Rogan?

  Well, luckily, I was a huge fan, so it was pretty easy. I got the job because um, they had a guy that was doing it before and they got rid of him. And Campbell McLaren, who was one of the producers, was good friends with my comedy manager. And they were, he was just casually talking, it's like, we're looking for someone to do post-fight interviews. And then he's like, Joe loves the UFC. And he's like, you think you'd do it? And so they called me up, I was like, fuck yeah, let's go. It was like, this is, and this is, so it was like ninety seven, I guess I was thirty, yeah.

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  Is this how the judges used to announce their picks? They just held up a whiteboard?

• 1:10:19Joe Rogan?

  I guess so.

• 1:10:20Speaker 03

  There was a bunch of rules at the beginning that seemed very strange to me too, I saw, they had overtime rules.

• 1:10:25Joe Rogan?

  Ooh, I forgot about that.

• 1:10:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, they had, they called them laws of the octagon.

• 1:10:29Joe Rogan?

  Valigi.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  He was a lunatic.

• 1:10:33Joe Rogan?

  Oh, he was a mad man. Mad dog.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it says.

• 1:10:36Joe Rogan?

  No biting, no eye gouging, no fish hooking. That was it. You could hit people in nuts.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  That's it. That's it. I've got a, I'll tell you what, I've got a piece of my gum missing from someone trying to fish hook me.

• 1:10:47Joe Rogan?

  Oh, God.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  They took a piece of the gum away with their fingernail.

• 1:10:50Joe Rogan?

  Ooh.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  I'm gonna have to get, I'm gonna have to get something done. I've got some teeth that need fixing at some point.

• 1:10:53Joe Rogan?

  Oh, Jesus Christ.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  Not nice.

• 1:10:55Joe Rogan?

  Ay, ay, ay.

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  Fish hooking, dangerous.

• 1:10:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's nasty. If someone's fish hooks you, you should bite their fucking fingers.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  Oh, I think so.

• 1:11:01Joe Rogan?

  You should be able to bite them. Like, fuck you. Get your fucking fingers out of my mouth, motherfucker.

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  You know, that's, that's interesting about commentary. I've, I've always wondered because you, everybody came after you, right? When it comes, when it comes to MMA commentary. So like, like in the early days when I was first doing the job, no one knows what a color commentator or a play-by-play commentator is back in the day.

• 1:11:21Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  I think there's more of an understanding now. So, so my, my response to everybody is I'm, I'm gonna try and do Joe's job. You know what I mean? But you'd set the bar so high. I think partly that's what fed into my imposter syndrome. I'm sitting there and, look, I, I know, uh, the podcast that you did with, with Dustin, I appreciate all the kind words you did. I wanna throw it back to you though, because you were the person that raised the bar for everybody else to reach. You know, so, and I didn't realize, cause I never had the intention of being a commentator. Like, it just came off the back of my career because my career was ended abruptly. So then, anyone that ever says, oh, you, you, you're actually pretty good at this. The reason why is just because I listened to you religiously. Like, a lot of people watch the fights and don't pay attention to the commentary.

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  Like, I tuned in. I was paying attention to everything that you said. So even, even the delivery and the cadence and stuff, what you did laid the foundation for me to learn. So I very, very much appreciate that.

• 1:12:14Joe Rogan?

  Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. It was accidental.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  Same for me, but, but, but it can't have been accidental because I had somebody to, to learn from, you know? That's why I asked you, because you didn't have anybody that kinda, kinda, you know?

• 1:12:27Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. If you're thinking about building a website, you should try Squarespace. I know because I use it. That's right, JoeRogan.com is powered by Squarespace. It has all the features that you need to create a standout website like an AI-enhanced website builder, SEO optimization tools, and seamless checkouts with mobile pay links. Head to Squarespace.com/Rogan for a free trial. And when you are ready to launch, use the offer code ROGEN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. After a year away, Canelo Alvarez is back in the ring, October 31st, facing undefeated

• 1:13:11Joe Rogan?

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• 1:14:08Joe Rogan?

  Well, it was weird because I think I was one of the first people to do it that had a real understanding of jiu-jitsu. So when the fights would go to the ground, the play-by-play guy would have, you know, like Goldberg, great guy, didn't train, didn't know what the fuck was happening. So I would have to, and also people at home, what's going on? So I'd have to walk them through exactly when someone's in danger and why they're in danger and how they can get out of it and when they're They're free. Okay, see his elbow? He's free now. He's good. And so, my mind is spinning like a hundred miles an hour. I'm like, now I don't have to do that as much because people kind of understand things much more. But there's certain situations and certain positions where I would have to say,

• 1:14:51Joe Rogan?

  no, this is a submission. Like, he's, he's very close here. Like, okay, now he's got to cinch it up, he's got to put his ankle behind his leg. There he's got it! And you'd have to like, talk people through it. So it was, it was different than any other sport because it was, you're kind of like educating people on what's happening. Like, I couldn't use obscure, even though I used obscure term like, you know, crackhead control or something like weird, stuff like that, that Eddie comes up with these fucking ridiculous names for submissions and positions. But, I would have to explain why this works, and what's happening, and what's going on, and what's, what's in danger. You know, and it was weird because I felt like this obligation to jujitsu, that, that was the one thing, like, you could, if someone kicks you in the head, you get it.

• 1:15:35Joe Rogan?

  Someone knees someone in the head, oh, he hit him with a flying knee, you get it. But, explaining to someone like, what like, you know, a calf crusher is. Like, that's, that's a weird fucking position.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:48Joe Rogan?

  Like, what is going on there? You know, explaining to someone, you know, why a triangle works and why it doesn't work, and why someone's safe, you know, with a head and arm choke. Why, okay, he's okay, he's got his hand over his ear. There's, it was all this weird stuff where it was partially trying to be entertaining, but also trying to educate. And I had to kind of figure it out, as I did it.

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:16:12Joe Rogan?

  You know, as I called, I don't know how many fights I've called. Probably thousands.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I've called a lot, and you've, you've been doing it a lot longer than me.

• 1:16:20Joe Rogan?

  Well, I don't do as many now, you know, I only do North American pay-per-views, and I don't even do, I don't even go to Canada anymore, so fuck them. I love Canadians. It's the government that fucking creeps me out. But, um, the, the amount I was doing back then, I was doing like twenty shows plus a year, twenty-two shows a year.

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:38Joe Rogan?

  So I was doing a show almost every other weekend, I was flying somewhere.

• 1:16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:42Joe Rogan?

  And it was exhausting. It was a really, it was a problem. But, it was, and at one point in time, it became really my main job after Fear Factor was over. And, uh, I loved it, but the, the traveling was brutal. You'd go to Australia, you'd come back from Australia, and now you're going to Dallas, you're going to Dallas, you're going to New York, it's like...

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was in Australia, first time I went to Australia with the UFC, it was a fifty-six hour round trip and I was on the ground for thirty hours.

• 1:17:07Joe Rogan?

  You feel like you're on drugs. You feel like, like someone gave me a drug. I don't even know where I am.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:12Joe Rogan?

  I loved it though. I loved being there. I was like, wow, what a crazy country. You guys are on the other side of the planet and you're all cool and the food's great.

• 1:17:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:20Joe Rogan?

  It's fun.

• 1:17:20Speaker 01

  And I got all the, I got all the gigs that most people didn't wanna do. So like, I was, I was being sent to all of the farthest reaches, you know what I mean? Like, I, I did, I mean, Singapore, I loved, Japan, I loved, you know, going out to Australia to do those events. I did a lot of the Russian events, you know? I was even back at one time in case Bruce Buffer didn't make it, I was gonna be the

• 1:17:38Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  MC as well, yeah.

• 1:17:39Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow. That's crazy. That's a hard job.

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:17:44Joe Rogan?

  That guy set the bar.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:46Joe Rogan?

  He almost dies every event.

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:17:49Joe Rogan?

  We were, we're looking at him like, one day is gonna be allowed, cause he, you know, Bruce has gotta be like seventy years old now, right?

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:56Joe Rogan?

  It's like, one day that motherfucker's gonna stroke out in the middle of, "Ahhhh, Sonja!" And just fucking pop. Blood starts leaking, that's it.

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  But if you ask Bruce, that's the way we'd like to go, you know?

• 1:18:08Joe Rogan?

  That's how you'd wanna go.

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  One of my craziest experiences, I, I remember, I remember coming down a, a, a, a slide, like a metal slide, from the Great Wall of China.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  With Bruce Buffer in front of me and Uriah Faber behind me. And we're going down on these like rugs on the way down from, just weird experiences that you have on the road with UFC, you know what I mean? Yeah, that was good. I've always, always loved Bruce.

• 1:18:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he's a great guy.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  That's another thing as well, is like, and you'll remember this from, but, you know, back when I made my debut, like, I would get into it with Bruce. Like, I'd be like calling Bruce on and, and like, and he always used to come to me. I loved it. Cause it was, just the idea of, of, of hearing Bruce Buffer say my name was just wild to me.

• 1:18:50Joe Rogan?

  The Outlaw, Hardy!

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  Dude, I would get goosebumps.

• 1:18:54Joe Rogan?

  We always talk about like, whether or not it's, um, a jinx to fist bump Buffer.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  Completely.

• 1:19:01Joe Rogan?

  You know, like me and Anik were talking about it, but I was like, no, Khabib fist bumped him every time. So it can't be a jinx.

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:07Joe Rogan?

  Cause you look for jinxes. Look for things that are a bad omen or a bad sign, you know?

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, weirdly superstitious, aren't we? We like to hang stuff on things that aren't our responsibility.

• 1:19:18Joe Rogan?

  Isn't that weird?

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  It is strange.

• 1:19:19Joe Rogan?

  Especially with fighters. Fighters are super, superstitious.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:23Joe Rogan?

  They get real weird about the, the things they do, their rituals before fights, what they, what they eat, where they like, what they wear.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And, and like some of the things that they do like, I mean, like Ben Henderson with the toothpick.

• 1:19:36Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  Like crazy, yeah.

• 1:19:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I was interviewing him post-fight, I'm like, you got a toothpick in your mouth? And he got in trouble for that.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, dangerous though, especially if you know you get knocked out and that toothpick's going down your throat.

• 1:19:48Joe Rogan?

  I just didn't understand why he did it.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  Seems like a bit of a, bit of a safety blanket, almost. It's like a familiarity that it's there.

• 1:19:54Joe Rogan?

  It's the weirdest one of all time. A toothpick in your mouth? Like, okay.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, very strange. I like a toothpick, but not during a fight.

• 1:20:01Joe Rogan?

  That dude's still had it. Which is crazy.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  He's got a fight coming up in Brussels.

• 1:20:04Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:20:05Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a rough fight as well.

• 1:20:06Joe Rogan?

  How old is he now?

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  Forty-four?

• 1:20:09Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  Fighting a kid called Patrick Haberora. Good Belgian fighter. Yeah. It's interesting though, I mean, you know, you've got, got a former champ with all that experience.

• 1:20:19Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, he's still in great shape.

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:22Joe Rogan?

  He still can compete at a high level. It's just, wow, these guys, when they're, they're competing for that long, it's so nuts.

• 1:20:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. You, you know what I, what I've, and I suggested, as well as a thousand other things that I've suggested to the PFL, but a masters division.

• 1:20:35Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  Right? You know, the likes of Cowboy and Tony Ferguson, and you know, the guys that you, you wanna keep fighting, but you don't wanna see him just get smashed by Chimaev, you know?

• 1:20:45Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  I would love to see some of those fairly matched fights, you know? Like, like when we had, it was Nate Diaz against Chimaev, wasn't it? And then, then Chimaev was taken out of the fight and Tony Ferguson was put in the place and Nate won the fight.

• 1:20:57Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  That to me was the perfect matchup. Like, the Chimaev one would have made me feel really uncomfortable to watch. And I, I, I would love to see a masters division, especially now we could accommodate it with some of the older fighters around. Because most of them, they just kinda bounce over onto, you know, Biernuckel or whatever else is out there as options. Whereas like, they've still got so much to offer. And if the fights are fairly matched, I think we- Get some more really real good ones.

• 1:21:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that it is a problem when you see those old veterans that still have something to offer. And then you see them getting thrown in there with some 27 year old assassin. And you're like, good lord, don't do this.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm what 43, I'd fight someone this weekend. Like, I love it, it's still in me, but I know I'm physically like, I mean, even if I was at my athletic peak, I wouldn't be competing with these guys now, they're terrifying. But, you know, like, to know that I'm getting into a fight with someone that's as game as me.

• 1:21:51Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  But has also had the experience as well as the wear and tear, you know what I mean?

• 1:21:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, evenly matched.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:57Joe Rogan?

  Like, look at Pacquiao's about to fight Mayweather.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:00Joe Rogan?

  Makes sense.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:01Joe Rogan?

  Right? You know, like fighting Terrence Crawford, you'd be like, yeet, don't do that.

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:22:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, like, I don't wanna see you get stretched. You know what I mean? But like, you guys are both in your late 40s, like, okay, yeah, alright. I'll pay for that. Yeah, it's, as long as they're not gone. You know, there's some guys that they get to a certain point and they're like, why? Why is their family letting them compete?

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:28Joe Rogan?

  Why hasn't anybody stepped in? Doesn't anybody recognize their skills are gone? Doesn't anybody recognize they get knocked out way too easily now? There's a bunch of fighters like that that I just really wish would not be doing it anymore.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the thing is, it's sad about it as well is, and this is where I feel like the, like the, the community around MMA has probably changed in the last decade or two. Is like, the old, the veteran fighters were just, were carried in such high regard. Whereas now, you're the highlight of somebody else's, the start of somebody else's career.

• 1:22:58Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:22:59Speaker 01

  And, and a lot of the fans, I mean, certainly what I see online, they're very dismissive of fighters that at one point were great. And are now not quite where they used to be. And, you know, they start throwing around words like washed and stuff.

• 1:23:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  Like, you gotta, you gotta respect where these guys came from. Like, no one lives forever. No one is at their athletic, athletic peak forever. But we also should still be celebrating what people have achieved, you know? And I feel like that's something that we're not, we don't get as much in the sport. And that's partly because the young fighters get matched with the veterans to, you know, like... You know, bring Ken Shamrock back out of retirement and dust him off for Rich Franklin to fight him because no one knew who Rich was and he was so close to a title shot. Do you know what I mean? Like, that was one of those moments where I'm like, that's kind of a, I don't, I don't like that fight, you know what I mean? Because, because I can see what, what's being done there. Right. And, I mean, not that Chamayev needed it, but the boost that he would have got from

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  smashing the hell out of Nate Diaz, you know, that, that was kind of part of the benefit of throwing Nate into that fight, you know? And that, they're, they're, they're the fights that I would like to not see anymore. Because I think we get more fights out of some of these guys towards the end of their career where they, maybe their athleticism is not where it was, but their knowledge is way ahead of where it used to be. Right. Like, we, we go back, you know, we were talking about, about the old days and when we first getting into it, and when MMA first became a thing. Like, me as a seventeen year old sitting, I, I wheeled the TV in with the VHS and I put the tape in and I watched UFC two and three and I had this feeling of, I'm like, now I'm questioning myself and everything, everything about me as a martial artist. Like, I have to do this.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  And if I don't do this, I'm going to be questioning myself my whole life. But at the same time, I'm looking at this going, well, I know one martial art really well, Taekwondo, and I know probably four or five other martial arts. All right, you know, Wing Chun, uh, I'd done some traditional Jiu Jitsu, I'd boxed quite a lot, you know what I mean? So like, I had a decent handle, but I also have a, a, a library of martial arts books. And I would sit in front of that, that library and think to myself, like, how am I going to consume all of this information? And it wasn't like, okay, I need this bit of information and this. And it wasn't a case of absorbing what is useful and rejecting what's useless. I had to absorb everything in order to go through that shedding process. Hmm. And it just felt so overwhelming.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  Like, I remember going into fights feeling like I have no idea how this is going to play out. Like, I don't, I don't know half of this guy's skillset just purely because I haven't had the time to learn all of this stuff. And it's like, the more you pick at it, the more, you know, it's like, it's like you're hitting a rock and all of a sudden it falls in and it's a massive cave inside and it's just full of information. And I'm like, how am I going to consume all of this knowledge? Right. You know what I mean? And it was, I'm, I remember feeling very, very overwhelmed by it all and, and that fed into a lot of anxiety during Fight Week, which was, you know, something that, that everybody always manages, but. If I look back, that was where my anxiety came from. It was the it was the over analysis of the sport and the feeling like I was never gonna be able to learn all of this information.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  Whereas now in actuality, I feel very, very opposite. I feel like now if I was going back, my training would be very, very focused and very, very streamlined. But that's because I've had years and years of experience of of watching the sport and knowing what works and what doesn't and pulling things apart. You know what I mean? So it was almost like, and I said this, I've said this to a lot of young fighters. If I if I in my career at one point could have stopped and taken six months out or a year out, just to be a student and just to learn and absorb, that would have been a real benefit for me. When I stopped fighting and I was doing commentary and doing Inside the Octagon and stuff, like, my knowledge was growing on a daily basis. I felt it. And and I just, I thought to myself, man, I could have done this when I was in my career. But I I didn't

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  because I was I was partly scared of the of the the over analysis of it, you know, and partly partly concerned that I was gonna show myself so much that I didn't know, that I was just gonna feel like it was endless. It was a bottomless pit of knowledge. Right. You know? Whereas when I started doing Inside the Octagon and I was I was watching fights in chronological order from the beginnings of people's careers all the way through. And then I was going back and I was watching prelims of of fights that I wouldn't have watched in my career because I only wanna watch this guy and this guy because I don't want all of this. Sometimes I I watch somebody and feel like I'm getting worse when I'm watching them. You know what I mean? Mm hmm. So I'd be very, very specific about who I would watch. Whereas in actuality, if you watch

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  the whole card start to finish, the fight IQ increases generally as the card goes on. So the guys at the top make far less mistakes and they're the guys that I'm watching. So I'm watching people that are, you know, way closer to flawless than I am. Mm hmm. But if I watch the prelims, I can see the same people, the same mistakes that people are making. They're just making them far more regularly on the prelims. So it was almost like watching the prelims was uncovering problems and and bad decisions much quicker than it was when I was watching the few specific guys that I was trying to learn from. So there was a real benefit in just absorbing all of it. And then the next stage was, and it was specifically Robbie Lawler against Rory McDonald. It was the first time I realized I was watching a fight without putting myself in the

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  cage. And and it was it was like an epiphany. I was like. Oh, I'm I'm just watching these two guys as a fan. I'm not comparing Robbie Lawler to me and Rory McDonald to me. And my process of preparing for an opponent was very similar to what I would do for for an analysis. I would I'd get into him. I would watch it as much as I could of that person. But then I would go back and watch my fights that I knew were available to them. So I'm now I'm watching my fights with their skill set in mind. Right? So now I'm I'm I'm almost I'm almost pretending to be that person. To watch me and go, okay, well, I can do this to him and I can do this to him. But there's always a bit of ego involved there. So like, say with Carlos Condit, an incredible fighter.

• 1:29:00Speaker 01

  Right? He's great at everything, but he's not gonna be able to take me down. And there's no way in hell he's gonna be able to knock me out.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  You know, Mohawk flapping in the wind, you know, and it and it was like, and that was that was my ego getting in the way.

• 1:29:11Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  Because if I was looking at Carlos Condit versus Robbie Lawler or Carlos Condit versus GSP, I would have respected his counter punching. Right? But my ego was a block in that scenario. So by watching two fighters and being able to remove myself entirely, I just saw things differently. And it it took my my shit out of it. It took my drama out of the way.

• 1:29:31Joe Rogan?

  That's interesting. Your ego really can get in the way. And it really makes you make terrible decisions. Like, how many people have taken fights they shouldn't have taken? Just because their ego, their ego just gave them a distorted perception.

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:29:44Joe Rogan?

  There was this guy that was training with us that was really good at jiu jitsu and he had no striking and he was gonna take an MMA fight. And I remember saying to him. You you have to understand that, like, what you can do to people on the ground. Right? You you you could do make a person feel helpless, right? Someone could do that to you standing up and it's way scarier. It's way scarier. Like, you have no idea. Like, you have no, you think it's this. This weird Dunning Kruger effect, right? Like, you think you're really good. So you think you're good at that? Like, you've this distorted, you don't know anything about striking. Like, his striking was like, pop, pop, like rudimentary, like nothing. I'm like, someone's gonna set you up and boom!

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:30:29Joe Rogan?

  And head kick you. They're gonna, and he got TKO'd. He got beat up badly. And I think it really fucked him up, too.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:30:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Well, it's it's almost like you pull the curtain back and you realize there's a whole other world behind the curtain that you you not anticipated was there.

• 1:30:43Joe Rogan?

  But the scariest world to not be good at is the striking world.

• 1:30:46Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:30:46Joe Rogan?

  That's the scariest world.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  And I've I've tried to quantify this myself because it because. It is an interesting thing because often I find myself, I'm explaining the nuances of feints and movements that are opening doors for other things to land. I mean, Adesanya was a master at this. Conor McGregor was a master at this. You know, and the way that they deliver their techniques, there's such an elite level of intelligence to it, that it's easy to just think that it's chance, what they're doing, right? Like, take Conor McGregor Cowboy, for example, right? And the beauty of Inside the Octagon is I would download all the angles of the fight. I would watch every angle, the full fight from the whole angle. So I'd see different things.

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  And there's a moment in that fight, and this is the benefit of, say Conor McGregor, say his brand is the left hand, right? Conor McGregor's left hand brand was a very, very powerful weapon for him to take into the fight against Cowboy, because Cowboy was so focused on it. And there's an angle from Cowboy's back to against the fence, and he sees Conor close his left hand. And straight away Cowboy goes, "Left hand's coming", and he moves on to the head kick. It was the threat of the left hand coming that forced Cowboy to make that mistake. Anderson Silva-Vitor Belfort, when he looked at his leg and kicked him in the face. Like, the idea of him being able to sell, and you look at that fight, Vitor's checking the inside low kick

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  while he's got Anderson's toes in his mouth. You know what I mean? It's like, he was able to sell a technique purely with his eye line, purely with a feint. And Adesanya is another master at it as well. And that, to me, then shows that there are, we've got ranges in MMA, but in each one of those ranges, there's dimensions as well, right? There's dimensions of understanding. Like, you could be a button mashing fighter, and a lot of people have success with button mashing. Right. They throw the technique that they worked in the changing room, warming up on the pads. But then there are people that understand that each one of these techniques and each thing that they do, or piece that they have in their arsenal, is a setup for something else, you know?

• 1:32:55Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's what's interesting about people that have a real system.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:58Joe Rogan?

  Like Dwayne Bang Ludwig. Have you ever trained with him?

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  Uh, I haven't, but we fought, didn't we? So I've still, I mean, I was a huge fan of him back in the day. I remember him, T. K. Owen, somebody in cage, uh, King of the Cage up against the fence.

• 1:33:09Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, and he did that in love with him. Yeah.

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  That was Genki Sudo, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, great, great system of footwork though, isn't it?

• 1:33:16Joe Rogan?

  Oh, he has an amazing system and his system is like, he has a giant notebook filled with like techniques. Where everything, his system is like very well thought out. And it's really interesting because he didn't fight the way he teaches.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:33:31Joe Rogan?

  That's what's really interesting. Like TJ Dillashaw is probably his greatest student. And TJ fought completely different than Dwayne. He constantly switched stances, constantly was like, he was giving you so many looks. And, you know, it's, it's wild watching when, you know, you watch like Dwayne's style. Versus what he would teach, cause it was just like, oh, if I had only known this while I was fighting. If I had only known this while I was coming up, if I had only known this early, early on in my career.

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and this is where I don't think we get enough people crossing over to coaching afterwards. Like whenever I see a former fighter in the corner, Mike Brown, Robbie Lawler, whoever it is. Like, I'm, I'm filled with confidence that the sport is moving on because they're gonna pass on. Information that they've taken on from somebody else and refined, you know? Like my Taekwondo teacher told me when I was a kid. If, if you're not better than me at my age, I've failed as a teacher.

• 1:34:24Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  And like, and he always, McRowley's name is, he always. Gave me everything. There was never any restriction because he wanted to see what I would do with it and where I would take it. Because then same with Eddie Bravo, who was, we were just chatting about it backstage. Do you remember Shawn Bollinger?

• 1:34:41Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  He used to be able to heel hook himself and he created the double bagger and there's a few different things. But I, I remember being on the mats and watching Eddie Bravo. Listen to one of his sixteen, seventeen year old students to see what he could learn from him.

• 1:34:53Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:34:54Speaker 01

  And that's, that's such an unusual thing in a lot of martial arts schools is the teacher being a student, right? And, um. That that's something that always stood out to me about particular people. Like, I would never want to train a fighter and hold anything back from them because I always wanna be just a little bit better. You know, I wanna, I wanna give you everything, throw everything I've got on the table and then see what you pick up, see what you run with, and see what you can teach me from it.

• 1:35:18Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it'll make you better too. And that's the thing.

• 1:35:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:35:23Joe Rogan?

  But you have to have a, an honest ego.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:35:27Joe Rogan?

  Like, you have to be able to really say, okay, this is how good I am. I can't pretend I'm better than I am for these people. This is how good I am. And you have to be able to show it.

• 1:35:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:35Joe Rogan?

  And that's one of the beautiful things about jiu-jitsu is like you have to roll. Like, if you're a teacher, you're rolling with people. But if Eddie gets caught in something, he'll tell people.

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:44Joe Rogan?

  And he'll show you. Show me what you did. And everybody look what he did. And he'll bring people around. He's like, he's like, he'll let you know, I'm just a human being. I just happen to be really good at this. And even if I'm really good at this, there's openings, there's holes, there's things that I don't know, and this is a constantly changing and evolving game where people are bringing in new things.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:36:03Joe Rogan?

  And some of these new things, you know, you analyze it and you go, well, here's a simple way to stop this. And as soon as someone knows this, that, that submission's gone, and so then you kill it and you put it aside. Well, we tried that one, didn't work. Sometimes you're like, try to stop this. And you're like, I don't.

• 1:36:21Joe Rogan?

  I think that's legit. And then guys would get down, they would go, what if you do this? What if you do that? And you'll, you'll like, he'll have classes. We'll have like fifteen guys come up with different solutions to these problems. And say, okay, get him in it and put him in it. All right, now how do you finish it? And you grab here? Okay. What would you do here? And then like you have guys like break things down and that's, that honest approach. Someone told me that, remember when, um, Hoist Gracie tapped Dan Severn with a triangle?

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:36:48Joe Rogan?

  They were training at one of the Gracie schools, um, a friend of mine, and he saw that and he said, can you show us that? He said, you're not ready for that yet. I can't show you that. And he's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like the guy, it's, it's a technique. Like, show me the technique. Like, he just did it. And he's like, no, we're not gonna, like, they were holding back. Yeah. So in the early days, there was a lot of holding back. You know, this is like, what was that? What year was that? That had to be like 94 or something like that, right?

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• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  Then, you know, but then, like, everyone's reputation as a coach back in those days couldn't really be questioned too much. You know what I mean?

• 1:38:59Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:39:00Speaker 01

  Because there was no way of them proving it. Ah, I just, I can't, it's too deadly.

• 1:39:03Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  Whereas, you know, like the people that's, and those, those people stand out in my mind. You know, Eddie was one of those people. He stood out in my mind because, because of how he, he approached the, the sessions. He was always a student, even when he was the teacher.

• 1:39:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  And the other thing as well, that, you know, everybody wanted to name something in the 10th Planet system.

• 1:39:23Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:39:24Speaker 01

  You know, so everyone was trying to create something and make it stick.

• 1:39:27Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  So it like, it created this really, like, it was, it was a thriving environment to be in. I loved being at Legends back in the day at the, and I, you know, obviously Bomb Squad as well before that.

• 1:39:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, what year did you start training with us?

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  It was Legends. It was after the Bomb Squad had closed. I went back to the Bomb Squad, well, what was the Bomb Squad to train with Paolo Tortura, um, of Bloodsport fame.

• 1:39:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:49Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah, Legends. It was, and it just opened when I, when I arrived there.

• 1:39:53Joe Rogan?

  So what year was that? 2005? Six?

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  Uh, probably 2006, yeah.

• 1:39:58Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:39:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, cause before that I'd been training at American Top Team.

• 1:40:00Joe Rogan?

  Bro, that's 20 years ago. Isn't that crazy?

• 1:40:02Speaker 01

  I know, two decades, man.

• 1:40:04Joe Rogan?

  That's when we met. 20 fucking years ago.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and a lot's changed.

• 1:40:08Joe Rogan?

  Nuts.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:09Joe Rogan?

  It's nuts how time just fucking waits for no one.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  I was, I was just saying to the guys, the guys here, like, it's funny, like, the Joe Rogan experience. If you'd have asked me what the Joe Rogan experience was 20 years ago, it was getting crushed in side control.

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  That was my experience at Joe Rogan. Being on the mats during the class and watching you smash the bag with your back kick, and then stepping onto the mats and just, and you had, you almost had like the opposite game to most of the guys on the mat. Cause all the 10th Planet guys were like pulling you into half guard or into guard and trying to wrap you up, whereas you were very much a top game player.

• 1:40:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  That's at least how it felt to me. It was like you were the different role on the mat to everybody else.

• 1:40:49Joe Rogan?

  Well, I, I got obsessed with head and arm chokes.

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I felt it.

• 1:40:54Joe Rogan?

  You know, it fucked my neck up, I think. I wound up having bulging disc in my neck. It was either that or not tapping the guillotines. But, uh, I, I got a head and arm chock. I developed it where it was like, if I locked it on, you were pretty much done. You know, and when I started tapping like brown belts and higher level guys with that, and then I just really concentrated on it. And it's one of those things where it's like, you know how it is, just like with a kick. Like, everyone has strong legs, you know, you can lift weights with your legs, but like, how come some people can kick harder than other people? Well, the- The coordination, the technique, the refinement of it, where it just, and there's something like that in a squeeze like Marcelo. Like Marcelo would get your back and his rear naked choke, Marcelo Garcia was just like a master.

• 1:41:39Joe Rogan?

  He's not a big, strong guy, like, so what is it? And so I, that was like my number one go to was the head and arm choke. If I could get that shit, I was pretty sure I could lock it up. So I just developed this style of just crushing where I would just have my whole body would just lock on to something like a pit bull. You know?

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. But that's interesting, the difference between striking and grappling and going back to what we're talking about a minute ago. Like, there's something mechanical about grappling, right? If you pull on somebody's head, the head's gonna come down or they're gonna force back and the head's gonna go back. There's a, there's a, a cause and reaction in grappling almost all the time that even a person that doesn't fight can see the basics of.

• 1:42:21Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:42:21Speaker 01

  Where if I pick one leg up and I throw you around, you're gonna lose your balance.

• 1:42:25Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  Even something as simple as that. But with striking, there's so many, so many things that happen with striking where no one touches anybody. Right? Especially when you've got, and then this is where the dimensions come in. You know, you've got the button mashes at the bottom. You've got the guys that have refined their button mashing skill sets and now they've got two or three combos that work well for them. Or they've got a particular technique that they refine to a point where they can deliver it in 10 different ways. But then you've got people that understand that each one of their weapons is a different thing at a different time and serves a different purpose at a different time. You know?

• 1:42:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:56Speaker 01

  Like, like with a jab, for example, everybody in their game has got a jab. But if you strip that jab down into its core components and you go, you know, uh, you, you, you look at like a, like a secondary identifier, right? Of, of that technique. There are gonna be differences, right? If I, if I throw my right hand straight and I throw it over your jab or I throw it when I split your cross. That to me is three different techniques.

• 1:43:21Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  Right? It's the same, the same weapon that you're using, but the delivery system's different.

• 1:43:26Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:43:26Speaker 01

  Right? But then on top of that complexity, you've got all of the, the, the, the, the damage that you can inflict that draws responses to people. Right? Like the calf kick, now you can feint the calf kick. And get someone to pick their leg up and like that's a very, very basic example or when someone's, you know, been hit with a body shot. You faint a body shot and their head's almost always open. There, there are certain things, I mean, headshot dead is a good, another good example. How often do you see someone throw a punch followed by a kick and, and knock their opponent down?

• 1:43:54Joe Rogan?

  Duke Rufus used to teach that.

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  Is that right?

• 1:43:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he taught me that. That was, that was his thing. He really liked the shield, the vision with a punch. And have the kick come behind it.

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  See, that's, that's, that for me is, that's one delivery mechanism of one particular technique, right? And there are lots and lots of those.

• 1:44:12Joe Rogan?

  Lots of them.

• 1:44:12Speaker 01

  Lots of them. But that's where I find, I find it really interesting is and how, how, I, I, I sat one day and I thought to myself, I'm gonna, I'm gonna nail down the jab. I'm gonna start with that because I, I have intended on writing a, a book or two about this at some point. And I started with the jab and I got to like twenty thousand words and I thought to myself, no one's gonna read this shit. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sell one copy and it's gonna be to myself so I can criticize it. Do you know what I mean? So it's like.

• 1:44:38Joe Rogan?

  Well, you've always been a very thorough guy in the way you analyze things, which makes you a perfect candidate for someone who's a commentator. Cause you, you really have a very complex understanding of the mechanics of movement and of all the different things that are happening. You, you're not just like, you know, oh, we hit them hard. Like you, you're looking at all the different layers and. You're, you're, you analyze things on multi-levels, which I always find fascinating. Like you have a great commentary style. It's really excellent. You're absolutely one of the best out there.

• 1:45:11Speaker 01

  That means a lot to me. Thank you.

• 1:45:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you're great.

• 1:45:14Speaker 01

  I'm fortunate enough to have a bit of the tism, you see. So it's like, I see the patterns.

• 1:45:17Joe Rogan?

  That's a good thing. Touching the tism is good. Oh my god, yeah. I don't think I have that.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  No?

• 1:45:24Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. I have ADHD for sure.

• 1:45:26Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, yeah, my dad's ADHD, my mum's, my mum's tism for sure. You know what I mean? We're, we've got a bit of both.

• 1:45:32Joe Rogan?

  I don't have the tism, but I have this weird ability to lock in on things where the world goes away and I don't need food. And I can just, I could do something for like twelve hours in a row.

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. I forget to eat all the time, all the time. In fact, Tom Hardy's just announced that he's, he's autistic. He's just collaborated with a brand and they've. They've created a whole line of, of, of, you know, no eye contact rash guards and stuff.

• 1:45:55Joe Rogan?

  How convenient, he's autistic, come on. There's so many people that are claiming autistic, like unless you're coding in your sleep, shut the fuck up.

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  Well, you know what was really interesting is I have a friend called Scrubius Pip, he's a rapper in the, in the UK. You know Scrubius, yeah. So he was in, he was in Taboo with Tom Hardy. And he told me a story when they were driving from LA to Vegas and Scrubius Pip, his, his record label's called Speech Development Records. He has a stammer, um, he has a speech impediment and on this drive between LA and Vegas, he's driving, Tom Hardy's in the passenger seat. And Tom started to mimic his stammer, but apologized for it. He's like, I can't, can't help it. Like he's, he's like absorbing parts of his character while he was sitting there, you know. Very similar to, like, it happened with, with Johnny Depp and Bill Murray when they played Hunter Thompson, right?

• 1:46:46Speaker 01

  Like, like, you, like, you watched Jack Sparrow and Jack Sparrow's got a Hunter Thompson kind of move to him. And even Johnny Depp said himself, he don't think he was ever the same after he played Hunter Thompson in Fear and Loathing.

• 1:46:57Joe Rogan?

  Well, he was such a giant Hunter Thompson fan.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's interesting about like, like certainly method actors, people that, that can play a role to, like Jim Carrey is another good example. Christian Bale, right? Daniel Day Lewis, oh my goodness, maybe the best. Like their ability to, to like, almost like shang Tsung out of Mortal Kombat, they can absorb a bit of the person's character. And then kind of become that character. Like, I met Tom a couple of times in, at Henzo's in New York and he's, I mean, he's, he's a lovely guy, but he's like kind of hunched over, no eye contact and you know.

• 1:47:31Joe Rogan?

  Oh, he is? Well, I think a little bit of that is fame as well.

• 1:47:33Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 1:47:34Joe Rogan?

  There's a little bit of fame that just weirds you out. Like if I go places, I try not to make eye contact sometimes because it's just too odd. I just like, hi, like you, you might think I'm autistic, but I'm just fucking weirded out by too many people.

• 1:47:48Speaker 01

  And I, I totally get that. You know, one, one of my favorite shows that you ever did was with Henry Rollins, the first one. And he said something that always stuck in my mind. He said, I'm very good being the party. I'm not very good being at the party.

• 1:48:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  Stuck in my mind. I feel like that all the time. But I'm, I'm, I go the opposite way. I, I've realized recently, I, I hold too much eye contact. I, and I find it exhausting. I'm, I was walking through the park, the, uh, next to the hotel last night. And I'm no, I'm like having a conversation in my head, like, stop looking at people, stop looking at people in the eyes. Stop making eye contact. I do it all the time. I like, I lock in. But I'm even doing it now, like, we're talking, I'm kind of locked in to you and I, even in your conversation, you, you like, have a look away. I, I struggle to do that. I'm actually trying to consciously do it less.

• 1:48:34Joe Rogan?

  I have to sometimes if I'm thinking of an idea. Yeah, I look away. My, my wife said that I wonder if that's autism. Cause it's, it's like, uh, one of my daughters has my recall, my ability to like, she'll talk about like, uh, you know, whatever it is, like she, she can rattle off like information about the Titanic. Like, and it's weird. She's like, you have your fucking dad's brain. Like, that's nuts. But I do, when I do it, I look away sometimes. Like, I look up, like I'm talking about things, I really wanna be clear about what I'm saying. I look up. And it's because I wanna, I, I think it's because I wanna take out the element of eye to eye and communicating with someone. Looking away while thinking,

• 1:49:16Joe Rogan?

  known as gaze aversion, a common cognitive behavior that helps people process information by reducing external distractions. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. By looking at an empty space or upward, the brain shifts from environmental input to internal cognitive tasks, such as memory retrieval or complex thinking. Yeah, that's what I do. I don't even, I didn't know it was a.

• 1:49:35Speaker 03

  Similar like when people turn down the radio, when you're trying to find where you're going, you know?

• 1:49:39Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:49:40Speaker 03

  You have to like lock your, whatever it is.

• 1:49:41Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:49:42Speaker 03

  You can still see, but you have to like, you know.

• 1:49:44Joe Rogan?

  Oh, right. Or someone's yapping at you while you're trying to figure out where you're going. And they're telling you, and I told her, and they're like, we shut the fuck up. I don't know where I am.

• 1:49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:52Joe Rogan?

  We have to figure out where we're going.

• 1:49:53Speaker 01

  You know, I find myself doing it when I'm walking through airports. When I'm traveling, I've got my wife with me, Veronica. Like, I notice, I, I consciously don't make eye contact with her when we're traveling. And I don't know why that is. It's like, I feel a little bit like, there's enough to be dealing with right now. If I then open a conversation with you by looking at you, that's another. The lay of.

• 1:50:10Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  Let me just deal with the airport.

• 1:50:12Joe Rogan?

  Yes, well, you know, people don't think about that, but when you're involved in multiple tasks at the same time. You know, you're taking away your ability to concentrate and do a great job at any one of those things. If there's multiple things going on at the same time, that's why like, I used to do interviews in my car and I stopped doing them because I sound like a moron. And I realized this because I'm thinking about cars.

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:35Joe Rogan?

  I'm going sixty miles an hour, there's a car to the left, there's a car to the right, there's a car in front of me, car behind, this guy, this fucking asshole. Oh, this guy in a motorcycle, he's gonna get killed, we'll get him zipping in between the lights, and so I'm thinking all these different things. And then I'm trying to explain different stuff. I thought it would be a great way to multitask. Let me do this fucking stupid interview that I don't wanna do anyway, and let me do it while I'm on the phone, it'd be kinda fun.

• 1:50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:58Joe Rogan?

  But meanwhile, I just sound like a moron, because like, I can't articulate well. Cause I'm thinking about too many different things simultaneously.

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  Well, you're already multitasking.

• 1:51:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, which is why I like the sensory deprivation thing so much.

• 1:51:10Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:51:11Joe Rogan?

  None, there's nothing, there's no tasks.

• 1:51:13Speaker 01

  Is that still a regular thing for you?

• 1:51:15Joe Rogan?

  I got it right here.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  Oh, you really, yeah?

• 1:51:16Joe Rogan?

  Got it right here.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  I've only done it a couple of times, but I.

• 1:51:19Joe Rogan?

  Where are you living these days?

• 1:51:20Speaker 01

  I'm in the UK, I'm right in the Midlands in the UK, but, I mean, only for.

• 1:51:24Joe Rogan?

  A little kooky over there, isn't it?

• 1:51:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:51:26Joe Rogan?

  You might wanna bail before they lock you up for thought crime.

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  I know, right, I know, for real, it's like, I'm, I'm conscious, I'm conscious and cautious all the time, I feel right now like I'm kinda. I'm holding my tongue on a lot of things, just purely because I, I kinda, I know that when I, when I start talking, I'm just. You know, cause that's how I am, you know, I, I'm very opinionated unfortunately.

• 1:51:47Joe Rogan?

  That's a good thing.

• 1:51:48Speaker 01

  Well, if I decide to start talking, then I won't, I won't shut up and I'm not, I've not opened that floodgate yet, but I do feel like it's coming. But I also feel like I need to, I need to feel like I, I need to prepare for it a little bit, you know what I mean, like, there's a bunch of books I need to consume before I'm. I'm in the right place where I can open up and fully.

• 1:52:05Joe Rogan?

  Express yourself about certain things, yeah, it's just where it's going right now is not in a good direction, it's going. It's tightening down on people's ability to express themselves.

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:15Joe Rogan?

  And you've got so many issues.

• 1:52:17Speaker 01

  It's happening everywhere though, isn't it, I mean, even like, you know. Like, I mean, as a comedian, you know, freedom of speech is so important to you and to your industry, you know what I mean?

• 1:52:29Joe Rogan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  I feel like that's changed a lot, you know, across, across the world, it's the same in Europe as well, in a lot of places.

• 1:52:35Joe Rogan?

  I think in America, in comedy, it was closing down and then people realized we can't have this and it's opened right back up.

• 1:52:43Speaker 01

  Right, okay.

• 1:52:44Joe Rogan?

  You know, there was a bunch of people that were trying to conflate jokes with your actual opinions.

• 1:52:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:50Joe Rogan?

  You know, I talked about on stage once, I'm like, you know, Bob Marley didn't really shoot the sheriff, you know, just when Quentin Tarantino's filming a film, nobody's dying, okay? This is entertainment and you say things that you don't really believe because it's an outrageous thing to say because it's funny. And there's this understanding of that as an audience member, you're supposed to be able to accept that. But then you have these cunts out there in the world that are just looking to find words that someone said and ascribe them as if they're, you know, put it, put it down on paper as if this is a statement. Like, this is what this person actually thinks, he believes, like, no, that's not what we're fucking around, we're talking shit, like, you can't pretend.

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then take a small clip and put it completely out of context on TikTok or something like that.

• 1:53:35Joe Rogan?

  All the time, man, all the time about all kinds of things, people, which is part of the game, you know, people love to do that, it's like, it's fine, it's okay. You know, what you're, it's fine for TikTok minded people. The real problem is people that don't know you and don't understand you and then they get an impression of you based off of that. This is their first introduction to you and it's based off, well, the fuck that guy, but, you know, that's just part of the game.

• 1:54:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:00Joe Rogan?

  It's gonna happen.

• 1:54:01Speaker 01

  I, I think comedians and satire is one of the last lines of defense against tyranny, I really do. Like, I, I watch Prime Minister's Questions every Wednesday and I listen to just the nonsense that comes out of it. And we've got Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch just going at each other over just nonsense, it's, it's, it's not, nothing real, no real.

• 1:54:23Speaker 01

  No real quality of conversation is coming out of that. But what I feel like is if we had a panel of comedians sitting in the gallery somewhere, you know, you've got a Robert Mitchell and Ricky Gervais and James A. Castor and a few others just sitting there just going, well, that sounds like nonsense and then poking fun at it and making a joke out of it. It it it brings a reality to things that I don't think, I think we're lacking in a lot of ways.

• 1:54:45Joe Rogan?

  Well, the Lakota had that in their tribes. They had a thing called the Hayoka, which they called a sacred clown. And the Hayoka would be able to make fun of everything. And as soon as you couldn't make fun of something, you knew it was bullshit. So it's like you couldn't make fun of the chief's wife or you couldn't make fun of, you know, someone, some warrior couldn't make fun of something. As soon as you couldn't make fun of something like, hey, why are you so defensive? How come I can't make fun of that?

• 1:55:10Speaker 01

  That's interesting.

• 1:55:11Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. I mean, look, it had to actually be funny, Hayoka.

• 1:55:14Speaker 01

  Hayoka.

• 1:55:14Joe Rogan?

  It had to actually be funny, of course, or you'd probably get killed.

• 1:55:17Speaker 01

  That's your new move. That's your new move, Joe. You need to set up a Hayoka for the world.

• 1:55:22Joe Rogan?

  Well, I I think that's what comedy is in in in many ways. It's a test. You test things. It doesn't mean it always works and it doesn't mean that jokes are always funny. And it doesn't mean that sometimes people don't overreach. You know, Patrice O'Neal had a great statement about that where he was talking about uh something that happened on the Opie and Anthony Show. And um he was on Fox News and they were criticizing it. And he was saying, you got to understand that all jokes come from the same place. They all come from the place of trying to be funny. And some of them you might find offensive and some of them you might laugh at really hard. But it's it's the mindset, the place that it's coming from is all the same.

• 1:56:06Joe Rogan?

  And I was like, that's so wise because that's really the best way to describe it. Because that's really what everyone's trying to do. They're just trying to make people laugh. It's just sometimes it doesn't come out right or sometimes it's a miss, like especially if it's an ad lib. Like at any moment in time, you generally don't know what the next word out of your mouth is going to be like right now, right? I don't, I don't know, I'm just preballing. And sometimes you'll say something really hilarious and sometimes you say something you're like, cut that out, Jamie. You know, it's like, you try, you swing, you miss, you know, you don't know, and people want to take these things that you're free balling with and just trying to make laughs and, and, and call them a statement.

• 1:56:50Joe Rogan?

  And think of that as like this well thought out, you know, like you, you sat down, you wrote this out, you went over it with a fine tooth comb, this is my press release. Like, that's not what comedy is. It's jokes. You're just fucking around. And if you can't take a joke, you're probably annoying. And you, you really shouldn't be in any position to regulate discourse, because you're not a fun person, right? You're, you're a person that's looking to take things very seriously.

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:18Joe Rogan?

  We know a lot of people like that, that are bad faith actors and, you know, they, they play gotcha. You just said this, like, you, you really mean that? So tell your position on that? Like, oh, fuck off.

• 1:57:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:29Joe Rogan?

  Like, you're not, I'm not interested in engaging with you because you're not real. You know, like, this is not a real, you're playing a stupid game. I'm playing a game of, we're two human beings communicating with each other and we're gonna overstep sometimes. We're gonna slip up, we're gonna, and every now and then you're gonna nail it, knock it out of the park. And even if I don't like you, if you fucking make me laugh, I'll, I'll clap.

• 1:57:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:49Joe Rogan?

  You know?

• 1:57:50Speaker 01

  It's kinda similar with trash talking, isn't it?

• 1:57:51Joe Rogan?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:57:52Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? And if somebody, like, one of the funniest lines ever was, and I remember Connor, as he was saying it, he was laughing at himself, and it was the back and forth with Chad Mendes. And he was, Chad was saying, you can't wrestle, and Connor, he was on a live feed at BT Sports Studio, and I remember it so clearly, because he was, like, as he was saying it, he was finding it funny himself, he was like, I wrestle my balls on your forehead. And it was just, and then he's laughing, and everybody in the room's laughing, even Chad Mendes is laughing, you know what I mean? But then, like-

• 1:58:20Joe Rogan?

  Funny dude. How about the Jeremy Stephens one? Who the fuck is that guy?

• 1:58:24Speaker 01

  And that's become a part of MMA lore, right?

• 1:58:26Joe Rogan?

  Lore, yes.

• 1:58:27Speaker 01

  Like, it's amazing how he's influenced it.

• 1:58:28Joe Rogan?

  Oh, he's, he was the master shit talker. And also the master at emotional warfare.

• 1:58:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:58:35Joe Rogan?

  Like, you, like, the Jose Aldo fight, I remember being there for that fight going, Aldo is out of sorts.

• 1:58:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:58:40Joe Rogan?

  His whole, he looked fucked up, his body looked smooth, he did- He didn't look, he didn't look like he wanted to be there. And he just threw himself at Connor and got cracked.

• 1:58:51Speaker 01

  Wasn't it crazy?

• 1:58:52Joe Rogan?

  He was so emotionally torn and like, the moment was so big. And then Connor, across the other side, looked so relaxed and loose. Cause he know, he knew he had won the emotional warfare. The emotional warfare was won. And that is a giant factor in fights. Whether or not someone bites on emotional warfare. And I think that's a giant factor this weekend. I watched your War Room, by the way, I love your YouTube show. It's really excellent.

• 1:59:18Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:59:20Joe Rogan?

  And, um, this fight this weekend is a lot of emotional warfare. Right? Uh, Strickland has said some wild shit about Hamzaan. He would say, shoot him, he calls him a goat fuckers.

• 1:59:33Joe Rogan?

  I mean, but it's interesting to me that it doesn't seem like Hamzaan is biting on any of it. He's like, this guy, he said this thing, but he doesn't believe it.

• 1:59:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:44Joe Rogan?

  And you're like, whoa, like, he's not, he doesn't seem upset about it. It doesn't seem like it's under his skin. He's like, this guy says he wants war, but I don't think he wants war, he'd be dead. That's it.

• 1:59:56Speaker 01

  That's how it should be. I mean, Strickland would be the same. I, I don't think you could say anything to Strickland that would offend him. He's just...

• 2:00:02Joe Rogan?

  He'll laugh.

• 2:00:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:00:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he'll laugh.

• 2:00:04Speaker 01

  Say, like, when I had that fight against Marcus Davis coming up. Like, I was surprised at how angry he got at me. Like, in the countdown show, I'm like, I'm laughing. I'm like, I can't, I literally can't believe he's this het up and wound up about it. You know? And like, you go back to the Connor thing. The, you remember the press conference where he stole Aldo's belt? The last one they did in Ireland?

• 2:00:25Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:00:26Speaker 01

  So, I was behind the, the stage for that one to start with, when they were both being kept separate. And Dana was there and, um, and then when they went on stage, I was on Connor's side of the stage at the bottom of the stairs. And the, the anger just emanating off Aldo the whole day was exhausting for me just to be around. And then after the, the, the press conference where Connor had taken his belt, as soon as they circled back and they were behind the thingy, again, Aldo was like... Beside himself angry.

• 2:00:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:57Speaker 01

  And as soon as I saw that, I'm like, wow, that is, it's, that's, that's like a level of witchcraft that you see in like the fainting of.

• 2:01:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:04Speaker 01

  When you can start to pull somebody's emotions out like that.

• 2:01:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:08Speaker 01

  And, and like, for me, I think, I think fighters should be completely impenetrable. Like, no one should be able to say anything to a fighter to upset them. I just, it, it's, it's an immediate weakness that you throw on the table for someone to get their teeth into.

• 2:01:20Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's one of the things that I really appreciate about Pereira, his stoicism. He's always just stoic. You could talk all that mad shit about him. You know, and like the Ankaliav, the rematch with Ankaliav, like Ankaliav had talked so much shit after that first fight.

• 2:01:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:37Joe Rogan?

  You know, and then when he blasted him out in the first round, then he went like this.

• 2:01:43Speaker 01

  Beautiful.

• 2:01:43Joe Rogan?

  You know, the same thing with Jamal Hill.

• 2:01:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:46Joe Rogan?

  You know, I mean, he, he's very stoic, but afterwards his celebration is even like, look, look.

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  It's so cool. I, I like the fact that his, his coldness is a part of his brand.

• 2:01:58Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:01:58Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:01:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he's, he's very cold. That stare down.

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:01Joe Rogan?

  Like him and Yuri Prohaska, it's so disturbing that Yuri thought he was using spiritual warfare. Like Yuri accused him of using sorcery. He's like, no magic this time.

• 2:02:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:17Joe Rogan?

  Yuri's so crazy. Such a crazy request.

• 2:02:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:21Joe Rogan?

  Like, do, do not invoke spirits.

• 2:02:25Speaker 01

  I had someone trying to get a witch doctor on me in Brazil once.

• 2:02:28Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 2:02:28Speaker 01

  They thought I was casting spells. Yeah, they, they tried to get a witch doctor. Yeah.

• 2:02:33Joe Rogan?

  Casting spells is like, cause if you believe it, it'll work, right? If you really, that's why voodoo works, right? Cause if you believe in voodoo, it will fuck you up. If someone says, I'll curse you, you're like, oh no, I'm fucking cursed shit.

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:45Joe Rogan?

  If you really believe that, it will work.

• 2:02:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you can make, if you can make someone. Afraid of something or sensitive to something, you know, and, and, you know, and I I was always a big fan of Marcus Davis and I knew how dangerous he was in the division. But I also knew that if I poked him enough in the right direction, I would get a particular version of him that suited me, right? And there were two versions of Marcus, right? There was the Marcus that showed up and he was like stacked, looked like the Hulk and you're like, okay, he's gonna grapple. Or there was the Marcus that was a little bit slender and he just looked different. And that version of Marcus Davis was knocking everybody out. Right. That's when he's coming into box. And, and I knew that if I pushed him enough, because it was easier for me to deal with

• 2:03:29Speaker 01

  the heavily muscled grappler version of Marcus Davis than the slick southpaw boxer version. Hmm. So my thought was if I can push him to be really, really angry at me, he's not gonna wanna roll the dice on striking games. He's gonna wanna edge his bets and try and force the fight into the range that I'm not very good at. So there was, there was a purpose to it. But as soon as he bit on it, I was like, that was too easy. That was too easy. And like, there was, there was clips of him training, his like, noses bleeding and he just looks... And then that's when I'm, for the weigh-ins, I made the I Hate Dan Hardy t-shirts. Because we did a, like a 10-minute countdown show for it. And I was training at Wild Card at the time, just to try and get inside his head, you know, I'm training in a boxing gym, I'm, you know, I'm expecting you to be a boxer and I played

• 2:04:15Speaker 01

  the game really hard on that fight. And, um, it was just, it was interesting to see how it played out because of what he expected from me and, and, and the version of him that I got, right? And, and he was, he was so angry at me that his, his vision was, his mind was clouded. And even in the, was it the end of the second round, he went back and sat on his stool and it always stuck in my mind, Mark Delagrotti in his corner. It wasn't advice, it wasn't anything. He said, you're one round away from shutting this kid up. It was all about, about silencing me, putting me in my place. Interesting. You know? And then, and then funnily enough, after that, the next fight was Mike Swick. And for the whole training camp, Mike Swick was like, he was waiting for me to start trash talking.

• 2:05:00Speaker 01

  So I'm like, I'm not gonna do it because he's expecting it. And he'll find it funny, so it's not gonna have any kind of impact. So I just waited until the press conference and brought him a runner-up trophy.

• 2:05:12Speaker 01

  And he was like, I'm bringing this to the cage on, on fight night and I'm gonna give it back to you, but you know. But it was, it's interesting to see what you can do, how you can affect people like that and, and make them act out, you know? Like the, the countdown show, the, the very start of it, it's just hilarious, still in my mind. Is you've got this whole kind of, it's like dimly lit and Marcus is there and, and he's like, you know, when I was a kid. Uh, my mom used to say, you can't say you hate this unless you think a little bit about how much you dislike it every day. And then there was a pause and the UFC nailed it with the editing and he looked down the camera and he went, I hate Dan Hardy. And then it cut to me and I'm just laughing like a prick, like, ha, you know, like I, and I totally, I got so much hate mail for that fight.

• 2:05:57Speaker 01

  I can't even tell you. I think I've still got a folder in my old email account because I saved it all.

• 2:06:01Joe Rogan?

  That's funny.

• 2:06:02Speaker 01

  I got, I got death threats. I got all kinds of stuff. Like people hated me from that fight. But like, as soon as I'm, I thought, you know, I'm gonna make I hate Dan Hardy t-shirt, surely to kind of like bring some light to this. I even made one for Marcus and he threw it back at me. But you know, it was just like, I wanted a particular version of him, you know, just like, like what Connor did with Aldo. He primed Aldo to run onto that counter left and, and Aldo, a clear mind, training from a blank slate. Not having any of that psychological warfare in mind.

• 2:06:35Joe Rogan?

  Would never charge like that.

• 2:06:36Speaker 01

  Would have been so much more dangerous for Connor, right?

• 2:06:39Joe Rogan?

  Right. He, and, and Connor was always heavy on the front leg and Aldo was one of the best leg kickers ever. You know, he probably would have tried to kick the legs and piece them apart from the outside and find his motions. But Connor was always gonna be a problem for Aldo because he's so fast and he's so explosive and so big.

• 2:06:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:56Joe Rogan?

  He was so big for 45. He, his weight cut was hell. Watching him weigh in, and that was the days where you would actually weigh in. This is before the ceremonial weigh-in. So he would have to make 145 and then stand there and he looked like a dead man. He looked like someone from like fucking The Walking Dead. It was weird. And then he would just.

• 2:07:18Joe Rogan?

  Rehydrate and the next day, he, you know, he had to be a buck sixty-five when he actually fought.

• 2:07:23Speaker 01

  Easy.

• 2:07:23Joe Rogan?

  Easy.

• 2:07:24Speaker 01

  I, I'm, I, I like what they've done with the weight cutting. I like the fact that it's done in the morning and people can rehydrate and stuff. The only, the thing I miss is to see people facing off when they're in that feral, dehydrated state.

• 2:07:36Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:07:36Speaker 01

  That's the thing I miss, cause like a lot of the time I'll be looking for reads, you know, there's the picture of you kinda looking around, you know what I mean? It's like, you wanna see that face off of where people are in that state.

• 2:07:46Joe Rogan?

  That's one of my favorite things to do, see the guys head to head, looking in each other's eyes. Because you just, there's a fucking smell.

• 2:07:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:55Joe Rogan?

  There's a feeling in the air. You get a, a sense.

• 2:07:58Speaker 01

  I wear the Metaglasses when I'm doing face offs now, so you can see, P F Love made a little logo, Hardy's, uh, Hardy Vision. And you can see, and sometimes people are like, face to face you, it's palpable. You know, and, and, um, what I, what I always loved when people were cutting weight is you got a far more genuine version of them than the version that was. I mean, even look at Connor, right? He was feral at one forty-five. At one fifty-five, he was, he was cutting, but he was on point. At one seventy, he was like.

• 2:08:25Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:08:26Speaker 01

  Feel great. Just a different, three different versions of the same person, ten pounds apart.

• 2:08:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:30Speaker 01

  And when I fought Rory Markham, that was co-main event in my second fight in London, um, UFC ninety-five. He arrived at Fight Week on the Tuesday at one ninety-five to make one seventy-one. And I knew that it was gonna be a rough weight cut for him.

• 2:08:44Joe Rogan?

  He was a big guy.

• 2:08:45Speaker 01

  He was massive. And he'd never been the distance. Sixteen and four he was, knocked everybody out that he fought. And I was, do you remember when he fought, was it Brody Farber? Kicked him in the neck. And like, as he went down, he like crossed his legs on the way down. That was at the palms. And it was, he was just, just dead at him. It was brutal. But like, when we were, we did the weigh-ins in a theatre in London. And obviously we're all on, on weight. We've, I've been on weight since two o'clock, as most people have. We've journeyed into London on the bus. Everyone's still on weight. No one's drinking. And like, you walk through the changing rooms in the back, and we're in like an old, like, West End theatre. And like, you can see where people are at, what state they're at, how much they've cut weight. And I remember seeing Rory Markham just sitting there, just.

• 2:09:27Speaker 01

  He would just look like he was broken already. He was just so drained and exhausted. So my thought to myself is I'm gonna get right in his face as soon as I've stepped off the scales. And I wanted him to feel that I wasn't as depleted as he was the day before, because that would then be his memory going into the fight on fight day is that he didn't cut as much as me. He didn't feel like shit like I did yesterday.

• 2:09:50Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:09:50Speaker 01

  And like as I walked onto the stage, I I'm standing on the scales and I'm looking at him. And there's never a photograph of me looking at the at the crowd and flexing, I'm looking directly at him. And as soon as they read my weight, I went straight over, I put my forehead on his and I tried to push him back a step or two. And that was because we were on weight. If that was a a morning weigh-in and we were doing it later in the day, it wouldn't have had the same kind of impact.

• 2:10:13Joe Rogan?

  Right. He would have already been replenished, he would have felt much better.

• 2:10:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:18Joe Rogan?

  No, it's a good point.

• 2:10:19Speaker 01

  He would have pushed, but that's why I always wore contact lenses as well. I always had the contact lenses on the on the stage, you know, I just didn't want people to see my eyes. I didn't want them to get a real version of me until fight night.

• 2:10:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:29Speaker 01

  You know.

• 2:10:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, emotional warfare. It's real. It's very important.

• 2:10:34Speaker 01

  I loved it. I mean, I wasn't very good as a fighter, you see, so I had to lean on what I could get. Look, look, look at the guys in my division though, I mean, John Fitch.

• 2:10:41Joe Rogan?

  I know.

• 2:10:42Speaker 01

  Mike Swick was great, Josh Koscheck, a bit of a prick, but great fighter, you know what I mean? Like, they were good guys in my division at the time and, man, I didn't have the wrestling to be competing with a lot of those guys.

• 2:10:52Joe Rogan?

  That is a giant factor, and that's a factor that takes so long to catch up to.

• 2:10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:57Joe Rogan?

  God, if you can ever, unless you're like a real superior athlete, just a freak athlete, it's just like someone who's got a gymnastics background or something, who's like very explosive, it's so hard to pick up that that wrestling later in your career. It's like, that's what's so crazy about Pereira, is that he figured out how to just stuff everything, like from a multiple champion kickboxing career, where he didn't do any grappling at all, lost his first MMA fight to submission. Really couldn't fucking grapple at all. Gets together with Glover Tashara and just figured it out. But I also think with him, it's a freak athlete thing.

• 2:11:36Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 2:11:36Joe Rogan?

  Because it's the same reason why he hits so hard. I think he's just weirdly built.

• 2:11:42Speaker 01

  But even a freak athlete though, you take him back 10 years and you take Glover Tashara away, and he's not supplied with the information where it can apply that athleticism, right? And this is where former fighters passing on knowledge like we talked about. I mean, like, we went Bas Rutten, Dwayne Ludwig, TJ Dillashaw, right?

• 2:12:00Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:12:01Speaker 01

  You know, like Glover Tashara to Alex Pereira is probably one of the best relationships. Because for me Glover Tashara was, he overachieved in his career, based on his age and his athleticism compared to the other people in the division. The reason why was because his game was so solid and so sound. I say to young fighters, you need that Glover Tashara base level, where you can be semi-conscious, taking big shots, sweep to top position, take someone's back and choke them out. Like, he did that consistently. He'd get dropped and come back from the dead and finish people.

• 2:12:34Joe Rogan?

  Glover also missed six years of his prime.

• 2:12:37Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 2:12:37Joe Rogan?

  Because he couldn't get out of Brazil.

• 2:12:38Speaker 01

  Well, you were talking about him constantly before he was signed, I remember that. I remember hearing his name a lot, because you were, same with Pereira, you know, you were talking about him before the UFC signed him. But like, if you'd imagine Glover Tashara, um, sorry, Alex Pereira walked into a MMA gym in 2005, they would have probably tried to teach him a whole system of jiu-jitsu. And then he would have had a wrestling coach that would have tried to teach him folk style or freestyle wrestling. Whereas Glover Tashara was like, there's a lot of this shit you don't need, brother. Like, first of all, I'm not going to teach him any submissions, because you're not really going to need them.

• 2:13:11Joe Rogan?

  But he does know submissions. He's a jiu-jitsu black belt.

• 2:13:14Speaker 01

  But that's the thing, is like, is like, does he know the whole database of jiu-jitsu? Does he know everything that a normal black belt would learn? And I'm not discrediting his black belt, but what I'm saying is, his game has been very specifically tailored to be effective in the arena that he's fighting in.

• 2:13:28Joe Rogan?

  That's true. But it's also the relationship that he has with Glover, too, where it's a one really elite coach with a world championship level experience, concentrating on a very special athlete. Whereas if you're at ATT, you know, you're, there's fucking Chechens and fucking Daghestanis, and just a room full of assassins, and there's five coaches, and like, I don't know if you'd get that kind of attention there. You know, there's two different schools of thought. You know, there's the school of thought that you need to be around those people because that's a shark tank and that's how you get better. You'd be around all these killers. And then there's another school of thought is like, no, you're better off at a very small gym with a small group of people that really concentrate on you. I'm more inclined

• 2:14:10Joe Rogan?

  to think of the small gym. I think the small gym with elite trainers is a better option than being in a giant. I mean, it's not that ATT doesn't create amazing world champion athletes. It certainly does. But I think if someone's coming up, maybe you're better off with someone like, first of all, you'd have to find someone like Glover who's really interested in taking the time and really working with you.

• 2:14:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Glover, and you know, going back to what we were talking about earlier, Glover's already gone through the process of learning jiu-jitsu and absorbing what's useful and rejecting a lot of what's useless.

• 2:14:46Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:14:47Speaker 01

  So he's not giving Pereira the useless part of jiu-jitsu for MMA.

• 2:14:51Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:14:51Speaker 01

  Right? Now, how much of, how much of jiu-jitsu specifically is applied to MMA, right? There are so many positions that it just changes when you start to use punches. Things become a lot easier when you can start to strike as well because you can force people to do things they don't want to do, right?

• 2:15:07Joe Rogan?

  Yep, yep.

• 2:15:08Speaker 01

  So like, I feel like the refinement that Glover Teixeira went through to be the great fighter that he was is the reason why Pereira's become so successful because he's been given the pieces that he needs. And I would imagine that, you know, if you rolled with him, he would be a real problem. But I would imagine his game's still very direct. Like, he's not using crackhead control and he's not

• 2:15:28Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:15:29Speaker 01

  rolling for knee bars and that kind of thing. I just, because the-

• 2:15:32Joe Rogan?

  But neither's Hadjic racing.

• 2:15:34Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 2:15:34Joe Rogan?

  You know what I mean?

• 2:15:35Speaker 01

  But he's also gone through the shedding process, right?

• 2:15:37Joe Rogan?

  Yes. Well, I don't think he ever really acquired all the crazy shit. I think there's a lot of these guys that like fundamentals are just like laser focused. Like Hickson. Hickson was always just laser focused fundamentals. Minato Nogura, laser focused fundamentals.

• 2:15:55Speaker 01

  Do you think the, do you think the existence of Vale Tudo kind of forced them to go very specifically to what worked though for no rules contests?

• 2:16:06Joe Rogan?

  Probably. There's probably some of that because obviously Hickson created and competed in Vale Tudo very early on. So it's like, yeah, yeah. Uh, I mean, a lot of stuff goes out the window as soon as you punch. Yeah. Right? A lot of stuff. Absolutely. Yeah, but including some heel hooks and things like that. Like, there's certain positions where you see guys in jujitsu tournaments, like, boy, you find yourself like that in a fight, that guy's gonna blast you in the face. Like, you're in a bad, like, you're, you're grabbing a hold of someone's leg and your head is right here and you're hooked, like, there is nothing stopping someone from elbowing you or punching you in the face. It's kinda nuts to even pursue those, but as long as there's no striking, boy, it's very effective. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog.

• 2:16:50Joe Rogan?

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• 2:19:04Speaker 01

  See, this, I often think that I'm quite, I feel very fortunate that I came into martial arts before MMA. And, and the reason for that is because the way that I learned martial arts was not for sport, right? And this was an, an observation I've had recently where, you know, a fighter just would fall apart if they haven't, don't have a particular person in their corner, right? My, my martial arts instructor back in the day from when I was six was teaching me taekwondo or teaching me martial arts, should I say. For him not to be there cornering me because I'm doing it for self-defense. There's no sport context. He's not teaching me techniques that I can use when he's there to coach me through a street fight, right? He's trying to give me the techniques that I need. So when he's not there, I know what I'm doing.

• 2:19:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:49Speaker 01

  Right? Same thing with like spatial awareness, like often, like, you know, when, when I was in clubs and I was fighting a lot back in the day, my awareness of fire exits and tables and that kind of stuff, it gives me, it gave me a similar awareness to how I can use the cage against my opponent, which I feel is not necessarily used as much as it could be in, in MMA these days. Like there are, there are certain fighters, they just don't, like, how often do you see two fighters up against a fence panel? The whole cage is there and they're like they're not that not no one's using the pressure that they could be using. Sometimes people circle themselves onto the fence unnecessarily. Like the idea of being backed up against the wall is only if you don't want people attacking you from behind was my. My perspective in a in a self-defense context.

• 2:20:33Speaker 01

  So I think the way that I learned martial arts allowed me to kind of see it as a. Um, in a more efficient way, right? Like say, for example, if I'd have learned jujitsu, I wouldn't have wanted to use jujitsu for a street fight. Because a lot of the street fights I got in, it wasn't one person.

• 2:20:50Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:20:51Speaker 01

  So I don't want to be inside control or choking somebody out while his friends volleying me in the head. Like for me, it was the efficiency of, okay, here's a guy, here's a guy, you know what I mean?

• 2:21:01Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:21:01Speaker 01

  Like, how quickly can I get through these people?

• 2:21:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:04Speaker 01

  You know, and I feel like that's something that this is maybe where the scoring criteria can be adjusted to so we keep. Getting what we want out of the sport because there are stagnant fights, they do slow down. People do start to think, okay, this round, this round, this round. And there's not, there's not a, an instigation for a conclusion built into their game necessarily.

• 2:21:24Joe Rogan?

  But isn't that also dependent upon matchups? Like sometimes people just cancel each other out skill wise and that's just part of the game.

• 2:21:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely, but usually the ones where they cancel each other out skills, skill wise are the, are they actually the more interesting fights? Because whether it's grappling or striking, it keeps moving. Almost always it's when there's a dominant skill set on one side and the other person just can't deal with it. Like, look at me.

• 2:21:46Joe Rogan?

  Like Hamza and Drakis.

• 2:21:47Speaker 01

  Exactly, me against GSP.

• 2:21:49Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:21:49Speaker 01

  Like, I, I didn't have the skill set to compete with him.

• 2:21:52Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:21:53Speaker 01

  If I'd have been able to wrestle, I'd have forced him to strike. If I'd have been better at jujitsu, I'd have maybe forced him to, to strike a bit more, right? But because there was a way of him completely taking me out my game, there wasn't necessarily an, an onus to, to. Instigate a conclusion to the fight.

• 2:22:09Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:22:10Speaker 01

  So almost always when you see one person that is so dominant in wrestling. And the other person can't handle it, that's when the fights can sometimes be quite stagnant.

• 2:22:18Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:18Speaker 01

  My argument in those scenarios is, okay, well, yeah, you're winning this with wrestling, you're winning it with wrestling. But you're not concluding it, right? Like, you're gonna get to the end and the judges are gonna go, well, yeah, you, you, you know, you, you controlled him for more of the fight.

• 2:22:32Joe Rogan?

  Like the Hamza Drakis.

• 2:22:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, like this is, I mean, I, I'd be interested to get your thoughts on this. I think we should stop scoring control in MMA. Right, control is scored up against the fence, right? Defense is not scored in MMA, right? Defense is its own reward, right? Control, in my opinion, is its own reward. If you're a grappler and I'm a striker, it's on you to take me into the range that suits you.

• 2:22:58Joe Rogan?

  Right, but if someone's taking someone down and controlling them and working towards a submission, how do you quantify that? Because they might not get it, but they're working towards it.

• 2:23:10Speaker 01

  So then, if you consider top control as you would center control, right? When everything else is even, you go to octagon control as one of the later scoring criterias. When the striking and the grappling, everything's even. Then we move into, okay, well-

• 2:23:25Joe Rogan?

  Octagon control's weird, though, because it's like...

• 2:23:29Joe Rogan?

  So, octagon control could be you're in the center of the cage and you're pressing the action. But what if you're a counter striker? Like, what if you're Tyron Woodley versus Stephen "Wonder Boy" Thompson? And you spend a lot of the time just moving away? Like, remember, they fought to a draw, right? Didn't they fight to a draw in one of their fights?

• 2:23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that was also, that was also, I mean, and I don't necessarily want to criticize Tyron, but I don't really think Tyron liked fighting. He spent a lot of time wearing his back heel down against the fence with the crowd booing in the championship rounds. I never got the impression that Tyron liked fighting, he was just good at it.

• 2:24:02Joe Rogan?

  Hmm, that's interesting. I don't know why you would think that. I thought that was the style to beat Wonder Boy. I think that's the smart style to beat Wonder Boy, because he didn't fight that style with Darren Till. Darren Till blasted him, took him down and got rid of him quick. But with Wonder Boy, you cannot stand in the middle of the cage and kickbox that guy, because he's doing weird shit. He's doing things with his legs you can't do. Like, and you know, like, if you see a guy like Raymond Daniels or MVP, like-

• 2:24:32Speaker 01

  So wrestle him.

• 2:24:33Joe Rogan?

  You can't, yeah.

• 2:24:35Speaker 01

  So wrestle him.

• 2:24:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, if you can.

• 2:24:37Speaker 01

  I hear what you're saying totally, but, like, say, for example, in the Damian Maia fight, he defended 26 takedowns in that fight, went the distance, right?

• 2:24:46Joe Rogan?

  Right, but with the Wonder Boy fight, he rocked Wonder Boy, and he had Wonder Boy hurt. Where Wonder Boy didn't hurt him, which is because he forced Wonder Boy to be offensive instead of countering. So, by making it boring, by backing up.

• 2:25:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I, but I, at the same time, I don't necessarily think, I don't know if that was a calculation of going out.

• 2:25:06Joe Rogan?

  I think it was.

• 2:25:07Speaker 01

  Do you think?

• 2:25:07Joe Rogan?

  Yes, because he fought him that way the second time as well. I think.

• 2:25:10Speaker 01

  But I think that was intimidation from what, when the boy could do on the feet and him not wanting to waste energy trying to take him down.

• 2:25:15Joe Rogan?

  I don't think he was intimidated. I think he was waiting. He was waiting for moments to explode because it's not like he was timid when he blasted him and had him rocked and hurt.

• 2:25:23Speaker 01

  He just, he never made a fan out of me, Tyrone. And, and the thing is, what was interesting is I had a similar.

• 2:25:28Joe Rogan?

  You didn't think, you weren't a fan after the Darren Till fight?

• 2:25:30Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. Like, and, and same with the Robbie Lawler fight, you know, that was an incredible knockout. And this was the thing that was frustrating is that he had the capability to do that kind of thing. And sometimes I just felt like he, he wants to play king of the hill. He didn't want to be the smashing champion that, that other fighters did. You know what I mean? And, and.

• 2:25:49Joe Rogan?

  Well, you know, you gotta think, like, he had some, he had some fights that didn't go his way as well. Strikeforce, the Nate Marquard fight. The Nate Marquard fight where he got KO'd, where Nate hit him with like a video game combination with those elbows against the cage, like. So, so there's consequences to just wait. And by the way, Nate Marquard, boy, there, there's a guy that kinda, people forget how fucking good that guy was. When he was in his prime, woo. When he went over to Strikeforce, he was a fucking monster, dude.

• 2:26:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, facts.

• 2:26:20Joe Rogan?

  That guy was good. He was good. You know, I had heard stories about him training at, um, in Colorado. With GSP, with all those guys, like, dude, Nate Marquard fucked everybody up. He was that good at one point in time.

• 2:26:34Speaker 01

  Man, so many names of, of fighters that have just been kinda lost to time that people don't realize that they were so good.

• 2:26:40Joe Rogan?

  Eve Edwards, there's another one. I talk about him all the time. There's a point in time where Eve Edwards was the best 155 pounder on the planet.

• 2:26:47Speaker 01

  Facts.

• 2:26:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's just like, people forget. People forget how good people were.

• 2:26:51Speaker 01

  You know, interesting, the point you made about Counter-Strike, and I've always thought this about guard playing as well. Like, if you're a guard player, you've kinda got to accept that you're losing until you win.

• 2:26:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:59Speaker 01

  It's like Matida was one of the best examples of a Counter-Striker. And then, you know, you say Adesanya against Paulo Costa. Paulo Costa was in the center of the cage for most of that.

• 2:27:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:09Speaker 01

  So, if you're just looking at. Octagon control, well you're gonna score it's Paolo because he was in the centre. But there was no doubt that Izzy was just toying with him and lighting him up from a distance.

• 2:27:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but you couldn't say octagon control because Izzy was landing all his shots.

• 2:27:23Speaker 01

  But that's, that's the thing is that, that was a very, very clear one, right? Where, where you've got one person moving back and giving the centre of the cage, but clearly winning on the striking. Whereas if, when it gets very even with the striking, you have to really have good judges to be able to pick apart who's landing what.

• 2:27:41Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:27:41Speaker 01

  Even because like we had a fight the other week, Jacob Kasuba, uh, he was fighting Natan Shult. And he was backing up the whole fight, but he was landing way more strikes than his opponent. But even when it got to the end of the fight, I'm like, are these judges gonna score this right? Are they, because they don't have the stats that we have in, on the screen in front of us, right?

• 2:27:58Joe Rogan?

  They should.

• 2:27:59Speaker 01

  Exactly, they should. But, but because they don't, are they gonna, they're gonna go, oh, well, you know, he was moving forward? And we had a fight uh, in Sioux Falls the other day where the female fighter, Shan Bowers, was pushing forward and she was landing. But her opponent was backing up and countering a lot of the shots. And the judges scored it to Sabrina. It was, you know, it was the right decision to make. But the crowd didn't like it because they felt like, like the Bowers was the one pushing forward and making a fight out of it.

• 2:28:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but that's casuals.

• 2:28:27Speaker 01

  Of course, yeah. But it is, it is a risky thing to be a counter striker and a guard player in MMA. Because you have to, first of all, credit the judges to see what, you know.

• 2:28:35Joe Rogan?

  But who's left that's a guard player?

• 2:28:37Speaker 01

  Not many, right? It's kind of been cycled out of the game.

• 2:28:40Joe Rogan?

  Olivera is like the best at it.

• 2:28:42Speaker 01

  But even that didn't work out for him in some times, did it? There was a lot of time he'd spend energy guard playing. There's a lot of the time why, you know, good wrestlers decide not to wrestle. Because the amount of energy it costs.

• 2:28:51Joe Rogan?

  That's true, but I mean, like, look what he did to Gamrot, and that was super impressive.

• 2:28:55Speaker 01

  Gamrot's so good.

• 2:28:56Joe Rogan?

  So good. The fact that Gamrot was just lost on the ground with Olivera. Shows you how good Olivera is.

• 2:29:02Speaker 01

  Do you remember Gamrot's debut against Garam Katata-Ladze? Like, both of those guys, he's in karate combat now. Both of those guys are so elite. And then when they got matched up against each other in their UFC debut, I'm like, man. People aren't gonna realise how good this matchup is.

• 2:29:16Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:29:17Speaker 01

  Like Saruki, and I called his debut against, uh, against Makachev.

• 2:29:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:21Speaker 01

  Like, and he was 5% behind Islam in that fight. But that 5% was, you know, incredible fight, yeah.

• 2:29:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, um, I am uh very curious to see how Pereira does against Cyril Gahn.

• 2:29:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:36Joe Rogan?

  Cyril Gahn's a different thing.

• 2:29:38Speaker 01

  Just moves differently for a big guy, doesn't he?

• 2:29:40Joe Rogan?

  He's also a real heavyweight. There ain't a fucking time since he's been fifteen where that guy's making one eighty-five.

• 2:29:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:29:47Joe Rogan?

  Right? That's a big man. And he's an incredible athlete and a really elite striker, like a really good striker. Like, and a fucking big heavyweight man. And I know Pereira weighs like two sixty now. I I get it. I get it. Yeah, he's a heavyweight. Yep, definitely. But.

• 2:30:06Speaker 01

  He was one eighty-five.

• 2:30:08Joe Rogan?

  It was one eighty-five, just a few years ago. And he was a one eighty-five pound champion and then the two oh five pound champion and I don't think Cyril Gahn could even make two oh five.

• 2:30:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:30:15Joe Rogan?

  Cyril's big.

• 2:30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:17Joe Rogan?

  And he's big and fucking thick and and he's good, man. And I'm telling you, that Tom Hardy fight, excuse me, um. Tom Aspinall fight, Tom Hardy fight, my my mind sucks. Um, the Tom Aspinall fight uh in that first round before the the eye pokes were disgraceful. Like, first of all, I think.

• 2:30:35Speaker 01

  Still gotta fix the gloves.

• 2:30:37Joe Rogan?

  Oh, God. You know, my my solution is mittens. Why why? We don't do this anyway. Why? Why are these? Why are these out like this?

• 2:30:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:45Joe Rogan?

  Put a fucking.

• 2:30:46Speaker 01

  It's a good point. The thing that annoyed me is like they went through all the all that the effort to fix the gloves.

• 2:30:51Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:30:52Speaker 01

  But they never asked a fighter or a person that wraps hands like what they actually thought. They were getting contender series fighters to to grade them. And of course, they're all like, they're great. They've got UFC on them. I'm so happy to be here. You know what I mean? Like, you know, like, talk to Tate, for example. I'm like, they must have asked you about the hand wrapping, about the gloves and stuff. Because the problem is, right? Like, when you get there on Tuesday and you try your gloves on, you're like, yeah, they feel good. And then you get to Fight Night and they put a quarter inch of padding underneath.

• 2:31:20Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:31:20Speaker 01

  And then you're trying to close your hand.

• 2:31:22Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:31:23Speaker 01

  And like the difference between like the Pride gloves or the Rising gloves or the like the Fertex, I always used to use Fertex if I could. There's a there's a curve in the glove, right? When when you try your gloves on, what the P what the blue shirts backstage do, because they know the game, is they roll the glove up and then wrap it with the Velcro of the wrist. So it stays rolled from Tuesday to Saturday.

• 2:31:45Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:31:45Speaker 01

  And then when you get them on Saturday, they've kind of curved a little bit, right? But it's not, the curve is not built into the padding.

• 2:31:52Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:31:53Speaker 01

  And the, the, the, the new ones that they made, there, there was just too much technology and not enough common sense.

• 2:31:59Joe Rogan?

  Have you used Trevor Whitman's?

• 2:32:01Speaker 01

  I have. Veronica's just got a pair of them.

• 2:32:03Joe Rogan?

  The best.

• 2:32:03Speaker 01

  They are very, very good. Absolutely.

• 2:32:05Joe Rogan?

  They're the best.

• 2:32:06Speaker 01

  But that's, that's an ownership problem though, isn't it?

• 2:32:07Joe Rogan?

  It is. I've tried to negotiate that and broker that and maybe I still can be successful. I, I talked to them, I talked to, to Trevor, maybe it still can be done. But even with Trevor's, the fingers are still exposed and I think there's certain guys who just have this fucking impulse to do that. And I think one point every time. Poke somebody in the eye, one point. Every fucking time. Because there's a lot of fighters that have never poked anybody in the eye, right? So how come? How come? They've been in wild scraps, never poked anybody in the eye.

• 2:32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, well, I'm, I watch, I watch one championship, small gloves Muay Thai and they are in range.

• 2:32:45Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:32:45Speaker 01

  They're not poking each other in the eyes.

• 2:32:46Joe Rogan?

  No, they're not. And by the way, I love small gloves Muay Thai.

• 2:32:50Speaker 01

  It's so cool.

• 2:32:50Joe Rogan?

  It's so good.

• 2:32:51Speaker 01

  It's so cool.

• 2:32:52Joe Rogan?

  And it's so interesting. And for all these people that like hate when fights go to the ground, my God, that's the solution. And I've been trying to sell this to the UFC forever. I'm like, fuck all this slap fight shit. And I know you're really interested in Zuffa Boxing, that's great. How about UFC striking? How about UFC Muay Thai?

• 2:33:07Speaker 01

  Be amazing.

• 2:33:08Joe Rogan?

  You know, like, cause, and even kickboxing, what they're doing with One, you know, guys like Yuki Yozu and, you know?

• 2:33:15Speaker 01

  Watch out for Ben Wallace, have you seen this kid?

• 2:33:17Joe Rogan?

  Oh yeah, he's a beast, man.

• 2:33:18Speaker 01

  I signed him to PFL a, a little while ago, just can't get him matched. Just couldn't get him matched.

• 2:33:23Joe Rogan?

  Cause people don't wanna stand with him.

• 2:33:25Speaker 01

  Click on his, on his Instagram and he's, I mean, in my opinion, he's one of the best strikers in the world right now. He's just, and, and I've, you know, he trained, trained at Renegade for a long time with the Edwards brothers and I would watch him just play spa with people and the, the level of trickery. Like, that's where you, like, go back to saying about dimensions, right? There are ranges in fights and then there are dimension, there's in those ranges.

• 2:33:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:46Speaker 01

  And he's at like a Jedi level of dimension of understanding of striking.

• 2:33:50Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:33:50Speaker 01

  And, and to see him have the success he has means stopping John Lineker with calf kicks and, you know?

• 2:33:55Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, very impressive, very impressive.

• 2:33:57Speaker 01

  You're gonna see him go straight to the top.

• 2:33:59Joe Rogan?

  How is One doing? Are they?

• 2:34:00Speaker 01

  Not good from what I can tell. I mean-

• 2:34:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's what I've heard as well. And that concerns me because if we have more limited options, that sucks.

• 2:34:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is why, I mean, and I've, I, you know, I feel very much like I'm in the right place now with the PFL because- We need more organizations.

• 2:34:17Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:34:18Speaker 01

  We need more organizations. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the UFC is not the custodian of the sport that we need right now. You know.

• 2:34:24Joe Rogan?

  Well, what do you think they're doing wrong?

• 2:34:28Speaker 01

  I mean, I think, I think it's a variety of different things. I mean, underpaying the fighters, killing the sponsorship market. They, they buried a lot of growth of the subculture. You know, you remember the old UFC expos that we used to do. I'd do like five, six hours a day signing. Tapout over to Silver Star, over to Zion's and like, as soon as that was all killed off, a lot of that subculture died off. And all those subcultures offer jobs outside of, outside of fighting, you know? It, it allows people to then start a brand and sponsor some young fighters like Charles Lewis, Mask. Paid me double what I was getting paid for my purse when I was in Japan. Double, just to wear Tapout shorts on a, on a, in a tournament and cage force. Like, he didn't need to do that.

• 2:35:13Speaker 01

  But he was a fan of the sport. He loved it and he wanted to support it. And back in the day, like I had sponsors like Eric Records and stuff that was on my banner. Just a heavy metal brand from like my local town. Um, like the idea of being able to have these personal sponsors that would help you out was massive.

• 2:35:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:31Speaker 01

  And then the other thing, the, the other issue that we've got is that we don't have, we don't have enough events now for a lot of fighters to get experience. So then a lot of people that get signed to contenders are like five, six, seven fights into their career. I was talking to this, somebody about this the other day and there's, there's good, clear examples. Like, I was nineteen and six when I joined the UFC in twenty twenty eight. Conor McGregor had already built a brand and a, and a.

• 2:35:54Joe Rogan?

  Wait a minute, you just said twenty twenty eight.

• 2:35:56Speaker 01

  Sorry, it's two thousand eight. Maybe, maybe there's a return on the cost.

• 2:36:01Speaker 01

  Two thousand eight, so I had.

• 2:36:02Joe Rogan?

  I was like, are you a time traveler?

• 2:36:05Speaker 01

  I feel like I am here a little bit with the UFC.

• 2:36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so in two thousand and eight, like, there was, where was I going? I lost my train of thought.

• 2:36:14Joe Rogan?

  Uh, sponsors.

• 2:36:15Speaker 01

  Sponsors, yeah. So like, we had sponsors, there was a subculture that was growing around the brand. And there were, there were, there were shows that, that would host you long enough for you to develop a brand, right? So like, I didn't have a, nearly as, as big of a following as Conor McGregor or Paddy Pimblett. But I had a similar platform, right? I was Cage Warriors champ, then Conor was Cage Warriors champ. And he was an established fighter with a game and a following before he came to UFC. Same with Paddy. We don't see that as much anymore, right? We don't see the fighters growing on their local scene and building a local fanbase that really starts to grow the sport on a grassroots level, you know?

• 2:36:52Joe Rogan?

  Right, but why is that the UFC's responsibility?

• 2:36:54Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I'm not saying, I'm not saying it is. What I'm saying is that unfortunately, I think the UFC is now kind of paying for the, the control that they took many years ago. Because the industry has been stifled around it. Like, the sponsorship industry for a start was massive, you know?

• 2:37:09Joe Rogan?

  The problem with it was, there was a lot of sponsors that weren't paying. So that, a lot of fighters would wind up in lawsuits and there was a lot of bullshit that was going on. There, some of them were, and it was great. You know, like, uh, you know, I'm really good friends with Brendan Schaub. And there was, uh, a point in time where he was making X amount for a fight. But he was making like, three times that in sponsors.

• 2:37:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I, I doubled my show money on the GSP fight because of my banner. I only got twenty-two thousand for that fight, but.

• 2:37:37Joe Rogan?

  Which is crazy.

• 2:37:38Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 2:37:38Joe Rogan?

  It's crazy, world title fight.

• 2:37:39Speaker 01

  But that's what I signed up for. I wasn't earning for the money, you know what I mean? But in hindsight, when I look at it and GSP was getting, I mean, you get like six million. He spent quarter of a million on his training camp. I, I, how could I compete? Like, he would book out a whole hotel and bring guys in from New York. I, I had a, I had Alder in my corner, who at the time was a brown belt, you know? I, I, you know, and I had a Thai boxing coach that was telling him, me to knee him in the head on the ground from bottom position, you know? Like, bless him, he just didn't know the rules. I, I didn't have the support network, because I just, I couldn't afford what I would have really needed for that, you know? But if I, if I go back to, i- if, you know, was, I mean, the sponsorship. Process was interesting because the first thing they did was they brought in the fees that the sponsorship companies had to pay.

• 2:38:23Speaker 01

  So it was like if you're a clothing brand, you have to pay fifty thousand dollars a year to sponsor UFC fighters and that goes to the UFC. Now, before that, as long as it wasn't offensive and it wasn't a conflict in sponsor, the UFC would tick it and you'd carry on.

• 2:38:38Joe Rogan?

  Condom depot.

• 2:38:39Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 2:38:39Joe Rogan?

  Remember that?

• 2:38:40Speaker 01

  No, awful. I turned them down a few times. But like, if you think about it, like say Eric Records, right? They couldn't afford to pay the UFC fifty thousand dollars. They would pay me three hundred pounds to have the thing on my banner, right?

• 2:38:54Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:38:54Speaker 01

  So then, as soon as you bring in this, okay, everybody has to pay fifty thousand to be a sponsor in the UFC cage, almost all of the sponsors then fell out the market straight away.

• 2:39:03Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:39:03Speaker 01

  And then you've only got a few that are lingering. And then, if you're a clothing distributor, if you sell a variety of different brands, it was a hundred thousand dollars that you had to pay.

• 2:39:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:13Speaker 01

  So if you're MMA Warehouse and you're sponsoring Alistair Overeem and your sponsorship budget for the year is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and straight away a hundred grand's been taken out because the UFC need it, just your pool's gone down.

• 2:39:27Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:39:27Speaker 01

  So you've got less money to give to the fighters and then you're sponsoring less fighters overall.

• 2:39:32Joe Rogan?

  I get that. I get that argument and I definitely agree about fighter pay. Like, I'm always in favor of fighters getting paid more. It's a very dangerous job and it's the only thing that people are paying to see. They're not paying to look at the cage, they're not paying to look at the ring card girls, they're not paying to hear me talk. They're paying to watch the fights. Fighters should get the majority of the money. And it is a problem when they don't have leverage and I think that it's great that you have things like MVP getting involved at the Netflix card. I wish the card was a little stronger, but it's difficult. Like, like Lin's fighting against Francis Ngano, like, you know, you need, like, who the fuck is even available that's not signed to a contract that you can get Francis to fight?

• 2:40:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:14Joe Rogan?

  That's not a goddamn execution, you know? You know, Francis is the legitimate heavyweight champion of the world.

• 2:40:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And the thing is, the heavyweight division is always going to be more of a victim of the underpayment than any other industry.

• 2:40:26Joe Rogan?

  Is Francis no longer with the PFL?

• 2:40:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:40:29Joe Rogan?

  How did that, what happened there?

• 2:40:31Speaker 01

  I just think it was, I just think it was a bad deal done by the previous owner, by the previous CEO.

• 2:40:36Joe Rogan?

  Oh, it was a previous CEO?

• 2:40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:38Joe Rogan?

  So I'm not aware, so he fought Henning Ferreira in that one fight?

• 2:40:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:40:43Joe Rogan?

  Is that the only fight that he had in the PFL? That's kinda crazy.

• 2:40:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was just, I mean, it was, it was a bad deal for the PFL. And we've done a lot of, we've done a lot of bad, bad deals.

• 2:40:52Joe Rogan?

  Who's that guy that just knocked out Henning Ferreira?

• 2:40:55Speaker 01

  Oh, Sergey Bilasteny.

• 2:40:57Joe Rogan?

  Woo!

• 2:40:58Speaker 01

  Used to train with Fedor and, uh...

• 2:41:00Joe Rogan?

  Woo! That guy's fucking legit.

• 2:41:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. And very, very fast.

• 2:41:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, man.

• 2:41:06Speaker 01

  Like him v Tom Aspinall is an interesting fight. That is an interesting fight.

• 2:41:09Joe Rogan?

  Him versus anybody's interesting.

• 2:41:10Speaker 01

  Him v Cyril Gann, he moves a lot like Cyril Gann, but he's got Sambo background and...

• 2:41:14Joe Rogan?

  Bro, that guy's legit. I watched that Ferreira fight and I was like, holy shit.

• 2:41:18Speaker 01

  Spun his head around, didn't he?

• 2:41:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, dude. And, you know, I mean, this, this cat.

• 2:41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:41:23Joe Rogan?

  Pull this up, here we go. Look at this guy, I mean, he moves like Fedor, too. He trained with Fedor, which is interesting.

• 2:41:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yes. You wanna get through to the third, uh, yeah, that's that little body shot. So third round was the, the, the finish.

• 2:41:36Joe Rogan?

  But it just looks so dominant. He looked so dominant, like, throughout the fight, man. Like, right away.

• 2:41:43Speaker 01

  He's a beast, isn't he?

• 2:41:44Joe Rogan?

  This kid is very, very legit. Oh, my goodness. The speed.

• 2:41:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:41:50Joe Rogan?

  So, the world needs another fucking big heavyweight, man. And this is, this is awesome that this guy exists. What's his name again?

• 2:41:56Speaker 01

  Sergey Bilasteny.

• 2:41:57Joe Rogan?

  I just saw this yesterday. I'm guilty of not watching enough PFL. Um, but the thing is, it's like, the fights are legit. The, the talent is legit, but man, it is just not getting the attention that it deserves.

• 2:42:12Speaker 01

  Look, the thing is, as, as a UFC fan, I get it, right? Because you wanna watch one promotion where all the fighters are, so you can find out who the best is. Cause that's what ultimately it was about, right? It was about finding out who's the best.

• 2:42:24Joe Rogan?

  Listen, man, that guy could kinda compete with anybody.

• 2:42:26Speaker 01

  Of course, of course. And we've got guys that can, across the sport. I mean, you know, across the, across the, the promotion we have. I mean, you know, Dakota, Thad Jean, you know, we've got some real, real good fighters. And even in, like, we're, if you've not watched Lewis McGrill and Dean Garnett, it is one of the best fights you'll ever see. There were thirteen knockdowns in it. It was carnage. But then we're also seeing really interesting things like, like the Scottish Twister. Have you seen the Scottish Twister, right?

• 2:42:52Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:42:53Speaker 01

  So that was Stevie Ray, who hit it against Pettis, and then he hit it against Louis Long in Glasgow. And then he's passed it on to Jake Hadley, and then Jake Hadley's just submitted Mateus Matos with it. And it's fascinating, because it's kind of a twister.

• 2:43:09Joe Rogan?

  Uh huh.

• 2:43:10Speaker 01

  It's like, it's, it's-

• 2:43:11Joe Rogan?

  Have you tried it?

• 2:43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah?

• 2:43:12Speaker 01

  I mean, I struggle with it.

• 2:43:13Joe Rogan?

  So here it is.

• 2:43:14Speaker 01

  But look at this. The key is the foot in the thigh. It's like an offside triangle. You can see that that right foot is just hooked in.

• 2:43:21Joe Rogan?

  Uh huh.

• 2:43:21Speaker 01

  And he's gonna threaten with an arm triangle. He's kind of holding Matos here. There's a bit of a hand fight going on. He's gonna keep hitting Matos, and he's gonna, Matos is gonna go to an arm triangle position. Then he's gonna start to try and force that, that right elbow down, so he's not in an arm triangle, and turn into the body triangle. But that right foot caught in his thigh doesn't allow him to turn fully into the guard. So look at this, how he turns in, clears the head, and there's the crank. Look at the foot on the inside of the thigh.

• 2:43:48Joe Rogan?

  That's nasty.

• 2:43:48Speaker 01

  So that is, I mean, I've, I've had this done to me as well as I've done it. So you've got, you've got compression into the neck, pressure into the lower back, your hips being lifted off the, it's a horrible submission.

• 2:43:59Joe Rogan?

  It looks horrible.

• 2:44:00Speaker 01

  And, oh, this is the Cheesecake Assassin demo in it.

• 2:44:03Joe Rogan?

  Interesting.

• 2:44:04Speaker 01

  But it like, and this, this is what's fascinating still to me about MMA, is that I still feel like this technology is that we're not, we've not yet discovered. The calf kick at being a good example.

• 2:44:15Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:44:15Speaker 01

  Scottish Twister being another good example. What comes next?

• 2:44:18Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:44:18Speaker 01

  There's gonna be some shit. I've got books and books of martial arts books, and I feel like if I dug, I might find something, but-

• 2:44:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I don't know what's missing. Um, here's something that I think might be missing. Front leg roundhouse kick to the face.

• 2:44:33Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 2:44:33Joe Rogan?

  Guys who are fast with that, I used to see that a lot in Taekwondo. I used to see that a lot. There's guys that get, just throw it out there like a jab, and if it hits you in the face, you're fucked. And we've seen it a few times in MMA. We've seen a few guys get dropped. We saw Rose Nama-Yunus and Zhang Weili. You just don't see it very often. And man, if you're good at that, if you have a fast one- That is a devastating kick.

• 2:45:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, see that that is a good example because that's a great technique and a great setup. Because the reason why the head kick landed was because she just landed an inside low kick.

• 2:45:09Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:45:09Speaker 01

  So Wayley had pulled her lead leg back and pitched her head forward.

• 2:45:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:13Speaker 01

  Beautiful set. I totally agree with you. I think there's a lot that's still to be discovered.

• 2:45:17Joe Rogan?

  It's just stunning to me how few people get cracked with that. I mean, I felt like that was a major weapon when I was doing Taekwondo. A lot of people use that.

• 2:45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, crescent kick as well.

• 2:45:28Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, there's a few guys that use that still. Anderson used that a few times.

• 2:45:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:45:32Joe Rogan?

  There's a cat, I'm so sorry, man, I forget your name. But there's a dude who's got a video on Instagram where he knocks this guy out with an inside crescent kick to the face. There's a few people that are pulling it off, you know?

• 2:45:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's definitely more to come. There's definitely a lot more. There are a lot more techniques that I also think there are going to be a lot more um targets on the body that can be exploited that we're not yet exploiting, you know?

• 2:45:56Joe Rogan?

  Well, a lot of the guys in um in kickboxing, in particular in ONE, are using that toe kick to the body.

• 2:46:02Speaker 01

  Yes, ap chaggy, right?

• 2:46:05Joe Rogan?

  There's this cat, yes. What is his name, Jamie? I've actually congratulated this guy. I apologize, sir. Because I went back and forth with him. Jason Barry, is that what you just said? Back it up a little bit. Before that, before that, before that.

• 2:46:23Speaker 01

  See, look at those Cage Warriors gloves.

• 2:46:24Joe Rogan?

  Justin Barry, Justin Barry, that's it.

• 2:46:26Speaker 01

  Look at the curve in those Cage Warriors gloves. So they're basically, they're they're either they're either Fairtex gloves or they're a copy of the Fairtex gloves.

• 2:46:34Joe Rogan?

  Look how he does that. I mean, it's crazy.

• 2:46:36Speaker 01

  That's slick, isn't it?

• 2:46:36Joe Rogan?

  Crazy.

• 2:46:37Speaker 01

  Very cool.

• 2:46:38Joe Rogan?

  Crazy. Yeah, Cage Warriors is another great organization that's really producing elite talent. It's just, I agree with you, there's not enough of them. But it's like, what does the PFL have to do to get more attention? You know, because it seems like they're throwing a lot of money at fighters. Like, is that million dollar thing still happening?

• 2:46:54Speaker 01

  No, we've got rid of the tournament. We've gone to regular shows now. So we have main and co-main. We've got rankings now done by Combat Registry.

• 2:47:01Joe Rogan?

  They don't have all the crazy point system where you're...

• 2:47:04Speaker 01

  No, all that's gone.

• 2:47:05Joe Rogan?

  That didn't make any fucking sense.

• 2:47:07Speaker 01

  I'll be honest, I love the PFL, but PFL's been its own worst enemy for many, many years, right? We've got we've got a new CEO, John Martin, who's he's been on Ariel's show a couple of times. He does great interviews. He he loves the sport from a fan's perspective, doesn't know it quite as much as as other people, but... He's, he's making the right moves and making the right decisions. Previously, I mean, I loved Don Davis, but he was like Willy Wonka of MMA. He was like, I've got a great idea, let's do this and blah, blah, blah. And then you had Pete Murray, who just was consistently making bad deals.

• 2:47:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, all the point things were like, I didn't understand any of it.

• 2:47:42Speaker 01

  So I was running PFL Europe for, for a couple of three years. I, I stepped in at the end of 2022 as commentator and 2023 I became the head of, head of fighter ops for Europe. So I was doing all the sign and matchmaking. I only had four shows a year, but I mean, it was, it was a, a passion project for me to sign all these young guys and match them. And my argument was every single, and I always used to say this to the fighters, because remember when Dana used to do this back on the old weigh-in days where he'd get all the fighters, no corner men, no coaches, just translators and the fighters. And we'd gather in one of the changing rooms in the arena and Dana'd give us this speech and it, it was stirring, like we're all there to murder each other, but for, for like five minutes,

• 2:48:23Speaker 01

  we all felt like we were in it together. And I, I loved that feeling. I missed it. Even walking out, we're like fist bumping each other and we're all hyped. And that's where he'd announce the bonus amounts and stuff. So I would do that with PFL Europe. I'd gather all the fighters together and I'm like, look, there's not a single fight on this card that has been matched for one person to win. Every single person stepping into the cage has got a, a fair chance of winning. Your destiny is in your hands, right? And with PFL Europe, I was able to, to build a good roster and, and, and to, to, I mean, we had some fantastic shows. But when I first inherited it, we had four tournaments, right? So I had to sign 16 fighters, sorry, eight fighters per weight class. So I had 32 fighters on my roster that was done already before the year started.

• 2:49:08Speaker 01

  And then I'm having to get loads of different flags. So we're going into a place and I've got a bunch of fighters on the card that I don't need, that aren't going to sell any tickets. And it was just working against me constantly. So I pushed to go down to two tournaments and have just a normal MMA show for the rest of it. And that worked out well, but. They they just they loved the tournament format because it was a distinguishing factor. And the question is, you know, what do we have to do to uh to to to make a difference like? I mean, I think we are doing those, we are making those moves. We have to make more content, tell the fighters stories better, for sure.

• 2:49:41Joe Rogan?

  Maybe you guys should start a fucking Muay Thai.

• 2:49:43Speaker 01

  I'm down for it.

• 2:49:45Joe Rogan?

  Maybe like UFC is fucking up with that. I've I sent Dana all these different fights. I send him all these uh is um uh Iman Gazaliyev, that dude, Asadula, Iman Gazaliyev. Holy shit, is that guy good? I'm like, look at this. Like, this is what people wanna see, man. Like, everybody boos when the fights go to the ground if it gets boring. This shit's never boring.

• 2:50:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:50:08Joe Rogan?

  Maybe you guys should pick up the slack.

• 2:50:09Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. Look, it's I I mean, I've I've thrown hundreds of ideas on the table. Um I always am, you know.

• 2:50:14Joe Rogan?

  That might be the move, man. That might be what differentiates.

• 2:50:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 2:50:18Joe Rogan?

  Because look how big it is with one. I mean, it's essentially become most of their fights now.

• 2:50:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's accommodating fighters that have got two or three hundred fights in another discipline that don't want to learn how to wrestle or grapple, but they are the elitist of elite strikers.

• 2:50:32Joe Rogan?

  And so easy to translate. Like, everybody knows what's going on.

• 2:50:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:50:35Joe Rogan?

  A kick to the face is a kick to the face.

• 2:50:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I agree with you. I mean, I think, but I'm I'm always throwing ideas at the PFA. The one that stuck was introducing elbows. Like, when I first started working with the PFA, we didn't have elbows because crazy.

• 2:50:48Joe Rogan?

  Crazy.

• 2:50:48Speaker 01

  Like, and I hated it, you know, and I'm like.

• 2:50:51Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's pride. Pride didn't have elbows.

• 2:50:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:50:54Joe Rogan?

  Did Bellator?

• 2:50:55Speaker 01

  Bellator had elbows.

• 2:50:56Joe Rogan?

  So what the fuck?

• 2:50:57Speaker 01

  Well, you see, that was my that was my selling point. That was the way I got I managed to convince them. I said, okay, right. We've taken on Bellator now. We've inherited Bellator and everything that it was.

• 2:51:06Joe Rogan?

  Take the rules too.

• 2:51:06Speaker 01

  Right?

• 2:51:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:07Speaker 01

  How but well, this is how I pitched it to them, right? One of my biggest opponents was Ray Cefo. Like, he did not want elbows added, and I could not get my head around it, because he's always coaching elbows from the corner, right? I'm not sure, I couldn't, I couldn't get my head around it. But, but the thing that pushed it over the line was me going, okay, right, we've just, we've just taken on Bellator, right? We've got Bellator and we've got PFL. Imagine in a world where we now apply PFL rules to Bellator, what are the fans gonna say? They're gonna be like, well, that'd be terrible, they'd hate it because you're taking elbows out. I'm like, you've illustrated my point. Exactly. So clearly that's not the right way to go. So then we need elbows.

• 2:51:43Joe Rogan?

  Well, I'm glad they listened to you, because that's ridiculous.

• 2:51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51:46Joe Rogan?

  You know, what really needs to happen is knees to the head on the ground.

• 2:51:49Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, absolutely.

• 2:51:50Joe Rogan?

  It's crazy that someone could just huddle in a turtle position.

• 2:51:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51:53Joe Rogan?

  And, and not get pummeled. Like, you shouldn't be in that position.

• 2:51:56Speaker 01

  The, the only thing I can do without, and I loved it in Pride and I wanted to fight in Pride for the soccer kicks as well. That's the only thing I would, I, I, I can reasonably do without. And the reason why.

• 2:52:07Joe Rogan?

  No ring. The ring is different. You can move.

• 2:52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:52:10Joe Rogan?

  The problem with being planted into the cage and getting stomped or soccer kicked.

• 2:52:15Speaker 01

  For sure. Remember Wes Sims Frank Mir?

• 2:52:17Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I do, yeah.

• 2:52:18Speaker 01

  The, the, the thing with, and I've, and I've watched every single Pride fight that's ever existed, I'm sure. I only ever see people getting volleyed in the head when the fight's already pretty much done.

• 2:52:27Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:52:28Speaker 01

  Right? So it's.

• 2:52:29Joe Rogan?

  Malvin Manhoof and Sakurabo.

• 2:52:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's like, it's like the icing on the cake that we don't necessarily need when you can just hit them with one more shot. And they tried something in Cage Rage, when Cage Rage existed back in the day, where the referee would decide that you could stomp on or kick him in the head.

• 2:52:45Joe Rogan?

  Let me ask you this. What do you think about side kicks to the knees?

• 2:52:48Speaker 01

  I don't mind it.

• 2:52:49Joe Rogan?

  The problem with that is, it's one shot and you're out for a year.

• 2:52:54Speaker 01

  But then heel hooks are just as dangerous, aren't they?

• 2:52:56Joe Rogan?

  But they're not, because you can tap. You can tap and you can hold on to the arms before it gets to that position. You can tap. The thing about the side kick to the knee, like, um, um, what's his face?

• 2:53:08Speaker 01

  Khalil Roundtree.

• 2:53:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but the, the guy, Modestus, Modestus Bacacca. When you watch his knee go sideways like that, you're like, good lord. Like, you're done for a year. If you're ever the same again.

• 2:53:19Speaker 01

  I mean, I know Shavkat's in a similar situation right now, isn't he?

• 2:53:23Joe Rogan?

  But you can't hit to the back of the head. But you do hit to the back of the head. Well, but- Because if it's a roundhouse kick and it goes over the shoulder, guess where it lands?

• 2:53:30Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 2:53:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:31Speaker 01

  See, but the thing is, the back of the head is more protecting from the bottom of the base of the skull downwards.

• 2:53:36Joe Rogan?

  But if someone throws a roundhouse kick and it goes over the shoulder.

• 2:53:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:53:40Joe Rogan?

  It's going bong, right to the back of the head.

• 2:53:43Speaker 01

  But then how many football players in a season are taken out with a low tackle? I mean, it's the same in rugby as well. It's like, for me, that is a risk of the sport. That is a part of the-

• 2:53:54Joe Rogan?

  But it's a victory with an illegal move that we all allow.

• 2:53:58Speaker 01

  It's only illegal because you can't strike to the knee, but then-

• 2:54:01Joe Rogan?

  No, no, no, a back of the head kick.

• 2:54:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah.

• 2:54:04Joe Rogan?

  You know what I'm saying? The back of the head kick, you win by knockout and you shouldn't have hit them there.

• 2:54:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then also you've got to go into, well, did they turn their head? What was the circumstance of it, etc., etc.? I mean, the thing is, like, you can't, in the rules, you can't strike joints, right? But then, it was the same thing when we had elbows and I'm, like, we're doing shows in France and I'm saying to the French commission, "We don't have elbows." And they're like, "Okay, so where does the elbow start and where does the, you know, where is it?"

• 2:54:31Joe Rogan?

  Where's the forearm, right. But the thing about, like, attacking the knees, you would have to say, "Well, it's got to be a straight kick where you hyperextend the knees," because you can't say, "Don't leg kick the knees," because you're going to be able to leg kick the back of the knee always. If you take that out, you're taking out a giant chunk of all techniques. Because, but the side kick to the knee, the problem with that is you're going to ruin careers. Like, there's a lot of guys that are just not the same. Thiago Silva, I don't think was ever the same after the Jon Jones fight.

• 2:54:59Speaker 01

  In my mind, it's the game we play.

• 2:55:00Joe Rogan?

  I agree with you. I see your point. I see it.

• 2:55:03Speaker 01

  No one's dying from a knee injury.

• 2:55:04Joe Rogan?

  It's very unusual, too. It's like, the Modestas fight was one fight that you can name and Khalil's obviously a very elite striker.

• 2:55:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:55:13Joe Rogan?

  But yeah.

• 2:55:13Speaker 01

  I don't mind it. I genuinely don't. I mean, I'm more interested in making sure the fighters are protected when they can't protect themselves. That's where we need to raise everyone's understanding of what's happening.

• 2:55:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I agree with you. Well, listen, brother, always good to talk to you. We should do this more often.

• 2:55:29Speaker 01

  We should, absolutely.

• 2:55:30Joe Rogan?

  Every six years.

• 2:55:31Speaker 01

  We should, yeah. We're back in Austin soon, though. We're back in Austin soon.

• 2:55:34Joe Rogan?

  Oh, when are you guys here?

• 2:55:35Speaker 01

  Middle of July. Johnny Eblin's fighting Costello Van Steen is in the rematch.

• 2:55:38Joe Rogan?

  When in July?

• 2:55:40Speaker 01

  July 19th, Saturday. Saturday, July 19th, is that the right day?

• 2:55:44Joe Rogan?

  Oh, motherfucker. I'm out of town.

• 2:55:46Speaker 01

  I know where you are.

• 2:55:47Joe Rogan?

  Damn it. I'm out of town.

• 2:55:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I know where you are. I'll be there.

• 2:55:51Joe Rogan?

  You'll be there?

• 2:55:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I'll be there.

• 2:55:53Joe Rogan?

  Okay, well, we'll talk about it afterwards. I don't know what we're talking about.

• 2:55:56Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, we'll talk about it, yeah. But, yeah, Johnny Eblin, Costello Van Steen is.

• 2:56:00Joe Rogan?

  That's too bad. I want to see that. Fuck.

• 2:56:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I will say, like, for me, our middleweight division is probably the most competitive with the UFC's middleweight division, with Johnny Eblin.

• 2:56:09Joe Rogan?

  Johnny Eblin's a bad motherfucker.

• 2:56:10Speaker 01

  Like, Costello Van Steen is the current champ. Did you watch that fight?

• 2:56:13Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 2:56:14Speaker 01

  So Johnny Eblin, undefeated in 17, 18 fights, was beating the brakes off Costello for most of it.

• 2:56:21Joe Rogan?

  Oh, he got submitted.

• 2:56:21Speaker 01

  Like, last 10 seconds.

• 2:56:22Joe Rogan?

  Yes, I did see that. Yes, that's right.

• 2:56:24Speaker 01

  So Costello's defended his belt. He beat Fabian Edwards, Travis Bryan elbows.

• 2:56:28Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 2:56:29Speaker 01

  And then Johnny Eblin just ragdolled Bryan Battle like it was nothing.

• 2:56:33Joe Rogan?

  I saw that, too.

• 2:56:34Speaker 01

  That was insane.

• 2:56:35Joe Rogan?

  No, he's a beast, dude.

• 2:56:36Speaker 01

  Well, now, those two boys are going to rematch. Austin at the Moody Center, middle of July. It's going to be a good one.

• 2:56:41Joe Rogan?

  I wish I was here.

• 2:56:42Speaker 01

  Me, too.

• 2:56:43Joe Rogan?

  All right. Thank you, brother. Very good to see you, always. Dan Hardy, what's your Instagram?

• 2:56:49Speaker 01

  Dan Hardy MMA.

• 2:56:50Joe Rogan?

  Dan Hardy MMA. All right. Bye, everybody.

• 2:57:06Joe Rogan?

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