Michael Chandler on UFC 303 vs Connor McGregor, why he wins this fight, being humbled through hard times & finding strength in his family and his true love raising his 2 sons

"Where we are right now, there's a lot of speculation but the fight is on, it's happening, June 29th, Me vs McGregor...it's going to be his last fight." Michael Chandler on UFC 303 vs Connor McGregor In partnership with Fanatics, a must watch episode of The Pivot is out now. The sports world is a buzz, asking, "Is the main event of UFC 303 between Michael Chandler and Conor McGregor still happening?" With a lot of noise and whispers around the status of the highly anticipated cage clash, Ryan, Channing and Fred sit down with Chandler, to get the answers we all want to know. Chandler, who has been waiting years for the opportunity to officially retire McGregor, opens up to the guys in a conversation covering the build-up to the fight, his confidence in defeating McGregor, as well as how becoming a father and his humble beginnings play a key factor in who he is today. While the press conference in the lead-up to UFC 303 was abruptly cancelled, the guys ask about Chandler’s mindset with the looming uncertainty heading into the fight and the angst that comes with it. Chandler shares his take on McGregor's persona, larger platform, and talks about the journey and his confidence being high as he has earned this opportunity and why he will undoubtedly be victorious. This segues into a larger conversation about his mental struggles during his career, where Ryan asks him to touch on how he bounced back from consecutive losses in Bellator and stayed focus through recent backlash from his response to a question about his two adopted children. Chandler is known for his heart, and mentions his motivation from his wife, while also reflecting on what it is like raising two African-American boys. He opens up about his loyalty to his family and how he turns the pressure he feels inside the cage into the aggressive style of fighting that's made him a household name and fan favorite. Acknowledging the losses and difficult times, Chandler emphasizes the significance of turning negative experiences into positive outcomes, expressing extreme confidence that June 29th will be a well-deserved victory and the last time the world sees McGregor in the octagon. The Pivot Podcast releases new episodes every Tuesday at 12 p.m. ET and Friday at 3:30 p.m. ET on YouTube, with audio versions available on all streaming platforms. Please hit the subscribe button on your YouTube channel to be up to date on current episodes and special announcements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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• 0:31Channing Crowder?

  There he goes. Yo! I'm scared already. I'm a lover. What up, boy? I'm a lover and a fighter. What's up?

• 0:39Speaker 03

  What's up?

• 0:39Channing Crowder?

  Good to see you guys.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  All right, bro. Mike, what's happening? Fight camp, man. Got this fight coming up. You think? I hope, uh, yeah. We hope, right? No, we... The fight, yeah, the fight's happening. Obviously, where we are right now, yeah, there's a lot of speculation, but the fight is, the fight is on. June 29th, it's happening.

• 1:31Ryan Clark?

  Welcome to The Pivot, a part of Fanatics. We have Michael Chandler of Strikeforce, Bellator, now in the UFC. I mean, you were a seasoned champion, lightweight champion, Division One, All-American in wrestling. Walk-on guys, you know, like walk-ons, undrafted guys. None of these dudes know about that hard road that people like me and MC got to take.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  What is that? What'd y'all do? We started at the bottom. People are like, "What's your name?" I'm like, "Hey, man, you might know someday."

• 2:00Ryan Clark?

  But we got Channing Crowder, Fred Taylor, I'm Ryan Clark. Thank you, guys, for being here. Bro, how did you find out the presser in Ireland was canceled with Conor McGregor?

• 2:12Speaker 03

  So I was actually up late that night because the fights were on the East Coast. So I didn't get into bed till like 12:31 because I wanted to watch Islam versus Poirier, watch that fight. So I'd probably fallen asleep for maybe 45 minutes, maybe an hour. And I woke up to my phone buzzing and it was Hunter Campbell, who, you know, everybody knows Dana White's the face, but Hunter Campbell's kind of the guy behind the guy, handles a lot of stuff in the UFC. And he called me and let me know, "Hey, it's looking like this thing isn't gonna happen." And then, so obviously, I laid there and thought about it for quite a while. And then the next morning, we got on the call and he said, "It's not happening."

• 2:47Channing Crowder?

  We talk to fighters all the time, like, because you all try to peak. You know what I'm saying? You train to peak. And then, like, thinking about that when you're laying in bed, like, "Am I peaking for no goddamn reason?" You know what I'm saying?

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, a canceled presser, not that big of a deal, right? It happens, but it's the layers in which, okay, if a presser is canceled, is there something else wrong? Is there something going on? And obviously, then immediately, speculation starts going all over the place in 2024, social media, all that stuff. And, you know, I just kept resting in the fact that I know I can only control what I can control. And I've been doing that now for a year and a half with this whole fight. If you've been following it with all the different stuff and all the different dates that have gone on and the dates that were supposed to happen and didn't happen. And now here we are, fighting in June of 2024. So really, it was just kind of a, you know, you want to hear God laugh, you know, tell him your plans, right? And you're just like, "Dude, this ain't about, this isn't about me, I'm not in control, and we're gonna roll with it."

• 3:46Fred Taylor?

  Right, and even with that, though, and then you turn around and you see Conor just wide open in the club. I mean, he getting it in. Do you think he's taking it as serious as you?

• 3:58Speaker 03

  Man, I tell you what, there's a couple of different schools of thought. Obviously, would you ever put it past Conor? No, I think we can all, if you've seen Conor, you would not put that past Conor. But if you saw the way Ryan Garcia did what Ryan Garcia did, you know, and there's all kinds of different, you know, throwing people off the trail.

• 4:15Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  All kinds of different publicity stunts, if you will. I'm training, whether I see Conor in the club every single day, or I don't see him tweet or do an interview, and he looks bright eyed and bushy tailed, and he looks the best he's ever been, I'm training the exact same way. And I trained the exact same way, whether I was fighting all those guys that you didn't never heard of, that never made a name for themselves, all the way to the number one guy in the world, in Charles Olivera at the time, to Conor McGregor, the biggest name that we have seen. I've just, I trust my process, and my process does not change. And if I don't waver from said process, then I know I can step in the octagon and do what I have to do.

• 4:52Fred Taylor?

  Mike, you mentioned the year and a half.

• 4:55Ryan Clark?

  When I used to sit with Daniel, we would talk about how steadfast you were in fighting Conor McGregor. You guys do the Ultimate Fighter, and it was so much tension, and at that point, everyone was chomping at the bit for that fight. We're waiting for him to get in USADA. All of these things are happening, and the entire time, you're like, this fight's gonna happen, I'm gonna be there. How much thought have you given to, what does Michael Chandler do if this thing he's been waiting on a year and a half doesn't happen?

• 5:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, there was definitely times, you know, obviously, I always put on a smile, always, you know, I always, I remained faithful in the whole scenario. I also had enough, you got the public perception, and then you have the actual people in the trenches, right? The guys on the phone calls with Dana and Hunter management, the guys behind the closed doors, having the conversations, and I was getting, I was getting enough reassurances that this was the route to continue to follow. I was never offered another fight. I was ranked top five at the time. I'm a top five guy in the world. Every single guy from one to 10, all the guys right around me, number six, number seven... Every single one of them getting booked up, every single one of them fighting each other, every single one of them getting booked, getting calls. There was, you know, there was two,

• 6:12Speaker 03

  there was probably two other scenarios where, you know, you know this in mixed martial arts, similar to like this, if this fight fell apart, UFC is gonna start calling around, "Hey",

• 6:20Ryan Clark?

  Hulk's already raised his hand.

• 6:21Speaker 03

  Right, yeah, "Would you be available?", "I never got one of those calls, hey", and even if it was the UFC wanting me to get off the Conor McGregor versus Chandler bandwagon, they could have very easily been like, "Hey, this guy's hurt, we need you to step in, you wanna step in", I never got one of those phone calls. So, that to me says, it's the fight that the UFC wants, it's obviously the fight that I want, and it's the fight that Conor wants, and we did the Ultimate Fighter, if we don't fight, then it makes the Ultimate Fighter null and void, and it kinda takes away the mystique of what the Ultimate Fighter process is. But I have my days, I'm human, I am prone to wander, I have my moments, I, especially when you're lined up and connected to a guy who is a social media certified lunatic

• 7:05Speaker 03

  when it comes to, you know, like, every single weekend there's a fight going on, it's like, "I'll fight Adesanya, I could behead him", and then he talks about a 145 pounder, then he talks about the BMF, then he's talking about everybody else but me, and that's just, that's all mind games, and I just looked at it as if, "Hey, man, I am who I am, and here I am, and you ain't gonna stop me."

• 7:28Ryan Clark?

  We all think we know, but why Conor McGregor for you?

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Why for me? When you get into the sport of mixed martial arts, you get into athletics in general, right? You want the biggest games, you want the biggest opponents, you want the brightest lights, you want the, you know, it's obviously the financial incentive, I want to create a life for my family, so that's part of it, but really, when I got into the sport when I was 22 years old, I wanted to become the number one guy in the world and have the biggest fights that you could possibly have. Conor McGregor checks that box of the biggest platform, the brightest lights, the biggest name, and everybody who was able to throw shade at being on the outside, throwing rocks and stones at me, saying, "I can't believe you're waiting", 10 out of 10 of those people, 100% of those people would be doing the exact same thing,

• 8:15Speaker 03

  and I can have a little smirk on my face, saying, "I know that you would wait, and I know that you would wait", but... I didn't need to say that because that's just not who I am.

• 8:25Channing Crowder?

  Well, with the, you talking about the Ultimate Fighter. Where you were there every single damn match and you were amping your flag. Connor was, that motherfucker wasn't even showing up, like, you know what I'm saying? And then it's humble. Bro, I drove my truck around in front of your house. Went around the loop, came back to find a spot and I looked over and I was like, "Fuck, that's, that's Michael Chandler right there." And you were waiting outside for me and I was like, "Oh shit." I was on the phone with my wife and I was like, "I gotta go." Like, and we hung up. You're so humble and on the other side, I would say not humble.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  I'm sure there's a little humility in there somewhere, but he doesn't show it very often.

• 9:06Channing Crowder?

  But does that, but like, to be, to be, I don't wanna say the underdog or just the, the good guy.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:13Channing Crowder?

  You know?

• 9:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, that word "good guy," you know, it gets, it gets thrown around a lot or, you know, and, and, and some people love me for me and who I am and how I operate and some people hate me because of it, right? They want to see me fall or they want to see my skeletons or they wanna find dirt on me or they, you know, and that's, that's completely fine. I signed up for that by being in the public eye. But yeah, this good guy versus the bad guy, that's a narrative that the, that the media and the fans have, have kinda taken on.

• 9:41Speaker 03

  More than anything, man, I just know that I've, that I've earned this. This is, this is where I never thought I deserved to be for so many years, until I was finally able to do that inner work to realize, "Wait a second, this is supposed to work out and it's not just gonna work out kinda good, it's gonna work out better than good." So I've just watched that and how God's had me in the palm of his hand my entire career with every single, every single top of the mountain and every single valley. So it's, it's a cool storyline that people love to, to talk about, but more than anything, I just look across the cage right now and I can see him, he's just a man who hasn't earned what, what he has gotten anymore. He created the life, he earned it all the way up until these last couple of years and then

• 10:24Speaker 03

  when it comes to actually putting in the work, the guy who has left no stone unturned in hand-to-hand combat since he was 14 years old, and then the guy who really caught lightning in a bottle and was able to do really great things about it, I'm betting on that little 14-year-old who hasn't stopped.

• 10:41Fred Taylor?

  You have to love it. I think what stood out for me in that was that you said, you know that God has you. I listened to a sermon this past weekend. It was titled, "I Am", you know, and really knowing who God is, understand who God is, and God knowing who you are, and knowing that you'll always be blessed as long as you know Him, that you never have to worry for anything, right? I just want to add that part. But I want to go back to what RC mentioned, from walk-on to All-American, coming from those humble beginnings. What sort of stuff that like a wrestler have to go through in college, as a college walk-on, that was, you look back on now and maybe you say, "Wow",

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, and I think the biggest, I think the biggest aspect of it was realizing, because you know, you could put yourself in that 18-year-old self, right? You got your friends, you got your family, you know, you got like teammates, right? That's your, that's your world, right? You only, and me, it was High Ridge, Missouri, this little town outside of St. Louis, Missouri, and my friends, my, my high school coaches, my family, that's all I had. So to me, that was the world, and almost all of them, they loved me, they cared about me, they wanted the best for me, but almost all of them said I was crazy. Like, you have a scholarship opportunity for this Division III school, or you have a, you have a scholarship opportunity to this Juco, why don't you just take one

• 12:07Speaker 03

  of these offers? Why, why are you gonna go walk on to Mizzou? Because there's only a couple of things that could happen. It might work out for you, and it's this small, but you're probably gonna ride the bench, you're gonna quit, you're gonna be a training partner, you're gonna get beat up for five years and wish that you would've just went to one of these other schools, but, so when I got there, it was more, I think that was when, one of the only times in my life that it was about proving people wrong, because since I have matured since then, it's not about proving people wrong, it's about proving my supporters right. But at that point in time, I remember walking, I remember my mom and dad had this silver minivan, and we pulled up to Baker Park was our, it was called Baker Park, was our... Dorm room that we were gonna go in and I'm watching all these guys walk in and I'm like,

• 12:52Speaker 03

  "Oh, that's that state champ from Illinois." And, "Oh, there's another, there's a state champ from Missouri." And there's a, that kid, I heard about him, saw him at Senior National. He was a state champion from California, the hardest state, right? And I'm just this little old runner-up kid who's walking on. Everybody else got four sets of workout gear. I got two sets of workout gear. Coach didn't know my name. So it was a, but I think it just, all I cared about was the work. And it was an opportunity. It doesn't matter if you start at the bottom or you start at the very top, every single day is a new opportunity. And I think I had that mentality and I'm still that exact same way, on the cusp of the biggest fight of the last decade possibly.

• 13:33Fred Taylor?

  How often do you talk to that 14-year-old in preparations for a time like this?

• 13:37Speaker 03

  Often, man. And I hated him for, I hated him for a very long time. I hated him. I hated, I hated who I grew up around. I hated, you know, there was, there was this, there was this disdain, right? Like, "Why would you tell me to think so small? Why would you, why would you tell me that, 'Don't go outside those county lines because you're gonna fall flat on your face.' Why would you tell me that I was only created for this, when God's promises say I was created for this and way up there where you can't even see, right?" And I had to make amends to that, to that 14-year-old boy, to that 18-year-old boy who, who walked on to Mizzou and those things that were going on inside of my mind. And, you know, I kinda look at it like, some of these, some of these demons

• 14:21Speaker 03

  you're able to slay and get them out of your life. And some of these, some of these dragons you're able to slay. And some of them, you just get really good at pushing into a corner, right? And you get really good at managing them. And, and, and as you grow, you look at it and say, "I would not be here if it weren't for you." And I know you were holding me back. And I know you stymied me and stifled me and you tripped me and you held me down. But I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. So, I was talking about being a small guy from a small town who was taught to do small things. And I've never gotten rid of him, but I've gotten really good at duct taping him to the basement of my mind, you know? And every now and then, I hear from him. And now I've gotten good at saying, "Hey, we're on the same team here. I know, I know you're trying to do what you think is right,

• 15:04Speaker 03

  whether it's protection or whether it's safety or whether it's, you know, lack or less than. You're just doing what you think..." You're supposed to do, but I was created for more. We're past that. Right.

• 15:16Ryan Clark?

  In Bellator, you had a good run. And I think there was one point in your career, you went without a win for 688 days. And for someone who has worked from the bottom, and like myself, once I got to the NFL, and being an undrafted free agent, when there were moments where I wasn't as good as I'd worked to be, where I didn't play as well as I'd hoped to play, that guy came back up. And you start to think to yourself, see, this is why they didn't draft me. Or I don't have this talent, or I'm not athletic in this way, I'm not explosive in this way. You mentioned duct taping. You're a demon. How were you able to work through that? And now get to a point to where you are able to receive God's blessing

• 16:01Ryan Clark?

  in the way that he'd have you to receive it?

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I've just watched it play out so many times in my life, that if a bad thing happens to you, but a good thing comes from it, was it really a bad thing? You know, there's nothing, there was nothing positive about losing the title to Eddie Alvarez. Immediately started telling myself lies and started believing the lies of all the doubters who said, "He's not that good," or "Hey, he's not," just like what you were saying. "He's not championship caliber," right? You're like, "No, man, I'm not." Then you have that first loss, and then immediately woke up the next morning like, "I knew it, man. It was only a matter of time before I was exposed, and I'm not that good." Right? And then I had my second loss. That leads into the second loss, and it leads into the third loss.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  There was nothing good in that time whatsoever, until I was able to turn that pain into realizing that this was part of my journey. This is what I needed to go through. And really, I really did put way too much of an emphasis on the physicality of the sport, and not enough emphasis on the mindset of the sport. Because I would outwork everybody. I would show up early. I would stay late. I would be the guy you knew if you called me and you were on my team, or you were one of my coaches, I would answer. And I would skip whatever I was doing, and I would be there. I was that guy. But all I was really doing was building up a bigger, stronger, faster, subpar version of the man that I was supposed to be, because I wasn't really taking control of my thoughts,

• 17:27Speaker 03

  taking control of my mindset, visualizing, and really, truly believing and speaking.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  Beautiful things into my life, it was just about the work. And now I realize as a 38-year-old man, been doing this for 24 years, it's about the work, the work is extremely important. But the belief and the mindset and your self-concept is the most important thing about it. And that's, that was what, that was when I realized, okay, it's time to start taking stock in what's going on, the battle that's going on in between my ears, or else I need to just quit this athletics thing and go get a job somewhere.

• 18:02Channing Crowder?

  Well, that's, that's a hell of a conversation. When did you know you were physically capable of being as bad as you are and being a champion? And how far off was the mental side? Because physically, you're, I saw you choke the shit out of somebody a number of times. I would watch the videos. But then from saying, okay, I can do this physically to the mental side of, okay, now I know there's a next level to this.

• 18:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it was, uh, it was after my second, it was after my second loss in a row. You know, so at that point, it had been probably a year and a half since I had won a fight. And, but then I still ended up losing the next fight, but maybe I needed to, right? But I really started doing, doing some work. I mean, I, I, I saw a sports psychologist for the first time and started really just peeling back the layers of, of the brain, of visualization, of putting, realizing that every time I put on a YouTube video that will inspire me or motivate me, or every time I pick up a book, or every time I read someone's autobiography, or every time I, I look into and peel back the layers of the struggles that people have gone through and how they have overcome things. That was just like

• 19:15Speaker 03

  putting a barbell on my back and squatting it a thousand times, like I have done so many times, right? Once I started to realize the reps in the gym. Were important, but not as important as the mental reps. And that's, that's when everything started clicking for me. And then I think it was also just the maturation process. You know, I, I had just gotten married. I literally, you know, promised my wife I was gonna provide for her. And then I end up losing my next fight and then losing two more fights in a row. So, um, I think that lit a fire under me, you know, making that promise. And then all of a sudden, wait a second. I had a career when we started dating and then now it looks like this thing might just crash and burn here.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Um, I think I had, there was that accountability of a man stepping up and realizing, hey, there's something I gotta do.

• 20:02Ryan Clark?

  Talk about though, she had to believe in you, bro. You emailed your wife two years to get a date.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 20:10Ryan Clark?

  I don't know what sort of impression a human has to make on another human. Where you send two years worth of emails. You couldn't even text.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Hey, don't, yeah, you're right. Well, it wasn't even just two years with the emails. It wasn't like we were emailing back and forth. It was, I would send her an email and she would wait two or three months to respond. And then I would wait two or three minutes to respond to that. And then she would wait two or three more months to respond. Um, but yeah, I mean, yeah.

• 20:41Ryan Clark?

  You were shooting soon.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  I was, man. I was like, I, I, I told you the story. I, I knocked out this tooth my freshman year of college and I'd saw this dentist named Dr. Willett. And I saw this cute girl on the wall in his dentist's office. And I knew who he, I already knew who he was because my Bible study leader, he was my Bible studies leader, Bible study leader. Bible studies, Bible study leader. So I already knew the reputation that he had. And I'm like, man, if this dude, if she, she's gorgeous and if she's anything like that guy, like, I wanna marry her. And then I just, once again, like how, how it was all perfectly orchestrated. I was around 20 of her friends, never met her, but I was, her name just kept getting popped up, popped up. And I was like, man, I'm gonna marry this girl.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  And then I remember going to a birthday party at her, at her dad's house. He still lives there and there's a cool little pond in the back. And I went to a birthday party there. She wasn't there and I said, man, someday I'm gonna be fishing on this pond. And I end up marrying this girl and I now fish on that pond. So it's just, I don't, you call it serendipity, call it God, call it vision, call it, you know, discernment. I don't know. But yeah, she believed in me and she always has and she was with me during that time and without her, I don't know if I would have gotten through it. Without her, I don't know if I got through any of this. I call that persistence. Yeah, I call that persistence. I mean, yeah. Tab of harassment. I do say, I do say, oh, you want to hear the story? All right, listen, number one, I promise I'm not a stalker.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  Number two, because it's definitely a stalker story, but I don't know, man, it just, it worked out.

• 22:17Fred Taylor?

  You have, you have to be kinda, you know, a little bit aggressive, kinda passive aggressive. You accomplish what you set out to do.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:24Fred Taylor?

  But going back to the mental part that you mentioned to Channing and, you know, questioning yourself when you made those promises to Bree when she was your girlfriend prior to getting married and going through the mental stuff, because we all go through it. Like, if we lose a game, we come home feeling a certain type of way. You lose a bout, I'm sure you, you come in feeling a certain type of way. As a professional fighter, how do you balance your professional career with the responsibilities of being a husband and even a father to, what is it, hap?

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Happy Ace.

• 22:53Fred Taylor?

  Happy Ace, yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  Luckily, it's, it's been pretty easy in a lot of ways and I think a lot of it has to do with my mentality because I think, I think I, I make the requisite sacrifices and I make the, the, I make the, I take the steps needed to be dad when I need to be dad and be completely selfish. You know, I'm down here in Florida right now, my family is 1,000 miles away and I am okay with being selfish in order to be selfless, to be able to provide for my family, right? And luckily, my, my Bree, my wife supports me in all of that. She steps up when she needs to and, and single mom right now for eight weeks, if you will.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  And they get to enjoy it. You know, I, they were actually here last week, so I was able to ace for the first time, got to see me train and they were rolling around on the mats and we got some cool pictures and stuff. These, these things that are just them getting to see what daddy does, right? The hardest part is when you come home and you know, you feel like you let people down, right? You make all the sacrifices, all the time away, all the travel, the, the moments, the precious moments that we're missing with our children, the precious moments that you're missing in your marriage. And, and in a lot of ways, you know, Bree has to go into a different mindset whenever I go into training camp. And it sounds crazy, but we are in love and we are perfect for each other.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  But her, the day after a fight, is different than the girl that I left two months prior. Because she has to step up and she has to put her guard up. And she has to take on two roles and she has to do all these things. And she is supporting me, but she also has to compartmentalize as well and kind of go into, you know, kind of go into single mother mode. And then we have to kind of come back and rekindle that fire and rekindle that love. And it doesn't mean that we don't love each other. It doesn't mean that there's any kind of problems in our marriage. But we've had to figure out how to get back to that one, you know? Because she has been one there and I have been one here. And then we have to be two becoming one again, you know?

• 25:01Speaker 03

  So I think that's probably the most interesting, delicate dance of it. And then obviously coming home with stitches and black eyes and all that stuff. But I look at that as if my sons are learning subconsciously that sometimes life is going to beat you down. And you're still going to have a smile on your face no matter what. You're going to have physical invisible wounds. You're going to have invisible wounds. You're going to go through tough times, but through it all, showing resilience. And I think that's one of the most interesting parts of it.

• 25:36Channing Crowder?

  And I love how you said rekindling because your two hands touched.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  We've got to rekindle that.

• 25:43Channing Crowder?

  Is that a rekindle?

• 25:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, we've got to rekindle.

• 25:45Channing Crowder?

  Fight night? Because your ass, even if you get your ass whooped, you still?

• 25:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:56Channing Crowder?

  Bro, to that point, like even you were saying, the fight side and the family side. And like you say, you and your wife have to get that connection back. What's that? Because it gets to me when I see a fighter lose and his kids are crying.

• 26:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:09Channing Crowder?

  And I'm like, they don't know there's another side to daddy not winning. You know what I'm saying? Like what part of that gets to you? And after a fight, if you do lose, do you look over to the family and it's like? Is it like, oh, or is it like, hey, guys, we're good? Like, what's that feeling?

• 26:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, the crazy thing is, and it sounds, it's hard when I say it, because when I do say it, it sounds like I don't care, or I'm apathetic about success or winning. But these days, man, if you know you do everything right, and you put all the time in, sometimes you're just gonna lose, you know? And no matter what, the sun will rise the next day, and my God still loves me, my family still loves me, and I still love me. So, yeah, I can be really, really down about it, and I can act like this next fight is the biggest fight of my career, which it is, and it has lifelong implications, which it does, but it's still just a thing that I do, it's not who I be. So I think, my son Happ went to two fights ago, and I knocked out Tony Ferguson, so I won that one, which is great.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  He's coming to this one, I plan on winning, but, you know, who knows? It's a fight, right? I think if my son or sons ever do see me lose, I think it's gonna be important, it's gonna be very important in that moment, to act a certain way, to operate in a certain way, so that they know that you are going to lose. Like, it's part of life. I wouldn't be where I am today without all of the losses. But obviously, mixed martial arts is a little bit different. It comes with the blood and the cuts, and maybe even getting knocked out, or your arm broken, or whatever it may be. It's a bunch of different scenarios, but it's beautiful. It's a beautiful, beautiful sport, and it's a beautiful opportunity. And I think just being able to share that with them,

• 27:56Speaker 03

  win, lose, or draw, it's memories that'll last a lifetime.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great, till the CFO sees them? That's bull spend, and marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  I remember telling my boss, "It'll be good for the brand," when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  Cut the bull spend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title, and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 28:29Ryan Clark?

  One of my favorite moments is you actually got to meet my son in Phoenix. And that was when you fought Tony Ferguson. I love to call it a front kick, but it was a front punt. Or kickoff. Like whatever it was, it wasn't Anderson Silva, La Yoda Machida. It wasn't none of those.

• 28:47Speaker 03

  It wasn't mixed martial arts. It was more football than it was mixed martial arts.

• 28:50Ryan Clark?

  It was more football than anything. But to me, the most beautiful part of that night is after you knock him out, you do a million backflips, but you jumped on the cage and you said, "Where is my son?" Part of what we haven't spoken about is that you have two African-American sons that you and your wife, Bree, adopted. Tell me a little bit about that moment, man. Getting on that stage, calling for your son, and having him have the opportunity to celebrate that with you.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  Man, that was one of the greatest moments of my life. You know, I think, I think part of it, you know, it's, it's just like probably getting done with a game and it's, it was a close game and all of a sudden it's over and there's no chance that you can lose, right? The clock hits 0-0-0, there's no chance that you can lose because up until that moment, if it's a close game, you're just one play away from losing. You're, you're just one punch away from losing. And I think that's why, that's why people can talk about celebrations in mixed martial arts and maybe this guy overdid it or, or, or he shouldn't have done this, but the amount of pressure, all the way up until the moment that, that ref pulls you off or the last bell rings, there's always the chance of losing. So with Hap coming to that fight, it was more pressure than I had ever felt.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  And after that, I thought, I was like, man, I don't know if I'll ever have my kids come to the fight again. Just because it was a lot of pressure, even though it worked out great, so maybe he's a good luck charm. But yeah, I just, all I thought about in that moment was, I wanted to share it with him. I mean, and I wanted to share it with my wife, of course, and, and my family, but I wanted to share it with him because Bree makes sacrifices, big time, right? But she's, she's a big girl. She's, she's, she's a strong woman, an independent woman, a career woman. You know, part of the reason why it took me so long to court her and get a date with her was, she didn't need me, she didn't want a relationship, right? She was, she was, she was married to medicine, she loved her career, and she's, she wasn't looking for anything.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  And she's still that independent woman. So I don't mean to say that me being away from her doesn't affect her in ways, but... You know, October 26th of 2017, I made a promise to this young man that I was gonna take care of him for the rest of his life. And, part of that is daddy can't be there all the time. So, the sacrifices that we have had to make, and the moments, or even the, the things that I have missed, the time that I've been away, the bedtimes that I've missed, I, I pray that, that it's all going to work out, and he's gonna be a great young man because of it, but it's still, it's still that, that little bit of burden that you feel. So, to be able to have that moment, where, not only was it a spectacular knockout, and

• 31:31Speaker 03

  it's a win, and finally I can't lose anymore, my first thought was that little boy, and that he had a bright green shirt on, I knew what he was wearing, and I was just looking for him all around the crowd, I jumped on the cage, like, three different areas, and beating my chest, "Where's my son?", I wanted to see him so bad, he was the first thought that I had, um, after the backflips, of course, but, you know, it was the first thought that I had, and I just, I wanted to, I wanted to have that moment, and I wanted, I wanted to embrace him, because finally, I was done being a fighter, and I wanted to be a dad. I, I was done being the guy chasing this dream, with this job to do, this, this cage door closes, and I gotta go do this job, and I've been doing it now for the last eight weeks, 10 weeks, and daddy's been gone, and now I can just come home with you, and

• 32:13Speaker 03

  all I wanna do is wrap my arms around you, and I was able to do that, they brought him up, and put him on the cage, and he got inside the cage, and it was just, it was one of the greatest moments of my life.

• 32:22Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, we text about this, uh, a little bit, you and I, in, in setting this up, um, you know, and I was like, "Hey man, if you ever wanna talk to me about something like this, I'm, I'm here." You know, you did an interview, and they asked you about raising your boys, and I felt, one, you gave an answer of love, but you also gave an answer that I felt like you couldn't know the counter to, or the opposing sides of, unless someone else had talked to you about it. But you were asked about raising your boys, and you said what any father would say, you said, "I'm not raising black children, I'm raising my children." And I think for children who are adopted...

• 33:06Ryan Clark?

  Or children who are in the system, they probably long to hear anyone say that they're mine. And my. And then obviously because of social media, because of sort of the toxicity of the world we live in, you faced a lot of backlash for that answer. What did you learn from the fallout of answering that question by saying, "I'm not raising black children, I'm raising my children."

• 33:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I think that soundbite obviously can be clipped, that little five seconds can be clipped and it's, and of course, I would say, wait a second, that's, but if you dive deeper into it, right? It was all about their, their, their skin color is not the most important thing about them, right? And maybe I'm wrong for saying that, maybe other people would disagree with me. The most important thing about a man is being a man and the virtues and the things and the characteristics about being a good man. Obviously with the world that we live in, it was, it was taken and it was put everywhere and it was, it wasn't that bad, it was, it was, it was, it was a little tough for, for a second because I think more than anything,

• 34:14Speaker 03

  I'm, I'm a guy who lets the work do the talking, right? I let my, I let my, I let the fruits of my labor do the talking more than me telling you about it. So I could have gone into 25 different things that my wife and I talk about, the decisions that we have made, the lifestyle that we have, the friends that we have, the school that we chose, and all of these different things that we make sure we go above and beyond to make sure that our children feel as comfortable as possible. But I'm just not that kind of guy, right? Normally, I'm just like, hey, this is, this is what it is, I'm gonna let the work talk. And someday when my sons are grown men and they are changing the world, that will be the work talking, right?

• 34:57Speaker 03

  It was an interesting scenario because you can talk about, "I'm not a hard worker," you can talk about, "I'm not this," but obviously when it comes to, to that and it's such a hot button issue, and you don't really truly know my heart or the day in and day out and what happens between the four walls of my, my house and, and the community that we live in.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  I could see how it was taken out of context and it was, it was tough because it was, it was a, I feel like it was, it was maybe something that I deserved because of the words that were said and how it was clipped. But also with people not truly knowing the whole story.

• 35:33Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, I, you know, when we text about it, I wanted to make sure, I was like, "Raf, see you with your kids." You know, they're your kids. And I know the type of love they get, the type of upbringing that you're giving them. And I think they're so blessed to have both you and Bree. From a black man's point of view, when we talk about like just the soundbite and I listened to it all, I read about, I read it all. From a transcription standpoint, it's, there are things that we encounter because of our skin color that people who are not African-American can't necessarily understand. And that's why I thought you gave the best answer you could give without having the conversation.

• 36:17Ryan Clark?

  With someone who has been pulled over and been scared, with someone who has been called the N-word, with someone who was thought of less than strictly based on the color of our skins. For you, you're just thinking with your heart. And you're preparing the world as a man who loves all people. When you have to prepare your sons for a world that hates them just because of the color of their skin. And I think that's just such a, one, it's a difficult conversation because we talk about it. Older people in our lives did it with fear, which I don't think was the correct way.

• 37:00Ryan Clark?

  Right? They made us scared of things. And I love the fact that you don't want your babies to be scared. And you're telling them, "One day, you're gonna change the world." But I do believe that was part of like the backlash of it. It was that people who have been through the hurt that we have sometimes because of the color of our skin was like, "Man, you may be doing them a disservice because your love is so deep by not teaching them the hate of the world." And I've seen you, man, like you love this country. Like, we talked about it at the White House. We don't want to be anywhere else, but there are uglier parts of it.

• 37:32Fred Taylor?

  And just really to piggyback on what RC is saying. You know, there are so many conflicted and hateful and rude people in this world, man. Your love for your kids is your love for your children. It goes back to, you know, when Channing was joking around about rekindling. You know, we move around a lot to do this show. And that's time away from our kids and families. When you're there, it's about being present. You know, when we look at little black boys in our community and how we came up, certain demographics, there are a lot of times, the father figures aren't present. The head of the households aren't present. So, no matter what those people out there are spewing and all of the crap that they try to throw up against the wall,

• 38:16Fred Taylor?

  try to make some shit stick. You're present for your kids, you love your kids with all your heart, your faith is amazing. That's all that fucking matters.

• 38:24Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 38:24Fred Taylor?

  The skin color does not reflect the type of love or the type of person you're trying to, or type of love you're trying to instill in them so they can become the type of people that can love back, give that love back to the world. So, keep standing on business, bro, like I'm sure you know how. And for me, fuck those stupid people out there.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  See, if I was him.

• 38:44Fred Taylor?

  That's how I see it.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  Hey, if I was him, I'd have been like, "Fight me then."

• 38:48Fred Taylor?

  I mean, not to really just toss that type of language out, but sometimes you look, and I know you know how to stay focused, you're disciplined, and those people, they just don't get it.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  I do, but I think just because I'm able to handle it, and I'm strong, and it's not gonna stop who I am, or it's not gonna, I'm not gonna spend three weeks being depressed about the backlash, doesn't mean that I'm not curious, I'm not always trying to learn. My wife and I don't have numerous, numerous conversations all the time within our household, with our black friends, with our mixed families, with the people in our lives, and the education, and the, just the...

• 39:31Speaker 03

  Open line of communication that we have and the curiosity and not really even the curiosity, the conviction that we have that we want to and that these blessings have been bestowed upon us. And there's work that needs to be done, there's education that needs to be done, there is exploration that needs to be done, you know, and obviously part of it too is, if I would have done that interview and my sons are 14 and 11. Different conversation. It's a little bit different, right? I've got a two-year-old and I've got a seven-year-old, right? So maybe that question being answered to me five years from now or, you know, my son now is seven, so we're getting toward that direction.

• 40:14Speaker 03

  But he's always just been a little kid, right? And then Ace is just a little kid. So there's always the age-appropriate scenario too. That's hard.

• 40:23Channing Crowder?

  I think the questions come because it's crazy to say it's not normal

• 40:30Channing Crowder?

  for non-black people to be raising black young men. And that's why the question was presented to you and I understand your answer to what you're saying. I'm just raising my babies. But the adoption process and I want to say, how did it go and choosing? And that's the difference between having and adopting. You chose to raise two black young men. How was that process between you and your wife?

• 40:56Speaker 03

  So the interesting thing was my wife has wanted to adopt an African-American boy since she was a teenager. My wife has had that on her heart since she was a teenager. And I remember she used to do inner-city mission work. She used to go to Jamaica on mission trips with her dad. Everybody knew she was going to do it eventually someday. And she always said, "If I marry a good man, I want to do this," right? And I remember, I'll never forget where we were. We were in San Diego, California. We were just dating. We were laying on a blanket at a dog park. And she was, she told me this dream and this vision that she has had since she was literally a teenager, since she was like 16 years old.

• 41:40Speaker 03

  And, you know, I always make the joke like, "Hey, I'll tell her anything to marry me," right? I'll say yes to anything. But really, you know, obviously, you know, that was when the process really kind of started. And that's when it first started, that was the first time I heard it. And it was something that was kind of foreign to me. I never really thought about that. I always just thought I was gonna have, you know, my babies that kind of look like me. They're white kids with brown eyes, blue eyes, whatever. But that's when it all started and then I needed a little bit of time to come around to it. Was it gonna be the right time and then I needed... Because obviously adopting your first child is a little bit different.

• 42:21Speaker 03

  I mean, traditionally, if you will, a lot of people were like, hey, we have our own biological children, if you will, and then maybe adopt a little bit later. But for us, we wanted to adopt right away.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  So I needed a little bit of time to kind of get my head wrapped around all of it. And it was actually the perfect little bit of delay that made it so that we ended up with our son, Hat. But it was about a year-long process with all the paperwork and the background checks and all of that stuff. And it worked out perfectly. It was a six-minute match. Six minutes. And I'm always reluctant to say that because there's so many people in adoption who wait years and years and years and never get chosen, or years and years and years never get matched. And our first one was six minutes and our second one was a couple of days. You know, and that's when you know it's just perfectly orchestrated and how it was supposed to be.

• 43:10Ryan Clark?

  I got to sit in front of them at the weigh-ins, well, the ceremonial weigh-ins in Phoenix. And, one, he's a superstar, I think, because everybody follows you on social media. So everybody knew who...

• 43:21Speaker 03

  He is though.

• 43:24Ryan Clark?

  Everybody knows who he is.

• 43:25Speaker 03

  Just living, man.

• 43:26Ryan Clark?

  Everybody knows who he is. And that was the one thing, you know, I was there with Jordan. Like, that was the one thing I took away, is like, there's love. You can see that he feels loved. You can see that you guys feel love from him, but more than anything, you give it. And to me, that's the most important thing. And, you know, even when we got the text about it, I was like, bro, I know you. You know, and I've had conversations with people about it, like, that dude? I was like, you can talk to somebody else about it, not him. But you mentioned that your wife said that she married a good man, right? Obviously, she married a good man. She went with her plan. I'm gonna ask if your wife married a smart man, right? Because you come over from Bellator and they was like, you know what? We're not gonna give Mike any warm-up fights, right? We're just gonna put him in there with Dan Hooker and then he's gonna fight Charles Olivera

• 44:11Ryan Clark?

  and he's gonna fight Justin Gagey and he's gonna fight Tony Ferguson. He's gonna fight Dustin Poirier. And there, and, you know, you became like my dog because you'd always come on the show. I just loved you. And I was like, I wonder if Mike's gonna block tonight. Or maybe, you know, maybe at some point, Mike could do something defensively. You know, maybe he'll grab. He's a Division One All-American wrestler. Maybe he'll put this guy up against the cage. Nah, Mike gets to friggin' New York in Madison Square Garden. He says, "We just gonna stand in the middle of the octagon? And we're gonna punch each other in the face. And guess what? When you punch me really hard, I'm gonna do something even stupider. I'm gonna go, 'Come on.'"

• 44:54Speaker 03

  Something off a gun.

• 44:55Ryan Clark?

  When they close that cage, who do you become, bro?

• 45:00Speaker 03

  Man, the best version of myself when it comes to the beast that I was created to be, right? I think what you just kinda laid out is, I really do think, and I'm very, very blessed and fortunate with this, is I've been able to live on kinda both ends of the spectrum, right? Here, outside of the confines of competition, I try to operate with integrity and love and try to be a nice guy and a cool guy. But then when that cage door closes, I'm just a stone-cold killer who actually relishes in the chaos, who loves the animosity inside of the fighting. Now, at the press conference, I'm not the best trash talker.

• 45:44Speaker 03

  I don't really like that trash talk animosity stuff. But when it comes to hand-to-hand combat and two arms and two legs and a job to do in front of me, I was created for that. And yeah, I think, you use the word "smart." You know, I don't think it's always smart. But I also think, I also think I've won a lot of fights by having that style, you know? So, people can look at the record and say, "Well, you lost to these guys and you beat these guys. So, what you're doing hasn't worked more times than it has worked. But it sure has worked a lot of times, and it sure is fun. And we sure do get some people talking."

• 46:25Fred Taylor?

  Well, it wasn't fun for me. That was my first UFC match.

• 46:29Ryan Clark?

  Which one was it, Gagey or Poirier?

• 46:31Fred Taylor?

  Poirier, 281, right? New York? Yeah, so RC, he brought this sport into my life, like, real heavy. And that was my first fight. So, we had just recently sat down with Izzy. And he lost to Alex that night. And I knew who RC would be rooting for. And I'm like, "Fuck." I know what it ain't mean, like I ain't jinxing them, I hope not. But no, the, the, the, the atmosphere though, the fans and just the energy in there, man. I'm a fan, like I'm still trying to learn everything, but I can't wait to go to the next fight. And just because I said I probably jinxed, somehow jinxed you on that last one, I won't go to this one.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  You're good. No, man, there, there ain't no jinxes, man. It's just the way it's supposed to work out. And yeah, I mean, I, I've, I've said this numerous times, my favorite way to fight was during, during COVID when there was nobody in the stands. And it was just me fighting a guy in a, in a quiet arena.

• 47:28Ryan Clark?

  It was too loud though, Mike. Dude, it's so loud.

• 47:32Speaker 03

  Madison Square Garden is so loud, man.

• 47:34Ryan Clark?

  And I'm talking about when you, when you guys were fighting during COVID and it was empty.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, when you could actually hear the punches like that on TV from a thousand miles away, yeah.

• 47:42Fred Taylor?

  But is it like, is it like the bubble?

• 47:45Ryan Clark?

  It, it was like the bubble. But the thing is this though, every time they hit each other, you hear it, it almost sounds like it's magnified because no one was in there.

• 47:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, because you had never listened to, you had never watched a fight. So your ears were, your eyes were seeing a punch land that you've seen a thousand times land on TV. But your ears were hearing something different because it was, it was like a baseball bat hitting a quarter of a cow in a, in a meatpacking place, right?

• 48:11Channing Crowder?

  Bro, I can't just listen to what you just said. There is no way in the hell you can turn that switch on and off that easy. Cause we just watched that Dustin fight, I watched it too. Like, that was violent aggression towards another human being. That I don't care what your score looks like at the end of this fight. And you can just turn that on when the cage opens, turn that off when the cage closes.

• 48:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't, I don't, I think it's just, I mean, I wrestled so many times, right? Like I wrestled hundreds of, shoot, yeah, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of wrestling matches. And it was the same, it's kind of the same thing. There was a line here and a line there. And you're kind of just chilling and warming up and you go up, you step on the line, you shake hands and then it just goes into, my hands are going to get on you and your hands are going to get on me and whatever happens, happens. And it's, obviously this is a little bit different because of the punches and the kicks and the knees and the elbows and the chokes and that kind of stuff. But it's just, it's, it's, it's so normal to me.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  That it feels so natural. But I think also a little bit has is that that animalistic instinct in there too where we really are locked into a cage with another man trying to hurt us really badly. And you know, if they have, if he has it his way, he's gonna knock me out. If he has it his way, he's going to do as much damage as he possibly can. So I think part of that human spirit, human instinct, back, back someone, back a possum into a corner, he's gonna come out fighting. And different guys have different styles. You bring up Izzy, like Izzy's a very calculated, you know? I don't have, I don't have a calculated bone in my body, I don't think, in there sometimes. Oh, I don't think I've ever, I don't think I've ever thought, hmm, what should I do

• 49:55Speaker 03

  right now? It's like, no, just go.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great, till the CFO sees them? That's bull spend. And marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand, when leads were slow. Yeah, it, it wasn't.

• 50:15Speaker 00

  Cut the bull spend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title, and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 50:28Channing Crowder?

  If I walked up, listen, if I walked up to you, you walking through Publix, pushing your cart. And if I walked up and grabbed you, how long would it take for you to snap back into that?

• 50:41Speaker 03

  Uh, well, like in a real, a real life scenario?

• 50:45Channing Crowder?

  I'm just saying, you in Publix, we walking through, aisle three, we buy the, we buy the soup, and I come and grab your ass?

• 50:52Speaker 03

  I think, I think initially it would take me a couple of seconds to realize, okay, am I in danger or am I not? You know, is this a friend that I'm, did I just accidentally beat up my, my high school teacher? Like, he was just coming to say hi? You know? Or was it, or is it like, hey, me and my family are, are in trouble?

• 51:10Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, it's a threat.

• 51:11Speaker 03

  If I know it's a threat, yes, I mean, it literally instantaneous, I think.

• 51:16Channing Crowder?

  And then how long would that take? Cause I ain't no, I ain't, I ain't, listen.

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Two to three seconds, probably.

• 51:25Channing Crowder?

  Mike, you gonna whip me in two seconds? No, maybe four.

• 51:32Ryan Clark?

  He gonna scoop you so fast.

• 51:33Channing Crowder?

  I'm just saying, but I already, I'm behind him, I got him locked up.

• 51:37Ryan Clark?

  The man trained like that his whole life.

• 51:40Channing Crowder?

  That's what he lives for.

• 51:42Ryan Clark?

  Strong, it's true, man. It's pretty hard, dude. Mike, he ain't working out. So, here's my question for you, bro. It seems like, right, they made a belt for humans like you. It's called the BMF. You've never fought for the BMF belt, but basically every fight you've had since becoming part of the UFC roster has been against that sort of fighter in style and also in who they were when it came to violence. So, let's say me and you get into it on the schoolyard, right? And I say, you know what? It's gonna be me and you, Mike, and I'm bringing three of my friends. If you got a chance to pick three other UFC fighters to bring to the fight with me,

• 52:26Ryan Clark?

  I guess I'm gonna bring Fred and Chad and we'll bring Mike.

• 52:29Channing Crowder?

  I'm gonna throw up quick.

• 52:33Ryan Clark?

  So, if you had the opportunity to pick three of the BMF sort of fighters to go to a street fight with you on the UFC roster, who would it be?

• 52:44Speaker 03

  Well, I think first, I mean, you gotta go with Max Holloway, because he's got the belt right now, but I think the guy that he just beat, Justin Gagey, I think Max did a great job tactically in that fight to make Justin Gagey not look as much of the BMF that we know he is, you know? Because Max is just a really, really great fighter. But I would go Max Holloway, Justin Gagey, and even though Dustin Poirier doesn't like me, I don't know if he would be on my side on this one, but like in an alternate universe where he would stick up for me, I would go Dustin Poirier.

• 53:15Ryan Clark?

  When you think about those two guys, because you've never fought Max, but what makes people like Dustin and Justin so dangerous? Because you went toe to toe with both of those dudes. You gave as good as you got. What makes them able to be violent in that manner and also get their hands raised at the end of the fight?

• 53:38Speaker 03

  Man, I think... I think they're just, they're, they're, they're just that. They are violent and I think they even get better as the violence starts to increase, you know? I will say this, I would say from a, from a tactical standpoint Dustin Poirier is a more polished, more veteran-thinking fighter than Gagey. Whether it be his, his processing inside there and he's able to navigate and negotiate distances, when to, when to hold, you know, when I got Poirier up against the cage and I hit him with like 20 punches, he was just, he was completely cool doing the rope-a-dope, right? It's a veteran move. I'm not doing that. I don't think Gagey would really do that either. I think Gagey would just slug and try to move and slug.

• 54:18Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 54:19Speaker 03

  So that's not to take anything against Gagey, but I think they're guys that are kind of just cut from the same, same cloth as me. They, they don't necessarily, I think I want to be in the violence. I don't necessarily know that they want to be in the violence until it's time to get violent. And when they do, they're as violent as, as anybody, right? Both of those dudes have a flip, a switch that they flip and they are phenomenal athletes.

• 54:46Ryan Clark?

  You have that, that switch too. I am like, I'm way too scared to ever fight. My son actually wants to fight, which I've been trying to talk him out of. I'm gonna get you to call him and just tell him the downsides. Don't tell him none of the good stuff.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:58Ryan Clark?

  Mike, um, but we all have like that moment, right? Like I, I remember to this day, watching Chuck beat Tito with the barrage against the cage was when I fell in love with the UFC. It's when I fell in love with mixed martial arts and then came Anderson Silva and, and John Jones and now they started to create superstars. What's the fight that Michael Chandler is watching and he says, "I know exactly what I want to do with my life"?

• 55:28Speaker 03

  Man, I think, you know, I was graduating college, uh, right about my senior year. I was, I didn't think I was gonna do anything besides wrestle until I was my senior year of college and Ben Ashken had gone off and started wrestling, or started fighting. Tyron Woodley went off and started fighting and those guys were like my big brothers, my mentors in, in, uh, in college. I wanted to be just like them. I didn't have a big brother, so they were kind of like the closest thing I had. Um, so I started getting more interested in it and that was at the time of BJ Penn, Matt Hughes, George St. Pierre. Watching Matt Hughes and George St. Pierre fight, watching BJ Penn and Matt Hughes fight. I remember the first ever, I think... It was Randy Couture versus somebody and it was during the Mizzou wrestling camps over

• 56:12Speaker 03

  the summer that they bought the pay-per-view at the dorm rooms or something and that was the first like real fight that I ever kinda got into after I started thinking about it. But the crazy thing is, is my, uh, my college roommate, one of my favorite human beings on the entire planet, his name's Raymond Jordan, um, his mom and, he had lost his mom and dad by the time he was 10 years old, got, uh, got adopted by, or taken in by his grandma, grandmother, um, and then she passes away a couple of years later. I mean, the man, the man had gone through it, um, and then was eventually taken in by another family on the wrestling team and kinda helped him get through it. He was a state champion from Newborn, New Bern, North Carolina. He was my roommate in college and he loved, he didn't have a car, but we had a Blockbuster about a quarter mile, half mile away and he would

• 56:57Speaker 03

  go down there and he would pick up the DVDs and he would pick up the VHS tapes and he would watch them and I was never really, I would watch it every now and then out of the corner of my eye or kinda see how there goes Raymond watching Fedor Emelianenko versus Shogun Hua and Anderson Silva. He would watch all the Pride stuff and the old UFC stuff. But it wasn't really until my senior year and starting to see some of that. I think it was BJ Penn, Matt Hughes, George St. Pierre and it was always George St. Pierre to me. I loved George St. Pierre and Randy Couture, not just because they were great fighters, but they were looked at differently because of the way that they operated and how they carried themselves. And probably similar to me, they, you know, people wanna say, I, you know, I like my fighters a little bit more questionable or I like my fighters a

• 57:41Speaker 03

  little bit more in this box, right? Um, but they were just guys who were kinda steadfast and then movable and when it came time to fight, they were, they were there and they were putting on a great show.

• 57:49Channing Crowder?

  Mike, what, cause as you talk about the schematics of it, it's funny because we look at football in that way and you were talking about how he was just blocking and just listening to it's pretty cool. With you not fighting in...

• 58:02Channing Crowder?

  A year plus. Well Conor and I fighting, what, three?

• 58:05Speaker 03

  Three years, yeah.

• 58:06Channing Crowder?

  As you look at the schematics of this fight, the approaches to this fight, why is this fight gonna be extremely exciting for me to spend my heart on money on? So that you can get paid?

• 58:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think, uh, man, I mean, obviously the storylines are the storylines. We just got done talking about my resume, my body of work, when it comes to me being one of the top, most electrifying guys who ever steps inside the octagon. And it's not because I win every fight, it's not because I'm the most technical, but you will not see more heart on display inside of an octagon anywhere else in the entire world unless Michael Chandler is in there. On the other side of the octagon, you got Conor McGregor coming back. He's calling it the greatest comeback in combat sports history. You know, there's been a bunch of ups and downs with it. We've got Bad Blood with the Ultimate Fighter. He is historically always a very exciting explosive guy right out of the gate.

• 59:02Speaker 03

  I'm historically, not even historically, I promise you, I will be explosive and run toward the center of that octagon on June 29th, right when the fight starts. And you're gonna see two guys who are going to get into a head-on collision car crash in the middle of T-Mobile Arena on June 29th. And may the best man win, and I got a sneaky suspicion I know who it is.

• 59:24Channing Crowder?

  We taking shots of McGregor whiskey or your tequila? I like Reposado.

• 59:28Speaker 03

  Hiatus, we have a great Reposado.

• 59:30Channing Crowder?

  Yeah?

• 59:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. Hiatus Tequila. I wish, I wish I had some here, but I went to training camp, man.

• 59:35Channing Crowder?

  Whenever, whenever, we'll get to it.

• 59:36Speaker 03

  I know.

• 59:37Channing Crowder?

  So what's the story behind why tequila?

• 59:40Speaker 03

  Man, so tequila has been my, uh, tequila has been my drink of choice for about a decade now. Um, and I really wanted to start my own tequila brand. Um, my wife and I had talked about it for a while. And just the logistics behind it, how long it takes, uh, all the R and D, research and development, getting the certification, all that kinda stuff. And then I ended up meeting the founder, his name is Christopher DeSoto, of Hiatus Tequila. And I sat down with him for a couple hours and I realized the bottle is exactly what I wanted, would have wanted it to look like. It's nice and it's clean and it's minimalist. The juice, the actual tequila itself is made the way tequila is supposed to be made.

• 1:00:21Speaker 03

  Not adding anything, not, no rectification process, additive free.

• 1:00:28Speaker 03

  And, and just his, his love for it. He's, he was from Texas, but spent eight years in Mexico. So he spent eight years around the culture and really fell in love with that culture. And not just that culture, but the tequila making inside of the culture. So I feel like there's so many similarities between me and who I am and how I try to operate and how I try to do my thing called mixed martial arts and be a man. And then how Chris's vision was for hiatus tequila. And we are, we're growing like crazy right now and it's been, it's been really, really good. And it's tasty and delicious and I will drink some on June 29th.

• 1:01:04Fred Taylor?

  Does Health Guru, was it Gary Brekka?

• 1:01:07Speaker 03

  Gary Brekka, yeah.

• 1:01:08Fred Taylor?

  Does he approve of it?

• 1:01:10Speaker 03

  You know, I haven't talked to him about that. I haven't talked to him about that. I'm sure anybody would say, yeah, he is. I'm sure he would say any, any alcohol isn't ideal for you. But there's a lot of things that we engage in that aren't ideal for us.

• 1:01:21Channing Crowder?

  Hey Mike, I just, please don't come over here because I've seen you jump on people. I just gotta ask, they have facelifts, they have BBLs, Drake gets his abs done. There's a lot of things you can do. Man, you can't restore those goddamn ears. Because shit, is there something you could do with them ears?

• 1:01:40Speaker 03

  I, I will say, I will say, I'm, I'm gonna get this left one fixed on the inside when I'm done fighting. Cause just because this one sticks out a little bit further than this one, that not only does it bother me, but I get like, I get ear infections every now and then because this one doesn't drain correctly, but.

• 1:01:54Channing Crowder?

  But you can't.

• 1:01:55Speaker 03

  No, my wife loves them. I actually talked to my wife about it.

• 1:01:57Channing Crowder?

  She doesn't love them.

• 1:01:58Speaker 03

  I swear, well, she says she loves them.

• 1:02:00Channing Crowder?

  Because she loves you.

• 1:02:00Speaker 03

  Exactly, but she says she loves them. That's all that matters. I'm like, babe, I think I'm gonna get, you know, this ear fixed. She's like, no, don't get your ears fixed. I like your ears. I'm like, alright, I guess I'll keep it.

• 1:02:09Ryan Clark?

  How do they fix them though, Mike?

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  Well, I think you would just, I think you would just kind of cut it and pull back the skin and then clear out some of the cauliflower. So essentially.

• 1:02:18Channing Crowder?

  Scar tissue, right?

• 1:02:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, the scar tissue, yeah. So it's, it's essentially you got the skin and then you have cartilage on the inside. And then it just swells up with, with like fluid whenever you get hit on it repeatedly. And then it swells up really big and then it kind of comes down and gets hard like this.

• 1:02:34Channing Crowder?

  But no, I'm just, because they make people's booties up their back.

• 1:02:39Speaker 03

  They could cut that out. Oh yeah, I don't know if that's the same. We just swap them off and put two butt cheeks on my head.

• 1:02:49Speaker 03

  I got a booty lift on my head.

• 1:02:52Ryan Clark?

  You want the man to have two cheeks.

• 1:02:53Speaker 03

  A BBL.

• 1:02:54Ryan Clark?

  The BBL had two cheeks.

• 1:02:57Speaker 03

  I traded my ears in for some butt cheeks.

• 1:02:58Ryan Clark?

  This is gonna be like the hardest transition I've ever had. I have a question that I wanted to ask. In our sport, recently Harrison Bucker gives a speech. It's at a Catholic commencement and he received a lot of backlash. He spoke a couple of weeks later and he was like, "I'm going to keep professing my faith."

• 1:03:21Ryan Clark?

  You have been publicly open about being a Christian. And you don't necessarily work in a world where we hear that a ton. You know, I read something where you said, "I feel like God has given me this platform not to be good, but to be great." What sort of responsibility do you feel to always profess the love of Christ as you continue to become more successful, gain more fame and popularity?

• 1:03:51Speaker 03

  I think it's extremely important, but I also think I like to do it my way. You know, I think there's a lot of different ways that you can do it, right? There's, you know, you got a guy like Tebow in football, right? All he talks about it, that is his message and that's how he feels comfortable and feels the way that he is supposed to profess his faith, right? Whereas I am open about it, but I'm also not talking about it so much that it's every single thing goes back to it, right? Because I do believe, you know, quoting the Bible, quoting the scripture, Paul said, "I have become all things to all men so that I might win a few," right? So there is the guys who will constantly profess it and there are the guys who...

• 1:04:31Speaker 03

  Who often just use their, how they live their life as a living testimony, right? It's, it goes back to preach the gospel at all times, but only when necessary, use words, right? So, you know, obviously when it comes to the big things in life, I, I profess and proclaim that God has blessed me with those things, um, when they are the impactful things, the overarching theme of my life, the successes and even the failures and the ups and the downs. But it's important for me because I really ha, I really do have a great crowd of witnesses and I do, I have been given a great platform and, um, to shy away from it would be me bastardizing

• 1:05:15Speaker 03

  the blessings that I have, right? I think it's, it's, uh, it's important, but I do it, I do it in my way and to some people it might be a little bit too much and to some people it might not be enough.

• 1:05:27Speaker 03

  But I love to just live my life and run my race and do what I feel comfortable putting my head on the pillow at night with how I'm operating, whether it be speaking at a church or whether it be going a month or two or three with doing interviews and not saying that I'm a Christian or talk about God whatsoever. Um, life ebbs and flows, right? So, um, it's very important to me. It's my cornerstone of who I am and whose I am and how I've been able to build this life that I've been building for now for the last really 24 years. And, uh, I want to stay steadfast. That's awesome, Don, that's awesome.

• 1:06:02Fred Taylor?

  And with that, you're, uh, you've been in the sport over 24 years. You're 38 now. You got this big fight versus Conor. What are your, some of your, uh, uh, future goals? You know, post-fight, your future UFC goals post-fight and, uh, plans for retirement? Have you thought that far?

• 1:06:21Speaker 03

  No, I haven't. You know, I, I know I don't have a ton of fights left in me, you know? I think, I think I could do it. I can definitely do it a lot longer than I will. I know that for sure. I know I will walk away from the sport with gas left in the tank and tread on the tires and the fans itching for me to get back in there. I know that for certain. But I don't know when that is going to be. Um, but I do know that this is about to be the biggest fight and what I think is going to be the most masterful, masterful performance of my career. And we're gonna have more after that. And then when I do hang the gloves up, I want to be doing things like this, having meaningful conversations, reaching the masses. I'd love to speak, I'd love to write books, I'd love to be on TV, I'd love to stay in the public eye,

• 1:07:06Speaker 03

  not for the vanity of it, but the impact of it, right? I'm already where I am now, and I feel comfortable here. I do believe that I've been given a gift to be able to do that, and impact as many people as I possibly can, and make a living doing it. And I think changing lives through whatever I decide to do. Fitness will be part of it, probably not mixed martial arts much. I'll always be known as the fighter, but I think the experiences that I have gleaned over these last 24 years of hand-to-hand combat are so similar to the struggles and the fights that everybody has to go through in life, that we can create a platform, or we can create a messaging that will impact people.

• 1:07:51Fred Taylor?

  I wanted to ask, because we get asked this question a lot, due to concussions and the history with the CTE and all that stuff, will we allow our children to play football? Will you allow Hap and Ace to participate in this?

• 1:08:08Speaker 03

  Combat sports.

• 1:08:08Fred Taylor?

  Combat sports, yes.

• 1:08:10Speaker 03

  You know, I think my thought is, it's not up to me. I think it's going to be what they are chosen to do, what they choose to do, and what they feel is right for them. Obviously, I think there's better ways to make a living than fighting in a cage, right? There's easier ways, there are safer and healthier ways. But being a guy who has made the life that I have created because of these hands in hand-to-hand combat, it's hard for me not to say that it's not been a huge blessing for me.

• 1:08:51Speaker 03

  That doesn't mean that they are going to follow in dad's footsteps. I do think, you know, we all talk about sports. You can get the discipline, the stick-to-it-iveness, the ups and downs, the character building. Team sports, individual sports, whatever it may be. My kids will do sports. I mean, I just got done telling you that they can do whatever they want, and now I'm telling you that they have to do sports. But I think... So I don't want to sound hypocritical, but I think we've got my son Hap in in sports right now. My son Ace is already playing some sports with like a personal coach, like a one-on-one coach, just shooting the basketball around and playing just coordination and stuff. I think it's just, sports has been my life since I was eight years old. And

• 1:09:36Speaker 03

  if they decide to fight, Brie is not going to like it. But I would but I would support it. And I know Uncle Dana pretty well, so we can.

• 1:09:43Ryan Clark?

  Uncle Dana.

• 1:09:44Speaker 03

  I might be a little nepotism.

• 1:09:45Ryan Clark?

  Uncle Dana.

• 1:09:46Speaker 03

  He won't have to start at the bottom.

• 1:09:49Ryan Clark?

  A little bit, a little bit. So we always ask our guests, what was their biggest pivot? And it's the moment that had to happen for you to be where you are today.

• 1:10:04Speaker 03

  Man, the craziest, the craziest thing is the biggest pivot. And it's, and it's a crazy, it's a crazy story for me. So it came off of a loss. I lost the title to a guy named Patricio Pitbull in Bellator. It was in Chicago, and I remember pulling up to the arena. And it was just an interesting fight week for a couple of different reasons. There was, there was, there was this weird, there was this weird somber feeling in it for some reason. I have never really experienced that before. And I remember, I remember this, this distinct feeling that this might not end well, but it, but it needs, this needs

• 1:10:47Speaker 03

  to happen. I remember getting to the arena, and we get our stuff in the locker room, and I call my wife, because I had this vision of her sitting by herself at the edge of the bed, all by herself. And I couldn't, I could not, I could not think about anything else. And I don't understand why I was having this feeling like she was alone. So I call her, and I tell her, hey, you know, where are you at? How, you know, are you on the way to the arena? She's like, yeah, hitched a ride with Hans, hitched hitched a ride with someone, and they were coming over. And I just, I remember telling her, I said, hey, I just want you to know, I love you. And I promise you that no matter what happens tonight,

• 1:11:32Speaker 03

  God's got us and everything is gonna be phenomenal for us. And she's like, "Okay." You know, like, that's not exactly what you want to hear from your husband as he's about to go into a cage match. And we hang up. I go out there and I lose. Getting stopped in the first round, hit behind the ear.

• 1:11:51Speaker 03

  But had that fight not happened the way that it happened, I would have retained the belt. I would have been under contract with Bellator for numerous more title defenses. And I would not have been able to get out of my Bellator contract and fight out my Bellator contract to then knock out Benson Henderson, come over to the UFC and do what we just talked about over the last five fights. And now, sitting here on the cusp of fighting the sport's biggest star with the brightest lights and the biggest platform. That, that dream that I had at the very beginning of this thing, why I got into the sport, the brightest lights and the biggest platform and the biggest opponent, that does not happen unless that loss happens.

• 1:12:37Speaker 03

  Because of contractual issues. So, once again, if a bad thing happens to you, but a good thing comes from it, was it really a bad thing? And I think that moment is the cornerstone for that saying that, "Yes, I still felt the pain. I still cried the tears. I still felt like a failure. I still felt all of the pain and all of the stuff I had to go through, but it was the greatest blessing of my career, losing that fight."

• 1:13:06Ryan Clark?

  Okay, I can't let you go without asking this.

• 1:13:10Ryan Clark?

  I was, I mean, 13-seconds Aldo, Eddie Alvarez. I was the biggest Conor fan, as many of us were in the UFC. And, obviously, just through watching you, getting to talk to you so many times, having a personal relationship, I'm like, "MC's my guy." Tell me why the fans of the UFC, why friends like myself and people who cheer you on should believe that Michael Chandler gets his hand raised on June 29th in T-Mobile Arena?

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  I think from a sheer physical, physicality standpoint, from a skillset standpoint, there's no way that I should lose to Conor McGregor. I'm better than him in every way. Aside from the puncher's chance.

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  I beat him 10 times out of 10. With that being said, I do believe that Conor shows up. Conor shows up under the bright lights. He lives for these moments. But I do believe that there's two scenarios here. That Conor comes back and is successful and completes the greatest comeback in combat sports history. Or I go out there and I absolutely dismantle him and it's the last time that we ever see Conor McGregor compete inside of an octagon. So if there ever was a pay-per-view that people must buy, it has to be Conor McGregor's last fight. Because I think that's going to be the outcome. I think I don't just get my hand raised. I don't just win. I think I put on a masterful performance and I finally put some of the last brushstrokes

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  on this masterpiece that I've been painting for the last 24 years of hand-to-hand combat. And it had to happen this way. This is the way it was supposed to be. With all the doubts and all the fears and all the setbacks and all the naysayers and all the personal self-doubt that I've had, it had to happen this way. And it wasn't just going to be big. It was going to be astronomical. And this is exactly what I always asked for. And you're going to see something different in me than you've ever seen before. Okay, breaks out Fanatic Sportsbook app. And Tyson. I'm in. Michael Chandler.

• 1:15:19Speaker 03

  What's the betting line? That's what we're about to find out. Betting line these days.

• 1:15:24Speaker 06

  Must be 21-plus. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Full promotional terms and conditions apply for each offer. See Fanatic Sportsbook app for available promotions and offer terms.

• 1:15:33Ryan Clark?

  Nah, bro, man. Just honestly, bro, man, like this was, you know, for us. I am the biggest MMA fan of the crew, but they've gotten into it. Just a huge fan of yours, brother. And the fact that we got to do this, I knew it would be so much bigger than fighting, which was why it was important to me, man. So thank you for taking time during camp. I understand how important these moments are for you. But for us, man, this was huge.

• 1:15:57Speaker 03

  Thank you, man. Thank you, guys, for having me, man. This is a great opportunity to speak to a huge audience. And you guys are awesome. I watch the show, so thank you, guys.

• 1:16:05Ryan Clark?

  Appreciate you, Mo, boy.

• 1:16:06Channing Crowder?

  Hey, that boy is so...

• 1:16:07Ryan Clark?

  Hey, come on. That's what they do. Buy the best review. And here's the thing though too, you know, so Mike though, he always has something for after the fight though. Like he's always, he's always a step ahead. He's always a step ahead. So I already know. And whatever I say is gonna happen, dude. If he puts him down like that, oh, he got something. He like, he the Ric Flair now. He's the Ric Flair of the UFC now, bro. I got a couple of options. Keep my options open, you know?

• 1:16:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:36Ryan Clark?

  I will get the Islam fight next for sure. Or the BMF belt with Max. That would be crazy. Both will probably happen. You get it. Selfishly, I'd want to see you and Max though. Yeah, right? Cause I already know what it'll be. Yeah. You know what I mean? I already know.

• 1:17:19Speaker 07

  Every game day you show up for your team. Now it's your time.

• 1:17:30Speaker 08

  Ask your prescriber about Wegovy. Somemagnitide injection 2.4mg a GLP-1. Call 1-8334-WEGOVIE or visit wegovie.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about Wegovy. Why wait?