#1110 Ben Askren | Olympian On UFC, Sterioids & Jake Paul

Ben Askren is an Olympic gold medalist, MMA fighter, and author of the brand new book "Funky". In this conversation, we discuss his fight with Jake Paul, PED usage in professional sports, the future of wrestling, the wrestling academy that Ben has built, and the business behind combat sports. ======================= Arculus is the next generation crypto & NFT cold storage wallet that combines one of the world’s strongest security protocols with the easiest to use form factor and app. Arculus requires 3-Factor Authentication to ensure only you have access to your digital assets – something you know – a PIN, something you have – the Arculus Key Card, and biometrics. Learn more and buy it now on getarculus.com. Use promo code POMP to save 15%. Remember, with Arculus, it’s your keys, your crypto. ======================= The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. Even better? Eight Sleep recently launched the next generation of the Pod. The new Pod 3 enables more accurate sleep and health tracking with double the amount of sensors, delivering you the best sleep experience on Earth. Go to eightsleep.com/pomp ======================= Valour (formerly DeFi Technologies) represents what’s next in the digital economy -- providing simplified, trusted access to crypto, decentralized finance and Web 3.0 investment opportunities. Institutions and investors can gain diversified, secure, compliant, and easily tradable access to a diversified set of industry-leading equity products and protocols, through a single stock purchase on a regulated exchange. Currently listed on U. S. (OTC: DEFTF) and Canadian (NEO:DEFI) exchanges. For more information or to subscribe to receive company updates and financial information, visit our website at valour.com ======================= Compass Mining is the world's first online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware and hosting. Compass was founded with the goal of making it easy for everyone to mine bitcoin. Visit https://compassmining.io/ to start mining bitcoin today! ======================= LMAX Digital - the market-leading solution for institutional crypto trading & custodial services - offers clients a regulated, transparent and secure trading environment, together with the deepest pool of crypto liquidity. LMAX Digital is also a primary price discovery venue, streaming real-time market data to the industry’s leading analytics platforms. LMAX Digital - secure, liquid, trusted. Learn more at LMAXdigital.com/pomp =======================

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

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Ben Askren is an Olympic gold medalist, an MMA fighter, and the author of a brand new book called Funky. In this conversation, Ben and I cover a lot, everything from his fight with Jake Paul, to PEDs, where the sport of wrestling is headed, the business behind combat sports, and much, much more. I really enjoyed this conversation with Ben. I hope you guys enjoy it as well. Once you get done listening, get on Twitter and let us know what you liked, what you didn't like, what you agreed with, and what you didn't agree with. We love the feedback. All right, let's get into this episode with Ben. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 1:04Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Ben here with me. You've got a fascinating life, and I thought a great way to kind of understand what the hell you've been through is to start off first talking about just excellence. Like, I feel like a lot of the things that you've done in your life, you've tried to be the best at it. Talk, like, what does excellence mean to you, and why has that been such a focus for you?

• 1:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, and it's kind of the way I think about things. Like, if I'm gonna try to do something, I might as well try to be the best at it. I don't really see any reason not to. You know, I've never made a good argument, like, why should you just do something and, like, do it average? But it's also perhaps because I'm very obsessive about things, you know? So, I mean, obviously, like, later in my life, I learned disc golf, you know? And I started playing, and I just got obsessed with it, right? And I'm like, okay, I want to go play in a tournament now, see if I'm actually good or not. And then I played in this tournament, and I sucked. And I'm like, oh, wait, I can throw good, but I can't putt worth a damn. So it's like, okay, I need to go buy a basket and put it in my front yard, you know? And then I obsessively putt. And I got to the point where, you know, on the pro level, I wasn't good, but I took second at the amateur nationals, you know? So I was like, really high level at that. And so, yeah, I just don't see a reason not

• 2:07Speaker 02

  to do things really well, and maybe it's because I'm super obsessed. obsessive and people, other people are like kind of all over the place, but that's just my personality.

• 2:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Why do you like disc golf? Like I've seen the videos. I know you've got funky farms.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Have you played yet?

• 2:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Huh? I, I played once or twice when I was in high school.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 2:22Anthony Pompliano?

  And like, it was kind of a thing that people did, uh, one time, like, yeah, I'd done it and then they never did it again.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  What? Disc golf actually during 2020 Corona, disc golf just freaking took off in popularity. Um, because people wanted to be outside and then they could stay far away from other people, you know? So disc golf like kind of blew up and, uh, you know, there's, there's guys getting million dollar contracts now for some sponsors on a yearly basis.

• 2:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. So Paul Macbeth got, uh, you should have him down here. He's, uh, or your brother, right? Your brother talks more sports. Uh, he's out of Jacksonville now, but he got a million dollar a year contract from Discraft, uh, who sponsors me also. Uh, for me, I think, you know, I think it really is, is the, the immediate feedback. So you take this disc, right? And once you get good, each one of them does something a little different and then you get to envision the way it's going to fly. And then you rip it and you get to try to watch it fly the way you wanted to fly. And when, when you get something good, like what you envision in your head, it's like, oh, that was awesome.

• 3:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Is it literally golf, but with discs? Like for the most part, it's, there's par, there's putting, like the whole thing?

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:24Anthony Pompliano?

  But you're just throwing rather than hitting.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  So you know, I have a really simple argument for disc golf over golf. Do you want to hear it?

• 3:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Okay. Number one, golf takes too damn long. I don't know if you've ever played eighteen holes of golf. Have you?

• 3:34Anthony Pompliano?

  My, my brothers and I usually go, uh, not every Friday, but many Fridays.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  It takes like five hours.

• 3:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's a all afternoon activity.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Okay, like five hours. So disc golf, you know, if you got a group, probably hour, hour and a half depending on how difficult the course is, not going to take super long. Number two, generally, uh, most places it's free now, right? There's some pay to play, but not, it's not that much as like in parks and stuff. Um, number three, if you want a disc golf set, generally I would recommend you start with like, say three or four discs. Uh, that's going to run you save, we'll say 60 bucks to 80 bucks, somewhere in there. Maybe you can get like one golf club for that, right?

• 4:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  And then the last one, someone busy like you, uh, or like me, you don't need tee times, right? So you just show up and play. Like if you thought, hey, you know, you thought this podcast is going to last an hour and it'll last two hours. Well, if you miss your tee time, you're screwed, right? But disc golf, you just go and play. That's my arguments.

• 4:25Anthony Pompliano?

  That's actually a pretty strong argument. I think the hard part is just, uh, people got to get good at throwing the disc.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, well, I think, so I think if you, if you have someone that's relatively knowledgeable. To get like a base level would be probably easier than golf. I would think just because to get really good now that's going to take a lot, right? But to get this, understand how to throw it straight a couple hundred feet like you. You're an athlete, right? I could take you out to the park and in 20, 30 minutes, I would have you throwing it a couple hundred feet straight. Relatively straight, you know? Yeah.

• 4:56Anthony Pompliano?

  You could not do that with a golf club.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Yes, golf. I golfed for a few years when I was like really young and then my parents said, hey, you gotta pay for it. I'm like, all right, I'm out.

• 5:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  You're like seventh grade or eighth grade and then they're like, oh, you gotta pay now. I'm like, all right, I'm done with that.

• 5:10Anthony Pompliano?

  When I want to talk about combat sports in general, one of the things that's fascinating to me is like you had this illustrious wrestling career.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:18Anthony Pompliano?

  But you can't punch people, right? It's just straight wrestling. Is that frustrating? I've always won. I like watching wrestling and I'm like, if you're actually mad or competitive or whatever, you're in a fight, but kind of not in the fight. Like, how did you think about that? Or is it just second nature because you've just been trained so much that you can't like, that's not a thing you do.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say it's a little bit second nature, but wrestling is actually funny. I just read this, the last book, everybody was called Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. And it's funny because wrestling is mentioned so many times, probably six to eight times. And so wrestling is like, it's such within the human condition to like grab someone and try to manipulate them or take them down.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  No, I mean, when it was okay, when I started wrestling, there was no MMA, right? I mean, literally, literally didn't exist. I started wrestling probably 1991 when I was, well, I'd been seven years old. And the very first MMA competition was 1993. You know? And then I remember watching some early ones, like my dad got the VHS tape and then.

• 6:16Anthony Pompliano?

  What'd you think?

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Uh, I was fascinated. I really was. I so I remember like part of me, even at, I think I would have been nine or 10 years old. I'm like, felt like, oh my God, some of these dudes are so stupid. I actually talk about in the book, I have this vivid memory. My dad brought the homeless tape and was like, hey, let's watch this fighting thing, you know? Because in the beginning, it wasn't like, hey, this is MMA. It was like, hey, let's see who wins. I mean, this is the beginning of MMA. Who let's see who wins? Does a wrestler win? Does a jiu jitsu guy win? Does a boxer win? Like what, what wins when all these things happen, you know?

• 6:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Genius idea.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  It really is, because really everyone wanted to know, and then you know what we found out was most like Taekwondo and Karate were kind of a little bit bull crap. I mean, there's some things we can take, but not that much. So I remember watching it, and I wish I remembered exactly which UFC it was. I don't probably one, two, three, four, five, something really early, you know? And there was this one guy, and he was talking about how tough he was, because he punches this bag of cement, essentially it was like a block of cement with some duct tape around it. The guy was just, you know, like sticking it with his, I'm like, oh my god, what the hell's wrong with this guy? This is so ridiculous. Like, how's he getting good at fighting by punching a block of concrete? You know, that's like my simple ten-year-old thought. But I was intrigued by it, and then it kind of went away for a while. I mean, you're right, you don't remember the history of MMA, but

• 7:31Speaker 02

  everyone started banning it. And I think by the end, it was only legal in like four states or something, because the first thing they were promoting, the first headline was, uh, eight men enter, one man leaves. Like, you know, like this notion that someone's gonna die, right?

• 7:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Great marketing for the consumer, probably not so great for the regulators and the licensing.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Yes, I think, I think actually only one person's ever died in thirty years of regulated mixed martial arts.

• 7:57Anthony Pompliano?

  And it was just all bare knuckle when it first started?

• 7:59Speaker 02

  It was, yeah. I mean, and if you watched early MMA, well, it was kind of like whatever you wanted. So like, some guys wore gis, some guy was wore wrestling shoes. Uh, there was this one guy, really famous fight, guy named Art Jimmerson, he was a boxer, and he wore one boxing glove and one bare hand, you know? So like, um, you know, there were some really like hilarious things back in the day. There was a sumo wrestler who wore his out, you know, it's kind of his outfit. Um, so you kind of saw a little bit of everything back there, back then. And then, um, yeah, so it went away, uh, kind of because it got banned everywhere, you know, when there was no, no one would distribute it. And then, you know, obviously Zuffa buys it in 2002. So if you were watching MMA, so that was kind of my high school time period, it was like you were really like having to dig deep to go find some VHS tapes somewhere.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  And I remember we, we always enjoyed it, because I think that the wrestlers came in, um, maybe like late nineties-ish, so there's a guy named like Mark Coleman, Kevin Randleman, guys who had high success in wrestling, started doing really well in mixed martial arts. So that was, you know, like I said in the beginning, it was like, which discipline is better? You know, every discipline, mixed martial arts, every martial arts wants to have pride in their discipline. And so when wrestlers started doing really well, I was like, oh, that's really awesome. But it was still like... This thing that's like over here.

• 9:13Anthony Pompliano?

  When the wrestlers started to do well, how much of it was like the wrestlers were just taking people down? And they didn't know how to like defend against getting taken down versus the wrestlers had gotten good at punching and kicking and like other uh, kind of components of the combat.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  Uh, I would say those guys that I mentioned, um, you know, one of the things with wrestlers, they work really hard. Especially I would say compared to the other martial arts, even currently, they still work really hard, right? And so they had a ton of success and they, they picked up other things relatively quickly. So I'd say those guys kind of were a little bit good everywhere, but yes, obviously, uh, Mark Coleman. Uh, and he's still around. Uh, I just saw him coaching at, uh, the most recent UFC. He made the term grounded pound, right? So I, I don't remember, you know, the exact, he's, I'm gonna take him to ground, I'm gonna pound him, right? So you just take him down and they just keep punching him. And I, I believe for a while head butts were still legal. So one of the things they've grabbed the head and you know, they would, they would, well, cause you can cut people really easily.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Right here with this part of your head.

• 10:11Anthony Pompliano?

  And what, and what I, it used to be bare knuckle, uh, head butting, but also couldn't you kick people when they were on the ground? Like, uh, they were like standing up or something?

• 10:19Speaker 02

  And that was in pride, in pride. I don't remember when they banned that in America, but then, well, the other one was nut shots were legal for a while. And there's this one famous one where this dude elbows him in the nuts and it kind of, you know, ends the fight. Yeah. So it was like really, really limited rule set. And then when Zupa took over, I think they were like, how do we work with the regulators? That's kind of like the crypto industry, huh? They're like, how do we work through that? And some people are like, no way. But then most people realize it's probably going to be a little bit better when we do.

• 10:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And, and so what they basically did was they just created clear rules that put gloves on people. They like cleaned it up to a degree, but still kept the like gladiator slash like eight, you know, two people go in, one comes out type mentality. It just was in this new rule framework, which cleaned it up and allowed for the distribution.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, they obviously did a lot of other things really well. And then, you know, so they bought it in 2002 and did, did all of those things. And most of the things, there's a few that are really stupid. Most of the things were really smart, like, uh, kicking to the head of a grounded opponent. It's really dumb because the only time. You would ever actually do that is generally when they're knocked out, right? You hit them, they fall down and then you kick them also. It's like, well, why is that necessary, you know? But say like a 12 to 6 elbow, something that's banned. It's like you do like this, right? So your elbow goes from 12 to 6 straight down. And it was because some dumbass karate guy said you could kill someone doing an elbow like that. You know what I'm saying?

• 11:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Could you?

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Well, okay, listen, why can you go like this, right? Well, I'm not going, I'm going at an angle or like this, where I'm going like this, but I can't do this. It's just, it's preposterous, right? Why that one thing is bad or, you know, another one that's-

• 11:52Anthony Pompliano?

  So wait, the referee, I didn't know this. The referee is sitting there and trying to determine, did you go 12 to 6 or did you go like 1 to 7?

• 11:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So you cannot go straight, you can't go straight down like this with an elbow.

• 12:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. How do they see that?

• 12:04Speaker 02

  It's dumb. Well, I mean, John Jones, I think he's only ever lost one fight and it was because of DQ and it was because of that. He, yeah, he 12 to 6 elbow Matt Hamel, I believe. Yeah, so, yeah, but it's a really stupid rule. But then there's another one like, kneeing to the head of a grounded opponent. So in one championship where I fought in Asia, you can, you can do that. And like in my take, it's a really good fighting technique because what, what you want for mixed martial, in my opinion, you want fighting to emulate real life with some of the bullshit technique, like an eye gouge or a hit in the nuts, you know, like-

• 12:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Throwing sand.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like if you're holding someone in for headlock in wrestling, so I have you, your head and your arm and holding you down, I can't strike you because I'm using my hands to hold you, right? But if I have my knees, now I can actually knee you and I can cause damage and you're in a, you're in a compromised position, which you are in a compromised position, right? And so, you know, there's certain things that are probably still legal that you could probably make legal and make it a little more realistic of a fight. But yeah, they, they did a really good job. And then obviously then the ultimate fighter was like 2005.

• 13:06Anthony Pompliano?

  And that, the sport explodes.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  That's when it explodes, yeah. So they had the reality show component of it that people were into. And then, you know, they had the Forrest Griffin, Stefan Bonner, which was in the season finale that everyone kind of, even if you don't know mixed martial arts, you kind of remember that because it's just these two dudes just freaking throwing down. And yeah, so then after that, boom, it took off. And then honestly during Corona when Dana- Had the balls to to keep everything going. You know, he's one of the first post parts to start up again, actually right here in Florida in Jacksonville. They kind of hit another like boom and kind of went up again.

• 13:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. The thing that's fascinating to me is you said wrestlers work hard, sometimes even harder than other disciplines. And the UFC, when people see this, like these guys are in shape, they're obviously working hard. And they're going in there and they're just absolutely destroying each other, right? In many of these fights. But I think back to like high school, you always knew the wrestler was because there was two things that they would do. Oh, actually, three things. One, they all smelled horribly.

• 14:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Two is, I remember there was a couple of guys that would walk around like these cups. They were always spitting in the cups. I'm like, what are you spitting in the cup for? And they were trying to cut weight. Why don't you just like go like workout or whatever. But like that, we can talk about why they were doing that. But that, and then the third thing was they all hung out together. And just no one messed with them, right? Like, like, nobody really messed with the football team. No one would mess with like most of the sports. But like, for whatever reason, the wrestlers, like you never just knew. You're like, I kind of sort of know how to fight and like, let's just like leave them over there and like not screw with them. But like, talk about spitting in the cup. Like in high school, it was such a ridiculous thing, right? People would be like, why are they doing that? And then when you start to learn about it, you're like, oh, wait a second. Like, they don't want to do this. They have to.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  No, they shouldn't be spinning.

• 14:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, all right, explain.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Well, that would be, okay, so, oh, where do I start? Well, yeah, first, let me step back first. So when you want to mess with wrestlers, because it like you said, you actually said it earlier. It is a little bit like a fight.

• 14:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  It's a physical confrontation. You can't, there's a few things you can't do, but it's kind of a fight.

• 15:03Anthony Pompliano?

  In school, you aren't gonna eye gouge someone or like, you know, like try to kill them. So like, actually, most school fights, maybe there's a couple punches thrown, but they end up wrestling. So like, I think that's one of the main reasons.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I think one of the things, you know, Max and I, so we own five wrestling academies in Wisconsin and we really push back. And I think all, almost all of America is, I don't say we're there yet, but we're close with the weight cutting is not beneficial.

• 15:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, explain.

• 15:31Speaker 02

  I, so I have theories on historically why people think cutting weight is is good for you or good for, as I would say, good for your success. You know, over the course of a high school wrestling season, an athlete will have to make weight somewhere around 20 times, right? Between dual meets and tournaments and all this stuff. And so if you're really focused on losing weight and spitting in a cup and doing all these other things, you're not going to be focused on getting better at wrestling. You're not going to enjoy it near as much because even if you're tough, cutting weight sucks. Even when you're adult, cutting weight sucks.

• 16:01Anthony Pompliano?

  These guys look miserable when they were doing it.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  I mean, cutting weight's miserable, just generally speaking.

• 16:06Anthony Pompliano?

  And explain for a second, like, what goes into cutting weight? Like, with someone serious about it, what are all the things?

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Well, so, okay, so I was good. Generally, high school, I would advise kids cut almost no, almost no weight, right? You know, so if you weigh 170 pounds and the weight class is, well, let's just do it. If you're 173 and the weight class is 170, the next one's up 183. Like, for someone that big to lose three pounds, it's like really minimal. Like, maybe eat a little less that day and maybe get a workout in, and boom, you're 170, you know? But if you were to say, well, I want to wrestle 160, well, that's kind of a long ways away, it's 13 pounds. Now, for like a UFC fighter, now they're going to only make weight. So I said, in a high school season, you probably make weight 20 times. UFC guys are going to make weight three to four times per year, right? Additionally, it's going to be a day before weigh-in, right? So high school wrestling, college wrestling, it's a one hour weigh-in.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  You weigh in and then an hour later, the competition begins.

• 16:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, wow.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So meaning, so if you're cutting a lot of water weight, you're not going to compete well.

• 17:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Right? You're just not going to.

• 17:03Anthony Pompliano?

  You're dehydrated.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Dehydrated, you feel like crap, yes. And yeah, so, so like, it is a really bad idea.

• 17:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Why do they do that?

• 17:09Speaker 02

  Uh, well, I have my historical reasons, if you want to think so.

• 17:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, of course.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  But no, for, for, for fighting, it makes sense because, yes, in a 24-hour-ish period, you can feel significantly better than what you did, right?

• 17:22Anthony Pompliano?

  That makes sense to me.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a lot of guys, and, and actually, as an adult, adult male specifically, I mean, females lose weight, but not nearly as rapidly. Sweating, I mean, I can, I, I, and I'm not on probably the high end of the spectrum, but I can sweat five to seven pounds in an hour, right? Put some warm clothes on, get it going, and weight comes off like that, you know?

• 17:41Anthony Pompliano?

  For real. Get it going. What would you do?

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Uh, well, so, I mean, well, okay, so the key is to not work too hard. If I'm cutting weight, I don't work too hard, right? So I'll get a, I'll work. Hard for about fifteen to twenty minutes, I'll start sweating hard and then I don't gotta work that hard. I don't overwork myself.

• 17:54Anthony Pompliano?

  So what do you do in that fifteen to twenty minutes? I'm fascinated by the cutting weight thing.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  It might be, it might be running, right? It might be hitting mitts. Um, I know like fighting.

• 18:02Anthony Pompliano?

  So it's like, it's like normal things. It's not some crazy thing where you got like a trash bag on and you're like.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  You wanna, you wanna get your heart rate up.

• 18:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  That's, that's one of the high school kids like, so high school, the spitting in the cup, it's like just, they're being wimps. They don't wanna go work out. It's ridiculous.

• 18:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Interesting.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  So like if I ever saw my kids doing that, I'd be like, stop. This is ridiculous. Just go freaking workout. Like, you know what I'm saying? Stop spitting in the cup.

• 18:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Cause all they're trying to do is just get liquid out of it.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  And you're not gonna lose barely any weight. You're gonna lose like, oh, you know, over the course of, if you spit for a couple hours, you might lose like half a pound or three. You're not gonna lose anything. It's just ridiculous, you know? So just like, stop dude, you look, you look preposterous. I mean, honestly, if you want me to go like deep down in the human psyche.

• 18:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  Those kids probably want attention from other kids about the plight of what they're doing, right?

• 18:42Anthony Pompliano?

  In hindsight, that is what it appeared to be.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  For sure it is.

• 18:44Anthony Pompliano?

  It is like, I'm a wrestler, this is part of the wrestling culture.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  I want a little bit of attention. I want people to know how tough this is. That's, I mean, that's human beings, like they want attention for specific things, unfortunately. So, um, well, okay, so my historical thought process on why people cut weight, I don't think they ever said this on air. I've talked, I've talked to other people about this is, um, right? Uh, we know correlation and causation aren't the same thing. Okay. Well, way back when, we go far enough back in wrestling, um, the toughest people won the matches because there wasn't, there wasn't a lot of moves. It was kinda just like, who is the toughest is probably gonna win cause they're stronger and they're meaner and et cetera, et cetera. Cause there's not a high level of technique or thought process or all the things. And so then the toughest people can also probably cut the most weight cause they're the toughest, you know? So whether, whether or not they would have cut the most weight, they probably were gonna win cause they were the toughest.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  And so then a lot of people then correlated those things, oh, that guy cut a lot of weight and he won. I have to cut a lot of weight in order to win also.

• 19:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Interesting.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  You know, and so I think it was like highly correlational and not causational. Cause even like, um, You know, in current era, you know, a guy like Jordan Burrows, who, you know, he's one of the best ever. But he, in the Olympics wrestles at 74 kilograms, which is 163 pounds. Well, he went up and challenged on Full Wrestling, he challenged this guy named David Taylor, who's the world champ at 86. They're both from America. 86 kilograms, which is 20, what, 22 pounds? I'm messing up the kilos. I think it's 22 pounds higher. And he lost, but it was four, it was four to four, right? So I don't want to explain why it's not tied, but it's four to four. Being that, like, those guys are kind of far apart weight-wise, but wrestling is wrestling. If you're really good at wrestling, a few pounds doesn't really matter all that much, you know?

• 20:25Speaker 02

  If you're highly skilled, you're highly skilled. You can wrestle someone who's a few pounds bigger than you, and it's fine.

• 20:30Anthony Pompliano?

  How big of a jump was it? So you're, uh, this illustrious wrestling career, college, Olympics, and then you go out to Asia. And when you're in Asia, like, how big of a leap is it to go from wrestling to actually, like, fighting in the cage?

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Um, not, for me, it wasn't that big at all. Yeah, I don't, I just always like, I mean, it's one of the big reasons why I did MMA. I mean, there's a couple, right? One of them was, there was no money in wrestling at that point in time.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  I just kind of liked fighting. I, you know, I enjoyed watching it. Obviously, even in the early days, I was watching it when it wasn't popular, when Tough came out. Then I watched it a lot. My college buddies watched it a lot. A few of them ended up fighting and having a lot of success. But I always just liked fighting, you know? And so for me, it wasn't really all that different. I, I've just kind of always enjoyed and still do enjoy combat.

• 21:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Uh, did you guys get in a lot of fights in college?

• 21:21Speaker 02

  I did not. That's not saying other people didn't, but yeah. I, I was generally kind of even tempered. I actually never, I still have never drank. So I was the one kind of watching out for everybody else. Or like, you know, if they got in a fight, then I'm like, all right, you know, you gotta go. We gotta, we gotta get you out of here. You know, I was one taking care of everyone. So no, I generally didn't get in any fights. Probably just because I didn't get angry all that much. And, you know, obviously if, especially if you're a wrestler and you get in a fight, there's probably a lot of negative things that can happen to you also.

• 21:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, of course. So as you kind of go through your career, uh, what was Asia like? But like one of the things as I've learned more and more about UFC MMA and like the history of a lot of this stuff. It seems like most of America was like completely unaware of what was happening in Asia. And now there's maybe a little bit more awareness between the two.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I mean, one championship specifically, they signed that, uh, I'd say Amazon Prime video deal, right? So they're on Amazon Prime. I don't know if it's once a month or I don't know exactly what the cadence is. Well, actually, um, Japan specifically, so one championship, Singapore, but they do, they have cards kind of everywhere. But Japan specifically had this organization called Pride, uh, which was, I don't recall when it was founded. Probably somewhere in the mid, mid to late 90s and they were kind of, I don't know if you'd say the best, but.

• 22:40Anthony Pompliano?

  We would always see viral clips in the US. Like you wouldn't see anything and then you would just see this clip and you'd be like, yo, I don't know where that person came from, but like that was crazy.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, so they, I mean, they had, you could definitely argue they had a better roster than the UFC for a while, for a while there. The UFC actually ended up buying them along with a few other organizations. But, um, I mean, I mean, one of the things that was hilarious about Pride was that they, they not only allowed PEDs, they encouraged PEDs.

• 23:06Anthony Pompliano?

  What?

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Yes. So I have, you know, I've had some friends and they said, you know, they would say they would go over there to fight. And the owners, you know, it would say specifically on the contract, we do not test for PEDs, right? Or steroids or anything, but they would say, hey, um, you're looking a little soft. Do you need anything? Is there anything we can get you?

• 23:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, so that, and that was a, and some of these guys were like almost larger than life in that sense, you know? And then, um, you know, most of them came to the UFC and had a relatively similar amount of success. There was a few that came over and especially when USADA started testing in UFC, they, you know, there's some of them, you could, could look at their records and they were like, like this. It's almost, it's almost insane to me. I would think that I've never taken them, but I would think if I did take them, they would have a small boost on my performance. Maybe I get a little stronger, a little better endurance.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  But some of these dudes, they literally were like world champ level and then they were like one and seven. And you're like, wait.

• 24:09Anthony Pompliano?

  You think PEDs can have that big of an impact?

• 24:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, the most obvious case, the one that like is.

• 24:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, let's get some names.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Well, it's almost indisputable. And listen, I cannot prove that. Well, actually, I think he got busted in the early days. So I can't prove this guy did, but a guy like Vitor Belfort, if you, I don't know. Can we pull pictures on the screen?

• 24:28Anthony Pompliano?

  No, no, no.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  We need a screen back here so I can pull, so you guys can see these. But like, I mean, he is like, oh, my God. Like, you look at him and you're like, holy crap. And then he go, Usada comes in and you see a picture of him and you're like, wait, is that the same guy? I wish you could see a picture right now so you could see the difference between the two bodies. Yeah. And it's just like, but there's a handful of people who you don't know that they took anything. Like, there's no proof. I actually think he did test positive at some point.

• 24:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think the sport would be better off if people just were allowed to?

• 24:59Speaker 02

  No.

• 25:00Anthony Pompliano?

  No?

• 25:01Speaker 02

  No. Um, well, I guess.

• 25:04Anthony Pompliano?

  You say that like it's a no brainer, but I feel like there's a lot of people who'd argue it would be better off if they did take it.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  I mean, better off if you're saying strictly for my or your entertainment, I think you have an argument. If you think of like, but the athletes in this sport, because a lot of this stuff, there's not really much long term data on the effect, effects of it, right? And then there's also not long term effects on, and you know, this is one of the reasons I, I don't want to say I got out, but you know, I stopped sparring for a while because it's like, there's no super long term data on like CTE and brain trauma and stuff like that. And so now if you're telling me, well, I'm gonna let you take a whole bunch of steroids and get better at giving people brain trauma. You know, like, it feels like a really dangerous.

• 25:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Do a lot of fighters talk about the brain stuff?

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Uh, not really. No. I mean, so for me, um, I, I watched Concussion. It was actually, I was actually flying to a fight in Asia and I watched Concussion. I'm like, oh, that's kind of sketchy.

• 25:55Anthony Pompliano?

  You got one or you watched?

• 25:56Speaker 02

  No, no, I watched the movie. Remember the movie that came out?

• 25:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, um, so the movie came out and I watched it. I'm like, oh, man. And I'm, you know, I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna still keep fighting. I literally stopped sparring. That was 2016 and I didn't spar anymore. Cause I'm like, well, why am I taking all this brain trauma in practice? Like, that's just unnecessary. Necessary. So I'm like, well, I'm still gonna fight. But so I did like a lot of pad work and I'm the simulated stuff in practice. But then, you know, I kept reading up on it and I'm very, I'm very skeptical because there was a study that came out later on CTE. That I thought was just completely preposterous. And it said 99% of people who played football for more than one year have CTE. Which is everything like, well, that's like 94% of American males above the age of 40. And then it said, but then it said, this was the one that really put me off.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  It said 87% of people who played only one year of football still developed it. And you're like, wait. Okay, so that's gonna be like everybody.

• 26:52Anthony Pompliano?

  So basically if you just get hit in the head at all.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Ever. Yeah. So that was, I'm like, okay, because obviously if you put the threshold low enough.

• 26:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  You know, you can get a bunch of, you can make these results that look really damning. And you put a bunch of people over the threshold by putting the threshold low. And so I think, I think the jury's probably still out on that. And then, you know, um, where my brain goes is too, is lots of times these people who maybe you find in a cage for a living. Or if you put NFL in like 70s and 80s and 90s, because it's where a lot of these tests are on. It's like, you probably had a really high threshold for risk. And a lot of these dudes are probably doing PEDs. They're probably doing.

• 27:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Dude, Lawrence Taylor was taking cocaine during the game.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Recreational drugs, right? Late night partying. So it's like, out of all these factors, all mixed together in this. So yeah.

• 27:37Anthony Pompliano?

  That's still the wildest sports story of all time. I mean, I don't care what, there's nothing that anyone will ever tell me that is more wild. Was doing what?

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Cocaine.

• 27:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Before the match?

• 27:47Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't think it was actually before. I think it was like a day, one day before. Yeah. I think, I'm pretty sure he came out and said that.

• 27:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Did he get busted ever for it?

• 27:54Speaker 02

  He got busted for cocaine. Yeah.

• 27:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, but like, like because he did it, fought and then got tested right after the fight? Or it was like during like in the.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  This is why I wish we, I wish we had a screen we could bring up here. Okay. John Jones definitely got busted for it.

• 28:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  I, I don't.

• 28:06Anthony Pompliano?

  When it was?

• 28:07Speaker 02

  I want, well, so, okay. So I think it was during a fight because with USADA, they have some, they have a substance list. That is in competition, right? So there's some substances they'll test for out of competition, right? So if I come to the gym and you're. Training, I'll test you for this list of shit.

• 28:25Anthony Pompliano?

  And they just show up and they're like, let's go, just go pee.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Pee or blood, right, or both.

• 28:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, got it.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, but in competition, there's some other ones that are get added to the list, right? So I think I'm pretty sure cocaine is one of them or other recreational drugs.

• 28:38Anthony Pompliano?

  This is a dumb question, but are guys like ducking them like yo, they're here?

• 28:41Speaker 02

  John Jones, John Jones, he's come up a lot.

• 28:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  The big story is John Jones hid under the cage. The one time when USADA looked for him. Yeah.

• 28:51Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, you gotta like, literally, of course, of course, someone did that. Right? Like, like if they're there and you think there's a risk of getting busted, then yeah. I mean, it's like human nature, like dude, go like go in the closet, go under the cage, whatever. And so and tell them I'm not here. Like, is that like a cra- are we surprised that someone did that?

• 29:10Speaker 02

  You get, you get three whereabouts, it's called whereabouts failures. So what you saw it up, I haven't been in the pool for a couple of years. So actually, I actually, and I piloted in 2019, I piloted this thing where they were, it was connected to your phones. They could see where you were at, which I thought that was tremendous because otherwise you gotta fill stuff out. Right? And then if I say I filled out.

• 29:27Anthony Pompliano?

  You liked it that they knew where you were.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, cuz I didn't want them to be like, I mean, okay, cuz when I was in USADA in, when I was training for the Olympics. I mean, at that point in time, this is 2007, eight, you had to fill out paperwork and fax it, right? And so you had to do your schedule three months at a time. So if I told you, hey, I was gonna be here from, what time did I get here? 10:30, 10:30 to 12:30 or whatever, right? And so I put that on my schedule. Well, first of all, how am I gonna know my schedule three months at a time?

• 29:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  But if I did put it on my schedule and then you said, hey, actually, can we go at noon? Right? And they showed up here at 10:30, I would have an hour to show up. Otherwise, I'm gonna get a whereabouts failure.

• 30:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Interesting.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  Right? And so now what now in, in current landscape with email and text, it's, man, you gotta be, you kinda gotta be trying to miss a whole bunch of them. But back then, it was like you had to, you know, if I wanna change something, I'm gonna have to fax paperwork somewhere. Like, well, I gotta go find a fax machine, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's kinda pain in the butt.

• 30:25Anthony Pompliano?

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• 32:34Anthony Pompliano?

  And so when they show up, I recently saw, I'm gonna mess it up. Costa? No, I think it was a, I don't want to say names because I'm gonna mess it up, but I can't remember if it was an NFL player or an NBA player. I think the NBA player and he said it was for the Olympics, he wanted to play in the Olympics and he used a fake dick.

• 32:54Anthony Pompliano?

  And for the

• 32:55Speaker 02

  You saw it looks at your dick.

• 32:56Anthony Pompliano?

  So this is, this was the question. I think he was talking to Shannon, I think it was Shannon Sharp? I think. And basically, he had a fake one. And he went in to go pee. And he said they didn't look and he just used a fake one. You know, he made it look like he was peeing. But he had the fake one and it was clean pee. And he, he, he made it and I think he went to the Olympics. But I've always wondered because like in college, they 100% are not letting anything go.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Like.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  No, you saw it is generally supposed to, you know, not to get too provenance on these cameras. But you're supposed to like pull your, pull your thing down here and then you lift your shirt up here, you know? So your, your

• 33:36Anthony Pompliano?

  So they can see.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  Exposed. Yeah. So they can see that there's none of that stuff going on.

• 33:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Is there a lot of PEDs in college, you think, or not?

• 33:43Speaker 02

  Uh, I mean, they, they test relatively frequently. There was actually, unfortunately, there was just in wrestling. There was two D3 kids that won Nationals, one at, one at seven last year and one at heavyweight, who I believe got busted. So. Yeah, I know, right? But in, I, I listen, I'm sure there are, but how many kids actually get busted? It's, it's really not that much.

• 34:06Anthony Pompliano?

  I feel like it's easier to trick people in college than it is at the UFC.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  Uh.

• 34:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Which is like, like the, the pool of athletes is so much bigger, right? You have every wrestling team at every college.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Sure, sure, sure. Yeah.

• 34:20Anthony Pompliano?

  The group of people who are trying to figure that out is probably so much smaller than like on, like on a per, you know, drug tester to like a wrestler basis compared to the UFC. And also they kind of know like who's in, who's out, who, who are we paying attention to, who are we not, who's coming up with the fight? You know, like you can almost like start to back into like, what would the cycling?

• 34:41Speaker 02

  But the other thing in MMA is there's also way more money in it, right? And so when there's way more money and you have resources to figure things out. So I think there's probably, I mean, okay, so if you look at, you can go back and you, and you saw his website and see who's failed. And like the amount of wrestlers that have failed something since like 2008, it's like a really small number. Like there, there's been failures, but not a lot. And you know, so they're You got three styles wrestling, men's, women's and Greco. Um, and they're testing probably the top five or six people per weight class. Um, so it's not quite as many as UFC, but it's, it's, it's a similar amount.

• 35:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  But you saw to your, or you started in UFC, you're seeing kind of a lot of failures, you know? So you just kind of extrapolate that and say, well, this may be what failing. There's probably a lot of people who are also doing it, either getting away with it. Or maybe they have better methods of doing it where they know they can pass tests. Cause if you watch, I mean, you probably watch Icarus, right? Like they knew how to beat the tests.

• 35:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. I, I also think there's just a lot in other countries specifically, there's a lot of just pay.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Pay.

• 35:41Anthony Pompliano?

  The like, I'm not even going to take the test.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:43Anthony Pompliano?

  You just pay someone off and, uh.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Well, in Icarus, they were helping the, the Russian anti doping. So like, you saw it as actually trying to catch us, like they are not trying to help us. Rusada was helping them figure out how to pass the test while still taking the substances. Yeah. So that was, and that movie was wild, wild. I don't know if you remember that.

• 36:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Well, the part that, uh, was it the filmmaker is like taking drugs over like zoom or whatever. And, and he's like doing, and his point was like, this is crazy. How much more, uh, performance I get out of my body by doing this. And he's like, no shit. No wonder they're all trying to take this stuff.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, you know, I thought was fascinating about that part of it was, um, he actually didn't do that much better in the race. So his numbers were all way better. Like it was like power output or whatever it was. Were like way better, but then when it actually came to doing the race, so the one year he did the race clean. And then the next year he, he doped, he didn't do that much better than the actual races. I found that part to be, uh, really fascinating and I, I wish they would have, I, and I know the movie took a different turn. Because, uh, the movie took a different turn because of, you know, who that guy, Rattenko ended up being. But I wish they would have discussed kind of like more about the, the second year and why his performance wasn't that good. Despite his numbers and everything being way, way up.

• 36:58Anthony Pompliano?

  All I know is Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds aren't hitting 75 home runs or whatever.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  But wasn't everyone in that era doing something?

• 37:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course, but, but the whole point is like, it's kind of like, uh, Aaron Judge, right? Like they, they see the numbers and they're like, yeah, we get what the real, the real record. No, no, no, no. He just hit a 60 second homerun, right? And so there's still this like, yeah, we know what the record is, but also there's like, uh, uh, the purist still appealed to the 61, right? And so I think that there is this, uh, very weird recognition of, okay, somebody did at one point hit over 70, but also like asterisk, whatever.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  But weren't the pitchers doping too? That was because I was kind of a baseball fan. So if they're doping, they're harder to hit too. So it's kind of like an equivalent.

• 37:43Anthony Pompliano?

  My favorite is they've gone back and forth on like the stuff that they put on their hats, like the, uh, the slick stuff or whatever. And then you've got like the, uh, tar on the bat, like all this stuff. So it's like, look, where's the line? And, um, if you think about, you know, there's, uh, a world where athletes used to smoke cigarettes, eat hot dogs, like do all the stuff in the dugout, right?

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 38:07Anthony Pompliano?

  And then somebody was like, I'm gonna stop smoking cigarettes, but I'm still gonna drink beer and eat hot dogs. And somebody else was like, I'm gonna stop drinking beer and eating hot dogs. And like, somebody was like, I'm gonna go for a run. And someone was like, I'm gonna lift weights. And like, it's like, like there has been this progression, right? Like Babe Ruth looks like an average, you know, 50 year old male today. And he's out here hitting bombs, right?

• 38:26Speaker 02

  But what about in the, in the seventies in baseball? So I used to love all sports and I really read a lot of magazines. They had these things, I can't remember what they're called now, like greenies, maybe where they were like, they were like uppers. There were some type of amphetamine that there was like, anyone could grab in, in the dug, uh, sorry, in the, in the locker room.

• 38:43Anthony Pompliano?

  But like, okay, so you do that, that's not allowed, let's say, right? But like Gatorade's allowed.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And now again, Gatorade is focused on helping you recover, right? Electrolytes, like the whole thing. So it's like, we have made decisions as to what's allowed and what's not. And I know before everyone freaks out, it's like they're talking about steroids and Gatorade, right? But like,

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Hunk doesn't know the difference.

• 39:06Anthony Pompliano?

  But like, when you look at this, there is a world where medicine and technology is going to continue to like, what if somebody says, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna put a chip in my brain?

• 39:16Speaker 02

  That's yeah.

• 39:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, is that gonna be allowed?

• 39:18Speaker 02

  I don't want to discuss. Who was it on, someone was on Lex talking about that and it kind of freaked me out a little bit.

• 39:23Anthony Pompliano?

  But like,

• 39:23Speaker 02

  What was his name?

• 39:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Are we going to allow athletes? Like, is there gonna be a, a brain enhanced division and a non-brain enhanced division?

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's gonna be weird.

• 39:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Like, what's better, taking PEDs or putting a brain in your chip? And, or putting a chip in your brain and like, do you get faster reaction times from the chip?

• 39:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:41Anthony Pompliano?

  I don't know.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  I actually got, I actually got this theory on, on the specifically anabolic steroids and PEDs.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Cause I, I think you're right. I think there's, you know, there is, there, you know, it's maybe tough, tougher than people want to admit to draw the line of where we're gonna draw the, you know, the line of what you can and can't use. But I think there are really negative connotations towards steroids because they don't necessarily have those in a lot of the countries. It's American centric specifically is because everyone associated the communists with using the steroids, right? And it was the Cold War. And so anything they're doing is, is really, is really bad. You know, the East Germans and the Russians and CCP, yeah. So, um,

• 40:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Those dudes did look stacked.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Well, they were giving it to women too, remember? It really messed them up. It was bad. It was not good.

• 40:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Can you imagine that being your job?

• 40:26Speaker 02

  Well, there was a bunch of, I believe there's a bunch of women's records. Yeah, I, I hope I'm right on this. I wish, I need someone to fact check me right now while I'm saying all these things. I believe there's a whole bunch of women's records from that era in track and field that still haven't been beaten.

• 40:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Because they were, because they were using such, uh, you know, so many performance enhancers. And then obviously it started having really negative effects on their just everyday life. So they backed off on it.

• 40:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:50Anthony Pompliano?

  I do wonder how many people in business take PEDs? Like Jeff Bezos? He, he's doing something.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  He's obviously.

• 40:56Anthony Pompliano?

  My guy's doing something.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  No, he's obviously.

• 40:58Anthony Pompliano?

  He may just be working out.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  No, not. But that's what it's like. Okay, listen. All right. So you asked me earlier, like about PEDs in MMA. And when you're trying to cause harm to another person, I think there's probably, for me, the line is a lot more clear. If you're talking about baseball, ah, I'm trying to hit a ball. Like, I don't give a damn what you, you know, I really don't.

• 41:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Cause it's less about you're hurting other people and it's more just what you choose to do with your own body.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. So that, you know, that would be more like, I don't care quite as much. I mean, you still have the competitive nature of like, if you and I are trying to make a major league team and you're taking it, now do I feel like I have to take it in order to, you know, achieve that thing? Uh, but we're talking about like, uh, how many, how old is Bezos? Fifty, sixty, something like that. Uh, he wants to take some of these things like, whatever.

• 41:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  Like, okay, you're not competing with anyone, just go do it.

• 41:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah. And he doing something, right?

• 41:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, obviously.

• 41:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, and it could literally, part of what I'm always like careful of is like, it could just be like hormone optimization.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Or it could be like, he's getting injected with things, right? And maybe those are the same thing. Maybe those are two different programs, whatever. Uh, but also it goes back to, is there a problem with it? Right? Like,

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:06Anthony Pompliano?

  If you go to, okay, uh, so I invested in a company, they do, um, uh, testosterone enhancement, right? And, uh, I've been scared shitless. I haven't taken the product or anything. So I'm like, I don't know what it does. I just don't know enough. I don't, I don't know the science, right? But like, it's fascinating to me that they've done a bunch of work. They have people who are using it. These people are not like Joe Blow on the street at like, you know, Gold's Gym who are like, oh, let me just get whatever the guy next to me has. These are super educated, you know, high income people who've done the work, usually under a doctor, who's recommending whatever. And a lot of the benefits they talk about are not like, get washboard abs, get massive biceps. It's like, mental clarity, higher energy, like things that people are like,

• 42:51Anthony Pompliano?

  yo, I would like that. Like, I drink six cup of coffee a day because I'm trying to, you know, get clarity, right? So like, it does feel like we focus on the physical attributes, but there are mood, energy, clarity, you know, mental clarity, whatever, that I think most people are actually okay with, maybe?

• 43:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't care about it. Jeff Bezos or a business person doing whatever they're doing. And I think, um, I think there's probably at this point, more than say 10, 15, 20 years ago, money going into that, right? There's a lot of people who want to figure, yeah, how do I feel as good as possible as long as possible? I was just listening, there was that guy in Rogan, Brigham Buehler, kind of talking about that.

• 43:29Anthony Pompliano?

  What was he saying?

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Uh, well, he was talking about, which I almost, I freaking tried to do it twice and I failed, but stem cells, I was gonna go to Columbia.

• 43:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 43:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, in 2020, um, uh, or was it 2020?

• 43:44Anthony Pompliano?

  What is it?

• 43:44Speaker 02

  2020, stem cell, they have so.

• 43:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Explain what, like, what's the purpose of it?

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Uh, so my, my, I have some, so it's not like they're terrible on my shoulders, kind of like, you know, lost the range of motion, my hips not, this, the, so I had surgery on this one, this one's not that great. Uh, my brother has some neck issues and some back issues, so, uh, and I just heard really positive, um, things like.

• 44:03Anthony Pompliano?

  They take your stem cells?

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Nope, nope, nope. Uh, it's called, uh, so it's, I believe, uh, so, there's two ways to pronounce mesenclimal or mesencelimal.

• 44:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  Um, and they're supposed to be like really, really good for your body's regeneration. Um, and I was gonna go one time, and I can't remember, something happened, and the second year, they told me I had to get vaccinated, and I said, I'm, uh, you ain't gonna force me to do nothing, right? I'm out, right? The Columbia government said to get.

• 44:24Anthony Pompliano?

  We're gonna hit you with stem cells, but you also.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I said, I'm out. So I might go back at some point, I don't know, but he was talking about stem cells and their positive effect. He was also talking about, um, for hi, for his self, um, he was overweight and trying to get in shape, and he couldn't figure out why, and so he took a big blood panel, and, uh, his testosterone was really, really low, and once he got that back up to like, I guess, normal levels, like, everything started getting a lot better. So I think there's gonna be a lot of, uh, a lot of research going into like, health and wellness, and how do we feel as good as possible as long as possible?

• 44:55Anthony Pompliano?

  You, you saw the Dana White thing where he said he got the blood panel done, and he lost like 30 pounds or whatever?

• 44:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:00Anthony Pompliano?

  It feels like that was the single greatest ad for anything in the world.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:03Anthony Pompliano?

  It's just like, guys, he's just like, yo, this changed my life.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, uh, this is like totally off topic, but I was just thinking, I actually almost went like Instagram Live just to talk. Sometimes I feel like, I don't know if you ever do this, but it's like, you just need to talk about something. And so you just wanna talk, and you want people to hear you, and like, you don't really care about.

• 45:22Anthony Pompliano?

  What did you wanna talk about?

• 45:23Speaker 02

  How fat everyone was in Las Vegas. I was just there a couple of days ago.

• 45:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 45:27Speaker 02

  It felt like, oh my God, why is everyone so fat?

• 45:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, like, average people?

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Just walking around, like.

• 45:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Bro, do you understand you live in America?

• 45:33Speaker 02

  I know, I know, and I.

• 45:34Anthony Pompliano?

  The average American is fat.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  I understand, but it seemed like, for, I don't know what was hitting me, but it seemed like extra fat. And it was like, how, how do you people not realize this is having such negative, long-term effects on your body, on your mind, and all of these things, you know? And so, yeah. And then, you know, just coupled with a couple of those podcasts, it's like, I think people are just so, um, not all people, because I think, I think highly successful people are really into their health right now. I'm like figuring out, how do I do this best? How do I take care of myself? How do I age well? Um, but there's a lot of America who's just like, jamming whatever, fast food, food's kind of unhealthy. Whatever medicine my doctor gives me, I'm taking that, whether, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, I think there's a lot of Americans who probably cure their health problems by losing 70 pounds and just working out on a daily basis.

• 46:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Here's, this isn't as much of a hot take today as it probably was five years ago, maybe even 10 years ago. Uh, I think that a lot, not all, but a lot of the mental health issues in America are due to bad diet, bad, uh, exercise habits, like, all the, like, health stuff. And I recently had a guy, he's a, a heart surgeon, he came on. He was talking about the relationship between metabolic health and mental health. And so, like, we love to talk about the mental health stuff, right? As a society, and I think it's more so entered the, like, lexicon and kind of culture or whatever. Uh, and I think it's well documented that people are unhealthy. But there isn't like this connection. And so, it's, again, even if it was 10%, 10% of people who have a mental health challenge, obstacle, or, or problem,

• 47:08Anthony Pompliano?

  if they could simply eat better and work out and that would cure that, or, or maybe even just mitigate it to some degree? Like, that seems like a thing we should go do tomorrow.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Right?

• 47:17Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 47:18Anthony Pompliano?

  But that's not the thing that gets told. It's like, take this medicine, do this, like.

• 47:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I don't know why, well, I was, so not men, not, I, you're, you're not, so you're taking me right down the path of like, all the different Instagram lives I've thought about doing. I actually do this Mental Mondays, I do one a week. And I was actually just probably gonna do this one. I had a different one planned for today, but I was probably gonna just put this one into place because I've read these two books recently, they both.

• 47:37Anthony Pompliano?

  What are the books?

• 47:38Speaker 02

  Uh, it was Meditation with Marcus Aurelius. Oh my gosh, I'm forgetting the name of the second one.

• 47:43Anthony Pompliano?

  What was it about?

• 47:45Speaker 02

  It's about, it's that damn journalist who does the undercover journalism. What's his damn name?

• 47:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Who?

• 47:49Speaker 02

  Um, uh, Project Veritas.

• 47:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, I don't know the guy's name.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  Uh, O'Keefe.

• 47:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, James O'Keefe.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  Yes, his book, I don't recall what the name of the book is right now. But he was talking about doing-

• 48:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Man, those are really on-

• 48:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love reading everywhere. But it was, uh, you know, it was about, um, doing hard things. And then so with my daughter, I talked about, I genuinely think the mental health stuff in America is because we have, we have too much times and our lives are too easy.

• 48:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's boredom, 100%.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  I'm like, dude, you're out like, like, think about America 100 years ago and you're a farmer and you're out working in the fields all day. You ain't got much time to think about how you feel. Like, no, you just gotta keep picking the corn or whatever, you know? Like, your life is hard or, you know, instead of driving somewhere, you know, you gotta walk somewhere, right? I mean, like, life is just hard and you're worried about, how do I get done with my day? And how do the things? And, you know, I'm sure the world is much better today than it was 100 years ago. But there, there's something to be said there. And then, so then to pair that with the books, it's like, what I was thinking was, cause I was thinking about my athletes and, you know, cause a lot of the talks go to my athletes and it's on the wrestling page, is why do so many people want the easy way? You know? And when we think about positive things, when you think about like, what you look up to

• 48:59Speaker 02

  and what inspires you, you're always thinking about that person who did that hard thing, who overcame that adversity, who has this amazing story and you are inspired by them. And you're like, wow, you know, that person, he freaking grinded it out. It was so amazing what, what they did, you know? And, but then a lot of people are like, what's the easiest way I can do this? It's like, no, like, that's, that's, that's not what you should want. You should accept that it's gonna be hard. If you want something great, you gotta accept that it's gonna be hard. And you gotta be totally okay with that. And you gotta grind, I mean, that's why I did give a book talk at the Viking Convention last week and, um-

• 49:34Anthony Pompliano?

  You have a chapter on attitude, which is like, exactly what, uh, I, I feel like, it's just knowing that the hard stuff is the good stuff for you.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's so, okay, so it's like, anything really good is gonna take you so many years of hard work. You know, I talk about like, if I was 15 and it was, so I thought there's a couple things, but it's like, that was completely, completely delusional by a sudden- I wanted to go to the Olympics. Um, and given where my success was at that point in time, there's probably no good basis for that. I just figured out that's what I was gonna do. Um, but that's, it was eight years away. Eight years, you know, and there were so many points along that journey where it's like, hey, you hit this adversity and you think like, shit, am I really gonna make it? You know, like, I had, I ended up being really good in high school, but then I go to college and like, I, you know, I say this funny thing, you played football. Uh, and that's, I don't want, I don't pick on you, but it's kinda easy, cause if you're, if you're not, if you're not good in football,

• 50:26Speaker 02

  they're like, hey, man, like, you go stand over there and like, hang out for a little bit. If you're not good in wrestling, you're getting your face rubbed in the mat. You know, like, if you're not the starter, if you're not the guy, you're getting beat up on by the guy every day. You, there's no ghost sitting on the sidelines, you're getting face rubbed in the mat. So it's like, it's very humbling. And so, you know, like, my freshman year, I went to college and it's like, I'm getting my ass kicked like, every single day. It's like, dude, I wanna go to the Olympics, I was really good in high school. I'm literally getting my ass kicked every day. You know, and it's like-

• 50:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Why didn't you quit?

• 50:55Speaker 02

  Well, cause I, yeah, I mean, I, so honestly, that was probably for my wrestling journey, that was the, the part where I most said, am I, can I really do this? You know, can I really do this? This is what I wanna achieve, can I really do this? And, you know, that was where, you know, the scrambling came and all that stuff, but it was just like, yeah, you gotta make that decision, like, no, I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna come back the next day, I'm gonna fight, I'm not gonna get too discouraged. And, you know, yeah, obviously, there's a few points along that journey where you're like, dude, I don't know if I can do this, like, I suck, like, I'm getting my ass kicked every day. But you just keep coming back, you know, and then eventually, there's something that happened. I, well, I can tell, I can tell, you know, I didn't put this in the book, but I can tell you exactly what happened for me. Um, you curious, you wanna know?

• 51:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, of course.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got my, I got my ass kicked all fall in the wrestling room. So I go to college, I got my ass kicked all fall. Uh, I don't know why I didn't put this in the book, I probably should've put this in there. Um, and I lost a whole bunch of matches. I only lost, I lost eight matches in high school. In my, four years of my actual college career, my non-rescue year, I only lost eight matches. In that fall, I lost 10 matches. You know, so it's like, I'm getting my ass kicked in the room every day, and I'm losing to guys who like, aren't really that good. And so, I'm like, you know, having this like, can I really be good? Like, am I really ever gonna be able to do this? And I went back- And it was a non recognition of the improvement I was making. Cause when I left, me and my high school coach were very competitive. Like I was starting to get the better of him a little bit, but he was probably still beating me more often than not.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  I went back four months later, right? So you leave in August, I came back in for Christmas break and like, he couldn't score me.

• 52:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 52:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it was like, and then for me, it was like, it was, it was this mental hurt of like, oh my God. I actually got a lot better. I got a lot better. I didn't realize it cause I'm getting my ass kicked in the room every day and I'm losing these matches to college guys. But holy moly, I got a lot better. You know, it was, and it clicked for me and I'm like, okay. You know, and then I still had, I still had a few kind of like, maybe, maybe a handful of months till I really started like getting a lot better, but it was like, it clicked for me that day.

• 52:52Anthony Pompliano?

  What's fascinating about this, uh, Robert Greene's got a book mastery that I recently reread.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  I love that book actually.

• 52:57Anthony Pompliano?

  And one of the big things is like, everyone thinks mastery is just genius or like a stroke of luck or, or whatever. And he goes through example after example after example, including things like, you know, Albert Einstein's, uh, brother runs like a publishing shop. And so he gets to understand, or, uh, I'm sorry, Ben Franklin's brother runs a, uh, publishing shop, whatever. Charles Darwin goes on this like seven year journey around the world. He's collecting specimens from all these different places. And he like realizes like, oh shit, maybe there's like evolution, right? Or whatever. Uh, but it also talks about like the grind, right? It's like, these people usually start out and they have no mastery. And they go through the apprenticeship phase, like whatever. But he, he talks about this like essentially decades long journey to build the mastery. And so you saying like, I want to go to the Olympics, like I'm not that good right now, but eight years from now, it's like,

• 53:42Anthony Pompliano?

  pretty much, you know, you overlay that to his theory. And it almost plays out perfectly because you have to do every single day for hours a day. And just build up the skill sets until you get to a point where you're like, yo, I can actually do this.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. So there's no, the notion that, uh,

• 53:58Speaker 02

  We should desire something that's easy. It's such a flawed notion, right? If you get it easy, everyone can have it, you know? If it's easy, then everyone's gonna go get it. Like, we shouldn't want the things that are easy. We should strive for the things that are hard. Yeah, so, you know, that, and then like, I go with AWA now, who, that's Ask Wrestling Academy. My brother and I, and actually my high school coach, started it. And, you know, we're 11 years in now, and we've made like insane strides, but it's like, at no point was that easy, you know? It wasn't easy.

• 54:28Anthony Pompliano?

  What was the hardest part about building that business?

• 54:30Speaker 02

  Um, well, first of all, I didn't, I actually, you know what's so funny? I just met at the homecoming game in Mizzou, I met the dean of the business school. And it was like, I wish I would have taken a business class. I took zero. I took zero, you know? So, I mean, for starters, I had to learn a lot of lessons the hard way. Cause I didn't know what the hell I was doing, you know?

• 54:47Anthony Pompliano?

  So you and your brother just get together one day, and you're like, yo, let's start a wrestling academy?

• 54:50Speaker 02

  Well, okay, so, he had some serious injury issues, as I kinda said with the stem cell thing. He had some serious injury issues after college. And he went and just coached for this family out of, actually in New York, out of college. And then it wasn't enough time, you know, there was like, I can't occupy his day. So he's like, what else do I do? So I'll start a wrestling academy to kinda go along with that. So he started wrestling academy out there. And then our high school coach was, you know, the high school association has really strict regulations on how much they can coach and stuff. He kinda always wanted to coach year round. So like, hey, why don't we start this? And we'll, you know, it'll go year round, so you can coach all the time. And then, and then incidentally, I also moved back to Milwaukee, cause I wanted to train at Rufus.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  And so, and then Max then moved back from New York a couple of years later. So, we've been building ever since. But yeah, I mean, so the business aspect was first of like, how do we, how do we do this?

• 55:44Anthony Pompliano?

  You just like literally go get a building, and you're like, hey, we're gonna rent this?

• 55:48Speaker 02

  I'll give you a stupid one. And it's like, if I would have been more seasoned, I probably would have been like, Go F yourself. But we were opening our first academy and the building inspector says, actually, you need this size of air conditioner or something like that. So we bought a $20,000 air conditioner because they said we needed it. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, I don't know, like, my, a couple of buildings don't have any air conditioning at all. Like, there's no way we actually needed that. Like, he freaking pulled it over. Yeah, it was probably, honestly, it was probably the building owner and the city supervisor working or whatever's working together to kind of maybe make something nicer because we thought we could take that with us when we leave, you know?

• 56:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Can't.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  We cannot. So, um, yeah, so there's something stupid like that, you know, where it's like that kind of played us in the beginning. Um, and then, I mean, I don't want to know if I want to go into the wrestling business too much, but, um...

• 56:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Is it a good business?

• 56:41Speaker 02

  No.

• 56:42Anthony Pompliano?

  No.

• 56:42Speaker 02

  I love it. I love it. So I'm gonna do it forever. But like, uh, you know, it's, you obviously have like mostly fixed costs. Uh, we talk about the wrestling academy stuff and, and you know, the rent and the salaries and stuff like that. But, um, you know, any Joe Schmo, and there's a lot of them, think they can start one. And they can, if they're compelling enough, they can convince a few people that they know what the hell they're talking about. You know, so if you do that and then three other people do that and they pull, you know, each pull 10 kids and convince those 10 kids they know what the hell they're talking about. This, this happens, right? But that's, that's 40 kids that we don't have in our academy now. And, um, you know, eventually their gig is gonna be up because people realize they're not really very good at coaching.

• 57:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  But who knows? Maybe that's two years or three years or four years down the road. And so you kind of have these like mom and pop shops, kind of like opening up a lot and, you know, the barrier to entry for something like that is really low.

• 57:36Anthony Pompliano?

  You should just go wrestle them.

• 57:39Speaker 02

  Just go blow up their house, yeah.

• 57:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, fine. You can open up if you can beat me.

• 57:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? In the book, by the way, I have to call this out because there's not very many books I read that have this. You have a quote from yourself. At the attitude chapter, it says, every fighter is only as good as their last performance. You have a great performance, everyone thinks you're the champ, you look like shit, everyone tells you you suck. And she says, me. Like, first of all, quoting yourself is awesome. But like, I do think social media, like, that is a perfect example, right? When things are going well, it's like, everyone loves you. When things are not going well, I've literally seen people who I thought was like, that person's best friend is now like dunking on them.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 58:19Anthony Pompliano?

  On so- on social, of course. But like, what you realize is like, they actually weren't best friends, you just thought they were, or like, the perception was they were close friends or whatever. But obviously not. And so, it feels like social media exasperates, just like, the human condition, right? And so, you do see people fall in and out of favor very quickly. And I wonder how that plays into, whether it's wrestlers or other types of kids who are growing up and like, I don't know. When I was a kid, like, we didn't have Twitter.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? We didn't have a lot of this stuff. We had AOL Instant Messenger. But that was it.

• 58:51Speaker 02

  I think we're at the same age, so I remember that.

• 58:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, like, that was pretty much it. And so, yeah, you could talk to your friends, but like, the most like, social signaling you could really do there was like, your away message. Right? Or like, you're like, like, maybe your handle, or, you know, your, your like, uh, name or whatever. But like, can you imagine growing up now and have TikTok and Instagram and like?

• 59:11Speaker 02

  So me and my wife are, uh, my wife's trying to spear the thing where, where, um, uh, a lot of the families at our school agreed to not give our kids, uh, social media or cell phones until eighth grade.

• 59:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Interesting.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think it's great. I support her in that, and I think it's great.

• 59:24Anthony Pompliano?

  So all the kids, if none of them have it, then none of them want it?

• 59:27Speaker 02

  Correct. That would be the thing. Cause that's why a lot, I mean, that's why a lot of people give, the reason why they're giving their kids phones is because their friends have it and they're not getting invited or whatever. Yeah, but, um, I think, I think, I mean, to your point, I think social media is a lot for adults to handle. But I mean, for, for real though. So I, I learned early on, so my, and is, in the book, I talk about this. When I was 15 years old, so I was a sophomore in high school.

• 59:52Speaker 02

  I was headed towards the state tournament, okay? And someone tells me, so it was the last weekend's sectionals and I kill everyone. And I was really good that year, uh, from a state perspective. And they say, hey, there's these forums and everyone's talking about you. Okay, what's forum? I don't know what that is, you know, like this is two thousand, the year 2000. So I didn't know what that was. So I'm like, okay, I'll go, send me the address, I'll check it out, whatever. So I go there and all these people are talking about me. And, you know, I was 15. So I'm like, no, I'm gonna kick his ass and I'm gonna kick his ass.

• 1:00:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, it's like the competitors are in there talking.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  No, not the competitors. It was other people talking about these other dudes were gonna beat me at the state tournament, you know?

• 1:00:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  Uh, and so I'm like, nope, I'm gonna whip him, I'm gonna whip him. And, and all of a sudden it became really talked about. And then the next week I went and whooped them, you know? And then I went back on the forums, I partied on all these dudes, you know?

• 1:00:41Anthony Pompliano?

  You're like, right, you're actually right.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I was partying on them so hard. But, uh, but then, so then I realized like, it's mostly adults, you know? And then, so then I started like diving into like the next two years, I would just try to torture these people. Like with just doing different stuff to make them angry. And I realized like how easy it was to manipulate group think and how group think moves.

• 1:01:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What would you do to like piss them off?

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  Oh, like all kinds of like, okay, one time I was walking on the street and I saw this person with a boiled pig. I'm like, hey, give me 20, I'll give you 20 bucks, can I have that? And they're like, sure.

• 1:01:11Anthony Pompliano?

  A boiled pig?

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  A blown up pig. It was like, uh, you know, like, I don't even, I don't even know why. But anyway, so I took it to the tournament, you know? Uh, my hair growing out, people really hated that. Um, cause wrestlers are supposed to have hair like you, you know, look, you know?

• 1:01:25Anthony Pompliano?

  I look like a wrestler?

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, you look like a wrestler, well, you need some more ears, but, yeah. Um, and then I carried a boombox around, right? Just all kinds of, I put an X on the mat where I was gonna pin someone a few times. You know?

• 1:01:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. On the mat, you went out there before the match?

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  Before the match.

• 1:01:42Anthony Pompliano?

  And put an X like in tape or something?

• 1:01:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, tape, you tape a little X and that's where I'm gonna pin him.

• 1:01:46Anthony Pompliano?

  And then would you do it?

• 1:01:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:49Anthony Pompliano?

  You gotta imagine that people even in the stands were like, this fucking cocky dude, right? Well, like if you do it, then like, I mean.

• 1:01:56Speaker 02

  No, they're still mad. Of course they're still mad about it. Yeah. So you, but you, so you realize at a young age, I was able to realize like how just like group think works and how it, and you know, how favor goes to and against you. It's obviously, I mean crypto, we, we saw this, right? It was insane in the last year or whatever with the, the bear market hitting. And to me, it's like, eh, whatever. Like I'll be in here the next cycle and the next cycle.

• 1:02:18Anthony Pompliano?

  I can't get over, I can't get over you putting an X on the mat and then pinning someone there.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, so someone else allegedly, I guess there's no video of this because the guy's older, but there was this guy who actually the pinning trophy, I won the, I won the best pinter in college twice. And the trophy is the Shalas Award. So it's named after this guy named Wade Shalas. The legend is he did it, right? So I heard about him doing it and I'm like, I'm gonna do that too. So I did it a few different times.

• 1:02:42Anthony Pompliano?

  And then you got the pinning award.

• 1:02:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then I got, then well, then it was many years later, but yeah.

• 1:02:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Did you ever do it in college?

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't think I ever did in college.

• 1:02:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. I feel like that's like, uh, do it in high school, you can get away with a lot of stuff.

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  I probably should have done it. I probably should have done it in college.

• 1:02:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that'd be pretty impressive. Imagine if you went to the Olympic match and went out and just did it.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  That would be awesome, huh?

• 1:03:03Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:03:47Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:04:30Anthony Pompliano?

  LMAX Group's liquidity relationships and ultra-low latency technology means that LMAX Digital is the market-leading solution for institutions across crypto trading and custodial services. LMAX Digital, secure, liquid and trusted. Go learn more at LMAXdigital.com/pomp. Again, that's LMAXdigital.com/pomp. Okay, I do feel like the Olympics are a little bit crazier. Like, because you have like the countries, like the national respect and like all that kind of stuff. So if you pulled off that type of thing, like, it's like an international incident, right?

• 1:05:04Speaker 02

  You'd be a legend now, you'd be a legend.

• 1:05:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, 100%.

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:05:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? The, I always liked the track, the 4x100 or whatever, where the guy's got like sunglasses on and stuff. And you're just like, dude, that guy, I don't give a fuck. Like, he's going to run as fast as he can and let's go America. Right?

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  Doesn't America always win that one?

• 1:05:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course.

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  I'm not, okay.

• 1:05:23Anthony Pompliano?

  But, but also, to be fair, across all of track and field, like that's really where I think a lot of people got busted. For years and years, and, oh my God, for years it was happening, right? There was, I'm not going to use names, but there was a...

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  Well, did they actually get busted or no?

• 1:05:38Anthony Pompliano?

  I went to high school in North Carolina, in Raleigh, and our high school track was one of the nicer tracks. And so a bunch of these Olympic athletes would come and they would train at the track. So you'd like go out there and like, I'm talking about like, the top Olympic sprinters would be there sometimes. And you'd like walk out of class and be like...

• 1:05:58Anthony Pompliano?

  That is like, they're fast, right? Like, but like, this is real. And a bunch of them got busted over the following years. And, you know, someone came back or whatever. But I remember thinking just like, dude, sure, like if they did it, they did it, whatever. But like, I saw them out there working their asses off, right?

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  Of course they do both.

• 1:06:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Right. But like, I think the narrative had swung so much of just like steroid use versus like, I don't know, man, I'd look outside the classroom and I'd see them up there running and like, they looked like they were sweating.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  Well, that was like, that's like, to me, that was like the Tour de France. Like, I know Lance, like, a lot of kind of negative things came out about him.

• 1:06:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37Speaker 02

  But it was like, that race, I don't care what you use, them mugs still rode 150 miles a day or something.

• 1:06:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Crazy.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  Like, it's crazy, you know? So, and then obviously all of them in that one, again, these are, these are not combat athletes, right? All of them are on it, just across the board, like 100% they're all using. So it's like, eh, whatever, you know?

• 1:06:57Anthony Pompliano?

  You're pedaling a bicycle.

• 1:06:58Speaker 02

  Pedaling a bicycle.

• 1:06:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, but that's where I always go, like, how much time and effort goes into preventing it? Versus just like, dude, just be like, free game, you can take whatever you want. Who, who can do it?

• 1:07:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, with something like that, I mean, 2,000 miles of bicycling or whatever.

• 1:07:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Just let, let them take whatever they want.

• 1:07:14Speaker 02

  Probably were, I mean, at that point in time.

• 1:07:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, just let them take whatever they want and see what happens. As long as it's not a sport where you could literally kill somebody or hurt somebody.

• 1:07:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. I wonder if that, I mean, I wonder if there's, and I don't know anything about the PDs, but there's probably some level of some substance there that you could take so much, you would probably kill yourself, right?

• 1:07:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, what I, what I actually think would be more interesting is just like legalized. It's kind of like the, the war on drugs, right? Like, like dude, if they make weed legal, my guess is that they're going to have less problems with it.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? So same thing here is just like, just make it legal and say, whatever you do, you have to do under a doctor's supervision.

• 1:07:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:54Anthony Pompliano?

  We'll provide the doctors.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  That's issue.

• 1:07:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Right, like, like, would it increase the safety of what they're already gonna try to do anyways? Probably.

• 1:08:02Speaker 02

  Definitely a chance.

• 1:08:03Anthony Pompliano?

  I don't know. Somebody would get mad because I'm not an expert in PED usage in the cycling industry.

• 1:08:07Speaker 02

  That's, that's the one funny thing about, um, you know, podcasts these days is, um, obviously like you and I, we say have a high, high level of knowledge in certain aspects of our lives, right? But it's not like we're experts about, experts about everything, but so then certain people say like, well, if you're not an expert, you can't talk about that. It's like, well, why can't I? You go have conversations on the couch with your buddies about whatever the hell you want.

• 1:08:30Anthony Pompliano?

  By the way, have you seen the experts talk about some of this stuff? Like, they're not exactly the smartest either.

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  Experts that are like 40 pounds. But like, why can't we talk about something? Like, this is just two dudes having a conversation. Like, I'm sure you're gonna-

• 1:08:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Do they get mad at you?

• 1:08:42Speaker 02

  Oh, you'll see, I mean, I see what it's like, especially, you know, who gets it the worst, which I'm sure he ignores of is Rogan.

• 1:08:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  You know, but it's like-

• 1:08:50Anthony Pompliano?

  But I heard the best description. Somebody was like, Joe Rogan is sitting in a room with Google, trying to figure shit out. And that's what everyone else is trying to do too, right? Like, like, that's why he is so popular.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  Access to really smart people because of who he is. Yeah. But so it's like, yeah, I don't understand. It's not like, it's not like Joe Rogan ever, ever, ever says, "I know everything. You have to listen to me."

• 1:09:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course not.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  He never says that.

• 1:09:13Anthony Pompliano?

  He says the opposite.

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  He's just a dude trying to figure things out. And it's like every dude, when they go to the bar, or they're sitting on the couch with their buddies, they talk about something like they have some level of expertise. And it's just people having conversations trying to figure out information.

• 1:09:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course.

• 1:09:28Speaker 02

  And so when people do that, when, you know, they're like, Pop doesn't know shit about bicycle racing. Why is he talking about bicycle racing?

• 1:09:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, I could ride a bike, so I'm, I'm further along than some people, right? I mean, that's how I think though, right? It's just like, I don't know what the answer is, but, uh, it's interesting to think about.

• 1:09:44Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 1:09:45Anthony Pompliano?

  One of the, uh, things that I thought would be interesting to hear your perspective on, uh, we talked about brain computer chips going in the athletes. Do you ever think that we'll see humans fight machines?

• 1:09:57Speaker 02

  Uh, who is this? I gotta look this up now. Who was the one that it totally freaked me out? Uh, cause he was talking about chips in the brain. It wasn't Bellagi. It was on Lex though. I'm gonna look this up.

• 1:10:09Anthony Pompliano?

  And somebody was talking about?

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  It was relatively recently.

• 1:10:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 1:10:12Speaker 02

  He was talking about, uh, uh, what is that term that they use for when?

• 1:10:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Singularity?

• 1:10:18Speaker 02

  Yes, that the singularity. Totally. Oh, Ray Kurzweil.

• 1:10:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, yeah. Ray, Ray Kurzweil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, he's super famous.

• 1:10:25Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:10:25Anthony Pompliano?

  He, he basically came up with the singularity concept.

• 1:10:27Speaker 02

  Yes, it was freaking me out.

• 1:10:28Anthony Pompliano?

  And for those that don't know, singularity is the merging of the human and the machines together.

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  But you know, the, the most obvious to me, and I, I don't even know why. I mean, maybe it's too stupid for them to even discuss. But it's like, okay, if I put them in my brain, how come someone can't hack it? Right? I'm effed, right? Why can't they say, go murder that guy or, or just shut off, just shut off, you know, like? If they put, if I let someone put something on my brain, like surely there's some nefarious things that can happen, right?

• 1:10:55Anthony Pompliano?

  I forget the Netflix series, uh, in the series, um, it's, it's like the political drama series that was like super popular. It was one of like the first ones that Netflix did.

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  I don't watch any TVs, so.

• 1:11:07Anthony Pompliano?

  It's like maybe eight, eight years ago.

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  I watched that show.

• 1:11:10Anthony Pompliano?

  No, Homeland was good though. Um, it was like that, but it was, uh, all about, uh, American politics and, and this guy was trying to become president or became president.

• 1:11:17Speaker 02

  Oh, was it House, House of Cards? My wife watched that one.

• 1:11:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. So, uh, I'm pretty sure it's that one. Uh, one of the characters has a, um, a pacemaker. And they like, think it's gonna be hacked or it gets hacked or something. And I'm like, yo, I'm out. Like I am, I am so out, but the problem is that like, if you need a pacemaker, like there's not any other option.

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, for real.

• 1:11:37Anthony Pompliano?

  So like in that situation, fine. Yeah, yeah. But like the brain implant, same thing. But like, I forget for a second.

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  It's freaky. Would you do it? Someone says you can do it right now.

• 1:11:46Anthony Pompliano?

  One, my biggest concern would actually be the safety of it. Like, I'm a, I'm actually pretty conservative when it comes to a lot of the stuff. Like, a perfect example, right, is I invested in the testosterone enhancement thing.

• 1:11:56Speaker 02

  You need to get jacked, like Jeff Bezos.

• 1:11:58Anthony Pompliano?

  No, no, I'm good. But, but the...

• 1:12:00Speaker 02

  Maybe in a few years.

• 1:12:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, wait till like my testosterone falls off a cliff and then for sure.

• 1:12:06Anthony Pompliano?

  But what about humans and machines going into a cage and fighting each other?

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  Well, I just think, I mean, I think it's preposterous because it probably wouldn't take much to make a machine win, right? Because how are you actually gonna kill the machine? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, how's it gonna happen?

• 1:12:21Anthony Pompliano?

  But like, this becomes part of the game, right?

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  It would seem so easy for the machine to win. You know what I'm saying? Because like, say I'm gonna leg kick you, well, it's gonna hurt you, right? Well, am I gonna leg kick a steel leg of a machine? Like, that's gonna hurt me, not it?

• 1:12:35Anthony Pompliano?

  But like, this is where, like, you could see if the public had the option of watching, they 100% are watching that.

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  Man, I don't know. So I think this is like, what was that one show? And someone told me this still existed. Oh, BattleBots.

• 1:12:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Someone told me this still existed.

• 1:12:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 1:12:52Speaker 02

  But I don't really watch a lot of TV, so I'm not, I'm not certain. They told me this. Where they tried to create the machines that would destroy each other, you know?

• 1:13:00Anthony Pompliano?

  But that isn't, that's not that interesting to me.

• 1:13:02Speaker 02

  Well, okay, so as I say, I don't think it's that interesting. But, so I think there's something about like, the human body, and everyone knows, we all have one, right? We all have one body. And so to see what someone else can do with their human body, like, fascinates us. Whether it's running fast like the 100, or fighting, or trying to hit home runs. Because there's a part of us that we can all kind of feel what that would feel like. And if it was like a robot, it would just be weird, I think.

• 1:13:27Anthony Pompliano?

  But like, part of me wants to know, like, can we kick the machine's ass or not?

• 1:13:32Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:13:33Anthony Pompliano?

  You don't think so?

• 1:13:34Speaker 02

  Hell, no.

• 1:13:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Someone's gonna find out.

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 1:13:38Anthony Pompliano?

  I think, I...

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  I'm not fighting that robot.

• 1:13:40Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, so right now, would you fight a Boston Dynamics? Boston Dynamics robot, is Ben Askren gonna fight the Boston Dynamics robot? Could you beat the robot?

• 1:13:48Speaker 02

  Probably not, because how am I gonna hurt it?

• 1:13:49Anthony Pompliano?

  I think right now you could beat it.

• 1:13:51Speaker 02

  How about, okay, listen, what am I gonna pull some wires out or something? Like, how do I hurt it?

• 1:13:55Anthony Pompliano?

  You'd have to figure it out.

• 1:13:57Speaker 02

  This sounds like a terrible proposition.

• 1:14:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? But like, that's my whole thing is like, right now, I think you actually could beat it. Yes, it'd be athletic, whatever, but like, you could still beat it. At some point, it'll get where, no, you couldn't.

• 1:14:08Speaker 02

  I feel like, I mean.

• 1:14:09Anthony Pompliano?

  In a wrestling match, could you could beat the robot right now?

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  Uh, well, in wrestling matches, I don't have to hurt it. I would just have to score points. But, I mean, because this is, this is, I know nothing about robots, but I'm just, just thinking like, surely you could make the robot be like 10 times as strong as me.

• 1:14:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Sure.

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  So then how am I gonna like, do anything to it?

• 1:14:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Scramble. I don't know. I don't know anything about wrestling. Right? But like, if it's strong but slow. Like, what I'm saying is like, right now, I think that the robots are not in a place where like, they are dexterous and agile and like, all these things that you would need to actually be good at wrestling. So you could still beat them now. At some point, I agree, you won't be able to. But right now, I bet you still.

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  So I had this discussion with Lex when I was on his podcast about, uh, him and Dan were talking about grappling robots. And, um, and then how you could put AI and then make them simulate wrestling matches. Like, they've done this with chess, right? And they simulate all different things that could happen. And I thought that would be fascinating with wrestling, with wrestling at this point. Um, and I think you get to also about more than expert wrestling. It's still evolving at a really rapid rate. And so if you could have robots wrestle, you could, they could, they could, um, move it at a more rapid rate even than what we're doing right now. But, you know, like, I know, like, I don't know a lot of robots. I've seen some of those videos and they are, they are still a little bit clunky. Like, they don't move super well. But I was, I was thinking, and it's kind of like, speaks to how advanced the human brain is, like,

• 1:15:34Speaker 02

  if I, just when I shoot a single leg, right? There are so many stimuli, if we were wrestling each other, for you to, um, understand all at the same time, right? How much force am I shooting with? How much speed am I shooting with? Exactly where am I going? What, where's my, uh, where is the pressure being angled at? Am I trying to sweep behind you? Am I trying to go into you? Right? Like, and so you're kind of reading all of those at one. And then you're making an adjustment to your body. And then if I'm high level, right, I'm making an adjustment with my body. And so for a robot who can't like, walk or jump or do things all that well. You know, having all those stimuli be understood, it's obviously uh magnitude is more complex than a game of chess, right? Chess is like, there's no timing component to it, for example, right?

• 1:16:18Speaker 02

  You just have uh rules of where they can move. There's no pressure component to like, am I putting pressure like here? Or is it here? Or you know, like where on your leg is the pressure happening, you know? So um, yeah, no, I would be fascinated for wrestling robots someday. But it still feels like, even if they didn't know the moves, they would still just be so powerful that you're not gonna be able to do things with them.

• 1:16:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. You also boxed.

• 1:16:43Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:16:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Jake Paul.

• 1:16:44Speaker 02

  Only once.

• 1:16:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, one time. Uh, why did, why'd you do it?

• 1:16:48Speaker 02

  Um, because they asked me if I wanted to.

• 1:16:52Anthony Pompliano?

  And was it just like, this'll be fun?

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  Well, okay, so first, um, you know, I see the highlight of him and Nate Robinson, and I-

• 1:17:01Anthony Pompliano?

  What was your reaction when you saw the highlight first?

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  Uh, they both suck. Right? That was it. I think I tweeted, so I don't know. They have to go see what I tweeted to make sure I'm not lying. That's, that's something to that effect, you know? Um, and I was, uh, at this point, this is why I, I, I don't get mad about very much anything, but I'm kind of annoyed people don't give me any leeway for this. Like, at this point, it was, that was three months or two months after my hip surgery, like, I was supposed to be non-weight bearing for three months, you know? Yeah, I got fat as shit because I enjoy eating and I didn't get to work out because I can't put any weight on my leg, you know? And so then they called me and like, hey, would you really wanna fight him? And I'm like, uh, I don't know, I kinda like fighting, like, I don't know, he probably sucks, I'll probably beat him up, sure, you know, like, why not?

• 1:17:44Anthony Pompliano?

  So you went into it a hundred percent thinking that you had a shot to beat him?

• 1:17:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. I thought he wasn't very good, and unfortunately I was wrong. Um, but yeah, no, so, okay, so first, um, my doctor had said, uh, you have to wait a year to do any like real live activity or wrestling or whatever. And so I'm like, well, I can't do it because I gotta wait a year. Like, I haven't done any, I haven't, literally haven't done anything. I haven't, I haven't, I haven't ran, I haven't rode a bike, I haven't lifted weights, I haven't done anything, you know?

• 1:18:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 1:18:12Speaker 02

  So then I saw this dude, John Wayne Parr, who's a kickboxing champ. He was kicking a bag and he just had to have the same surgery I did. And I was like, wait, like, how's he get to kick a bag? This is bullshit. So I messaged him, like, hey, you just had that same surgery I did. Why are you kicking a bag already? Cause he was like, I want to say he was like four months out or something, you know? And I was just gonna wait a year. And I think I was on, I was on like three months or whatever, you know? And so he said to me back, he said, well, my doctor said three months, I can do whatever the hell. After three months, I do whatever I want. So wait, this is bullshit. Like, why is my doctor making me wait a year? So I called my doctor, so I'm like, I called my doctor, I'm like, hey, man, why do I gotta wait a year? And he's like, cuz, that's what you, that's, that's the recovery time you need. I'm like, well, how come this dude's kicking, I saw him kicking a bag and it's only been three months. His doctor said, that's cool.

• 1:18:55Speaker 02

  And he's like, well, that guy, he actually knew the doctor. He's like, oh, that guy's got, cause there's not a ton of people who do this specific surgery, right? He's like, oh, that guy's got a higher fail rate than me. I said, all right, what's your fail rate for your hips? And he's like, one in 998.

• 1:19:09Anthony Pompliano?

  One in 998?

• 1:19:11Speaker 02

  I'm like, I'll take my, yeah, okay, I'll take my chances. So then I started training.

• 1:19:17Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, and so, uh, when you go and you're doing the way in, doing all the stuff and everything, uh, are you guys cool? Or are you guys like talking shit?

• 1:19:29Speaker 02

  I would just say I was kind of indifferent to him. You know, kind of like, I was trying to taunt him, um, of course.

• 1:19:35Anthony Pompliano?

  It's like entertainment aspect to it.

• 1:19:36Speaker 02

  Uh, well, just kind of also just get in his head, you know? Like, I mean, my, kind of what I figured about him is that he hadn't really been in very many real fights, you know? And there's something to it. Um, you know, a lot of people get nervous when they fight and make mistakes and stuff like that. So that was kind of where I was at. So, I mean, I, I did have a good three month training camp. Um, you know, obviously, so prior to that, I had my hips surgery, you know, it was out. And then prior to that, I had been retired for, oh, ten, ten months or something. So I hadn't, I've been doing a lot of wrestling, like, I was in the wrestling room a lot, but no striking or no other type of mixed martial arts. Uh, but I did a three, good three month training camp. Um, felt pretty good. I lost a lot, even though I didn't look like great physically, I had lost a lot of weight from where I, where I started, right? Cause I had no, I did no nothing for almost four months with my hip.

• 1:20:20Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, and unfortunately, like, he just ended up being a lot better than I thought. I mean, he beat Tyron, and Tyron's a significantly better boxer than me. And now, you know, he's fighting Harrison Silva this weekend, and he's, um.

• 1:20:31Anthony Pompliano?

  You think he can win?

• 1:20:32Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, when you, actually, when you, when you put this out, it might be done already. So, um, yeah, I mean, well, the oddsmakers say it's close, right? It's, uh, it's not like there's a, one's a huge favorite, they're relatively close on the odds.

• 1:20:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Which alone, like, that's kind of surprising just to start, right?

• 1:20:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, because if-

• 1:20:46Anthony Pompliano?

  It's almost a Jake Paul win, just for the oddsmaker to think it's close.

• 1:20:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, because if I would say, I was gonna beat Anderson Silva in boxing, you'd say, "Yeah, ha." Like, that's funny. You know, like, it's just not, it's not what I ever did. I mean, all of my striking mixed martial arts was more like, how do I make contact with you? And then get you on the ground and then beat you up from there. That was everything I always did. So, um, yeah, I knew, I knew I wasn't very good at boxing. Um, I just thought, he also wasn't very good at boxing, you know? And then the one thing I kept coming back to, because, uh, this water's gone, dang. Uh, a lot of, a lot of people said, like, you know, what if you lose? It's like, well, I don't really ever care what the public thinks.

• 1:21:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Speaker 02

  But when I was in high school, um, not, not every Friday night, but once in a while, we had some boxing shows in my basement. And if we didn't have anything fun to do, a bunch of dudes would come over. And we'd be like, you versus you, you versus you. And we always thought that was a blast. Like, we always thought that was a fun Friday night. So, I'm like, okay, if, when I'm in my 30s, they're gonna pay me a whole bunch of money to do something that I literally did for fun and thought was a fun Friday night when I was 17. Like, I'd have to be an idiot to just not do this.

• 1:21:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:55Speaker 02

  Like, yeah, let's go.

• 1:21:57Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, I kind of like that mentality.

• 1:21:59Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? So, when you go, and, uh, he hits you, you're down.

• 1:22:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:06Anthony Pompliano?

  You get up, you realize, like, I lost.

• 1:22:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:09Anthony Pompliano?

  The next time I think I saw you on the video feed-

• 1:22:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Was you and Amy going through the tunnel, laughing. And I was like, alright, they seemed good.

• 1:22:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. People were upset at me for that one.

• 1:22:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Why?

• 1:22:19Speaker 02

  Uh, okay, so first of all, the ref, I told the ref, like, dude, I'm fine. Like, I got knocked down, but like, I'm okay, I can fight now. And he just said, "No," and I'm like, "That's bullshit," you know? So, you know, but I'm like, "Well, I guess I didn't really care anyways, whatever, I'm fucking out of here." And I just left, you know? Um, which, actually, I don't think I was supposed to leave, but then, you know, it didn't occur to me. I was a fact, it was just like, "I guess I lost, I don't want to be here anymore, I'm gonna leave." Um, and then my wife, you know, as I'm leaving, my wife is right there. And it's in, it's okay, so, the other thing is, it's in a football stadium. You know, and there's no one there. So our walk to get out of there is like 100 meters. But I mean, I didn't really care to prove I was a great boxer. I was hoping I was a better boxer than him.

• 1:23:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:00Speaker 02

  Was the idea. And but my wife at that point said something like, hey, did you realize Justin Bieber just opened for you? And you're the main event. You know, something like that, right? It was like, I mean, the whole week was just wild. Like, you know, there's Justin Bieber and then there was Snoop Dogg. And then it was just kind of like, it was, it was very circus like the whole, the whole thing, you know? And then it was like, all right, hey, let's go get my money and let's like, get out of here and go back to coaching wrestling.

• 1:23:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Do people know how much you got paid?

• 1:23:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I made close to a million dollars between all the sponsorships and everything else. Yeah.

• 1:23:34Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean.

• 1:23:35Speaker 02

  Not terrible. For something that I would consider a fun Friday night when I was 17.

• 1:23:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. So like, do you think that that, I'll just call it like the YouTuber boxing world, which I would argue, Jake has escaped. He's no longer being, hey, you go fight a YouTuber, you whatever. Like now he's got like, real competition, right? How do you want to measure that? Do you think that like YouTuber entertainment boxing stuff has like legs to it?

• 1:24:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, other people are trying. I mean, so yes, the circus thing. I mean, I guess his last fight didn't, I mean, there's rumors. I'm not certain. His last fight wasn't selling that well and that some people said that's why it was canceled. This fight, which I don't want to put this up, but it's happening October 29. Some people are saying it's not selling that well. The whole stick is over type thing. So I don't know. Like, I think he's actually kind of good at boxing and I guess we'll see how far he takes it. Can other people do it? I'm not, I'm not sold.

• 1:24:34Anthony Pompliano?

  I think he's a very unique person to be able to do this, right? And like, I've talked to him about it specifically of just like, there's, if you think in society in general, the ability to like reinvent yourself over and over again. So like Kim Kardashian is probably the like epitome of this, right?

• 1:24:47Speaker 02

  Really? I don't pay any attention to her.

• 1:24:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Sex tape, reality TV star, entrepreneur, criminal justice reform. I personally believe governor, president.

• 1:24:57Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:24:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:24:59Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:25:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Kim Kardashian is president in our life.

• 1:25:02Speaker 02

  So let me ask you this, because I don't know anything about Kim. I know, so I know the sex tape. I know the reality show. I didn't watch it at all.

• 1:25:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Which the sex tape for the reality star.

• 1:25:12Speaker 02

  I actually have never seen the other one. But entrepreneur, did she actually do all of those things? Cause there's obviously a lot of people who lend their name to stuff and, and they've, and they're at least smart enough to find really smart people to run their projects. There's something to be said for that for sure, right? But like, did she actually start those? Like I am, I am personally running Ask Wrestling Academy, me and my brother and my high school coach, right? Um, and so I'm actually like running those things.

• 1:25:41Anthony Pompliano?

  She's running it. Yeah. So I didn't know, but the, the reason why I say with pretty high confidence, like she's really involved in this stuff. There's multiple things that she's done where like, you can see it's like the same playbook over and over again. And it's working. But then I heard, uh, or watched, uh, her and David Letterman, uh, Letterman's got a, like a show on Netflix or whatever, right? And, uh, he interviews her. I was blown away. I was like, man, she's like way more articulate than people would probably give her credit for. Uh, and the way, and, and look, she's got media training, she got all this stuff. So you gotta strip that away. But like, it's very easy to see like that could be the leader of a business, you know, up there talking, saying these things, whatever. And you're just like, okay, like, yeah, there's more to this.

• 1:26:26Anthony Pompliano?

  And then you also have to forget, or not forget, like she brings marketing power where like you post on Instagram, right? There's a lot of, there's a lot of founders who are trying to like build Twitter audiences so they could like get people to buy their product. She shows up and she's like, uh, yeah, we could sell stuff.

• 1:26:41Speaker 02

  Well, and then between her and her siblings and everyone else, kind of like in that, um, what you call it, like universe or, you know, they have, yeah.

• 1:26:50Anthony Pompliano?

  They cross promote stuff. They like, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, there's like things there for sure that, uh, that they can do.

• 1:26:56Speaker 02

  Interesting. No, when you say reinvent yourself, you know, I, I think about is, uh, Steve Jobs. I mean, you know, like when you start reading about him, um, like just that he went and kind of like saved Pixar, for example.

• 1:27:09Anthony Pompliano?

  He became a billionaire off Pixar first.

• 1:27:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, that's kind of wild. Like, you know, like most people don't think of, when they think of Pixar, they don't think of Steve Jobs, but he was highly influential in bringing that business back and then putting the effort in necessary to, to get them to the next level, you know? And then you think about like, Okay, what do you do with Apple? But then like he made iTunes, you know, for example, like who put music on a phone? It was kinda him, you know?

• 1:27:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:33Speaker 02

  And so you think like, that's kinda who I think about, I think like, like constantly reinventing themselves and making new ideas is, and I think he actually almost doesn't get enough credit as he should for all different things.

• 1:27:42Anthony Pompliano?

  It is crazy.

• 1:27:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And, and I think the rematch like with, with Jake as an example, his brother also, like WWE star now.

• 1:27:50Speaker 02

  I guess he's in WWE.

• 1:27:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Dude, he, he, I watched like a highlight reel of maybe WrestleMania or whatever one of the events was. He's athletic.

• 1:27:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Like the guy's doing backflips off of, you know, the ropes and stuff.

• 1:28:03Speaker 02

  He was a pretty good wrestler in high school. Jake wasn't a very good wrestler, but Logan was.

• 1:28:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it.

• 1:28:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Is that like a, a thing that the wrestling community talks about?

• 1:28:11Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't know, a little bit, probably not like a huge amount.

• 1:28:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Are they, are they the most successful wrestlers of the last like 20 years?

• 1:28:18Speaker 02

  Uh, that's a great question. We got Brock Lesnar.

• 1:28:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Jake supposedly made 50 million dollars last year.

• 1:28:23Speaker 02

  Allegedly. I never believed those numbers ever. Well, cause I know I've seen mine, right? I've seen mine. I know what my net worth is, right?

• 1:28:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:30Speaker 02

  And I've seen some that said, I saw one said 20 million and I thought, I wish, right? And I saw one that said half a million and I thought, no way, you know, that's not true at all, you know? So it's like somewhere between those numbers. So I've seen, but you know, you see those online and you're like, oh, they're not true. I, I know they're not true of me and I know, I, I don't even know where they got their information. I think they just like made guesses by knowing a few of my purses or something.

• 1:28:56Anthony Pompliano?

  So that, so that's one. The other thing is, uh, the business list, I think they ask for verification, but it's like a little, uh, kinda crazy because, uh, they could ask you like, what's the value of the business? And if they don't know the full breakdown, they estimate, right?

• 1:29:12Anthony Pompliano?

  What I'll say is, uh, the numbers are probably closer than we would guess, uh, based on some conversations I've had.

• 1:29:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, so let's just say that they are accurate.

• 1:29:21Speaker 02

  He kinda scammed an NFT and crypto market too, so.

• 1:29:24Anthony Pompliano?

  However, did it? Does that make him, does that make him the most successful wrestler?

• 1:29:29Speaker 02

  No, hell no. Um.

• 1:29:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Who made more money than him?

• 1:29:34Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, if we denote that money is the only way to success, but yeah, I mean, so a few of those crypto and NFT project he backed are, kinda what is going on, like who let him do that type of thing, you know? I mean, almost, it almost makes me, you know, I, how it makes me feel. Is like, if he was really worth that much money, why would he be backing that? You know what I'm saying? It's not like a Bitcoin, or you know, or even a reputable company. Like, some of the ones he backed were like, wait, like, what is even going on here?

• 1:30:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Who would you say is the actual most successful wrestler? Like, money, accomplishments? Like, when you say like, hey, this is the representative of the wrestling community on like, a global scale? Like, is there somebody who you think most of the community is like, yeah, this is what you can do with wrestling and after wrestling?

• 1:30:24Speaker 02

  It's a great question. Um, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I don't. I mean, so obviously, like, you have like a Jim Jordan, who is, you know, really high up in the, uh, shoot, is he Congressman Senate? I'm blanking right now. I don't remember. Um, yeah, so that would be one that I know people kind of think about a lot. Um, and there is a handful of other successful business people, but I don't think anyone really has that conversation about like, who's? I mean, I think people just think like in wrestling, like Kiel Sanderson, like, you know, he's coached nine national championship teams now. Uh, people think like a lot about him and probably like the guys who have done it well in MMA, like, uh, Henry Cejudo or Daniel Cormier. Um, those type of people, right? There's been a lot of wrestling champions in mixed martial arts, but.

• 1:31:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Who's the best MMA journalist?

• 1:31:11Speaker 02

  Chuck Minnall, of course.

• 1:31:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Who would you say for real?

• 1:31:17Speaker 02

  Chuck Minnall.

• 1:31:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 1:31:18Speaker 02

  He helped me write my book.

• 1:31:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:19Speaker 02

  No, he's great. Um, obviously, Ariel does a great job. Uh, I think there's, there's quite a few.

• 1:31:25Anthony Pompliano?

  I think Ariel's been disrupted.

• 1:31:27Speaker 02

  Why's that?

• 1:31:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Have you not seen Andrew Schultz is out there saying he's the greatest MMA journalist of all time?

• 1:31:32Speaker 02

  Andrew Schultz does that? Where did he say this? I didn't see this.

• 1:31:35Anthony Pompliano?

  He like makes these videos every time there's a big UFC and he like comments about whatever's going on. He like, he said something and people all started freaking out and saying like, you're not an MMA journalist. So he's just some of the greatest ones of all time.

• 1:31:46Speaker 02

  Oh, that's hilarious.

• 1:31:47Anthony Pompliano?

  And so now he, him and, uh, Hilewani are, you know, in competition with each other.

• 1:31:50Speaker 02

  Oh, nice. I'm, I like him, so, uh, I'll let him have it.

• 1:31:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, Hilewani, uh, is actually pretty interesting because he's been able to do this for a long time.

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  He's been here for a long time, since the very beginning.

• 1:32:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Right?

• 1:32:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, really, really early years.

• 1:32:03Anthony Pompliano?

  And he also, what, he was with one of the organizations?

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  Well, he's with ESPN now, and I believe now he's off, kind of just independent a little bit.

• 1:32:10Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, like, talk about winning, right?

• 1:32:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:32:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Basically was able to get himself in a position where like, he was the brand.

• 1:32:15Speaker 02

  Someone can do it on their own terms is huge.

• 1:32:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's kind of like Askin Wrestling Academy.

• 1:32:20Speaker 02

  There we go. I'm trying, I'm trying to do as much as I can on my own. I mean, I always think about, you know, from a monetary perspective, obviously there's people who are significantly wealthier than me. Uh, but one of the things I really love about my life is that like, I don't have a boss. Like, no one tells me what to do. I don't fear anyone's approval or whatever. Uh, and that's a really good position to be in. I think there's even a lot of like, really successful people who are like worried about what their boss is gonna say, or they know they can't do or can't do, and I'm in a position where I'm like, eh, if I want to do that, I'm gonna do it, and if I don't want to do it, I'm not gonna do it, and that's it.

• 1:32:51Anthony Pompliano?

  The only life that I'm like, man, I, I think I'd really struggle to be happy. Like, there's a lot of shit I probably could do and be like, okay, uh, and like, find happiness in it, but the like, nine to five, suit and tie, go sit in a cubicle. If that's your thing, more power to you, but like, that's the one I think I, I, I'd have a tough time.

• 1:33:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, the other one, I mean, now is, um, and obviously, you know, I'm here in Miami, so I'm traveling a little bit. But the other one is like, when you start having a family, um, this is actually, I, I hadn't traveled for like, four months without my family, which was pretty wild, because usually it had, it's a little more than that, but someone who had to travel a ton with their family, like, I think that would be really hard, like, and I think I'd be somewhere, you'd like, really question your life of like, yeah, I'm making a lot of money, I'm having a ton of success, but I barely ever could see my family.

• 1:33:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:39Speaker 02

  Like, is that really what I want? Is it worth it? Yeah, mm-hmm, exactly.

• 1:33:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Where, uh, where can we send people to get the book?

• 1:33:45Speaker 02

  Uh, so it's available, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, um...

• 1:33:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Funky, My Defiant Path Through the Wild World of Combat Sports.

• 1:33:54Speaker 02

  The, the title's a tongue twister, so. I struggled with it. I know I messed it up twice when I was recording the audio book. The audio book was, I don't know if you've done an audio book yet, maybe you will at some point.

• 1:34:02Anthony Pompliano?

  I just want to, I just want to share everyone who, who's watching, that, that was Ben. When I, when I was going through the book, I saw this and I was like, bro, what? I never knew that's what, uh, what you looked like in college.

• 1:34:13Speaker 02

  No, no, that, that one was in high school. I have, I have-

• 1:34:15Anthony Pompliano?

  It was high school?

• 1:34:16Speaker 02

  Uh, yep, I have a similar, my junior of college, I think, was my other time where it was like at the, uh, Apex Afro.

• 1:34:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, the, so I did the audiobook. That was like, oh man, that was hard.

• 1:34:29Anthony Pompliano?

  That was hard, why?

• 1:34:29Speaker 02

  Well, cuz you gotta read. And so, okay, you and I are speaking on a podcast, right? If I were to mess up a word, I would, I would just keep going.

• 1:34:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:37Speaker 02

  Right?

• 1:34:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:38Speaker 02

  Where if I gotta read every single word and get it word for word.

• 1:34:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:41Speaker 02

  And I miss like an and or a the or I gotta start over.

• 1:34:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Some, the whole thing?

• 1:34:46Speaker 02

  Well, the, the sentence or the paragraph or wherever, you know?

• 1:34:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you have someone there being like, ah, you messed up, go back?

• 1:34:51Speaker 02

  Um, most of the time you know, you knew, there was only a couple of times where they said like, hey, you missed that. You know, but then so, uh, being the hard part for me is I had to slow down significantly from my talk, you know? So like, I, you know, if I'm talking like this, I would have to really like, and this, blah, blah, blah. You know what I'm saying? And it was like, it was just, yeah, so it was a challenge.

• 1:35:10Anthony Pompliano?

  The only thing I ask people if you're gonna do an audiobook not to do, I, I love learning from them, but Ray Dalio for changing world order, he reads the first like chapter or two and then he rug pulls you.

• 1:35:22Speaker 02

  I love it. He says, I'm too busy. I love that shit.

• 1:35:26Anthony Pompliano?

  I literally was listening and he's like, I'm too busy, so uh, someone's gonna take over. I was like, bro, what? Yeah. Like, either don't record any of it or record the whole thing. But the like, you buy the audiobook, you start listening and then he literally like have like a, a chapter. And it's like, all right, this other guy's gonna read.

• 1:35:43Speaker 02

  I loved it. I'm like, yeah, he probably is too busy.

• 1:35:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course he's too busy, but I was like, dude, what?

• 1:35:47Speaker 02

  No, did he, did he do the first chapter? Was it, was it only the intro? Cause I, no, I think you're right. Cause I think, I think I was thinking, it would've made more sense if he would've just done like the intro.

• 1:35:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:58Speaker 02

  And not the first chapter also.

• 1:35:59Anthony Pompliano?

  But it felt like he was going to do the audiobook and then decided not to do it at some point.

• 1:36:04Speaker 02

  Well, I don't blame him cuz I did one and it was freaking hard.

• 1:36:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and his book's very long.

• 1:36:08Speaker 02

  It's very long. I think, and here's a couple too, cuz I think, I think once I listened to the first one, I think I listened to like a couple more and I think he did something similar, uh, where he read the, if I remember, he did the first part and then not the rest. Yeah, no, I love that. That was a really good book too.

• 1:36:23Anthony Pompliano?

  He's out here just tricking people.

• 1:36:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:36:25Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, where can we send people to find you on the internet?

• 1:36:28Speaker 02

  I really just use Twitter. I have, it's on my Instagram, but I don't really love Instagram. Uh, I really love Twitter, so it's at Ben Askren.

• 1:36:35Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, I appreciate it. We'll definitely do it again in the future.

• 1:36:37Speaker 02

  All right, thanks, Ben.

• 1:36:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I really hope you enjoyed this one. Make sure you're subscribed on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And if you're looking to transition into a brand new job in the Bitcoin or crypto industry, we've got you covered. Head over to thecryptoacademy.io. My team and I have been working with the top HR teams in the industry to develop an intensive three-week training program with over 50 live events. We teach you exactly what you need to know to break into the industry, including live interview prep and resume review. Our students have been hired at over 75 of the world's best Bitcoin and crypto companies. Go to thecryptoacademy.io to learn more. Again, that's thecryptoacademy.io. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you share it with your friends, and I'll see you all for the next episode.