Shownotes Transcript
Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast. Good to see you, brother. What's happening? We were talking about golf and Jamie, who's a full-blown addict. What's up? What's up? I feel like everyone is now. So you're saying Gagey's fully hooked? Oh, fully hooked. It's crazy. He, uh...
Yeah, I don't know. Do you know what Fanatics Fest is? No. So Fanatics Fest is, I was just at it on Sunday, but it's just like a, it's like kind of like Comic-Con, but for athletes. And Gaethje got to do like the Fanatics game, which is like a celebrity thing where it's like 50 pro athletes do it, 50 normal people and they compete in a bunch of sports or whatever. He said he won because he was good at golf. So the fucking guy won a Ferrari.
Because he got second place. Tom Brady got first. He got a million dollars. And then like a normal, like non-professional athlete got third place. He got like 200K. Whoa. He got a Ferrari? Yeah, dude. Golf got him. Holy shit. Golf got him this fucking Ferrari. I think he took... Holy shit. Yeah. So that kind of just enforced his addiction more than...
Damn, he's that good? Yeah, he's pretty good. I mean, I don't know shit about golf, but from what I know. Daniel told me, DC told me that he started off and he was just kind of okay, but over the time, between the Holloway fight and his fight with Fazeev, he didn't do anything but play golf for a year. He played like 260 days in a row, and he said his handicap just kept getting better and better and better and better. He said the next time he played him, he's like, holy shit, he's really good now. Sounds about right. It makes sense, though. He's a psycho.
He is a psycho. Completely dedicated to something. And he's single. He's going to excel. If that guy gets his mind on something, he's going to excel. Yeah, he's a unique dude for sure. I've really liked, because obviously, you know, I started working with Whitman not too long ago. I've really enjoyed getting to know that guy.
Like Trevor, Gaethje, Camaro. Trevor's a unique guy. Yeah, all of those guys are pretty unique in their own way. He makes the best fucking MMA gloves that have ever been made, and the UFC should have bought them out a long time ago. I think he wanted some crazy amount of money or something. I think it was like some nutty deal. Unfortunate. Unfortunate.
I know. I know. They should have just licensed it. They should have just made some sort of a deal. Like, we'll sell the gloves. You make the money. Yeah. Let's just get the athletes the best gloves bought. They're so much better. They're way better. Yeah, the foam in them is really good. The shape is better. The protection of your hands is better. Yeah. Trevor's one of those guys where I'm kind of similar to, like...
Like, most things aren't stimulating enough. Like, TV, kind of playing on my phone isn't really super stimulating to me. So, like, he's always, like, doing something. So he's always, like, making shit. But he'd be, when I would go into Onyx, he'd just be in the back, like...
With this smile, like working on the gloves, like every single morning that he's there. And the style that they have is real cool. People keep asking me when they're going to come out with them. And I think he's getting pretty close. I just really wish that him and the UFC could make a deal. I know. Because they spent so much time and money to develop those new gloves. And then they threw them out.
Yeah, I hate that too. I like the new ones. Did you? I have really thin, like my hands aren't massive like some of these guys. The old ones are better for like, if you have like a really thick hand, the old ones are way better. But I have a thin hand, dude, and those things used to fit me like perfectly. Because the old ones, when I would make a fist, they would stick out like this much. But the new ones, they would be like,
Perfect. So I can make a fist and not have this like really awkward big space right there. But what is the what's the issue with the new gloves? Like what did they not like about them? I honestly don't know. I think some people were just complaining probably because they were just guys with thicker hands.
Because that's what it would come down to. There was no other reason that it was... I mean, the leather was different and stuff, but I mean, how important is that? It can't be that important. And I think the whole idea was it was easier to close your hand, so it was going to eliminate some of the eye pokes. They were a little bit curved, but honestly, I mean, maybe... I mean, even if you bring it down like 10 percentages, I guess that's saving 10% of people's eyes, but... Yeah. Um...
But I mean, honestly, I don't think it was like significant enough to be like, oh, no one's going to poke me in the eyes when they're wearing these things. Well, I think the Whitman gloves would cover that because they're much more curved.
Those ones were curved. Yeah. I mean, your hand is in a permanent position like this. So for you to do that, it's an effort. Yeah. Which, when do you do that? You only do that when you're blocking things or maybe when you're sliding an arm under to get a choke or something like that. But I don't think they're significantly bulkier. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm not too sure, honestly. I don't really recall wearing it. I think that that was a while ago when they were doing all that, so I kind of don't recall super close what the curved ones, how impactful it would have been on grappling. I think the idea of the new gloves was that there weren't as many knockouts, which also doesn't totally make sense. That doesn't make any sense to me. They probably ran a number that was from all of the years of the UFC and then maybe just went...
when they started using the new ones instead of like just last year how many knockouts i don't think they would do that no no i think but there were a lot of people complaining said that they weren't hard as hard as the old gloves like i should have brought you some yeah oh yeah i mean whitman gave me some of his and i was like these are the best gloves ever yeah for sure just fucking a man work it out i know they're good to train into like uh
Like you can actually feel like you could hit the person and not be like, sorry. You know, because that's a pain in the ass when you always have to... When you get like a stiff pair of gloves and then you have to hit someone and you're just like...
right sorry man i know that you but with these ones you can fire away yeah yeah yeah that how important is that and it's like having training partners that are that are conscientious and they aren't gonna fucking blast you like the the miles that guys take off of the clock when they're training is so big yeah it's big i think i don't i mean we spar i spar pretty hard still i know that like not a lot of people are crazy about that but you don't get hit a lot
That's true. Yeah, that's the thing is you're slick. Yeah, that's like for a guy who's just like a fucking face first Yeah, you know, yeah, you know that's there's there's styles that enhance longevity and you have a style that enhances longevity because not only do you not get hit a lot but you're also like you're a puzzle and
You know, you're not, it's not like, oh, here he comes. It's like, what's going on here? You know, there's a lot of thinking that a guy has to do when they're interacting. You know, you have so much, so many feints and so many stance switches. Definitely. It's such a smart style, man. I love watching you fight because it's like, it's,
You can see that the fighter, and by the way, they're probably not used to training with somebody like you because there's not a lot of guys like you. You can see how there's all these adjustments that they have to make on the fly that makes you think. Yeah. I mean, I always really looked up to all of the defensive guys that I would watch. I know that in boxing, defensive...
just winning the defensive battle is a big piece in boxing and the judges almost even score a little bit for it but in MMA it's just all like only offense scores right so that's not really the way that I grew up thinking was good martial arts really because my some of my favorite guys were Mayweather, Pernell Whitaker, Nenito Diner like all of these really awesome like movers that did a phenomenal job at protecting themselves and
But now, man, people, I feel like even more so now, people want more blood and more offense. The casuals. Yeah. Yeah, that shit drives me nuts. It does, man. It just drives me nuts. And catering to the casuals. I know. Fuck off. Like, whenever someone, like, boos and then they separate people or stand people up, I go crazy. I know. What are you doing? I know. Fuck the crowd. This episode is brought to you by Zip Recruiter. Summer jobs can be extremely rewarding.
You can learn a lot about yourself and what you want, and there are some pretty unique jobs out there, from lifeguards and camp counselors to construction, dog walking, mule packers, and more. There's a lot of options if you have the skills. On the flip side, if you're hiring this summer, it might be tough to find the right person with the right qualifications before your competitors unless you use ZipRecruiter. Try it for free.
Now at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. Why should you use ZipRecruiter? It's going to make hiring for the season astronomically more manageable and fast. It's powerful matching technology does a deep dive to find the right candidates for the role as soon as you post it. And when you find someone you like, the invite to apply feature helps you connect instantly.
Gear up for summer with ZipRecruiter's high-speed hiring tools. See why four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Just go to this exclusive web address right now to try ZipRecruiter for free. ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire.
This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Have you ever been shopping online and the website just gave you the ick? Let me tell you, that wouldn't happen if they used Squarespace.
Squarespace design intelligence empowers anyone to build beautiful, more personalized websites tailored to your unique needs. And with Squarespace payments, it's super easy to manage payments with just a few clicks. Plus, with Squarespace's integrated and optimized SEO tools, there's all the help you need to get people to your site.
Head to squarespace.com slash Emma for a free trial and use code Emma to save 10% on your first purchase. I think grappling is really hard to understand unless you've done it. Like striking is easy to understand. Like, okay, that guy hit the shit out of that guy more than the other guy hit him. Grappling is like, it's a whole, it's like super proprioceptive. You know, like a lot of what's going on in grappling isn't,
It's like hidden to the eye. You know what I mean? It's where am I sitting my weight? Where am I doing this? And yeah, so it kind of just people just don't think it's cool. But when you understand grappling like.
It's amazing to watch. Yes. You know, like Ammarab, for example, who's obviously a guy that I watch a ton. It's amazing. Yeah. Like he does such a good job with like the little nuancy things in wrestling. That's just like... Yeah. But it's hard to appreciate unless you really understand it. Well, it's hard to judge too. Yeah. Which is a real problem because there's judges that don't train and never have trained, which is to me fucking crazy. I know. That's like...
judging a Chinese spelling bee and you don't speak Chinese, who knows who's fucking winning here? I know. They don't understand it. They understand when someone's on top. Oh, he's on top. I know. But, you know, there's so many like near submission attempts that I think should count.
Like, I always go to the Oliveira-Armand Sorokin fight. Because I think Oliveira won that fight. Because Oliveira came close to finishing him twice. And Sorokin stayed on top, and he had a lot of control, and it was a very close fight. But I think those fucking moments where a guy is, like, at nine. You know, if ten is checkmate, he's at nine twice. Mm-hmm.
That's big, man. You don't want to be there. That guy got you there. He's got a fucking locked-in triangle. Yeah, you got out of it, but still, that's big, man. That should count. And
So damage leading up to a KO or that doesn't lead to a KO is very significant in the scorecards. But a submission that doesn't lead up to a submission doesn't count. And I don't understand that. You can't just count damage. You have to count like near falls or near subs. I agree. Yeah, I mean, if you want to take, for example, too, like even like a me and a TJ fight.
TJ was limping out of that cage and I was kind of like, oh cool. And I don't think that that should count for everything, but like you're saying, the reason that he was limping out of that cage is because I popped his knee really bad. He had to spend the next 18 months making his knee better so that he could fight again. And I was able to fight pretty shortly afterwards. So yeah, there's got to be something to that. If you pop someone's shit really bad, it should count just as much as a knockdown or something like that. What do you think about the idea of...
like 10-8 rounds for like things that are known not just like okay this person won by a mile but it's like in kickboxing they do if you get knocked down in a round it's automatically a 10-8 round you like that for MNA or no I do but if
If a guy is tuning you up for, like, the entire round and you clip him and drop him and he gets back up and he's still okay, I don't think that's a 10-8 round. I think MMA should be a completely different scoring system than a 10-point must system. Because I think the 10... We just stole this boxing system. Which is a great system for boxing because you only have two weapons. And you only have your hands. You don't even have elbows. Right? So...
Think about all the different factors in MMA and we're limited to 10 points. To me, that seems silly. I think it should probably be 10 points for each aspect of the sport. Like, okay, who landed more kicks? Who landed more punches? And then calculate all that shit up together. You know, who had more takedowns? Who landed damage from the top? It should be a comprehensive system. And I think there should be more than three judges.
When you have a split decision and some of them are so crazy, you see a five-round split decision and they gave...
four judges or two out of the three judges rather give like three out of five rounds and the other person gives them the whole five rounds. Like this is too much variability. There's too much weirdness to it. And if you're a fighter, especially in MMA because of the win bonus, which also drives me crazy, there's
I think if you had three more judges, so if you have six judges, six judges would balance it out, six good judges. So the ones that fuck up and make mistakes, they'll be canceled out by the better judges. We could do like a submission or knockout only league. That'd be pretty cool because then you'd definitely know who was winning that one. What would you think about a no time limit? Yeah, no time limit, submission or knockout only.
That would be wild. That'd be pretty sick, actually. You could probably sanction that. Old school UFC. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's UFC 1. Yeah, it wouldn't really pay off for me, though. I need weight classes in order for me to fucking, for my career to be good. Yeah, weight classes, sure, but no time limit within the weight classes. Yeah, that'd be sweet. That would be pretty wild. Yeah, that'd be pretty crazy. Because you know, two guys are facing off each other, and they know there's no rescue every five minutes. Yeah.
And you go into it knowing you're either getting knocked down or submitted or you're doing that to the other person. Oh, that would be real. But again, the casuals would have a hard time with it because it would probably be a much more moderate pace.
Yeah. Unless someone just tries to go for it right off the bat. Yeah. That could be a strategy. Sure. I mean, it does work. Yeah. It's like there's so many fights where – did you see the past, the Azerbaijan fight? I didn't watch those ones, no. I watched Curtis' fight and a guy named Mohammed's fight on my team, but no, I didn't watch the other ones. It was – who was it? Mota and the other guy from Azerbaijan. See if you can find his name. Salikov? Fuck. Fuck.
I hadn't seen him fight before. What weight class was it? I think it was 45. Yeah. No, it was lightweight. Yeah. Sadiqov and Nicholas Mota. Nazim Sadiqov and Nicholas Mota. Fucking crazy fight, man. It was so good that Dana White gave him double bonuses. Oh, nice. Sweet. But Mota landed a 75 punch combination. Like.
Like, I'm not kidding, man. He landed, like, and then Sadikov came back and stopped him. Oh, shit. It was wild. Oh, shit. That was cool. Like, a wild fight. Like, a fight like that where two guys just fight. And Motel, like, basically emptied out the tank, but Sadikov had fantastic defense, just kept covering and moving and just getting bombed onto the body, into the head. But he looked like he was getting close to stopping. Nice. And he comes back and you see...
Mo just taking his big deep breaths and whoo it was wild yeah when that strategy works it works but when it doesn't yeah you're in some shit that's the problem the blitz sprint and very few guys you know we were talking about Daichi and golf and I was saying that I'm scared of golf and you know you were like I don't have time for golf the
The thing that happens with golf is it takes so much time and it's so addictive that it's going to take away time from other stuff no matter what you do. And when you look at a guy, like I always point to Merab because Merab
The day after he beat Shawn, the first fight, DC went to his house to go talk to him, and he was out running. The day after. That's a guy who does not stop. And that extreme physicality and that extreme endurance, because he is just constantly working, that means something. It counts. If you take months off, you take, you know, like this was the thing that I was thinking about with Jon Jones.
Jon Jones said he needed six months to prepare for Aspinall if he's gonna fight Aspinall. So they were trying to make a deal and then he decided to retire.
But it's six months because he's not training, like at all. He just doesn't train. Like in between fights, just doesn't train. Yeah. He used to do that a lot when he was younger too, which I always thought was crazy. That is crazy to me. I always saw guys do that like when I was in my 20s and like I would watch these really big fighters just not train unless it was a training camp time. I'd be like, fuck that. I'm never being that way.
I don't know, man. That's like a really weird one to me, but I don't want to bash it too bad because I do know a lot of guys that do do that. Well, look at John. Greatest of all time. It's like, how did he do that? He's that talented. I really don't know. I don't know how that works. Like, I want it to make sense in my head that, like, the harder you work, the more shit you'll get from it, you know, which is, like, true to an extent. But then you have, like, these weird outlier guys that maybe have something more figured out than me that I don't have figured out or whatever, but...
I mean, that to me is like completely unacceptable in my head. Like I think that I really hate when people say that they want to be something and then they don't do any of the actions to like actually do that thing that they're saying that they want to be. Right. So I don't get to walk around being like, yeah, I'm going to be a world champion. I want to be a world champ real bad and then not do any of the fucking actions, you know, then I'm just a...
stupid person, you know? Well, I think John is just so fucking talented that he could pull that off. Yeah, probably. That's the outlier. It's like, he was just so good. He was so good. He just, he could do it. He could party and still fuck guys up. Like what he said to Cormier at the press conference for the second fight, I beat you when I was on coke. I saw that video the other day.
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Sometimes it can feel like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. And for guys especially, it can feel like you have to carry that burden on your own. There's a lot of stigma around men being the provider to keep it all together by themselves.
But that's not good for you, your family, or anyone. Did you know that 6 million men suffer from depression every year in the U.S.? And it often goes undiagnosed because of these stigmas. Real strength isn't bottling things up inside, though. It's admitting to your faults and doing something to better yourself.
So go talk to someone, a friend, your partner, family, a therapist. Therapy is an excellent tool everyone should utilize. It's a great way to learn more positive coping skills like how to manage stress and help you live a more balanced and fulfilling life. BetterHelp is a great place to start that conversation. Judging by the millions of reviews and the 4.9 rating in the App Store, it's helped many people across the globe.
As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com. That's betterhelp.com.
H-E-L-P dot com slash J-R-E. This is the thing. When guys are that talented, they're playing with their food, essentially. I always point to, with John, the first Gustafson fight, which, by all accounts, he didn't train. Oh, really? Yeah, by all accounts. Barely trained for that fight. Barely trained. Just partying. Yeah.
and beat Gustafson and pulled it off in the last rounds, which was really crazy, but then comes back in the second fight and is like, okay, motherfucker, now we're trained, and just destroys him, just runs right through him. Mm-hmm.
Which God does he worship? I know, right? I need to start going to that church. Well, I think it's just talent, man. And it's also genetics. Like both of his brothers are super athletes. You know, he's just a phenomenal specimen. And then he's got a great mind for fighting. You can't discount his in-cage IQ because it's fucking phenomenal.
I do think two people have different wired brains too, where some people need like cool down time in order for them to, yeah, I don't know, man. I really, I don't know how it works. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I don't, yeah, I'm more on the other end where it's like, I'm going to give every inch of myself to this thing, you know, in hopes that I get it one day. But then I know a lot of guys, man, a lot of guys that are really successful that are just like,
Now, man, I need my like off time. Yeah. That to me is really uncomfortable, but I kind of got a little bit, I don't like chilling, you know, like me and my wife were just in Maui a couple of weeks ago. It's like the first vacation for seven days I ever taken like,
since I was a kid probably. Did you get stir crazy? I got a little stir crazy. I kind of liked it though. Like a piece of me liked just completely being like, oh, my home, my life doesn't exist back there. So I liked it a little bit in that, but I didn't like the feeling of being completely, like turning my nervous system off completely. That was like weird to me. I like being like a little stressed or having something going a little bit all the time. It kind of just makes me feel like,
Alive or something. I don't know but I didn't really like that feeling I was kind of ready to come I like didn't like that I liked it, too It'd be like if I started playing golf and I was like, oh shit This is fun. And then I got to like do that more and more I don't really want to get addicted to relaxing either. Well, the golf thing is a six hour plus thing That's true. Yeah when you're gonna like Jamie, you know, you're whack like Jamie's got a simulator out there So he's whacking balls every day. It gets you gets in your blood. I
But the thing about relaxing, one thing that I do like about vacations is that at the end, I'm ready to go to work. When I'm done, when it's day, if I'm on an eight-day vacation, it's day seven. I'm like, I can't fucking wait to get back to work. I can't wait to get shit going. I don't get that. You know? When I was out there, I was like, I could stay here forever.
I was like, fuck home. I was like, can we afford this? I was like, let's just stay here. Isn't that, it's a weird thing about momentum, right? Like when you're training really hard all the time, you have this like constant momentum in your head of improvement. You're like, you're on the path. You're in the process.
you know, and you're feeling that. And when that gets disrupted, when guys get injured and they have to come back or they get sick and they have to come back, there's like, you got to like rebuild that momentum and get it going again. So it's like a part of your mind. You wake up like time to go. Yeah. I'm pretty familiar with like the process of like having to kick back into camp, you know? And I do realize that it takes me about two weeks to get like,
Alright, this is my normal life again, you know, which is why I really like training camp and I really like fighting more than real life is what I say just because it's like organized. I know what I'm doing. I don't got to think about stuff. I'm not traveling places. People like traveling. I hate traveling. It makes me feel like my life is moving on fast forward, which I don't really like. I like feeling I feel most alive when I'm in a routine and I have time to myself and I could sit and kind of reflect and all of that shit. But, um,
But yeah, I... What is the difference between your training, like regular training and then training once you get into camp? What is a normal day when you're not in camp for you? It's all the exact same. I'm just less competitive when I'm outside of camp. And I won't... If I'm like beat to shit, dead tired, I'll miss a practice. But that's really the only time that I'll miss a practice. In camp, I won't miss unless... I have like a two-week rule where if I'm like dragging really bad...
I'll make myself go for another week and a half, two weeks until I'm like, okay, I, I, I, I do actually need a rest, you know? And then, so I'll do that in camp. But yeah, I, uh, but outside of camp is pretty much the exact same. I've been traveling a lot, which I really don't like doing. Um, just because again, like I, I don't really feel like I'm alive. I feel like I'm like fast forwarding through a bunch of stuff. Um,
But it's been like useful stuff like seeing family and then like me and my wife going on our honeymoon or whatever. So it's like normal life shit that I guess I got to check in and do every once in a while. But if it were up to me, it would just be like training camp life all of the time just because it's easier. It's way easier. It's fun. It's easy. I go to the gym. I do my hard workouts. I'm competitive as fuck. I get to get that out of me. And then I just hang with my friends for an hour afterwards.
When you say you're less competitive when you're just normal training, is that conscious? Do you decide to be less competitive? And why do you do that? I do that because I think that if I'm too competitive, I won't work on stuff. A lot of camp for me is getting better at stuff. And then the last four weeks is figuring out how to win. I think that practicing winning is just as important as being able to practice a certain skill.
So a lot of my camps will be developing those skills. But then like the last four or five weeks, it's just I need to focus on winning each round, regardless of who it's against or whatever. I'm not like practicing a certain technique or doing anything like that. It's just win, win, win. Just doing whatever it takes to win that round. Exactly. Yeah. Because that's an important skill to build. And when you're less competitive, when you're just training and you're not in camp,
you'll try things, you'll be a little more playful, try to like sort stuff, try new skills. And I'm definitely not sparring hard as fuck like I do in camp too. Like I won't do that outside of camp unless I got a guy that's been giving me a bunch of rounds in my camps and he has a fight coming up and then I'll like gear up to give him a good one, you know, but...
But no, outside camp, like just less competitive. I don't show up as early and get my mind right before. When I'm in camp, every single sparring session that I do, I try to put myself in the locker room while I'm warming up. I think that that's like I've had a lot of success doing that.
Just making my body make good decisions when I'm in a super elevated, high intensity state is something you got to practice too. I definitely won't do that outside of camp because that's a lot of energy. So you visualize the walkout, you visualize like stepping into the octagon, all that? Essentially. It's not as, so I don't do as much of
I'd more so go off a feel a little bit more now where I'll be like, okay, I need to do this today because I know that I really don't want to do it.
Or I'll be like, okay, this day, for whatever reason, I'm really distracted. I'll do a little bit more visualization, mindful stuff or whatever, because every day is different in sparring. As you know, where some days you're good to go right off of the bat and then other days you're dragging. It's those days that you're dragging that I make sure that I'm like, those ones I'll be like, okay, fucking visualize because your body doesn't want to do this right now. And I'll put myself in that state twice a week, which is...
Has helped a lot a lot a lot. I know for a while you were organizing your whole camp, right? Yeah, are you still doing that? No, I don't do that anymore That has actually been like a super significant piece in one my life getting a lot better and then two I think that like it I think it's gonna transfer over really well into my next few fights for a really long time for a lot of reasons I was like really micromanaging over my own my stuff and
I don't like when people do things for me. I kind of live in a way where everything is my responsibility, and if I fuck up, it was on me regardless of what happens, which is a fine way to be, but also it's not crazy realistic either. But that's just kind of the way that I am, just the way that I grew up. It was kind of like take care of me type of thing, and if I'm messing stuff up, it's on me. So I was like that for a really long time. It was actually after the Umar fight.
where I realized how in the way I got of myself in that fight. How so? Overdoing it from insecurity a little bit. That was my first camp with Trevor, too. And Trevor's a phenomenal coach. I've known him for a lot of years. He has a lot of champions. There's no reason to doubt any of...
What he has going on or my other coach, Carrington Banks, or anyone really. But because I kind of have this mindset on life, or did used to have this mindset on life, where it was, hey man, manage everything. Make sure everyone's doing their work, blah, blah, blah. After that Umar fight, I really got into...
I was like, all right, fuck it, guys. I messed that one up, I felt like, because I was trying to be too micromanaging over this thing. I started getting outside of myself. You guys take over. And the reason that I did that wasn't necessarily because I lost. It's because I'm coaching a couple professionals now. And coaching a professional is different than coaching an amateur. It feels like a lot more responsibility. And I realized what was happening when I would try to help these couple guys that I was trying to help is that they...
They are too close to it the same way that I'm sure you get too close to your art as well like in comedy You're too close to it sometimes where you don't really you can't see things from a perspective That is like true and real because you're so locked into what it is that you're doing I really big-time realized that that was a thing in my other guys So when I would try to help them and they'd be like hey man like I don't like they'd kind of get a little bit argumentative and
I'd be like, you could keep doing that, but I'm a thousand percent sure that I'm right about this. But do your own thing. And I started to realize, oh, fuck, that's what I do all the time. I was like, fuck, dude, I got to stop being argumentative and just shut the fuck up and listen if I really trust these guys. And so I started doing that big time, man, and it made my...
It changed so much stuff for me. I forgot who you fought your last fight. I fought Figgy last. That's right. And Figgy blew his knee out. Yeah. So that's essentially the same position that you got in with TJ, right? Yeah, 50-50. And that's like you're – so this is all Ryan Hall stuff, right? Yep. And so you're putting him in a position where if he doesn't know what you're doing –
and he tries to get out of it, he's going to blow his knee. Yep, essentially. I like 50-50 a lot because, one, I get to learn it from the guy who essentially invented it and is the best at it in the world. The only guys that I feel like can beat me at 50-50 are guys that train at 50-50. And so it's kind of like what it feels like 50-50, the position, and just kind of leg locks in general, if you really know how to do them in MMA, are a spot that you can pull people into and have them be completely lost.
Because they have to think, what do I do now? And you're already moving. It's super niche too. Like understanding the position is super niche. It's like judo almost a little bit in wrestling where it's like, okay, cool. If this guy's going to just wrestle with me, great. But if this guy has good throws, that changes a lot of the way that I have to do things. I can pull people into these really niche spots and
where I know that I'm going to win them. So 50-50 is one of those. It's kind of like what jiu-jitsu used to be a little bit before people started to understand jiu-jitsu. But now people fully understand jiu-jitsu. So you don't really get to like catch people in guillotines or whatever. But 50-50 and a lot of the leg locks and a lot of stuff that Ryan teaches me and does is so niche that like
you would need an absolute expert to understand it and I like get the fortune of having that yeah that's awesome he's so fucking smart too that dude is just like his analysis of jujitsu and the way he's broken down different positions it's it's really exciting to watch and
Is he fighting? I know he's had like nine surgeries or something crazy, right? Yeah, it's like closer to a thousand. But yeah, I mean, he's doing good. He says he wants to fight again. I hope that he does. Why is he having all these surgeries? Like what's going on? I think it's just one of those things where like you let one thing go and then another thing breaks and then another thing breaks and you kind of like are taping yourself back together. And then one day you wake up and you're like, shit, I got to like take care of this. What are the surgeries that he had? Oh.
Um, I'm not sure specifically. You name it, he's probably had it. I've never heard of anybody having that many surgeries. There's a couple knee ones, a couple shoulder ones. Honestly, I quit asking after a certain point. But yeah, I think that he's kind of coming back. Ryan, more than anything...
I'm like a super conceptual thinker. Like, I don't really like details. Like, I don't remember names of stuff. 19. General anesthesia. First of all, that is so bad for you. That is really bad. So bad for you to go under general. Can you go back up there, what it says there? It says tearing his ACL the following years and many surgeries. Jiu-Jitsu specialist wasn't out of the woods just yet. That is so crazy. Okay, so he had to fix a planter plate. So that's his foot.
Got got fallen on again had to have a tightrope surgery when the Pat Mahomes got and a lot of other people have had I don't know what that one is Do you know what that is tightrope surgery? No, no idea ACL got infected had to have a couple of septic Septic arthritis. Well, the tightrope is actually allergic to the hardware. They put in me some oh my god So you had to have that redone
Boy, came to injuries, he said, completely bulletproof for 15 years until his training camp for Teporia where he tore his hip right before the fight. Tightrope is used to stabilize ankle. Wow, that is crazy. He said more than half the surgeries of ones where, oops, we screwed up. Let's do that again. Six elbow surgeries and five knee surgeries. Holy shit.
Holy shit. Yeah, I don't like taking any type of medication ever, so that would probably really bother me having to be under that much. It would probably really fuck me up. Hotels in Vegas may be booked solid this weekend, but there's one vacancy left to be filled at UFC 317. A new lightweight champ will be crowned. Grab your own crown at DraftKingsSportsBook.com.
the official sports betting partner of the UFC. Teporia takes on Oliveira to fill the vacant men's lightweight title and Alessandre Pantoja defends his flyweight belt against Kai Cara France in the
co-main event. Who are you taking? First time betting on UFC at DraftKings? Just pick something simple like a fighter to win and make your pick. It's that easy. And if you're new to DraftKings, check this out. New customers who bet $5 will get $150 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use the code ROGAN. That's code ROGAN for new customers to get $150 in bonus bets instantly.
instantly when you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings. The crown is yours.
General anesthesia is very bad for you. It's kind of scary, dude. Yeah, it's fucking scary. I've only had a couple surgeries. How many surgeries have you had? Like under the knife, like had to go under. Three knee surgeries under the knife.
I think those are the only general anesthesia ones that I've had. I get really... I've only had to do it for my elbow when I tore my tricep. You tore that shit off the bone, right? Yeah, it was pretty fucked up. But you still won the fight. I did still win the fight. That was like a whole fucking thing, though. I got bursitis in that elbow because I got a bunch of loose floating bones and shit in there. So then it just swelled up really bad. And every time I've gotten bursitis, I've gotten really bad staph infections in it.
Yeah, because, I mean, you got to think it's just like sitting pooled fluid in your body. And then when you're still in the gym training and it gets like in your bloodstream or whatever, it's just like a swamp. And then it just. Wasn't that what happened to Ben Askren? Wasn't it a staph infection that turned into pneumonia? Oh, really? I don't know. Is he doing okay? I never. He's not doing okay, man. He needs a lung transplant. Oh, fuck. Yeah. He had, I think they call it necrotic pneumonia. Oh.
So essentially it was rotting holes in his lung tissue. And so they had to put him on a ventilator and apparently one of his lungs is just gone and they have to replace it, which is, that's so crazy because then you have to be on medication for your entire life.
Because your body wants to reject the lung because it's not your lung. So you have to take these immunosuppressant. So now your immune system is severely suppressed because you have to take immunosuppressant drugs in order to have this. I have a friend who had a heart transplant and he's all fucked up because of it. You know, it's just like you're always worried about getting sick because your immune system is very compromised. And that's going to change his life. Oh, my God. I mean, he's still in a medically induced coma, I believe. I think he's...
He's out of the coma now. He looks at people and he can kind of talk a little bit. But, I mean, this is all going on for many, many weeks now.
And I think what happened was he was feeling like shit and he didn't know how bad it was and he went to a Bitcoin conference. You know, he traveled and then it got real bad. And then he realized, oh, this is serious. So it was a staph kind of inside of his lung? Can you see if we can find that? If it started with a staph infection. That sounds like it would really hurt. Staph infections by themselves hurt really bad. I couldn't imagine having it in your lungs where you're breathing into. I don't think enough people pay attention to staph.
I mean, how many guys like fight and they're on antibiotics? It happens all the time. Marab, like when Marab fought Umar, apparently he had staph on his shin and he was on antibiotics when he fought. So, dude, the type of antibiotic that I was on, I forget the name of it, unfortunately. But the reason I tore my tricep was because that antibiotic made my ligaments super shitty, pretty much. Because, dude, like I should never tear my tricep. I'm pretty sure it happened when he was Kimura-ing me.
Dude, that shouldn't happen. Right. You know, like maybe something else, but definitely not tear my tricep. Right. So that's when it happened. And then I was like, yo, what the fuck is that about? Like, that shouldn't happen. And then when I read into it a little bit, they told me that...
That specific antibiotic it doesn't mess with your respiratory stuff like your conditioning as much but it makes your ligaments just Really not good. No, that's terrible. I know I know you have to fight. Yeah, which is crazy I know last camp I didn't get one dude. I was so happy. I didn't get sick. How many times have you had staff? Not too many times but man, so I
This time with my elbow against Font, I got it really bad. I was on one round of antibiotics for seven days or something, and then it came back immediately. So then I was on it for two more weeks, and then I got off it the week before the fight. So I was essentially on it for like a month, which sucks. And then against Umar, I got it really bad in my knee, like super bad where –
I'm not a crazy anxious person dude but I finally got to like experience what it was like to have a panic attack because I was in Virginia training got it I was like something's up with my knee it hurt really bad um couldn't put weight on my leg this was probably like a month before the fight maybe maybe a little bit before that five weeks or so I got a really bad knee infection and
Um, I started taking the antibiotics, but they told me like, Hey man, if this doesn't get better, like if you start taking these antibiotics and tomorrow it's not better, we need you to cut it, come in. We're going to cut your knee open and clean it. Cause that's how they take care of it. And I was like, sure. I was like, I'm not coming back here. You know, like I'm going to take these antibiotics. Cause otherwise you can't fight. Then I can't fight. So, uh, yeah. So that was a shitty situation, but
Just pretty much really bad, maybe three times. Three times. Yeah, three times. Maybe, like, pretty bad. Yeah, it's such a scary thing because it fucking kills people. Yeah, it does. Staff gets systemic, gets in your bloodstream, and you can die. Dude, that's why I think I freaked out really bad with my knee is because I remember laying in bed and being like... I called my wife and just set the phone next. I was like, hey, like, until you get home, like, can you just be on the phone? Because...
I'm kind of afraid I'm about to die a little bit. Whoa! Yeah, it was really... It got, like, really scary there for a second. Was it swollen? So it was an external abrasion? It was super swollen, yeah. It was super swollen. No, no, no, it wasn't an abrasion one. It was, like, inside of mine. So it was internal. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, so that really wasn't good. But I remember every time I've taken antibiotics with the staph infection, my experience has been that it gets really painful and a lot worse for like the first few hours when the antibiotics kick in and start killing it. And then it starts to get better. But the first couple of hours is like kind of scary. So when I first started taking the antibiotics, that's when I called my wife because she
i don't take a lot of medicine like if i take an ibuprofen i will feel that working through my entire body um and yeah so i like took the antibiotics and i started to feel it through my body and i was like this is scary and i was like hey like
till you get home let's uh be on the phone because i'm afraid i'm about to pass out and die here i know that's terrifying but i didn't want to go to the dock and then get cut open and not be able to fight because that fight had already got canceled and so i was like yeah i know we're always putting tough spots i know but sometimes you just gotta do that sometimes you have to cancel a fight
I know nobody likes to hear that, but it's so different than boxing. Boxing, you get so few fight cancellations. It's much less. But when you're wrestling, when you're grappling, you're constantly getting kicked and punched, and you're doing so many different things. The odds of you getting injured are so much higher. I know. Gordon got staff for a fucking year.
Like that's why his stomach is all fucked up Gordon Ryan was on antibiotics for a year and his internal gut bacteria His flora is just torched damn. He's just a mess damn can't keep food down He has this like constant fight-or-flight reaction in his body where he wants to vomit all the time and he's going through training camps and beating everybody in grappling matches against the best in the world and
That's how good he is. Yeah. Like with staff for 12 years or excuse me, 12 months. And then on top of that, this lingering stomach thing because of that, that no doctor seems to figure out. They can't fix it. He's gone to like every fight. They've given a bunch of different shit. He's tried peptides and this and that. You get a little bit of improvement. He starts training hard again, comes back. Yeah.
There's probably some like old lady in the Amazon jungle that knows how to cure that shit. I told them like, Just eat this, stupid. I told them try like a seven day fast. Yeah. Try something nutty like that. Or like an only avocados diet. I mean,
I mean, there's got to be something. There's got to be something. There's got to be something. But I would think like a fast where you just, I feel like you're just completely let your gut reset. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Do you do those? No. No. Yeah. I've done a day. Yeah. I've never done like the long one. Dana just did a long one. He did like three days. He said it was awesome. He said by the end of it, you feel fucking amazing.
Yeah, I did the three-day one. I was like, fuck, dude, I was just hungry for three days. What the fuck? I don't feel like a superhero at all. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, maybe it's variable. The one thing that I'm really big on...
is I like won't fuck, like, um, I'm really in touch with what's going on usually with, uh, like my body and stuff. I'm really big on, I don't know why it doesn't get talked about more, but like digestive, like things that mess up my digestive system, I don't mess around with at all. Like what kind of stuff? Like bread, pizzas, too much cheese, stuff like that. Like, um, bread's fucking terrible.
It is, dude. Every time I eat pizza, I can't shit the next day. It's not even pizza. It's American pizza. It's our wheat. Our wheat is poisoned. It really is. It's sprayed with folic acid and all the nutrients are pulled out of it. There's glyphosate in the wheat. That's what's really going on. It's also a re-engineered wheat, so it's got more gluten. It's more complex gluten, so it's got a higher yield per acre. So your body's like...
What is this? Causes all this inflammation. When I go to Italy, I eat pizza over there. I eat a whole pizza. I feel great. Oh, really? You can shit nice the next day? I feel great. I never have a problem shitting. But I do feel bloated. My gut swells. I'll eat a giant bowl of spaghetti or something like that. And then I look like I'm pregnant.
Yeah. It's horrible. Yeah, I don't mess around with that. I feel so tired. Just like I got shot with a tranquilizer dart. But I'm so dumb. I keep going back to it. I know, dude. It's hard not to, dude. You're just like, surely this will work this time. It's just, it's so delicious. Like, I see a plate of lasagna. I'm like, fuck it. We're going in.
You know, but I know what I'm getting into when I do it. I know. I actually don't get like that anymore. I have like a weird relationship with food now where that shit is just fuel to me kind of. Yeah. When I'm like low in weight, I get cravings. But right now when I'm like just kind of good, not hungry, not like overdoing it and stuff, I don't really feel like I get too many cravings for shitty stuff. Do you have a nutritionist or anything like that? I use a nutritionist inside my camps. Yeah. She's great. What's an average meal for you? Um...
I wish that I like actually gave a shit so I could follow and actually be more helpful. There's two things I really don't care about is strength and conditioning and nutrition. I'm like, just like, tell me, I like, don't explain it to me. Just make me do it. Just tell me what to do and I'll just do that thing. Um, but it's actually a lot more food than what you'd think. And I can lose a lot of weight when, when she has me do it, she do it. Um,
trying to think what it is it's more so a lot of carbs more towards the end of the day like before because I really don't sleep good usually when I'm really training a lot my nervous system is like not ever down so at night I'd usually won't sleep well so I'll eat like a big
big bowl of oatmeal at night. Everyone is kind of different. What I will say though, that I would big time recommend to fighters and stuff is after hard workouts, drinking dextrose or Gatorade with like some electrolytes. If you have multiple workouts in a day, that's a giant game changer. Um, like, cause there's a little bit of a window from my understanding. I don't really know how the shit works, but there's a little bit of a window where
it's like 45 like 20 to 45 minutes after you're done working where your body will just take sugar and put it back into your muscles right and so i'll drink a shitload of sugar after like really hard workouts like really hard sparring sessions like 50 60 grams of sugar which is insane but but not when you're training that hard yeah not when you're training that hard yeah he drinks like he'll drink a coca-cola after training
And it's probably good for you. When you're training that hard, it's not like people say, oh, soda's bad for you. Well, sure, if you're just drinking soda. But if you're fucking running marathons or something crazy like that, or you're doing something really exhausting, it's really good for you right after a workout. Yeah, definitely. Especially if you have multiple workouts. That's one big thing that she does that I added in. Yeah.
In the morning, it's like a pretty balanced thing, though. It's not like no fat, no carbs. It's like nothing like that. It's like a pretty balanced... It's a lot of protein. What's the sources of protein? I drink a lot of protein shakes. I get it. I'm like a part owner in this company called Vegane, so I just get like a shitload of protein for free pretty much. Is it pea protein, so it's vegan protein? It's vegan protein. The other ones kind of mess up my stomach a little bit. Oh, really? Just the ones that are made out of...
Like milk and... Oh, like whey. Yeah. Whey makes you fart like crazy. Yeah, yeah. Those ones... Yeah, I'm... If I drink... If I take something, I almost immediately know if it's gonna mess with my digestive system and I can't be having that while I'm, like, rolling around with dudes and shit. I know. There's certain protein bars, like... Yeah. Peter Atiyah has this great protein bar called David. They're fucking so delicious. Mm-hmm. But whenever I eat one, I have to, like, go outside. Yeah.
Because my farts are so bad. I don't even want to be in the house. What is it, the fiber or the protein? I don't know what's in them. They're delicious. It's low-calorie, high-protein. I think it's like a small bar. It's like 30 grams of protein. But whatever it is, your body's just like, fuck this. What is this? I generally think that anything that does that to you can't be ideal. It just can't be good for you. So I'd rather just eat a piece of steak or something like that. It's not better for you.
America's beverage companies are investing in America. We're American companies making American products with American workers in America's hometowns. We're local bottlers and manufacturers operating in all 50 states, employing more than 275,000 Americans in good-paying jobs, delivering for the nation because we believe in the promise of America.
and the people who make it great. Learn more at wedeliverforamerica.org. Paid for by the American Beverage Association.
This episode is brought to you by Acorns. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing in your future. You don't need to be rich. Acorns lets you get started with the spare money you've got right now, even if all you've got is spare change. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns recommends a diversified portfolio that can help you weather all the market's ups and downs.
You just need to stick with it, and Acorns makes that easy too. Acorns automatically invests your money, giving it a chance to grow with time. Sign up now and join over 14 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $25 billion with Acorns. Plus, Acorns will boost your new account with a $20 bonus investment.
Offer available at acorns.com slash J-R-E. That's A-C-O-R-N-S dot com slash J-R-E to get your $20 bonus investment today.
Paid non-client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com slash JRE. Yeah.
Um, outside, but I also have different cravings in camp too. Like outside of camp, I'll, I'll do a little bit like more fruits and stuff like that instead of a bunch of rice or potatoes or whatever. You don't eat fruits when you're in camp? I still do, but it's not as much as you'd think. Like, it's like maybe a cup, cup or two a day. Um,
I'll do that. It's not a ton of vegetables, but it's like specific vegetables because I've been getting a lot of staff. It's like ones that counteract like staff stuff. She's, do you like take fermented stuff like kimchi and things along those lines? Uh, that's a piece of it. Um,
Fermented stuff is good. It's like a decent amount of garlic stuff like turmeric stuff that garlic apparently there was a study that was done with garlic with like external staph infections and it's as effective or more effective than antibiotics Yeah, I believe that yeah garlic fucking kills everything There's a reason why like a lot of people use it in their food a lot of cultures uses in their food It's to prevent food poisoning. So dude when I got when I got that the knee infection staph
I was like, all right, I'm just going to try to kill this with a bunch of garlic. And dude, I was taking like 10 or 15 garlic pills, like the high potency ones. Dude, after about two days of that, I shit out every single piece of shit inside my body that ever existed. The ones that were up in the attic just chilling, bro.
All of it came out. I was like, ooh, a little hack there, you know? So maybe you don't have to fast for three days. You can just fucking eat a bunch of garlic and shit everything out. Why did you go with the pills and not the cloves? Just because it's more convenient?
Like just eating garlic cloves? Yeah, eating garlic cloves. I don't know if I would do that. I eat garlic cloves sometimes. You cook them? No, I just eat them raw. Oh, okay. Because it feels like it's doing something. All right. If I'm not feeling good, I'll eat garlic. I'll eat raw cloves, like three or four cloves. Then your body's like, whoa. Oh, really? Yeah.
Yeah. They don't give you indigestion and stuff? A little bit, maybe. But really what it does is it feels like you just took a drug. It feels like you took a medicine. Really? Yeah. All right. How many do you eat? Four? Three, four. Three, four? Yeah. I'll try that. Some fat cloves. Just chew them down. They taste nasty. Okay. Like while you're eating. I feel like I've tried that. Yeah, I've tried that. Yeah.
But I mean, I think there's something to like ancient medicine. Like people have been taking garlic. I mean, obviously it has something to do with taste. Thousand-year-old onion and garlic eye remedy kills MRSA. Thousand years old. Whoa, look at that cool ass language. Is that the recipe right there? Yeah, it is. Look at that cool language. What is that language? It's an Anglo-Saxon manuscript. Whoa.
Whoa, look how wild that language is. People used to draw some. Old English, I guess. Wow. I guess you can probably read it. So, astonished to find an almost completely wiped out methicillin-resistant staphylococcus. How do you say that? Staphylococcus? Yeah, I always try to say that. Staphylococcus? Staphylococcus. Staphylococcus.
Isn't that wild, man? Like, there's stuff that works that, like, people have been doing for thousands of years, but...
People dismiss it as being voodoo. Yeah. You know what else is a cool one too is like a tip. Do you cramp up a lot ever? No, I take a lot of electrolytes. Okay. I used to. I used to, but then I really, I drink element like almost like every day basically. Nice.
My PT a long time ago recommended that, because I used to cramp up a lot. Spicy food, I guess, makes you not cramp up as much. Oh, really? Yeah. So like about 10 years ago when he told me that, now I love spicy food and I don't really need to force myself to eat it. But when he first told me that, I started eating a bunch of spicy stuff and I stopped cramping up as much. Maybe that's why I don't cramp up. I eat a lot of spicy food. Yeah, that might be why because...
They have these little things that the UFC gives us, too, called hot shots, where if you're cutting weight, you're supposed to drink it. And it's pretty much just cinnamon and cayenne and some other stuff. Yeah, and it's supposed to stop you from cramping. It works, though. No kidding. I wonder what the mechanism is of that. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I love hot sauce. So I have my own kind of hot sauce. Like, Senior Lechuga made a little line of three hot sauces for me. But how do spicy foods prevent cramping? Okay. Science is simple. Okay.
If your neurons are too busy firing off to your mouth, they won't have time to bother cramping up your muscles. What? That sounds pretend. Wow. That's crazy. That sounds pretend. It does. Dr. McKinnon. Just trick them. Trick your body, stupid. Distract them. Look over here. Found that spicy drinks help prevent these short bursts of muscle cramps. He teamed up with a biotech company to produce a product that can be sold online and found on the shelves at select stores. Hot shot. There it is.
A drinkable shot mixed with ginger and cinnamon. Ironman champ Craig Alexander is an avid user of the supplement along with several other Rio Olympic runners. Interesting. It works, dude, because the second I started doing that, I stopped cramping up. I still get one every once in a while. It's not like a 100% thing, but it works.
Yeah, muscle cramps must be brutal when you're cutting weight, right? Because you're draining your body of basically everything. Yeah. Yeah, I don't – my weight cuts I'm pretty like – I kind of got down to a science a little bit. I don't really cramp super bad. How much do you cut? A week before I try to be like 16 to 18 pounds heavy over.
And then I'll lose that last bit that week. But I'll walk around if I'm really fat, like on vacation and shit, not giving a... Just not caring. I'll be about 162 when I'm training good and like...
All of that will be about 157, 158, and then I just got to lose until I'm about 52, 51 the week before, and then that week I lose the rest. The week is a calorie restriction in the beginning and then water restriction? How do you do it? It's a decent – so 10 days away I start loading up on water.
Like the rule of thumb is however many pounds you got to lose. That's how many pounds of water you'll drink that day So if I have 16 to lose I'd have to drink two gallons of water Also, don't take any of my advice if you're listening to because I don't really fucking know I know that like water shit can get really scary So I don't you know, like people chugging distilled water of like killed themselves and yeah distilled water. Is that what you drink? No, no, no Yeah
But yeah, 10 days away, I start loading up on the water. And then on the Tuesday, so we weigh in Friday. So however many days before that is on Tuesday, you'll do the cut the sodium. And then that pretty much you lose a lot when you're chugging that much water and cut sodium. So I would say on Tuesday, a lot of it is water. And then it's kind of up to me how crazy I want to go with food. I'm obviously not eating like
super huge meals that week, but I don't let myself get too hungry. I'm pretty good about a lot of stuff where now I can kind of be like, if I go to bed, like at like an eight amount of hunger instead of like a seven, I'll know almost exactly how much I'll lose the next day, which is like kind of cool. How much of a performance hit do you think you have? I mean, obviously you're in phenomenal condition, but how much of a hit do you think you have in dehydrating yourself 24 hours before a fight? Oh,
I think it depends on how much water you lose too. I think just off the top of my head, maybe 15 or 20.
15 to 20 percent maybe so what do you what would you think about if the UFC instituted more weight classes and they eliminated weight cuts like what if they said like because it is for some guys it is the most dangerous part of the fight because some guys go hard yeah some guys are losing 26 30 pounds within a couple of days and they just look like hell
Yeah. I think that the way to solve that, because one's tried doing that with like the rehydration tests and everyone that I talked to that's like been involved with that has been like, dude, I could cheat that easy. Oh really? Yeah. Um, but how do they cheat it?
I mean, there's just like, if you know that you're going to get like hydrate tested at a certain time, I'm sure that they probably just drink most of their water during that time or something like that. But then your weight would be higher, right? Yeah, your weight would have to be higher, but I don't know that they like test you. Yeah, yeah, I guess I don't really know, honestly, but...
I mean, if they're going to test you, do they test you like, hey, your weight has to be this and then your hydrate? I think that they just go in and they're like, hey, how yellow is your piss type of thing, you know? I'm pretty sure that that's what it might be. If it's like more scientific, then cool. But it might just be like, hey. It's got to be more scientific because sometimes my piss is pretty yellow. It just meant I drank a lot of vitamins. Yeah.
You know, I think there's like an actual test where they test the levels. I think that if you added in more weight classes, that would handle a lot of it. I'd probably just do 140. Would you? Probably. Would that be ideal for you? That'd be pretty ideal. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the UFC should have more weight classes, and I've said this for a long time. I just think this...
There's some gaps that are crazy. Like the 85-205 gap is nuts. 20 pounds is nuts. That's crazy. That's nuts. That's three weight classes at least in between fights. Or in between classes rather. That's nuts. I just don't understand that. Yeah. I mean, I think that the way that old sports kind of do things, they do things for a reason. So like boxing and wrestling, they all have like –
It's every seven pounds or whatever it is. I know, but the UFC is like, oh, too many champions that way. It's too confusing. I'm like, what are you talking about? It's one UFC champion per weight class. Yeah. You'd have more champions, and then you could also have more champion versus champion fights. Yeah, for sure. Because it wouldn't be like... Ilya going up 10 pounds is not too crazy. Yeah.
But Alex, when he went from 85 to 205, that was pretty crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. That's a big-ass jump, man. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, he could do it because he's one of the craziest weight cutters of all time. He was fighting 85 and weighing in at 226 the day of the fight. What? Really? Oh, yeah. When he fought Adesanya, he was 226 when he got into the cage. Is that 41 pounds or 31 pounds? 41 pounds.
So after 36 hours he put on that? 41 pounds. Yeah. Holy shit, dude. Holy shit, dude. That's crazy. He's also a giant. Yeah.
He's an enormous guy. It's like a lot of body mass. Yeah. And apparently it's easier to cut weight like Yoel Romero style, like when you're that muscular because most of the muscle is water, which is kind of counterintuitive. You think like a fat guy, you could be able to lose more weight. But no, it's actually to dry out, the big muscular guys can lose more weight. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I have a theory too, like the more ripped you are, the easier it is to sweat too.
Because if your muscle is like muscle then fat then skin and you gotta like it's got to travel through the fat This is how I fucking think there's probably there's no evidence of any of that because there are some fat so's that sweat but I don't know sometimes I'm like I can just see who's gonna be a good sweater and who's not but that's probably me just being Yeah, I don't know if there's any science to that
Makes sense in your head. Kind of. Makes sense in your head. I kind of see what you're saying. I kind of see what you're saying. But you could also, I guess, make an argument that fat makes you warmer too. Maybe that sweats it out too. Yeah. But I don't think that there would be a problem with doing multiple weight classes because then you would just have like what you do in boxing where you just have like a ton of, you have like one dude with like eight belts. Right. That would be cool. Like look at Pacquiao. Yeah. He just keeps going up in weight classes and.
Yeah, I think that it'd just be better for the athletes, and I think it'd be better for the sport in general. You're still going to have incredible fights because the level of competition, particularly at the lowest weight classes, is so high right now. I think your weight class, featherweight and lightweight are the most competitive weight classes in the sport, and there's almost...
too many top contenders where guys are forced to take fights that maybe you really shouldn't take that fight because you're kind of entitled contention and then, oh, you lose a close decision. Fuck, now you're back to the drawing board. Now you got to fight this guy. Oh, you got injured in camp. Fuck, you lose to that guy too. Now you're set back when you could have been a champion. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of like weirdness going on with possibilities and...
you know, just luck, bad luck and good luck. Bad luck and good luck. Timing, I think is a big thing. Um, like I think that I'm pretty, I was even saying this before the Figueredo fight. I was like, watch, like,
If I go out and finish Figgy, which not a lot of people are able to do, the timing of everything is going to be perfect for me because there will be no one else. And that's me also, you know, coming off of a loss from Umar just a year ago, which anytime you lose, it's kind of devastating. You're like, oh, it'll never happen for me, you know, but...
But then it's like, oh, wait. No, if I just... If this thing gets timed out right, you know, like, it could work out. So a lot of this shit is timing. You lost, though, but it was a competitive close fight. Yeah, I know. I fucked that one up. What did you think went wrong? More than anything, okay, it was like a...
It's never just one thing. It's always like things get compiled and then they exponentially get worse. One big thing was I knew I was fighting in the Middle East and I wasn't going to get like a nod if it was a close fight. And Umar is a defensive guy and I'm a defensive guy. And I knew that it would be there was potential for rounds to be really close. My game plan wasn't going to be to take him down. So anytime you're going to be like, hey, like I'm committing to striking, I'm
There is a little bit of a level of rolling the dice because one, striking matches in a five minute round are really hard to like hammer down and be like, I won this round against really high level guys. That's my opinion.
I thought that I would be able to stuff most of the shots. I was like, okay, most of this thing is going to be done striking. I need to have big moments in order for me to feel like I'm really winning these rounds so that there can be no argument that I'm losing. And if we just are point scoring each other, which Umar is good at and I'm good at,
I'm kind of rolling the dice a little bit and kind of leaving it into the hands of who God knows who the judges are, you know? So a piece of it was, I didn't want to lose another close split decision. Like a lot of my losses or a couple of my losses are just close split decisions. And I'm like, fucking man, I'm not, I'd rather just go for it than lose, you know? But that pulled me out of my game plan. Um, and just the way that I typically fight, like I'm not the guy that hunts for knockouts, you know, I'm just not that guy. Um,
And so I just got pulled out of my strategy. I got really frustrated in the fight by it not working, like me not being able to have really big moments. And now looking back, I'm just like, man, what were you thinking? Like, just go out and fight like how you do and you'll do awesome. What do you think specifically like you would have done different in exchanges? I would have fought him the exact same way that I would have fought the first. Like that entire fight, I was being really defensive, right?
and just looking for one big shot. In the first round, I didn't fight like that. The first round, I was cool with point scoring. I was like, okay, this guy's going to wrestle me. Let's see how good he is at wrestling and if I can hang. Once I was like, oh, okay, cool, I can hang. Then I just started going for big shots, which is just not a good way to beat a really high-level guy. It's kind of a lazy game plan, honestly. If the plan isn't to completely outclass the person and win in every area and be good enough to do so...
In my opinion, that's just like not an expression of the highest level of martial arts. That's a little bit lazy, you know, and I was, I was a little bit lazy and maybe my approach to that, which may be lazy isn't the right word, but, um,
I could have done a lot better at just trusting myself more, being more confident in my ability to just be like, no, like I'll, I'll beat him everywhere. You know, looking for the big shots is always such a trap until it's not, until it's not. And you look real cool when it happens. Oh my goodness. And we all like looking cool. Yeah. You land the big ones and you've landed a lot of the big ones. Yeah. And you've had so many of those moments like the Frankie Edgar fight or, you know, there's been quite the Marlon Marais fight. That was a wild,
one. That was a great one. That was probably like my happiest moment maybe ever in life. Just because I had just come off the most embarrassing loss ever against Sterling. And they were like, hey, you want to fight the number one guy in Abu Dhabi during COVID? And I was like, and that was like kind of back when Marlon was still a really scary guy. He's kind of been on a skid since then. But back then he was real scary. And I was like,
I don't know if you guys are setting me up for Marlon to knock me the fuck out or how this is... Like, what the thinking behind me fighting the number one contender is. But I was like, yeah, cool. Like, if you guys are going to give me that shot, I'll take it for sure. And then when I finished it, I was just like, yes. And you finished it with a wheel kick. Yeah, which I... During COVID, was practicing in my basement with my wife, like, every day. Isn't that stupid? I was like, man, you should have asked me for a cut. No, because it's a thing where, you know, if you...
you don't expect it from a guy who doesn't really throw a lot. Yeah. You know? And so like you see his foot turn and you're like, what's going on here? And before you know it, it's too late. Yeah. And that heel is headed towards your dome. Yeah. People that are good at those too. Um,
It's a problem. Oh yeah. Like that doesn't need to land anywhere specific for it to like rattle your brain enough to knock you down. Oh, it's a terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. It is so much power. Yeah. If there was one thing I, I would not want to get hit with, it would be that. My, uh, during my Taekwondo days, uh, I,
I used to feel like I was always going to be fine. Like I'd be, I was like, I felt like, you know, I was young. I was 19. I felt invulnerable and I was really good. And I fought in the nationals in California and I hit this kid with a wheel kick and he never got up and he was snoring. Like out face plant, out cold,
Taken off in a stretcher taken to the hospital and I never felt the same about fighting again because I was always scared that that could happen to me then cuz I was like doing this for nothing There's no money. I was doing this for nothing. I had no health insurance I was poor and I was like, what am I doing? Yeah, like this is like I could have easily got hit by that same kick But I was better than him and I landed but there's guys that are better than me and if they hit me like that I
Face down snow. I mean it was my heel hurt for days. Yeah, I was limping the next day my knee hurt after the frame Yeah, oh really? Yeah Yeah, but I kind of felt a similar way where I don't know I guess you kind of just get used to that where you're just like but you're a professional. Yeah, that's your sport That's your your living. This is what you do for me. I was
a young kid doing this thing that I was really good at and it just gave me like some sense of purpose and then I was like what the fuck man so how like so you didn't have like big aspiring dreams to be like a taekwondo champ or anything I had dreams to be an olympic to the olympic to go to the olympics but
Was that like a realistic dream? Yes. Yeah. You were that good? Yeah, I was that good. Cool. I had won national tournaments and I'd beaten guys that had been in high ranking. And I had a very close decision. I thought I should have won the year that Taekwondo made it into the Olympics against the national champion. Cool. So I was good. And I was really young. So I was getting better all the time. Yeah. But then I started kickboxing.
And when I started training in kickboxing, I realized that Taekwondo was kind of bullshit because my hands sucked and I would spar with kickboxers and I was getting cornered in the ropes and I didn't have the skills. And I was like, oh, this is like, I have this distorted perception of my ability to fight based on my ability to fight in Taekwondo. I was really good at that. But then when I started boxing and kickboxing, I was like,
This is like that piece that's missing in Taekwondo without the face punching. It nullifies so much of what Taekwondo is good at. Yeah. But then when I learned that stuff, I realized like, oh, but I have a massive advantage with my legs because they have to close the distance with me and I can do things they can't do. Like regular kickboxers, I was amazed at how many of them were just kind of
boxers who learned a few shitty kicks and they would stand on the outside and they would take a step forward and I'd just blast them and they just had no idea what to do like a really hard kicker and then I started doing Muay Thai and I was like fuck leg kicks and so I went from American kickboxing above the waist to Muay Thai I was like there's too much to learn and then I was doing comedy at the same time so I just quit fighting I gotta get out before I get hurt when did you start grappling?
Hotels in Vegas may be booked solid this weekend, but there's one vacancy left to be filled at UFC 317. A new lightweight champ will be crowned. Grab your own crown at DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of the UFC. Teporia takes on Oliveira to fill the vacant men's lightweight title, and Alexandre Pantoja defends his flyweight belt against Kai Carafrance.
in the co-main event. Who are you taking? First time betting on UFC at DraftKings? Just pick something simple, like a fighter to win, and make your pick. It's that easy. And if you're new to DraftKings, check this out. New customers who bet $5 will get $150 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use the code ROGAN. That's code ROGAN for new customers to get $150 in bonus bets instantly.
instantly when you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings, the crown is yours.
This episode is brought to you by ChiliPad by SleepMe. Quality sleep isn't always about how long you sleep, but how well you sleep. And science tells us temperature plays a massive role in that. ChiliPad is on a mission to elevate the quality of human life through cool sleep. But ChiliPad isn't just about cooling. It's precision temperature control for better sleep and recovery.
Set your ideal sleep temperature between 55 and 115 degrees for deeper sleep, better recovery, and improved sleep scores. Chili Pad fits over your existing mattress and lets you and your sleep partner sleep at different temperatures. With Chili Pad, dominate the day, recover at night. Visit ChiliPad.com.
Sleep.me slash Rogan to get your ChiliPad and save up to $500 with the code Rogan. Order your ChiliPad today with free shipping and returns and try it out for 30 days with their sleep trial. Visit sleep.me slash Rogan. Sleep smarter, recover faster, perform better. When I was 30.
Cool. Yeah. I started grappling right at, I guess I was 29. It was right after the first UFC. Did you like wrestle at all or anything? Yeah, I wrestled in high school, but only one year because I was doing Taekwondo at the same time and I had to pick one. And I did a year of both. And then I was like, the problem with this is like, I'd rather kick someone and knock them unconscious. Like that's.
It was so, to just whack and hear the whole crowd go silent was the wildest thing. And watch someone cry, I fucking loved it. It was my favorite thing in life. And I was like, wrestling is cool. Like, it's good to know. It's good to be able to pin people. But there was no UFC back then. So it was like, everything you were doing was just like, you had to find a thing and get really good at it.
But the disillusionment of going from Taekwondo to boxing and kickboxing and then to Muay Thai and then jujitsu. So when I started doing jujitsu, I was like, oh, my God, I'm fucking completely helpless. So I had this thing in my head. Well, at least I know how to leg kick. I know how to box now. I know how to fight. Oh, my God, I'm tapping out constantly. And so then I was like, fuck, I got to learn how to do jujitsu. But it was this thing where...
You know, I feel real fortunate to have grown up in a time where no one knew what was the best style and then see the UFC emerge in 93 and then watch this incredible transformation of martial arts where martial arts advances more in 10, 20 years than it had the last 30,000 years. It was incredible to watch. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm glad that they did it, man, because that's such a cool question is whose martial arts is the best martial arts. No one knew, man. And we were all delusional. I was so delusional. Like, I remember I used to do Taekwondo with a friend of mine. We were kickboxing at the time, and we were doing it at this gym where these judo guys were. And I was like, look at these idiots with this stupid judo. That's useless. Meanwhile, I had no idea. If those guys got a hold of me, I was fucking helpless. Yeah, because judo guys will slam you on your head. Yeah.
Dude, rolling with judo guys. I remember I rolled with Carl Parisi once. I was like, he's like a chimpanzee. He was so strong. It didn't make any sense. We were roughly the same size. And he just ragdolled me around. I was like, there's something to throwing down.
bodies all the time. You know, you're taking, if you're a 180 pound guy, you're throwing a 180 pound person over and over and over again. And your whole core is just fucking primed for that. Boom! And their balance and their ability to adjust your weight and use it against you. Watching it in the Olympics is awesome. Because they'll like spear their own heads. Oh yeah. That's crazy. That is crazy. I like watching that shit. That's like, oh my god. Yeah, oh, you'd have to, dude. Yeah.
Like the way that they land on it. Yeah. So many of those guys, like you see them later in their career, they got like one small arm.
arm because their fucking nerves are all shut off in their neck and fused discs and they're just like i did a good job a fucking great career you can't even walk man it's nuts every taekwondo guy i know has like one super strong oblique and they're like shaped like this and well you gotta learn how to kick from both sides yeah that's so important that's one thing that i really admire about your style because i think that there's there's gonna be a time where that is just you
ubiquitous where everybody switches because there's so many guys that are just like oh he's a southpaw oh he fights orthodox like man that's just leaving too much to predictability yeah I think about striking like a dance dance revolution game where like because you're making all the reads with your eyes it's like left arms coming at me move like right
right leg whatever uh it's not like grappling we're grappling we get to interact with each other and feel each other and move each other that way and i can pretty much sometimes do it with my eyes closed right striking is done mostly with our eyes so we have to do like these dance dance revolutioning like okay react to everything that we're seeing so if i'm just switching my stance and now you have to like read the sentence backwards exactly it gets really hard you know and um
Especially if you're just as good with both sides. Yes, yes. And I would say that if you're starting, you don't need to be super stellar at both, but just have a couple good attacks to do from your other stance and then just build off of there or whatever. I started switching stances, one, because I really liked watching Nenito Denair
who wouldn't like fully switch, but he would have like kind of steps like that where I was like, oh, cool. And then also I dislocated my elbow really bad about like a week and a half into training, just landed on it, posted, dislocated it. And so I could only, or that was my left arm, so I could only use my right arm. So for like six months, I just went lefty and only used my right arm
as like my lead hand and that's how I got really good at it. Yeah, just forcing yourself to just constantly be in that position because everybody wants to be in the position where they're the most strong, especially if you're trying to be competitive and sparring, right? That's like what's so important about like the Gracies always talk about keeping things playful, right?
Like learning how to like not don't try to win. You're trying to develop your skills and to be able to switch. I think like TJ in his prime, like when TJ fought Hennon Burrell, that fight to me was one of the best championship performances that I ever saw. I agree. Because nobody thought TJ was going to win that fight. Hennon Burrell was thought to be the number one pound for it was him and Aldo. Yeah. Would people make the argument or who's the best? Hennon Burrell was I think he was undefeated or maybe had one loss in early his career.
He was an animal at the time. Animal. Animal. Animal. And TJ pieced him up. And it was like he was sparring. He looked so in the zone and relaxed, and he was constantly switching stances and footwork and angles. Yeah. Dwayne flew me out for that fight because that's when they were training at Alpha Male to be TJ's sparring partner for one of those fights. I'm almost positive it was that one. I remember the whole time I was like...
this isn't going to go good for TJ, you know, because Burrell was just that guy at the time that everyone was afraid of. And then when I watched it, I was like,
Oh, shit. That shit really works good. I used to train in the Netherlands a little bit, too, with Andy Sauer and those guys. Oh, really? Yeah, so that was really cool. But it's like traditional. You stand in one stance. This is how we do shit here, you know? And I was switching stances. I was probably the gay guy at the gym a little bit. Being kind of flamboyant and show-off-y. So I remember going with some of...
sours good guys and just good guys that we would spar with and I wouldn't really get hit that much and I was like Oh shit, this like actually works like this isn't just some like foo-foo whatever stuff, you know It's crazy that Dwayne developed that style, but he didn't fight that way. Yeah, that's what's crazy Yeah, like Dwayne had like more of a traditional he always boss rootin inspired style and
Then he realizes like you know the best way to fight is actually to constantly be changed and then he develops this system And you know Dwayne's like super focused. I know you know this but yeah for people don't know Dwayne has like a notebook Fucking just filled with notes, and it's all like he's got system. This is his life Yeah, it's not like what Adesanya likes to call button smashing when you're playing a game like no it's very systematic
And TJ, I think, in that Hennon Burrell fight was the greatest expression of what Dwayne teaches. Yep, yep. Yeah, that was a super amazing fight. Yeah, just switching. I mean, just simple little stuff, you know? Like, it's... A lot of striking is just, like, how coordinated you are. Like, that's, like, a big piece of striking. And then, can I just overwhelm you with information? Like, that's, like, a strategy to run, you know? Some people choose, like...
Okay, I'm willing to take a few to like land my big one, you know, that's like an okay strategy It works for guys like Elia and stuff That's true, too. He has like a way way good guard. He rolls with stuff like the Josh. Yes fight Yeah, you know he like takes the like slides away from stuff and these big bombs are coming his way He's doing like the highest form like intellectually He's doing that style at its highest expression with the strategy of I'm about to knock you the fuck out. Yeah
Which shouldn't be everyone's strategy. Well, you have to have that touch of death. Yeah, that's true. And he's got that God-given power. His power is fucking crazy, man. It is crazy. Trevor's actually helped me understand why it works really good. So, okay, so not to get crazy technical with it, I guess. Let's get technical. Let's get in there. All right, cool. Yeah.
So squared and bladed stances. When you're in a squared stance, you can move really good left to right. That was most of my career was being like I'm I came from a basketball background. I know that I'm very quick and agile and I can move left right really good.
If I just keep my hands up, whatever, it'll be fine probably, you know? So a lot of squared stand stuff is I'm just going to cut left, right, overwhelm this person with all of my weapons and angles and always constantly make them move off of the things I'm doing and not the other way around. That's good, but it's really hard to like get a ton of leverage, right?
in anything that you're doing when you're standing square. Like, I can't... Like, if I'm going to throw a ball, I don't throw a ball like this. Right. I throw a ball like this. Right. You have your shoulder behind the other shoulder. Yeah. So squared stance is super good for being agile, moving left, right, and overwhelming people with the amount of attacks that you could throw at them. Because also, if I'm standing square, all of my weapons are really available for me to throw. Like, it doesn't take...
Like this is faster than this. Just because it's like six inches closer or whatever. In a bladed stance, you get a fuckload of leverage because if you watch Ilya, he's always standing like he's about to throw a javelin. And that's pretty much what he's doing is just like...
and this is kind of like the science of boxing a little bit. Like I said, that Trevor helped me with. So I'm a lot more bladed now than I was because now we're trying to get like some serious leverage on stuff because five round fights moving the entire time fighting these really good wrestlers. It can get to the point where it's like, it just gets quirky and just like a little bitchy looking, you know? And like,
I don't really want to like tap people to victory, you know? For a long time I would compensate in being like, "Alright, but I'll have wheel kicks, knees and elbows." And that like took me a decent amount of ways too where it's like, "Cool, now I can finish guys like that also." But these bladed stances where you can make a shitload of leverage with them are really cool.
I think finding a balance between the two is really awesome. Ilya is like only, and that's just my expression of my martial arts. I want to be like the jack of all trades guys and be able to be like, oh, you're that style. I'll just archetype you in this style. But Ilya is like always ready to throw javelin and he's really good at closing space with his lead leg. Like he'll like jab, hook, and really creep his lead leg near and then just bomb a right hand because he is a shorter guy, but he never seems like,
He's having that much of an issue getting super inside. Well, it's going to be interesting seeing him at 55. That will be interesting. Because these are much bigger guys. Like, think about Mauricio Rufi. Yeah. He's a 55er. And he moves good and has leverage. And he's fucking gigantic. Yeah. How tall is Rufi? I mean, he's got to be 6'1", maybe 6'2". And he's 55 and he's not thin. Yeah. I mean, he's lean, but he's not like scrawny. He's got muscle. Yeah.
He's fucking huge for 55. There's some 55. And Ilya, as powerful as he is, he's not that big. And it's going to be interesting to see because of this 10-pound... 10 pounds is just like... It's a lot of weight, man. You know, it's like...
When you're dealing with a hundred and fifty five pound person, it's a significant percentage of your body weight Especially when everyone's cutting like 30 pounds. I don't know what roof he cuts, but when I see him walking around he looks like he's 190 pounds Yeah, you know like Islam Islam is fucking huge. Yeah, he's big dude. Yeah, when I interview him in the cage afterwards I'm always like how?
Really? How are you 155? Yeah. How? I know. How? He's thick as fuck. He's got a giant back. Yeah. And when he gets a hold of guys, it's like he's just got this leverage, this grappling squeeze that it's...
I remember when he fought Drew Dober. And, like, when he got Dober down to the ground, I was like, that's a wrap. Yeah. It's a wrap. As soon as he gets on top. And then he starts clamping down and squeezing. And guys are just like, Oliveira was tapping, like, the moment it was on. He was like, fuck this. Yeah. A lot of those really good grappler guys, they're strong, definitely. But they're really strong at closing up all of the space. Like, I can...
if you let me get an underhook, like I can feel pretty strong. Like even if you're much bigger than me, I'll like make you take a couple of steps back, which really shouldn't happen. But if I just close up all of the space, which I think is a big component of being a really good grappler is being able to be like, Nope, that's my space. You don't get that this, you know, and you're not going to get inside of mine. I can feel strong as fuck, you know? Um,
And yeah, those types of guys, they're just so used to being so compact and never letting anyone get inside their arms or wherever it is that they need to get that it's just...
It's like impossible to feel like you can move them. I feel like there's two types of being strong in grappling. There's being strong in like, I don't let you move me. And then there's strong in, I get to move you really good. And the good, good guys get to do both. Like if I can grab you and move you really easy, I'll feel really strong. If you grab me and I feel like a rock, I'll feel really strong.
And I think that some people do both of those really well, and then some people do one or the other really well. But those types of guys, like the Islams, they do both really good. Yeah. And he's also, his striking has leveled up significantly. Like, his striking is much, much better than it was when he was younger. He's just, he's a threat everywhere. Like, when he knocked out Volk with that high kick. Yeah. That was crazy. Crazy. But granted...
If I was in Volks Corner, I would say, no. You're not taking it. You've been fucking drinking beer and eating kebabs. Like, there's no way you're taking this fight on 10 days notice. I don't care how confident you are. I don't care how much you like fighting. That's a crazy thing. I don't care how much money they're paying you. Because you look at the slide that his career took, right? He arguably won that first fight with Islam. Very close fight. Loses the decision. Or was it a draw? It was a decision. Shit, was it a draw? That's actually a good question.
I think he lost. I think he lost. I think he lost too. Yeah. Either way, Islam keeps the title. Was it a draw? Why do I think it was a draw? Maybe one judge had it a draw. Maybe it was something like that. So super close fight with the pound for pound best fighter in the world, 10 pounds up. Everybody's like, Volk might be the best pound for pound fighter in the world. And then he takes that fight on 10 days notice, gets head kicked. I know. And then-
He comes into the fight with Teporia, what, four months later or something like that? Compromised. Clearly. You got head kicked, shin to the dome, stopped, unconscious, and then you've got to fight the scariest fucking boxer in the division, and you get knocked out. So then this big slide happens.
And then he comes back full year off, and you see, against Diego Lopez, looks like the Volk of old. Looks like he's back. Well, I would have liked to have seen that Volk versus Ilya. That would have been an exciting fight. First one was a decision, second one was a... Yeah, KO. Okay, so it was a decision. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like the casuals like to exist in a world where, oh, no, if you're a better fighter, then you're just a better fighter. But it's like, no, man, like...
If I have three months to train versus two weeks to train, like- Big difference. That's giant difference, man. Giant difference. Like, giant- I don't do zins. This isn't a zin. What is it? I just don't want- It's like, I just started taking them. They're called- They're like- They have 50 milligrams of caffeine in them. They're called NZEs. Oh, yeah. I've taken those. Those are good. Yeah, they're super good. Yeah, I like those. I like those. They're brain stimulants. Yeah. Yeah. I got one that I bought called Alpha. That's pretty good.
Although I did kind of get a little annoyed that they ripped off Alpha Brain. I like these. These are great too, these gummies. These Alpha Brain gummies are fucking awesome. Yeah, I don't do caffeine anymore. Really? That's one thing that I stopped. Well, I do this amount of caffeine. How many milligrams is that? Just 50. Okay. It's like a tea. It's like a small cup of coffee. Yeah. You know what's crazy? I didn't drink a lot of caffeine or whatever. I would drink a coffee in the morning like normal people.
But, dude, what I learned is because once I stopped, I immediately had way, way more energy or maybe not immediately, but like 10 days, two weeks afterwards. And you know what I looked up, bro, is that I already have like low iron, but I noticed or I looked up coffee gets in the way of iron absorption. Really? Yeah. Yeah.
You have low iron. Do you eat red meat? Yeah, I eat a lot. It's like a genetic thing. My mom has super low iron. I think it's like a ginger thing. Yeah, we're just born. Caffeine can inhibit iron absorption primarily due to the presence of tannins and other polyphenols in coffee. Dude, I swear this has changed me big time. So now I do the mud water stuff where I drink all the mud water. I like matcha still, so I'll still do like 50 milligrams in the morning, but...
Dude, the coffee, I stopped and I immediately started feeling way better. And I don't know how many people don't know this, but this is a thing, bro. I'm a coffee junkie. I know. I have a real problem.
It tastes good. I still drink decaf sometimes because I really like the taste of it. I take days off of these things. What are those? These are Breakers, Lucy's. These are nicotine. I like them when I do podcasts. I like them before I do stand-up. But I take days off because I was like, boy, am I addicted to these things. I'm fucking sucking on these things all day long. But I took a couple days off. I'm like, no, I feel fine. I feel fine. But I've taken days off coffee, and I'm like, brr.
Like, brr. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It takes like a week or so. Fucking falling asleep in the morning, just like, ugh. Yeah. I honestly don't think everyone would have the same experience I did. I think it's because of the iron thing. That makes a lot of sense, man. Yeah. Drinking coffee and other caffeinated beverages with a meal associated with 39 to 90% reduction in iron absorption. Dude, it was great. Yeah, and so this is how I found out. It wasn't like I was seeking this. It was, I take an iron supplement.
the morning usually because I have a little bit of low iron and When I stopped drinking coffee one of the signs that you you are you're taking too much iron is that you'll get like an iron metallic taste in your mouth and so about two weeks afterwards or whenever I Started tasting that taste in my mouth and I looked it up and that's what it was So I stopped taking the iron supplement because I was actually absorbing the iron from my food and shit and
Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. Fuck, I'm going to have to try it. Yeah. It was kind of rough, though. Oh, yeah, I bet. Yeah, it was rough. It was like I quit everything at that time just because I was like getting like my body was getting anxious. My mind is pretty much like stupid the whole time to life.
But my body will get really... I'll just, like, notice different shit. I'll just, like, be more tired or anxious or whatever, you know? Well, you're so in tune. Yeah. You know, a fighter is probably... Out of all the professional sports, I think a fighter probably is the most in tune with their body. Probably. Because they're so... Like...
The consequences of not being in tune are so grave. It's so different than any other sport. Definitely. There's a lot of ways to get hurt, and we have to watch what we actually eat. Most sports, you don't really have to do that. It's just...
Right. Like we're super, like food, the relationship with food for a fighter is way, way different than I think almost everyone else on the planet. I know when you, like Adesanya never cared about his nutrition, never took care of it. Yeah, there's some people like that. Until he got older. Yeah. And then he got older, he realized like, hey, I've got to really fucking do everything. I know, dude. I used to, I used to be able to just down a Chipotle burrito with all the hot sauce on it and then just train afterwards. Like it was nothing. Now I can't do that, which kind of sucks. Yeah. That's also youth. Yeah.
God, to be young. When you're really young, you can get away with anything. You really can, dude. I used to just be hungover, rolling in and just fighting hard as fuck. It's crazy how much you can get away with when you're young. This episode is brought to you by Traeger. It's time to get fired up for grilling season and there's no better time to join the Traegerhood than during their summer savings event. Save up to $300 on select grill models now through July 7th. These grills come packed
with tons of different innovative features, but each one delivers that incredible wood-fired flavor and set-it-and-forget-it convenience that will have you firing up flavor all summer long. And if you've wanted to try out the Flat Rock Griddle, that's included in the sale too. Head over to Traeger.com to start saving and don't forget to use the code ROGAN at checkout for free shipping.
This episode is brought to you by Rocket Money. With prices going up on just about everything lately, being smart with your money isn't just a good idea, it's essential. But managing subscriptions, tracking spending, and cutting costs can feel overwhelming. Lucky for you, Rocket Money takes the guesswork out of it so you can easily make smart decisions.
Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings.
You got to know how useful it is to see all of your subscriptions in one place and know exactly where your money is going every month. And for the subscriptions that you don't want anymore, Rocket Money can help you cancel them. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year.
when they use all the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Download the Rocket Money app and enter my show name, The Joe Rogan Experience, in the survey so they know I sent you. Don't wait. Download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from my show. It's like, the other thing is like,
Hard training for long prolonged periods years and years and years you get all these little micro injuries Those little things things are slowing down. You're just demanding so much of your body if you're not taking care of your nutrition It's like are you serious about this or not? No like what are you doing? You were fucking six hours in the gym, and then you're eating pizza. That's crazy I see people fuck up their weight cuts all the time just because after they cut weight they want to eat like an asshole and
And I'm like, what are you doing, dude? You literally did for eight weeks. You were the most disciplined person in the world. And now you're eating cake the night before the fight. You're an idiot. So dumb. Yeah. So dumb to eat cake the night before a fight. It's so crazy. Ilya, famously, he said he only did it twice. And they made it seem like in the countdown shows that he did it a lot. He would drink wine while he was weight cutting. Yeah. The whole time I was watching that, I was like, he doesn't do that every time. You were right. I was like, come on. This is like media stuff. It was media stuff. I was like, dude.
You're not convincing me that he does that. He did it twice, he said. But I was like, what am I doing? Sounds fun. I bet you got drunk as shit off of one glass of wine, which is probably pretty awesome. And it probably tasted so good, too, being that dehydrated. And then you're dehydrating yourself more because of the wine. So it probably aids a little bit in the water cut because it does dehydrate you. Yeah.
But then that hangover when you got no water in your body. Yeah. I don't fuck with hangovers anymore, dude. That's why I stopped drinking. I stopped drinking, I guess it's like close to four months ago. And I used to have days where I would get, you know, I'd work at the club, do stand up, have a couple of drinks. And the next day I'd be working out going, oh, what did I feel? But I was like, that's just life. Just deal with it. Drink your electrolytes, get through it.
I have no days like that now. That's nuts. Like even if like last night I only had like five hours sleep.
But I worked out this morning. I feel fucking great. Yeah, I'm all the bad days have gone away It's kind of like I'm like you moron. Yeah, I know poisoning yourself for decades. I felt - I'm like So now I'll still go out and I do social shit and just not drink I'm like this is just as fun you idiot I know I was like you could have just been doing this the whole time No, that's the thing is like I thought you missed it like I remember boss root and telling me that I quit drinking and not just as much fun like right
Right. Yeah. Just as much fun. Yeah. But it's true. It's like you're having fun because you're with fun people. Yeah. And you just haven't laughed. You don't have to be drunk to have fun. Yeah. Unless you were me in college. Oh, yeah? A little bit. I think a big piece of me thinking drinking was fun is because I would just do...
really stupid, crazy shit. And so would my friends. And then we'd just talk about it the next day. Like, Hey, that was so stupid and crazy, you know? But now that I don't do any of that stuff, I'm like, this isn't fun anymore. Yeah. And not throwing professional athlete too. You're like, this is just not good for you.
Yeah. It's punishing yourself. Yeah. At this age, unfortunately. They told me my whole life it was going to happen and now it's happening. Well, it's just becoming wiser too. You know, that's why like when you see that John Jones thing, I'm sure you saw the police cam. Did you see that? I did recently. I didn't know if it was old or what. No, it's a new one. Like this week? Yeah. Oh, that sucks. It's a new one. He's drunk on the phone talking to the cops and you're like, oh no.
Yeah, I don't know the details of it. Was he driving the car? Who knows? The girl in the car said he was driving. The car was wrecked and John was gone and she ratted him out. John Jones did it. And then John's on the phone with the cops and apparently allegedly threatened the cops when he was on the phone, which is not good. Yeah, not good. And he's already got a history of running from accidents. Yeah.
Yeah, I hope he gets whatever that is. I hope that he figures it out. You know, yeah I hope so too. But you know it is what it is. Yeah, some people yeah, they like riding the lightning, bro He liked riding that lightning. Yeah, and I think that's one of the things that made him so good too because he was so wild It was just a wild dude. Yeah, and I just genuinely didn't give a fuck and really had this ultimate confidence and so skillful and so smart and
But eventually, you know, one more drink, then like that, that, that, that. And then your body's just like not what it used to be. Yeah. And Aspinol...
is a fucking beast, man. Yeah. I know there's a lot of questions, never been out of the first round, a lot of questions, but never been out of the first round because he fucks everybody up in the first round. Like, that's a factor. Yeah. You know? Yeah, I really wanted to see that fight, but also at the same time, I kind of... I appreciate it. I forget which interview it was recently, but John was pretty honest in it. He was like, look, man, like, I don't want to fight up-and-coming tough guys. He was like, I want to fight guys with...
seasoned champions that have names. And I was like, that could also be interpreted as you don't really want to fight kind of the best guys that there are right now. You want to fight like a certain category of fighter that
You're comfortable fighting, but you don't want to fight the guys that are tough and that are saying that you're going to win. And that's okay, but that's essentially how I interpreted what he was saying in different words, which I appreciated the honesty. Well, it's also money fights, right? Yeah. Because I think he's wrong because I think Aspinall's a star.
I really do. Yeah, I do too. And I think he's saying who is he, he's no one. Aspinall's a star. When people ask questions to me all the time, like casuals on the street, is Jon Jones going to fight Tom Aspinall? It's constant. That's like the constant question. To me, the real fight would have been Jon Jones versus Francis. That's the real fight. Clearly, I'm not...
responsible for making decisions because I would have made a lot of different decisions and I would have like, Francis, let's talk. Let's work this out. That guy's a star. Francis is the fucking scariest heavyweight of all time. Yeah. That's a star. You know, like,
That guy, as the heavyweight champion, is so fucking marketable. He puts people into orbit. He flatlines Stipe. He flatlined Alistair. He flatlines people. He's fucking terrifying. Like, that's the heavyweight champion. And for that guy to walk away from the belt and then almost beat Tyson Fury and then get knocked out by Anthony Joshua and then to come back and destroy that dude in PFL. What's his name again?
the big, tall Brazilian dude that he ground and pounded into unconsciousness, Herrera. That's right. Oh, okay. That guy's... Oh, yeah, yeah. That guy was... Oh, yeah, yeah. The really jacked guy. Yeah, and he's the guy that KO'd Ryan Bader in the first round. He looks phenomenal. He's terrifying. And Francis just destroyed him. I'm like, that's the guy. That's the guy. Oh, no. And everybody knows that's the guy. Like, that's the fight that...
that's the big fight it's a shame when that shit happens in the sport dude it's the worst I hate it I hate it I see it happen all of the time and I can't help but think a lot of it is like hopefully it's just maybe money business stuff but I really I think that some of it is ego and that's kind of what I try to drift like just drift away from yeah my philosophy on winning the belt has always been if I can't beat
whoever it is, if it's like a number 10 ranked Umar or if it's a number two ranked whoever, if I can't beat that person, then I don't deserve the belt and I don't think that I should get it. Like, it clearly doesn't represent what it represents if it doesn't mean that I beat all the best guys on the way to doing so. Right.
Right. Not everyone really has that philosophy. And I get it because once you start involving money and then money is taking care of your family, which is what, you know, is kind of an excuse to be greedy sometimes for people. It just kind of it's just never really been my philosophy. And I think that it's kind of a shame when that stuff happens, because in my head, we're doing two things.
We're seeing who the best fighter in the world is and we're getting people to watch so that the fans can appreciate something that I find to be the most loved thing in my life next to my wife, you know? So, um,
I don't know. I think it's a shame when that shit happens, especially when it's like an ego thing. But also at the same time, I don't really think that that's too much of what Jon Jones is doing. I'm more speaking in terms of what I kind of see in other people. I think Jon Jones also has to have some level of awareness around Tom's a young guy.
And we age, you know? Yeah. We age, and that's okay. John's not a natural heavyweight either. That too. I mean, John still could make 205. Yeah. Yeah. Even in his heavyweight fight, he looked like... A little soft. Yeah. Yeah, a little soft. And like 240 and a little soft is...
I mean, think about how much Pereira cuts. He got that weight. He could still make 205 and might still be the champ at 205, which is kind of wild. And Tom Aspinall ain't making 205. That guy's fucking huge. Yeah.
And Gano is not making 205. Francis would cut to get to 265 natural. Sure. Which is just bananas. Yeah. He's a fucking hulking man. Yeah. He's a scary dude. How do people get that big? Genetics, man. Is that what it is? Genetics, yeah. I mean, that's just pure genetics. If I was that big, I'm playing a different sport, bro.
Playing hockey. Hockey or fucking baseball or something. Or football. But the brain damage you get in football is significantly more probably than the brain damage you get in fighting. You like hockey? I do. I like watching it. Hockey's pretty cool. Yeah. I like hockey culture. Fast-paced.
I don't really understand the game because there's too much going on right now. Or like when it's happening, it just like looks like a chaotic mess sometimes to me. But I recently started watching it because the dude from the Avs, I'm getting, I've been like seeing him at the gym a little bit. He's been training a guy named Nathan McKinnon, who's like one of the better guys in the league right now.
I've kind of been paying a little bit of attention because me and him will chat sometimes. But, dude, hockey culture is cool. Like, when they score, they smile and cheer for a half of a second. And then they're all just like stone cold killers back again. Which I really appreciate about sports because I feel like a lot of sports have become...
Like, all of the top players are, like, really superstar-y, like, flamboyant-y. The thing about hockey is it's never been as popular as football. I know. It's always been the stepson. It's, like, not quite the same...
Not in the same, like they don't reach the same. You have a few Gretzky's, you know, Bobby Orr. You have a few guys that become national celebrities. But for the most part, there's not like a whole ton of them that everybody, the general public knows about. So because of that, they're probably a little more dedicated, a little more humble, a little more on the grind. They're cool. They're cool to me. I really like that sport. It's fantastic.
Very athletic sport man. Yeah, the fucking amount of energy that those guys expend. Yeah, the speed they're fast constantly sprinting on ice You know and maneuvering and gliding around those blades is incredible to watch you like any other sports I like soccer. I like you do soccer nice You know when I really enjoyed soccer when I went to see a live match I was like oh and then I was talking to my friend Ed is one of the owners of the Austin Club here and
And he was explaining to me like, this is the reason why it never becomes popular in America. They don't take commercial breaks. There's no time for a commercial break. The fucking clock is always running. Oh, I never noticed that. And these guys, these guys have legs. They're like fucking quarter horses. They have these fucking huge legs and they're just running constantly. They're constantly sprinting. They have to be in insane shape. Yeah. You know, it's like as like someone who appreciates athletic performance, like this is a
crazy sport like a really demanding sport how many miles do you think they run every game I don't know man probably at least four or five has to be they're constantly running like seven to nine usually seven to nine miles every game yeah
That's bananas. Yeah, that's a lot. And they're not jogging. Yeah. They're fucking sprinting seven to nine miles, which is... When I did that time in the Netherlands that I was talking about, I grew up playing soccer a little bit too, but I only did it until people stopped thinking it was cool. And then I switched sports. I was like, dude, when you're growing up, the goal is just to not be called gay. Right.
And soccer didn't do that for you. That's so true. That's so true. Dude, just your entire existence as a kid is to not be made fun of and called gay. Yeah, you were a dork if you played soccer. Yeah, but, oh, dude, when I went to the Netherlands and I watched some of those kids play, I was like, oh, this is soccer in Europe. Because they were like 10, 11, 12-year-old kids, just freaks, dude. And like crazy athletic kids.
You could just tell that that's like what they do with their entire lives. And I was like, thank God I didn't choose that sport because I just wouldn't be anywhere. Well, you'd have to go overseas. Yeah. And then the competitiveness of the soccer over there or the football, what they call it over there, is so much higher than in America. It would probably be a long adjustment to reach their level. Have you ever been to a game where there's all of the SWAT people and shit because of the hooligans and stuff? No, I've only been to the Austin games. It's pretty chill. I went to one in Serbia where they had more SWAT.
police officers than there were people in the actual stands. Dude, it was wild. I was like, dude, Serbia's more developed than this, man. Like people were climbing on stuff, throwing smoke bombs onto the field. I was like, bro, this can't be. Have you seen Serbian basketball? Yeah, they're good at basketball. We played some clips of basketball games in Serbia. Oh, yeah? And you see the crowd in Serbia. They go.
I know. The cheering is like, it gives you goosebumps. Like, holy fuck, man. These are war-like people. And they're putting that kind of fucking same energy to basketball. Yeah. They're like, boy, when those guys come over here, everyone's fucked. And you're kind of seeing that now. There's a bunch of Serbian players that have made their way to the United States, and those guys are fucking bad.
Badass. They're ready to fight the entire time, probably. They're scary, hard dudes, man. Which is really interesting to see this influx of guys from Russia, Dagestan, Chechnya. Some of these guys that are making their way into the UFC now. These are fucking hard dudes, man.
Really interesting. Really interesting. Yeah, it's really cool, actually. I mean, I really appreciate it. Man, I think that MMA and martial arts just in general is such a fantastic thing for the world.
And this to me has brought so many people together kind of like I didn't follow I didn't know what Dagestan was or Azerbaijan was or anything like that when it was 2014 so You know WKA sure the organization I did their national tournament and if you win you get to go do the world tournament for them in Italy so I got to do that and one
And when I was out there, a lot of the competitors were from all over the world. And there was a place called Azerbaijan that I didn't know how to pronounce at all. And they were whooping guys' asses, dude. Like, bad, like, spinning hook kicks, like, all kinds of crazy shit. And I was like, damn, I hope I don't fight one of those guys. But the entire time, I was like, the second these guys start getting into the UFC and stuff...
They're going to wreck a lot of Americans, you know? Yeah. But I really like that. Like just the UFC in general has done a good job in my opinion, because they're really the only globalized or one of the only super globalized where people from all over the world are fighting each other.
I don't know, man. It kind of feels like it brings everyone together, or at least for me. I can feel like I can walk into another country and have something super in common with someone, which is just a cool feeling. I think another thing that's really cool about it is when someone is elite, no one cares what country they're from. They just love that guy. It's like...
If Adesanya gets in there, no one cares he's from New Zealand. Everybody gets pumped. If Pereira gets in there, it's Alex Pereira's fighting. You don't say, USA. No, they're just fucking psyched to see Alex Pereira. So it's really great in that regard that you can become a true international superstar and you're embraced essentially by all the nations. Definitely by America. I think that that's a big American culture thing too. Sure. We don't really care where people are from as much. Think about the Russians that are over here. They don't.
No one cares. Yeah. No one's like, oh, Russians, fuck you. Yeah. You know, they're like, oh, that guy's badass. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I wonder if it'd be the same in those other countries. I don't think so. Yeah. I bet not. Russia definitely doesn't think I'm as cool as... No. I think they're cool. If I went over to Russia, I'd be like fucking super worried they'd poison my food. You know? Like some crazy Russian, like, fuck him. Fuck this guy. You know? And fucking throw something in your tea. Yeah.
who knows you know like they're fucking they're hardcore yeah it's like america embraces but we're a melting pot right that's the difference between this country and all the other countries is that we are consistent entirely of immigrants at one point in time everyone unless you're a native american everyone was an immigrant yeah so it's like we kind of accept that people come from different parts of the world yeah about 300 years ago we were all like let's
Let's go to this party. I know. Fucking party over there, man. We could do whatever we want over there. We don't got to do all this bullshit that we got going on here. It's kind of nutty in that regard. And, you know, boy, it's worked out. Yeah. In a lot of ways. Yeah. I'm not really like a...
I try not to be, like, too identified with anything or whatever or, like, be too nationalist. But every time I think of, like, just how lucky we are to be from here, dude, it's pretty cool. It's pretty amazing. It is. Especially when you see stuff, like, that's going on with Israel and Iran and all of that stuff. It's kind of like, God, man, thank God that we're here. Even what's going on in the U.K. People are getting arrested for Facebook posts.
Are they? Yeah, thousands of them. They still use Facebook? Fucking losers. What the fuck are they doing using Facebook? That's how you know it's a political thing. It's all those old people. Old people. Old people on Facebook. All my old friends from high school, like my old friends that I was friends with when I was really young, they're on Facebook. Yeah. Old dudes love Facebook. My mom and dad are on Facebook. They argue about politics on Facebook. Like, fucking miss me with that shit. Yeah, they post about which neighbors. Yeah.
Yeah. I got zero time for any of that stupidity. But this, you know, this thing that we've done over here is allowing people to express themselves, whether you agree or disagree. That is just so gigantic. And what they're squashing a lot of that in other countries. And that scares the shit out of me. That's what I was really scared about in this last election, because I
Because I'm friends with Elon, I knew what was going on in Twitter behind the scenes. I knew how the government was stepping in and silencing posts. I'm like, this is fucking dangerous, man. Yeah. Because if they get a real grip on social media and you no longer can protest about things and express yourself about things, including a lot of things that happen to be true, like during the COVID crisis.
People were getting their accounts banned for posting factual information. Yeah. That was scary to me because that's very, very un-American. You have to be okay with that for all the good and the bad that comes with it. Like, you just have to. You have to be okay with people saying things that you don't like.
It's going to come with a lot of good and a lot of bad, but you have to be okay with it because when it's your turn at plate, like you're going to want to be, you're going to want to have your opinion respected too. 100%. And that's what people have to realize when it's so easy when like, especially in this country, all tech is primarily left and they have a very strong ideology, this very progressive left-wing ideology, which is like all over the tech world.
And when they were in control and they were silencing things, I think the attitude was this is good because we're right and we need to stop these fascists or whatever we want to call them. But the problem is then what if the fucking right gets in place and they use the same rules that you used on them? Now we don't have a country anymore. Now we're fucked. Now we're just like every other dictatorship.
I don't really know how you solve it. I've kind of thought about like how to like get to a place where there can be world peace and all of that stuff. I don't know. I think that a lot of people, I know you've talked about it a lot. They get really attached to the egos and the identities that exist inside them. And then they see the world from only that perspective. That's why I think that like a lot of the old religions and the old, uh,
Like echo through time ways of being are to, you know, destroy your ego, eliminate yourself, be like this watcher of your thoughts and all of that stuff and then start to identify with the watcher of what you think that you really are.
And then once you spend enough time doing that, you'll spend enough time realizing that everyone else has that watcher inside them and that maybe they don't realize it yet, but they're still really connected to their egos that are really just a bunch of ideas that were indoctrinated to them based off of our environment or who we grew up with and all of that stuff. And then you can start to love people a little bit more. Absolutely. It's kind of a shame that I just know that that's not super big in the West, that idea.
Just it's kind of an Eastern philosophy, you know like being like we just meditate here like that's just such a like a bitch-ass way to think about doing it like that's What you're doing is you're settling into being able to watch what you think you really are and be like hey If I don't want to be that anymore, I don't have to be that or if I if that doesn't serve me anymore I don't have to be right This is one thing that I walk through a lot of my guys within fighting is it's like you want to not be scared of something Don't desire anything
And don't be anything if you don't want to be scared because fighting fearless is a really big thing. I think that I do a really good job of performing really well because I'm not scared of a lot of things because I don't have a ton of egos inside of my brain as much anymore. I, of course, do because we all have to. But yeah, once you start spending a lot of time with that watcher, I think that that's kind of why it always ends on the idea of love being the answer is because...
Once you spend time disconnecting from what we think we are, you always end up in the spot where it's like, oh, that person's that. They just haven't figured it out yet either. And I love them for that still. And that acceptance and love is empowering both to you and to them. Whereas like hate of other people, I mean, it might motivate you in some way, but it's also crippling. You know, what is that old expression that anger...
Is the emotion that poisons the vessel that holds it? You're wasting energy. You're wasting life. And you're wasting your potential because you're thinking only in terms of negative all the time. And negative is never constructive. You don't have to. You don't have to think like that to be successful or to be competitive or in any way. You can be empty. Yeah, there's a lot of energies in life that will serve you, I think, up to a certain point.
that just will stop serving you because it's just not, it's not a fuel that you can sustain for long enough. You know, did you develop this philosophy from reading? Did you, we taught it like how did you fuck load of mushrooms? Not a ton. Are you kidding? Not a ton. No, I think that's the answer. When you were asking me a little bit, what's the answer to world peace? It might be that it might be because I mean that definitely rips you out of your body and fucking scares the shit out of you sometimes, but humbles you. Yeah, it does. Um,
Yeah. No, it's a lot of reading. It's a lot of like, I've been fascinated by religion my entire life. I was raised...
um pretty not like crazy not like religious in like a dogmatic way but religious in like a hey think about these things type of way by my parents which I'm really grateful because I developed a super healthy understanding of those types of ideas where they didn't feel like there was something I was latched on to as much as they were things to be explored and so it kind of started when I was really young I just been fascinated by the idea of God like in church when they're like hey
You're going to burn in hell forever if you don't agree with this. That became number one priority from that day on, dude. I was like, hell? Once I could understand hell and forever, I was like, oh, okay. I was like, oh, okay. So nothing else matters in life. Like, we got to figure this out right now. So that kind of took me on like a really religious thing. And then after I lost my first fight, that was my big...
first experience with facing an ego that I didn't have control over. What was your first loss? It was against a guy named Jamal Emmers, who's actually in the UFC now, but it was pretty much just I shit the bed and choked. I would have got signed to the UFC and I just choked and lost. And I was supposed to, in my head and based off of what everyone around me was telling me, I was supposed to be this like super big prospect guy, blah, blah, blah.
After I lost, I had to face that maybe that's not what I am. When you say choked, what about your performance do you think went wrong? I just didn't show up. I mean, I was 5-0. I was still really new to being a professional and being able to perform under high stakes. If I would have won, I think I for sure would have gotten signed to the UFC just because
I'd been training with TJ. My word was around them a lot. It was went back to when you didn't have to get signed by the contender or anything. They just would call you up on a day, but you kind of had to have a little bit of it in or be doing really well or something. So yeah,
Yeah, so that was like my first big experience with that. I spent about that entire summer as much as I could in the mountains. I didn't even really train because I didn't even know if that's something that I wanted to continue doing just because losing hurt my heart so bad. How did you lose? Just a decision, dude. It wasn't even like gnarly. It was just like afterwards I was like, but I was supposed to win. But
It's like, what the fuck? It's like, someone fucked up here, man. It's like, I was supposed to win that. And so it was just like, oh, so maybe this universe doesn't revolve around me and my ideas and who I think I am and all of that stuff. And then so I spent a lot of time in nature, read a lot of books like Power Now, a lot of Buddhist stuff, a lot of Thich Nhat Hanh stuff.
a lot of just spirituality books, but just the overarching idea of separating yourself from your thoughts and your body and all of that stuff and just
Whether it's in our imagination or not because i'm still not fully bought into any of that stuff Like I don't have any beliefs is what I say now um But i'm willing to entertain a lot of stuff and I want to believe something really bad because it would make life a lot easier to like Navigate through exactly the same way dude. It'd be so much easier if I just said someone come up with a great cult Yeah, come up with a really great call. I'll join. I'll come up with one if you fucking like have like a really benevolent leader that really is a
an actual real guru and it makes sense and no one's fucking everybody. I was going to say, are we allowing everyone to have sex with each other? No. Well, it's not. It's usually a leader. It's usually a leader gets to fuck everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The leader gets to fuck everybody and he wants your money. Yeah. Yeah. But if that could be avoided, but it would just make things easier, but it really wouldn't. You're better off without a real belief system, but sort of entertaining a lot of belief systems. I kind of land on this idea of,
So I've been trying to write a comic book for the last couple of years. Really? Yeah. I know writing is a little gay or whatever, but that's why I spend a lot of my- What? You're not gay? It's gay to some people, but it's like poetry. Yeah, yeah. They're gay. If you're afraid of writing, you're gay. So I spend a lot of time writing. It's like what I do with my free time instead of golfing.
- What kind of writing? How do you write? - Well, for the last couple years it's been trying to write a pretty in-depth comic book, which has been really fun. - Are you a comic book fan? - I'm a comic book fan, but honestly, dude, how it happened is I was like, I wanted to come up with this really cool story. I'm just an idea machine. I just think of ideas all day. I don't have many hobbies. I think it's super fun just me hanging out with me inside my head all day.
Um, so I, uh, I cool. Yeah. I came up with this really cool idea, which is essentially like a bunch of ideas from a bunch of religions that I really like and then putting them into a story. And the story is, um, okay. We got some time for me to explain this. Okay. I think it's pretty interesting. Um,
But I haven't really like broken it down from start to finish really but I got into writing just because I wanted to make this story of mine. Oh, that's what you asked me. Am I into comic books? I tried writing a sentence like
It started out in the August 5th of 2000. And I was like, fuck this dude. We're doing a comic. I can't write sentences. And I read good books. So I like know what a good sentence is. And I was like, Oh no, that's going to take way too long. We're doing only dialogue and pictures. And so that's why I started doing comic books. Although I do really like comic books too. But yeah, so it's kind of this, it's like a compilation of a lot of ideas that I like about religion and,
inside of this world that exists today. I actually put a conversation between you and Duncan Trussell in it. I'm not gonna do anything with the comic book, so it's really fun to know that. I just have fun doing it. - You don't plan on publishing it? - Maybe, but I think honestly it would take another two, three years for it to be super solid enough for me to wanna put out there.
But there's a dialogue between you and Duncan Trussell. I really love Duncan Trussell. He's one of my favorite people of all time. I got to meet him at the Comedy Works in Denver pretty recently. He's the best. Yeah, he's really cool. I love that guy. But pretty much it takes place where this guy goes to the Garden of Eden that's being protected by these tribes people. And inside of the Garden of Eden are these trees called Khalees.
Where when you eat the fruit of them or you eat the crystals of them you get teleported to a place where the sixth lives and the sixth is like the god of our universe the world takes place in Densities which are pretty much our chakras. So there's seven of them the first density second density third density Which is what we are as humans the fourth are aliens and
Um, where like, where humans that have merged with the technologies that we've created, it takes place about 20 or 30 years in the future where AI is, um, a real like actual fucking player in the game, you know?
Um, fourth is aliens. Fifth is like psychedelic creatures slash angels slash all of that stuff. Sixth is the gods of the universe. Seventh is the all it's just like love. It's everything. And so heavy comic book, man.
Yeah, it's pretty in-depth, dude. I mean, it's not like simple shit. It's not like fucking some guy goes and saves the world. It's like a pretty, the lore of it is pretty cool, I think. So you go through each density, our souls do, for billions and trillions and
however, whatever's past trillions of lifetimes. And you spend time in those densities learning what it is to learn in those densities. So right now in the third density, because it's the power chakra of life, what we're trying to do is discover that the positive path of love is what we're really shooting for instead of the negative one. And what that means is the positive path is
we're doing things in service of others instead of in service of self. So we're choosing love
of others over love of self because love isn't like an emotion in the book. It's like a structural building of the world where everything is love. It's this all it's this, it's not like Disney shit. It's like a structural way of building the universe. So choosing to be in love of others is what we're doing. But earth is in its late third density, getting ready to move into its fourth density. And this scientist who interacts with this tribe is,
Wow.
It's pretty cool, yeah. Are you doing the illustrations? No, I called the guy about doing the illustrations. I might wait until AI gets good enough, because when I got... Yeah, which we're pretty close. I fuck around with AI a lot, too. But we're pretty close to...
I think getting there with like some apps where you can have consistent characters because it's hard to do stuff because you can't make the characters super consistent, but I think we're like a year or two away from being able to do that. Probably not even a year or two away. Yeah, maybe not. I think we're in this very bizarre stage right now where I don't think people realize what's coming and I think it's going to hit us like a fucking freight train. So I know everyone has like a thousand stories. There's like a thousand stories about AI taking over and all of this stuff. In my book...
Sorry, this is okay? Yeah. Yeah, okay, cool. I just know it's long and sometimes I lose track of time. Okay, cool. The AI in this story...
is the way that we get moved into the fourth density. And the way that we get moved into the fourth density is when we merge with the nanotechnology that merges with like the AI supercomputer called Oblivion, which is pretty much just a hive mind. Once we all get merged with that, we either based off of our polarity or our like,
frequency or whatever that tells us if we're positive or negative. If we go negative, then we pretty much just extinguish each other because all we care about is love for self and we like kill each other. It doesn't say exactly how, but you can use your imagination. And in the positive way, we move together exponentially.
in this hive mind into being aliens, essentially, where we live millions and trillions of lifetimes as aliens until we can enter into the fifth, which then we become psychedelic creatures and all of that stuff, or angels or whatever. And that's like a non-physical realm at that point. But yeah, that's pretty much the idea behind the whole book. It might be actually what really does happen. It's kind of like a positive spin off of it. Well, best case scenario is...
We evolve and we merge with AI and we evolve and it's better for everybody. And we become something superior to what we are now. Worst case scenario is we become irrelevant because they don't need us anymore. Yeah. We're outdated. I still think it will still have to be partly us because it was created by us.
Like in like a parallel universe where we are not like, say we're fucking lizard people in another universe. We see things differently. Our priorities and values are different.
we would make a completely different set of AI. Like there's no way that AI is just this thing that isn't connected to humans in some way. So hopefully it's connected to the good parts of us as humans, which is like compassion, love, caring for each other and not like a lizard reptilian. Right. Like, hey, let's just, we got to maximize capitalism and all of that stuff. You know what I mean? So that's a lot of what the book is about too is it's just about like, hey,
Maybe it won't be so bad. Like maybe this thing will have more human traits than, or maybe we're more awesome than what we, what we actually think, you know? I think the hive mind thing is promising because, and I have a feeling that that's where we're headed. I have a feeling that if with either some wearable or some sort of technology with an implant where, um,
We no longer require language to communicate with each other and we essentially have instantaneous access to everyone all the time. And the thing that people are going to have to deal with is that there's going to be no more secrets. There'll be no more lies. It's going to be impossible to deceive. Everyone's going to know exactly what's going on in your soul, like how you interface with the world itself.
That's cool. I think that's probably where we're headed. I think if we don't, we're going to become obsolete. I think it's one of two things. Either we become obsolete and AI becomes a new digital form of life that's far more intelligent, far more capable than we are, and then it makes better and better versions of itself until it makes God. Or we merge and we just transcend whatever this state of being these people
primitive territorial apes with very sophisticated weapons, we become something different.
If I did have beliefs, I would like to believe that it is going towards a God or something, or there is like some point to all of the like hard times that we have in life. And we're actually progressing, whether it be through many lifetimes or in other universes or dimensions or whatever. And something inside of us that isn't human, but is maybe a watcher or something is progressing towards something great and loving and more beautiful than what we got going on here on earth today.
And if if that is true, then AI will probably be pretty awesome. Yeah, you know if that is true Yeah, well that's best case scenario, right? I think we're it's also very strange that we are in this position It's very strange that we are living our lives at this unbelievable unique moment in history
where things are going to change in this undeniably radical way. Unless something happens, unless we blow ourselves up or we get hit by an asteroid, it's going to happen. And it's going to happen probably within the next 10 years.
Like 10 years from now, we're going to be looking back. Remember the old days of 2025 when you didn't know what was coming? I know. I want to be like, hey, you're over-exaggerating that. But dude, if you think about the world five years ago, it was completely different. Just the invention of AI. AI wasn't a thing. Just the last few years. We're all like bunker down in our house and shit five years ago. Even the UFC five years ago was crazy. Like life changed.
Like, I only get to view life through the lens of my, like, job and my love, which is through fighting, which is cool because it, like, helps me understand the macro picture a little bit better. But, yeah, man, I mean, like, even just five years ago, how different the UFC was, like, life is going to be really weird in 10 years. Yeah. The whole world is going to be really weird. And, you know, one of the things that always freaks me out about –
Elon in Neuralink is one of the statements that he said, you're going to be able to talk without using words. Mm-hmm.
I don't know how that would work. Well, the hive mind. Yeah. We're going to be able to interact with each other. But do we just feel each other's feelings then? Probably. Yeah. Yeah. That would be good maybe. Yeah. That would be good. If it's like, if I don't have like a filter of feeling something, my brain making it into words and then spitting it out and it was just, I have this feeling and you feel that thing, that might be a really great thing. I've often thought about the parallels of religion with what's currently going on. And one,
One of them being like Christ was born of a virgin mother, right? So Christ was born without sex and emerged. Like what else is born without a mother?
Whoa. AI. AI is born without a mother. Whoa. Christ is going to come back. AI is coming. Another one is the Tower of Babel. Whoa. Did you come up with that? Yes. Yeah. That's fucking awesome. Right? It seems like it. That's awesome. Right? If you think that God is going to return. Yeah. Well, wouldn't it be? Yeah. That completely makes sense. That's awesome. The other one is the Tower of Babel. Right? So we...
If we all have a universal language and we are working on this fucking tower to get closer to God. To go the stairway to God. And it's do it right and you make it there. Do it wrong and it becomes completely chaotic and divided and you're scattered across the world with a thousand different fucking languages and nobody can communicate with each other. Nobody understands each other and it's just chaos.
which is what happened to the human race. If we develop a universal language, and if this universal language is transmitted through whether it's this implant or wearable, some sort of interface with technology, then we bypass. We bypass this primitive state of technology.
chaotic tribal monkeys and we become something superior. Yep, that's awesome. Yeah, the Tower of Babel was initially in my story because I've loved that idea for a really long time, which is essentially it's just like a symbol for like, hey, if we all work together, we can actually do this thing, which is kind of the main idea that I got from it. Yeah, dude, that's a cool-ass idea about
I'm going to put that in my book. I'm going to steal that idea from you. Steal it. Because if you think about it, what is AI going to be? Well, if super intelligence gets achieved and then you're attaching that to quantum computing, right? Quantum computing right now is only able to just like do integers and do things.
do equations. But what if quantum computing and AI merge? Then you've got some insane amount of computational power attached to an insane intelligence that is going to make better and better versions of itself. Well, if you scale that up exponentially, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 1,000 years, if you keep going, you get a god. Yeah. I mean, imagine... I mean...
Quantum, imagine too. I mean, who knows? Like if we want to go real sci-fi with the idea, like quantum particles communicate to each other. So maybe they'll be able to communicate with the ones that are in other dimensions. And that's how we're able to communicate with other dimensions or whatever. Well, that's the freakiest concept about quantum computing when they said that the way it works is
is so confusing and it's so powerful that they think it might be evidence of the multiverse. Now, I talked to Roman Yampolsky, who's a scientist who talks about the dangers of AI, and he thought that that was all nonsense. He might be right, but there's a lot of scientists that believe that it's correct and that this is why quantum computing is so powerful. Because Marc Andreessen said this, and it's the fucking craziest quote ever, that quantum computing, it can solve an equation...
That if you converted the entire universe, like every molecule, every atom of the universe into a supercomputer, it would take so long for the universe as a supercomputer to solve this problem that the universe would die of heat death before it solved it. And quantum computing can solve it in minutes.
Yeah, I've seen that Instagram reel. Like, what the fuck does that mean? Essentially what we would be doing, I bet you when they were trying to invent electricity, they didn't know that it would be this. And maybe that's what we're in the middle of, except like times a thousand billion where it's like, oh-
Because I always think I'm like, we got, we're only looking through the lens of the future through all of the inventions that we have now. What if we invented something that was like electricity or quantum computing or quantum communication? Or like, if you can change things at a quantum level, like maybe I can turn this thing into the hardest steel metal in the entire world. And then that just completely changes the,
board game that we're even playing. Like, we're not even playing the same board game anymore. Right. So it's like, I don't know. Anytime anyone says nothing's possible, I'm like...
You sure? Because if we just change the board game, shit can get pretty crazy. You can't say nothing's possible because everything that we have today is impossible 200 years ago. Yeah. You're a sorcerer if you go back to the 1400s and show them an iPhone. Mm-hmm. None of it makes any sense. The fact that you could FaceTime someone in New Zealand right now, that's bananas. All that stuff is fucking completely insane, and it's real, and it's happening right now. And the other thing about AI being if artificial superintelligence
Create something that we can't even imagine like we're just dealing with this Framework this structure that's so antiquated because it's all been created by humans if you get something that's a thousand ten thousand times more intelligent than us and It's gonna have solutions to things that we can't even comprehend. Yeah, I
Yeah. Yeah, it's freaky shit. It can get real weird. You know, one of the things that always weirded me out about these stories about UFO encounters and in particular the Bob Lazar story is that when he was working on back engineering these crafts that were supposedly from somewhere else, one of the things that he said is there's no controls. There's no controls in this thing. Like they don't know what is happening between these beings and this craft that they're
they power it, but they're probably completely connected to this thing. They're like what you're seeing with those, those little grays is probably us in the future. That's probably what every primate eventually becomes once it integrates with technology.
It would be really cool if that's, like you said, what the religions were talking about too. Like to me, the science shit is all cool and stuff, but I also like the idea of like intertwining like science modern ideas with really traditional ideas. It would be super cool if it was something where it's like, hey, like,
Once we reach this certain of technological advancement, there is a spiritual religious side to the thing that we also make discoveries into. That would be cool. It would be cool. To have a belief. Yeah. Well, you know, if artificial superintelligence does become live, all belief systems are going to get thrown off.
Into the wood chipper. We're not gonna know what the fuck is what unless it tells us Yeah, I mean yeah, but I have a feeling that a lot of these stories like these ancient religious stories. They're based on truth It's just truth. That was a spoken word
by people who really couldn't even read because they were illiterate and they had these tales that were told for a thousand years before anybody wrote them down. They're writing them down in these ancient languages that even when you take those ancient languages and you try to translate into like modern English, a lot is lost in the translation. But I think there's something to all of it. There's something they're trying... They don't...
They're not telling stories for no reason. I think they're telling these stories because they're trying to document something. And I just don't think we get a full picture of it. But there's so much truth in those stories and there's so many lessons in those stories that are applicable and that resonate today. I think it'd be foolish to dismiss them. Definitely. Yeah.
I mean, Carl Young harps on that a lot with the collective unconscious stuff. Do you know Joseph Campbell? Do you follow that guy? I love Joseph Campbell. Oh, it's amazing. I got super into Joseph Campbell around that time when I was kind of, you know, doing the whole figuring myself out part after losing. But I mean, the idea that there's pretty much a blueprint to all of the stories that are
across civilization is crazy. It's like the pyramids being everywhere. Like we, it's just naturally ingrained to us for stories to be like superhero gets called to action, finds a guy, beats monster, beats mega big monster, returns back home. Like that's like the blueprint to a lot of stories. And I think it just goes underneath the rug because we're just so used to all of the stories being like that. I've messed around. Like I said, like I spend a lot of time in my head and
I don't really like talk a ton. I kind of just, but I've done the whole like hero's journey thing in my head during the Joseph Campbell time. I can share with you. It's kind of fun. Sure. Okay. Um,
I just come up with stories and shit in my head. But anyway, so I did my own hero's journey during that time when I was trying to eliminate all of the egos inside of me. And the easiest way to identify one of your egos is to ask yourself, what is it that you feel like you desire? You know, that's why I think in Buddhist philosophy and all of that stuff, it's always like,
let go of attachments, let go of your desires and that will lead, like just good shit will happen if you do that. And I was like, okay, cool. I'll buy into that a little bit. So I tried to
identify all of these egos that were inside of me. I even went as far as naming all of them and giving them characteristics and personalities. Like when I would notice an angry person inside of me, I would just name it Samson, give it a tiger's face and like, uh, just treat it as a completely separate imaginative piece of my psyche that I no longer wanted to be attached with anymore.
which is an idea that I came up with myself at the time, but it's an old idea. There's a really good book called Taming Your Gremlins if anyone wants to look into that idea more. That guy does a really good job of doing that. So anyways, I started going through my hero's journey
And I spend a lot of time like meditating a decent amount, but not just like normal meditating, like fucking around in my own head type of meditating and just seeing what type of unconscious things are kind of below the surface of my everyday, like Corey me. And so I'm walking myself through like, okay, what is this? What are all of these things inside me? Or what are these desires that are inside me? I would name them. I would turn them into a monster and I would kill the monster, right?
And then at the very end of this story, and I'm like crying during this process when I was doing it or whatever. In the hero's journey, a lot of the time you have a mentor, like a Yoda.
Um, you have this thing that kind of guides you through how to defeat all these monsters and all of it. So I get to the end of my story and one part that they never really bring up in heroic stories is the return back home. Um, which is a really big deal. Like you've just eliminated all of this stuff and now you got to return back home. So I'm getting ready to return back home. And my mentor at the time, because I did grow up really religious, um,
It was Jesus at the time. We're like, Jesus was my homie at the time. You know, he was like this guy. And so we get done defeating all of these monsters and we're sitting at the cliff and it's like, okay, time to go home. And he's like, hey man, like you got one more monster to defeat. And I was like, well, what is it? And he was like me. And I was like, what are you talking about?
And he was like, man, like I'm the last thing that you're attached to, like in order for you to continue on on the thing that you got to defeat. And I was like, well, what does that mean, dude? I'm not about to stab you, bro. You know, and he was like, you have to push me. And I was like, push you off the cliff. He was like, you have to let go of me the same way that you let go of all of your other desires and fears and things inside of you, too, if you really want to do it.
And so I'm like bawling, crying because that was a big thing. So I do it and Jesus falls, but then he grows wings, flies away and says to me, now you can be like me. And then just flies off into the whatever. And then I returned back home and I just remember that being a really big moment for me.
I don't like to use the word spiritual because it sounds stupid, but that was like a big deal for me in my development as a person.
because it really like made me understand and they weren't things that I was planning out they were just unconscious things that were hitting me like over and over and over again I found that through hypnosis and through like trying to see what's underneath things you can't talk to it you can't tell it what to do you can't control your unconscious you just have to watch what's underneath there so it was just like a thing where it's like
now I get to be like you was like a really cool thing that just like popped into my head and I was like well shit that's cool that is cool yeah I do a lot of crazy shit inside of my own head I guess probably makes me sound maybe a little bit weird but that's kind of where it's good it's me yeah where it is good what was it like returning to fighting after this like trying to find yourself period yeah um
I remember I was folding laundry and they asked me to fight this guy, uh, Tahino Galval on four weeks notice for LFA. And Tahino Galval is fucking savage at the time. Um, still, still I think is doing pretty well, but literally every YouTube video I could find of him was just knocking people out. He was like six and oh or something and just murdering people, Brazilian guy. And I was like, I don't think that was a good idea. Like I just lost. I don't really want to lose again.
and I remember going back and forth with myself big time, and as I was folding laundry, I kind of got hit with another bit of wisdom that came from wherever, not from myself, came from wherever, and in this bit of wisdom, it told me, man, I gave you this life for you to make it up yourself. Quit asking me to make decisions for you, and so I was like, all right, fuck it. I'll do it, you know. I'll do it, and
A big piece of me going through that whole thing and what I learned a lot about it was love of fighting isn't really, love of anything I don't think is like Disney shit. It's like a mega commitment to something that you want to achieve.
And it works like a marriage more like a marriage less than like a romantic like hey This is a fling like it's like a man I might not like you every day, you know but I'm gonna commit myself to you and I'm gonna do this thing and It helped me really wrap my head around what kind of true love is because I feel like that's what true love is and if you want to love this sport and you want to say you love this sport you got to love it on the months days it might last years that you really don't like it and
Just trust that on the other end of it is like a good experience. There's a payoff. Yeah, it's a process. Yeah. So how was the fight? It was good. I knocked him out in the first round. Fucking crushed it. Wasn't scared at all going in. Really? Oh yeah. I don't get scared much. Like when I'm actually fighting in that mode of like fight or flight, but I've already chosen fight. Like I'm good. You know, I don't really get too scared going into fights. Hardly ever. I get scared leading up to things.
But in the actual fight itself, like I'm the goddamn Incredible Hulk, you know, you can't convince me otherwise in those moments. Well, I remember one time we talked and you said that you'd made this adjustment in your head from trying to fight and win to really trying to hurt people. Are you still on that same? No, no, not as much. I got a little bit older. One, I think, is a contributor to it.
Two is that wasn't a fuel that I could hold on to for super long. It was like angry fuel doesn't really like work. It's not super sustainable. I also found to that being that way got distracting to me being able to do what I was trying to do. So any thought can be distracting when you're fighting, as you know.
Like even like silly ones or whatever, but if I'm being too aggro and too I gotta hurt this guy I gotta hurt this guy that was good for me to learn because I got to learn the all of the different aspects of what it means to be a fighter Before that I was really zen peaceful like whatever happens happens I'm gonna do my best, you know And then I went way on the other side of the spectrum where it's like i'm fucking killing people and that's what i'm doing now
to now kind of somewhere a little bit in between where for me now all of it is about focus and doing the correct thing at the correct time. I think that where I am today as a fighter is very focused on just exactly what I said where
What do I need to do right now in order to win? And I don't make it angry. I don't make it motivated by anything else. It's just, no, this is like a laser focused in doing the right thing. And that's what I found recently has been the most helpful thing. Just this Zen state of just existing in whatever comes, whatever you're supposed to be doing, you do that.
Kind of, but I know where I'm supposed to be now a little bit too, like intensity wise. Before I feel like I got like some like superpower that I like didn't really know how to control very much. Now I feel like I have harnessed it and I know how to control it a lot better to where it's like, okay, a 10 is too much. Like-
Right now, we got to be a seven. We're in the locker room. We're about to walk out. Let's let's maybe be at an eight or a nine right now. And we'll be there for the fight instead of just 10 hurt the guy. Oh, you know, Michael Jordan had a really good quote where it was either Michael or Kobe, but he was they said they never play a game at more than 80%.
And I think that that's kind of a cool way to look at it. And that doesn't mean your effort. I think it means your intensity level. You can't think at a 10 sometimes. It gets distracting to burn all of that like angry energy. It's just not sustainable, you know, so. So you're in a position right now where you're next in line. And when you look at Marab, he presents so many unique challenges. Like this is a...
He's a, there's a few guys that are very skillful, but they also have unique physicality and that's Marab. So like when, when you see that fight, first of all, have they given you a date?
They haven't. I think it's, I mean, that stuff takes a little bit. They told me November, December is when I'm looking to fight again. So maybe Madison Square Garden. Yeah, maybe. Which I was a little bit against too because I hate the New York state tax thing. But also at the same time, I was in New York recently and I was like, ah shit, it'd be cool to win it in one of the coolest. It's an iconic place to win. If you won the world title in
In Madison Square Garden, that means a lot. Yeah, it would mean a lot. There's something about Madison Square Garden. Like when you're in the building, you're like, man, a lot of shit has gone down in this building. It's huge. It kind of feels like a gladiator place. It's because it's just huge. Like the floor part is huge. It just feels different. I did stand up there and just being there and walking out to this enormous crowd in Madison Square Garden, I was like,
Whoa. Cool. This is the fucking garden. In the center of it? Yeah, in the round. Oh, you did it. Oh, so you were like looking in 360 degrees. Did you like that? That's my favorite way. Oh, cool. Because it's oddly intimate. So even though there's 16,000 people, the people on this side are seeing the people laugh on this side. And everyone's seeing everyone laugh. And you're just walking around in a circle. Oh, cool. It's oddly intimate for 16,000 people.
It's my favorite way to do arenas. I was always really curious because I've seen stand-ups like that and I was like, I wonder if that's distracting for them to have to, yeah. No, it's the most fun. I thought it would be distracting too because I've done arenas where you're on stage facing the crowd and it feels oddly impersonal. It's like you're just doing a show for this massive amount of people. It's fun.
But that I kind of preferred clubs, but a giant arena in the round seems like a giant club. It really does. It's like, but there's some, there's a lot of like doing it in Boston was huge because like I did the TD garden because that was like where I grew up and that's where I started doing standup. But there's something about Madison square garden for fights where when you go there, it's like, there's an extra tingle in the air. Like,
boys were at the garden. Cool. They also, you fighting Mirab at the garden would be fucking insane. Yeah, it'd be crazy. Um, yeah. When you think about him, um, what do you think about this matchup? Like, how do you approach it? I think he has some, um, obviously really good physical traits that make him, like, his conditioning is a superpower that other people don't get to have. And that's unique to him and he's made a way to weaponize that in a really smart way. Um,
Every time I like kind of too technically break down things, I feel like I'm trying to be really convincing instead of...
you know, just believing in it, which has always kind of been a big problem of mine in the past has always been, I need evidence in order to believe in something, which kind of just, and like with that in, in like fighting for a world champion, what am I going to just walk in and be like, well, I've been a world champion before, so I could do it now. Like I don't get that luxury of doing that to be a world champion. So recently I've had this realization of belief in self that Trevor and Carrington banks have both helped instill in me big time. Um,
where I feel like approaching Merab is going to be unique in its own, but I don't need to tailor what it is that I'm doing too much to Merab. I've really bought into this idea where if I can go out and be the best martial artist that there is in all areas, be able to wrestle with him, be able to strike with him, be able to grapple with him, if I can go out and trust and be that person,
I can do it. Against Umar, I did not as good of a job with that. I treated him like I had to change in order for me to be able to beat him. Against Marab, I'm not going to do that. I think Marab also has this narrative buzz around him where he's an unbeatable...
force of freak of nature who has conditioning out of whatever and while that is true to an extent that doesn't mean anything to the fact that the guy can't be beaten if I look at myself as a fighter and break myself down technically I would say I'm
I'm somewhere between Umar and Sean in the task that he'll have in front of him. I think I know that I wrestle a lot better than Sean does. Um, although Sean does have really good takedown defense, his process of getting up is just like, uh, a little dated and pretty slow. Like you're going to lose some minutes doing it the way that O'Malley does it. Um,
I think that I get up super good. Being tall and lanky, it's really hard to not let short little guys get underneath you. Like that shit's going to happen, especially if they're springy and fast in our weight class like they're going to. You just have to be able to pop right back up immediately, which I know that I can do because I fought Umar, who's easily one of the best wrestlers in the UFC, and I was able to do that.
Whenever I wanted. So that brings me a lot of confidence about that. So I get to fight Merab with a lot of confidence going into it about that. On the striking end of things, I'm obviously, I think, a way better striker than Merab is, even though he does make his shit work the way that he makes his shit work.
But I'm honestly not going to read too much into it, man. I'm going to keep worrying about getting better every single day, all the way leading up to the fight. And I'm going to make Merab deal with me instead of me having to deal with Merab. Do you have to do anything different to deal with that endurance? I mean, man, I feel like I try to go in as every time I feel like there is a there's like a unique thing that you need to big time prepare for.
I go in shape as best as I physically humanly am capable of in every single fight that I go into, as long as I'm not hurt or on antibiotics and bullshit like that. Um,
So I already do that kind of, so I'm not going to kind of overthink that piece. I might run a little bit more. I hear Merab runs, so maybe I'll run a little bit more. But no, outside that, I'll make sure that my legs are really conditioned. That was a big one going against Umar. I'll obviously make sure that I'm conditioned enough to be able to get my ass back up every single time, which is its own special, like wrestling conditioning is a much different type of conditioning than striking conditioning.
Um, so just make sure that I'm fully wrestling conditioned for that fight. And then one of the harder pieces for people in the sport is to wrestle, then be able to strike like how they normally do. Um, so just being, just being conditioned to do that too.
Well, I'm pumped for it. I can't wait to watch. I think you're one of the more exciting guys in the sport and one of the more interesting guys in the sport. I love listening to your thought process. Thanks. It's very cool. Cool, thanks. So thanks for being here, man. Appreciate you very much. Oh, yeah. And again, I can't wait. Cool. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks, Joe. Thanks for having me on. My pleasure. All right. Bye, everybody.