Ladies and gentlemen, Brian, switch me over the other side. There we go. Thank you all for being here. What day is it? Thursday morning. Also, almost said Monday there. Kyle Borja joins us, of course. Kyle, how are you, brother?

I'm very good, brother. I'm honored to be here with you. I'm talking to you, man. I'm very good. Cutting weight. Today is the cutting day, but everything is doing awesome. My cuttings were going perfect, so everything good.

I do not miss This cutting weight. That is one thing. Listen, you are in great shape. You take your top off, you're ripped, you've got the six pack and everything. But I tell you what, I'm always trying to lose a few pounds, but I do not miss sitting in the sauna and all that stuff. How many pounds have you How much you got to cut?

I think right now I got to cut like six pounds, seven pounds. So good.

That's easy.

No problem. So good. Yeah.

And of course, you're joining us because you got to... Well, number one, you're undefeated in the UFC, 16 and one overall, six fight win streak in the UFC, and this Saturday, the main event, your first main event against Jared Kananir. So this is a huge fight for you, Kio. How are you feeling leading up to this one?

Man, I feel great about this fight, about this opportunity. I think it's the best opportunity of my life until now. And I think I deserve this opportunity, Michael, because I've been doing a great work inside the octagon, outside the octagon, and I always wanted to face the toughest guy on the division. I think Jared is one of those guys, very experienced guy. So I think a win over here will put my name even higher and even in a discussion for our next title contender or something like that. So very excited about this fight.

Oh, without question. And this is actually a really good card. A lot of people like to... They I don't know how to talk shit on the apex cards, but this is a really good card, and it's a solid main event. Jared, of course, fought for the belt. As I said before, you've run six fights in a row now. So do you see this fight? You beat Jared, then you're right there in title contention.

Yeah, I think so because there's a lot of contenders on the top five. There's Strickland, there is Brenda Allen, there's some other guys. So Dreycus won, but I think the division He needs a new face, a new breed, something like that. And I already called out Dreycus two times, and he answered me on the X on the Twitter. He said that, Okay, kid, go there. That I get two more wins, and then we can talk. I already got three more wins after that. After being there, if I be there in an extremely good fashion, knock him out or finish him, I don't see any other guy doing this, although I'm involved, but it was early stoppers, in my opinion. So he never been finished. I think in the conversation of the next contender, for sure, the mantra of this training came for He used to show everyone the new champion arrived, so I'm doing.

Yeah, so it's funny that you mentioned Drikus there because I've seen you've been a little critical of Drikus. You said, props to him. I need to congratulate this guy Because he has bad technique, bad game plans, a crazy style. And funnily enough, Dana White even said the other day that he fights like a white guy dances.

Exactly. It's crazy. It's a strange style. When you see him fighting, he's so bad on the feet. He just close himself and just throw hands walking forward with no distance control or anything like that. But The thing is, he make it work. He make it work. I don't want people to get me wrong that I'm criticizing him because I'm also congratulating him because he make it work. So definitely a fight that I want.

Yeah, without question. We're all here to be a champion. Your team, the Fighting Nerds, is doing phenomenal things. And as I said, 6-0 in the UFC, you beat Jared. I think you're right there. Now, here's why I find you so interesting, Kyo, because looking at you now, you're You're a cool guy. You've got the neck tattoos, you've got the shades on. Take the glasses off. Are the nerdy glasses on underneath? Oh, there they are.

Always, always. Where's the bandaid?

Where's the plaster in the middle?

It's the other one. But I cannot see with the other one.

So you wear the glasses because you need the glasses, right?

Yeah. I wear glasses since I was three years old.

What about when you're fighting? Because, dude, if I I take these things off, I am. I mean, I'm blind in one eye. The one eye that I do have doesn't work very well. What about when you're fighting in the octagon? No problem?

No problem because I have myopia. It's far away. So when it's close, in the distance of the rig range, in the octagon range, I can see everything. It's all good.

Okay, okay, okay. Well, you're going to get the shades back on. Come on, we need the cool, Kyle. Now, here's why you're interesting. You're a cool guy. You got the neck tattoos, you're undefeated in the UFC. But you, before being a professional fighter, you were a chemistry teacher and a history teacher. That is not normally the background for the UFC average fighter.

Yeah, I was math teacher, math teacher and chemistry teacher. When I was young because my grandpa, he was a math teacher. And there was a day that he needed to go out in the middle of the class. And then he came to me and said, Oh, do I don't know how to teach this subject. I was like, Oh, I think I can teach this. And then he came to me and said, Okay, so you're going to teach these guys that. I was 15 years old. I was always good with numbers and math and all this stuff. So that's the way I started. That's how I made money when I was 15 to 16, 17 years old. Then I started to study chemistry, and I fell in love right away on chemistry. I was in the first year of the high school, but I was I'm already studying subjects from the second year, the third year. Then I went to college and almost graduated in chemistry school, so I always like it. Right now, I cannot remember that much things. I'm 10 years without reading anything about it and something like that. But in my younger age, I used to give class to my guys on the college.

And on the school, I lost the count of times that people came to my house to have class with me. So I was like a nerd back in the days.

So the name works perfectly. I just went into my son's bedroom this morning. He's studying to start a course in his master's degree, and he's actually studying now. He's doing advanced algebra. I walked in, I looked at what he was doing. I was like, Oh, my God, what is that? I'm like, How's it going, son? He's like, Yeah, not good. Look at this. And I'm like, Oh, my God, I've got nothing to offer. So So do you find that having... Because obviously, clearly, you're an intelligent guy, and the sport of mixed martial arts is human chess. That's the comparison they always make. Do you find that having a higher intellect than the average fighter, do you think that that helps you in the octagon?

Yeah, definitely. I think the high IQ and be intelligent on the octagon, it always comes out with being less emotional there. Because when you're more like a study a guy that we study more the numbers, the data, the patterns that your opponent presents to yourself and all this thing, you can take that we have that bother us inside the octagon. Sometimes makes us do bad things inside the octagon, do some mistakes. And also I think it definitely helps me because my approach of the fight game is more a cerebral approach than an emotional approach. Don't get me wrong, for sure, there's a lot of emotions, there's adrenaline, there's all that. But I think I can take it off a little bit and put more on science approach, human chest, as you said. So I think it definitely helps me.

Yeah, you're lucky because I was always over emotional. It took me until my 30s to start using my brain in the octagon. Do you know what I mean? Because I was always just like, let's just fight. But you're absolutely right. Do you know who else was a math teacher in the UFC?

Who?

You don't know?

No, I don't know.

One of the first UFC middleweight champions, Rich Franklin.

Oh, yeah. I think I heard about it. Yeah. Crazy, right? Imagine this big math teacher. No one would mess with him.

So at school, you were a good kid. Were you getting into scraps or were you a nice, controlled young man?

I was a kid full of fear. I was never going to scratch. I was running out of fights in school, on the streets and all that. Maybe that's what makes me a fighter today because I wanted to prove myself that I'm not that kid anymore. But I'm thankful for the kid, the kid that brought me here, that made who I am right now, made the the fighter that I am right now. Because when I was young, I was always a kid that couldn't control emotionally. Even when I got to arguments with someone, just like speaking, I started to cry. I couldn't control myself. When someone challenged me to fight in the street or something like that, I was like, No, I'm okay. I'm going home. So maybe I grew up with this tip of my mind, with this on my mind. When I started martial arts, when I started actually beating people up and all this stuff, I was like, Man, I can do this shit. I can overcome my fears. I can do whatever the fuck I want. I can control my emotions. So maybe that's my biggest force when I go in there and fight.

And that's why I take all the emotions away and just keep it cerebral things.

That's really interesting. And when did that change for you? Because we hear a lot of fighters and were getting bullied when they were younger. Like George St. Pierre is a classic case. I did as well. And that fueled my anger when I was a child. I was a different way. But was it when you started martial arts that things started to change for you?

Yeah, I always did judo, but even though I was still the same kid, And then I started jiu-jitsu, then I started to do good. I started to be confident in my skills. I started to work harder. And then something just changed when I was 19, 20 years old, and I started to beat people up in the training I'm in training, of course, respectfully, but beat people up in the training. So I was like, Oh, I can really do this. I'm good enough to do this and all this thing. There was the day that I had my coach with me. His name is Wagner Mota. And these things back in the days, it really bothered me for a long time. Even when I was fighting, when I was six or seven fights, I was still having this anger about the kid that I was, the fearful kid that I was. And then he came to me and said, Gael, come on. I told him my story, the stuff that I was bothering with that. And he came to me and said, close your eyes. I closed my eyes and he said, You can still see the same kid over there?

I said, Yeah, I can see. So get close to him. And then I said, Okay, I got close to him. And then he said, Okay, now we're going to hug him, thank him, and said that you enjoy the times that he been through, that this time is making the man that you watch today, the person that you watch today, the Spanish people. So forgive him so you can release yourself off that shit. And then after that, man, I'm free of this. That's why this is a free spirit. I'm a free spirit now. Wow.

That makes sense. And that's really deep. And that's beautiful of your coach. So I'm going to do the same thing. I want to close your eyes and in your mind, You can see Jared Kanan here. You're in the octagon. It's Saturday night. You can hear my voice. I'm commentating, so I can't make a prediction. How does this fight go down? And in a perfect world, what happens Saturday night? How do you finish this guy?

I'm finishing him with an amazing performance, like a mature performance. That's what I need to show the UFC, a mature performance against a top contender. For sure, I'm looking for the KO or for submitting him. But the perfect way is I'm going to go there, be on his face all the time, put some jabs on him, get some good defense, and then catch him with a good counterpunch. That's the perfect situation. But anything can happen in this level of the game. You know that.

Yeah, no, of course. So in the perfect world, you get the stoppage, you get on the microphone, and then what is the message to Drikus? Because that's what you've got to do. You've got to send a message to the champ and say, Bro, I'm coming. You suck. Your words, not mine.

Exactly. I'm going to say exactly that. I'm willing to face the strangest guy in the division, and I'm willing to beat his ass. That's what I'm going to say because I've been calling out him two times already. So I think the third time, the FC going to hear me after a great feature on Canonia.

Okay. Well, listen, mate, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. Best of luck on Saturday. I've loved watching your career. I'll see you in the apex. And who knows? Maybe I'll talk to you in the octagon. Thank you, Kyle.

Take care.

All right. And there he is, the one and only, Kyle Bohio.