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All day. All right, what's up? Good to see you, man. Congratulations.

Good to see you, brother. Appreciate you, man.

The champ is here. Everybody has to shut the fuck up now.

That's the best part right now is now I could just talk as much as possible and they can't say nothing.

They can't say nothing. There were so many doubters, so many naysayers. So many people didn't want you to get that title shot. It was so unfair, dude. It was really wild. It was wild to see. It really was. It really was. Because I'm like, are you guys not watching his fights? Like, what the fuck are you guys seeing? I. I do not understand when people don't appreciate excellence. I really don't get it. I never like the Sean Brady fight. You see that fight? You don't think this dude is a fucking problem for everybody? You see the wonder boy fight?

See all your fights and all of them, they've been different, right? Like with Deshaun Brady, all I did was stand up. I didn't shoot one takedown on him. Gilbert Burns, I didn't shoot one takedown wonder boy, I took him down. Obviously, I'm not going to strike with a kickboxer. So I've showed you guys all forms of martial arts, and people still hate it. They're like, they're still hating.

So crazy.

Even with the Leon fight, so even.

For this fight, I think they have to shut the fuck up. I think everybody has to shut the fuck up and just recognize what you did because you put so much pressure on him standing up. You were in his face from the very 1st second of the very first round. You just advanced and you could tell he wanted that space and you could tell it was a different experience than what he thought he was going to get from you.

Yeah, I mean, when we saw him against Kobe and him against Usman, the third fight, we saw that he's expert at distance, he manages the distance. He puts it at his own pace. So we were like, bro, we got to make this dirtiest fight, the hardest fight for him. So we got to step right away. So even when the ref was, like, looking to me, tell me to back up, when he looked at Leon and said, you ready? You ready? I'm walking forward right away, so I'm right in his face before he even like, looks up. So I was like, I gotta get him on his back foot right away, make him uncomfortable. And I knew he's not good, uncomfortable. None of these. No striker is really good moving backwards. But I knew Leon specifically. I don't want to be in his kick range. I don't want him at his slow pace like he did against Kobe and these guys where he kicks, moves, kicks, moves. I'm like, I'm going to be in his face nonstop, punching him in his mouth and taking him down whenever I see an opening.

The Colby fight, I thought was going to be different. I think Colby broke his foot real early in that fight.

I mean, I think Kobe sucks, but for me, I think that Kobe wasn't. He's just not a good striker. Even with the fights that we see that he was really good at, it was just. Cause he could have. He put a good pace on all these guys and he dictated the pace with RDa and I, Robbie Lawler, all these guys, but none of those guys really had that type of cardio. When we saw him against Usman, Usman showed you, all right? He could keep up that pace with Kobe, and then Kobe can't take him down. So it ended up being like a kickboxing match for Leon. He knew if he dictated the pace with Kobe, Kobe wasn't going to be able to do anything to him. And I don't think the time off, I think, hurt Kobe's distance management because his shot takedowns were terrible in that fight. He didn't. He wasn't managing it.

I think the foot had a big factor because I think he broke his foot. I think Leon checked the kick real early on, or he kicked low and hit the shin and broke his foot, hit the knee, something. I don't remember exactly what happened, but apparently in the first round he broke his foot. If you can't move against Leon, you're in real trouble.

Yeah. I mean, especially cause Leon's so good at his lateral movement and his kicks hurt so hard.

Yeah.

So for me, I was like, I can't be in kicking range at all. I think I felt like one. One body kick early, and I was like, all right, let me step forward on it. So even with my mindset the whole camp, I probably took two to 3000 body kicks and then moved forward on each of them. And if I backed up at all, my coach is yelling at me, look what you did here. You did this wrong. Move forward. Move forward. We can't take one step back. So I was like, I was writing it down, I was putting it in my head. Do not take a step back. Do not take a step back. And then it just came out in the fight.

It came out perfect. It was a master plan. It really was. Watching you execute it, I was just so. I was so shocked. First of all, inability to deal with you on the feet, because even if it was just a kickboxing match, there was so much pressure and so much volume of strikes. You were constantly on him. Your boxing was so on point, man. It would look better than it's ever looked.

Yeah. I think people just underestimate me when they look at me, because they say, oh, he doesn't have a bunch of knockouts. But when you look at my fights and you see the way I pieced up a lot of these big names like Gilbert and Sean Brady, I beat them both on the feet. And for the Leon fight, my gym is small, but we have. I work with, I think, who's the best striker in the UFC right now. He's a 55 er, Ignacio Balaamundez. Like, this kid is a monster. He probably has, like, monster. You saw. Yeah. His spinning hill kick knockout.

I'm dangerous.

I'm sparring with this dude every single day. So I'm like, nothing that Leon was gonna throw at me was gonna surprise me. Nothing was gonna make me uncomfortable. And for me, if you're beating me up, I want to keep going to you. So for nacho, I'm like, bro, throw the kitchen sink at me. I want you to throw everything you have in your tool bag at me. So if whatever Leon throws, I'm just going to be comfortable in that fire. So for me, it was just nonstop, non stop sparring, sparring, sparring, even if it's not hard sparring, light sparring, just enough to see everything and have my reaction time. And I think that helps a lot with the way I've been fighting lately.

How much time did you have to prepare for Leonida?

I had about eight weeks.

Did they. Did you kind of have an inkling that it was going to happen before that? Like, had you been preparing mentally before that?

That was the hardest part, right, the lead up, because it was after beating Gilbert, they were like, you're guaranteed next. And then you're like, when is it happening? They're like, well, Kobe has to fight first. So then I'm sitting there in the, playing the waiting game, and then they offered me Usman. They're like, well, you know, if you don't want to wait, we could give you Usmanda. So we had talks with Usman, and then Usman ended up fighting Hamza on short notice. So then I was like, all right, well, there's nothing else they could put in front of me. It's gonna be me against the winner of Kobe and Leon. Then that fight happens, and then Leon's trying to brush it off, like, nah, there's still other guys I could look at and see who's next. And he even brought up Gilbert burns. And I'm like, bro, I just beat Gilbert burns. So I'm sitting there, you know, in limbo, like, what's happening? I'm calling my manager every day, and Ali's my manager, and he's like, bro, trust me, Dana's not gonna go against his word. He's gonna give you the shot. He's gonna give you the shot.

Then all of a sudden, a 300 comes up, and I'm like, oh, so we're probably gonna be 300? And then they say, oh, they offered to fight to three other guys, and I was one of those guys. So then, like, I'm sitting there like, bro, wait, no way am I about to get screwed right now. Are they gonna give it to somebody else?

Did you ask, like, why didn't I get the fight at 300? If they were trying to get Leon to fight at 300, why didn't you get that title shot?

For me, it was just. I put it out there. I said, if they really wanted Leon to fight there, they would have put me on there because I said yes. You know, they asked. They said, they asked Islam, they said. They asked Shavka, they said, they asked Hamza, and they all said no because of Ramadan. But I fought multiple times during Ramadan. So for me, I'm like, if they really wanted Leon, they could have had him with me. But I think they just wanted to have that shock factor with 300 where it's like, oh, double champ status for Islam or Hamza, obviously a huge star, he comes back down. So I think they just wanted that. And Lee has not a promoter. He doesn't really promote his fights in general. Obviously, he's a great fighter, but for 300, I think they want somebody that's going to try to push the event.

Yeah, but still, yeah, the rules are the rules. You know, guy makes it to the top of the heap, he's supposed to be next in line for a title shot. Yeah.

I mean, for me, I'm like, yeah, what else do I got to do?

All the purists felt that way. I didn't see anybody who's like, a real solid MMA fan who felt that was a lot of the casuals. A lot of the casuals jumping in with their goofy opinions on things.

But that's the age we live in, right? The troll age. Nobody has a profile picture. They just say the dumbest stuff.

Well, not only that, you have a disproportionate look. The reality of the numbers is I had a joke in my act that 1090 percent of all twitter is done by 10% of the people, and those people are 100% retarded. But it really almost is that. I mean, it's a joke, but it's kind of almost true because are you commenting on shit all the time? Do you go to someone's YouTube videos and talk shit? You're busy. You're busy being the fucking welterweight champion of the world. You ain't got no time for that. So the people that have time to be doing that all the time are unfortunately, generally not doing that good. They're not. Michael Jordan's not leaving YouTube comments. You know what I'm saying? It's like the people that are engaged in these attacks on specific fighters in particular, they're usually just dorks. And I get it that these dorks by pay per view, and I get it, these dorks. But they're not most people. Most people want to see the best people fight the best people. And would it be exciting to see Islam go up and try to win at 170? Fuck, yeah.

It would be. I'd be all in for that fight. Unfortunately for you. I mean, it sounds great. If I was running things, I'd be like, the fights are gonna be fucking great anyway. It's UFC 300. Everyone's gonna be super hyped up. There's so much on the line. It's a crazy fucking card. That's a great fight. It's a great fight.

Yeah. And it's two guys that are on ten fight winning streaks.

Yeah.

So, I mean, how weird was it.

To have to do the fight at, like, five in the morning?

Oh, my God.

Explain. So let's explain that to people who don't know. The UFC that was done in England was done on american pay per view time, so the card had to start. What did it start? Like?

01:00 a.m. yeah, it started. Yeah. The first fight was 01:00 a.m. 1st.

Fight of the night. 01:00 a.m. undercard UFC fight pass. First fight of the night. That's crazy. That's so crazy. As if we can't watch it earlier in the day. As if UFC fans on a fucking Saturday are going to say, oh, the pay per view starts at noon. Okay. We watch football games at noon. We wouldn't watch world title fights at noon. Making you guys fight at five in the morning, to me, was bananas. I was like, that is so contrary to anything you would want from optimum physical performance.

Yeah, it was wild. Like, we got down there the week before on Saturday, and, you know, we're trying. We found a gym, so we're like, let's start trying to work out at 04:00 a.m. because being the main event, they said it'll probably be on around, like, 5530. So the hardest part was just trying to stay up from midnight to 04:00 a.m. to go drive to this gym. And, you know, we had, like, a big house, so we had a bunch of people with us, but one person yawns, and it's, like, addictive. And it's like, bro, it's midnight. We're all just, like, watching Netflix. And then we, like, we didn't have no games or anything, so we're just, like, trying to watch movies.

Wow.

And then one guy yawns, you're like, I want to go upstairs by myself for a second. And then just like, I. The PI is really good because they gave us some jet lag glasses that shine light in your eyes that you're supposed to turn on right when the sunset, because when the sun sets, you start getting melatonin in your body and makes you want to go to sleep. So they put this on when the sun sets, so it shocks your body, make you think it's about to be sunlight.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

So I'm walking around the house with these glasses that are shining light on my eyes, and it still was hard. We would show up to work out.

It's like, fuck you, bitch. It's three in the morning.

We went to go work out, so I'm trying to get everybody to work out with me. So, like, we had maybe five or six guys with us, and then the gym was at 30 minutes away. So by the time we finished working out at night, it was starting. The sun was rising because it was like, 07:00 a.m. and I'm like, how am I about to fall asleep right now? So I would, like, take melatonin fight week, and then it would wake me up at, like, 02:00 p.m. and I would still be at groggy the rest of the day. And then you have to do, like, interviews and stuff like that. It was hard.

So did you try to stay on Chicago time? The whole thing?

I tried, but it was still hard just because, like I said, that time in between where that board time where we're like, all right, we gotta work out at 04:00 a.m. and then, you know, during the day we had interviews and stuff starting at 03:00 p.m. they adjusted those times so then we would finish everything. It'll be like 07:00 p.m. how fake done.

London cards in the past, did they do that in the past?

They've done it once with, I think it was busy against Hendo. Twice. Yeah, the second one. But other than that, they would just do it. And american time zone would be like daytime here.

That's so crazy.

But I think pay per view wise, they expect more people to buy pay per views in prime time. Like night, 09:00 p.m. probably.

Yeah, yeah, I guess.

But when they go to Abu Dhabi, we still fight Abu Dhabi time. Nighttime.

Yeah.

And then over here it's daytime.

Yeah.

But I wonder if they see like a change in numbers with that and that made them adjust.

They probably do, but whatever. Yeah, that's my feeling. It's whatever. Like, we can't have people fight at five in the morning. That's nonsense. You can't have an audience there at five in the morning, fucking exhausted for a world title fight. Exhausted. Can't believe you're still awake.

For me, I was like, I hope they are exhausted. Cause I'm like, they're probably gonna be booing me anyway. So I'm like, like, let them get drunk starting at midnight. Let them be dead tired. Once it gets to that level.

How many people were asleep in the audience?

People started leaving early. It was like fourth round and I think I got the last takedown and I was like, finishing on top of him. They said people were leaving.

Wow.

And I was like, that's a good sign. That just tells me that they know that there's nothing else he could really do.

He had one big moment in the last round when he got on top.

Yeah, I still got it right here. And it's just like, I just keep shaking my head every time I think of it, but it just tells me that I still have stuff to fix, still have stuff to work on, and you can never get, like, too comfortable, especially with him. But, yeah, my coaches, my coach is the type that'll, like, tell me everything I did wrong after a fight instead of the stuff I did right. So right away, something. Now look at your face. Now look at you like, you did that. Could you took your foot off the gas for 1 second and something could happen. Who knows if there's a minute left, what, what could have happened? Or blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I won, coach. I'm the world champion. Chill out.

But he wants you to be perfect. Yeah, that was, it was interesting because you could see him using energy management. You could see him trying to figure out when to just defend and when to try to break free and when to plant himself and fire shots and when to just stay on the back foot and keep moving. He tried to hold you off a few times, but I think whatever you're doing for strength and conditioning, your cardio was insane because the volume, just the sheer volume and pressure that you were putting on him and the fact that you keep that up solid five rounds. Yeah, that was insane.

Yeah. I think every fighter's fear is to get tired in the cage. Every fighter's fear is to be in there and not be able to lift up your arms. And you've seen it happen with a lot of guys, big name guys, wherever you'll see them, give up a choke and it'll be like he just lifted up his neck and maybe he was too tired. No, he just wanted to get out of there. For me, I had no fear. And I know that I could go harder than any of these guys. And if I'm tired, I know he's going to be twice as tired. But I think a lot of it, like you said, is just the team I have around me. I do strength and conditioning with my boy Matt Murphy, but it's not anything outrageous, right. We're not doing the crazy new stuff that's coming out. We do heavy weights and we do, like, the big muscles, like chest, lower back, and squats. But we put all this other stuff around it, like the cosmetic stuff, too, and we're lifting three days a week.

What do you mean by cosmetic stuff?

Like, say if I go heavy on my squat, and then we'll still end up doing lower back, chest, and Dumbbell was chest and everything on that day, but on a heavy chest day, we're going legs, lunges, lesser weight. So we go heavy with, like, squats, chest, and deadlifts one day a week for each of those, and then on we still do full body stuff that same day, but just like lower the weights and higher reps.

So you're essentially doing almost like you doing like power lifter work?

Yeah.

You're doing bench press, like just power generating stuff?

Yeah.

Are you doing any plyometrics or any of that kind of stuff.

I mean, I do a lot of swimming for my cardio wise, and then people make in front of me a lot hard.

Swimming is fucking hard.

People don't know how to. People, when I take them to the pool, like, when I take a brand new fighter to the pool, and if they never swam before, they get so tired, and I tell them, bro, it's a full body workout. It's everything you need, especially for fighting. It's, like, one of the hardest things.

You could do, especially if you're, like, built like you, because you probably sink like a rock. So it's hard to stay above water. Yeah, like, fat people, they say swimming's not hard, right, because you got a floaty on. You're literally swimming around with a floaty. You could float.

Yeah.

Dense dudes just go right under. You got a struggle to stay above.

Water, and I don't have, like, the best technique to doing it, so I still, like, go there, and I'd like, I'm gonna go a mile, and then I'll go and I'll take a little break. Go take a little break. And then, like you said, you see, like, that fat person just going nonstop.

Yeah.

You're looking at them like, bro, I just want to, like, slap them. What am I doing wrong?

Yeah, they're cheating. They got a human floaty on, but it's a hard. I remember Maurice Smith was the first guy that started using swimming for MMA. You know, Maurice Smith was training with Frank Shamrock when Frank Shamrock was just a cardio machine. Frank, I think Frank Shamrock was the first guy in the UFC that had, like, a full, complete arsenal of MMA weapons. He could stand. He could take guys down. He could strangle you. He could armbar you. He could do everything. He could submit you off his back. And Frank was just a cardio machine. And when Maurice went from kickboxing and got into MMA, he was doing a lot of training with Frank, and they were real. Maurice was super cardio focused. So that's like when he beat Mark Coleman. He beat Mark because Mark got tired, and then Maurice defended off of his. And that's the old days, bro, when they had headbutt. That was the headbutt days, you know, that's crazy. And Maurice started tuning him up on the feet. Once Maurice got up to his feet, he was just leg kicking the shit out of him, and he was talking to him, saying, come on, mark, grow me and pound me.

I thought you were gonna ground me and pound me. Whack, whack. Like, he didn't take any crazy chances. And, you know, so he didn't get taken down at the end, but he won the heavyweight title.

It's funny how you said that. The headbutt days. I did an interview yesterday with the Chicago News, and then the lady's like, she had no idea who I was. I'm like, you didn't do no research. Cause she's like, you're the champion of street fighting, right?

Oh, boy.

And I'm just like, imagine that you're.

Literally the world champion, and this person hasn't even done five minutes of research into sport you do.

I was. I was wild, and I was like, people still think that you should just.

Start making shit up. Yeah, we made it in alleyways, you know, it's not even. You gotta get it on the dark web. I fight with a roll of nickels in my hand. I don't give a fuck.

I didn't realize there's still people out here that have that mindset, like, well.

There'S people in the news that aren't even humans. They're just robots. They're like media robots. All they want to do is be on tv. They'd have no opinions, no personality. Oh, I hear you're the champion of street fighting.

I'm looking at the teleprompter. I'm like, I feel like that's all they do, is just read the teleprompter.

That's such. That's so disrespectful to someone who has risen to the top of the greatest organization ever for combat sports. We all know that. Look, I'm a huge boxing fan. Boxing's amazing. I love boxing. But we all know if Francis Ngannou and Tyson Fury had a fight fight, that shit would not last. One round did. Not a chance in hell. If they had a fight fight. A real fight, like an MMA fight. Boxing is a sport. MMA is the sport of fighting. It's the hardest fucking thing to do for an athlete, the hardest thing to do is what you did. Become the champion of the world in a tank filled with sharks. It's not saying that it's not. If you were 170 pound boxer, it'd be just as difficult. I'm not saying boxing's not hard to do. I'm not saying it's. It's hard as fuck to be a Ryan Garcia, hard as fuck to be a Gervonta Davis. Just the same mentality they have. They would have been world champions in MMA. But MMA is harder. It's harder, and it's more effective. It's the real sport of fighting. So for you to reach the pinnacle in the greatest combat sport ever, and this lady to go, you're the champion of street fighter, and you're on fucking tv.

That's so great. Why can't they bring in an expert? There's so many people who could have interviewed you.

I was. I was like, yeah, don't you guys have a sportscaster or somebody that's gonna interview?

Call in Ariel Helwani, call in somebody. There's somebody out there that can do this. This is crazy.

Or do one little second of research?

Yes.

Oh, the UFC.

Yeah. But even then, yeah, they're gonna be asking you stupid ass questions. You should have someone who knows what the fuck they're talking about. They have to have a sports guy. Don't they have a sports guy? The sports guy's gotta know they did.

And that's what I was like, why am I getting with these two? And she was like, so you do boxing then, too? And I'm like, well, boxing's a part of it.

It takes martial arts, a lot of thumb wrestling. Yeah, that's a real important part of my game added.

We do power slap. Yeah, I'm the champion of that.

I have the most powder on my hand when I slap. The whole. It's just. It's just disrespectful, you know? It's just a bummer that people don't get it yet. Yeah, it's like, so many people. Way more people get it now than never got it before. You know? When I first started doing commentary for the UFC was in 97, when I first started doing backstage interviews, and people were acting like I was doing porn. They were like, what are you doing? Like, why are you doing that? Are you crazy? I go, I love it. It's great. What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, it was like, being involved in. That was bad for your career.

That's wild.

Yeah. Dana and I have talked about so many times, like, people would tell people that he bought the UFC, and they'd be like, what the fuck are you doing? God, that's terrible. Meanwhile, everybody watches it now.

Yeah, it's going to be up there bigger than, I think, all the other sports.

It'll be bigger than everything but football. In America, you're never going to beat football. You can't beat football.

You're seeing this next younger generation. It's just wild how they're coming up. Like, kids are starting. My boy, Nacho, Ignacio, his brother's 15 years old, and he's already five and a pro. Crazy. I'm like, bro, you're starting this young.

15, and you're crazy.

I'm like, that's wild.

Fighting pro at 15, that's nuts. You're fighting pro men at 15?

Yeah. His next fight is for the title. He's like a 30 year old, and.

I'm just like, oh, my God, where's this happening?

It's in Columbia.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Yeah, you go wild down there, boy. They don't have any fucking rules.

That's fine.

You can fight at 15, but imagine.

When he gets to his twenties, the experience he's gonna have.

Oh, yeah.

And then if one of these younger guys now that only fought locally in Chicago or something, they see him, he's gonna look at them like, yeah, okay, let me show you what I do.

Do you think there's something to be said for not jumping in too quick? Because I feel like there's some fighters that, they just got rushed, and they weren't really prepared for an elite fighter, and they got tuned up, and they were kind of never the same again. I think there's been a few guys like that that I think had real potential, but someone rushed them into a top ten situation way too quick.

Yeah, 100%. I think Darren till is probably, like, the. The biggest one I think of. When I think of that, when he rushed into the title fight.

It's hard to say, though, because Darren till, when he knocked out cowboy, see, people have two Darren tills in their head. They have Darren till with knee injuries, older later in his career. And you have Darren till when he's 170. Darren till when he could make 170. And, dude, he was dangerous. When he fucked up cowboy, I was like, jesus Christ, this guy's fucking terrifying. He was ferocious, but he didn't keep that for whatever reason, you know, he didn't keep that level of success. He had mad potential. So I'm not sure if he got rushed or if he just got injured or if it was just a grappling game. He was too late taking in the grappling game.

I think there's a lot of guys that don't know how to take a loss. I think that once they, you know, he was undefeated, then you get your first loss and you go back to the gym, your confidence deflated. You look at people look at you differently, like you don't have that same, you know, mentality. I'm the biggest one in the room.

Well, then Tyron Woodley, he fought Tyrone. When Tyrone is in his prime. That was prime time. Tyron Woodley, and Tyron Woodley fucked him up. But Tyrone Woodley, in his prime, fucked everybody up. Everybody just thinks about that. Jake Paul fight. Get that out of your head. That's an older athlete at the end of his run doing something only really mostly for money.

Usman said it yesterday. He said, like, people are so quick to forget, right, of the stuff you did. When you're great. Yeah, when you're at the top. And especially guys like Woodley, where he was, he was one of the best to ever do it.

One of the best.

Then later you start losing a couple.

Exactly.

And then it just tarnishes everything. I'm like, bro, go back to the knockout of Robbie Lara. That was crazy the way he did. And Robbie was the. The man at that time.

I think one of his most impressive performances, two of his most impressive performances are performances that weren't even that exciting. And that's the wonder boy fight. Because he fought the perfect fight with wonder boy. He never led. Never led. He's like, let's make it boring. I don't give a fuck. But then when they had exchanges, Tyron hurt Wonder boy. Wonder boy never hurt Tyron. Wonder Boy is a 570 kickboxer, one of the greatest strikers the UFC has ever seen. But he was so worried about those takedowns that he didn't really commit either. And then when. And he was always worried about the takedown, which of course, you know, opens up punches and Tyron could fucking crack. Tyron could crack back in the. When he knocked out Lawler with one punch, like, holy shit, Tyron could crack.

People forget, yeah, when I fought Wonder boy, that was like one of the fights I watched. And then I was. That was one of the fights I'm most afraid of. Cause you're looking at him against Woodley, him against Johnny Hendricks, and none of these guys could take him down. And then Anthony Pettis told me, like, bro, I was like, should I bring in somebody for him? He's like, nah. Cause nobody ever. Nobody moves like him. And he kicks hurt harder than anybody else that brought in, because he brought in like, Sage Northcutt and those guys to be like him and Mike Biggie Rhodes. And he's like, bro, wonder boy is just different. So he said I would just try to wrestle, and I was like, all right, let's. Let's go. And then I was like, let me just get ahead of him right away and grab ahold of him and not pull back at all.

So the problem with wonder boy is he can do some shit that other people can't do. And one of them is that lead leg. That lead leg's a real problem. Cause he's got the best front leg sidekick in the business. And he also throws that round kick off the front leg over your shoulder, and you don't. His first knockout in the UFC, he throws that shit over the shoulder. You don't see it until it's up there, and you're like, oh, shit, it's too late.

Yeah. And he disguises his. His stuff so beautifully, but he disguises it with his personality. Cause before the fights. Hey, what's up, bro? How you doing? And then I'm like, bro, I know you're gonna try to kill me tomorrow, man. Like, but he's genuinely sweet.

He's not putting. Like, some guys will do that just to try to throw you off, but that literally is wonder boy. He's a sweetheart of a guy.

The nicest.

Happens to be a killer. And I feel like wonder boy, man, he's one of those guys. Like, he. I feel like if he had gotten into MMA earlier and really learned grappling earlier with that kickbox, like, maybe if he hadn't had 50 kickboxing fights, but only had, like, he was an elite at, you know, 20 fights in, I'm sure 30 fights in, and got. And really gotten into MMA when he was a younger man. Cause the thing about fight, like, he's 40 now or 41, right. The thing about fighting is, if you're not cheating and, you know, you're getting into your forties, like, there's no way. There's no way you're the same guy you were when you were 25, it's not possible.

Yeah.

So if you don't have the same body to work with, it doesn't matter how good the mind is, it doesn't matter how good. We've all seen it from the great champs. They just hung around too long, and the body just doesn't perform anymore. And they know what to do, but the body can't do it.

Yeah. And everything just slows down. Your reflexes, even your mindset. Right. Because you don't want to. It's the hardest thing to train for. You have to fight every day in the practice room to train for a fight. So these guys who've been doing it for so long, you're burnt out. So if, like, you get to your forties and you got a family and stuff, you're like, do I want to train two to three times a day? Do I want to go to the gym right now. Wrestle?

Yeah.

Like, I think that's one of the keys that my coach is very good at. He, like, tells all of his guys, like, we're wrestling three times a week. If you're not at wrestling practice, then you're not going to be aspiring practice, like, all the. Cause a lot of our guys are really great strikers. Nachos been striking with them since he was 16 years old. He told them, like, I don't care if you hate this right now. You don't know how to wrestle. You're going to lose. You could be the best striker in the world, but all the champions know how to wrestle.

A solid coach right there. Cause every guy needs to learn that. Cause there's so many dudes who don't wanna roll. Cause they don't wanna get tapped out. But they're elite kickboxers. There was a bunch of those guys in the early days of the UFC just didn't quite pick that part up and never excelled.

Yeah, I see that a lot with guys, like I said, that don't wanna get beat up, they go to practice and they don't wanna get embarrassed. That's when the ego comes in. Right? Like, I'm a UFC fighter. I shouldn't be losing to Joe Schmo at a jujitsu class.

Right.

So there's, like, avoid those guys.

I don't think wonder boy ever avoided anybody like that. I just think he was late to the game, you know, and he was training a lot with Weidman, who's an awesome wrestler, but, like, he got his first loss in the UFC, I think, was Mike Brown.

Yeah.

And Mike Brown just mauled him. Just mauled him. That was Mike Brown in his prime, who was a scary motherfucker. He played no games. He played no games. Mike Brown's tried to kill you.

I would wish that. I would never get that call to like, hey, do you want to fight Mike Brown? And I was like, mad. I was like, bro, no. My brother's like, call him out. And I'm like, bro, I'm not gonna call him Matt Brown. My brother's always the type. You could be anybody. And I was like, no, I'll call. If they call me for Matt Brown, do it. But I'm not gonna call him out, though.

You don't want to get him motivated. Yeah, he's the boogeyman. I feel like there's some dudes that, for whatever reason with Matt Brown, you know, he died. You know, he had overdosed and he had, like, a serious drug problem. I think there's guys who see the other side and they come back and they just have a different mentality. You know, they almost lost their life to some really stupid shit, and they have, like, a grip on life that's a little bit different and a drive that's a little different. There's been a few guys that I know that were, like, real heavy drug addicts and got off the drugs and just became performance freaks, just endurance freaks, just animals and, like, so disciplined. You're like, wow. How is it that this guy used to be a drug addict, a junkie, and now this guy's weighing his food and, you know, and drinking electrolyte filled water and fucking showing up before anybody and putting in those rounds on the air dime machine after practice, like, God damn.

I lived with Jared Gordon for three years together. He's like my best friend.

Same situation.

He would say, I'm gonna go for a jog. I was like, all right, cool. And he'll be like, come back like 3 hours later. I'll be like, what you do? I just ran 20 miles, and I'm just like, you said you're going for a jog. That's not a jog. It's like a marathon.

Yeah.

He would just do that out of nowhere. Like you said, they just had that crazy cardio. Endurance, and they'll just go nonstop. Yeah, I think it's that type of mindset, right? It just gets your mind off all their stuff.

They're a little extra spooky. There's a little extra spooky. Those forward junkies, I don't know why, man. They're like, not playing any fucking games. You know, guys that have almost died, they are not playing any fucking games with you. Yeah, it's interesting because, like, there's different things that make a great fighter. There's a lot of stuff. There's genetics, there's gifts. Some people just have that touch of death. They just have that one shot ko power. Some guys just are born with crazy. Like Kane Velazquez, they said, just has genetic cardio. They said that motherfucker could take months off the gym, come in and just smother everybody, and nobody could deal with them. They said it was crazy. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Like, I think Kane for sure was an elite fighter because of his mind, his discipline, his drive, his determination, his skillset. I mean, he was, I think, in his prime. There's the argument of who's the best heavyweight of all time. And I always throw Kane in there, I think primetime Kane was. He was a tornado. He was a tornado. You couldn't understand how a heavyweight could be throwing so many punches.

He never stopped and he could take you down. And if you took him down, he didn't give a fuck. He get right back up like with Brock Lesnar.

Yeah, bro.

He was a tornado in that cage.

And I was able to go down to Aka and get some work in with the guys on there. And Kane was there. Yeah, it was just, I was so intimidated. He's a killer and he's like the nicest guy in the world.

Super nice guy.

But seeing how athletic he was, he was like doing cartwheels in the gym and just like, seeing how he moves, I'm like, now I could understand why he was such a great heavyweight and such a killer.

He was the perfect model heavyweight in his prime. You know, like 240, not too big. So he has insane cardio. You're never going to see a guy like Francis that has the kind of cardio that Kane has. I don't think it's possible. I think you'd get a trait with Francis. You get the touch of death. You get that one shot. Everybody's like, oh, shit, like the Alistair overing fight. Yeah, God damn. Like he had that crazy, crazy power. But I don't think you get that power with that endurance. It doesn't. I've never seen anybody that has that kind of power that also, like Conor even. Yeah, amazing power. But he doesn't have the kind of endurance that some of these guys that have less power do.

Yeah, I'm interested to see how Aspinall is past the first round. Right? Cause we look so fast. You're like, nobody moves like him. He looks like a younger Kane, right. But he just keeps knocking these guys out so quick. So I'm like, let me see him pass the first round to see if he has that cardio as well.

It's a bit of a problem for him, right. Because he has not been tested in that way. And, you know, you're getting up to elite status where you're calling out Jon Jones. Yeah, right? That's the boogeyman. Like, Jon Jones is the fucking boogeyman. And maybe he hasn't died, but he's probably come. He's probably knocked on the door a couple of times, like, what's going on? Death. You in there? You know, Jon Jones has had some trials and tribulations, but the skillset and the ability to push deep into rounds is nuts. Like John fought when he fought Gustafson he had almost no training camp. They said he barely showed up. Like, you know, I talked to Jackson about it and Greg Jackson was always like, he didn't even train for that fight. He didn't even try. And then he pulled that fight off in the fourth and fifth rounds. That's when he really turned it up. So you're talking about a guy who hasn't even been training, and then you saw the real Jon Jones in the second fight. That's motivated Jon Jones, who's like, I'm going to show you what the fuck is really up.

And then he just beats the shit out of Gustafson the second fight.

And I wonder if it's going to get him to that point. All this talking from Espinos, is it get him motivated, right? Or is it going to be the point, like, let me be done with Stipe and be done with it, but I don't want a heavyweight motivated Jon Jones if I'm on the other side.

Yeah.

The way he just pulled gone down so easily and choked him out, I was like, bro.

Yeah.

And then gone looks good as last two fights.

Gone is like one of the most exciting guys on the feet. He's so athletic and that style. He's got a weird front kick, too. You ever noticed his front kick? Like a twisting front kick off the front leg?

Yeah, but it's.

It's weird because he turns it and snaps it up so he jabs you with the toes. There's a kick in taekwondo that's kind of a goofy kick. It's called a twisting kick. And you kind of do it to the face and it's like you. You swing your leg up and kick like this. It's like this. Yeah, but that's what he's doing in a sideways stance. He's just doing it to the body. He's like, got a twisting front kick. Nobody kicks like him.

And he heard bam, bam with that, right.

He fucked bam, bam up. That was. That was like Cyril gan at his very best. A guy like bam, bam who just comes forward and takes a hell of a shot, he's not scared to take one, to give one. And, I mean, Tuivasa is one of the most exciting guys of all time, right?

Yeah. And it's crazy how.

But that style with gone, gone's this elite striker. Incredible lateral movement, you know, counter punching, the ability to move out of range and dive right back in real quick. Yeah, but Aspinall was like, we've only seen him smash. We've only seen.

We've never seen him be the nail nobody ever, right? And I thought Pavlovich was going to be the one that's like, it's gonna be a banger. And he just puts him to sleep.

And he took Pavlovich's fight with a fucked up rib. He couldn't even wrestle.

Yeah, sure. Notice, too, right?

Imagine you going up against Pavlovich. You know, the only guys who's ever beat him was over him and over him. Took him down, beat him up on the ground, and you're like, I gotta get this guy down. This guy's knocking everybody dead. Yeah. And he knocks him out standing. He's so fast for a heavyweight. But again, you're saying the right thing. Like, what is it like in the fifth round with Jon Jones? Because if you can't steamroll Jon Jones and he starts sidekicking your fucking kneecaps.

You know, there's nobody better with distance than John.

The best.

Nobody comes close.

That, too. I know you've experienced that, Mandev.

Yeah.

How many eye surgeries have you had to have?

I've had. I've had three.

Wow.

Yeah. They're literally the hardest thing in the world. The most depressing thing in the world. Yeah, I don't think.

Did you have one after the Leon fight or before?

I had one after that as well. Like, even in my. My fight in. When I fought Luke, after the third round, I went back to my corner, I was like, there's something in my eye. And, like, I couldn't see out of my eye. And I'm, like, trying to blink it out. And then the cup man, Tate, he's like, bro, ain't nothing wrong with your eyes. Stop touching your eye. So then I was like, all right, well, whatever. So I go back in there to fourth and fifth round, and I just can't manage distance. I'm, like, just shooting in. And then I was like, man, there's still something wrong with my eye. And then I ended up going to the doctor, like, two days later. Cause I thought it was just a scratch cornea or something, but it ended up being, like, a detached lens.

Oh, Jesus.

So the whole lens, they had to, like, take out and then, like, sew back in. Yeah. And it was. My eye was, like, super bloodshot red for, like, two weeks. And then I ended up doing, like, a weigh in show with the UFC at their pay per view. And everybody's, like, posting pictures and be like, oh, look at somebody farted on his pillow. Cause he has, like, a red eye, and they're like, making in front of me, and I was just like. I'm, like, crying myself in my room. Like, I don't got pink eye. It's surgery.

How long did it take to recover from that?

That one is. Wasn't as long. That one was it. Blood was still in there for. I'll be, like, a month. The detached retina was the hardest one. That one is, like, eight weeks of not doing absolutely nothing. And I have to be like, this my head sideways for a full eight weeks.

Really?

Yeah. And have, like, a bubble in your eye the whole time. And then even when I'm watching tv, I have to, like, put my head in a massage chair. Oh, wow. And there's, like, a mirror at the top. So I aim the mirror at the tv, and I can't do nothing.

Wow.

But, like, keep my head down or sideways.

And how long did you have to stay like that for?

It was, like, eight weeks.

Whoa.

Yeah.

So you're lying. Did you go to sleep in a massage chair?

Yeah, I had to sleep. I had to sleep with them, my face down in that massage chair the whole time.

Wow.

Yeah, it was. That was the hardest thing.

How hard is it to sleep like that?

And I'm a back sleeper too, so I hate sleeping on my front, on my stomach. So it was, like, the. The worst of two months of my life. And then you're like, you don't know if you're gonna be able to train after that and fight after that, because the doctor's looking at me like I'm stupid. I'm telling them I'm going back to the gym, and, yeah, it was rough.

Doctors always want you to stop doing what you're doing.

Yeah.

How'd you hurt your shoulder? Jujitsu. Oh, you need to quit that. That's what they always say.

Yeah. Or you need surgery. And I'm just like, there's no form of rehab or, like, exercises I could do. And they love to give you surgery right away. But even with the eye, I, like, I'm so afraid to even go to the doctor in general. So, like, I was avoiding it at all costs. So I would, like, see, like, a little black dot inside of my eye, and I'm still training, like, whatever. And then I was supposed to go with Jared to Brazil when he fought Charles Oliveira. And I had my ticket booked and everything. And then, like, the week before, I'm sparring with him, and then all of a sudden, that black dot turned into, like, a black sheet, and it just went full black. And I'm just like, I think I should go to a doctor now. And then they were like, you gotta go under the knife right away. So, like, I had to get surgery right there.

Yeah. I had a friend of mine who had a detached retina, and he didn't go in quick enough, and he lost most of his vision in that eye. Yeah, he had a bunch of surgeries that could never fix it. He just. He said that whoever told him that it wasn't a detached retina fucked him, because if he had known right away when he went in to check it that it was a detached retina, he would have been able to immediately get surgery, and they would have saved it.

Wow. Yeah, that's the hard part, because you always think about Michael Bisbing. You're looking at him like, exactly. I want to be that guy.

Exactly.

And I'll.

Gangsters that motherfucker. That dude fought ten times the UFC with one eyeball.

That's wild.

Couldn't see. He memorized the fucking eye chart.

Yeah. I literally had. I had moments where I'm looking at myself, like, am I gonna have to do that? Am I gonna have to figure out something to do to do this? Yeah.

Well, how about fucking what's his face? The. The pirate? Oh, yeah.

Shot of bullet.

Yeah. Sharabullet.

Yeah. That's crazy.

That guy's crazy. He's only got one eye, but it's.

It's wild, right? Because, I mean, he still looks like he sees everything when he's fighting. Right?

Distance management's incredible.

Yeah.

It makes you think, how good was that motherfucker with two eyes? They can fight that good with one eye.

I fought an Abu dhabi my first time there when. When it Khabib fought Dustin Poirier. And then he was just, like, a fan, and he came up to me and he said, I'm gonna be in the UFC. And I remember the picture with him. Cause he, like, tagged me, and obviously, you can't forget that face, right? But then when I saw him, like, undefeated kill him, like, bro. Dang, he wasn't lying. He is a beast.

Oh, he's a beast.

Yeah.

I watched him fight before he was ever in the UFC, when he was on other organizations, and I was like, jesus Christ, this guy can kick. He kicks like you're thinking he's gonna get tired from all that kicking, and he does not get tired. Yeah, it's wild. The volume of kicks, he reminds you a lot of Yairdev. You know, Yair is like one of those guys, like, yo, you better stop thinking about kicking with him did. You ain't kicking with Yair Rodriguez. You better figure out a way to get past that shit, because that guy can kick in a weird way.

I train with yair, and, like, even just, like, light sparring, I don't even want to, like, play with him, because he just comes from all different angles. But he's so good at, like, he'll get so close, it'll be, like, right here, and he'll just pull it. I think that's where I learned a lot from him. And then just, like, when you're going with somebody who flows like that and knows how to move like that, it makes you more creative, too.

Right? Cause you're not so tense. You're worried about getting knocked out. Yeah, that's the best kind of sparring. But it's like, with a guy like yair, if you're gonna fight a guy like Yair, you gotta find some taekwondo champion and bring him in. But even then, they're not gonna know how to punch that good. They're not gonna know how to wrestle. So you're gonna be missing part of it. Cause Yair can submit a lot of people. He's fucking wicked off his back. His triangle is fast as fucked. Fuck.

People don't know how good he is, and even his wrestling is really good. Yeah, but when he puts it all together. But I think even when he gets in there, it's just, like, so much. Right. You put so much energy into everything.

Yeah.

That sometimes it leaves openings for guys to, like, take him down and hold him down. And, like, if I'm a guy fighting him, like, bro, I don't want to give this guy any distance or any room to do anything.

Yeah. That style is just so taxing. You gotta under for people that don't see the difference. There's two things in the octagon that are, like, probably the most taxing that you wouldn't really guess. The biggest one is the clinch, bro. You see, guys just get drained after the first round and the clinch, and they go back to their corner, and then everything's coming slower. The punches are coming slower, the footwork looks slower. Reaction time is so they'll take a shot that maybe they could have got away from because they just don't want to move.

Yeah, we literally, like, do this in the gym where it's like, all right, let's do 20 push ups, and then just hand fight for three minutes, and then we start sparring. It's like, little stuff like that. Cause that's when you get lactic acid in your arms.

You're tired.

Now. Let's see you throw punches right now, and it'll stop people from actually throwing hard at practice. It'll make you want to conserve your energy and stuff, but, yeah, that feeling when you're in there and you can't lift up your arms. Like Damien maya shot on me, like, 30 times, and it's the third round, and I was like, bro, my arms are, like, dead right now. So if he does take me down, I'm gonna be in a bad spot because my arms are so heavy.

Damien, mine. Yeah, that guy had that creepy grappling strength where he would get ahold of guys, they'd be like, what is happening here? Like, how is this guy so fucking struck? Especially at 170, bro. Damian, my at 170 was terrifying.

People keep forgetting, and they do keep forgetting.

He got fucked in the Kamaru Usman fight. He got fucked up. He got fucked. He got to Kamaru's back. He had one hook in standing up, and they fucking separated him. It is one of the greatest tragedies and travesties in the history of the sport. That one positional change, that is a terrible. I don't know what referee it was. I don't want to call him out. People make mistakes. But for Damien Maia, he got fucked because he had Camaro's back. And Kamaru's only loss up to that point was rear naked choke in his first fight. And Kamaru was nowhere near the grappler in terms of submissions that Damian was, that Damian will set traps. It will do shit to you. And he just gets ahold of guy like, what he did to Neil Magni. Like, Damien gets ahold of dudes, and you're like, what is happening here? Yeah, this is a different kind of squeeze, man.

Yeah.

And he got fucked. He got totally fucked.

But that's crazy, right? Cause a lot of the world could have changed. Could change off of one ref or one judge, could change the whole thing, impact your career.

Everything could change from that fight. Everything could have changed. So let's imagine the judge doesn't do that. There is a 30% likelihood Kamaru is gonna get him to the ground and strangle him. Now, legitimately, you're looking at primetime. Damian Maia in the worst possible position. One hook in, he's got your back. How are you shaking him off? Yeah, you got a 30% chance of shaking him off.

You're stuck.

You got a good chance of holding off until the end of the round. If you can't let. If you could, you might be able to stop him from advancing, but it's perilous. This is a terrible position you're in. Damian Meyer's on your back, and the referee's like, break it up. There's no action here. Like, are you a champion street fighter? Like, it's the same shit. Like, what are you doing? This is the sport. The sport is this guy is a professional strangler and he's finally gotten ahold of this guy.

Boo.

The casualties are booing. So you're gonna separate it. This is. It's the worst for me, the biggest travesty I've ever seen. Mma, that was number one. There's probably been a few. If I really had to go over all of them, I probably find a few other ones.

They're like a top ten. I mean, even Leon against Kamar too. And Kamar was on top of him, and the ref stood them up because the crowd was booing. Right. And then he got head kicked.

Right, right.

It's like, bro, he's on top of him the whole five, five rounds. But now you want him to stand him up because crowds booing right now.

I believe in no standups. Yeah, I know it's boring. I don't give a fuck. No stand ups. No stand ups. I go step further. No standups. And I think the fight should resume exactly what position you were in at the end of the round.

That'd be the game changer.

That's a real fight, though, right? Yeah, that's a real fight. Like, how did you get back up to your feet? The round ended.

Yeah.

Okay, what are we doing? We're cheating for the striker because that seems like you're kind of cheating for the striker. I know everyone's used to doing it this way, but if you want to look at it realistically, the striker has an advantage for the first few seconds of every fight. Every fight, the fight starts standing. So in that perceived that distance where the striker has his advantage, it starts off with a striker's advantage. So if a grappler gets you to the ground, why do you get that advantage back in the next round?

Yeah. And it's the hardest thing to get somebody down and figure it out.

So it's like the hardest thing to get up.

Yeah.

So if you can never get up, that's tough shit. Tough shit.

It's on you.

It's on you.

That's the sport.

The sport is not boo, stand em up. Just be, you know, here it is. Look at this. Let's. Let's look at this again. Take it back from the beginning. So Damian gets the clinch right, and Kamaru's got an overhook on the left arm, and he's defending so far. So Damian's working towards the takedown. Damian sneaks that leg in, and now Kamaru starts to get in trouble. Cause Damian takes that left arm. He goes all the way over and cinches the waist. So now he's. He's pretty deep. Kamaro's the thing that's saving Camaro here is his right arm. That whizzer on his right arm is the thing that's saving him. But he's in danger now. He's in much more danger, because now Damian has the hook, and now Damian's pulling that arm over the top of Kamaru's whizzer. So he'll connect his arms if the referee lets him. What he wants to do is connect his hands in front of Kamaru. Kamaru does not want that. They're hand fighting right here. But this is a dangerous spot for Kamaru. Cause the only thing that's saving him is that whizzer without that wizard. He's fucked right now, and he knows it.

And he's strong as fuck, and he's holding on to that wizard with everything he's got. But Damian is just slowly inching, and he's putting leverage with his leg.

He's exactly so cool.

Yeah. And look, he's further now. He's even further. Now he can punch him. He's even further. So he's progressing. So he has gotten to a spot where. And the referee is telling him, I guess he's grabbing gloves. He's referee saying, just got to grab the wrist, and he's close to doing.

Like, a twister, standing twister.

And he's close. He's even closer now. Now it's even better. Now it's even better. So now Damian is trying to figure out when he can get his right hook in and what he's doing with his left arm. So the whizzer is still holding that left arm in place. But Damian, at one point in time, had sort of threatened to creep it up over the top of Kamaru's left shoulder. And that's what he wants to do here. So he wants to put all this pressure on, make Camaro do something to defend all the leverage he's putting on his legs, defend these punches. He's setting up little traps, just trying to open up the space so that he could get that right hook in and that left arm over the top. So he is on the back now, like, fully on the back. And then the referee stops him.

Wow. And this is the first round when they're still driving, bro.

In fucking sane that this referee did this. In fucking sane. A travesty. An unfair advantage for Kamaru, for sure. And then Kamaru caught him with a left hand or right hand. He's catching with jabs. He shouldn't be in this position now. Kamaru should be still trying to fight out his way out of that clinch. And guess what? He might not have fought his way out of that clinch. He was like, six steps to checkmate. You know, he was pretty close. Six out of ten. He was in, you know, crazy because.

It'S the first round, so it's like the crowds booing. It's like, bro, he just got to the spot.

Yeah.

This early.

What? Damian punched his butt. So you're going to give. You don't think a butt punch hurts? Like, he's trying to, like, do something to get Kamaru to react. He's trying to get movement out of him.

Yeah. You want him to make the mistakes?

Yeah. It's travesty.

Yeah. Now that I look at that, I'm like, that's wild travesty.

Now imagine Damian Maia submits him. The world changes. Kamaru goes in that next fight. Now everybody's looking to submit him. Things change. He's not the boogeyman anymore. Somebody just tapped him. Maybe his confidence goes down a little bit, you know, maybe he doesn't get favorable matchup in his next fight. Maybe he loses again, you know?

Damian goes. Gets the belt.

Yes. Damien gets the belt. Like, things happen, man. Weird things happen. Weird things happen in the sport, you know, that's why it's so incredible when someone reaches the title, when you actually do it, you become Islam Makachev. You become a bilal Mohammed. You get all the way up there and you win the title. There's so many hurdles. Like, you've lost fights. The eye poke with Leon was crazy. You've had bad moments. And to get all past that and get to the title.

Yeah. Just thinking back to, like, all your ups and downs, just looking at the journey in general, and you're like, why did this happen? Or why did that happen? Especially after loss. I'm a terrible loser. So you're like, why is this happening to me? But then, now that I look back at it and thinking about the stuff that I changed, and then I started doing this more. I started fixing this, and now it just, like, made me the fighter I am today. And it's like, I'm glad those downs happen because now the ups feel so good. Like, nobody could take that away, right? Like, the mountain I climbed was way higher than anybody else climbed. It was a lot harder than anybody else climbed.

There's a lot to that. Yeah, there's a lot to that. There's a lot to that because the guys that come up real fast and, like, super talented and just fuck everybody up and never get tested, like, it's. I think for some of those guys, it's harder to maintain that motivation. Cause you don't know the downs.

Yeah.

You know, like, they just, they have a belief in themselves. Like, you know, BJ Penn is a good example of that, in my opinion. I always put BJ in the category of one of the greatest of all time. I always say, you got to look at BJ in his prime. You have to look at BJ. When he was beating Shawn Shirk, BJ, when he beat Joe Daddy Stephenson, BJ was a monster, man. Just a monster. He had crazy flexibility, unbelievable balance. You could try to take him down, he would hop around on one leg like he had two. It was nuts, man. But BJ was so fucking talented that I think BJ didn't really like to work that hard. You know, he didn't really get up for it as much as, like, some of the other guys that weren't as talented. And when BJ did wasn't his prime, that's when he was training with the Marinovitches. That's where he's doing those crazy plyometric workouts. And so he had this insane gas tank with all the talent of a BJ penn.

Yeah. And then, like you said, people forget how good he was. These new age fans, they never seen him before, they never saw him fight.

They forget. They think like Tyron Woodley, the same kind of thing you think about him only when they're at the end of their career, you don't think about how good they were. Nobody can maintain that forever. It's not possible. It's not possible.

Habib said it from the beginning, right? He said, you're always gonna lose. There's a time for your thing. He said about tomorrow, he said about Tony Ferguson, said, these guys, they're gonna learn the hard way. And for me, he said, if I stayed in, I'd probably end up losing sometime. I don't think you would lose. But, yeah, like he said, like, you're thinking, like, I could still go with him. And I'm looking at this guy like, bro, you could be the heavyweight champion right now. It's like nuts.

What does he weigh now?

He's. I think he's probably like 200 cuz he rolls consistently with everybody. And he always says I have to jog 30 minutes a day. He always on a treadmill at least 30 minutes. But just like him and grappling. It's wild because I just feel like it was when I first got the fight announced from Dana White. I was over there in New Jersey training with Islam for his fight when he was fighting Poirier. And then, like, they announced it, and I'm like, habib was like, I'll come with me over here, train. And then he just killing me, like, literally, like throwing me around and I'm just like getting murdered. And my coach tells me, hey, you see Dana White announced you got the title fight. And I'm looking at myself like, really? All right, all right.

What's crazy is he's still in his prime. Yeah, that's what's crazy. Like, he get out 29 and o in his prime, he's like, I'm done. I made a promise to my mom.

And do it on top. No injuries.

Nobody does that. Nobody does that.

Only the greats, right? Even, I mean, GSP did it, but.

He came back and he fought when he was older. He fought bisping at 85, you know, and GSP, his, you know, I mean, he had gone through some wars, and at the end, that last one, he was just like, I need some time off, you know?

Yeah. I think a lot of these fighters, they. They need the time off, but they don't take it. And they try to rush back in after losses, and it just adds up. You see it with, I mean, Tony Ferguson, prime example. I think after that Gaethje fight, that should have been time off. That should have been like, all right, let me take a year off. Not do nothing, but you want to rush back in there, and then all of a sudden, the losses start adding up. Your body's taking damage.

Here's another one. So let's imagine Tony Ferguson doesn't trip over those wires backstage. So he's about to fight Khabib for the title in Madison Square Garden. He trips over some wires backstage and tears his knee. Apartheid. Just a freak accident. Yeah, just a freak accident that could happen to anybody. Tears his knee apart, has to get knee surgery, misses the title fight. Al Iacquinta steps in, has a good fight with him. And Tony Ferguson, the one guy that we were always like, how would Tony do? Because he in his prime, people forget in his prime, that motherfucker was terrifying. He had a long ass win streak and fucking everybody up. He was cutting people, strangling people. He was a beast, dude. Tony Ferguson was a fucking monster. But people forgot. They forgot. They only see Tony Ferguson now when he got knocked out by Chandler. They see Tony Ferguson now when Patty Pimblett beats him. Like, you don't understand. He's 40, whatever. He is years old. Like, he's natural. The body just can't do what the mind wants it to do anymore, man.

You're looking for that one point where at least a coach, family, or somebody that tells them, like, ah, you're done, but you want. Maybe you want to end on a winning note, or you don't want to.

Just like, I think these guys just like it. They want to fight, and that's all they know.

Yeah, it's.

It's different in different people. Like, some people get out and they go, I think I did enough. I'm out. And they hold to it. Like Khabib or like Andre Ward. Andre Ward's another one goes out on tie on top, gold medalist in the Olympics, two division world champions. Like, that's it. I'm good. I think they offered him when Canelo fought Kovalev, when he knocked out Kovalev and won the light heavyweight title, they were saying maybe Andre Ward would come back and they were going to throw a lot of money at him. I think he considered it, but I think he said, I serve boxing better in the position that I am. So here's a guy, Olympic gold medalist, two division world champion, speaks perfectly. Nothing wrong with him at all. Very religious man. Never swears. Like, I did a podcast with him. He got upset that I said the f word. He did. He called me afterwards, like, I didn't know you were going to be swearing.

Oh, wow.

Because he would want people, like, from his church to listen.

Yeah.

So now he can't say, yeah, don't. He's got to say, don't listen to that one.

Oh, wow.

Joe Rogan's got a potty mouth. I thought he's a. I was gonna talk to him like a regular dude, but he's. But he's one of the wise ones that said, that's it. You know, everybody else comes back, man. Marvin Hagler, he was another one. Never came back. So that's it. I'm done.

Yeah, but Ward, I think even I said in the commentary, the way he breaks up down, his new book was. Was so good. Just him. It's like hearing his stories wild.

Yes, it's a crazy story.

Hemet Canelo would have been crazy.

That would have been crazy.

Yeah.

I would love to see that fight. I want to see Canelo and Benavidez like, come on, Saudi Arabia. Throw that. Throw that money. Throw that money. Let's see that fight. Because if Crawford, if they're not going to have him fight Crawford, which I did want to see, I did want to see, even though I know it's crazy. It's a giant weight jump. Yeah, but Benavidez is not a weight jump. That's the right weight, and that guy's.

A killer, and it makes the most sense.

It makes the most sense, but. And Canelo's like, give me $200 million.

And I can see them just offering it. Let me just go on my bank account. I'll just give you that check real quick. Saudi Arabia guy.

I hope they. I hope that Benavidez and him do fight, and I hope it's at 168, because I think that's, like, Benavidez's best division. I mean, he only fought, he fought that last fight at 75 against a good guy, and he won the fight, but he didn't look like the same guy that he looks like at 68. I don't think that power carries quite as much with those bigger guys. A little bit of a step, step up, you know, like that. There's very few guys that keep that power as they keep going up and up and up in weight. It's just.

And there's so many weight classes in boxing, right? Yeah. Like I said, for Canelo and him, it's the fight that makes sense. So for him, he's like, I need to find the biggest fight, and it's all right. Let me move up a couple more pounds here. And then you think it's not a big jump, but those pounds make a difference.

It makes a difference. But for Crawford, I think he just wants the big money fight. Like, what is the big money? Funny. Canelo is the big money fight. You know, Crawford is one of the best ever. He's 36. He's like, maybe this is, you know, let me get one big money fight and get the fuck out of here. Yeah, but he's got boots and us, you know, knock on his door, too, which is another amazing fight, but super dangerous, you know, like, just like Benavidez is dangerous. Boots Ennis is very fucking dangerous. Very dangerous.

And there's always somebody coming right behind you. And these guys who've been at the top so long, you're like, all right, let me get somebody that's on my level. Canelo, he's been in the game just as long as me and. All right, let's just do this for his paycheck and then move on.

I think when they get to a certain level and they realize they only have a few fights left, they want the big money fights, and Canelo is obviously the biggest money fight. Even though Boots Ennis is a great fighter, most people don't know who he is yet. And with Canelo, everybody knows who Canelo is. You get the Canelo fight, that's red panties night, you know, like, you're in, let's go.

That's. I mean, that's the Jon Jones effect with Stipe, right? Not a lot of people know where Aspinall is yet. I mean, the real fans know him, but it's like, everybody knows stipe, right? Everybody knows he was one of the greatest heavyweights to ever do it.

It's a great thing if Jon can beat him on his resume, you know, it's one more notch that John beat the most accomplished heavyweight of all time. But here's the thing, everybody's sleeping on stipe. Here's the thing about heavyweights. Heavyweights mature later and they get compromised later, too. Like, heavyweights can. Like, George Foreman won the heavyweight title at 45 years old. And that was in the natural days, I think there's maybe not natural. I mean, I don't know what George is doing, but I was thinking of Vander Holyfield. I'm like, maybe there's something going on. But my point is that, like, heavyweight fighters, I think because there's not as much movement, it's a different thing. The body matures, it takes longer there. They're just bigger human beings. I could see a guy that's in his forties, still fighting elite, and we haven't seen Stipe since he got knocked out. So we saw that fight against Francis where Francis just looked unstoppable. Francis knocks him out, and we haven't seen stipe in years now. Like, how. When was the last time stipe fought? I remember it was at the apex and it was in the middle of the pandemic because there was no crowd.

Yeah.

Which was crazy to see a heavyweight title fight with no crowd. It was nuts.

Yeah. The pandemic days were wild.

Wild. Everybody's wearing a mask hanging over their nose. It's all so stupid, right? Yes, yes. So, March 27, 2021. 2021, dude. 2021. And we're getting real close to 2025, so. 2025. This fight happens in November 2025 is just a fucking month away. That's a long ass time. But it's also a long ass time with no head injuries. Yeah, a long ass time without getting, you know, two or three fight, serial gun fight, another fight, this fight, that fight. It's a long time without getting beat up.

You don't know if he comes as a different version himself. What if he's been working on some stuff and. Yes, I mean, if he knows he's fighting Jon Jones and he probably knew probably for the last year and a half, I'm just studying one guy for a year and a half, just focus on him.

Exactly.

Changed a lot of stuff.

And, you know, he's had time to rest, like, let the chin recover, because that's a, you know, I think Daniel Cormier landed the picture perfect right hand when he knocked out Stipe. But I also think Stipe was probably beaten up from that Francis fight. That Francis fight was not much. I mean, I don't remember how many months, how many months was there between Francis Stipe fighting Francis and then Stipe fighting DC?

Seven.

Seven months. That's not enough time. A year before the previous fight. Yeah, a year before, that's a different thing. It's. The Francis fight was the damage. Francis was in the first round in particular. He landed some big shots. He was fucking scary as shit, dude. So I think him coming in and fighting Daniel, I gotta imagine he took some heavy blows in that fight. And, you know, like, even if he didn't lose, he had to have gotten some damage. Like he may have been concussed, like he got hit, no doubt.

Yeah.

Hard in that fight. And then do you go right back in a train, like, no, you should take a long ass time with no contact at all and let everything heal up. And he probably didn't get a chance to do that. I mean, I think that's also Volkanovsky after Islam.

Yeah, I think that was his biggest mistake. Right?

Huge mistake. You just want to do two mistakes. One, you don't fight Islam on ten days notice. You just can't. That just doesn't make any sense. That's crazy. He's so hard to be. He's so good. He's. If he's not the best, it's you and him for the best, pound for pound. And you're, you're, you're going to risk that on ten days? That's crazy. And that, again, changes the course of his career. Right?

That's wild, right?

He doesn't take that fight. He says, I can't I'm ready for Ilya Taporia. That guy's coming, and he knows how fucking dangerous Ilya is. And so he doesn't take that fight. And then he goes in fresh against Ilya, and you have a much better fight. Yeah, who knows who would have won? But you gotta think he was compromised from that. I mean, he got head kicked. Yeah, head kicked shin to the dome, which is just for sure. It's going to rattle you for a.

Long time when you're, when you're just getting put out cold like that. And especially, he probably cut a lot of weight to get to that point because he looked kind of flabby in that Islam fight. So you're taking a fight on ten days notice. There's not a lot of guys that are around their weight class anyway, so they're cutting a lot. Then you have to go, all right, now I'm going to fight Islam, who's number one, pound for pound.

And then that head kick, Islam looked like Michelangelo sculpted.

He's so big, people. He's, and he's so strong.

So what does he weigh to, what does he weigh? Like, normal? Like, right now, if you called him up, what do you weigh, brother?

I would say at least minimum, like 185. 190.

Fuck outta here. He's 210 pounds.

No, no, it's like, that guy's 250 pounds. His strength feels like 255.

That's what I hear.

But that's the thing with them. They're always training. No matter what they're doing, they always at least run once a day or grapple.

So he's losing roughly 30 pounds to.

Make 55 from the start, I would say.

Yeah, he's big. That's about as big as you can get. And keep doing that. That's big.

Yeah. And he's tall. He's, he's lengthy, and he has, he has power. He could go up to 70 easily, I think.

Easily. He's got real power now on his feet, which is a new addition. Over the last, you know, x amount of years, his stand up has gotten elite. Like you knocked down Oliveira. He had Oliveira in real trouble. The Volkanovski hit kick, though, and it was also the way he set it up. He kept kicking to the body. Oh, my God.

Yeah. I think people just assume that all he's going to do is wrestle. But then when you see him go in there and outstrike somebody, even box with Poirier. Yeah, he has some really good hands in there with him and people. Oh, you can strike too, but as good.

He could do everything. He's. He's as good as it gets. He's as good as it gets. He's the most complete fighter on the roster because he submits people. Like, he submitted Poirier in the final round. Incredible, incredible submission. But he was winning that fight already. But then, you know, he can also knock you out. He can. He literally does everything. He's one of the best wrestlers in the sport. His top control and his squeeze is insane. Yeah, remember we tapped out Drew Dover. He got ahold of Drew Dobre. It's like Drew Dobre had zero chance of moving. He wasn't going anywhere. He was just crushed. It was like, it was like he was fighting a man twice his size.

I was just bringing that up. When I talk about Dan Hooker. He just went to war with Gamerot.

Exactly.

And Islam just took him down and tapped him out within the first, like two or three.

Tapped him out to the point where you're like, please tap.

Please tap.

Fucking tap, dude. Just tap. Don't let him do it. It looked like he was gonna break his fucking arm apart.

It's so funny because Khabib will get guys in there and he's the type that will grapple and just have a conversation as he's grappling. But he had Ali and Kimora, and he's laughing and Ali's tapping, and he's just like, brother, give me coffee. I'm like, bro, I think you're gonna break his arm. Like, at some point.

Like, that's a terrible break too. That spiral break, it's the worst.

And I'm like, they're so strong and it's, like, effortless with them.

Ugh.

Their bodies move crazy.

I remember Michael Johnson when Khabib got Michael Johnson in that kimura. And I was like, jesus, please tap, Michael. God, tap. Please just tap. I was like, squirming in my chair. Cause I'm waiting to hear crack. Cause I've seen it. No, garrify with Frank Mir. Remember that?

Yeah.

You see his arms. You hear the snapdez and you see him like, look over at his arm and his arm's like halfway hanging.

Oh, that's the one. That's the, that's the scary part about the whole thing.

So scary. That's such a scary break. Cause that your, this arm is never the same again. It's never the same again. Yeah, no matter what, they're gonna screw things in there and bolt things. All your muscles have been cut. All your nerves are fucked up. It's never gonna be the same arm.

And then you have guys that are, like, crazy enough to, like, keep fighting after that. Yeah, they don't give a fuck with a broken arm.

Break my arm.

Yeah, go ahead, Tim.

Sylvia. When Frank Mir broke his arm. Oh, here it is. With no gear. Oh, Jesus. You gotta make me look at this. And he looks down at his arm like, ah, God damn. Please, ladies and gentlemen, tap. Please tap. Sometimes you have to tap sometimes. I know, I know, but sometimes you gotta tap for the future. Did you see that guy? Mikey Musumechi fought in one Fc and he destroyed his leg.

Yeah.

Wouldn't tap. This fucking guy's an animal. He would not tap. And I don't. I was tapping at home. I couldn't believe it. He broke his leg like, three times. He just keep breaking his knee left and right and ripping it apart. I'm watching his knee. I'm like, that's destroyed. Yeah, there's your LCL. There's your. Look at this. This is so horrible. Oh, my God.

Ah.

Like, right now, his leg is destroyed. His leg right now is fully destroyed. It's totally twisted. All his ligaments are fucked. He couldn't walk after this fight. I mean, look at his heel is totally the wrong way. His knee is twisted completely around. That is horrible. Oh, oh. And he's going that way with it. Oh, my God. The dude never tapped. The dude got his leg destroyed and never fucking tapped. But he's probably never gonna be the same again.

Mikey has to have some, like, craziness inside of him just to keep going, though.

Oh, he's an evil little man.

He has to be evil.

He's an evil little man. He's a really, really, really nice guy. Yeah, but he's also got a switch. Yeah, there's a switch. And he gets into that octagon and. What's that? Why'd you do that to me? That's what Mikey said to him.

Yeah.

He felt bad that the guy wouldn't tap. It was a crazy demonstration. But that poor guy. I mean, I gotta think his what, what kind of surgery? Find out what kind of surgery that guy had to have after that fight.

I hate leg locks in general, even at practice. I'll tell guys, if you're gonna put, like, I'm just gonna tap. Like, I'm not even gonna play because it's.

Well, I came up before leg locks, so I didn't learn leg locks until late in my jiu jitsu journey. Like, I was already a black belt before leg locks. The big thing when we already knew about him, like, I'd seen Dean Lister use them. I went. When Eddie went to Abu Dhabi, I went down there with him, and Dean Lister was tapping people. Dean Lister was the first guy to really, like, fuck a lot of guys up with leg locks, and a few of those luther leverag guys were really good at leg locks. They would do them, but leg locks in jujitsu tournaments were booed, and people didn't want. Yeah, man. Because they ruined people's knees, and no one really knew how to defend them. Torn ACL, torn mCl, torn meniscus, and a broken ankle.

My God, that's wild.

Tore everything. Mikey said. I'm sick to my stomach. I never felt someone's leg explode like that in a match. I've been training for 22 years. I never broke someone's leg that much. I broke it a lot of legs. But that leg exploded. I didn't know what to do. It was just disgusting and gross. I really wish he tapped. The result didn't change. Now he's in the hospital, so I don't know, but what a war he is for showing his will. That's why you got to choke people. You got to choke people. Some people just. They don't want to tap, and they just go to sleep, and that's okay. That's. That's Marcelo Garcia's route. Marcelo Garcia never used camorras because Marcelo Garcia. Although, of course, you could do a Camorra. He never used because he felt like camorras were, like, a strongman's move. Cause you have to kind of yank it, and you're resisting the arm. It's not perfect technique. So, Marcelo was all about grabbing your neck like he had the nastiest guillotines. You ever watched Marcelo fight? Oh, my God. I was there live when he fought Shaolin in Abu Dhabi. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. It was like, who's that dude? The tasmanian devil from the cartoons? That was, like, just spinning around him, getting his back, and put him to sleep.

That's crazy.

Oh, my God. And nobody knew who Marcelo was. That was what was crazy. Like, a lot of people respected him. Everybody knew he was a black belt, you know, Fabio Grigel. Lineage. Solid lineage. Everybody knew he was good, but God damn killer. Killer.

Did you watch that million dollar tournament with Craig Jones?

I did, yeah, I did.

That one match was really getting the semifinals with them two kids.

Oh, yeah. Rutolo, who was the other cat he fought?

I forgot, but that was a fun.

Find that I think they said it's on YouTube as the greatest grappling match of all time.

Yeah. That was a wild one.

The Ruto brothers are so good, man. They're so good. And again, look, 20 years old, 19 years old, just coming up.

The young ones, man.

Young and explosive and wild. They do all kinds of crazy techniques. They catch Darcy's from everywhere.

And I like the ring, that tackett.

Who'S also a killer. So it was an incredible match, and these guys just went at it. I don't like that ring.

It's fun. It's like something different.

I don't like it. I don't like it because it's another obstacle. I think they had it right before when there was no obstacles. Like, this is an obstacle. Right. This keeps you from being able to get upright. It's a thing that you have to think about. This is why, like, I've said this before, I apologize for everybody who's heard it. I think fighting should take place with no cage. It would be easier to see, and I think it should be on a basketball court. And you fight in the center.

Yeah.

If you can have basketball in the same arenas where we have UFCs, you take an enormous space, you matte it up, you put security around it so nobody can get in, and nobody, you know, you put ropes up and guys step in and they fight right in front of everybody.

That would be epic. No time zone. No time limit.

No, I don't think you should. I think you should have time limits. I think you should even have rounds. But if I was running things, this is what I'd do. Number one. First thing I do, cover the fingertips. Why are the fingertips open? They don't have to be open. All you need is the same UFC gloves right now. And extend the lever like a mitten, the leather like a mitten over the tips of the front fingers, and pull it back in there. I think it would help grappling. I don't think it would hurt grappling. So I don't think grapplers have a problem with it. It would have no difference at all on your striking. You would just pull it like a bag glove. You know, like those old everlast bag gloves. Yeah, but not even as thick. Just have it. So now you have one piece. So you don't have nothing that can go in your eyeball. Like, we've seen fingers go in eyeballs before. So that would be eliminated. You would still have some abrasions of the eye. You could still run into fingers. Like, that would suck. It would suck less, though. Yeah, it would suck less.

So that would be my first thing I would do. Second thing I would do, wherever the f. Nobody gets stood up, ever, for any reason, unless someone gets injured or some foul or something happens wrong, somebody bites some money, some crazy shit, then stand people up. And then I think you put them right back down to the position after you take the point away or whatever you're going to do. But once a guy gets you down, it's your job to get back up. And at the end of the round, if you're on your back and he's mounted you, you start the next round with him mounted you, you put the arm in the exact same place. He had an overhook on the right arm, and he's on top, and he's got his hand on your bicep. Okay? This is how the round ended. This is how we start. And everybody looks at the screen, and everybody looks at the guys and they go, three, two, one fight.

That would be wild.

That would be real.

Yeah, that would be real.

Because it's not five fights, it's one fight. It's one fight. That's five rounds. Why should it start on your feet every round? That's crazy. Why? Because just that. That's how it is in boxing, to come out of their corner. Who fucking cares? That's stupid. Yeah, start him where they. You gotta get better. The same way you got sick, you got taken down, you gotta get up. Somebody got you down, you gotta get up. Because if you don't get up, then he's winning. He's figured out a way to hold you down. You don't want to be held down, he's holding you down. So he's winning. Even if he's not doing any damage, he's winning. He's holding you down. Everybody, boo. Boo. So what? So it'll affect your ticket sales. So let. You'll get less money for pay per views. So what? But this is what real fighting is. That's real. That's the most pure version of the sport that we could offer. Giant, matted down space. You make it so that, you know, you have security around it, so no fucking psychos can rush, you know, you put ropes up so people can't pass it. Everybody's gonna have a clear line of sight.

No cages in the way. You still have the big monitors every like that. They fight in an enormous space and you have a danger zone. You got an outside danger zone. And if you keep going into that fucking danger zone, they take a point away. If you get kicked in the nuts take a point away. You get poked in the eye. Take a point away. You grab the. Well, grab the fence, I think. Take a point away, too. But let's have no offense. No offense. So there's no way to take someone down except taking them down. You got to actually take them down. You can't get them up against the cage and trip them because their back is. No, no, no. You have to take them down on a flat ground with no help. And he's got to get up without the cage. He can't wall walk up to the cage and press his back up and use the leverage. Uh uh, uh uh. Get up. You're in the middle of the fucking matted area. Get up.

I'm just imagining guys like MVP and Wonder boy, like, to be able to catch those guys in a basketball court. Wild, hard. Sean O'Malley just.

Yeah, hard. Great for them. Too bad for them if they get taken down, though. Real bad. Yeah, real bad. Because now you have to actually be.

Able to get up and you're stuck there.

And imagine getting up with Khabib on top of you. Has anybody ever gotten up? That guy gets on top of you, you're fucked. You gotta wait till the round's over, bro.

Like, when we. When a grapple, like, the round will be over with and he'll still be going. And he's like, no, brother, you have to get up. And I'm just like, bro, I can't. Like, the bell rang, bro, you gotta get up. That's what you mean. Just stay on top of you. It'll be like a 15 minutes round. It'll be like, that's so crazy. Nonstop is wild.

But that mentality is why that camp produces so many assassins. I was very impressed with Umar. Very impressed. Very impressed. Because I always knew he was an elite kicker, you know? I mean, he's a. He's an elite striker, too. But to see him fight a guy like Sandhagen, who's so complex, he does so many things well, and to see him dominate that fight, I was like, wow, that's really impressive. That's really impressive.

Yeah, I think he still only has less than five fights in the UFC. He's still.

Yeah, he's incredible starting. And I butchered his name. One dime.

I see it all the time.

I could. It couldn't get out of my mouth. I don't know what it is. Like sometimes my mouth just don't work right. And that's fine. If you're doing a podcast, you can just say it again. Yeah, but if you're, like, saying a guy's. I was like, fuck. I'm like, what did I say? I felt so bad because I really love the guy. I think he's awesome. And especially after the Sanhagen fight, I think he's the most compelling contender in that division after Marab. So after Marab, I think he's got to get that shot. Whoever wins and him against either one of those guys is sensational. That's a sensational fight. That's like an elite top. That's, like, as good as we have to offer today in terms of martial arts talent.

Yeah, 100%. Like, the way he did. Like, Sandhagen's one of my favorite fighters.

He's so good.

How good Umar did against them and didn't have really any moments of difficulty in there. And I was like, he's elite.

Yeah, he's. He's super elite. You know, I think about Sandhagen. One thing I think about is, here's a bummer. TJ Dillshaw. Like, TJ Dillshaw. Let's imagine TJ Dillshaw didn't blow out his shoulders. Cause TJ Dillshaw beat Sandhagen with one leg.

Yeah.

Which is crazy. And he beat Sanhagen. Sandhagen. Sandhagen. That. It fucked up. Marlon Marais. Sanhagen. Sanhagen. Like the. The sandhagen of today, you know? That guy is fucking top of the food chain. He's very good. And TJ beat him with one leg and a fucked up shoulder. His shoulder wasn't good back then either. It was fucked up, but he figured out a way to win. It was the most exciting fight, but how could it be? He had one ACL. He blew his fucking knee apart, but he still beat him. That guy's had so many fucking injuries. If you imagine TJ Dillashaw not having all those injuries and someone talking him out of going down to 25.

Yeah, you saw Biggie is right now, bro.

He's huge. He's like 180 pounds.

It's wild. I'm like, that's what I want to be.

I wish I was tighter with him. Cause I would have said, do not fucking do it. Look at him now.

Huge. Oh, my God.

Yeah, his piss would melt that us product.

Just put him in Chad Mendes in a room and just have him just, like, duke it out.

Do a best body contest.

They're both like, takes.

But you gotta think, man, how good Cody no love was when he beat him. You know, when he stopped him, dude, TJ Dillashaw was a bad man. Hennan Barao, was the pound for pound considerate of number one fighter in the world. When he was the bantamweight champion. A lot of people, he was in consideration, and TJ just pieced him up, and he did it like he was sparring. He was all loose and relaxed, and he had that Dwayne Ludwig. I don't know if you ever train with Dwayne.

No.

He's got an incredible system. That bang Muay Thai system is one of the most complex and well thought out striking systems I've ever seen. Like, he's a maniac. He's got notebooks, like binders with all these moves, like, locked in. And he. If you watch Dwayne fight, though, it's so crazy. Cause he didn't fight that way. Yeah, Dwayne fought. You know, he had, like, kind of traditional, like, a lot of Muay Thai, a lot of dutch kickboxing style. Nasty striker, but he didn't like, switch stances all the time and do like TJ. But he figured that out. He figured out that this is the way, the constant switching and striking from each stance and the constant footwork and movement and all these patterns that they would get guys to lead into certain positions and do it. It wasn't just, like, smashing buttons, like style. Bender likes to talk about Dwayne's thought about it as, like, a real comprehensive, striking program. And TJ was his best pupil. And TJ, when he fought Hannah barrel, was showing that style in its world class form. But people forget. People forget how good TJ Dillashaw was. They forget he has that fight with Cejudo.

He tests positive for EPO because he's literally dying to make 125. He looked like an Auschwitz concentration camp survivor. He did. He looked like they just opened the doors and let him out of the concentration camp. He had no skin in his face. His face was just. It was just bones. He looked terrible. And TJ is a big guy for 35. He's big. He's a good, solid, perfect 35 pound frame. And somehow or another, someone talked him into it, or he wanted to do.

It for the challenge, chasing that greatness.

Yeah, fuck that, man. Fuck that kind of cut.

Yeah.

Because he had to be starving to death in camp. So he must have been, like, doing his camp while he was starving. Literally starving to death. Like, your organs are shutting down, your brain's not working anymore.

And then when you're thinking about, was the EPO just because of the weight cut? Did he just do that right? But then you think if he was using it beforehand, how good. Cody. No love was before he fought him. And after him beating Dominique Cruz, that was, like, the best performance I ever seen in my life. And then he goes and gets knocked out by him. And if he says, because he was on EPO, right, it's like, that changed your whole career.

If you're cool, it does change your whole career. And, you know, there's guys have accused him of doing stuff other than that, and I don't. I don't know who's telling. That's what he looked like.

Oh, my God.

That's so crazy. That is so crazy. I wish I was his friend. I wish I was tight with him back then. And when he was, I wish, like, he would have listened to someone who has said, just don't do that, man. Don't fucking do that. You could be one of the all time greats at 35 and stay there. But you also got to think, like, how many of his injuries got amplified because of that weight cut. How much body deterioration was he going through and then also going through camp? So he's pushing hard. He's wrestling. He's hitting the mitts. He's sparring. All this while his body is deteriorating. So all his mass is down. All the muscle that's protecting his shoulders, which are, you know, his superspinatus has been missing forever. His superspinatus has been ripped off the bone from, like, the beginning of his career.

We were just. I was talking to a guy yesterday about weight cutting. We were at the sushi spot, sushi by scratch. And then the sushi guy who was rolling it, he was like, I used to be a weight cutter in high school when I was a wrestler, and I had to have heart surgery. Cause I was cutting weight since I was six years old. My dad would make me cut weight.

And I was like, oh, my God.

That changed your whole life because you started cutting it that young. And he's like, bro, I had so many issues, problems from there, and it was just wrestling. He said I wasn't even grappling or anything. I was just wrestling since the kid. My dad just made me cut weight since I was a kid. It was like 100, like nine pounds to, like 90 pounds. And I was like, how are you cutting weight that young?

It's so bad for you. It stunts your growth, does a lot of wild shit to your body, make.

Your kidneys fail, changed your life.

Changes your life. Yeah. And you don't grow up right. It's like you're being poisoned. From the time you're a kid, your body doesn't develop right. Who knows what could do to your. This the future of your life? He might have taken a decade or.

Two off of his life, and it just burns you out in general. You go to fighting after that.

Exactly.

You've been cutting weight since that long. Now you're a fighter now you have to cut weight.

Right.

Every single fighter, I think, has, like, an eating disorder too now after.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. Well, how much do you have to cut me?

Like, I get around to, like, 190. And then when it's. When I'm in fight camp and I'm training, I'm walking around at 185, so.

Like, oh, that's not bad.

15 pounds the most.

Yeah.

But I. I keep a chef with me for, like, this last five weeks. Ian Larios, he'd been with, like, DC Kane and all them guys, and he lives in my house for five weeks, and I tell people it changes your life. Like, you train so much better off it because he's giving you the right food to eat. Right before I would sit there when I'm cutting Moe myself, I was like, I'm not gonna have breakfast. I'm just gonna go to the gym and train. Now I'm waking up, and he's giving me, like, potatoes and eggs, and I'm like, bro, I can't have carbs. What are you giving me these, bro, you're not gonna train. You're not gonna have a good workout unless you had this stuff. So, like, there's no thought process with me. He just gives me everything. My shakes, my food, and then I come home from practice, and then he has lunch on the table. Then I come home after another session, and he has dinner on the table.

And is he calculating the calories for each meal and how it's set up? That's what's where it gets fascinating, right? When they calculate the calories for each meal and they give you the exact right amount.

Yeah. I hate looking at the scale. So, like, he'll make me step on the scale, and it'd be five weeks. I was like, bro, no, we're not, we're not. We still have, like, five more weeks. Like, get on the scale. So I won't look at it. So he'll look at it right in his phone, and then he'll just keep track of it the whole time.

That's an eating disorder.

It is.

Yeah, man. I don't even look at it.

I like, girl, I don't even want to look at it, because then it just. It tells me, like, oh, man, I gotta do this or I gotta do that more, but it'll make me push that much harder at practice. But I'm like, I'm gonna push hard anyway for the fight, but I think, mentally, I just hate scales. I won't step on a scale until I have a fight.

Yo, nobody's got an eating disorder like Patty.

Oh, my God.

Patty celebrates his eating disorder. That motherfucker gained 40 pounds after his.

Last fight, and that's gonna literally kill him. I feel like it's not good.

It's definitely. Well, he's so good, though, Mandy, but I am so impressed with him. Like, he keeps getting. I thought Jared Gordon beat him, and I thought that fight, to me, was. That was another one of those fights. If Jared Gordon wins, then all of a sudden, Jared Gordon's got another big fight, another good fight. And he had two blunders in a row, you know, not his fault. The other one was the headbutt with Bobby. Yeah, but the patty one was a big one, man, because the patty one, he was fucking winning that fight, man. I felt that he was landing the big shots. That counter left hook was sweet. He looked good. I thought he won the fight. I thought it was a good fight, but I thought he won the fight. And then Patty fights Bobby Green, and he looks like a world beater. He looks like a world beater. That fucking. The strategy was perfect. Stay on the outside, fuck his legs up. And then you realize how big Patty is, too. Like, Patty's a big 55 er. Cause Bobby's big.

Yeah.

Excuse me. King. He's king now.

That's wild.

Change is David King. I love that dude. Change his name and kingdom. So King is, you know, he's a tall dude, too, for the division, but you realize how big Patty is. And people think of Patty only as a grappler. But his kicks were on point, man. His kicks were on point.

And he's tough in general. Those guys, when you hit a guy and he's still standing in front of you, it makes you want to shoot on him. Because I'm looking at Bobby like, why would you shoot a takedown on petty? I feel like this is the only way of beating you, is to catch you on a submission.

I think his legs were getting fucked up.

Yeah. But it just makes you uncomfortable. So he shot.

Here it is. Yeah. I think he was seeing where this was going. Look how big he looks, man. You realize, like, damn, he's a big 50 fiver, and he caught him with that inside low kick. I mean, it might have been just instinct where Bobby just felt like he had to catch. Excuse me, King felt like he had to catch that kick because it was available, but as a trap.

The crowd in Manchester, when Petty walks out, it's like, nuts.

Yeah, he's a star.

Yeah, over there. It's. It's crazy. When I was sitting in the back, we were sitting in the back warming up, and then we just hear the people going nuts. And my family's, like, texting, like, man, I wish we weren't fighting so I could just enjoy this right now. Watch Patty walk out.

He's a scouser. He's just fun. He looks like he's having a good old time when he's out there and he could back it up. So that fight was big for him because that fight moves him into elite status, right? He goes from Jared Gordon, and now, you know, a couple other fights now. Bam. Bobby Green. Bam. Someone's gonna be a big name next. Gonna be a big game. So he's thinking right now about Islam. He's thinking about those guys at the top of the heap.

He's at the point where I think one more, especially because of his name, if he gets, like, a hooker or a chandler, right? And he gets past one of them guys, I see them giving speaker zero.

Considering the amount of growth that we've already seen from him, though. Like, if you were in his corner, wouldn't you say, couple more, be good? Couple more. Couple more. Don't rush.

I would. But, like, for money wise, right? I think he's about to the big name, especially if the UFC, when you're thinking of lightweight. Olivera just lost. Gaethje just lost. Hooker already lost to Islam. If Islam gets past Armanders, I mean, if McGregor comes back and he beats Chandler, he's there. But, like, there's not a lot of names right now for Islam because Gumroad was who's supposed to be the backup, and he just lost the hooker, but Islam walked through hooker. So you're like, who is Islam gonna fight after Armad?

Right, right. It's a good question. Good question. You know, because Gamrot was an interesting one. We were looking forward to that versus Islam. Like, that could be interesting because he's such a good grappler. But when, you know, people forget about Dan Hooker, they forgot about him, too.

He's a dog.

Yeah, he's a dog. Dan Hooker went blow for blow with Dustin Poirier. That was as close a fight as you're going to get. And again, another change of the career, right? Dustin moves on from that, gets the counter fights. Dustin. Dustin becomes the man. Yeah, people forget about that fight. That was a fucking very close fight, a very good fight. And there were some moments where Dan Hooker was. Tune in Dustin Poirier up. There's a video compilation online of hooker having Poirier against the ropes. Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap. Ripping shots before the end of the round. He's a bad motherfucker. His knight got fought with a broken arm. He got his arm broken. Didn't say a goddamn word about it. Wins the fight, and they're like, what happened to your arm? It's just a scratch.

Even in this fight. His face was bleeding in between rounds, and he's like, I love this stuff.

Well, he also loves, like, you know, he had that devastating knockout loss to Chandler, right? Chandler comes out, catches him with that leaping hook, and drops him and just puts it on him. And, like, fuck, you know, this is a big, high profile fight, and he got caught, you know? And anybody can get caught. That's what's crazy about the sport. That's why it's so exciting. Anybody can get caught, but it's like, how can you bounce back? How do you bounce? Can you bounce back and be the same guy after you got caught?

Yeah, and that's the hardest part, too, because you get caught, and you don't really feel anything afterward. It's not like you went through a war or injury. So you want to hop right back into it. You're like, let me get that up taste out of my mouth. Let me fight again. But you need, like, the coaches around you that tell you, like, you still got a concussion. Chill out. Don't fight. Take a couple months off.

Yeah.

Gaethje's taking a year off, and it's like, you need those guys to hold you back. Because I've been knocked out before, and it's like, you. I'm all right. I feel good. My body feels good. Like, my. I don't have no scratches or anything. I didn't go through 15 minutes war, so I'm like, let me get another fight. Let me get another fight. Right, but you don't know what's going on in your brain. You don't know what your brain's dealing with, and that's going to be your future right there.

Yep, exactly. And so many fighters are. They're so tough. They feel fine. Their mind is, you know, their determination is strong. Like, I want to get back in there. Like, that was the case with Jamal Hill. He was going to get right back in after the Pajeda fight and he was going to fight roundtree, which is, whoo, that's a bad fight. If you just got knocked out just a few months ago, that's a scary dude.

And even be like taking up ahead of fight. He had a torn Achilles and I think he just got cleared to come back from that Achilles. And it's like, right now you got to fight Alex in six weeks.

Yeah.

And I'm like, bro, that's. That's a short camp. And you're switching up right away. But he's like 300. It's such a big opportunity. Like, you can't say no to that.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, you get knocked out by Perheta and you're like, all right, I want to get right back in there. But you're right back in there is gonna be against a monster like roundtree.

I know.

Not a easy fight. It's funny cuz he was on your show and I'm like, listen to him. And he's like, I maybe do a jujitsu tournament and then I'm like a week later he gets a title fight.

Yeah, I know. No fucking way. Don't do that. Well, you do all that shit when it's over because I was sitting. I remember Cub Swanson did a tour as ACL. Yeah, once you, you know, once you tear some shit doing something stupid and you miss a title shot, you're never going to forgive yourself. Yeah, pressure. Khalil's like 35. You know, he's. He's up in that age range too, where it's like now's the time, man.

Yeah.

So it was perfect timing. And a lot of people like, uncle, I should have got the title shot. But the problem is they already set up that fight with Rakich, which doesn't really totally make sense. Right, right. If you think has Rakich fought since Yuri beat him up?

No.

Okay, so that kind of doesn't make sense a little bit.

Yeah.

It make more sense if Jamal fought wreckage. Right, Jamal. But Jamal wants something a little more high profile. I understand that, but Uncle Layev, man, no one's beating him. Ankolaev had that one draw with Yan Bohovich and no one's beaten him. Yeah, there's another guy everybody forgets about. Yan blah. What the fuck? That guy almost beat Pereda.

He was right. That was a close fight.

Super close.

Yeah.

Down to the wire, everybody's like, yeah, we already saw that. Like, what? What? You gotta give Yon his due. He was a light heavyweight champion of the fucking world and a destroyer. Yeah. But for whatever reason, I think they look at that number, they say, oh, he's 40 years old. Yeah, it's 41 years old. Whatever he is now. So what? So what? He's still fucked up. Dominic Reyes. He still fucks up everybody. Yan Pahovic is a murderer. Yeah, he's. He's a scary dude, man. That's a good fight.

And he's polish, bro. They don't age. He's a killer.

That dude's made out of rocks. I remember when Uncle IV and him were going leg kick to leg kick. You know, he was. He was kicking his shins. Yeah.

This guy is nuts. And I'm like. So I went to my coach. I'm like, what kind of low kick was he doing? He's like, I think he was just going shin to shin.

He was.

It's like, I'm not going to teach that.

He was just saying, feel polish. Bone density, slamming. Slamming those fucking shins into the shins.

But if I behead, I, like, I'm going to pick all the strikers like him at Roundtree is going to be a crazy one.

His only loss against Paul Craig, his first fight in the UFC. Oh, yeah, uncle, I have got caught in a triangle. That's right. Last second. Yeah. Last second is Paul Craig has the nastiest triangle in the division, for sure. One of the nastiest triangles in the sport. Look at this. Look how quick he snatches that shit up. Boom. Snap. And too late. So here we got. I think there was like 5 seconds to go when he locks this up. And he tapped. Unbelievable, man.

That was wild.

So Uncle Ives had this long ass win streak. He looked real good in his last fight. And then they give him a guy who. So he beat Johnny Walker twice. One of them was Johnny Walker. It was like a. There was an injury.

The desert.

What happened?

Remember he was in Abu Dhabi and he got kneed while he was down. And then the doctor came in and he said, who are you? And he said, desert. And the doctor stopped it.

Oh, that's right. And he got mad, like, why are you stopping it? That's right. That's right. So he has the draw with Jan Blachowicz. He kos. Anthony Smith beats Thiago. Santos beats volcan, beats all these guys. I mean, he's beating a lot of guys. I mean, he's got a really good skill set. Where you think about with a guy like Pereda, because he can wrestle, he can strike. And he can wrestle.

And he has a knockout, a huge knockout against Johnny Walker last. So that's.

Yeah, so I guess for him, he fights rockage. I favor him in that fight, but rockage is fucking dangerous as shit, man. You know, rock has had a long time off of the Prohoska fight, and rockets look real good in that fight. He was eating Yuri up before, but Yuri was just walking through everything.

Yuri is like the new age Tony Ferguson, where you hit me, I'm gonna hit you with five other punches, and it's gonna make you tired of just hitting me, and I'm gonna catch you.

It just doesn't work with Poeton. Yeah, you can't. You can't be getting hit by that guy.

I wanna feel his low kick just because I'm like, bro, what does he do? Like, he just touches. I feel like he just, like, touches you with his foot, and you can't walk afterward.

He's targeting it, too. He doesn't ever go shin to shin, and even when he checks, he doesn't go shin to shin. He lifts his leg up like he's playing hacky sack. Yeah, he just lifts his leg up. He just goes ankle. He just lives his ankle. So his foot comes all the way up to his other knee, and then he drops it back down, and he comes in with a right hand. He's got it down where if you try to ankle kick him, he's got so many counters for that calf kick.

And he feel like he's, like, on every pay per view now. Hey, we need somebody to put the bat symbol out there. And he's like, all right, I'm ready.

He'll fight anybody.

Yeah.

Yeah. He's fighting in Salt Lake City against roundtree. And that. That's a wild ass fight, Mandy. That's a wild fight. A lot of people say all roundtree doesn't deserve it. Let me tell you something. Roundtree fights like, you just killed his family and lit his house on fire. That dude's coming for you. Yeah, he's coming for everybody. Stylistically, he's not going to shoot a takedown. Yeah, there'll be no takedowns. He's fucking dangerous, man. But if you. You know, you think about the, like, Pajeda's striking. Like, his overall accomplishments are second to none in MMA, two division glory, world champion. I mean, and the thing about him is that that fucking power is just freakish.

And he just, like, touches it, though. It feels like, bro, what is that?

You see him hit the power cube, and you got 191 on the power cube with a right hand. That's not even his left hook. Like, hit it. What? He probably doesn't want anybody to know. Yeah, hit it with the left hook. That's the sleeper. That left hook is the sleeper.

It'd be like 5000. You're like, it's crazy.

He just touches people.

And it's when you, when you're starting to see his personality come out now more, it's so fun because Glover's, like the nicest guy in the world. And at first, Alex was, like, so quiet. And now you're starting to see Glover pull it out of him.

Even when he wins, he's never like, yeah. It's always like, yep, another day. Yep, another day, another day. Another dude I put to sleep. Like, even after he beat Izzy, he just walked away from him. The referee stopped the fight, and he just walked away. But there's something exciting about that, too. Like, that guy's one of the biggest pay per view stars in the country, in the world, and most people don't even understand what he's saying.

And he's a star, right?

He's a huge star.

All he has to do is make facial expressions, but it's also, it's scary.

When he comes out with the bow and arrow. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. If you're sitting there watching that guy walk to the cage, like, oh, shit. Shit.

I mean, like, thinking to myself, I got to come up with some sort of stick like that. Like, I got to figure out something. Like, I can't think of anything. Just like, look fake.

Yeah, you got to be yourself.

Yeah.

That's either you or that's not you.

But that's the coolest thing in the world. When I see, whenever I'm in his, one of his fights, to see that.

Walk out face, dude, and the music, that is the most beautiful, terrifying face, him walking towards the cage, and you're standing there, you've been prepping for this dude for twelve weeks, and you're like, oh, Jesus, here it comes. Damn.

I hate seeing that one. Just, Jamal's my boy. And I'm like, I like, obviously, I'm a fan of Petta, but, man, to see him just like, catch my boy, I'm like, ah, come on, Jamal, give us get one back just to get that taste out of our mouth.

Well, there was a weird moment in that fight, and we've talked about it before, where Jamal accidentally low kicked him, and the referee moves in to stop, and Jamal stands up straight and relaxes like you, okay? And when Poiton puts his hand on herb Dean. He advances. He makes a little hop step, and then he goes right back to fighting, and he catches him with the left hook. So he closed some distance, and it's.

A game of inches.

Oh. Especially with that guy.

He does everything for a reason. And then when you see somebody break it down like that, like you said, everything changes. Imagine if he did it. Imagine the refs that are high both you get you back up. You back up.

Yep. Yep. Everything changes.

Yeah.

Yeah. Everything changes. But that's moments and fights, you know, and maybe that will define Jamal's career. Maybe Jamal will learn from that. And never be, never take his eye off the prize again.

Yeah.

Never relax. And I guarantee you he won't relax now.

Yeah.

Protect yourself at all times. And I guess, you know, I see it from perhaps point of view to the referee said, okay, keep going. And he caught him. But he did close that distance because of that low kick. So it is.

And I think open up a lot of fighters eyes, too, right? Because you're starting to see these little things.

Yeah.

For me now, I'm like, not the reptiles or something.

Yeah.

I'm either taking one step back myself, or I'm gonna take that step forward and catch that right ahead of distance myself.

You just can't relax.

Yeah.

You can never relax because it's such a game of impossible things happening at any moment. There's so many guys have pulled out impossible things. Head kicks, spinning, elbows out of nowhere. You know, things happen. And if you relaxed even for a second.

Yeah. The korean zombie, yair.

Oh, my God.

Uppercut, elbow.

Oh, my God. What was running away. Uppercut, elbow.

With, like, 2 seconds left.

Crazy.

Like, how's this happen right now?

When yair landed that jumping roundhouse kick on Andre? Feeling. Whoo. The scissor kick.

My God, his kicks are so nasty.

Yeah, there's. It's so interesting to see all these different ways to get elite. There's so many different ways. You know, some guys are specialists, like Perjeda, and some guys just dominate all aspects, like Islam. You know, there's, like, all these different ways that guys achieve to becoming the best.

Yeah, that's my mindset. I, like, I always tell myself I'm behind because, like, I started late, so I'm like, I didn't do martial arts. I was a kid. So, like, I always got to tell myself, all right, we got to do everything. There's not, like, one thing that I'm, like, amazing at, right. But people see the fight, and they're like, oh, all you are is a wrestler. All you are is this. And that's like, bro, I do everything and I train everything more than everybody else. And I, like, I don't take any days off.

How old were you when you first started training?

I was 23.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's crazy. Yeah, that's way behind the curve. Way behind, way behind.

And I didn't do. No, I did, like, two years of high school wrestling.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah.

At least you had that. Yeah, that's definitely something.

Oh, no, I. What?

I mean, because you're in high school, your body's developing.

Yeah.

You know, your body's developing where you learn how to take people down. Like, yeah, that helps for sure. But if nothing by 23 is crazy.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I always played sports in general. I love basketball.

No striking at all. Nothing.

No, I mean, I would always get, like, in street fights in, like, Chicago just because I'm a trash talker when I play basketball. So, like, we would always sit there and go to the park, and then people would see, like, who these Arabs coming to play basketball. And then we'll be winning, and I'm talking trash. And then it'd be like, they want to start a fight afterward. So it was always the best.

But what made you start training?

My. My high school wrestling coach, Lewis Taylor, he was, like, the PFL middleweight champion. He was in my high school wrestling coach for two years, and then he, like, left. And so I'm like, whatever happened to him? He was like, that cool coach, that young coach, and he was, like, gone. So I stopped wrestling, and then I was at school for just. I was trying to be, like, a lawyer, and I ended up seeing him in a newspaper. He was fighting in strikeforce. So then I just, like, messaged him on facebook, and I was like, bro, you're a fighter. He's like, yeah. I was like, whatever happened to you? He's like, I was still young. I still had something left in me, so I wanted to start training. And he used to be, like, rampage's roommate in college, so he had already had, like, that mindset of, like, oh, these guys are fighting. I could fight, too, right? So then he. His gym ended up being probably, like, ten minutes away from my mom's house. So when I come home from school on the weekends, I'll just start training with him. And then it was just like, a snowball effect.

I started, like, falling in love with it. And after my first amateur fight, I was after, like, two months, like, could it be? Could I get a fight? He's like, two months? Yeah. Cuz I was just like, excited about the whole thing. And for us to is like, we were only training partners, so I'm training with him and like, I'm learning the hard way. Like, we're just going straight sparring or straight wrestling. And he was like a division one wrestler. He had crazy power, crazy jutsu. So, like, I'm getting good just because he's beating me up the whole time. So then I'm like, oh, I can fight amateur. And he's like, yeah, let's go get you one.

Wow.

Yeah. So then I got it. It was like the biggest street fight in the world, the amateur fight. There's like nothing good about my technique or anything, but it's funny because Mark Coleman was a commentator for it.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. It was like, the whole scenario is crazy. And it was like I had a bar and it was just like, cool. So then after that I was like, bro, all right. I transferred to like a closer school near the gym. I started training more with him and then, you know, my parents are telling me, like, stay in school, stay in school. So then once I started just like getting more wins, more wins, and I decided to go pro. I said, I'll go back to school after I lose. And then we just kept going until we got to the UFC.

Wow.

Yeah, it was wild. He's still with me now to this day, but even with him, he was 41 years old and they never gave him a UFC shot. But he ended up going to PFl and he was like a 1200 underdog and he won the million dollars at 30 seconds with a knockout.

Wow.

Yeah. He was fighting abuse megamata, the one that's in the UFC now. They were in the finals. The first abuse, he beat abuse. 32nd knockout.

Yeah, abuse is good.

Yeah. And he was 41 years old, never got his shot. And it's crazy how his career ended like that. Middleweight champion retired on top now. Million dollars. And there's a lot of guys that go to UFC, they don't hit a million dollars.

That's true.

So he's like, my path was that way. So even with me when I was doing all this waiting for this title fight, he's like, patience, it's gonna come. Like, you saw what I had to go through. Your title fights gonna come, it's gonna come at the right moment. So just enjoy the journey.

Can you find that fight? See if you can find that fight. Jamie Lewis Taylor and abuse Magametov. Abuse. Had a great first round with Sean Strickland, a great first round, but that was like, sean Strickland is just a zombie. He just marches towards you, and you can't hit him. He's hard to hit, but he was fucking his legs up.

I was hoping abuse would knock him out. I was like, come on, abuse, please, bro.

He was putting it on him in that first round, but he started getting tired.

Yeah.

By the end of the first round, he was tired.

He threw everything at him.

Yeah, everything was full clip to full speed, full clip.

And I was like. Because even at PFL, the way he was killing everybody, he was like, so.

He'S 41 in this fight?

Yeah.

That's so crazy. So this is the PFL championships in 2018.

Yeah, and it's crazy. Cause they got rid of the middleweight division after this, so now they don't have middleweight there anymore.

How is that possible?

They wanted to put the women's division, the 55 ertainte, so they got rid of the middleweight guys.

Can I talk to somebody over there? Abuse. See, there's a low kick. His low kicks are nasty. He just. For whatever reason, abuse has a hard time sustaining it. I mean, I think he's getting better in the UFC, and I think the Sean Strickland fight was just too quick. Oh, left hook. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Back that up again. Look at this. They go shin to shin. Boom. Oh, my God. The distance he covered with that left.

Hook, and it's like a booster leaving a block in it, too. Like, crazy power.

There's nothing about guys who are really good at shooting. That same ability to cover distance when you make a double leg is the same kind of drive that you need to move forward to punch. That's one of the reasons why random was so dangerous, you know? Cause Randleman had that crazy shot, so he could explode forward and punch you from a distance. You really can't punch him. That's incredible. Look how much distance he covers. Jamie just broke it down. Look at this.

Yeah, he hopped in there.

Now go. Go back a little bit further, please. Just a little bit further before he throws the punch. He's way back there, dude, watch this. Look how far away he is. Oh, my goodness. Boost made a mistake that he tried to counter. He was thinking about countering before the punch got to him, and he just wasn't quick enough. That's incredible. Good for him, man. Good for him. And that guy's legit, man. To knock out a guy like that abuse is legit.

Yeah. People, when people go back and look at his record, he had, like, ten first round finishes on his come up. But, like, the UFC just said he was too old. They never gave him a shot.

Oh, that's crazy.

Yeah. And I was like, bro, if people just saw him. And even when he started his career, like I said, I was, like, one of his main training partners from the beginning, if he was, like, an american top team or, like, a real gym, because he had kids early, so he didn't want to, like, leave them. So he always trained in Chicago, and he's like, I'm gonna build up my own guys. So we had, like, a small gym, like, three or four guys that he just used as the main training partners.

And they can compete at a world class level deep into their forties. And I always point to Bernard Hopkins. Everybody wrote Bernard Hopkins off before he fought Kelly Pavlick, and he beat the shit out of Kelly Pavlick, and he just boxed him. He just did everything perfect. It was a masterclass in boxing. A masterclass in world championship caliber boxing against a guy in Kelly Pavlick, which was fucking dangerous, man. Wicked puncher, tough as shit. Jermaine Taylor fight was crazy. He was out in that fight and came back to stop Taylor. Just a warrior, a real dog. So Bernard was like, how old was Bernard when he fought Kelly Pablo, when he fought Felix Trinidad, everybody wrote him off. He was, like, 36 or something by the time he fought Trinity.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, man. Everybody wrote him off.

Wow.

Bernard was wild too. He threw the Puerto rican flag down on the ground in Puerto Rico. He had a run. People were chasing him.

He ran. He had a run. They would have killed it.

Yeah, they were trying to kill him.

Yeah. You can't do that.

Yeah, he told me the whole story was hilarious. Yeah, he's a. I mean, but how old was Bernard? 43 years old when he fought Kelly Pavla. Come on, son. 43 years old. That's so crazy. He beat Roy Jones junior when he was 45. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. The Chad Dawson fight, bro, he was 46 years old, and Chad Dawson was a killer. Chad Dawson was a vicious knockout artist, and he knocked him out in the second round, and then he lost again against him the next fight. That's how good Chad was. Chad was a fucking good fighter that he lost to Kovalev, and he lost to Joe Smith junior, which was a bad one. But he was 51 years old when he fought Joe Smith, and Joe Smith is another one who's a fucking killer, man. He's a dangerous puncher. Joe Smith is a mauler. Dangerous guy. 51 years old.

That's wild.

Natural. 51 years old.

What do you think of Tyson and Jake?

I wish he didn't do it. I wish it wasn't a thing. I wish it wasn't a thing where a 58 year old guy was gonna fight a 28 year old that said that out the window. I fully support his desire to do it. What, is he gonna live forever? He's not gonna live forever. Maybe he wants one more shot at it. Maybe his body can do one more fight. I don't know. He looks great on the mitts, but that doesn't mean that, you know, as much as I know.

Yeah.

I could look good on the bits.

Yeah. I tell people that, like, bro, Mitts doesn't show anything. Yeah.

Especially if you watch in 30 seconds clips. What you want to see is him sparring. You want to see him hitting the bag for multiple rounds. You'd want to see, like, let's see three rounds hard on the bag. I'm gonna see what you could do. I want to see how your feet move. I want to see what it looks like. If you're off balance when you're throwing combinations. Dude, you look like Tyson.

Yeah.

Remember there's some videos of Tyson hitting the bag when he was, like 19 years old. And it's crazy. You watch, like, the speed and the. See if you find that Mike Tyson hitting the heavy bag when he's young. Terrifying. Terrifying. That, to me, a bag is different than mitts. Mitts, guys are meeting you halfway. You know, you've got a combination worked out. Okay, I want you to go left, right, left of the body, right overhand. Pop, pop. Okay, do it again. Pop, pop. It kind of can look real good. Yeah, but can you do that with a guy who's moving? Can you go, can you spar? Like, if. Would they bring in a world class heavyweight? Can you do that? Like what? How do you move? How are your knees? How's your back? Like, are you. Can you sustain that? Can you sustain those kind of explosions or is this just a gimmick? You know? I mean, I don't know. I know he used to be able to, but we won't really know. So here's it.

When he's young, Michael Tyson.

Yeah. Kill the sound. You don't have to see the sound. Just look at this. And he's young here, man. Young. So that's him hitting the bag. Later in life, I would want to see rounds, you know, I want to see rounds. I want to see what it looks like when he's tired. How quick does he get tired? I want to see him sparring.

I wonder if he's going to spar.

Look at that. When he's young, man. Dude. Terrifying. Those combinations. When he show that again, bro. He was so fast. So fast and always moving. Always moving. Bobbing and weaving. He was a target that you couldn't find. Just moving at you, constantly advancing.

Just a mindset, like, just craziness.

Madness. Just can. Just controlled madness in there with perfect technique and ferocious power and awesome genetics. You know, they said that Teddy Atlas told me that when he was 13 years old, he would bring him to smokers and they would go, how old is that kid? He was 13. He's 16. He's like, fine, he's 16. And he was 190 at 13 years old.

What?

Yeah, 190.

Wow.

190.

That's wild.

What? That's God. He got a gift. He got up. God kissed his physique.

As you're at a smoke, you're a 13 year old, and you see that guy?

What?

Oh, you gotta fight him. You're like, wait, what?

Fuck. What are you talking about? That's a man pull.

Guardhouse. I said, box it. Fuck this.

Yeah, and he scared a lot of guys before they even threw their first punch. You'd see the look like. I remember Bruce Seldon. He missed a left hook of Bruce Eldon, and Bruce Eldon went down. He's like, fuck all this. Fuck all this. Fuck all this.

Yeah, what do you want to miss?

Yeah, but. But he's 58, you know, I support him. I love that guy. I fully support. I'm a gigantic fan of his. Me meeting him, the first time I met him at the UFC was, there's some starstruck moments where you meet people like, oh, shit, that's Sugar Ray Leonard. You know, oh, shit, that's Mike Tyson. And I was even one of the most starstruck moments I ever had. Really couldn't believe I was meeting Mike Tyson.

It's wild.

Yeah, I did a podcast with him. I was like, I can't believe I'm talking to Mike Tyson. It just seemed he was such a huge part of my childhood when I was a kid was when he was coming up, I have in my office framed the COVID of Sports Illustrated when he was 19.

Wow, really?

Yeah, it says kid dynamite. See if you can find that.

You had it for back then.

Oh, no, no. Someone gave it to me recently. It might have been. Sports Illustrated sent it to me. I don't know who sent it to me. Do you know who sent it? Somebody sent it to me. Thank you. Whoever did it, I forgot. I'm sorry, but that's the COVID that's framed in my office at 19 years old on the COVID I think that was 1985. Is that what year that was? Does it say what year that was? See if you can find. What does it say? 86. Okay, so that was right before he won the title. He won the title when he was 20. So I was like, just out of high school and he was the guy, like, heavyweight boxing had gotten boring. Nobody cared. After Larry Holmes was like, people were bored with heavyweight boxing. There was a bunch of champions and nobody heard of. It was like they weren't really interested. No disrespect to any of those guys, but they didn't excite the public the way Muhammad Ali did, the way George Foreman did. It wasn't heavyweight. Boxing was kind of dead. And then all of a sudden this dude comes along.

You're like, oh, my God. And he was doing everything he wanted a heavyweight to do. Just starching people, just sending them flying. He'd hit him with left hooks, they'd go flying. You're like, look at this guy. He's going to become the youngest heavyweight champion of all time. And then he fights Trevor Berbick and knocks him out quick.

How much were pay per views back then?

God, I don't remember. But I remember a lot of times people wouldn't want to buy Mike Tyson pay per views because they knew the fights would be over. So it was nuts, man. So this is, is this a documentary? It says kid Dynamite, 1985. Oh, so this is him in 1985? Yeah, this is him. When people were just starting to hear about him and he came through the ranks quick. He just was fucking everybody up. He was having a hard time getting fights. And everybody thought, this is the guy. This is the next destroyer. I mean, he was just killing people, man. Everybody fought, was getting fucked up.

Oh my. Just a head movement in the inside. It just wild.

Everything. And the power, it was just, that's what you wanted to see from a heavyweight. So that guy is still alive and he still remembers all these moments. It's not like he doesn't know how to put his knuckles on your face. The question is, how much does he have left in his body? 58 today is not 58 when I was 21. It's a different 58. Especially if they're not testing him. Okay, if they're letting him take hormones and peptides and do all the things that I would recommend, 100%. I mean, I don't know how you could do it if you're 58. If you're not doing that. If they're allowing him to do all that stuff and get his body to the optimum level that's known to science, you're dealing with a different kind of human being. You're dealing with one of the greatest fighters that's ever lived. It's just, how much does he want to do it? Is he doing it for money? How much does he have left in the tank? Those are all questions that'll make me buy the pay per view.

It's on Netflix, though. It's free.

Yeah, that's right. It's free.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm going to watch it 100%. I'm going to watch it. I'm going to feel bad if he gets knocked out.

Yeah.

But, you know, his most recent comments about the fight, Tyson addressed the media with his usual boldness during a press conference. The show's readiness for battle. He said, I'm just ready. I'm ready. I'm going to talk my talk and do my shit, but I'm ready to fight. Is he really a young killer? Tyson said, discounting any questions on his readiness. Reacting to Paul's taunting Tyson's need to postpone the fight because of an ulcer flare up earlier in the summer, former champion made a strong statement about his unmatched abilities. He said, I feel a lot better now. Who else can do it but me? Who else is going to fight to make this happen? You got a youtuber fighting the greatest fighter that ever lived.

Ooh, yeah. I want to hear him say that. That sounds coming out of his voice would be like.

You also have to remember about Mike Tyson is that Mike Tyson knows how to mentally prepare. He was trained by Cus D'Amato, who was a hypnotist. And cuss Amato started hypnotizing him when he was 13 years old.

Really?

Yeah. That was part of the reason why he was so terrifying. His mindset was just unstoppable. He really thought that he could not be stopped. He thought he was going to murder everybody. And Cuss was his hero. Cuss raised him, Cuss took him in when he was 13 years old. He had this terrible childhood. No love, just in and out of trouble. Terrible, bad situation, horrible poverty and crime. And then all of a sudden he's being taken care of by this dude who's a master boxer, master boxing coach, trained world champions like Jose Torres and Floyd Patterson. And now he's got this young pupil. This is his last hurrah and the greatest shot he's ever had at having a real all time great. I mean, this guy's an all time great. And he's 13.

Wow. Yeah.

He's a 13 year old, 190 pound kids, like, what in the fucked? And he's got this kid and he's hypnotizing them and he's telling them, you're the greatest. And he's getting it into his head. So from the time he was really young, he was learning mental preparation. He was learning how to put himself into a mindset of just an unstoppable juggernaut that had one goal, one task, and Cuss would tell him, you don't exist, only the task exists. Like, you don't exist. What you have to do exists. That's what you are.

Wow, that's powerful. I'm gonna write that down. Yeah.

So the question is, how much does that guy have left? You know, conventional wisdom would say this is a terrible fight. Conventional wisdom would say there's a 28 year old with knockout power just knocked out Mike Perry. He's real fast, he's young, he's fucking athletic. He's bold as shit. He's a good boxer. He's a very good boxer. People don't want to give miscredit because he's a youtuber and all that shit. Anybody who knocks out Tyrone Woodley with one punch can fucking crack anybody that can move the way that dude moves. And have a fight with Tommy Fury, who's a world class boxer, and he lost that fight. But it was a very good fight. He's a good fighter. A real good fighter.

And he's actually training like he's getting better. People were just, like, sleeping on him.

Just because he's a youtuber.

Youtuber. But I'm like, he just beat Mike Perry, who was killing it.

Yeah.

And bare knuckle boxing. Yeah, he was like, on top. But I want to give credit.

Would have been interesting to see him fight Mike Perry. Bare knuckle, though.

Ah, that's there. That changes everything.

That changes everything. Mike. Harry is the best at that shit, but that's a different. It's interesting how that's a different sport because it really is a different sport. It's a whole different thing. When your hands aren't covered and you feel those bones piercing your skin.

It's a mindset, too.

Yeah. It's like he's a 100% human pit bull. That's a 100% human pit bull. That guy has no quit. No quit. You know, he fucking throws caution to the wind at every possible occasion. You could hit him. He's gonna hit you back. He knows how to take punishment. He likes it. He likes getting hit.

He broke Rocko's teeth.

Yeah. And I was like, broke Luke Rocko's teeth.

He's bigger too. Rockhold. Yeah.

Well, imagine, okay, how about him and MVP? Okay. Him and MVP with the gloves on. An MMA fight, you favor MVP, right?

Wow.

MVP. MVP is super hard to hit. He's got crazy distance management. Those kicks in that distance and the long length. But he decided to take a challenge and fight Mike Perry bare knuckle, because he thought, look, I can move better than anybody. I am. I am the most elite mover in all of MMA, and I'm gonna fight this flat footed meathead psychopath. And that flat footed meathead psychopath just walked him down and dropped a couple.

Of times in there.

Yeah, man. Crazy, crazy.

It changes everything.

Changes everything.

And just the scarring on you, like, your knuckles and your faces after that.

Yeah, your face is getting sliced open.

But they're starting to pay, these guys. When you see guys like Eddie Alvarez and Chad men is go over there, you're like, yeah, McGregor, like, owner part of it now, too.

Yeah.

But McGregor's grime, you know, after Mike Perry lost, he said, yeah, I've cut it out. Like, bro, just tweeted. I wonder if this guy tweeted for himself.

He's treating for fun. Apparently Mike Perry has a piece of bare knuckle.

Oh, does he?

Yeah, I think that's what he said. He's like, I'm one of the owners too, motherfucker.

He's the face of it. Like, there's not, like, I wouldn't even be watching it if my parents are on there.

I think regular boxing is just very different. It's very different what you can get away with, you know, the fact that you can't really clinch and punch the way those guys do in bare knuckle boxing. Those guys are getting grimy. There's a lot of dirty boxing in there. It's just so different when those bare knuckles touch you. Just so different. It's different. You can't guard as much still, stuff's getting through. You don't have the big cushions in front of you. Those big cushions mean a lot. Yeah, they stop a lot of shit.

It's wild. The difference is, even when we're sparring with big gloves or sparring with smaller gloves that we have, it's like, it changes everything.

Changes everything.

Yeah. And then. But with even no, no padding on your knuckles, like, you don't even want to throw as hard, right? Yeah.

Right.

And your wrist will break easily. So you have to punch a specific way. I think they, they both, they all have, like, a different format of, you know, way they punch. They just hold their wrist in a different way like this or something like that.

Like them old timey boxing guys.

Yeah.

They all were holding their funds, their punches like this.

Yeah.

Bare knuckle guys. They all fought like this. They jabbed each other like this. They were just trying to only hit with these two knuckles.

Yeah. When we were younger, we would do that. Like, we're gonna punch somebody in, like, the knee or something like that. We put that knuckle out there. Stupid. It was. But, I mean, you could use a bare knuckle.

We could definitely use an eyeball.

Yeah.

If you punch something like that on purpose to the eyeball, like, that's. That's real.

I want. Is there, has there been eye pokes in a lot of I pokes in there fighting?

That's a good question. I don't remember any.

Yeah, it's like, I haven't really even thought about that, but I don't think feel like there has.

I think in MMA, a lot of them come from this. A lot of them come from that distance management. Yeah. And I think that's who I think. One point every time, poke someone's eye. One point, and no one will ever do that again. Everybody will keep their hands closed.

Yeah.

You poke someone with the fingers one time, one point.

It should be trained. Like, even at our practice, if somebody's putting their fingers out, I tell them like, yo, close your fist.

Yeah.

That should be like a natural. It shouldn't be even thought. It shouldn't even be a habit.

What's just such a natural instinct to try to push a guy away from you?

Yeah.

If a guy's coming at you and you're trying to push him away, those fingers go right in there, man. You see the Weidman fight?

Oh, my God. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

And then that's one of those two.

Where you're like, same thing, bro. Right.

But then, yeah, I'm like, annoyed by wide makes. I'm like, bro, you did poke him in the eye, but he's saying like, oh, he shouldn't have felt like that. I'm like, bro, when you get poked an eye that bad.

Yeah, that was a referee's problem. Yeah, the referee should stop that. Should stop that on that last eye poke, for sure. But maybe he didn't see it. Maybe wasn't a position to see it.

Yeah, it's just, it's hard, even. I mean, I understand how hard it is for a ref, even with stopping fights.

Sure.

Looking at somebody who's this weekend, Gerald Marshall, where he was getting beat up, and then all of a sudden he caught him with a submission.

Yep.

After that, you're like, some refs would have stopped the fight.

Yeah.

In that round.

Yeah.

So it's like the good reps that, you know, give you a longer leash and then the shorter reps that Dominic Cruz, you and Dominic Cruz, you hate you for the rest of your life because you stop a fight too early.

Who did Jared Cannoneer get stopped by? Who is his Jared? Not the last fight, but the fight before that.

There was a bad stop. Yes, that's right.

That was another one of those situations. The same kind of situation where you're like, that's not a stoppage. He's standing up. He's up.

Yeah.

You know, the last one, he got hurt harder by Bohalio where he got dropped, that, that looked worse than the fight where he got stopped previously.

And if you beat Imov, yes. You end up, you're in title contention again. Cause he was on a street, but now you're on a two fight losing streak.

Yeah.

And 40 a ref stopped it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's crazy how those little moments in a fight can change the entire career of a fighter. You never know, like, at any moment, something screwy can happen, you know? So is this it? So here it is. Imavov is hitting him with some good shots for sure. Jared's definitely getting hit, but he's firing back. And the referee stops it. And he's like, what the are you doing?

And Herzog is a good ref.

He's a very good ref. And he faced some serious criticism after that fight. And I think, you know, he made a mistake.

Yeah.

You know, he was probably trying to save Jared from further punishment. He thought it was over, but Jared was like, I got a lot left. I was not as badly hurt as you thought. You know, the thing is, the problem is, when a guy is teeing off on you, even if you're not getting hurt, it looks bad. Even if you're moving away and covering up and you're getting out of the range, you're stumbling around, it looks bad. But you could still come back. And you got to give the guy the opportunity to still come back. You got to know you don't let him take shots when he's out, but you got to give him the opportunity to be able to come back. And when a guy's standing and still throwing back, you got to give him a chance, because fights are fights. Things change. Guys, he might have got burned out from that because he emptied the gas tank. We've seen that happen many times, and.

There'S some fighters that just, like, look bad, and they make it look just because their body movement's weird, right? I mean, Driskus always looks like he's dead tired and dead in there, and all of a sudden, he comes back and wins a fight. There's just guys that just don't have that, that good look all the time.

Even when I take your punches, everybody's baffled by Trickus. What is going on? How's he beating everybody? What is going on?

Like, it's wild.

He's a bulldog, that dude. I was stunned. I was stunned by the adesanya fight. I was stunned.

He was looking good.

He's looking good, but Jurgis was looking good, too, you know, and Jurgis was landing a lot of leg kicks. He's got that real sneaky left high kick, too. That. That left high kick comes out of nowhere.

It's just awkward. He just, like, moves so awkwardly awkward and.

But game. Yeah, so game.

He has so much heart. Like, even when he started taking those bad shots, when he was shooting, he was on his knees, and I was like, oh, he's about to break. And then all of a sudden, you see him still have a lot left in the tank.

He's a tank. Yeah, he's a tank. He marches forward, man. And the way he capitalized, he hurt Izzy with a couple good punches. One good left hook. He hurt Lizzy, and Izzy moved away, and then they got into another exchange, hit him with those two right hands from the clinch, and then got his back. And once he got his back, it was like that.

Yeah, it was quick.

He went right to the choke. Right to the choke. And cinched it up. I mean, between the time he hit Izzy, to the time where Izzy was tapping with just a few seconds.

Yeah. For me, I thought Izzy, like, looked like. Yeah, a lot tired, faster than he normally does. And I was like, he looked like he put a lot more muscle on.

Yeah.

So that could have been a a key in it, where his body wasn't used to moving like that, maybe with the extra muscle, but I was like, bro, he's moving a lot slower than usual in his third round.

I always wonder, and I wanted to talk to him about this, if he was ever considered doing, like, one of those Marv Marinovitch type camps. So, Marv Marinovitch, they had this philosophy that the most important thing was your gas tank. You already know how to fight. You already know how to fight. All you're getting better has already been done. And in the six weeks or eight weeks, whatever your camp is, you should be only concentrating on cardio, and they would do these explosive plyometric things. BJ hated it. He hated it. But if you look at his gas tank from those fights, it was unstoppable. And when a fighter is not tired and the other fighter is tired, and you realize all that work is paid off, and you start putting it on him, and you got this unlimited gas tank, and you also haven't been beat up in training for six to eight weeks because you really not sparring, you're really not doing much of anything other than your cardio. They're just doing plyometrics. It's all just jumping around and shit. It's all you ever seen. Marvinovich, see if you can find Marv Marinovich trains BJ Penn.

They had BJ doing all kinds of shit. That's all they would do, man.

Wow.

That's all they would do. Nick Kherson came on the podcast, and he was a protege of those guys, and that's his philosophy as well. He was telling me that it's really at an elite fighter that's fighting a world championship fight, they already know how to fight. You just got to give them the unstoppable gas tank. And if you concentrate only on that, it's the most important thing, because when a fighter gets tired, like, when Izzy got tired in that fourth round with Trickus, you could see he's not the same Izzy in the first round. That's like lightning fast and moving and countering and controlling distance and getting out of the range of shots. This is an Izzy that's experiencing fatigue. Yeah, but he already knows how to fight. Like, the fighting is in his DNA at this point. He knows how to fuck people up. And if he had, like, here's. Here's BJ training with the Marinovitches. So it's all these plyometrics. Even with the arms, it's all this explosive shit. Everything is done for time and distance, and they measure everything. And he just breaks guys down physically to the point where when they get into that octagon, they just have the craziest fucking gas tank.

Yeah.

Of all time. It's an interesting philosophy.

Yeah. My mindset going around.

Eagle eyed Alex Panetta spots Israel. Adesanya injury draws partial confession from Stylebender. He said, this guy knows me, said Izzy was injured. He said he was noticing he wasn't throwing kicks, like he might have been injured.

And Izzy was like, it's almost like.

This guy knows me or something. Hmm. So he's sort of admitting to being injured, but not well. They clash in a bunch of times. I mean, it could have happened in the fight, but the problem is he was still tired. Yeah, he's still tired. I mean, I'm sure he was injured.

Yeah.

Crazy fight.

You get injured in general camps. You get so injured in camps.

Yeah.

Like the hardest thing, even if a fights quick, people don't realize that. I just had an a week camp of non stop training. You get more injuries in training camp than you do in the fight.

What's the worst injury you ever went into a fight with?

It's funny, I was, I was in Australia and I was fighting Tim beans and then me and my coach were in the back warming up, and then we ended up going, like, knee to knee in the back during the warm up. And, like, I could have put my knee down to the ground after that. And it was like, before the fight. So I was like, what the heck? I thought we just classed knees, so it was like, sore. So, like, even in the fight just felt weird. So then after the fight, we went and I still could have put my knee down to the floor for like, two or three weeks, and then I end up tearing my. It was a torn meniscus.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. But, like, right before the fight, right before the fight, we just like, clash knee to knee. And it's like you said, it's so much random stuff that could happen to you because I like to spar in the back before my fights. I like, really, like, I like to feel it. So I'll have them put a shin guards on a headgear and I'm throwing a lot harder than them, but I want to feel that so I can feel the distance. So I want to go out to the fight like it's my third or fourth round, right. Because I usually, I usually start slow when I'm at practice, but in the fight I want it to be going right away and I have, like, cardio for it. So, like, I want to feel like it's the third round already when I go out there.

Well, they always say that you should do that anyway. Like, really elevate your heart rate and then cool down and then compete.

Yeah. Some guys like to hit mitts, but for me, I like to spar. So I have my training partner come down there with me, and then you got to have a controlled guy. It's not going to hurt you, but, yeah, we just go in the back. We throw.

Wow.

Yeah. We're throwing so big gloves on, and, like, I get to the point where I hit me because I want to feel it. Like, even in this fight with Leon, he threw, like, 50 kicks at me hard at the back, so I wanted to go out there, like, all right. My arms feel it, my legs feel it.

Right.

And my body's already gonna adjust to it. Yeah.

That's so risky.

It's. It's risky, but I'm like, I'm about to go in a fight anyway.

Right, right.

And once you get that adrenaline.

Yeah.

Like, you don't really feel nothing, and I'll feel it afterward. But, like, the biggest risk is just a headbutt or, like, catching a your blood or something like that.

Right.

That's why I make it wear a headgear.

Right.

And, you know, like I said, you have to have the perfect training partner for it.

Right.

Where he's gonna throw the right stuff.

At there for you.

Yeah, yeah. He's not gonna.

He's not really sparring. He's there for you.

Yeah. If I tell you I hit me right here hard, he'll hit me here hard. But it's not like we're not gonna just sit there and bang in the back.

Right?

Yeah.

Wow. Who else does it that way?

I don't know. We. Like, for us, we caught ourselves doing it. Like, I feel like I'm one of the first guys to start doing it that I know. And then I'll start telling my other teammates when I go corner them to, like, let's do the same thing, and they'll like it, too, but, yeah, there's not a lot of guys that just. I know a lot of guys that just, like hitting mitts. And then you go out there, and then you start a lot slower. But for me, I'm like, bro, we're going to fight. Like, I don't need to hit mitts right now. I'd rather feel you throwing punches at me. So I catch distance.

Yeah.

So I look at the punches coming at me, and then I know where I'm backing up, where I'm not backing up.

You already loose? For real loose?

Yeah. Cause even when I sparred, I'm sparring, like, five or six rounds regardless, so I know I could go five rounds easy in the cage, especially with that extra adrenaline. So, like, if I do those extra two rounds in the back, it's not gonna affect me.

And you're going into the fight completely warmed up.

Yeah.

Psychologically too.

Yeah.

Like, you're much closer psychologically to a fight than just hitting mitts. And then all of a sudden someone's throwing back.

Yeah. The mindset is the hardest thing, right, to get locked in. Because when I first started fighting, I was like, I'm another guy. I don't like to curse, but then I was like, I was telling myself I gotta listen to rap music. I got a curse as I'm in the back and I'm like, trying to hit myself to hide myself up, but because I feel like I'm too calm, but my coach is like, bro, that's. That's a good thing. Like, you being calm is good for you. You don't have to sit there and be something you're not. So then I was like, alright, well, let's stay calm, but then let's start adding inspiring. So now I feel that. So I'll just get it.

So is your idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you try different things at practices and I'll be like, all right, when did I feel good at sparring? I'll take notes of everything. I felt good on this bar day and I did this type of drilling beforehand and. Or I did this type of warm up beforehand because my coach, he's like, he tries to mimic the fight with everything. So he'll tell us, I warm up on your own, do your own thing. Then we're gonna get your five spine rounds in a cage. So for me, I'm trying to adjust to make my style all right. Just help me better today. What did I eat today? Let me write that down. This is when I felt the best. I had the most energy doing this. I had the most energy eating this. So I like, now I got it down to like, a system that I like more than anything.

What is the food do you take before you train?

Before I train?

Yeah. What's the stuff that makes you feel the best?

Like, white rice. Usually my guy will make like, right, rice, eggs and, like, turkey bacon. So it's protein with good carbs, so not heavy. Just gotta digest, fight fast.

Yeah, right?

Yeah. Like I said before, I would just think I have to starve myself. And then he came in, he's a girl. Like, what are you doing? Like, you. You're not gonna have good practices with this way. But my mind said, I don't really care cuz I'll just, like, I know how to push myself. No, matter what.

Yeah. Well, but having you've gone through camps with Ramadan, and that's where it gets. And you. We should tell people there's ways to kind of make that a little easier on yourself.

Yeah.

Where you sleep during the day, and then you get up, and then at nighttime, once you can eat and drink, then you do that. But you don't do that.

Yeah. I've had. I had multiple times, multiple camps during it, where I would still stick to my normal schedule of training, where I'll train at 10:30 a.m. and I can't eat or drink in the morning. So I wake up at 05:00 a.m. for our morning prayer. You get your. Your last sip of water before the sun rises, and then I'll have, like, a protein shake, dates or something like that. That'll give me some energy for the morning. And then at 10:00 a.m. i have my morning practice, and then I have another practice.

You can't drink water in between rounds. Nothing?

No.

After the first training with no water.

No water or food. Yeah. So after, like, the first three or four days, your body just adjusts. It. It feels good, honestly, because it makes you feel, like, mentally, you're in a different place. Like, spiritually, you're in a different place in general because Ramadan. And that's where, like, for any muslim, that's, like, the best time because you're not stressing out about other things, and you know that you're doing it for God, and you know God's gonna give you the strength to push through no matter what. So, for myself, for the reasons I'm doing it, I know I could push through, and I know that whoever I'm training for is not doing what I'm doing so I can push myself harder than them when it gets into the cage, when I can't drink, when I can't eat. So I think mentally just puts me in a different place. But for fight camps, like, after it's time to break my fast, when it's sun and sunsets, that's when I have to be the smartest. That's where I got to put the carbs in, a lot of protein in, and then I got to make sure I'm getting my electrolytes, my salts, and just getting all those fluids back in.

Like, I just finished cutting weight, right. Because if I don't do it the right way, then the next morning, I'll be screwed, right, because I'll feel super drained.

That's interesting. So you got to treat it like you're cutting weight almost.

Yeah. So, like, every night I'm treating, like, a weight cut. I have my shakes, have my protein that I'm getting in the right way. And I try to hit a certain. At least a gallon and a half of water before bedtime. Mmm. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. So that he carries you on at least a little bit in the morning.

Yeah. And then, like I said, after first, your body honestly just figures it out. Like.

But you. You wouldn't want to defend the title that way.

No, no.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, I've. Before. I was trying to chase everything, right? I was trying to chase that. The next ranked guy. I was trying to chase this, and I felt like I couldn't say no to anything, right. Because I was always looking for these guys to say yes. And I can't waste an opportunity. But now I am the opportunity. Now I am the champion. So now I feel like it gives me more leeway to be like, no, I want. I want to wait a little bit longer. This one feels. Feels better for me. My body's healthy now because it took me so long to get here, so now I don't have to go through a camp during Ramadan for it.

Well, now it's about your legacy.

Yeah.

As a champion. Yeah, yeah. And you. And exactly. All the things we were talking about before, the little thing can change your life. A little loss here, little loss there. Fuck all. Taking those fights on ten days notice.

Yeah.

UFC calls you ten days before an event, change your number. Change your fucking number, man. Don't let him talk you into it. Come on, you can beat them. Like, I know you work out all the time. And you start thinking, yeah, I do work out all the time. Like, we're gonna offer you x amount of money. Like, oh, that is. Then you start spending that money.

That's the hard part right now is because, like, like you said, I. For me, I hate saying no in general just because I had the fighter mentality. Like, I ain't scared. I'll say yes to anything. Like, the Gilbert Burns fight, it was three weeks notice. It was during Ramadan. And they're like, you win, you know, do it for the fans that just bought their ticket to their first event. And I was like, yeah, I do want to do it for those fans of, I'm not afraid of Gilbert. And Gilbert's, like, started chirping on Twitter, like, oh, he's afraid. He doesn't want to fight. So then I'm like, I do want to fight. I'm not afraid of you. So then I say, yeah, no matter what. Then it's like I'm thinking to myself, bro, I'm on a nine fight winning streak. I'm taking this fight on three weeks notice. Why did I do this? I'm stupid. Like, if I lose, I'm back in the line again. I was one fight away. Now if I lose this fight, I'm done. Yeah, but, yeah, it changes, like, your mindset. But, like, I, fighters are dumb. Like, we, we just want the glory no matter what.

Right.

I want to prove. I want to, for me, I want to prove everybody wrong.

It's like you have to temper that mindset.

Yeah.

You know, you have to think about the overall big picture because what got you to the dance is that mindset, like, anybody, anytime. Let's go. Who am I fighting? I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. I don't, but once you got the title, so you got to keep the dog, but you also got to be intelligent about what fights you take and when you take them.

Yeah.

And no one, don't fight injured. You know, there's so many guys to take fights. I had a broken foot coming into this fight. Like, what?

Yeah, afterward, right?

Yeah. What?

And those are the guys that, like, for me as a fighter, if I lose, I lost. That's it.

Right?

Like, I hate guys who come up with a million excuses afterward, right. Because then it, like, for the guy that won, it's like people are. You're not gonna give him credit for that win, right. Then for me, it, like, when I lost my fight, it was like, all right, I gotta change this. I lost. That's it. Like, that was always my mindset. Don't give excuses. If we're going to fight injured, we accepted it. Injured. That's it. That's it. Put it out of your head, because if you go in there overthinking about it, like, I got an injured ankle, I got an injured rib. I know I should never took this fight in between rounds. You never want to second guess yourself in the fight. And for me, I just try to clear my head of anything. Once we said yes, our names on the contract, that's it. We're all in.

So who do you think is next? There's talk of Shaftka and his talk of Kamaru Usman, right? Those are the ones that I hear.

Yeah, mostly, I think, like you said, for legacy wise, Usman is obviously the bigger name, and he was the guy that Dana said it was the, the best welter behind GSP or in front of GSP. But for Boogeyman wise and to, like, shut up the naysayers, I think it's shot because he is undefeated. He is the guy that everybody thinks is this killer.

Yeah.

And then for myself, it's like either one of them does a lot for me. Usman, obviously, probably bigger pay per view numbers and then beating him. My resume is up there with GSP because then I have Usman on my resume. Leon, Maya, wonder boy, like all these big name guys, Gilbert, Burns, Brady. And it's like, look at that resume. It's neck and neck with his right, but shotguns. Also that this young guy's gonna come out here and beat you right after being Leon. Everybody's comments, oh, shock, you can't do the chocolate, though. Shock. I'll kill you and my, my chip of my shoulders, like, all right, let's go. I'm gonna prove you guys wrong now. I'm gonna show you guys what I could do because I. For me, I. When like you said with BJ Penn where it was like the strength conditioning was his whole camp that I want for us, we strategize everything. My coach is so good at breaking down stuff. We're so good at breaking down fighters that I have a game plan for everybody and a strategy for every single one of these fighters. And I already have a strategy for Shavka.

I already have a strategy for Uban because I was chasing them so long. And I've been watching tape on these guys for so long. So I don't see anything from either one of them too. Where I'm looking at them like, I'm afraid of this guy because of this. I'm afraid of this guy because of that. I think Usman's a tougher fight than Shavkat, if I'm being honest. But I do see many ways where I could beat them both because I've. There's a lot of guys in the division that have to fight a certain way. They're specialists, whether either grapplers or strikers. I can strike with you, I could grapple with you. I could grab. I could wrestle with you. I can move laterally. I can move forward. Like every time you see me in the cage, it's something different. And I think that that comes from my team. And the strategy that we bring to fighting, we look at it like a real sport instead of I'm in shape. Let's go fight. We look at it as like, what's this guy's weakest point? Oh, Leon, can't move backwards. Let's move him backwards. Gilbert Burns, he can't take you down.

He's going to. He's going to gas out. He's not going to take me down. Let's. Let's beat him up on the feet a little bit, Brady. He's only good on the ground. All right, let's strike with him. It's like I look at guys and I look at fights in a different way than a lot of these other fighters where some of these guys. Let's go in there. I see red. I don't care what happens, right? Yeah.

I think for legacy, Usman's an important name also, because Usman probably won't be fighting that much longer. You know, he's kind of at the end of his career and I feel like the UFC owes him a little bit something for the Hamzah fight. Takes Hamzan on short notice. That was like eleven days notice, too, right?

Yeah, that's crazy.

That's crazy.

And it was close.

Very close. And he was winning the third round, but I was. I was going to say earlier about Olivera and Sokian. Like, that's another fight where I felt like that is a five round fight. That should be a five round fight. And Charles almost caught him a couple times in that fight. I'm like, that's a wild, close fight between two top of the Fujian guys. It seems wrong to have that fight.

Three rounds, especially for number one contender status. Yeah, it's like, especially Charles, who's been in there for so long, was the champion. And he's like a different type of champion. Right. He comes balls to the wall no matter what. So even if it's five rounds, you're not expecting it to go five rounds. But in general, I felt like it should have been there.

And he almost caught him a couple of times. Yeah, he got real close a couple of times. And Charles is, I think he's the most successful finisher with submissions in the history of the sport.

Yeah. And now he's two fight losing streak himself.

Yeah, but the last one was so fucking close. And it's against our Ukian, who's the top of the food chain.

Yeah.

Like that 155 pound division. Whoo. It's what happens if Islam decides to go to 170.

I mean, for me, I would never fight Islam, but I mean, if I get that, though.

So what if you. You're gonna. Okay.

Yeah.

Let's assume you beat us, man. Let's assume you beat Shovkat.

I'll dress.

Is that what you do? You go to 100%. Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, I feel if there's anybody that can and be willing who deserves it, it would be me, because I had to fight five top five guys to get to where I am now. So I think at least two more, then I can start talking about one middleweight.

So that's what you would do is I would go to 70 and you'd go to 85?

Yeah, for sure.

Wow. Would you pack on size to go to 85?

Yeah, I mean, I would put on muscle, but like, in general, I've trained with a lot of 85 ersitive, and I think I have good size for 85.

Well, jerk is talking about going up to 205 and fighting Alex, which is crazy. And maybe he vacates the middleweight title or May, you know, who knows? Maybe he goes double champ status.

But I feel like there's so many guys 85 for him still to fight.

Oh, yeah.

He's fought Izzy, he's fought Strickland, Whitaker. You got Whitaker, but now you still got the young guns, right? Brendan Allen, who's against Imovofdev, the winner I feel like should be there. Hamzat's still there that people aren't even.

Really talking about anymore, wants to fight. And, you know, I think Hamzat's at seventies, the scariest Hamzat.

But that's that weight cuts crazy for him, though.

Is it? What does he walk around that?

I've seen him out and he looks like over like 215. See what that Michael Morales, he just fought? He just beat Neil Magni.

Yes.

He came to train with us. I brought him in for Leonida fight and he was like, I was like, bro, you're huge. He's like, no, yeah. I'm like 1190. And then my coach like put him on the scale, he's like 218. I was like, bro. I was like, bro, what do you mean? What are you talking about? I just had bad breakfast, but I was like, bro, what did you eat?

A whole ostrich?

But he's so, he's young and he's huge. And I'm like, bro, he's good. It's not gonna last long, bro. You can't cut this much weight.

No, he's big. Yeah, he's good, too.

He's a dog.

He's good.

His just training with him. He was like another one of those guys we brought in and it was like he was a perfect training partner where he didn't like have Eagle, where I'm finding somebody in my weight class, he's undefeated. He'd come in and say, oh, he's fighting for the bottom. You go crazy with them. No, he was such a good kid. Yeah. He fought, trained really well with us and it seemed. Got there and finished. Neil Magni, who he thinks like the perfect gatekeeper for any, like, up and comer. Right.

That, yeah, he's.

That test where you go past them, it's like your real deal.

Yeah, that's the real deal. And he looked great in that fight. Yeah, he's a real contender. There's so many real contenders.

Yeah.

And the. Your division is just so filled and.

Yeah, people forget, man. Like, even Gary JDM, like, all these.

Guys, people forget about Jeff Neil, you know? Yeah, Jeff Neil's a fucking killer.

He's going to get RDA now. Yeah, that's funny.

That's funny. That's a wild fight.

Yeah, I want to.

RDA was another guy training with Nick Curzon.

Oh, yeah.

He was using that sort of that when RDA was in his prime.

Yeah, him in that. Him and his cardio days where he could just go non stop punching, striking, wrestling.

That's what we're talking about, though. That's what it was.

Wow.

He was doing that same kind of workout with Nick Curzon.

That's wild. Does he still train people cursing?

I'd have to reach out. I bet he still does. I know he was training a bunch of other athletes in a bunch of different sports as well, you know, but his whole thing is plyometrics and foot strength and your ability to move and continue to move. It's. It's interesting because I see both ways. I see, like, look, Sean Strickland is the craziest fucking cardio of anybody. Right? Because all that guy does a spar.

Yeah.

He's fighting every day. He spars more than anybody in the UFC, and he gets hit less. That's nuts. Yeah, that's nuts. So his cardio is from his being completely comfortable with fighting all the time, and I'm sure he does other things, too, but most of which, if you talk to, like, nixic and all those guys that train with him, most of the stuff what he does is spar.

Yeah.

Just love sparring. Loves getting in there and sparring.

And he spars stupidly.

Stupidly? Yeah, stupidly.

Yeah. There's guys that are like, spar light and spar for, like, distance and managing and stuff. And there's guys, they like going to war, just want to throw it on. I'm like, look at these guys. Like.

But he doesn't get hit much. The reason why he's so good at that. First of all, that style is so weird. Stands straight up, has the philly shell, and throws punches in weird angles, and he's just peppering you, peppering you, peppering you, keeping them on you. Keep teep to the body, front kick to the body, peppering you, keeping on you. It's a weird style, man. Yeah, it's a weird style.

It's like agitating, especially if you're a guy, like, at Asanya, who wants that distance and wants it to look pretty, to have somebody who's, like, striking looks so ugly just in front of you, just non stop.

Yeah.

Or, like, against what's his boccinia, where he just threw, like, 55 tapes at him every round.

Yeah. I was shocked at that fight, but that was a good example of how hard he is to hit. He's fucking hard. Because I think, you know, for some reason, I don't know what happened, but I think that. I think some fighters, they just have, like, when, when he. When stylebender beat bohenia, like, he was kind of a different guy after that fight. You know, there's some guys, they have a fight, and for whatever reason, they never are the same guy again. And it's not even a bad beating. It might be, like, a psychological thing.

Yeah. I think it's the undefeated thing. He was undefeated in that fight.

Yeah.

Then you get your first loss, and you, like, you don't have that same mindset anymore.

Mm hmm.

Because you were killing everybody. Then all of a sudden, you lose, and you lose by finish.

You're like, yeah.

Was I not as good as I thought I was?

You get dry humped.

Yeah. Izzy has the best celebrations, like any fight.

The fight with Pereira, when he knocks per head down, he shoots the three arrows into him. That's the great.

To be, like, thinking about that beforehand is just wild. And then to, like, put it out there, it was so beautiful.

He said he did think about that. I think he just did that in the moment.

Moment, yeah. That's wild.

Well, you know, Alex always shoots arrows at you in the beginning.

I don't think there's a better. There can't be a better celebration than that one.

No, it's.

The best is gonna come close.

The best. And then the speech afterwards makes it even better.

Yeah.

You know, the speech was incredible.

That was really good.

Yeah.

Do you think we ever see the third one?

Who knows, man? I don't know if Izzy wants to fight that dude again. I don't think he wants to fight him at 205, I think 205. You don't get a drained Alex Peretta. You get a destroyer. Yeah. What he just did to Prohaska. Everybody's got to be nervous. All you have to do is one shot. Just touch you once. And I think at 185, he doesn't take a shot as well either. Yeah. That draining of your body and, you know, your brain dehydrates the whole deal.

Yeah.

Trick. And drick has said, if he fights me, doesn't want any excuses. So he doesn't want Alex to come down to 85. You want to go up to 205.

But if you're fighting him, like, if your first move is not shooting a single leg, I don't know what. Like, what kind of coaching you have.

Right.

Because that should be your first goal, at least in the first round. Try to grapple him.

Something.

Yeah.

You got to do something.

You never want. I never want to sit there and go toe to toe with him.

It's just too dangerous. It's weird. It's like some guys just have weird power. Yeah, it's weird. It's like, it's different than everybody else's by a magnitude. So a large gap between his power and everybody else's. And with everything, with kicks, with punches, anything hits you. That scissor knee that he hit Michelinus with.

Oh, yeah. And I feel like he's always sparring to himself. He's always, like, posting videos, aspiring with, like, the normal classes.

Yep.

It's not like he's even have, like, crazy training partners.

No, he spars light. He'll spar light. He even sparred light with Strickland. That's the only time Strickland spars light. Strickland goes in there. As far as him. He's like, let's just touch each other.

Yeah. I don't even want to feel him it with big gloves on.

Yeah, fuck all that. Yeah. And he's talking about going to heavyweight, which is even crazier.

Him against Aspinall will be wild, though.

Wild. But you got to think Aspinall can take him down.

But what his ego. Want him to take him down or like. All right, let me show you. I can strike with you.

I think Aspinall, the moment he realized if he can hit him on his feet, he'll try. But if he can't. Yes, the takedown is always there. So that's. And he's so much bigger. I mean, Aspinall's a solid 255.

And I think he's a black butt as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wicked on the ground and he's had nothing but success other than that one time where he fought Curtis and his knee blew apart. But that, you know, that's just a freak accident.

Yeah, it's crazy, right? Like, I can tell people that so many random things could happen in a fight. Yeah, that could happen. And then you look at guys that are undefeated for so long and you don't respect how hard that is to get there.

Mm hmm. Yeah, it's a crazy sport, man. It really is. And for you, what a journey to be 23 years old and step into a gym for funsies, learn a little martial arts. What the hell? Next thing you know, you're the champion of the world. It's wild, man.

Yeah, it's a blessing, right? Like just thinking about the whole journey, man, like, spiritually, it puts you into a different mindset too, because you just thank God for everything no matter what. And for myself. Thinking of what, like I said, I was going to school to try to be a lawyer, and I always tell my mom, yeah, I'll quit when I lose. And it's like, now I could have went from that to being able to do something like this every single day and being able to train every day.

That kind of a fight, a world title fight, your first world title fight at five in the morning in another country. Bananas.

Yeah.

Just a crazy accomplishment.

Enemy territory.

Enemy territory. People die tired. Enemy sleeping.

But it's wild because the fans out there were crazy. There's still so many fans. We had. We end up having a parade the, that same night because we got out of the fight, it was like at 07:00 a.m. and then we had people out there that set up like a parade for us. Oh, in Manchester? Oh, yeah. And the streets were like crazy packed. It was, it was full.

Wow. Yeah, she just stayed up.

It was, yeah, cuz it was like 07:00 a.m. so I'm like, went back to the house and, you know, everybody wants to come see you now. So we're just chilling and then all of a sudden it gets to like noon and you take your try to say everybody's taking a power nap now because we were up from the night before at midnight, so it came up to like two, three o'clock and then everybody started falling asleep. So for myself, I'm still wide awake. I mean, we watched a fight and then they were like, let's go get some food. And they like surprised me with like a huge parade at like one of their busiest streets in Manchester.

Oh, wow.

And they said like they said the streets got, like, shut down, but they have, like, a huge muslim population over there in England area. So, like, a lot of the. Even before the fight, I was getting a lot of messages from people, like, you're not in enemy territory. This is your home. And we were blessed out there because people took care of us the whole time. My team had food, everything, every single day. Like, even the gym. When I was first looking for myself, a lot of the gyms I was messing out there were like, no, you can't. Like, we're. We don't. You're fighting Leon. We can't open the doors for you.

Right.

Yeah. But then we met some guys that, like, opened up their gym for us, and they were, like, lawyers, driving us around at 04:00 a.m. they had other jobs, but they were driving us around, staying up with us at 04:00 a.m. and then having to go to work, like, 09:00 a.m. wow. Yeah.

Well, they're probably excited to be a part of it.

Yeah. And that's what they. A lot of them said, like, you know, we're just happy to be here. We don't want nothing from you. And it was just. Yeah, it was such a cool thing.

That's amazing.

You meet just, like, new friends, right? New, new people. And it was for my team, for my family, like, to have that journey, all of us together. My dad went, my mom didn't go.

What did it feel like when they put that belt around your waist?

It was wild, because, like, I try to think back to it, and for me, at first, it was like, I told you so. Like, I told you I could beat Leon. Like, that was my mindset the whole time. I didn't want to think about the belt. It was more so to be like, I beat Leon. You guys thought I was going to lose to him every single. I had to live with him for three years of everybody telling me, I'm going to lose to this guy. He would have beat you the last four rounds. He would have killed you. And for myself for that, it was just like, I told you I could do it. I told you I was better than him. And his coach and his team were all talking trash to me before the fight, so just to rub it in their face, but then for me to have to be able to wear the title, right? And to, like, be able to. To carry my flag with the title and to show people what's possible, because I. I mean, obviously, you know, what's going on right now. In the world, for Palestine, for them to have a champion right now, to have.

For them to have a win from that fight, that meant more than anything because I was getting so many messages from them. The. We had people in. In Gaza that were watching video of it, and it was kids at a refugee camp. They're watching videos of the fight, and it was such an amazing thing. Yeah.

There's you.

And even for my coach right there, Mike Valley, he's a small gym. He doesn't talk big. Right. And for me to stick with him and for us to do it together from the start, now he has another world champion. We're literally a tiny gem in there. And he does so much for a lot of his fighters. He brings a lot of guys in from Chile, Mexico, and he puts them in, like, apartments, doesn't charge them rent, just, like, helps them grow from. From their start. He tells them, you just have to work hard.

That's amazing.

Yeah. So, yeah, a lot of it just comes back down for. For my people in general, me, it was just to prove everybody that I could beat them. I could be Leon. I told you so. But now we got a real title and just attention. So for me, it's like using that.

Now you're calling the shots. Congratulations, bro.

Thank you, my brother.

Very impressive. Amazing.

It's a blessing, man. I'm blessed to be here to talk to you. I'm blessed to be able to, like, for people now to know my story, hear my story. And in general, if I get to have conversation like this and carry this belt around, people will look at me and look at themselves with the dream.

That's the parade.

Yeah, it was that.

What a picture. God damn. What a great picture. That pictures. Incredible. That looks like a fake picture. Looks like AI. It's so perfect.

They literally had smoke and everything. It was. It was wild.

That's amazing.

Yeah, I was. I was so surprised by the whole thing.

That's amazing. Well, I can't wait to see you fight again, man. I can't wait to see you defend your title, whoever it's gonna be. I hope I'm there.

I can't wait to see it, my brother. Appreciate it. Hopefully. Hopefully. It's in the US, so you become a commentator.

Yeah, hopefully. Hopefully. All right, well, congratulations.

Thank you, brother.

Bye, everybody.