#93 - Eddie Bravo (Part 1)

[0] The Joe Rogan Experience.

[1] Brothers and sisters, lovers and children, Brian Redman and Eddie Bravo are in the building.

[2] What's up?

[3] Hello.

[4] Much respect.

[5] To the Korean Zombie.

[6] Eddie Bravo is wearing a Korean Zombie shirt.

[7] And what this means for you non -MMA people.

[8] There's a guy named Chan Sung Jung.

[9] They call him the Korean Zombie.

[10] That's his nickname.

[11] And this weekend, on Saturday night at the UFC against Leonard Garcia, he pulled off the first twister ever in the UFC.

[12] And the significance, of course, is that Eddie Bravo, our guest today, actually invented the twister.

[13] No, I didn't invent it.

[14] Well, you invented the setup.

[15] The setup.

[16] The setups, yes.

[17] The finishing move, no. It's an old wrestling move.

[18] But people used to finish people within wrestling?

[19] You can, definitely.

[20] But did they do it your way with the S -grip on the forehead?

[21] I thought that was all like your innovation to turn into a submission.

[22] No, no, no. People were cranking.

[23] I don't know if they were cranking it exactly the way I crank it, but I'm pretty sure.

[24] Had you seen other people get submitted with it before you ever started doing it?

[25] We would like to...

[26] In high school, I wrestled a couple years, and I wrestled in Santa Ana High.

[27] In ninth grade, a guy named Jesse Barrios, and another guy, his buddy is the one who showed me. I can't remember his name.

[28] I couldn't even remember it from my book, but Jesse Barrios is his friend.

[29] Santa Ana High School, 1985.

[30] If anybody out there is from that, there's Jesse Barrios' friend, the other leg rider on that wrestling team.

[31] Fuck.

[32] I don't know what his name was.

[33] Anyways, he showed it to me. And both of those...

[34] And in wrestling, leg riding is for weak people.

[35] And all that means is...

[36] We need, we're so weak, we need to use our legs a lot more than the big, strong dudes who are wrestling and hitting the weights and had big chest and shoulders.

[37] Those guys really didn't rely on their legs as much as the weak guys like me. I would skip weightlifting practice.

[38] I was in the back where I was hiding.

[39] I was weak even back then.

[40] I was a terrible athlete.

[41] I've never been a great athlete.

[42] So I had to rely on using my legs.

[43] I thought, you know, they came to me. Jesse came to me and I go, dude, you'll be perfect for this.

[44] You know, because they knew I'd just get smashed if I try to go heads up with people.

[45] So it's a pinning move that I learned in wrestling.

[46] And I got pretty good at it.

[47] That was my shit.

[48] Even in high school, that was the thing I always tried.

[49] I got some cool ass stories that maybe one day I'll...

[50] I'll talk about them, but I have some cool wrestling stories.

[51] But anyways, I sucked at wrestling.

[52] I only had one takedown in two fucking years.

[53] I sucked.

[54] So I just totally relied on leg riding and using...

[55] It's actually called the guillotine.

[56] It's actually not called the twister.

[57] It's called the guillotine.

[58] But when I started doing it in jujitsu, Higgin Machado and Jean -Jacques Machado would just call it the twister because the guillotine already existed.

[59] There's a lot of people out there that think that I took this wrestling move and I said, I'm going to try to fool the world and change the name and say I invented it.

[60] There's...

[61] thousands of people that think that it's hilarious in my books from day one i i it was okay hold on a second you're being a little bit modest because you invented all these setups and turned it into a very high percentage finish yes you invented a lot of setups from a lot of different places yes where it became i mean none of that stuff existed but this is the transition so i ended up Quitting wrestling, the work ethic you need to be a good wrestler is something that is just not in my body chemistry.

[62] I was not made to work really hard physically.

[63] I hated work, regular jobs I knew.

[64] That's why it was all about rock stardom or playing football.

[65] I just wanted to be like a famous...

[66] Dude who just played for a living and got paid and was fucking adored by everybody.

[67] That's what I wanted.

[68] I didn't want to work.

[69] I hated work.

[70] Of course.

[71] Who doesn't want to work?

[72] Oh, my God.

[73] Work actually killed me inside.

[74] So it drove my artistic side.

[75] So once I realized that Mexicans don't play football, I'm like, oh, my God.

[76] I was in ninth grade and I was the slowest motherfucker out there.

[77] And that was it.

[78] I had these dreams of playing football.

[79] or making it in music, the football was crushed in ninth grade.

[80] Once everyone starts growing, you know what, Junior All -American and peewee football, that's fucked up.

[81] I played defensive lineman and middle linebacker in football.

[82] I actually thought I was going to be a defensive lineman and a middle linebacker because when you're eight and you're nine, everyone's the same size.

[83] And, you know, there's some brainwash going on that I really thought I was going to be a football player.

[84] I really thought I was until ninth grade.

[85] Shit.

[86] Oh, man. When I was in sixth grade, I was supposed to make the football team because in my neighborhood, in my neighborhood, I was a pretty good football player around Mexicans from like a really poor neighborhood.

[87] I was pretty badass.

[88] But when you go to school, when I went to sixth grade and in junior All -American, you know, football, peewee football, I was pretty good.

[89] But once people start growing and start changing in sixth grade.

[90] I went to sixth grade and I didn't make the football team.

[91] They cut me. I was supposed to be the football star.

[92] I was so embarrassing, but it was flag football.

[93] It wasn't tackle.

[94] So in my head, I'm like, wait till ninth grade when I get to high school.

[95] I'm going to play some tackle.

[96] I'm going to show you what the fuck's going on.

[97] So that's what I was thinking.

[98] I go, fuck this year.

[99] Fuck sixth grade.

[100] So seventh grade, I transferred myself to a school far away that I only went to.

[101] There's another story.

[102] There's more stories where I was driven away from my junior high school.

[103] So I went to another school.

[104] I tried out for the football team in the seventh grade.

[105] I got cut again, but it was flag football.

[106] But I was so embarrassed that I told my friends growing up, all my kids, I told them that, yeah, I made the team second string quarterback.

[107] But you know what?

[108] I got in a fight.

[109] So they had to cut me, man. It sucks.

[110] That's the story I told them.

[111] I told the kids that I grew up with thought I made the team, but I got cut because I got in a fight with a dude.

[112] That's hilarious.

[113] I kept that going.

[114] That's so funny.

[115] I was so embarrassed that I didn't make the team.

[116] I was so embarrassed.

[117] And then in the eighth grade, one of the guys that I grew up with went to that school too.

[118] He made the team.

[119] He was awesome.

[120] I didn't make the team again.

[121] He never brought up the fact that he never asked anybody, didn't he make the team last year?

[122] That never got brought up.

[123] They never humiliated me. Maybe they were talking behind my back.

[124] Like, I don't know.

[125] No one ever brought it up, but I did lie about it.

[126] And I'm coming clean with it now.

[127] I totally lied about it.

[128] Don't you think for dudes that competition like that, any kind of competition, whether it's football or wrestling or anything, is it so important for kids when they're growing up to know how hard it is if you really want to get good at something?

[129] Oh, yeah.

[130] Yeah, yeah.

[131] You got to tell Mexicans, listen, if you're Mexican and you think you're going to be a football player.

[132] Look at reality.

[133] Listen to me. Look at reality.

[134] There's one Mexican, and he plays quarterback.

[135] You think you're going to be him?

[136] Get out of football.

[137] Get that shit out of your head if you're Mexican.

[138] Unless you've got some tall motherfuckers in your family.

[139] There's a couple Mexicans out there, but what are the odds?

[140] Ken Velasquez could have easily made it as a football player.

[141] Maybe.

[142] You think maybe?

[143] Dude, there's a lot more than just being an athlete.

[144] Everybody's an athlete in football.

[145] You've got to have some serious skills and serious magic.

[146] He could have just been a really strong, athletic guy.

[147] Look at Matt Mitrione.

[148] Strong and athletic.

[149] Matt Mitrione's a fucking athlete.

[150] So do you think that if those guys came over to the UFC, those super athletes, those NFL dudes, do you think that's what we're seeing with John Jones?

[151] Because that's the talk.

[152] John Jones has two brothers, I believe, that are playing football right now.

[153] Yeah, it's incredible.

[154] I mean, he's a John Jones is he's a super athlete.

[155] And there's there's dudes that are super athletes that are in maybe other sports.

[156] And we're starting to see him in the UFC.

[157] That's like a big topic of discussion.

[158] Like what?

[159] How much of a difference does like serious athleticism make?

[160] It makes a huge difference.

[161] Hell yeah.

[162] Hell yeah.

[163] John Jones has been a fucking doing he's been doing mixed martial arts for only three years.

[164] Before that, he was a wrestler.

[165] Yeah.

[166] I mean, that's incredible.

[167] You know what?

[168] It's already happened in boxing.

[169] Just look at what happened with boxing culturally.

[170] Yeah.

[171] Look what happened.

[172] It's interesting, though, that football, and I guess it's just where the money is, that the high money ones like football and basketball, they get the best athletes.

[173] Yes.

[174] I mean, even though the UFC has been around now for, you know, since 93, it's not been like a real accepted, you know, mainstream thing, but for like the last five or six years, right?

[175] Wouldn't you say?

[176] Yes, yes.

[177] You know, it's the super athletes that start jujitsu early, wrestling their whole lives, and striking early.

[178] They put it together like the Ruffo brothers.

[179] Yes.

[180] It's the best athletes that start off like the Ruffo brothers.

[181] You know, I mean, some people can start off with jujitsu and wrestling and striking early and achieve so much physically from it, but still.

[182] They weren't born with the athleticism.

[183] You know what I mean?

[184] You've got to be a natural.

[185] It's got to all come together.

[186] You've got to have all the pieces together to make it in the big sports that we see today.

[187] You can't start playing football when you're 22 and make the NFL.

[188] If you do, it may have happened once or twice, some African guy.

[189] I don't know.

[190] It may have happened.

[191] You know what I mean?

[192] You know, one of them Mutombo, Makembe guys that started playing basketball for 18 months and he's in the NBA.

[193] You know what I'm saying?

[194] Every now and then you get those freaks.

[195] But generally, 98 % of the time...

[196] Look at what's going on with all the sports.

[197] Did they just go and find that dude and say, hey, you want to play basketball?

[198] I don't even know.

[199] I'm just making it up.

[200] How weird would that be?

[201] One of those dudes, I'm sure, Manute Bo, Akumbe, Mutombo.

[202] I can't even say his name.

[203] But one of those dudes, I'm sure, started playing basketball late.

[204] Do you imagine what it must be like living like Manute Bo?

[205] It's like you're living in dollhouses everywhere.

[206] Everywhere you go, they're dollhouses.

[207] Everyone's building is built for dolls.

[208] You have to hunch everywhere you go.

[209] At what height, naturally for girls, for girls, taller guys naturally the taller you are the more attractive you are naturally but what what exactly what size six eight six seven does it become a turnoff to girls because there must be a turnoff point or are they turned on by guys that are seven foot three do that does a guy a girl look at a guy seven foot three and it's totally attractive he's seven foot three so rare i love him so much or is it like that's too tall i don't like him that tall it's ridiculous yeah you know what i mean What is it?

[210] Well, they would also worry, I think, evolutionarily about that.

[211] Is this real?

[212] Is that a real word?

[213] About the baby getting too big inside of them and get stuck coming out of their pussy and just blow it all out.

[214] If you've got a 7 '3 dude, imagine how big his fucking babies are.

[215] If it's half his baby.

[216] You've got a 15, 20 -pound baby inside you, hooker.

[217] You know what?

[218] I will say this, though.

[219] I'm not attracted to real tall chicks.

[220] Especially when they get fucking ridiculous.

[221] If a girl's 6 '1, usually they've got to have really pretty faces.

[222] Usually their bodies start to get out of whack.

[223] You know what I mean?

[224] But I have looked at big, tall -ass chicks.

[225] And when you see them in public, the thoughts will race through my mind.

[226] Like, damn, that'd be nice just to pump a load into her and see what my baby would, see what my boy would turn out like.

[227] You know what I mean?

[228] How proud would I be of that fucking kid?

[229] You know what I mean?

[230] He's 6 '3", and that's my son? Can you imagine? He's 6 '5", and that's my son, and he's beating ass?

[231] Todd Duffy -looking dude.

[232] That's my son?

[233] That'd be cool, dude.

[234] How cool would that be?

[235] Can you imagine that's what you look for in a girl?

[236] That's how you hunt a girl.

[237] Who cares what she looks like?

[238] Hold on.

[239] We can't keep on two conversations at the same time.

[240] Can you imagine that's how you found girls?

[241] That's like how you went to go date girls just by looking at them as a mother to a child, like a super athlete.

[242] Like you only wanted to date.

[243] That's what that dude who Zulu.

[244] Remember Zulu, the guy who fought Hicks and Gracie?

[245] Yeah.

[246] He has this story about the way he described it was a large negress and that he knew that she would make great babies for him.

[247] So he found her and he described like what he did, like how he shot loads into her to make a boy that he knew that the way he was doing it was definitely to make a boy like he had some method.

[248] And then Zulu came out.

[249] Dude, I would pay 50 bucks.

[250] It's a great story.

[251] I would pay 50 bucks right now if you said I got 50 bucks.

[252] I got the DVD, the documentary of that.

[253] I would go, I'll give you 50 bucks for that.

[254] I would even go 75 bucks, but I'd go, you're...

[255] That's a lot, but God damn it, I'll still pay for it.

[256] That's an awesome story.

[257] Can you imagine how much of a pain in the ass it must be if you're a kid and your dad was some fighter and you're supposed to be a fighter too?

[258] You're like, God damn, really?

[259] I can't just have fun?

[260] I can't just go hang out?

[261] No, I got to go in a fight?

[262] Oh, shit.

[263] Or like any profession.

[264] Like his son, his son didn't really seem like he wanted to be doing that, right?

[265] You know, I mean, it's almost like, I mean, you almost have to if your dad is Zulu.

[266] You know, your dad is this famous guy who got in a bare knuckle cage fight with fucking Hicks and Gracie back in the day.

[267] Maybe he wasn't into it and he kind of got just like, you know what?

[268] I don't want to work a regular job.

[269] I got a name.

[270] I can actually fight.

[271] But he did do jujitsu, though.

[272] He was all right at jujitsu.

[273] He was like a purple belt back when he fought.

[274] So he was doing jujitsu.

[275] So in a weird way, Zulu, like.

[276] Jiu -Jitsu beat Zulu, but Zulu's son was into Jiu -Jitsu.

[277] That's pretty cool, right?

[278] Yeah.

[279] Do you remember that Hicks and Gracie footage?

[280] For those of you who don't know, Hicks vs. Zulu was one of the very, very first, like, no -rules fights.

[281] You know, that was like where they planned it out.

[282] They had a whole arena full of people in Brazil checking this out.

[283] And a young Hicks and Gracie, who was like 18, I think he was a representative of Jiu -Jitsu, fought this giant, super -athlete black dude named Zulu.

[284] And this guy's just...

[285] yoked he just just slamming him and hickson eventually gets his back and strangles him and it's one of those all -time great videos where people watch it like jujitsu guys back in the day it was like this is proof man this is proof like look if you get a good jujitsu you can overcome a guy like this like and you're he's only 18 it was like a big fucking deal and the footage is so bad but it looks cool it's like 50th generation.

[286] All that footage.

[287] It's dudes taping it off VHS.

[288] Somehow it got the DVD and then a copy.

[289] And it already started off as terrible footage.

[290] Now it's like silhouetted.

[291] It's like a yellow and black and orange type thing.

[292] But it's classic.

[293] One of the coolest things that I ever got out of being famous was I got to have dinner with Hickson.

[294] That told me it was one of the coolest things ever.

[295] I had dinner with Hickson, and then we went over his house, and we watched fights, and he broke down what dudes were doing wrong.

[296] He was watching Mario Sperry fight in Coliseum, and he was just talking about space.

[297] He was just talking about, I give no space.

[298] I give no space.

[299] He was talking about, such an intense dude.

[300] He was talking about his philosophy on Jiu -Jitsu.

[301] Very simple.

[302] We started zero, and from zero, we're going to one.

[303] We're not going back to zero.

[304] And then from one, we're going to two.

[305] From two to three to checkmate.

[306] That's where we're going to go.

[307] I was like, God damn.

[308] You get the chills talking to him.

[309] You're like, I'm sitting here talking to Hickson motherfucking Gracie.

[310] And he's giving me like some intense life philosophy on how he strangles dudes.

[311] You know, he's like, he's into it.

[312] You know, we're watching all these fights and he's breaking shit down.

[313] And he watched the Funaki fight.

[314] With him and Funaki.

[315] Those Hickson fights, man. God, I wish there were more of them.

[316] So annoying, man. So annoying that you don't get to see the best supposed representative ever of jiu -jitsu at the time fighting those guys.

[317] You know, fighting all Mark Coleman's and, you know, all the fucking guys that everyone was scared of.

[318] Mark Kerr and all that shit.

[319] How fascinating would that have been, man?

[320] Fuck, that would have been awesome.

[321] Damn.

[322] That would freak me out.

[323] It really would.

[324] It would freak me out to sit and hang out with Hickson Gracie.

[325] He's cool as fuck.

[326] That would freak me out.

[327] He's a super nice guy.

[328] His son is cool as fuck.

[329] Nobody else in jujitsu would freak me out like Hickson.

[330] You know what I mean?

[331] Marcelo Garcia, to me, Marcelo Garcia is the number one jujitsu guy that's ever lived.

[332] I think Marcelo Garcia is the number one guy that's ever lived.

[333] But Hickson is the most...

[334] mystical and rock star -ish.

[335] Yeah.

[336] You know what I mean?

[337] He's like...

[338] Motherfucker was in the Incredible Hulk.

[339] You know what I mean?

[340] You saw the Incredible Hulk with Ed Norton when Ed Norton is learning how to calm and control himself.

[341] Hicks and Gracie slapping him in the face.

[342] That's the man. Yeah.

[343] I would freak out if...

[344] If like me and Hicks and which are sitting there talking to jiu -jitsu.

[345] I mean, it's not out of the question.

[346] That might happen in the future.

[347] For sure.

[348] And it might, it might not.

[349] I would love it.

[350] That would be a fucking dream of mine to hang out and talk jiu -jitsu and break shit down to the core.

[351] For the people who don't know the history, Eddie Bravo tapped Hickson's brother, Hoyler, in Abu Dhabi in 2003 in this giant upset when Eddie was a brown belt.

[352] And he caught him with a triangle.

[353] So there's like perceived animosity sometimes because of that.

[354] But there's none exists.

[355] You've never been anything but respectful of any of those guys.

[356] You know, it's just...

[357] I know that they were trying to do some sort of a rematch with you and Hoyler, but I guess that was badly organized.

[358] What happened is a promoter called or emailed me last October, October or November.

[359] And it was a guy that I've done privates for.

[360] I know who he is.

[361] And he's really high up in jujitsu in the Middle East and Abu Dhabi.

[362] And they're putting together, they were putting together a no -gi.

[363] world championship in Abu Dhabi.

[364] They never had a no -gi one.

[365] They're doing gi world championships out there, but the no -gi ones, they wanted to have one in April.

[366] And they asked me if they wanted to have me and Hoyler as a super match.

[367] But they never contacted him?

[368] They told me. This is what happened.

[369] Then I emailed him back and I'm like, you know me, I'm down to rematch Hoyler anytime.

[370] I've always been down.

[371] I've never been the one denying it.

[372] I want one more match.

[373] I want to train.