JRE MMA Show #14 with Matt Brown

[0] four, three, two, one.

[1] Boom, and we're live.

[2] What's up, brother?

[3] How are you?

[4] Very, very good.

[5] Thanks for doing this, man. I'm very excited to have you in here.

[6] I'm honored to be here, man. I was just thinking about this day, actually.

[7] I was like, the fucking people that had been on the show, man. Yeah, I think about it sometimes, too.

[8] Freaks me out.

[9] Sam Harris, James Hetfield.

[10] Man, yeah, I was thinking about all the people, man. I was like, how do I compete with these guys?

[11] Just be Matt Brown.

[12] I know.

[13] We're talking about, man. I mean, I could beat all their asses.

[14] Well, in certain situations, that's all that counts.

[15] The situations that I thrive in.

[16] Exactly.

[17] So you were retired, and now you're not.

[18] Now you just signed a fight Carlos Condit?

[19] You got it.

[20] Damn, that's a good fight.

[21] I like that.

[22] Yeah.

[23] I think Carlos needed a fight back, too, that fight with Neil Magny.

[24] He looked like he was suffering through some ring rust.

[25] Yeah, man. I've talked to a lot of people about that because that's the first thing always comes up right is how he came back and looked in that fight and i've trained with neal a lot man i'll tell you neil can shut a fucking game down right away yeah you know he's very good yeah we can't take away from deal man um carlos didn't seem to show any sense of urgency either though so you know i think it's both sides but uh i think he's also going to be looking for redemption with me yeah i think so too yeah he wanted to come back right away actually they actually asked me to fight It would have been like six weeks notice.

[26] What's the longest you've ever taken off?

[27] After I fought a cowboy, got knocked the fuck out, and took a year off and fought a year ago.

[28] So what is it like coming back after a year?

[29] It felt natural to me personally.

[30] To you.

[31] Yeah, it's different for different people, right?

[32] Yeah, someone was talking to me about this day, ring rustin.

[33] I was like, you know, everybody's different, man. Every single person is going to react a little differently.

[34] And I think also when you have, have someone, you know, John Danaher was talking about the different types of fighters, right?

[35] I think he just grouped three different types of fighters, like a violence guy, a tactical guy, and something else.

[36] Well, I think it's going to, I think there's more types of fighters than what he went through, but there's, I think it's going to affect every single type of person differently.

[37] You know, and I thought, like, for instance, like, I fought a much more tactical fight against Diego.

[38] It wasn't, I mean, you could, you could easily go in with Diego and just go to fucking war with him, right?

[39] Killer Melinda style.

[40] He's totally down for that.

[41] That's what Diego is, you know, he will wake right up and go for that, right?

[42] Yeah.

[43] I was like, man, I'm better than him.

[44] Let's just be tactical.

[45] And I think that was part of why it helped.

[46] Now, I think someone that goes in with a more violent style, which I've done many times in my life, I think that's a bit more complicated because there's a lot more timing and reaction in that.

[47] Whereas the strategy, you have a very clear path to victory.

[48] you know exactly what you got to do.

[49] It's just you're just going in there and just, you know, connecting the dots when you get in there.

[50] And staying on the plan.

[51] Exactly, yeah, yeah.

[52] Now, when you get a guy like Diego, though, that temptation has got to be always there, right?

[53] Because he's so willing.

[54] Well, if it's necessary.

[55] Because you love that kind of fighting.

[56] Yeah.

[57] That's one of the reasons why you're so loved.

[58] Like, there's never been a Matt Brown fight ever that's boring.

[59] There's a lot of guys that have, because of styles, because of whatever, They've had fights that weren't very crowd -pleasing.

[60] But your style has always been do or die, seek and destroy.

[61] That's one of the reasons why people love you.

[62] Yeah, I mean, that just goes back to my mentality of why I'm fighting to start with, right?

[63] It's not really about just winning.

[64] I think that's sort of a Western culture thing, sort of an American thing.

[65] Like I kind of go back to the original pride, and it's like, look, just fight, man. You know, this is a fun thing.

[66] This is a badass thing we're doing.

[67] This is an amazing thing.

[68] Go in there and fight, test yourself, the Bushido spirit, things like that.

[69] And it doesn't have to be just win at all costs.

[70] You know, this is, you know, to me, it waters down the sport.

[71] I mean, that's not what combat is about.

[72] So, you know, it's not me. Well, I mean, that's what makes it interesting, is that there are different styles.

[73] There's people that have safety for styles where they're just fighting to win.

[74] And then there's other people like yourself that just whatever's inside you that comes out.

[75] You know, I always said this, like there's certain dudes, like, because of your history, because of, I mean, you had an overdose where you literally died.

[76] And there's the same with Cort McGee.

[77] He had the same situation happen to him.

[78] I always said that dudes that have gone to the other side are fucking terrifying inside the cage.

[79] There's like, there's a certain thing.

[80] I don't know if it's just coincidentally.

[81] that both you guys have that mindset, or let's forget about even core, but you have this mindset.

[82] And I've always said, I wonder if there's a correlation between such extreme lows in your life, where you bottomed down so hard, literally your body had shut down and you were ready to, you're ready to pass on.

[83] The doctor saved you, and you've got a mindset going into that cage that's just, it's just another notch more intense than most people.

[84] Certainly.

[85] And that's, you know, to be honest, that's something I've sort of struggled with a lot, too, because it wasn't actually that specific moment, the overdose, that kind of affected me the way it did.

[86] It was more a long -term life of, well, I would say I've just been an angry person, honestly, like just since I grew up.

[87] So it was all about channeling that anger.

[88] A lot of fighters like that, right?

[89] I think so.

[90] I think it's one of the beauties of martial arts, right?

[91] that helps you channel that yeah i mean we all have to find an outlet um i i didn't discover martial arts uh until what 22 23 21 22 something like that and uh you know so before my outlet was drugs and alcohol you know that was my my way to say fuck everybody right and uh you know just went too far but the like i said you know when it is expressed in the cage, that's more of a long -term thing.

[92] Growing up an angry person and then, you know, I always give a lot of credit to Jamie Jost, a hate breed, you know, that's who I walk out to nowadays.

[93] It's a dream come true to have a walkout song by them.

[94] And that was like the first time that I was able to find a positive outlet for that energy.

[95] You know, I didn't know what heavy metal was growing up you know i mean i grew up in a small farm town and i didn't know what that was but heavy metal gave me an outlet and hay breed was the first one that gave me a positive outlet before it was like it was negative pantera um slayer like stuff like this it's all negativity you know so this rage is is coming out in a negative sense and gets expressed through drugs alcohol hanging with the wrong people things like that and then there's a turning point where I'm like, man, this can be a positive thing, and I can use this energy directed towards something positive.

[96] What were you angry about growing up?

[97] Ah, good question.

[98] Man, that goes deep, man, because, you know, I grew up in a very, very, very small town, 200 people population.

[99] I didn't see a skyscraper until I was, I mean, like up in person.

[100] Like we drove by it in Dayton, Ohio, which is in a big town in itself.

[101] um until i was like over 18 years old you know so i was i always felt like there was so much more out there for me and i was kind of like i grew up in a machine shop my dad was a machinist so i was doing that from like five years old i was sweeping the fucking floor and i was like i was like man this is not what i'm meant to be like i'm supposed to be something great but uh but everybody around me is like no this is what you do you live in this little town and you do you follow the rules You're going to be a machinist or a farmer or, you know, whatever.

[102] And, you know, that shit pissed me off, you know.

[103] And I never really found my niche.

[104] And so I was homeschooled actually for, I think, two years in junior high.

[105] So I think that was sort of actually the start because I went back to school.

[106] And when I went back to school, I was now the outsider.

[107] I didn't have any friends.

[108] And then going up all of a sudden I'm in high school.

[109] and I have no friends I have no I can't get laid for shit I think that's what causes an injury care and a lot of people in the world right oh yeah and depression yeah yeah yeah and at the exact same time I'm starting to experiment with drugs and alcohol so you put the two together you know I was supposed to be the prodigal son you know I mean like I was very intelligent I was you know I like I was doing things by the time I was 15 years old in the machine shop, that guys, you know, they've been working for my father for 10, 15 years couldn't do.

[110] You know what I mean?

[111] So I was sort of this prodigal son.

[112] I was good at athletics and everything.

[113] Had no problem with all that stuff.

[114] So I think it was just sort of a backlash, you know, and then I let that anger get the best of me. So now when you were doing drugs and alcohol, what were the drugs?

[115] Like, what was the drug that caused you to overdose?

[116] Heroin.

[117] an injection yeah damn that's deep when you're injecting it that's that's when you're all in baby yeah and you know I didn't actually do it a whole lot is kind of the funny thing a lot people thought that I was addicted to heroin and I wasn't that I think that was probably the fifth time that I did it maybe six something like I didn't count but um you know that was sort of my that was my step into the dark side you know and a blessing and a curse man you know it immediately I was like, oh, okay, that's what can happen, right?

[118] Just the step back.

[119] And, you know, I was very naive, very, man, I was a fool, really.

[120] Like, because what I did, I remember leaving the hospital.

[121] I was like, okay, well, I'm never doing heroin again, but let's go do some Coke.

[122] Right?

[123] So I was just a dummy, man. How old were you?

[124] I think I was 21, 22.

[125] one of those.

[126] I mean, it was like 15 years ago.

[127] There's a lot of stuff.

[128] I was actually kind of thinking about, like, so again, you know, on this podcast, I was like, you know, it's probably going to come up on it.

[129] It's a pretty intense story.

[130] I was like, damn, I can't remember all the details of that shit.

[131] It was like a long time ago, but anyway, yeah, so I was like 21, 22, and it wasn't too much long later.

[132] You know, I live with this girl, and, you know, she was a drug addict too and she had a couple kids and it was like I was like all right well now I got a place to live like let's get fuck up you know and it was a I never did um heroin again after that obviously um I think I did oxies though percocet stuff I got which is basically the same thing right yeah which I mean I didn't realize it at the time but really my drug of choice was meth back in that day.

[133] That was what I really liked.

[134] That was actually what I was addicted to at one point and I ended up going to jail and that was what got me out of addiction.

[135] I didn't realize I was addicted until I was in jail.

[136] What made you realize it when you were in jail?

[137] I just couldn't stop thinking about it and just wanted it and just, I mean, I didn't have like cold sweats or anything i don't think that happens with uppers but um i mean i was just you know like like couldn't stop thinking about it man i was like dude like just a lot of that anger was coming out i was just like god like what the fuck like i wanted to fight everybody i was like somebody give me something you know wow yeah it was just really terrible experience but probably only lasted three four days not even maybe not even that and then you came out of it yeah i mean i was just like able to accept my fate and and deal with it What does it feel like to be on the mouth?

[138] You ever take Adderall?

[139] No. I'd never take it an Adderall?

[140] No. Pretty similar to Adderall, right?

[141] Yeah, it's like Adderall.

[142] I mean, that's the closest, I would say.

[143] I mean, you're high, but you don't have, I mean, it says it's euphoria, more than anything, just an extreme sense of euphoria, just everything is beautiful, but then, man, soon.

[144] as you start to lose that a little bit you just itch for it so bad man so bad like you just won it again you you don't want to sleep you like your teeth to be grinding you're just like like you're just tinsing up all your muscles like god well i got to get more of that you know now were you working out at all back then no no well i'd say well not working out like i should be so again i was angry a lot of times like i'd be at a party that this was a common thing i'd be like a party or just doing drugs whatever and i just started getting look at everybody like i'm fucking don't like none of you and i would just walk outside and and i would go for a run i'd run five six miles come back and like all right give me another line or whatever wow yeah um you would run and then come back to the party yeah yeah and then sometimes i would fight people you know that was common very very common if you call that working out and we like this particular time in my life i was living in a little town called james town ohio and i had this buddy um he was friend his cousin well his cousin was a fighter and this was kind of my first uh a four a into mixed martial arts our first uh experience watching it and everything and uh they would train in the grass in the backyard you know i remember watching Ken Shamrock DVDs, or VHSs back then, leg locks.

[145] We'd go on the living room floor, like just be shit -faced drunk.

[146] I'm lucky I didn't tear my ACL or anything.

[147] We're like, oh, this is what he's doing, this is how you doing.

[148] Heel hooks.

[149] Yeah, heel hooks.

[150] And I mean, I don't remember all the techniques, but I remember it was like, you know, pancreation stuff, right?

[151] And we'd just be laying there.

[152] And it was always a thought of like, dude, this is fucking awesome, man. Like, I could beat Tank Abbott.

[153] Like, we can.

[154] you know and we would joke about it man we would say i remember specifically sitting there like like dude like you know we're going to get you a fight in uh you know the local joe schmo show and then uh you know we're going to get you up and you're going to go to a pride and then you're going to go to the ufc i was like oh cool the hell yeah let's do it and that was you know it was like a joke kind of but like that was what was in my head that's what we were going to do introduction to martial arts yeah So what was your first real formal training?

[155] Like, what gym did you first?

[156] So I fought before I trained.

[157] Get the fucking out of here.

[158] So actually, this guy that was, he was supposed to go fight West Sims.

[159] And his name was Fat Joe, who's what we called him.

[160] He was supposed to go fight White Sims, Fat Sims that day.

[161] And I said, yeah, let's go, man, I want to go with you.

[162] I want to see this.

[163] close, right?

[164] So we go there, and I'm doing a bunch of Coke on the way.

[165] And, you know, to me, it's just going to be a party.

[166] Like, I'm just going to watch my dude fight.

[167] I get there, and, you know, he signs up on the table.

[168] And I was like, I was like, dude, is that how, you know, that's all you got to do?

[169] He's like, yeah, he's just paid 30 bucks and you come fight.

[170] I said, man, maybe I should do that.

[171] And then the guy, and I'm looking inside and I see the, you know, people sitting around smoking cigars, like you see on a movie.

[172] People smoke with cigars.

[173] You see bets being made.

[174] and stuff.

[175] And the guy goes, man, you want to fight the champion?

[176] Like, nobody wants to fight him.

[177] And I was like, fuck yeah, man, I'll fight him.

[178] You kidding me?

[179] So I literally went across street.

[180] There's a sporting good store across the street or down the street or something, went and bought a mouthpiece, come back.

[181] There's a restaurant across street, boiled the mouthpiece at the restaurant, use their microwave, come back, and then we're at the fighters meeting.

[182] So the fighters' meeting back then was a lot different.

[183] So it wasn't weigh in.

[184] It was like, you and you, you guys look about the same size.

[185] You guys doing kickboxing?

[186] Okay, you guys fight.

[187] Right?

[188] So that's how the way it worked out.

[189] And I'm sitting there and they're like, okay, you're the champion.

[190] You're fighting him.

[191] And I was like, oh shit, all right?

[192] Fuck this motherfucker, right?

[193] And, you know, so I'm sitting at station this guy.

[194] He taught me how to do a jab.

[195] He's like, man, he's like, all you got to do to beat this guy, just jab him.

[196] He's like, you see this?

[197] Just throw this jab.

[198] I was like, oh, okay, I'm going to do that.

[199] And went out there and I beat the guy.

[200] So he actually quit.

[201] Yeah, he actually quit you know so he was a tough man champion is what he was and uh i actually threw a jab punched him in the face and he went to shoot uh on me i did you know a playground guillotine choke and he just quit i don't think i actually had the choke in i don't i'm highly doubt you know he tapped out saying that his calf cramped up i have no idea you know like what really happened i mean i certainly didn't know a guillotine choke i didn't even know the name of it so Anyway, later that night, I was like, dude, like, your fight didn't go very long.

[202] You'll fight again?

[203] Yeah, whatever, man. And I said, well, this guy, you know, he's going pro in his next boxing match, your kickboxer.

[204] Fight him.

[205] He said, all right, I'll fuck him up, right?

[206] This dude beat the shit out of him.

[207] So that was actually the first.

[208] The nice thing about that was it actually made me realize how tough I am.

[209] That was the saving grace.

[210] I mean, he just, you know, just pieced me up.

[211] Just one punch after another.

[212] You know, I'm just eating punch after punch.

[213] and then yeah that was it i said man i got to do this shit and then so my second fight uh you know i didn't think i still yet needed to train uh my second fight i met a guy at a gym so you know i did go to this gym as a japanese jiu jitsu gym and he goes and he goes hey man you want to fight in like two weeks in moitai hell yeah right um so for two weeks you know i'd hit the bag probably for five minutes at time, whatever, or something.

[214] I go to the fight, and, man, this is the worst part.

[215] So I get in there, the first thing the guy does comes in, shoots on me, takes me down.

[216] We're in big gloves, shin pads and all this, takes me down.

[217] I'll get up, look at the record.

[218] What the fuck?

[219] He's taking me down.

[220] We can't do this, Muay.

[221] He's like, fight, you know, comes in, takes me down again.

[222] I was like, what the fuck, man?

[223] So I was like, okay, so we're fucking wrestling, right?

[224] So I come out and get in sort of a wrestling stance, drop my hands, fucking kicks me in my head.

[225] So we'll come find out later at San Chow.

[226] Not Muay Thai.

[227] Scott Shealy's show.

[228] I used to work with him a lot.

[229] San Chow for people who don't know was kickboxing with takedowns.

[230] Yep.

[231] I cornered Maurice Smith back in the day when Maurice was doing that once.

[232] Ah, okay.

[233] Yeah, in Burbank, I think it was.

[234] It was weird.

[235] It was confusing.

[236] It's like, okay.

[237] I mean, it's interesting.

[238] I guess.

[239] I mean, it's probably a good skill set to learn, learn how to do takedowns and throws with kickboxing.

[240] But then you just let the guy up, which was just weird.

[241] You didn't get it, huh?

[242] It was weird.

[243] Yeah.

[244] I mean, it still goes on.

[245] They Sandah, essentially.

[246] I think it's an amazing sport.

[247] I love it.

[248] It's amazing.

[249] A lot of times it's a lot like throws in Muay, because, you know, there's a lot of trips and throws in Muay.

[250] It's interesting.

[251] Except you get points for the throws.

[252] Yeah.

[253] Yeah.

[254] Yeah, up to five.

[255] Yeah.

[256] another variation yeah yeah I think if like their feet go above their head it's five points so when did you get serious so you did this so it was right after that because I mean he beat the shit out of me um like I remember walking out of there and people were looking at me like damn how'd you survive that bro I mean and like people were actually asking me like dude how did you survive that shit like I don't know I had to go to work that night I was like working third shift I had to go to work right after everybody was looking at me at work, like, dude, you got like two black eyes?

[257] But anyway, that was when I said to myself, you know, I want to try this.

[258] And, you know, I think, you know, this is something I really enjoy and I want to go for it.

[259] So I met this guy.

[260] His name was Eli Ayers, and he was fighting in King of the Cage, one of the toughest guys ever met.

[261] And the guy Braden Workman, and they were training for, it was a big show there in Columbus.

[262] I can't remember the name of show, but I think like Lawler fought on it, like a bunch of Militich guys, Tim Sylvia, you'd know the name if I said, I can't remember.

[263] But anyway, um, yeah, and then, you know, then I really got this shit kicked out on me when I got in the gym, you know, then I realized like, you know, what a real beating was.

[264] And, uh, yeah, just went from there, man, because I, I just said, I never looked back and I thought, man, you know, I want to change my life.

[265] You know, I'm, you know, I wasn't never actually a, uh, the type of person.

[266] that fit in with the drug user scene, right?

[267] Like, that wasn't me. It was just, again, an expression of anger and these things that, you know, in my childhood just kind of, you know, came out the wrong way, right?

[268] So it wasn't really like I fit in there.

[269] Right.

[270] So at this point, like, I'm really not fitting in anywhere.

[271] And this was a quote that I remember where I said, I stopped trying to find yourself and start to define yourself.

[272] And I felt like the whole time I was trying to find it.

[273] trying to find myself.

[274] And I said, you know, I'm going to define who the fuck I am.

[275] I'm going to say, this is what I am and this is what I do.

[276] I'm a fighter.

[277] Fuck it.

[278] Let's go.

[279] It's do or die.

[280] I've been to jail, been dead.

[281] I've been, you know, I've slept in the fucking snow.

[282] You know what I mean?

[283] Like I've been homeless.

[284] I've done every low thing you can do.

[285] Like, what's the worst that could happen?

[286] I get knocked out.

[287] There's nothing.

[288] So, you know, I decided, you know, this is my path.

[289] And I'm going to carve the path.

[290] I'm not going to search for a path.

[291] I'm going to make the path and I'm not going to look back and I'm going to the top of that mountain.

[292] And that's something I still talk about today when I talk to people is about I didn't have any idea how I was going to do it, but I knew why I was going to do it and I knew that I was going to do it.

[293] And I think in my own personal struggles and I think in a lot of people's struggles, they kind of get caught up in the how.

[294] You know, how am I going to do this?

[295] How am I going to win this fight, whatever?

[296] And I think when you understand your why, I think the how it becomes a lot more clear clear yeah more clear and easier i mean it doesn't matter anymore you could it's better to do it 100 % wrong than 50 % right i think there's a balance to doing things and it's highlighted by what you just said what you just said there's a balance and it's a lot of what we were talking about earlier about uh jol jameson versus louis simmons versus uh like someone who's like super technical versus someone who's just a fucking mad dog and just wants you to just go out and do it be a pussy, your mindset that allowed you to take that fight with no training and then take another fight after that with no training and then take another fight after that with no take, just this mindset of fuck it, let's just do this.

[297] There's a balance between that and then you realizing, okay, I got to really learn how to do this.

[298] If I'm going to really be a fighter, I'm going to really define myself and really go out and make a mark i got to learn what the fuck i'm doing exactly there's both things there but that's that balance like you need both things you know i mean it's it's you have to have a certain amount of fuck it in you know you have to have a certain amount for a sport i mean is it called an mma a sport it always seemed to me to be it's too it's too defining it's or too uh it's it's too limited it's not Fighting is more than a sport.

[299] It's an expression of what you're capable of.

[300] Absolutely.

[301] It's who you are as a human.

[302] And that's where one distinction I've made over the years is the difference between martial skills and martial arts.

[303] Everybody always calls everything and comps it into a martial art. And when we go to the gym and we're training arm bars, do 100 arm bars, that's not an art. That's not your expression of your body in a combat scenario.

[304] that's a martial skill now when we go in competition now we're expressing our art right and i think this is an important distinction to be made i think it's something that uh i get so tired of hearing you know i train martial arts and you know i train martial skills and then i express my art that's a very interesting way of putting it how many years after you initially started seriously training were you on the ultimate fighter uh four or five i remember when you were on the ultimate fighter and they stole your chew.

[305] Somebody fucked with your chew.

[306] That's what everybody remembers.

[307] Well, I remember that because I remember like, there's some dudes that, there's some guys that play tough guy.

[308] There's some guys that put on a show and puff up their chest and say some shit that they might not necessarily mean.

[309] And then there's some guys that say some shit and you go, uh -oh, this dude's fucking serious.

[310] And I remember when they fucked with your cute, with your chew, I remember watching that, I'll go, this motherfucker's serious.

[311] I'm like, Matt Brown's not a job.

[312] Joker.

[313] And then when you fought Matarroyo, that was another example of it.

[314] I'm like, there's skill -wise, I'm like, Matt Arroyo is a very talented guy, and still is.

[315] Good jiu -jitsu guy, good fighter.

[316] But there was something, that was a battle of minds.

[317] I agree.

[318] Your mind...

[319] And I don't know if you knew that I fought him before that, too.

[320] Yeah, I did.

[321] But the first time I fought, and this is why it was such a no -brainer to say, to fight, I fought him the first time on 24 hours notice.

[322] So I wasn't even, I wasn't training her.

[323] I was training a girl and uh she was going to florida to fight and when i got there we're driving to the way ins and the promoter i heard him talking on the phone and he goes and i heard him say you know oh we don't have an opponent for him i so i said hey you know what do you need an opponent for and he's like well this guy matter royo you know 170 and i said dude i'll fight like how much will you pay me they're like i have 400 500 bucks i was like dude gotta pay my rent fuck yeah i'll do it and And, yeah, so, and I said, you know, I can't make weight because I got, like, one hour.

[324] And, you know, he said, it's cool.

[325] And fought him on 25 hours notice and beat him.

[326] So he wanted redemption for that.

[327] Yeah.

[328] That fight was in, you, one of the things about, like, watching you fight is someone seeing a lot of people fight.

[329] There's moments in exchanges where after the exchange, a guy will try to take a break, or a guy will try to catch his breath or move of pace.

[330] The obligatory break Yeah, there's little breaks And then there's guys who recognize those brakes and push in And you're a guy who pushes in Absolutely When there's a break, you're like, oh no motherfucker There's no breaks here There's no breaks here And you just get on dudes And it makes things very intense Yeah, you know That's the thing about all your fights They're very intense You know, there's a certain level of violence That you bring into the octagon That someone has to be prepared for You know And there's some guys that are prepared for it and makes for amazing fights like your fight with Robbie Lawler, holy shit was that a crazy fight.

[331] Yeah.

[332] You know?

[333] And then there's guys who just, they just can't keep the pace.

[334] They just can't keep that keeping you off of them.

[335] Yeah.

[336] And I think my goal as a martial artist as a fighter, a martial, you know, whatever you call, combat guy, you know, I get my skills up to the point where it matches your mind.

[337] Where it matches the mind, yeah.

[338] Isn't that crazy?

[339] Yeah.

[340] I mean, a lot of guys struggle the other way.

[341] Yeah.

[342] And I think one of the things that I talk about a lot that, you see, I don't think that I was necessarily born this way.

[343] This is where I think a lot of people get confused.

[344] I mean, I was certainly born with an inclination towards fighting.

[345] I wouldn't be where I'm at without that.

[346] But, you know, I work a lot on my mind.

[347] I do a lot of stuff.

[348] I've always been obsessed with martial arts and combat as a whole.

[349] And I hear other people say they're obsessed.

[350] Like Connor made it really famous when he started saying it, right?

[351] I think my obsession goes far, far beyond what anybody's even close to.

[352] I don't think their definition of obsession even is comparable to mine at all.

[353] I mean, I'm far more obsessed.

[354] I've read probably, I got a library of sports psychology books, of strength, conditioning books of martial arts books all this stuff um i mean it's literally on my mind 24 i but one of the things i really focus on is the the sports psychology part and i think that is why it's expressed that way in the fight um and you hear a lot of people they'll say you hear how have you heard like man you know my mind's already strong like i ain't scared when i walk in there or stupid shit like that and yeah and i always say you know do you think michael jordan stopped practicing layups Do you think Jordan Burroughs stop practicing double legs?

[355] Do you think that Arnold Schwarzenegger stopped doing biceb curls?

[356] Because it's good doesn't mean that you stop.

[357] Yeah, it can be improved upon.

[358] Yeah, it can be improved upon and you don't stop.

[359] And I think the mind is one of those things that can always be better.

[360] Like we're not tapping into, I mean, what do we type?

[361] Like 10 % of our brains at the best?

[362] Yeah, that's bullshit.

[363] Yeah, they used to think that.

[364] They used to, that's something they say.

[365] but the reality is your brain has a bunch of different quadrants for all sorts of different functions So when you're utilizing A certain portion of your brain, that's the portion of your brain That's the portion of your brain that's responsible for those actions Okay Yeah, there's not...

[366] Either way, our minds are certainly far more unlimited And far more potential than we're tapping into it Well, I think your mind is a lot like your body And it performs and it does what you ask of it And if you just are a lazy bitch He doesn't do anything but sit around and watch TV and you don't ever challenge your mind, I think your mind is weak and it atrophies.

[367] Absolutely, yeah.

[368] When you say that you have all these books and you say that you work on your mind, like do you have a daily practice that you do?

[369] Do you meditate?

[370] I meditate.

[371] You know, daily is sort of a...

[372] I hate saying I do it daily because, you know, I skip days.

[373] And I mean, I have three kids, which you know how that goes.

[374] Yeah.

[375] Yeah, it's very...

[376] But at the same time, I try to use everything as an opportunity to practice on my mind, too.

[377] How you do anything is how you do everything, right?

[378] Yes, right?

[379] And so I think, you know, we can use opportunities all the time.

[380] And but, yes, I do meditate.

[381] I do tons of visualization.

[382] I have my strength education coach I work with now.

[383] He's also got a degree in sports psychology.

[384] So we integrate a lot of that in the field.

[385] training itself.

[386] For instance, like doing, we do these 200 -yard sprints on the forced treadmill that are just miserable.

[387] I mean, by time you're done, you just don't have anything left.

[388] It's a complete drain.

[389] And then as soon as you're done, like you stand out of tension, right?

[390] I have to stand, you know, like a military attention, straight up and down, not let the concept of your body shutting down affect your ability to maintain a posture, right?

[391] And that's just the mental thing 100 % right is solely mental um that's just one example we do a million things like that um but yeah i do i do tons and tons of visualization which is a uh consistent uh marker of high performers a consistent thing that high performers do i think this is a well known um i have a mental coach specifically that kind of holds me accountable for a lot of the things you know me and him.

[392] We talk a lot back and forth about the different ways to create habits.

[393] I think that's probably the number one thing.

[394] It's creating habits, right?

[395] But, you know, he holds me accountable for everything.

[396] And I think that's probably the biggest key is just being held accountable for every action that you do.

[397] Have you ever used a sensory deprivation tank?

[398] Absolutely.

[399] My strength coach has one.

[400] Beautiful.

[401] Yeah, I love it.

[402] And I go in about 45 to an hour.

[403] Do you work?

[404] work on shit in there?

[405] Do you think about techniques?

[406] You know, I don't really.

[407] I use that as a time.

[408] So I try to practice this form of meditation that I can't remember the name of it.

[409] This dude, Kishnamaru.

[410] You ever heard of him?

[411] Krishna, Mario.

[412] I don't know why it's not coming to my head right now, but he was one of Bruce Lee's guys.

[413] He's an Indian meditation guy and everything.

[414] His form of meditation was to completely clear your mind, which is, I I guess, like, it is actually impossible, right?

[415] Like, there's no way to just have no thought at all.

[416] But that's sort of what I try to strive for, is go literally no mind at all.

[417] What I do is think about only my breath.

[418] That's it.

[419] I concentrate on my breathing in and breathing out.

[420] And there's a bunch of other shit that gets in there, but eventually I can kind of overpower it and just think only about breathing in and only about breathing out.

[421] So that's what I do to get to that state, right?

[422] To get to a state where I can release everything.

[423] but at that point once I'm relaxed then I go for the the no mind which again is it's impossible but my personal system of visualization or relaxation is I see the thoughts as clouds and my mind is a sky or space so you know my mind becomes this gigantic entity and the thoughts are just clouds that pass by but again when I start thinking about things like that now you're not in the no mind.

[424] If you start thinking about your breath, you're not in the no mind.

[425] Right.

[426] And I want to get as closer as possible because in a fight, in a combat situation, I want no mind.

[427] Right.

[428] That's the way that Musashi talks about.

[429] Right.

[430] Yeah.

[431] And that's, that's Musashi right there.

[432] Oh, fuck yeah.

[433] Yeah.

[434] Yeah.

[435] This was a play on Masashi.

[436] Yeah.

[437] Have you read the book, Musashi?

[438] Yeah.

[439] Yeah, I read that.

[440] You put it on your Instagram earlier day.

[441] Yeah.

[442] I read that and I read the book of five rings and I was 16.

[443] Change my life.

[444] Nice.

[445] That's the one that Louis will, if you work for Louis, all of his staff, you're forced to read it.

[446] Beautiful.

[447] You have to read it.

[448] Dude, once you understand the way broadly, you can see it in all things.

[449] I remember reading that when I was 16 and I was like, oh, I get it.

[450] I was like, when you can get great at something, you can get great at anything.

[451] It's the same thing, whether it's playing the piano or writing books or fighting or anything.

[452] It's the same thing.

[453] It's all about figuring it out, understanding the way.

[454] And that's the book, The Art of Learning.

[455] Have you read this one?

[456] No. Josh Waitskin, you know, his...

[457] Oh, yeah, the chess prodigy that is a black belt under Marcelo Garcia.

[458] Yeah, yeah, a beautiful, amazing book.

[459] That's sort of a similar type thing.

[460] He's a fucking wizard, man. I've heard him on Tim Ferriss's podcast, super smart guy.

[461] That's where I heard of him from, yeah.

[462] Genius.

[463] And just so good at understanding how to learn things and teach things.

[464] I think that mentality, that chess player mentality, because chess is such a complex, cognitive, demanding game.

[465] You know, there's so much thinking and planning and so many steps ahead that you have to be and so many moves that you have to have cataloged in your head.

[466] And he goes into beyond just the technical part two when he talks about how he kind of lost his love for it.

[467] Yeah.

[468] It was a great book, man. Yeah.

[469] Well, he's a really fascinating character.

[470] And I love when a guy like that gets obsessed with martial arts because it changes the way people look at something like jujitsu because people on the outside in particular they look at jujitsu is like oh it's just a bunch of fucking meatheads choking each other and then they see a guy like that and they go oh wait a minute josh wetskin is in his he's a black belt huh man that's got be one of the great things about jiu jitsu is uh the amazing people that do it yeah yeah i mean you come out here to l -a i mean i see these people doing jiu jutsu i talk to them like hey what do You know, I'm a movie, top guy or whatever, or I'm an executive, or I'm a, I'm a CEO.

[471] I'm like, wait, what?

[472] Yeah.

[473] What are you doing in here?

[474] Guy Ritchie.

[475] Guy Ritchie's a fucking black belt.

[476] He was on the podcast, and I was like, what?

[477] You're a black belt under Henzel?

[478] I was like, holy shit.

[479] Nice.

[480] Yeah, that's legit, man. That's badass, man. God damn blackbelt under Henzhou Gracie.

[481] They don't give those away.

[482] Maynard James Keenan.

[483] Yep, yep.

[484] Oh, he's a buddy of mine.

[485] Yeah.

[486] I mean, I know him a little bit.

[487] He's legit as fuck.

[488] That dude does jujitsu, and he's got a fake hip.

[489] He's got a hip replacement from stomping on stage.

[490] You know how he's always stomping on stage?

[491] Didn't he choked someone out on stage?

[492] Yeah, he hip toss him, took his back, and got him in a rear naked choke on stage and kept singing.

[493] And the dude was going like, he wasn't hurting the guy.

[494] You know, the guy was a fan.

[495] The whole thing was kind of crazy.

[496] Is it on YouTube or anything?

[497] Yeah, yeah.

[498] Jamie can find it.

[499] The guy comes up to the guy runs up to him on stage.

[500] Maynard has the fucking microphone in his hands.

[501] Mainer's another dude.

[502] He's one of the smartest dudes I know.

[503] So smart.

[504] Stupid smart.

[505] To the point where he's kind of, he kind of gets weird around people.

[506] Because he's so goddamn smart.

[507] Everybody else is like a baby.

[508] So here he's on stage.

[509] You got a big screen.

[510] And some dude, some dude jumps onto the stage and rushes him.

[511] Where is it at, Jamie?

[512] How long is this video?

[513] Got to get to when the dude runs on stage.

[514] There he is.

[515] Okay, get it.

[516] Go before that because he hip -tossed him first.

[517] And he's like singing this whole time.

[518] Look, the guy runs up to me. He's like, yeah, Maynard hugs him, boom.

[519] Nice.

[520] Takes his back, sinks it choking.

[521] And he keeps singing.

[522] And then he goes over onto his back and pulls the guy backwards and then keeps singing while he's in full backmount with the hook.

[523] And the dude, this guy has arms.

[524] I'm like, yes.

[525] Dude, that is beautiful.

[526] Yeah, and he kept singing the song.

[527] I mean, it's fucking hilarious.

[528] Man, he's a god, man. Yeah, he's a bad one.

[529] And he's always training.

[530] He comes out here.

[531] He trains down.

[532] He goes down to Henry Aiken's place.

[533] And he trades as Dave Camarillo, Half Gracie.

[534] He goes everywhere.

[535] Yeah, I'm trained with him a little bit out there.

[536] We were drilling a couple weeks ago over at Henry's.

[537] And then Brodman Muscle Farm, we did some training there.

[538] Most people, they get their fucking hip replaced.

[539] They're like, that's a rap.

[540] Right.

[541] Yeah.

[542] And he's like, I've got to get my black belt.

[543] Wow.

[544] Dude, Mark Coleman had his hip replaced.

[545] And he ain't even training.

[546] Yeah.

[547] Did he talk about a salt.

[548] Both of them, right?

[549] I think he may have had both of them.

[550] The one, what they call it, had a problem.

[551] Yeah, it got infected.

[552] Yeah, it got infected.

[553] Had to get redone.

[554] Redone, man. Imagine that shit.

[555] They cut off the top of your leg.

[556] They put a fake hip in there.

[557] They put a bolt that goes through the center of the bone, all the way down through the bone.

[558] Imagine to have the redo that.

[559] They got to pull it out.

[560] Put a new one in there?

[561] Fuck, man. Imagine just doing it once.

[562] I've only had one surgery in my life.

[563] I've only went under twice now.

[564] What you have done?

[565] Actually said twice.

[566] The first one I had tore the ligament right here.

[567] Oh, I remember that.

[568] Yeah.

[569] Like you were talking about that.

[570] That was fucking with you for a long time, right?

[571] Yeah, probably about a year I fought like that.

[572] Well, you couldn't totally make a fist, right?

[573] Yeah, it was like this, kind of.

[574] So I was like, frogging people.

[575] Ian McCall's still like that.

[576] Ian McCall broke his hand so much that his right hand, one of his knuckles, like his pinky or his pointer finger, and it never curls past that.

[577] Yeah, well, this wasn't broken.

[578] The bones were all intact.

[579] but the ligament there was completely torn so what they have to do um they just went in they there's a incision there and just reattached the ligament and i came back probably four months later five months later maybe that's when they were telling me you'll be fine and everything and you know it took probably a year before it was actually okay wow it's just chris wideman's going through some shit like that right now he fucked his thumb up in the kelvin gastolin fight and then had to get a ligament from his wrist taken out and attached to his thumb because his thumb's ligament was torn and he still can't fully train still can't grip or fully punch yeah he's waiting yeah mine they didn't have to do none of that but they they said once they opened it up there was a lot more stuff in there they had to take out and a lot more that was ripped that they didn't even realize was there you know how it is with the MRIs yeah well with fighters like so many guys have shit wrong they don't even know like did you ever see Jacquets when they had his elbows cleaned out.

[580] He had elbow surgery, and they found chunks of bone and cartilage in his elbow, like a, like, a shot glass filled with, like, shit that was floating around inside of his elbow, just from hitting people with elbows and getting arm barred and not tapping and shit popping and snapping and tearing loose, and all of it is just fucking mangled.

[581] Yeah, because he broke his arm when he's...

[582] Hodger.

[583] Hodger, right?

[584] Yeah, he broke his arm and he tucked it into his belt and kept going.

[585] It's badass.

[586] I mean, that was a horrible arm break, too.

[587] Like, to me, wrestling is the hardest sport in the world, and I love wrestling.

[588] I love watching it.

[589] I love being a part of it.

[590] Yeah.

[591] But that doesn't happen in wrestling.

[592] Right.

[593] Very often.

[594] I mean, I guess there's probably some.

[595] I know Mike Pacillo went to the finals with a torn pack.

[596] Wow.

[597] Yeah.

[598] It takes a lot.

[599] It takes a lot.

[600] it does happen wrestling i shouldn't say that yeah that's a different that situation was just he was up on points and he just needed to survive for a couple minutes he won the match right yep yeah yeah won the match well you remember when john jones fought uh vitor vitor completely hyper extended his arm that was when i don't know if it broke but it was fucked up for a long time i mean it was bent like this the other way just completely bent backwards like i was convinced he was gonna tap i was like he's got a tap.

[601] I thought it was too.

[602] And Vitor, like, let it go a little.

[603] It looked like he let it go.

[604] It was weird.

[605] Yeah, I remember that.

[606] Yeah.

[607] And, um...

[608] Like, think if he finishes that.

[609] Crazy.

[610] The world changes.

[611] Yeah, the whole world of light, heavyweight changes.

[612] Yeah.

[613] Vitor's life changes.

[614] Yeah.

[615] Everything changes.

[616] Vitor becomes a champ.

[617] Yeah.

[618] The whole thing changes.

[619] John Jones, not the greatest ever.

[620] Yeah.

[621] Which, you know, is up in the air or whatever.

[622] But I think he's the greatest ever, performance -wise.

[623] We were talking about performance -wise earlier before the podcast started versus, like, we were talking about Kane Velasquez, performance -wise, like the actual results versus what you think about their ability.

[624] You know, I think Kane when he was at the time, I never saw anybody like Kane when he was in his prime.

[625] 240 pounds, un -fucking godly cardio.

[626] We just never stopped coming at you.

[627] Excellent striking technique could take a tremendous My whole thing with it, though, is as soon as you test positive once, I take you out of the greatest period.

[628] It's just against the rules.

[629] I'm not even against steroids.

[630] Like, take steroids.

[631] You know, like, if it's your endocrinologist tells you to take steroids, go fucking do it.

[632] Good.

[633] Good for you.

[634] But in our sport, unfortunately, it's against the rules.

[635] So there's only a certain amount of people doing it.

[636] So if you're doing it, you're cheating.

[637] Right.

[638] And.

[639] But do you think John was taking steroids?

[640] I don't know.

[641] I don't think he was.

[642] But to be honest.

[643] it doesn't matter.

[644] To me, I mean, you know, I've said this for a long time.

[645] I think it should be a lifetime ban, first offense, period, yeah.

[646] And there's going to be martyrs.

[647] There would be guys, like, I don't think Tim Means was taking steroids.

[648] He wasn't.

[649] He certainly did not look like it.

[650] They proved it.

[651] They proved that he wasn't.

[652] Oh, really?

[653] I didn't know that far.

[654] Okay.

[655] They found the supplement that he was taken.

[656] That was a totally legal supplement.

[657] You get a bunch of shit of these small companies, or these companies, rather, they get it from China.

[658] And they have these bins.

[659] and like we had a problem with that with the alpha brain when we first had not steroids but vitamins that were in alpha brain that weren't supposed to be in there we have all our stuff independently tested and when we had it independently tested it turned out that the mixers that when they were putting all the different ingredients in they would be putting in these vats and they had used these vats for other shit and had it completely cleaned it out this is a problem with companies that sell steroids and also sell things like creatine like this is the this is the big story about john Jones.

[660] This is the big rumor.

[661] This is what they think is that he was doing coke that had creatine in it.

[662] Yeah, I heard this.

[663] It was cut with creatine and that creatine probably had trace elements of steroids.

[664] The reason why that makes sense is because he tested negative right before that test and then tested positive and then tested negative again a short time after that.

[665] This is a steroid that takes several months to get out of your system, but it got out of his system very quickly, which would indicate it was a very, very small trace amount.

[666] Not an amount out that you would take if you were actually using it to try to, you know, to get a performance enhancing benefit.

[667] That's what I believe it.

[668] It makes sense to me. And so it makes sense to Novitsky, too.

[669] It's fair enough.

[670] And I'm certainly there's cases.

[671] So under, in my world where, okay, first offense, lifetime ban, I think a lot of guys would be a lot more careful with things like that for one.

[672] And I think, you know, there would be a due process.

[673] So, you know, say he proved that or like Tim Means, you know, prove it.

[674] you know he comes right back right um and i also think uh unfortunately there would be people that would probably uh you have no bad intention and would uh have the you know end up testing positive and having a lifetime ban and there would be martyrs basically i can't i can't sign off on martyrs man too many dudes have dreams you know for sure what about what about you like what if you accidentally took some creatine and some bullshit i personally i'm extremely diligent.

[675] I do my due diligence, man. I work with Muscle Farm for years now and I know that...

[676] And they have great stuff.

[677] Yeah, they have great stuff.

[678] I know that it's good stuff.

[679] That's my primary supplement source.

[680] I mean, I'm...

[681] I don't go to do Coke.

[682] You know what I mean?

[683] Like, if you do those things and something bad happens to you, that's your fault.

[684] You know what I mean?

[685] If, if, for instance, he was doing Coke and you know not a knock on john jones either i mean it's a i'm not living his life i mean he's in a difficult situation as a young kid um you know with god i mean i can only imagine the amount of people approaching him for crazy things and trying to talk him into all this so i have some sympathy for his situation but you know you make the choice you have to pay the consequences for the choice i agree that you should pay the consequences for the choice I just don't agree that the price should be so high.

[686] You know, like, when you think about a guy like Anderson Silva, like Anderson Silva just tested positive again, again.

[687] Do you think that that takes him out of the consideration for the greatest while time?

[688] In my mind, 100%.

[689] See, I feel like he's doing it because he's old.

[690] I feel like he's doing it because he's 40.

[691] So, again, we can feel whatever we want to feel, right?

[692] I mean, I feel like he probably wasn't doing it the whole time.

[693] But he might have been.

[694] Yeah, but do I know?

[695] Hell no, I don't know.

[696] Do you ever see his trainer?

[697] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[698] He trained Eric Silva when I fought him.

[699] His trainer looks ridiculous.

[700] He's set like 70 years old.

[701] He's just fucking jazz.

[702] It just looks like the Hulk.

[703] He's got like 5 % body fat at 60 years old.

[704] He's so big.

[705] Like I sent a picture of the guy to Dana and I go, this is Anderson's trainer, L .O .L. And Dana sends me back, holy shit.

[706] Are you serious?

[707] I go, yeah, that's his trainer.

[708] The fucking guy's so jacked.

[709] Dana's certainly seen him around the UFC.

[710] He's trained lots of guys.

[711] is that that's not that's a different guy man unless he's younger no no it's uh he's right there he's a guy above it with a white shirt that guy no no no yeah that guy right yeah yeah but the picture to the left is even more left is the one yeah that's the picture i said dana he's so jacked i mean his fucking abs stick out like like biceps each one of his abs looks like a bodybuilder's bicep just glued to his stomach that's so jacked Oh, that's great.

[712] Listen, folks, you can get big at 60.

[713] You could be pretty built at 60.

[714] You can't be that built.

[715] It's not possible.

[716] It's like 0 .01 % of the population that can do that, maybe.

[717] Yeah, and they all live in Africa.

[718] Yeah.

[719] They all have like super genes.

[720] You know, they're all like Francis and Gano's relatives.

[721] There's so few people that are built like that naturally.

[722] Oh, that's good, man. Not at that age.

[723] You know, at that age, you know, your body starts to diminish.

[724] There's just no if hands or butts about it.

[725] Do you know that he's that old, for sure?

[726] Yeah, that guy's old.

[727] Yeah, he's in his 60s.

[728] That's funny.

[729] I think he's an ex -Gim, right?

[730] I don't know.

[731] I know he trained Eric Silva, who was at X -Gim.

[732] He was in his corner.

[733] And I was like, I'm glad I'm fighting a little guy, not him.

[734] Yeah, Eric Silva changed, boy.

[735] You want to talk about a post -Usada guy.

[736] Yeah.

[737] Like, he's one of him and Vitor, but Vitor, obviously, it was a testosterone replacement therapy.

[738] Him and I think Johnny Henderson was probably the most obvious, right?

[739] Performance -wise, for sure.

[740] You got to wonder about Hendricks, like how much of it was burnout, how much of it was possibly he was taking something.

[741] You've got to say it possibly because he never tested positive for anything.

[742] Absolutely, yeah.

[743] But, dude, he was launching people across the afternoon.

[744] I was the last fight before Usada when I fought him.

[745] You know, I felt a strength.

[746] I seen his body.

[747] I mean, you know, I felt it firsthand.

[748] It was a completely different world.

[749] Yeah.

[750] Well, especially completely different compared to now.

[751] Yeah.

[752] He doesn't look the same.

[753] Yeah.

[754] He doesn't fight.

[755] the same it's like it's certainly part part of that has to be motivation too i mean he's just there's no way he he's under the same uh mental uh aspiration that he had before he's just he just looks at it differently could be also because his hormones are all fucked up if absolutely this is a big speculation if he was on something and then he's off his hormones crashed yeah there's no way they can't that's just how it and that affects your mind right a hundred percent i mean i've never take it but i mean i see people that go on and off of it and they're like depressed Yeah, look at Vitor.

[756] Remember when Vitor came back?

[757] I mean, there's so many pictures of Vitor when he fought, like, Michael Bisping, and then you see Vitor after Usada, and he's got that old man bod, and he goes in there, and his body's kind of like loose, and it just, your body's not producing hormones anymore.

[758] Vitor was on that shit when he was 19, man. Oh, was it?

[759] Well, yeah, I guess, yeah.

[760] Yeah, yeah.

[761] When he fought Randy and he was 240 pounds, and his neck started up here, his neck started about two inches above his ears and just went down straight to his shoulder and he's so fast ridiculously fast yeah especially when he fought tank when he was about 205 he was ridiculously fast yeah because I wonder if there's any I was going to say like if you slow down when you stop taking that stuff like if your muscles actually you know your fast twitch muscles go away or something like that your whole body crashes right when you that jacked up on steroids your whole body, first of all, your balls are just like on vacation.

[762] I mean, I know you get stronger, but what about, you know, speed, though?

[763] That's a different thing.

[764] A lot of speed is from a neurological, right?

[765] It's a lot of, you know, the nervous system.

[766] So I wonder, you know, about the effects.

[767] Did you see the study Andy Galpin just came out with?

[768] Which one?

[769] He just posted it the other day about epigenetic memory of muscles.

[770] Yes.

[771] So this is, I think, a big problem with the steroids because I say I do steroids when I'm 19.

[772] Now my muscles get jacked, and now my muscles remember how to get that jacked again, even though I'm off steroids for 10 years, and then I come back at 30 and redo it.

[773] That's a very good point.

[774] That's a very good point.

[775] And a very real point.

[776] Yeah, your body has muscle memory.

[777] And especially if you do it when you're young and then your body has an adequate amount of time to rebuild and you start developing a natural hormone level, that also increases your tendon strength, it increases ligament strength.

[778] I mean, your body changes.

[779] It changes the density of your muscles, of your bones.

[780] It just does a, there's a lot of better, I mean, and then there's another argument for women.

[781] Women that have taken steroids, it's an even more intense argument because you're putting supernatural levels of testosterone in a woman's body.

[782] They develop all this new muscle tissue that never would have been there without it, and a certain amount of that sticks around.

[783] And, you know, you might not even ever been able to develop that kind of strength without it.

[784] Yeah, yeah.

[785] Yeah, that was the first thing I thought of when I seen that study.

[786] Yeah.

[787] And that was where I was like, you know, there's always a lot more to it than meets the eye.

[788] Yeah, 100%.

[789] Yeah.

[790] And, you know, with the kind of cheating that they've been doing in Russia, you know, did you see that movie, Icarus?

[791] No, no, it's on Netflix, right?

[792] I know what you're talking about.

[793] I want to see it.

[794] It's fucking crazy.

[795] I just watch so little TV.

[796] I just miss everything.

[797] Yeah.

[798] Every day someone, did you see this on Netflix?

[799] Nah, I planned on it.

[800] It's on my cue.

[801] It's on my list.

[802] it'll make you it'll make you curious and mad at the same time because they had a state sponsored state sponsored doping program russia had all of their athletes cheating yeah but this was proven okay so they dig deep into it the guy who was doing it was in this documentary and he was helping this guy brian fogle do a bike race what brian fogle did was he did a bike race with nothing and then he wanted to get juiced up and see what the difference is uh with the next year do the same race, but do it on everything.

[803] And so he contacted this Russian guy who is the head of anti -doping in Russia.

[804] Well, this guy along the way from doping up Brian Fogel, they all got busted.

[805] And when they got busted, not Brian Fogel, the Olympics in Russia, the, they had the Sochi Olympics, they found out that people had tampered with samples and a bunch of shit started coming out about it.

[806] And then it became this gigantic scandal.

[807] He fled, Russia, came to the United States and testified.

[808] and told everything that he did.

[809] They opened up these supposedly unopinable sample jars and replaced the bad urine with clean urine.

[810] They had frozen urine, and then they had a hole in the wall where they were passing urine back and forth and replacing the old stuff with clean stuff.

[811] Was it specific to a certain specific sport?

[812] No, every sport.

[813] Across the board.

[814] And they had a record number of gold medals that year.

[815] Everybody's juice to the tits, and everybody's pissing clean.

[816] That's the tough thing about everybody goes into the rush.

[817] training methods and how they're superior and everything you're like well a little bit of that a little bit of this i mean there's some great russian training methods for sure i mean the russians invented the kettlebells russians have uh super technical wrestling instruction and there's some without a doubt some great russian training methods but it's also because sports means so much to them on a national level they were they're also state sponsored scientists rather than you know in america where it's you know if you're a professor or something you just do what you want to do for your you know, for your athletes or whatever.

[818] Well, we have to realize that their best athletes are all amateurs.

[819] Yeah.

[820] They don't have professional sports.

[821] Boxing.

[822] Yeah, but that's it.

[823] I mean, and they don't have, well, they have MMA too, Fador, obviously, right?

[824] But they don't have like NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, hockey.

[825] Right, right, right, right.

[826] They don't have, like, this professional venue like we do over here.

[827] So a lot of their greatest athletes go into Amateur Olympics.

[828] And so they're juicing these fucking people up for Soviet glory.

[829] They're doing it for the glory of the country.

[830] And it's sponsored by the state.

[831] And they outlined in this documentary from Putin all the way down.

[832] People working for Putin, who this guy, this Gregory guy, who is the guy who was in charge of all, the state -sponsored doping.

[833] It's fucking madness.

[834] And it makes you wonder, you know, I mean, nobody wants to say, like, Fador in Pride was the motherfucker, right?

[835] I mean, he was the motherfucker.

[836] Loved it.

[837] an animal and it makes you wonder it makes you wonder like what's going on over there loved it man yeah that was one of the best I think a crow cop fedor man that was like for me was probably like the the most intense I had to stay up for it and I just remember waiting watching them walk out just eyes those are like at 3 o 'clock in the morning right?

[838] Yeah I remember it was really late at night I remember snowing and shit fuck yeah I don't know why I remember that but like I was like I'm not fucking going anywhere man I'm sitting here watching this the eyes bulging out just you know I didn't care man yeah Fador versus Nogara it's so rare that fights are like that anymore I mean there's certainly some yeah I come up here and there but man those to me were the glory days man yeah you wait because well we waited how long to see the fight yeah you know it's like three four months there's no fights in between right you know There's like one UFC fight or something, and we're just like, dude, this is the fight.

[839] This is the Super Bowl that everybody's been waiting the whole season for.

[840] Do you think there's too many fights now?

[841] I don't know.

[842] I like it.

[843] I like that there's a lot of fights.

[844] Yeah.

[845] But I also think that some of them get overlooked.

[846] Absolutely.

[847] And like I wish, there's a side of me that wishes it was the way it was back in the day.

[848] And there's a side of me that's like, I do.

[849] This is what we all wanted from the beginning.

[850] Right.

[851] You know, we wanted fights every weekend.

[852] But again, unfortunately, it does take away.

[853] from that gigantic fight.

[854] You know, those are harder to make these days, I think.

[855] And I think that's why they're doing the champ versus champ thing.

[856] They're trying to make those big fights again.

[857] Yeah, I think so too.

[858] But if you only have those fights every three or four months, there's no way you're going to have enough fights for all the athletes in the UFC.

[859] Absolutely, yeah.

[860] That's big part of the issue.

[861] There's 500 fighters on roster.

[862] Plus, I think there's more now, actually.

[863] The only thing I, I mean, I'm no one to say how to do it, but I kind of wish there was, like, you know, the UFC fight night and then the pay -per -view.

[864] And, you know, they have all these different things, but they don't seem to, I mean, I think they may be moving towards it where there's sort of, you know, the smaller fights work up.

[865] Like you do like a UFC fight night three or four times, build an audience.

[866] Now we put you on pay -per -view for the big fight.

[867] You get what I'm saying?

[868] Something like this, like not necessarily like a feeder, but, you know, within the organization a feeder.

[869] Yeah, I know what you mean.

[870] Yeah.

[871] More structured.

[872] I mean, I love the big events that they have every year, like the Fourth of July event, the New Year's.

[873] event the Madison Square Garden event they have where they just stack it and just have just a ton of big time fights but you know like I liked Eric Anders Leota Machita last week too you know I mean I like I like that too where it's maybe a fight that not a lot of people are watching maybe less people are watching but it's an interesting fight still yeah I didn't get to watch it I don't have cable anymore so you don't yeah don't even have cable like we use Netflix my wife does but do you have the UFC app I do have the UFC app.

[874] Was it on there?

[875] Yeah, well, it wasn't, but it probably will be.

[876] How long after?

[877] Yeah, it will be.

[878] How long do they wait before, from Fox Sports 1 until it's on the UFC?

[879] Yeah, I don't even know.

[880] I mean, that's the thing that is I sit there and watch that.

[881] If I'm watching anything, it's always fights on there or YouTube.

[882] I just watch Muay Thai fights all day.

[883] That's like my favorite thing to do.

[884] Do you see Sancha's latest?

[885] The question mark kick?

[886] Who, dude.

[887] Where he got pulled up his shorts right after he did it too.

[888] This guy, man. I love him.

[889] He's wild, man. I love him.

[890] San Chai is so interesting to me because he's different than any other tie fighter in his movements.

[891] He's so light on his feet, constantly switching stances, and he's just...

[892] He's a Floyd Mayweather of Muay Thai.

[893] Yeah, man. Yeah, that's a guy.

[894] I'm going to try to get out here for, you know, like what I'm doing with muscle farmers some things I try to help them build a team and everything.

[895] And he's one of the guys I want to get out for a seminar and kind of be, you know, affiliates with him, man. I want to meet that guy.

[896] Yeah, I really want to get him because.

[897] it's not just the, you know, the way that he fights in the ring, but the way that he trains, man. I mean, he trains hard.

[898] Hard.

[899] You know, you watch these videos of me. You're like, dude, and it's so easy for him.

[900] That's the weird part, right?

[901] Like, I mean, he'll do like 30 kicks in a row.

[902] Yeah.

[903] Like, dude, how did you just do that?

[904] And you're like smile.

[905] Yeah.

[906] Well, he doesn't kick like.

[907] He's loose, man. Yeah.

[908] He's not like a Liam Harrison guy that is.

[909] Action!

[910] Yeah.

[911] Every kick is fucking 150%.

[912] He's like, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and he just keeps going.

[913] His eyes, man. I don't know if it's something you can even train.

[914] I mean, he's like the, I'd say more like the Loma Chico of Muay, right?

[915] His eyes, man, he just sees.

[916] Like that question mark kick.

[917] I mean, he just knows.

[918] There he is.

[919] Yeah.

[920] And you look at his body, man, and he ain't the scary, impressive guy.

[921] Like, you look at Bukau, Bucow's jacked, you know, giant fucking ab muscle.

[922] just ripped.

[923] San Chai just looks like a guy works out a little bit.

[924] It's so true.

[925] But meanwhile, he just fucked people up, man. And he's so slick with his movement.

[926] Like, even when he's hitting the pads, who hits pads like this where he's never, he never stops moving his feet?

[927] So relaxed.

[928] So relaxed and so fluid.

[929] What's interesting to me is the feet.

[930] Just never stops moving his feet.

[931] And that's just, I don't understand why more people don't emulate his style.

[932] Because he's obviously a traditionally trained Thai fighter, but has adapted everything to a much more dynamic and fluid method.

[933] Man, it's like you know, when I watch San Chai and Loma Chica, I watch the shit out of these guys right?

[934] And so I watched Liam Harrison, right?

[935] Or John Wayne Parr, Raymond Decker's, you know, these great Muay Thai guys, right?

[936] And they inspire me. I'm like, dude, I want to fuck go to it.

[937] And then I watch San Chai, I watch Loma Chica.

[938] I'm like, why do I do this?

[939] Right.

[940] Right.

[941] It's the next level.

[942] I do I show why am I even going to the gym I can't look at this I can't do this that's what I'm talking about right there and so fluid and just relax look at him he's not even getting tired I mean look at his face he doesn't even I mean he could do this all day all day and I mean he could do it in his kitchen while he's cooking you know he's 36 yeah I mean it's really incredible he's something special that's the most uh the most facial expression i've ever seen on them right there yeah it's probably the end of 150 rounds at the end of the day yeah i mean guys constantly training constantly in the gym and one of the things that i like about the way the tie spar too is that they play like they're tapping each other yeah they're just working on their timing and their movement and they're not hurting each other they're saving it for fights yeah well they fight every week yeah yeah yeah my coach uh dorian price he's over there right now I mean, man, they just, they fight all every week, man. I follow him on Instagram.

[943] Oh, nice, nice, nice.

[944] Yeah, he's a bad motherfucker.

[945] Amazing, amazing person, man. Just one of the best guys who'll ever meet your life, man. I like one of the things he said recently.

[946] He's like, yeah, I'm wearing the same, what, gray t -shirt and the same shorts.

[947] He goes, I'm not here for a fucking fashion show.

[948] I'm here to train.

[949] I'm in Thailand, yeah, it's hot as hell.

[950] I'm here to get my work in.

[951] Yeah, and he goes over to Holland with Ray and Simpson, and another guy I hope to get over here.

[952] too he was showing on one of his Instagram posts he was like these are my five -star accommodations he had a white plastic bucket this is how I shower you know like he's over there doing the real deal yeah like a real tie fighter yep yep he's so that's where he actually goes up to um I don't think he still goes up there but used to go up to Asan which is the northern part of Thailand and originally they didn't let foreigners up there he would go to sitman chai he was the first foreigner that they let in that camp and that was his dream he wanted to live like a Thai fighter like a savage and that's where I'm lucky to have a friend like him because he brings the Thai style back to me and that's why I've never had to go to Thailand like he goes over he'll only come back for my camps he's had tons of people offer and he won't come back for no one else that's awesome he's been uh so when I was telling you story about going you know started this Japanese jihitsu place the first gym I went into he was there and you know we both started together and he wanted well he had already started actually he was out in Virginia and then just moved to Columbus, but he won, we both wanted to do Moitai, and I was like, dude, there's no money in Moitai, you do that shit.

[953] So he went to Moitai, and I went with M .A. Of course, he went with M .A. For a little while.

[954] Dude, I wish there was money in Muay.

[955] I love watching Lion Fight.

[956] I do too.

[957] I love watching it.

[958] And I preferred that even over regular kickboxing.

[959] I like the elbows.

[960] Yeah.

[961] Yeah, why they limit it?

[962] Yeah, why limit it?

[963] I just, I mean, I think they limited it for K -1 because they thought it would create more action with less clinching.

[964] but it's garbage it is right it's part of it's not garbage i still enjoy watching bellatory kickboxing i love glory because they just have some wild ass fights but a lot of those guys that are the top of the food chain guys are moitai guys yeah i mean kevin ross is in bellotour now i mean this guy elbow the shit of everybody john way and joe shilling yeah i mean these are elbow guys yeah elbow guys yeah and uh man i've always thought that if they marketed moitai like they do the kickboxing i think it would blow up a lot better But when you take Muay Thai, like lion fights and they're playing the snake charmer music and they got the Mongongs and they're dancing around Y -Cruin and shit.

[965] And everybody's like, dude, I don't want to see this garbage.

[966] I want to see some fucking blood.

[967] Yeah, it's hard for people to appreciate the tradition, but I don't, you know, I respect their tradition.

[968] You know what someone explained to me?

[969] They said that what's beautiful about the Mong Kong and the Y crew is that you get relaxed.

[970] It's like you're out there dancing and then you can put on your best performance because you're already in front of all those people and you kind of, loosen up and then doing that that's one of the benefits of that.

[971] I love it.

[972] I think it's awesome and I'll watch it all day long but I don't think the casual American fan is ever going to be attracted to that.

[973] I wonder.

[974] I wonder if they could be talked into it.

[975] It just seems like what happened with MMA was like lightning in a bottle.

[976] That Forrest Griffin Stephan Bonner fight on TV, on Spike TV, nobody knew what the fuck it was at the time.

[977] You're watching MMA for the first time.

[978] You see that crazy shit.

[979] These guys are just throwing down wild haymakers and headkicks and takedowns and then exhausted.

[980] I mean, these guys just drain themselves out.

[981] I think those guys made the UFC.

[982] I think in that one fight, it's one of those weird moments, lightning in a bottle.

[983] You know, at one point in time, they estimate there was as many as 10 million people watching that fight.

[984] Really?

[985] And it started with just a couple of million.

[986] Like, the event started with just a couple million people.

[987] Yes, exactly.

[988] Dude, these guys are fucking going crazy.

[989] And that one fight being so good, I think, made.

[990] MMA.

[991] I think it just was the launching point.

[992] And then after that, people got into it, and then they started saying, holy shit, this is awesome.

[993] And then all the other fights, and then it became the thing that it is today.

[994] But I think that lightning in a bottle moment, it's hard to recreate.

[995] And with Muay, it just never happened.

[996] There's no lightning in a bottle moment.

[997] And I don't know how you would recreate that today.

[998] It seems like all the stars were aligned, right?

[999] Because now today, reality TV shows are kind of, they're so saturated.

[1000] They're so, many of them.

[1001] Back then there wasn't as many.

[1002] So to have the ultimate fighter, we got these guys in a house, and they're all competing, and they're going to fight for this six -figure contract on television.

[1003] It was a big deal.

[1004] It was a big show to watch.

[1005] But now there's like, everybody's watching people fucking selling cars and pawn shops, and they're living in the woods, and people are making moonshine.

[1006] It's like, fuck, man. There's so many reality shows, it's almost oversaturated to the point where if you had a Muay Thai show, It's like, well, okay, here's another crazy thing people are doing.

[1007] Oh, this guy's living with bears.

[1008] Well, they did.

[1009] They did.

[1010] They had Moitai contender.

[1011] That's right.

[1012] They did that even air here?

[1013] I watched it.

[1014] Did it air in America?

[1015] Yeah, I don't know how I watched it.

[1016] Maybe on YouTube or something, but...

[1017] Because the contender here was a boxing show, right?

[1018] Yeah, but they had the contender in Asia.

[1019] Was it called the Contender Asia?

[1020] Is that what it was called?

[1021] Yeah, I don't remember.

[1022] I remember John Wayne Parr was on at Yotson Kly.

[1023] Right, right, right.

[1024] That's, I don't remember it that way.

[1025] There's another bad motherfucker.

[1026] Yotsoncly.

[1027] Holy shit.

[1028] He just came back.

[1029] Did he?

[1030] Oh, he retired for a little bit, right?

[1031] Yeah, he just fired, I think, last weekend maybe.

[1032] Oh, man. Yeah.

[1033] Yeah, it's just, to me, it's one of the great unsung combat sports.

[1034] And all these people that are watching boxing, and I love boxing.

[1035] But, you know, if HBO just really wanted to get down and dirty, come on HBO, show me some Muay Thai.

[1036] That'd be the shit.

[1037] That would be so amazing.

[1038] Have San Chai on.

[1039] imagine?

[1040] Or maybe ESPN, you know, instead of having these commentators, these narrators that are just dipshits and, you know, every time they talk about in May, I almost vomit.

[1041] I mean, it's just ridiculous.

[1042] And then, you know, instead of these garbage shows they have, they have golf, you know, like, I mean, some of the, they have like a darts.

[1043] I've seen fucking darts on ESPN, but you can't show a kickboxing match.

[1044] Come on.

[1045] Well, you know what, man. I think there's a problem with commentary with sports that leaks into mma and i don't think it belongs there and i fought against it from the beginning and that's the the the insult commentary there's a kind of like calling people bums and calling people losers and you know and get out get out of the game snoop dog that piece of shit do you know i'll call him out what's what don't you like about what he called uh connor mary called him a bitch that was a mess that's not cool man with her fight that was a mess I think he was fucked up I don't care You know You put it on public You could have You know Apologize deleted Whatever You know Yeah If I go to the UFCPI I might just punch him If I see him Whoa I'm cool with that Look out Snoop You don't want none of that Snoop Hey I've just said That really offends me Man Because you know what man Connor You know people all have Their opinions about him I respect the shit out of guy I love what he's done I love I love his stick I think he's a true sportsman I mean I like it he comes into the limelight for a little while and then he goes back and I think he goes back and he works his ass off I really think he does But he definitely does He wouldn't be where he's at if he didn't right Yeah You know but everybody judges him by You know what he does out here Well listen what he did was make a hundred million dollars Fighting against the greatest boxer of all time For his first professional boxing match And did well And won a couple of rounds which is fucking crazy You know That's fucking crazy I mean I think Floyd Took off I think the vast majority of people Could Of good fighters Could win a rounds Against Floyd Just because Floyd I don't know if I say Gives him away But You know He's gonna feel you You know I mean He's that's the way he fights He fought everybody like that Yeah And he rarely wins The first few rounds Agreed Yeah But that's not taking away Nothing from Connor He didn't want to get Clipped by that left upper cut That wasn't on his plans.

[1046] You're right, yeah, yeah.

[1047] I just think what I'm talking about is like the commentators and a lot of the journalists.

[1048] And you see less of it today because I think.

[1049] Stephen A. Smith.

[1050] Yeah, that kind of style.

[1051] There's a style.

[1052] And this is their stick.

[1053] Their stick is mocking people and creating controversy.

[1054] That's why I say I don't think MMA is a sport.

[1055] I think it's more intense.

[1056] You're emptying out out there.

[1057] You know, when you see a fight, you know, And it's a crazy -ass war like Robbie Lawler, Hafeld Dos Anjos, where it's just five rounds of chaos.

[1058] To diminish either one of these guys as a man, as a human being, based on their performance, to mock them or belittle them, I just don't think it has any place in that.

[1059] I think it's a way more intense and way more personal experience for those guys.

[1060] It's not playing baseball.

[1061] It's not fucking Bill Buckner dropping a ball.

[1062] That's not what it is, man. It's way more intense.

[1063] If you got a guy who's a lazy football player who doesn't run fast enough, you want to mock him, that's whatever.

[1064] You go ahead and do that.

[1065] I don't care.

[1066] It doesn't bother me. But you want to make fun of a guy who's literally putting his health on the line in an occupation where you're competing against a motherfucking trained killer.

[1067] And you guys are going to throw bones at each other for five -minute rounds.

[1068] You've got to have some respect.

[1069] You have to have respect.

[1070] or you shouldn't be talking about it.

[1071] You should have some understanding of it.

[1072] You should know what the fuck you're watching, and you should have some respect.

[1073] And if you want to say that a guy should retire, if you want to say that a guy is probably seen as better days, that's fine.

[1074] But have some respect.

[1075] This is a different thing, man. It is not a regular sport.

[1076] I agree.

[1077] And I would say also that they have no right to be saying things that they've never done, right?

[1078] Yeah.

[1079] I mean, you just can't.

[1080] You don't have to compete, right?

[1081] Like you do Jiu -Jitsu and Muay Thai and shit, and you get such a more in -depth knowledge about what they're truly going through, right, and what's happening by just experiencing it a little bit, right?

[1082] There's that, and there's also, I think, if you've never really been punched in the face and you're talking about guys getting punched in the face, like you really don't even understand the experience.

[1083] Or if you never, even worse, I mean, you've never been, punched in the face and there's nothing you can do about it like you've been right you be I mean the worst I ever had I went down to Cuba for a little while and trained with the Olympic boxing team down there when did you do this um 2012 I then yeah I think it what was how did this come about was it was it even legal to go down there back then do you go on a raft how to get down there um I think I'm past the what would they call statute of limitations it's actually illegal to spend money there so I didn't didn't spend any money there but I went there and I guess it's not illegal to actually go there so we went through Mexico City you go to a Mexico City then you buy a flight in Mexico City and go over there my one of my coaches I worked with for a long time on and off is Cuban and he grew up there and he we went there together he's a part of the he used to coach the wrestling team so I went there and trained with the wrestlers for six eight weeks and we'd go over to the boxing team every now and then well I went with with one guy he was a two -time gold medalist i think and i've never seen boxing like in my life i mean i've never felt anything and there's nothing i could do nothing i mean i tried every fucking trick in the book i try every athletic move i hands up hands down hands aside whatever nothing i mean i've never seen boss and i mean two -time gold medals i mean he was an amazing amazing boss i can't remember his name or anything but you know just never experienced anything like and it was the same with the wrestlers i mean i went with uh Some guys that, I got to go with Meehan Lopez, his heavyweight, of course.

[1084] Greco, I don't know if you know, he is the greatest Greco next to Carolyn, rivaling Carolyn in the greatest ever.

[1085] You know, with this guy, Ivan Fondor, who you had been asking last week, he was a guy who, I think he was the guy that Ascran couldn't get past for the Olympics.

[1086] I know that Fondor beat him, but he teched him.

[1087] So, you know, Ascran's, you know, as a man, Amazing as he is, I mean, that's how much better Fundora is.

[1088] Yeah, to explain Techdom for people, it was 15, was it 15 points?

[1089] I don't know what it is in international, actually.

[1090] I think he's, I thought it was like 9 or 10, but whatever.

[1091] You got to get way ahead of someone.

[1092] Yeah, I mean, he worked him over.

[1093] You know, so I got to work with these just amazing guys, but the boxing, you know, that's what we were talking about.

[1094] And, I mean, I've literally, to to experience, like, this guy is punching you, and there's nothing you can do.

[1095] You don't have, we're in a little ring, and I mean, you don't have a choice.

[1096] You can get out of the ring or you can get punched.

[1097] You're just getting...

[1098] That's your only choice.

[1099] Just getting boxed up.

[1100] Boxed up.

[1101] And I mean, and he's moving, you know, like Sanchai, relaxed and chilled.

[1102] And he's like, what do you want?

[1103] You know, you're going to fucking do something or what?

[1104] Wow.

[1105] I'm not talking to me like that, but...

[1106] But doing it with his motions.

[1107] Yeah.

[1108] Yeah.

[1109] Terrible.

[1110] But what an amazing place though, man. You know, really bad for those people the um wasn't experienced man just a different world you feel like you're going back in the 50s where'd you eat over there how do you eat uh so we stayed with ivan fundora and his wife who actually cooked for us every day um but there's restaurants and stuff too i mean it's like a dollar or two and we went to this one place just about every day there was they'd serve a big bowl of spaghetti like this big around and this big just a gigantic bowl for like a dollar wow had a chicken on top they don't um they don't really have red meet.

[1111] I guess it's only for the wealthy or for the top people.

[1112] I don't know if it's illegal or something, but to witness the, Levan Lopez is who we stayed with originally.

[1113] So to witness the way they live is really fascinating because so in their wrestling dorms, they have, it's like six stories high.

[1114] We had to walk to the bottom to get a five gallon bucket of water to take a bath.

[1115] They had no running water upstairs.

[1116] Take a bath.

[1117] That's how you brush your teeth.

[1118] That's how you do everything.

[1119] The guys on the top floor are the first level, first team, the varsity team, so to speak, you know, the first level guys, they get four meals a day and they get air conditioning in the room.

[1120] The guys right below them, the second team, they got three meals a day and no air conditioning.

[1121] So these guys are literally fighting for their food and for, you know, for the next level.

[1122] And I mean, I've seen fights break out.

[1123] I've seen guys trying to hurt each other in the wrestling room.

[1124] I mean, it's fucking intense day in, day out, man. They have some incredible genetics over there, too.

[1125] Incredible.

[1126] You look at a guy like Yoel Romero.

[1127] That motherfucker looks like he was made in the lab somewhere.

[1128] Like some scientists just spliced together, all the perfect attributes.

[1129] And just to be clear, like, don't quote me on that.

[1130] That's kind of how I heard through, you know, like, translation.

[1131] You know what I mean?

[1132] So maybe if I got something wrong, I don't want some, you know, a bunch of Cubans trying to beat me up for quoting it wrong or anything.

[1133] But what is, like I said, it's an amazing place, man. And those guys are just, they're fighting for their food, man. And I've seen one kid, he was the cousin of LeVon Lopez.

[1134] LeVon's a bronze medalist and probably should have been gold medalist.

[1135] You know, I don't want to, the Olympics have a lot of kind of behind the scene stuff that people don't know about that I'm not sure if I'm really at liberty to speak about in public, you know.

[1136] Because it's rumors, right?

[1137] No, there's facts.

[1138] Like what?

[1139] There's certainly facts.

[1140] Well, I said, I'm not sure that I can really talk about in public.

[1141] I wouldn't want to hurt any of those guys.

[1142] But, you know, his cousin came from Penaard del Rio, which we went out there one day, and that is a good story.

[1143] So we got out to Penaard de Ria is like two hours from Havana, and we took a donkey cart to a fucking farm in the middle of nowhere.

[1144] We'd go back probably five, six acre farm.

[1145] We walked back through this horse field, walking over shit and everything.

[1146] And in there's a, actually, all these pictures that is too is fascinating.

[1147] And there's a forest.

[1148] And as soon as you walk through the forest, now it's a casino.

[1149] in the middle of a force so I guess all this shit's illegal there's cock fights chicken fights in the fucking middle of the woods wow which is illegal in Cuba so I got to do fights are illegal yeah so I got to uh you know experience illegal chicken fights in an illegal country and but yeah we took the the donkey card out there and you know we got stopped by the cops actually so I'm sitting there like you know this is about to be really bad so I didn't even told my wife that but uh so anyway yeah So we're at Penaire del Rio.

[1150] That's where Levant's cousin lived.

[1151] He actually saved his money, which, I mean, I think they get, like, everybody gets, like, the same amount, like, the doctor and the chef or, like, the waiter, waiter, or whatever.

[1152] They all get, like, the same money, right?

[1153] The thing is, 30 bucks a month.

[1154] So he saved all this money.

[1155] Their entire home, smaller than this room right here.

[1156] Four people living in there.

[1157] Probably, I would say, about the size of these tables combined.

[1158] Wow.

[1159] Anyway, so while I was trying to get, his cousin saved his money for, like, a whole year just so he could come train with the national team.

[1160] He came out there, didn't, only had money to get there.

[1161] So Levin was sharing his meals with him, and so now he's only eating two meals a day instead of the three or four or maybe three meals instead of the four, something like that.

[1162] But yeah, very, very fascinating.

[1163] Just watching that, you know, we just forget what we have and how blessed our lives are.

[1164] Humbling.

[1165] humbly man and these guys are just savages man just hard hard workers and getting the job done just getting nothing for it you know some of the guys at the top like mehan lopez he gets some things like fundora for instance he got internet access like that that was like a blessing for him to have internet access because he had done so much for the country in the Olympics that's crazy I think he was a bronze medalist I think They hooked them up with the internet.

[1166] Yeah, hooked up with the internet.

[1167] And I still email them every now and then.

[1168] Like, he'll send me pictures of the family and stuff.

[1169] Wow.

[1170] And you can, and it's something like, you know, Fundora at cuba government .net or something like that.

[1171] You know what I mean?

[1172] It's like, so it goes through the government.

[1173] So the government tracks every email coming in and out.

[1174] So, yeah.

[1175] So he would even tell me, like, before I left, you know, like, don't email with this or this.

[1176] Right.

[1177] Don't talk about this.

[1178] And, yeah, I think it's maybe laxed up a little bit, but I'm not sure.

[1179] Man. So, yeah, I can tell you a lot of stories about it.

[1180] It was really a very eye -opening experience.

[1181] Like, I want to take my kids there sometime, like, just to see that, look, you want to fucking, what if you grew up here, motherfucker?

[1182] Yeah, no shit, right?

[1183] You know, be happy.

[1184] You know, you got what you got.

[1185] Yeah, yeah.

[1186] I mean, it's because, so one of the pictures I could show you would be the wrestling room in Penaard del Rio.

[1187] I think Y 'O Romero came from there, actually.

[1188] Mahan came from there, Levant came from there, and their wrestling.

[1189] room is actually probably about as big as this room and it's a dirt floor with the mats are you know so so if you imagine a mat getting dissolved in water and like all the little pieces just spread out so they they sweep up all those pieces put them in a it's about as big as this table here they sweep it all together and stack it up and that's their mat so they just practice you know basically take down stuff and that's why they're so hard to take down they learn from a young age you get taken down it fucking sucks.

[1190] Wow.

[1191] Yeah.

[1192] I can show you a picture of it.

[1193] I mean, it's really fascinating.

[1194] Wow.

[1195] How long were you over there for?

[1196] Um, six to eight weeks.

[1197] I can't remember.

[1198] Whoa, that's a long time.

[1199] Yeah, we stayed for a long time.

[1200] And we did basically the whole training camp over there.

[1201] For which fight?

[1202] Uh, Jordanine.

[1203] Wow.

[1204] And that was, um, so that was when I first started working with that guy and, you know, the first thing he said was like, you need better wrestling.

[1205] Let's go to Cuba.

[1206] Holy shit.

[1207] I said, all right, let's go.

[1208] Wow.

[1209] And so I wrestled with those guys every day my wrestling came up tremendously oh I would imagine yeah I mean there's no way sink or swim and then I said I got to work with the boxing team the boxing team I mean the wrestling is one thing but I seen a lot of the junior boxing team guys I seen one kid get kicked off the boxing team like they take their boxing very very serious over there right that's their national sport one kid got kicked off the team because he wasn't keeping up and they were doing they had to get up at like 5 a .m. do like an eight mile run or something and they put water bottles like this and they fill it up with sand and that's their dumbbells and the kid didn't have any shoes but he couldn't keep up and they were doing hill sprints and he kept falling behind they're like you're off the team so they would do like a 5 a .m and then they go to school and then they do an afternoon workout and then they go back to school and then they do an evening workout and they live in these dorms and that's literally all they do that's their entire life wow they want to get out they, you know, or live a better life, you know, they be a champion or die.

[1210] Holy shit.

[1211] Yeah.

[1212] And, again, you know, I was looking at all this, or learning all this through translation.

[1213] So, you know, I could have some things not exactly right.

[1214] But, you know, I was living there with them for a little while.

[1215] Have you wanted to go to Thailand?

[1216] Absolutely, yeah.

[1217] Yeah.

[1218] You know, my thing is, so like when I did that, my kids were very young and it wasn't so bad to leave them with their mom for a little while.

[1219] Now I have, you know, now I have three kids.

[1220] Specifically, my daughter, it's just hard to leave.

[1221] Right.

[1222] And to fly to Thailand, have you never been there?

[1223] No. No, so to fly there, you know, it's expensive.

[1224] And, you know, I don't want to leave, I just can't leave my family anymore.

[1225] But there's places you can go and bring them.

[1226] Like, Pouquet's supposed to be nice, right?

[1227] And it's, yeah.

[1228] And again, the flights, you know, is what's expensive.

[1229] When you get there, it's cheap, right?

[1230] But the flight, I mean, $1 ,000 per person, you know, I'm looking at $5 ,000, just to fly there.

[1231] So, yeah, I want to, but that's my, the nice thing about having Doran.

[1232] Yeah, right, right, right.

[1233] Now, are you living in Colorado still, or are you here?

[1234] Yeah, so I live in Colorado right now, and then I'm coming back and forth a lot, coming to L .A., yeah, doing a lot of work with the Muscle Farm.

[1235] Because Muscle Farm's opening up their main headquarters now in Burbank.

[1236] Is that what's going to be?

[1237] Yep, so they moved here.

[1238] Well, the CEO lives here, for one thing, and I think they're going to attract a lot more athletes here.

[1239] And I think that they're going to be able to do a much bigger thing.

[1240] And really what they're doing is a restructure in the entire business.

[1241] They're kind of moving away from just simply being, you know, well, they're changed like from muscle farm to MP, for instance.

[1242] So it's not just for the bodybuilder type crowd and the, excuse me, for the meatheads and, you know, and without, you know, I mean, they'll certainly still be catering to that crowd.

[1243] But Now they want to open it up more as a lifestyle brand, expand it, and they'll be doing a lot more stuff with a lot more athletes, which I think they'll be able to do out here better than in Denver.

[1244] Now, as a guy who's trained at sea level and you lived at Denver, how much of a benefit is it to be at that 5 ,500 feet?

[1245] Pros and cons.

[1246] What's the con?

[1247] Well, the number one con is that your max capacity is lower.

[1248] So you can't work as hard?

[1249] You can't work as hard.

[1250] Right.

[1251] But once you get adapted, though?

[1252] You know, I've been a little torn with that because I tell you, when I do my max capacity training, I don't think I've been able to reach the same levels that I was at sea level.

[1253] I've heard other people say that they are able to.

[1254] My PRs, you know, in terms of lifts, have been comparable.

[1255] But, of course, I was at West Side before, so it's not, you know.

[1256] I mean, you just not, I tell you what, you walk into West Side, like, you hit a PR, period.

[1257] like you don't it doesn't matter it's just a there's an energy in the air there's an intense place yeah you've been there yeah i mean i mean you probably hit a PR but if you worked out um again it's pros and cause i mean the obvious pro is the red blood cell count and i think your lung capacity goes up yeah um the idea they say is to sleep at altitude but to train at sea level exactly and it's so that you can uh push your max capacity at sea level and then recover.

[1258] Yeah, so if, like, if you're in California, you would live in Big Bear, but then you would train down in, like, San Bernardino or something like that.

[1259] Exactly, yeah.

[1260] And I don't know, I don't even know California well enough to know how that works.

[1261] Well, Big Bear is pretty close.

[1262] You get to Big Bear in two hours.

[1263] Yeah, you could drive there right now.

[1264] It's funny that people out here say that's close.

[1265] Like, to me, two hours is a long -ass way.

[1266] Well, yeah, no, it's close as fuck here.

[1267] Two hours to take you that long to get to Irvine in traffic.

[1268] That's what everybody says.

[1269] If I got to work in Irvine, like, if I'm a lot.

[1270] doing the improv and it's an eight o 'clock show i leave here at four i'm not bullshit i leave here at four p .m and i'm stuck in traffic for two and a half fucking hours no bullshit so i give myself a podcast huh yeah podcasts uh audio books you know anything anything just keep your mind off that fucking those red lights in front of you right so i'm from Columbus ohio like you you go around the outer belt in like an hour yeah yeah you guys have terrible traffic it's like you oh stuck in traffic for 10 minutes.

[1271] Yeah, that's exactly it.

[1272] I mean, Denver's pretty bad now, actually.

[1273] All that weed.

[1274] Yeah, all the weed, man. People just, I just went there.

[1275] Last time I was there, I was like, what the fuck is going on here with all this traffic?

[1276] It's just weed.

[1277] Apparently, I guess it's actually been growing for years like that anyway.

[1278] But, man, when you go skiing, that's the worst, man. You come back from the ski resort Sunday, four or five o 'clock, dude.

[1279] It's like, I just did it the other week.

[1280] And it took me three and a half hours for a one and a half hour drive.

[1281] that's crazy yeah yeah well Denver just it's an amazing city because you're in you're in this cool city that's a real city a legit city and then right outside is the fucking rocky mountains it's right there right there you drive an hour and you're in the rocky mountains I mean fucking wilderness jack elk screaming and bears running around wow what other city has that an hour outside the city you're in the fucking mountains and it's sunny too yeah you get all four seasons which I like and the people are cool as fuck yeah people are cool yeah this is one of the few places i would live outside of california well you used to live there right yeah i lived in boulder yeah i'm not sure i would go boulder well i was in the mountains above boulder yeah i was like 3 ,000 feet above boulder i was uh 8 ,500 feet it was pretty interesting nice do you feel a difference yeah man going up the stairs you get tired it's crazy it's so thin but did you adapt to it and fell the difference from that for three months my wife got pregnant yeah my wife got pregnant and uh it's rough up there for women.

[1282] If they haven't adapted, it's rough in Denver, but then you go 3 ,000 feet above Denver.

[1283] It's real rough.

[1284] Yeah, I go up there all the time.

[1285] Yeah.

[1286] If you're a woman and you get pregnant up there, it's like having the flu.

[1287] It's real bad.

[1288] And they have a really high instance of low birth weight and premature birth.

[1289] I did not know that.

[1290] Yeah.

[1291] Denver does as well.

[1292] Denver has one of the highest rates in the country of premature births.

[1293] I did not know that.

[1294] That's fascinating.

[1295] Yeah.

[1296] Yeah.

[1297] I was up at my friend's house out by Edward's a little bit past veil the other day and like you were talking about the elk and the bears and stuff i mean at night time he said usually you shine a flashlight out and you see the eyes of the mountain lines yes he's got dogs and stuff and they're just sitting there waiting he's got a fence now but he's like you just see their eyes there was one a story that i tweeted out today in california where some fucking mountain line was banging on this screen door or this uh glass door trying to get at this dog in California.

[1298] Yeah, they got pictures of this cat.

[1299] You don't want to mess with those guys.

[1300] Fuck, man. Yeah, one of them ate my dog.

[1301] A bear is one thing.

[1302] Oh, really?

[1303] Yeah, one of them ate my dog in Gold Hill.

[1304] This fucking mountain lion, man. Right outside these people's house, trying to get at their little dog.

[1305] Yeah, they took pictures of it.

[1306] And it's killed a bunch of pets in the neighborhood, apparently.

[1307] They have a real problem with them in California because they don't hunt them, so they're not scared of people at all.

[1308] That's the problem with California Right there against everything That I'm for They're against quite a few things It's ignorance based They have an idea of what A Mount Lion is And that these are these majestic creatures And they shouldn't be hunted And what they would like to do is eliminate all hunting And let nature sort it out on their own But yet they have grocery stores everywhere Where they have food That's murdered animals that are factory farmed It's the stupidest fucking shit ever You're not going to turn the whole state to vegetarians.

[1309] So this idea that you're going to eliminate hunting is so fucking stupid.

[1310] It's like you would rather people...

[1311] They're trying to do that.

[1312] Trying to eliminate hunting?

[1313] The people that are the most radical wildlife activists would like to eventually eliminate hunting and have all these animals sorted out with themselves in a natural way.

[1314] But they're never going to eliminate people eating meat.

[1315] 97 % of the people in this country eat meat.

[1316] So that's a real number.

[1317] So this idea that you're going to somehow or another change those 97 % based on the desires are the 3%, which fluctuate back and forth, by the way.

[1318] The 3%, there's a lot of those 3 % that fall off, and they eventually, for health reasons, go back to eating meat again or eat some animal products.

[1319] These fish.

[1320] Animals are fucking awesome.

[1321] I love the fact they're real.

[1322] I love that they're out there.

[1323] But if you think that it's okay to have tons of mountain lines, I have a buddy who works at Tahoe Ranch.

[1324] They got a trail camera there over a pond.

[1325] They got photos of 16 different mountain lines visiting this pond.

[1326] Yeah.

[1327] What?

[1328] Fuck, man. That's intense, yeah.

[1329] And this is all because in the 1990s, they outlawed hunting them.

[1330] It doesn't make, they didn't do it for any rational reason.

[1331] I mean, it's a mountain lion is an apex predator, right?

[1332] It's an apex predator, and you can eat them, and they're delicious.

[1333] They taste like pork.

[1334] Yeah.

[1335] Yeah, my friend Steve shot one recently.

[1336] He said it was one of the most delicious meals he's ever had in his life.

[1337] I have to try it.

[1338] Yeah, they have delicious fat that you cook them, and you cook it just like pork.

[1339] I never would have thought that.

[1340] I never would have to eat it.

[1341] Because they're in a cat family, right?

[1342] Yeah, it's weird, eating a cat.

[1343] Yeah.

[1344] But apparently they're delicious.

[1345] Probably had before.

[1346] Yeah, well.

[1347] Unknowingly.

[1348] But just to control the population to keep them from, it's good luck finding a deer in California.

[1349] There's so few deer out there.

[1350] You ever feel like when you walk into the grocery store and you see the meat aisle, like, do you just see animals sitting in that?

[1351] You know what I mean?

[1352] Because you see, I mean, the meat aisle is gigantic as big as this wall.

[1353] Yeah.

[1354] And like when I see it, I just see a bunch of animals.

[1355] Yeah.

[1356] My man, like none of these were treated right, raised right, killed right?

[1357] and now they're packaged like there's some glorious amazing food well it's just soup it's too sanitized and sterilized it's weird and especially as someone who's killed animals and quartered them up in the field and carried them away and cut them up and put them and wrapped them and vacuum sealed them and put them in my freezer and then thawed them out and ate them like i've been there through the whole process so i look at the whole thing totally different now when i go to the butcher section it just i did that when i was like 10 years old so yeah so you've been doing it forever yeah well i haven't hunted since i was like a teenager but but you have and you know it so yeah i just think i mean we used to raise chickens and like my dad would be like go kill a chicken for dinner like that was like my job sometimes so yeah same thing you know especially when you know like you raise the animal too right you become kind of you know have some compassion for it yeah yeah you realize the chickens in particular uh i mean way more so with cattle and pigs like you realize pigs are very smart you know they're they're intelligent and like a dog yeah yeah i mean i feel like uh i i know that technically they're that smart right but uh there's something different about dogs right yeah yeah for whatever reason yeah there's something different about maybe just maybe just maybe just my bias from what i've been taught from from uh society or whatever yeah culturally right yeah yeah yeah we have animals that we like better yeah yeah yeah certainly yeah i mean i felt terrible like killing some of the pigs yeah i'd imagine yeah and then you eat them and you know personally i mean i always thought the grocery store sausage and bacon tasted way better but but i was like man that was sort of my excuse i was like man it doesn't taste is good i'm not sure if i want to eat it but in my head i'm thinking like man i really feel bad for this guy i don't want to eat them you know yeah no i know what you mean man it's we have a weird disconnect with food in this country in particular and especially this day and age when you have a majority of the people eating meat and the majority of people never seen the animal die and then get chopped up and turned into meat and then eat it it's uh there's always going to be this weird disconnect and that's what you change at though boy i don't know i don't know if you can i just think it's one of the weird it's it's i don't think i think this society is an amazing thing what we've we've accomplished where you don't have to ever worry about food you can just go down the store, right down the street here, and get a steak and cook it and instantaneously.

[1358] You don't have to kill it.

[1359] You don't have to dress it.

[1360] You don't have to all these steps have been avoided.

[1361] You just give them a piece of paper.

[1362] That piece of paper gets you a steak.

[1363] It's just, it's amazing.

[1364] You know, you could go to a store down the corner over here and you can get gasoline.

[1365] Some motherfucker had to go to the Middle East, pull oil out of the ground, refine it, put it in tanker trucks, drive it across the country, pump it into a hole in the ground.

[1366] You swipe a piece of plastic through this reader.

[1367] You punch in your area code or your zip code, whatever the fuck it is.

[1368] What is it?

[1369] Your zip code, right?

[1370] You put the nozzle in your tank.

[1371] You fill your tank up with gas, this fucking car that's designed by engineers in a way you would never be able to figure it on your own.

[1372] And you get to turn the key and drive this thing around.

[1373] There's so many steps that have been taken to make our lives way more convenient.

[1374] You don't even have to do all that anymore.

[1375] You have this thing in your hand.

[1376] You just push a button and some dude shows up at your fucking door with food.

[1377] Or some dude with a car and drives you anywhere you want to go.

[1378] Yeah, drive you where you go.

[1379] He shows up with the animal that's been, you know, slaughtered and cooked and sterilized.

[1380] And you ain't got worried about if it's healthy or not.

[1381] Like when I was in Cuba, they had, like I said, the red meat is, you know, I don't know if it's illegal or just very hard to come by or whatever.

[1382] But so we went to this sort of black market stand.

[1383] and man i got a picture of it i mean it's a table bigger than this table of just red meat sitting out there's flies on it and but people are just like dad yes i want some you know it's all the different cuts and everything not you know cut up just terribly right right wow yeah we're lucky as shit man and this is the easiest time ever to be alive yeah really is yeah at least in america yeah at least in america maybe not in some places no i think that's why it's good to visit other places, man, just to get a look around and see what it's like.

[1384] That's one of my three reasons I want to go to Thailand.

[1385] Like, I want to go there and train, but only so much.

[1386] I mean, there's, like, I think that so much of the Thai skill training is already in America that it's not going to, you might get some details or whatever over there, but they're also so traditional and so far behind us in terms of, you know, at least in strength, conditioning and proper ways of training and things like that.

[1387] I don't know how beneficial that is but I want to go over there and see how they live I mean they eat spiders and you know these insects and most people are ultra poor over there and you know but you know they're all they're really Buddhist right and I guess they kind of you know they drop their kids off at the freaking Thai camp and just leave like yeah you know it's very strange to us yeah yeah I find it fascinating yeah I do too I find it incredibly fascinating you know I talked to John Wayne Park quite a bit about his experiences over there he went over there when he was real young and lived over there and lived in Thai camps lived like a Thai incredible stories you know so it's just a very unique culture it just it helps you appreciate where you live and puts things into perspective yeah and there and uh we say japan you've been there i'm sure right yeah i've been in japan fascinating fascinated the shit out of me too it's like being in a foreign land that's also like on another planet people uh standing in line at the subway You know, on the subway train.

[1388] Yeah.

[1389] I was there for, we did like a military tour, and I think Todd Duffy was there.

[1390] And was it, C .B. Dolly, maybe.

[1391] But, yeah, you could see Todd from, you know, over top of the crowd from like a mile away.

[1392] Right, yeah.

[1393] It's hilarious.

[1394] Yeah, it's interesting how polite they are over there.

[1395] So polite, yeah.

[1396] Yeah, it's like there's so much order and discipline.

[1397] It's just completely fascinating.

[1398] Yeah, I remember him on the subway train.

[1399] They're standing in line.

[1400] Yeah.

[1401] I just wanted to walk to the front of the line.

[1402] Fuck you guys.

[1403] You probably could have done it.

[1404] They probably wouldn't even say anything.

[1405] Or then we did another one in Iraq or Middle East.

[1406] Iraq was one of the places.

[1407] Or did we?

[1408] I can't remember.

[1409] But the Middle East.

[1410] And man, those people will, they will shove you right out of the way.

[1411] Right?

[1412] Like, you know, you funneling in through the airport or something.

[1413] Right.

[1414] And they're the rudest people ever when it comes to, you know, standing in line.

[1415] Yeah.

[1416] You know what I'm talking about, right?

[1417] Yeah, it's ridiculous.

[1418] I mean, you know, you say something.

[1419] something to him I don't speak English or whatever I'm like I don't I don't speak your language either so I guess we're fucked how many different countries have you fought in only only two yeah I fought in the UK is it a big transition going over there like the the weight cut's got to be harder and the the right food when I fought over there um yeah the wake up wasn't that bad uh you you'd be saying Finding the right food was terrible.

[1420] You said you've been on a ketogenic diet.

[1421] We were talking before the podcast for the last, what, three years?

[1422] About three years, yeah.

[1423] It was after I fought Johnny Hendricks, actually, and I suffered a concussion.

[1424] And that was what originally got me on to the idea of doing a ketogenic diet.

[1425] And then I fought Robbie Lawler next.

[1426] Why did the concussion get you on the idea of having a ketogenic diet?

[1427] Well, it's good for TBI and concussion.

[1428] I mean, that's the theory, at least.

[1429] I don't think they have a lot of proof.

[1430] I know they've done some research on mice, but not necessarily on humans, but they believe it does.

[1431] And how did you feel when you changed your diet?

[1432] In what sense?

[1433] Like initially, was there a struggle?

[1434] Oh, yeah, the first couple weeks is terrible.

[1435] That keto flu thing?

[1436] Yeah, I had it really bad.

[1437] But I didn't do it after the Hendricks fight, but I started reading about it then.

[1438] And then when I fought Lawler, I missed weight.

[1439] I think it was like half a pound or something.

[1440] And that was the only time I've ever missed weight in my life.

[1441] I did everything exactly like I had done 100 times before.

[1442] me and my coach Tom Barrie at West Side Barbell.

[1443] We had everything planned out.

[1444] We had a notebook of, you know, this is what we eat this day, this day, this day, and this day, and this day, and this moment.

[1445] And everything's planned out.

[1446] We did everything exactly the same.

[1447] Ended up, you know, still missing weight.

[1448] And that was when I realized my metabolism had changed.

[1449] So I started looking more and more into different types of diet.

[1450] So I've always been my own guinea pig.

[1451] That's sort of blessing and a curse for my, that's why I'm.

[1452] you know, I want to be a coach because I've, I think I'll make it ten times better coach than I was a fighter because I've experimented on myself.

[1453] It's why I have all these books and everything.

[1454] And the problem with that, right, is that, you know, you get a bad info too, or you misinterpreted, misunderstand it, and maybe it's for regular people and I'm a high -level athlete, et cetera, et cetera.

[1455] So anyway, I used it for one, for the concussion, and two, to sort of a metabolic shift into more fats.

[1456] And I haven't missed weight since.

[1457] Did you feel any benefit of switching to a ketogenic diet in terms of performance?

[1458] You know, I actually felt a lack of benefit, actually.

[1459] So some of the max capacity lowered immediately.

[1460] Some of my PRs went down over time.

[1461] Did they come back up?

[1462] Yeah, they came back up, yeah.

[1463] So how long did they go down?

[1464] Like how long after?

[1465] Right away.

[1466] Like within, yeah, within the first week or two.

[1467] I mean, they're completely shot.

[1468] A few months to really truly adapt.

[1469] Yeah, exactly.

[1470] Yeah.

[1471] And then, and what I've done now over time is I've adapted the diet to, um, you know a lot of i do a lot of different things now so i'm not as ketogenic as i once was where it was all keto keto now i don't even pay attention to my ketones well i take that ketone ester like we took earlier i take that a lot which i fucking love and you probably feel it right now like shit's amazing it tastes like sucking on godzilla's dick it does it's worse yeah maybe it's like whoa yeah it's terrible terrible but i use that and then i use uh you know regular keto salt supplements but that one you know for performance actually brings my performance up higher than uh then i would usually go do you take that ketone esther before you train yeah how long before you train so i take it with some glucose uh usually about 20 minutes before train and you use those glucose packets yeah who makes those packets just whatever at the grocery store power bar or whatever you know it doesn't matter um it's just a matter of yeah you just have to make sure you have some sugar because of the hypoglycemic effects i don't drop your blood sugar really bad.

[1472] Because it's so potent.

[1473] It's very, very potent.

[1474] Like, our ketones are probably in the three.

[1475] Like, I actually have my blood meter, maybe we'd check, but I'm probably in the three to five millimole range right now.

[1476] But yeah, so, you know, I do that, but now I've adjusted it where I'm not as concerned with staying ketosis, because the main concern with that is I want to get the benefits for the brain and, you know, the TBI and things like that.

[1477] Now, when I get closer to a fight, it's more about performance, right?

[1478] So I'll add in some, I use like a you can starch.

[1479] I use like sweet potatoes, you know, certain starches that don't really affect your ketone levels quite as much.

[1480] So that can bring my performance up a lot better.

[1481] Well, I think there's a real issue with high -level athletes with the amount of workout put that you put in that you probably need more carbohydrates than the regular person that's on a ketogenic diet.

[1482] I've been, again, on my own guinea pig, right?

[1483] and I experiment with that.

[1484] And I've been kind of torn with that, right?

[1485] So one of the things that are a lot of people kind of promulgate is that our sport is very anaerobic and it's really not.

[1486] It's a lot more aerobic.

[1487] And your aerobic capacity will go up on keto.

[1488] Your aerobic, my ability to recover specifically, even with no carbs, my blood glucose could be in 70s and 80s and not have carbs for weeks at a time.

[1489] And my ability to recover goes up tremendously.

[1490] like we're talking about tendinitis, my tendonitis goes away, my injuries, my joints just feel better, I feel better all the way around, my brain feels better, and a lot of things like that, but when you do need to kick in that mass capacity, anaerobic part of things, that's where, you know, things suffer a little bit.

[1491] Yeah, and that's where you have to add in the carbs.

[1492] But again, you know, the amount of training that I do, I mean, I can add in a lot of carbs and I can still get away with it and stay and I can even stay in ketosis if I want to but I think a lot of people make the mistake that I made originally again is my own guinea pig and and I really focused on the blood ketone levels rather than the performance and I wanted to be able to perform with high ketogenic levels or you know high ketogenic levels and in my blood and it's not really necessary right like this should be solely performance based you know but it did it did help me cut weight, though.

[1493] I thought it was fascinating what Ben Greenfeld was saying.

[1494] We were talking about it before the podcast about how he would carb up and then take ketone supplements.

[1495] So he had the benefit of having a lot of carbohydrates in his system, but also having a lot of ketones in his system.

[1496] And he said he felt like a fucking animal.

[1497] Yeah, and that's pretty similar.

[1498] It's probably how we feel right now.

[1499] And that's totally legal.

[1500] Totally, yeah, yeah.

[1501] Yeah, I mean, that's not...

[1502] And I'll tell you, like, when I take it, it does amazing things for me. Man, heard stories of people when they take this esther that they'll pull out moves like they haven't done in 10 years like they recalls these moves and um i've done things where uh when i do it i feel like i'm five six years younger i mean it's done some fascinating things just taking that drink just taking the esther with um um some um some get digging out the trash pulling it out here yeah ketone aid yeah ketone aide The ketone has to her.

[1503] Yeah, and...

[1504] Looks like you're a scientist like this.

[1505] Breaking Bad type shit.

[1506] The thing with it, it's extremely expensive, and they're working on getting the...

[1507] It's like burnt rubber.

[1508] They're working on getting the cost down, I think ,'s thinking.

[1509] How much of these things?

[1510] I'm not sure.

[1511] I think it's like $30 a gram, and that's like 40 grams, I think.

[1512] That's incredible.

[1513] I could be off on that.

[1514] I'm not sure, but the...

[1515] That's quite pricey.

[1516] I heard that the UK...

[1517] cycling team used it.

[1518] They paid like $6 ,000 for, you know, however much, just a small amount.

[1519] And they used it for the, when they won the Tour de France, actually.

[1520] Wow.

[1521] Yeah, that's what I heard.

[1522] I don't know how true it is, but I believe it.

[1523] I mean, this shit does amazing things for you.

[1524] But, yeah.

[1525] So the keto, I mean, again, it can be used, if used properly, I think it can do a lot of benefits.

[1526] I would recommend to all combat athletes, NFL players.

[1527] over, you know, that have taken concussions, taking his sort of brain, or that are over a certain age where your metabolism changes.

[1528] I mean, that's where my biggest benefit was.

[1529] And even T .J. was talking about, T .J. Dillish, I was talking with him about his coach had him switch over because he was burning primarily carbohydrates.

[1530] Especially now, T .J. is going to try to make 125.

[1531] Yeah.

[1532] And I don't know if, he was talking to me about long before that was ever talked about.

[1533] But, you know, he did some tests on him and found that he's, burning all carbohydrate all the time, which can be an issue in long training sessions specifically.

[1534] So he switched it up a bit?

[1535] Yeah, and I don't think he's going full keto, but I think he's doing something similar to like what I'm doing where he's doing keto with, you know, some carbohydrates still.

[1536] And he's using the, so basically like the only carbohydrates that we need as an athlete is for the workout, right?

[1537] We don't need them after that, you know, maybe for recovery, which is, again, I think it's debatable.

[1538] But, you know, carbohydrate is not a necessary substance to even live.

[1539] You could live your entire life without eating a carbohydrate and be perfectly fine.

[1540] Yeah, there's a lot of guys that are doing this carnivore diet now.

[1541] I've heard of this.

[1542] Yeah.

[1543] Mark Bell told me he's never felt better.

[1544] He's doing that shit now.

[1545] Yeah.

[1546] Yeah, he's eating nothing but steak.

[1547] Just eat steak all day.

[1548] No sausage or bacon?

[1549] Well, he's bacon too, but it's mostly meat.

[1550] He's eating mostly meat.

[1551] Mostly meat?

[1552] So no vegetables?

[1553] A little bit every now then but most of what he's eating is just meat see i i i feel completely different when i load up my vegetables even even a day or two i mean i don't know do you feel this i feel better yeah i'm a big fan everything i just i love uh drinking it too you know i love getting like real rich green leafy vegetable juice and uh i drink a lot of kale shakes where i'll take a goddamn bushel of kale that you're never going to sit down and eat you're never going to eat that much kale i'll blend that motherfucker up with a giant chunk of ginger and garlic.

[1554] I'll throw an apple in there and a bunch of coconut oil and I'll fucking throw some celery in there and I'll drink it and it's I think I've seen that on YouTube.

[1555] You put like a pear in there too, right?

[1556] Yeah, maybe a pear, maybe an apple.

[1557] I'll mix it up.

[1558] Sometimes I put peaches or a pineapple in there too.

[1559] You put the whole thing in with the seeds and everything?

[1560] Yeah, it's fucking throw that bitch in there and grind it up and just, it's all performance.

[1561] It doesn't taste good.

[1562] It tastes like shit.

[1563] I've had people try to drink it And they're like, oh, I can't Dude, I got to try this But dude, I drink it and I feel like a fucking gorilla How much garlic you put in there?

[1564] A lot, like four or five cloves That's, it's rough I just eat clothes now Yeah, I do that too I eat a lot of clothes Yeah, where it burns when it's going down Like yikes But you can feel it within like an hour or two You're like, damn, there's something in there man Especially if I'm feeling anything Like I'm feeling a little sick I'm feeling a little funky Like I'm kind of feeling a little worn down Maybe it's going around.

[1565] I'll just chomp on some garlic.

[1566] You ever try chaga root?

[1567] No. I do this.

[1568] I did it.

[1569] Well, I've actually only done it one time when I was sick.

[1570] My whole family got sick.

[1571] Kids, you've been there, right?

[1572] Yeah.

[1573] Kids are miserable.

[1574] All of us are laying down like we're laying around like we're in the hospital.

[1575] You know, every couple seconds you hear a cough and where I was laying there miserable.

[1576] And I was the only one that did the chaga root.

[1577] I put it in a crock pot, put, you know, like 10 little chunks in there.

[1578] And I was the only one that didn't get sick or didn't stand.

[1579] I stayed sick very long.

[1580] I stayed sick for like a day or two, maybe.

[1581] Chaga root.

[1582] And what's supposed to be the benefit of this stuff?

[1583] Man, I don't want to butcher this.

[1584] Google it.

[1585] Yeah.

[1586] Yeah, I can't, I mean, it's an immune system enhancer.

[1587] It's like a, I heard it from my friend who's a survivalist specialist expert.

[1588] Huh.

[1589] And he teaches these classes, you know, where you go out and live off of land and things like that, right?

[1590] And, you know, he gets it from like Maine or Canada.

[1591] And it's like is fungus that grows on trees, and it's really, really hard, and they chop it off, and then you can, you grind it up, put it in a tea or something, and supposedly, you know, it's really good for your immune system.

[1592] How does it make you feel?

[1593] I don't feel anything.

[1594] I didn't feel any difference at all.

[1595] I mean, I'm sitting there drinking out like, it's some bullshit, but I'm drinking anyway.

[1596] You know, I'll try it.

[1597] You know, my guy told me, so, you know, and that's, obviously, it's very anecdotal, and it was like, one instance, and I just got sick a couple weeks ago, and I completely forgot.

[1598] about and I was sick for like two weeks but you had a pretty significant back injury at one point I herniated disc yeah yeah how did you fix that um I guess it's never really fixed fixed right um I got a epidural steroid injection first because I wanted to make the fight it's when I was supposed to fight con it the first time it's like two weeks out of the fight and does it what is the epidural steroid does it relax the area and loosen the inflammation it's a corticosteroid right yeah so it gets rid of the inflammation it took my We did it on a Friday This was like two weeks out of the fight So what had happened It was about four weeks out of the fight Is when I originally heard it And you know I'm like I'm gonna fuck it suck it up and do it I think you said you heard any dis So you know what it feels like right And I'm gonna suck this shit up And I'm gonna get through it And you know I couldn't do anything You barely even hit pads right Well I eventually ended up You know going to a Well actually so this is part of my problem With chiropractors right So I went to a chiropractor first and he's like oh yeah you know crack it and it's all good you know and all this kind of garbage anyway I know I've just seen a pain specialist and he knew what it was within 30 seconds yeah anyway so I got the epidural steroid and it didn't work right away so I had to get a second one later so yeah the second time though masks the issue right is it mask the issue yeah I think it reduces some of the information so some of the problems of it yeah so that's I mean he told me that He said, you know, look, we're going to get you to the fight.

[1599] This is the best way to get you to the fight.

[1600] Right.

[1601] But it didn't work well enough the first time.

[1602] So I ended up getting a second one, and it worked very well the second time.

[1603] But then, of course, as you know, having a hernia disc, it just took years to correct it, you know.

[1604] And, I mean, I work on it all the time now.

[1605] If I don't keep on it, then I will feel the, I'll feel the issues.

[1606] Right.

[1607] Yeah, especially in Jiu -Jitsu.

[1608] right as the worst I mean is it your lower back yeah yeah yeah as L5 I think did you use Louis Simmons reverse hyper did you use that machine did that help yeah yeah of course yeah of course I do tons of the reverse hyper all the time I mean I have a whole routine that I do pretty much after pretty much every workout just to strengthen you back yep for back and hips a lot of my personal problem was my hip mobility and so I do the hips, abs, obliques.

[1609] My soaz gets real tight, so I have to lay on a fucking kettlebell and do that thing.

[1610] My hip flexors.

[1611] But, you know, I start working with his strength of conditioning coach now that, man, you know, he works wonders for me. Now, you have your own line of shit and you sent us a bunch of stuff.

[1612] You sent us some fucking cool hammers and you got wheelbarrels and a bunch of different things.

[1613] was your thought process behind what was the name of the company immortal combat equipment ice and there's it on uh online immortal combat equipment yeah so i have my website immortal combat equipment dot co and then uh it's on west side barbell we sell on there distribute through them and elite ftsd com and basically the way that whole started was there we go oh there we go nice yeah the way that whole started whole thing started was with the the wheelbarrows uh louie had a a wheelbarrow that we was using all the he's used for probably 20 years and we I was like man I you know I could build that thing's a piece of junk he's been around here like 20 years it's falling apart and I said you know let me build one and we built one one one person asked me to build one for him I said okay cool and then another person asked me to build one for him and then I said man I should just start making these and I'd had the ideas for the so I talked to an engineer and we just started manufacturing them and you know just it's sort of like a side project thing for me so something i want to get into uh post uh fight career you know like i said so there's a few things i want to do you know for one strength conditioning uh coaching martial arts coaching uh you know do some stuff with muscle farm and you know i want to you know be able to sell my equipment right um the hammers i thought of for a long time um i know like you guys do the maces you know these are different than the maces they're they're actually a sledge hammer right i'm sure if you swing a sledge hammer it just doesn't make sense that you go to Home Depot and you buy a shit -ass 16 -pound, 20 -pound sledgehammer.

[1614] Our start at 15 pounds.

[1615] I'll probably make a 10 -pound at some point, maybe an 8 or a 7 or something.

[1616] And, you know, they're usually square.

[1617] It doesn't make any sense, right?

[1618] So we just made it specifically for swinging.

[1619] For training.

[1620] For training.

[1621] A good fat handle.

[1622] Yeah, good fat handle.

[1623] And you see also, it has a ball in the end in case it slips out, so it keeps it in your hand.

[1624] And it never made sense to me that I would see a 200 -pound man and 125 -pound.

[1625] woman both swinging the same sledgehammer, especially these 200 -pound men that, you know, like me, like I swing the 30, 35 -pound sledgehammer, which you got to try is just insanely hard, but you have to have the right technique and everything.

[1626] But, you know, I swing that for my workout and for different, I mean, there's different things depending on.

[1627] Are you going to expand your line?

[1628] Yeah, you've got just the, right now you've got the sledgehammers and the willbarrow.

[1629] Sledgehammer and the grip balls.

[1630] Now the grip balls, do they, what do you put them on like carabiner or something like?

[1631] that and do chaps with it?

[1632] Yeah, connected to anything.

[1633] Actually, if you see on that video, we connect them to the wheelbarrow and carry the wheelbarrow with them, I love doing that.

[1634] Tons of things.

[1635] I mean, there's just tons of options.

[1636] That one...

[1637] My kids thought they were little baby kettlebells.

[1638] They were doing kettlebell swings and shit.

[1639] It's pretty fun.

[1640] Nice, nice, nice.

[1641] I have some badass ideas, man. We're going to build some really, really cool stuff.

[1642] You know, I don't know.

[1643] I guess I could just say it.

[1644] I don't really care.

[1645] I mean, you know, like, you use the belt squat before right we're gonna uh i'm working on prototyping one right now i have actually about 10 prototypes i just haven't had the time energy to focus i kind of like almost don't want it to grow too fast because like i'm still fighting it's something i want to work on after fighting and uh but basically we do a belt squat that you can walk with so it's just gonna have wheels and you just walk around anywhere with it and you could sort of uh you know even like you know clinch with someone away which i mean you can do tons of things like that with the west side uh belt squat they already have and there is other belt squats that can do similar things but yeah the west side one they were telling me you could hit pads with it for sure somebody on the platform which i do yeah which i do yeah which i do i love that thing just the way it loads up your hips like that and just it seems one of the things i think you'd you'd probably really like um we're going to build um and they have one at west side you may have seen it when you went there the forced treadmill yes that's just the one at west side i mean it's just a a basic treadmill like if you buy one off like woodway or whatever they're like three thousand four thousand i think even like five or six thousand dollars I'm going to build one and you can sell for like five, six hundred bucks.

[1646] You know, like you just put it in your garage, whatever.

[1647] Like you don't need to buy a $5 ,000 woodway treadmill.

[1648] Right.

[1649] Why did you decide to start out with hammers and wheelbarrels?

[1650] Well, the hammers I wanted for myself.

[1651] Is that something you use all the time?

[1652] Absolutely.

[1653] It's probably my favorite exercise.

[1654] I mean, of course, every exercise is a tool, right?

[1655] And, you know, you don't use a socket wrench on a screw, right?

[1656] So, you know, we have a, there's a million different exercises.

[1657] we do for MMA.

[1658] Everybody asks me, what do you do?

[1659] Like, you name it, I'll probably do it, right?

[1660] My favorite, hammers are probably my favorite thing, though.

[1661] If I just had to pick one thing and say, this is what you need to do.

[1662] I mean, the dynamic strength that builds is insane, the explosiveness, the core strength, the shoulder strength, the grip strength.

[1663] Why did you start doing this?

[1664] Four or five years ago.

[1665] Because I remember, you know, back in the day, George Foreman used to chop wood.

[1666] I remember thinking, like, why are they chopping wood?

[1667] Marciona was legendary for doing it or not legendary Ami's legendary for other things He did a lot Yeah Yeah so We actually built a 45 And a 50 pound hammer too Which became a really good doorstopper Too heavy Yeah so we maxed out We stopped at 35 But if anybody ever would want one we can Get one of those of Francis I know right That's a great idea I'd like to see him do it Yeah I mean if you just think about the way you know the hammer swings and everything i mean there's a lot of different ways you can do it there's a lot of different exercises you can do with them i mean they're just i think their most amazing tool there is for uh for m a i've never used one really yeah even like a home depot sledgehammer or nothing nope never swung them no i mean it'll build your endurance up right away um but one thing that i love about the endurance part of it is you'll sit there and swing it and like your body's gonna like when your body gets so tired as long as you have decent techniques your body will get so tired you can still keep going though like because it's a lot of momentum you know what i mean but you can keep going with the momentum right yeah so no matter how tired you are now you sent me some so i'll start doing it here and what size tire should i get a tractor tire yeah what do you get yeah just tractor tire where do you get one of those um i know i just go to the uh you could use a regular tire whatever like i go to like the uh you can get it for free he usually they'll give them to you because they just burn them.

[1668] Oh, okay.

[1669] You know, so they have to, like, dispose it.

[1670] Like a tire shop?

[1671] Tire shop.

[1672] Yeah, junk tire shop, yeah.

[1673] Go a tire shop.

[1674] Give me a big ass tire, bitch.

[1675] Yeah, that's what I do.

[1676] I mean, sometimes, like, they might give you, like, a regular tire also, you know, and you just, like, bolt it together, you know, drill a hole and bolt two them together, and you got it.

[1677] Right.

[1678] You can do that way, too, but the...

[1679] Is that what you do?

[1680] You put stack them?

[1681] I, that's what, if, I've had to do that before where the tire shop wouldn't, didn't have a big tractor tire and I just get sick of looking for one sometimes they're hard to find like farmers will have them I don't know about California they could be completely different out here so you know I mean you can buy like off rogue or whatever they have things that you hit with the hammers you know really rogue has things other than a tire yeah they have an actual so like if you ever seen the crossfit games like they do the the game uh I don't know game whatever it is crossfit competition thing it's like a big piece of rubber and then and they have to move it from like one side to the other like 10 yards or something they have to hit it with the hammer yeah so but their hammer so it's like rogue makes a hammer oh there it is so it's like a big hunk of rubber yeah yeah those are great and oh okay so like rogue makes a hammer right that's adjustable weight too but there's you unbolt it and pour bebees into it oh my this ridiculous right who's who's actually going to do that and they have fucking beebees everywhere all this kind of shit right so that's why you know i was like uh you know i go to west side i have a fucking Dave Hoff is there.

[1682] 300, you know, the strongest man in history.

[1683] I'm like, if he's going to swing a hammer, it's not going to be a fucking 16 -pound hammer.

[1684] He'll do that with his, you know, one -handed.

[1685] Right.

[1686] So, you know, so I wanted to build something that anybody could use.

[1687] And then the wheelbarrel, you know, we had to put where it can hold, I've had over 1 ,000 pounds on it at Westside.

[1688] Jesus.

[1689] You know, I can't lift a thousand pounds on it, but, you know, put over 1 ,000 pounds on there.

[1690] We have different handles.

[1691] So that's what I changed.

[1692] So Louie's was just one handle, right?

[1693] So we have D -handles, right?

[1694] so you can grip it like this, do like a clean press, things like that.

[1695] We have, like, turn it's like a prowler, you know, so it's got handles coming up, things like that.

[1696] And you just do laps with it?

[1697] You just do laps.

[1698] I mean, like you say, you use like a prowler.

[1699] You can do cleans, overhead presses.

[1700] I mean, there's a million different things you can do with it.

[1701] So when you're slamming, when you're doing a hammer workout and you're slamming a tire, like where are you feeling it most?

[1702] Your back?

[1703] Your legs?

[1704] You know, everywhere?

[1705] Yeah.

[1706] Usually not the legs so much.

[1707] you know that's more just you just kind of stabilizing with your legs but a lot of times it depends on your weakness too right some people feel it more on their shoulders um i usually feel it more in my grip you know because but there's a few different ways you can do it too so like if i want to feel it more in my grip i'll do a slam where i try to stop it okay right so you know at the very end as a very end as soon as it hits because the tire's going to bounce it back and i'll try to stop it um but a lot of times i feel it more in the core right um and then sometimes do like you know over the head like this, boom, you know, bring it down that way and feel it way more in the core.

[1708] Do you ever try to swing it sideways?

[1709] Yeah, I'm not quite as fond on that.

[1710] I just, it gets a little dangerous.

[1711] And I think you kind of, which I personally, I would do it.

[1712] Like, I wouldn't recommend other people do it unless they've been swinging hammers for a while.

[1713] Right.

[1714] Right.

[1715] I remember, um, I've just seen people do stupid things.

[1716] Now, what other kind of shit do you do for strength and conditioning?

[1717] You name it.

[1718] That's, I suppose it to say, you know, I mean, we follow the west side conjugate system.

[1719] it's really, you know, things change all the time.

[1720] I mean, you know, it depends on it's general, specific.

[1721] So I always add in a third one.

[1722] There's, you know, there's GPP, general physical preparation.

[1723] There's SPP, which is specific physical preparation.

[1724] And then I add in personally my own, which is our SPP, which is what I call like the hammers.

[1725] Like the wheelbarrow would be more, I call it the war wagon, is more general, right?

[1726] So it's just going to build general strength.

[1727] You're going to bring your endurance up, your max capacity up, things like that.

[1728] the, you know, getting on the mats and, you know, doing 20 double legs, that's SPP, like, very specific, right?

[1729] The, something like a hammer or maybe a lot of band type stuff, like maybe shooting double legs with a band on or something, I call that RSP, which is like replicated specific physical preparation.

[1730] So, you know, I could break down all three of these and just go on forever.

[1731] I mean, when you're in the GPP, you're going to, again, like, build up your max capacity.

[1732] You're going to build up your strength.

[1733] want to build up your bone density, your ligament strength, your tendon strength.

[1734] Of course, like any weaknesses, I'm big on the neck back and posterior chain, right?

[1735] They say the front's for show, the back's for go.

[1736] Have you ever used the iron neck?

[1737] Oh, yeah.

[1738] Yep, we use it all the time.

[1739] I love that fucking.

[1740] Yeah, I love that thing.

[1741] Isn't that thing amazing?

[1742] What a genius invention.

[1743] I know, right?

[1744] I think it's really uncomfortable, but...

[1745] Yeah, I got one of those out of here.

[1746] Yeah, I love it.

[1747] Nice.

[1748] Yeah, I like it.

[1749] I don't love it.

[1750] I got one at home, too.

[1751] To be honest, I think clinching does more than anything else.

[1752] else man for neck strength like my neck just gets more sore doing that than anything else oh sure yeah yeah so that's uh using uh my friends at west side they do a lot where they'll put a ban on the war wagon and then carry it at the same time oh wow so it's pool in the neck while you're oh and you have to walk so it's like a very dynamic workout at the same time so your grips giving out your traps start giving out what kind of harness are they putting on their head just like uh you know the leather Or those neck things?

[1753] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1754] Right, right.

[1755] Yeah.

[1756] And, you know, just with a chain and then a band.

[1757] So you're having to hold this while you're walking makes it much more dynamic.

[1758] Ooh, I like that.

[1759] They come up with some crazy shit there.

[1760] Yeah.

[1761] Well, if you go to the Iron Neck Instagram page, they do a lot of crazy shit with the Iron Neck on.

[1762] Like a lot of medicine ball shit, a lot of slams while you're, you know, you're pulled back, so you're on.

[1763] Full resistance with the band.

[1764] You're moving your head and you're rotating, slamming the ball, the right and the left.

[1765] things on those lines i'll have to check that out i've never checked out their instagram but i try to stay off instagram personally but why do you do that man for one instagram to me is the most mindless thing in the world right just looking at pictures over no run over no over no yeah yep and half the time you don't even read the uh the uh the captions yeah um so to me it's it's really social media is first off is pretty dumb down like read a fucking book right and then now you have something is not even uh you know it's not even writing like it's just pictures like you know like the the people that are like oh does a book have any pictures well i'm not going to read it or something you know so to me and and i also i'm a big believer that uh in you know what goes in your brain in your mind what you let in it needs to be very controlled you need to be very specific and and careful about what you let in and you never know what you're going to come across on there so it could be something toxic that could be bad Right, especially if you're reading comments, right?

[1766] Absolutely, yeah, it gets way worse, yeah.

[1767] Which, and, you know, I use it, I mean, I'm on there a lot, but, you know, I use it, I like to, I remember back in the day when I was coming up and, you know, I would dream of talking to a UFC fighter, right?

[1768] So I use it to interact with my fans, right, because I want to give some kids that experience.

[1769] Right, right.

[1770] I think it's a very powerful tool for that.

[1771] Oh, yeah, that's a powerful thing for you.

[1772] young guy coming up, you know, to be able to talk to Matt Brown, and you actually respond to him and say, good luck.

[1773] You're like, holy shit.

[1774] Yeah.

[1775] I mean, I probably do it maybe even more than I should.

[1776] Like, I mean, I answer like complete questions sometimes.

[1777] You know, like, people ask me the wildest questions, you know, and I'll give them complete responses.

[1778] But, and I find that 90 % of the time, they're like, oh, cool, man, glad you responded.

[1779] And then they forget about it, most likely, right?

[1780] Yeah.

[1781] And then, but, you know, if I can touch just a few people, man, I mean, that's really what the whole thing's about.

[1782] Do you have a YouTube channel?

[1783] No, but I probably will.

[1784] That's maybe a good move for you because you've got so much information in your head.

[1785] Like, just talking to you before the podcast, you're rattling off these different training modalities and different recovery methods and techniques and shit like that.

[1786] Matt Brown's got a lot of information in his head.

[1787] Yeah, I'm not dumb.

[1788] I might be a savage, but, I mean.

[1789] It's funny how people think those things are mutually exclusive.

[1790] Absolutely.

[1791] You know, like, if you're a savage, you've got to be stupid.

[1792] Absolutely.

[1793] and my thing is my savageness I approach all things with that savage intent right so when I like if I'm into a book like I'm reading a badass book right now and what is it anti -fragile what is that I'm trying to remember the name of the author but it's on my Kindle and so if you think of the there's no term there's no definition of fragility or anti -fragile or anti -fragile right so he came up with this term he wrote the book uh the black swan also and nassim nicholas teleb oh i've heard of that guy he has a very interesting way of writing and uh so he really digs deep into this concept of anti -fragility where um it's not necessarily robustness or things like is god i hate it because i hate trying to re -explain because i butcher shit i feel like i don't give it justice but um you know i'm only like halfway through the book but like i said i've really attacked it like with that savage sort of a mindset right but um it's a very very long book well it's basically you know like our um you know he makes the case that a fragility is you know good right and it creates anti fragility he makes the case that uh um anti fragility is good right and not necessarily like i say i feel like i'm just butchering it man Just read the book.

[1794] It's a fucking good book.

[1795] But when he says about when you're saying fragility, do you mean fragility in terms of your mindset, in terms of just...

[1796] So he's an economic guy.

[1797] So he's really, I think he, I think what he's getting at, again, I'm only like halfway through the book.

[1798] But I think really what he's getting at is more economic and political is kind of his long -term thing.

[1799] But he uses a lot of examples.

[1800] And basically, from what I've gathered so far, it's basically like how stress induces a stress -respect which induces strength and which is the closest thing I would say is to anti -fragility is strength right and how anti -fragility would make the world a better place more or less and as a response to stress like training exactly yeah and I mean he even uses that example you know how we tear our muscles down to build them up that's the entire purpose yeah yeah so that's um again I'm only halfway through man I don't want to butcher it you know no I know it's a fucking great book but I Like I said, I mean, it's a long, long, very long book, and it's sort of, uh, he kind of digs into all these different subjects on it, even though it's really, like, he could probably sum it up in about a quarter of the book, but, you know, I was just saying, you know, I just attack it like that, man, I just, you know, um, like, for instance, super training.

[1801] You, you know, you know this book, right?

[1802] I've heard of it.

[1803] I haven't read it, though.

[1804] Well, it's the most, probably the most difficult to read book I've ever read.

[1805] And I've read it probably four or five times now what's so difficult about it um it's just ultra ultra scientific and it's written by melchif and uh vergeshanski who is the inventor of pliometrics or the the founder of plyometrics and the russians and uh melcif is a biomechanical engineer and the two of them came together and you know this super training is basically like the bible of um of straight of conditioning books altogether right it's it's the original straightly conditioning book.

[1806] I mean, there's also like science and practice of strength training.

[1807] There's science of sports training.

[1808] There's a lot of really good books, but super training is like just the pioneer, the premier book, right?

[1809] And it's all very, very scientific.

[1810] And a lot of the times, man, I'll have to read the same paragraph like four times, you know, and I've read the book like four times.

[1811] And I still, I'm going through the paragraph like, what the fuck, man?

[1812] What is he talking about?

[1813] This son of a bitch.

[1814] So anyway, so like, The point is, like, I just attack it like that, man, you know, and I think there's other things.

[1815] I think a lot of people, again, like, it's all about inspiring others, right?

[1816] And I think a lot of people could learn a lot from that.

[1817] And that's what I try to do in my fights.

[1818] I try to inspire people.

[1819] I want my kids to be that way.

[1820] I think it could bring the world up that way, man. People find something they want, and attack it like a goddamn savage.

[1821] Well, when people see someone that does really go for it, it does inspire them to go for it, too.

[1822] They see the excitement in it.

[1823] They see the response that other people have to that excitement.

[1824] And it just makes them want to up their own life performance in a lot of various ways, you know, not just in fighting, but they might want to up their performance from watching you fight and whatever the fuck they're doing in life.

[1825] And that's, to me, that means more than anything else.

[1826] That's what a lot of people talk about the meaning of life.

[1827] I think I got to figure it out.

[1828] I mean, I think the meaning of life is to give.

[1829] I think that's, if you look in nature, I know you're a big nature buff.

[1830] I mean, that's what everything exists in nature to do.

[1831] That's what a tree grows fruit to give more fruit, right?

[1832] That this is the natural process of the world.

[1833] And humans, a human animal has become too analytical to figure that out.

[1834] Right?

[1835] We think the meaning of life is all these other things because we think about other things.

[1836] But really our entire purpose is to give.

[1837] Hmm.

[1838] I think there's a little.

[1839] lot of purposes in life but I think that is one of them for sure I think giving is that definitely it gives you a sense of meaning and when you help other people you feel better you know that's one thing that I think people are missing out on they think that it should be all about themselves and I'm just about succeeding and getting by my own well even what you just said you know gives you a sense of meaning yeah or makes you feel better yeah so you brought it back to yourself right right and that's what's what I think it's human nature and that's easy but I um I try to get past that where it's not about me. It's not about how I feel about it.

[1840] It's about just giving, you know, I'm completely selfless.

[1841] That's a great way to look at it.

[1842] The way I describe it that way, though, is to enlighten people to this idea that I think people, not enlighten people, but just express my own perspective, that I think people spend too much time thinking about what benefits them.

[1843] and that they don't recognize that the more you benefit other people, that is really what benefits not just those other people, but you as well.

[1844] And that they think of, like, helping people like, yeah, it'd be good to help people, but that's going to fuck me up, because then I'm going to spend less time on my own self.

[1845] But it's not really the case.

[1846] You actually enhance your own experience in life by helping other people.

[1847] As we were talking about before the podcast, right, the abundance mentality.

[1848] Yes.

[1849] And that is specifically the abundance mentality.

[1850] Yeah.

[1851] No, I'm a gigantic believer in generosity, in abundance mentality, and I'm a fucking ferocious opponent of famine thinking.

[1852] I think that famine mentality, it fucks people up so hard.

[1853] You get closed up.

[1854] You get ultra -protective.

[1855] I just think that's a terrible way to live your life.

[1856] And you're living your life with fear.

[1857] And the hard part is implementing.

[1858] it, right?

[1859] Mm -hmm.

[1860] Like, I can see you talk about it all day.

[1861] Like, I don't give enough to, you know what I mean?

[1862] I don't give enough away, that's for sure.

[1863] I've thought about sometimes, like, I think about the crazy shit sometimes, and I was like, like, I think the ultimate, like, coolest thing in life.

[1864] So I have to have money, like, for my kids, unfortunately, right?

[1865] Not unfortunate, but.

[1866] Right.

[1867] Just necessity.

[1868] Yeah, necessity.

[1869] Yeah, necessity.

[1870] Like, that's what the money is about.

[1871] I feel like if I didn't have kids, I would just give literally every dime away, start from bottom and see how many times.

[1872] Because, you know, so there's like certain qualities in people that they're going to succeed no matter what, right?

[1873] And I want to see if I have those qualities, right?

[1874] So I want to give everything away.

[1875] Well, I'll fix that right now.

[1876] You definitely do.

[1877] Listen, man, you could do whatever the fuck you want in this life.

[1878] But I feel like a guy like you in particular, especially right now when you're on this fighting journey and you're still on it.

[1879] I think what you give the most is through the best possible performance that you give.

[1880] And when you have these wild, crazy performances like the Diego Sanchez fight, that shit inspires the fuck out of people.

[1881] I mean, how many people watch that fight and just wanted to go run mountains and just get crazy?

[1882] It's just...

[1883] Man, that's cool you bring that up because, I mean, I never even thought of it that way.

[1884] Like, I always see it, again, I always bring it back to myself, and I see it as an expression of my own art of myself.

[1885] You're a public performer.

[1886] You're not just an athlete, you're not just a fighter, but you're also a public performer and an inspirational figure.

[1887] And when you are doing your best, that gives a lot to people.

[1888] I mean, how many people have watched great athletic performances and it's given them the fuel and the inspiration and do great things in their own life?

[1889] Man, that's cool you say that, yeah, because, man, I might inspire me to fight a little longer, you know?

[1890] You were ready to retire after the Diego fight.

[1891] That was supposed to be your swan song.

[1892] Was it just too sweet?

[1893] No, no, no. It had nothing to do with the performance, actually.

[1894] So I think when we started the podcast, I was kind of talking about the why and the how a little bit, right?

[1895] And this is where I think I got a little confused was I think, I mean, for one, I was questioning a lot of things.

[1896] I got knocked out by Cowboy viciously.

[1897] The worst, I've never been knocked out of my life.

[1898] I mean, and it wasn't too long after I just got dropped hard by.

[1899] Ellenberger, which was the first time my life had ever been dropped in sparring or anything.

[1900] I'd never been dropped.

[1901] So I started just kind of questioning, you know, what, what am I doing?

[1902] Okay, well, how?

[1903] And the first thing I went to was how do I not make that happen again?

[1904] So that gets very exhausting when you just like, how, how, how, right?

[1905] Right.

[1906] And I think through the Diego camp, because, again, I announced a retirement long, you know, very early in the camp, like 12 weeks out or something like that.

[1907] Through the camp, man, everything went so well.

[1908] I focused more on my own mind, and a lot of these things we're talking about, and I started getting back into the why, and I started bringing a lot more clarity to that side of things.

[1909] Now I know why I'm doing what I'm doing.

[1910] I feel much more comfortable, and now it doesn't matter on the performance anymore.

[1911] Now it's about truly going out there and performing the best that I can.

[1912] And then the second part of the whole thing is that, you know, I was very scared of retirement.

[1913] I was very, very nervous to be thinking, like, what am I going to do?

[1914] Right.

[1915] Like, how am I going to feed my kids?

[1916] And fortunately, you know, I was able to, I realized once I announced it and then after the fight, I mean, just a plethora of opportunities.

[1917] And muscle farms probably been my best opportunity.

[1918] And that's why, you know, I bring them up a lot, you know, because they've helped me so much.

[1919] And I think we're going to do amazing things there, whether I retire or not.

[1920] not and I think it's going to be a big beautiful thing what do you do for them specifically um so i'm kind of tasked with building the fight team and bringing um the athletes and and communicate with athletes and um you know just making it a solid program there um whether i'm the coach or not it doesn't even matter but you know i want to make a a great program and make sure that you know the facilities being used properly and bring in different athletes.

[1921] And that would be kind of the first step.

[1922] And then beyond that, I mean, the opportunities are in this.

[1923] I can do a lot of different things with it.

[1924] So what was the thought process that was it immediately after the Diego Sanchez fight?

[1925] Because I talked to you in Denver.

[1926] When you came to my show at the Belko, I called you up.

[1927] We were talking and you said, I'm not really sure I'm done.

[1928] And I was like, what's going on, man?

[1929] So I don't remember the exact date of that, but that was probably, you know, I said the retirement.

[1930] And then again, like the camp just started going amazing.

[1931] And again, the why I came back, man. I knew why I was doing what I was doing.

[1932] Like, I was enjoying my time at the gym again.

[1933] When weren't you enjoying it?

[1934] There's been a lot of times.

[1935] What do you think?

[1936] You know, my, man, I've been around and I've had a lot of different coaches.

[1937] And that's my biggest, if I had a regret in my career, I said I wasn't as loyal to one sort of system as I should have been.

[1938] And I have a term for it now, I call it the unicorn fallacy where you're constantly chasing the unicorn that doesn't exist, right?

[1939] Or some people, I've heard other people call it like the greener grass syndrome.

[1940] You know, the grass isn't always greener on their side, right?

[1941] And that would, if I had a complaint about myself or if you want to call it a regret, like that's my problem.

[1942] Like I'm always like, dude, I just need to go over here and I'll get better because I'm always searching that how, right?

[1943] And I forgot the why.

[1944] So, you know, so again, you know, this is, I think a lot of.

[1945] fighters probably also go through this where where i mean it's hard what we do there's a lot of pressure on our shoulders there's a lot of um um especially with a family i got three kids you know it's like i mean i got knocked out in front of my three kids like they were at the fight you know i mean like i like i had a uh i think they were i don't even remember because i was fucking knocked out you know like like i don't remember anything until i was waking up at the hospital you know and dwayne was sitting there you know what i mean so like i mean looking back like i don't even remember all this stuff and uh it's funny because i've seen videos like you know raising cowboys hand like i don't even remember seeing that like i'm uh somebody told me that you know we were talking backstage i seen a video i should say uh was talking back so i don't remember not right so things like that uh you know it's like you know is this shit worth it you know right right i mean um you know and just a lot of internal struggles right um and again you know the the camp i had with Diego, man, everything, just all the pieces fell into place.

[1946] And I was like, dude, if I can do this every time, I could do this for a long time, and I could smash a lot of people.

[1947] So that's where you're at right now?

[1948] Yeah.

[1949] So you were reinvigorated.

[1950] Reinvigorated.

[1951] That's interesting.

[1952] So this long career, so many great fights, and you're still, like, fine in your place.

[1953] To be honest, I think I'm fucking hungry than I ever was.

[1954] Wow.

[1955] Man, I was like, because of, like, a lot of stuff we're talking about today, it just wasn't clear, you know what I mean?

[1956] It was just a, a scatterbrain like again it was all about the how you know like I was I think I was like kind of hyper focused on that like how do I get stronger how do I get faster how do I throw a better punch how do I you know analyze this guy and how do I beat him and you know it's just constant how and then you forget like why are you doing this anyway right you know some and then I mean like I said it's just a it's not an easy sport anyway I mean it's probably the hardest sport that existed I don't think there's anything harder Yeah.

[1957] I can't imagine what's harder other than actual war.

[1958] Yeah, right?

[1959] I mean, maybe police officer, firemen, actual war, fucking trauma surgeon.

[1960] Even them, I mean, it's harder in different ways, right?

[1961] Yeah, harder in different ways.

[1962] Yeah, it's one of the most pressure -filled athletic opportunities that a person can ever be involved in.

[1963] Sorry, go ahead.

[1964] I was just saying, you know, the hard thing is this is all I've done.

[1965] I've got I'm all in you know from the beginning like I never gave myself an out and I think that's important to do also um a lot of the guys that have outs I mean I watch shark tank all the time and you see you know these guys if they haven't out yeah the you know Kevin O 'Leary whatever is like like you know fuck you I'm not it's like yeah rich kids don't grow up to be world championship fighters except for BJ Penn yeah right he's just a fucking animal but yeah he grew up in Hawaii is a different place like you're stuck on an island with a bunch of motherfuckers who want to kick your ass like it's do or die in hawai right right hawaii is a underappreciated place for tough motherfuckers you know i have to go there my wife wants to get never been i i went there once i'd live there i'd live there i'd live on the big island yeah fuck yeah i could live there yeah you wouldn't get an island what i call it island sick nope if i did i get on a plane it's people are awesome there man it's just a different more relaxed more um i don't know they're just more chill they say Costa Rica is a place to go.

[1966] Costa Rica's pretty badass.

[1967] They say it's the best place to retire.

[1968] Yeah?

[1969] That's what I've heard, because it's like $1 ,000 a month you can live well or something.

[1970] Yeah, Mel Gibson's got a fat spread there.

[1971] He's telling me he's got like 500 acres down there.

[1972] Nice.

[1973] That was a cool podcast with Mel Gibson.

[1974] He's an interesting cat, huh?

[1975] Here's my impression of Mel Gibson.

[1976] He just kept clicking the fucking pen.

[1977] He just kept clicking the pen and I didn't want to say anything.

[1978] I was like, what do I say?

[1979] Stop clicking the pen, Mel.

[1980] I was in a way.

[1981] I kind of went to hear you interview him a little bit.

[1982] It was like all the stem cell guy.

[1983] Well, he wanted to come on and talk about stem cells.

[1984] That's really what he wanted to talk about.

[1985] And so I honored that.

[1986] I said, all right, man. You know, that's what you want to talk about?

[1987] You think he's your biggest guest that you ever had?

[1988] It's pretty fucking famous.

[1989] James Hetfield.

[1990] He's pretty fucking famous, too.

[1991] I mean, I don't know.

[1992] They're up there.

[1993] Who else?

[1994] Alex Jones?

[1995] He's the biggest, the most downloads.

[1996] Alex beat everybody by a fuckload.

[1997] Yeah, man. It was interesting.

[1998] So here's my theory on Alex Jones.

[1999] Uh -oh.

[2000] Just if you want to go there.

[2001] Okay.

[2002] I love going there.

[2003] So I think he's a government plot.

[2004] He's not.

[2005] I'll tell you that for sure.

[2006] I've known him forever.

[2007] I've known Alex since 1998.

[2008] He's not a government plot.

[2009] He couldn't tell you because you would tell everybody.

[2010] He's not.

[2011] I've hung out with that guy.

[2012] I get high with him.

[2013] He's a fun dude.

[2014] He is a guy.

[2015] who started out as a guy who was against the president.

[2016] He was against George W. Bush.

[2017] Okay.

[2018] I don't even think he was running for president at the time, right?

[2019] Or was he?

[2020] When did Bush become?

[2021] No, Clinton was president.

[2022] Yeah, Clinton was president.

[2023] George W. was the governor of Texas.

[2024] And he was getting arrested for protesting against them, protesting against the global elitists and all these different things.

[2025] He didn't really become a supporter of, any form of government until trump i mean trump is like the first guy and he may or may not be getting played by trump or you know trump's his buddy and i mean trump is a he's a slick guy in terms of how he uh cultivates influence he's an anomaly for sure right so he's an interesting character in a lot of ways i mean if it wasn't okay so shoot down my theory completely let me it's just a theory i'm not i'm not i'm not promulgated this factoring but i've always thought that alice jones was was built by the government to make conspiracy theorists look like loons he didn't used to make them look like loons no no he was much more uh much started with 9 -11 though right no no alice is around way before 9 -11 he started with waco but that's when he came to prominence right because he was the first to no even before then man you know but nobody cared about him before he was on a .m. radio before then right but he's been around forever.

[2026] I mean, like I said, I met him in 98.

[2027] I met him in 98, so it was several years before 2001, and he was doing the same shit back then.

[2028] I mean, he's always been around doing that.

[2029] He's right about a lot of shit, and that's what's so confusing.

[2030] Like, he is absolutely right about what they call agent provocateurs, where the government will send in people.

[2031] If they have a peaceful protest, it's very inconvenient for them, like the WTO.

[2032] He did this whole video about how the WTO was that in Vancouver or Seattle where was the WTO I forget where it was it was somewhere in the Pacific Northwest I'm confused but I'm not confused about the story so what happened was they had these peaceful protests against the World Trade Organization and it was very inconvenient because all these world leaders were coming to this area for this meeting and they sent in government agents that were dressed with black ski masks and a government issue boots and these people started smashing windows and lighting things on fire, they turned into a violent protest, which enabled the police to close in and shut down the protest.

[2033] Your WTO protest, where did it say, Alex Jones, police take to the takeover.

[2034] Seattle?

[2035] Yeah, well, Seattle.

[2036] So they, this is a real tactic that governments and intelligence agencies use.

[2037] They have a peaceful protest, and then they have these people like these guys, dressed in black ski masks, they start tipping over.

[2038] newspapers.

[2039] Like, it doesn't even make any sense.

[2040] Like, why are they doing this?

[2041] So this is confirmed that they're government agents?

[2042] Meanwhile, these guys have government -issue boots.

[2043] No, it goes further.

[2044] So these guys all got together at the end, and they were cordoned off into a building, and then they were ultimately released.

[2045] They were never charged.

[2046] They were never arrested.

[2047] I mean, the whole thing is incredibly fascinating.

[2048] And some of them have been identified as government agents, and Alex can get way more into details.

[2049] about it.

[2050] That's why, you know, I'm not a conspiracy theory, so to speak, but the one thing I always say is I don't put anything past our government.

[2051] There's absolutely been conspiracies that are real.

[2052] For sure.

[2053] Whether it's the Gulf of Tonkin incident, whether it's Operation Northwoods, there's been, and I'm sure there's been a bunch that we don't know about.

[2054] I believe that the government assassinated, or somebody assassinated JFK.

[2055] I don't think it was Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone.

[2056] I think it's very possible Lee Harvey Oswald was a part of it, but but I know too much about bullets to think that that fucking bullet went through two people and wound up on Connelly's gurney in the hospital looking pristine.

[2057] Cut the shit.

[2058] That's all, I don't think that's real at all.

[2059] Nice, nice.

[2060] I've seen this as a pruder film.

[2061] I've read several books on the story.

[2062] I just, I think it's very convenient to lump all that into one guy with one bullet.

[2063] I think it's horseshit.

[2064] And I think they probably killed them.

[2065] All right.

[2066] So I was I was looking into a little bit You know and then I'm like You know what?

[2067] The government probably did this shit Whatever They probably did a lot of shit They probably did a lot of shit That we don't know about That we're not aware of But this is how governments work They've always worked like that Is that intelligence agencies work?

[2068] I'd say the smart criminals go to politics The dumb criminals go to jail Yeah Right There's a lot of that Definitely a lot of that I mean or You know the most criminally insane people in this world are attracted to politics.

[2069] I think what's going to fix human beings, and this is a radical idea, but I really think the same thing that's going to fix human beings is what is, in a lot of ways, disrupting the standards of our culture right now with the internet.

[2070] I think technology is going to fix human beings, because I think what technology is going to do is eventually there's going to be a way to absolutely detect whether or not someone's telling the truth.

[2071] I think it's inevitable I think as we Fuck up a lot of people's lives It's going to fuck up a lot of people's lives And it's going to enhance most of our lives And I think people like you And people like me who tell the truth It's going to be very good for you Because I think There's I think when you lie It doesn't just fuck up The person that you're lying to I think it fucks you up I think it fucks up discourse It fucks up culture I think it fucks up human beings It fucks up our communities it's just it's a it's an anomaly it's a thing that people have been able to figure out how to do where you've been able to say things that aren't accurate to convince someone of a reality that doesn't exist i guess where i think it gets hard though is the politicians specifically are so good at not really lying but like you know they're right on that gray area where they don't they're not that's but that's also because you can lie so like a guy like trump who's been busted lying a million times and still is an office.

[2072] Which probably every president.

[2073] Yes, for sure.

[2074] I don't think he's for sure.

[2075] Obama's been busted lying too.

[2076] I don't think he's unique in that.

[2077] Well, he's unique in his propensity for it.

[2078] I mean, he loves it.

[2079] He's a good, I mean, he's been lying forever.

[2080] But I think that without a doubt, there's going to be a time in the future, whether it's in our lifetimes or after, where they develop technology that's going to absolutely allow you to detect whether or not someone's telling the truth.

[2081] That's intense.

[2082] Yeah, I think it's going to be the future.

[2083] And I think when that happens, people are just not going to accept all the shit that we've accepted for so many years.

[2084] I think it'd be an app on the phone.

[2085] I think it's probably going to be something that you wear in your body.

[2086] I think we're real close to that.

[2087] I think we're real close to embedded chips that you wear in your body.

[2088] And I think those chips are probably going to interface wirelessly.

[2089] And you're just going to be able to read thoughts and ideas that come from people that are going to come in probably a new life.

[2090] language i think we're going to be able to develop a universal language like don't a lot of uh religious people say it's a mark of the beast right oh that's isn't that like a birth mark or something shit like what are the religious people thing like a chip inside your bodies so i was raised in an ultra religious uh thing in environment right my mom was it was extremely religious and i don't they talked they did or so no no they um you know they're very fundamental um you know they're very You know, my brother could go way deeper into what they were about.

[2091] I never even paid attention.

[2092] But I remember them talking about, like, the mark of the beast in there.

[2093] Like, it's going to be something implanted in you.

[2094] And if you take it, then you're going to hell.

[2095] And if you don't take it, you know, or something like that.

[2096] Maybe they're just planning ahead.

[2097] They want to keep lying.

[2098] We've got to plan ahead because these chips are coming.

[2099] They were certainly lying to me, but.

[2100] I think there's going to be a language, a universal language, they figure out how to teach to children.

[2101] I'd be fascinating.

[2102] Starting with children, because children learn languages very easily, and if they develop a universal language that is somehow another, either translated through computers, because, you know, they have a thing now, these Google earbuds that you use with a pixel two phone.

[2103] So if you were talking to me in Spanish, I would hear the translation of what you said in English in my ears.

[2104] That's fucking amazing.

[2105] When I saw that, I was like, how is nobody noticing that this is step one?

[2106] This is step one of a universal language.

[2107] Yeah, yeah.

[2108] The translation, like, to English is fascinating, but I think ultimately we're going to be able to figure out how to communicate with everybody with a new language.

[2109] And this is not hard to, I mean, it's obviously not easy, but it's not impossible to develop a new language, like a universal language that's accepted by everybody.

[2110] Yeah, I used to, I have a Brazilian friend that comes up to my house sometimes, and we put the Google Translate thing just write it.

[2111] between us and you can talk and it detects which language and wow isn't that crazy yeah that's crazy so it knows which language like you don't know who's talking without even you don't have earphones or nothing it'll just say it out loud yeah that's amazing not i mean it's not 100 % accurate sometimes you have to so i think this is one step and then i think the next step is going to be some sort of a way to detect whether or not people are lying and then another step is going to be more enhanced communication and then another step after that is going to be some sort of telekinetic or some sort of communication without verbalizing without words fuck i think all that's coming i'll just be out in the woods yeah you all do your thing i'm gonna hang out here it might be the best way to live i mean that's how i want to live i mean my my wife is a more of a city person sort of i mean got to get a weekend spot in evergreen or something dude i want to yeah supposed to do a thing with uh what's his name um uh Denver work oh yeah the Navy SEAL he's doing like a campfire thing I'm supposed to do that next couple weeks I was just chatting with him yesterday we were texting each other yeah about the campfire thing no he's about he's gonna come on do the podcast whenever he's in town we're just trying to figure out of time yeah I was texting with him on a twitter he's doing I guess it's called like a campfire session so you go out there and hang out this campfire and he just tell stories yeah he's a fascinating guy he's been on my friend Steve's television show uh meat eater okay he's been on that yeah yeah he's a fascinating A fascinating, intense guy.

[2112] Nice.

[2113] Yeah.

[2114] I wanted to bring my kids, but I don't know.

[2115] He's even...

[2116] He's a great guy.

[2117] I mean, I'm sure you could bring your kids.

[2118] But I think any time you could get a place where you get away, where you can get to nature, to see the real stars at night and have a campfire.

[2119] It's just reinvigorating.

[2120] It's just great for you.

[2121] Man, did you see the eclipse?

[2122] No. I looked a little bit in my backyard, but I almost burn my eyes.

[2123] I don't have the right goggles.

[2124] I try to put two sunglasses on the shelves like that don't work.

[2125] That was like probably the deepest nature.

[2126] Well, my wife, her family is up in Vermont, so we get us a pretty deep nature up there.

[2127] But we were up in this place in Wyoming where, I mean, there was a million people there that weekend, but I don't think, you know, there's probably not a hundred people within, you know, 100 miles.

[2128] Right, right, right.

[2129] And, man, that was the first time I ever looked up in the sky and could see the Milky Way, though.

[2130] Oh, you know what you got to do?

[2131] If you go to Hawaii, you got to plan it for when there's no moon and go to the Kek.

[2132] Observatory.

[2133] There's a Keck Observatory on the Big Island.

[2134] Fuck, man. Because the Big Island is designed.

[2135] They have the lighting system.

[2136] Yeah, it is darker, but they have the lighting system designed in the big island to have diffused lighting on the street lamps.

[2137] What that means is that the light doesn't disperse into the sky.

[2138] Yeah.

[2139] And so when you go up to the Keck Observatory, man, you see everything.

[2140] It blew me away.

[2141] I saw it.

[2142] Yeah, that's what it looks like.

[2143] Like legitimately what it looks like.

[2144] Like you go up there and you look up, you're like, Holy shit.

[2145] Because it's so high.

[2146] I think it's 13 ,000 feet above sea level.

[2147] Oh, wow.

[2148] You go up there and...

[2149] I didn't know they had mountains that big up there.

[2150] Oh, yeah, they do on the Big Island.

[2151] The Big Island has...

[2152] They have a bunch of different ecosystems up there.

[2153] They have a rainforest, they have a desert, they have mountain ranges, they have lava.

[2154] But it changed my life and I'm not bullshitting.

[2155] It's like a psychedelic experience.

[2156] When I went up there and saw the stars like that, I was like, oh, I don't even...

[2157] I mean, if there's something to make you feel like a tiny fucking spec, you feel like you're on a spaceship.

[2158] You feel like you're on a spaceship flying through the universe.

[2159] That's how I felt when I was in Wyoming.

[2160] I mean, in that eclipse, obviously, blew me away, too.

[2161] You don't realize how many stars are up there and how much our streetlights are fucking us over.

[2162] Because it's changing the way you view the cosmos itself.

[2163] It's changing your relationship that you have with infinity, with the universe.

[2164] I mean, it's changing it because it's dull.

[2165] our perceptions by limiting all of this spectacular light and these stars that we the milky way like this whole thing there's a reason why it gives you this sense of awe like it's a perspective enhancer it gives you this view of something that's impossibly beautiful and also impossibly huge and it just puts it all in perspective i think i mean that's why people are so cocky in cities they're just they're missing that they're missing this re this reality check and And the weird part is like, that's small.

[2166] Yeah, they're all shit.

[2167] Like, this is actually, the Milky Way is like a small galaxy, right?

[2168] Yeah, it's nothing.

[2169] Yeah.

[2170] It's one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known universe.

[2171] Yeah, and there's not aliens, right?

[2172] Well, I was talking, I did Neil DeGrasse Tyson's TV show a couple of days ago, and he was telling me that it's the most likely scenario is that we live in multiverses, and that our universe, which is impossibly large, is one of an infinite number of universes.

[2173] that are all in these, like, bubbles.

[2174] Can you explain that?

[2175] Nope.

[2176] He said it to me, and I was like, wait, what?

[2177] Like, is this...

[2178] I mean, you kind of got to just take his word, right?

[2179] Googled it, and this is his images that pop up.

[2180] You kind of got to just trust him on that one, right?

[2181] Well, whenever he says something, I kind of got to just trust him.

[2182] Like, you're the expert, bro.

[2183] Anytime I talk to astrophysicists, I just try to probe as much as possible and just trust them.

[2184] Yeah, you can't argue with them about it, right?

[2185] But the idea is that, like, how we have a planet, and the planet's a part of a solar system, and the solar system is a part of a galaxy, and the galaxy is a part of the universe.

[2186] The universe is a part of a multiverse.

[2187] And then it's just as, there's a fractal nature to it all, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

[2188] And the idea that's multiverse is that there's infinite number of different universes.

[2189] Now, did he say that's, you know, theoretically the most likely, or that's, there's some sort of evidence, or there's some reason to believe it outside.

[2190] Because my biggest thing is we have all these theories for all this shit.

[2191] You know, Big Bang, God, whatever, you know, however far the universe is.

[2192] But can our minds really even wrap around what, you know, the reality probably actually is?

[2193] Our minds may not even be able to conceive the reality of this.

[2194] You know what I mean?

[2195] Right.

[2196] It may be beyond our imagination.

[2197] Well, yeah, our imagination is kind of limited to the things we're supposed to be experiencing what we're here.

[2198] You know, we could abstractly think about things outside of that.

[2199] But even when someone says to you, like, 100 billion stars, you're like, wow, it's a lot.

[2200] But that number's not even getting in my head, even after I said it.

[2201] Like, I don't know what that means.

[2202] What does that even mean?

[2203] They say there's more stars than grains of sand on the earth.

[2204] I mean, that's what blows me away.

[2205] I mean, you just look at a jar of sand.

[2206] Yeah, those are giant balls of fire, maybe more than a million times bigger than Earth.

[2207] It's just floating in the sky.

[2208] So we could see at the eclipse, they had a little observatory, like all the colleges and stuff were there where we were at.

[2209] And you could see, you'd come back in like 10 minutes, and every 10 minutes come back and look through just one telescope, and you could see a star going around a star.

[2210] Wow.

[2211] That was fucking cool.

[2212] Yeah, I read something yesterday that Pluto is so far away that when the time they discovered it in 1930, it still hasn't made a complete orbit around the sun.

[2213] Oh, shit.

[2214] How long does it take to orbit?

[2215] I don't know.

[2216] By a long time.

[2217] Long fucking time.

[2218] The funniest part is the kids are sitting there and they're like, oh, yeah, that's cool.

[2219] Can we get some fucking marshmallows or what?

[2220] I need to play video games.

[2221] Pluto's unusual orbit takes 248 Earth years for Pluto to complete one orbit around the sun.

[2222] Its orbital path doesn't lie in the same plane as the eight planets, but is inclined at an angle of 17 degrees.

[2223] And it's not even a planet anymore.

[2224] Hmm.

[2225] Yeah, mind fucker.

[2226] There it goes.

[2227] How about Elon Musk?

[2228] That crazy asshole shot a fucking Tesla up in the space yesterday with a mannequin on board, singing a David Bowie song.

[2229] Oh, the other people on board?

[2230] No, a mannequin.

[2231] Oh, I thought there was real people.

[2232] No, a dude sitting in a Tesla roadster that's like a mannequin, like it looks like a dude, and he's there.

[2233] That's what it looks like.

[2234] Yeah.

[2235] Is this live right now?

[2236] You can see it?

[2237] Yeah, the song's on a billion -time loop.

[2238] It's going to play for a billion years.

[2239] Well, how is it possible?

[2240] How does he have the battery for the song to keep playing?

[2241] He's got some sun in it.

[2242] He's lying.

[2243] He's lying.

[2244] The guy's lying, man. These batteries run out of, they go, you go 248 miles, that car runs out of gas.

[2245] I'm sure he explained it.

[2246] Wait, I thought, um, dude, I thought he sent actual fucking rockets.

[2247] Yeah, there was an actual rocket, and a Tesla roadster with a mannequin in it was attached to the rocket.

[2248] So at the very apex of this rocket as, you know, these multi -stage rockets, they pop this bitch out and it goes flying through space he shot a fucking car into space like imagine aliens coming to earth and they's and this is like the first thing they found like what the fuck is this is that a person?

[2249] No. There's like the richest craziest guy one of the richest craziest guys on earth one of the smartest guys he just launches cars into space for a goof they're like these people are assholes you see a lot of rich people that maybe they just want to get richer they just want to get richer or something right thing This dude's, how much money is he blowing on this shit?

[2250] It's his main on earth by humans.

[2251] I think he blew $100 million to do this.

[2252] Click on that link of the image of the Tesla with the earth behind it.

[2253] Yeah.

[2254] It's CGI, bro.

[2255] The earth is flat, man. I mean, that is just, what a crazy image.

[2256] Dude, I want to hear, I never talked to Eddie about that.

[2257] I want to hear his real theory on that.

[2258] Eddie Bravo.

[2259] Don't talk to him about it.

[2260] Dude, I want to hear it.

[2261] They'll change the way you think.

[2262] It's got to change now.

[2263] This whole video of this going from the bottom to the top.

[2264] No, it's not based in reality, man. It's not based in logic or reason.

[2265] He has no logic behind it?

[2266] He wants to think the earth's flat.

[2267] He's like, you don't know.

[2268] He doesn't trust science.

[2269] Doesn't trust scientists.

[2270] Doesn't trust anybody.

[2271] I mean, I get that, but you've got to have some logic still to back it up, right?

[2272] You know what?

[2273] One of the things that makes Eddie so good at Jiu -Jitsu is he has an idea to get a move on you, and he's fucking completely locked on that idea.

[2274] And everything that's trying to shut that down is just like, He needs to come up with a defense for that.

[2275] He's going to find a way.

[2276] That's how he looks at ideas as well.

[2277] So if he has an idea that the earth is flat or that there's lizard people that live under the ground, like it's like you got to prove, I don't know.

[2278] You got to prove that that's not real to him.

[2279] And if you can't prove that that that's not real.

[2280] And you say, well, look at these pictures.

[2281] Oh, that's bullshit.

[2282] They fake it.

[2283] They fake the moon landing six times.

[2284] Yeah, you got to give me more than that.

[2285] I wanted to hear his actual argument, but I didn't know.

[2286] Sit down with him.

[2287] I'll film it.

[2288] I want to.

[2289] I'll turn the camera on and I'll leave.

[2290] the room.

[2291] I went to his gym a couple weeks ago and I'd always heard that he talks a lot at his gym or kind of goes on about different conspiracies.

[2292] Things like that.

[2293] Yeah.

[2294] Yeah.

[2295] And I was totally prepared.

[2296] I was like, fuck yeah, let's go hear it.

[2297] He didn't do anything.

[2298] He didn't barely even talk.

[2299] We just rolled the whole time.

[2300] He was probably happy you were there.

[2301] I wanted to show you some jihitsu.

[2302] Like he's a jihitsu wizard.

[2303] He did.

[2304] He showed me some good jihitsu.

[2305] He just, I like his system.

[2306] It's an intense system.

[2307] And, you know, the moves I only know so much.

[2308] But the the concept of what do we do at 99 % of jujitsu classes you go practice some new technique you probably never did before and then you start rolling and then you roll yeah and his when we went there we you know we drilled drilled drilled and this reminded me much more of like a wrestling style practice and i liked it a lot yeah in that terms well that's why he that's why he designed it that way he's a real jihitsu genius he really is yeah you know i mean the the conspiracy thing i think enjoys it he loves them he loves it he loves he's always sending me crazy shit i'm afraid i'll love it too much like once i actually have the time it's a giant distraction if you think instagram is a distraction go go try to that's the problem i mean you can't like you there's no website maybe there should be where you can just go on and say okay this is what this side believes about it this is what this side believes about it and you make up your own mind you got to dig through fucking info wars every time and of course like if If you try to tell someone, I'm like, dude, it's true.

[2309] It's set it on InfoWars.

[2310] They're like, okay, you're full of shit.

[2311] There's a few websites like that, right?

[2312] Like the Daily Mail.

[2313] You read on the Daily Mail, you go, like that.

[2314] Like the radar or something like that.

[2315] There's a bunch of them.

[2316] There's a bunch of weird ones.

[2317] Matt Brown, I got to wrap this up.

[2318] I got to get the fuck out of it.

[2319] But listen, man, I appreciate your time.

[2320] I appreciate you being here.

[2321] It's a pleasure.

[2322] It's an honor.

[2323] When are you fighting, Carlos Condit?

[2324] April 14th.

[2325] Ooh.

[2326] April 14th, Motherfuckers.

[2327] Tune in.

[2328] And it's I Am the Immortal on Instagram, right?

[2329] Yeah.

[2330] And what's your Twitter?

[2331] Same.

[2332] Same.

[2333] All right.

[2334] Same.

[2335] I am the immortal and then immortalcombattecuitment .com .com .commit .com.

[2336] Thank you.

[2337] It's a pleasure.

[2338] Thank you.