Corey Sandhagen's Spectacular Flying Knee KO Over Frankie Edgar

That knee you landed on, Frank, it was crazy. I was by myself watching TV and I screamed out loud. It was one of those, OWWW! That's a common thing in my house. People are like, are you okay? I'm like, watching the fights. That was a nasty one. Dude, it was so perfect. You timed it so perfect. He wasn't doing any of the hitting the brakes. Everything he was doing was just forward. Forward, forward. He threw a kick forward. He threw a combination forward. I was like, this guy's not hitting the brakes at all. I was like, just throw something into that space that he was going to step into. He couldn't have been more perfect. Yeah. He was right before he threw a punch. Everything. Two wicked KOs in a row like that over two top guys. You must be feeling right now that you're on a whole new level. I'm trying not to feel too good. Because that demon will tell you, hey, you're good enough, man. You're good enough. Write it out. I do feel good though. I feel like I think it's been noticeable, the demeanor that I go into the cage with. It's noticeable in my brain too. When I'm walking into the cage, I'm ready to hurt someone. I'm ready to snap and get that 10 weeks of thinking about it out of me. I'm super happy with it. I feel like it's its own ability to figure out where you best perform. You don't learn that unless you have a loss or you get lucky and you get to win a fight. I had to lose and that's how you learn that stuff. I really feel, man, when I'm in the back in that space, I feel 100% completely untouchable. That's something that is very, very different than when I was fighting before. I'm walking into the cage now feeling 100% untouchable. Do you attribute this to the work with the mental coach as well as just you realizing that you were flat in the Algemain fight? Yep. Just realizing where I do best. Just realizing where I do best. I would love to because I'm a calm dude. I'm a relaxed guy. I don't get too high or too low about anything. It'd be nice if I could perform at that level. But that's not the case for me. That's why I do it before sparring is I'll make sure no matter how tired I am, regardless of what's going on, if I'm injured, if I'm over trained, whatever it is, when it's sparring day, I'm making sure that I get myself to that same place. Obviously not intense enough to where I'm going to hurt my training partners, but I'm making sure that I can replicate that head space regardless of the situation. You said something after the fight when you were talking to Laura Senko. No, it was Andrea. Whoever it was. That person. You said some people go in there and they're looking to compete. They like to compete. And that's what they're doing. You go there. You're trying to hurt people. That's what I'm doing now. It was really uncomfortable for me because I like Hinduism. I like Eastern philosophy. I like the idea of Buddhism and being really peaceful and having a Zen mind and not wanting anything and being really free from all the suffering of the world and trying to get there. And that was kind of my philosophy up until I was choked out by Sterling and opened up my eyes and I hear him running around and celebrating and I was like, fuck that. Fuck that. Everyone that I go into a fight now with, I'm really trying to hurt. I want to be the guy that's running around the cage and they're opening up their eyes. And I didn't. It's a different type of space to be in and it takes a lot of practice, especially for someone like me who isn't naturally like that. But that's the game that we're in and that's what I'm trying to do now. How important is a law sometimes? Super important. It's a reminder. And like you said, I was just too comfortable. I was too laid back. I needed to remember how dangerous this sport is. And that's one of the main things I took from that loss is that we're not playing soccer. Don't walk into that fight not ready to go. It's also a lesson, right? Failure is so good for you because when you fail, it sucks and it feels terrible. But if you needed motivation, well, there it is. That's the best form of motivation. People would love to get motivation in a totally positive way where it's elective. I've decided to be motivated. I'm going to be positive. And that's wonderful. But my goodness, the injection that you get from a loss or from just straight up failure where you're like, oh my God, I'm a loser. Yeah. Yeah. The feeling it's so bad. You're literally the same person you were before that moment. But now you fucking hate yourself. You hate everything. You feel terrible. You can't sleep. You get up to take a piss and you can't stop thinking about it. You're like, fuck. You just feel so bad. You nailed it. But that feeling is worth a fucking billion dollars. It's so valuable. I wish. I wish I could win fights and feel like I lost every single time. I wish I had that like that type of superpower. I wish I could do that. Do you think you could talk yourself into that? Is it like the feeling that you got after the Aljameen fight? Can you think you can like bring yourself back to that state? Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. If I sit and think about it long enough, which I sometimes, you know, like, and not not because of that fight, but just all of the shitty things like you said that happened after a loss man. Like all the shitty conversations you have to have with people. Oh my God. Like the shitty looks you get from people. What do you think went wrong? Yeah. Hey man, uh, you'll get it next time. It's like, no man, like this is my existence, bro. You'll get it next time. Yeah. You had non competitors that want to talk to you about your losses. No, I hate it. Look on the bright side. Yeah. You got your health. Yeah. In that moment, there's no bright side. And that's something that every athlete I think has to come to grips with. During losses, there's, there's no upside. No. It's just, this is your look, sometimes you're the hammer, sometimes you're the nail and you don't get the good without the bad. The reason why the good is so fucking amazing is because you felt the bad. Yeah. If you're just this guy just stormed your way to the top with no adversity whatsoever, you probably wouldn't enjoy it as much. No. And that, uh, that emotional pain, I think it is worse than physical pain. And, uh, I remember after the first time I lost, I had like my own existential crisis a little bit where I had to, you know, venture off and really question like who I was as a person where I, where I was putting a lot of my identity just because that shit hurts so bad, man. And, uh, I remember like, if I keep doing this, it might happen again, you know, and I had to, I had to like sit with that a little bit. And I was like, and you might not even get what you want out of this. And then I was like, damn, and then I had to sit with that. And then I was like, and then I, but I'm really grateful for that because that was the real moment in my life where I was like, martial arts is, is my path. You know, like that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm doing. Uh, I remember having the very lucid thought of like when I was having those feelings of like, uh, this could happen again. You might not ever get into the UFC. You could be doing this and win some loose, some and be a loser until you're 35 40, you know, and in my head, I was like, okay, you know, I'll sleep in a box. I'll be a loser. You know, as long as I get to do this with my life, like I'll be that loser. And kind of since then, that's when I was like, oh, I actually love this.