Jon Jones Introduced Kamaru Usman to the UFC | Joe Rogan

And we're live what's up? How are you? What's up Joe? Dude, you're a roller coaster ride. What is it like to be the champ? Oh, what's the feeling like? This is fresh for you Oh, well, first of all, I just want to say man. It's such an honor to be here The honors mine. I never I'm gonna be honest. I'm I'm my thing is I'm just gonna be 100% totally Transparent I was never I never really watched the show. I never really kind of heard of the show Of course, I heard of you and all the things you do. I'm like, oh, yeah, it's fair factor guy, you know but I never really heard of the show until like after like a fight or two in the UFC and people are like tagging me and shit like Yo, Joe Rogan's talking about it. Joe Rong had talked about you in pocket I'm like fucking podcast cuz I never listen to pockets at the time was like What are you talking about till I finally started listening? Oh this dude is for real This dude got some some some poor you got some people watching this shit random people would tag me Oh Joe was talking about you today on the podcast. I'm like, oh man, this guy's for real And then every time after that that I see you I'm like sub Joe Yeah, we've been talking about you for a long time and we were just with your friend out there We're watching a video of us talking about you back when you were ranked number 12 And I was saying I think you could fight for the title right now. Yeah, man that And I like to attest it to I think because I went back once I started kind of researching I like to go back and do a little research and I'm like fucking Joe's been with this The sport for the beginning like you were in the back with hair Hair freaking interviewing the guys Yeah That were doing a tournament that were finding multiple fights at night and you were interviewing those guys and I was like even back there Joe had skills Joe was a beast at interviewing these guys There was no shaking behind it cuz I you know one thing about me I've gotten into calm and commentating and things like that now and I'm like dang Joe It didn't seem nervous. You were just like a freakin natural at it and the sport was just growing at that time I was like, there's nobody watching back then it wasn't as much pressure, you know, it wasn't like coming into it today Yeah ESPN pay-per-view all that deal. It would be a lot of pressure. But back then it was just fun Yeah, it was it was weird man. The first one I did was in Dothan, Alabama And this weird like it was I don't know if it was a high school gym or something some small auditorium tiny little place It was very weird. They have you made it look like a freaking certain little walk in the park I mean it was I was like damn Joe's good at that. You don't been doing this shit for a while. Well, it's uh, It's an interesting thing to see, you know to see it progress from 1997 to where it's at at 2019 the biggest difference is not just the amount of Eyes that against and the amount of people that are paying attention to the real difference is the level of athlete It's a it's a giant giant leap like in no other sport. I don't think there's another sport from 1993 to 2019 where the athletes are almost it's almost Unrecognizable how much better the fighters are? Absolutely. I You know there it's now back in the day was like, okay You finished your college career you finished all this you've got to the height of whatever You know sport you could be let's start fighting and so guys were coming in at 28 27 starting to learn the tricks now you got freaking ten-year-old kids. Yep sparring Yeah, there's all these crazy videos like little bitty kids fighting in like rush out or other places like they're full-on MMA fighting. Yeah, it's a totally different whole promotion By the time these guys get to 16 17 they're gonna be killers yeah, if you go back and watch like a boxing match from like 93 a World champion boxer like Marvin Haggle a perfect example Marvin Haggle from the 80s could absolutely hang with Middleweights like he's he would fit right in with world champions today. Absolutely. But uh UFC champ from 93 I mean, it's just not the same. It's not by any stretch It's it is such a back then it was like a it was wild It was crazy But nobody had endurance and you know There was a few guys that had some skill and certainly our van Orlando V more hoist Gracie There was guys are really good at their individual arts, but there was no real complete fighters. Yeah Yeah, you got the transition because it was everyone came in with their special skills and that was it That was a big thing. I think UFC even sold that as oh, yeah You got the wrestler fighting the calm the combo the the you know Sambo guy in the jiu-jitsu guy and so that was the thing everyone came in with their one skill and they put it to the test Let's see. What's your watch better? It's freaking crazy Joe my first fight first time I ever watched a UFC fight. I was visiting John Jones in college freshman year. This was our freshman year true freshman year I was visiting him because I went to a small school, you know, when in Penn University Which was about two hours away from him. He was at Iowa Central and Fort Dodge, Iowa So I went to go spend my fall break a whole week with him Just hanging out because we had met the previous year in high school and just you know It's two brothers and wrestling was like a two brothers. What's up, man? Where you going school next year is like I'm be Iowa's like show me too and so we kept in touch and I went up to hang out with him and During that week. I was a fight on someone like a friend of the team something like that invited us to come to his house And watch it And we went over there to watch the fights. I had never really heard of it. I never really cared I was just a freshman just trying to hang out with John and party. Was this around this was 2005 I think yeah 2005. So it's like first season of the ultimate fighter. Yeah 2005 so We go I think it might have been Randy Couture or someone John just reminded but I forgot who was fighting And we went to the house party and watched it. I really didn't really remember the fight Alright, cuz I didn't really care. I never paid attention to it. I never thought I would ever do something like that So I just watched it and and then I remember the guy saying hey, man, you guys can do this I want you guys try this and I was like me and John kind of looked at each other. No, no I know where we gonna do that. Yeah Yeah Wrestling is controlled, you know those rules, you know certain things you can or can't do there's no way we're doing that So we kind of laughed it off and left that day Never knew that I freaking years later. I'd be doing this