Kevin Lee on Struggle to Fight Tony Ferguson with Staph Infection | Joe Rogan

Yeah, I walked in about 181. And like for the Tony fight was 184. So, you know. That Tony fight was a mess because of the staff, right? Like, did you guys have a decision where you had to make whether you're not, you're going to pull out of the fight? Yeah, I mean, I tried my best to keep it from everybody. So, and I kind of seceded in that. I mean, really the only one... You put something over it at the Wayans, right? Yeah, I put makeup by Susie, the girl. She did it for me. But, you know, that really just made the weight cut into my body much worse. I mean, I don't really look at the fight and say that Tony's a dog and I kind of give that to him, you know? And I kind of... I learned a lot about myself from that fight even. And then fights after that. I've had a lot of tough weight cuts going into them. So, I don't really put too much at first. That first round though, man. Before you got tired, you had a mounted... It was a big first round for you. Yeah. That was one of the fights where if I would have listened to Rob in that fight, I would already be the champion. And then everything would have looked different. You know, I would have already fought McGregor by now. And then the whole sport would have looked different, I think. But I didn't listen to him. What did he tell you that you didn't listen to? He tried to tell me to calm down. Like, when you see me like walk out for that fight, I was on... I wasn't even like on 10. I was on 12. I was on 12 from the morning that I woke up until, you know, until the fight ended. And that adrenaline pump and that... I mean, I never felt like that since. I probably don't... I don't really want to feel like that either. I was... When I stepped into the arena that night, you know, we get there about two hours before the fight actually is going on. I was ready to fight. And when I was warming up, I was ready to fight. I was fighting people in the back. There was no warm up. There was no warm up. I was fighting. Now, how much did that staff fuck with you? I think it put me into a state of fight or flight. Because you were compromised. For days before, you know, not even just that, you know, the day of the fight. Put me in that state for days before where it made the weight cut so horrible, like, because my body is just trying to hold on to everything and trying to, you know, when I woke up that morning, I was about 162. I woke up at 5 a.m. Way under at 9 a.m. I have to be 155. So I've got seven pounds to cut, which is okay. You know, it's not too bad. Cut about nine pounds the day before. I'm a little dehydrated. I'm a little, you know, I'm a little already worn. But as the weight cut was going, you know, we got till about 8 o'clock and I had only cut a pound and a half. So I still 161 and a half something. At 8 o'clock, Wayans are at 9 o'clock to the point where we got to do something. So they start to put me in the bathtub just because we do most of our cuts in the bath. You know, when you when you're in high humidity, you're going to cut more water weight or you're going to sweat more and water is obviously 100 percent humidity. So they start throwing boil in hot water because we couldn't get the water hot enough to make me sweat more. Jesus Christ. So we just take a kettle of hot water and just pour it on me. And you know, doctors are in and I was twin 12 people in and out of the hotel room to make sure I'm okay and to make sure that I could cut the weight. And I was just in such a like an adrenaline fucking like on 10. I'm like, just get off, you know, I'm screaming at everybody. I'm literally I was in the tub. I was crying like, wow. But to me, I was like, there's no way I'm not making this weight. And six pounds in about an hour, maybe two hours, because I go in about nine o'clock or so or I mean about nine thirty ten or so. Six pounds in two hours is it was brutal, but I think that just kept me as such a such a ten on my adrenaline level. I never really understood how to bring it back down, you know, and Rob would try to talk to me and try and tell me like, hey, calm down, like, you know, take a few deep breaths. Yeah, yeah, I'm breathing. Whatever. I'm waiting. I wasn't listening to it. So now when did you know you had staff the Sunday, the Sunday of the fight? Yeah. Oh, Jesus. So you had a whole week to think about it almost. Yeah, I mean, I think about it like that. I was using the honest with you. Yeah, which is notice. I noticed like a little just a bump and it got like really big and I thought a spider had bit me or something. And you know, for Sunday, I just kind of, you know, I didn't think about it. I wasn't training that day. So it was nothing when I went in on Monday. Dewey was actually the one Dewey Cooper, my striking coach. He was the one to kind of notice it and he was like, hey, is that all right? And you know, and then Rob when he took a look at it, he was like, oh, yeah, that's that staff for sure. And you know, I just kind of what do you do when that happens? If you can't if you decided not to take antibiotics. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you do? I rough it. I was like rough. You didn't put anything topical on it or was there was there a scratch that got infected or cut? Honestly, I have no idea when I just when I woke up on Sunday, it just was sticking out of my chest till about about right here and it I thought it was a spider bite or something. You know, I had never really had staff like that before. I knew guys who had had it, especially through college wrestling. Those rooms are just so dirty and filthy that I seen other people with it, but it didn't look like that. You know what I mean? You normally look like a you know, you have an open wound or something and then that'll get yellow and pussy and disgusting. But this was underneath my skin. So it was not like an open wound or anything. When I talked to doctors, they said it was just on the layer of muscle, I guess or something. It's kind of sticking out from it. At the time, I didn't really know what that meant. Like he said it was deaf and I was like, okay, you know, like I still feel good. Like I can still move around. Like we hit pads that day. I've still felt good. You know, I can I was like, I'm showing up to fight. You know, I put anything on it or there's no so for six days you just trained and did everything with that staff. And that was kind of like the last thing on my mind. Even you know, I was there to fight when I when I when I signed the contract. I I'm showing up to the fight like I haven't pulled out of a fight yet. Right. When I say I'm gonna do something, I'm going I'm gonna go ahead and do it. Regardless if my leg was halfway falling off. It's like, I still got another one. You know, I still got five more toes on the other leg. So right. But looking back on it now, are you happy that you made the decision that you made? Oh, yeah, it was a smart but you know, but you would have done it again tomorrow. Yeah, I would have done it again. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. I mean first world title fight, you know, do you do anything to prevent staff? Do you use like defense soap or anything like that? Yeah, ever since you actually hooked me up with with those guys at defense. Oh, thank you. Glad you did that. Yeah, they've been great. So great. Shout out to Guy. Yeah, yeah, that's a go. They're awesome. So now I just take way more preventive. What is it? Yeah, I haven't had anything flare up on me since you take probiotics here and there here and there. I good way to prevent that as well. It also helps prevent rimworm. I try my best to eat as many natural foods and especially like a lot of yogurts and Kiefer's one of them cool. So, you know, I try to stay on top of it and at least I not no flare. But has been happening since, you know, I shower every time I make sure like I'm on top of that. Make sure I bring my soap and I shower because you don't want that again. It's mostly the you know, yeah, the fight didn't go my way or whatever, but it was about three or four weeks after that fight where I was just random. I was wrecked. I was just in a worse shape ever. And when I got on those antibiotics, I just fucking kills people. Staling, staff kills people. It was terrible. People that ignore staff. I want to scream at them. I'm like, listen, man, you could die. This it seems like you just got an infection, but that shit gets systemic. It gets in your bloodstream and you could fucking die. One of my friend Brian Callen's friend's wife died and he went over the house and she was like, you know, some people get crazy with holistic stuff. Oh, she's just going to try natural healing and he's like, get her to a fucking doctor. He's like her gums were bleeding. Jesus. Yeah, I didn't gotten systemic and she wound up dying. Jesus. Yeah, man, from staff. I've had it twice. And the first time I had it, I when I got on the antibiotics, first of all, the antibiotics. Yeah, just kick your ass. The fact that Luke Rockhold won the fucking title against Chris Weidman while he was on antibiotics shows you what a stud that guy is. Yeah, because that shit kicks your ass. He had he had staff when he fought Weidman. I didn't know that actually. Yeah, he was wrecked. I know those antibiotics mess you up bad. I've done them once for like a sore throat or something earlier. A couple years ago and it just wrecked me bad. So I knew like going into that file was like I rather have the staff than the antibiotics. I was like, I've had staff before. I've had the antibiotics. I know what they're going to do to me. So I was thinking that when you fought and afterwards talking to you about it, I think you probably made the right move to not do antibiotics, but I don't know. I'm not a doctor, but I was thinking that that it just weakens you so much. You know, it's just you live and learn from these things. I think you know, and it's just part of the journey. And before I would have like that where I wanted everything to be perfect or I wanted everything to kind of be the way I saw it, you know, especially like starting out the career. Like everybody wants to be Floyd and when you know and it's just you're not getting touched and it's just easy. But then when you take a look back at that and you don't see like how many amateur fights Floyd had, you know, he's got his dad who fought. He's got his uncles and his whole family been fighting. So he's learned from all their mistakes and all their losses and everything to where it's like I'm the first one of my family to even ever think about this. So you're going to bump your head here and there and it just is what it is. Comparison is a thief of joy. You can't you can't do that. You got to just think about being the best that you can be. It's hard though. It is hard. It's very hard. You'd be inspired by people but comparing yourself to their path. Everybody's got a different path. Everyone's got different genetics, right? Some people just better at certain things. Some people are some people struggle with certain aspects of the sport. I mean that's it's everyone's got their own individual challenge. And it's one of the things that's so interesting about it is watching people adapt and grow.