Max Halloway on His Performance Against Calvin Kattar

It's just interesting that you were able to fight and to train a full camp for a guy like Volkanowski, especially a rematch with no sparring, with no partners, with no nothing Yeah, we had a lot of mental stuff, mental training, you know, it was a lot of mental things Like visualization? Yeah, like I got to visualize, so even just think of new ways to move or I got to think of ways to set up stuff Like I just had more time to myself to think about the actual fight and whatever And then even with the sparring, like the second fight for the Qatar, we didn't spar But I moved with my partners, you know, we grappled or we had stand up, we had ideas of how he moved So I just got used to the movement and we keep on certain things and that's it But was nothing ever like cracking you, you know, like I would get, I mean, you know how it is You see all these guys, they say like, oh, I got hurt sparring, I got hurt sparring That's all, my injuries came, I got hurt from grappling hard or sparring hard So if you just take that out, you know, like you get a 200% of yourself But it comes a point, like everybody thinks, I'm telling everybody to stop sparring, you know, I'm telling the young kid to stop sparring I'm not telling the young kid to stop sparring When I was 16, I had to spar But it comes a point where you spar enough to the points where everything happens Or even fights like I fought injured, I sparred injured, you know, I got hurt, I had to come do stuff Like you need these times before the show, because when it comes in the show And you get hurt in a fight or something, you panic You get buzzed in the fight, you panic But then if you do it in the sparring or these amateur fights, then it's simple But when you get to that certain point, then you stop sparring, you save your brain Because like right now, I would say at least 85 to 87% or even close to 91% of the UFC fighters You don't have to, you know, if you didn't come to the contender series I think you don't have to really spar anymore, you know, like we're all at a high level already of thinking and doing this Like there's other ways that you could do to figure stuff out, you know, and that's just what I think, you know, I'm not telling everybody to do it So do you guys do a lot of drills with pads? Drills, yeah, drills with pads, or even drills on drills, you know, like not like, not really Dutch way, but like more towards a fighter Like a guy will come at you with a punch and you'll step to the side and counter Yeah, and I'll practice it, you know, like we look, we look for, whenever I watch tape, we look for consistencies Guys that they do consistent movements all the time and we work for those movements And then we go, we apply, we ask my partner to go, and now it's much, it's much easier to ask someone to replicate this guy for me while we're moving Versus to ask someone to replicate somebody when we're sparring hard, because I would spar hard with them And then they would go back to their style Yeah, they would start getting their ass beat and they'd be like, f**k this, I give him a better look when I'm training, when I'm doing myself So I'm gonna go to that, but that's not it, you know, even if you give me a better look as yourself I'm trying to, I'm trying to get ready for this guy, you know what I mean? And a lot of people, that's when ego and stuff come in and so on, so on, so I think, I think so we figured out a way where it worked for me and you guys got to see, you know, it's like, I just, I felt so good My body, everything was like, everything was fine, yeah, I just, I felt great If you don't understand how good Calvin Kater is, you don't understand how good your performance is Yeah, I thought Calvin Kater was, and it takes two And I tell everybody with this, with the numbers and stuff, you know, like, the reason why I didn't hit this number is against, against our takers Cause we went only four rounds, you know what I mean? Like, our taker is a different beast too, you know I think so, the ref said what he said and that's what happened in that fight, but Kater was crazy cause one of the rounds, I think so, like the third or fourth round, I hit him And he was just gone, like, I was like, he was gone attending a round, I was like, oh this guy's not walking off for the fifth round There's no way, I'm jumping up and down Yeah Like, like, like it was the first round, I was like, I was like, okay then, there's my answer You feel like getting punched some more with my friend? We're gonna do this No, he's tough as fuck man, because there were a lot of moments in that fight where he could've quit Where he could've, and it's crazy cause like, you see it, you see him get to that moment, like I feel it, like it's right there And he just throw like a bomb and he lands it on me, I'm like, what the fuck, I'm like, what? I'm like, what? I'm like, come on man, and then like, I hear everything, I can hear his corner yelling at him and stuff and this and that I'm like, god damn it Kater I was like, you know, I was like, one time I was like, what was funny was, one time in a fight, like, he was just fucking throwing it He somehow landed a left hook or overhand on me, and he was on the fence And I was like, bro, if I was about to get finished, like, come on Kater, just like, come on, just do it But then, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, it's not my job, you know, I can't focus on what the ref can do What is, if his team is gonna throw in the top, I just gotta focus on him, you know Do you think they should have stopped that fight at any point in time? I mean, at the end of the day, I'm in Kater's shoes, like me talking as a fighter, no way I was like, give me a shot, and this guy is, you know, he's a puncher, he's a puncher puncher Like, this guy can like, put someone down, you know, but, you know, it's funny, because like, Teddy Alice said the same thing But Teddy Alice was like, telling me when I was on his show, he was like, oh, he was like, but Max, you never got dropped So, I don't know, the odds of him knocking you out, because he's a puncher puncher, he's still not there, you know, it's still slim But it is there, but, at the end of the day, I can't speak on that, you know, because as a fighter, I'd be like, freak, you know, leave me in there You know, I wanna fight, you know, like, even like, even my way with, even like, even championships, you know, you wanna find the best guy, right? And the way I look at it is like, if it's the best, it's not, a fight is a fight until it's over, and then it's people's perceptions on the fight So, after the five rounds, then it's a fight, you know, like, but I thought this was supposed to be the two best guys in the world, you know what I mean? Like, my take on it was like, why don't we just have these fights, yeah, we have the rounds, we just go until someone wins the fight Instead of we keep this perception out of it, we just keep going round after five rounds, guess what, we're going to six, guess what, we're going to six We're going to someone quit, that's how you find the best fighter in the world at that way, at what it is Old school Jack Johnson style Why not, you know, that's the way I think, cause it's just perception, it's just a perception, right? They'll never do that in America, but they might do it in Asia Yeah Like, maybe you could talk one FC into something like that Yeah, one might be doing some wild stuff like that, they see some wild stuff Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free, only on Spotify Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips Easily, seamlessly switch between video and audio experience On Spotify, you can listen to the JRE in the background while using other apps And can download episodes to save on data cost, all for free Spotify is absolutely free, you don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes You just need to search for the JRE on your Spotify app Go to Spotify now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan Experience