Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson on the Relief of Being KO'D

But dude, you're still rocking at the top of the food chain. It's amazing. I'm saying people will say that I'm too old. I'm 38. Well, look at your victory over Vicente Luque, and then look what Luque just did to Tyrone Woodley. You're still at the top of the fucking food chain, because that was real recently that you beat him. Yeah, it was, I mean, it was what, a year? It was two years ago. Mm-hmm. Two years ago, I beat Vicente. But yeah, man, people say, and I'm too old, and I guess once you get knocked out one time, you just, they throw you to the side. That's people that don't understand the human chin. It's just a fact. You get hit with the perfect shot. It went even hard. It wasn't even hard. You know, I've been hit harder. Tyrone hit me harder. Jake Ellenberg hit me harder. This was just right on the button. It's crazy, isn't it? To be honest with you, it was like a relief being knocked out. I mean, I've got close to 80-something fights with kickboxing MMA together, and I've never been knocked out. And it was always one of those, you know, league going into a fight, this is going to be it. This is going to be the time I get knocked out. This is always going through my head. And now that it happened, it's not that bad. It's really not that bad. I would rather get knocked out than get just the crap beat out of me for five, five-minute rounds. Have you ever been knocked out in training? No. So that was the only time ever in your whole career you've been knocked out. And it was a wild punch, too. The fact that he caught you with a Superman punch. The memes after that with her hair. I don't know if you saw it, but it was funny. You got to think, though, you've dished it out so many times. Through your kickboxing career and MMA. I mean, there's so many times you flat-line people. And then, yeah, I get knocked out by a guy in a lighter weight class. My dad, my family is pretty rough. They bring it up as much as they can. I was in the hospital that night and my dad's doing like a Facebook live thing because, you know, we had a bunch of bunch of, you know, karate, karate families and karate kids there. We pretty much sold out that arena. Greenville, South Carolina, where I mean, everybody was there to watch me fight. And then I get crushed or I get knocked out. And then, you know, everybody's want to know how I am. So I did it like it was probably 2 a.m. Did a Facebook live and my dad just eat me alive. Eat me alive. Yeah, I got knocked out. He's like, yeah, by a smaller guy, too. And he just let me have it. But that's how he is. It is what it is. You know, you took it really well in terms of like the way you reacted and social media and the way you reacted when you were asked about it, you know, showed poise. Thank you. I mean, what can you do? I mean, you can't just sit there and cry about it. No. You know, yeah, it bothered me for a while that, you know, why did I not see it coming? I normally see this stuff coming. Do you think you were relaxed when he hit you? Is that what it was? I think it was definitely a distance thing. Because when I when I had psychic, I watch it over and over and over again, I don't remember any of the second round. I don't remember any of it. All I remember is getting up off the stool, looking across the cage and I see in his bloody nose, he's banged up and I'm like, all right, time to pick it up. I'm going to finish him this round. This was going through my head. That's all remember. And I got knocked out five seconds left in the second round. I don't remember anything. I don't remember sitting up, talking to him in the cage. The people say I was like high fiving people as I was walking by. All I remember is like these sparkles kind of fade away. And I see Chris Wyman's face right there. He's laughing at me. He's like smiling at me. And he said, if you ask me that again, I want to slap you. I guess I asked him the same question. I kept saying, you know, what happened? How did I get knocked out? I got knocked out. Just kept saying that's what people do when they get knocked out. They ask the same question. What happened over and over again? It was such a weird thing. And then, you know, not remembering any of that. And then just being in the back. It's like I got teleported there. I was fighting and then I was there. And I remember him helping me trying to answer the doctor's questions. They're like, you know what day it is? I'm like, Chris is like, Steven, come on. You know what day it is. He's like trying to help me out, answer these questions. But that's all I remember, man, is that. But it was a relief. Like I have nothing. What else? I mean, that's like the worst thing that can happen. Why do you feel like it's a relief? Well, you know, it was such a worry. You know, I've knocked out people. I've seen how they are, you know, getting up off the canvas and the, you know, what is done to people psychologically getting knocked out. And that's always been kind of like, how would I handle that? You know, how would I handle that? How would you see people get knocked out and they try and come back maybe as soon as possible, which is not a good thing. They should. It's a terrible thing. Yeah. They should give their time in time for their body to heal up. But, you know, I've seen people do that. It was always a worry for me. How would I handle that? Yeah. I always get concerned when I see someone who gets knocked out and they want to get right back in there and like, oh, you're asking for trouble because you might feel fine, but you probably are a little loose. Yeah. It's funny you said that because they, UFC wanted me to fight two months later in my hometown. Wow. And after the day after was going to get some breakfast with some friends, still in Knoxville with a fam. And I get a call from Dana, I think it was Hunter. Hey man, you still wanting to fight in Greenville, South Carolina? Of course, the athlete in myself said yes. Like I wanted to jump back in there. And yeah, but then, you know, reality kicked in and, you know, I look over in my pops and he's like, I think he already know who it was. He said that he just shook his head. Who was it that you were supposed to? I don't think we had anybody. The UFC should have made it Anthony Pettis. It was only like two months later. I should have been Anthony Pettis in my hometown. But, and I didn't find out that UFC was in Greenville. I found that out watching some fights like, uh, UFC should have made a rematch with Anthony Pettis or should have had that should have been when you fought Pettis. Yes. Was in your hometown. Yeah, we would have sold that out. Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan experience for free only on Spotify. 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