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Michael Jai White is an actor, director, writer, and martial artist. His latest film, “Oscar Shaw,” is available to stream on digital platforms.www.youtube.com/@RealMichaelJaiWhitewww.patreon.com/MichaelJaiWhitewww.michaeljaiwhite.com
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Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
You're all suited up, you got a wildcard boxing hat on, a Bruce Lee shirt, come
on son.
Hey, we got the yellow thing going on.
Yeah, you got it all going on.
What's happening? Great to see you.
Man, things are really well.
This thing is a little loud.
Is it? There's a, on that thing there, there's a little volume knob.
You can turn that sucker down.
There it is.
Last time I saw you was at Terry Black's Barbecue.
Yeah, yeah.
Random run-in.
Yeah, that was crazy.
That was crazy.
Yeah, man, I was thinking about going there right after this.
I was like, what? Terry Black's?
That place was no joke.
That place rules.
Yeah, man.
Are you still in LA?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What's it like?
It's cool, man.
Is it?
Yeah.
You like it? You're the only person that said that.
No, no.
Yeah, well, because, okay, I defend LA in a way where, first of all, if you got
a handful
of good people with you, you know, your family, then it's, so the fact that LA
has all kinds
of different things, you could be on a hiking trail in 20 minutes, you could be-
Oh, geographically, it's amazing.
Yeah, and the weather, you can't-
Oh, you can't beat it.
So if you got good people, good friends with you, then it's all good.
You just run by crooks.
It's a nice neighborhood run by the mob.
It's run by the woke mob.
But I mean, geographically, you can't beat it.
You could be at the ocean, and then you could be in the mountains in two hours.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, that's, even if you don't partake, it's still cool.
It still amps up the ante, really.
Oh, yeah.
Like, the spot itself is magical.
It is a magical place to live, although I am deeply concerned that that
motherfucker's
going to get hit with a big one soon.
Mm, it's about time, right?
Yeah, I was reading this article about massive earthquakes in California and
how often they're
spread out, and the possibility of one of them happening within the next decade.
It's very high.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, I try not to think about that.
I try not to think about it, too.
Yeah, yeah, but, you know, now there's, you know, you can, I think they have
better detection
of that stuff now, too.
Mm-mm.
It's better.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
They can't detect.
Well.
Do you remember what happened in Italy?
A couple guys got arrested and went to jail.
They were seismologists because the company, the country, rather, didn't
understand the ability
to detect it.
They had a big earthquake, and a bunch of people died, and so they blamed them.
They blamed these geologists or seismologists.
They wound up winning in court on appeal, because eventually the science was
revealed.
Like, hey, there's no fucking way you can really tell.
But they hung these guys out.
They blamed these guys on not being able to detect it.
Oh, man.
Well, I mean, just think about it.
The last crazy ones were 72 and then 94.
Yeah.
Right.
I think it was 93.
I came, I moved to L.A. right after the last big one.
I saw one of the sections of the highway that had collapsed on the other one.
I remember driving by going, fuck this place.
I was in the middle of that one.
I just, I came into L.A.
Oh, you were there?
Dude, I don't even like to tell the story about what happened during that 94
earthquake.
Oh.
Because it sounds like bullshit.
But literally, I got up, ran out of my house, my apartment at the time, jumped
off the balcony, and watched it happen.
You watched the house collapse?
I watched the earthquake happen from outside.
Oh.
It's like no bullshit.
Everybody, so I thought, oh, shit, I overreacted.
I had a bad dream.
I lived on the first floor of this apartment building.
All I know is I wake up, I'm off balance, catching my balance in the parking
lot, right?
And like, oh, shoot, I got to find the guard to get me back in the apartment
building, right?
And I'm thinking, what, you know, what, what's, like, I've lost my mind or
something.
The next thing you know, everything shakes and the lights go out.
Just go, just everything gets black.
And so I'm backing, I retreat back because I'm thinking the building's going to
fall on me.
And I'm like, wait a minute.
Then I got the story from everybody else that experienced it.
They said that the first thing that happened was the building shook and the
lights went out.
Well, I was outside watching that.
So I'm outside when it happened, like some kind of canine.
So what made you jump over the—
I don't know.
You had a feeling?
Dude.
Or did you have like the first, was it the first rumbles?
I thought, I thought it was, I thought I reacted to the, like some kind of an
aftershock or some kind of rumble.
No, because the girl that was with me.
You left her in the apartment?
Dude.
All she knows is that you jumped up and you ran out of, you ran out of the
house.
And I heard the door slide and that was, and then the next thing you know,
everything shook.
She couldn't, she was trapped in there because there was a closet door that
trapped her in the hallway.
So when I got back in the place, me and a friend had to try to pry the door
open because she couldn't get out.
But I ran out of that place before the earthquake actually happened.
How weird.
Yeah.
You got good instincts.
I don't know what the hell that was.
It has to be because—
I don't even like telling that story because it sounds like bullshit.
Because it really happened that way.
Because then the guard, I talked to the guard, I'm like, hey, when did the
lights go out?
Oh, it shook and the lights went out.
I'm like, I'm watching that happen.
So you felt it happen before it happened?
Some kind of weird way.
Well, I bet humans have that.
Animals definitely have that.
They talk about Thailand, how they had that tsunami and all the animals ran up
to the highest point of the island.
They all just took off.
It's like they just knew instinctively.
I don't know.
Nothing like that has ever happened afterwards.
But I got to say, there's been—I've been lucky over the years.
Yeah, but you're a dude who's tuned in.
You're tuned into your body.
You're tuned into your environment.
You're not going to get caught slipping.
Like, you probably felt something and your spidey sense went off.
Yeah, I kind of have been like that growing up.
I've been, you know, I've been on my own since I was 14.
Been through crazy shit that you normally would see on movies.
And that's the type of shit that gives you those kind of instincts.
But yeah, and I was always the one that said, hey, let's leave.
Let's get out of here.
And then, hey, man, there was a shootout that just happened right after you
left.
Or I could detect, like, the predators.
You know what I mean?
So I grew up kind of that way.
Right.
Because you have to survive on that.
With nobody looking out for you.
Yeah.
Nobody was looking out for you.
You had to look out for yourself.
Well, yeah.
I mean, I was—I was, like, always the junior of the group a lot of times.
Because, like I said, I've been on my own since I was 14.
I haven't grown an inch since I was 13, 14.
I looked like a grown-ass man, right?
I was fighting in tournaments at 15 against, you know, grown men, like, you
know, fighting heavyweight at that time.
But I was always hanging with older people.
Kind of, you know, kind of like I got away with kind of living as an adult
early on.
Because, like, you know—
Did you work?
Yeah.
Well, I was teaching a karate class.
What was happening, see, I used to hang out at this community center in the
hood.
At this time, I moved from Brooklyn to Bridgeport, Connecticut, right?
Bridgeport's a tough neighborhood.
Yeah, yeah.
It was a—
A lot of people don't know.
Yeah, we had the top murder rate per capita, man.
Bridgeport's rough.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So, I was constantly—I mean, there's a community center that was, like, my
haven.
And I would go practice with me and my other karate nuts, you know?
And so, I'd be in the paper for winning heavyweight, you know, competitions or
whatever.
And so, the people that was running the community center said, why don't you
teach a class?
They thought I was an adult.
Oh, that's hilarious.
And so, I was teaching, like, a—you know, like, kind of, like, just under the
table.
I was getting paid under the table, basically.
But I had, like, close to 200 students early on, like, when I'm 15, 16.
Oh, that's crazy.
Yeah.
And so, you know, it was kind of a trip that, you know, which is one of the
reasons why I was a father at 15, you know, because I had one of my students'
older sister, you know, who was, like, had a crush on her—on his instructor.
But I was kind of living the life of a grown-up, like, early on.
And so, you know, there's a faction of people in Bridgeport who think I'm Satan,
I guess, because they think that I'm probably in my 70s now.
You're a vampire.
Right.
Yeah, so there's some people I had to admit, like, no, I wasn't the age you
thought I was back then.
Oh, that's crazy.
Yeah, but I mean, so, yeah, you know, one of the things I'm really grateful for
is growing up that early and having to, you know, use my instincts.
And being that, you know, street fighting and fighting was, like, my favorite
thing to do, actually.
And so, when I got into the martial arts deeper and everything else, you know,
I just really dug into it and wanted to learn style after style and this, you
know, everything.
I was just a martial art nerd for it.
But I also liked the realistic portion of it, even though I was doing other
styles like wushu and everything else.
But, you know, it was actually my haven.
Somewhere Eddie Bravo has to find this video.
There's a video of us working out together at Legends where we were talking
about hopping sidekicks and different types of sidekicks.
And you threw up, there was a bag that we had that had a shitty chain.
But regardless, you threw a hopping sidekick on that chain and the chain
snapped and went flying.
The bag went flying.
And Eddie Bravo was like, what the fuck?
It's a funny video, man.
Right, yeah.
I know Eddie has it somewhere.
I'll probably, I'll text him after this and try to see if he can put it up on
his Instagram or something if he can find it.
Yeah, man, yeah.
Back then, man, we were training when it wasn't even popular.
You know, I used to see you in the gym all the time.
Yeah.
All the time, man.
And you were, just think about this.
Do you know it was 29 years ago, the last time you interviewed me?
Yeah, that's right.
29 years ago.
That Bob Costa show.
He took a week off and I guest hosted it for a week.
Yeah.
And at that time, you were already training with Maurice Smith.
Yes, Maurice was one of the guests.
Right.
You were training.
Because I ended up training with Maurice Smith, you know, every time I'd go to
Seattle.
You know, we'd train together.
So, you know, we're, like, part of this, like, kind of karate, martial art,
nerd culture.
Yeah.
When it wasn't even popular.
No.
I used to see you all the time.
You know, you and, you and, you know, doing jiu-jitsu, Carl Parisian and all
these guys at Legends.
Well, there was another place.
It was, we had, there was Legends and there was another place.
The Bomb Squad.
Yes.
The Bomb Squad was the first place that Eddie taught at.
And then that place closed down.
Then we went to Legends.
Legends, yeah.
And then we moved to the other Legends that was, like, in more East L.A.
And then Eddie started opening up his own place in downtown.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's where I would train with Josh Barnett at that place quite a bit.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
Old days.
Yes, man.
Yeah.
And who would be coming through the gym?
Because I was training Bob Sapp at one time.
And then I, that's how I got Frankie Lyles connected into that.
Wow.
That whole thing.
And so.
I remember Frankie.
Yeah.
Frankie used to be at the Bomb Squad first.
Right, yeah.
Frankie was, like, my best friend in the world.
And he was, you know, he was a super middleweight champion in the world.
Yeah.
That's who got me deeply into boxing.
And so I would always be at his training camps.
And, you know, I got to train with, like, Tommy Hearns and all these amazing
people, like, Sugar Ray and all these guys, man.
Frankie's a great boxing coach.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
He's one of the most technical guys I've ever worked with.
Like, he analyzes every aspect of your jab.
He's pulling in your elbow.
Oh, yeah.
He's tightening this.
He's moving you here.
He's, like, he's showing all the, like, various basic little tiny details that
make all the difference in the world.
Yeah, man.
He was my, you know, personal boxing coach.
You know, I would train with him, Joe Goosen, early on.
But Frankie, I mean, we really kind of combined a lot of things.
Because I started kind of teaching him things with the jab, like the un-telegraphed
type of stuff.
And he started applying that.
And he would bring me in this stuff and, you know, have me show people like
Sugar Ray, like, Mike, explain this jab.
And I'm like, what?
I'm explaining this to Sugar Ray?
This feels ridiculous.
Right?
But it was like this combination because, like, I don't know, I'm very
analytical and I love technique, you know.
And so I would just try to break things down.
And my whole thing was always to pressure test things, you know.
So if I could develop a tool or a skill and you can't stop it even if I tell
you what I'm doing, then it's a really good technique.
Then it's legit.
The thing about no telegraph at all, it's so much more effective than a harder
strike with a telegraph.
Oh, God, yeah.
Because it lands.
Yeah.
But it's so difficult to teach people that because everybody wants to hit
everybody as hard as they can.
Yeah.
Especially if you have power, your instinct is to fucking load up on everything.
I remember I first saw you teaching that to Kimbo Slice.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
You were on a movie set.
Yeah, yeah, because Kimbo, oh, man, what a great guy.
What a great guy he was.
What a wonderful guy.
So that's one thing about fighting.
You can't hide your nature.
You know what I mean?
People see who you are.
And he was a wonderful human being.
But like a lot of people, almost like street basketball as opposed to
professional, you miss out on certain techniques that you need when you're
trying to step up.
Right.
And so, like, well, Kimbo, you know, he would, like a lot of people, he would
kind of telegraph.
And so when we were shooting the movie, you know, and I basically, we had a
cameraman that did not really know how to shoot stuff.
So I just had to do everything on screen.
And so I would, I would, I just wanted to make everything very realistic.
And so, so Kimbo had this rubber knife and I was like, try your best to touch
me with the rubber knife.
And so he would try, but before, but as soon as he would move, there'd be a
little bit of an indication that I'd see.
And then I, I throw the punch and it would go really close to him and I have
him react to that.
But he was going, wait, wait a minute, how are you, how are you hitting me
before I can get this knife out?
And then I told him, you know, I'll show you what that is later because, you
know, kind of like not to be real nerdish about it, but like, why, why are like
50 and 60 year old trainers meeting people's hands?
Like a 20 year old guys or contenders hands like this.
You see the person with the pad moving just as much as the other guy, because
there's an indication there's, they, they do this beforehand.
They're always kind of flexing and going in reverse before they go forward.
So just for over years, I wouldn't do that.
And I would exploit that, you know, so it's kind of like a cheat code that I'm
like, hell, what the hell, what the hell I'm going to do with it?
I'm, I'm an actor.
So my thing is just like yourself, when I see you, you know, with George St.
Pierre and, and how we're all always in the gym, we're, you know, we're kind of
collaborating.
We're, you know, we're, we're, it's about just getting better, not no ego or
anything else like that.
It's just like, Hey man, we're like kind of, you know, kind of like jamming on,
on technique and getting better.
Well, especially if you find someone who has a different style to do, because
there's always something in different styles that you could take out of it.
Absolutely.
There's always something.
And that we're seeing that now.
There's all these different martial artists that are entering into MMA that are
having these different techniques that people haven't seen before.
And there's a lot of them that people dismiss that you're finding are very
effective, especially if you don't know how to do them.
You don't know what they are.
So you don't, you have like a database in your mind of movements.
It's like, I'm sure you see one of the guys loading up on a spin.
Oh yeah.
Everybody sees that.
But if you don't know that, you don't see it.
Right.
And if you, if you were loading up, then you're not going to, you're not going
to capitalize on it.
Right.
Because you don't, you know, you're taking a, there's a millisecond that you're
taking because your movement is not efficient.
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There's a move that still to this day people aren't doing effectively when
someone loads up because you can see the load up.
And it's just a jam.
It's just lifting your foot up and putting it on the hips.
And it's super effective in Taekwondo because everybody's fast.
Everybody's trying to do that technique.
But that jam of just lifting your foot up and just not trying to hit them hard,
just putting that foot on the hip, it fucks people up.
And I don't see anybody using that right now.
I tell you, man, like, I don't, like, as in life, there's always something that
you can gain.
From the, you know, people want to, I don't know, people aren't in their own egos
a lot of times.
But, like, even wushu.
Me, it's hard as hell for me doing wushu against guys half my size.
It's not against, but it's a performance thing.
But if I can do all of it, can go to these very hard techniques of, like, I got
to get down to the floor and I got to.
Body mastery.
Yeah, at my size.
Right.
Well, then I'm better.
So if I want to kick you in the eyebrow, I can.
Right.
Because it's about, you know, having my body do what my mind's telling it to.
Right.
And so, but, of course, people want to dismiss it because, oh, that ain't real.
You can't use it.
Yeah.
Good.
Yeah.
Just like ballet is hard as hell.
You can't use that either.
But anybody, any heavyweight who put themselves through ballet would be a
better fighter.
100%.
Look at Lomachenko.
Yeah.
His dad taught him Ukrainian dance.
Lomachenko's dad pulled him out of boxing for two years when he was young.
Yeah.
And said, you're just going to do Ukrainian dance.
Yeah.
He's like, what the fuck am I doing?
But look at that guy's footwork.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And so, so it's, it's just that as in life, man, I don't look at anything from
one group
and just discard any, any other stuff.
I used to when I was young.
Yeah.
And when I was young, I was pretty arrogant about certain things.
I thought forms were stupid.
All I wanted to do was spar and hit the bag.
Yeah.
But then as I got older, I realized, oh, there's a lot of wisdom in all this
shit.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
But yeah, but that's, like I say, I try to apply that to life, period.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I never look at anything from one perspective.
I mean, I grew up in the hood.
And I'm, you know, my favorite band is freaking, you know, the Eagles.
Really?
And, yeah, I mean, like, you know, and I'm listening to Jody Mitchell and all
that, and
people are like, what are you doing listening?
I'm like, what the fuck?
You know, this is my life, man.
Fuck you.
Like, do you hear these lyrics?
Do you hear Jody Mitchell's lyrics, man?
What the fuck?
That's all for me, too.
I mean, I'm just as passionate about, you know, Aerosmith as I am about the Isley
brothers.
But I've never looked at life as I have to think in this parameter.
You know, I've got to be marginalized.
That's just, man, come on.
That's such a waste of life.
It is.
It's all for you, man.
So.
I agree.
With the martial arts and everything else, I look at every martial art, just
like everything
else.
Everything has something to contribute.
Yeah.
It's just like all people have something to contribute.
Even an idiot.
You can learn from an idiot.
You can.
You can.
A lot of idiots say wise things occasionally.
Yeah.
Because everybody's going to have a quotient of legitimacy.
Mm-hmm.
You know, maybe it may be 20% and they don't see the 80%.
Right.
But until you acknowledge that 20%, they're not going to hear you.
You know what I mean?
So that's the thing.
It's like, man, we're on this planet.
One of the things I mean, I don't envy a whole lot of people, but, dude, I do
envy you because
you get to expand your world.
You talk to so many interesting people and that's what a great thing.
What a great thing to just have all these type of perspectives and all that
coming through.
And I got to say, man, I'm super proud of you because I know you as Joe from
the gym
and look what you've done, man.
Thank you.
Man, it's like that's a shot in the arm because it's like people that you like
and seeing them
prosper, that's cool as shit.
Yeah, I've learned a lot, man.
And I didn't expect to.
You know, when we first started doing this, it was just for fun.
We'd just get together with our friends.
But you knew what you wanted to do, man.
You were pretty damn clear because do you remember this?
You remember me coming to, I think it was the Ice House?
In Pasadena?
No, no, no.
Oh, shoot.
It wasn't Ice House.
It was in Orange County.
Comedy Magic Club, maybe?
I came to see you perform and I offered you the role in Blood and Bone.
Do you remember that at all?
I do.
Yeah.
Yeah, I do now.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, because Blood and Bone, which is like actually Sony's most successful non-theatrical,
that was basically a kind of reimagining of hard times with Charles Bronson and
James Colburn.
Great movie.
Yes.
Well, that role was basically that I was offering you was the James Colburn
role, right?
But you were so, you was dead set.
You said, I don't want to do this acting stuff.
I want to do, I want to focus on what I, you know, your interest, which was,
you know,
you stand up and you, you're getting together.
I mean, I know you and Eddie were doing like kind of the early podcast type of
stuff and
whatever.
And I'm like, man, you know, you really kind of knew what you wanted to do.
Well, the thing about acting is, I mean, I admire it, especially good acting,
but it takes
a lot of time out of your day.
It's, it's a 16 hour day.
It's a long day and it will take away from other things you do.
And I saw that with a lot of comics that they started doing acting and it would
take
away from their act because they really couldn't go and do sets every night.
They couldn't really polish their material.
You could see the stuff getting a little clunkier.
And it's just, you gotta, you gotta focus.
You gotta find the things you enjoy and focus on them.
Yeah, that's why, that's why I say I'm, I'm so proud of seeing, just being
there and seeing
what you did, where you, you being a part of the UFC when it was nothing
promised, you
know what I mean?
And not only was it not promised, man, people looked at you like you were doing
like snuff
films or something.
Exactly.
They, they looked at you like, I remember the early days, man.
Dana White always says this.
People would talk to you like you were doing porn or something.
Right.
Like I was on news radio, the sitcom on NBC and I was doing commentary where I
was doing
post-fight interviews for the UFC and they were like, why are you doing this?
Why are you flying to Alabama and doing cage fights?
See, this is what movies are, good movies are made of shit like this, you know,
and somebody
just on, or just out of their spirit, doing what they want to do with, with no
promise
of anything and then accomplishing something.
So, you know, kudos, man.
Oh, thank you.
Seriously, man.
Well, for me, and I'm sure for you as well, when we were young, there was
always a question,
what is the best style?
Is it Kyokushin?
Is it judo?
Is it Kung Fu?
What is it?
What's the best style?
And no one really knew.
I mean, Benny the Jet fought in a bunch of those no rules fights early, early
on, but
they never really took off.
There wasn't, there wasn't a lot of those, you know, and Benny was obviously a
very special
fighter.
Oh, yeah.
But yeah, he was one of my teachers too.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I trained at his gym.
There was a, he was on the podcast with Blinky, Blinky Rodriguez and Blinky
Mark recently.
And I told him, I said, when I came to LA, there was two places I had to go.
I had to go to the Comedy Store and I had to go to the Jet Center.
I had to go to the Jet Center.
Yeah.
And I was there in 94, right before it went under because the, the earthquake
damaged
the roof.
Exactly.
And so when the rainy season came.
It was on Friar Street.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Right down from the Goossens.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right down.
Yeah.
And that, that was an honor, man, to be able to train in that gym.
That was incredible.
It was incredible.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I used to be there.
Yeah.
Yeah, man, it's, yeah, those are some great times because, I mean, I connect
with Benny
because when I was in Bridgeport, my instructor, Matty Malisi, went to
California and started
training with Benny.
Oh, wow.
Early on.
So he put that on the map about coming to the Mecca and training with Benny.
It was the Mecca.
Yeah.
For kickboxing in the, especially in the 90s, that was the Mecca.
You had to go to the Jet Center.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, man, that was, that was classic.
We were always wondering, like, what is the style?
What's the best style?
And then the UFC came along.
I'm like, oh, my God, they did it.
They did it.
They figured it out.
They put it all together.
And for a while, it was Jiu-Jitsu because nobody understood Jiu-Jitsu.
And Hoyce Grayson was just running shit.
Well, you know, you know how that was kind of set up a little bit.
It was a little set up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, I mean, look, he had some challenges.
Like, Ken Shamrock was a beast.
Oh, yeah.
He had some really good fighters he was facing against.
Kimbo Slice.
I mean, excuse me, not Kimbo Slice.
Not Kimbo.
Kimbo.
Sorry.
Kimbo was fucking huge.
He was a big dude, but, you know, he didn't really.
Well, it was a hundred pound advantage.
He had a hundred pounds over Hoyce.
The Gracies were smart.
They were very smart at that time in knowing, you know, the right people to
kind of pick at
that time because, you know, there were some killers out there.
There were some killers out there.
Yeah.
They definitely set it up, especially the early ones.
But it's also, it's like, you know, that was, it was good for us to see a guy
like Hoyce who wasn't jacked.
He was a slender guy who weighed 175 pounds and he was strangling everybody and
armbarring everybody.
It was wild to see when he beat Dan Severin.
Dan Severin was 260 pounds and Hoyce tapped him off his back with a triangle.
Man, what a story.
That put, that put jujitsu on the map.
On the map big time.
But, you know, one thing that always broke my heart is people never knew about
Hickson.
Right.
Oh, my God.
I know.
That dude.
Yeah.
That cat was like, I always considered him like pound for pound the best
because he, he, he had this, not only, you know, jujitsu skills, but just his
concentration.
And he was almost like, you know, hypnotic.
Right.
You know what I mean?
And just no waste of energy.
None.
Just unbelievable.
What an amazing person to watch.
You know, I would encourage anybody to pull up his, his fight.
Well, he's another great example.
David versus Goliath stuff.
Oh, yeah.
Another great example of cross training too, because Hickson got really into
yoga and everybody's like, what the fuck are you doing yoga?
Like yoga's for girls, right?
Hickson got really into yoga and got super flexible and super, and really good
at controlling his breathing.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And never got tired.
Yeah.
You saw him in the, in the Hulk.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
With that Norton.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Man, it's something, man.
That's, talk about a legend.
Oh, a real legend.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
Well, Hickson, there's a video of him, and he did this multiple times, where he
would go to these gyms and he would teach a seminar, like a long seminar, and
then roll with all the black belts.
Yeah.
And just tap them one after the other, one, world champions.
Guys that just didn't understand what was going on.
Yeah.
Like, how is this happening?
Oh, yeah.
Like, Paul Ophelio, when he was a WEC world champion, and he was, he had won
the Mundials, I believe, he'd won multiple jiu-jitsu championships, and he
trained with Hickson, and he's like, man, it's true.
Yeah.
He was like, I can't believe it.
He goes, that guy treated me like I didn't even belong in there.
It was crazy.
Yeah.
And Hickson, by that time, was probably like 40.
Yeah.
You know, and he's still just dominating guys on the mat, and effortless.
It wasn't strength, it was just pure technique and movement.
Basics, and just mastering of basics.
Oh, basics.
It was like, there's none of the, no Barambolos, no X-Guard, nothing crazy.
Everything he did is like jiu-jitsu 101, but to a masterful, masterful degree.
Yeah.
It was incredible.
And telling people that, you know, because everybody knows Hoist, and I'm like,
you guys don't know who his big brother is.
His brother, he would openly say that my brother is 10 times better than me.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, that really put, and I love jiu-jitsu because it's held up the
tradition that martial arts,
so much karate lost because it became a business.
And people would just, you know, put their time in and pay for their black belt.
Right.
And it just watered it down.
Right.
And all these people running around saying that they're master this and, you
know, grand whatever, and all these made up things.
And it's like, oh, yeah, the guy's a master in an Asian martial art.
That's an English word.
Right.
You know what I mean?
How did master sneak its way into it?
Yeah.
Right.
But anyway, but, you know, male ego.
Well, the thing about martial arts other than jiu-jitsu is when you're sparring,
it's very controlled.
Like a lot of karate sparring is very controlled.
A lot of taekwondo sparring is very controlled.
Yeah.
But in jiu-jitsu, the beautiful thing about grappling is you know how good
everybody is because they all spar.
Yeah.
They're all rolling with each other.
And they essentially go on full blast until the tap.
Yeah.
And so you, there's no hiding.
Yeah.
There's no hiding your skill.
Yeah.
I love what Eddie Bravo used to say.
Basically, when you won, I killed you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just killed you.
Yeah.
You know?
So that's like, wow.
That's a, that's a trip because it's like, it actually works out that way.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
If he gets you in a triangle and you tap, it's because you were about to go to
sleep.
Yes.
And once you're asleep, you can just stomp your head into a pancake.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're, you're done.
Yeah.
Just hold on to that triangle and then you never wake up.
Yeah.
What a humbling thing.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
Very humbling.
Yeah.
And what's really humbling is how quickly someone could do it to you when you
don't know what you're doing.
Like that was shocking to me because I had all this martial arts experience and
I first started training.
I was like, what's someone going to do to me?
I wrestled in high school.
I'm strong.
I'm fast.
I didn't know how to fight.
Yeah.
I just got manhandled over and over and over again.
Oh yeah.
This is ridiculous.
Yeah.
See that, but kudos because a lot of people, they, because of, if you got an egotistical
thing going and you, you know, get that your, your little, I don't know, your,
your, your comfort because you got your black belt and all that kind of stuff.
That means Jack nothing, you know, to everybody I know who continues and really
to learn, you know, real fighting knows when you, you had a boxer beat the hell
out you and you go, Oh wait, there's a lot of this stuff.
I got to toss it out the window.
Yeah.
And cause I mean, I, I never forget like times where, you know, like I, I
wrestle gets to me or a boxer, like pieces me up like early on.
And I'm like, no, I got to learn this.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I went through several of those.
I went through one of them in high school.
Cause I have a, had a friend in high school that was a wrestler and I didn't
think anything of wrestling.
I'm like, that's not even a martial art.
And then we wrestled on the grass one day and he just took me down at will.
Yeah.
I was like, this is ridiculous.
Yeah.
Like he was pinning me down.
I couldn't, I couldn't move.
I couldn't get up.
I'm like, this is stunning.
Right.
I thought I'm strong.
Yeah.
I thought I could move.
I thought I'll be able to get out of the way.
No, not, I had no chance.
Yeah.
And he wasn't even a great wrestler.
He was just a decent wrestler.
Yeah.
And he just humbled me over and over and over again.
So then I started wrestling.
And then when I got into Taekwondo, I thought I'm really good at Taekwondo.
I was competing on a national level.
I won the state championships four years in a row.
I was fucking people up.
And then I remember the first time I boxed with a really good amateur boxer.
I was like, oh Lord.
And this kid was like 18 years old.
And I was at the, and he went on, his kid, his name is Dana Rosenblatt.
He went on to become a New England middleweight champion.
He beat Vinnie Pacienza.
Oh, shoot.
Okay.
He beat Howard Davis Jr. as a professional.
He was a really good boxer.
Wow.
Yeah, he had to be.
But he was kickboxing at the time.
And I was going to get into kickboxing.
And so I was sparring with him.
But when I was boxing with him, I was just getting lit up.
I was like, oh.
And then also when we were kickboxing, the moment he got close to me, I was in
trouble.
Right.
I was like, oh, no.
Like, Taekwondo had too many flaws.
Exactly.
The hand techniques.
So I had gone through that.
And so then I thought, okay, well, now I understand kickboxing.
Then I met a dude who went to Thailand a bunch of times and was training Muay
Thai and fighting
over there.
And then I started learning leg kicks.
I'm like, well, oh, good Lord.
Now all they have to do is kick my legs?
I didn't even think of that.
And then I started really paying attention to WKA fights, like the old Dennis
Alexio days
with Don the Dragon Wilson.
And I was like, leg kicks, leg kicks are everything.
Oh, my goodness.
And then I'm like, okay, well, now I got a solid foundation.
I understand how to fight.
And then I started getting to Jiu-Jitsu.
Like, oh, no.
Back to square one.
I'm getting raped.
I was just getting mauled on the mats.
But I'd been through that so many times and restarted so many times.
I was like, well, it's time to learn this now.
Yeah.
That's what I'm saying is everything has something to teach you.
Yeah.
And, you know, even though there's that, there's a martial art, there's a
fantasy world, which
is, I look at it as hilarious.
You know, there's this, you know, I don't know.
There's sometimes, I would say it like this.
Like, with martial arts, it's the Dunning-Kruger effect in the largest way
possible.
Because everybody out there has an opinion of martial arts, though very few
people really
know what it is.
You know, they want to look at, you know, the movies and everything.
And they really want to believe that.
They want to believe that this guy who, you know, kicks in the air and all that
kind of
stuff will be able to beat a champion.
And in a way, hey, I benefit from that to some degree because they, you know,
they think
that about me.
But, you know, I mean, even though I'm comfortable fighting and I love to, I
mean, I just love,
you know, fighting against anybody, you know, but.
But you've had actual competition experience, like a lot of competition
experience.
Yeah, but my best experiences was, is with like, I got, I got the chance to
train against
champions at their place, you know, when they're at their best.
And it's not an ego thing.
It's just like, I, I love to be able to test myself.
And I mean, because I'm my biggest competition.
And so that whole thing about, um, just what the bow means to me is like, thank
you for
making me better by providing me an obstacle and, and the higher the, you know,
the better
the person, the better I can become.
100%.
And so I loved it.
And so I, you know, for years I'm in there with Gokhan Saki and, you know,
Murray Smith's
and, you know, who, you know, you name it.
I, I, there's, I've gotten, I consider myself one of the luckiest, like martial
artists on
the planet because I get to train with so many people sometimes, you know, at
my house
and, you know, I've got all these, you know, former champions, you know,
training and rampage
when he was champion, I go to his place and, you know, and, and honestly, like
the things
I brag about is when I get humbled, you know, cause that's when I learned
something.
For sure.
For sure.
My, my philosophy is I love to be wrong cause every time I'm wrong, I learn
something.
Absolutely.
And so like some of the, the best times for me is like, I know when I was, you
know, uh,
Michael Bisping was getting ready for, uh, uh, to fight George St. Pierre and
we were in
Thailand.
I was like, yeah, you know, let's, let's like, let's mix it up.
What were you doing in Thailand?
Oh, we were doing a movie out there.
Oh, wow.
But he had to train.
He was getting ready, uh, for the George St. Pierre fight.
And so, you know, I was like, yeah, let's, let's do some rounds or whatever.
Yeah.
And I, I got so winded the second round.
I'm like, dude, just whoop my ass.
I feel so like, like I'm embarrassed.
Bisping was a cardio machine.
Yes, he was.
He was a cardio.
I didn't expect that because we were, we spent all day on a yacht the day
before and he was
drinking nonstop.
I'm a non drinker, right?
I'm like, this guy's going to, you know, I'm going to probably take it easy on
him today.
It's like, no.
He is one of the toughest motherfuckers that ever fought in the sport.
I swear.
This is what I say about him.
No matter what you think about watching his fights, you have to understand, not
only did
he accomplish so much, he accomplished a lot of it with one eye, one fucking
eye.
He had 11 fights in the UFC with a winning record with one eye.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
Yes.
Yeah.
That's, man.
He would memorize the eye chart so that when they covered his eye, he could
sight it out
like he could read it.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
How fucking crazy is that?
He's got a hell of a, he's got a hell of a personal story too.
I was trying to encourage him to get that, get that made, you know, like,
honestly, man,
I really, I really look at these UFC fighters and, you know, the MMA guys as
our modern day
are heroes.
They're our gladiators.
They're our gladiators.
And so whenever I have a chance, man, I always like to put them in movies and
try to expose
them to another kind of way of, you know, getting paid.
Yeah.
And then afterwards, because it breaks my heart that they're heroes and then
they get
discarded sometimes by, I mean, not by the union that they're with, but just by
the fans.
They're so fickle sometimes.
Yes.
Well, the casuals, the people that aren't really martial artists.
Right.
Yeah.
So dismiss a guy when they lose a few.
Yeah.
I just did my, my third movie with, uh, with Cowboy Cerrone.
You know, uh, we just finished a little over a week ago.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
He's doing really good, man.
I love that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Me too.
That's a guy that could really legitimately transition to become a movie star.
Yes.
Yes.
And he's got a lot more confidence.
The third movie, I did a, I did a, well, he did a Western with me, uh, Outlaw
Johnny Black.
I wrote and directed it.
Uh, but I had, I had, uh, Cowboy, uh, I had, uh, Randy Couture in it.
Oh, wow.
And then Josh Barnett.
Randy's done an amazing job of transitioning.
Oh, absolutely.
The Expendables, you know, and he's great at it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He has a great personality.
Just very, very calm.
He, like he, well, I remember one time he was fighting Tim Sylvia for the heavyweight
title and he came out there and he had a smile on his face.
He looked over at me and he winked.
Yeah.
I'm like, how is this motherfucker so relaxed before his fight?
But he had a, an amazing perspective.
He's like, he said to me, the people who love you will love you whether you win
or lose.
And he said, what's the worst thing that can happen?
You lose.
He goes, you've lost before.
Yeah.
It's no big deal.
Yeah.
I remember him spanking Tito.
Yeah.
He got on top of him spanking him when he had him down.
Randy was an animal.
When we, you know, he had that heart attack while he was shooting my movie.
That's crazy.
And this came back to set like nothing.
How did he have a fucking heart attack?
I don't, I don't remember how exactly.
It was, and I think he, he drove himself to the hospital.
Yeah, man.
Talk about an American hero, man.
I mean, I was there for his first fight.
Really?
Yeah.
1997.
Yeah.
I was there for his very first fight.
This huge jack dude took him down, mounted him, beat the shit out of him.
It was wild.
It was like, that was the time where wrestlers had first started cracking this
code.
Right.
Right.
There was this code of, there was a lot of people that thought like jujitsu was
the only way.
And then the elite wrestlers got in there.
Oh God.
Yeah.
It was like, if a guy could just take you down and beat the fuck out of you
from the top,
there's not a whole lot you could do about it.
Right.
Right.
And then we realized like, boy, that is the corner.
That's the true cornerstone of martial arts.
Yeah.
The ability to take a guy down.
My goodness.
I mean, what's harder than wrestling?
I don't think there's anything.
The hardest sport in the world.
Yeah.
The hardest sport in the world.
And the best sport in the world to get your kids into at a young age because
the discipline
and the mental toughness that they get will carry them through for the rest of
their life.
Yep.
Tenacity.
Just the stick-to-itiveness, whatever you want to call it.
Yeah.
That's just like.
Even high school wrestling.
I remember wrestling in high school and I had already done martial arts, but I
was like,
I've never trained that hard.
I was like, I can't believe.
And then it carried me over into my Taekwondo career because I realized like,
oh, I'm leaving
a lot on the table.
Like I'm not training like these guys are.
Right.
Yeah.
So I started running.
I started adding all these things to my training that I wasn't doing before.
I started doing a lot more calisthenics, a lot more different things.
I was like, I'm leaving something on the table because we were not training in
the gym
and we were sparring hard.
We were doing hard rounds.
You'd get tired, but it was not the same as what we were doing in wrestling.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
No one trains harder than wrestlers.
Man, I got the wrestling bug when I was a senior in high school.
And the football coach was a wrestler in college.
And he challenged me.
I think we did this two years in a row.
My junior year and my senior year.
At the end of the year, we'd wrestle.
We'd just go like, you know, he and I, like I said, I was big for my age.
Were you playing football?
I was for a very short time, but I ended up, I wasn't designed for team sports.
Me neither.
I ended up beating up the football coach.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
I had a, dude, like I had, I had the worst temper than anybody I'd ever seen.
I mean, I used to go in the fits of rage.
I was so angry early on, man.
It's like the hook is like, Mike, you should chill out a little bit, man.
It's like, I, I was just.
It's probably from being on your own at 14.
Yeah.
You know what it is, is like, I was growing up in a very harsh environment and
I was, I didn't
know I was an artist.
I didn't know I was a writer, director, whatever.
You know, they didn't, you didn't see those growing up where I am.
Right.
And so when you're sensitive kid, man, what you do is you, you build armor.
Like I was to play Mike Tyson later on and I understood him quite well.
Uh, and if you're sensitive, you, you know, anything that's precious, you put
it in, you lock it in a safe and you become the safe.
And it's, it's like, I grew up, my brothers were completely different.
They're engineers.
So things rolled off their back.
But like, for me, just, I was just volatile.
And luckily I had martial arts to kind of folk put my focus into.
But like I said, like, uh, like I was to play Mike Tyson.
I understood him a great deal.
And, you know, even though you take the moniker of this.
monster, it's only to hide what's really deep inside.
And that's why you would see if anybody's going to go into tears in front of a
million people, it's people like Mike Tyson.
And you go, how does that fit in the same person?
Right.
And so that's what I was growing up.
And, you know, I don't know if you know this, but I was, I was a school teacher
before I was an actor.
Oh, really?
Yeah, I taught EMD.
I was a special ed teacher.
Oh.
So I focused on a lot of kids who were very much like me.
And I still do that.
And the way I consider that my real job.
Whenever I'm off from work on a movie or whatever, I go into the inner cities.
I go into community centers.
I devote my time because there's nothing that I could do.
There's no better spending of time than something like that.
Because I was luckily, luckily saved.
I had just at the right times in my life, just different seeds planted.
And so I'm confident that if those seeds were not planted, I would not be here.
Because like I say, I've been through some crazy stuff.
It's a classic story.
Yeah, bro, man, like, I tell you, like, just a little under two years ago, a
buddy of mine, who's a close friend of mine, he, he got out of prison.
He was in prison for almost like 30 years.
And he found me on Facebook.
And so when I went back east, we linked up.
And I said, you know, I know a lot of people who have businesses and everything.
I hooked him up, you know, got him a job.
And we were sitting over lunch.
And in the middle of him telling me like a third or fourth story, like back in
the glory days of us or whatever.
While he was in the middle of this story, I was, I was, you know, kind of
getting myself set to kind of set him straight.
Because I don't know if you want to call this superstitious, but I won't lie.
I refuse to lie to my friends.
I even I won't lie by omission.
So I was getting set to tell him, dude, man, you got to stop embellishing on
these stories.
Just because you were locked up and you made these stories sound bigger than,
than life.
Right.
I get it.
But you're, that's not real.
You gotta, you gotta really, you know, kind of not do that.
And in the middle of me thinking that, and I'm listening to him, I go, holy
shit.
He's telling the truth.
I started remembering what he was telling me and I'm like, no, I'm finishing
his sentences.
Not only was that story true, but the other ones were true too.
And dude, like, I swear every time I think about this, I got these goosebumps
and I realized, oh my God, how close I was to being where he was or just not
being on this planet.
Right.
Like, I better devote my time into helping kids the way I was helped.
Yeah.
Don't pull that ladder up.
No, hell no.
Hell no.
Even if I'm taken out, I accept that.
Even if I'm in some projects where I'm not supposed to be and I shouldn't have
been, I accept that.
Because, dude, I am abundantly lucky.
Like, it doesn't even, it doesn't even fit on the radar how lucky I am.
And I could remember a lot of these crazy stories, you know, aside from the
ones that he made me conjure back up.
But, man, I'm like, wow.
Well, that speaks to your character that you had downplayed it all in your mind
so much that you thought he was exaggerating.
I swept it under the rug.
Yeah.
Because you're not that person anymore.
No, no, but I mean, but there was so much, there was so many events, things
that would, I just call it on a Wednesday that I went through, that it's like,
I don't know, like, I think I wouldn't trade it because I continue to be the
happiest guy I know because of, I think, some of that.
Because you can appreciate the good times.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I should be slapped if I complain about anything.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Like, what?
And so, you know, so I just, boy, I just know I'm so blessed.
And, you know, what we do, what we're doing even right now, man, we're in the
service industry, man.
You know, you're here to serve, in my opinion.
That's what we're all here for.
And, you know, it's great that we get to serve and doing the things that we
would like to do that inspired us.
That's definitely a lot of what we do.
I mean, there's definitely a lot of it, right?
You entertain, but I feel very blessed that I've been able to expose people to
so many different ways of thinking, so much information, so many different
human beings that have led completely different paths that can tell you about
whatever discipline they're involved in, what they've learned, what we're
working on right now, and what you can learn about the human mind, the body,
ancient history, fill in the blank, like whatever it is.
Yeah, yeah, and I see you do that over and over, in utmost honesty.
I remember, like, where you had to kind of pull Shab aside and tell, as a
friend, some things that are hard for people to, you know, other friends to
tell them.
You know, and like...
That was real hard.
Yeah.
Well, that was real hard because I love that guy.
He's a great person.
He's a great human being.
And I knew the path.
I'd seen it too many times, but I hadn't seen it with someone I was that close
with.
I was like, you have to stop.
Because you, not only that, you're in the heavyweight division, so the knockouts
are brutal, and you're gonna get three or four more in the next couple of years,
and then you're not gonna recover from those.
But man, so many people, I hope they take a page out of that, because it's so
non-manly, I feel, to just not say anything.
Right.
And allow somebody you love to go down the road.
I mean, that might be detrimental for them.
Well, it was also, Shab had another path.
He was really good at podcasting.
He's fun.
He's a funny dude.
Right, yeah.
He's like, as a podcaster, he's got a great personality.
He's silly.
You know, he's a big, giant, silly dude.
Yeah.
And like, we would have so much fun.
And he was doing really well.
And he was making more money doing that than he was fighting.
Yeah.
But his identity was so wrapped up in him being a top 10 UFC heavyweight.
Right.
He had beat world-class guys like Mirko Krokop.
Oh, yes, yeah.
You know, and he was legit, man.
Mm-hmm.
But that time had passed.
Yeah.
And I saw that he was one foot in and one foot out.
Yeah.
And as soon as the guy's one foot in and one foot out, you're gonna run into
some guy who has both feet in and is a fucking samurai.
Mm-hmm.
And then you're gonna wake up on a stretcher.
Yeah.
And you're on the way to the hospital going, "What happened?"
Yeah.
And you don't remember the fight.
You don't remember nothing.
Yeah.
And then you don't know where your keys are.
You forget people's names.
You tell the same story over and over again.
Yeah.
And then you struggle to put sentences together.
When you start seeing dudes with the slur.
Nothing's worth that, man.
Nothing's worth that.
Yeah.
Because you're, I mean, at the time he was only 35 years old or whatever he was.
I'm like, man, you got another 45, 55 years of life.
Mm-hmm.
You can't do this.
Yeah.
You can't, you can't sacrifice all these years for glory that will never be
achieved anyway,
because you're not on that path anymore.
Yeah.
And it's not about what strangers say about you.
No.
It's about your, you know, your friends, your family.
Yeah.
People who really love you.
It's just so hard for people to abandon that identity.
Yes.
The hardest thing with fighters is to abandon that identity.
Mm-hmm.
We've seen so many guys, even the greats, they come back and they shouldn't and
you see it
and you see them get humiliated and you're like, oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And when it comes down to it, these people, they don't love you, man.
Like a lot of, you know, it's.
They love you as the image.
Yeah.
They live vicariously through you.
I remember, I remember one time I was in a fight in Boston.
And I remember when something completely changed.
Usually, if anybody, because I did any kind of thing, I would do kickboxing or
this tournament.
I just loved my best.
I think the thing I did best in the world was fighting.
I had this, I always had these cheat codes in a way.
And I enjoyed the chess match of it.
Mm-hmm.
And anybody who were, was against me, I don't care if you were my cousin or
whatever, you're
going to pay for all the angst that I've had in my life.
But until there was this one time, I swear, I ducked a technique, I caught
somebody with
something that was kind of, you know, kind of cool.
And I just remember the audience just cheering.
And in that moment, I was like, just angry.
Kind of like, yo, this guy could really be messed up right now.
You're cheering for me.
You're living vicarious through me like I'm a pit bull or something.
Right.
And I got angry at the audience.
I fucking hated them.
And I said, because if I was down on the ground, you'd be cheering for the
person that put me
down.
And something just snapped.
And I go, no, this is not enough for me.
This is, this is not, this is not what I want to do.
Mm-hmm.
And, and, you know, just something snapped.
And I, I much rather be skillful, test myself in a skillful way.
Um, and I much rather not try to peel your head off, but show I could, as
opposed to, you
know, that triumph of dominating.
Right.
It was nothing for me anymore in that.
Um, you know, and just something, it's just something just rubbed me the wrong
way.
And I just, anytime I would do any kind of competition, it was for me.
And it wasn't for an audience.
You know, I just something soured.
Mm-hmm.
I always thought at one time, I'm going to be called out, you know, and I
thought, oh,
I'll, I'll rise to that occasion if that, that happens.
And, you know, kind of like, remember the thing with you and Wesley?
Oh, yeah.
Which would have been, oh, my God, that would have been terrible.
But, um, oh, yeah, but, uh, but I always thought, hey, well, you know, maybe,
you know,
something.
I think Wesley just needed money.
I mean, that was one.
I don't, I don't think he'd ever be, I don't think that was ever serious, but
it's, it's
very much like, I think.
We were in negotiation for quite a while, man.
Yeah.
We had lawyers involved.
Yeah.
It's always easy to pull a plug on something like that.
Just like Jean-Claude's talking about fighting, uh, Jake, Jake Paul, right?
Is he talking about that right?
He's a hundred years old.
Yeah, I'm like.
He weighs 50 pounds.
He's a hundred years old.
I'm like, I'm like, come on, man.
Come on.
Is he really talking about fighting Jake Paul?
Yeah.
I just saw something in the last couple of days.
I'm like, okay.
I think Wesley was serious because I think they had, um, they had hit him with
that tax case.
And he owed a lot of money to the government.
Well, this was before that tax case.
No, no, no.
It was in the middle of it.
Really?
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
I know it was.
Huh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was 2000.
I want to say five or six.
It was in the middle of all that.
And he was in trouble.
It was, it was serious.
And he, you know, obviously eventually wound up going to jail.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so they were going to set up a fight with him and Jean-Claude Van Damme.
That was the first fight.
But Campbell McLaren.
Yeah.
Campbell McLaren from the UFC was like, no one gives a shit about you fighting
Jean-Claude Van Damme.
You got to fight someone who's current.
And so he said, let me contact Joe Rogan.
He called me up and he said, would you be willing to fight Wesley Snipes?
And I was like, what?
And I was like, come on, really?
I go, what is this?
And so I said, let me think about it.
I thought about it.
I called him the next day.
I said, let's fucking do it.
Really?
Yeah.
I was training with Rob Kamen in the mornings and then I was doing jujitsu at
night.
I trained twice a day for six months.
Wow.
I was always tired.
I was always tired.
That's one thing that I realized.
Like, fuck, man.
To be like, and I wasn't even a professional really, but it was training like a
professional.
It's like, I can't believe how tired I am all the time.
But, you know, I think Wesley had never really had a fight.
I don't think so.
I think he was an accomplished martial artist.
He had good technique.
I trained with Wesley's instructors.
You know, Marcus Elgato was a good friend of mine and also Lamar Thornton, who
was Marcus Elgato's instructor.
That's, I believe the, that's the only, that's the lineage I believe that he's
through.
But I mean, I've never, I've known Wesley since way before he was kind of
Wesley.
Wow.
I was a giant fan of Wesley too.
Yeah.
Which was also wild for me.
Yeah.
Because I love Blade.
Blade was like my favorite comic book when I was a kid.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just didn't, I didn't think they were serious about it.
I couldn't imagine why would Wesley, I always thought it was not real.
I think Wesley thought that I was just a grappler and think he knew that I was
doing jujitsu.
I don't think he knew my background.
Oh.
And so like they were, Wesley was talking to them saying, oh, he thinks he's
going to be able to stop you from taking him down.
And he's going to catch you with a knee while you're coming in to try to take
him down.
Like I go, oh, he wants to stand up.
Yeah.
I go, I'm way better at that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was wondering how that even occurred.
I didn't think that was serious.
I was like, okay.
It was serious.
Yeah.
It was serious.
It went on for a long time.
It was a lot of negotiation to the point where I even talked about it on the
UFC broadcast once.
I said, come on, Wesley, sign the contract.
I'm getting bored training.
Let's do this.
Like I have to do it now.
I was like 35 or 36.
I was like, I don't have much time left.
If we're going to do this, we have to do this now.
Like, come on, let's go.
And then he decided not to.
And then I'm like, that's probably for the better.
Yeah.
I know Wesley for a while.
I remember when he was first telling me about the sovereign being sovereign.
Yeah.
That's where they got him with that sovereign citizen shit.
Yeah.
I was like, I wish I was friends with him.
I would have said, dude, they're going to lock you up.
I was, I'm super protective of my friends.
I've always been that way.
And with Wesley, I was always like, my thing is he used to have people around
him that I'm like, you know, we have little get togethers at my house, whatever.
I'm like, don't bring any of those motherfuckers or it's going to be a problem.
You know, cause there's, there's people that just, I felt like we're hangers on
and, you know, that kind of a thing.
And I was always like, Hey man, you, are you good?
And you know, are you, um, staying healthy?
I've always been that way.
Cause the way I look at it, he's a, he's a big brother.
If not for him, it may not be for me.
You know, he gave me some good advice early on.
He always encouraged me that if I'm doing, if I have a movie that's overseas,
get there, you know?
Show up in, in those overseas markets and let them know that you're, you're
down, you know?
And, um, I took that to heart and that helped me out in my career a great deal.
And so I, you know, I look at it like that.
I've never, I'll never say anything derogatory about him or whatever.
So, I mean, I'm always, I just recently tried to reach out to him like a couple
of days ago, just to check in, man.
Cause I, I, I, you know, I, I wish him the best and, and, you know, I want to,
I want him to like really, you know,
start kicking ass again.
I would love to see him return as Blade.
Yeah.
That would be cool.
He could do it too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
An older Blade.
He could do it.
Yeah.
Fuck.
He was good in the original Blade.
Yeah.
That's the opening scene.
That was one of the best scenes in any action movie of all time.
When it's that vampire party and the, the, the sprinkler starts spraying blood.
Yeah.
And they're about to kill that dude.
Yeah.
And all of a sudden Wesley shows up.
Yeah, man.
It's what, what really gets on my nerves is that, you know, he saved Marvel,
man.
That movie saved Marvel.
Oh yeah.
You know that, right?
Oh yeah.
That movie was a huge hit.
Even Stan Lee admits that.
Mmm.
They were like in trouble until that movie.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah.
Because superhero movies are the biggest fucking movies in Hollywood right now.
I mean, when they have a big budget movie, superhero movies are like the only
movie that you can throw hundreds of millions of dollars and be sure it's going
to kill it in the box office.
Yeah.
Whether it's the Avengers or Spider-Man or Superman or whoever the fuck it is.
That's the only kind of movie that Hollywood's like, yeah, okay, we'll throw
500 million at this one.
Yeah.
And it's, it's, I'm not a big fan of those things.
I, I, I know it's not, they, they didn't design it for people like me.
Right.
So it's for, it's for the fan base.
And to me, it's like, ugh, you know, I, they, they, they tend to meld into each
other as far as I'm concerned.
They do.
Yeah.
They do.
Yeah.
There's only so many times you could tell the stories, you know.
Yeah.
But I, I still enjoy them.
I still enjoy some of them.
They're fun.
Yeah.
I, I, I like when people are believable.
Right.
Believable.
Yeah.
There's nothing believable about those movies.
Yeah.
You know, I like the actors that are like, you know, having some quirkiness and
some, some, you know, edge to them.
Right.
Yeah.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Um, you know, maybe I'm being unfair cause I had really hadn't seen a lot.
Maybe I owe it to myself to give someone.
Nah.
Nah.
I think you got it.
It's simple entertainment.
Yeah.
It's a silly release and escape.
Yeah.
That's all it is.
It's not a great, there's no great films that are superhero films.
Right.
Yeah.
Cause sometimes I'm like, oh yeah, she's 90 pounds and she just threw a guy.
Okay.
Yeah.
Like Charlie's angels or something.
Yeah.
I'm like, come on now.
Kicking ass in stilettos.
And it's like, anytime somebody lands in a three point stance and then looks up,
I'm like,
I just changed the channel.
Yeah.
I'm just like, stop, just stop.
Yeah.
But you know, people love those things.
I'm like, that's cool.
I don't know why they have so much appeal, especially in the American market.
People, that is one of the only movies that you can make that's guaranteed to
be huge.
Yeah.
It's, it's McDonald's man.
It's McDonald's.
Right.
I remember when, that's it.
Yeah.
I remember when they, you know, you had, uh, what was that?
Like, uh, the 300, you know, that was like, nobody, nobody knew anybody.
Right.
But that was just such a breath of fresh air.
Cause it looked like some badasses that were real.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
I'd like to see more of that kind of a thing.
Like, you know, not the style, star power thing, but just some motherfuckers
that you
believe.
Right.
You know what I mean?
That, that would, you know, that would attract me.
Also the style of that movie was so unique.
Cause it blended fantasy with reality.
I did like comic history too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Knock on wood.
I got some, some things in the works.
Do you?
Yeah.
What are you working on?
Oh man.
I've, I've been blessed, man.
I've got some really good movies coming out and some things that I'm planning
on doing.
I'm really, I'm getting to a place where I'm really shooting the things that I
want.
And I'm producing and all that stuff.
So, you know, so I, you know, I have movies that have their, have their body
count, but also
have a little bit of like something to say.
You know what I miss?
What's that?
Spawn.
Oh man.
Bro.
A lot of people, yeah.
People forgot about Spawn.
You don't hear about it anymore.
Right.
Yeah, man.
That was fucking great.
Yeah, I had my, man, you didn't, most people didn't see the first adaptation of
it.
The first, well, I saw a cut of the movie before it.
It, I mean, at this time it had like 71 special effects in it, but Bob Shea at
the time that
was running New Line, liked the, that version.
He just gave the director a car watch to, to just add whatever he wanted.
And the director was a special effects guy.
So he started throwing special effects in there that was really killing the
story, which
kind of drove me up, up a wall.
Cause then like, you didn't even see why my character wanted to get back.
You didn't even see the life that I'm wanting to get back to because there was
so much special
effects.
Even when I saw the final version, I'm like, what the hell is going on?
People that knew Spawn, they were fine with it cause they understood the
character.
But for me, it was like the story got all convoluted, but like, you know, but I
mean, people love
it.
It was a, I think it was a thing for its time.
But, uh, unfortunately I saw a version of it that made you care about it.
I understand, but I cared about the one that I saw.
And I felt like I don't understand how Spawn sort of escaped the zeitgeist.
You don't ever hear about Spawn anymore.
You know what I mean?
Like there's all these superhero films, all these different things, but Spawn
was unique
and it was really good and dark.
Yeah.
I always said, if they did another one, you should do it just like the comic
book.
Make it hard R or non-rated.
Because I mean, like to do a Spawn PG, like how we did PG-13.
Yeah.
It's like, what do you want?
You trying to go for breakfast cereal?
Like Spawn O's or something?
Like, like, come on, man.
Let's go hard.
Like the cartoon, right?
See if you can find a clip from Spawn.
Cause it's, I feel like no one talks about it anymore.
It's kind of weird.
They damn sure talk to me about it.
Bro, it was good.
What year was this?
97.
Wow.
Yeah.
They were fucking great, man.
Now stay sharp.
The night is young.
Evil has a new enemy.
Justice has a new weapon.
And the world has a new hero.
The memories.
Bro, that was a fucking great movie, man.
New Line Cinema Presents.
Yeah.
That was a great movie.
How many did you guys do?
One.
Just one.
Just one.
There was nothing else?
Wasn't there something else like a series?
It was a cartoon first.
That's right.
Yeah.
Well, it was a comic book.
Then it was a cartoon on HBO.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Keith David was the voice of Spawn on that one.
Oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, yeah.
But that was a big hit.
I think so.
It made its money back.
Yeah.
I mean, I remember it was very popular.
Like, everyone was talking about it.
People got excited about it.
Especially people like me that liked the comic books.
Right, right.
They were very into it.
Yeah.
I was always surprised.
But it's weird to me that even the comic book spawn doesn't get brought up
anymore.
Right.
Yeah.
Every now and then, like, I'm off doing a movie, whatever.
I drive by comic book stores.
I go and I just start signing shit.
Right?
The spawn stuff.
So there's still stuff there.
Oh, yeah.
There's always giving me a hardcore fan base.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, there's people, like, there's still hardcore about that.
And then, Tom McFarlane has talked about doing another spawn for the last 25
years.
It was huge.
But the weird thing is, it's like, okay, I wish you all the best of luck, bro.
But you created the comic book.
When he's talking about doing another spawn, I'm like, you haven't done a first
one.
Like the comic book.
No, he's not a director.
Like, he's, it's just like Stan Lee hasn't directed a Marvel movie.
Right.
And Tom McFarlane is talking about doing another spawn.
But I'm like, well, that would be the first time a person that created a comic
book directed and produced a movie that I know of.
Right.
Because even though he talks about he's going to do one.
And he had this concept that he talked to me about.
And then he said he wanted to, you know, I guess he wanted to use Jamie Foxx.
And he talked about this concept that spawn would be, you wouldn't see him.
And it's like, like Jaws, he would never be around.
But just people would get fucked up.
All of a sudden, they're, you know, like a mist would come in there.
People are destroyed.
I'm like, good luck with that.
You know, I don't know, but like, but he's been talking about it for a while.
And people say, oh, man, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm sad that you're not the next
spawn that they're using Jamie.
I'm like, when is it going to happen?
They've been, he's been saying that for a long time.
But I'm going, hey, maybe somebody is going to give him that amount of money to
do a movie when he's never directed anything before.
Right.
Right.
He hasn't directed anything before.
He visited set a few times because he created a comic book.
Directing a movie is something completely different.
You know what I mean?
So I'm like all power to you if that's happening.
But it's like, I wonder why people believe it.
Hmm.
Yeah, that's a lot to bite off to do, especially a movie like that, which would
probably be a large budget.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, you know, but.
And then you're going to get the executives involved and they're going to fuck
with it because they always have to have their say.
Yeah, man.
It's a, it's a miracle that a movie gets done the way it's intended.
Period.
Yeah.
I'm like, a lot of times when a movie works, I go, how did some executive not
fuck this movie up?
Right.
You know what I mean?
I'm always like that.
There's only a few guys that can get away with a movie where everybody just
leaves them alone.
Yeah.
There's a few Tarantinos out there.
Yeah.
Everybody just let them go.
Just let them go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If you tried to make Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and you weren't a successful
director, you were just some guy with an idea, someone would come along and
fuck that up.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Luckily, I'm, people are leaving me alone.
I've been, I've been directing and, you know, doing my own thing.
They go, okay, you got this.
Okay.
Like I say, I'll give you the body count, but now if I could put stuff in it,
you know.
What is going on with Jamie Foxx doing Tyson?
Because that's been rumored for a decade at least.
Yeah.
That's another thing.
It's like weird that Jamie Foxx wants to do a Tyson and a Spawn, but it's like,
I don't, I don't take it personally.
Very talented guy.
But yeah, I think Jamie does a very good impression of Mike Tyson.
Yeah, but you got to gain like a hundred pounds.
Right.
And then Jamie's got to get, he's got to pack on that meat at 50.
But then why?
I just, I just sit there and I go, why?
When Tyson's life itself has been very, you know, transparent.
Right.
And so you can see the real guy in documentary form and everything else.
What story do you have to tell?
That's true.
I'm not trying to be a hater, but I'm like, I just, I'm just curious.
The only thing that would be interesting is seeing like Jamie do it.
Seeing him pull, like you pulled off Ray Charles, like seeing him pull it off.
That would, that would be the appeal of it, I think.
Right.
But yeah, in my personal opinion, I don't think that's enough.
You got to tell the story.
Right.
You got to, you got to, it's gotta be some compelling story.
I mean, hell.
I mean, people saw Titanic.
You know how it's going to end, but you had to, he had to present a story.
Right.
There, you know.
Jamie is so versatile.
He is.
I mean, there's very few guys that can do all the different things that he can
do.
He could sing.
He can act.
He could do stand up and, and he could do all kinds of different characters.
And I mean, and he's so believable in so many different roles.
You know what I watched the other day, which is a fucking great movie that I
forgot was
so great is collateral.
Oh, hell yeah.
Oh my God.
No, no.
When Jamie had collateral and Ray, to me, like there was, you couldn't have had
a better year.
Right.
Right.
Two completely different human beings.
Oh my God.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And he became those people.
He became Ray Charles.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And as good as he can sing, him singing as Ray Charles was insane.
It's one of the best, I mean, performances ever.
Ever.
Ever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He really played that dude in collateral.
You believed it.
And fucking Tom Cruise.
But Tom Cruise.
Oh my God.
Dude, Tom Cruise really proved something to me in that damn movie.
Cause I've never been, I would never think I would ever be scared of Tom
freaking Cruise.
Right.
And how convincing he was.
He's a bad motherfucker.
Yes.
He is a bad, he's crazy as bad shit, but he's a bad motherfucker.
He brought it in that movie.
You have to be that crazy to do all the stunts that that guy does.
Yeah.
He's 60 years old.
He's jumping off buildings and shit and breaking his ankle.
Yeah.
It's just like Johnny Depp.
Like, I'm like Johnny Depp when he did Black Mass.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Like, I'm like, oh, you had that in you?
Right, right, right.
Holy shit.
I'm like him having that character in him?
There's a scene in Collateral that tactical instructors play.
Yes.
The scene when they're.
The double tap.
Yes.
He whips it back.
Double tap, double tap.
He knocks the guy's gun out of the way and pulls it out.
Yeah.
And it's so fast and so smooth.
See if you can find that scene, Jamie.
It's a scene where they're trying to take Tom Cruise's briefcase.
Yeah.
And he's in an alleyway.
Yep.
Ooh.
Yeah, I played that over and over myself.
The amount of times that he must have drilled that to get that unholstered the
gun, pull
it out, shoot him, shoot the other dude so smooth.
Yeah.
And the way he did it, so professional.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, it looks like a legit hitman.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That, that, that was.
That, that, that character.
I mean, from start to finish.
Terrifying.
Like, to me proved a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, he embodied that guy.
Yeah.
And you know.
Here it is.
Is that my briefcase?
Is that your briefcase?
Yeah, it is.
Why?
You want it back?
About your wallet.
What else you got for me?
Huh?
Come on, son.
Yeah.
I actually visited that set when they were shooting that.
Not that scene, but it was another, it was another day.
And it was, I remember it was weird because they were shooting something and
they were shooting
Tom, the behind Tom Cruise's head.
And he had eight camera angles just behind his head.
I'm like, and I'm looking at the, the, you know, the video village where they
made sure
they had any, they had a choice of whatever perfect thing that they want.
They, it was the craziest thing.
I'm like, and I guess Michael Mann, he's known for like shooting a lot, but it
was like eight
cameras that's just behind the dude.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
I'm like, this is a whole nother like level.
Yeah.
It was crazy.
It's a great fucking movie.
That movie holds up.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That, that's prime Jamie, man.
Yup.
Yup.
The fact that he's got that much range that he can do this nerdy dude.
Who's terrified.
Doesn't know what the fuck is going on.
He's just driving a car.
And all of a sudden he has his hit man with him.
And then he gets wrapped up in this whole thing.
Yeah.
But as a fan, I'm, I want to see him do something else like that.
Right.
Right.
Like something like that requires what he can do.
Mm-hmm.
And there's a lot, you know, that's one of the things.
There's a lot, not a lot of things out there sometimes, you know, so, you know,
he's been
doing things that I think show, you know, certain parts, but like to where he
was going in collateral
and, and Ray, you know, it'd be nice to see that stuff again.
It's gotta be hard to find those roles.
Right.
And when you find those roles, there's probably like six or seven A-list dudes
that they have
like on a board somewhere and they're trying to figure out who's the guy for
this.
Yeah, but I believe-
Who's gonna sell the most.
I believe you gotta create your own stuff, man.
Put it this way.
Nobody was gonna write that Black Dynamite for me.
Right, right, right.
You know what I mean?
Right.
I had to, you know, my thing is largely creating my own lane.
That was a fun movie, by the way.
Well, thanks, man.
Really fun.
Thanks, man.
So, yeah, man.
So, I, I luckily, like I, I enjoyed writing.
I was always looked at everything from, I was always fascinated about this
industry.
And, uh, I sold a lot of things as a writer, separate from the acting thing.
And so, you know, just putting it all together is something that's like, I
really enjoy doing.
How do you dedicate your time when you're writing?
Do you, do you, do you just like have an idea and say, okay, for the next X
weeks, I'm
gonna sit down and dedicate myself to this?
Dude, it's all different.
A lot of times I will see the entire movie.
Like when I did Black Dynamite, dude, I was, I was in China getting, going to
set
Black Dynamite and I was in, uh, in Shanghai.
And I was listening to James Brown's Superbad.
And I just started thinking about, I'm goofing, I'm laughing.
I'm in the back of this car and there's a driver wondering what the hell's
going on with me.
I'm seeing the whole goddamn movie, including a nunchuck fight scene with, with
Richard Nixon.
And, and, and I'm, I'm laughing.
And, you know, I started jotting stuff down because I was, it occurred to me,
man.
Like, I just like, I mean, one day I was thinking like, wow, man.
Like growing up we had Shaft and we had, we had a Superfly and the Mac and, and
all that posters
like that, that we idolize.
And I'm going, those were pimps.
There was something wrong with my childhood.
Why am I like the Mac?
Like that's a hero.
And so it made me really think about it.
And I'm like, I'm looking at these movies and like Jim Brown and Fred Williamson
are like killing like 60 people.
And it's okay.
Right.
Everybody's like this.
They have a club and then they got all these women and all this.
And I'm like, this is actually hilarious.
So I do a movie that depicted it exactly like it is thinking about this.
One of the biggest movies of that time was three to hard way.
I don't know if you remember that movie, Jim Brown, Fred Williamson and Jim
Kelly.
Oh yeah.
Forgot about Jim Kelly.
Three the hard way.
What was it about?
It had the three predominant black exploitation stars, right?
And the movie was about an evil Dr. Feather who had these leaders of liquid
that he was going to put in the water systems of LA, Chicago and New York that
were going to kill all the black people.
It's not a comedy.
That's the movie?
It's not a comedy.
It was going to it was going to give sickle cell anemia to all the black people.
Now, the the the conspirator.
I've been a black man for a long time.
And it is really funny because in the community conspiracy is a big thing.
Right.
So it like that whole conspirator thing.
Oh, they trying to get you that kind of a thing.
It really its engine was that that paranoia that this leader of liquid was
going to kill black people.
Well, there was so much evidence that those conspiracies were real like Tuskegee.
But of course that that's that's something that's like it's it's on its feet
though.
But right.
Come on a leader.
It's something this big in the water systems that was going to kill all the
black people.
And that's not a comedy.
That was a serious movie.
But when you look at it, that's hilarious.
It's absolutely hilarious to think that you can do a movie about that.
So to do a movie, I thought that really, really talked about that time period
where it was kind of this overcorrection.
Because, you know, you had in the 60s, there were like, you know, butlers and
maids and all that kind of stuff.
But now you had these super overcorrected badasses that could just do anything.
Right.
And I thought it was hilarious to look at it and treat it as if it were like
back in that day, like like a lost movie.
Actually, Tarantino was somebody I was talking to about that whole thing when I
was putting Black Dynamite together.
And he had certain ideas, but, you know, I kind of went my own direction with
it.
Well, yeah, man.
So, yeah, things like that, like, you know, I was I've gotten to a place where
I'm putting these things together.
And that really interests me.
And I'm finding that there's an audience that likes it as well.
But, yeah, man.
So, you know, it just occurred to me that it was bizarre.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, you know.
So for that movie, that movie just came to you.
Yeah.
But it came to me just like the whole movie came to me in a ride to set.
Is that normal for ideas?
Or do you sometimes sit down and say, like, I want to write an idea about blank?
Sometimes.
Sometimes.
Like, I have a movie that the next movie I'm going to do is a sequel to a movie
I did called As Good As Dead.
Right.
And it became Samuel Goldwyn's, one of their most successful movies.
I wrote the idea.
It was based off my brother.
My brother, he went from Florida into Mexico and started a family.
He just, like, fell in love with Mexico.
And I kind of based my character on him.
And he's basically a cop that's, like, hiding out in Mexico and, you know,
trying to avoid this, you know, syndicate or whatever that's trying to kill him.
But that movie just came to me.
I wrote it.
We were in production, like, two months later.
And we actually got the movie done within a year.
And it was --
How did you get it made so quick?
Yeah.
I mean, they responded to the script.
And it was kind of like a grown-up karate kid in a way.
So, my character, you don't know, what's this black dude doing working
construction in Mexico?
And, you know, he's got his Wing Chun dummy and he's training in his backyard.
And it's a kid who's trying to avoid the gangs that he befriends, that he
teaches this unique kind of martial art.
And so, one thing leads to another, this kid gets good at it and they trace the
style back to my character.
And then, you know, then the bad guys are trying to kill me and I have to fight
back.
So, what we're doing, we're about to do a sequel.
I start that in a couple of weeks, actually.
So, I wrote that one.
But, yeah, so, I feel like, I don't know, I'm still a fan of movies.
I don't -- I wouldn't write something I wouldn't want to see.
And I've seen a lot, you know.
I think I understand this industry.
I understand there's a lot of stories that I think could be told with fresh
ways.
And with the action and martial arts that could be new and exciting.
Like, I'm getting to a place where I'm trying to make fight scenes look very
real.
Like, including choreographing mistakes.
You know what I mean?
I think people have become so much more sophisticated watching UFC fights and
all that type of stuff.
I think you got to raise the bar to make something look real.
And there's a lot of the stuff that's in the, you know, the superhero movies
and whatever that you just kind of go, okay.
You're seeing choreography for choreography's sake.
Right.
You're not invested because you don't feel like you're looking at a real fight.
Right.
And so I like to try to, you know, use my platform to step that up a bit.
Yeah, that's hard.
Especially as a person who is a martial artist to watch fight scenes and go,
you have to kind of suspend disbelief and go, all right.
Well, yeah.
Kind of like, you know, it's weird, but, you know, kind of full circle.
It's kind of going back to the way Bruce Lee did stuff.
Mm-hmm.
And he's a little faster than the other person.
He has a little bit more technique.
And, you know, if you imagine, like, even if I imagine you in a real fight,
your technique's not going nowhere.
And other people are not going to have that same technique.
You know, you beat somebody to the punch.
You do things that would logically give you the edge.
That's what you shoot.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Yeah, so it's not like you got to do a lot of camera tricks.
Right.
If you're moving faster and stronger than another person, well, there it is.
There it is.
So, luckily, you know, I mean, I can put things on screen that kind of resemble
what things might look like, you know?
And you get the benefit of the doubt because, you know, you're in a heroic
position.
It's just very hard to do that.
It's very hard to make it look real.
There's a real art to that.
Yeah, yeah.
But, like, with the movie that you turned down, Blood and Bone.
I turned down John Wick 4, too, though.
Oh, man.
I turned down a lot of movies.
You do.
You did the right thing because what you're doing, you could not, you know,
this could not be more, you know, up your alley doing the things that you're
doing.
But, like.
John Wick was hard.
I'm a giant John Wick fan.
Are you?
Especially John Wick 1.
Well, there's going to be a John Wick 7, so you can decide to do it if you want
to.
No, no, no.
They got kind of crazy.
They're over the top now.
But even John Wick 1 was totally unrealistic.
Oh, man.
Totally unreal.
But so fun.
I fucking love those movies.
Yeah, well, I got something that's kind of in that vein that I just finished.
There's a lot of body count, but a lot of CQB.
I've been studying that for a while.
A lot of, like.
What is CQB?
Oh, close quarter combat.
Oh, okay.
Of course, close quarter battle.
But, you know, I've been doing, like, you know, a lot of, like, tactical
training.
And kind of getting myself, I may compete at some point.
Oh, really?
Yeah, yeah.
I've gotten pretty into it.
Where do you train at?
Oh, a lot of places.
I train with a guy named Tyler Gray.
He's Delta Force.
I have a lot of friends who are, like, you know, special force guys.
You ever go to Taron Tactical?
Oh, of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I go to Taron quite a bit.
That guy's the best.
Oh, yeah.
He's a man.
He's amazing.
You want to talk about someone who's very technical.
Oh, my God.
He shoots from the hip, like, better than anybody using a laser.
You know?
No, he's preposterous.
It's unreal.
Always iron sights.
Yeah.
You know, he doesn't...
I mean, he uses red dots, but, you know, he prefers iron sights.
He's like, they never fail.
They never go wrong.
Yeah.
And he's so crazy accurate.
It's wild to watch.
And when you think about, like, how long...
How fast could you just take out everybody in this damn room?
It's kind of...
It's kind of spooky.
Yeah, it is spooky.
Yeah.
Well, it's also, he's so calm about it, too.
Yeah.
It's weird, like, almost like autistic.
Like, weird.
Yeah.
Fucking rain man-ish.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, what the fuck?
When you watch him do it, like, many times I've gone to his range and trained.
And then, you know, people goad him into it.
Like, do a run.
Like, do this.
Like, do this.
And he's like, okay, I'm gonna do this.
I'm gonna do that.
I'm gonna do this.
I'm gonna do that.
Yeah.
And then I'm gonna pull this out right here.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
You're like, what the fuck did I just watch?
Yeah.
That's crazy.
And then you see how many times he's won the championship?
Oh, yeah.
Ridiculous.
And, like, there's only a few people that won consecutive years.
And he's got, like, seven years in a row.
Yeah.
Just chunks.
I'm like, this is crazy.
Yeah.
He's a very unique talent.
Yeah.
Very unique talent.
Yeah.
A buddy of mine, like Tyler Gray, he just, he's been Delta.
He's been, he's been decorated.
He's, oh my God, his place in Vegas.
He's, he creates guns.
And he's got, like, more in his arsenal than every gun store you can imagine.
But, like, he's like, he's something else.
Like, he, one of the most mellow people you ever want to meet in your life.
And, but he's, he's, he's been, the guy, been the consultant and director on,
on Navy SEALs for years.
And, you know, but I got a lot of friends doing that.
So my, my brother, he just, he just retired from Secret Service.
And, you know, you know Danny, Danny Hester?
No.
He was a former Mr. Olympia, classic physique.
But he's gotten into, you know, I mean, I shoot with these guys all the time.
And, and, and actually, uh, Flex Wheeler.
You know, a lot of the guys are, you know, into the gun stuff.
You know, so we, we go set up stuff and, you know.
Well, once you start training, you realize, like, how difficult it is and how
long the learning curve is.
Mmm.
Because you think, oh, you point, you pull the trigger, what's the big deal?
Mmm.
Then you, you get into it and then you see someone like Taron or someone who's
competing and you go, oh.
Yeah.
Or there's, this is just like everything else, just like karate, like jujitsu,
like everything.
There's levels.
Oh, yeah.
Levels and levels and levels.
Yeah.
And you see people competing and you go, oh, wow.
Yeah.
I'd like to do that someday.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You, you're in a great place for it.
Yes.
Yeah.
Texas is a great place for it.
Oh, yeah.
There's a staccato range that we go to sometimes.
It's awesome.
They have all these different setups out there.
They have this old west town with all these different, like, targets set up and
you run from doorway to doorway.
Mmm.
That's pretty badass.
Yeah.
John Jones, I see, is doing quite a bit of that.
John Jones is a fucking scary human being.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And if you get past him, he's got his fucking dog, Dutch.
Yeah.
Which is, you know, he brings a Belgian Malinois everywhere he goes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know my good friend, you know, Josh Barnett, he's, he's at Taron's a lot too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's got political intelligence.
One of the most.
Very well read.
He is like jeopardy smart.
Yes.
He's like ridiculous.
You can't.
There's not many things that he doesn't know.
Right.
Yeah.
He's amazing.
Watch you guys, you guys on this show.
I was very flattered.
He started, he mentioned, I don't know where he started talking about how he
was inspired
by myself and my wife and that, you know, actually got me real choked up.
Yeah.
I was like, what man?
Josh is a great guy.
Yeah.
You know, incidentally, my wife is somebody that, I don't know.
You, you met her a long time ago.
You last saw her sliding down the Luxor.
Oh, wow.
That's crazy.
Yup.
That's crazy.
On Fear Factor.
On Fear Factor.
Wow.
Yup.
She was sliding down the Luxor when you last saw her.
That's crazy.
She slipped right into my arms.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
We've been, we've done our sixth movie together.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So we've been, you know, we got two, our teenagers are, we got one less.
Well, we got two left in the house.
We're going to college now.
So, you know, we're about to be Inti Nesters.
That's awesome.
Congratulations.
Yeah, man.
So yeah, it's wild how these things kind of connect.
It is wild.
Yeah.
It is wild.
Yeah.
Josh is one of the, he's like one of the best examples to me of when people
think of a martial
artist or think of a cage fighter, former UFC heavyweight champion.
And you think of a guy like, oh, probably some brute, some dude.
Have a conversation with him.
Yes.
And you realize the depth of his intellect and the depth of his knowledge.
Like how much he knows about Nietzsche.
He can quote Nietzsche.
Oh my God.
He's so well read.
He makes his own whiskey.
Yeah.
You know, like he's a very interesting guy.
Man, what a Renaissance guy.
Exactly.
A real Renaissance guy.
Yeah.
We usually, we have the same birthday.
So sometimes we throw parties together.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
When he's in town, he's always in Japan and just all over the place, man.
He's like, he's an amazing human being.
He really is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And again, one of the best examples, like when people have a stereotype of what
they think
a cage fighter is.
Yeah.
And Josh was the youngest ever UFC heavyweight champion.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And man, that's probably like, I've trained more with him than so many people.
Like, you know, and it's just, it's just, what a great friendship and what a,
what a inspirational
thinking person, you know?
And, you know, so yeah.
And, you know, he did Never Back Down three with me.
We, we shot that in Thailand.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What's it like training in Thailand?
That's gotta be fun.
Oh man.
Kind of hot.
Yeah.
But the motherland of Muay Thai.
Yeah.
Like with every style, there's, it's, it's strengths and it's weaknesses.
You know, a lot of, a lot of them, you know, a lot of things are round, you
know, they
go around and not straight, right, straight, you know, of course the quickest
distance between
two points is a straight line.
So it's not a whole lot of, well, they could do with a lot more boxing
technique and, and
some of those things, but man, talk about toughness, that kind of a thing.
But it's kind of a tragic, like how they, they beat that shit out of themselves.
By the time they're in their thirties, man, they're like.
Yeah.
They're busted up.
Yeah.
Well, they start fighting when they're very, very young, but it's also led to
them training
so intelligently.
Yeah.
You know, one of the things about Thai training, they don't spar like a lot of
Americans do,
where they beat the fuck out of each other.
They play spar.
Yeah.
And that play sparring allows them to not get beat up by the time they get into
the
ring on Saturday because a lot of them are fighting every week.
So they do touch sparring, you know, and a lot of people say, oh, you can't get
good touch
sparring.
Well, you certainly can.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Especially when you're fighting every weekend.
Yeah.
And that's probably the best way to do it because you're, you're, you know,
just working on timing,
pattern recognition, and just getting your, just your reps in.
Yeah.
Just like with jujitsu, of course, when you don't muscle things, when the
technique, you
let the technique do its thing, it's so much better.
Right.
Yeah.
And you, you, you maintain so much better as well.
Right.
And I think one of the best examples of that is like Sanchai, because Sanchai
is in his
forties and he's still fucking people up.
I mean, it's crazy watching that guy fight, but you look at him, a very unassuming
guy,
you know, that it's not ripped, you know, he's an older guy, but he's just, his
timing
and his smoothness and his, the way he moves.
And it's very playful.
He's just fucking people up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Man.
It makes me, I miss Thailand.
I actually did my, we did our wedding ceremony in Thailand.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And you know, who was, uh, who, who, uh, officiated part of it was Tony Jaa.
Oh, really?
Tony Jaa did the Buddhist part of our wedding.
He did the water blessing and then he also sang at the wedding.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's cool.
He's like, yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
One of the, one of the greatest martial artists.
Ooh, what a great movie that was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For martial arts technique.
That was, that was like one of the first times, like real true Muay Thai was
exhibited
in a film.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tony just, my God, like he would do the, these incredible feats in front of you.
Just unbelievable.
He could, he could do a spin, you do a somersault, hit you in the, in the
shoulder and just tap
you like that with your foot, with his foot.
Wow.
Just that, that, that much control.
It's unbelievable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He, he was sick recently, but he's, uh, I think he's overcoming, uh, I think it
was,
uh, I think it was a C word, man.
Ooh.
Yeah.
You know, I haven't talked to him in a minute, but I just found out about it
like about, I
don't know, a couple of weeks ago.
Mm.
Yeah.
He was, I knew he got thinner, but I'm, I'm hoping that he's, uh, he's better
now.
Yeah.
He's a legend.
Yeah.
He's something else.
It's so fascinating to me how different parts of the world develop a different
style
of martial arts and Thailand in particular, because of the fact that there was
so much
gambling and there were so many fights that they developed this very heavy leg
kick.
Clinch elbow knee style.
Yeah.
It was just very different than a lot of the other styles.
Mm.
You know, and for a long time was really dominating in kickboxing.
But then you're starting to see other styles, like particularly a lot of Kyokushin
guys.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Specifically out of Japan.
Mm-hmm.
Have you ever seen this kid, Yuki Yoza?
Is he Kyokushin?
Yeah.
Kyokushin guy out of Japan who's dominating people.
Oh.
Wow.
He fights very different, man.
He's fucking up a lot of Thai guys with calf kicks.
Okay.
Okay.
Oh, my God, dude.
No, I hadn't heard of him.
Oh, fascinated by him.
I just officiated a Kyokushin tournament yesterday.
What?
What?
Sunday.
Was that two days ago?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm, you know, I'm still connected in the Kyokushin.
I mean, been doing that, you know, since I was a kid.
I met like a hundred guys in a day.
You did all that shit, right?
I've done a 30 man.
I haven't done a hundred.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is the toughest.
Honestly, it's a, I love it.
It was the toughest thing I'd ever, I ever had to really face.
Because you come to a point where you want to give up.
And you have to just, you know, kind of walk the burning sands.
What is it like walking the next day?
Man, I had, I mean, I remember the first time I did a Tin Man.
And I had several knees on my legs, put it that way.
So, because they, they destroy your legs so bad.
Yeah.
Right.
I did a 20 man one other time and made the mistake of having a, I had like a
energy drink
beforehand, which is stupid because now my heart is racing higher than normal.
And so it made it even harder.
But somewhere around, like inevitably you get to a place where I remember the
12th guy.
I'm like, what the fuck are you doing?
Why are you here?
You know?
But you had to dig deep.
And you got 18 more to go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm like, man, but honestly.
Such a hard style.
Yeah.
But man, it's something about getting, you know, cause you're, you're going to
be faced with
yourself.
You want to quit and you have to just dig down and get through it.
And there's nothing like it when you accomplish it, because you know where you
can go.
You know that most of the time you, you're, you tell yourself you're done.
You're not.
But what a valuable lesson it is to know that about yourself.
Yeah.
And you can't, there's no substitute for that.
And it's just something that you just benefit.
I remember the last time I did this, we had to train out in Banff, Canada,
because usually
these things are in Japan and people from all over the style, they come and
they train.
You're like training eight hours a day.
You got these little lunch breaks and I didn't think it through.
I, I, I just, I think the last one was like about five, six years ago.
I, you know, wanted to challenge myself.
I want to do this, but I'm by myself.
And most people come with family members and all that kind of stuff.
So you're by yourself.
You're a movie star.
Yeah.
And I have the target on my back, but it's like, yeah.
So, and so, and it's like, we'd have a training thing and then you got a
certain amount
of time to go eat, but then people want to take pictures with me and I'm the
last guy
to get into the, into the lunch thing.
And then that's like, oh shit, I got 10 minutes to eat.
And then I got to get back in the next training session.
And you have a full stomach.
Yeah.
And then, then you got like, I mean, it kind of sucked, but I, I taught myself
something.
I said, you know, you could be three hours in.
I tell myself, I just got here.
I just got here and I dig deeper and whatever.
And then the last few days, you're just fighting down to the last person.
And you know, there's people that it's like, you know, they got their, their
eye on you.
Cause like, you know, I've got the bullseye on me.
But the great thing is, dude, like I say, I learned a lot.
I'm doing footwork with Frankie for years.
I'm boxing technique.
I've got, I've been your key.
That's Bill Wallace was my instructor.
I've got so many things in my arsenal.
And to test myself.
It's such a, it's such a great benefit to, to, you know, and it was weird
because I was thinking like, am I insane?
Cause I had a movie that I was going to be starting in like a week later.
I could have just been messed up.
I could have had a broken leg or whatever.
A lot of times you leave with a souvenir.
They call it like, you know, when you trade in Japan, a lot of the Japanese
want to give you a souvenir.
That means a broken bone, but I had to try to, you know, overcome that.
So in life, it's, especially in this kind of coddled life I'm living, I don't
get a chance to test myself that much.
Right.
Right.
And, you know, yeah, I had to, you know, listen to my own complaints and shut
the fuck up and get through it.
Yeah.
Oh, it's not fair because everybody's taking pictures and you're doing this and,
and I'm by myself.
No, no, that's not.
The point is get through it, you know?
Yeah.
And I'm so glad to do that.
And I always like to, that's why I like to train with champions and, and stuff,
because, you know, that's, you want, you want to get through things.
It should be, you should be tested.
I mean, as a, if I had a religion, a large part of it, if I was the head of my
own religious cult would be that men go through something.
There's a rites of passage.
Yes.
You got to know how to protect yourself and your family and your loved ones.
That to me is, is paramount.
You also have to know what's inside of you.
Like the only way to find out is to test it.
Exactly.
Because otherwise you get these dudes that have their chest pumped out and they're
talking loud.
Why are they doing that?
Because they want to scare people off.
Right.
Because they don't know what they're capable of.
They're terrified.
Yeah.
And you can't hide from yourself.
Right.
And that's the thing.
I'm not going to bullshit myself.
I'd like, I want to know, you know, and, and it's great.
It's, it's, it's no, there's no substitute for going through that.
And that's the thing that I, that why I love fighters so much, you know, you're,
you're, you're, you're, you're basically naked to the world.
Right.
Uh, you have to dig down, you have to overcome things.
Yeah.
That's why I love them so much because they're, they're our gladiators.
They, we, we live vicariously through them.
And that's why I'm a little dogged about actors receiving those accolades when
they haven't done it.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Myself included.
I don't care if somebody says, oh, he's not a fighter.
You know, he's an actor.
Fine.
You should think that way.
Right.
And I, you know, one person I think I identify with that is you because I've
seen you.
I've seen you in the gyms back when it wasn't popular.
And, and we're doing it for reasons that are not, had nothing to do with glory
or, you know, ego or anything like that.
It's just for self-improvement.
Yeah.
You know, and that's what it's about, man.
Cause it's about overcoming obstacles and your biggest obstacle in the world is
yourself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And my instructor, when I was very young, told me that martial arts are a
vehicle for developing your human potential.
Exactly.
Exactly.
But it's so hard.
Yeah.
And people need something hard.
Yeah.
And what about Khabib's, uh, what is, what did Khabib say?
Like what he says about discipline?
Oh, that, that rant.
Man, I had to, oh, that, you know.
I don't know if that rant is real.
Somebody told me that rant is AI.
What?
Yeah.
Is it AI?
Damn it.
What?
Well, who cares?
Well, yeah.
It's in Khabib's voice.
And I bet Khabib would agree with every word it said.
Yes.
Yes.
Because let's pretend that it's not AI.
Or it may be one of AI's greatest contributions to martial arts.
Right.
Absolutely.
Because becoming addicted to discipline.
Yeah.
Every man addicted to something.
Yeah.
Oh, it's such a great rant.
Here it is.
Give me this.
Give me this.
It's such a fucking great rant.
Started from the beginning too.
Every man addicted to something.
Some smoke, some drink, some chase girls, some waste time.
But real man, he addicted to discipline.
To early wakes, to prayer, to training, to silence.
Discipline no need motivation.
Discipline move without feeling.
Discipline sail.
I go anyway.
Even when tired.
Even when lonely.
Discipline is best addiction.
You want strong life?
Discipline build it.
You want peace?
Discipline protected.
You want respect?
Discipline earn it.
No shortcut.
Only work.
Be man with control.
Not man with excuse.
No crime.
No blame.
You want better life?
Start with better habits.
Discipline.
Every day.
Until discipline become you.
Every-
Fucking yeah.
I don't give a damn if there's AI or whatever.
Dead on.
Well, kudos to the AI person that put that together.
Yeah.
That's how he lives.
Yeah.
So, even if it's AI, he would go, "This is accurate."
Yes.
Well, I'll tell you what, man.
That part of the world, Dagestan, you want to talk about a hard part of the
world that
is developing some of the baddest motherfuckers.
Even in Muay Thai, there's this cat coming out of Muay Thai out of Dagestan
right now.
Azadullah Iman Ghazaleev, who's like 22 years old.
And he is fucking everybody up.
A Dagestani Muay Thai fighter.
Really?
Who has his own style.
He's this tall, lanky dude.
Who's one of the most terrifying strikers alive right now.
A lot of people think he's the best striker alive.
Oh, man.
I think he's 22.
22 or 23 years old.
And he's just fucking everybody up.
He fights for one FC.
Give me a highlight reel of this cat.
This is just from a fight, I guess.
I don't know.
That's...
The highlight reel didn't pop up right away, so I just went with the first
fight.
That's it.
Best technical striker in the world.
That's it.
Click on that.
Just give me some of this.
Just start it from the beginning.
This dude.
That tall dude with the beard?
Mm-hmm.
Iman Gazeliev.
Watch this motherfucker.
What a style he has.
I mean, it's just this long, tall, lanky dude.
Perfect timing and measurement.
And he just starts piecing dudes up.
Mm.
I think this is like his full fight.
Yeah.
Well, I don't think so.
If you scoot ahead, I think he fucks this guy up pretty quick.
I've seen this fight.
Yeah.
This guy, he catches with one shot.
But some dude's not so lucky.
Oh, man.
Yeah, that was one shot.
But it keeps going and then give me the next fight.
He just starts lighting guys on, including ties.
And they don't know what the fuck is going on.
Because he fights different than them.
I mean, he's a Muay Thai fighter.
He's got that straight, you know, he's exploiting the fact that they got so
much round technique.
Exactly.
A lot of front kicks up the middle and especially to the face.
But also his spinning attacks.
He's got wicked spinning attacks, man.
Mm.
And also comes off angle a lot.
His head's never on the center line.
Super fucking technical.
But just lighting dudes on fire.
And just an attacker.
Always attacking.
And it has the benefit of that range.
That long range.
Yeah.
Nice.
Dude is incredible.
Incredible.
And again, 22 years old.
Like, look at that.
So he's combining like Taekwondo techniques, karate techniques, and precision
Muay Thai.
I mean, the problem with this, not this style, but this form, is that a lot of
people aren't seeing it.
One FC is doing a really good job of highlighting a lot of, like, elite Muay
Thai fighters.
You know, they have Taewon Chai over there, and Siddha Chai, and all these,
like, high-level guys.
But in America, this, for whatever reason, has not caught on.
And the only way this guy's gonna get the kind of attention that I think he
deserves is if he gets into MMA.
Boom!
Boom!
Yeah, look at the axe kick, everything, the spinning back fist.
Boom!
Oh, man.
His straight rights are no joke.
Oh, dude.
He's a laser beam.
Yeah.
He's so focused.
He's so good, man.
So good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, the Dagestanis are now entering into Muay Thai, which is a terrible sign
for all these Muay Thai guys.
Yeah, yeah, man.
Those are hard, tough-ass people.
Some tough-ass people, man.
Hard people.
Oh, yeah.
Who start at a very young age.
I mean, a very young age.
And also, Dagestanis now, because of Khabib and Islam, they all know that this
is a pathway
to greatness.
Yes, yeah.
And so, there's heroes.
And there can be Ankulayev.
There's all these guys that have been world champions out of Dagestan now.
So, it's like, you're seeing all these guys come out of there, and some of
these young guys
that are coming up are so good.
Yeah.
They're so good.
But this is fascinating to me, that you take a guy who's adapted this Thai
style, but then morphed
it into something that's different.
And again, like you were saying, a lot of straight techniques.
Oh, yeah.
Especially when you're a tall guy like that for the weight class.
Because I think he fights at 145.
And when you're that tall at 145, and you've got those straight shots down the
middle.
Oh, yeah.
Like, his right is just like, you can't really see it.
Laser beam.
Because it's going right directly at him.
But it's also the hooks, too.
His hooks are coming around the guard.
Right, right.
Like, everything is precise, and his accuracy is spectacular.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm a student, obviously.
I watch every fight I can.
I watch kickboxing.
I watch Muay Thai.
I watch Jiu Jitsu matches.
I watch it all.
But I'm always fascinated by these cats that stand out.
And this guy just stands out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's great when somebody knows how to use their length like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, Yukioza, the kyokushin guy that I was telling you, totally different.
This guy is doing a shelling up and getting in tight on guys and kicking the
fuck out of
their inner thigh, outer calf, lower.
Like, he's chopping at their legs.
Even Thai guys don't know what to do because they're not used to guys kicking
their calves
like this guy.
Right.
The guy going shin to shin and you know as well as anybody, kyokushin guys have
some
of the most conditioned shins in the world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're always battering shin to shin.
And this dude is just getting in.
And you see in the second round, a lot of these Thai guys are like, "Oh, fuck.
I can't walk.
I can't move right.
My calves don't work anymore."
Yeah.
So the calf kick, which has really kind of revolutionized MMA, it's changed MMA.
Because one, two hard calf kicks, you're compromised.
You're not moving right anymore.
Right.
And you're not pivoting off that foot when you're punching.
You're punching power is diminished.
Mm-hmm.
This Yukioza guy is like putting it on Thai guys with it.
That's something.
I mean, especially for a kyokushin guy to, I mean, the knock with kyokushin, I've
been
doing it ever since I was a kid.
Mm-hmm.
It's just that not developing facial, you know.
Exactly.
Facial, you know, blocks.
And slipping.
Well, this guy has incorporated Russian-style boxing.
Oh.
Okay.
He's got Russian-style boxing with kyokushin karate techniques.
Well, yeah.
With that Russian-style boxing, they really kind of mastered the non-telegraph
kind of.
Yeah.
Because it looks like they're not even going fast.
Yukioza highlight reel.
Mm-hmm.
There's a bunch of fights with him and Thai guys.
And, you know, the first round, Thai guys are doing their thing.
Mm-hmm.
You know, like a normal fight.
But the Yukioza just starts chopping at those cats inside.
And he's, like, multiple kicks to the calf from in tight and close.
Yeah, that's punishing.
And you see guys, like, playing at, like, "Go ahead, kick me, kick me."
And then after a while, they're like, "Fuck, don't kick me anymore."
They're trying to get macho with him, pretending it's not working.
But, yeah, like, what would it take to develop, like, calves?
This is Yukioza.
Like, your thighs.
You see how he's, like, he's chopping when he's getting tight.
Look at this.
Always.
Look at how much he's utilizing, like, all the karate techniques, but also in
tight just destroys
guys' legs.
Yeah.
But also spinning back kicks, all that other shit.
But look at this.
Boxing is excellent, too.
Ooh.
A lot of Muay Thai stuff, dumping people.
But look at that.
He's constantly kicking the inside of the leg.
When they're committing to kicks, he's taking their legs out.
This dude, one of my favorite guys to watch right now.
Like, look, that's a Thai guy, man.
He's just destroying their legs, man.
Man.
An excellent movement.
Yeah.
And he comes out of a very high-level gym in Japan that's produced a lot of,
really, Masasaki
Nori, another guy who's like that.
He's a very similar guy who beat Tawanchai recently.
Like, these guys are just destroying people's legs.
So they're utilizing a lot of the question mark kicks, a lot of the stuff that
evolved in Kyokushin, but putting it into kickboxing.
Yeah.
Also with the toughness that is in, you know, a lot of the Kyokushin fighters.
Yeah.
I see them slip into, like, a Superman.
Yeah.
Because everybody's going to be susceptible for that.
If you've got a kick, a leg kick that's that legitimate, they're going to bite
on that.
Right.
They're hoping for him.
And then he uses a Superman punch.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And another very young guy.
So there's these people that are exploiting, like, these holes and these styles.
Because some of these Thai guys are so hard to beat.
By the time they're competing and they're 25 years old, they might have 150
fights.
So much experience.
But this cat's figuring them out, man.
It's really interesting to watch.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would love the seat.
I wish there was, like, some kind of governing body that would get all the,
like, some, like,
superstars or whatever.
Get this guy versus this guy from.
Well, One is doing that a lot.
But, you know, One, unfortunately, is not that popular in America.
What I love about One is they'll have grappling competitions.
They'll have kickboxing.
They'll have Muay Thai.
And then they'll have MMA.
They'll have them all combined on one card.
One is the one that Michael Chevello is on, right?
Well, he was on that.
Michael Chevello is not with One anymore.
Oh, okay.
Michael Chevello is one of the best commentators ever.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's excellent.
Great guy, too.
I'll be seeing -- I'll probably be seeing him in another, like, three weeks.
You going to Australia?
Yeah, going to Australia.
Nice.
My wife and I, we're going -- well, we did a tour.
I do, like, seminars over there and, you know, meet and greets and stuff like
that.
We haven't done that in a while.
But, yeah, we've got some really good fighters out there.
Oh, yeah, John Wayne Parr.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, some great fighters have come out of Australia.
Yeah, so, yeah, we're going to have some fun out there.
That's awesome.
Yeah, they're in New Zealand.
Oh, yeah.
Another hotbed.
Oh, yeah.
Another hotbed for fighters.
Well, just warrior cultures, you know.
Absolutely, yeah.
Warrior history to those places.
I don't think -- I've never met an Australian that I didn't like.
I know.
They're the nicest fucking people.
They're so fucking cool, yeah.
Yeah, they're the coolest people.
They're friendly.
Yeah.
Easy going.
Yeah, you have rites of passage still.
Mm-hmm.
You know, places like that.
You know, you -- I mean, it's -- that's one thing that is sad about United
States.
It's like, we're not making men anymore.
Not a lot of them.
No, no.
When they are, they stand out.
Yeah, you know, that's why it's like a lot of times in these movies, if you
have an alpha
male, a lot of times, that American alpha male is being played by an Australian
or somebody
from --
Chris Hemsworth.
Yeah, it's so -- you know, it's like -- it's very rarely an American.
Oh, no.
We got so -- it's like such a trip, man.
Well, masculinity is demonized here for some strange reason over the last
couple of decades.
Bro, I saw the beginning of a lot of it because, you know, like I said, I was a
schoolteacher.
And I was right on the forefront saying, like, everybody gets a trophy.
You know, these kids, you know, they're -- you know, it's about their self-esteem
and you got to protect them.
I'm like, come on.
And, you know, taking away competition.
Yeah.
That just -- I saw the beginning of that shit.
And it's just so, so bad.
And then these kids don't know how to deal with loss or anything.
And then they end up shooting the classroom.
Right.
You know, it's -- yeah.
Dealing with loss is one of the most important lessons you could ever learn.
If you want to get better, lose.
Yeah.
Losing is the best medicine.
Because you lose, you go, I don't ever want to feel that again.
Right.
And then you start thinking about all the things that you cut corners on, all
the things that you didn't do.
What can I do differently to make sure that never happens again, that I never
feel that feeling.
Or you quit.
Those are the two options.
Yeah.
Either you get way better or you quit.
Yeah.
But winning, sometimes you don't learn.
You know, you go, well, I'm doing the right thing.
I'm winning.
I'm winning better.
I'm developing confidence.
That's good.
But man, sometimes a loss is the best medicine.
Yeah, man.
I realized something when I was -- you know, I was born with some gifts.
Okay.
I did -- one thing that got me into college is decathlon.
I -- out of -- as a fluke, I jumped into a race against one of the fastest guys
on the track team and beat them.
Right?
And that was just a fluke.
And the coach saw that.
The track coach saw that and was like, "Oh, my God, you're fucking running for
the school."
And I was like, "Oh, okay."
Like, I was just like, I didn't have anybody, any kind of adult that took a
liking to me like that.
And next thing you know, I'm on the track team.
And I -- and I started -- I mean, I was really good.
And then I wound up going to college because of that.
And incidentally, that's the stuff that really kind of taught me to kind of
evolve my martial arts.
Because nowhere is there a benefit of like cutting off fractions of seconds in
movement like track.
Like when I'm doing the shot put.
Well, a lot of times I was competing against people that were ginormous.
And all they had to do is stick their arm out and their arc was going to be
better than mine.
Well, I had to generate enough power to go at a 45-degree angle and in inertia
and all that to get past them.
And with running, of course, if you shoot the gun off, all your motion has to
go forward.
If you go backward, you're going to be a step behind everybody.
So as far as efficiency of motion, I -- all the things I had to do with track,
I started applying and fighting.
And that's what kind of gave me cheat codes into things to where being super
efficient really helped.
Right?
And so one thing would like kind of help the other.
But like, yeah, a lot of -- my whole track thing was a great benefit.
But I did learn that I was kind of in a way like the Bo Jacksons or the Herschel
Walkers.
I was gifted.
And so when I would fight, I was -- you know, I was a big guy that was fast.
And it didn't -- you know, that was kind of rare.
So fighting was easy to me.
But I learned that when I was the celebrated fighter, that was less of a good
martial artist.
Because then I kind of would kind of flake off other things.
Like I wasn't -- I didn't try as hard as other people.
And that's another thing that I don't know if Khabib really said.
But it was a thing that he said about those gifted people.
A lot of people who are gifted were not the best fighters.
Yeah, that is a quote from him.
Yeah, exactly.
And I took that, you know, that same thing because I realized, dude, you're
doing it wrong.
You're -- I mean, my philosophy was like -- I feel -- I adapted the philosophy
of, okay, say,
this kid Sean is 140 pounds.
And there's me.
And it takes me 1,000 kicks to become fatigued.
And it takes him 100 kicks to become fatigued.
And he pushes to 120.
And I pushed to 1,001.
Who's the better martial artist?
He is.
Because he's pushed into his comfort zone.
He's pushing himself further.
What if he one day gets to 1,000?
For him to go from 100 to 1,000, that's going to be a quality 900 that I don't
have.
Right.
Me being the gifted one.
Right.
I'm looking at it using the comparative method saying, well, you know, you know,
I mean, at the end of the year, I used to kick a basketball rim.
You know, I was -- I had that ability.
But when I started thinking about, well, what I compare myself to other people,
that was the wrong thing.
So I said, no, I'm going to be like, Sean, I want to train to my ability, not
in comparison to someone else.
And that really taught me something.
As far as, like, again, why I put myself through these things.
And the benefit of it by really, like, what the martial arts really teaches is,
you know, and the fact that, yeah, I had these gifts.
But if I use those gifts as a crutch, I'm limiting what I can be.
Right.
You're limiting your potential.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And so --
And oftentimes, it's too easy for the gifted guys.
Mm-hmm.
And so they kind of slack off.
Right.
Yeah.
So, yeah, that's -- and I realized that's what I was doing at one point.
They also are not as comfortable with struggle.
Absolutely.
And being comfortable with struggle is a very important part of growth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a mixed message because we start to admire the freak sometimes.
Mm-hmm.
We -- as men, we celebrate the pugilists a lot.
And that's kind of a thing that where it came full circle to where, okay, yeah,
I'm able to do these things.
But is that really me?
Is that the limit of what I can be?
And by having someone else go, oh, yeah, you can do this or that.
That's kind of a -- that's not really the crux of it.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Right.
And it's really about, like, yeah, there's going to be people that's going to
praise what you can do physically.
But is that -- but I realized there was a point where that was kind of retarding
where I could be mentally and what I can really become.
Yeah.
We also have a responsibility to those gifts.
Yeah.
Right?
Because if you are gifted athletically, you have a responsibility of achieving
the full potential because you've been given this thing by genetics, by life,
by God, this thing where you are faster, you move quicker, you have more
explosive power.
But are you going to harness that gift and allow it to reach its full potential?
Right.
And when you do that, then you get a Mike Tyson.
When you do that, then you get a Michael Jordan.
You do that, then you get an elite of the elite.
Right.
You get what David Goggins always liked to call uncommon amongst uncommon men.
Right, right.
And that's the real hard thing to do because so many of these, like, really
gifted guys in the gym, they always kind of peter off and disappear.
And when they're in a fight where they fight another gifted guy that maybe
trained a little harder than them and maybe he's got a little bit more
experience, they realize, man, I don't want to struggle like that.
Right.
I don't like that.
I don't like that feeling.
I like beating up guys in the gym that are below me.
Yeah.
And then you got to deal with that person in the mirror.
Yeah.
It's hard for guys when they're the hammer their whole life and then one day
they're the nail.
Yeah.
And you see guys that are, like, really elite that are dominating and then one
day they get fucked up and then you never see them again.
Yeah.
It's often times.
But then you'll see the guy who, like, gets fucked up a bunch of times and
keeps showing up.
Oh, yeah.
He keeps showing up.
He keeps learning.
And then you realize, like, oh, this guy is now elite.
Yeah.
And those are the true heroes to me.
Right.
You know?
Right.
Me too.
I don't get in trouble pointing out people.
Like, I don't want to say somebody like Izzy or whatever.
But, like, you see the people who are used to having that ability over other
people.
Mm-hmm.
And when it gets hard.
Right.
Right?
And then it's like, even sometimes there's a talk about even Tyson.
And, you know, as just people, as just spectators, when you go, oh, man, this
guy is so gifted.
Now, some of the knock has been that when it became hard, you hadn't seen him
dig down and overcome that thing.
Right, right.
You know, because a lot of times when it got hard, it was like he just, you
know, kind of tapped out.
Yeah.
And so that's something that, you know, not to disparage him, but just as
people are looking at life, we look at, you know, we look at those things and
we can take a lot of meaning from that and apply that and say, oh, wow.
I mean, that's on him to say, oh, was that the case?
Or is it something that, I don't know.
I think with Mike, it's a very special case because I think he had the elite
coaching in the beginning with Cus D'Amato and training.
And then when Cus died, he was kind of left with all this amazing ability that
he had developed when he was young, but not with the elite coaching.
Like, so if Mike had left when Cus D'Amato died, if he had then went to
Emmanuel Stewart or if the, you know what I'm saying?
If he had then went to an elite boxing coach and had someone analyze his style
and someone he really respected.
Respected.
Yes, absolutely.
That he could still maintain that same level of discipline when he was the 21
year old dominating the world.
Oh my God.
But he has so much pressure on him.
So much.
Because, you know, I had to play him so I had to study everything he did.
Right.
And it's interesting because, oh my God, like, I always viewed him as somebody
who was always looking for a father figure.
Yes.
And I would study him and, you know, with Cus D'Amato, he would dress like Cus
D'Amato.
He was a young black guy from Brooklyn with suspenders.
Right.
You know, in a cabbie hat, like, you know.
Yeah.
And then when Cus D'Amato was gone, he was around Kevin Rooney and Kevin Rooney
had this really fast way of talking.
And it seemed like he adapted that.
And when he was with...
With...
Swatwell.
No, no.
Shoot.
Why am I blanking?
The other manager...
Jim Jacobs.
Jim Jacobs.
You know, Jim Jacobs was married.
And I think marriage became important to him at that point because he was
really under the, you know, the umbrella of Jim Jacobs.
And then when he was with...
Robin Givens.
With...
With...
Don King.
Oh, yeah.
The N-word is every third word out of his mouth very much like Don King.
He goes to prison.
He's got two father figures on him.
Mao Zedong and he's got, you know, Arthur Ashe on another shoulder.
And I would just notice that, like, even speech patterns would change, you know.
And I looked at him as, wow, here's a guy that I felt like I identified with a
great deal because coming from the same kind of place.
But, yeah, it's interesting because I think a lot of people don't know how much
struggle he had to deal with.
Because the people think that Kevin Rooney was kind of a savior in that
situation when he wasn't.
And Kevin Rooney explained to me directly that he, he says, if you ever see
Mike, please, please apologize for me.
Because when, I mean, when Mike was, was married to Robin Givens, he didn't
want to do this interview.
And then turn around, Kevin Rooney did the interview.
And Kevin Rooney was like, I really messed up when I did that.
And Kevin Rooney even told me that when, at the Spinks fight alone, Kevin made
like over a million dollars.
He left, he left that casino owing.
Mike had to bail him out like so many times.
Oh, Jesus.
And so people thought, oh, Kevin Rooney is in control.
No, Mike was, I mean, he had so much pressure on him.
And I think with Don King trying to hire Mike's cohorts to help out if he's
going to hang out with him anyway, to try to just do that.
He had so much, this dude has so much pressure on him.
It's unbelievable.
And Don King definitely took advantage of that.
Yeah, I believe so.
Yeah.
You know, because I knew Don from, because I was always in the fight camps with
Frankie Lowes.
In fact, that's how I got to first meet Mike Tyson.
When Mike was in prison, Frankie put Mike and I on the phone together.
And so I would, you know, do my little kind of interviewing of Mike while he
was in prison.
Because I was going to do, I was going to be playing him.
So I wanted the whole story.
Right.
And, you know, and I went to Catskills on my own and knocked on that door and,
and spent time with the people he grew up with in that, that house.
Oh, wow.
You know, so I learned a lot.
There's a lot that, you know, the public doesn't know.
And that I think he was concerned about, you know, coming out.
And, you know, it didn't.
And, and so it, it, it was, it was really interesting.
I just got, I got, I was front and center on how much pressure this guy had to
deal with.
And he had to kind of develop with the whole world looking over his shoulder.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he was 20.
Oh yeah.
Which is crazy.
Youngest ever heavyweight champion in the world.
He's went from being a 13 year old kid with no family to being adopted by this
guy who's not just training him, but also hypnotizing him.
And then he's got Jim Jacobs who exposes him to this library of all the
greatest fighters of all time.
And he's watching video footage of it.
Bill Caton.
Yeah.
Bill Caton and Jim.
Yeah.
It's an extraordinary story because it's like, unlike anyone else's, like the
environment that he was exposed to and the way it produced this guy who was
unlike any heavyweight before.
I mean, in his prime, I always point to the Marvis Frazier fight.
I always tell people you want to see like the scariest motherfucker that ever
stepped into the ring.
Mike Tyson versus Marvis Frazier.
Yeah.
He was just undeniable, just undeniable.
But that pressure, the kind of pressure that no one could explain what that's
like.
There's no internet back then.
So there's not as many famous people.
Mm-hmm.
So like, who's gonna, who's he gonna relate to?
Who's gonna tell him what this is like?
Who's gonna, there's no one like him.
Yeah.
You had Muhammad Ali, you had a few other guys that could maybe tell him what
it was like.
But for the most part, he's not, he's got no roadmap.
Mm-hmm.
And he's out there in this world of superstardom.
We could do whatever the fuck he wants.
Yeah.
Everywhere he goes, people are screaming and cheering.
Yeah.
And he's knocking everybody out in the first round.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The pressure on that, man.
And then they have to fight Holyfield.
Right.
A guy who was really kind of more like a big brother to him throughout his life.
You know, his professional life.
Because, you know, Holyfield was, he was a cruiserweight.
You know, and Holyfield was the type of guy, how you doing, Mike?
You check on him and all that type of stuff.
Then he has to fight this guy.
And there was, deep down, like, he's got to fight this guy who's, he's got this
reputation
as a holy man.
Yeah.
And he's all this type of stuff.
And then I remember being at that fight, and I remember the press conference,
and Mike
was, like, really manufacturing this hatred that I was like, that's not real.
Like, he's trying to dig down to really get this edge to really hate Holyfield.
And I was like, oh, that's a, that's a, I thought that was a mistake.
But, um, and I don't think, psychologically, he was in his, his game.
Right.
Holyfield had an edge on him.
Yeah, psychologically.
I think it was also the fact the holy man thing was a big deal.
Like, Holyfield had this incredible belief in God, and he really believed that,
you know,
God was looking out for him, and he was going to go in there, and couldn't be
deterred.
Dude, the third round.
I mean, look, of course, I studied all this stuff on Mike Tyson.
Third round of that first fight got chills because, think about it.
He heard something that he never heard his entire career.
Everybody started chanting for the other guy.
Right.
Holyfield.
Holyfield.
Yeah.
And I swear to you, I saw just the air come out of this guy.
Yeah.
And it was like, I've done all of this, and they're chanting for this man.
And how gracious he was, how Tyson was at the end, I felt like that's not a new
thought.
You kind of had that opinion of him going into this.
Well, Holyfield had been through the wars, right?
Mm-hmm.
He had those wars with Riddick Bowe.
He had the first war with Dwight Muhammad Kawi.
Remember that fight at Cruiserweight?
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
Go back and watch that fight.
That fight.
Yeah.
He had the war with Burt Cooper.
Yeah.
He had wars.
Flappable.
He's like, yeah.
He's like, I don't know why Mike Cheney is about me, but I don't know.
That's like, he's just like, he's just.
He never got angry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like, how you doing?
It's hard to maintain like anger for that dude.
Right.
He's just like, okay, it's okay.
Well, that's also terrifying too.
Yeah.
Because you know you can't get in there.
Yeah.
You're trying to get in that head and it's like, there's, you're not getting in
there.
God's in there.
Yeah.
And then that's like, if you look at it, you know, Mike Tyson was committing to
every first blow.
Yep.
Holyfield is a counter fighter.
Mm-hmm.
Fake him, let him throw that counter and you got him.
Yeah.
And I was like, I think normally Mike knows this.
Holyfield's center of gravity.
So different.
He's thin legged, big up top.
Mike should be able to push him easily.
Easily.
I didn't see the things that I normally saw for Mike Tyson in that fight, which
made me feel
like this is a psychological component.
It's a psychological component, but it's also a training component because
again, he wasn't
with an elite trainer at that time.
It wasn't, it wasn't the same as him being trained by Costa Mono.
It wasn't the same.
Yeah.
He didn't have the bobbing and weaving style that he used to have.
Do you remember when he caught Holyfield with the body shot in the uppercut?
Yeah.
And just like, basically you almost said, you saw, finish him.
Yeah.
But he just chilled.
Do you remember that moment?
I don't specifically.
Yeah.
There's a moment.
There's a moment like that.
Where he hurts him.
He hurt him.
And Holyfield looked like it's like.
Yeah.
But Holyfield would rebound.
I mean, they're really bow fights.
But you look at Tyson.
You look at almost everything he's done.
I thought I was about to see the beginning of the end.
And I'm like, what the, what the?
I remember being there going, why isn't he jumping on him?
You know, hey, maybe I'm wrong or whatever.
But I swear I saw that moment.
And I remember going, what's going on?
Why is he not jumping on him?
I mean, it's interesting.
It's interesting.
Psychology plays a big role in how you feel about the opponent.
And the opponent essentially holds up a mirror and allows you to look at
yourself.
Yeah.
And when he's comparing himself to this holy man, he probably didn't like it.
Joe, you know, I think that's the way I thought about it.
Of course, who am I to do?
But this is my opinion.
Those dudes with that kind of character, like Holyfield had at the time, those
are scary guys.
Because like they can't be broken mentally.
Right, right.
They're always good.
And if you try to break them physically and he rebounds like, oh God.
How much do I have left in the tank?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How many more of these shots can I take?
Yeah.
Like, no, it's different if somebody like taunted you.
Mm-hmm.
Now you can, you know, manufacture like, you know.
Right, right.
But when the guy's just like, okay, I'm just doing my thing.
Yeah.
You kind of start going, oh, is it me?
Right.
Because you don't, then, you know, it's like, that's the, that's when you had a
Fedor.
Right.
Somebody like that.
It's just like, like this.
It's like, you just, you drown yourself.
Stoic.
Stoic.
Because I can't, I can't derive nothing from him.
It's like.
Oh, he was the best at it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fedor was the best at it.
Fedor would be the middle of the most chaotic war.
Mm-hmm.
He was just sipping a cup of coffee.
Yeah.
It was crazy.
There was no one like that guy.
Yeah.
He's one of the most unique characters.
And I think we were robbed of one of the greatest heavyweight matchups of all
time when they
never figured out how to put Cain Velasquez versus Fedor when they were both in
their primes.
Man.
Cain Velasquez is the scariest person I've ever seen as far as I'm concerned.
Like if there was one guy that like, cause I, I pride myself.
I get in the ring with anybody.
That guy, man.
He never got tired.
Man.
He's just like a juggernaut.
He had cardio.
He had cardio for a heavyweight that was like a marathon runner.
Oh, yeah.
It didn't make any sense.
He was a 240 pound guy who never got tired.
Yeah.
Perfect technique.
Yeah.
And I think the, the, the fights with, um, Junior Dos Santos.
I feel like they ruined each other.
Yes.
I feel like they ruined each other.
Well, I think certainly ruined Junior.
Especially the second fight.
The first fight Junior caught.
The first fight, Cain should have never took that fight.
Cain had to take that fight cause it was on Fox.
It was a big deal.
It was the main event of the Fox, the first Fox card.
And Cain blew his knee out.
So if you look at that fight, Cain's wearing a knee brace.
His knee was fucked up.
Yeah.
Like his meniscus was torn.
He was all fucked up.
He couldn't anchor on it.
He couldn't really post on it.
And then, uh, he couldn't get out of the way.
And Junior caught him with a big right hand.
Cracked him.
Dropped him.
Stopped him.
And then he comes back.
Here it is.
Here's Tyson versus Holyfield.
Tyson.
Unleasing uppercuts.
Boom.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
He's still there.
He's still there.
He has a chance.
He has a chance right now.
Evander's hurt.
You heard what he said, right?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
But that took some wind out of Evander right away.
Biggest round for Mike yet.
But the thing about Evander is Evander was always there.
He had been through these kind of fights before.
But I don't know where I am, but I was there.
Oh, wow.
And something about seeing that, I felt like, oh, he's about to take him out.
But I think because Evander rebounded, and Evander had a history of rebounding.
Oh, sure.
Sure.
Absolutely.
A history of wars.
Especially the Riddick Bow fights.
But it still doesn't change the fact that there was, I feel like there was an
opportunity.
Yeah.
And he, that was a very un-Tyson-like situation.
I just don't think Tyson was Tyson anymore by this time.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, I think he was a one-punch guy by this time.
Mm-hmm.
He wasn't cutting those crazy angles.
True.
He was going to slide off to the side and rip the body.
True.
He was standing right in front of guys.
Yeah.
He lost a lot of what made him special, which was the speed of combinations and
the movement.
The movement is, primarily, because he couldn't have, he couldn't have never
gotten that far
if he didn't do that.
Show that Marvis Frazier fight.
Oh.
Show that Marvis Frazier fight.
Yeah.
I mean, Tyson versus Marvis Frazier is my favorite, favorite Tyson performance.
Cause Marvis Frazier looked like he was going to a funeral at the beginning of
the fight.
Yeah.
Look at him.
Look at him.
I mean, you feel the energy from his face.
And he didn't play the Covenant right after this with the grizzly bear just mauling
.
It's the same thing.
Here it is.
He just all over Marvis.
Like from the beginning.
This was on ABC Wide World of Sports.
I remember watching this at home.
But look at the bobbing and the weaving.
It's not just right in front of him.
It's angles.
Like right here.
Boom.
Oh, man.
Oh, man.
That was when he was the champ.
I mean, he wasn't the champ yet, but he was the champ.
He was about to fight Trevor Burbick.
But everybody was like, "Oh, my God.
He's real."
Yeah.
Here's the thing that sparked some controversy.
Mike Tyson versus Muhammad Ali.
It depends on which Tyson and which Muhammad Ali.
Well, the best of both.
Of course, you got to say the best of both.
I think the best Muhammad Ali wasn't Muhammad Ali.
I think it was Cassius Clay.
I think the best was when he fought Cleveland Big Cat Williams.
To me, I always tell people, like, you want to know Ali before they took his
title away,
before they put him on the shelf for three years because he wouldn't fight in
Vietnam.
Watch Cleveland Big Cat Williams because Cleveland was a big, scary power puncher.
And Muhammad Ali was just dancing around him.
Dancing around.
But was he bigger than Muhammad Ali, though?
See, that's the thing about Muhammad Ali.
People don't realize he was like the biggest guy in the ring.
You know, he was only four pounds different than Foreman.
People don't realize because he moves around, the way he moves.
Back then.
But in the Cleveland Big Cat Williams days, he was lighter.
Was he?
Yeah, he was only like 215 or 220.
And Cleveland Williams was what?
He was big.
Look at the size of Cleveland.
Look at his back.
Look at the back on Cleveland.
And look at the legs, though.
Yeah.
But he was a power puncher, man.
You watch somebody.
Look at his back.
Cleveland was a scary dude, man.
He was a scary dude, man.
He might be lean.
He might be lean.
But Muhammad Ali is a big dude.
Oh, he's definitely a big dude.
I think Muhammad Ali is bigger than that guy.
Maybe.
But look at the movement, man.
My God.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
So this movement was absent when he came back three years later.
He never fought like this again.
And when he fought Cleveland Big Cat Williams, Cleveland just did not know
where he was.
Muhammad Ali was 212.
Williams was 210 that way in.
Oh, okay.
Well, dudes were smaller back then.
Like, think about Rocky Marciano.
He was only 185 when he was the champ.
Yeah, but the thing is that people don't realize because he's fighting like a
lighter guy,
you got a bigger guy.
Hitting guys.
Especially, you know, he'll trick people to coming in and that magnifies
everything.
Yeah, sort of.
But they're basically the same size.
But 212 is fairly small.
This is smaller than Mike was when Mike was in his prime.
And, you know, Mike was only like 215, 220.
Yeah, 221.
So that's why it's interesting because, like, Mike moved his head.
And the people who did the best against Muhammad Ali was Joe Frazier and Ken Norton,
who moved their heads.
Yes, but again, these are the guys after this three-year break.
This three-year break, Muhammad Ali didn't train.
He didn't train at all for three years.
When you watch when he comes back after that, like, come on, son.
Yeah.
The speed.
And Cleveland's like, what the fuck is going on?
Yeah, the speed.
But speed and a bigger guy.
Mm-hmm.
That's the thing.
That's the thing.
Because, like, you know, you thought when we were going in this clip that he
was bigger than Muhammad Ali.
I did.
Yeah, so, but the thing is, like, people don't realize how big Muhammad Ali
actually was.
Because George Foreman, you know, was a monster.
Look at these combinations.
And they were, his legs are bigger than George Foreman's.
Right.
And we know where the power is, right?
Well, George Foreman, what did he weigh when they fought?
In 218 and, I think, Muhammad Ali was 214.
They were, like, right.
So, the actual fight day, who know who was heavier?
Right, right, right, right.
I'm just saying it's interesting.
It is.
Because you got a guy the same size as Foreman moving faster.
Yeah, but he didn't in that fight.
In that fight, he mostly laid on the ropes, remember?
Yeah.
Well, he did the rope-a-dope, but I'm seeing...
He did a lot of that.
He's still a big...
220.
212 to 220.
Pretty close.
Yeah, I've seen it different.
I've seen that.
It's just, he wasn't the same guy.
If you fought, if George Foreman of that time fought Cleveland, the Muhammad
Ali that fought
Cleveland Big Cat Williams, it's a completely different fight.
Foreman's getting pieced up.
Yeah.
Foreman's getting pieced up from the outside.
And Ali was just picking him apart and moving, and Foreman's swinging at air.
He was like nobody else before him, man.
He was so different.
Oh, yeah.
He was so different.
But those three years, when he had to take three years...
And he didn't train at all.
And then he came back, and now he's 30.
Yeah.
And no strength and conditioning for three years.
No running.
No boxing.
His body looked different.
Yeah.
Who did he fight when he came back?
He fought...
Lyle?
No.
That white dude did horrible brain damage towards the end.
Okay.
Cobb?
Jerry Cooney.
Oh, Jerry Quarry.
No, no, no.
Jerry Quarry.
Okay.
Yeah, when he fought Jerry Quarry.
See if you can find that fight.
Now look at his body when you see it.
You see his body smooth.
His footwork doesn't look the same.
His timing is off.
He had a ton of ring rust.
He just didn't...
What's that, Jimmy?
He just didn't look the same.
He didn't look the same.
And I think that three years, they fucked him, man.
Yeah.
They fucked him.
They fucked him.
And, I mean, look, it made him a cultural hero because he wasn't willing to
fight in Vietnam.
And, you know, he famously...
Like, look at his body.
It's different, man.
He's just not the same guy anymore.
He's not moving as fast.
And Jerry Quarry was just a really tough guy who was, you know, famous for
being able to take a beating.
Yeah.
Like, Ali didn't have the endurance anymore.
Like, look at him.
He's just not the same guy anymore, man.
Yeah.
It was...
He was a shadow of what he was before.
He still went on to win the title.
He still went on, but I always wonder what he would have been if those three
years were not stolen from him in his peak, in his prime.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That would have been something else.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's one interesting thing.
Another thing, interesting thing about Ali is like, try to find him throwing a
body shot.
Right.
Not a lot of those.
No, he almost never did.
Maybe a jab or two to the body.
Like...
Yeah.
It's true.
It'd be interesting to count up all the body shots throughout his whole career.
And you might get 10.
It's true.
Yeah.
It's true.
It's interesting.
Yeah, it is.
That's why, I mean, that's why when people talk about the greatest boxer, of
course, he's one of the greatest human beings.
Yes.
Greatest Americans ever.
Right, right.
Like, just, man.
Yeah.
The stuff he's...
He put it...
Talk about putting himself out there for, you know, as far as a servant...
Yes.
...of the world.
There's nobody...
I don't know anybody who compares to him.
Also, the personality.
Yeah.
When he would go on talk shows...
Yeah.
And he was just so fun.
How sharp was he?
Oh, so sharp.
And all those things were memorized.
One of my favorite ones was Howard Cosell said, "You're very truculent, champ."
And he goes, "Whatever truculent means, if it's good, I'm that."
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, he was just a different human being.
He was not scared of anything, man.
And so there's some stuff that...
Some interviews that he's being real controversial.
Like, he would actually talk shit to people and talk about whooping their ass.
You know, just recently I've seen some stuff that I was like, "Wow, I hadn't
seen this one."
Oh, yeah.
If anybody disrespected him, if anybody, like, if they wouldn't call him
Muhammad Ali, if
they were calling him Cassius Clay, he would fuck them up.
Yeah.
What's my name?
Pop!
What's my name?
Pop!
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's just culturally, like, one of the most significant figures ever in the
history of America.
Period.
Because at a time where the world was torn, like, "Why the fuck are we in
Vietnam?"
And this one guy says, "I'm not doing this."
Yeah.
And then they're like, "Okay, we're gonna strip your title away from you."
And then for three years, he was, you know, persecuted and the whole world was
watching and they eventually let him fight again.
Yeah.
But by then we had realized that Vietnam was not a just war.
Yeah.
And this guy, they had taken three years of his life away from him because he
wasn't willing to participate.
Yeah, man.
What a hero, man.
A real hero.
A real hero.
Absolutely.
And, like, again, a cultural icon.
Like, just a different kind of human being that inspired so many people outside
of fighting.
Mm-hmm.
My parents were hippies.
Mm-hmm.
And my parents wanted to watch the Leon Spinks rematch when he fought Leon Spinks.
Like, everybody was sitting around.
I'm like, I remember being a little kid going, "I can't believe they want to
watch this fight.
This is so weird to me."
Mm-hmm.
Like, they want to watch a fight because that's who Muhammad Ali was.
Mm-hmm.
He was just different.
He meant something to America in a way that no other fighter before or since
has.
Yeah.
Man, there's so many, man, just even for equal rights and just…
For everything.
Yeah, so much.
I really can't think of many people that has been more significant.
No.
And many people think, many people think about, like, what do you stand for?
Mm-hmm.
I mean, this guy, he could have easily just taken some stupid fucking desk job
with the army or something.
Yeah.
And, you know.
Easily, yeah.
He could be last year in Louisville, Kentucky.
And while I was there, I went and visited Muhammad Ali's gravesite.
And, dude, man, I didn't expect it.
I was just like, let me see it.
And, dude, I couldn't talk for two hours afterwards.
I just sat in my car and just got overwhelmed just to think what this man
really meant.
Yeah.
It was just like, it jacked me up.
I didn't, I didn't expect that.
Yeah.
I can't think of another fighter that meant more, like, in terms of, like, a
cultural icon.
Mm-hmm.
I can't think of another one.
Yeah, and put his life on the line and just was so, you know…
And that's a cautionary tale to fighters, too.
Yes.
About the end.
About fighting too long.
Look, no one ever forgave Larry Holmes for beating him up.
Yeah.
Larry Holmes, one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time, never got
his just due.
Right.
Because people never forgave him for beating up Ali.
Yeah, yeah.
Honestly, yeah.
Which is crazy.
Yeah.
You know, it's not fair.
Didn't make any sense.
I mean, Muhammad Ali was trying to beat him up.
But, you know, everybody knew, even though Ali was fighting, everybody knew it
was over.
He wasn't the Muhammad Ali of old.
Yeah, and he wanted to call it into the fight, man.
Like, Holmes was like, why am I doing this?
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was sad.
Yeah.
And Holmes was never that much of a likable presence, and it's hard to come
behind Muhammad Ali.
Right.
He was never that kind of a person now.
Yeah, yeah.
But damn, did he have a jab.
Woo!
That's the best jab around.
Woo!
Larry Holmes.
Even when he fought Tyson.
He was popping him with that jab, and it made you wonder, God, I wonder what
Larry would
have done in his prime.
This would have been an exciting fight to see in his prime.
The two of them?
Yeah.
I still don't think he would have been able to beat prime Tyson.
No.
But it was wild to see.
Yeah.
Tyson made his bones on fighting bigger guys and making them miss and pay for
it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he'd load up on his legs, and a lot of times when he's landing, he's in the
air.
Yep.
Yep.
He's in the air, man.
It was the speed, too.
Middleweight speed in a heavyweight body.
He's the fastest, well, he was one of the fastest heavyweights.
I think, who, there's one guy.
Usyk's pretty damn fast.
Oh, Usyk's nice.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
Talk about a person, he's funny.
That's a funny dude.
Oh, he's a character.
Yeah, yeah.
And you want to talk about technique, too.
And another guy was trained by the same guy as Lomachenko.
Lomachenko's father trained Usyk.
Oh, cool, cool.
Which is also why he's like a heavyweight Usyk.
Yeah.
A heavyweight Lomachenko, rather.
Lomachenko, yeah, yeah.
That footwork and movement and that Russian style.
Yeah.
That, you know, Ukrainian Russian style.
It's like, those guys, they figured out movement and footwork.
Vival has it, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It's, you know, look, we're very fortunate that we can see all of these
incredible human
beings that have, you know, risked their life and their health and put it on
the line
so we could see true lessons about character and technique.
Yeah, I just wish heavyweights would concentrate on technique a little bit more.
Right.
Well, maybe Usyk's changing people's perspective on that.
Yeah.
Maybe they're realizing, like, wow, you can't just one-two everybody.
Yeah, I think what happened, there's another thing in this country.
It's like, people, I think, they're not following boxing.
They're not getting into boxing.
A lot of these guys are going for the money.
They'll try to play football or whatever.
Well, since Deontay, we haven't really had a heavyweight boxing champion in
America.
Deontay was our last heavyweight boxing champion.
Yeah, and talk about technique is, yeah.
Not the best.
Yeah.
But, you know, he had what Teddy Atlas likes to call the eraser.
Right, yeah, true.
He can make all the mistakes in the world.
He had that one eraser.
Blam!
Yeah, yeah.
Deontay's was the craziest knockout punchers that's ever existed.
Yeah.
It was nuts.
He just, he hit you moving backwards and flatlining you.
Yeah, but it weighed like 212.
Great.
209 when he fought Tyson Fury the first time.
209.
Yeah.
He and I went shooting before.
Like, we've done some tactical stuff together.
Yeah.
Really nice guy.
Yeah.
I love talking to him on the podcast.
Oh, yeah.
He's great.
That's, I don't know, like, just work on his technique, man.
It's like, jeez, I don't get it.
Yeah, I don't know, man.
It's too late.
It's what you do for a living.
I think he relied on that gift for so long.
Because, I mean, look at the gift, though.
I mean, at one point in time, he was like 39 knockouts out of 40 fights.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's like, he's...
I know.
Nuts.
But it didn't matter when it landed.
When it landed, you couldn't do shit about all that sloppiness.
I still wouldn't mind seeing AJ versus him.
I still wouldn't mind that either.
That'd be interesting.
I think after the car accident, AJ might be done, though.
Oh, yeah.
Because he was, you know, he was knocked unconscious in that car accident.
I heard really bad.
I heard he was out for like 10 minutes.
Really?
Yeah.
And his two friends died.
You know what I mean?
And after all his fights and, you know, you know, that was the last thing he
needed is
some extracurricular brain damage like that.
True.
True.
And then also losing his two great friends like that.
It's gotta be, you know, that's just fucking crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a sad thing.
But I think, you know, if he's my brother or my cousin, I'd be like, you gotta
go through
this.
You can't, you know, you gotta, for their sake.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What would your friends want you to do?
Wow.
You know.
We'll see.
He's the best.
He's another one of our warriors, man.
Yeah.
He puts his body and, you know, life on the line.
Yeah.
For us, man.
It's like, that's, that's our modern day gladiator, you know?
I know.
There's nothing like a fight.
It's different than any kind of sporting event.
It's very different.
And the losses are way different.
They're way harder to deal with.
And the victories are way greater.
Yeah.
You know, one of my best friends being Frankie, man.
Like, so I got a front seat to all of that.
You know, Frankie knocked out Roy Jones back in the amateurs.
And, you know, I wanted to see him get his due.
I mean, he's, he was WBA super middleweight champ for five years straight.
But I, you know, I, it was a front seat to the boxing life and the fighting
life.
And.
It's a hard world.
Yeah.
It is.
It is.
It's a hard world.
In the end is not pretty.
And there's no one there for you.
I was watching this piece on Bobby Chacon, who's a great fighter in the eighties.
And.
Oh my God.
In the end, it was horrible.
It's just horrible watching just the deterioration and the brain damage and no
one there for you.
And that's a lot of guys.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And if you, I mean, your brain, you don't, it doesn't regenerate, you know, and
then.
No, it only gets worse.
Yeah.
And if you're, if you're experiencing brain damage now, I mean, without
treatment, there's some treatments now.
Um, that they're, they're able to use to help regenerate some neural tissue and.
Yeah.
But there's a certain amount you never come back from.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know my, my son, one of my, uh, one of my sons is, I mean, he's, he's been
going through.
Uh, what do they call it?
This is like a stimulation thing.
Mm-hmm.
And the magnetic stuff.
Yeah.
It's, um, man, I forget, but he's actually, it's actually helped him out a
great deal.
I mean, he, he, he kind of went, uh, uh, kind of a interesting route.
Like then kind of experimented with some stuff before, but now he's kind of
come back.
It's, it's, it's turned him around.
Uh, what happened to him?
Yeah.
He's kind of was like, uh, he ain't getting high doing it.
Kind of went that route for a minute, but it's, uh, but he's gotten, I've just
actually seen
things turn around with this.
I don't know why I can't remember, but it's this brain stimulation thing and it
kind of rewires
you, you know?
Um, you know, I, I think I heard you talk about the, uh, I began, you know, um,
any D and those
type of things, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, there's, there's things that are going.
There are things that can help, but you gotta be very vigilant about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm, I'm, I've been connected to a lot of the, uh, uh, anti-aging type of
stuff and
you know, it's fascinating.
We're getting up there, brother.
Yeah.
It's fascinating, man.
A good friend of mine is, uh, Bob Goldman.
I don't know if you know Dr. Bob Goldman is.
No.
Yeah.
He should have him on the show.
He's an interesting guy.
He runs A4M.
I don't know if you ever heard.
It's this conglomerate of doctors all around the world that's dedicated to
fixing causes
of diseases, not just chasing around the, you know, the, uh, symptoms and stuff.
And so it's like, uh, uh, we're very much in, in the face of the pharmaceutical
companies.
They are really dedicated to like taking care of the things from the source.
Okay.
And it's been going on for a while, man.
It's like, uh, they have like about six of these things a year.
One of the biggest ones is in Vegas, but like you look, look it up A4M.
Okay.
Let's check it out.
Uh, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, they, he's been, you know,
dealing with them.
They, I've actually tried to, I've hooked Nick, Nick Diaz up with him to help
him.
Because, uh, you know, they're on the forefront of the new medicine type stuff.
And so, yeah, he's, it's a, it's an interesting thing.
A4M have a lot of doctors who will be given lectures on all the most innovative
stuff.
And they have all the newest equipment.
That's just like, it's just the biggest, uh, kind of, uh, I don't know, like
rooms, huge rooms full of all the most.
Collaborating.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a good time to be an older person.
There's a lot of science behind it.
Right.
Yeah.
They have the belief that you should be in your, you know, living to a hundred,
but healthily.
Yeah.
They really believe that.
And I, you know, if it's ever been possible, now's the time.
Oh yeah.
I think so too.
Yeah.
You should, my, my, my doctor, uh, Dr. Alavizos, a doctor 63, he looks like a
freaking superhero.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
63 year old guys.
When we were kids were basically dead.
Yeah.
They were just old men, frail, feeble.
Yeah.
It's interesting, man.
It's like, and I, and yeah, we're getting older, but knock wood, man.
I've been very fortunate.
I've been very lucky.
Yeah.
Me too.
It's a good time to be an older person.
Yeah.
Man, you look good, man.
Thank you.
You too.
Yeah.
We're, you know, I think I'm a little older than you though.
How old are you?
Yeah.
I'm 58.
Oh yeah.
I'm a little older than you.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, you look great.
Well, thank you.
You look great then if you're older than me.
I feel, I feel good.
Yeah.
I feel very good.
It's a really good.
Well, there's so much information now on how to maintain your body and how to
maintain your
health.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm glad we got together.
It's a lot of fun.
Me too.
Me too, man.
Again, man, I gotta tell you, man, how proud I am.
Joe from the gym is doing his thing, man, in a big way, man.
Well, thank you.
I feel the same about you.
Thank you.
Well, thank you, man.
It was a lot of fun.
Yeah, man.
Thanks for having me.
We'll do it again sometime.
Yeah, we got to.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
Bye.