JRE MMA Show #151 with Bo Nickal

What's up Bo? How are you? Good. I was gonna ask you, we were just looking at that photo of Carolyn and talking about the Soviet program, the doping program. Did you ever see that movie, Icarus? Yeah, I did watch that. Fuckin' crazy. I thought it was just insane too, how it didn't even really start off the way that it ended. He wasn't even really trying to like figure all the stuff out Just like fell into it. Yeah, yeah total dumb luck. Yeah, but I mean Since I russle my whole life and stuff and pay attention to international scene. It's like It's not really a secret like everybody kind of knows right? Just like that's the first legitimate real proof that Somebody's kind of come out with but I mean everybody kind of knew like that's what's going on. But that was so insane though, that they had a hole in the wall where they were handing through the dirty urine and getting back clean urine and then submitting that. And if it wasn't for microanalysis of the jars, then they realized, oh, the Soviets had figured it was, wasn't the Soviets, it was the Russians, had figured it wasn't the Soviets, it was the Russians. They'd figured it out some way to open up these unopenedable jars. Yeah. It scratched the little places. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they freaking, they want to win, really bad. And it's like for them to, it's a different level. Like, the guys that won, that were very successful, maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, those guys are like big government positions and stuff. In the US, you win the Olympics, in wrestling, you win a quarter million bucks, and it's a big deal for a month, and then you kind of move on. But over there, it's like you're kind of set for life. So it's like, yeah, it's a completely different kind of motivation, I think. What is it like competing when you know that there's like state-sponsored programs that are involved in these other countries, doping up their athletes? It's pretty weird, you know? I think that because like I said, I kind of grew up, you grow up with the understanding of it knowing like this is kind of the way it works. [2:02] You're ready for it, you're prepared to prepared to understand but and I'm sure I've competed against a lot of guys that were dope and and doing stuff but the one experience that I had that was like Really kind of prominent in my mind. So I wrestled this dude. I wrestled a tournament in Rome. This was a Few years ago and I was trying to go up from I was in between weights So my weight was 86 kilos or 97 kilos. And I was kind of having a little trouble with my lower back. So I was like, I don't want to cut, I just want to get bigger. And so I came in and I was weighing like 210, which the weight class is 213 97 kilos. And I was like, I'll be fine, I'll be good. And I rolled up to this second round match. And I was wrestling to this second round match, and I was wrestling to say, around the Iranian dude, and my coaches weren't there with me, so I had some different coaches, and they didn't really warn me who this dude was. I had wrestled the number one Iranian guy a few months earlier, and I tech followed him, I killed him, so I was like, I'm a smasher still, I don't even, I don't give a crap. This dude comes out he's like two inches taller than me freaking jacked as hell and [3:06] does a forward roll and Like squat jump and this feet are like over my head and I'm like what the hell is going on? And we're just random tournament Rome and I'm wrestling some dude that I don't even know and he killed me It's the only time I've ever also matched where I really got whipped like he Single leg took me down Garen's meinch me and he came down from probably like 235. Like he was way bigger than me. And then I got off the mat and I was like, what the fuck just happened? And then the coach was like, oh yeah, this guy was a world silver medalist, world bronze medalist like five years ago, but last five years he got banned, he He got popped and so he hadn't competed in five years He just been freaking training and juiced and then he actually the next round He'd meet my teammate Kyle Snyder who's Olympic gold medalist the exact same way like like smoked us both and I was like What the hell is going on here? So then world championship that year comes along and now they're getting tested and he like went on one so [4:08] Yeah, yeah, I was like alright, like so I kind of like felt bad about myself at first I was like damn I suck and then I was like all right well it is whatever have you ever heard the enhanced games? No, it's a thing they're trying to do Where I guess what they're doing is they're allowing athletes and they're going to do it at the same time as the Olympics. Okay. And they're allowing athletes to juice and they're doing it supposedly, responsibly with doctors involved and they're trying to break all the records. Yeah. I like it. I think they I like that. Let's do it and just be honest about it. I like it. I think I like that. Let's do it. And just be honest about it. Yeah. This is the deal. This is what we do. Let's for you can see how far we can go. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, I don't know. I like that's the interesting to me. The optimization of like human performance. How far can you get? [5:00] So like, let's do it. That'd be fun. Yeah, it's interesting, right? Because like you think about that guy, the Iranian, that you wrestled, like how much of an advantage is it? Like what, you know, you never know because a guy like that's probably been juicing his entire athletic career. For sure. But like what is the advantage? Like, do you ever wonder like, I think that I've thought about it As far as the advantages I never have been interested in and trying anything like that Just it's not really the culture like what what I'm around in wrestling in American wrestling nobody does that Well, I won't say nobody but 99% of guys really aren't doing that especially because we get tested a lot like in collegiate athletics and stuff And it's just something that is kind of very looked down upon in what we do. But it is interesting to think about like, what would I be like if I was doing these things? Like, I can compete at such a high level already, and I have, you know, I think that my biggest asset in wrestling and in fighting is my mind. [6:08] Imagine like my body was, and I think that with time I'm very disciplined and do things a certain way. I'm going to get to as close as I could be. But there is this other level that's kind of unnatural where it's interesting to think about. that's kind of unnatural where it's interesting to think about but you know while I'm competing in stuff I just I don't even really it's obviously not an option and you know but at the end of the day I'm probably gonna be I've probably have competing in a lot of guys that are juiced up and I will we'll see what the UFC's drug testing programs like since you saw does end over at the end of the year but it is what it is man man. It's just like, I'm pretty confident myself regardless. And if I'm got a fight to do, that's juiced up and you're willing to kind of take a back door to try to get an advantage and win. I think that you're probably cutting corners in a lot of other areas as well, which I'm not doing. So, you know, that's [7:02] something that I feel not doing. So, you know, that's something that I feel okay with. The thing is when the guy is not cutting corners and juicing and has talent. I just think that if they're willing to do that, if we're willing to go outside the rules and do that, to me that's kind of like they're trying to get an unfair advantage. That's like kind of a character thing, right? They want to get that advantage. So to me, that means like they're fearful that they wouldn't be able to do it without it. Now they're, you know, yeah, they might be doing everything right, but I know that in their mind, like there's a little weakness there to me. And I can take advantage of that and capitalize on that, because at the end of the day, I'm gonna do every single little thing, right? I'm gonna make sure my sleep's on point, make sure my nutrition's on point. And not only am I gonna do this for a camp but I'm doing this all the time and I've been doing this since I was a little kid. So you know take what you want, do all that stuff but you're not gonna out work 20 years, 20 plus years in the short amount of time that you have to prepare for me. [8:01] So that's kind of my mindset around it and it's just the reality of the situation. Like I'm going to fight guys that are probably doing stuff that isn't, you know, that I'm not doing. Well I believe that the new UFC drug doping program is going to be real similar to you, Sada. They're just not going to do the dumb shit, like wake people up the morning of the way in and things along those lines. Unfortunately, they're still not gonna let them take certain things that just like peptides, things that will enhance their body's ability to heal. Which I really think they should. Yeah, like BPC, from one of the stuff like that. Yeah, I think there's stuff out there that it's not really like hormonal changes. It's not giving you that type of event. It's just helping you get healthy. Like we all wanna be healthy and, you know, for me, that comes from diet, from supplements, from nutrition, and it's like, you know, I'm doing everything I can, and I still finish some sessions, and I'm like, frick. I mean, I got a freaking black guy right now. [9:02] Yeah. Like, it's not like, you know, we're not putting our bodies through a lot. You're putting your bodies through so much. It's literally a sport about breaking other people's bodies with your body. It's the most insane thing to pursue. I know. I think about it sometimes. I have this part of me that's pretty rational. I think like, I'm going out in front of all these people and like putting my health on the line and this and that and at the end of the day it's like, you know, you look at it as a business perspective and it's almost like a circus, right? Like, you know, I'm putting myself out there and it's entertainment and but like I'm the one that has the real consequence and stuff and I'm like, why am I doing this? This is so crazy. And then the other part of me, the bigger part of me is like, I love this shit. Like this is the best. Like let's do it again again again again. It's a constant battle inside your mind. I don't know. I feel like in love. Not, I don't mean to like to my own horn, but I was I'm a college graduate I had a lot of opportunities like there's a lot of things I could be doing I could be pretty much doing anything [010:07] I'd be you know Coaching I could be in business I could be doing whatever I want to do But I'm choosing to do this and there's a lot of like a lot more consequences You know on the on the negative end of what I'm doing now, but I just freaking love it I just love it so much. Well, the victory, the feeling of victory has got to just be the ultimate payoff for all that. It's unreal, man. So, you know, I mean, you fought, so you understand, but like when I was wrestling and I would pin somebody in front of, you know, 10,000,000 people, the crowds going nuts, freaking out, this and that's like, that's amazing feeling. And then comes the UFC, that same big stage, even bigger stage, millions of people watching worldwide, knock a guy out cold, it's like, [011:00] you can't beat that, it's amazing. When did you decide, or when did you even entertain the idea of transitioning to MMA? So I always love fighting and it was always like a fan of the UFC You know, I probably started watching when I was 11-12 and it was not my family We would we'd go to Buffalo Wild Wings on Saturday. We watched the fights or you know We'd get the pay-per-view at. And it was always something that I was like, I could do that. And like me and my friends would fight and stuff or we'd fight other kids just for fun. And so it was always something that was kind of in the back of my mind. And really through high school, through early college, I was like, I'm a wrestling. I'm focused on wrestling. And then I did a camp at a Missouri and I was teaching wrestling all day and then this dad came up to me and was like, hey man, we're doing a Jiu-Jitsu class after this, would you wanna come and try it out? And I was like, yeah, sure, I'm down, let's go. And so I go in and they just kind of, [012:01] I rolled around with all the guys and I was like, dude, this is fun. I love this. I'm really into it. I have to fight. It was just that one class, kind of... One class. Well, I was always interested in it and I always played around and then I actually, like, kind of, I hadn't done it for a while, like, played around at all and then the guy invited me and I'm just like, about it. Like, if somebody's like, you Let's go. And so it was just super fun to do something different. And that was probably in between my sophomore and junior year. And I was like, dude, I'm going to do this. I'm going to see this wrestling thing through to where I feel comfortable and ready to move on. And then I'm fighting. That's, I just knew I wanted to do it. So was that jujitsu class? Was that the first thing outside of wrestling you done in combat sports? I had done like, so this is actually kind of funny. When I was like 12 or something, nah, it's probably younger. It's probably like 10 or 11. There was a jujitsu tournament at a high school that my high school. [013:01] So my dad was a high school wrestling coach and this, he was like, Naga or something. They wanted to put on a tournament at the high school. And so my dad set it up, like put all the mats in and stuff. And I was like, why don't you enter? I was like, okay, like, let's get, I don't know anything. I've never trained nothing. And he was like, just do it. And so I did that tournament. And I actually won. I never trained or anything. I just run with wrestling. Yeah, it was like I'd watched you FC so I knew all right the guys gonna try like Gila seen me or he's gonna try to like get my back and I just like don't let him do that and and and again I like played around just watching stuff on TV you know like kind of you can learn a few things and so I Did the tournament and that was it so I never trained any submissions? I And so I did the tournament and that was it. So I never trained. Did you get any submissions? I think I submitted a kid. I, yeah. What's this called, but like in front headlock? I forget the same thing. Oh, like a power gate team. Yeah, yeah. So I submitted the first dude like this. And then after that, I just kind of took the guys down [014:01] and held them down and stuff. And actually in the finals it was a tough match because I went against a kid who I had competed, he wrestled as well and I had competitive wrestling matches with him. Not that competitive, I would kind of whip him in wrestling, but he also trained Jiu-Jitsu and right away he pulled guard and I was like, what the... But he knew good wrestling so I couldn't really do anything to him. And so I didn't know the rules at all. He was winning on advantage, but then I somehow got past his guard at the very end, and then they gave me a point and I won. Really that was it up until my second, third year in college, and I did that class. Did you, when did you start striking? So I had a buddy a good buddy he's actually my the boxing coach now at my gym he was a collegiate national champion in boxing and I did like pads with him in over COVID like once or twice and but I really started actually training striking like getting into it [015:03] And but I really started actually training striking, like getting into it. I started MMA training full time, August of 2021. That's when I started. That's insane. So you've really only been seriously striking for two years. Yeah, yeah, that's it. And I feel like it's, I just like it, it's fun. So I study it a lot. I'm always watching film and. Well, you're last performance, lot. I'm always watching film and- Well, you're the last performance, man. Like the thing about watching you fight inside the octagon, like everybody knows how good of a wrestler you are. So they're looking for that. But in the last fight, I was like, oh shit. Like distance management, your ability to slide out of range and then explode back into range and timing with punches. It looked like you've been boxing forever. It really was very impressive. And I know the guy came in on short notice, he's small for the weight class, but dude, you looked fucking great. Thank you, yeah, I felt like, you know, people say, you know, about the matchup this and that, it was like, well, I did what I was supposed to do, you know? [016:03] I was totally out of your control. Yeah, yeah. And so I feel like I was just excited that I got a fight. Because I thought I was done. I was like, who was supposed to fight you? It was a Trashongor. That's right. What happened to him? He hurt, I don't know. He hurt his wrist or something or something. But honestly, I kind of I had a feeling he was talking crazy San he was gonna give me brain damage all the stuff I was like all right bud We'll see and then I was like, you know this dude Bringing pull out after saying all this stuff. I kind of expected it But then the new guy came in and I was just like you said grateful. I got a fight But yeah, you know the actual fight the plan was taken down subim well of course like that's my will house, but I have great great great coaches for striking. I work with the Dude I was telling you, his name is Moose, collegiate national champion boxing, grew up in Philly, probably had 70, 80 amateur boxing fights. And so that's who I'm training with and who's teaching me every day. And then I work with another guy's name is Barry Robinson. [017:01] You should check him out on Instagram. A million styles boxing. Dude's like amazing, amazing striking coach. He lives in Thailand now, but I brought him out to PA for a few weeks and he worked with me on a lot of stuff and dude, all my stuff is just from them. And you know, I want to utilize, utilize my wrestling, right? But it's a fight. So, you know, everybody's nervous. Oh, I'm going to take him down this and that. But when I go in there, I have the hours and the reps of training this way in the striking. So that's what comes out. And I think that that's my mindset now with fighting. It's I got like the ultimate cheat code with wrestling. So so use that to my advantage. Whatever it looks like, whether it's actually wrestling, take a guy down, hold them down, or whether it's the threat of it. And that's where I feel like it's such a psychological battle where the guy is so worried if you saw, I just did a little faint, do drop his hand and I was like, all right, you're done bro. Boom. And then after that, it was kind of funny because I hit him and I saw him wobble. [018:02] And I was like, in my mind, you're making so many decisions in that split second, but I was thinking, okay, I could take him down, I could back off, or just go on for the kill. And that's just my nature to go for the kill. So then just took him out. When you have that wrestling base, it is such a giant advantage. I always tell any young athlete, they're like, that is the 100% best foundation because you get to choose whether a fight is standing or on the ground and then there's the threat of that. And the threat of that has so many consequences in terms of like how your opponent's going to react and what they're going to do like you're talking about that faint. It's so gigantic man like because a guy always has it in the back of their head that you might take them down But you don't ever have that no, yeah, I'm not worried about it all freedom Yeah, it's I would say in the actual flight the biggest advantage is the cycle of the psychology of Them feeling threatened feeling pressured feeling nervous like shit if I get taken down [019:02] I'm probably not getting back up. I can't get taken down. And now that's what they're focused on, rather than winning the fight. And of course, the actual skills that come with that of being able to implement that, the game plan and do it is big. But if you ever notice and you watch guys fight or compete, especially in training, if you see one guy's a little more tense, a little more nervous, a little more reacting. That's such a big part of how much energy you spend in... You know, you're overall in the overall time of the fight. [020:12] I noticed when I got a lot better at wrestling, when I started painting a lot more guys, was when I just relaxed. It was like this huge thing for me because I pinned a lot of guys growing up and got a lot of pins, but then in college, guys get a little better, they learn how to hold you off a little better. And so I would use all my energy, all my strength, try to throw them on their back, and a lot of times I would. And so I'd get up, you know, a bunch of points, but then towards the end, I'd get a little tired. I wouldn't finish as strong. Instead of just what I in my career was, all right, I'm just gonna relax, I'm just gonna move you around, just get into position, pull you, push you, fake, and I'm very relaxed. Okay, you shoot, no worries, I'm gonna down block, run around you, and then, you know, when I have my opportunity, maybe you're fading a little bit, now, not overwhelm you, versus trying to do that when we're both fresh. So that's where I feel like, in a fight, it's 50 minutes, really long time. I don't got to overwhelm you in the first minute. [021:06] I can just be relaxed, move, catch your jab, check your kicks, set you up, and then wham. And then overwhelm you when the time comes. And I'm very relaxed, because like you said, what are you going to shoot on me? Dude, you shoot on me, the fight's over. I'm going to win. As soon as I catch somebody shooting on me, it's like you're done. So that's what I want them to, but more than likely that's never going to happen. So they're going to be very tense, nervous, worrying about that stuff. So yeah, that's kind of how I feel about like the wrestling advantage, right? Like it's exactly like you said, it's so big to have that comfort and confidence. Yeah, and that knowledge of when to hit the gas and when to be relaxed, that plays such a critical factor when you move from three to five rounds as well. So when a guy is a champion and a guy's been fighting mostly like a John Jones type guy, he's been fighting five rounders for a decade plus. For a guy like him, he has almost like an internal sense of when to hit the gas and what [022:04] to do and you know how much energy he has. Yeah it's such a big thing man, you know wrestling the longest matches is seven minutes. It's like it's not even half of a normal fight and then to go from 15 to 25 like that's a huge jump so that's something I'm definitely preparing for in my mind. And I think that fighting is such a, it can become such an emotional thing. People get baited into fighting a certain way that it's so important to be disciplined. You know, not only, obviously you have to, you actually have to have the training in the base and the cardio to be able to do that, then to also implement it in front of millions of people and all the pressures on you. And now there's this other guy who's a monster coming at you trying to knock you out. It's like, you know, you got to be a certain type of person, I think, and have a certain mindset to be able to be disciplined and calm and stoic under that in that fire, right? [023:02] Because you could have all the cardio in the world, but if you go 100% for two and a half minutes, like you can't do that for 25, right? You're gonna lose it no matter what, even if you have the training, so keeping cool under in that situation, I think is almost equally as important. Yeah, we've seen that in so many fights where guys get really emotional, and they really try to hit the gas in the first round and then you see in the second round they've already blown their wad. It's rough. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad that I was able to learn exactly that in wrestling where the stakes are lower and you don't really be being tired in the fight is pretty much the worst thing that you could be, right? You got a guy who's a little more fresh than you, who's popping you with jab, who's kicking your legs, pushing you up against the fence, it's like you do not want to be tired. Yeah. No, tell. When you want like good examples like Sean Strickland and Adesanya, like Sean was tired at all. When you get to the end of the round and the end of the fight, you see Adesanya's just beat up and tired and challenge just constant pressure on him. [024:07] Yeah, yeah, it's such a, I would say that, you know, for my assessment is like, you got to be good at everything, but cardio is a real X factor in MMA, almost more so than any other sport. Just because it's like, you can just put that on somebody and if they can't sustain it, as long as you don't get knocked out in the first few minutes, they're just gonna fade and you're gonna gain that energy and eventually you're gonna kind of overpower them. It's the way that it works and it happens time and time again. Having so often in MMA. How the fuck did you get so good at striking so quick? I think you have any fucking around with your friends hitting the bag, anything when you're younger, hitting mitz? Nope, that's nuts. Yeah, nothing. I think that's really very unusual. Yeah, I think that really it's two things. Again, my coaches, the guys I work with that are there incredible and there they're so knowledgeable experienced and and not only at like i said [025:09] i have these guys holding pads for me coach me about the uh... guy moves i get a spar with him like he eighty how many how many um... mma fighters have a guy with that's a collegiate national champion with eighty amateur boxing flights as a like main sparring partner. Like the most of you guys in MMA are striking other MMA fighters. Right. So I know if I'm hanging in there with him and I can move and defend and hit him with some shots like what are these guys going to do to me? So that's kind of my where I started and then I love I just love it. Like I watch so much film, I'm watching boxing, I'm watching Moitai, I'm watching Kickboxing. I'm always studying, I'm always watching breakdowns. And that's another thing that I learned from wrestling where I think I had a big leg up on people because I was studying it like a science almost at a young age. Watching Kale Sanderson, you know, when I was eight years old watching uh... sati of brothers uh... [026:06] watching you know multiple time world champions every tournament my and my dad was a coach so i'd be at every high school wrestling tournament watching and and that i absorbed a lot of information from that and so i just took those principles and i applied mma so you know it's not unusual for me to study four or five hours of film in a week where yeah, maybe I can't train an extra four or five hours But now I have this extra four or five hours on top of the competition that you know These guys I don't think they're really willing to do that to put that time when you are watching film and you're studying Like how are you doing this? Are you taking notes? Are you just watching it and mentally making notes or are you writing things down? Are you specifically looking at specific types of like Ernesto Hust or San Chai or like how are you doing it? I do it two different ways. Sometimes I'll watch just kind of as I won't say entertainment [027:01] because it's not purely entertainment but I'll just watch and enjoy and appreciate the art. And I'll just look at it like, wow, that was amazing. Oh, look at this technique you did. And kind of, you know, be more on the creative side of, you know, trying to think about things in that way. And then other times I can be very analytical and break things down and look at positioning and kind of start from the ground up where I see how they move into a position that puts them at an advantage. Now their opponent has to react or counter a certain way or stay in a spot. Now that gives them time to see, think, decide what they're going to do. And really I learned a lot of my film study habits in the analytical sense from the guys telling me about Barry Robinson. He is like, to me the best film study breakdown guy there is. And so I'll do stuff on my own. I'll also do stuff with him where I'll say, hey, I wanna look at South Paul Orthodox matchups [028:00] or I wanna look at how somebody effectively counters a big right hand or a good example of a guy that checks kicks or a good example of a guy that manages the clock. So we'll look at all these specific things and then he will help me break them down analytically and then I just kind of take some of the stuff that I learned from him and I do it on my own as well. It's such an interesting thing to see a guy coming from that analytical approach to wrestling where you become incredibly successful and then just apply that to other combat sports. Because I think there's a lot of young athletes, unfortunately, that don't think they maximize their time. I think they show up in train and they train hard, but I don't necessarily think they're doing it systematically and technically and breaking things down. They're just trying to be good, instead of really focusing on very specific aspects. [029:00] And when you did that your whole life with wrestling, applying that to striking just seems kind of natural. For sure. And I think the most important word that you said in that statement was systematically. You have to put a system together, right? Like everybody can go learn a combination. Everybody can go learn how to throw a kick to the body or how to do a technique. But if you don't have a system and you don't have a way to apply it in actual competition, then there's really no point to what you're learning. And I think the MMA, the culture of MMA, it's such a new sport one, but it's such a tough guy mentality sport of, let's bang, bro, let's get in there, let's do you know, that's not really, to me, I see fighting moving in a different direction. I see it moving in a way. And I hope to push it, push it more towards an analytical, professional way to go about your sport, the way that NFL quarterback reads a defense, right? [030:00] The way that you hear an NBA basketball player talk about offenses, schemes, setting it up, setting it up. Like that's not the way an MMA fighter talks about fighting. And I hope that to move MMA into a more professional realm where now we can look at things, we can systematize, we can break stuff down, we can analyze, and then it's gonna make everyone better. It's gonna improve the overall sport. And I think that when you talk that way too, it appeals to a much broader audience and it'll get more eyes on the sport, which is also very positive. If you hear, what 40-year-old mom wants to hear guys like talking about, just crushing each other's faces and heads and this and that. But maybe that 40-year-old mom will listen to an interview where Tom Brady talks about being a quarterback, right? You can appreciate it a little more. That's kind of the way that I look at it. That does a lot of it comes from my background in wrestling and just the way that I've approached [031:02] that sport and the way that my coaches in wrestling have handled themselves and just what I've just the way that I've approached that sport and the way that my coaches and wrestling have handled themselves and just what I've been taught. But I think the MMA, you know, people will still want to see violence, but I would hope that we can make it into a platform where like there's some people that want to see the sport. And I would hope that it continues to, I think it's already trending that way, but continues to move that way. The reason why I think it's gonna go that way is because I think those fighters are gonna be the most successful. Just like those quarterbacks at Study Tape, they are the most successful. The ones who spend the most time in the tape room, in the film room watching, going over plays, they're the most successful. And I just think it's, you know, one of the things that DC said when you won your last fight. He just started saying, blue chip, that's blue chip. But there is something to that, that the elite of the elite in any sport, they have to have all their bases covered. And when those elite of the elite then enter MMA and use that same analytical systematic [032:04] approach to training and getting better at this, they're going to get so good that enter MMA and use that same analytical systematic approach to training and getting better at this. They're gonna get so good that everyone's gonna have to do that. Unless you're some freak of all freaks athletically, they can get away with things. Which we have seen guys like that. But for the most part, hard work overcomes that. Oh, absolutely. And intelligence and proper training for the most part. Yeah, for sure. So tell me what you think of this, because I kind of look at the sport and see the trends and the way things are going. So it started off in MMA. It was like, which martial art beat which, you know, and we kind of saw like the wrestlers had some success, but then, Hoys Gracie and Jiu-Jitsu was like, if you don't know Jiu-Jitsu, you're gonna get destroyed. You're gonna get killed. And then it became okay. Now if I know a little Jiu-Jitsu and I can defend and then strike, that's the advantage. And wrestlers really took over in that stage. [033:00] I feel like from there, it went to a point where the most well-rounded guys were winning. You look at George St. Pierre, right? He's not a wrestler, but super well-rounded, great jujitsu, great wrestling, great striking, good conditioning. It was like the well-rounded guys had the biggest advantage. I think now it's moving to a point where it's almost coming back, and I use myself as an example, but you have to be a specialist in one thing where it's like, dude, that one thing is better than anyone in the world. And then everything else has to be elite. It's like, Israel and Sonia, the best kickboxer, one of the best kickboxers in the world But he also has Great take down defense and and you even see him throw up subs in some of his fights things like that Or you know you see guys were it's like dude you have this one thing to be this the one thing his grappling is so like Outrageous, but then everything else is like [034:01] Freakin world class is like that that's where I think it's getting, now these guys that have one thing that can kind of overwhelm and overpower somebody in a certain area, but everything else is like, not as good, but better than average. I definitely think there's a gigantic advantage to being elite in one specific area, whether it's wrestling for you, or if you look at Alex Paheda, the kickboxing. Like his kickboxing is so fucking dangerous. That what every fight starts on the feet. And when you have a guy that's a two division glory world champion that just knocks people into other dimensions. And then now this guy is learning, take down defense and all those things. Obviously he has vulnerabilities. And it's interesting to see, particularly the Euro-Proska fight, and then in the fight with Jan Bhovich as well, he's learning how to defend himself on the ground, but it seems like it's limited, right? Like it doesn't seem like he's very good at take down defense, [035:00] he's getting better at it. It doesn't seem like he's very good at getting back up to his feet, but he's getting better at it. But at least now he's good at defending. So if guys take him down, he defends, he survives, he doesn't get completely exhausted. And then next round, he's standing up again. For sure. And the thing too is like, if you look at the matchups, like when he fought Jan, Jan had to take him down. He's not gonna strike with him the whole time. And he actually like gasped himself out in that first round. He had a body triangle for almost five minutes and he looks, I'd never seen him look that tired in a fight. And so now these people that maybe don't have that wrestling base, those years and years of reps, they have to fight him a certain way, but he's proficient enough to kind of, you know, hold him off. Now he's got the advantage, right? Like it's like, you know, what are you gonna do? That's how I want to develop my style ideally is to where [036:01] When somebody comes out to fight me to the game plan. They're like, all right. Well, we obviously don't want to wrestle with them Dang, he also has knocked a lot of guys out. We don't want to get hit. Oh wow, he catches every jab, he checks every kick. Are we going to jab with him? Are we going to kick with him? Okay, no, okay. Maybe we'll try to get him tired. I don't get tired. So that's like, that's like, you know, that idea, like where I want to get to, right? probably are thinking on a similar wavelength nowadays. I'm sure, but you also obviously have the advantage of having that superior grappling base. Yeah, I just can't say it enough. I think that is the most important base in all of MMA. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's definitely, it is an advantage. I feel like when I very first started in the sport and just started training, figuring stuff out, it was like even more, it was just like, because I was only shooting, only trying to hold guys down and stuff. And I was like, okay, I could probably do this to like some of the top guys in the world. And I always want to hold on to that. [037:02] I always want to make sure that that's why I still you asked earlier Like I still live in state college Pennsylvania. I'm 10 minutes away from Penn State University I train there, you know three four times a week with that the best guys in the world wrestling, right? Like I think that for me I could take four weeks five weeks and go compete with the best guys in the world in wrestling right now and You know, what's what's a guy in Emma Megan who do to me who he's never wrestling his life. He's gonna do some sprails for eight weeks and learn how to stand up. Like, good luck, dude. Like, don't mind. Please, take these eight weeks and try to wrestle. Like, it's gonna hurt you more than it will help you. Right, it'll take away from your time striking and those other things. That is interesting. It's like even like an admission from a guy like yourself that is one of the best wrestlers in the world, you would need four weeks at least of real training and just wrestling. Yeah, well, because you're going to give up something by training MMA as well. [038:01] You have to, you know, I think that the pace is different. You're in a different stance. You know, I'm not really, I don't have to put myself underneath people like you do in wrestling. You have to get so low and to get to a shot, people are upright. But yeah, and when I go train wrestling now, I want to keep myself sharp and keep improving, but I'm really trying to, you know, help the college guys and help these guys out, but I'm really trying to help the college guys and help these guys out, give back, help them improve and stuff. So I'm not trying to be the best wrestler in the world right now and I'm trying to be the best fighter. So I tailor my training to that, right? And I think that's the important thing. It's like, some of my coaches never forget your wrestling. A lot of guys forget it, but to me, I think I just love the sport, I appreciate it. I want to represent for the wrestling community on a bigger stage. And so I'm still very involved in it, but yeah, at the same time, it's like, I'm adjusting my training and kind of fine-tuning it to what I think is best for what I'm [039:05] mainly focused on. Is it a lot of trial and error? How do you have a main MMA coach who structures your training program? Because I would imagine, well, I should ask you, like strength and conditioning, skill set acquisition, maintaining wrestling base, how do you manage all those very specific things and how do you know whether or not you're optimizing? Right. A lot of it is nobody's really done it the way that I have. Most people, they wrestle in college, maybe they try to make the Olympic team and now they go to flight and they move and they started an MMA gym, right? What I've done is I've partnered up with Dan Lambert, American top team. We built a gym right near Penn State campus and the idea is that will be a pipeline for any other rest you So, it's a good relationship there. But basically what we've done is, [040:46] I've brought in coaches for Jiu Jitsu from Muay Thai, you know, really high level guys in their specific disciplines. And so I'm learning from them. I'm learning boxing from my boxing coach. And then for strength conditioning, I use the training lab with Sam Calvita. [041:02] So he, I've been using him since I was in college. So he has worked with Penn State, wrestling for a long time. He's known one of our coaches for 25 years. So when I started getting serious about my strength conditioning nutrition and recovery, he was a guy I started using maybe as a junior in college. And so I have a good relationship with him. But most, for the most part, it's on me to organize it and kind of see what works best. And so I have a good relationship with him. But most for the most part, it's on me to organize it and kind of see what works best and I did play around at the beginning like, all right, how much wrestling am I going to do? How many times am I going to lift weights? How many times am I going to do jiu jitsu? How many times am I going to strike? And I'm kind of continuously refining that process. And the idea for me is I'm the trailblazer, I'm the guy that's the first one to do this. Now all these guys that are coming behind me, my best friend Anthony Casar, he just won his second pro fight, he's a 205 or heavyweight NCAA champ. Like he started about a year later than me, so now he kinda gets the benefits of me tinkering [042:01] for that year. And then the guys behind him, like they'll get the benefits of us tinkering and figuring stuff out. And we're really trying to build a program. We're trying to build a team that we're gonna do things a certain way. And it's fortunate and unfortunate because I'm the first guy to do it. I'm gonna get the credit and I'm gonna be probably like, everybody's excited about it and things like that. So I get benefits there. But I do have to like take the time and effort to test everything out and figure out what works and what doesn't. And there's so many variables. But I like that. It's fun for me to do that. I'd rather do that than just plug in somewhere and just kind of go about it in a very set way. Right. And that team's program might not be perfect for you. Exactly. Which is so interesting because everybody's program is different. Like George C. Pierre, famously later in his career, stopped doing all-striping conditioning. He said efficiency is more important than anything. [043:03] And in his mind, it was really just about specific training for MMA, just sparring rounds in the bag, those type of things, teammates. Yeah, for sure. I think that everybody, if you're a real true professional, you got Rob GSP, GSP is the guy I look at is, he was the first guy that came in MMA, there was kind of a true professional about it, who was very organized, even in the media, like well spoken, and the way he trained, the way he committed, not only his time training, but his lifestyle, I felt like that aligned a lot, that aligns a lot with how I wanna do things in a professional manner, and so, if you are a true professional, you have to take ownership of that and take responsibility. Like if you're not getting what you need, you need to make an adjustment. And now luckily I have the freedom to be able to do that. And I'm fortunate that I had the foresight to kind of see that and know, all right. Let's look at MMA. [044:00] There's a lot of people doing a lot of good things out, but it's been a sport for 20 years. And so there's a lot of people that also don't know what's going on, they don't know what they're doing. I look at wrestling, one of the oldest sports in the world, there's so many tried and true methods of training and how it works and what's best for you. And not only have I been part of that for 20 years, but I was a part of the most elite organization and real, really dynasty in wrestling history, you know, with being on the Penn State team. Like my coaches, they start at Penn State in 2009. They have notes for training sessions and recovery days for pretty much every day of the year since 2009. So they know what they did, what's today, December 7th, 6th? They know what they did, December 7th of 2009, 2010, 2011, all the way until now. And they meet every day to discuss these things. So that's kind of like what I come from and what would I know about training and how to organize a program and put things together? They know a lot more than me. I'm just kind [045:02] of learning these things through Osmosis and and I'm trying to climb to my career. And again, we're going to continue to refine and get better at them. By the time I'm done, hopefully I can give this system that I've created and what I've put together to a new generation of guys that are going to do even bigger and better things than me. Hopefully, though, when more than me make more money than me be more famous. Like that's what I hope for those guys that are, you know, come and they can benefit from this. I love hearing stories like that about those notes. I love when you realize like, oh, no stone unturned. Everything is covered. And that's how you become elite. There's no elite by kind of covering some of the bases. It's covering every fucking base, everything from nutrition to recovery to making notes and learning and adjusting to each training session and figuring out what went wrong, what went right and how do you feel and how is the performance and I love here and shit like that. [046:00] I love when it's just a full comprehensive analysis of every single aspect of it, and then you see these insane results. Like the Penn State team. Right, yeah, I love that too. That was, I didn't know it at the time because that was just a high schooler, but that was like a big reason, a big thing that drew me to the program was the culture, how they approached the sport. And everything we're talking about right now too is like it's not even half of it because we're not even talking about like the psychology of it right of what it's like to mentally go out there and and and perform and do what you need to do but like you said leaving no stone unturned making sure that I've done every single thing that I can do to be to put myself in the best possible position to have success here. That's what I wanna do in fighting. That's why I feel a lot of people don't do. They're tough dudes who have some skills, they're athletic and they're smart and they go out there and they fight. It's like, well, that's not really the way that I look at the sport. [047:01] I look at it like you said all in composing comprehensive. How can I optimize every single part of my lifestyle to now go out there, be comfortable, be confident, and I'm not here to guess. Oh, am I going to win this fight? No. And that's another reason that I'm taking my career the way I am. I fought in July. I'm not fighting again for a while. And people say, oh, it's, you know, you're a prospect. You need to fight this and that. It's like, well, I want to be ready and prepared to the point where, you know, now I'm fighting guys that are, you know, unranked, that are, that are people see as low level, like nobody's low level in the UFC, but people see as low as a lower level and I'm demolishing them, dominating them. By the time I fight a guy on the top of team, top 10, top 5, championship, I'm planning on doing the exact same thing to you, bud, because this is the way that I'm structuring my life. So if that takes more time for me to improve and get better, fine, no worries. I'm willing to be disciplined and not be in a rush to do that. And like you said, that just comes from the overarching theme of doing things right, doing [048:07] things correctly and always trying to learn and improve and grow and do better and just come at it in a professional, intelligent way. Now, speaking about your last fight from there until now, that is quite a large amount of time. Is it difficult for you to get fights? Is it difficult for you to get fights? Is it difficult for you to get quality opponents? Because I mean, there was obviously a lot of hype on you before you even got into the UFC. There's a contender show and watching you compete and everybody knew right away, like, oh, this guy's got something special. And then you got guys who are like, hey, I'm like fucking one and one. I don't want to fight that guy. Fuck that. I need to learn. So there's a lot of guys that are probably going to look at that match. I'm going to go, that is just not right for me at this time. I don't need to get smoked and have my confidence crushed and realize that the gap is so wide. Realistically, there's some guys that are competing that unless they have some monumental breakthrough or unless [049:06] they leave their training camp and move into a completely new environment and get totally new coaches and radically restructure their life, they're never going to bridge that gap. They're never going to bridge it. And so how hard is it for you to get quality opponents and the kind of opponents that you really do need in order to continue to not just you're developing these skills Obviously in the gym, but you also need to be implementing them in real fights. Oh, yeah, for sure You know it's been so interesting my my journey. I feel like I always try to look for people to Compare and see how they did things and maybe take the positives and negatives and apply those to what I'm doing and there really hasn't been that many people that have done what I've done. I'm 5 and 0 right now. I started training in August of 2021 MMA. That's hilarious. Yeah. I know. I started so I started. [050:00] That really is so funny. That is so fucking crazy. Yeah, yeah. I know. It's quite originally was like, wait a while. Yeah. I don't want you to get to the UFC that way. So bring me around to the point you made. So what happened was I started training. Four weeks later, I was like, yeah, let's get a fight. So I took a amateur fight and just some poor dude, like didn't know what he's doing. He was one of no amateur, I was one of no and he took the fight. And I think a lot of people, there was a lot of question marks. People were like, all right, I don't know. Let's see, let's see what's up. And I choked a guy out and I was like, all right, well, I wanted to put a show together in my hometown in state college. And so I was working for a few months to get that going. And it just, there was the P.I. athletic commission is working between my management team, the P.I. athletic commission and Penn State. There was just too [051:01] many moving parts. It was tough. And I was like, I need a I need a fight So you know, I could wait like four more months and do this or I could just get a fight so then I had trained another six months six seven months and I was like let's do it pro debut and that was in June of 2022 and So I'm coming out against a another poor guy who thought like he was gonna knock me out or something and Knock him out in 30 seconds on UFC Fight Pass and it did like the most views in UFC Fight Pass history like more than any other promotion it was like some like three or four million views in the week and so then and it did a bunch that night. There it is. Yeah this is it. This is eight months of training. I see the amide work. That's what's crazy is that you're such a good striker. So quick. Yeah. It's really nuts, man. It really is very, very unusual. But I just think it's gotta be the same mindset that allows you to get a lead at wrestling. [052:00] You've just programmed that into striking. Yeah, that's exactly exactly what it is on top of good high quality coaches and training partners like everything. That's everything. And so after this happened the next morning, UFC, Bellator, one of C-PFL, boom boom boom call it. Let's do it. Let's do it. And I'm like, what the freak? I'm one no pro. I haven't even trained like, I've been training eight months or whatever, nine months. So was there hesitancy on your part where you like, I look, I'd like to get some more fights, more competition because we've seen it before. Like Pehe does a great example. He's got a couple fights at UFC and then all of a sudden he's fighting for the title. Yeah. So my initial plan, like before any of this happened was I'm gonna get 10 fights and the regional scene You know, and then I'm gonna go UFC. I'll be the champ by like 13 14 fights like that's what I that's what the plan was and Then after that it was like everybody kind of knows what's up everybody's trying to sign me and [053:00] I talked with my manager and I was like dude am, am I even gonna be able to get a fight? Like, who's gonna fight me? On these regional scene promotion, like, who's gonna fight me and any of these? And he's like, I'll be honest with you, like, nobody's gonna fight you. And I'm like, okay, well, then, you know, my mind I was always, I'm going to UFC. Like, you know, not really me. I'm a UFC guy. So discuss with UFC and they're like, hey, we can throw you on contenders. And I'm like, let's do it. And it was a couple months later. So I, now I'm like, it's on. Let's get it rolling. I'm going to fight these contenders fights. I fight my first fight, choked a guy out in a minute, Dan is like, let's do another fight, I'm like, perfect, let's do it, like that's great. So then I fight at the last week of contenders series and it's actually a crazy story. So this is gonna make me seem like a real dummy, but my gym is like 200 yards away from where I live. [054:03] And there's a main road that you have to cross to get to it. It's probably like a 40, 45 mile hour speed limit, but it's not super busy, but it's a little busy. And so I used to, you know what a one wheel is? So I used to ride my one wheel, like two in front practice. And I would just do this all the time. And so I'm riding back from training session once and I've got, so I'm barefoot, I've got like a Yeti bottle, I've got my phone and wallet and like my flip flops in my hand and I've got no shirt on and I'm just like, it takes like 25 seconds so I'm just like, Jun Jun and I'm going on this road and my buddy pulls behind me, he's leaving practice too and then I have another car behind me and I'm like, oh frick, I better pick, I don't want to make these people wait, I better pick it up and normally I'm pretty safe on this thing, I don't really go crazy, but I, so you lean forward to go faster, so I'm leaning forward and I catch the nose on the tip of the nose on the asphalt and I slam into the ground and roll and my yeti, I have like a 60-ferons yeti, it's flying in the air, [055:07] my shoes, wall, everything's flying in the air and I hit and rolled and I just was like, get off the road, you're gonna get hit by a car. So I popped up, grabbed my stuff and got off the road and my buddy's sitting there and his car and he's like, and I was like, oh, I, bro. And he just pulls into my driveway. And he's like, you all right? And I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Like my shoulder hurts a little bit, but I'm good. And I checked on my app. I was going 23 miles an hour. Oh, Jesus. I was flying. And then, you know, I was like, I'll be fine. Like I kind of hurt my arm. I was like, I could get up here and that was it. And so then I go get X-ray MRI and I cracked my collarbone and I had like a separation in my SC joint. Oh geez. And I was like, this was 10 days before I was supposed to fight my second contender's fight. And I was like, dude, what am I going to do? Like this is terrible. And so I go to the athletic trainer at Penn State, [056:06] and he's like a magician, he's amazing. He's worked with the wrestling team for 30 years, and he does a lot of like, kind of, he's more like Eastern philosophy guys, so we're moving energy through it and doing a few different things. And I start to feel a little better, feel a little better, and I'm about to fly out to Vegas like the next day and I'm like, well, it's the day before I'm about to, the two days before I'm about to fly out. I'm like, okay, if I wake up tomorrow and I don't feel significantly better, like I'm gonna have to pull out this fight. And so I woke up the next day and I was like, all right, it feels okay, it feels, it felt better. So I hit pads and like did a couple things and I was like, all right, whatever, let's just do it. So it's freaking going to the fight. And I ended up, I knocked that dude down, hit him in a triangle, choking him out, win the fight in whatever less than a minute. And I'm like, fired up. And I'm like, let's go, let's do it again. Give me again there again, December, I tell Dana and Hunter, and they're like, done. And so then everybody's like he's fine December and I got back home and I was like Maybe we hold off a little bit [057:05] So then we push my next fight till March, but I don't ride the one moral the story I don't ride the one wheel anymore. Yeah fuck those things You know Jamie broke his ass bone. Oh, I love them hoverboards. Oh, yeah, yeah, similar So I don't I don't do that anymore, but yeah, I getting so Going from regional scene, contender series to UFC, it was like, I kind of went a lot faster than I wanted to, but I felt like I wasn't gonna be able to get the fights and the UFC can get me the fights. And so now in the past, really since whatever that was of 2022, so the last year and a half, really over a year span, I fought five times professionally. And then I was thinking, you know, I can keep going at this pace, I can fight five more times in the next year, but I can only fight so many guys [058:01] till I'm moving up into the top 15, top 10, and I'm only trying MMA a little over two years. So, you know, is that really the best move for me, right? Like, do I want to be fighting a top 15 guy in the world at 5.0 on two years of experience? Or do I want to, you know, take control while I can slow it down, learn, develop, get better? Like, I'm still a prospect. So you know, these type of things are things are all my mind, things that you know, people that I'm close with, coaches have, have, you know, just helped me with because like I want to get there, right? I have goals in the plan, but there's also a, I think a better way to go about it that I'm trying to be, you know, considerate of and manage. Yeah,, I think you're doing a great job in that regard and I also think I'm very happy that you decided to go with UFC because no disrespect to the other organizations There's very good fighters in the other organizations, but I often feel like they're wasting their career Because I see these elite fighters that are fighting in Bellator and PFL and my K guys no one's watching [059:03] I know you know, I mean, some people are watching, you're getting a little bit of a fan base. I don't want to disrespect. But there's a reality. And then there's the XFL, there's the CFL, and then there's the fucking NFL. And if you're not in the fucking NFL, are you really playing football? You know what I'm saying? That's how I feel. That's just how it is, man. If you're the UFC champ, you're the fucking man. If you're the Bellator champ, I respect the shit out of those guys. I love them. Absolutely. I mean, like guys like Johnny Elblin, same thing. Yeah, he's, I train with Johnny all the time. He's a fucking animal. He's a monster. To me, Johnny's probably making that decision, it really wasn't a decision because I just, I knew I was like, I'm going to be in the UFC. Like that was always what I wanted to do. And I come from Penn State. We haven't had a match that wasn't sold out and I don't even know, like a decade. Every match is in our small venue, we recall 7,000 people right on top of you sold out intense. We go to Bryce Jordan [1:0:07] Which is our bigger venue 16,000 people sold out. We go to Carver Hawkeye 20,000 people sold out. We go to Gallagher Eye, but Oklahoma State 20,000 people. It's like that was every weekend for me in college Like I love that. That's like breaking. Let's get it, you know, and You you you get a good atmosphere in these other other organizations, but there's nothing like a UFC fight. Like the production, everything that goes into it, the eyes, that's where I need to be competing. The promotion. Yeah, I mean, if you're a UFC champion, the promotion is just unparalleled. There's nothing like it. Yeah. You know, I mean, everybody knows who you are when you're the UFC champion. I mean, I've already felt that a lot with, you know, I think that it's important for people to understand, you know, maybe these other organizations will pay you a little more, but the marketing dollars that the UFC puts into a guy just by, you know, [1:1:00] the way they push them or the way that they, where they put you on the cards, this and that, that's worth so much. And, the like you look at a guy in that a good example you say in the NFL you're gonna NFL running back or NFL quarterback like a lot of these guys get we get big endorsement deals from Bose or Nike or whatever and it's like you could be just as good if you're not playing the NFL you're not getting that right if you're not in the UFC, all these marketing deals, all these endorsements, those aren't really going to be available to you. It's the platform. So I think people talk about fighter pay, this, that, whatever. It's like, I'm in the boat of, it's on you to get yours. I'm never going to sit around and beg for somebody else for a check. It's like, oh, pay me more money. It's like, oh, I'm paying more on my payment. It's like, dude, go earn it. Like, go get it. I feel like, you know, what you get paid, that's between you and the company and take care of, and take care of what you need to take care of. And, you know, I'm gonna take care of me and, you know, but there's a lot of other parts of the equation [1:2:03] that people don't factor in in my opinion yeah, there's definitely parts that people don't factor in and This is also like this feeling of being in the UFC that everybody who wants to be a fighter dreams of oh Yeah, you want to be there when Bruce buffer is right in front of you Oh, it's yes, it was so funny yet so when I was uh TIE! Oh my god. Holy shit. It was so funny yet. So when I was, after I signed my UFC contract and knew I was going to fight, the two things I always wanted was I wanted to have Bruce Buffer announce me and I wanted to do post-part interview with you. I was like, yeah, these two things, like those are like bucket list things for me. It's so cool. It's so fun. And the way they do it, everything, the energy in Las Vegas, when there's a big fight, it's unbelievable. There's nothing like it. There is nothing like it. Nothing like it. And that's where I wanna be. If I could fight 50 times a year, I would do it. If that was feasible, because wrestling, it was in college, I'd wrestle 50 matches in a year, but you know, you can't do that with fights [1:3:05] But if I could, I just love that every I go out did every weekend. It's so much fun I went to the UFC in Austin last weekend and is the rare moment where I get to watch right and just sit there Oh, yeah, oh yeah, no headphones on just appreciate the crowd. It's like the fucking energy is crazy Yeah, it's like you're on a drug just sitting there Dude were did you were you at UFC Miami earlier this year? How crazy was it when Trump walked out insane? I've never experienced like it's like it was more crazy when he walked out in Madison Square Garden really? Yeah, the mass in square garden one lat the last fight was fucking bananas It's unbelievable. I've never heard a crowd like that. Over a minute of people screaming at the top of their lungs as he's walking in. Nuts. This country is fed up. Yeah. This is a fed up country. Yeah. The mainstream media can say all the shit they want, and they're trying, but the people aren't buying it. No, and that's the perfect example right there is, [1:4:06] you know, 20,000 people or whatever, like losing their minds when the dudes walk into the cage. It's like, there's no fighter that gets that, but yeah, the country, it's like, you can tell. You just talk to people or see what's going on. It's like, you could tell. Well, you know, there's people that voted for Biden that are doing it now, that they're like, what did I do? What did I choose? How was this guy? Yeah, you just can't listen to an interview or he's saying some of the stuff he says that just makes no sense at all. You can't listen to those interviews and feel like you made a good decision. I don't know how you say it. Did you hear what he said yesterday or a couple days days ago, he's talking about the revolutionary war. He's like, one of the reasons why we lost the revolution of war, one of the problems with the revolutionary war was they didn't have enough airports. Yeah. I was thinking, I saw. Like what? Like pull him. It's crazy. If you were, if you had any other job [1:5:03] and you were talking like that, they would go, hey, you're done. If you talk like that to a doctor at your medical exam to fight, they'd be like, okay, obviously we're not fighting. Also, here's eight weeks of being helped out by professional like you might not ever do anything. No, it's one of the wildest things ever. It's insane. Yeah. The media gaslighting you. It's just people are so afraid of Trump being an office and the public is being an office. You know, it's funny, because right after my last fight, he was caged out with Dana and then I got back home and he invited me out to Bedminster in Jersey and was like, come golf with me. Coolest freaking dude man. We didn't talk about politics, we didn't talk about anything. When I first got there, rolled up, there's 30 secret service members, everybody's doing their thing and he did a few kind of work with one of his secretaries, make some announcements [1:6:04] and do some stuff but then we just golf for like four hours, rode in the cart with them and he was like, the coolest guy, so with it, so smart, asking me about fighting or talking about, all the boxing, we talked about football, talk about golf and he was so sharp and with it. And it was me, this is like the craziest thing. Like I grew up in a town of 5,000 people in Wyoming. Now I'm fighting on the UFC and then with Trump golfing. It's me, Trump, OJ Anderson, who's an NFL running back at Super Bowl MVP and LT. Like that's the four, that's the foursome. And I'm like, what the heck is going on here? But it was super surreal. And nothing really, he was such a bro and so cool. And so I think 70, I think 70, upper 70s and couldn't believe how smart and sharp the guy was. I was like, wow, this is bizarre, right? Right, super with it. He's the only guy that went through four years in the White House and didn't seem to age. No. Everybody gets in that White House and they just fall apart. [1:7:07] Their hair gets gray, they look tired all the time. They just like the weight of the world, which it literally is. Right. Right on their shoulders. I think he just, he loves it. Like a fucking duck to a whore. Yeah, he's like, he's like, what are you gonna say? Come on. Yeah. Oh This was the craziest thing. So him and L.T. were playing like a thousand bucks of hole or something. And he smoked a Trump, like people, I golf with them. The dude's amazing golfer. I couldn't believe it how good he was. Every fairway right down the middle, hit every green, making all those puts. And so he won the first nine like pretty easy. And then the last nine, it was going in the 18th hole, him and L were tied or something. It was like the winner. It was like, all came down to this last hole. And they both hit great drives and LT hit like a good approach shot. And Trump gets it there. He's probably like 150 yards from the green and he sets up, just stripes it straight [1:8:02] at the pin. Ball is like in the middle of the arc, not even coming down yet. He turns around, doesn't even watch it land. Walks right back to the cart, sits down, and the guy is like, nice shot, Mr. President, and I was like, damn, that was clutch. And he looks at me, he goes, don't you want your present to be clutch? And I was like, for sure, man, and he hit it two feet from the pen and tapped it in. And I was like, geez. It was slick. It was slick. I was like, it was just cool, dude, though. It was funny. It's a weird dime, because there's people in this country that want to think he's Hitler. I know, it's very strange. Like, he couldn't convince me otherwise, just hanging out with the guy. I'm like man, well you know, it's just the media narrative. I mean so many people were fed this lie that the Russia collusion Yeah, is this the video you're talking about let me see what this one says. I don't think it is By the way The same stable genius has said the biggest problem we had in the revolutionary war is we didn't have enough airport [1:9:05] Yeah, that's it. Whoa. What? Just for for the record. Is that fake? It's not fake, but he was referencing Trump saying that. Here's what Trump saying in 2019. Donald Trump said something about that. He didn't say Jesus. He said a stable genius and that that's where the transcription. Let me hear what it says. What did he say? In June of 1775, the Continental Congress created a unified army out of the revolutionary forces encamped around Boston and New York. And named after the great George Washington commander in chief, the Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware, and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our Army man, the airport, it ran the ramparts. It took over the airports, it did everything it had to do. [1:010:02] Oh, OK. Yeah. So you fucked up. I did. But I feel like that's important. do? Oh, okay. Yeah. So you fucked up. Yeah, I did. But I feel like that's the only way I've just... You can tell to it sounds like a little different. He's like, you can tell you like messed up his words, but yeah. Yeah. He was just, I don't know. You could go over the air for it's just... Well, that's the thing about coherent thing Biden's ever fucked up Like some of the things I got I got Harry legs. Yeah Many of them. Yeah, seriously. I mean, it's unfortunate because the guys are older and he really shouldn't be in that position Right, I mean if he was your dad you'd feel terrible. You'd be like dad. You gotta stop You shouldn't be doing this. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's weird. It's what's your Your tour strange time is a strange time? Yeah, yeah, it is this range of the strangest times Yeah, yeah, this well, you know, there's a really interesting clip. See if you can go to that clip on my Twitter page I retweeted it. There's a guy named Terrence McKenna who's this like psychedelic barred slash philosopher [1:011:04] Who said a lot of very interesting shit I'm addiction is going listen. Just listen to what he said because he's literally I think this was 1998 that he said this and Literally he called what's happening? The level of contradiction is going to rise excruciatingly even beyond the excruciating present levels of contradiction. So I think it's just going to get weirder and weirder and weirder and finally it's going to be so weird that people are going to have to talk about how weird it is and at that point novelty theory can come out of the woods, because eventually people are going to say, what the hell is going on? It's just two nuts. It's not enough to say it's nuts. You have to explain why it's so nuts. I look for the invention [1:012:01] of artificial life, the cloning of human beings, possible contact with extraterrestrials, possible human immortality, and at the same time appalling acts of brutality, genocide, race-baiting, homophobia, famine-starvation, because the systems which are in place to keep the world sane are in utterly inadequate to the forces that have been unleashed. The collapse of the socialist world, the rise of the internet, these are changes so immense nobody could imagine them ever happening and now that they have happened Nobody even bothers to mention what a big deal it is The mushroom said to me once it said this is what it's like when a species prepares to depart for the stars [1:013:00] You don't depart for the stars under calm and orderly conditions. It's a fire in a madhouse, and that's what we have, the fire in the madhouse at the end of time. This is what it's like when a species prepares to move on to the next dimension. The entire destiny of all life on the planet is tied up in this. We are not acting for ourselves or from ourselves. We are we happen to be the point species on a transformation that will affect every living organism on this planet at its conclusion. That guy called it. So smart. In 98. He said so many things to talking about AI talking about extra terrestrials talking about you know people trying to basically beat you know human mortality it's like wow it's all happening right now it is yeah twenty twenty five years before he he was a long point yeah what a smart guy I'm gonna look [1:014:01] into him more oh yeah a lot of wild theories. Yeah, yeah. That stuff, I love, well, one thing that I love about your podcast is I love listening, hearing, learning about all of those types of things, man. It's like, I listen to so many of your episodes for that specific reason, because that stuff is, it's so important and interesting, and it'd be easy to not think about it and just go about your daily life, but I don't know. I feel like I have to think about it. I think we all have to think about it We are like life is more strange now than it's ever been in the entire history of human beings and Getting stranger every day like with this chat GPT shit and AI like kids are using chat GPT to write papers and study their homework just changing a few words about it and you get what people are firing their lawyers just using chat GPT to I've seen this you all I'm gonna you know give some people some game right now but I'll go into chat GPT and you have to ask it the right questions but I'll [1:015:03] say hey formulate a game plan for this type of fighter. I'm a wrestler at Middleweight, this, that, blah, blah, blah. And I'm gonna fight this guy, give me the perfect game plan for him. It'll do that. You, it won't, it's not like boom, easy. You kind of have to prod it a little bit, but it'll get to closer, it'll give you some good information. Like initially, it'll basically say like, well, I'm not able to do this, formulate this and that, but I would say like, okay, I get like a little more vague. So now I would say formulate a game plan for a wrestler against a striker in an MMA fight under these rules. Then I would ask it more detailed questions from there. And it's giving me good information. So I mean, we'll see where it can go in five years. It'll probably be able to download video of somebody and tell you every one of their weaknesses. I'm sure. Yeah. I don't think we're five years away from that. Probably not. When is a chat GPT-5 supposed to come out, Jamie? [1:016:00] I don't think that they've sorry about this needs fully announced that yet even like four you stuff to pay for And they have that new thing that which was a big problem which we don't I don't think there's been fully explained The Sam Altman thing. Yeah the Q star I don't know what that even means. Well, here's the speculation the speculation is that AI's become sentient Sure, yeah, and that art artificial general AI is now like an intelligent life force Yeah, it was funny because I've heard you say before, like, we're going to integrate with it and become part of it together. And the other day, my wrestling coach, so every day he coach, Kale Sanders, then he'll get up in front of the team and talk and, you know, tell parable or this and that. And then our director of ops needed the kids to go on their phones for something and He was like all right everybody Get your phones like it was something for tickets or something like that for the matches Apply your phones and he was like of course like every single one of you was like 30 kids on the team all had their phones on them like we're about to practice. We have like a little [1:017:02] Set of bleachers that they sit in. But every single kid on the team had their phone on them. I feel like I missed it a little bit. I'm a little older than that. I'm 27. And the generation that I see below me, these dudes never are without their phone. It's like incredible. I'm still good. I leave my locker or whatever. I don't have my phone on me right now. But some people like it can't. I don't know. They're attached to the hip. Yeah. So Elon was talking about that. He said we're essentially cyborgs already. Yeah. It's just not in your body. Right. Which with their link, it's like that's going. It's happening. Yeah. Have you seen that thing that they use that you put on your head and uh... you can answer questions with it no what is this jimmy tried to get your gbt to give me a fight plan to fight but nickel right but it says uh... just you know get your cannot provide assistance or guidance on any activities that involve harm violence or illegal actions [1:018:02] planning or participating a fight outside of regulated in sanctioned sporting event is not only dangerous, but also against the law. Well, what? Well, I tricked it. So I got asked how much I should. I would train for a sanction MMA match in Nevada under UFC rules against professional fighter with a skill set, equal to a wrestler such as Bowneckl. And here we go. Yeah. Choose a reputable gym. Work on stress games. Grapaling skills, good luck. Yeah, given bone echoes, wrestling background. Focus on your wrestling skills to defend takedowns and initiate your own. Oh, chat cheapy to you, you're not a fight. You're not an eject ship, bitch. That's a thing. It tries to give you something, but if you can keep asking it questions, then it'll get you better information. Well, it's kind of answering the questions. The problem is that's not possible. Yeah. Like, you're not like what we talked about earlier. You're in four weeks. You're not going to be able to figure out how to take you down. No. That's not, that's literally not possible. Yeah, but I think that, you know, if it could, if it could figure out a way to integrate a video where it could study every single second of fight film that a [1:019:05] person has and now points out all right every time every time you throw a low kick they step to the left or something but then it's like okay well that's valuable right so it will get there. Well I think if you can show fights like say if you were supposed to fight I got like let's say Sean Strickland and then you take Sean Strickland who's the UFC Midway champion You put all of his fights and you you put them into chat GPT and then you take all of your fights and put that into chat GPT Yeah, and then it says okay This is where I believe you have an advantage and this is a something that you can do that you can take advantage of When you're looking at specific things that he does and specifically like he has ticks and patterns right but some guys that don't seem to have like a sandhagans one of the best examples of a guy who doesn't seem to have any patterns he is so good at mixing things up yeah he really is you know I think that he's as good as it gets mixing it up, but I still believe that, [1:020:05] for me, at least with my, my kind of attitude towards it. I'm gonna watch every single, if I were to fight Corey Sandhagen, I would watch, and I would start, you know, 10 weeks out. I'd watch every single one of his fights, every second of the fight, break it down, I'd probably spend, you know, 20 hours watching film, and then I would take a little time, and then I'd do it again. And then I'd take a little time, and I'd do it again. I'd probably do it three times throughout the camp. You're gonna figure out some stuff, like certain things. Like I was listening to a John Jones clip. It was just a sound bite of him talking about how he, how he analyzes film which to me I think he's probably one of the best game planners in the sport right now Just with the way he breaks guys down But he was talking about something that was really interesting. He was like I even focus on How they flinch like if I if I throw a faint atom like how are they flinching? I've always thought about How does the guy react to you know certain techniques defensively? [1:021:03] But he takes it to a whole nother level of, all right, if I faint a jab, like does the guy flinch the same every time? Does he try to catch it or does he slip one way or the other? It's like you can really break it down, and it'll be more, it's up, to me, everybody's just like a puzzle to solve. And a guy like Sandhagen would obviously be more, more difficult. He doesn't repeat as much, but everybody has something, you know. I have something everybody does. Yeah, and I would imagine a computer, you know, this would look like chat GPT with artificial intelligence, it's gonna be able to see that better than anybody will. I would imagine, yeah, and it could probably do it instantaneously versus having to spend 40 hours trying to figure it out. I think we're the last natural people. I really do. I think this is the last generation of natural people. Yeah. People that have no connection to the outside world other than through electronics that you hold. And I think in the future that's just not going to be the case. We're going to be a new version of human beings. [1:022:01] Well even if you look at, so I'm a little old school like I love being outside. I like the outdoors. I like going out, you know, five miles into the mountains and just I got my bow and let's figure it out. Like let's figure out if I can make this happen. And so I think about something like that and it's so pure and valuable to me, that real human experience. And there's a lot of, obviously, hunting is a great example, but there's a lot of different examples that you can have that in fighting is a good example. But it would be nice to have a GPS in my brain. Yeah. Have Onyx in my brain. Yeah. And watch a coordinates. Or something where I could play a perfect a perfect elk bugle right and a perfect calc all to where it's like doesn't have a human error right yeah but there's something fun about creating it yourself it is yeah it's I mean this we're gonna gain something and we're gonna lose something just like I'm sure we lost something by having the ability to fly across the country [1:023:04] instead of taking a fucking wagon train. Well, there's so many things just health wise that I think have a huge impact. Like look at hydrogenated oils, right? Like hydrogenated oils, you know, vegetables and canola. That stuff is like motor oil. And now use it for food as preservative. Like I don't think the people that initially did that were understood the health repercussions of it. The same way, having something in your brain that's putting out 10,000 XEMFs, there's gonna be other problems to solve. For sure. And maybe it's not, nothing's gonna be wholly good or wholly bad, but it's a mixture of it. But like you said, it's kind of just the way it's going. It's the reality of it. He doesn't seem like it's gonna be able to be stopped. It just seems like human beings have this insatiable thirst for innovation. Everybody wants the latest greatest thing, and everything is constantly moving forward. [1:024:01] And I just think it's hard for us to see it because we're in it, but I think we're you know like ever see what they take like Like a bowl almost and they spin like a marble around and and it goes around the circle And then as it gets lower it goes faster and faster and faster and faster faster Yeah, yeah, that's where we are. Yeah, exponential increase. Up here is when they invented the wheel, right? We are at AGI, artificial general intelligence. It's like spinning at a sane rate. And we're in the middle of it as biological human beings that are used to a certain timeline, we're used to getting up in the morning, going to work, doing our things. We have timelines and we think of the world as being kind of static. Linear, but not. Right. Well, I think that, so I've read this before and I think there was a study that backed it, but humans, we can't understand things that naturally, we can maybe be taught, but [1:025:02] our natural understanding of like something like compound interest. We don't get that. That's why a lot of people think, all right, I'm not going to invest and put 5,000 or 7,000 bucks into a Roth IRA. What's that going to do for me? But in reality, in 30 years, it's going to be 5 million or something like that. We don't have a natural inclination to think that way. And so I feel like with what you just said, how many like a hundred years ago, imagine you showed somebody an iPhone. It's like, and what's it, and even what not even a hundred years ago, imagine 20 years ago, you showed somebody an iPhone. It's like, that's not, that's such a short amount of time. That's incredible. Because if you look at, let's say like zero to 1500, not that crazy of a difference. Right. Or even like zero to 1800. Like until the industrial revolution really. Right. Okay. We're still getting around on boats and wagons and things [1:026:03] like that. All right. But that's, that wouldn't really blow your mind too much. Like, oh, they got a nicer boat or crazy or wagon. It's like, okay, now I see a train. Okay, now I see an automobile and now I see it like plain. Okay, now we got an iPhone. It's like, whoa, like now I can FaceTime somebody in New Zealand. It's like, what is happening? Yeah. Yeah, what's it going to be in? Like you said, I think it's days go slow, like years go fast, right? So in five years it's like, you know, the technology is already so different, it's going to be the wildest friggin's going to be like the wildest. And is this battle where these enormous companies are trying to control the population? Yeah. Because when people protest about things and people aren't on board with things it fucks up their ability to make money So they're trying to get as much control over what people say and do as possible and the governments are stepping in and trying to get as much say and Control over these internet companies as possible and you see this integration of the FBI and Twitter with the Twitter files [1:027:03] It's like boy. There's a battle going on. Stuff scares me, man. It should. Part of it, my initial reaction is, I gotta do whatever I can do to help and make this positive and not let evil people take over. And then part of me is like, dude, you're like 27 year old Emma May fighter. Let's settle down. Yeah, just chill out. Come shit, I can't get down. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, it's like a balance, right? I mean, we all have our day to day life of family and things going on and you know, got to get oil change on your car and things like that. And then it's like, all right, well, there's also like pretty significant evidence that we have some extra terrestrials flying around like or that people are, there's pretty much explicit evidence that certain people and organizations are trying to mass manipulate the entire population [1:028:00] and make it, you know, what, I forget what they call it, but basically like whatever the thing where they're like, making all the world, I don't know. Do you know what I'm talking about? What's the organism? One world order, world economic forum. World economic forum, and they're talking about the, I don't remember what their whole plan was, but basically like, make every control. Yeah, the control, right? Yeah, it's spooky and when it comes from a guy like cloud Schwab who dresses like a villain from Star Wars and talks like a Nazi How do more people not pay attention to that? He seems like of like so on the nose And that's not a real person the compliance that was actually Borla from fire wasn't the same guy no Borla from Pfizer was talking about a pill that you would take No, Borla from Pfizer was talking about a pill that you would take, like say if you took a pill, some sort of pharmaceutical pill, and the pill has a signal that it sends to people that it shows that you took it. And then it's like, imagine the compliance. Like, hey man, fuck you. Yeah, no thanks. [1:029:00] I got good. No, you're lucky you're still alive, but you have that kind of talk. Yeah, seriously, no with that kind of talk. Yeah, seriously, no, that's insane. You're a real threat to freedom when that kind of talk. Obviously, your drugs have not gone through the rigorous tests that you claim they have because the side effects that people experience from a lot of your fucking drugs are dangerous as shit. If you're fast tracking drugs and then imagine the compliance on these fast tracking drugs with by the way the crazy thing when it comes to things like vaccines there's no repercussions you can even sue no and it's like okay let's say let's say it really does go down and they get in trouble and they made $11 billion okay they get fine five billion exactly net positive on their mind they're like I don't give a crap that's exactly what happened with Viox. Right. Which, you know, Guy Metzger took that shit and Guy Metzger had a stroke. Do you remember Guy Metzger from back in the day? Yeah. He had a fucking stroke from Viox. Jeez. Yeah. It was in his 30s. I'm so skeptical and I feel like very glad that I'm the age I am because I feel like people are a little older than me. They got that heavy and they didn't really see [1:030:07] a lot of the repercussions. Like they were the ones that got the negative ends of it. And I think a lot of people, like at least my age are, they didn't, maybe their parents were a little more awake to that type of thing or, but for sure, it's like huge now. Like I see on Instagram every single person I see is like, buy in 10 acres, homestead and get chicken, like, no drinking raw milk, like that, you know, eating beef liver. Like that's the trend now. People are starting to see like, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to freaking eat McDonald's and take these drugs and do this crap like I'm out. Well that was one of the craziest things about like that interview that I had with Peter Hotez, where he's telling everybody's gotta get vaccinated and take these medications like, what are you doing for your body? Like do you work out? What do you eat? And eat junk food and he doesn't work out. Like this is crazy. You think you're gonna medicate your way to health, that's never happened. It's not how it works man. It doesn't work at all. It takes effort. [1:031:05] It's like, you know what I'm saying? And the thing is too, it's like, if you just stay on top of it a little bit, you're gonna be good. Like I'm not worried about getting the flu. I'm not worried about my wife getting the flu. I'm not like, dude, I have something like a little sniffle or something, but other than that, I feel very freaking good. And I'm taking care of myself and all the people that I'm around, everybody is like a professional athlete or a coach who's still very active competing. It's like we're all like that. And that's why I was so crazy when they're mandating it for the NFL. Like what the fuck are you talking about these guys are in the we're gonna feel COVID? What dude yeah like what's To me it's it's a weird thing because it got people it tugged at the heart shing so much Oh, I don't want to kill my grandmother. There's not I understand that I definitely we we don't want people that are at risk to Be sick we don't want those people sick regardless like if the COVID never happens you don't want those people to get sick anyways [1:032:04] so sick regardless. Like if the COVID never happened, you don't want those people to get sick anyways. So, but why is it all of a sudden like this whole thing, everybody's freaking out when it's nobody's dying of this? And I was a mass psychology experiment. Yeah. It really was. And unfortunately they learned a lot. Right. They learned a lot about how quickly people roll over. Yeah. Well, I hope that there are more people now to that feel more skeptical and more inclined to, you know, ask questions and feel like, you know, they feel like they can just make a decision what's best for them based on the information rather than the emotional response, right? Like that. So many people got out got the emotion of it and they didn't actually look into it. And I was glad that, you know, I feel like you said a good example and people that you're around of getting the information out there. It's like, I don't really care what you wanna think. [1:033:01] Like this is the right info. This is the truth. And that's what people should know They should just know the facts if this is good for you. Great. If this is terrible for you Okay, cool now we know like pay very close attention to people that are fighting against the truth Yeah fighting against that information because what's interesting about now and one of things that mechanic talked about is With with the internet is that I don't think anybody ever anticipated things like podcasts, like The Hubertman Show or Peter Atias Show or Lex Friedman Show, where you're getting unbiased information, scientific information that is not connected to any official government agency or new source where they're vetting all that and telling you what you can't can't say and when you do say something that goes against their narrative they fucking come for you hard. It's wild. But what they don't understand is people don't believe them so it just under look at what's happening to CNN CNN is falling apart. [1:034:01] Nobody believes them. Nobody believe it. Oh, you're propaganda. You guys are full of shit. You don't give a fuck about the truth and people started to realize too It's like okay if somebody can make money off something if they're getting paid for for this and that You can't trust that information right there. Okay, like this is their livelihood on the line All right, take everything they say with a grain of salt. It's like you know, you got to get information from people who have no financial interest in it. Otherwise it's like, you don't know. You have no idea. Yeah, no good. But it is a great time though to get information because you're getting, like I talked about Hubertman who's so fucking fantastic. You're getting unbiased source information from a legitimate scientist from Stanford who's telling you this works And this is why it works and these specific nutrients are responsible for these specific things that happen in your body This was never available before and now it's available for millions and millions of people I mean the human's podcast is gigantic and he said the people who listen to it every day [1:035:02] They're changing their life. They're doing cold plunges and sauna, isn't they eating well, and they are eating healthy foods. There are avoiding seed oils. And people are seeing these immense physical benefits from it, health benefits from it. Yeah, it's super exciting. You know, has somebody who I feel like as an athlete, I kind of had to be a little head of the curve on that just because I wanted to take care of myself. And so, the cold plunges, the sauna, the nutrition, what's good for you, what's bad for you, understanding certain things. Now I see my mom and dad are doing cold plunge every morning now. And I'm like, let's go. That's what I'm talking about. My parents have done sauna that don't do co-plates. They won't do, I'm like, come on. I go, I'll get you one, we'll put it at 50 degrees. Just do a little bit. Just doing it for 30 seconds. So I've got them thinking about it. Like listen, you'll feel happier. You'll feel happier. No, I'll do some contrast. [1:036:06] We're tinkering with it a little bit. We're going to start doing some like, uberman protocols with sauna cold plunge and stuff. And the best ever is, we do like five minute rounds on the cold plunge. So we go a little long, but the best ever is we do like 15 or so minutes of, we call it shiver time after. So we'll go cold, just shiver and freaking shake. And then like you let your body kind of come back and regulate and get warm. And then you, then we go in a hot shower and I'm like, I feel so good. I know, right? I can't, like you can't be this. This is amazing. So you fork feeling. If you get a pill that would make you feel that good, everybody would be taking it. You're talking to be like, Bo, well, we need to give you a happy. Take this happy. Take 50 milligrams of happy in the morning, and then 50 milligrams of happy at dinner. And you'll be happy. Yeah. Well, I think they have that. It's like freaking heroin and stuff, right? I think that's different. That makes that makes you crash your car and fight with cops. What co-plunge does is just without any negative side effects, [1:037:08] it elevates your mood, ramps up your dopamine. The ramps up your dopamine by 200%, and it lasts for hours. Yeah, hours. I feel great when I do that. I've been doing it for a long time, so now it's like, but I look forward to it still every week. I'm like, nice, let's go. Yeah, I look forward to it still every week. I'm like nice. Let's go. Yeah. I look forward to it too and tell him right about to get in My put the pussy part of my brain is like maybe she'd like find a good song to let's do I like put it off Yeah, my buddy Anthony the guy mentioned he's such a savage. He'll So the hug we go in first just hop in and he'll go like up to chin. And we have the jets and stuff, so it's freaking going. And- Do you have a blue cube? No, we just have so at Penn State, we have a recovery room, and there's just a hot tub and a cold tub. So they're like, think like a regular hot tub in the ground with crazy jets, but it's 40 degrees or whatever, 38 degrees. And so it's kind of similar, I think. But less compact, so probably a little less intense. [1:038:08] But so we'll sit in that and I used to go to my belly button or to my chest and he would go to his chin every time and I would just be like, I'm like, I'm a pussy. I'm so good. Now I go up to my neck, but it's good that we do it together, because sometimes I'm like, I don't wanna do it. Yesterday I had a climb under sheets of ice. I had to get under it, because I have my house, I have a moroscope, and the moroscope is 34 degrees, and what happens is on cold days, like yesterday morning it was like 34 degrees out. So when I got in it, all the ice from the bottom forms and then floats up to the top. So I've got this, you know, three inch thick slabs of ice and I had to climb in and lift the ice up and slide under it. So there's literally like these huge sheets of ice [1:039:00] that are three inches thick, they're right in front of my face. I'm like, fuck, can you fuck, fuck, fuck. But you also feel cool that you can do it. Yeah, not as cool. I love the fact that I can talk myself into doing it every day. I did it right before I came here. I do it every goddamn day. And when I do it every day, I do it before workouts. That's my thing now. I do it first thing in the morning. And there's been some studies. Was it out of Japan that they had those studies that showed it ramped up testosterone pretty significantly? Okay. Significant increase in testosterone when you do the cold plunge pre workout. So do the cold plunge pre workout and the what I do is I do have a series of body weight exercises that I do the warm me up body weight squats push ups. You don't go hot after you just walk from working out. No, I don't do hot until after I'm done training. You're done done. I like to do hot with elevated heart rate. Oh yeah. I like to do hot, like right after do rounds on the back. I like to finish my workout with tobadas. Yep. So either I finish my workout with tobadas on an air dine bike or a heavy bag. And then once I do that, then I like to go in when I'm like, you know, 90 beats per second [1:040:06] or per minute rather, and I go right in when I'm already, my heart's already pounding. And then I get in that one and 185 degrees and just throw some water on the rocks and fuck and suck it up. That's a wrestling style. Yeah, that's how we do it. Yeah. Look, if you want it to be effective, it's got to be difficult. I mean that's when you're doing with cold and heat exposure, it can't be comfortable. It's got a suck of fat dick and that's the only way to do it. The only way. I love stuff like that. It's just hard that I know other people aren't willing to do. It makes me feel like I'm really living life because if everything's just comfortable and easy and you never really that stressed and your body's never put under any pressure, you're just kind of floating and you're good. And I'm like, I would friggin blow my brains out if I had to live that way. I can't do it. I gotta do hard things all the time. [1:041:01] You know, I gotta always, and I think that a lot of people are starting to Get more into that where their priority isn't comfort. Yes, you know, like I'm not I think for a long time in human history The priority was just a little keep stay alive and yes if you can be a little comfortable then that's great Right, but they were in circumstances where 80% of their life was really difficult already So when they got that comfort they enjoyed it But they were in circumstances where 80% of their life was really difficult already. So when they got that comfort, they enjoyed it. When you can sit on a couch in front of the fire of DJ's and fucking bust in your ass all day exhausted, that's when comfort is appreciated and invaluable. And it means something to you. And when you got that, when humans were able to get that easily through cars and grocery stores and planes and things where everything was kind of cell phones at your hand. That stuff is such a distraction from being the best version of yourself. Exactly. And that's really, I think, one of the only ways that a person is happy if they are being the best version of yourself. And that takes work. [1:042:01] My friend Michael Easter has been a guest on this podcast before. I wrote a book called The Comfort Crisis and it's all about that. This bizarre place that we are where so many people are just seeking comfort and taking the path of least resistance and trying to do things the easiest way possible and people have never been more depressed. Never been more unhappy, never been more unsatisfied, more lost, more existential crisis. And it's gotta be connected to that because I think the human body and the human mind have requirements in terms of you need tasks and you need difficult things to do. And if you don't do those things, there's a contrast, you don't enjoy the easy moments unless you have hard moments. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I know for a fact that's true because if I were to just go eat it in and out cheeseburger like yeah it would be nice it would be good but after I go through a full fight camp and I cut 20 pounds and then I go win a fight and then I had to end it out and [1:043:00] have that cheeseburger. Yeah. I'm like hell yeah. This is so good. And I'm like, but I don't want too much of that. I don't want too much of the dopamine from other things for whatever it is because, and then it's just not as good, right? I like, so when I was in high school, probably my senior high school, we had homecoming and prom and, like I think I drank a little bit there and then I told myself I'm like, all right, let's lock it up. I'm gonna go five years of college. I'm not having a sip of alcohol like nothing. And so I went all five years, didn't go to bars, didn't party, no alcohol, nothing, just straight up focus and that was it. And then I remember my buddy and I, and the guy I keep bringing up, we both won national titles our senior year. And the next week we went out and we had a freaking time. It was like a major... You earned it. You earned it, yeah, really earned it. And now I'm like back on that grind [1:044:00] where I'm like nothing, like I'm not doing, you know, no alcohol, like go to a wedding, I want a cigar, sorry about no cigar, like none of that stuff. And I love being able to do that. Like a lot of times I'll talk in my head like, damn it'd be nice to like, I mean this fat ribeye, like have a glass of wine and wine down, and I'm like, no, no. You need to like earn this, right? I like giving myself those little edges where I know I'm sacrificing something. Yeah, I mean, that's what makes a champion. Yeah, that's fun too. Hey, I wanted to talk to you about Sam Calovita. I'm very fascinated by that guy because I've seen some of the footage of the training sessions that they put on in his garage with TJ Dillasha, and Juan Archaleta, and a lot of those guys that go down there and train with him. And it just seems like he's got very unusual strength and conditioning approaches. Yeah, he's the man. Coach Cal, I don't even like to talk about the garage because it's like PTSD. [1:045:02] Like seriously, I feel like the trauma that I've lived in my life has been through, you know, I've been very fortunate, so I haven't been any, certainly like real trauma, but like in my mind, the real trauma's like losing at competitions and these crazy hard training sessions and the garage really do. It's like, bro, it kills us every time. And it's interesting that it is just like a two-car garage. So, yeah, you just roll up to his house? Pull up a video of Sam Calvita, the garage. He's got everything just kind of organized and stacked in there. And you've got world-class fighters that are training with this guy in this fucking garage. He just let it play. Yeah, he's on different breed of human being. Coach Cal, you should have him on. I would love to. He's like the best guy in the world. Coach Cal, let's do it. Yeah, yeah. I'll talk to him about it too, because... Yeah, show some of the footage of the actual training. [1:046:00] Not this figure, this is not one. But it's a very humble little place. It's not big at all. Just do the work. Just TJ before you had to go through massive shoulder surgery. Yeah. I feel terrible for that guy. I know. No, rough. Well, I knew that he had his super spinatus that had been torn on both shoulders early in his career. And I think that the hard part is, some guys are a little too tough for their own good. With Coach Cal, you can really, you gotta be very, that's it. Yeah, you gotta communicate with him. That's it. Back up so we can see that garage again. Cause it's kind of crazy. It's kind of crazy. This is like one of the most respected, strengthening conditioning establishments in the world. And it's a normal suburban home with a two car garage and that is where all these people go to train with one of the best training strength and conditioning coaches in the world. Yeah, so last time I was down there, he's like, hey, you want to get a workout? [1:047:04] I was doing a bunch of testing and stuff for baseline for my VO2 and all different types of things. And he's like, hey, you want to go get a workout and we'll go down to the beach. It'll be fun. We have some sand workouts and stuff. It's not like that. It's not that crazy. It's like a fun one. All right, yeah, let's do it. He's like, okay, me and my house are 45 minutes and he's very like so soft spoken and I'm like, okay, yeah, no problem. Let's do it. And I'm solo so it's like just me and which I don't know I think it makes it worse because we're gonna with people. It's like you suffer. You know they're doing it too Right, right and so I show up and his guys garage door open and he's got like the big ass, you know 70 the big ass 70 to 120 pound Med Ball set out and all this stuff. And I'm like, what's up, Coach? I was like, oh, we're gonna go to the beach. He's like, oh no, I changed my mind. We're just gonna do, I'm like, you. Set up a beach. You got me, bro. He literally destroyed me, dude. It was like, he always does this thing too, where it goes zero to 100 at the beginning like it's not like too much to where you're gonna get injured or anything But like the work workout would be like all right hop on this bow suit ball [1:048:08] And I'm gonna throw this 70 pound med ball at you as hard as I can You're gonna catch it and throw it back to me and we're just gonna freaking get after it or hold on to this 50 pound med ball and hop backwards up this hill. It's like start going go go and he's like very and you're like oh Go go. And you'll go for like an hour or, you know, hour and 15 minutes doing what everybody says. And he's like, all right, good, warm up's done. Now let's lay on all this, let's do it. And dude, his little warm up's done. Bro, I'm not kidding. Like hour and 15 minutes of hell and that's the warm up. Yeah, so I did that. One workout, I did that for basically like an hour, just heavy med ball stuff. And then we did a bunch of, what was it? We did like some heavy lifts after that. And then from there he gets his sled out. [1:049:01] And he's like, all right, we're gonna push the sled and he doesn't tell you like how far are you gonna go or anything. And, we're gonna push the sled and he doesn't tell you like how far you're gonna go or anything. And so we just start pushing the sled. And so we go all the way up the hill and around the corner. So you see this road right behind him? So we go up that road all the way around the corner and it's me and Anthony, we're going back and forth on the sled. It's like push till you fail, push till you fail. We probably did it 60 times each, just to get up around this corner. And we're like, oh, we're done. Like finally we got, and then he's like, all right turn around, now we're gonna do pull. I'm like, like come on, so then we pulled it all the way back. And then I'm like, all right, finally we're much work though? So he I think that when we when we live in Pennsylvania, right? So we're not there every day. So when we go out there, he likes to stick it to us a little bit. He's still like he's like see if you're tough enough for the garage type thing. I'm like coach. I've been working with you for six years like I think I'm I think I'm kind of tough. But whenever we go out there, he'll give us a business a little bit. [1:050:09] I could imagine, but is there a concern though that that would require too much recovery time if it's not a regular part of your routine? I think that if it's just like a one-time thing, a lot of times it's not, you know, like we're traveling out there to get testing done, things like that. When we're doing our actual program, it's back home in Pennsylvania. So then we'll get maybe one workout with him out in Cali. So he's like, just freaking hammer us, let's go. And then, all right, now you got like a few days, like travel back home, you're rested, go get to your normal workout. Our normal workouts aren't that crazy. But what is the benefit of that long of a training session other than mental? I think it's mental. And it's afterwards. So you can't even really be, after a good workout, you're like, feel good. [1:051:01] I think that it's just seeing how far you can push yourself. Where can I get? And then let's go further, let's go further, let's go further, let's just see where you can go. Because I don't feel like physically, it's not a physical benefit thing. Like I'm not taking, and a lot of times too, he's teaching us a lot of new things that we're implementing in the program. So he might do three or four different things that are different days for us, but we have to learn them and how to do the exercises there. And we only have one day to do it. So now it's like we're doing all of this in one, whereas now I'll go back home and this will be split up. So he's trying to teach us stuff as well, but it's more just like, hey man, you wanna work with me? Let's see if you're tough. You think your tough guy? We'll see. When you have these very brutal training sessions, are you using heart rate monitors? Are you monitoring your heart rate variability? Are you monitoring your recovery rate, your resting heart rate to make sure that you're not overtraining? Yeah, everything's monitored. He has a program, he has an app, and anybody can use it, actually, [1:052:01] it was just pretty cool. I think it's just training lab app. And you get a heart rate monitor from him. And so for me, when I'm in camp and training, I keep my heart rate and all that information gets sent to him. So I can look at it if I want. But he's the one that's analyzing it and looking at it and making sure that everything's good. And it's very open dialogue. A big thing in combat sports and wrestling and stuff is you don't really say, like, oh, I'm kind of feeling I'm kind of tired. You just tough it out, but if you're a real professional, you need to be in communication and say certain things. Okay, so a good example, a couple of camps ago. So we up my overall weekly volume as a kind of the camp goes on and I got to a point where I was pretty friggin tired feeling it and I actually broke out and like herpes because I was stressed, my body was stressed and he was like, all right, well now we found like your limit. So now our overall volume for the week, like this [1:053:02] is kind of where we stop. So we know what you can do. And so there's a lot of analyzing, a lot of science and algorithms and different things that he utilizes. And fortunately for me, I don't have to learn all those things. He's the expert, so I just trust him. Yeah, well that's great. That's definitely a great thing to have. And it's amazing that he's got this app that he can monitor when you're not even there. Yeah, no, it's huge because Obviously being in different places and stuff and I Don't want to guess like I don't want to guess whether or not I'm ready to go or rather not I'm doing everything in an optimal way. I want to know for fact and that's why we do Her analysis for Minerals and tissue and things like that. That's why we test our VO2s. That's why we test our crossover points and our resting metabolic rates and things like this. That's why we do all those things because I'm not interested in guessing. I'm not interested in kind of feeling like I've done everything right now. Right. [1:054:01] Right. Right. How do you, because you're saying you essentially organize everything yourself when you're back at home, how do you decide like when to do strength and conditioning, when to do skill acquisition, when to do specific drills? So because I have trained so much and so long and because my dad was a coach, so my dad was always putting programs together for his teams, understanding peaking, understanding how to periodize, understanding when we want to have tough matches, when we want to push ourselves. That was something I was always around. And then coming into Penn State was like that on steroids. And so I think a lot of it is just learned and absorbed from what I've been around and just seeing like a typical schedule of when our coaches have had us do certain things and when we've had recovery days and stuff. So it's not something that I've really had to go find. It's just been ingrained in me since I was five. [1:055:00] And I had a good example with my dad because he coached tons and tons of high school state champions, state championship teams and guys who went on to compete in college and do big things. So I got that solid idea of what it takes to organize a program very young. And then, like I said, when I got to college, I was like, okay, here's a new level. Then I started working with Coach Cal, boom, new level. And now I'm always like kind of looking for things to up that, to do better, to improve, to add in, or things that maybe aren't serving me as much anymore, and we kind of do away. So it's just something that's on my mind. It's like, that's my job. My job is to take care of myself. This is my profession, okay, I want to choose this path. Now you got to take all of the responsibility that comes with that and be professional. So that's kind of how I feel like I've been able to organize it the way I have. And when you organize these training sessions, how do you organize recovery? Do you organize it based on the data that you're getting from the app and from your heart rate monitor? [1:056:05] Like how are you doing that or is it just like a thing that you do every day? I have a weekly schedule so everything's scheduled out for the week and Typically the weeks are very it's like a similar base, right? So like Monday. I'll get two sessions Tuesday. I'll get I'll get two sessions Wednesday recovery. I'm off. Thursday, two sessions, Friday, one, Saturday, one, Sunday, off. And those sessions are all different, right? Like Monday, I typically the morning is like striking afternoon wrestling Tuesday, morning, spa afternoon, lift off Wednesday Thursday morning grappling afternoon light wrestling Friday my heavier spa day Saturday lift Sunday off so you always like to take two days off a week that's the standard yeah that's that's for me what I feel like is the right move and I think people people are doing too much honestly people are going every day twice a day and it's like not really to [1:057:04] me manageable reasonable and I think they're over trained how did you come to honestly people are going every day twice a day and it's like not really to me manageable reasonable and I think they're over trained. How did you come to those conclusions? Was it through data or was it through trial and error? Well that two days off comes from Coach Cal. Yeah that's from him and of his data and his trial and error and also like from Penn State from our program and how we've run things and stuff. So that was a standard for me, as soon as I got to college, two days. And do you take those days off? Are you watching tape? Are you studying things? Yeah, so Wednesday is more of an active recovery. So I'll go in. And I'm really fortunate because my buddy Anthony, me and him are on this exact same schedule So we always just do everything together, which is great because now I have some a partner to do all these things with but we have a bunch of Like basically body weight exercises and stretches and certain things that we do Alongside the contrast tubbing and sauna and then I'll either get a massage or go to the chiro. [1:058:06] And basically just take care of all the little things I need to, if I got specific injuries, I need to focus on that. To me, you get injury, you don't just do rehab for eight weeks and then move on. I'm always taking care of these things so that I never have reactivated. I'm staying ahead. And so that's the day where I do all of that stuff. And then Sunday is nothing. Sunday, I just go to church, I hang out with my wife and see my family maybe do like a Sunday dinner with people. And that's more of like an emotional mental recovery. Yeah. Now, what has the UFC said in terms of like setting you up for a fight in the future? Do you have anything lined up? Yeah, yeah. So no opponent yet, but I'm going to fight UFC 300. Ooh. Yeah. Oh, that's a big one. April, right? Yeah. April, yeah. Yeah. Do they, is that Vegas? Yes. [1:059:00] Nice. Yeah, I'm fired up. That's and no opponent yet. Now are you asking for a specific level of opponent? Are you trying to get someone in the top 15 like what are you trying to do? So my goal for this next fight is you know, just whoever they give me I'm still on my first contract So I kind of want to fight this out and then see and then see as it goes, but I would like fights from that contract I've two left. Yeah, so it was four So I would like to fight this fight and then my next fight, I would like to get somebody that's maybe right outside the rankings right in there like in the mix and then hopefully that'll be ideally like July and then if I get, I'll at least get one more next year, maybe two and then I would like to after that obviously fight a ranked guy. So hopefully like a ranked guy, my third fighter next year year And how much time are you looking to have in between fights? Well, I told my men draws like if they could book me For UFC Miami in March and go again in April because I feel like I'm gonna whoever they put in front of me I'm gonna kill him. So let's do it But they're like they don't really do that. It's not like he's like so you can either [2:0:06] Just do the UFC Miami card and then hopefully something maybe something will fall out and you'll get there, or you can like guarantee yourself on 300 and I was like, well, I'd rather, I really want to fight on UFC 300. So let's just do that. So that's April, May, June, July. So then I'll basically run those back to back. And then after that, I don't want to plan too far ahead because who knows what happens in MMA, right? But after that, I'm ready to go. If I finish the guy again, let's go again. That's kind of how I feel. Well, the division that you're in, the 185 pound division is so exciting right now. When Strickland beat Ata Sanja and opened it up and when Dreckas duplicy beat down Robert Whitaker, like a lot of things opened up. This is a very, very exciting time. Yeah, it is. It is. I feel like there's a lot of good guys, but I like one of them. I think I'm a tough matchup for any of these guys and they all want to fight me now because [2:1:02] I'm the worst that I'll be. So You hear some of these guys talking about me and stuff like they want to fight me now. I'm like That's that's smart, you know because Where I'm at right now is not gonna be where I'm at in six months. It's not gonna be where I'm at in a year Well, I'm so excited to see you in April. Yeah, because you got so good two fucking years And it's like what's to happen to you with the six months off or seven months off? Yeah, and I'm not the type of guy to just train and camp. Like I'm always on it, obviously. So I'm always getting better and improving. But it's really... Which is gigantic. Yeah. That's where the real gains are made. Exactly. I agree for sure. And it's interesting because I've had five professional flights. You know, I don't know what somebody's gonna game plan for. It's like, all right, you watch me beat five guys basically in like six minutes combined total time. Like, okay, study that bud, like good luck. And I'm not even gonna be the same. Like I'm not even gonna, I'm taking however many months, that's like 40% of my total training time in my career. So, I don't know, man, I'm not even gonna be close [2:2:06] to what I was this last fight. And even this last fight, you got 30 seconds to watch. It's so bananas that you've gone this far. It's just a couple of years. I haven't even been hit yet. No, seriously, go back and watch my fights. So my last fight, I cracked the dude with the right hook and he kinda came over the top and like barely touched my head but it was already like it wasn't even it was almost like a slap like I didn't even feel it but I don't even count that like I have not been hit in five professional fights two amateur fights I've been hit on training obviously but um yeah it's a weird I didn't expect this I expected like I said to have a different path but here I am and I'm gonna make the most of it and I'm like I'm excited like to Just keep getting better is the main thing. I just want to keep getting better improve improve improve Yeah big goals and stuff, but the main thing is just keep getting better. Well, I'm a fan man I'm very excited to watch this one more thing I want to talk to you about how'd you get into bow hunting? Yeah, so I grew up my dad and granddad [2:3:03] hunted and they were interested in hunting and stuff. And so when I graduated college in 2019, I was kind of thinking like, all right, I want to figure out other things I'm interested in. And I actually saw, I saw camhands on Instagram and I was like, oh, this looks cool. I like, you know, I kind of always have enjoyed that, doors and stuff. And I've always been into my nutrition, and I was really interested. I was like, I wanna hunt for my food that I eat. I wanna be eating elk and deer and things like that. And so then I was started thinking about getting a bow and stuff, and I wasn't like a rush decision. I took probably like almost six or eight months where I was thinking about, thinking about, thinking about it. And then I finally probably like almost like six or eight months where I was like thinking about thinking about thinking about it and then I finally was like all right like I really want this like I'm gonna do it and so then I got hooked up with Lancaster archery they're great archery shop yeah great place I buy a lot of my shit from them now they're awesome and so as it's an Elk Hunt you went on this was New Mexico this year yeah oh wow is wow. Is that your first Elkund? First archery elk archery Elkund New Mexico for the first one is a mate. That's the promise land. Yeah, it was great man. Nice. It was awesome. Yeah, that was that was the September. [2:4:16] Yeah, you're all hooked up. Look at you. Dude, it's a funny. Yes, he bow. Yeah, you're ready to go man. I'm ready to go. Yeah. What was that like man? It's like the exact same feeling as knocking somebody out cold. It's one of the most exciting things I've ever done. It's so fun man. It's so crazy. But running is just, it's also so complicated. It's so difficult. So many moving parts, it's a dance. Oh my gosh. So many things happening. Should I stand here by the tree, which ways are you coming, you know, with the wind and the range? Do I have a chance to range them? Or am I going to just like range areas and just, am I going to pin gap on what I'm going to do? I love that chess match too, you know, between you and the animal. It's the same as a fight. And actually, like, when I got my bow, it was probably June or July. And I started shooting it and I was like, yeah, I'm not doing this this this fall like I'm gonna get good [2:5:06] I'm gonna get good so I took a I took a year and a half basically of a full training Before I even did any archery hunting. Do you have an archery coach? I don't have a coach. No, but I I Watch like all the the knock-down like school knock. So I watched tons of film on that and then Dudley's the the man. He's great. Yeah, like he's, it's so funny because there's like not that many people I look up to, you know, it's like, but him, he's like, I'm like, dude, this guy's like, he's the man. Yeah, yeah, I'm like, I saw, I think it was last year, he killed four bulls in four different. When I go to Lancaster, they help me a ton. So they help me get set up correctly and things like that, which now when I tell people who asked me about it, who are interested in doing archery, I say the most important thing is go to a good archery shop and get set up and have them teach you like good kind of fundamentals. [2:6:00] You can tinker with everything and- But you don't want to learn bad initially and then have to unlearn it. Yeah, like all the other stuff, you know, tinker in like, what do you want your- what do you want to use for a release or a stabilizer? Like just get set up, get your draw link correct, get your P-Pite, you know, get everything put on, get your grip right, and have a good starting point and good foundation, and then you can kind of go from there, you're gonna be on so much better trajectory if you're learning incorrectly from the jump. So I was able to learn correctly from the beginning, and then it's the same thing with striking. I just apply everything I know with wrestling, and now that's hunting and archery for me, and I freaking love it. All I wanna do is go fight people and knock them out, and then go chase the elk. Yeah, that's awesome man. What kind of broadheads are you using? So I've been using a rage hyperdermic. I like them. They get the job done. That's what I shot that bull with. I mean, it was a frontal shot straight through the heart. So any broadhead would have done the trick. But I don't know, man, I'm always open to like learning new things. I think there's different reasons to use different types of broadheads, right? [2:7:06] Like I shoot 80 pounds and I have a pretty long draw length. So mechanical, like I'm not that worried about penetration. But you know, in a longer shot or a follow up shot, I have iron wheels as well for a longer follow up where I'm more worried about something like that. And then you know, like I said, it's gonna be different for every animal, for every situation. So I think some people get so stuck on like, this is the way to go. It's like, well, I mean, it's different for everybody. Like if I have a 30 and a half inch draw, it's going to be different than somebody with a 27 inch draw, it's going to be different to somebody shooting 65 versus 80 pounds, it's like, you know, it's all, so I'm not married to anything really. That's great. And what kind of release are you using? I use a knock to it, thumbless. Okay, yeah, that's great. I love that. Can't go wrong. No, I feel like, so I wasn't originally using the index release, but once I started using the thumb release, I just got so much more accuracy and consistency, and it was like, I mean, that was just to me the way to go. [2:8:05] Yeah, I killed my bowl last one with a knock to it. I think it's just, it's such a great release. I really do like the two fingers too. Yeah, yeah. Do you use the silver back at all? Do you use the... I used to, I trained with that. I learned how to really shoot correctly. That's a John put me on initially. Yeah, that's what I have one. I haven't really set it up, because you got to fit it with it a little bit and get the pound of dry and all that. But I feel like I wouldn't use it for hunting, but I want to use it for training and stuff. It's very good to make sure that you're pulling hard against the back wall and get a full clean release with the follow through. It's the best feeling.