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Khalil Rountree Jr. is a professional mixed martial artist competing in the Light Heavyweight division of the UFC. www.ufc.com/athlete/khalil-rountree-jr
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10 months ago
the Joe Rogan experience
How you feeling what's going on oh man back from a
Amazing Thailand vacation. Oh really after that after the after the fight
It just feels like I've been on like just a great vacation journey Baku was
amazing
Let me start off there. Please let me start off with Baku Azerbaijan. Oh my god.
What a place
I heard it's amazing. They're absolutely incredible everybody who went there
was raving about how great absolutely incredible when we
Got the news like okay, the fight's gonna be postponed. It's gonna go into Baku.
I had never heard of the place in my life
I agreed without even looking it up, you know, but in my mind I was thinking
like, okay
This is a place. I've never heard of, you know
I started thinking like I don't know
It's probably gonna be something similar to like Saudi and it's probably just
like a lot of desert
blah blah and I get there and my mind was absolutely blown
amazing treatment from Baku city circuit welcome this in
the fans were
some of the best I've ever
Encountered man. They were so happy to have the UFC there. Um
Everyone in the streets like people who weren't even fight fans were just
excited that the UFC was in Baku
so like that added to the experience and then
It's just beautiful man. It's like what was it like? What's the fuck?
So where we were yeah, so that's old town. So I did a tour through there
Four's old town it I forgot I so I forgot but I know that 4,000 people still
live in old town. There's boutique hotels in there
um, there's just so much history
That's like when it was built
Kind of what they're known for. I don't remember what that building is
But the architecture there is one of the things that that's the the the flame
towers
So at night, there's just projections and like it'll be like the flag or it'll
just it'll actually be like flames
because Baku is
Known for oil like being one of the first oil countries. This is the carpet
museum an amazing place full of
Carpets that are like century years old. They built it to look like a carpet.
Oh fuck. It's crazy
And all these carpets are handmade like passed down generation after generation
So like they tell you how deep the the the culture and like the stories of
these carpets and like how oh my god, they
the and clean clean friendly people
Uh, that's a bunch of people that went there decided to stay for a few days. I
would I honestly I wish that I would have stayed longer
I've already booked family trips. I've told everybody we're going back to Baku
Wow
Man like cool. Just thinking about I'm like dude
This is a place that I want to I want to visit for the rest of my life. I want
to just keep going back to Baku man. That's dope. Yeah, so
And obviously you had an amazing result there too. Yeah, I think I think that
the you know
I think that it really played into just my performance. I was just in a really
good place
Let me okay. I was in a good place, but I was also in kind of a fucked up state
like not gonna lie. I
Was just so happy to be
Across the world doing what I love to do and to be like treated
Like we're actually appreciated for you know
Like for what we do and so that helped me get through all the other shit. What
was the other shit? What was going on? Oh, man, so I
Knew that we were gonna be jet lagged no matter what I knew it because we're
traveling, you know super far 16 hour flight
Right. Yeah super long flight. So I knew we were gonna be jet lagged
so I made sure that we got there two weeks early to adjust
um
It took about
Six almost about a week to like fully adjust and then so during fight week say
second day first day of fight week. I'm like
thrown up and shit and
Non-stop. Oh, no, okay. This is great. It is exactly what I want to be feeling
right now
You know pressures on I got a fight, you know, like I'm super motivated
Yeah, and I'm just like I don't know what I'm gonna do man like what was it?
I don't even know food poisoning. I don't think so because everybody
Everybody that I was with we all ate the same thing
You were the only one that was the only one man. It was the only one and so and
you don't cut a ton of weight
No, so
I think what would you walk around that right now? I mean vacation modem, you
know
228 230 something around I don't get over 230. I'm never era. Yeah, you know,
he cuts a ton
Yeah, if I I just do not let myself get over 230
That's just like my that's my oath to myself and then in camp. What do you get
down to?
20 I'd say between 20 and 25 is where I like to balance 220 to 25 and anytime
in there
I'm good because I know that that's where I'm gonna fight at so when I'm in
camp
It's you know, and then when do you start your cut? So the way that it happens
is
The last kind of two weeks, I don't necessarily do too much
Of like a diet change. It's just my like I'm always looking to peak on fight
day not like a peak plateau
format that a lot of people go by so
I'd say usually let's say we weigh in on Friday that Tuesday. I'm around
14
Oh, okay to 13 something like that nice and then you know those last days kind
of like water load
Proteins and fats. Oh nice cut. I sit in the sauna no matter what like an hour
Maybe like my weight cut this time took I
Hit mitts for an hour and a half
I laid down in a sauna blanket and I was on weight like I so it was like under
two hours for me to be on
So you're not depleted not at all feel good
And how long did it take for that cold to get out of your system or whatever it
was?
I still felt it
I
Still felt it a bit on fight day, but there was nothing that was going to like
my mind
For like through this camp through this fight man, like I'm so happy for
everything that I went through
Honestly, like there was nothing that was going to take away like my shine or
my joy or my
Feeling of like being ready being prepared
It was it was a battle with my mind and every day I had to make a choice to
like
To just be better to be bigger to be
To be happy to just you know to just like embrace everything
This was all like everything's just been about embracing the obstacles that
that come so the last time we talked was before the Pereira fight
Yeah, and it was great fight. Thank you. You had some great success. It was a
tough fight
and then
What is what is it like after that fight? So you face the best in the world and
You know that you can hang with them. You lost the fight
But you didn't gained a ton of experience you went five rounds with one of the
greatest and what is it like after that?
I'd say
Everything seems very different now I
I have been since the Pereira fight I've been to I'd say more than
six countries and
Every I've there's fans there everyone like knows who I am now and
That is something that was a shock to me
Especially coming off a loss and just knowing that like I gave my all in that
fight and that's
I guess what the people wanted from me to get that type of like acknowledgement
because I've been in the UFC for so long
But that fight I guess really showed people like who I am and I got to show the
world who I am and
against the guy like Alex so
now I feel like I've at least kind of made my mark and
Been like hey, I'm here, you know, and so people are now like, okay, Khalil
I know this guy is you can say the name and now people kind of you know, they're
they're familiar with with who I am now
But the other thing that it showed me was that I
know I know I now know who I am and what I'm capable of I
Spent
Majority of that fight just
Soaking in the moment and just like I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I was excited
to be there
I gave everything I had but then going back and watching it. I'm like, I saw a
lot of the mistakes that I made what mistakes specifically
the number one mistake that I think was made in that fight is that
It was my first five rounder and
When I was going into the fourth because I took a lot of damage and in the end
of the like middle to end of the third
So I was up one and two
The beginning of three I was starting to kind of
He started to kind of take over halfway through the round and once he started
hitting me I
Was like, oh shit, he's established his range and now I'm feeling it so it wasn't
necessarily like a cardio thing
It was just like I started taking damage and everybody knows this guy hits hard.
So
I was taking the damage
I was rocked. I was dizzy going into the fourth in the in the break
I remember John Wood saying all right, man
Like you're doing great ten more minutes like you can do anything ten minutes
just stick in there
we got this and
Because I wasn't familiar with the five rounds. I took ten minutes as sellout
So in the fourth round I came out like
Ready to you know
I wasn't thinking with the mindset of like I'm up to he just took the third
fourth round. I need to maybe
relax, you know, maybe not get hit, you know, whatever fourth round I came out
I bit down and I went to war I
Think that's what lost me the fight for me personally
So you made a lot of adjustments in the Jamal Hill fight one thousand percent.
Yeah, you could see it
You could see first of all what a performance. Thank you. I mean
He dominated a world champion. I mean dominated him
It was such a clear-cut victory and it was a victory where a lot of people
thought that you were going to struggle with him
And you know, you just really you really showed a
level above the Pereira fight and I think
Maybe part of it is what you're talking about like choosing when to engage and
when not to engage like there's moments in that fight where
You were dominating the fight, but there's moments where he was coming after
you just moved
You just moved he moved away from and I know it pissed him off
But it's like hey, man, you know, you're way ahead
You're way ahead and you were done. You were dominating the exchanges then when
you chose to exchange with him
You were hurting him. Yeah and dropping him. It was very impressive man. Thank
you. And that was
That was the product of you know, really
Reviewing mistakes and you also do some wild shit like standing hammer fists
Is that something you practice?
Absolutely man. That's a crazy move man
We're artists, you know, I think that that's one thing that you know, I try my
best to always
Embody the artist in mixed martial arts. I think it gets lost in the growth of
the sport of mma, you know
But you know from this the past conversations we have and you understanding
kind of
How I was before like man, I need some type of outlet for creativity, you know
And that's what it is standing here. I mean my mind, you know, just my essence
is art. So i'm like how can I?
You know paint this picture of like expression of combat, you know what I mean?
Like there's so many different we got it's a lot we got krav maga we got all
these things and it's like
Let me paint, you know, like what can I use to you know to to to
That's a bold thing to do to use something very creative like that on the world
champion too
Jamal hills dangerous guy. Yeah, he's dangerous man
Standing hammer fist. Yeah, I'm dangerous too. You know, like I try to yeah, I
try to like I I always try to
Insert myself into you know into these things too because I think about it
Yeah, alex fucking hard-hitter dangerous guy and I have to like, yeah, someone
might let's do it, you know
Alex or uh, jamal same thing like I know he's got one punch power, you know all
these things
I'm like, let me insert myself. Let me take some chances. Let me be bold. You
know, I think
That's that I think there's an advantage that you have also as a lighter guy in
that division is that you move quicker
And that was kind of evident in that fight that you're like
You know, there's a range of light heavyweights and you're on the smaller range
Like there's a lot of guys like trickus. He's bigger than you. Yeah, who's the
middleweight champion. Yeah, he's fucking huge, man
It's the opposite thing, right? He's cutting a ton of weight. I don't know what
he cuts, but
Every time I interview him, I'm like how yeah, how the fuck are you 185 pounds?
You're enormous
He looks like a heavyweight. Yeah, and he is a heavyweight when he fights. I
mean, he's over 205 for sure
Yeah, these guys they blow up blow up
And you don't and I think because of that you have this uh, you have speed and
not just speed of the strikes
But the way you move in and out, you know, it's like when you close the
distance on jamal
You could see it was like there were some moments where I think he was
surprised
By the speed in which you were able to close the distance. Yeah, I think so as
well. Um
There were yeah, there were some reactions in there that I was picking up on
Um, I could see a bit of frustration, you know
um, I feel like I was able to read a lot of the things before they you know
before they would come and um
Yeah, I I'm I mean I heard everything that his coaches were saying and in my
mind I was just seeing him struggle with like not being able to
React the way he wanted and maybe that was because
You know, there was there was the speed that they weren't necessarily dealing
with the speed and also the leg kicks
You you fucked him up early with leg kicks. Yeah, and it really had a
significant effect when you see him switching stances
And he doesn't like to stand orthodox. Yes
You saw a lot of changes. Yeah, he he did I can I can say that, you know, there
were some improvements made
I think that he probably spent some more time working on his footwork. He was a
lot less flat-footed than he usually is
um, I could tell that like his a lot of the times his toes were pointed at me
and
That wasn't what I studied
You know what I mean? Like so he made some changes. He made some changes. He
landed some very good leg kicks specifically in the first round. Yeah, thank
you
I
I always do my best to you know, try to channel
my
Muay Thai and yeah, you know
You're like one of the few like I remember we talked about that about the eric
anders fight
Like you when you came back from thailand the first time you were fighting like
a thai
And me and dc were having a blast with it. We're like look at this like light
on the front foot
It was like totally different approach. Yeah, but um
He landed some very good leg kicks in the first round, too. It was a good
exchange, but
Yours were doing a lot more damage. Yeah, he started off with the leg kicks.
Like I think he threw
Maybe three or four calf kicks before I actually started answering back
um
Yeah, he so he started it and I was just like, okay, cool
If this is the game we're playing like I love this game, you know, like I love
this game. So
um
Yeah, it was it was it was a great fight, man
Why did you start the beginning of the fight like with your hands down just
like walking towards him because that's how I felt joe
I mean like I I feel like
In that fight so there was there was not necessarily like
beef between jamal and I like we never really exchanged you know, there wasn't
any like heated discussions or anything
but
We all have phones. We all have social media
We all you know, I get
Google alerts and stuff anytime i'm mentioned and so like i've seen things that
were said and i'm just like, okay, whatever
I don't agree with it and I don't you know, whatever if this guy looks at me is
However, that's just his opinion. What was he saying? Like what was it just
like?
I think it were like things again about like the alex fight or just saying that
like
He's gonna outskill me or you know, I don't belong in the division
Just you know things like that like don't take my exact word for it
But that's kind of how like that's the stuff that I kind of saw so
The for me there was no real reason to
Show any like respect, you know, if we're in the same building if we're in the
same room
I just like whatever I wanted to just kind of block them out
and then
During the weigh-ins
So I had it I had a press conference
And they were saying like hey in the alex fight, you know you there was a lot
of blood you got cut up
But uh, can we expect the same thing from you in this fight? And I said no,
there's not going to be any blood on my face
How you're interviewing me now is how you're going to interview me after the
fight. I'm gonna look the same
He didn't like that. I didn't say his name, but he didn't like that. And so at
the weigh-ins he comes like
and mind you we had
Three days
Before the weigh-ins and we seen each other in the hotel room and blah blah
blah or in the hotel, you know, there were many more
Opportunities for him to say what he said
But he chose to do it at the weigh-ins in front of dana white and I thought
that was like
Come on. What did he say?
He said, oh, you're gonna bleed
You're gonna bleed
You better believe that you're gonna bleed like in my face like oh i'm gonna
make you bleed and I was just like, okay like
Sure, you know like that was just really like internally like i'm okay sure
yeah, whatever
And why did you think that you wouldn't get cut like what made you think?
I knew
How i've been training and what i'm prepared for and I know the type of athlete
and fighter and man that I am
And I just knew that it wasn't gonna happen
I was just that confident in my abilities and the work that I put in that I
just knew it wasn't gonna happen
It's pretty wild also considering you're coming off of a loss so you get more
confidence coming off of a loss
100 because the loss just showed me that there's more work to do
You know like people always say back to the drawing boards and like it was more
than the drawing boards for me
It was like back to the dirt back to the
Vegas weather back to the dying on the assault bike back to challenging myself
back to
Going deeper who am I really what am I really capable of?
And you know like that that was it. It was just like deep deep internal
digging
to get out
And to discover
What i'm made of and so in that comes confidence and that comes like i'm
I know what i'm capable of and I know what I can do and so
that's how I felt
you know
so
That's why I walked out like that because I was just like
Because it's kind of wild. I was like, what is he doing?
But I was also prepared, you know, like I didn't want to rush anything like
nothing needed to be rushed
Like the cage is closed and we got 25 minutes. I'm gonna run out. You know
Right, right, right. No, like I walk here. I know that you're not gonna do
anything
I wasn't threatened like that
That statement in my face didn't like
I was just like
Here we go again
You know what I mean?
Like another guy that wants to like get in my face like
Yeah
I did the job that needed to be done. There's a very measured performance and
some people didn't like that
Some people you know at the casuals
I think there's casuals that they wanted to see blood. They just want to see
chaos. They don't care about your health
They don't care about me at the age of 50 with
You know what I mean when this is all over and I want my knees and my hands and
my fingers and everything to work
Yeah, and I want to be able to speak sentences and go through the airport on
both my feet and not in a wheelchair
They don't care about that. No, and that's okay
Yeah, it's okay. I mean, you know like the only time it bothers me when referees
react
Like when referees separate people because of booing like don't do that. Don't
do that. Yeah
You can't get the referees can't be influenced by the crowd. Don't don't give
into the casuals
He can't man. Um, because I thought it was a very smart performance
Like if you're gonna fight a guy like Jamal who's an awesome counter striker
one punch knockout power
Got a series of bodies behind him like yeah, he's knocked out a lot of dudes.
Yeah, he knows how to do it
You got to fight him smart for sure
And that's what you did and I wasn't yeah, I just like to be clear. I know the
things that I said can come off as like
Overly confident or whatever. I wasn't sleeping on Jamal, you know
Like I knew what he was capable of and I trained hard for him. I really did
Every day was was dedication every day was you know, strategy and planning when
did you feel like everything was coming together in the fight?
uh
Before the fight really yeah, the the the win for me happened before the fight
Like I said, I think
with camp
The training
You know my head train like with John with Lorenzo Christian is just the guys
who are in my circle
Um and the work that we do I just that really helped me with you know
A lot a lot of confidence and a clear vision and a path to victory and I just
stuck to it
So I just had a feeling that if I if I stick to the plan I win this fight
And you did
Yeah, it was it was very measured very smart in a and I liked it. I really
enjoyed it. Thank you
I enjoyed it because I like when people fight smart. I really do when feet
people
Maximize the amount of damage that they put out minimize amount of damage. They
receive in return. That's what you did
Yeah, and so yeah now we got the next one Yuri pro Huska. Yeah, you see that
news. I did just saw yesterday. Yeah
So this is now I'm excited about this fight. Yeah, I really am
Another guy who's you know what I mean like former champion very skilled very
dangerous
Another guy's got a lot better since the prayer fight. He's gotten a lot better
since the prayer fight. He's dynamic. He's you know, he's strategic
He's awkward as fuck. Yeah, he can be awkward so weird
He's the weirdest and it's in Vegas. So yeah, this is great. It's gonna be the
first time since
The Gokhan Saki fight that I've been able to fight in front of a crowd. That
was that really my hometown
No, okay, that was the last fight I had that's crazy at T-Mobile arena in in
front of the Las Vegas crowd
I had not realized that yeah. Oh, wow. So that's that's huge don't have to fly
don't have to travel don't have to fly don't have to travel and then
Las Vegas can come out and you know, yeah support a local so it's that's cool
because with the growth of Las Vegas
We're getting sports. You know got the Raiders getting a baseball team
You know women's basketball. It's it's the local scene in Vegas right now. It's
I'm proud of it
You know to come from there and to see that now we have something besides just
gambling and you know all the debauchery
Yeah, yeah, so it's gonna be nice and I'm very happy to to represent that night
So how do you train for a guy like Yuri? Like what what do you do? I mean, are
you gonna watch a lot of tape on him?
Like how do you prepare for a guy like that? That's very unusual um
without giving away too much I think that it just requires you know study like
Passing any test, you know what I mean like?
It requires dedication and focus and you know doing the right study making the
right adjustments
and
Training, you know, it's the rest I think is is art, you know, like how we go
about
Solving the the problem is for everybody to enjoy
but I think that yeah, it comes it comes from study and
Good training partners as well. I think that that's a huge a
Huge thing and in anybody's training camp. Do you have anybody that could
emulate that style? Um
Or will you even try you know what I?
To emulate someone's style I think is
It's helpful. It is it is helpful, but it's very hard because you can never
really truly
You know be someone so someone can give you certain looks that maybe you'll see
So I don't I don't rely too heavily on you know on any people emulating
But I do appreciate you know bodies and people that are
Around the same size just so I can
You know get used to that body contact of maybe someone who's a bit taller and
yeah
I'm not training with guys who are maybe shorter, you know, like if I had a
short guy who can emulate my opponent
It's not gonna help
You know, it doesn't help so if I have if I have a taller guy who maybe can't
emulate and I can do
What I want to do against a taller body then the rest is up to like my
awareness and like making sure that
You know a guy who maybe has this weird style
Okay, I'm I'm aware of that but I know what I can do against someone of the
same size
Yuri's just he's so unusual and that a lot of times his hands are down really
low
His stance is very wide and he moves back and forth like a Cobra like he hinges
at the waist more than probably anybody
Mm-hmm. He does a lot of
Unusual stuff that you could see guys like try to adjust to that when they're
inside the cage with them
It's like you know this weird moment. We have to think and consider these new
possibilities. Mm-hmm
Yeah, I think that uh, you know, like I said, I just
I've just returned from you know a reset
and
Yeah, now as soon as I leave here, I'm you know, I'm locked back into
Samurai mode, you know, we're doing Thailand. We just trained were you just
vacation or do training? It was incredible Joe, so
My wife and I got invited to Thailand from the Thailand Tourism Authority
So they invited us to come they hosted us in Bangkok
Amazing hotel do sit Tani hotel. You have to go if you ever go to to Bangkok
do sit Tani so
They hosted us they took us to like a small pro or the smallest province in
Thailand called Samut Songkram and
in that province they are known for
Having the best coconuts and all of Thailand so all like coconut water coconut
sugar all that stuff most likely comes from Samut Songkram
Salt farm a bee farm
What's a salt farm salt farm so they they
made these channels that come from
the nearest like body of water and
They get the salt they extract the salt from the sea and then they create a
bunch of different things from it
You know bath salts. Those are they do it with some kind of machinery. You know,
it's like yeah, there's a little bit
Yeah, it looks like this. Yeah, exactly. Huh. Oh, so they do it by hand. Yeah,
they do it by hand these people do they're out there
Yeah, just this is their daily life and so we got to hang out with these people
that learn that like live in this
problem. That's how they do it. Yeah, man
I would have never known so how are they getting salt out of the water like
that? Like what do you do to I honestly like I?
was so excited to be there that I probably missed out on a lot of the details,
but that's how it looked like there were these
Windmills and I know they're like rates looks yeah, the water evaporates and
then there's like salt left at the bottom and
Then yeah, they rake it into a pile and then it goes through other processes,
but um
It's really cool. They're just experience like they're very passionate about
and there's different salts from everywhere like that up there on the right is
salt
I don't know where it came from that stuff. It looks like like dark like cereal.
Yeah, it's salt doesn't like cereal
But yeah, cornflakes and cornflakes
That's all but yeah, and so they had different like salts that came from
everywhere and you can see
How how it forms do based off of like the you know, the whatever ecosystem hmm
Yeah, so so cool. So that's some moots a con we were in some moots on clam and
Really cool man. So they we went on there. We went there. They took a bunch of
I guess influencers from around the world and
flew them into Thailand to
Welcome us and show us diff just different sides. It's not always about you
know
The beaches and phuket and all this stuff like they they took us and then
spread us out
So that's where we got to go and then um, we went back to bangkok and had this
crazy cool gala
Bull cow was there, you know, like oh, yeah, like all these, you know
movie stars and and the people from
just like the Thai government and stuff just
Showing people pretty much like the heart of Thailand. So it was very welcoming
It was a really cool way to to kind of come back and and feel home again
And then I ended up staying an extra week or two
Same thing Thailand tourism, you know, look made sure that we
Just continue that experience. So we stayed at some other hotels did like the
boat ride cruise down the river
You know just had dinner just really got to live it up and experience, you know
So it was all basically vacationing not training, uh, no training because it
was fresh out of the fight
So I flew I was in baku two weeks. I flew from baku to vegas
Stayed in vegas eight hours and then flew from vegas to thailand
So I like went around the world in like 24 hours
Um, so I was fresh out the fight. So there was there would be closer to go from
baku to thailand
Yeah, but the trips were booked separately. So like in order for that ticket to
you know, to actually work
I had to be in vegas to fly out
Um, but I did it. I thugged it out and um
Yeah, it was it was the best way to recover like this was a good recovery
recovery for me because I started the camp
uh
For jamal in february is when I heard about it, but then it got postponed due
to like one of his injuries
And uh, yeah, wow. Yeah, and now i'm back and um
When you get a big victory like that over a guy like jamal, what does that feel
like in your head when you know the work paid off?
Uh to just keep going
um
And to just to just keep like keep digging
you know, like
it's it's nice because i'm
Before you know, like when I went I went on that five fight win streak. I was
like coming back from thailand and like now i'm fully in this
you know i'm
100 in and
With that I that means like i'm just i'm committed to
Dig in this tunnel and so like a win
Over jamal like that tunnel isn't open yet. Like I got to get the belt first,
you know
Like but i'm digging and I saw like oh, maybe I got this like cool
Jim still like okay cool put that in my bag, but like now i'm you know i'm
committed i'm still
I'm still in the mind you know and eyes on the prize eyes on the prize man yeah
Yeah, and the prizes it's very interesting now right because perera lost on goliyev
and they're going to rematch on that same card same card
Yeah, which is going to be wild. Yeah, that's the main event
And then co-main is marab and corey sanhagen, which is another awesome fight.
Yeah
So it's going to be one of those cards. Yeah, I mean right now busy night for
john wood
He's got me and marab the same those three fights. Yeah, that's an insane card
if
Obviously if it stays together
MMA is rough with that people get injured. Mm-hmm
But if that card stays together the way it's pieced up right now just with
those three, I mean whoo what a card
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From what i've seen so far and like just the the texts that i've gotten
Yeah, a lot of people are really excited about it, which
Hypes me up and makes me want to you know train smarter
Well, you know yuri who also beat jamal in one of his last fights looked
fantastic in that fight and
Coming off of the prayer fight. He also made some big changes and big
improvements
That's one of the things that makes your fight with him so much more
interesting
Yeah, because i i'm sure from his last even a loss to perera he
I knew him coming back. He mentioned it like he wants
He wants to fight for the title again. You know what I mean?
Like so he's he's hungry for the title but again as well
And so am I and yeah, we've both made the adjustments. So I think it's uh
The thing is though, it's like he lost twice you lost once
So it's like it's a little tougher to sell his fight
Than it is to sell a rematch with you and I think
You probably had more success certainly than him in the second fight the second
right fight
He he got kind of tuned up. Yeah, I think second round. Yeah second round. Well
the first round he got dropped hard
Dropped hard and then came out second round head kicked. Yeah, he was out of it
going to the second
That left hook landed clean. Yeah at the end it could have been the over the
end of the fight right there. Yeah, no those those uh
Pereira's got a different power man
For sure like it's it it feels like a stone does it feels remarkably different
remarkably really yeah getting punched
I've never been punched as hard as I did when I fought Pereira like ever in sparring
It there was just something
It's kind of crazy because like you just I give credit where credit's due you
know
Like I don't want to gas him up too much, but there is just one thing and it's
like
I don't know I've I think that it's true. It's real
Yeah, it's it's real the power the power of the strength is real. It's not it's
not anything lucky. It's calculated
But when it lands, it's like yeah, no, he was a guy I talked up big time when
he was in glory when he when I found out
He was coming over the UFC. I was like buckle up because this is just different.
He just hits different and
You know his frames different too. It's a very he's yeah moves different. I
remember when like during the weigh-ins
um
when we faced off and
Like he just bent his arms up like this and I was like fuck this is a big man
You know, like we weigh the same but like, you know, like that I was like, yeah,
okay
This is a big guy like because he just bent his arms
And like his his hand was kind of like right near my face so I could see just
like
You know the mass the mass so it's like oh man. It was I was like, okay. How
the fuck did that guy weigh 185?
I don't know. That's what I want to know. Yeah, I don't know what kind of
torture
Torture man, it must been unbelievable
I think that's one of the things that contribute to it is is he knocking him
out other than the perfect punch
I mean is he landed an absolutely perfect punch. Yeah, but I think
You mean it's well noted that when guys lose that much weight, they're a little
bit more vulnerable to getting hit. Yeah
100% man and um
You want you watch the uh, the pori if I'm sure oh, yeah, you were there. No,
no, I wasn't there
You weren't there the last one you mean with that? Yeah with max pretty sick
man. Very good. I was very happy and what a cool like
I don't know. I like what the ufc is doing now with like the exits, you know,
like anthony smith got a sick exit like
Dustin's got a sick exit for me
I don't know I thought that was kind of one of the highlights of of that night
for me
Not only did I feel like they both put on a really good fight. I just thought
like
What a cool way to?
To be able to just like do that much work and then like be appreciated for it
win or lose I think yeah, maybe the tides are changing a little bit maybe
You know, what what do you mean like?
I felt like for a long time
And still to this day my it's still pretty like heavy but
To lose in mma was almost kind of like the end of the world to the fans because
it is in boxing
Yeah, yeah, you know
In boxing everybody wants to be undefeated
Yeah, like undefeated and like, you know, sometimes like someone can be on a
tear and then they you know
They lose and then like you can just see the direction of the of the support
like completely shift like ah
fluke, you know, but um
Yeah, I think that it's you know when I see things like, you know
Dustin's exit and also granted he did a lot
In the company and he's he's done a lot in his career
But to see that kind of gave me hope like okay, maybe this will
You know, give the fans a little bit of different perspective and
Maybe it can start to shift towards like
Appreciating people appreciating the fighter man. Yeah. Yeah, like appreciating
the fighter for for what we do
It's not it's not the easiest job
We don't get paid the most
You know, like so like yeah, like a little appreciation goes a long way win or
lose for sure
Yeah, I hope the tide is turning in that direction too, man. I just
People need to
It's like again. It's casuals. It's like people love
It's one of the things that I really struggled with in the early days of
commentary is that
regular sports people
We're starting to do mma commentary and they were talking about fighters the
same way
They would talk about like a football player who drops a pass or a basketball
player misses a shot
very disrespectfully
Choked they were saying they were saying a lot of shit. I was like, hey, hey,
hey
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about
Like this is the wrong sport to be coming over here and talking like that for
sure
You know and the early days in particular
There was a lot of that there was a lot of people that they wanted to get
credit for their work by just being
That arrogant, you know, there's like a bunch of those people in the sports
world. They're just like
Insulting there and then you know, there's a long history of athletes meeting
those people and fucking them up and
It's super disrespectful and I don't know why
But but there there's like a culture particularly in america that embraces that
and that likes that because
That's the kind of talk that like dum-dums have when they're on the job
They're like to see him last night. Fuckin loser. Yeah, yeah. Missed that three-pointer.
You should have passed the ball
You know shut the fuck up, man
It's I hate that shit
Because I didn't do a lot of team sports, you know
I only was involved mostly in combat sports when I was a kid and so disrespect
like that was like god
You don't know what you're even talking about. Yeah, it's annoying, man
You don't understand what this is these guys are risking their fucking life
It's different than everything else you watch. Yeah, you miss a basketball miss
it going at the hoop
Okay, yeah next day, you know, you get to shoot some more basketballs and
practice and then you'll be playing in a few days
And you're back at it. Yeah with fighting. It's your fucking soul
It's everything 100% broken nose something people bums. It's like shut your
mouth. Yeah, dude
Yeah, it's super annoying and that also brings to thought like I went to the
espies and that was really cool like first time
Going to the espies and seeing all these other athletes
You know that we see on football, you know, just on to on television being in
the same room
um, it was amazing and I remember seeing just like the opening
video
And uh, I think there might have been maybe one clip of an mma fight
but
I'm listening to all the like awards given out and you know best play and all
this stuff and I was just thinking man
I know mma's is new and i i'm obviously it's growing because we're here and
You know, they got john jones in the crowd and they got marab here, you know,
so it's growing
They're they're starting to acknowledge us, but like I can't wait until the day
where like
There's more fights on you know on in the espies. Yeah, we're what
We're doing great things. You know what I mean? I feel like the most exciting
It's so exciting and even like I had you know pro hockey players all these guys
coming up like oh man watch your fight
You know, so like the even even the athletes that are playing the nfl nhl and
mlb all these things
They're they're even watching what we're doing. Oh, yeah
I think it's you know, um, i'm excited for the growth of the sport as well and
I
You know, hopefully the next generation or even sooner will be able to
Know what it's like to be an mma fighter and still get like an sb award. I
wonder what's going to happen if the ufc
doesn't renew the espn contract
Because there's this negotiation thing that's going on right now, and I don't
know where they're going to land
There's talk of netflix. There's talk of other networks. There's a bunch of
different talk
And the one of the things that we benefit from is espn not just as the host of
the fights
But also covering the fights all the additional coverage all the sports center
talk all the different
Shows that they have on espn plus the post fight shows. Yeah, those are all
huge. Yeah, you know the breakdown people love that shit
No, they do they'll have the pre-fight breakdowns
Yeah, I think yeah, I think it's great. I would i'm shot evans
It's got a it's got to stick around man. Like I hope so
I love I love espn and I love the I like getting getting it that way off the
app
It's easy, you know, and I think it helps us too. I mean it definitely helped
the sport grow, right?
And I think that people who I think it helped us as fighters gain those fans
who are you know football fans?
Oh, yeah, people who just have espn on all day. Yep, you know what I mean or in
a pt clinic
It's just like okay. Yep espn's on you know
And to be able to yeah to be shown through that
I think it's been really helpful to us and and the thing is it's like you can
get converted to a fan with one fight
All you need is one undercard banger one undercard bang really like oh shit
I mean that was me with the alex fight
Honestly dude, like these people came out of nowhere like one fight changed my
life. Wow like one fight changed my life, dude. It's
It's what you dropped him you had great moments in that fight. Yeah, you know
dude
Off-topic, what's it like to be joe rogan these days? What do you mean? What's
it like?
I'm here. Welcome to the khalil roundtree
Experience today's guest we have joe rogan joining us joe how you doing?
It's pretty much the same for me really to sit down talk to cool people
Yeah, and I live my life pretty insulated
So I don't deal with all the hoopla. Yeah and chitter chatter. Yeah, I just
keep it moving. Okay
That's the way to stay sane you gotta just keep it moving. Yeah, my day is
basically the same every day get up early write
Shoot arrows get in the cold plunge lift weights work out do what I gotta do
come here. Okay. It's the same
Yeah, I go to the club tell jokes go home go to bed rinse wash repeat
That's what I do nice. I I don't do anything any different. So
As chaotic as it seems it's the same for me. Okay
I think what fucks people up is when they get caught up in other people talking
about them
And then they get involved in it and then they start reading things and they
start thinking
Is that who I am or is this who I am who's right? Am I a fucking loser?
Am I the coolest guy ever? Who am I?
You know
Keep working. I love that. Yeah, it's the only way the the only way to not go
crazy
When you get really famous is to keep doing exactly what you've always been
doing
And make sure you
Fucking burn yourself out
You go hard all the time with everything you do because if you don't then you're
gonna just wonder
You know am I slipping is this what's happening?
Is this all gonna go away? Like that's one thing that people really do freak
out about like once they start getting some success
What if it goes away? Yeah, what if it goes away and then you get imposter
syndrome?
You don't think you should be there and then if you read a bunch of comments,
you know most comments are negative. Yeah, people
Telling you over and over again. You're a fucking loser. You start going god
damn am I a loser?
Start reading things. I've seen it happen to fighters
I've seen it happen to many fighters where they get too caught up in reading
comments and interacting with people in a negative way online and
It's just not good for you. It's not smart. It's not the way
It's not it's you're you're you're dealing with the crabs. It's crabs in a
bucket
You know, there's a lot of people out there that don't think the only way for
them to succeed is to pull you down
It's a dumb
Mindset, but of course, there's a lot of people that
They're not that aware of how much time they're wasting
They're not aware of how much energy they're wasting
Thinking about other people constantly dwelling on the con hating and all the
stupid shit
And they don't realize that they're stealing from their own life
They don't realize it
They're just caught in this weird trap because we have this undefined new modality
of communication this
social media modality this new thing this new
New device that you have that interacts with your brain and oftentimes a very
negative way
And you're wasting hours and hours a day like how many people like look at
their screen time on their phone
When you do you go whoa six hours. That's crazy. Yeah, six hours that I could
have been doing other shit
Obviously, it's like 10 minutes here five minutes there, but it fucking adds up.
Yeah, it adds a work shift
Yeah, and it's
It's really time
It's really energy. It's focus. That's just being robbed from you and with no
reward
That's what they don't understand. It's like you're getting robbed and you're
not getting anything back
There's nothing positive coming. You're not growing. You're not getting smarter.
You're not getting you're not like contemplating
Not getting wiser. No, you're just fucking it's just you're just
Yeah, just being like taken out of you. Yes. Yeah. Wow, dude, that's no that's
that's great and it's good
It's a good
reminder and refreshment for me to hear you say that because
How do I put it like let's say if I get asked question like
How's joe rogan? Oh, you've been on joe rogan podcast like how is you and i'm
always like
Joe's great like
Tell me about
This is he that i'm like, dude. I'll say I say this I can tell you here. I'll
just give you like
Four things every time we talk it's good. We hang out we talk. I feel like he
likes me. I like him. It's always a great time
Two there's a lot of books when I walk in there. There's a bunch of books all
types of different books
I think joe's a curious guy. I think he's a smart guy. Well read a lot of cool
things
um
And it's it's always just based around like
Yeah, when I think of you, I think just genuine dude good vibes. I feel the
same way about you
And it's always it's always fun to
To just come here and just like chop it up with you. Um
That's why I like I guess I just needed that own like I just
Wanted that for myself to just be like
Joe what's up? How you doing?
And you tell me like cool. I'm i'm doing the same thing. I wake up. I go to the
gym. I shoot my bows
I you know, I I go to the club like like that to me to know that just
personally without
Being one of those people that are just like sucked into my
Phone or whatever to just hear it come from your mouth face to face that that's
what you're up to
That makes me feel I think it's the only way to live
Yeah, I think getting I mean i've been sucked into my phone before for sure
But now for the most part if I spend time on my phone at all it's watching
things
I watch like youtube videos
But it's always stuff on like
It's either watching mma muay thai kickboxing boxing or
Watching like youtube videos on ancient history the interesting things. Yeah,
so i'm not interacting with opinions and
People yeah, and all that stuff. Yeah, the the stuff that'll piss you off. Yeah,
and and take from you
Uh, do you ever watch like fighters youtube channels?
Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Have you seen mine?
I have seen yours. Oh, okay. Cool. You like it? Yeah, it's great. Okay. It kind
of kind of
Inspired by you a little bit. I remember you saying in the past like oh, you
should start a podcast. I was like, maybe not yet
But how about a youtube channel? So
People love behind the scenes stuff. They really do they love to see people
train training in particular
Yeah, you know, I spent a lot of time watching
Usyk training before this last Dubois fight. Yeah, is it crazy? I saw something
the other day
It was like Usyk swimming five hours. I was like, oh my god. He's an animal man.
Yeah, I mean
He's so
Fucking good. He's so good. I mean you think about what that guy has done
He beat aj twice. He beat tyson fury twice and now he beat dubois twice. That's
crazy. No, it's incredible
Those are two of the best
Like of this era. I think he's one of the best of all time. I really do
I think he's one of the best heavyweights of all time and his movement is so
different one of the things that was interesting
uh, well, they were they were talking about the fight and aj
was it was tony bellows was talking about when he fought him and aj was saying
that when he fought him
It was the most exhausted he's ever been
Because he's always moving you never you're not there's no rest with him arrest
There's like constant this constant twitching under fire the whole time
You're constantly thinking when is this coming? There's no silent agreements.
There's no relaxation
There's no you know, there's no there's no rounds off
Everything is he's putting it on you and moving constantly
Like I always say he's like a giant Lomachenko got it. They were both trained
by the same guy. Oh, were they? Yeah, Lomachenko's father trained Usyk as well
Yeah, so there's something yeah, there's obviously gravity keeps him from
moving the way Lomachenko does because Lomachenko's so small
He can
Like dance around you for sure in footwork just majestic footwork
But Usyk's footwork is like it's there's a bunch of breakdowns of the final
combination that he hit
Daniel with and you know, he steps off to the side and lands that fucking left
hook from hell
God, it was good. You could see
Daniel was already tired
You could see it. It's like it's just dealing. There's got to be something like,
you know, Lomachenko's dad like some type of philosophy or something
You know what I mean? Like these guys just
Kind of tap into you know, because like to be a big guy. Yeah, there's footwork
and all that stuff
But I think man shout out to the coach like yeah
It's skill man. It's it's a skillful type of boxing
It's like a you know, there's there's guys that are like heavy bangers and they
rely on that and there's guys that have
You know good defense and they rely on that but
His thing is like this constant movement and constant feints and jabs and it's
all with a purpose
Everything is like setting you up everything is reading what your reaction to
this is and anticipating what your reaction is
When's that right hand coming duck under counter?
It's like constant the jab was going in an upward direction sometimes
He was catching daniel with this like upward jab. Here's the oh, okay. Here's a
breakdown. Yeah, i've only seen highlights
I'd actually didn't get his fucking movement man. It's so good man. It's so
good the movement
Do you know what's his age damn he's 38? Oh my god. Yeah, that was yeah, he's
old
He's old for a boxer, you know and the fact that he was a cruiserweight
champion, too
and
That was the first drop but here's the big one the left hook that he that he
knocks him out was extraordinary man
What are they showing here? Okay the counters
This video is just about his weight transferring. Yeah, no, it's amazing. I
mean, he's one of the most skillful heavyweights of all time
I think you have to go back to Cassius clay
Yeah, like before they took his title away before they made him sit out for
three years
Look, there's the final left hook
Oh my goodness
Look at this counter steps off to the left and then full weight into it really
long like
You can tell that there that weight transfer was everything
It's just constant footwork and movement and a lot of his training is that yeah,
you can see it
He's never stationary exactly like his feet are never in one place. They're
constantly moving
Well, there's a lot of russian fighters who fight that way, you know, and
obviously he's from ukraine
But you know, um bival bival fights that way
There's a lot of these eastern block fighters that have this this movement
style like there's like constant like movement style and it's like
there's a lot of value in that man
Like when you see flat-footed guys and you see guys who fight like that you go
man, there's something in that like yeah, that's
Extraordinary. Yeah flat-footed guys. I feel like a lot of them. That's where
they generate their power, right?
Sure
You're kind of like relying on that like a deontae wilder, you know, like sure
If his feet are planted and you're up against the ropes like bye-bye. Yeah, you
know, like george foreman in his day. Oh, man
Yeah, it's heavy plodding, you know, like moving forward like this covering up
Just but everything has just death on it. Yeah, you know, just looping them
but a guy like
Dubois
He can do that. That's the thing. That's how he fucked up aj. He has that crazy
power
But when you're not getting hit
And you're just moving away and this guy's just
Whiffing these nuclear bombs by you over and over again and then after a while
he's like
He's like headed into the 30s. Like, oh, jesus christ. Yeah, this guy is
fucking not there
And i'm exhausted and then you're dealing with him like sparks are flying every
time
He's hitting you and you don't know when these punches are coming because they're
coming from these weird angles and
Every time you throw a punch he's countering you and you're you're nervous that
which one of these is gonna like really rock me
Dude to be in that situation like during a fight is ugh
It's the worst. I remember like feeling like that in the alex fight
It's just there was a few like jabs and stuff. I was obviously just dizzy
And just dealing with like, okay
This guy's not slowing down
And i'm hurting
You know like yeah around the fourth he started getting that time when was the
fight stopped?
Uh
Fourth round it was the fourth fourth round. I think like
Probably
Two and a half minutes in something like that
He started getting that rhythm where he's like moving away from stuff and then
yeah, yeah, yeah coming back in
Moving in
Yeah, but it was unusual move obviously deceptive but like my eye was shut
It was I was I thought I was blind in my eye, but I was like, okay, whatever
this is just
I was I don't know what was what was going on with me and if I was so excited
to be there
And so
I mean even even in the fight like not being able to see out of my right eye
At all like not blurred vision. It was just like all I saw was just white light
Like wow, that's all I saw and in that moment. I was like, oh i'm blind. Fuck
it
Wow, yeah, like literally so
I don't I don't know what it was like maybe
All I know is I just saw a light coming in couldn't see shadows
And when did that start happening that was sometime in the fourth round?
So you got hit with something I hit something maybe like a jab boom
And I just remember like my eye wasn't closed
All the way yet, but like all I could see was just white light and I was like,
oh shit
I think I went blind but whatever
Let's go like you know, like internally like it was such this like light
Positive voice going on the whole time in that fight. How do you think you
developed that?
I don't know man. It could be like a series of just like life experiences and
my
like
I don't know books that I read or just like things that I try to practice or
some
Enlightenment thing that i'm trying to get or you know what I mean?
Like I think I think that it comes from that because i'm i'm just
I'm
kind of always searching for the light and in short, you know, so god
It's gotta be so hard though in that situation because
Generally speaking
There's a moment in fights where you see guys starting to get hit and tuned up
and you see
Hesitation and you see panic and you didn't show any of that you were getting
beat up
But you were firing back you were fighting at the best that you could it was
very obvious
Yeah, to the very end well, you know what
So right before we went out or right before we got to the arena
My coach lorenzo is like all right
Your nose is already cut so it's gonna open up and he's like looking at me in
my face
You know like he's like face to face with me. He's like your nose is already
cut
Accept it. It's gonna open up first time you get hit. It's gonna open up
All right, that's out of the way. He's like now expect that you're gonna get
the shit beat out of you
You're gonna go to bloody fucking war. He's like you might break a hand. You
might break a leg
You might get your jaw broken, but you don't give up you keep going
We fucking come out of this fight victorious and he's like you hear me and i'm
like, yeah
And he's like so just fucking soak it in now. You're about to go to fucking
full-on war
It's going you're like, you know, like you're about to go to hell like
He's just like in my face, you know, and he's like we're face to face
And he's like I need you to accept it now
So because he kind of looks at me like like his son he treats me that way and I
appreciate it
He's like you're he's like but we're fucking we're fucking winning this fight
son and you're gonna fucking go to you're going to fucking war and I was just
Swallowed that
Walked into the arena just kind of accepting it already. You know what I mean?
Like I wasn't like, oh, I was just like, okay, like
Lorenzo said it
All right, this is what it is
This is what it is
And so like in the locker room, you know in my warm-ups and everything I think
subconsciously i'm just like already programming myself for
The worst of the worst
All right there all but not in a way to where i'm like oh i'm gonna lose this
fight right like i'm like
Expanding you know wow just like internally like okay i'm ready for this all
right
Boom all right my hands are gonna get broken my face is gonna get split up
All right, and every fight's not like this like not every opponent we have the
same you know what i mean this same
thing because
The strategy is always different for everybody but some they that he just had a
feeling that this is the type of fight was going to be
So when it got down to that point, I think I had already accepted it
So the only thing I could do was just enjoy it
You know because I was like such a crazy thing to say I knew it was gonna
happen like I just knew it
so yeah, if I remember you're like
Third round fourth round something in there. I'm just like
Thank you like this is cool. I'm fighting for the world, you know title crowd.
I'm like oh my god
Eyes closed. Boom. I think i'm blind. I'm like fuck. Oh, shit
He's not going back, you know, like even to the last i'm like swinging. I can't
see boom body shot hurts. I'm like
Backing up a bit, but like I just remembered like the whole time this just this
very like positive feeling man
they would like
And that's why like those shorts are framed in you know, like
I got the shorts frame never washed them, you know blood still on them gloves
never wiped them off and I just put it in a shadow box
It's on my wall, you know, like that for me is
Just it was a just a pivotal moment for me just in my life as a person as a
human, you know, just
Yeah, that's like the beginning I think I was like that's the beginning of the
wow of the journey now
So that's wild the world title fight is the beginning of the journey
I thought yeah, I thought you know, like
No, this is it like that was the beginning because when I was there I felt like
I belonged
Like it wasn't foreign to me like, you know
Final the you know main event lights go dark
It's just the spotlights, you know, we i've only ever watched it. So right. Um,
yeah, I was like, okay, this is
Different
It felt like it was supposed to feel if that makes sense like everything that I
felt like
That vision that i've had and it was like being there and I was just like
Yeah, it feels about right like wow
Cool, fucking prayer right in front of me. Hell. Yeah, this feels right
This feels like yeah, this is it right here
Um, and then obviously like, you know, the loss was
It took a little bit of an emotional toll on me because my focus was to win and
that was my you know, that was my intention
um
but
I think like in hindsight I look at it and it's like no my
I was meant to be there to experience it and to learn from it because
The things that I did learn and experience from that fight have made me a
better person for sure
That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome
Well, it really showed it in the jamal hill fight because you you came into
that fight
It just looked like you were you had gone through something and come out on the
other end. That's what it looked like because again jamal's
World champion. He's a dangerous dangerous man, you know, and you looked supremely
confident in that fight
Yeah, a lot of a lot of training man. Like I
I understand that there's a lot
I'm a striker, you know, like that's just I love to strike
Don't stray away from a striking match
But I think that
Like lately i've been training a lot with buchecha who just got signed to ufc
Incredible guy amazing
Jujitsu like multiple time jiu-jitsu champion
Rolling with guys like luke
Rockhold i mean being able to be like on a team with those guys and us train
together has really helped me as well
because
Has just given me more confidence in my abilities and my development as like a
championship level fighter
um
so yeah, I mean like even to
I
You know, I brought you those shorts today the santo studio ones man. We're we're
building an incredible team down there
I think it's like the first time are you familiar with what we're doing at all
okay, so
Like over at santo studio newport beach
Um, we've got santo studio. We've got jackson jackson's like men's jewelry
um
Yeah, men's jewelry, but there's also like jackson media house and over there.
We're trying to
include
All mma fighters
extreme sports athletes
Like give them like a platform to
Showcase, you know their talents and and and build themselves but santo studio
The clothing brand we have the sickest team. So we've got like
Buchecha we've got
Armand
We've got I mean dillashaw's behind it. We got rockhold
um
Man the list goes on gabriel silva anderson silva's son
On just like the fighting side, but then it's like paul rodriguez skateboarder
niger houston ryan sheckler
and then we got
motocross riders like jet and hunter lawrence and like so this all these kind
of like extreme sports athletes under one umbrella but like
In one place in newport beach and we all support each other
Under like the same type of brand and what is your role in this?
Ambassador
Fucking I was a part of the vision before there was like the first t-shirt ever
printed like bear and I had a conversation
He's like hey, I got this vision and I'm like dude. I'm behind you like I love
how this sounds
It's right up my alley sounds creative. There's clothes involved. There's
training involved. So
He's gone to just build this we got the santo performance studio huge gym jiu-jitsu
mats
weightlifting
But also like shopping and dude, it's
It's it's it's unheard of but it's so cool and like it's put us all in the same
Place to be able to like train with each other collaborate with each other
Like if it wasn't for santo, I would have never been able to
Train with guys like buchecha and bernardo and leo vera
You know the check mat guy so like now there's a partnership with check mat,
which makes me
Like have access to training with these guys, it's
I would have never been able to you know what I mean have that same like
connection
So we're just doing everything we can to just you know
Like support each other within this like mma community help each other grow
um, and and just like expand and also include the community
um
within right now in newport beach, but
I mean i'm sure that the vision is
Bigger than just that so this is something also that you can do once you retire
I would love to yeah. I mean right now like I think the understanding from bear
is that like
I'm just focused on
becoming a champion
But i'm sure he knows that like i'm heavily interested
In
You know doing something because I believe in the brand so yeah after this
maybe there's something
But right now, you know
I have no distractions, right?
You know what I mean? Like I have no distractions. I'm you know, i'm just
making sure that
um
I'm fighting and that like my money's in the right place and places. Do you
have a time?
Set in your head where you want to exit the game?
um
How about this I can say that I would like for
My current contract to be my last contract
Mmm, how many fights you have in your current contract left?
um
six or seven
and that's it
That's what you'd like in an ideal world
or like maybe sometime not only there's like a
renegotiation and it's not for as many fights but like
I think six or seven more fights would be nice and be able to like
Look around and say like, okay
Is this enough, you know like
right is this okay for me to
Step away from and like am I secure is my you know, is my family secure?
Okay, then
Cool
Because time waits for no man. Yeah, don't want to be 41 42 right now. I turned
35 in february
So you're still in your prime still in my prime so they say
Especially for a larger athlete. Yeah, and I I don't have music 38. Yeah, I don't
have the wear and tear of a lot of the fighters
Like I didn't grow up wrestling and all that stuff. So
15 years into that's a big type of it's a big factor. Yeah sports or athletics
Football's a big factor wrestling's a big factor knees back neck. Yeah. Yeah,
um
But yeah, I mean like the by the way that things are looking it'd be nice like
October 4th win over yuri sets me up for the title fight against
here's an ideal situation
Win over yuri in october alex beats uncle live
rematch for the belt against alex
sometime in the to begin like the
first half of next year
Right beat alex in the rematch get the belt
I'm the champion all summer
Then
Somewhere in between summer and fall
There's a child that comes into play my wife's not pregnant yet, but it'd be
nice. Oh, you got this idea. Yeah, it'd be nice
That's that's the like everyone says like
All these guys success you gotta have a vision man like like you gotta have a
vision in life you do
You know like if you don't have a vision or something to aim at like what are
you doing?
You know, so like yeah, these are like, you know, these are
This is my vision, but there's like goals in between you know goal
Be eerie goal
Get another shot at the title
Vision
Start my family
Finish my fight contract
Be done with fighting
Live in asia
In asia?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm moving back to thailand man
Really?
Yeah, 100%
1000%
Why?
Because that's where I want to be. That's where I belong
Really?
Yeah
I belong
I belong in
There's right right now what like my heart is telling me I belong in three
places
Either thailand hong kong or south korea
Why those places?
Obviously thailand, you know, you had amazing experiences there hong kong's
amazing. I love it there. It's good
uh
I just came back from hong kong as well. So in that thailand trip. I went to hong
kong
Um, I love how it's set up. I love the structure of the city
I love that there's so much outdoor stuff involved
So like when I imagine the rest of my life and how I want to live that after
fighting
It's like let's say I do have my family and there's a child and play. Okay,
cool
if I live in hong kong
I can just walk outside and take my child for a hike right outside the house
And it not be like I don't have to even own a car. I can just
Everything's walking. You know what I mean?
It's like the way that this city's set up. It's set up for people to
To walk to interact, you know, it's very beautiful. It's not
You know
I love it. It's just for me when i'm there. I'm like, ah, this makes sense
Like especially with the vision of like who I want to be after fighting and why
south korea
I like the culture in south korea, man. I really do like when I see that like
when I when I
When I see just like the like the culture in south korea the people
um, how I
Envisioned just like my family interacting with society and stuff like to me
another thing that just that makes sense
And thailand for me is it just it feels like home the language is very like
Easy for me to you know to speak and to like learn more of and to where I could
be fluent
um
I love the community there. I love how people live their life there
um
Amazing a lot of growth happening in thailand
um
It's also a lot less expensive a lot less expensive for sure
um
and to be able to like so like
Let's say in thailand
I'm american, right?
We're all kind of born like to live the american dream. I can live the american
dream
anywhere I want
But for me if I could live the american dream
In thailand, that would be
Ideal if I could live the american dream
In hong kong
That'd be ideal
You know, but it's a lot more expensive in hong kong. It's a lot more expensive
Do you think you say this because you live in vegas because vegas is kind of a
crazy place in america?
Uh, not so much like i've been to many different places
I mean i've been almost everywhere in the states when I was on tour and you
know
Austin's nice do I want to live in austin? No, california absolutely not new york
absolutely not florida don't like it
Shout out to my florida fans like you. I love you guys. You know like
I'm not saying anything against
Don't hate me if I don't give you a place if you you know, whatever
Um, but there's nowhere there's nowhere else in the world that I feel the way
that I feel
When i'm there that's interesting
Has that always been the case or is it just like does it represent something to
you in terms of like personal growth?
Or a vibe
The relaxing vibe of it because it's not so much like it's not so much like
when i'm there i'm relaxing
You know what? I mean like it's very busy. There's a lot going on, but
I just I can
I realize how
I feel inside
You know and how i'm interacting with
People who I don't even know on a daily basis
And when I think about like I always i'm constantly thinking about like
Like my future or my vision, you know and when I think about
And when I think about my vision my my future and my vision, there's a child
involved and
I try to think about like, okay as a dad
How do I want to operate with the child or like how do
How do I want you know, our child to experience life?
And there's just you know, a lot of different questions and visions that come
and
The way that i've seen it or like the way that I envision it
It's kind of like it makes more sense that way
You know, like
If I could if I could if I could let's say
Take away some of the like stress of
Raising a child
From my wife
By like, let's say hiring help
Or
You know having instead of having a car
Having a driver
To have us get through traffic so that we can still enjoy life and you know
Go on like a family, you know dinner or take the kid here or whatever
But I don't want to drive the damn car because there's too much traffic and you
know what I mean
Right like relax so I can relax, but we can still have family time
We can still do the things that families and kids do
um
But it not
Cost me
So much
You know what I mean?
Yeah, like if I wanted to get a live-in helper here in the states to help my
wife
It costs a fortune. Yeah
It's almost impossible, but if I wanted to get a live-in helper, let's say in hong
kong it cost me
A thousand or less dollars a month to have a full-time live-in helper
You know, and there's nothing wrong with it there. That's just the culture like
in hong kong
you have just groups of
Women who are live-in helpers that like on their off day in the summer or on
their off day like on sunday
You'll see them. Everybody's just in the streets with tents
Combing each other's hair boom boxes out sharing food. It's just a part of it
like that's not
Like literally tents in the streets everywhere jamie if you want to pull that
up you it's crazy, dude
I don't know if you've ever seen it. No, but it's so cool because like they
enjoy the life but like hong kong helpers
Hang out or enjoying a day off or something. It's
It's just a way of life. It's a lifestyle. It's it's just a new perspective
that i've never seen like that. I didn't see
here and I like it. I just think like for me and
My development and growth as just like a human being that's just kind of where
It's like a never-ending like finding out what's next you know, I mean like i'm
i've constantly got to adapt and evolve like i'm american
I have to learn a new language. I've got to adapt to a new culture
I've got to learn new rules and laws and all this stuff and like cool sign me
up like because that's just
I don't want my life to be like, okay
I know it all and i'm done and i'm just okay cool and I got the kid and i'm
just you know, like right
I want to continue to like grow to grow right as well as you know showing
someone else
how to grow
Um, yeah, see like they're not homeless
They're just hanging out on their off day because they can't and they like they
enjoy it
No, one's mad to be doing this, huh?
You know what?
I mean like it's a totally safe environment for these people to be out here.
They're not interrupting anybody
They're literally just this is a day off like oh, what are you doing on your
day off?
I'm gonna go hang out
With the other helpers around the city and we're just
Like we're just chilling interesting because the the to live there like the
places are really small
You know, like if you have a thousand square foot apartment, you're most likely
a multi-millionaire
So most of the life like lifestyle is spent outdoors
So for them to go outside like this and this is like a normal thing on a sunday
normal
Yeah, on a sunday or on a weekend. Yeah, absolutely
And like hong kong the city is supposed to be very safe too, right very safe,
man. Very very safe
um, very safe very clean like
When I think about the stuff that I had to go through
As a kid and just like the dangers and you know, right i'm like, hmm
how about like
My kid doesn't necessarily have to
Be worried about certain things or you know
Be worried about like getting shot at school or like you're like just different
things
It's just kind of like what can I take off like what mental load can I take off?
My offspring in the beginning I can take on whatever i'm a grown adult like
Whatever, but what do you think you're going to be doing with your time other
than that when you're done fighting?
I have zero business experience
because i've just been so dedicated to fighting
but
I do want to like start to learn man like I want to learn
Business how to operate a business I because i'm creative and I have ideas
But I don't have structure. I don't have you know, really like the right
mentorship
um
So like
Yeah, like i'd like to have
Multiple businesses
Um, like what kind of businesses? What do you want to get into something like?
Obviously something where you can express your creativity
Express creativity, but also like something that helps
Me and people like health
You know health um
Health products is this one of those things that you can't really think about
right now?
I can't because it's just like i'm you know what I mean like i'm locked in I
don't want to get too distracted
But like I think that's a giant
One of the signs that someone
When when people spread themselves too thin
like
There's a bunch of fighters when things start going really well
They start getting movie offers and you see them on talk shows you see a lot of
this a lot of that you're like
Oh, yeah
You're getting outside of your lane. Yeah, and you're spreading yourself thin
Yeah, and there's just no way to really be locked into training while also
doing that stuff
So when you see someone preparing for a major fight and you see a lot of extracurricular
activities, I'm always like
Yeah, like daniel dubois had a fucking party the day of his fight
Before the fight. Yeah. Oh boy. It's a big issue now people are talking about
it
It's like 90 people at his place. Yeah partying the day. Yeah of the fight.
That's absurd
Right that takes a lot of energy
Just being around those people. Yeah
Even if you're just sitting in a party like your energy is being zapped, right?
Yeah, and obviously if it's your fight night, everyone wants to talk to you.
Everybody has questions
I just can't imagine why anybody would do that or why there's videos of him
hanging out partying with everybody
I mean not drinking nothing crazy, but
Obviously like hanging out with a lot of loud people talking a lot of music a
lot of you know, yeah
No communication zaps the nervous system for sure like how do you expect to go
fight?
Usyk after your nervous system has been zapped from a party
I can't understand it. I when I saw it after the fight was over. I was like
Like he's probably gonna lose anyway. Yeah, but
What is that? No, it's tough man. I honestly, you know
I agree with that. I think this fight in baku really got like it made me
realize
How important?
Like being locked in is because I was absolutely I think that's why I got sick
to be honest joe
I think that's why I got sick because I was just exhausted
No exhausted from the things that I had to do from my obligations
Oh, so the week the obligations so the week that I landed I had to do
Uh, I had to do like four or five days of filming with draft kings for this
like online
So it's like I just landed
But then like I didn't get time to adjust because the next day we got to wake
up, you know
First first filming sessions at nine nine a.m. Oh, and then so we're like week.
No the the week before fight
The week before fight, you know, yeah, exactly
So like I land and they came they went to my house 2 a.m
I'm not bitching about this because the guys were great
But this is just like deep my experience. How much time did you have to spend
doing that?
Well, I mean we we spent
You know, we spent a week of filming
How much time each day?
Five six hours what
Yeah, what?
That's crazy. It wasn't every day that we I don't remember but that it was like
we we did a lot of filming
That we raised you know for this content piece
And then as soon as they left then it was fight week and then I had all the
media stuff for fight week
Oh my god, you know what I mean?
And I think by time like with jet lag with training involved
With the filming with all of that. I think by time fight we came like my body's
like fuck you
That's exactly how it felt
What were you doing that they needed you for five six hours in a day?
Uh, like
You know, I here's the thing
I'm grateful because I wouldn't have been able to experience baku the way that
I did had I not done this
So it's like right you made some extra money. Yeah, so we go to the old town
and then like get a tour through old town
for three hours and the lady's like
This is this so I got information and they're filming me, you know get
information and then from the old town
Then we go somewhere else and you know, so where ideally you would be resting
Or doing my own training. Yeah
Resting or adjusting. Yeah, but when you're when you're forced to interact
Like that's I mean you're dealing with something where you have this monumental
moment that's coming up in 14 days
And then you just yeah, but I just like that's what i'm saying. Like my my main
thing was like
Embrace it, you know what I mean? Like just embrace it take it all in. Yeah, it's
fucking hard
But that mentality can only get you so far right. That's why like I really
I feel like
I'm gonna get fucking eaten alive for this
Not if you don't read it
I really feel like that what like
Alex having so many fights last year
and
Obligations and travel and all that
When he I feel like that probably had a big
Played a big factor in why his performance was the way it was against uncle
live
Well, supposedly he went into that fight with norovirus and he had a fucked up
hand
I honestly like I
Believe it
It seemed like I believe he wasn't hitting the gas as much
You know, it seemed like he was a little bit more was also uncle live is
fucking good, man
He's good. That guy's really good. I mean, he's he's you're smiling
I can't smile you can but you're you're smiling like come on, man
I'm just smiling what even what is your opinion on uncle live?
I don't have one
You don't have any opinion at all no not one no because he's the champ
I get it. Yeah, let's go back to Alex. Yeah
Norovirus. Are you just not a fan of his?
I can say confidently am I a fan?
Absolutely, not as a human or a fighter
Both
Okay, so have you had bad interactions with him as a human?
He just talks shit and I hate people that talk shit like a dude. I just don't
like it
I don't like people who talk shit for no reason if I didn't say anything to you
If I've never fucking mentioned your name
Then why are you talking shit to me or about me or disrespecting me?
Well, people talk shit because he gets some attention and I think exactly like
uncle live
There was a long period in his career where he didn't talk shit and he wasn't
getting a lot of attention
Yeah, I mean look he had that fight with jan bohovic. Yep
Where it was for the title it went to a draw
No one gets the title. It was a crazy experience, right?
And a very good fight. Yeah, and people were mad at him
And he had to sit on the shelf for a while. It was kind of fucked up
So that makes him talk about me
I think he talks about everybody because
You realize look this is what happened to colby covington
This is like there's a thing that happens like if you talk shit
You will get more eyes more attention more money and you'll get fights
And if you do not talk
There's a possibility that you'll be cut
I
Know it's not you. It's not you. Yeah, look and here. I am
I'm still getting good fights and good money and it's like as is Pereira, right?
Pereira just fights
Yeah, I mean he doesn't even speak english and he's beloved over here. Yeah,
you know, but you can you can get by with just your performance
But some people they they think like man, I got to get people to fucking pay
attention
There's so many killers out there. There's so many people that are popular
I gotta do something. Yeah
So fight better
I hear you. I hear you. That's that that's the only thing. It's like
It's just the shit talking. I hate it, dude. Like I fucking hate it
Like it it really bugs me because you're a martial artist and you feel like it
doesn't have a place
And I just hate it because it's fucking unnecessary and it's like and and even
as an adult like I had to deal with this shit
My whole life, right? And it's ha it's a fucking toxic
Way of fucking being and it's passing along through social media and kids are
fucking getting beat up for it
Yeah, and and we're fucking grown men on a large platform where people are
looking up to us
For many different things and they envision us as these fucking gladiators and
this is what you're choosing to do as a foot
We have a responsibility. I feel like as athletes as champion number of fucking
one as champion
You have a responsibility
You have a belt around your waist and all these eyes and microphone and that's
what you're going to choose to say
It's talk shit and degrade my name and i'm not even above you
I'm not even challenging you for a fight and you want to mention me and like
that to me is just like dude
Spend your time wisely so that it's in a way it's motivation for me because i'm
like
I just
Won't do that like I think that there's so many different things that can be
done when you have that belt
Like that belt is an honor
Like to have that there's a responsibility that comes with that there's things
that you can do with that
Like it's not just about you realize the responsibility that you have when you
carry that title and so there's just
I'm getting passionate about because there's just i want to say so many things
but i'm not going to i know what you're saying
I feel like um there's a couple guys kind of changed the game one of them was
chael sun and another one is conor mcgregor
Yeah, and part of the way they changed the game was talking mad shit and
getting a lot of people to pay attention to them
Yeah, which
Cool, you know like it got them a lot of attention. It got them a lot of money,
but like
And if that's what makes them happy cool, you know, like I think some people
think it's a good business decision
Like I said, I know nothing about business
Maybe that's why I don't own a business, you know, like I just I don't know
Well, it's good that you don't own a business
Yeah
You don't want to own a business while you're in the middle of this journey
that you're on
It's just like you it wouldn't it would just drain you it would take time from
you
It's not you can only do so many things in this life and especially when you're
doing something that's
All encompassing physically. Yeah, it's not like, you know, you have
You have a business and you have a side business project. That's a passion
project that you're working on
No, no, you're fighting. Yeah
Fighting you have to be all in and you really you really do you are all in yeah
Yeah, and while you're all in look, I admire people that don't talk shit, but I
also like a little shit talking
I do because it's it's fun
It's and it gets people excited and it does get a lot of eyes on the sport and
it makes for more pay-per-view buys
Yeah, which is why I think uh, the cup, you know, like the ufc encourages it
whether they encourage it or not
They use those things, you know, like when connor fought khabib
They they threw in the video of connor throwing the fucking the dolly at the
bus remember that which is crazy like
It's kind of almost encouraging
That kind of behavior, which is crazy. No, it's I mean like
UFC as real as it gets right. So you kind of get everything like
You get everything they don't say it anymore though. Do they? I don't realize
again. I don't know
Some sometimes like early days. It's it's stuck in my brain, but
Yeah, there are different things. There are a lot of different I guess
characters personalities, you know, yeah, connor throwing the thing
Through, you know, the the dolly through the window
Is it gonna make people watch the fight? Absolutely, you know what I mean? Did
he do it for that reason? Don't think so. I just think
He is who he is, right? It's like we never know what's next with
with connor and respect, you know respect to him for everything, but
um
I just
yeah, uh
I and I understand your perspective as well like a little shit talk, you know
Yeah, it's entertaining, you know, you see two guys like oh, but I completely
appreciate your perspective as well
Yeah, and I certainly appreciate your perspective having grown up through all
that stuff
Like why include it especially when
What you're doing is the ultimate test of who you are as a human like what was
the ultimate test of who you are as a man?
The actual fight itself which is going to happen no matter how much you talk.
Yeah, and whoever like whoever talks to me
You know from
Not even from now on but like whoever talks to me like I back it up
You know what I mean? Like I don't need to say anything in return like
I'm just going to back it up. I'm not
I don't want to give anybody any more attention or you know say people's names
and stuff
But like conor and khabib is the ultimate example of that, right?
Yeah, when khabib was on top almost like let's talk now and he kept punching
him in the face. Let's talk now
Yeah
I mean I love khabib for that like I I you know
I
I can relate to that, you know, like I can relate to that to that feeling of
He's a fascinating guy. Yeah, he had this uh, really amazing conversation
Someone was interviewing him and they were talking about different addictions
that fighters fall to and different things that
That sidetrack people and he's like the best addiction is discipline
And he's talking about his discipline the best the best addiction is discipline
You got to become addicted to discipline addicted to hard training addicted
Completely addicted to that. That makes me feel like a scrub
I mean like i'm getting i'm
Fucking good he was man. That's how good he was but like damn addicted to it
I mean when he talks see if you can find that jamie. You got it here. Here
listen to this
Every man addicted to something some smoke some drink some chase girls some
wasted
But real man he addicted to discipline to early wakes to prayer to training to
silence
Discipline no need motivation
Discipline move without feeling
Discipline say I go anyway even when tired even when lonely
Discipline is best addiction you want strong life
Discipline build it you want peace
Discipline protect it you want respect discipline earn it
No shortcut only work be man with control not man with excuse no cry no blame
You want better life start with better habits
Discipline every day until discipline become you
I'm gonna use that as my morning wake up now
Do you know that that's what I was just thinking in my mind?
I'm like dude where do I include this in my daily routine like right when you
wake up that should be your alarm or is it like
You know, do I just sit and like listen to this before I fall asleep?
No, no, that'll fuck with you you won't be able to sleep
Why sleep run run pick up vlog
Dreams of Khabib just standing over me
No, you're not real man
It's interesting because Chael Sonnen had a video recently
That's so incredible man shout out to Khabib for that
Shout out to Khabib I mean that's why he is who he is
Chael Sonnen had a really interesting video the other day
We were talking about how um people say that dagestan is the place where you
should take your kids
You know you want to take you know take them dagestan two three years and
forget it
There's like a fun line that like cormier has said he's taking his son to dagestan
You know and that's one of the things that bala mohammed said if I could do my
career over again
I would have went to dagestan earlier. Yeah, and I would have stayed there for
years
and then
Chael Sonnen had a very interesting point which I think he's totally accurate
He's like they're not doing anything any different he goes, but they don't have
football. They don't have basketball
They don't have baseball. So the best athletes
Go in mma the best athletes going to wrestling the best athletes going to
combat sports in dagestan
And so he's like what you get is you have genetics
Which is an ultimate requirement of the elite of the elite at the top of the
game. It's like discipline and genetics
Those are the two things that separate the men from the boys. Yeah, and
That he's like
We have all those things in america. It's just when you're you're dealing with
The elite of the elite. It's like what pool are you drawing from?
One thing that I think they do have there though
Is this this the the fact that they're all very religious
And the fact that there's no drinking there's no partying. There's no nothing.
There's no chasing girls. There's no bullshit
Yeah, it's just prayer and training like that is a that's a man. That's a major
advantage, but
You could do that anywhere
Yeah, you could do anyone could live that way. Yeah, anyone can live that way
I'd imagine that like being in dagestan because of you know, just like the
cultural differences
Not to say that it would be
Easier
But you're dealing with less right like you can do it here, but like
You're
You go outside you're going to find a bar. You're going to find something
Yeah, like you know
Like the the you know
But you have to make conscious decisions not to have that in your life. Yeah,
which like doing it here would probably actually make you stronger
Right, because you have to deal with more resistance because you have to deal
with more resistance. Yeah, you know what I mean?
Yeah, like if you go out away where there's nothing like yeah, cool
But then come back to the real world and try to do it and it's gonna be like,
uh
Right, but isn't that why most I mean from the beginning of time fighters would
take their camps away from life
Yeah, like Marvin Hagler
He would he would go to the cape he would go to cape cod and train in the
winter
Cassius clay and muhammad ali, you know, they would go up into the mountains,
you know
There's definitely the cats gills. There's something different about it, right?
Like there's something big there
Everybody goes to big bear and trains up there. Yeah, when when I fought alex I
was in salt lake, uh, or I was in uh
What's the mountain up there? What's the in utah? Yeah was hatch no
Above salt lake, uh everybody goes
Skiing up there damn it. What's it called dude? Why can't why am I?
No park city park city. Oh, okay. I was out in park city for like two or three
weeks. There's a lot of distractions in park city, son
But not where we were no no, like feel like the the cabin that I rented out
there. Oh nice
There was nothing there. So how much time did you spend up there like?
17 days 18 days something like that so like the tail end of the camp
We were just like up there. Did you have to acclimate to the yeah to the to the
altitude?
How much time does that usually take?
Because that doesn't seem like enough. 17 days doesn't seem like enough
We I don't remember exactly how much time but we
For two weeks before that we're regularly going up to mount charleston and to
running other mountains and stuff like outside of vegas
Um, right because there is quite a bit of elevation outside of vegas and i
think vegas itself is five
I think it's no, I think it's 2 000 feet above sea level
Something like that. What's vegas above sea level?
Yeah, so there's 2 000 feet above sea level. There's a road right up by where
we train like it's called mount potosi and that's like seven
no
6 000 something like that. Okay, so it's like and it's it's very short like
very short distance
Drive and you go train up there. We just drive there and then we'd just run out
there
Train out there come back down home. One of the things that i've heard
It's there's different philosophies on how to handle training and altitude
But one of the things that i've heard is what you should do is you should train
at sea level and then sleep and live at a high altitude
So that way you get more output at sea level because you're getting more oxygen
So you could put in more work and then when you're at the higher altitude your
body is adapting
And developing more red blood cells and and all that stuff and you more
adaptation for oxygen makes sense
I've heard that as well. I just haven't tried it that makes sense to me
Because it's just the the idea but then it's like there's a mental benefit of
being able to put in the work at a higher altitude
You know and then knowing that like say if you train like I lived for a while
outside of boulder
I lived at this place that was 8 500 feet above sea level. Oh my god
It was it was working out there was rough. Yeah, it was crazy that when I would
go to boulder to train
I would go to a mall easton's jujitsu gym. It felt easier because it was only 5
000 feet
Because that's like boulders like 5 000 something and then one time
We had to go to philadelphia for like a ufc event and I was working out in philadelphia
And I felt like a fucking juggernaut. Yeah, I was like I have so much energy.
This is crazy
It's because I was at sea level. Yeah, and i'm not used to being at sea level
So when I was working out, I felt so good. I was like, oh my god. I have so
much fucking energy
It's because i'm used to being oxygen deprived
Have you uh, have you seen that thing they have at the pi the ozone machine? No
What is it the one that takes your blood and recycles? No, it's like uh, it's a
Altitude simulator, so I want to do it
But they they're like you got to commit to like a couple months of training to
see like the the real benefit of this
Oh, so you have to be there for a few months you have to like do you utilize
that place?
You're a vegas guy. I love like
They have you know amazing physical therapists
Um nutrition yeah nutrition. It's very convenient, you know, especially like
living there. Um, I just try to stay
I don't try to get too involved because every fighter can go and it's just like
you kind of run into other camps and blah blah
You're talking there. Yeah, a lot of shit talk or just
Yeah, energy energy and everybody john wood has such a great
Great gym too. Oh, yeah syndicate is syndicates so good. It's john's such a
great guy. Yeah, man great vibe
So happy for for everything right now with just like marab and oh, yeah him and
I and what I love the fact that marab
Even you know like he's still tight with his old crew. You know what I mean?
It's like and the same thing even when aj was training down there. They're
still tight
Yeah, ray longo and matt sarah and all those guys that got him to the dance and
then you see those guys also in his corner
It's a very collaborative thing where there's no the egos don't get in the way.
No
That's huge. That's a cool thing to respect. So cool like
Everybody around him. Um
Training partners too like
He just it's all top down right. He just brings a bunch of georgian guys in it
It's like yeah, if the guys at the top have a great vibe and they're all like
collaborative and work together
You know really you feel that vibe in the gym. Yeah, it spreads his energy is
definitely like infectious and one thing that's cool too is like
the way that john's
Organized training in syndicate now when when people have fights coming up and
like you're doing your live cage rounds and the whole gym's watching
You know what I mean?
Like yeah
Everybody's around the cage. You know what I mean and so you get used to that.
It's so cool
It's so cool. And what is it like having a rob in training?
There is there a fucking guy that has a better gas tank than that motherfucker.
I haven't seen him dude my week the fight week
Actually, I had just
The day of my fight, okay day of my fight woke up
Called John like hey, man want to get a shake out just like you should shake
out some nerves like, you know
Just hit some pads. He's like, okay cool. I'm down in the in the ballroom with
uh with murab
He's like, but you got to wait a few minutes like he's going some rounds. I'm
like rounds
And he's like, yeah, you just got you got to come down here and see it
So I'm like I go downstairs in the elevator
We can get to the room marab is doing live rounds on carpet hard floor in a
fucking ballroom
With some guy
And they're they're sparring rounds bro the day of the fight
Of my fight, so he didn't have a fight, but it was this was a week after his
uh, his second fight against somali
So they're doing live rounds on the carpet shin guards everything but like takedowns
jesus christ on hard floor and carpet and
He just doesn't stop. It's like it's like training never ends. That's how you
get staff. That's probably why you got stuff
Who knows, you know, but you like like they're just no one can stop the guy
Yeah, like he's just a big ball of energy. He really is like
Whether it's running up and down mountains and all this stuff like john wood
actually has to have some type of like monitor on this guy
He's like marab don't train today. Okay, coach. Okay, coach
next thing you know, he's on social media like
Out in the mountains, you know or in some river like it just he's yeah having
him having him around is crazy
Yeah, dc went to visit him the day after the o'malley fight the first fight and
he went to his house and he was running
Yeah, the day after he won the world title isn't and dc goes to his house and
he's like look at my rob's home gym
He goes, you know where this motherfucker is. He's out running. He's out
running the discipline. Oh yeah, it could be a second about it's discipline
He's addicted to discipline. Mm-hmm
It never ends. That's it. Like I think he's just one of those guys
It being there
I just there's a lot of people that are analyzing it like it has to be genetic
Does it does it like is his head is his head bigger is his chest bigger like
what's bigger? It's all the same
He's a normal size guy. Yeah, there's nothing. There's nothing extraordinary
about his physicality other than the fact that he's very strong
Yeah, which is there's a lot of strong guys
But it's not it's the accumulation of time spent on the path
And he has not deviated
Yeah at all and I don't think he's anywhere close to
He's not even in his prime. No, I mean, I mean he's in his prime clearly
But I don't think he's reached his full potential because I think he was even
better in the second O'Malley fight than he was the first fight
And I think O'Malley was considerably better. Yeah, but Merab's that much
better now
And you know this thing that happens and hopefully you'll get to experience
this when you win a title you get better
There's like dc says it's like 10 percent
It's like there's something that happens
Some people say 30 percent
But there's something that happens to where you realize like I am the fucking
best in the world
And you take that into your heart in your mind
And then you carry that like now you have that title you see it. It's sitting
there on your table
Or you have it on your wall, whatever wherever you put your belt
And you're like I am the fucking man now and now I will live this way
And then you see them going into the fight. You know, you see that with pantoja
Yeah
That dude does not get the love that he deserves when that guy gets into the
octagon
It's it's like a fucking leopard just entered the room. Yeah, it's wild man
It's wild like he's got this feeling about him that you know
Champions have when when they're just fucking feeling it
You know when that guy steps into the octagon you see him across the ring from
whoever the fuck he's fighting
It's like that's a that's a cat man. Yeah
You know what I mean?
Honestly, yeah, like uh, yeah, yeah, like a fucking jaguar or something jaguar
mountain
Something like killer. Yeah, just some elite killer. You can kind of sense that
like a little instinct in it
100% man 100 guys in it like he's for sure and he's locked in
I mean and you see the like I think the perfect fight for him
Was seeing Kaikawa France they fought and the ultimate fighter
And it was a good fight and then you see this new fight
Where as he's the champion Kaikawa France is the the contender. Yeah, he
fucking ran through him, man
Like you see it's a different human being. Yeah, he's a champion now
And where does he trade?
He's att att att yeah, I mean, I don't know if he spends his
All of his time down there. I don't know if he's there all the time if he just
goes there for camps
Yeah, make sure I don't know if he how he does it. Okay, I don't i'm not sure
if he's a
Um, a florida resident or if he lives in brazil and just goes there for camps.
Yeah, i'm not sure no, but yeah, whatever
I mean, whatever he's doing is definitely
Yeah, this is the thing about being the flyweight champ or if that motherfucker
was the middleweight champ, he'd be a superstar
He'd be the best mountain planet and that to me that drives me nuts because it's
like you just
I like martial arts. I like someone who
Represents the best of martial arts like and in my mind like that guy's as good
as anybody alive
Like when when he's running over every contender and and choking them out or
knocking them out or whatever the fuck he's doing like
Damn, yeah, it's tough man. It's like
It's tough in this sport because of the way the weight classes like a lot of
guys don't get
What's crazy is 35 gets so much love. Yeah, this is 10 pounds difference 10
pounds difference. Isn't that nuts? Yeah
That's kind of nuts. Yeah, because when you see pantoja next those guys there's
not much difference in size
It's kind of the same. That's why I like I forgot somebody not too long ago
asked me like my
uh, what would my mma like mount rushmore be
And I remember saying like anderson silva gsp
um
Demetrius johnson and amanda nunez and they were like demetrius johnson like
Oh, why would you even why would you even?
Hesitate hesitate. Why why are you even asking me that question? You know if
you weren't there during his prime
You had to see him during his prime, you know
When he was talking about martial arts like and just skill angles and finesse
and angles and speed and
Intelligence knowing exactly how to engage and his ability to transfer between
Grappling and striking seamlessly
Dude, seamlessly
Perfect word seamlessly like oh in his prime
In his prime, he was unstoppable. Yeah, but imagine demetrius johnson at light
heavyweight
There'd be statues of this man statue
You know what I mean like it'd be like the the rocky statue of philadelphia.
Yeah, who knows?
There would probably be multiple
Statues of this man all over the place. Yeah, what a great guy too. Oh, he's
the best. Yeah
And just again, just underappreciated for whatever reason, you know, and during
his reign
It just like his pay-per-view numbers were not what they should have been. Yeah
But it's because he's small. That's all it is. It's like the casuals
They they don't like who gives a how big he is compared to you
Just look at how he's the same size as the guys fighting and look what he can
do to that guy
We need to just we need to have
This is a joke. This isn't serious. This is a joke, but like
Smaller weight classes in a smaller cage
Well, it will make them look bigger on television and people will get what they
you know
They don't care people don't it's interesting because boxing has the same thing
You know, I mean when you get into the heavier weight look look usik made
Somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and thirty two million dollars for
that fight. That sounds amazing
Doesn't it? Yeah, I know it was me and Volkanovski and izzy were
Backstage at the ufc. We're at the weigh-ins and I pulled up the numbers
I go have you seen the fucking numbers there's a video of it on style bender's
website
Or his youtube page and i was like check this out because I had saved on my
phone in case I ran into any fighters like look at this
Look how crazy this is and dubois made like 71 or 72 million and usik made like
132
I mean like if I made that type of money, I wouldn't have to I wouldn't be
looking to like leave
What has to change for that to happen? I mean does this do the saudis have to
buy the ufc?
I don't know because I don't understand
That's kind of what they're doing with boxing. They're kind of buying boxing.
Yeah, I don't know man. I don't know
Like I don't know what needs to change
um
but
I mean all i'm saying is like it would be really cool. That's like a dream
like
to be able to
Make those kind of numbers. I would really love that for fighters. I mean, I
love when I hear fighters are making millions
It's great. Yeah, it's great because I remember the early days of the ufc when
people make pennies
Yeah, when there was no money to be made, I mean I started working for them in
1997 the previous owners
You know when it was uh before zufa
And nobody was making any money. There was no money in mma
You know, it's like everybody was scratching and clawing and they were just
doing it out of the love of the game
Yeah, or because they had you know had a career in wrestling and then that
wrestling amateur wrestling career was over and they're like
All right, i'm gonna be a fighter. Yeah, the money was in japan, no
There was money in japan. Yeah, but even the money in japan was not
Boxing money. No, no 10 grand. Yeah, it was you know, i'm sure they paid him
well
And at the time it was a lot
But I mean like fedor still fighting is he fighting because he wants to or is
he fighting because he has to you know
Which is crazy? Yeah, if one of the greatest of all time is fighting because he
has to it's not like fedor is like
Living the craziest flashiest lifestyle with like diamond like floyd mayweather
like if floyd mayweather went broke
He'd be like look at his instagram. Yeah, how's he not gonna go broke? Yeah,
meanwhile, he's not meanwhile
He's still got tons of money. Yeah, but you know floyd made hundreds of
millions of dollars
He probably made more money than any boxer that's ever lived
Oh, man, I
Yeah, it's a dream. Yeah, it's it's a dream. It'd be nice, but i'm not like i'm
i'm glad that it's
Improving it's improving. It's improving. It's definitely improving. It's
definitely it's like, you know, fighters can get rich now
Yeah, you know, yeah, we can actually
Plan retirement. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like that
That for now like i'm saying that like i'm grateful
And one of the things that I really like about the ufc too is they give
fighters a chance to have a career outside
Of that, you know, like paul felder and dc do commentary chel sunnin does his
stuff
Yeah, all those guys in the desk alan joban they all do their stuff like rashad
does his stuff. That's nice
It's like there's there's an opportunity to work outside of having to fight
You asked me, you know, like before like oh, you know
What would you do or like have I thought about anything? I honestly I would
love to work with the ufc not as a commentator
Because I don't really see myself like commentating or like being
You know someone speaking but i'd love to work for the ufc. Why wouldn't you
want to commentate or speak?
Uh, I don't know. I I personally I think i've mentioned this to you before like
I just don't know if I have
So much like input, you know when it comes to like other fighters skill or
whatever like i'm not the most exciting person
On a microphone, you know, like
But maybe you guys do well
Like you know, you guys have great reactions i'm kind of more like hmm
interesting like the old grandpa, you know, right
Right, right right rubbing my chin like but maybe not as a commentator then
maybe as someone on the desk analyzing things because you definitely have a
very unique
Viewpoint yeah viewpoint. I mean that that could work, but I think something
like i'd i don't know i'd rather be
Like I guess behind behind the like on the other side of the camera
What would you want to be doing?
I don't know something within the bit they do that like the ufc is such a large
company. There's so many departments
I am friends with
I try to make friends with everybody in every department because they're just
great people that make that make this all happen
The equipment team
You know ember stephanie like i've been testing the gloves for the ufc for the
past year
Making sure we get the right ones, you know
What's going on with the gloves because you and alex fought with the old the
new
The new old gloves yeah, because they got rid of them. Yeah, they spent like a
fucking year developing them
Yeah, and so I was a part of that entire process what happened?
What was wrong with those gloves? The main thing was that like because of the
leather the the logos weren't sticking
So the logos were peeling off peeling off peeling off. That's it and we tried
Joe i'm telling you we tried
Hundreds of different ways to get
The ufc logo printed on the gloves so that they will not come off in the octagon
from me testing it on the canvas
Doing live situations sparring rubbing in the cage blah blah and i don't get it
It just why does the old leather work better?
because with
Everything in the world but especially like in the in the industry of like
Like leather and suede and all this stuff like you can't if i had a pair of
leather shoes from
1970 it's going to be different than the leather that's made today
You get what? I mean like it just it changes both of them are made today the
old gloves and the new old gloves
It's a different type of leather. So it's a softer leather. It's just it's
It's just not the same like it's it's it's a little it was a little softer
But it's it's it's treated differently to be able to you know to to
Before like while it's being processed or whatever that whole like process
looks like
It's just there's some type of you know chemical or something that's just
different
Because what I had heard was that there was less knockouts with the new old
gloves the gloves that they developed and then they abandoned recently
There's less knockouts because i'm just hearing straight from
What you know the equipment team's being yelled at for and that's saying that's
the issue is that this leather doesn't
It has nothing to do with the lock the the knockouts
It's that every time when the fighters come to return a pair of gloves or
whatever or even in the fight
These it's peeling off or chipping off and that's that's a hazard if it gets in
your eye, right?
You know what I mean?
It's more about like the safety of the fighter not like we need more knockouts
change the gloves
Interesting because the knockout the knockout thing didn't make any no no no it
has nothing to do with the knockouts
It's more that the logo wasn't adhering and it doesn't look professional
To have these guys fighting a championship fight and then here's this guy
raising his hand
You don't even know like no ufc logo on the glove like what it all gets worn
off. It all gets worn off
So we we've tried so many different marker that wouldn't work
We can't sell a glove with magic marker on it. Yeah, but we have to make an
official glove, you know
Like but the training gloves, you know, just have ufc somewhere else
The training gloves. What about the people who want to buy an official ufc
glove?
Yeah, what are they doing with them if they're going to work out with them
still got to be official. I get it
You know the best gloves are trevor whitman's
He makes the best onyx
The best mma gloves they're the best and the ufc was trying to get those for
some
I don't I don't want to speak out of line here at a turn. I don't know exactly
what went on
But apparently trevor wanted more money than they were willing to give him, but
he makes the absolute best
MMA gloves they're the best and they turn over like this
Where it's not like this so you you don't like the thing that people the
problem with the old gloves that are now the gloves that everybody uses
Is that everybody says that they kind of force your hand into an open position
and you have to tighten up to make them close. Do you feel that?
Um, I agree with that, but I've I have found the solution to that. What's the
solution?
Just size up
Oh one size up. Yeah, they all weigh the same
Oh interesting. Yeah. They all weigh the same. So what size do you use this
last fight? I used a double x
And you usually use an x? Yeah
Interesting and I think it's like, you know a lot of fighters. We don't like to
stray from what we do
You know what I mean? Uh-huh
Every little thing can fuck with us, you know what I mean? Right
Some fighters. Maybe I shouldn't have gone to XXL. Yeah, that's why I didn't
knock him out. You know what I mean?
But um, yeah, if like if you're like you just have to think it's like, okay
The glove weighs the same whether it's an XL or an extra small it weighs the
same. How do they manage that? I don't know
But it weighs the same. That sounds suspicious. I'm gonna get a fucking scale
out
That just doesn't make any sense
Yeah, but that doesn't make any sense to me
But we're all fighting and you know, unless they make it with thinner pads
Mmm, I don't would have to be
Maybe it would have to be oh, yeah, because then your hand can't fit in the
yeah
Yeah, like if I tried to get into an extra smaller it would work. So yeah, um
But like let's say the size between an XL and a double x they weigh the same.
Okay, and
I have to consider. Okay, I'm getting my hands wrapped as well, right? So yes,
this XL glove fits like a glove
But what about when I wrap my hands right now? I wrap my hands
It's too tight and then now my hands are like this and i'm like cutting off
your circulation almost
Yeah, so the idea is size up even if it's two sizes up
You're not going to have an issue
You know or you go with a thinner wrap or no wrap you have that option
Well, joe peiffer fights with no wrap. Yeah, which is crazy. I think it's
savage. I kind of want to do it
Yeah, yeah, I would have fought with no wrap with the other glove the new glove
the new old glove
then
The new one that they abandoned the old new glove. Yeah
I would have thought those felt so much better to me
With no wrap man if I was the ufc and clearly i'm not a good businessman
But if I was uh, I would say listen, how about
You sell us the gloves we'll promote your gloves you sell them on your website
We don't make any profit off of it
Just give us your gloves to use for the fights and we'll we'll blow your
business up. That's what I would do
I would say look you want a lot of money for your gloves good sell them
Everybody should buy them anyway. He makes the best bag gloves best sparring
gloves
Trevor's a fucking wizard man. Yeah, that's what i've gathered from just like
He's a very interesting guy very smart guy great trainer
Just a great person, but his gloves his mma gloves you put them on you're like.
Oh, why aren't they all like this?
Yeah, the padding is a much more sophisticated. Yeah, and the boxing. I
remember I think one time he sent me a pair of boxing gloves
um
Like this was a couple years ago and I saw it like it came with this paper and
you're supposed to put a blow dryer in it first
And you turn the blow dryer on to warm up the padding in there
Specifically like for that and then once it's heated up then you put the glove
on and you wrap it up and then you let the padding
Cool down and then it molds to your hand
I don't know if people remember that about the glove
But that's I didn't know that's the that's how you should wear those gloves. Oh,
that's interesting. I didn't know that that makes sense
Yeah, but he told he was explaining to me the different kinds of foam that you
can buy and that people buy cheap foam
And it's not it's not as like high density and it's not as good doesn't protect
you as well
And his is like the most expensive but the best
But when his gloves the design of his gloves your hands are curled like this
So it's an effort to do that
but
I don't know man. I I I feel like we're
Stagnant in innovation with glove development in the first place because I don't
think this is necessary
No, I train with uh, the old like ollie mittens. Oh, okay. Those are my
favorite gloves in the world to do mma with
I put a wrap on under it
You know for for padding or a pad whatever and
I can still grapple with it. Yeah, my fingers are just like this
Which is but this this is how you grapple anyway. Yeah, exactly. You never do
this. No, you never interlace your fingers
So why are the fingers even exposed? Because eye pokes are a giant issue. Yeah
And if you let's say you could just eliminate finger pokes and all you have is
thumb pokes
You would take away 80 90 percent of all eye pokes. Yeah, and it would be
obvious if someone did it on purpose
And then derrick lewis would be fucked
How about that interview? I'll poke him in the eye and kick him in the nuts. He's
so crazy. What a god
He was telling the truth about like hitting someone in the nuts because he was
tired. Yeah, he's like I was tired
I needed five more minutes or some shit. He's like I'll poke him in the eye. I
cheat. He was just like I cheat
I was like dude this what the hell, but he's also crazy enough to say that um
That he's like, oh, yeah, the the ufc is is scripted
Oh, yeah, that was ridiculous. It's like dude anybody I was like, I know you're
joking
But like the problem is that gets on the internet
Yeah, there's so many people that believe you now like that's a funny joke, but
damn it dude, bro. There's no script
There's the when when you see he knocked out curtis blades. No script for that,
bro. Yeah, you can't
You can't script that's just derek has got some phenomenal god-given power. He
cannot script what we do
Yeah, no, it's of course. You can't script it
It's super obvious to anybody that watches that that's the dumbest ever casual
fan like
Comments and it's a scripted fake. He was supposed to
Dina white made him win that fight
Oh, it's so crazy to say but that said like
Here's the thing. Yeah, you know Aspinall is gonna fight cyril gone
Yeah, I might
If I was running things I might set up the derrick lewis fight with Aspinall
I might say forget cyril gone for now
Like derrick just has his big knockout win who's more popular than derrick who's
who's more beloved by fans and derrick
Yeah, I mean that would be a great fight to set up absolutely, but I think that
From I guess a business standpoint. It makes sense to use cyril because of
everything that he's doing in france
Okay, yeah, that makes sense right movie star, you know, I mean
the entire country behind him now, so
like
Yeah, with the inner with the ufc, you know expanding internationally
it's like, you know, aspinall is a
You know british icon mm-hmm
Cyril's a french icon the whole aspinall john jones thing is so crazy. The
whole thing is so crazy
Yeah, absolutely
John doesn't seem to
John marches to the beat of his own drummer son. Yeah, yeah
I mean like he's he's dead set and what he wants and how he views it
So like but now he wants to fight for the title at the white house and dana shane
is like nope
I can't trust john. Yeah, did not fuck something up. Yeah, which is wild. Yeah,
but also
What are you gonna say when john just recently got in more trouble?
I mean, it's it's
It's tough. I mean
For dana, you know in his position. Yeah
It's too risky. It is. It's very risky like oh, yeah, and it sucks because it's
like man
You've got so much talent and the most talent and such an incredible resume
Yeah, and now I there's nothing that I can really do about it. The story as old
as time though, isn't it? Yeah
The story as old as time. Well, that's one of the things I appreciate about you
Like you're a very different kind of dude, you know who's in the same business
Yeah, same wild ass chaotic business, but you choose
To put your sights on a different prize like you're you're about
Growth. Yeah, you know you're about your own mind and and conquering these
challenges
And this is what it's about for you. Yeah, i'm i'm i'm grateful and blessed to
be in the position that i'm in
And like I don't want to
I don't want to waste anything. You know what I mean?
Like I don't want to waste it
I want to be able to look back when i'm older and and know that I use my time
You know and in a in a good way
um that I continue to grow and to learn and develop
Until it's over, you know, like I think john does that too
But also he just loves to party. He just he gets crazy. He just loves to get
crazy. And I think that like
We've seen that so many times like there's we've seen so many athletes and
celebrities
Fall victim yep to fame and partying. Oh, yeah, and what that comes with
We're watching it with connor and we've seen the same people
Who are addicted to discipline?
Mm-hmm
Who do you admire and what they who do you who are you going to listen to first
thing in the morning?
You know listen to khabib khabib. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's like if there is
anybody
As a as a combat sports, you know
Practitioner and fighter if there's anybody who I would say like i'd want to be
or like model myself after in my career
I'd be muhammad ali
Just
Because of everything you know what I mean like humanitarian
Like he was beloved by people from all around the world, you know what I mean
like
Just different metals from united nation and like you know, like there's a
cultural thing cultural figure and like not that like
i'm not as outspoken as you know as he was but
for just like
The things that he was
Also remembered for outside of the ring. I just look at that as like so admirable
and he gave young men like me something to kind of like
Aim at and like model myself after you know like that to me
I feel like is very important especially in this country and as a young man who
maybe doesn't have a father figure or
Who doesn't know what to become and then you read the story about li and you're
like, oh that's similar to me
I can become something I can be an olympian. I can be a champion
Like it just takes this you know what I mean like like i'm not different
I'm actually there's actually people like like me out there and I like, you
know
It just gives you something to kind of hope to become and so I try to
I
I try to just be authentically me so that
Whoever out there does connect with me
Can see that you know
Yeah, you can go through certain shit, but like
There's so much stuff that is possible for you like your life's not over. Yeah,
you're in a bad position now
But you can get yourself out of it. There's tons of help out there, you know
Mental health is a big thing. You know, it's not the end of the world, you know
And if you feel like it is their support, you know, and if you actually have a
disorder there's support for that too
there's also outlets like martial arts and
You know communities and things like that that will make you feel less alone in
life
And like martial arts is a big one. Yeah, you know, that's a big one and people
that feel outside
Yeah, go go to a
Martial arts studio go to a gym
Where there you're gonna find a whole lot of people just like you that are
already on this path. Yeah
And and that are cool people to learn from I mean, that's what changed that's
what I just put myself in a new environment
And then I started learning how to eat and how to think
You know what I mean and started to get courage and and carry myself
differently and the weight started coming down and blah blah blah
And then there you go, you know, my my mental health stuff was a lot less, you
know, it's never
Gone away completely, you know, but it's a lot less than it was when I was 19
years old
But I mean does it ever go away completely?
No, it doesn't it's life, you know what I mean? Like it's life, but we don't a
lot of people we don't have the tools, you know
Or we don't have the people to listen to or whatever to be able to be like,
okay
It's not just me. It's everyone. So what can I do to deal with this? You know
what I mean? Yeah, like
I I think that yeah, that's that's kind of my my thing
So I think about when I get on a microphone or when I go fight or whatever like
there's a sense of responsibility
It's not just about me in this world, you know
Like and that's it's to be honest, it's a struggle. It's hard to not it's hard
to think that way
It's very easy to be selfish. It's very easy to just think me me me me me
You know my problems my struggles my this but like to to consider
Millions of people and lives and children
And youth and teenagers that are watching the sport and like
I have to be conscious of of the things that I do and how I live my life
because I don't want to be
The guy on the news
You know what I mean? Like I just don't want to be that guy. I'm terrible. I'm
terrified of prison
You know what I mean? I'm fucking you know, I'm trying to make friends with
police officers
You know what I mean? Like yeah, I'm like I'm just like I'm just like okay like
Trying to do the right thing not only for myself, but for my family for my
father, you know
So like there's just a lot of responsibility that comes with with this game and
and how we live our lives man
Well, that's very admirable
And i'm i'm glad there's people like you out there that do present a very
positive role model because I know for a lot of young people
They turn towards really successful people in sports and and particularly
fighters
Especially if you are a martial artist yourself
And you look at someone who carries themselves a certain way and you admire it
and you want to be like that person
Like I want I aspire to be my own version of what that means to me what this
person means to me
What they represent to me which is like a championship mindset like someone who's
really like there's a lot of people with championship mindset that never become
a champion
but they
100% inspire people to live better lives
Yeah, and that's the journey that's the path that i'm on
for the rest of my life
Beautiful. Yeah, this is the best way to end the podcast. Yeah, absolutely. Um,
listen brother. I appreciate you very much
And uh, I wish you all the best of luck and i'm real excited to see this fight
with yuri prohaska. Thanks. It should be a banger
Thanks for having me. My pleasure
Congratulations on everything. Thanks, man. I look forward to congratulating
you again. Hell yeah. All right
All right, bye everybody later