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Gable Steveson is a mixed martial artist, wrestler, boxer, and Olympic gold medalist. www.gablesteveson.com
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Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
All right, what's happening?
Pleasure to meet you, man.
How are you?
Great, I'm great.
When you got a name like Gable, and you're named after Dan Gable, and you go on
to win
an Olympic gold medal in wrestling, that is kind of...
That's crazy, right?
That's kind of prophetic.
My mom, when I was young, she was trying to find names for me.
And she liked Cale Sanderson, because Cale was a guy at the time.
But she was at a tournament in Iowa with my older brother.
And she kept hearing Gable, Gable, Gable.
And it was Dan Gable at the time.
And, you know, Dan Gable was a huge figure in the Midwest for wrestling.
And so she was like, why don't I name you Gable Dan?
And the rest was history, which is really crazy.
Because his whole timeline is my timeline, which is fantastic.
Except the MMA part.
That too.
Yeah.
Which I wish he would have done.
I think he would have been amazing.
I think he would have been amazing.
But it wasn't around.
I mean, when he was wrestling.
Bare knuckle, maybe.
I don't know.
Do it on the street or something.
He could have found a way.
It's kind of fucked that there's no real professional outlet for actual
wrestling.
It is fucked.
And wrestling needs a real way to go out there and be something big.
And I think they have a really good one now with RAF, if you haven't heard
about it.
Yes, I have.
It's American Freestyle.
They're trying.
And I think they're trying really well.
And I think it's going to come to a point where, how do you make matchups
continue?
Because wrestling gets to the point where, and fighting in a lot of the sports,
you can
get to the point where, maybe you draft a guy.
In fighting, there's a next big thing.
There's a next guy out there that you can kind of create.
And with wrestling, they're trying to create an atmosphere of how can you
create that person.
And I like it.
And I think it might work.
And hopefully, it keeps going the way it needs to go.
It would be interesting if the problem is MMA is so huge now.
And people kind of associate wrestling with either MMA or pro wrestling now.
Those are the two things that they think of.
And I think it's one of those things like soccer, where soccer should be huge
in America.
It's huge all over the world.
Right.
It's a very exciting sport.
But, nope.
You know what's crazy?
How popular soccer players are.
And I feel like in America, we have so many sports that we can't hit that
market for soccer.
And I think that might be the biggest case.
Why?
Because if you go overseas, Ronaldo's paid $500 million.
And if he scores a goal, he gets a million dollars a goal or something.
So he's out here doing bicycle kicks.
But it's like we have so many professional sports that LeBron James is our
biggest athlete.
But even then, I think it's at a point where some people see LeBron and, you
know, it's not like the crazy wow factors.
If you saw a soccer player in Italy or Spain, it'll be like, man, it's him.
Right.
Well, they have less sports, though, right?
I think so.
Italy?
I think Italy got, like, basketball, soccer.
Well, they're not really known for basketball, though.
Soccer's big.
Boxing.
There's a lot of boxers come out of Italy.
But other than that.
Rome.
They got a couple fighters.
But other than that, I think we're kind of at a halt with creating that big guy
for America.
Well, it's just strange to me because it's such a – wrestling itself is such
an exciting sport.
It really is very exciting to watch.
And everybody understands it.
It's not complicated.
I think – I really think everyone understands it to a certain extent.
I think –
But they can learn the points and all the other stuff.
Have you wrestled?
Yeah.
Wrestling in high school.
How did you do it?
Just one year.
I was doing Taekwondo at the same time.
Because I was doing Taekwondo, and I couldn't do both of them at the same time.
And I was pretty good at Taekwondo.
You know what's crazy?
I think since you've done Taekwondo, maybe I should try.
You are such an athlete, you'd probably be awesome at it.
I might be able to pull it off.
I don't know if I can get to your level.
Well, you would figure it out, man.
You'd figure it out.
Are you flexible?
It depends how and what are we doing.
Well, you would get flexible.
The thing is, like, you'd figure out how to get flexible.
The flexibility thing drives me nuts.
Because I've tried to show stuff to guys before.
MMA fighters.
And they're like, oh, I'm not flexible.
I'm like, what does that mean?
What does that mean?
This is not like you're not tall.
Like, you can get flexible.
Like, you just stretch.
Okay, we can rewind now, and I can say I am flexible.
I am flexible.
Well, you certainly could get flexible.
You can.
Anyone can get flexible.
But it's not, can you get flexible?
Do you want to get flexible?
That's a good question.
Do you want to do something?
This is a good question.
It's a lot of work to get flexible.
And would it compromise anything?
You know, some people say it compromises some stability.
You know, like, to have, like, completely over-flexible hips and flexible
joints that it could possibly compromise some stability that maybe.
But, I mean, Yoel Romero is pretty fucking flexible.
And he's explosive.
Crazy explosive.
Super explosive.
Bro, how about that match with Pat Downey?
He went out there and made Pat Downey look like a beginner wrestler.
And it's crazy because Pat Downey's really good.
Really good?
Yoel's 48.
I know.
48 shooting blast doubles.
Like, he just, like, he's back in 04 Olympics.
It doesn't make any sense.
He's a freak.
It doesn't.
He's a real freak, man.
And, I mean, he's 48 allegedly.
We don't even really know how old he is because he's from Cuba.
How old do you think he is for real?
Oh, I don't know, man.
35 at this point?
I mean, he's obviously at least 48.
But it's just crazy.
But you know what the best part about it is?
When guys get older and they kind of get a little bigger, they don't look good
in a singlet.
And this is crazy to say, but Yoel looks really solid in that singlet.
Oh, bro, he looks solid everywhere, man.
He's still got a six-pack.
Still does.
And, you know, now he's doing dirty boxing and he's still fighting MMA.
He's just, he's a freak.
I mean, and we really didn't even get him in MMA until he was past his athletic
prime.
Yes.
I mean, he really started fighting in the UFC.
How old was he when he first fought in the UFC?
I want to say he's like 35.
I don't know that.
But it seemed really late because when he was going through Olympics, he was
sound in every position.
And like you said, I mean, in a couple interviews back, if he would have
started that early, just imagine.
Oh, my God.
Just imagine.
But that's the thing that you have, too, is athleticism.
And the thing about MMA is the real freak athletes, they go to football, they
go to basketball, they go where all the money is, and they go where all the
traditional sports avenues are.
And it's just, there's not a lot of freak athletes that wind up making their
way to MMA, and when they do, they really shine.
You know, and when I first started seeing you competing, you know, first,
obviously, in wrestling, and, you know, if you can win a gold medal in the
Olympics in wrestling, I mean, you have to have everything.
You have to have everything.
You have to be a freak athlete.
You have to be unbelievably dedicated, disciplined.
Nobody gets there easy.
No.
That is not a, you know, like, oh, he's just gifted.
It doesn't exist.
You got to have everything, man.
There's got to be a lot of tools.
Yeah.
A lot of tools.
A lot of tools and a lot of fortitude.
The thing about wrestling that I've always said is, like, not only is it the
best base for MMA, because if a guy can dictate where the fight takes place,
that is the most important aspect of fighting, and you can learn everything
else.
But it's also, it's like the mental toughness that wrestlers have, the ability
to grind out those practices, the conditioning that's involved in wrestling.
It's above and beyond, I think, all other sports.
Yeah.
I think it's a next level thing.
And you see in UFC right now that guys that are dominating and winning are kind
of putting that wrestling base first, but making it MMA wrestling.
You know, I feel like when a lot of guys, a lot of D1 wrestlers come to MMA,
they kind of don't make the switch of how to take the right shot and how to
finish the right shot and how to use your feet to trip their feet out on the
cage.
And if you get stuck in a guillotine, how do you move from that spot?
And I think you see the guys that are doing it best, the Islam, the Hamzats,
are really going out there and attacking and making sure that people can
understand that, hey, you've got to fear this.
And then next, I'm going to come with the hands.
And so I think that's the biggest thing that we're working on now is that I've
wrestled my whole life, and I've done great things and won the Olympics and
multiple national championships.
But I think the main thing is going out there and understanding that you are
that bad dude, but when you show them hands, now you have to respect both.
And I think that's where a lot of this is going to come into play when I
finally get to that point of reaching that competition.
Now, how long have you been striking for?
I've been going into a little—so I'm from Minnesota, Apple Valley.
I'm actually from Portage, Indiana.
I moved to Apple Valley, Minnesota when I was 11 years old.
And in college, I met a guy named Billy Simon.
He's from Pryor Lake.
He fought nothing too big, just on a regional scene in Minnesota.
He has a house on Pryor Lake, and he has a place in his basement that is built
out for MMA and stuff like that.
When I was maybe 21 years old, I started hitting the pads.
And mind you, stiff as a board, don't really know what I'm doing.
But he's kind of started and guided me along the way.
And how old are you now?
I'm 25.
So just four years?
Just four years, but I think really, really striking, seven months.
That's so crazy.
Like, really after it—
That's so crazy.
Really time-consuming.
Hey, this is what I want to do.
I'm not going to wrestle.
I'm doing MMA.
I would say seven months.
But when you watched your dirty boxing match, I would have never believed that.
Except I know what an athlete you are.
It's just—it's so crazy how someone who really knows how to use their body
can learn other things.
Well, I think the main thing also is I'm all ears.
You know, you can't have—you can't go out there and think that you can do
something without putting that time and effort in, like we talked about with
the Olympics or like you talked about.
But I think the main thing is if I can go out there and be all ears and soak up
game from the people that are trying to show me the way, I think I can do a lot
of great things.
And that's all I do.
I'm all ears.
I want to show up twice a day.
I want to do the best thing that I can.
If I've got to show up three times a day and I feel like it, I'm going to go do
it.
Well, it's also to be an elite athlete like yourself, you have to be coachable.
You have to really—like the guys who like already know things, like I'm going
to do it my way, like they never get elite.
It doesn't work.
No.
And I think you've got to put that guard down.
You've got to trust somebody.
And if you don't trust anybody and, man, I think I can do it alone.
I think I can kind of wing it.
I think I can maybe not practice today.
You've got to trust somebody and you've got to put your heart into somebody.
And I feel like I have a good group of people around me to kind of put that
heart into.
And they're kind of—they're not even their kind of—they're leading me in
the right direction.
And, man, I'm grateful.
So you were doing a bunch of different things, right?
So you become an elite wrestler.
And then for a while, you were thinking about playing football.
So you played football for a short amount of time?
Buffalo Bills, yeah.
Yeah.
How long did you play it for?
I never played football in my life.
Never played?
No, that was the first time I played football.
I promise.
That's crazy.
First time you played football was professional.
It was in the NFL.
My mom was always scared.
The high school coaches at Apple Valley High School in Minnesota were like, hey,
come play football.
They were trying to call my mom and dad.
And I'm like, you're not going to convince her.
She is scared to death of football.
But the whole time, I'm wrestling.
So where do we break this gap at?
Right, right.
And I just get done with WWE.
And I go out there and I'm chilling.
I get a call saying, hey, you want to try out for the Bills?
And I tell Sean McDermott and Brandon B, and I said, hey, don't expect much,
but I could
put on shoes, but I've never had football cleats on.
I never had pads on.
I don't even know how to put the tights on, anything.
And I went out there and I sprinted my ass off, though, in that tryout.
I was sprinting down and back and forth.
I said, hey, if I don't know any technique for D-line, you're going to see
effort.
And McDermott saw effort.
And that's all he needed to see.
And he gave me a chance.
What was that like, like jumping into a completely new sport?
Hard, because it's not just football.
How old were you when you did that?
I just turned 24.
Wow.
I just turned 24.
Ooh.
I know you see it.
You see that stance?
That's the beginner stance.
That's the beginner stance.
But I came out there, no gloves, just winging it.
And I told them, just give me a good chance, but football is not just football.
It's the playbook.
And the playbook is crazy because I went from, hey, go out there and wrestle
someone one-on-one
to see if the guard is light on his feet or see if he's leaning forward,
see if the center is going to silent count maybe,
or see if the guard taps the center to snap the ball.
There's a lot of different things that you've got to know.
And I'm out there with this big-ass helmet on.
I've never put a helmet on, Joe, so I'm out there with this big-ass helmet.
My head's, like, down and I can't look up.
And I don't know what I'm doing.
But I knew if I gave effort that someone would give me a chance.
And I went out there, and my first game, I feel like I think I had a tackle, a
QB rush,
and I was kind of unheard of at the time because I've never played ball before.
But it was crazy.
Once-in-a-lifetime experience, most definitely.
And when you got cut, did you think about trying somewhere else?
Did you think about doing it more?
Yeah, once I got cut from Buffalo, I was the last one to get cut from the room.
I remember going in to see Bean and McDermott, and they were going to do
practice squad.
But I knew they weren't going to do practice squad.
So I was like, yo, just send me home.
I'll figure it out.
I'll try again.
So my plan was to go back to college in Russell already.
But I sat around for maybe a month.
Baltimore Ravens called me, and Baltimore was like, hey, do you want to come to
a tryout?
I said, okay.
You know, I never played football before.
Just to let you know, like, if it's a little shaky.
I went out there, and I dominated the tryout.
And I had, like, 10 minutes of work.
But it was a great 10 minutes.
And they're like, okay, we're going to take your physicals.
You're going to be here and stay.
Their injury report comes back, and the injury report says they need a DN and a
linebacker.
So you've got to compensate for the spot because you need someone to play next
week.
And I probably needed, like, six weeks on practice squad to play.
And so I get sent home.
They said, give me a week.
We'll bring you back.
A week comes.
They'll bring me back.
And so I'm like, okay, I see the writing on the wall.
Let me move on.
I sit for a little bit.
Indianapolis Colts call.
They just got ran over by a team.
They said, we need a run stopper.
So I go out there, do the trial.
I think it went well.
They said, we're not taking anybody today.
And then from there, I was like, you know, maybe this is not it.
And so I went back to wrestle.
And did you ever think about MMA at that time?
Was it in the back of your head?
MMA was in the back of my head since the Olympics.
But I wanted to make sure that if I was going to go to MMA, that let me try
things first before going all in on something that I need to go all in on.
And I did my tryouts.
I did my things.
And now I want to go in all in on something that is finally here.
And when your mom was scared of you doing wrestling, how did she feel about you
doing MMA?
Oh, you know, she's shitting all over.
Oh, my God.
She can't even watch.
She didn't even watch me wrestle.
And so now I'm like, Mom, I got a dude about to punch me in the face.
Maybe if he can get to me.
Are you sure you want to come and watch?
And she's like, yeah, I'll come watch.
And she comes and has a good time and has her drinks.
And when I step out, I'm like, where were you?
Oh, I was in the back.
So you didn't even see me fight?
I'm like, why you even come then?
So she, out of the three fights I've had, she's sat in the back.
And she'll be like, John will go and get her and be like, Gable's done.
And she'll be like, oh, what happened?
And John will be like, good.
It's all day.
So does she get nervous?
Is that what it is?
Oh, my God.
She's sweating.
She's nervous.
But I'm just like, I'll give her that look of like, if this is one of them ones,
I'm going to tell you.
But I haven't given her those looks yet.
So she'll know.
So when you make this, so you decide football's not going to happen, WWE's not
going to happen.
You did like one televised match with WWE, right?
I did, yes.
Yeah.
What was that like?
Honestly, I had a great, from me being real and honest, I had a great
experience.
I have no, nothing wrong with anybody there.
TKO was great.
Triple H, Paul Levesque was great.
Stephanie, Vince, everybody was great.
I just had a competitive drive that I needed to get out.
And so, you know, when you have, that gap is there, you can't do both.
Right.
And I was trying to bridge both, and I wasn't giving my 100% to the business.
And if I'm not going to give 100% to the business, then you might as well X me
out.
Yeah.
Because it's already over with.
So I just, that's how, that's practically how it happened.
Yeah, no slight on pro wrestling, but it's just like, if you really want to
compete, compete.
You got to get it all out.
Yeah.
And so I would love to go back in the future.
I would love to do a sport and go out there and dominate.
And then, hey.
Maybe after the UFC heavyweight champ.
For sure.
Maybe after a couple times.
And so I would love to go.
And if it meant well, then I would do it again, most definitely.
Because I have no hard feelings to them, and that's how it goes.
So when you make the decision that you're going to go into MMA, what is that
like?
Like, what are the steps that you take?
I got done with NCAAs, and I said, I flew down to Miami.
I met with John and a couple other people, and I said, hey, I want to fight.
And, you know, John had me in his camp.
So we're talking about John Jones.
And did you know John before this?
I knew John because I knew John from Instagram.
John, like wrestling.
So I knew John from IG.
He sent me a DM.
He sent me his number.
And if you know John, he don't answer the phone worth anything.
And it's crazy.
But he sent me his number.
He said, call me.
So I called him.
And this was before he got hurt for the first Stipe fight.
He was like, I want you to come practice with us.
You know, I want a wrestling partner.
I left him and played football.
The next year comes.
No, I'm sorry.
I was, I don't even know where I was at at the time.
But Skip, we go, and he's like, I want you to come back for the second camp.
He's going through it.
Me and John hit it off like that.
Wow.
We hit it off immediately.
And so when you guys started training together in camp, is that when it really
sunk in your head?
When you're like, this is what I want to do?
Yeah.
He really, he really, I needed somebody to kind of engrave it in me.
With the wrestling, I had my father.
I had the University of Minnesota.
I had a lot of good people around me kind of like say, hey, this is how we're
going to do it.
This is where you need to go.
And this is how you're going to, this is how it's going to happen.
And when I saw John, I saw that drive of like, damn, you know, this guy's
winning.
And people get close, but they can't get past him.
And why is that?
So I really sat back and like watched his mental and like how he went about a
lot of things,
how he talked to people, how he greeted people, how he walked, how he punched,
maybe how he looked when he was in the pocket.
When he needed to get out, when he rested his hands.
And I saw everything.
And I was like, wow, like, man, this guy's a superstar, super, super star.
And we all know that.
And, and, and, and people know that for a long time now, but I really saw him.
And I was like, damn, I want to be that.
And that's what kind of, that's what flipped my switch right there.
What an amazing opportunity.
You know, you haven't done any MMA and you get to go in there and train with
the goat.
It's crazy.
This one, man, you know, it's hard to explain.
I tell people, people ask me all the time, like, what was it like seeing John
for the first time?
Because I'm 25.
So when John was like super peak, I was like 12, 13 years old.
And I'm looking at this guy beat Gustafson, Reyes, and Tiago Santos and stuff
like that.
So it's different.
You see a different side of people.
And, and when I saw John, I was like, wow, like I've seen you for my whole life
and I get to see you in person.
Like, how cool is that?
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And for people that don't even know, the close fights that John had, they were
really only close because John wasn't training.
That's really all it is.
That's true.
100%.
John was partying and he was what I would call playing with his food, you know?
Yeah.
He didn't, like, the Gustafson fight is a perfect example.
Didn't train at all for the Gustafson fight.
I mean, I talked to Greg Jackson and he was like, I swear to God, he barely
showed up.
I'm like, that is so crazy.
And then he gutted it out in the last rounds.
That's what's crazy.
It's a close decision, but he wins the fight by gutting it out in the final
rounds when he's done relatively no strength and conditioning.
Nothing.
So crazy.
It's fantastic to see.
Then really gets motivated for the second fight with Gustafson.
And blows him out.
And just smokes him.
Blows him out.
Which is what you expect.
When John is in prime form, he's the greatest of all time.
Most definitely.
For you to be able to be a young guy who's thinking about MMA and train with
the greatest of all time, now two-division world champion, it's crazy.
Amazing opportunity.
And it's amazing because you don't see the guy that's, you see the best of the
best right away.
We're back.
So anyway, where were we?
John Jones.
Yeah.
So you're saying you, so you were talking about what it's like to first start
training with him.
So you had no MMA training really before that at all?
You had just been doing a little bit of striking with this guy?
Joe, I kid you not.
I didn't even know really how to defend punches.
That's crazy.
I didn't know how to defend punches.
And you probably saw a video of him throwing the knee at me.
Because I'm so hard-headed.
I'm like, let me shoot on John.
But the whole time I forgot he's a national championship wrestler.
Right.
So I didn't even know how to defend a punch.
I didn't know how to defend a kick.
I didn't know how to do anything.
But I went in there and I said, hey, if you need somebody, it's got to be me.
And that's how hungry I was.
And I feel like that's how kids should be nowadays about getting that
opportunity.
Man, just be hungry.
Because someone's going to respect you.
Yeah, for sure.
But, I mean, not a whole lot of people get that opportunity.
That's a crazy opportunity.
It's also, like, John is an elite wrestler as well.
And so, like, learning how to incorporate elite wrestling into all the other
aspects of MMA and to be able to go right into camp with John is just, this is
amazing.
Incredible opportunity.
It's super incredible.
I'm grateful for it every day.
And especially he's still here in my corner to this day.
We talked this morning.
He's still giving me all the pointers, all the advice, even when we're not even
fighting.
Just telling me how I should say things, what I should say, how I need to go
about life, how I need to go about business and meeting people and greeting
people.
So it's a true opportunity.
That's awesome.
That's really awesome.
So when you were in camp with him, you're going through the camp.
Were you planning on MMA then?
Or, like, how does it work?
Like, what were you thinking?
Were you just, like, the moment you started training with him, is that when it
really started the fire in you?
Yes.
I had a little bit of burn for it.
Like, in the back of your mind?
Yes.
But a little burn, you got to have the heart.
You got to have the heart.
So kind of what was the stamp on it was I went to Madison Square Garden with
him.
And John was just doing John things, you know, just being a superstar.
Everybody knew who he was.
And I was like, man, you know, I got an Olympic gold medal.
You know, like, maybe I should be getting some, too.
Like, you know, like, John showed me the way a little bit.
So I'm trying to have him show me the way.
He's bringing me to every place, meeting every person, you know, showing me the
opportunities that he has.
And he looks at me and he was like, you can have this, too.
And that was kind of the cherry on the top.
But we can put another cherry on the top and do a double one when he won the
fight.
And then I'm holding the belt with him.
And, like, I see this guy face to face.
And, you know, he's just the most popular man on earth for that day.
And it's kind of like, wow.
Like, you don't really get to see the backstage moments.
You get to see the guy go out there on TV and fight.
But I got to see the backstage of everyone taking the pictures with him, the
superstars.
You know, I'm walking out the Knicks game and I see Queen Latifah.
And I'm like, damn, that's Queen Latifah.
And I'm taking a selfie with Queen Latifah.
I'm like, yo, can I send this to my mom?
And she's like, yeah, go ahead.
And I see Fat Joe talking to him and everybody.
And I'm like, wow, like, this is what it is to be, like, a real fighting star.
Like, and fighting is one-on-one.
And people want to watch someone fight.
But I think in other sports, like we talked about earlier, there's a full team
with helmets on, with jerseys on.
But in fighting, people want to meet that badass dude.
And they want to meet the champ.
And that's what I want to be.
Yeah.
So what is training with John like?
Like, what is the training camp like?
Like when, you know, you obviously haven't gone into training camp with any
other elite fighters.
But one of the more interesting things that separates John from everybody else
is like,
John doesn't take no short-notice fights.
John game plans for everybody.
He studies tendencies.
He's, his fight IQ, I mean, it's obviously he has everything.
He obviously has all the skills.
Obviously has all the drive and everything else.
But the fight IQ is the big one.
That's the big one.
Because if you don't have a good driver, who gives a fuck how fast your car is?
True.
It's really the mind behind it that puts it all together.
He's sitting in a Ferrari with Ferrari gas.
A lot of people sit in a Ferrari with 87 gas and a car don't work.
So when I got to see those tendencies of him watching people, and he does it to
me now where he'll send me videos on Instagram of the top UFC guys.
Be like, oh, watch how he steps.
You know, watch when he throws a punch, how he comes back and he doesn't reset
this certain way.
And he's kind of already installing those tendencies in me.
And so now, when I was wrestling, I never used to watch people wrestle.
Like, I went out there on a limb and I was just beating guys.
Even in Olympics, I never watched anyone wrestle.
I never watched their film.
Really?
Never.
I told coaches, don't show me one video because I don't want to focus on that
one thing he did.
And that was me being hard-headed.
Like, if a guy had a great double leg, and I'm like, damn, how do I stop this
double leg?
And I'm worried about stopping a double leg instead of doing my offense.
And so I never watched anybody.
I went to the Olympics and I said, show me the guys I'm wrestling.
And I said, let's do it.
You know, the guys right now are just banging their head against the wall
listening to this.
I was like, damn, he did that to me?
That's crazy.
I said, let's do it.
I said, it's me or you as do or die.
And this tournament, I'm not dying.
Like, you can't beat me in any way possible.
And that's when I was at my best when I had that mindset.
And he's kind of putting that back into me, and I feel really good about it.
That's amazing.
It's amazing.
So when he's sending you videos, like, do you have, like, do you save all this
shit?
Do you have, like, a folder where you have all these different fighters and
different moves?
Because you're basically brand new at something.
But let me just tell you what I said.
You had a fight, an MMA fight, where you hit that dude with a left hook and
then took him down while he was out cold.
I sent Dana White a text message.
I said, everyone's fucked.
I did.
Well, I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Because I was like, that kind of speed is crazy.
Like, that kind of speed and incorporated with elite wrestling is crazy.
I'm like, what do you – the heavyweight division is so shallow right now.
You've got Tom Aspinall, Cyril Ghosn, Jon Jones if he chooses to fight again,
Francis if some – by some miracle they can work something out and bring him
back to the UFC.
Other than that, there's no one compelling for, like, a championship-caliber
fighter.
There's basically four or five guys on earth that are in this, like,
championship-caliber, like, class.
And you're already there, which is nuts.
And you haven't even fought in the UFC yet.
When I watched you move and I watched you fight, I was like, okay, how do you
stop that?
Like, who is – who's got the skills to be able to stop that?
And in my mind, there's, like, only a few guys where it's going to be a problem.
There's, like, the Francis Ngannos, the, you know, the Cyril Ghosn and the Tom
Aspinalls.
That's it.
There's, like, a few guys.
And everybody else on the way up, the only problem is going to be you getting
fights.
Like, that kind of speed is just bananas for a 250-pound man, you know.
And when you have that and you're 25 years old, it's, like, this is a – it's
a very rare thing that you see in MMA.
And it's kind of crazy because the heavyweight division is, of course, the most
prestigious division in the world.
The heavyweight champion of the UFC is the baddest motherfucker on the planet.
And, you know, right now it's kind of a toss-up, right?
Because Cyril Ghosn had this fight with Aspinall.
John is kind of semi-retired or whatever he decides to do.
It's, you know, it's kind of up in the air.
He'll probably have one more fight, right?
I want him to.
I think he's got the juice in him.
The White House.
He would love the White House.
He's told me many times he wants to be main event on the White House and he
wants me to be a couple slots behind him and kind of have us both win.
And that's his last leg right there.
I would love for him to do one more.
If he really wanted to in his heart, he should.
But if he doesn't, John's not going to do it.
They should do Alex Pereira and him at the White House.
I told people.
I said Alex Pereira would be a great matchup for Tom.
A heavyweight version of the BMF belt.
You know what I'm saying?
It'll be perfect.
There's nothing else to it besides two guys going out there.
It's Alex Pereira, the baddest light heavyweight.
And that's John Jones' baddest heavyweight right now.
Yeah.
And regardless if someone else has the belt, John Jones is still the baddest
heavyweight out there.
The belt doesn't mean jack shit when it's John Jones.
It doesn't mean jack shit.
It doesn't.
There's so many fighters could do that.
They could just step away from the belts, abandon the belts, and then come back.
It's really just about the fighter.
Everybody knows who John is.
Everybody knows what John does.
It's like people will pay.
You don't need a belt.
A belt doesn't mean anything.
Yo, this is a crazy story.
I had a French Bulldog that passed away.
So I like to go out there and I adopt French Bulldogs.
And I kind of give them a better home.
And I either ship them to a new home or I keep them.
And so at the time I had a baby French Bulldog.
He passed away.
And I told John, I was like, yo, my dog died.
I got to go home.
He let me go home.
I came back and I came back on a Tuesday.
I didn't see John until Thursday.
And mind you, this is a week before he's going to go out there for Stipe.
He's sick, like super sick.
And I watched this guy do five rounds on a Thursday.
And they shark baited him, five new people.
And he's dead tired.
And this is when I knew he was unstoppable.
He went out there.
Nobody could touch him.
And I'm telling you, high class PFL fighters, ex-UFC fighters, ex-Glory kickboxers
were going in there after him.
And he was just mopping them.
And I was like, damn, this dude is beyond next level.
And that was like, you know, you got to see greatness.
And I see it at the fight.
But you also got to see it when, how does this guy be great before the fight?
And I saw that and I was like, god damn.
I said, excuse me, John, you think I can go in there with you?
And he was like, no.
And I was like, why do you think so?
He was like, you don't know how to defend.
And it was kind of a funny joke because a partner got hurt.
And I was like, I raised my hand.
I told Greg Jackson.
I said, Greg, let me in there.
And Greg was like, not today, Gable.
And this is when I didn't know how to defend or anything.
He was like, Gabe, not today.
And I was like, man, why?
You know, I can go in there and take him down.
And he was like, this is different.
And when I saw that, that was like the epitome of like super greatness in my
eyes.
Because I like hard workers.
I like guys that beat on guys.
I don't like guys that go out there and do the little extras that they, to look
cool.
I mean, just go out there and dominate and let's go home.
And I saw that and I was like, yeah, it's over with for Stipe.
It's going to be a long night.
Well, unfortunately, they met when Stipe had already had a lot of miles on the
clock.
A lot, a lot of miles.
And John was still elite.
It's crazy that John essentially developed a spinning back kick, a real
spinning back kick when he's 36 years old.
Crazy.
It's so nuts because, I mean, he tried it earlier in his career, but it was
like he would spin instead of go straight.
You know what I mean?
But when he hit Stipe, it was perfect.
It was perfect.
That picture, we showed a video of it and then freeze froze the heel.
It was like boom.
It was halfway into his rib cage.
It was crazy.
I wouldn't have got up either.
Well, very few people would.
Very few human beings can talk.
That kick is so powerful.
And when it comes from a big guy like John with those long ass legs and all
that leverage with perfect technique and it goes right into the sweet spot like
that, like good luck.
But it's such a brilliant thinking on his side because he's like, okay, I have
to fight heavyweights and I need something that can take them out with one shot.
Like what is that?
Well, it's the most powerful kick, which is the spinning back kick.
And so he trains it constantly.
Constantly.
You know, which is just very few people have the mindset to be able to do it.
Very few guys develop new skills late in life.
You know, late in their career, they start incorporating new skills like that.
I think that's a thing where he was, he's always all ears too.
And that's kind of what he's putting into me also.
I watched him do a spinning back kick the night before at midnight when we were
practicing in the hotel lobby.
So he was just planning on that.
He was planning on it.
He was planning on it.
He told me he wanted to take Stipe down and then all of a sudden he does a
spinning back kick.
And I was like, you sly motherfucker.
Did he bring in a Taekwondo coach?
How did he develop that technique so clearly?
He's got a, there's a, there's a kickboxing Taekwondo coach named Alex.
He's got a long, he's got a long last name because I think he married a Thai
lady.
So I think he changed his last name.
Oh, okay.
But he's from New Mexico.
He works out at Jackson.
He's got a lot of tattoos on him and nobody, if you saw him, you would never
know.
But the dude can kick hard as shit and it's crazy.
And so he, he worked with John on that?
Yes.
Yeah.
The only other guy that I would say developed a crazy new technique late in his
career was Vitor.
When Vitor was like 35 or 36, he developed a wheel kick.
It was crazy out of nowhere.
When he fought Luke Rockhold, all of a sudden he's throwing wheel kicks.
Like Vitor never.
Vitor is crazy.
Crazy.
Vitor never threw wheel kicks.
Crazy.
But I think it's honestly got to be cool from, because you sit right next to
the cage.
So it's got to be cool to like see people grow up through their career.
And then all of a sudden at the end you see like a guy does a spinning wheel
kick or a guy does a spinning back kick.
And you're like, damn, like where'd that come from?
And I feel like, I feel like, does it give you a high to kind of see like a
person grow through a new stage of like seeing a new move from them?
I just love excellence.
That's what I love.
I love when someone shines, when they just figure a way to eclipse everyone
else, when they figure a way to, when they just like the Piotr Jan, Marab, Dwavish,
Willie fight.
When you see a guy like Piotr Jan who loses the first fight to Marab and comes
back and dominates in the second fight.
Like, I love that shit.
I love it.
I love watching someone put in an insane amount of work and dedication and then
shining on fight night.
I love it.
It's cool, too, because you see Peter Jan is the new like blueprint for guys
that are coaching kids to do moves.
I mean, he went out there and threw a fake hook and liver kicked Marab and then
he goes out there and hits a Sotogari and trips guys.
I mean, what other film tape blueprint can you use from someone else?
I mean, he's done everything in all of his fights.
His flow state is amazing.
His flow state is incredible.
And he's so good at mixing up trips along with like inside fighting.
His stand-up is so good.
He's so hard to hit clean, too.
I think the only guy who really hit him clean was Sugar Sean.
Sean hit him with a knee, like a really good knee, timed it perfectly in their
fight and dropped him.
But other than that, he very rarely gets hit.
And when you do hit him, you're hitting him and he's kind of rolling with it.
You know, he keeps that super high guard.
He does the high, yeah.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, he keeps his hands straight in front of you.
He's something special, man.
And, you know, that dude's still only 32 years old.
He's only 32?
Yeah.
Ooh.
I know.
It's crazy.
What do you think if he doesn't lose it?
32 or 34.
How old is Piotr Jan?
He's either 32 or 34.
But, you know, we've seen him in, I think he's 32.
32?
Yeah.
I mean, we've seen him in the UFC since he was, like, in his mid-20s.
Yeah.
If he doesn't lose to Merab that first time, where do you think his path goes?
It's a good question.
You know, I mean, because he did lose to other guys as well.
He lost to Sean and he lost to, the Al Jermaine fight was fucked.
The first fight was fucked.
But the second fight, Al Jermaine dominated him.
But I think he probably overestimated himself in the second Al Jermaine fight.
It doesn't seem like he was just prepared.
And the thing about Al Jermaine is, like, his wrestling is very good and his
back control is the fucking best in the business.
When Al Jermaine gets your back, you're in deep shit.
He's so good at back control.
He's so good at rear naked chokes.
And, you know, Al Jermaine just really struggled to make that 135.
It's got to be hard.
Oh.
But if he got it right, and he got it right in that second fight, you know, and
he just did what he does at his best.
It was one of his finest performances.
So he lost that fight.
But it didn't mean that he was done.
It just mean, like, he realized, like, okay, he had to have a camp like he had
for Murab in order to beat Al Jermaine.
Yes.
You know, and I just don't think everybody's willing to go through that kind of
camp every fight.
Murab went through four?
Yeah.
I think so.
Four in a year.
Yeah.
For Blueprint, how do you like that?
Because I know guys kind of take the two-fighter, the two-fighter-year approach,
maybe three if you're doing well.
I think that's more sustainable.
Alex Pereira did the same thing.
Like, he's fought a lot of fights, and he's fought fights short notice.
You've got to admire that mindset of a guy who's like, I don't give a fuck.
Let's fight, you know?
But Alex has fought with broken toes.
He's done everything.
He fought with a norovirus, and, you know, he had a fucked-up hand the first
time he fought Ankoliyev.
But then, you know, same thing.
Like, he comes in for the second fight with Ankoliyev fully healthy and just
smokes him.
Smokes him in the first round.
If you—what do you think about if you gave Alex Pereira, like, a solid, great
wrestler, like an Islam of light heavyweight heavyweight, how do you think that
he does?
It'll be a problem.
Yeah.
I mean, I think less of a problem certainly now than early in his career.
Like, if you see his first fight in the UFC with Michalaitis, he gets taken
down in the first round.
That's not going to happen now.
And if it does, he gets up.
You know, it's different.
But it gets up against who?
Does he get up against a guy like you?
You know, it's a different—there's different levels, right?
You really saw that with Jack Della Maddalena in Islam, right?
There's levels.
And when you got a guy that's at Islam's level that's just a super elite grappler,
unless you've faced that before, you don't know what to prepare yourself for.
I tell people all the time.
That's the thing with Piotr Jan, he had been in there with Murab for the first
fight.
And so he knew what to expect.
And he had seen all those crazy fights.
He saw the fight with Sanhagen.
He saw the fight where this was the rematch with Sugar Sean where he submitted
him.
He's like, okay, this guy's a fucking monster.
He's a monster now.
You've got to prepare for a monster.
And he was ready.
But unless you've experienced that before, there's really no one like that in
the light heavyweight division, unfortunately.
There's not some super elite grappler in the light heavyweight division.
And I think that's one of the reasons why Hamzat is thinking about going up to
light heavyweight.
And I think you should.
I'm a big fan of Hamzat.
I love his style.
I love his intensity.
His intensity is the best thing ever.
Oh, it's an animal.
It's the best thing ever to watch because when I was wrestling, I like to go
out there and just, you know, put the hammer down to dominate.
And he's got it.
He's got that touch.
Oh, yeah.
He's an animal.
And, you know, that animal part of him almost killed him because he refused to
stop training when he had COVID.
When he had COVID, he was just showing up at the gym and putting in two and a
half hour sessions and vomiting blood.
Like, it's a nut.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
They said the real problem with Hamzat was that you couldn't get him out of the
gym and he was always over-trained.
So then he brings in Sam Calavita.
And Sam Calavita monitoring his-
From the training lab, right?
Right.
Yes.
So he's monitoring his heart rate.
He's monitoring his recovery.
And he's working on him with his strength and conditioning and they're doing it
scientifically.
And then you see in the Drickus Duplessis fight, I mean, he just didn't gas at
all.
That was the same thing as Islam and Madalena.
Very similar.
They try to do the, you know, maybe what if, what if he can outbox him.
But it's hard when you've got to worry about so many things.
And I think Islam did a great job of showing the leg kicks, making Jack switch.
Oh, yeah.
Jack didn't really push forward.
And Islam, when he did, shot the double or he shot an outside single.
And that's hard.
It's hard when you've got to think about so many things.
Yeah.
Well, you know, Khabib is without doubt one of the all-time greats.
One of the greatest to ever do it.
But the difference between Khabib and Islam is Islam is elite stand-up-wise.
Like, Khabib was a very good stand-up, but Islam knocked out Volkanovsky with a
head kick.
You know, that's not in Khabib's repertoire.
Islam is on another level.
It's like one more level above.
He can knock you out standing.
He can knock you out on the ground.
He can submit you.
He can take you down.
He's fucking huge for the weight class, especially at 155.
It's like there's so many aspects.
And you're always thinking about that grappling when you're striking.
So when you say, like, oh, you know, who's better striker, Islam or Jack Della
Maddalena?
Well, it depends.
Because if you've got to worry about that takedown, your striking is not going
to be the same.
It's just not going to be the same.
Because everything he does, you're always looking for that takedown.
And that factor, it leads to guys getting hit all the time.
Like, if you go back and watch old fights like Kevin Randleman versus Crow Cop,
Kevin Randleman knocked out Crow Cop because Crow Cop was worried about the takedown.
He was worried about the takedown.
All of a sudden, Randleman comes with a big left hook.
And Kevin Randleman was an NCAA champ where?
Ohio State, I believe.
Wasn't Ohio State?
I believe he was an Ohio guy.
184 or 197?
Or was he heavyweight?
I don't know.
Three-time Big Ten wrestling champ at Ohio State.
He never won the tournament?
Heavyweight.
Wow, who do you lose to in the tournament?
Oh, it says heavyweight.
Hold on.
I'll look that up real quick.
Okay.
But that was the thing about Randleman is like the speed and the takedown was
always this big threat.
And so because of that, you're thinking about one thing and boom, you get hit
with a big shot.
I've seen Kevin Randleman wear shoes in his matches.
What's the difference?
The early days.
What's the difference of wearing?
I've seen a guy wear shoes now.
I was on Instagram and I saw maybe a kickboxing match or something like that.
Why can't they wear shoes now?
Is there a rule that you can't?
It's not now.
All those things are old.
Those are old?
Yeah, those are all old.
Pride used to allow you to wear shoes.
Early UFC used to be able to wear shoes.
I saw that.
I remember the first UFC video I've seen was that big huge dude and that little
dude that knocked him out.
Was he the big black dude?
Which guy?
It was like an old video.
Super old.
That's not descriptive enough.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Give me a second.
Big huge dude, little black dude.
Bob's hat maybe?
No, that wasn't UFC.
Who was the big video?
And then the white dude came out there and he was just whooping him and the big
dude tried to grab him.
I might be tripping, but I saw the video.
Well, I don't think you're tripping.
I mean, there's been so many fights.
It's so hard to figure out what fight you're talking about.
But there's an advantage to wrestling shoes for sure, without a doubt.
I mean, the grip on the ground.
I mean, how many times have you seen guys?
Yeah, this one.
Oh, Keith Hackney.
Yeah.
And Keith Hackney had a very strange style.
It was like, I think he was a Kempo guy.
And he hit him with a bitch slap.
You know what I'm saying?
You ever see how he knocked him down?
Like, look at the difference in the size.
Emmanuel Yarbrough, who is a sumo wrestler.
But Emmanuel was probably like, look at that.
See, he overhand bitch slapped him.
This is crazy.
He basically stepped in and palm striked him to the head.
You think he looks, if he's still alive, you think he looks back at this video
and be like, damn, I got slapped?
Probably.
Damn.
I mean, Emmanuel fought a bunch of different things.
He fought, I think he fought in Pride as well.
If I'm, I'm not.
Oh, they forgot to lock the cage.
He flew out the cage.
Look at thin, big John McCarthy.
He lost to Mark Ryland.
Mark Ryland of Iowa.
Okay.
There you go.
That's random what we're talking about.
Yeah.
Yeah, the old days were wild, man.
It's wild.
It's wild to go back and watch those fights.
It's like.
Since you've been kind of like a huge figure your whole life, have you gone
back and like watched Fear Factor?
I watched it because my kids were watching it.
My kids were watching Fear Factor because there was like a whole Fear Factor
channel.
Was it True TV or one of those?
True TV.
Or Spike TV, baby.
One of those things.
They had Fear Factor on like all day long and my kids were watching it.
They thought it was hilarious.
Man, I was watching it too.
I'm just going to tell you right now.
And all the shit they was doing, hell no.
Yeah, a lot of it is in your head.
Like a lot of the stuff that they had to eat is not that bad.
Some of it was fucking disgusting.
Were you trying some while they were trying some?
I ate a bunch of things.
What was the worst thing?
None of the things I ate were that bad.
You know, like I ate a Madagascar hissing cockroach.
It's like a cockroach the size of like this lighter.
Damn.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That wasn't bad?
It was just crunchy, huh?
Yeah, it doesn't have much flavor to it.
Yeah.
More in your head than anything.
I'm sorry.
Being on that show, what was the worst thing you saw like someone tense up
about?
The worst thing was what they had to eat, you know, and watching people throw
up.
Like people, I watched people throw up every day.
You know how like the smell of throw up makes you want to throw up?
That went away after a while.
It was that bad?
Yeah.
I saw people throw up every week.
Every week I was watching four or five people throw up.
This is like totally normal to be around puke.
It was like a candle for you.
Because they were throwing up in front of me and I was telling them that they'd
keep going.
I'm like, don't worry.
You can keep going.
You can keep going.
Don't put that out of your head.
This is a task.
Just you want to win?
Okay.
You can do this.
I can help you.
I can talk you through this, but you just got to just, you are in control of
your body.
Force yourself to eat it.
Chew it, swallow it, get it down.
Let's go.
But that was the worst is the eating shit.
Holding your breath underwater was hard.
There's a lot of things they had to do that was hard.
It's a crazy fucking show.
There was one where they had to jump out of a helicopter and like swim and grab
some while
the helicopter propellers were like blowing the water so they couldn't.
Yeah, we did a few things like that.
Yeah.
Were you ever scared?
For some of them?
I was worried when they had to ride bulls that one scared the shit out of me
because
I was like, you know, the stuntmen are animals.
If you ever meet stuntmen, they are some of the bravest, toughest dudes alive.
And the stunt guys had this attitude about the bull like, eh, they're like, oh,
that's
a stunt bull.
That's a practice bull.
And I go, does a fucking bull know he's a practice bull?
I bet he doesn't.
I bet he didn't get that memo.
He don't know that.
He's just a bull.
That's a fucking huge animal.
And you're going to get a hundred pound lady to ride this huge animal.
That's crazy.
That's over with.
And they got launched and almost got kicked.
And we, they rolled the dice a lot and got lucky that no one got seriously
injured, I think.
And the bull one was the big one for me.
I was like, you can't predict that.
Like, you can, if you got a car stunt, you got to jump a car off a building
into like this
big cushion.
Like, okay.
Cool.
You kind of know what's going to happen.
You know, this is the thing, this could go wrong and this is how we're going to
prepare
against it going wrong or prepare for it.
But you can't prepare for a bull.
Like, there's not much you could do.
If the bull decides to stomp this person, that person could die.
Like, that's a real possibility, especially people that have no business riding
bulls.
Yeah.
Bull riding's hard for bull riders.
Bull riding's tough.
It's crazy.
And they got a good seven seconds on that bull if they're great.
If they're great.
If they're great.
And when you're watching it, you're like, oh my God.
You watch the bull kicking and jumping up in the air.
It's crazy.
I know their lower back kills after that.
Oh, we had one guy on Fear Factor who was a professional bull rider and his
shoulder
was so destroyed.
He took his shirt off to show me.
He had scars all around his shoulder.
He's like, my shoulder pops out all the time.
It just will pop out of socket.
He'd go reach for something, his shoulder will pop out of socket.
It was just destroyed.
It was hanging on by a thread.
Jeez, that's disgusting.
Ugh.
How do you live like that, though?
I don't know, man.
I guess you just deal with it.
I guess you just, that's the price you pay for greatness, you know?
Gotta pay something.
Yeah, well, they all pay.
Every bull rider pays.
You see those guys later in their career.
They're all stiff because they got fused discs and fucking bolts in their back
and shit.
They're all fucked up.
Spines rubbing.
Oh, yeah.
It's a terrible, terrible way to live.
I can't believe that bull riding's a real thing.
I know.
It's nuts.
It's fascinating, though, because you can really see guys go out there and be
like, you're
facing the devil.
Literally.
The bull is going to win all the time.
Every time.
Even if you get back.
The best you can do is hang on for seven seconds.
There's no goat who could just hang on the bull as long as possible.
I'll hang on that bull for 30 minutes.
He's going to get you off.
He's going to get you off.
He's going to get you off.
Everybody goes flying eventually.
Everybody.
Everybody.
It's going to happen one way or another.
There's no human being that could just stay on a bucking bull.
No.
And just like, when I decide, I'll get off.
Have you rode?
No.
Okay.
I haven't either.
Fuck that.
I don't think black people do that.
I think there are.
Is there a couple?
It's got to be.
Yeah, there's got to be.
Oh, look at that dude.
Right there.
Bam.
Ezekiel Mitchell.
Look at the size of that thing.
I mean.
And look at his angle.
You know what I'm saying?
He is so.
The bull is so athletic that he's damn near doing a handspring.
Exactly.
With the dude on his back.
Right.
And he weighs 2,000 pounds.
He's just throwing his body up and through the air.
That is.
Fuck all that.
Like right there.
Like you easily get stomped to death right there.
It's the game over.
You fall wrong.
He lands on your face and that is a wrap.
Your fucking head is pulverized.
I wonder what the.
The size of that thing.
God.
I wonder what the numbers are on like if a bull stomps.
Like the velocity and the mass of it.
Like what is the degenerative force from it?
Oh, it's got to be insane.
How many guys have died?
None that I know, hopefully.
None that I know.
But I mean there has to be like an enormous number of guys that have died bull
riding.
What's like the.
Since we're on a crazy topic.
What is what is the like the craziest thing outside of like me fighting Taekwondo
that you've done that you're like damn like that shit felt good.
I never did anything other than I had three kickboxing fights but other than
fighting that was the scariest shit that I ever did.
Yeah.
I mean I've never done anything.
I'm not like a parachute.
You're not a junkie for it?
No.
Okay.
I'm not a bungee jumper.
I mean I've done bungee jumping on vacation.
I did zip lining.
I was like what am I doing?
This is stupid.
I don't like doing stuff like that.
I don't like dumb risks.
No.
I'm big so I went on a zip lining one time.
You know you got to jump off the thing.
Right.
You got to jump off the platform.
Uh-huh.
I thought I was going to fight.
Joe I'm kidding you not.
That might have been my last day on earth if that line didn't hold me.
Right.
Because what do you weigh about 250?
Like 255 and it bounces.
You know like ooh.
I was in Thailand and I went to do this thing.
It was a bungee cord thing and they said I couldn't do it because I was only
200 pounds.
And I was like that's crazy.
Like what happens if you get a guy that lies about his weight?
It's over with.
Yeah because people lie about their fucking weight all the time.
I've seen the ones where the guys they got the squirrel suit on and they jump
off the building
or they jump off the rocks and they go down and they come up.
And sometimes they don't.
Sometimes they don't come up.
My friend Andy did that jumping out of a fucking plane.
He made it?
Oh yeah.
He held the world record at one point in time for the longest squirrel suit
flight.
What are they called?
What do they call those things?
Wingsuit.
Wingsuit.
Wingsuit.
He held the record for it.
It's ridiculous.
But Andy's nuts.
He's a Navy SEAL.
18 miles.
18 miles.
18 miles?
One flight.
What do you think he's thinking at like mile nine?
Maybe I drop?
He's a psycho.
I don't know.
18 miles is crazy.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
I would never do nothing like that ever.
Uh-uh.
No, I'm not interested in parachuting.
I'm not interested in any of that shit.
I might get on a wakeboat and surf.
That's about all.
You fall in the water.
Yeah.
With a life jacket.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That sounds reasonable.
It's a reasonable thrill.
Falling out the sky is crazy.
Falling out the sky is crazy, but at least falling out the sky, you have
equipment, you check
the equipment, you make sure you double check, you've done it before, it's done,
you know when
to do it with a bull, there's no safeguards, you know, I mean, you have like
some sort of a
chest protector on some people, you have a helmet, you're not, there's no safeguards.
He could land on your hip.
You're never going to walk again.
It's over with.
Fuck that.
It's game over.
I couldn't, I can't fathom riding a bull.
Yeah.
Doesn't Donald do it?
Does Donald Cerrone?
He, he rides bulls.
See, he got the name Cowboy, he better do something.
He's out of his fucking mind.
He got to do something with the name Cowboy.
That's a dude that has a real adrenaline problem.
He's got a real, he's a real.
Rightfully so, he looks, he looks crazy.
He's got a real adrenaline problem.
He told the story about getting trapped in a water, he was diving and he got
trapped in
a cave and the guy he was with panicked because his cords got tangled up and
the water
was cloudy and he couldn't figure out how to get out.
That was one of the most, I knew he was okay because he was right here telling
me the story,
but it was one of the most terrifying stories that anybody's ever told me.
But that dude loves that kind of shit.
He loves like thrills.
I can't, I don't think I can get behind thrills.
I can't.
No.
It's too much.
And especially your heart be like, it's just not worth it.
It's today my day and it can't be my day.
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Was fighting for the first time, what was the difference in the way it felt the
first time
you fought versus wrestling?
When I wrestle, I'm not really nervous.
I'm more anxious to perform and put on a good show.
When I went out there for my first fight, my heart was beating on my chest
because that
pin drops and it's like, it's me or you.
And I always had the mentality of like, it's me or you, it's do or die.
Today's not my day.
You got to go.
That first time you're like, I kid you not, my heart was like jumping and John
had to
like look at me in the eyes and be like, yo, you're good.
Rely on what you know.
We've been here before.
You've done this before.
There's 2000 people here.
You've wrestled in front of 20.
Just think about it like that.
And when I thought about it like that, my heart rate calmed down.
You know, you kind of get like shaky a little bit.
You kind of feel like your legs are not there.
And that was kind of my first time fighting.
After that at Dirty Boxing, I wanted to kill that dude.
Which is really crazy because you couldn't even rely really on your wrestling
in that.
Which is what I wanted.
Right.
I wanted to go out there and show you that I can throw punches without having
to look down
at that leg.
And that's exactly what we did.
Was that a calculated decision to try to do that as well as just like to just
have a pure
striking fight?
Just so you could show that you could do it and then in your own mind not have
your main
skill set to rely on?
Yes, I really wanted to handicap myself because I wanted to show the people to
and I and I
kind of hopefully I did show them a great show.
We definitely did.
I want to show the people.
I want to show the people at home that are a casual viewer that who doesn't
know Gable.
Like, hey, can I turn on Dirty Boxing?
And the mom and dad and kids are sitting there watching saying, hey, what is
about Gable
Steven that's special?
And he's a wrestler.
So what can be special besides wrestling?
And then I go out there and I get this knockout and I jump over the ring and I'm
doing the
Arthur Jones sack dance.
The crazy thing was the way you leapt over the ring like it was nothing.
That was banana.
What does it feel like to not have?
Oh, there it is.
Boom.
But this is the nuttiest part right here.
The big jump.
Woo!
Like it was nothing.
Like it was nothing.
I mean, that is that is crazy athleticism.
But it's it's what's wild about that is you look like a like a really good
boxer and you
have only been boxing for a very small amount of time.
Just I always had very good confidence in myself.
I've always spoke about myself highly.
I've always like wanted to be over the top, you know, like like a WWE, you know,
when he
gets on the microphone and John Cena's like, you can't see me or Roman Reigns
is like
acknowledge me.
You know, when I go out there, I don't want to have to say those things.
I want it to when you see me, that's him.
And I've always tried to be that's the bigger than Gable person.
But also like if we had like a routine combo, you can see like, man, he's real
human.
You know, you can talk to him.
He does real things.
We put on the we put on shoes the same way.
We put on pants the same way.
And I feel like a lot of superstars don't really show people that side of them.
And it's up to them if they want to or they're not.
But I've always really like showing the families and the kids that like, man,
look at Gable.
He's a normal human being.
But when you compete, you're special.
It's different.
But it's just crazy to be able to do that in a sport that you're relatively new
at.
I mean, just, man, just think big about yourself.
I get it.
I tell every kid.
I tell everybody.
What's crazy about that, honestly, is like, I know you're just going to get
better at it.
That's what's crazy.
When you watch someone strike that well early in their striking career, like
your striking journey is so new that the sky's the limit as far as your
potential.
Joe, in the nicest way possible, I really want to say this.
That's the worst I'll ever be.
The worst I'll ever be.
Of course.
Yeah.
And for whoever who's going to watch this, that's the worst I'll ever be.
Just think about it.
14 seconds.
And then now think about if you're going to put some time into me, some effort
into me.
And I'm putting effort into myself.
That dirty boxing is probably the weakest I'll ever be in the sport of MMA.
I believe you.
I believe you.
I mean, it only makes sense if you've been training that short amount of time
of striking.
Now, when you're training striking, are you training boxing?
Are you doing Muay Thai?
Like, what kind of striking training are you doing?
Are you incorporating it all together in MMA?
I do it all.
So, a lot of days I go in.
So, I kind of have, like, a really good schedule right now since I'm not going
to go into a fight.
So, I do every day besides Sunday, some days or two-a-days, like, because I go
to Lifetime and play basketball.
I go to Lifetime and sit in a cold tub and sauna and stuff.
But when I strike, I go in there.
One round is maybe boxing.
Next round is kicks, teeps, knees, everything, elbows.
The next round is the blueprint I have of what moves I need to really do to get
in to kind of get to my shots.
Or I'm going to fake shoot and punch.
And then I probably go 10 rounds, 12 rounds of that, five minutes each.
So, you always incorporate all the MMA skills together in a workout?
I try to.
It's interesting.
When I was talking to Ilya Tepuria, when he's, particularly when he's not
training for a fight, he doesn't do that.
He is very rare in that, like, when he goes and he works on his boxing, he'll
just box.
He just boxes.
When he works on his jiu-jitsu, he just does jiu-jitsu.
When he works on his wrestling, he just does wrestling.
Then he puts them all together with MMA training.
But he spends an exorbitant amount of time on each individual skill by itself
to really, like, hone and tighten those things out.
Which is, it's an interesting choice.
And obviously, for him, it's worked out spectacularly.
Yes, it has.
But there's no real, like, I guess, if you want to be, like, an elite soccer
player, I'm sure there's a program that they've kind of devised, like, this is
the very best way to become a good soccer player.
They have, you know, coaches and they game plan.
They know what to do.
With MMA, there's all these different approaches.
Everyone, Alex Pereira's approach is different than Marab's approach, which
will be different than your approach.
Everybody's got a different thing.
Yeah.
It's just, like you said, it depends on the person and it also depends on the
team that you have.
I'm just really big on, I'm still very new, so I'm really big on just trying to
make sure I can absorb all the information possible and kind of, when I go into
these fights, these first few fights come, kind of showcase what I can.
And sadly, they have ended early.
Not sadly, but in a good way, you know what I'm saying.
But just go out there and showcase who I am.
And when I go train, I mean, I don't mind sitting in there all day.
Sometimes me and John will practice for hours just sitting there repeating,
repeating, and then all of a sudden we go on at 8 o'clock, it's midnight.
But I like that, though, because it makes me feel good.
It makes me feel like there's someone invested in me that makes me feel like I'm
here for a purpose, and it makes me feel like this is what I'm, there's someone
out of the country, there's someone in Russia.
When I'm asleep, he's up.
And I don't like that.
He's up working.
So when I can get all the time possible, I'm making sure I get all that time
because I don't want that dude to show up one day and he's got a little inch on
me.
And I just can't, I can't think about that happening.
I always have that thought in my head in terms of, like, UFC fighters.
Like, there's such a shallow division.
The heavyweight division is so shallow.
I'm like, there has got to be some elite Russian wrestlers that are thinking
about going the Fedor Emelianenko route.
Like, they're thinking about.
I know Nemkov, who just won the PFL title.
He's a very high-level guy.
But there has to be some, like, really high-level wrestlers that are
considering going into MMA.
Right now, Russian heavyweights are really not as good as people think in
wrestling.
Really?
They got a guy named Abdurah.
She's fed alive.
I don't know if you've heard of him.
I have.
DC told me about him.
Man, he is crazy.
If he came to fighting, it's over with.
Not for heavyweights, for the other groups, because he's got to go through me
if he comes heavyweight.
But Iranians heavyweights are really good.
I think that's where the heavyweight field should start coming from is Iran.
They got a lot of good.
They got two good guys that are.
One's my age.
I'm 25.
And another one is, I think, 22.
They battle for the Olympic spot every year.
But the older one wins just by a little.
But the time is going to pass where that guy steps up, and he's going to take
the spot.
So I would watch out for him.
You know, what's interesting with MMA is some guys have a background in
wrestling,
and then they learn how to strike, and then they fall in love with striking,
and then they hardly ever wrestle when they fight.
You know?
Mm-hmm.
It's kind of weird.
It is weird.
You would see that a lot in the early...
Like, Josh Koscheck is a good example, who's a very good amateur wrestler,
and then when he fought in MMA, very rarely wrestled.
It was mostly striking.
You know, he could knock guys outstanding, and I think guys kind of fall in
love with that.
And then there's also the amount of effort.
It's so tiring to wrestle, along with all the other things,
that sometimes guys just put that aside, and they just decide to stand and bang
with people.
I really like wrestling.
I grew up wrestling, and if I had a chance, I would love to go to the 2020
Olympics and win a gold medal.
That's how much I still love wrestling.
But right now, my path is MMA.
And I knew the first couple times that I would get those knockouts, like, you
look at your hands,
and it's like, you're Spider-Man, you got superpowers.
Like, I got lightning in my hands.
Like, I would have never thought in my 25 years of life that I would go out
there,
and I would left hook somebody, and he would be out cold, and I would double-egg
and flip him.
Who would have ever thought that would ever happen?
And so, like, you're right.
You get obsessed with knocking people out, but I still think my base is
wrestling.
I just haven't used the best base yet, and I just want to show people that my
best base doesn't need to be used
because the second-best one is just as good as the first.
Well, and the second-best one is getting better all the time.
That's the thing.
And again, I keep going back to this, but if you can get that good at wrestling,
you can get that good at anything.
It's just a matter of putting in the time and dedicating yourself to that thing.
But it's the mindset that allows someone to become an Olympic gold medalist in
wrestling.
Boy, if that person—that's a scary person.
If that person decides to focus on whatever the fuck it is, fucking pickleball,
who gives a shit,
they'll be elite at it.
They just have to put their mind on it.
It's a 100% mindset thing.
It ain't nothing else.
You can have athletic ability.
You can hard work all day.
You can be so disciplined in the world, but if your mind doesn't think it,
I feel like that's why I beat a lot of people before I even walked out there.
I knew it.
You just got to know.
Championship mindset.
Some people just don't feel it, and you just got to feel it.
I know.
I was talking to a friend of mine.
I don't want to mention any names because then you'll connect it to the fighter.
But he said, man, he goes, I don't want to fuck with anybody anymore that needs
a mental coach.
And I said, really?
Why?
He goes, it's just like this is too much.
He goes, I want a dude who don't need that shit.
You don't need it.
It's interesting because some guys do, and some guys, that mental coach takes
them over
the top, and then they find a way to win where maybe they'd have mental hiccups
in the past.
But his mentality was, I want a guy who has no problems.
If I'm going to coach a guy, I don't want a guy who's a head case.
I want a guy who goes in there and already has this, I'm going to fucking
dominate.
And if I don't, I'm going to learn why I didn't dominate, and I'm going to come
back, and I'm
going to get him next time.
Yeah.
And I feel like that's the person I am.
I just want to go in there and dominate.
And I also think that a lot of people kind of rely too much on a lot of outside
things
to kind of make them feel good about themselves to go out there and perform
instead of just
putting that switch on and just saying, hey, we're here.
Outside things like what?
Like what do you mean?
Just, you know, mental coaches.
You know, you've got to get someone else to be maybe a breath-working coach,
another coach,
another coach.
There's so many labels for coaches out there that you don't need.
And when I was wrestling at Minnesota, I had Brandon Eggum, Luke Becker, who's
the assistant
and head coach, and Trevor Bramble.
That's all I had.
I didn't have nobody else because I didn't want anybody to interfere with the
connection
that we had.
And I feel like when you get a great bond with somebody and then you bring in
more people,
the bonds get mixed up.
People are paying attention to too many different things.
Instead of practicing, maybe I've got to work on my mind.
Instead of working on my mind, maybe I've got to go do something else.
Maybe I've got to take care of something else.
Sort of like when you were talking about not watching video on your opponents
because you're
thinking about his double, how am I going to stop his double, instead of
thinking about
what am I going to do?
Yeah.
I would rather be productive for the team instead of productive for eight
different people
and maybe three of them don't care about you as much.
You know, they're there just to get a little something from you.
Right, right, right, right, right.
Where are you training now?
Right now I'm still in Minneapolis.
I'm having a baby girl this Sunday.
Oh, congratulations.
This Sunday my little girl is coming.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
That's awesome.
She's going to pop out.
My lady is hopefully going to do this that day.
If it comes early, it comes early.
So that will be really nice.
So I'm in Minneapolis right now.
But when I do all the main training, New Mexico, Jackson Wing.
Okay, so in Minneapolis, where are you training?
That guy with that guy, Billy Simon in Pirate Lake.
Same guy.
Yeah, I've been with him forever.
So you're in this little tiny gym?
I'm in that little gym.
Nobody sees us.
We got partners that need to come in.
But rather than that, I don't want the big lights.
Right.
When I was growing up in Portage, Indiana, I had a wrestling mat in the garage.
And me and my two brothers would wrestle.
And that's where we got the most work in.
My dad said, go in there and hand fight.
And whoever comes out, comes out.
And it was definitely not me at the time.
But maybe right now is me.
But we would go in there and hand fight.
And if you get, my dad's philosophy was we had Iowa style wrestling.
And Iowa style wrestling was brutal.
If his face needs to be run into the wall, run his face into the wall.
And that's how we grew up.
And if you don't want your face ran into the wall, you better put his in first.
Right.
And so when you're training with this guy, are you training like I could get a
call in a week to fight and I'm ready to do that?
Or are you training like just like developing skills constantly?
I just religiously train to develop skills constantly.
I try not to never stop.
I don't like stopping because I'm kind of a, this is crazy.
I'm a thicker body.
So if I sit for a little bit, I feel like I'm getting fat.
And I want to feel that way.
So I just try to always keep myself in shape and try to keep the best look
possible.
So if you need me on one week, which I don't want to do any short notice, just
how me and John do it, no short notice.
Like if you need me in a week, I look good.
I'm ready.
But we just take our time.
So did John coach you about that?
Like give you some thoughts about that?
Because I think that's a giant mistake that guys make.
You know, and like the Alexander Volkanovsky fight is a good example.
The Islam Makachev fight.
He took that fight on 11 days notice.
He's just been hanging around, drinking, partying, just being himself, just
chilling.
And then all of a sudden he gets this opportunity for a rematch.
First fight was razor thin decision.
He lost and he's like, I can do better.
But you can't do better without a camp.
You've got to have time to be yourself.
Yeah.
You have to have time to peak.
And one of the things I really always admired about John is like even a fight
like the Chael Sonnen fight.
They offered him Chael Sonnen on short notice.
He was like, nope.
Nope.
And they're like, we need you to do this.
He's like, nope.
I'm a professional world champion.
I prepare for my opponents.
And I don't want to fight unless I'm prepared for my opponent.
Period.
It's the smartest way.
Look at him.
He's the goat.
He is.
I mean, it's just so many guys that get...
And I do appreciate that Alex does take those short notice fights and he wins
some of those short notice fights.
But how many times he's fought injured, like really injured?
Like the first Yuri Prohovska fight, he had a fucked up knee, man.
And when he stopped Yuri, there's a moment when he's on top of Yuri and he's
beating on him and the referee stops it.
And he goes to step up and he rolls off of him.
The reason he rolled off of him, he couldn't support himself on his knee.
That's how fucked up his knee was.
It's crazy.
And he was in a world title fight.
It's bad.
Crazy.
Well, I feel like this is the only sport where they will let that happen.
Just because football, you're sitting on IR.
Yes.
We don't have no IR.
Right.
It's either you do it or you say no.
Right.
And if you say no, they get upset at you.
A lot of people get timid.
Yeah.
And I mean, once you get past that barrier of, I think right now, since I'm
going to have this daughter, I think my tone and mindset has changed to kind of
really be more of a father figure for her.
But also for like if kids want to look at me and be like, wow, you know, Gable's
normal also.
But I think just you've got to say no to a lot of people.
You've got to be generous in a lot of ways.
But you've also got to be able to go out there and say, I don't like this.
I don't feel this way about this.
And this is why.
And be cool on both sides.
But some people get scared about that moment.
Are you doing what kind of strength and conditioning are you doing?
So I still I still lift with the college team.
So everything they do with wrestling.
The college wrestling team.
Yes.
Everything they do at the University of Minnesota, I still do.
I still got the same strength coach with them.
Bike sprints, aerodyne sprints, watt bike, versaclimbers, everything.
We try to mix it in all.
Rowers, everything.
Just to just to stay active.
And if it's not where we're getting close to a fight, just maybe just take
longer breaks
in between just to keep the heart rate up.
But I don't like when my heart rate takes a takes a break.
I like to kind of keep it consistent.
So when I ramp up, it's already ready to rock and roll.
You already have a very high baseline.
Yeah.
And like when you're doing strength and conditioning as far as like weightlifting
and stuff like
that, like are you trying to put on weight at all?
No.
No, I like you like 250.
I like to stay where I'm at.
I do a lot of band band work, a lot of explosive work, a lot of jumps, a lot of
lightweights with high reps just to kind of keep the body moving and kind of
keep the
the cutness and the strength there, but not also put too much where you're
stiff.
And you're naturally a large guy anyway.
It's not like you have to put on a ton of weight.
But like when you see a guy like Francis, who's 265 natural, you know, and he
used to
have to cut a little bit of weight to make 265, which is kind of crazy, isn't
it?
Isn't it crazy?
But it's also crazy that the UFC has a weight limit that you have to make at
heavyweight.
You have to cut weight to make heavyweight.
How different do you think it would be if they didn't have 265 and it was just
maybe 300?
I think it should be no weight.
It's heavyweight.
It should be – what they really need is more weight classes.
The UFC – there's gaps that are just enormous.
Like the gap between 85 and 205 is crazy.
20-pound weight gap in between categories is – that doesn't make any sense to
me.
10 pounds.
10 pounds is still a lot, but at least it's reasonable.
How many weight classes boxing have?
Like 30?
A shitload.
They have so many.
Boxing has so many weight classes.
Boxing has like eight champions for each weight too.
That's a problem.
That's a problem.
MMA does as well, right?
If you think about it.
There's the one champion.
There's the PFL champion.
But the difference is there's really only the UFC champion in terms of the
public perception.
Like we talked about Nemkov, who's an excellent fighter.
Nobody knows who the fuck he is.
Not in America.
You go to a regular kid, you know, some kid on the street and, you know, you
say, who is Vadim Nemkov?
And they're like, what?
But I bet you that kid knows I Show Speed.
I bet they do, right?
I bet they do, right?
They probably do.
Right.
They know I Show Speed.
They probably know who Alex Pereira is.
They probably know who Islam Makachev is.
They know who the UFC guys are.
The UFC, that title is worth so much.
It's, you know, it's the name.
It is the combat sports leader.
And if you're not in the UFC, I don't care.
I mean, look, you can go to the PFL and you can win that million-dollar
tournament and you can make money.
And I'm all for that.
And I'm very happy for those guys.
They get to feed their family and they provide and they make a great living and
they can retire with some money in the bank.
But the reality is part of what you're doing is you're trying to be the best.
And if you're going to be the best, you kind of have to be in the UFC.
Agreed.
I mean, that's just what it is.
That's just what it is.
There's so many great leagues, but like the most prestigious people, you can
say PFL, you can say anything.
And you can go to any place and make a shit ton of money, but once you get that
stamp of he's a UFC champ, people are like, damn, man, that's him.
That's it.
That's him.
Yeah, that's it.
They put that UFC belt on you and it's on ESPN and everybody sees it.
That's it.
The PFL is just another belt.
It's like, you know, boxing has so many.
They have the IBF, the WBA, the WBO, the WBC.
It's just like so many fucking organizations.
It just gets so crazy.
It's like, didn't they try to make Terrence Crawford pay for his belt?
Ridiculous.
How crazy is that?
Terrence Crawford's like, fuck you.
I'm the champ.
I just want a 300,000.
Everybody saw it.
Is that what they wanted from him?
300 grand?
Can we get a look on this?
Because I might be tripping.
But I don't think I'm tripping.
They stripped him.
I know they stripped him.
It's like percentage of purse.
And I think it was like 3% of whatever he made.
So it was.
That's so nuts.
That is so nuts.
That is so nuts that they get paid that much, just be a sanctioning body.
And what are they doing?
They're not doing anything.
It doesn't mean anything.
Well, they just get the best looking guy to maybe throw a belt on you.
That's about all.
They don't really get nothing else.
You get nothing.
You get a belt.
But everybody knows he beat the brakes off Canelo Alvarez.
That's it.
Man, I love Canelo.
He's the champion.
I love Canelo as well.
But, you know, I love what Terrence did.
Because what Terrence did was crazy.
He goes all the way up from 47 to 68.
He had one fight at 54.
You know, wins the title at 54 and then goes all the way up to 68.
And everybody's like, Canelo's going to be too big.
Canelo's going to be too big.
No way.
Nope.
Skill.
He's next level.
Skill is king.
Yep.
And he's 38.
He's 38.
He could do a couple more if he wanted to.
I don't think he does.
But he don't want to.
I think he's done.
He's done.
And I love it.
I love that he's done.
$300,000.
Dethroned over a $300,000 fee.
Wow.
That's crazy.
Do you think that's right?
No.
No?
No.
Unpaid fees and brief reign as undisputed champion.
It doesn't matter.
He's the fucking champion.
You can't take the guy's belt because he's not willing to give you money.
Fuck you.
He won.
That's crazy.
He won.
Fuck off.
Fuck off.
He won.
Well, now I see, is there going to be a new boxing promotion?
Zuffa?
Zuffa?
Yes.
Sorry.
Yeah.
So the UFC is doing something with the Saudis.
And they are, I think they're launching their first event in January.
I think they're launching their first event the night before the big UFC on
Paramount event.
So it'll be the 23rd.
Yes.
I don't think they've announced anything in terms of the card, who's going to
be on it.
I mean, that's not a lot of time.
You know, that's only not even a month from now.
So I don't even understand how they're doing that.
But they're probably going to do the same thing that Riyadh season's doing, you
know?
Which is really smart.
Riyadh season's great.
I mean, it's putting guys into that next level category of, hey, you are a star.
And Turkey Al Sheik is throwing crazy money at these people.
Rightfully deserved it for a lot of these guys.
Oh, yeah.
They deserve it.
Oh, they definitely do.
But it's, you know, if you do that, you're going to get people to fight that
would avoid each other ordinarily.
And, you know, we've seen that already.
The Saudis have already been able to do that.
Get guys to fight.
And, you know, you're going to put on the most exciting fights.
You're going to put on the best matchups.
And so I think the UFC is trying to do that same kind of model.
And now that the Saudis own Ring Magazine, so they have the Ring Magazine belt,
which has always been the most prestigious belt, you know?
Like there's always a bunch of different champions in different weight classes.
But if you're a fan of Ring Magazine like I am, when you would get Ring
Magazine and they would have the Ring champion, you know, Marvin Haglund, like,
well, that's the fucking champion.
That's him.
Yeah, that's it.
There might be a WBO guy out there, a WBA guy out there.
But the reality is that's the guy.
That's the guy.
That's nice.
The boxing needs, like, a unified champion thing like that.
So, like, when you see Terrence in there with, like, five belts, like, it's
great that he's got all those belts.
But why?
It should be one belt.
It should be like, this is the super middleweight champion of the fucking
planet.
Period.
Fuck all your sanctioning bodies.
That's the guy.
That's it.
One belt is all he needs.
And they all have different colors, too.
They're all cool looking.
They're all cool looking.
I mean, it's cool that he's got them all.
I mean, you go over his living room, it's probably dope.
The Instagram picture look cool?
Yeah.
It looks great.
I mean, it looked great when he was in the ring and he's, you know, got them on
his shoulders and shit.
One on his waist.
And I wonder if they fight over who gets to be on the waist.
You know?
Like, I'll give you an extra 100 grand and put it on your waist, you know?
But the reality is, it's like, the belt doesn't mean anything.
The fighter means something.
And we all know who the champ is.
We all know it's Terrence.
If this other guy gets the belt, it's like, okay.
You didn't beat Terrence Crawford, so you're not really the 168-pound champion.
But isn't that a hard—do you think for a boxer like that, is that a hard
shadow to live in?
Or do you think it's a shadow to—or is that labeled as a shadow, you know?
Because Terrence leaves and then you step up.
Well, that's different.
When Terrence leaves, if he gives up all the belts and he really does decide to
totally leave, which I'm not totally convinced,
because I think they wanted him to have a rematch with Canelo, and I think he
threw a big number at them.
This is all I'm reading rumors online.
I don't know what's—see if you find out if that's true.
Did they offer—did Terrence Crawford demand, like, a certain amount for a Canelo-Alvarez
rematch?
Because he's coming in soon.
I'll ask him in person.
But I feel like you could probably entice him for one more big fight.
Probably could.
You know, one more big fight at 68 or maybe even at 54.
I mean, really, he could fight at 47.
When do you think there comes a point where people need to just stop?
And, like, you know, there's always going to be money thrown at you, but when
you come up—when you think there's a point that, like, money's—
It's different for every person, you know?
Yeah.
So here it is right here.
So Bernie Davis revealed that Terrence Crawford's price for a Canelo rematch,
and it's massive.
According to Davis, Crawford won't return to the ring with Canelo-Alvarez
unless he's paid $100 million.
And he deserves it.
Rightfully so.
Crawford earned $50 million for the first fight in September, but after a
tactical, low-action bout that disappointed many fans.
Fuck off.
Who the fuck did that disappoint?
Who did that disappoint?
You've got to be a casual if that disappointed you.
Tactical, low-action bout.
Blech.
Who wrote this?
I don't know.
Fuck off.
I think I could write a better one than this.
I think boxing has some very disrespectful journalists.
I see some disrespectful shit they write about boxers.
Go back to that little thing that it said there.
So anyway, pressure now on Turkey Al Sheik to decide whether the rematch is
worth that kind of money.
Fans already calling for other opponents.
Benavidez, Barabeev, Bivol, fighters they believe bring real action.
Oh, so this is kind of a disrespectful real action.
It's kind of messed up.
Why is he dissing?
Why are they dissing him like this?
I don't know.
They do that a lot.
There's a lot of shit talking in boxing, which I guess is fine.
I like that there's not that much to that in MMA.
MMA is much more respectful.
Really standard and respectful.
Yeah.
And that guy deserves everything.
He's one of the greatest to ever do it and one of the best switch hitters in
the history of the sport.
Are you putting him above Floyd?
It's hard.
It's, you know, it's hard.
You know, they never fought each other, which I think would have been amazing
if they were both in their prime at the same time.
That would have been fantastic to watch.
Because ain't Floyd supposed to fight Mike?
Am I tripping?
Yes.
I think I'm tripping.
But, I mean, I feel like that's going to be like Floyd versus, or excuse me,
like Mike versus Roy or like Mike versus Logan.
It kind of looks more like a sparring.
It's more like sparring, really, than a fight fight.
How is Floyd going to fight Mike Tyson?
Have you ever spoke to Mike Tyson?
Yeah, I've had him on a couple times.
Yeah.
He's my favorite.
He's my favorite.
Bro, he's, when he was in his prime, there was nobody like him.
There was nobody like him.
Because he had that speed, that speed.
And that's something that you have.
The speed of a lighter person in the frame of a heavyweight is an extraordinary
gift.
Because so many of these heavyweights, man, they got big power, but, like
Francis, big power.
But they don't move like a lightweight guy.
They don't move like a 170-pound guy.
When Mike was in his prime, he was so fast.
You could see guys trying to calculate and calibrate because it was different.
They were used to fighting heavyweights.
And all of a sudden, you got this guy bobbing and weaving and moving towards
you and like, ah!
It's crazy.
Your brain is being overloaded with all the possibilities.
It was just, it was a totally different thing, man.
He's by far my favorite.
Oh, yeah.
In his prime, he's the most extraordinary heavyweight that ever existed.
And it was, every show was an execution.
It wasn't like, you know, oh my God, is Mike going to lose this one?
No, in his prime, it was just all executions.
And I think the best thing about that, like being popular back in the day, like
he was such a big-time fighter.
I was watching a lot of videos like Will Smith and Magic Johnson were showing
up and Jordan and stuff.
Oh, yeah.
You know how crazy it is nowadays that we have social media that you don't have
to go and watch someone live.
But back then, like, when you see the videos of Michael Jackson in this hotel
and you look out and it's like, wow, it's Michael Jackson.
Like, that wow factor is like super cool.
And he had that.
Oh, yeah.
To the highest degree.
Yeah.
Everybody dressed up in the best clothes.
They all showed up.
Chains on, watches on.
Yeah, everything.
Everybody.
It was an event to be seen at.
And if you were one of the people that was ringside, like you were, you know,
you were an elite celebrity.
And that was, you know, the Mike Tyson era.
That was, I mean, it was different.
It was different than any other heavyweight, like, since Ali.
So you had Ali and then Larry Holmes, who doesn't get the credit that he
deserves.
He was fantastic.
I watched all these videos, too.
Amazing fighter.
But he lived in the shadow of Ali.
You know, and a lot of people hated him, too, because he beat up Ali when Ali
was already done.
Yeah.
And, you know, he had been Ali's sparring partner when Ali was younger, you
know, and so, and everybody knew how good Larry Holmes was.
And everybody knew that Muhammad Ali was, you know, he was older.
And what's that?
Would you do that if you was a sparring partner for your homie?
And that's got to be a difficult combo because you burn a bridge.
Yeah.
You burn a bridge with the whole society.
But part of it is, like, you kind of have to, right?
Because if you are the heavyweight champion of the world and they want to set
up a fight with Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Ali wants to fight you and they want to
give you $10 million and it's going to be on TV and everybody's hyped up about
it.
Like, what are you going to do?
Say, no, I won't fight him.
I'm going to relinquish my crown.
What are you going to do?
Like, I don't, I don't know if he had any opportunity to do anything other than
fight him.
But it's just, like, he was, Muhammad Ali was so beloved, not just as one of
the greatest fighters of all time, but also as a cultural figure, that watching
that man beat him up like that just beat the shit out of Ali.
And then seeing Ali afterwards when he was, he had the shakes and he had
Parkinson's and everybody knew that that was trauma-related Parkinson's and
knowing that Larry Holmes dished out a lot of that, I think in a lot of people's
mind that always, that's, and I think that to this day is why Larry Holmes does
not get the credit that he deserves.
He had one of the greatest jabs in the history of the sport.
Crazy.
I just saw a video of you.
He was flicking it.
Even when he fought Mike.
When he fought Mike, he was way past his prime.
You know, he had been out for a long time.
Mike did his thing.
And, but, you know, there was a round in that fight where Larry Holmes was
popping that jab where it made you think, like, man, what would this fight have
been like if Larry was in his prime?
You know, it would have been very interesting.
I think, I think Mike was on another level, though.
He was.
He was, he was, when I, man, when I see him, he just had the veins, you know,
like, that was, that's my, like, wow for people.
He was a tank.
He was just.
He was a speedy tank.
And just the skill, too.
And also that style, that peek-a-boo style was just so different than anything
else anybody was doing.
So it was so hard to prepare for.
You got most, most of these heavyweight boxers were standing straight up, you
know, they're throwing jabs and moving, moving like Foreman or moving like Ken
Norton or whoever they were.
But Muhammad Ali, you know, was the only guy that moved like a lighter guy.
He was, he was different.
But Mike Tyson was crouching and bobbing and weaving and coming at you.
It was a totally different thing to prepare for.
You can't prepare for something like that.
That's like when someone is too athletic.
That's like preparing for Miles Garrett right now.
You just can't.
He's going to have 25 sacks this year.
And it's like, how do you prepare for something like that besides try to psych
yourself into maybe I can do it?
But this is not going to happen.
There's always going to be freaks.
There's always going to be these athletic freaks that can just do things that
no one else can do.
Now there's more than, now there's even more because you see high school
football guy, 6'5", 280 going to Ohio State.
I'm like, man, what they got going on?
People are bigger.
Also, people are doing things for their kids at an early age to optimize their
growth and making sure that they come out bigger and stronger and faster.
Getting them training younger, strength and conditioning, and, you know, plyometrics
and shit when they're real young to get them prepared for things.
I mean, look, you know Vasily Lomachenko?
Yes.
The little guy, man.
He was fast.
That dude's dad took him out of boxing for two years to have him learn
Ukrainian dance so that he had better footwork.
And he was dancing on people.
Oh, my God.
I watch his highlights on Instagram.
Footwork was insane.
Usyk's the same.
Same coach.
Usyk's the same person.
Same coach.
I really like Usyk.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Usyk's crazy.
Again, one of the greatest heavyweights of all time.
And not a big guy either, you know?
He just knows where to go and when to go, which is nice.
Well, it's also he's constantly moving.
He's never right in front of you.
He's constantly stepping and stepping and stepping and stepping.
And, you know, he's setting you up.
And he's always, like, downloading and calculating your movements and your
reactions to things.
It's so skillful.
That, to me, is the most beautiful thing about boxing is that someone could
stand in the fire and be so skillful that,
like Crawford, that, I mean, standing right in front of Canelo.
There was one point in the fight where he was pity-pattin' him.
Here's Lomachenko when he's in his prime.
Like, the movement was bananas.
And it was just his ease of footwork.
And it wasn't footwork, like, trying to get away from you.
It was footwork standing right in front of you and stepping off to the side and
cracking.
Like, that kind of shit.
Like, these angles is just...
Unless you have tried to do that, you don't know how ridiculously difficult
that is.
The conditioning on that is crazy.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, your legs have to be in peak form.
Super peak form.
It's just...
There's so many guys out there that you could learn from by watching, and they
set the bar so high.
And that is the difference between watching, like, Keith Hackney versus
Emmanuel Yarbrough way back in 1993 versus watching, you know, John Jones in
2025.
Mm-hmm.
It's like, we get to see now these guys that have seen it all, the Piotr Jans,
the Ilya Toporias, the Islam Makachevs.
You get to see the elite of the elite today.
And these young kids that are coming up now, they get to see that and learn
from that and incorporate all these things.
And you're seeing these guys that are fighting on Dana White's Contender Series
that are...
They look like world championship caliber fighters, and they're not even in the
UFC yet.
Most definitely the lighter guys.
Mm-hmm.
Most definitely the lighter guys.
Yeah, there's so many good guys now.
But in the heavyweight division, it's still fairly shallow.
I know.
Which is where Gable comes in.
You know, it's funny.
I think I heard you say shallow about three times.
You know, Joe, in the most nicest way, because I like to be humble with the
words, and I like to talk with the confidence.
I really think I can go out there and do right better, this big promotion, and
go out there and just be fantastic.
I think you can, too.
And I think you can do what Mike Tyson did, which is revitalize the heavyweight
division.
Because, I mean, other than John, who's, of course, a superstar, but he's kind
of semi-retired, the Tom Aspinall serial gone thing was a fucking disaster.
I mean, that's a disaster.
I mean, Tom Aspinall still can't see.
He's got a fucked up right eyeball still.
It's really bad, right?
I mean, the reality is he might not ever fight again.
Like, who knows?
Like, if he has surgery on his eye and it doesn't go well and he can't see out
of the eye, apparently he's still fucked up in his right eye.
There's some tendon damage or something.
And, you know, eyes are so tricky, you never know.
Like, unless you're a fucking complete psychopath like Michael Bisping, who
fought 11 fights in the UFC blind in one eye, which is so crazy that he did
that.
Do you know what he did, that crazy motherfucker?
What did he do?
He memorized the eye chart.
Like?
He memorized it so that he could put a, they could cover his left eye.
Oh, my God.
And he could just.
So whenever he went to do an eye exam, he knew the letters.
They would say, all right, read the third chart.
And he would say, A, B, C, D, E.
He knew what the letters were.
Oh, he's smart.
He's crazy.
He couldn't fucking see out of one of his eyes and still fought world-class
fighters.
I think 11 fights he had, only being able to see out of one eye.
Yeah.
I'm not really sure how to engage with the eye talk on Tom Aspinall.
But I think he's a fantastic fighter.
What do you mean by engage with the eye talk?
You know, I feel like getting poked in the eye sucks.
And I just don't know how he feels that he got, you know what I'm saying?
So I'm not going to.
We don't know what he was experiencing.
Yeah, and nobody ever knows.
But, you know, critics are going to go online and say X, Y, and Z.
But I'm just going to stay in the middle ground.
I say, I think Tom's a fantastic fighter.
Ciro is great also.
And I think a lot of them are also great also.
You're going to always say it's really shallow.
And I believe it's shallow, too.
And I believe I can go out there and do the best I can and really dominate when
I need to.
But just when I see Tom Aspinall, you know, Tom Aspinall reminds me of a guy
from Turkey that I wrestled in the Olympics.
He was a 2016 Olympic champ.
His name is Taha Akgul.
He was 6'4", same size as Tom.
Same build, same everything.
And I went out there and I beat him 8-0.
And I was in his face for that six minutes.
And I let him know that I was here.
And I feel like in that instance, that's when the tides change.
And I feel like with a guy like Tom, I think I look at him as like a guy like Taha
Akgul.
You know, he's on top.
He's the leader.
You know, he's still fresh.
But I think there's another hungry guy that's going to come.
And hopefully it's me that's going to come and go out there and do what I need
to do.
Well, listen, I hope Tom gets back in because, again, we don't know really what's
going on with his eye.
And for all the critics, you need to know this, the right eye, that's the
problem.
But if you look at when he fought, his left eye, the finger went deeper in his
left eye than it did his right eye.
So if you think he's faking it, he was knuckle deep in that fucking left eye.
He was all up in that eye.
Yeah.
I mean, it's horrible to see, to undergo multiple eye surgeries, multiple eye
surgeries.
And God, that's horrible.
By the time a statement goes out, I'll probably have surgery on one eye already.
Next surgery is coming mid-January.
Next surgery.
So he's having surgery on both eyes?
You know, it's really messed up.
But I think the way the post-fight interview went, because I like to look at
how people approach the world also, too.
And he was just upset how the people were reacting, you know, saying, why the
fuck are you booing?
Why are you doing this?
I mean, there could have been a great approach to that of him saying, man, you
know, I got my eye poked, but I'm going to come back stronger from this.
Well, the problem is people are always going to doubt you when you get poked in
the eye.
You know, there's always going to be a bunch of people like, oh, you're fine,
because people have gotten poked in the eye and they have continued fighting.
But is that smart?
It's a foul.
First of all, I think every time a guy gets poked in the eye, one point
deduction immediately, instantly, maybe even two points.
You should never do that to a person.
Never.
One thing you notice about Pyotr Jan's fight with Merab, he fights like this.
His hand is in a fist.
So when he's got his hand up like this and the front hand is extended, he's not
doing that.
He's kind of guiding you.
Yeah.
Honestly.
Well, he's letting you know this motherfucker is coming, you know, and he's
also like in a shell, very well protected.
By having that one hand up like that and have that shoulder, he's got the chin
blocked and then he's doing this with this hand.
It's a very good defensive position, also very skillful because he's so good
defensively in terms of his movement and the way he's able to roll with punches
and get out of the way in time.
But he never pokes in the eye.
He's not doing that.
Cyril Ghosn has a habit of doing that.
Why do you think that is?
You could speculate.
You could speculate all day long.
You could say he wants to do it, you know.
I mean, ask John.
John's poked people in the eyes.
He does it all the time.
Yeah.
I mean, even if you would have took the points from him, he still would have
won.
Yeah.
I know, it's just, it's one of those things.
It's like, here's the problem.
Why are the fingers out in the first place?
Like, why don't they cover that shit up?
Like, why don't they have it like one of those Everlast bag gloves?
Like a mitten.
Where it's like a mitt.
Yeah.
I mean, have the thumb out because you don't grapple with these anyway.
You don't do this.
You never do this.
So why do the fingers have to be loose?
If you grapple, you're grappling like this or like this.
Like, if you're clenching your hands together, you're never clenching your
hands together like this.
You never interlace your fingers together.
So why the fuck are they open in the first place when it only causes problems?
If they developed an MMA glove that covered the tips of the fingers, like a mitten,
we would have way less problems with this shit.
You'd occasionally probably have a thumb in the eye every now and again.
But you would have at least eight less possibilities for each fight of things
going into your eye.
True.
It just makes sense.
And it wouldn't hinder grappling.
You just have a thin piece of leather that, you know, the padding goes over the
knuckles.
The piece of leather goes over the tip of the fingers and have it come down
like this, like a mitten.
It's not hard to design.
If it was a mitt and I'm on top and I grab wrist control, do you think the
leather of the mitt sticks harder?
Probably.
Yeah, probably aid grappling.
It'd probably make fights better.
It'd probably do stuff like you'd probably be able to get more takedowns.
Maybe.
I don't know, man.
Maybe when the leather gets wet, maybe it becomes slippery like a finger.
We'd have to find out.
But at least we would have less eye pokes.
And it's not going to hinder the striking at all.
There's no need to have these fingers exposed like this.
No, there's no need.
But two great fighters.
I mean, accidents happen.
Accidents happen and also purposeful fouls happen.
You know, and I'm not saying that Cyril Garland did it on purpose.
But he did it like five times in that fight.
I rewatched that fight a couple of times.
And every time Aspinall came towards him, he was doing this.
Every time.
Fingers outstretched, pointed towards the face.
It's just, it's illegal.
You're not supposed to ever do that.
Your fist should always be balled up when it's moving towards your opponent's
face.
But we don't have to have these goddamn fingers covered like that or open like
that.
They should be covered.
It's not impossible to do.
It could be really easy to design a glove like that.
I don't understand for the life of me how the sport's been around since 1993
and no one has introduced gloves like that.
True.
No, you're right.
A really good thing I wanted to ask you is for someone new coming in to a sport
that a lot of people know, how do you think they should bridge the popularity
of the sport and also the real life of who the person is?
I might be saying this in a hard way for the answer.
No, I know what you're saying.
Like, how do you think they should, because, you know, I've been around a lot
of people, but, you know, it always gets bigger and always gets bigger.
And how do you bridge that gap of keeping that same mind frame of like, man,
you know, I'm the guy, but I need to reset.
I always need to reset.
I need to make sure.
Yeah.
Well, it's going to be dependent upon you, right?
And it's going to be a rocket ride that you're on.
And the pressure and just the overall, like not being able to go to the mall is
going to be weird.
You know, it's going to get weird.
It'll get weird.
You know, you're going to get mobbed at the airport.
It's going to get weird.
And, you know, you're going to have to, you're going to have to figure out a
way to have your own private time.
That's very important.
When guys never have private time, they're always surrounded by people.
And you could lose yourself.
You could lose your way.
And just fame itself.
Fame itself is very complicated.
It's very complicated for people.
Especially for fighters.
When your entire identity relies on the way other people perceive you.
That's not good.
It feels good when you're on top because everybody's like, oh, there's Gable.
He's the fucking man.
Whoa, you're the man.
You're the man.
But if you rely on other people's opinions of you for your self-esteem and your
self-worth, then the moment you have a stumble.
You know, what if you get eye poked?
You know?
What if you get eye poked and then all of a sudden, Gable's a bitch.
Gable's a bitch.
And you're like, what?
I'll be like, what?
And then you're dealing with the opinions of morons.
And they're affecting your own feelings about yourself.
And then there's all the other pressures that come with money and people trying
to scam you and business deals and bullshit and this and that.
And they want you to do movies and that kind of shit.
You know, like, look, that's the bane of fighters' existence when Hollywood
gets involved.
That kind of, in a lot of ways, led to the decline of Ronda Rousey.
In a lot of ways, Conor McGregor.
People start fucking, you know, throwing everything at you.
You're doing cell phone commercials and all this different shit.
And that stuff gets in the way.
It gets in the way of your training.
But it also gets in the way of your ability to have that deep pressure time to
be yourself and to be alone with your thoughts, which I think is very important
just to solidify your own understanding of who you are as a human being.
You know, and you don't want to be defined by other people's opinions and
perceptions.
And then there's also, like, the UFC does a fantastic job of showing who a
fighter really is.
You know, the Countdown series, you know, the UFC Embedded series.
So when they're doing stuff like that and you get to see this person
interacting with their family, going through training camp, going through the
weight cut,
and you get to see who they are, joking around with people, hanging out with
their friends, laughing, that's important, too, because people really want to
relate to you.
You know, they don't want this guy who just appears, you know, every five
months, you don't know shit about him, and then all of a sudden there he is in
the ring again.
And, you know, you're putting all these things on him and imagining what he's
like.
The more they can get to see behind the curtain, the better it is for you,
especially if you're a good person and you're an interesting person.
They get to see.
It's also inspiring for people.
They, like, you like to talk about yourself like you're a regular guy.
You put your shoes on one foot at a time like everybody else.
But, like, wow, look at the greatness this regular guy can accomplish.
Maybe I can do this.
Maybe I can do something like that.
Maybe in whatever I'm doing in life, whatever, if I'm a fucking skier, I'm a
whatever, whatever your job is, maybe I can be great and be a normal person
like this guy is.
True.
No, 100%.
Well, that's a fantastic answer.
Because, you know, I just feel like at some point I'll get to that spot, you
know, of, like, how do I know if someone's not real?
How do I know if someone is in that space of things change?
And there's leeches.
There's bad people.
Well, you know, it's always a nice thing to have someone that has surpassed
that level that you can finally see and be like, man, like, how did you change
direction?
Well, John's a great guy to talk to about that.
Most definitely.
Obviously, John's had his stumbles and which is, you know, when people talk
about John and the things that John's got in trouble with, I'm like, listen, do
you want a wild motherfucker or not?
Okay.
If you want a guy to be the greatest of all time in fucking cage fighting, he's
going to be wild.
That's one of the reasons why he's great.
When John was, what is he, 22 years old when he won the title?
23.
23.
Mauricio Shogun Hua, who's an all-time great pride legend, he opens the fight
with a flying knee.
Who does that?
John Jones.
You've got to be wild.
That'd be crazy.
You've got to be a wild fella.
That's John.
I mean, and, you know, obviously there's stuff he shouldn't have done.
There's, you know, a lot of extracurricular activities, a lot of partying.
It's not healthy.
It's not good.
But that is what comes with being that kind of a guy.
And, you know, John could probably tell you more about this than anybody that's
ever lived.
Like, what were the stumbles?
What could I have done differently?
And he probably could help prepare you more than anybody ever.
Most definitely.
He's already kind of put a big foot into it.
And, man, he's amazing with a lot of things now.
You know, he talks so well now.
A lot of things are in a sense of he's trying to look out for me in business
opportunities and places that I need to go.
And it's amazing.
You know, a lot of people don't do that, especially when you see the peaks and
valleys of that person and their public info also.
And a lot of people don't want to give people the chance because you see
something about someone until you finally meet them.
And it's like, man, like, this guy's a whole different person you would have
never expected.
And so, man, with John, he's just opened a lot of doors.
And kind of he is doing that guiding of me.
Well, that's great, too, because John is essentially guiding his replacement,
you know, which is really hard for a lot of people to have that kind of self-awareness,
know that there's only a certain amount of time that I can do this for.
And I see this young, great man who's coming up, and I'm going to help him.
And I'm going to give him some advice that maybe would have been amazing if
someone gave me, you know, because John didn't have some heavyweight champion
training with him that could teach him those things.
No, he's out of scratch.
Especially not someone at that level, the level that he's at.
Man, I know he's honored.
We're both honored.
Yeah.
Man, he just, like I said, he called me today.
He was just, man, I really think you should just let the world know who you are
and just kind of give people the real feel of who you need to be.
Yeah.
And I've always loved to have, like you just talked about with the UMC of bed
is, you know, you see the real human being.
And I've always liked people seeing a real human being because we all do shit
the same way.
There's nothing special.
There's nothing special.
Some people just have more money.
Some people just have more status.
But at the end of the day, hopefully we can all sleep in a bed.
And I know some people don't, which is sad to see, but it's just some people
live different lives.
And I want to live a life where it's happy and healthy with the people I have
and I can meet so many people.
And I feel like I'm doing a great job right now.
So, man, any input I can get on how to be better, how to be more mature, how to
be more sound, especially from John.
I'm getting a lot, but to hear from you, you know, you get different
perspectives of you were in a different realm than John also.
But you guys are also in the same place.
Like you do the podcast and John's semi-retired.
But you see the two different lives of two different well-respected people.
Well, it's that mindset that you have to really want to acquire that
information and really sort it out and know that these challenges are coming
your way.
The money and the fame and all that stuff is the thing that everybody focuses
on.
But really, the focus is on excellence.
Excellence is what brings you the money.
Excellence is what brings you the fame.
And the moment you start thinking about the fame and the money and not thinking
about the excellence, you've lost your way.
You've lost your way.
And a lot of people lose their way.
A lot of people, that money and that fame, it starts coming.
And all of a sudden, you're just thinking about numbers.
You're thinking about the house you're going to buy and the car you're going to
drive and all that stupid shit.
And you lose your way.
And, you know, one of the things that I always try to tell people, I try to
tell those young comedians especially, is that think of the attention that you
have like it has a number value.
Like the attention, like let's imagine, like if you had $100, you know you can
only spend $100.
Let's imagine your mind only has 100 units of focus.
You have 100 units of focus.
Any focus that you have on other shit outside of the thing that brings you
excellence is just robbing from excellence.
That's all it is.
If you're concentrating on haters on social media or if you've got a crazy
bitch in your life that's ruining everything or you've got some friend who's a
hater and you think he's like maybe like hoping you fail.
Like all that stuff that's distracting is just robbing attention from
excellence, you know.
And some of it's unavoidable and some of it actually strengthens your resolve
to have a certain amount of like shit in your life just to understand how to
maintain and still be excellent despite of all that.
There's probably some resilience building that comes from that.
But protect your focus.
It's precious.
Protect your time.
Protect that energy that you have to invest in things.
It's so precious.
The mind, your focus, and your drive, that is everything in your life.
That's everything.
And anything that steals from that.
I remember this was one fighter.
And he was a very good fighter that was fighting in pride and he had this crazy
girlfriend.
And every time he was going to fight, like the day before the fight, the girl
would start problems.
And she would start fights and she left the hotel like 1 o'clock in the morning
and went down to the bar.
She wanted him to fail.
She wanted to be more important than his fighting career.
And his fighting career was so important and so overwhelming that she felt like
she wasn't getting the attention that she needed.
So she would go get attention from him and she would steal from him.
And it was crazy.
And this guy, he never wound up being a champion.
He was a very talented guy too.
I don't want to say his name.
But it was one of those things where it's like, man, there are people in your
life you've got to recognize when you're dealing with that kind of a person.
You've got to recognize that.
You've got to cut them out.
You've got to get rid of them.
They're stealing.
They're stealing from your focus.
They're stealing from your ability to create excellence.
And that's what you're in the business of.
You know?
You're in the business of excellence.
And anybody that's trying to steal from that, like, those are liabilities.
They're, you know, that's like you've got a hole in the bottom of your boat.
You've got to patch that shit up.
Yeah.
Well, it's just like Mike Tyson kind of said, you know, once you're favored by
God, you're also favored by the devil too.
Ooh, that's so true too.
Yeah, the temptations will come.
Yeah.
And then also you start believing your own bullshit, you know?
I mean, look at John when he wasn't training, you know?
But luckily for John, he was so much better than everybody in the division
that all it took was, like, a readjustment.
Like the Dominic Reyes fight.
He almost lost that fight, you know?
And Dominic Reyes, as great as he was that night, should not have been beating
John Jones.
I think John Jones, with, like, a real focus and a real, like, real drive
towards destroying Dominic Reyes,
would be on another level.
I think so too.
It's like he is the best guy to be in your corner, man, because he's made all
the mistakes and still come out the GOAT.
Like, who better to tell you how to do it right?
There's no one better.
Man, probably the greatest, of course.
The greatest by far.
What do you do for chill time?
Like, what do you do to unwind?
Honestly, right now, I like Call of Duty.
I play a lot of Warzone.
Ronnie 2K, you know who that is?
The dude that made the basketball game?
Oh, okay.
So I got my own player on 2K.
And it says, like, so when I load into the game, it says my real name.
And then people know you're playing against me.
So it's either I'm playing Call of Duty or 2K.
I mentioned before, the French Bulldogs.
I mean, I like to take care of French Bulldogs.
I feel like...
Jamie's got one.
You do?
Yeah.
Oh, he's so cute.
Should have brought him today.
Should have brought him.
What?
We didn't know.
We didn't know you were into French Bulldogs.
So I had, sadly, I had two pass away.
I just had one pass away.
He had IV DD in his neck.
And that's a bad...
What is that?
It's a disc disease that happens in French Bulldogs because they're bred so bad.
And so my first one had it in his back.
He was playing all day.
And then I turned and he was, like, paralyzed in an instant.
And I was like, oh, man, like, that's not good.
So I had to put him down.
Oh, that's horrible.
And then I adopted one after.
This is, like, I adopted one a year ago.
He just passed away a couple weeks ago.
His name was Archie, my little guy.
He had it in his neck.
And I had him on painkillers for, like, six months.
And I looked.
And one day he kind of rolled wrong and he kind of yelped again.
And I was like, we got to take him in.
Oh, that's horrible.
So it was bad.
You know, I got bad attachments to French Bulldogs.
Like, they're, like, my...
Since I'm having a real baby now, that's, like, my second baby.
You're going to be amazed how much you love your real baby more than you love
your dogs.
As much as I love my dogs, it just...
There's just another level.
Oh, it's beyond.
It doesn't even compare.
One of my dogs went to surgery today.
He had a hernia.
I have a Golden Retriever and I have a King Charles Spaniel.
He's the cutest little dog.
He's so fucking cute.
He's seven months old.
And he was born with a little hernia.
It's like some of them get that little hernia in their tummy.
So they had to stitch him up.
But when I was playing with him last night, I was so scared.
I was like, what if something happens to him?
Like, I can't take it, you know, because I love him so much.
He's so sweet.
He just, like, when I pick him up, he, like, kisses me, like, constantly.
And he makes noise.
Like, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.
And sometimes he barks, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.
While he's kissing you.
And you're like, I love you too.
I love you too.
And his little tail's wagging.
He wags his tail with his whole body.
Like, his whole body's wagging.
He's wiggling all over.
Oh, yeah.
Mine would go after the ears.
Yeah, he does that too.
And he would, like, put a whole nibble on the ear and then he would switch
sides.
And then he would switch sides.
Yeah, mine does that too.
And I'm like, bro, let me live for a little bit.
But I'm his whole world.
Yeah.
And I feel like sometimes we forget that.
Yeah.
Well, they're little love devices.
They just want love from you and they want to give you love.
They never have bad days.
They're never shitty.
They're never in a bad mood.
They're always cool.
You know, every day is the same thing.
Same thing.
I see them in the morning.
I'm like, good morning.
And they feel crazy.
And I get on the ground with them on the carpet and roll around and kiss them.
Just letting them roll all over.
I love dogs.
If it was up to me, I'd have 50 dogs.
I wish we could make them live longer.
I know.
Making them live longer would be crazy.
Like, cats are like 20 years.
Why can't a dog be 20 years?
Well, I think they are working on that.
I think there's actual startups right now that are working on animal longevity.
Which would be cool.
Yeah.
They're working on different medical interventions that can allow dogs to live
longer, which is fascinating.
And then sometimes people, they clone their dogs.
Tom Brady just did that.
Yeah.
I don't know how he did it, but I mean.
That's weird.
Hey, have a good time.
That's pet cemetery shit.
That is.
That might be hereditary.
Yeah.
I don't know if I'm into that.
I don't know how I feel about that.
I feel like every dog has their own unique personality.
And as much as I love the dogs that I have now.
Like, look, I had my dog Marshall.
He's almost nine.
Or he just turned nine, rather.
And I've had him since he was a puppy.
I love him to death.
But then I got this new dog, Charlie.
And I love him to death, too.
He's a totally different personality.
Like, I don't mind new dogs and new personalities.
I don't need the same dog over and over and over again.
You know what I mean?
I think that's weird.
You should try a French Bulldog.
They got, like, 12 different personalities.
Oh, I love Carl.
Jamie brings Carl in.
He's a little psycho.
He's got too many personalities.
Oh, he runs at you and just wants to play.
They got that bowling ball head.
I know.
He's a little ball of muscle, too.
Carl's jacked.
Carl's got it.
He's built.
I need to see a picture.
You got pictures of him?
Pull up a picture of Carl.
He's adorable.
He plays at my Golden.
And he just, like, throws himself like a meat missile at my Golden.
Because my Golden's, like, so gentle.
Which is great because, you know, Charlie is only 15 pounds.
My little dog.
And so my Golden is, like, playing.
And he, like, gently puts a paw over him when they play.
There's Carl.
Look at that in the face.
Look at that in the face.
I just know he does everything extra.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, look at him sleep.
He's really nice.
He's adorable.
But when he plays with Marshall, it's really crazy.
We got a video of him playing with Marshall.
Did you get his nose done?
Nope.
No?
Wow, that's perfect.
He had a good nose.
That's really good.
Some of them have fucked up noses.
Well, they come out.
They come out like this.
Oh, no.
And then they can't breathe.
And so they breathe out their mouth.
And sometimes they got to get.
They, like, solder.
Mm-hmm.
They clean that out.
They make, like, a bigger hole.
That's awful.
But some of them have it where, like, you have to go in and kind of help the esophagus
because
their face is flat.
So you got to help, like, the back and kind of cut it to where it can go down
the pipe.
Oh, no.
Crazy.
Crazy.
Crazy.
I wish people, I wish those dogs could live forever.
Those dogs got a million different characters.
I know.
Well, I love all kinds of dogs, man.
I love working dogs.
I love German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois.
Kane Corso would be cool.
They're a little dangerous.
But that's what I'm hearing.
They only lower to one person, if I'm not mistaken?
They don't like to listen.
Yeah.
Well, never mind.
My boy, Mark Dellegrate, from Sit Yotong Muay Thai, he coached a lot of UFC
fighters,
coached Kenny Florian, great Muay Thai coach, great guy, works for the UFC.
He had a Kane Corso, they had to put him down, bit his hand, like, chomped down
on him.
Yeah.
And he had it for years.
Out of nowhere?
Well, you know, he's testing them.
Like, sometimes those dogs, and not all of them, but some of them, they will
test you.
You know, and you just can't have a dog that's biting you.
No, because what else?
What if it bites your kid?
Yeah.
What if it bites your wife?
Facts.
What if it bites the mailman?
You never know.
Yeah.
When, it's just like those, and it's not all of them.
Like, I've had pit bulls, and I never had a pit bull that even wanted to bite a
person.
They were always, like, the sweetest with people.
But then you hear stories.
You hear stories.
Which is crazy.
I know.
Because how can I go online and see a pit bull just not letting go of somebody,
but all of a sudden, the next video, I see a pit bull wearing a Christmas
sweater.
I know.
With Paul shoes on.
I know.
So it's weird.
I know.
It doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't.
But it's just like people.
Some people are born crazy.
Some people are born crazy.
Yeah.
Are you big into anything like, um, what do you believe in conspiracy-wise?
Like, what's your big one right now?
Don't open up that door, Gable.
Oh, my God.
Don't open up that door.
Oh, my God.
Yo, I've got to tell you this one.
Big one conspiracy.
My dad, my dad's diehard conspiracy.
If you and him had a talk.
Uh-oh.
What is his big one?
What's the big one with him?
I don't even know.
But I know he's really bad.
I think the biggest one right now, um, he just said it.
But I don't even know.
I don't even want to say it wrong.
But that's my thing.
But I'm big on conspiracies, too.
What is the subject?
Do you remember the subject?
Some about...
I don't even want to say it.
Okay.
I don't even want to say it right now.
Okay.
We'll talk off air.
Yeah.
Okay.
But I believe there's a lot of things we don't know as people.
And I believe there's a lot of messed up shit.
Conspiracies are real.
That's the problem.
The problem with conspiracy theories is some of them are crazy and ridiculous.
But the reason why people entertain crazy and ridiculous ones is because some
of them are real.
And they're so nuts that you go, they did what?
Just when you find out about U.S. history alone, you know, you find out that
the reason why we got into Vietnam was...
I don't know this.
Okay.
It's called the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
The Gulf of Tonkin incident was supposedly the North Vietnamese, the Viet Cong,
attacked one of our ships.
But it was fake.
They faked it.
It's not real.
It's called a false flag.
And they did it just to have a story so that we would have an excuse to invade
Vietnam.
So we sent all those people to Vietnam for nothing?
A lot of people died for nothing.
A lot of people died for nothing.
And a lot of people made a lot of fucking money.
And it probably had to do with drugs, too, because they were moving heroin out
of Vietnam.
I mean, it was control of the heroin trade was a big part of it.
It was also one of the reasons why we were in Afghanistan.
While we were in Afghanistan, heroin production in Afghanistan was 94% of the
world's heroin.
What does...
And it ramped up after we invaded Afghanistan.
It went up.
Heroin production, not only did it go up, but we were guarding poppy fields for
the Taliban.
Why do we need to guard for the farmers, rather?
Why do we need to guard them?
Well, that's a really good question.
Are we using them for medical here?
Or are they just getting used to fuck people up?
It's money. It's money.
There's people...
There's dirty money that gets moved around, for sure.
When you're dealing with something like the drug trade, and billions of dollars
are going all over...
People want a piece of that.
And there's high-level people that are dirty.
And they get involved in that, and they make decisions based on that.
And they put people's lives at risk, and people die because of it.
And that probably happened in Afghanistan.
It definitely happened in Vietnam.
And people don't want to believe that.
People are hearing this right now, like, oh, stop with that nonsense.
But it's true.
I mean, there's a video of Geraldo Rivera interviewing these military guys that
were guarding poppy fields in Afghanistan.
And the guy who's interviewing is very reluctant to talk about it, but it was
on Fox News.
And he had to talk about it because everybody was aware of it.
It was becoming a big conspiracy online.
And they were coming up with some sort of a rational reason why they needed to
guard their heroin production.
Because, you know, we need them to tell on the Taliban and, like, really?
Really?
So we're letting the farmers poison young people and heroin addicts all over
the world because we want them to give us information about it.
Is that really what's going on?
Or are you motherfuckers making money out of this?
They've got to be making a lot of money, too.
A lot of money.
A lot of money.
Well, I just saw the story about that guy from—he was a football player from
Australia.
He was selling drugs.
What was that story?
He was—he's not from Australia.
He went to USC quarterback.
He was selling drugs?
He was selling drugs out of an apartment in Australia for a cartel that was
from Tijuana.
I forgot his name.
It's his quarterback.
I feel like a lot of people know it.
It's a real recent story?
It's a real story.
A recent story?
From recent from what I've seen, it might be like a couple years older.
But, yeah, he got caught because someone along the way was a middleman for a
lot of—
Wild true story behind cocaine quarterback, signal caller for the cartel.
Wow.
And they said he was making like a million dollars a day in cash.
And he was trying to move it through Las Vegas casinos.
But the middleman—someone messed up the bet, and he lost the money.
So he had to loan money from someone, and that someone was like an undercover
waiting for him like a year later
and caught him at a McDonald's before he went across the road to Tijuana or
something.
It's crazy, yo.
You know how drugs control a lot of things, and it's messed up.
Well, it's the money.
When you think about how much money gets moved around in the drug game, and
people get tempted by that.
And then, you know, you get a hold of some legitimate businessman and you say,
listen, there's a way for you to get 10x return on your money.
You know, you invest in this.
We do that.
It's simple.
You'll never get dirty.
All the money goes to offshore accounts.
No one will know about it.
You can retire when you're 45.
Crazy.
And then people start getting roped in.
And it's also—it's the excitement of doing something naughty.
That's part of it, too.
Some people just get—you know, like some people like to ride bulls.
Some people like to do some shit they're not supposed to do.
They get addicted to doing things that they are not supposed to do.
They get addicted to the life.
DEA agents.
A lot of DEA agents become drug dealers.
Well, it's just like that show, Narcos Mexico.
Yes, yes.
It's the same thing.
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
Or Cocaine Cowboys.
Have you ever watched that documentary?
No.
What's that about?
Amazing.
Cocaine Cowboys 1 and there's Cocaine Cowboys 2.
There was so much corruption in Miami during the 1980s, during the cocaine time,
that one graduating class of the police academy, the entire graduating class
either wound up murdered or in jail.
How do you do that?
Because they were all corrupt.
They were all involved in cocaine dealing, all of them, because there was so
much money.
Everybody's driving a Corvette.
Everybody's living large.
Everybody's doing blow and wearing diamonds.
It's crazy.
It's like you get caught up in that life.
And if you're involved in, like, as you're a police officer and everybody
around you is dirty, you know, like, it's just more likely you're going to be
dirty, too.
Well, now aren't they kind of blowing the Ecuadorian ships up that are coming
to here that are having a lot of drugs on them?
Yeah, Venezuela, right?
Venezuelan ships.
Yeah.
They're just blowing them up?
I don't even know.
I'm not educated on stuff like that, but I wonder if it's for to keep the trade
here.
No, I doubt it.
I think more likely what it is is because Trump genuinely hates that they're
bringing drugs into this country.
Is there other things involved, too?
I don't know.
I mean, I'm sure some of it has to do perhaps with politics.
I mean, I think that's a reasonable assumption.
But, Jamie, I just sent you something.
Here's what's interesting.
One of the things that Trump was saying is they're poisoning our kids and that
100,000 people are dying every year from drug overdoses.
We have to put a stop to this.
From the time Trump's been in office, deaths by overdose have dropped off a
cliff.
Look at that.
Look at 2024 and leading into 2025.
Just going down.
These are all deaths from overdoses.
I mean, that's kind of crazy.
Like, look at that.
From all drugs, which is the top one, look at that drop.
I mean, that's crazy.
So, you see, the peak was in 2022, or it looks like actually between 2023 and
2024.
That's the peak where people are dying.
And then from the time Trump's in office, it's taking a fucking sharp downturn.
And why is that?
Well, part of it is because they're blowing up these fucking boats that are
bringing in all the drugs.
And not just drugs, but drugs that are tainted with fentanyl.
Fentanyl is terrible.
Terrible.
Because a little piece can kill you.
Exactly.
It's smaller than a penny, and you're dead.
And people are snorting lines of it.
Mm-hmm.
And they don't even know what's in there.
And the cartel, they're buying, you know, they're taking shitty drugs and
mixing it with fentanyl so it has an effect.
That's crazy.
And people are getting it from what they think is a Xanax.
And it's not a Xanax.
It's fake.
And it's got fentanyl in it, and they're dying from that.
They're dying from Coke.
They think it's Coke and fentanyl's in that.
You know, it's horrible.
There's so much access to things in this world right now that I feel like there's
so many attainable things that people don't even think about that.
A lot of shit happens in this world that we just have no clue.
And it's kind of weird.
And I just don't know, like, kind of the variety that I'm bringing to the combo,
but I'm just saying it, like, out of just to say it.
But it's different.
Just, like, social media.
You can meet so many people and just go into random places and meeting people.
And then you can get roped up in the wrong things.
And it's just the downhill of the downhill starts.
Yep.
You take a bad turn, and next thing you know, you're on a bad road, and you
keep going.
You're like, eventually, I'm going to get out of this game.
You can't.
No.
Then you're in jail or you're dead.
Ed Calderon is a guy who's been on this podcast many times.
He used to work for the Mexican military.
Now he's an American citizen, but he's a cartel expert.
And, you know, the stories that he's told us about the fucking cartel and the
amount of money they have.
I mean, they essentially, they have giant military operations.
It's all cartel.
And they go to war with each other.
It's crazy.
Is it Pablo Escobar that had the money in the walls of his house?
I mean, probably.
I don't know.
Or who died and he buried it all over in different places?
I'm sure they all do that.
I'm sure Escobar did that.
I think they all do that.
They have so much money.
That was one of the things of cocaine cowboys was this pilot.
They had millions of dollars buried in his backyard.
He would just take garbage bags, fill it with millions of dollars of cash, dig
a big hole in the backyard, and bury it there because he couldn't bring it into
a bank.
Why don't you give it away?
Oh, fuck, give it away.
Because they're doing coke, and they want more money.
They just don't know what to do with it.
And they can't just have it all laying around their house, and someone will
break into their house and kill them and take their money.
Then it's over with.
It is a crazy game.
But I can't recommend that documentary enough, Cocaine Cowboys.
Cocaine Cowboys.
You watch it.
You go, what the fuck?
Where's the stream at?
It's probably on everywhere.
Where is Cocaine Cowboys?
Can you get it?
Sounds like Amazon.
I'm sure it's on everything.
It might even be on Netflix.
But it's incredible because you realize, like, wow, like, cocaine built Miami.
Miami had more banks per capita.
I don't know if it still does, but at one point in time, more banks per capita
than any other city in the country.
And it's because those banks were laundering money.
Damn.
They were laundering cocaine money.
It was all coming in.
And Miami never sleeps either.
So it was an all-night affair.
Yeah, that is a crazy fucking town.
That is not a good town if you want to be a fighter and live, like, a low-key,
disciplined life.
No.
You can, all of a sudden, you're here.
Then you end up here.
Then all of a sudden, it's 8 a.m.
Right.
You're at the beach at 12.
Uh-huh.
Can't be right.
No.
You can't be right.
That's a dark hole that a lot of people should not be in.
But how do you get out, though?
I don't know.
Ask John.
I mean, he seems to have navigated those waters better than anybody, you know,
because usually it ruins everything in your life.
He's obviously had some missteps, but still comes out the greatest, you know,
which is not everybody's path, you know.
But obviously, John is smart in that he spends a lot of time doing the things
that he wants to do, spends a lot of time training his dog, doing, you know,
tactical stuff.
He's always shooting guns and training.
And, you know, you've got to have things outside of that life, you know, that
you enjoy other than just partying.
Yeah, you've got to have fun.
You've got to have some type of gap.
Some release.
Yeah, and he's got a good release, and he's got a good mentality of what the
release should be and how it should go and where he needs to go with it.
And then, I mean, I've been with him now since we have this close connection.
I've been with him to places, and he's always kept me on a straight path, which
is really, really nice.
You know, a lot of people that may have, you know, like to take shots or like
to do something like that, you know, there's always a little, man, do you want
one?
But there's never been a time where he's like, man, I think you should try.
And it's great because as an older, as a younger kid that's coming up, he sees
the potential.
And that's all that matters.
And I just need someone to see it.
And, man, he's been great with it for sure.
Yeah.
When you're around a bunch of people that party and they drag you into that
world, it's so easy for people to get hooked.
It's so easy for people to just get roped into that lifestyle.
Because people essentially, for the most part, imitate their atmosphere.
And if you're around that kind of an atmosphere, those are the type of people
that you're with and those are the type of thrills that they're seeking.
You can get caught up in that, you know.
And it's the bane of every fighter's existence is women and partying.
Yeah.
He's always been like, hey, you got to stay clean.
Go home.
And that's been the best part about it.
That's great, man.
That is fucking great.
So what is the timeline right now?
Have you signed a deal with the UFC?
Are they, I know they're talking to you.
What's going on?
Yeah, they've reached out many times, but I told them just, I'm kind of on the
lines.
Right now, I'm waiting for my little girl to give, my baby girl to give, to
come out.
So January is kind of a dead month for me.
But are you signed with the UFC?
No.
No.
I'm not signing anybody.
But have they offered you a fight yet?
Yeah, they've reached out about a couple of things, but no one specific.
They just offer dates.
Do you want to have fights in other organizations first?
One of the problems with a guy like you is that you're so talented that you
could have one,
two fights in the UFC and all of a sudden be fighting a top contender, which I
think you
would do well.
Yeah, I would like to.
But if I was a manager of like a boxer and a guy with your potential, I would
do what Custamato
did with Mike Tyson.
You have them fight a bunch of different guys like you did with Dirty Boxing,
small organization,
MMA fights, build up those skills, get a lot of experience while you're
constantly training
and growing and getting better.
And then once you enter into the UFC, you're essentially already the champion.
There's just nobody knows it yet.
I would really like to debut at the White House.
Debut.
I would like to debut at the White House.
I would like to do one or two more fights before then.
And then if I can sign, do a big release.
Hey, he signed.
Good job.
And then debut at the White House.
That's my perfect world.
Is it hard to get fights right now?
Maybe a little bit.
Maybe a little bit.
I don't ask.
I just say yes.
And then just keep moving.
I kind of leave it up to John to kind of watch the people and all the coaches
to kind
of watch and see what goes on.
But, I mean, if a guy says no, there's no hard feelings.
I mean, just keep it pushing and hopefully I can get to the guy that says yes.
That's the problem is that when a guy gets so much hype around him, there's a
lot of guys
who want to eventually be a world champion and go, oh, I'm not ready for this
guy yet.
You know?
That's okay.
Even good guys are still like, ah, this guy's not, he's on another level right
now.
But if they do think that, just whenever you think you are ready, I will be
there waiting.
That's terrifying.
Just the way you said that.
I will be there waiting.
The way you said that.
That's terrifying.
A lot of people heard that like, I don't want to wait.
Fuck this.
I don't want to wait.
Fuck this amount.
100%.
But also, the smart move might be to get a hold of you now before you get
better.
You can try now too.
But you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
I mean, like, pick your poison.
I mean, like I said, dirty boxing and that last fight in November with that
double leg,
that's the worst I'll ever be.
And it's kind of neat to repeat that to the world or kind of let them get a
refresher.
That is the worst Gable Stifson will be.
And the best is when he'll come back his next time.
But after that, that's the last worst I'll ever be after that.
Do you have a blueprint, like a map of what you'd like to accomplish in your
career?
Yes.
Long term?
Yeah, long term I'd like to be champion, UFC champion.
I think Stipe has about five defenses, if I'm not mistaken.
I would like to try to beat that record if I can.
And if I can't, die trying, you know.
I would like to, I played in the NFL, I won the Olympics.
I would just like to be just an overall good man.
You know, a lot of people want to look at, like we just talked about,
you know, a lot of people want to look at the success, the money.
I just want to be an excellent man.
You know what I'm saying?
I want to look back and be like, damn, like, Gable did that.
And I saw Dana White, he had a picture, and he said,
let your last name be the reason that people remember you.
And I want the Stifson last name to be something that people remember.
And I want them to look at me and be like, damn, like,
through the peaks and valleys, Gable stood up and he became someone in his life.
And he provided for his family, and he went home healthy.
And that's what I want.
Championship's going to come.
But I feel like a lot of people are so obsessed with, I got to do this.
But I'm obsessed with being the best version of Gable.
Because if I'm the best version of Gable, you're not going to be able to beat
me.
Keep that mindset, and you will accomplish these things, my man.
Man, I appreciate it.
I believe it.
Well, I appreciate it.
Thank you very much for being here.
Yes, you already know.
It's a pleasure.
Thank you.
And I can't wait to see you fight in the UFC.
Man, I can't wait either.
It's going to be fun.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
Bye, everybody.
Bye, everybody.
Bye, everybody.