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JRE MMA Show #167 with Cory Sandhagen Podcast Episode Description
Joe sits down with Cory Sandhagen, a professional mixed martial artist competing in the Bantamweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
www.corysandhagen.com
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JRE MMA Show #167 with Cory Sandhagen Podcast Episode Top Keywords
JRE MMA Show #167 with Cory Sandhagen Podcast Episode Summary
Podcast Episode Summary
Key Points & Major Topics:
– The episode features Joe Rogan and guest Cory Sandhagen, a top UFC bantamweight contender, discussing a wide range of topics centered on MMA, training, nutrition, philosophy, and the evolution of martial arts.
– They open with anecdotes about golf addiction among athletes, including stories of Justin Gaethje and Tom Brady at Fanatics Fest.
– A significant portion is devoted to the development and controversy around MMA gloves, particularly Trevor Wittman’s Onyx gloves, and the challenges of getting them adopted by the UFC.
– Sandhagen shares insights into his training routines, sparring philosophy, and the importance of defensive skills in MMA, referencing influences from boxing and his own evolution as a fighter.
– The conversation covers the complexities and flaws of MMA judging and scoring, the need for more weight classes, and the dangers and strategies of weight cutting.
– Both discuss the prevalence and dangers of staph infections in combat sports, with personal stories and advice on prevention and recovery.
– Nutrition and recovery are explored, including Sandhagen’s use of a nutritionist, the impact of certain foods and supplements, and the role of digestive health.
– They touch on the psychological aspects of fighting, including visualization, managing ego, and the importance of routine and self-reflection.
– The episode closes with philosophical discussions on ego, spirituality, the potential impact of AI on humanity, and Sandhagen’s creative pursuits, including writing a comic book inspired by religious and philosophical themes.
Important Guests/Speakers:
– Cory Sandhagen: UFC bantamweight contender, known for his technical striking and thoughtful approach to martial arts.
– Joe Rogan: Host, comedian, UFC commentator.
Actionable Insights & Tips:
– Fighters should focus on both skill development and practicing “winning” in training camps.
– Defensive skills and movement are undervalued but crucial for longevity in MMA.
– Nutrition and recovery, including post-workout carbohydrate intake and gut health, are vital for performance.
– Managing ego and embracing a growth mindset can improve both athletic and personal development.
– Visualization and simulating fight conditions in training can enhance performance under pressure.
Recurring Themes/Overall Messages:
– The importance of continuous self-improvement, both physically and mentally.
– The need for better systems in MMA (judging, equipment, weight classes) to protect athletes and improve the sport.
– The value of humility, open-mindedness, and philosophical reflection in high-performance environments.
– The potential for martial arts and sports to unite people across cultures and backgrounds.
Summary:
This episode is a deep dive into the life and mindset of an elite MMA fighter, offering practical advice on training, nutrition, and mental preparation, while also exploring broader philosophical questions about ego, technology, and the future of humanity. Sandhagen’s thoughtful approach and Rogan’s probing questions make for an insightful and wide-ranging conversation.
This summary was created automatically by Speak. Want to transcribe, analyze and summarize yourself? Sign up for Speak!
JRE MMA Show #167 with Cory Sandhagen Podcast Episode Transcript (Unedited)
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00:01
Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.
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00:03
The Joe
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00:04
Rogan experience.
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00:06
Ai meh day. Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
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00:13
Good to see you, Brandon. What’s the afternoon? I’m good. We were talking about golf and, Jamie, who’s a full blown addict. What’s
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00:20
up? What’s up? What’s up? We don’t know. Ai good to
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00:23
hear him out.
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00:24
I feel like everyone is now.
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00:25
So you’re saying Gagey’s fully hooked?
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00:27
Oh, fully hooked. It’s crazy. He, Yeah. I don’t know. Do you know what Fanatics Fest is? No. So Fanatics Fest is I was just at it on Sunday, but it’s just like a it’s like common kinda like Comic Con, but for athletes. And Gaethje got to do, like, the fanatics game, which is ai a celebrity thing, where it’s ai 50 pro athletes do it, 50 normal people, and they compete in a bunch of sports or whatever.
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00:50
He said he won because he was good at golf, so the fucking guy won a Ferrari because he got second place. Tom Brady got first. He got a million dollars. And then, like, a normal, like, nonprofessional athlete got third place. He got, like, 200.
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01:03
Woah. He’s got a Ferrari?
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01:05
Yeah, dude. Golf got him shit. Golf got him for this fucking Ferrari.
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01:09
I think he took Holy shit.
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01:10
Yeah. So he’s so that kinda just enforced his addiction more than
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01:15
Damn. He’s that good? Yeah. He’s pretty good.
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01:18
I mean, for I don’t know shit about golf, but ram what I
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01:20
told me DC told me that he started off and he was just kinda okay. But over the ai, between the Holloway fight and his ai with Fiziev, he didn’t do anything but play golf for a year. He played, like, two hundred and sixty days in a row, and he said his handicap just kept getting better and better and better and better.
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01:37
And so the next time he played, he was like, holy shit. He’s really good now.
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01:41
Sounds about right.
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01:42
Yeah. Makes sense, though. He’s a psycho.
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01:44
He is a psycho.
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01:44
Yeah. He’s definitely dedicated to something.
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01:47
And he’s single. He’s
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01:48
gonna, yeah, he’s gonna excel. If that guy gets his mind on something, he’s gonna excel.
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01:54
Yeah. He’s a he’s a unique dude for sure. Ai really liked because, obviously, you know, I started working with Whitman not too long ago. Mhmm. I really enjoyed getting to know, like, that crew. Ai, Trevor, Gaethje, Carmelo.
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02:05
A unique guy.
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02:06
Yeah. He yeah. All of those guys are pretty unique in their own way.
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02:08
He makes the best fucking MMA gloves that have ever been made and the UFC should have bought them out a long time ago. I think he wanted some crazy amount of money or something. I think it was like some nutty deal. Mhmm. Unfortunate. I know.
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02:22
You know? I know.
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02:23
They should’ve just licensed it. They should’ve just made some sort of a deal, like, you we’ll we’ll sell the gloves, you make the money.
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02:29
Yeah.
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02:29
Let’s just get the athletes the best gloves bought. They’re so much better.
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02:33
They’re way better. Yeah. The foam in them is really good. I think The
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02:36
shape is better. The protection of your hands is better.
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02:39
Yeah. Trevor’s one of those guys where, I’m kinda similar to. Like, most things aren’t stimulating enough. Like, TV kinda playing on my phone isn’t really super stimulating to me. So, like, he’s always, like, doing something, so he’s always, like, making shit. But he’d be when I would go into Onyx, he’d just be in the back, like, with a smile, like, working on the gloves, like, every single morning that he’s there.
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03:01
And, the style that they have is real cool. People keep asking me when they’re gonna come out with them, and I think he’s getting pretty close. So
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03:09
I just really wish that him and the UFC could make a deal.
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03:12
I know.
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03:12
Because they try they spent so much time and money to develop those new gloves,
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03:15
and then
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03:16
they threw them out.
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03:17
Yeah. I hate that too. I like the new ones.
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03:19
Did you?
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03:19
I have really thin like, my hands aren’t massive like some of these guys. The old ones are better for, like if you have, like, a really thick hand, the old ones are way better. But I have a thin hand, dude, and those things used to fit me, like, perfectly.
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03:32
Because the old ones, when you when I would make a fist,
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03:34
they would stick out ai this much.
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03:36
But the new ones, they would be, like, perfect. So I can make a fist and not have this,
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03:41
like, really awkward big space right there. But
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03:43
What is the what’s the issue with the new gloves? Like, what did they not like about them?
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03:47
I, I honestly don’t know. I think some people were just complaining probably because they were just guys with thicker hands because that’s what it would come down to. There was no other reason that it was I mean, the leather was different and stuff, but, I mean, how important is that?
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04:00
Yeah. It can’t be that important. And the I think the whole idea was it’s easier to close your hand, so it was gonna eliminate some of the eye pokes.
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04:07
They were a little bit curved, but, honestly, I meh, maybe I mean, even if you bring it down, like, 10 percentages, I guess that’s saving 10 of people’s eyes. But Yeah. But, I mean, it honestly, I don’t think it was, like, significant enough to be, like, oh, no one’s gonna poke me in the eyes when they’re wearing these things.
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04:25
Well, I think the Whitman gloves would cover that because they’re much more curved.
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04:30
Those ones were curved. Yeah.
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04:31
I mean, your hand is in a permanent position Yeah. Like this.
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04:34
Yeah.
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04:34
So for you to do that, it’s an effort. Yeah. Which when do you do that? You only do that when you’re blocking things Mhmm. Or, you know, maybe, you know, when you’re sliding an arm under, like, you get a choke or something like that. But I don’t think there’s specific significantly bulkier.
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04:50
Yeah. Yeah. I’m not I’m not too sure, honestly. I don’t really recall where I think that that was a while ago when they were doing all that, so I kinda don’t recall super close what the curved ones. How how impactful it would have been on grappling.
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05:01
I think the idea of the new gloves was that peep there weren’t as many knockouts, which also doesn’t totally make sense.
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05:09
That doesn’t make any sense
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05:10
to me.
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05:11
They they probably ran a number that was from, like, all of the years of the UFC, and then maybe just when they started using the new ones instead of, like, just last year, how many knockouts. Don’t think they would do that. No?
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05:23
No. I think but there were a lot of people complaining. Sai that they weren’t hard as hard as the old gloves.
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05:28
Ai I should’ve brought you some. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Ai mean, I mean, I
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05:32
some of his, and I was like, these are the best gloves that were
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05:34
Yeah.
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05:34
For sure.
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05:35
Just fucking a, man. Work it out.
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05:38
I know. They’re good to train in too. Like, like, you can actually feel like you could hit the person and not be, like Right. Sorry. You know? Because that’s a pain in the ass when you always have to
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05:47
when you get, like, a stiff pair of gloves,
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05:49
and then you have to hit someone, and you’re just, like,
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05:51
Right.
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05:52
Ai, man. I know that. You but with these ones, you can fire away. You know? Yeah.
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05:56
Yeah. That how important is that? And it’s, like, having training partners that are that are conscientious and that aren’t gonna fucking blast you. Like, the the miles that guys take off of the clock when they’re training is so big.
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06:09
Yeah. It’s big. I think I don’t I mean, we spar I spar pretty hard still. I know that, like, not a lot of people are crazy about that, but You
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06:16
don’t get hit a lot, though.
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06:17
That’s true.
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06:17
Yeah. That’s true. Thing is you’re slick.
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06:19
Yeah. That’s true. Like, for
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06:20
a guy who’s just ai a fucking face first.
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06:22
Yeah. You know?
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06:23
Yeah. You know, that’s there’s there’s styles that enhance longevity and you have a style that enhances longevity. Because not only do you not get hit a lot, but you’re also ai, you’re a puzzle. Mhmm.
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06:33
You
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06:34
know, you’re not it’s not like, oh, here he comes. It’s like, where where what’s going on here? You know, there’s a lot of thinking that a guy has to do when they’re interacting. You know, you have so much so many feints and so many stance switches.
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06:45
Definitely.
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06:46
It’s such a smart style, man. I love watching you fight because it’s like it’s so you can see that the the ai, if they don’t and and by the way, they’re probably not used to training with somebody like you because there’s not a lot of guys like you. You could see how there’s all these adjustments that they have to make on the fly that makes you think.
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07:05
Yeah. I mean, I always really looked up to all of the defensive guys that I would watch. Like, I know that in boxing, defensive just winning the defensive battle is a big piece in boxing, and the judges almost even score a little bit for it. But in MMA, it’s just all like, only offense scores. Right. Sai that’s not really the way that I grew up thinking was good martial arts, really.
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07:28
Because my some of my favorite guys were Mayweather, Pernell Whitaker Oh, yeah. And Nenino Denaire, like, all of these really awesome, like, movers that did a phenomenal job at protecting themselves. And but now, man, people I feel like even more so now people want more blood and more offense.
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07:45
The casuals. Yeah. Yeah. That that shit drives me nuts. It does, man. It just drives me nuts. And and catering to the casuals
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07:52
I know.
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07:52
Fuck off. Like, whenever someone, like, boos and then they separate people or stand people up, I go crazy.
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07:58
I know.
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07:59
What are you doing? I know. Fuck the crowd.
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08:02
Ai think grappling is really hard to understand unless you’ve done it.
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08:05
Yeah.
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08:05
Like, striking is easy to understand. Like, okay, that guy hit the shit out of that guy more than the other guy hit him. Right. Grappling is ai it’s a whole it’s ai super proprioceptive. You know? Like, a lot of what’s going on in grappling isn’t it’s, like, hidden to the eye.
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08:23
You know what I mean? It’s where am I sitting my weight? Where am I doing this? And, and yeah. So it kinda just people just don’t think it’s cool.
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08:31
But when you understand grappling, like, it’s amazing to watch. Yes. You know, like, Amarab, for example, who’s obviously a guy that I watch a ton. It’s amazing. Yeah.
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08:41
Like, he does such a good job with, like, the little nuance y things in wrestling that’s just ai
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08:46
Yeah. That
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08:47
but it’s hard to appreciate unless you really understand it.
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08:49
Well, it’s hard to judge too Yeah. Which is a real problem because there’s judges that don’t train and never have trained, which is to me fucking crazy.
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08:58
I know.
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08:59
That’s like judging a Chinese spelling bee and you don’t speak Chinese. Like, who’s no such
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09:04
fucking winning here? Here. I know it.
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09:06
They don’t understand that. They understand when someone’s on top. Oh, he’s on top.
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09:09
I know.
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09:10
But, you know, there’s so many, like, near submission attempts that I think should count. Like like, I’ve always go to the Oliveira, Arya Sarukian ai. Because I think Oliveira won that fight. Mhmm. Because Oliveira came close to finishing him ai. Mhmm. And Sarukian stayed on top and he had a lot of control and it was a very close fight.
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09:29
But I think those fucking moments where a guy is, like, at ai, you know, if 10 is checkmate, he’s at nine twice. That’s big, man. Yeah. That you don’t wanna be there. Ai guy got you there. He’s got a fucking locked in triangle. Yeah. You got out of it, but still, that that’s big, man.
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09:48
That should count. And damage leading up to a KO or that doesn’t lead to a KO is very significant in the scorecards. But a submission that doesn’t lead up to a submission doesn’t count, and I don’t understand that. You can’t just count damage. You have to count, like, near falls or near near near subs.
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10:05
I agree. Yeah. I mean, if you if you wanna take, for example, too, like, even, like, sai me and a TJ fight, like, TJ was limping out of that cage, and I was kinda, you know, like, oh, cool. You know? And I don’t think that that should count for everything. But ai you’re saying, like, the reason that he was limping out of that cage is because I popped his knee really bad. You know?
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10:23
Like, he had to spend the next eighteen months making his knee better so that he could fight again, and I was able to fight, you know, pretty shortly afterwards. Sai, yeah, there’s gotta be something to that. Like, if you pop someone’s shit really bad, it it should count just as much as a knockdown or something like that.
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10:37
What do you think about the idea of, like, ten eight rounds for, like, things that are known, not just ai, okay, this person won by a mile. But it’s like in kickboxing, they do. If you get knocked down in a round, it’s automatically a ten eight round. Mhmm. Do you like that for MMA or no?
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10:55
I do, but if a guy is tuning you up Mhmm. For, like, the entire round and you clip him and drop him, and he gets back up and he’s still okay, I don’t think that’s a ten eight round. Ai think I think MMA should be a completely different scoring system than a 10 ai system. Because I think the 10 we just stole this boxing system
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11:14
I know.
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11:14
Which is a great system for boxing because you only have two weapons, and you only have your hands. You don’t even have elbows. Right? So think about all the different factors in MMA and we’re limited to 10 points. To me, that seems silly. I think it should probably be 10 points for each aspect of the sport. Like, okay, who who landed more kicks? Who landed more punches?
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11:35
Who and then calculate all that shit up together. You know, who had more takedowns? Who who landed damage from the top? Vatsal it it should be a comprehensive system. And I think there should be more than three judges. You know.
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11:47
When, you know, when you have a split decision and, like, some of them are so crazy, you know, you sai, like, a five round split decision and it’s they gave, like, four judges or three two out of the three judges rather give, like, three out of five rounds and the other person gives them the whole five rounds, like, this is too much variability.
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12:08
There’s too much weirdness to it. And and if you’re a fighter, especially in MMA because of the win bonus
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12:15
Yeah.
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12:15
Which also drives me crazy. Mhmm. Ai think you if you had three more judges so if you have six judges, six judges would balance it out. Six good judges. So the ones that fuck up and make mistakes, they’ll be vatsal out by the better judges.
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12:29
We could do, like, a submission or knockout only league. Oh. That’d be pretty cool. Because then you definitely know who was winning that one.
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12:36
What would you think about a no time limit? Yeah.
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12:38
No no time limit, submission, or knockout only.
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12:41
That would be wild.
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12:42
That’d be pretty sick, actually.
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12:43
Well, cool.
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12:44
You could probably sanction that.
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12:45
Old school UFC. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s UFC one.
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12:48
Yeah. It wouldn’t really pay off for meh, though. I need weight classes in order for me to fucking for my career
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12:53
to be good. Yeah. Weight classes, sure. But but no time limit within the weight classes.
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12:57
Yeah. That’d be sweet. That would be pretty shah
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12:59
would be pretty wild.
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12:59
Yeah. That’d be pretty because
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13:01
you know, you know, ai, two guys facing off each other, like, and they know, like, there’s no rescue Yeah. Every five minutes.
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13:07
Yeah. That’s
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13:08
And and you go into it knowing you’re either getting knocked down or submitted or you’re doing that to the other person. Oh, that would
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13:13
be real. But, again, the casuals would have a hard time with it because it would probably be a much more moderate pace or Yeah.
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13:20
Or Yeah.
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13:21
You know, unless someone just tries to go for it right off the bat. Yeah.
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13:24
And that could be a strategy.
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13:26
Sure. I mean, it does work.
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13:28
Yeah.
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13:28
It’s ai there’s so many fights where did you see the the past, the Azerbaijan fight?
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13:33
I didn’t watch those ones. No. I watched Curtis’s fight and a guy named Mohammed’s fight on my team, but, no, I didn’t watch the other one.
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13:38
There was, who was it, Mota and the other guy from Azerbaijan. See if you could find his name. Saloni? Fuck. Ai I hadn’t seen him fight before.
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13:50
What weight class was it?
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13:52
I think it was 45. Yeah. No. It was lightweight. Yeah. Sotikoff and Nicholas Mota. Nazim Sotikoff and Nicholas Mota. Fucking crazy fight, man. It was so good that Dana White gave him double bonuses.
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14:07
Oh, nice. Sweet.
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14:07
But Mota landed a 75 punch combination. Like, I’m not kidding, man. He landed, like and then Sotikoff came back and stopped him.
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14:17
Oh, shit.
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14:18
It was wild. Oh, shit. That’s cool. Wild fight. Like, a fight like that where two guys just fought and Motel, like, basically emptied out the tank, but Sotikoff had fantastic defense. Just kept covering and moving. It’s just getting bombed onto the body and to the head, but he kept it looked like it was getting close to stop.
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14:33
And then also he he comes back and sai, Bowden’s taking these big deep breaths and,
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14:38
whoo, it
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14:38
was wild.
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14:39
Yeah. When that strategy works, it works. But when it doesn’t Yeah. You’re in some shit.
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14:44
That’s the problem. The the the blitz sprint and very few ai. You know, we were talking about Gaethje and golf, and I was saying that I’m scared of golf and, you you know, you’re ai, I don’t have time for golf. There’s a the thing that happens with golf is it takes so much time and it’s so addictive that it’s gonna take away time from other stuff no matter what you do.
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15:04
And when you look at a guy like, I always point to Marab because the day after he beat Shah, the first fight, DC went to his house to to go talk to him and he was out running. Mhmm. The day after. Mhmm. Ai, that’s a guy who does not stop. Mhmm.
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15:18
And that extreme physicality and that extreme endurance because he is just constantly working, that means something Yeah. That counts. If you take months off, you takes, you know, like like, this was the thing that I was thinking about with Jon Jones. Jon Jones said he needed sai months to prepare for Aspinall if he’s gonna fight Aspinall. So they were trying to make a deal, and then he decided to retire.
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15:39
But it’s six months because he’s not training Mhmm. Ai, at all. Mhmm. Like, he just doesn’t train. Like, in between fights, just doesn’t train.
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15:46
Yeah.
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15:47
Which to me he used to
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15:48
do that
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15:48
a lot when he was younger too, which is I always thought was crazy.
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15:51
That is crazy to me. I always saw guys do that, like, when I was in my twenties, and, like, I would watch these really big fighters just not train unless it was a training camp time. I’d be like, fuck that. I’m never being that way. Ai don’t know, man. That’s that’s, like, a really weird one to me, but I don’t wanna bash it too bad because I do know a lot of guys that do do that.
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16:11
But Look at John, greatest of all time. It’s like, how did he do that?
Speaker: 1
16:14
I really don’t know. Talented. I don’t know how that works. Like, I sana it to make sense in my head that, like, the harder you work, the more shit you’ll get from it, you know, which is, like, true to an extent. But then you have, like, these weird outlier guys that maybe have something more figured out than me that I don’t have figured out or whatever.
Speaker: 1
16:30
But, I mean, that to me is, like, completely unacceptable in my head. Like, I I I think that, I really hate when people say that they wanna be something, and then they don’t do any of the actions to, like, actually do that thing that they’re saying that they wanna be.
Speaker: 2
16:44
Right.
Speaker: 1
16:44
So I don’t get to walk around being, like, yeah, I’m gonna be a world champion. I I wanna be a world champ real bad, and then not do any of the fucking actions, you know? Right. Then I’m just sai a stupid person, you know?
Speaker: 2
16:55
Well, I think John is just so fucking talented that he could pull that off.
Speaker: 1
17:00
Yeah. And
Speaker: 2
17:00
that’s that’s the outlier. Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
17:02
It’s
Speaker: 2
17:02
ai, he was just so good. He was so good. It just he just he could do it. He could he could party and still fuck guys up like what he said to Cormier at the press conference for the second fight. Yeah. I beat you when I was on COVID.
Speaker: 1
17:14
Okay. I know. I saw that video the other day.
Speaker: 2
17:19
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18:01
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18:20
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Speaker: 2
18:45
When ai are that talented, there’s so much ai, they’re playing with their food
Speaker: 1
18:50
I ai.
Speaker: 2
18:50
Essentially. Until, you know, like like, I always point to with John, the first Gustafsson fight, which Mhmm. By all accounts, he didn’t train.
Speaker: 1
18:59
Oh, really? Yeah. By all accounts.
Speaker: 2
19:00
Barely trained for that fight. Barely trained. Just partying. Yeah. And beat Gustafsson and pulled it off in the last rounds, which was really crazy. But then comes back in the second fight and is like, okay, motherfucker. Now we’re trained. Mhmm. And just destroys him. Just runs right through him.
Speaker: 1
19:16
Which god does he worship?
Speaker: 2
19:18
No. Right?
Speaker: 0
19:19
And then,
Speaker: 1
19:19
like He start going to that church?
Speaker: 2
19:21
Well, I think it’s just talent, man. And it’s also genetics. Like, both of his brothers are super athletes. Yeah. You know, he’s just a phenomenal specimen. And then he’s got a great mind for fighting. His his it’s you can’t discount his in cage IQ because it’s fucking phenomenal.
Speaker: 1
19:38
I do think two people have different wired brains too, where some people need, like, cool down time in order for them to yeah. I don’t know, man. I I really I don’t know how it works. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I don’t yeah. I’m more on the other end where it’s ai, I’m gonna give every inch of myself to this thing Right. You know, in hopes that I get it one day.
Speaker: 1
19:57
But then Sai know a lot of guys, man, a lot of guys that are really successful that are just ai, nah, man. I need my, like, off time. Yeah. That to me is really uncomfortable, but I kinda got a little bit I don’t like chilling. You know?
Speaker: 1
20:10
Like, me and my wife were just in Maui a couple weeks ago. It’s, like, the first vacation for seven days I ever taken, like, since I was a kid, probably.
Speaker: 2
20:18
Did you get stir crazy?
Speaker: 1
20:19
I got a little stir crazy. I kinda liked it, though. But, like, a piece of me liked just completely being ai, oh, my home my, like, life doesn’t exist back there. So I liked it a little bit in that, but I I didn’t like the feeling of being completely, like, turning my nervous system off completely.
Speaker: 1
20:36
That was, like, weird to me. I like being, like, a little stressed or having something going a little bit all the time. It kinda just makes me feel, like, alive or something. I don’t know. But I didn’t really like that feeling. I was kinda ready to come.
Speaker: 1
20:48
I, like, didn’t like that I liked it too. It’d be like if I started playing golf. And I was like, oh, shit. This is fun. And then I gotta, like, do that more and more. I don’t really wanna get addicted to relaxing either.
Speaker: 2
20:58
Well, the golf thing is a six hour plus thing
Speaker: 1
21:01
every day.
Speaker: 2
21:01
Yeah. When you’re a guy like Jamie, you you know, you’re ai like, Jamie’s got a simulator out there, so he’s whacking balls every day. It it gets you. It gets in your blood. But the thing about, like, relaxing, one thing that I do like about vacations is that at the end, I’m ready to go to work.
Speaker: 2
21:17
Mhmm. Like, when I when I’m done, when the when it’s, like, day if I’m on an eight day vacation, it’s day seven, Ai, like, I can’t fucking wait to get back to work. I can’t wait to get shit going.
Speaker: 1
21:26
I don’t get that. You know? When I was out there, I was like, I could stay here forever. I was like, I’ll sai. I was like, fuck home.
Speaker: 2
21:33
I was like, wait. Can we afford this? I was like, let’s just stay here. Isn’t that the it’s a weird thing about momentum. Right? Like, when you’re training really hard all the time, you have this, like, constant momentum in your head of improvement. You’re, like, you’re you’re on the path.
Speaker: 2
21:48
You’re you’re in the process, you know, and you’re feeling that. And when that gets disrupted, when guys get injured and they have to come back or they get sick and they have to come back, there’s, like, you gotta, like, rebuild that momentum. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah.
Speaker: 0
22:04
Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah.
Speaker: 2
22:05
Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Wo
Speaker: 1
22:10
I’m pretty familiar with, like, the process of, like, having to kick back into ram, you know? And I do realize that it takes me about two weeks to get, like, alright. This is my normal life again, you know? Which is why I really like training camp, and I really like fighting more than real life is what I say just because it’s, like, organized.
Speaker: 1
22:28
I know what I’m doing. I don’t gotta think about stuff. I’m not traveling places. People like traveling. I hate traveling.
Speaker: 1
22:35
It makes me feel like my life is moving on fast forward, which I don’t really like. I like feeling I I feel most alive when I’m in a routine and I have time to myself, and I could sit and kinda reflect and all of that shit. But, but, yeah, I, What is
Speaker: 2
22:49
the difference between your training, like, regular training and then training once you get into camp? How much like, what is a normal day when you’re not in camp for you?
Speaker: 1
22:57
It’s all the exact same. I’m just less competitive when I’m outside of camp. Mhmm. And I won’t if if I’m, like, beat to shit dead tired, I’ll miss a practice. But that’s really the only time that I’ll miss practice. In camp, I won’t miss, unless I have, like, a two week rule where if I’m, like, dragging really bad, I’ll make myself go for another week and a half, two weeks until I’m like, okay.
Speaker: 1
23:20
I I I I Ai do actually need a rest. You know? And then sai I’ll do that in camp. But, yeah, I, but outside of camp is pretty much the exact same. I’ve been traveling a a lot, which I really don’t like doing, just because, again, like, I I don’t really feel like I’m alive.
Speaker: 1
23:39
I feel like I’m, like, fast forwarding through a bunch of stuff. But it’s been, like, useful stuff, like, seeing family and then, like, me and my wife going on our honeymoon or whatever. So it’s ai normal life shit that Sai guess I gotta check-in and do every once in a while.
Speaker: 1
23:51
But if it were up to me, it would just be, like, training camp life all of the time just because it’s easier. It’s way easier. It’s fun. It’s easy. I go to the gym. I do my hard workouts. I’m competitive as fuck. I gotta get that out of me.
Speaker: 1
24:04
And then I just hang with my friends
Speaker: 2
24:06
for an hour afterwards. When you say you’re less competitive when you’re just normal training, like, is that conscious? Like, do you decide to be less competitive? And why do you do that?
Speaker: 1
24:15
I do that because I can’t I think that, if I’m too competitive, I won’t work on stuff. Ai, it like, a lot of camp for me is getting better at stuff, and then the last four weeks is figuring out how to win. It’s not ai I think that practicing winning is just as important as being able to practice a certain skill.
Speaker: 1
24:34
So a lot of my camps will be developing those skills, but then, like, the last four or five weeks, it’s just Ai need to focus on winning each round regardless of who it’s against or whatever. I’m not, like, practicing a certain technique or doing anything like that. It’s just win win win.
Speaker: 2
24:51
Just doing whatever it takes to win that round.
Speaker: 1
24:53
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Because that’s an important skill to build.
Speaker: 2
24:55
And when you’re less competitive, when you’re just training and you’re not in camp, you’ll try things, you’ll be a little more playful, try to, like, sort stuff, try new new skills.
Speaker: 1
25:05
And I’m definitely not as sparring hard as fuck like I do in camp too. Right. Like, I won’t do that outside of camp unless I got a guy that’s been giving me a bunch of rounds in my ram, and he has a fight coming up. And and then I’ll, like, gear up to give him a good one, you know. But, no. Outside camp comp like, just less competitive.
Speaker: 1
25:22
I don’t show up as early and get my mind right before. When I’m in camp, every single sparring session that I do, I try to put myself in the locker room while I’m warming up. I think that that’s like I’ve had a lot of success doing that. Just making my body make good decisions when I’m in a super elevated ai intensity state is something you gotta practice too.
Speaker: 1
25:43
I definitely won’t do that outside of camp because that’s a lot of energy.
Speaker: 2
25:46
So you visualize the walkout. You visualize, like, stepping into the octagon, all that?
Speaker: 1
25:52
Essentially. It’s not as so I don’t do as much of, I’d more so go off a feel a little bit more now, where I’ll be like, okay. I need to do this today because I know that I really don’t wanna do it. Or I’ll be like, okay. This day, for whatever reason, I’m really distracted.
Speaker: 1
26:11
I’ll do a little bit more visualization, mindful stuff, or whatever. Because every day is different in speak. As you know, where some days you’re good to go right off of the bat and then other days you’re dragging, it’s those days that you’re dragging that I make sure that I’m like those ones Ai be like, okay.
Speaker: 1
26:25
Fucking visualize because your body doesn’t wanna do this right now. And I’ll put myself in that state twice a week, which is, has helped a lot a lot a lot.
Speaker: 2
26:33
I know for a while, you were organizing your whole camp. Right?
Speaker: 1
26:37
Yeah. Are
Speaker: 2
26:38
you still doing that?
Speaker: 1
26:39
No. I don’t do that anymore. That has actually been, like, a super significant piece in, one, my life getting a lot better, and then, two, I think that, like, it I think it’s gonna transfer over really well into my next few fights. For a really long time, for a lot of reasons, I was, like, really ai over my my stuff. I don’t like when people do things for me.
Speaker: 1
27:02
Like, I I kinda, like, live in a way where everything is my responsibility. And if I fuck up, it was, like, on me regardless of what happens, which is, like, a fine way to be, but also it’s not, like, crazy realistic either. But that’s just ai the way that I am, just the way that I grew up. Like, it was kinda ai take care of me type of thing, you know.
Speaker: 1
27:18
And if I’m messing stuff up, it’s on me. So I I was like that for a really long time. It was actually after the Umar fight where I realized how in the way I got of myself in that fight.
Speaker: 2
27:33
How so?
Speaker: 1
27:35
Overdoing it, from insecurity a little bit, over like, that was my first camp with Trevor too. And Trevor’s a phenomenal coach. I’ve known him for a lot of years. He has a lot of champions. There’s no, like, there’s no reason to doubt any of what he has going on or my other coach, Carrington Banks, or anyone really.
Speaker: 1
27:56
But because I kinda have this mindset on life or did used to have this mindset on life where it was, hey, man. Like, manage everything. Like, make sure everyone’s doing their work. Like, blah blah blah. Like, after that Umar fight, I really got into I was like, alright. Fuck it, guys.
Speaker: 1
28:13
Like, I messed that one up, I felt like, because I was trying to be too micromanaging over this thing. I started getting outside of myself. You guys take over. And the reason that I did that wasn’t necessarily because I lost. It’s because I’m coaching a couple professionals now, and coaching a professional is different than coaching an amateur.
Speaker: 1
28:30
It’s like a it feels like a lot more responsibility. And I realized what was happening when I would try to help these couple guys that I was trying to help is that they they are too close to it. The same way that I’m sure you get too close to your art as well, like in comedy, you’re too close to it sometimes where you don’t really you can’t see things from a perspective that is, like, true and real because you’re so locked into what it is that you’re doing.
Speaker: 1
28:55
I really big time realized that that was a thing in my other guys. So when I would try to help them and they’d be like, hey, man. Like, I don’t like, they’d kinda get a little bit argumentative. I’d be like, you could keep doing that, but I’m a I’m a thousand percent sure that I’m right about this. You know? But do your own thing.
Speaker: 1
29:11
And I started to realize, like, oh, fuck. That’s what I do all the time. Like, I gotta I was like, fuck, dude. I gotta stop being argumentative and just shut the fuck up and listen if I really trust these guys.
Speaker: 2
29:20
Right.
Speaker: 1
29:20
And so I started doing that big time, man, and it made my it changed so much stuff for me.
Speaker: 2
29:25
I forgot who you fight fought your last fight.
Speaker: 1
29:27
I fought Figgy last.
Speaker: 2
29:28
That’s right. Yeah. Figgy blues me out. Yeah. Yeah. Sai that’s essentially the same position that you got in with TJ. Yep. Yep. Right? Yep. Fifty fifty. And what that that’s ai your the the so this is all Ryan Hall stuff. Right? Yep. And so you’re putting him in a position where if he doesn’t know what you’re doing and he tries to get out of it, he’s gonna blow his knee.
Speaker: 1
29:47
Yep. Essentially. I I I like fifty fifty a lot because, one, I get to learn it from the guy who essentially invented it and is the best at it in the world. The only guys that I feel like can beat me at fifty fifty are guys that train at fifty fifty. And so it’s kinda like what it feels like fifty fifty, the position, and just kinda leg locks in general if you really know how to do them in MMA, are a spot that you can pull people into and have them be completely lost.
Speaker: 2
30:16
Because they have to think, what do I do now? And you’re already moving.
Speaker: 1
30:19
It’s super niche too. Like, understanding the position is super niche. It’s like judo almost a little bit in wrestling, where it’s like, okay, cool. If this ai gonna just wrestle with me, great. But if this guy has good throws, that changes a lot of the way that I have to do things.
Speaker: 1
30:32
I can pull people into these really niche spots, where I where I know that I’m gonna win them. So fifty fifty is one of those. It’s kinda like what jiu jitsu used to be a little bit before people have started to understand jiu jitsu. But now people fully understand jiu jitsu, so you don’t really get to, like, catch people in guillotines or whatever.
Speaker: 1
30:51
But fifty fifty and a lot of the leg locks and a lot of stuff that Ryan teaches me and does is so niche that, like, you would need an absolute expert to understand it. And I, like, get the fortune of having that.
Speaker: 2
31:04
Yeah. That’s awesome. He’s so fucking smart too. That dude is his like, his analysis of jiu jitsu and the way he’s broken down different positions. It’s it’s really exciting to watch. Is he fighting I know he’s had, like, nine surgeries.
Speaker: 1
31:17
Yeah. He’s kinda crazy. Right? It’s, like, closer to a thousand. But, but, but, yeah, he I mean, he’s doing good. He says he wants to fight again. I I hope that he does.
Speaker: 2
31:26
Why is he having all these surgeries? Like, what’s going on?
Speaker: 1
31:28
I think it’s, just one of those things where, like, you let one thing go and then another thing breaks and then another thing breaks, and you kinda, like, are taping yourself back together. And then one day you wake up and you’re ai, shit. I gotta, like, take care of this.
Speaker: 2
31:41
How many what are the surgeries that he had?
Speaker: 1
31:44
I’m not sure specifically. Ai name it. He’s probably had it. Like I’ve never heard
Speaker: 2
31:49
of anybody having that many surgeries.
Speaker: 1
31:51
There’s a couple knee ones, a couple shoulder ones. Honestly, I quit asking after a certain point. But, yeah, I think that he’s kinda coming back. Ryan, more than anything, I’m like a super conceptual thinker. Like, I don’t really like details. Like, I don’t remember names of stuff. ’19.
Speaker: 2
32:09
Yeah. General anesthesia. First of all, that is so bad for
Speaker: 0
32:13
you. I
Speaker: 1
32:13
know. That is really
Speaker: 2
32:14
sai for you to go under general ai can you go back up there what it says there? It says tearing his ACL the following years and many surgeries. Jujutsu specialist wasn’t out of the woods just yet. That is so crazy. Yeah. Okay. So we had to fix a plantar plate, so that’s his foot, got got fallen on again, had to have a tight rope surgery, the one that Pat Mahomes got and a lot of other people have had.
Speaker: 2
32:37
I don’t know what that one is. Do you know what that is? Tight rope surgery?
Speaker: 1
32:40
Nope. No idea.
Speaker: 2
32:41
ACL got infected, had to have a couple of septic, septic arthritis. Well, the tight rope is actually allergic to the hardware they put in me some oh, my god. So he had to have that redone. Boy, came to injuries, he said, completely bulletproof for fifteen years until his training camp for temporia, where he tore his hip right before the fight.
Speaker: 2
33:02
Tightrope is, used to stabilize ankle. Wow. That is crazy.
Speaker: 0
33:08
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
33:08
You did. More than half the surgeries of ones where, oops, we screwed up. Let’s do that again. Sai
Speaker: 1
33:13
It’s six elbow surgeries and five knee surgeries. Holy shit. Holy shit. Yeah. I don’t like taking any type of medication ever, so that would probably really bother me having to be under that much. It it would probably really fuck me up.
Speaker: 2
33:28
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33:59
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Speaker: 3
34:53
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34:55
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Speaker: 1
35:04
I know. It’s kinda scary, dude.
Speaker: 2
35:05
Yeah. It makes it fucking scary.
Speaker: 1
35:06
I’ve only had a couple surge how many surgeries have you had, like, under the knife, like, had to go under?
Speaker: 2
35:13
Three knee surgeries under the knife. Ai think those are the only general anesthesia ones that I’ve had.
Speaker: 1
35:22
It’s kinda I get really I’ve only had to do it for my elbow, when I tore my tricep.
Speaker: 2
35:27
Yeah. You tore that shit off the bone. Right?
Speaker: 1
35:28
Yeah. It was pretty fucked up.
Speaker: 2
35:30
But you
Speaker: 1
35:30
still won the ai? I did still win the fight. That one that was, like, a whole fucking thing, though. I I got bursitis in that elbow because I got a bunch of loose floating bones and shit in there. So then it just swelled up really bad. And every time I’ve gotten bursitis, I’ve gotten really bad staph infections in in it. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
35:46
Because, I mean, you gotta think it’s just ai sitting pooled
Speaker: 2
35:49
Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 1
35:49
Fluid in your body. And then when you’re still in the gym training and it gets, like, in your bloodstream or whatever, it just, like, it’s like a swamp, and then it just
Speaker: 2
35:56
Wasn’t that what happened to Ben Askren? Wasn’t it a staph infection that turned into a pneumonia?
Speaker: 1
36:02
Oh, really? I don’t know. Sai
Speaker: 2
36:04
it’s Is
Speaker: 1
36:04
he doing okay? I never asked.
Speaker: 2
36:06
He’s not doing okay. I mean, he needs a lung transplant.
Speaker: 1
36:09
Oh, fuck.
Speaker: 2
36:10
Yeah. He had I think they call it necrotic pneumonia. Uh-huh. Sai, essentially, it was rotting holes in his lung tissue. Uh-huh. And so they had to put him on a ventilator, and apparently, one of his lungs is just gone, and they have to replace it, which is that’s so crazy because then you have to be on medication for your entire life because your body wants to reject the lung because it’s not your lung.
Speaker: 2
36:34
So you have to take these immunosuppressant. So now your immune system is severely suppressed because you have to take immunosuppressant drugs in order to have this. Like, I have a friend who had a heart transplant and he’s all fucked up because of it, you know. It’s just ai you’re always worried about getting sick because your immune system is very compromised.
Speaker: 1
36:51
And that’s gonna change his ai?
Speaker: 2
36:52
Oh, my God. I mean, he’s still
Speaker: 1
36:54
in a
Speaker: 2
36:54
in a medically induced coma, I believe. I think he’s he’s out of the coma now. Like, he looks at people and he can ai talk a little bit. But, I mean, this is all going on for meh, many weeks now. Mhmm. Yeah. And I think what happened was he was feeling like shah, and he didn’t know how bad it was, and he went to a Bitcoin conference.
Speaker: 2
37:13
You know, he traveled, did the and then it got real bad. Mhmm. And then he goes, oh, this is serious.
Speaker: 1
37:18
So is the staph kinda inside of his lung? Can you
Speaker: 2
37:21
see me ai that? If it was a sai if it started with a staph infection.
Speaker: 1
37:25
That sounds like it would really hurt. Cool. Staph infections by themselves hurt really bad. I couldn’t imagine having it in your lungs where you’re breathing into.
Speaker: 2
37:32
I don’t think enough people pay attention to staph.
Speaker: 1
37:34
Oh, no.
Speaker: 2
37:35
I mean, how many guys, like, fight and they’re on antibiotics? It happens all the time. Merab. Like, when when Merab fought Arya, apparently, he had staph on his shin and he was on antibiotics when he fought.
Speaker: 1
37:46
So did the type of antibiotic that I was on, I forget the name of it, unfortunately, but the reason I tore my tricep was because that antibiotic made my ligaments super shitty pretty meh, which because, dude, like, I should never tear my tricep. I’m pretty sure it happened when he was kimori ing me. Dude, that shouldn’t happen. Ai know? Like, maybe something else, but definitely not tear my tricep. Right.
Speaker: 1
38:08
So that’s when it happened. And then I was like, yo. What the fuck is that about? Like, that shouldn’t happen. And then when I read into it a little bit, they told me that that specific antibiotic, it doesn’t mess with your respiratory stuff, like your conditioning as much, but it makes your ligaments just really not good.
Speaker: 2
38:27
Oh, that’s terrible.
Speaker: 1
38:28
I know.
Speaker: 2
38:28
I know. And then you have to fight. Yeah. Which is crazy.
Speaker: 1
38:31
I know. Last camp, I didn’t get one, dude. I was so happy. I didn’t get sick.
Speaker: 2
38:34
How many times have you had staph?
Speaker: 1
38:36
Not too many ai, but, man so this ai, with my elbow against Fawn, I got it really bad. I was on one round of antibiotics for seven days or something, and then it came back immediately. So then I was on it for two more weeks, and then I got off it the week before the fight. So I was essentially on it for, like, a month, which
Speaker: 2
38:54
Oh my god.
Speaker: 1
38:55
Which sucks. And then, and then against Umar, I got it really bad in my knee. Like, super bad where, I’m not a crazy anxious person, dude, but I finally got to, like, experience what it was like to have a panic attack because I was in Virginia training, got it. I was like, something’s up with my knee. It hurt really bad. Couldn’t put weight on my leg.
Speaker: 1
39:18
This was probably, like, a month before the fight maybe, maybe a little bit before that five weeks or so. I got a really bad knee infection. I started taking the antibiotics, but they told meh, like, hey, man. If this doesn’t get better like, if you start taking these antibiotics and tomorrow it’s not better, we need you to cut it come in.
Speaker: 1
39:35
We’re gonna cut your knee open and clean it because that’s how they take care of it. And I was like, sure. I was like, I’m not coming back here. You know? Like Right. I’m gonna take these antibiotics.
Speaker: 2
39:45
Because otherwise, you can’t fight.
Speaker: 1
39:47
Then I can’t fight. Right. So, yeah. So that was a shitty situation. But, just pretty much really bad, maybe three ai.
Speaker: 2
39:57
Three ai?
Speaker: 1
39:58
Yeah. Three times. Maybe, like, pretty bad.
Speaker: 2
40:00
Yeah. It’s such a scary thing because it fucking kills people.
Speaker: 1
40:03
Yeah. It does.
Speaker: 2
40:03
Staph gets gets systemic, gets in your bloodstream,
Speaker: 1
40:07
and
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40:07
you can die.
Speaker: 1
40:08
Dude, that’s why I think I freaked out really bad with my knee is because I remember laying in bed and being ai I called my wife and just set the phone next. I was like, hey. Like, until you get home, like, can you just be on the phone? Because I’m kind of afraid I’m about to die a little bit. Woah.
Speaker: 1
40:24
Yeah. It was really it it got, like, really scary there. Was it swollen?
Speaker: 2
40:27
Was it so is it an external? It’s
Speaker: 1
40:30
abrasive. Swollen. Yeah. It was super swollen. It no. No. No. It wasn’t an abrasion one. It was, like, inside of mine.
Speaker: 2
40:34
So it was internal.
Speaker: 1
40:35
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So that really wasn’t good. But I remember every time I’ve taken antibiotics with the staph infection, my experience has been that it gets really painful and a lot worse for, like, the first few hours when the antibiotics kick in and start killing it. And then it starts to get better. But the first couple of hours is, like, kinda scary.
Speaker: 1
40:54
So when I first started taking the antibiotics, that’s when I called my wife because I don’t take a lot of medicine. Like, if I take a ibuprofen, I will feel that shit working through my entire body. And yeah. So I, like, took the antibiotics, and I started to feel it through my body. And I was like, this is scary. And I was like, hey.
Speaker: 1
41:12
Like, till you get home, let’s, be on the phone because I’m afraid I’m about to pass out and die here. Wow. Ai fucking terrifying. But I didn’t wanna go to the dock and then get cut open and not be able to fight because that fight had already got canceled and shit. So I was like, yeah. I know.
Speaker: 1
41:27
We’re always put
Speaker: 2
41:28
in tough spots. I
Speaker: 1
41:29
know. But it’s
Speaker: 2
41:30
ai sometimes you just gotta do that. Sometimes you have to cancel a fight. And I know nobody likes to hear that, but
Speaker: 1
41:35
I know.
Speaker: 2
41:36
It’s still different than boxing. Boxing, you get so few fight cancellations.
Speaker: 1
41:40
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
41:41
You know, it’s much less. Mhmm. But when you’re wrestling, when you’re grappling, you’re you’re constantly getting kicked and punched and you’re fucking you’re doing so many different things. The odds of you getting injured are so much higher.
Speaker: 1
41:53
I know.
Speaker: 2
41:54
Gordon got staph for a fucking year.
Speaker: 1
41:57
Oh, I see.
Speaker: 2
41:58
Like, that’s why his stomach is all fucked up. Gordon Ai was on antibiotics for a year, and his internal gut bacteria, his flora is just torched. Damn. He’s just a mess. Damn. He can’t keep food down. He has this, like, constant fight or flight reaction in his body where he wants to vomit all the time.
Speaker: 2
42:16
And he’s going through training camps and beating everybody in grappling matches against the best in the world. That’s how good he is.
Speaker: 0
42:22
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
42:23
Like, with staff for twelve years or excuse me, twelve months. And then on top of that, this lingering stomach thing because of that that no doctor seems to figure out. They can’t fix it. He’s gone to, like, every they’ve given a bunch of different shit. He’s tried peptides and this and that. You get a little bit of improvement.
Speaker: 2
42:41
He starts training hard again, comes back.
Speaker: 1
42:44
Yeah. There’s probably some, like, old lady in the Amazon jungle that knows how to cure that shit. I told tyler Like, just eat this. Stupid.
Speaker: 2
42:50
I told them try, like, a seven day fast. Try something nutty like
Speaker: 1
42:54
that. But Ai, like, a only avocados ai. I mean, it’s gotta be something. There’s gotta be something.
Speaker: 2
43:00
There’s gotta be something.
Speaker: 0
43:01
But I
Speaker: 2
43:01
would think, like, a fast where you just I feel like you’re just completely let your gut reset.
Speaker: 1
43:06
Yeah. Ai mean, I don’t know.
Speaker: 2
43:08
Do you do those? No.
Speaker: 1
43:09
Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 2
43:10
I’ve done a day. Yeah. I’ve never done, like, the long one. Sana had just did a long one. He did, like, three days. He said it was awesome. Sai by the end of it, you feel fucking amazing.
Speaker: 0
43:18
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
43:18
I did the three day one and then I was like, fuck, dude. I was just hungry for three days. What the fuck? I don’t feel like a superhero at all.
Speaker: 2
43:25
Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, maybe it’s variable.
Speaker: 1
43:29
The one thing that I’m really big on, is I, like, won’t fuck her. Like, Ai really in touch with what’s going on usually with, like, my body and stuff. I’m really big on I I don’t know why it doesn’t get talked about more, but, like, digestive like, things that mess up my digestive system, I don’t mess around with at all.
Speaker: 1
43:46
All kinds of stuff. Like bread, pizzas, too much cheese, stuff like that. Like, I
Speaker: 0
43:51
Ai
Speaker: 2
43:51
is fucking terrible for for you.
Speaker: 1
43:52
It is, dude. Every time I eat pizza, I like can’t shit the next day.
Speaker: 2
43:55
It’s not it’s not even pizza. It’s American pizza.
Speaker: 0
43:58
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
43:59
It’s our wheat. Our wheat is poisoned. It really is. It’s sprayed with folic acid, and it’s fucking all the nutrients are pulled out of it. There’s glyphosate in the wheat. It’s ai Yeah. That’s what’s really going on. And it’s also a re engineered wheat, so it’s got more gluten, it’s more complex gluten.
Speaker: 2
44:15
So it’s got a higher yield per acre. Mhmm. So your body’s ai, what what is this? Yeah. Causes all this inflammation.
Speaker: 2
44:21
When I go to Italy, I eat pizza over there. I eat a whole pizza. I feel great.
Speaker: 1
44:25
Oh, really? You could shit nice the next sai?
Speaker: 2
44:27
I feel great. I never have a problem shitting. Uh-huh. But I do feel bloated. Like, I get my gut swells.
Speaker: 1
44:32
Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 2
44:33
Yeah. Like, I’ll eat a giant bowl of spaghetti or something like that, and then I look like I’m pregnant. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
44:38
So it’s horrible. Yeah. I don’t know.
Speaker: 2
44:39
Sai feel so ai. Just like I got shot with a tranquilizer dart, like, but I’m so dumb. I keep going back I
Speaker: 1
44:46
know, dude. It’s hard not to, dude. You’re just ai, surely, this will work this time.
Speaker: 2
44:49
It’s just it’s so delicious. Like, I see a plate of lasagna. I’m like, fuck it. We’re going in. You know? But I know what I’m getting into when I do it.
Speaker: 0
44:56
I know.
Speaker: 1
44:56
I don’t I I actually don’t get like that anymore. I have, like, a weird relationship with food now where that shit is just fuel to meh, kind of.
Speaker: 2
45:03
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
45:03
When I’m, like, low in weight, I get cravings. But right now, when I’m, like, just kinda good, not hungry, not, like, overdoing it and stuff, I don’t really feel like I get too many crazes.
Speaker: 2
45:13
A nutritionist or anything
Speaker: 1
45:14
like that? I use a nutritionist inside my camps. Yeah. She’s great.
Speaker: 2
45:17
Her, like What’s a an average
Speaker: 1
45:19
meal for you? I wish that I, like, actually gave a shit sai could follow and actually be more helpful. There’s two things I really don’t care about, strength and conditioning and nutrition. I’m like, just, like, tell meh. I like, don’t explain it to me.
Speaker: 2
45:31
Just Make me do it.
Speaker: 1
45:32
Yeah. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll just do that thing. But it’s actually a lot more food than what you’d think, and I can lose a lot of weight when when she has me do it. She’d do it. Ai to think what it is. It’s more so a lot of carbs more towards the end of the day. Like before because I really don’t sleep good usually ai I’m really training a lot. My nervous system is, like, not ever down.
Speaker: 1
45:55
So at night, I’d usually won’t sleep well, so I’ll eat, like, a big bowl of oatmeal at night. Everyone is kinda different. What I will sai, though, that I would big time recommend to fighters and stuff is after hard workouts, drinking Dextrose or Gatorade with, like, some electrolytes.
Speaker: 1
46:11
If you have multiple workouts in a day, that’s a giant game changer. Mhmm. Ai, because there’s a little bit of a window from my understanding. I don’t really know how this shit works, but there’s a little bit of a window where it’s, like, forty five like, twenty to forty five minutes after you’re done working where your body will just take sugar and put it back into your muscles.
Speaker: 0
46:31
Right.
Speaker: 1
46:32
And so I’ll drink a shitload of sugar after, like, really hard workouts, like, really hard sparring sessions, like, fifty, sixty grams of sugar, which is insane. But
Speaker: 2
46:41
But not when you’re training that
Speaker: 1
46:42
hard. Yeah. Not when you’re training that hard. Floyd Mayweather drink soda.
Speaker: 2
46:45
Yeah. Yeah. He drinks ai he’ll drink a Coca Cola after training.
Speaker: 1
46:48
And it’s probably good for it’s probably good for you.
Speaker: 2
46:52
When you’re training that hard, like, it’s not like, you know, people, oh, soda’s bad for you. Well, sure. If you’re just drinking soda.
Speaker: 0
46:59
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
46:59
But if you’re fucking running marathons or something crazy like ai, or you’re doing something, like, really exhausting, it’s really good for you right after a workout.
Speaker: 1
47:06
Yeah. Definitely. Especially if you have multiple workouts. Like, that’s that’s one big thing that she does that I added in. In the morning, it’s it’s ai a pretty balanced thing, though. It’s ai not like no fat, no carbs. It’s ai nothing like that. It’s like a pretty balanced it’s a lot of protein.
Speaker: 2
47:24
What what’s the sources of protein?
Speaker: 1
47:26
I drink a lot of protein shakes. I get it. I’m ai a part owner in this company called Vegain. So I I just get, like, a shitload of protein for free pretty much.
Speaker: 2
47:36
Is that pea protein? So it’s vegan protein?
Speaker: 1
47:38
It’s vegan protein. The other ones kinda mess up my stomach a little bit. Like Oh, really? The just the ones that are made out of, ai, milk and
Speaker: 2
47:47
Oh, like, whey?
Speaker: 1
47:48
Yeah. Whey makes you fart like crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Those ones are yeah. Ai if I drink if I take something, I almost immediately know if it’s gonna mess with my digestive system, and I can’t be having that while I’m, like, rolling around
Speaker: 2
47:58
with Yeah.
Speaker: 1
47:59
Dudes and shit.
Speaker: 2
48:00
I know there’s certain protein bars ai, Peter Attia has this great protein bar called David. They’re fucking so delicious. Mhmm. But whenever I eat one, I have to, like, go ai. Yeah. Because my farts are so bad. Yeah. I didn’t sana be in
Speaker: 0
48:12
the house.
Speaker: 1
48:13
What is it? The fiber or the protein?
Speaker: 2
48:14
I don’t know what’s in them. They’re delicious. It’s low calorie, high protein. I think it’s ai a small bar. It’s like 30 grams of protein. Mhmm. But whatever it is, just make your body just like, fuck this. What is this? It’s just I I generally think that anything that does that to you can’t be ideal. It just can’t be good for you. Yes.
Speaker: 1
48:31
So Yeah.
Speaker: 2
48:32
I’d rather just eat a piece of steak or something like ai.
Speaker: 0
48:34
Is
Speaker: 2
48:35
that better for you?
Speaker: 1
48:36
Yeah. Outside but I also have different cravings in camp too. Like, outside of camp, I’ll I’ll do a little bit, like, more fruits and stuff like that instead of a bunch of rice or potatoes or whatever. You don’t
Speaker: 2
48:47
have fruits when you’re in camp?
Speaker: 1
48:48
I still do, but it’s not as much as you’d think. Like, it’s, like, maybe a cup, cup or two a day. Mhmm. I’ll do that. It’s not a ton of vegetables, but it’s, like, specific vegetables because I’ve been getting a lot of staff. It’s, like, ones that counteract, like, staph stuff.
Speaker: 2
49:04
She’s Do you, like, take fermented stuff, like kimchi and things along those lines?
Speaker: 1
49:08
That’s a piece of it. Fermented stuff is good. It’s, like, a decent amount of garlic stuff, like turmeric stuff that And then
Speaker: 2
49:16
garlic, apparently, there was a study that was done with garlic with, like, external staph infections, and it’s as effective or more effective than antibiotics.
Speaker: 1
49:24
Yeah. I believe that.
Speaker: 2
49:25
Yeah. Garlic fucking kills everything. There’s a reason why, like, a lot of people use it in their food. A lot of cultures use it in their food. It’s to prevent food poisoning.
Speaker: 1
49:33
So, dude, when I got when I got that, the knee infection staff, I was like, alright. I’m just gonna try to kill this with a bunch of garlic. And, dude, I was taking, like, 10 or 15 dude, I was taking, like, 10 or 15 garlic pills, ai, the high potency ones.
Speaker: 2
49:48
Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 1
49:49
Dude, after about two days of that, I shit out every single piece of shit inside my body that ever existed. The ones that were up in the attic just chilling, bro, all of it came out. I was like, oh, a little hack there, you know. So maybe you don’t have to fast for three days. You could just fucking eat a bunch of garlic and shit everything out.
Speaker: 1
50:09
Why did
Speaker: 2
50:09
you go with the pills and not the cloves?
Speaker: 1
50:12
Just because
Speaker: 2
50:12
it’s more convenient?
Speaker: 1
50:14
Like, just eating garlic cloves?
Speaker: 2
50:15
Yeah. Eating garlic cloves. I don’t know.
Speaker: 1
50:16
I don’t know if I would do that.
Speaker: 2
50:18
I eat garlic cloves sometimes.
Speaker: 0
50:19
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
50:20
You cook them? No. Ai just eat them raw.
Speaker: 1
50:22
Oh, okay.
Speaker: 2
50:22
Because it it it feels like it’s doing something.
Speaker: 1
50:25
Alright.
Speaker: 2
50:25
Like, if I’m not feeling good, I’ll eat garlic. I’ll eat, like, raw cloves, like, three or four cloves, and your body’s ai, woah.
Speaker: 1
50:32
Oh, really? Yeah. They don’t give you indigestion and stuff?
Speaker: 2
50:36
A little bit maybe. But it really what it does is, like, it’s it feels like you just took a drug.
Speaker: 0
50:41
It
Speaker: 2
50:41
feels like you took a medicine.
Speaker: 1
50:42
Really? Yeah. Alright. How many you eat? Four?
Speaker: 2
50:45
Three, four.
Speaker: 1
50:45
Three, four. Yeah. I’ll try that.
Speaker: 2
50:46
Some fat cloves. Just chew them down. They taste nasty. Okay. Like, ai you’re eating it, like,
Speaker: 1
50:50
I feel like I’ve tried that. Yeah. I’ve tried ai. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
50:54
But, I mean, I think there’s something to, like, ancient medicine. Like, people have been taking garlic. I mean, obviously, it has something to do with taste. Thousand year old onion and garlic eye remedy kills MRSA. Thousand years old. Woah. Look at that cool Is
Speaker: 1
51:07
that the recipe right there?
Speaker: 2
51:09
Yeah. It is. Look at that cool language. What is that language? Woah. Look how wild that language is. Could be used to draw some Old English, I guess. Wow. I guess you can probably read it. So astonished to find it almost completely wiped out, methicillin resistant staphylococcal how do you say that? Staphyl Staphylococcus?
Speaker: 1
51:32
Yeah. I always try to say that.
Speaker: 2
51:33
Staphylococcus? Staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA. Their findings were presented in National Microbiology Conference. The remedy was found in Ball’s leech book, an old English manuscript containing instructions on various treatments held in the British Ai. Ain’t that wild, man?
Speaker: 2
51:51
Like, there’s stuff that
Speaker: 1
51:51
Yeah. I know.
Speaker: 2
51:52
Works that, like, people have been doing for thousands of years, but people dismiss it as being voodoo.
Speaker: 1
51:57
Yeah. You know? You know what else is a cool one too? It’s ai a tip. Do you cramp up a lot ever?
Speaker: 2
52:02
No. I take a lot of electrolytes.
Speaker: 1
52:03
Okay.
Speaker: 2
52:04
I used to. I used to. But then I really I drink element, like, almost, like, every day, basically.
Speaker: 1
52:10
Ai PT a long time ago recommended that because I used to cramp up a lot. It spicy food, I guess, makes you not cramp up as much.
Speaker: 2
52:18
Oh, really?
Speaker: 1
52:19
Yeah. So, like, about ten years ago when he told me that, now I love spicy food, and I don’t really need to force myself to eat it. But when he first told me that, I started eating a bunch of spicy stuff, and I stopped cramping up as much.
Speaker: 2
52:30
Maybe that’s why I don’t cramp up. I I vatsal lot of spicy food.
Speaker: 1
52:33
Yeah. That that might be why because, they have these little things that the UFC gives us too called hotshots, where if you’re cutting weight, you’re supposed to drink it, and it’s pretty much just cinnamon and cayenne, and like some other stuff. Yeah. And it’s supposed to stop you from cramping. It works, though.
Speaker: 2
52:47
No kidding. I wonder what the mechanism is of that. That’s interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I I love hot sauce. So I I have my own, like, kind of hot sauce. Like, senior Lechuga made ai a little line of three hot sauces Alright.
Speaker: 0
52:59
Nice.
Speaker: 2
52:59
For me. But how do spicy foods prevent cramping? Okay. Science is simple. If your neurons are too busy firing off to your mouth, they won’t have time to bother cramping up your
Speaker: 1
53:09
muscles. What? That’s wild.
Speaker: 2
53:11
That’s crazy. That sounds pretentious.
Speaker: 1
53:12
Doctor. McKinnon Just trick them. Trick your body, stupid. Yeah. Look over here.
Speaker: 2
53:18
Found that spicy drinks help prevent these short bursts of muscle cramps. He teamed up with a biotech company to produce a product that could be sold online and found on the shelves at select stores. Hot Shah. There it is. Drinkable shot mixed with ginger and cinnamon. Ai champ Craig Alexander is an avid user of the supplement along with several other Rio Olympic runners. Interesting.
Speaker: 1
53:41
It works, dude. Because the second I started doing that, I stopped cramping up. I still get one every once in a while. It’s not ai a 100% thing, but it works.
Speaker: 2
53:48
Yeah. Yeah. Muscle cramps must be brutal when you’re cutting weight. Right? Because you’re draining your body of basically everything.
Speaker: 1
53:54
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t my weight cuts, I’m pretty like, I kinda got down to a science a little bit. I don’t really cramp super bad.
Speaker: 2
54:01
How much do you cut? Like
Speaker: 1
54:02
speak before, I try to be, like, 16 to 18 heavy over, and then I’ll lose that last bit that week. But I’ll walk around. If I’m really fat, like, on vacation and shit, not giving a just not caring, I’ll be about one sixty two. When I’m training good and, like, all of that, I’ll be about one fifty seven, one fifty eight, and then I just gotta lose until I’m about 52, 51 the week before.
Speaker: 1
54:27
And then that
Speaker: 2
54:28
week, I lose count. The week is a calorie restriction in the beginning and then water restriction? Or how do you do it?
Speaker: 1
54:34
It’s a decent so ten days away, I start loading up on water. Like, the rule of thumb is however many pounds you gotta lose, that’s how many pounds of water you’ll drink that day. So if I have 16 to lose, I would have to drink two gallons of water. Also, don’t take any of my advice if you’re listening too because I don’t really fucking know.
Speaker: 1
54:50
I know that, like, water shit can get really scary, so I don’t you know, like, people chugging distilled water have, like, killed themselves and stuff.
Speaker: 2
54:55
Distilled water. Is that what you drink?
Speaker: 1
54:57
No. No. No. No. No. That’s not good for you. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, ten days away, I start loading up on the water. And then on the Tuesday so we weigh in Ai, so how many days before that is. On Tuesday, you’ll do the, cut the sodium. And then that pretty much you lose a lot when you’re chugging that much water and cut sodium.
Speaker: 1
55:16
So I would say on Tuesday, a lot of it is water, and then it’s kinda up to me how crazy I wanna go with food. I’m obviously not eating, like, super huge meals that week, but I don’t let myself get too hungry. I’m pretty good about a lot of stuff where now I can kinda be like, if I go to bed, like, at, like, an eight amount of hunger instead of, like, a seven, I’ll know almost exactly how much I’ll lose the next day, which is, like, kinda cool.
Speaker: 2
55:43
How much of a performance hit do you think you have? I mean, obviously, you’re in phenomenal condition, but how much of a hit do you think you have in dehydrating yourself twenty four hours before a fight?
Speaker: 1
55:54
Yeah. Good. I think it depends on how much water you lose too. I think just off the top of my head, maybe 15 or 20.
Speaker: 2
56:05
15 or 20%?
Speaker: 1
56:06
Maybe.
Speaker: 2
56:07
So what do you what would you think about if the UFC instituted more weight classes and they eliminated weight cuts? Like, what what if they said, like because it is for some guys, it is the most dangerous part
Speaker: 0
56:19
of
Speaker: 2
56:19
the fight because some guys go hard. Yeah. Some guys are losing 26, 30 pounds within a couple of days, and they just look like hell.
Speaker: 1
56:26
Yeah. I think that the way to solve that because one’s tried doing that with, like, the rehydration test, then everyone that I talked to that’s, like, been involved with that has been, like, dude, I could cheat that easy.
Speaker: 2
56:37
Oh, really? Yeah.
Speaker: 1
56:39
But
Speaker: 2
56:40
How do they cheat it?
Speaker: 1
56:42
I mean, there’s just, like, if you know that you’re gonna get, like, hydrate tested at a certain time, I’m sure that they probably just drink most of their water during that time or something like that.
Speaker: 2
56:51
But then your weight would be higher. Right?
Speaker: 1
56:54
Yeah. Your weight would have to be ai, but I don’t know that they, like, test you. Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I I don’t really know, honestly. But, I mean, if they’re gonna test you when you’re do they test you, like, hey, your weight has to be this and then your ai I think that they just go in and they’re like, hey.
Speaker: 1
57:11
How yellow is your piss ai of thing? You know? I’m pretty sure that that’s what it might be. If it’s, like, more scientific, then cool. But if I
Speaker: 0
57:18
think it’s
Speaker: 1
57:18
it might just be ai, hey.
Speaker: 2
57:20
It’s gotta be more scientific because sometimes my piss is pretty yellow. It just meant I ram a lot of vitamins or vitamin. You know, I I think it’s, there there’s, like, a an actual test where they test the the levels.
Speaker: 1
57:34
I think that if you added in more weight classes, that would handle a lot of it. Ai probably just do one forty.
Speaker: 2
57:40
Would you if that Probably. Would that be ideal for you?
Speaker: 1
57:42
That’d be pretty ideal. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
57:44
I feel like the UFC should have more weight classes, and I’ve said this for a long time. I Sai just think this there’s some gaps that are crazy. Ai, the eighty five two zero five Yeah. That’s pretty cool. Is nuts. Mhmm. 20 pounds is nuts.
Speaker: 1
57:56
That’s crazy.
Speaker: 2
57:57
That’s that’s three weight classes at least.
Speaker: 0
57:59
In
Speaker: 2
57:59
between fights, like, that’s in between classes rather, that’s nuts. I just don’t understand that.
Speaker: 1
58:04
Yeah. If you’d I mean, I think that the way that old sports kinda do things, they do things for a reason. Sai, like, boxing and wrestling, they all have, ai, it’s every seven pounds or whatever it is.
Speaker: 2
58:14
No. But UFC is ai, oh, too many champions that way. It’s too confusing. I’m like, what are you talking about? It’s one UFC champion per weight class.
Speaker: 1
58:22
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
58:22
You’d have more champions and then you could also have more champion versus champion fights.
Speaker: 1
58:26
Yeah. For sure.
Speaker: 0
58:27
Because it
Speaker: 2
58:27
wouldn’t be ai, Ilya going up 10 pounds is not too crazy. But Alex, when he went from 85 to two zero five, that was pretty crazy. Yeah. That’s a big ass jump, man.
Speaker: 1
58:37
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
58:37
Obviously, he could do it because he’s one of the craziest weight cutters of all time. He was fighting eighty five and weighing in at two twenty six the day of the day.
Speaker: 1
58:45
What? Really?
Speaker: 2
58:46
Oh, yeah. When he fought Adesanya, he was two twenty six when he came to the cage.
Speaker: 1
58:50
Is that forty one pounds or thirty one pounds in
Speaker: 2
58:52
my Forty one pounds.
Speaker: 1
58:54
So after thirty six hours he put on that? 41 pounds. Yeah. Holy shit. Holy shit. That’s crazy.
Speaker: 2
59:00
He’s also giant. He’s an enormous guy. He’s like a lot of body mass. Yeah. And apparently, it’s easier to cut weight ai Yoel Romero ai, like, when you’re that muscular because most of the muscles water. Mhmm. Which is ai counterintuitive. You think ai a fat guy would you could be able to lose more weight. But no, it’s actually to dry out. The big muscular guys can lose more weight.
Speaker: 1
59:20
Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I have a theory too, like, the more ripped you are, the easier it is to sweat too. Because if your muscle is, like, muscle then fat then sai, and you gotta, ai, it’s gotta travel through the fat. This is how I fucking think. There’s probably there’s no evidence of any of that because there are some fat cells that sweat, but Ai don’t know.
Speaker: 1
59:40
Sometimes Ai like, I can just see who’s gonna be a good sweater and who’s not, but that’s probably me just being.
Speaker: 2
59:46
Yeah. I don’t know if there’s any science to that.
Speaker: 1
59:49
Makes sense in your head, though.
Speaker: 2
59:50
Kind of.
Speaker: 1
59:51
It makes sense in your head.
Speaker: 2
59:52
I kinda see what you’re saying. I kinda see what you’re saying.
Speaker: 1
59:54
But you could also, I guess, make argument that fat makes you warmer too. And maybe that sweats it out out too.
Speaker: 2
59:59
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:00:00
But I don’t think that there would be a problem with doing multiple weight classes because then you would just have, like, what you do in boxing where you just have, like, a ton of you have, like, one dude with, like, eight belts. Right. That would be cool.
Speaker: 2
01:00:10
Ai, look at Pacquiao.
Speaker: 0
01:00:11
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:00:12
He just keeps going up in weight classes and yeah. I think that it just be better for the athletes, and I think it’d be better for the sport in general. You’re still gonna have, like, incredible fights because the level of competition, particularly at the lowest weight classes, is so high right now.
Speaker: 2
01:00:27
Like, I think your weight class, featherweight, and ai are the most competitive weight classes in the sport. And there’s almost too many top contenders
Speaker: 1
01:00:37
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:00:37
Where guys are forced to take fights that maybe you really shouldn’t take that fight because you’re kind of entitled contention and then, oh, you lose a close decision. Fuck. Now, you’re back to the drawing board. Now, you gotta fight this guy. Oh, you got injured in camp. Fuck. You lose to that guy too.
Speaker: 2
01:00:51
Now, you’re set back when you could have been a champion. Yeah. You know, it’s there’s a lot of ai weirdness going on with possibilities and, you know, just luck, bad luck, and good luck.
Speaker: 1
01:01:02
Bad luck and good luck ai, I think, is a big thing. Like, I think that I’m pretty I was even saying this before the Figueredo fight. I was like, watch. Like, if I go out and finish Figgy, which not a lot of people are able to do, the timing of everything is gonna be perfect for me because there will be no one else.
Speaker: 1
01:01:18
And that’s and that’s me also, you know, coming off of a loss from Umar just a year ago, which any anytime you lose is kinda devastating, and you’re like, oh, it’ll never happen for me. You know? But then it’s like, oh, wait. No. If I just if this thing gets timed out right, you know, like, it could work out.
Speaker: 1
01:01:34
So a lot
Speaker: 2
01:01:35
of the lost time was a competitive, saloni ai.
Speaker: 1
01:01:37
I know. I fucked
Speaker: 2
01:01:38
that one up. What did you think went wrong? Like, when you
Speaker: 1
01:01:41
say fucked
Speaker: 2
01:01:41
it up?
Speaker: 1
01:01:42
More than anything, okay, it was it was like a it’s never just one thing. It’s always like things get compiled and then they exponentially get worse. One big thing was Ai knew I was fighting in The Middle East ai I wasn’t gonna get, like, a nod, if it was a close fight. And Umar’s a defensive guy, and I’m a defensive guy. And I knew that it would be there was potential for rounds to be really close.
Speaker: 1
01:02:04
My game plan wasn’t gonna be to take him down. So anytime you’re gonna be like, hey. Like, I’m committing to ai, there is a little bit of a level of rolling the dice because, one, striking matches in a five minute round are really hard to, like, hammer down and be like, I won this round against really high level guys.
Speaker: 1
01:02:22
That’s my opinion. I thought that I would be able to stuff most of the shots. Sai was like, okay. Most of this thing is gonna be done striking. I need to have, like, big moments in order for me to feel like I’m really winning these rounds so that there can be no argument that I’m losing.
Speaker: 1
01:02:38
And if we just are point scoring each other, which Umar is good at and I’m good at, I’m kinda rolling the dice a little bit and kinda leaving it into the hands of who god knows who the judges are. You know? So a piece of it was I didn’t wanna lose another close split decision.
Speaker: 1
01:02:51
Like, a lot of my losses arya couple of my losses are just close split decisions, and I’m like, fucking, man. I’m not I’d rather just go for it than lose. You know? But that pulled me out of my game plan, and just the way that I typically fight. Like, I’m not the guy that hunts for knockouts. You know? I’m just not that guy. And so I just got pulled out of my strategy.
Speaker: 1
01:03:12
I got really frustrated in the fight, by it not working, ai, me not being able to have really big moments. And now looking back, I’m just like, man, what were you thinking? Like, just go out, fight like how you do, and you’ll do awesome.
Speaker: 2
01:03:24
What do you think specifically, like, you would have would have done different in exchanges?
Speaker: 1
01:03:29
I would have fought him the exact same way that I would have fought the first like, that entire fight, I was being really defensive and just looking for one big shot. In the first round, I didn’t fight like that. The first round, I was cool with point scoring. I was like, okay. This guy’s gonna wrestle me.
Speaker: 1
01:03:44
Let’s see how good he is at wrestling and if I can hang. Once I was like, oh, okay. Cool. Like, I can hang. Then I just started going for big shots, which is just, like, not a good way to beat a really high level guy.
Speaker: 1
01:03:54
It’s kind of a lazy game plan, honestly. Like, if the plan isn’t to completely outclass the person and win in every area and be good enough to do so, in my opinion, that’s just, like, not an expression of the highest level of martial arts that’s a little bit lazy. You know?
Speaker: 1
01:04:10
And I was I was a little bit lazy, and maybe my approach to that, which maybe lazy isn’t the right word, but, I could have done a lot better at just trusting myself more, being more confident in my ability to just be ai, no. Like, I’ll I’ll beat him everywhere. You know?
Speaker: 2
01:04:26
Looking for the big shots is always such a ram.
Speaker: 1
01:04:29
I know. Until it’s not. Until it’s not. And you look real cool when
Speaker: 0
01:04:32
it happens.
Speaker: 2
01:04:32
Oh ai goodness.
Speaker: 1
01:04:33
And we all like looking cool.
Speaker: 2
01:04:35
Yeah. You land the big ones, and you’ve landed a lot of the big ones. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:04:38
And you’ve
Speaker: 2
01:04:38
had so many of those moments, like the Frank Yaeger fight or, you know, there’s been quite the Marlon Meh fight. That was a wild one.
Speaker: 1
01:04:45
That was a great one. That was probably, like, my happiest moment maybe ever in life just because I had just come off the most embarrassing loss ever against Sterling. And they were like, hey. You wanna fight the number one guy in Abu Dhabi during COVID? And I was like and that was, like, kinda back when Marlon was still a really scary guy. He’s kinda been on a skid since then.
Speaker: 1
01:05:03
But back then, he was real scary. And I was like, I don’t know if you guys are setting me up for Marlon to knock me the fuck out or how this is like, what the thinking behind me fighting the number one contender is. But I was like, yeah. Cool. Like, if you guys are gonna give me that shot, I’ll take it for sure.
Speaker: 1
01:05:17
And then when I finished it, I was just like, yes.
Speaker: 2
01:05:19
And you finished it with a wheel kick.
Speaker: 1
01:05:20
Yeah. Which Ai, during COVID, was practicing in my basement with my wife, like, every day. Isn’t that stupid? I was like, why did I was like, man, you should ask me for a cut.
Speaker: 2
01:05:31
No. But it’s a it’s a thing where, you know, if you you don’t expect it from a guy who doesn’t really throw a lot of it.
Speaker: 1
01:05:37
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:05:38
You know? And so, like, you see his foot turn, and you’re like, what’s going on here? And before you know it, it’s too late. Yeah. And that heel is headed towards your dome.
Speaker: 1
01:05:45
Yeah. People that are good at those too, it’s a problem.
Speaker: 2
01:05:50
Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:05:50
Like, that doesn’t need to land anywhere specific for it to, like, rattle your brain enough to knock you down.
Speaker: 2
01:05:55
Oh, it’s a terrifying trick. Yeah. It is. So much power.
Speaker: 1
01:05:58
Yeah. If there was one thing Ai I would not wanna get hit with, it would be that.
Speaker: 2
01:06:02
My, during my Taekwondo days, I I used to feel ai I was always gonna be fine. Like, I’d be I was like I felt like, you know, I was young. I was 19. I felt invulnerable, and I was really good.
Speaker: 0
01:06:15
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:06:16
And I fought in the nationals in California. And I hit this kid with a wheel kick and he never got up. And he was snoring. Ai, out face plant, out cold, taken over a stretcher, taken to the hospital, and I never felt the same about fighting again. Uh-huh. Because I was always scared that that could happen to me then.
Speaker: 1
01:06:33
Because I
Speaker: 2
01:06:34
was like doing this for nothing. There was no money.
Speaker: 1
01:06:36
Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:06:36
I was doing this for nothing. I had no health insurance. I was poor. Yeah. And I was like, what am I doing? Yeah. Like, this is like, I could have easily got hit by that same kick. Mhmm. But I
Speaker: 1
01:06:45
was better
Speaker: 2
01:06:46
than ai, and I landed. But there’s guys that are better than meh. And if they hit me like that, face down, snow I mean, it was my heel hurt for days. Yeah. I was limping the next day.
Speaker: 1
01:06:56
My knee hurt after the Frankie fight. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:06:58
Yeah. Oh, really?
Speaker: 0
01:06:59
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:07:00
It hurt. That was such a good knee, though.
Speaker: 1
01:07:01
Yeah. It was. Yeah. But I kinda felt a similar way ai I Sai don’t know. I guess you kinda just get used to that where you’re just ai
Speaker: 2
01:07:07
But you’re a professional. Yeah. That’s your sport.
Speaker: 0
01:07:10
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:07:10
That’s your your living. This is what you do. For me, I was a young kid doing this thing that I was really good at, and it just gave me, like, some sense of purpose. And then I was like, what the
Speaker: 1
01:07:21
fuck, man? So how how, like, so you didn’t have, like, big aspiring dreams to be, like, a Taekwondo champ
Speaker: 2
01:07:28
or anything? I had dreams to be an Olympic, the Olympic to go to the Olympics.
Speaker: 1
01:07:33
But there’s like a realistic dream?
Speaker: 2
01:07:35
Yes.
Speaker: 1
01:07:35
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:07:35
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:07:36
Like, you were that good?
Speaker: 2
01:07:37
Yeah. I was that good. Cool. I had won national tournaments, and I’d I’d beaten guys that had been in, you know, like, high ranking. And I I had a very close decision. I thought I should’ve won the year that the Taekwondo made into the Olympics against the national champion.
Speaker: 0
01:07:51
Cool.
Speaker: 2
01:07:51
So Ai was good. And I was really young, so I was getting better all the time. Yeah. But then, I started kickboxing. And when I started training in kickboxing, I realized that Taekwondo was kinda bullshit. Bullshit. Mhmm. Because my hands sucked and I would spar with kickboxers and I was getting, you know, cornered in the ropes and I just I didn’t have the skills. Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
01:08:09
And I
Speaker: 2
01:08:09
was like, oh, this is ai, I have this distorted perception of my ability to fight based on my ability to fight in Taekwondo. Sure. I was really good at that. But then when I started boxing and kickboxing, I was like, this is ai, that piece that’s missing in Taekwondo without the face punching, it it nullifies so much of what Taekwondo is good at.
Speaker: 1
01:08:28
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:08:29
But then when I learned that stuff, I realized, like, oh, but I have a massive advantage with my legs. Mhmm. Because they have to close the distance with me and I can do things they can’t do. Like regular kickboxers, I was amazed at how many of them were just ai boxers who learned a few shitty kicks.
Speaker: 0
01:08:44
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:08:45
And they would stand on the outside and they would take a step forward and I just blast them and they just had no idea what to do, like a really hard kicker. And then I started doing Muay Thai. And I was like, fuck. Meh kicks. Mhmm. And so Ai went from American kickboxing above the waist to Muay Thai.
Speaker: 2
01:09:01
I was like, there’s too much to learn. Yeah. And then I was doing comedy at the same ai, so I just quit fighting.
Speaker: 0
01:09:06
Yeah. I
Speaker: 2
01:09:06
was like, I I gotta get out before I get hurt.
Speaker: 1
01:09:08
When did you start grappling?
Speaker: 2
01:09:10
When I was 30. Cool. Yeah. I started grappling right at I guess, I was 29. It was right after the first UFC.
Speaker: 1
01:09:17
Did you, like wrestle at all or anything? Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:09:19
I wrestled in high ai. Oh, okay. But only one year, because I was doing taekwondo at the same ai, and I had to pick one. And Yeah. I Ai did a a year of both. And then I was like, the problem with this is, like, I rather kick someone and knock them unconscious. Like, that’s it was so to to just quack and hear the whole crowd go silent was the wildest thing.
Speaker: 0
01:09:38
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:09:39
To watch someone cry, I fucking loved it. It was my favorite thing in life. And I was like, wrestling is cool. Like, it’s good to know. It’s good to be able to pin people, but there was no UFC back then. So it’s ai, everything you were doing was just ai, you either find a thing and get really good at it.
Speaker: 2
01:09:55
But the disillusionment of going from Taekwondo to boxing and kickboxing and then to Muay Thai and then Jiu Jitsu. So when I started doing Jiu Jitsu, Ai was like, oh meh god, I’m fucking completely helpless. Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
01:10:06
So
Speaker: 2
01:10:06
Ai had this thing in my head. Well, at least I know I know how to leg kick, I know how to box now, I know how to fight. Oh my god, I’m tapping out constantly. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:10:14
And so then
Speaker: 2
01:10:15
I was like, fuck, I gotta learn how to do Jiu Jitsu. Yeah. But it was this thing where, you know, I I feel real fortunate to have grown up in a time where no one knew what was the best ai.
Speaker: 0
01:10:26
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:10:26
And then see the UFC emerge in ’93 and then watch this incredible transformation of martial arts where martial arts advances more in ten, twenty years than it had in the last thirty thousand years. It was incredible to watch.
Speaker: 1
01:10:40
Yeah. Yeah. I’m glad that they did it, man, because that’s such a cool question is whose martial arts is the best martial arts. No one knew, man. It was
Speaker: 2
01:10:48
all and we’re all delusional. I was so delusional. Like, I remember I used to do, Taekwondo with a friend of mine. We we we were, kickboxing at the ai, and we were doing at this gym where these judo guys were. And I was like, look at these idiots, this stupid judo. That’s useless. Yeah. Meanwhile, I had no idea if those guys got a hold of me. I was Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:11:05
Fucking helpless.
Speaker: 1
01:11:06
Yeah. Because judo guys will slam meh on your head.
Speaker: 2
01:11:08
Oh. Yeah. Dude, rolling with judo ai, like, I remember I rolled with Karl Parisian once. I was like, he’s like a chimpanzee. Yeah. Like, he was so strong. Ai was like, it didn’t make any sense. Sai we were roughly the same ai, and he was just ragdolling me around. I was like, there’s something to throwing bodies all the time.
Speaker: 2
01:11:26
You know, you’re taking if you’re a hundred and eighty pound guy, you’re throwing a hundred and eighty pound person over and over and over again, and your whole core is just fucking primed for that. Boom. Yeah. And their balance and their ability to adjust your weight and use it against you.
Speaker: 1
01:11:40
Watching it in the Olympics is awesome. Because they’ll they’ll, like, spear their own heads.
Speaker: 2
01:11:45
Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:11:46
That’s crazy. That is crazy. Ai like watching that shah. That’s ai I’m like some ai
Speaker: 2
01:11:49
stuff next to.
Speaker: 1
01:11:50
Yeah. Oh, you’d have to, dude. Like, the way that they land on yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:11:54
It has to be meh those ai, like, you see them later in their career. They got, like, one small arm because their fucking nerves are all shut off in their neck and then fuse discs, and they’re just ai, Sai did a good ai fucking great career. You can’t even walk, man. It’s nuts.
Speaker: 1
01:12:08
Every Taekwondo guy I know has, like, one super strong oblique. And they’re ai shaped like this and
Speaker: 2
01:12:14
Well, you gotta learn how to kick from both sides. Yeah. That’s so important. That’s one thing that I really admire about your style because I think that there’s there’s gonna be a time where that is just ubiquitous, where everybody switches. Because there’s so many guys that are just like, oh, he’s a southpaw. Oh, he fights orthodox. Like, man, that’s just leaving too much to predictability.
Speaker: 1
01:12:35
Yeah. I think about striking ai a Dance Dance Revolution game where, like, because you’re making all the reads with your eyes. It’s like, left arya coming at me move. Mhmm. Like, right leg, whatever. It’s not like grappling. We’re grappling. We get to interact with each other and feel each other and move each other that way.
Speaker: 1
01:12:52
And I can pretty much sometimes do it with my eyes closed. Right. Striking is done mostly with our ai, so we have to do, like, these dance dance revolutioning, like, okay, react to everything that we’re seeing. So if I’m just switching my stance and now you have to, like, read the sentence backwards
Speaker: 2
01:13:08
Exactly.
Speaker: 1
01:13:09
It gets really hard.
Speaker: 2
01:13:10
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:13:10
You know? And
Speaker: 2
01:13:11
Especially if you’re just as good with both sides.
Speaker: 1
01:13:14
Yes. Yes. And I would say that if you’re starting, you don’t need to be, like, super stellar at both, but just have a couple good attacks to do from your other stance and then just, like, build off of there or whatever. Ai got I started switching stances. One, because I really liked watching Nenido Denaire, who wouldn’t, like, fully switch, but he would have, like, kinda steps like that that were where I was like, oh, cool.
Speaker: 1
01:13:34
And then also, I dislocated my elbow really bad about, like, a week and a half into training. Just landed on it, posted, dislocated it. And so I could only or that was my left arya. So I could only use my right arm. So for, like, six months, I just went lefty and only used my right arm, as, like, my lead hand, and that’s how I got really good at it.
Speaker: 2
01:13:54
Yeah. Just forcing yourself to just constantly be in that position. Because everybody wants to be in the position where they’re the most strong, especially if you’re trying to be competitive in sparring. Right?
Speaker: 0
01:14:02
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:14:03
That’s why it’s it’s what’s so important about, like, the Gracie’s always talk about keeping things playful. Like, learning how to, like, not don’t try to win. You’re trying to develop your skills. Mhmm. And to be able to switch, I think, like, TJ in his ai, like, when TJ fought Henan Burrow, that fight to me was one of the best championship performances that I ever saw.
Speaker: 1
01:14:22
I agree.
Speaker: 2
01:14:23
Because nobody thought TJ was gonna win that fight. Ai was thought to be the number one pound for it was him and Aldo.
Speaker: 0
01:14:28
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:14:28
Would people make the argument of who’s the best? Hennenborough was I think he was undefeated or maybe had one loss, like, early his career.
Speaker: 1
01:14:35
He was an animal at the time.
Speaker: 2
01:14:36
Animal. Animal. Animal. And TJ pieced him up, and it was like he was sparring. He looks so in the zone and relaxed, and he was constantly switching stances and footwork and angles.
Speaker: 1
01:14:48
Yeah. They, Dwayne flew me out for that fight because that’s when they were training that alpha male to be TJ’s sparring partner for one of those fights. I’m I’m almost positive it was that one. And I remember the whole ai, I was like, this isn’t gonna go good for TJ, you know, because Burrell was just that guy at the time that everyone was afraid of.
Speaker: 1
01:15:04
And then when I watched it, I was like, oh, shit. That shit really works good. I, when I used to train in The Netherlands a little bit too with Andy Sai and those guys.
Speaker: 2
01:15:13
Oh, really?
Speaker: 1
01:15:13
Yeah. So that was really cool. But there’s it’s, like, traditional, like, you stand in one stance. Like, this is how we do shit here. You know? Yeah. And I was, like, switching stances. I was probably, like, the the gay guy at the gym a little bit. You know? Like, being kind of flamboyant and, like, showoff y.
Speaker: 1
01:15:28
And, so so I remember going with some of Sour’s good guys and just good guys that we would spar with, and I wouldn’t really get hit that much. And I was like, oh, shit. This, like, actually works. Like, this isn’t just some, like, fufu whatever stuff.
Speaker: 2
01:15:43
You know? It was crazy that Dwayne developed that style, but he didn’t fight that way. Yeah. That’s what’s crazy. Yeah. Like, Dwayne had, like, more of a traditional, you know, he’s boss Bryden inspired tyler. And then he realizes, like, you know, the best way to fight is actually to constantly be and then he develops this system and, you know, Dwayne’s ai super focused.
Speaker: 2
01:16:04
I know you know this but Yeah. Yeah. For people who don’t know, Dwayne has ai a notebook, like a fucking which is filled with notes and it’s all ai, he’s got systems.
Speaker: 1
01:16:12
This is his life.
Speaker: 2
01:16:13
Yeah. It’s not
Speaker: 0
01:16:13
like what Adesanya likes to call button smashing when you’re playing a game.
Speaker: 2
01:16:13
Like, no. It’s it’s very systematic. Mhmm. And TJ, I think, in ai Ai Burrow fight was the greatest expression of what Duane teaches.
Speaker: 1
01:16:24
Yep. Yep. Yeah. That was a super amazing fight. Yeah. Just switching I mean, just simple little stuff, you know. Like, it’s a lot of striking is just, like, how coordinated you are. Like, that’s, like, a big piece of striking. And then can I just overwhelm you with information?
Speaker: 1
01:16:41
Like, that’s, like, a strategy to run. You know? Some some people choose, like, okay. I’m willing to take a few to, like, land my big one. You know?
Speaker: 1
01:16:49
That’s, like, a okay strategy. It works for guys like Ilya and stuff.
Speaker: 2
01:16:53
But Ilya is not that easy to hit.
Speaker: 1
01:16:55
That that’s true too. He has, like, a way, way good guard.
Speaker: 2
01:16:57
Yeah. He rolls with stuff. Like, the Josh Hemet ai.
Speaker: 1
01:17:00
Yeah. You
Speaker: 2
01:17:00
know, he, like, takes the he, like, slides away from stuff, and these big bombs are coming
Speaker: 1
01:17:05
his way. He’s doing, like, the highest form like, intellectually, he’s doing that style at its highest expression with the strategy of I’m about to knock you the fuck
Speaker: 2
01:17:14
out.
Speaker: 1
01:17:14
Yeah. Which shouldn’t be everyone’s strategy.
Speaker: 2
01:17:16
You know? Well, you have to have that that touch of death.
Speaker: 1
01:17:19
Yeah. That’s true.
Speaker: 2
01:17:20
He’s got that god given power. His power is fucking crazy, man.
Speaker: 1
01:17:24
It is crazy. Trevor’s actually helped me understand why it works really good. So okay. So, not to get crazy technical with
Speaker: 2
01:17:32
it, I guess. Technical. Okay. Get in there.
Speaker: 1
01:17:34
Alright. Cool. So squared and bladed stances. Mhmm. When you’re in a squared stance, you can move really good left to right. That was most of my career was being ai, I’m I came from a basketball background. I know that I’m very quick and agile, and I can move left to right really good. If I just keep my hands up, whatever, it’ll be fine probably.
Speaker: 1
01:17:55
You know? Mhmm. So a lot of squared stance stuff is I’m just gonna cut left, right, overwhelm this person with all of my weapons and angles, and always constantly make them move off of the things I’m doing and not the other way around. That’s good, but it’s really hard to, like, get a ton of leverage in anything that you’re doing when you’re standing square.
Speaker: 1
01:18:16
Like, I can’t like, if I’m gonna throw a ball, I don’t throw a ball like this. Right. I throw a ball like this.
Speaker: 0
01:18:22
Right.
Speaker: 2
01:18:22
You have your shoulder behind the other shoulder.
Speaker: 1
01:18:23
Yeah. Yeah. So squared stance is super good for being agile, moving left, right, and overwhelming people with the amount of attacks that you could throw at them. Because, also, if I’m standing square, all of my weapons are really available for me to throw. Like, it doesn’t take like, this is faster than this.
Speaker: 0
01:18:39
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
01:18:40
And just because it’s, like, six inches closer or whatever. Right. In a bladed stance, you get a fuckload of leverage because if you watch Ilya, he’s always standing like he’s about to throw a javelin.
Speaker: 0
01:18:51
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
01:18:51
And that’s pretty much what he’s doing is just ai and this is kinda like the science of boxing a little bit, like I said, that Trevor helped me with. So I’m a lot more bladed now than I was because now we’re trying to get, like, some serious leverage on stuff because five round fights, moving the entire time, fighting these really good wrestlers, it can get to the point where it’s ai it just gets quirky and just, like, a little bitchy looking, you know.
Speaker: 1
01:19:13
And, like, I don’t really wanna, like, tap people to victory, you know. Right. For a long time, I would compensate in being ai, alright. But I’ll but I’ll have wheel kicks, knees, and elbows. And that, like, took me a decent amount of ways too where it’s like, cool.
Speaker: 1
01:19:26
Now I sai finish guys like that also. But these bladed stances where you can make a shitload of leverage with them are really cool. I think finding a balance between the two is really awesome. Ilya is, like, only and that’s just my expression of my martial arts. I I wanna be like the jack of all trades guys and be able to be like, oh, you’re that ai. I’ll just archetype you in this style.
Speaker: 1
01:19:48
But Ilya is, like, always ready to throw javelin, and he’s really good at closing space with his lead leg. Like, he’ll, like, jab, hook, and really creep his lead leg near and then just bomb a right hand.
Speaker: 0
01:20:01
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
01:20:01
Because he is a shorter guy, but he never seems like he’s having that much of an issue getting super inside.
Speaker: 2
01:20:07
Well, it’s gonna be interesting seeing him at 55.
Speaker: 1
01:20:09
That will be interesting.
Speaker: 2
01:20:10
Much bigger guys. Like, think about Mauricio Rufe.
Speaker: 0
01:20:14
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:20:14
He said that Fifty ai.
Speaker: 1
01:20:15
And he moves good and has leverage.
Speaker: 2
01:20:17
And he’s fucking gigantic.
Speaker: 1
01:20:19
Like,
Speaker: 2
01:20:20
what how tall is Rufi? I mean, he’s gotta be six one, maybe six two, and he’s fifty five and he’s not thin.
Speaker: 0
01:20:26
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:20:26
I mean, he’s lean, but he’s not, like, scrawny. He’s got muscle. He’s fucking huge for fifty five. Yeah. There’s some fifty five. And Ilya, as powerful as he is, he’s not that big. Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
01:20:37
And
Speaker: 2
01:20:37
it’s gonna be interesting to see because because of this 10 pound 10 pounds is just, like, it’s a lot of weight, man. Mhmm. You know, it’s ai when you’re dealing with a hundred and fifty five pound sana, sai significant percentage of your body weight.
Speaker: 1
01:20:49
Especially when everyone’s cutting ai 30 pounds.
Speaker: 0
01:20:52
I don’t
Speaker: 2
01:20:52
know what roof he cuts, but when I see him walking around, he looks like he’s a hundred and ninety pounds.
Speaker: 1
01:20:56
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:20:56
You know, like Islam. Islam’s fucking huge. Yeah. He’s big dude. When I interview him in the cage afterwards, I’m always like, how?
Speaker: 1
01:21:04
Really?
Speaker: 2
01:21:05
How are you one fifty five?
Speaker: 1
01:21:06
Yeah. How? I know. How? I know.
Speaker: 2
01:21:08
He’s thick as fuck. He’s got a giant back.
Speaker: 1
01:21:11
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:21:12
And when he gets a hold of guys, it’s like he’s just got this leverage, this grappling squeeze that it’s I remember when he fought Drew Dober and, like, when he got Dober down to the ground, I was like, that’s a wrap. Yeah. It’s a ram. As soon as he gets on top and then he starts clamping down and squeezing and guys are just like, Oliveira was tapping, like, the moment it was on.
Speaker: 0
01:21:32
He was
Speaker: 2
01:21:33
like, fuck this.
Speaker: 1
01:21:34
Yeah. A lot of those really good grappler guys, they’re strong definitely, but they’re really strong at closing up all of the space. Ai, I can if you let me get a underhook, like, I could feel pretty strong. Like, even if you’re much bigger than me, I’ll, like, make you take a couple steps back, which really shouldn’t happen.
Speaker: 1
01:21:49
But if I just close-up all of the space, which I think is a big component of being a really good grappler, is being able to be ai, nope. That’s my space. You don’t get that. This you know, and you’re not gonna get inside of mine. I can feel strong as fuck. You know?
Speaker: 1
01:22:03
And, yeah, those types of guys, they’re just so used to being so compact and never letting anyone get inside their arms or wherever it is that they need to get that it’s just ai or wherever it is that they need to get that it’s just it’s, like, impossible to feel ai you can move them.
Speaker: 1
01:22:16
Mhmm. I feel like there’s two types of being strong in grappling. There’s being strong in, like, I don’t let you move meh, and then there’s strong in Ai get to move you really good, and the good good guys get to do both. Like, if I can grab you and move you really easy, I’ll feel really strong. If you grab me and I feel like a rock, I’m I’ll feel really strong.
Speaker: 1
01:22:36
And I think that some people do both of those really well, and then some people do one or the other really well. But those types of guys, like the Islams, they do both really good.
Speaker: 2
01:22:46
Yeah. Mhmm. And he’s also his striking has leveled up significantly.
Speaker: 0
01:22:51
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:22:51
Ai guess striking is much much better than it was when he was younger. He’s just he’s a threat everywhere. Like, when he knocked out Volk with that high kick Yeah. Crazy. But granted, if I if I was in Volk’s corner, I would say no.
Speaker: 1
01:23:04
I know.
Speaker: 2
01:23:04
You’re not taking it. You’ve bryden fucking drinking beer and eating kebabs. Ai, there’s no way you’re taking this fight on ten days notice. I don’t care how confident you are. I don’t care how much you like fighting. That’s a crazy thing. I don’t care how much money they’re paying you because you look at the slide that his career took. Ai? He arguably won that first fight with Islam. Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:23:23
Very close ai, loses a decision. Or was it a draw?
Speaker: 1
01:23:26
It was a decision shit. Was it a draw? That’s actually a good question. I think he lost. I think he lost.
Speaker: 2
01:23:32
I think he lost too. Yeah. Either way, Islam keeps the title. Was it a draw? Why do I think it was a draw?
Speaker: 1
01:23:37
Maybe one judge handed a draw.
Speaker: 2
01:23:39
Maybe it’s something like that. So super close fight with the pound for pound best fighter in the world, 10 pounds up. Everybody’s ai, Volk might be the best pound for pound fighter in the world. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
01:23:48
And then
Speaker: 2
01:23:48
he takes that fight on ten days notice, gets head kicked. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:23:51
And
Speaker: 2
01:23:51
then he comes into the fight with Tapuya, what, four months later or something like vatsal? Ai. Clearly, you got head kicked, shinned to the dome, stopped unconscious, and then you’ve gotta fight the scariest fucking boxer in the division, and you get knocked out. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
01:24:06
You know?
Speaker: 2
01:24:06
And so then this big ai. And then he comes back full year off, and you see against Diego Lopez, looks like the Volk of old. Mhmm. It looks like he’s back. Yeah. Well, I would ai to have seen that Volk versus Ilya. Yeah. That would have been an exciting fight. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:24:21
First one was a decision. Second one was a Yeah. K. O. Okay. Sai it was a decision.
Speaker: 1
01:24:27
Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the casuals like to exist in a world where oh, no. If you’re a if you’re a better fighter, then you’re just a better fighter. But it’s like, no, man. Like, if I have three months to train versus two weeks to train, like Big
Speaker: 0
01:24:41
difference.
Speaker: 1
01:24:41
That’s giant difference. Giant difference. Giant I don’t do Zins. This isn’t a Zin. What is it? I just don’t want. It’s like, I just started taking them. They’re called they’re like they have fifty milligrams of caffeine in them. They’re called NZEs.
Speaker: 2
01:24:53
Oh, yeah. I’ve taken those. Those are good.
Speaker: 1
01:24:55
Yeah. There’s I like those. I like those. They’re, brain stimulants. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:24:59
Yeah. Ai got a one car that I got that I bought called Alpha that’s pretty good. Although, I did kinda get a little annoyed that they ripped off
Speaker: 1
01:25:06
Alpha Brain.
Speaker: 2
01:25:07
Because it’s sai it’s, you ai, I like these these are great too. These gummies. These Alpha Brain gummies are
Speaker: 1
01:25:12
fucking awesome. Ai. I don’t do caffeine anymore. That’s, like, one thing that I stopped. Well, I do like this amount of caffeine. I do, like, fifty
Speaker: 2
01:25:19
milligrams is that?
Speaker: 1
01:25:20
Just fifty.
Speaker: 2
01:25:20
Okay.
Speaker: 1
01:25:21
So I could tea
Speaker: 2
01:25:21
small cup of coffee.
Speaker: 1
01:25:22
Yeah. You know what’s crazy is, so, I didn’t drink, like, a lot of caffeine or whatever. I would drink, like, a coffee in the morning like normal people. But, dude, what I learned is because once I stopped, I immediately had way, way more energy. Or maybe not immediately, but, like, ten days, two weeks afterwards.
Speaker: 1
01:25:39
And you know what I looked up, bro, is that I already have, like, low ai, but I noticed or I looked up coffee gets in the way of iron absorption. Really? Ai yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:25:53
You have low iron. Do you eat red meat?
Speaker: 1
01:25:55
Yeah. I eat a lot of it’s like a genetic thing. My mom has super low I think it’s like a ginger thing. I gotta ai go fucking yeah. We’re just born.
Speaker: 2
01:26:02
Caffeine can inhibit iron absorption primarily due to the presence of tannins and other polyphenols in coffee.
Speaker: 1
01:26:08
Dude, I swear this has changed me big so now I do the Meh water stuff where I drink all the MUD water. I like matcha still, so I’ll still do, like, fifty milligrams in the morning. But, dude, the coffee, I stopped, and I immediately started feeling way better. And I don’t know how many people don’t know this, but this is a thing, bro.
Speaker: 2
01:26:25
I’m a coffee junkie.
Speaker: 1
01:26:26
I know. Sai It’s not a real problem. It tastes good. Problem. I still drink decaf sometimes because I really like the taste of it.
Speaker: 2
01:26:32
I take days off of these things. Like What
Speaker: 1
01:26:34
are those?
Speaker: 2
01:26:34
These are Breakers, Lucy’s. These arya, nicotine.
Speaker: 0
01:26:37
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:26:38
I like them when I do podcasts. I like them before I do stand up. Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
01:26:41
But I
Speaker: 2
01:26:41
take days off because I was ai, boy, am I addicted to these things? I’m fucking sucking on these things all day long. But I took a couple days off, like, no. I feel fine.
Speaker: 1
01:26:47
It’s fine.
Speaker: 2
01:26:48
Yeah. I feel fine. But I’ve taken days off coffee, and I’m like Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:26:52
Yeah. Yeah. It takes like a week
Speaker: 0
01:26:53
or so. Fucking
Speaker: 2
01:26:53
falling asleep in the morning. Just like
Speaker: 1
01:26:55
Yeah. I I honestly don’t think everyone would have the same experience I did. I think it’s because of the iron thing.
Speaker: 2
01:27:00
That makes a lot of sense, man. Yeah. Drinking coffee and other caffeinated beverages with a meal associated with 39 to 90% reduction in iron absorption. Dude, it was great.
Speaker: 1
01:27:09
Yeah. And so I so this so, bro, this is how I found out. It wasn’t like I was seeking this. It was I take a iron supplement in the morning usually because I have a little bit of low iron. And when I stopped drinking coffee, one of the signs that you you are you’re taking too much iron is that you’ll get, like, a iron metallic taste in your mouth.
Speaker: 1
01:27:28
And so about two weeks afterwards or whenever, I started tasting that taste in my mouth, and I looked it up, and that’s what it was. So I stopped taking the iron supplement because I was actually absorbing the iron from my food and shit. Wow. Is that crazy? That is crazy.
Speaker: 2
01:27:43
Fuck them. I ai to try it.
Speaker: 1
01:27:45
Yeah. It’s it was it was kinda rough, though.
Speaker: 2
01:27:48
Oh, yeah. I bet. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:27:49
It was rough. It it was ai, I quit everything at that time just because I was, like, getting like, my body was getting anxious. My mind is pretty much, like, stupid the whole time to life, but my body will get really, I’ll just, like, notice different shit. I’ll I’ll just, like, be more tired or anxious or whatever. You know?
Speaker: 2
01:28:06
Well, you’re so in tune. Yeah. You know? A fighter is probably out of out of all the professional sports, I think a fighter probably is the most in tune with her body.
Speaker: 1
01:28:14
Probably.
Speaker: 2
01:28:15
Because there’s so ai, the consequences of not being in tune are so grave.
Speaker: 1
01:28:20
Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
01:28:20
Like,
Speaker: 2
01:28:20
this it’s so different than any other sport.
Speaker: 1
01:28:22
Definitely. There’s a lot of ways to get hurt, and we have to watch what we actually eat. Most sports, you don’t really have to do that. It’s just Right. Like, we’re super like, food the relationship with food for a fighter is way, way different than Sai think almost everyone else on the planet.
Speaker: 2
01:28:37
When you like, Adesanya never cared about his nutrition. Never took care of Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:28:41
There’s some people till
Speaker: 2
01:28:41
he got older.
Speaker: 1
01:28:42
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:28:42
And then he got older, he ai, like, hey, I’ve gotta really fucking do everything.
Speaker: 1
01:28:46
I know, dude. I used to I used to be able to just down a Chipotle burrito with all the hot sauce on it and then just train afterwards ai it was nothing. Now Ai can’t do that, which kinda sucks.
Speaker: 2
01:28:56
Yeah. That’s also youth. God to be young. I know. When you’re really young, you can get away with anything.
Speaker: 1
01:29:01
You really can’t do. I used to just be hungover rolling in and just, like, ai. It’s hard easy.
Speaker: 2
01:29:06
I know. It’s crazy how much you can get away with when you’re young. Yeah. But it it’s ai the the the the other thing is, like, hard training for long, prolonged periods, years and years and years. You get all these little micro injuries, those little things, things are slowing down. You’re just demanding so much of your body.
Speaker: 2
01:29:24
If you’re not taking care of your nutrition, it’s like, are you serious about this or not?
Speaker: 1
01:29:29
I know. Like, what
Speaker: 2
01:29:30
are you doing? You were fucking six hours in the gym and then you’re eating pizza? That’s crazy.
Speaker: 1
01:29:34
I see people fuck up their weight cuts all the time just because after they cut weight, they wanna eat like an asshole. And I’m like, what are you doing, dude? You literally did for eight weeks, you were the most disciplined person in the world, and now you’re eating cake the night before the fight.
Speaker: 1
01:29:46
You’re
Speaker: 2
01:29:46
an idiot. Dumb. Yeah. Sai dumb eating cake the night before a fight. It’s so Ilya famous well, he sai he only did it twice, but he was and they made it seem ai in the countdown shows that he did it a lot. He would drink wine while he was weight cutting.
Speaker: 1
01:29:59
Yeah. The whole time I was watching that, I was like, he doesn’t do that every time. He was like, yeah. I was like, come on. This is ai media stuff, you know.
Speaker: 2
01:30:05
He loves meh.
Speaker: 0
01:30:06
I was
Speaker: 1
01:30:06
like, you’re not convincing me that he does that.
Speaker: 2
01:30:09
You know? Did it twice, he said.
Speaker: 0
01:30:10
And he
Speaker: 2
01:30:11
said but I was like, what am I doing?
Speaker: 1
01:30:12
Sounds fun. Bet you got drunk as shit off of one glass of wine, which is probably pretty awesome. And you were probably it probably tasted so good too being that dehydrated.
Speaker: 2
01:30:21
And then you’re dehydrating yourself more because of the ai. So probably aids a little bit in the water cut because it does dehydrate you. Yeah. But then that hangover when you got no water in your body? Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:30:33
Yeah. I don’t fuck with hangovers anymore, dude. That’s why I stopped drinking.
Speaker: 2
01:30:36
I stopped drinking, I guess, it’s, like, close to four months ago. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
01:30:41
And Ai
Speaker: 2
01:30:42
used to have days where I would get a you know, I’d work at the club, do stand up, have a couple of drinks, and the next day Ai be working out going, oh. Yeah. What did I feel? But I was ai, that’s just life. Just deal with it. Drink your electrolytes. Get through it. I have no days like that now.
Speaker: 0
01:30:56
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:30:57
That’s nuts. Like, even if, like, last night, I only had, like, five hours speak, but I worked out this morning. I feel fucking great.
Speaker: 0
01:31:03
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:31:03
Like, I’m the all the bad days have gone away. It’s kinda like, I’m like, you moron.
Speaker: 1
01:31:08
Yeah. I know.
Speaker: 2
01:31:09
You’re poisoning yourself for decades.
Speaker: 1
01:31:10
That’s how I ai too. I’m like, so now I’ll still go out and, like, do social shit and just not drink?
Speaker: 0
01:31:16
And I’m
Speaker: 1
01:31:16
like, this is just as fun, you idiot. I know.
Speaker: 0
01:31:18
I was
Speaker: 1
01:31:18
like, you could’ve just been doing this the whole time.
Speaker: 2
01:31:20
I know. That’s the thing is, like, I thought you missed like, I remember boss Rooten telling me that that Ai quit drinking and just as much fun. I’m ai, right. Yeah. Just as much fun.
Speaker: 1
01:31:28
Yeah. Yeah. But it’s true.
Speaker: 2
01:31:30
It’s ai you’d you’re you’re having fun because you’re with fun people.
Speaker: 1
01:31:33
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:31:33
And you’re just having laughs. You don’t have to be drunk to have fun.
Speaker: 0
01:31:36
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:31:36
You know? Unless you were me in college.
Speaker: 2
01:31:39
Oh, yeah?
Speaker: 1
01:31:40
Yeah. A little bit. I think that part I think a big piece of me thinking drinking was fun is because I would just do really stupid crazy shah, and so would my friends. And then we’d just talk about it the next sai, like, hey. That was so stupid and crazy. You know? But now that I don’t do any of that stuff, I’m like, this isn’t fun anymore.
Speaker: 2
01:31:56
Yeah. And Not throwing it. Professional athlete too. You realize, like, this is just not good for you. Yeah. It’s punishing yourself.
Speaker: 1
01:32:03
Yeah. At this age, unfortunately. They told me my whole life it was gonna happen, and now it’s happening.
Speaker: 2
01:32:08
Well, it’s just becoming wiser too. You know, that’s ai, like, I when you see that Jon Jones thing I’m sorry. Sure you saw the police cam. Did you see that?
Speaker: 1
01:32:16
I did recently. I didn’t know if it was old or
Speaker: 2
01:32:18
what. The new one.
Speaker: 1
01:32:20
It’s ai this week?
Speaker: 2
01:32:21
Yeah. That’s Ai a new one. He’s drunk on the phone, talking to the cops, and you’re like, oh, no.
Speaker: 1
01:32:27
Yeah. I don’t know the details of it. Was he driving the car?
Speaker: 2
01:32:30
Who knows? She the girl in the car said that he was driving. The car was wrecked, and John was gone, and she ratted him out. Ai Jones did it. Mhmm. And then John’s on the phone with the cops and apparently, allegedly threatened the cops Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
01:32:43
When he
Speaker: 2
01:32:44
was on the phone, which is not good.
Speaker: 1
01:32:45
Yeah. Not good.
Speaker: 2
01:32:46
And he’s already got a history of running from accidents.
Speaker: 1
01:32:49
Yeah. Yeah. I hope he gets whatever that is, I hope that he figures it out, you know?
Speaker: 2
01:32:54
Yeah. I hope so too. But, you know,
Speaker: 1
01:32:57
it is what it is. Yeah. Some people Nothing. Yeah. They like riding the lightning, bro.
Speaker: 2
01:33:01
He ai riding that lightning.
Speaker: 1
01:33:03
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:33:03
And I think that’s one of the things that made him so good too because he was so wild. He was just a wild dude.
Speaker: 0
01:33:08
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:33:09
And Ai just genuinely didn’t give a fuck and really had this ultimate confidence. Mhmm. And so skillful and so smart. But eventually, you know, one more one more drink then like that. And then your body’s just, like, not what it used to be.
Speaker: 1
01:33:24
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:33:25
And Aspinall is a fucking beast, man.
Speaker: 1
01:33:28
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:33:28
I know there’s a lot of questions. Never been out of the first round. A lot of questions. But never been out of the first round because he fucks everybody up in the first round. Like, that’s a factor.
Speaker: 1
01:33:37
Yeah. You know? Yeah. I really wanted to see that ai, but also at the same time, I kinda I appreciate it. I I forget which interview it was recently, but John was pretty honest in it. He was like, look, meh. Like, I don’t wanna fight up and coming tough guys. He was like, I wanna fight guys with seasoned champions that have names.
Speaker: 1
01:33:55
And I was like, that could also be interpreted as you don’t really wanna fight kind of the best guys that there are right now. You wanna ai, like, a certain category of fighter who you’re comfortable fighting, but you don’t wanna fight the guys that are tough and that are saying that you’re gonna win.
Speaker: 1
01:34:13
And that’s okay, but that’s essentially how I interpreted what he was saying in different words, which I appreciated the honesty.
Speaker: 2
01:34:20
Well, it’s also money fights. Right?
Speaker: 1
01:34:21
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:34:22
Because, I think he’s wrong ai I think Aspinall’s a star. Mhmm. I I really do.
Speaker: 1
01:34:27
Yeah. I do too.
Speaker: 2
01:34:27
I and I don’t I think he’s saying who is he, he’s not no one. Aspinall’s a star. When I get when people ask questions to me all the time, like casuals on the street, is Jon Jones gonna fight Tom Aspinall? It’s constant. That’s, like, the constant question. To me, the real fight would have been Jon Jones versus Francis. That’s the real fight.
Speaker: 2
01:34:48
If I like, clearly, I’m not responsible for making decisions because I would made a lot of different decisions and I would have like, Francis, let’s let’s talk. Let’s work this out. That guy’s a star. Francis is the fucking scariest heavyweight of all time.
Speaker: 1
01:35:03
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:35:04
That’s a shah, you know? Like, that guy as the heavyweight champion is so fucking marketable. He puts people in the orbit. Yeah. You know? He ai Stipe. He flatlined Alastair. He flatlines people. He’s fucking terrifying. Mhmm. Like, that’s the heavyweight champion.
Speaker: 2
01:35:20
And for that guy to walk away from the belt and then almost beat Tyson Fury and then get knocked out by Anthony Joshua, and then to come back and destroy that dude in PFL. What’s his name again? The big tyler Brazilian dude that he ground and pounded into unconsciousness. Mhmm. Ferrera. That’s right.
Speaker: 1
01:35:43
Oh, okay.
Speaker: 2
01:35:43
That that guy ai
Speaker: 1
01:35:44
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That guy was you oh, yeah. Yeah. They’re really jacked guy. Yeah. And he’s
Speaker: 2
01:35:48
the guy that KO’d Ryan Bader in the first round. He looks phenomenal. He’s terrifying. And Francis just destroyed him. I’m like, that’s the guy. That’s the guy. Like I know. And everybody knows that’s the guy. Like, that’s the fight that
Speaker: 1
01:36:01
that’s the big fight. It’s a shame when that shit happens in the sport, dude. It’s the worst. I hate it. I hate it. I see it happen all of the ai, and I I can’t help but think a lot of it is, like, hopefully, it’s just maybe money business stuff. But I really I think that some of it is ego, and that’s kind of what I try to drift like, just drift away from. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:36:20
My philosophy on winning the ballot has always been if I can’t beat whoever it is, if it’s ai a number 10 ranked Umar or if it’s a number two ranked whoever, if I can’t beat that person, then I don’t deserve the belt, and I don’t think that I should get it. Like, I’m it clearly doesn’t represent what it represents if it doesn’t mean that I beat all the best guys on the way to doing so.
Speaker: 2
01:36:42
Right.
Speaker: 1
01:36:42
Not everyone really has that philosophy, and I get it because once you start involving money and then
Speaker: 0
01:36:47
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
01:36:47
Money is taking care of your family, which is what, you know, is kind of an excuse to be greedy sometimes for people. It just kinda it’s just never really been my philosophy. And I think that it’s kind of a shame when that stuff happens because in my head, we’re doing two things.
Speaker: 1
01:37:03
We’re seeing who the best fighter in the world is, and we’re getting people to watch so that the fans can appreciate something that I find to be the most loved thing in my life next to my ai. You know? So I don’t know. I think it’s a shame when that shit happens, especially when it’s ai a, an ego thing.
Speaker: 1
01:37:23
But also at the same time, I don’t really think that that’s too much of what Jon Jones is doing. I’m more speaking in terms of what I kinda see in other people. I think Jon Jones also has to have some level of awareness around Tom’s a young guy, and we age. You know? Yep. We age, and that’s okay.
Speaker: 2
01:37:43
Jon’s not a natural heavyweight either.
Speaker: 1
01:37:45
That too.
Speaker: 2
01:37:46
I mean, John still could make two zero five.
Speaker: 1
01:37:48
Yeah. Yeah. He yeah. Even in his heavyweight fight, he looked like A little soft. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:37:53
A little soft. And, like, two forty and a little soft is I mean, think about how much Pereira cuts. Mhmm. Right? He could cut that weight. Like, he could still make two zero five and might still be the champ at two zero five. Yeah. You know, which is ai wild. Yeah. And Tom Aspinall ain’t making two zero five. That guy is fucking huge. Yeah. If and Sana was not making two zero five.
Speaker: 2
01:38:13
Francis would cut to get to two sixty five natural
Speaker: 1
01:38:16
Sure.
Speaker: 2
01:38:17
Which is just bananas.
Speaker: 1
01:38:18
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:38:18
And he’s a fucking hulking man. Yeah. Yeah. He’s a scary dude.
Speaker: 1
01:38:22
How do people get that big?
Speaker: 2
01:38:24
Genetics, man.
Speaker: 0
01:38:24
Is
Speaker: 1
01:38:25
that what it is? Genetics.
Speaker: 2
01:38:26
Yeah. I mean, that’s just pure genetics.
Speaker: 1
01:38:28
If I was that big, I’m playing a different sport, bro. Playing hockey. Hockey or fucking baseball or something.
Speaker: 2
01:38:35
Football. But foot the brain damage you get in football is significantly more probably than the brain damage you get in fighting. You like hockey?
Speaker: 1
01:38:43
I do. I like watching. Hockey is pretty cool. Yeah. I like I like hockey culture. I don’t really understand the game because there’s too much going on right now. Or, like, when it’s happening, it just, like, looks like a chaotic mess sometimes to me. Mhmm. But I recently started watching it because the dude from the Avs, I’m getting I I I’ve been, like, seeing him at the gym a little bit.
Speaker: 1
01:39:00
He’s been training a guy named Nathan MacKinnon who’s, like, one of the better guys in the league right now. I’ve kinda been paying a little bit of attention because me and him will chat sometimes. But, dude, hockey culture is cool. Like, when they score, they smile and cheer for a half of a second, and then they’re all just, like, stone cold killers back again, which I really appreciate about sports because I feel like a lot of sports have become, like like, all of these top players are, like, really superstar y, like, flamboyant y, like
Speaker: 2
01:39:29
The thing about hockey is it’s never been as popular as football.
Speaker: 1
01:39:33
I know.
Speaker: 2
01:39:34
It’s always been the steps the steps on. It’s ai not quite the sai, not in the sai, like, they don’t they don’t reach the same you have a few Gretzky’s Mhmm. You know, Bobby Orr. You have a few guys that become national celebrities. But for the most part, there’s not, like, a whole ton of them that everybody, the general public knows about.
Speaker: 2
01:39:53
So because of that, they’re probably a little more dedicated, a little more humble Mhmm. Little more on the grind. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
01:40:00
They’re cool. They’re cool to me. I really like that sport.
Speaker: 2
01:40:03
It’s very athletic sport, man. Yeah. The fucking amount of energy that those guys expend Yeah. The speed They’re fast. Constantly sprinting on ice, you know, and and maneuvering and gliding around those blades is incredible to watch.
Speaker: 1
01:40:16
You like any other sports?
Speaker: 2
01:40:17
I like soccer.
Speaker: 1
01:40:18
I like watching soccer. Ai.
Speaker: 2
01:40:19
You know sana I really enjoyed soccer? When I went to see a live match. I was like, oh. And then I ai I was talking to my friend Meh, who’s one of the owners of the Austin Club here. And he was explaining to meh, like, this is the reason why it never becomes popular in America. They don’t take commercial breaks.
Speaker: 2
01:40:34
There’s there’s no time for a commercial break. The fucking clock is always running.
Speaker: 1
01:40:39
Oh, I never noticed that.
Speaker: 2
01:40:39
And these guys these guys have legs. They’re ai fucking quarter horses. They have these fucking huge legs, and they’re just running constantly. They’re constantly sprinting. They have to be in insane shape. Yeah. You know, it’s ai as like, someone who appreciates athletic performance, ai, this is a crazy speak. Like, a really demanding sport.
Speaker: 1
01:40:58
How many miles do you think they run every game?
Speaker: 2
01:41:00
I don’t know, man.
Speaker: 1
01:41:01
Probably at least four, five.
Speaker: 2
01:41:03
Has to be. They’re constantly running. It’s like seven to nine usually. Seven to nine miles every game. That’s bananas, man. They’re not jogging. Yeah. They’re fucking sprinting seven to nine miles, which is
Speaker: 1
01:41:16
When I did that time in, The Netherlands that I was talking about, I grew up playing soccer a little bit too, but I only did it until, like, people stopped thinking it was cool. And then I, like, switched switched sports.
Speaker: 2
01:41:26
I was like, dude, when you’re growing up, bro, all of the the
Speaker: 1
01:41:29
goal is just to not be called gay. Ai soccer didn’t do that for you. You know? It’s so true. But It’s so true. Dude, it’s just your entire existence as a kid is to not be made fun of and called gay.
Speaker: 2
01:41:41
Yeah. You were a dork if you played soccer.
Speaker: 1
01:41:43
Yeah. But, oh, dude. When I went to The Netherlands and I watched some of those kids play, I was like, oh, this is soccer in Europe. Because they were, like, 10, 11, 12 year old kids just freaks, dude, and, like, crazy athletic. You could just tell that that’s, like, what they do with their entire lives.
Speaker: 1
01:42:02
And I was like, thank God I didn’t choose that sport because I just wouldn’t be anywhere.
Speaker: 0
01:42:06
Well,
Speaker: 2
01:42:06
you’d have to go overseas. Yeah. And then the competitiveness of the the soccer over there or the football, what they call it over there, is so much higher than in America. You probably it would probably be a long adjustment to reach their level.
Speaker: 1
01:42:17
Have you ever been to a game, where there’s all of the SWAT people and shit because the hooligans and stuff?
Speaker: 2
01:42:23
No. I’ve only been to the Austin games. It’s pretty chill.
Speaker: 1
01:42:26
I went to one in Serbia where they had more SWAT police officers than there were people in the actual stands. Dude, it was wild. I was like, dude, Serbia is more developed than this, man. Like, people were climbing on stuff, throwing smoke bombs onto the field. I was like, bro,
Speaker: 2
01:42:42
this can’t be Serbian basketball?
Speaker: 1
01:42:44
Yeah. They’re good at basketball.
Speaker: 2
01:42:45
We played some clips of basketball games in Serbia.
Speaker: 1
01:42:49
Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:42:49
You see the crowd in Serbia.
Speaker: 1
01:42:51
Mhmm. They go hard. I know. They the
Speaker: 2
01:42:54
the cheering is like it gives you goosebumps. Like, holy fuck, man.
Speaker: 1
01:42:59
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:42:59
These are ai people. And they’re they’re they’re putting that ai of fucking, the same energy to basketball. Yeah. They’re ai, boy, when those guys come over here, everyone’s fucked. And you’re kinda seeing that now. Yeah. There’s a bunch of Serbian players have made their way to The United States, and those guys are fucking badass.
Speaker: 1
01:43:16
They’re ready to fight the entire tyler, probably.
Speaker: 2
01:43:18
They’re scary hard dudes, man.
Speaker: 1
01:43:20
Yeah. You know?
Speaker: 2
01:43:21
Which is, like, really interesting to see this influx of, like, guys from Russia, Dagestan, Chechnya, like, some of these guys that are making their way into the UFC now. Like, these are fucking hard dudes, man. You know, it’s really interesting.
Speaker: 1
01:43:36
Really interesting. Georgia? Yeah. It’s it’s really cool, actually. I I mean, I really appreciate it, man. I think that MMA and martial arts just in general is such a fantastic thing for the world. And this to me has brought so many people together, kind of. Like, I didn’t follow Ai I didn’t know what Dagestan was or Azerbaijan was or anything like that. When I it was 02/2014. So, you know WKA Sure. The organization?
Speaker: 1
01:44:02
I did their national tournament. And if you win, you gotta go do the world tournament for them in Italy. So I got to do that and won. And when I was out there, a lot of the competitors were from all over the world. And there was a place called Azerbaijan that I didn’t know how to pronounce at all. And they were whooping guys’ asses, dude.
Speaker: 1
01:44:21
Like, bad, like, spinning hook kicks, like, all kinds of crazy shit. And I was like, damn, I hope I don’t fight one of those guys. But, the entire time, I was like, the second these guys start getting into the UFC and stuff, they’re gonna wreck a lot of Americans, you know? Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:44:39
But I really like that. Like, just the UFC in general has done a good job, in my opinion, because they’re really the only globalized or one of the only super globalized where people from all over the world are fighting each other. Kinda I don’t know, man. It kinda feels like it brings everyone together or at least for me.
Speaker: 1
01:44:57
Like, I sai feel like I could walk into another country and have something something super in common with someone, which
Speaker: 2
01:45:02
is just
Speaker: 1
01:45:03
like a cool feeling, you know.
Speaker: 2
01:45:04
I think another thing that’s really cool about it is when someone is elite, no one cares what country they’re ram. They just love that guy.
Speaker: 0
01:45:10
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:45:10
You know, it’s like if if Adesanya gets in there, no one cares he’s from New Zealand. Everybody gets pumped. If Pereira gets in there, it’s Alex Pereira’s fighting. You don’t say USA. No. They’re just fucking psyched to see Alex Pereira. Yeah. You know, so it’s it’s it’s really great in that regard that you can become a true international superstar arya you’re embraced essentially by all the nations.
Speaker: 1
01:45:30
Definitely ai America. I think that that’s a big American culture thing too. Sure. Like, we we don’t really care where people are from as much.
Speaker: 2
01:45:36
Think about the Russians that are over here. They don’t no one cares.
Speaker: 1
01:45:39
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:45:39
No one’s like, oh, Russians, fuck you.
Speaker: 1
01:45:41
Yeah. You know, they’re like, oh, that guy’s badass.
Speaker: 0
01:45:43
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:45:43
You know? Yeah. I wonder if it’d be the same in those other countries.
Speaker: 2
01:45:46
I don’t think so.
Speaker: 1
01:45:47
Yeah. I bet not. Russia definitely doesn’t think I’m as cool
Speaker: 2
01:45:50
as No. I think they’re cool. If I went over to Russia, I’d be ai fucking super worried they’d poison my food. You know? Like some crazy Russian, ai, fuck him. Fuck this ai. You know, and fucking throw something in your tea. Who knows? You know, like, they’re fucking they’re they’re hardcore. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:46:06
So you could do America embraces but we’re a melting pot. Right? That’s the difference between this country and all the other countries is that we are consistent entirely of immigrants. At one point in time, everyone, unless you’re Native American, everyone was an immigrant.
Speaker: 1
01:46:19
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:46:20
So it’s ai we kinda accept that people come from different parts of the world.
Speaker: 1
01:46:23
Yeah. About three hundred years ago, we’re all ai, let’s go to this party. I know. Fucking party over there, man. We could do whatever we want over there. We’re gonna do all this bullshit that we got going
Speaker: 2
01:46:32
on here. It’s kinda nutty in that regard. And, you know, and boy, it’s worked out Yeah. In a lot
Speaker: 1
01:46:38
of ways. Yeah. I I I I’m not really like a I try not to be, like, too identified with anything or whatever or, like, be too nationalist. But every time I think of, like, just how lucky we are to be from here, dude, it’s pretty cool.
Speaker: 2
01:46:50
It’s pretty amazing. It it
Speaker: 1
01:46:51
it is. It’s especially when you see stuff, like, that’s going on with Israel and Iran and all of that stuff. It’s kinda like, god, meh. Thank God that we’re here.
Speaker: 2
01:46:59
In The UK, people are getting arrested for Facebook posts.
Speaker: 1
01:47:03
Are they?
Speaker: 2
01:47:04
Yeah. Thousands of them.
Speaker: 1
01:47:05
They still use Facebook? Fucking users.
Speaker: 2
01:47:08
What the fuck they doing using Facebook? That’s how you
Speaker: 1
01:47:10
know it’s a political thing. It’s all those old people. Old people. Old people on Facebook.
Speaker: 2
01:47:14
All ai old friends from high school, like, my old friends that I was friends with when I was, like, really young, they are they’re on Facebook.
Speaker: 1
01:47:21
Yeah. Old dudes love Facebook. My mom and dad are on Facebook.
Speaker: 2
01:47:24
They argue about politics on Facebook, ai, fucking miss me with that shit.
Speaker: 1
01:47:28
Yeah. They post about which neighbors.
Speaker: 0
01:47:30
Yeah. I
Speaker: 2
01:47:30
know. I got zero time for any of that stupidity.
Speaker: 1
01:47:34
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:47:34
But this, you know, this thing that we’ve done over here is allowing people to express themselves. Whether you agree or disagree, that is just so ai. And what they’re squashing a lot of that in other countries, and that scares the shit out of me. That’s what I was really scared about in this last election because because I’m friends with Elon, I knew what was going on in Twitter behind the scenes.
Speaker: 2
01:47:58
I knew how the government was stepping in and silencing posts. I’m ai, this is fucking dangerous, man.
Speaker: 1
01:48:05
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:48:05
Because if they they get a real grip on social media and you no longer can protest about things and express yourself about things, including a lot of things that happened to be true, like, during the COVID crisis, You people were getting their accounts banned for posting factual information. Yeah. That that was scary to me because that’s very, very un American.
Speaker: 1
01:48:26
You have to be okay with that for all the good and the bad that comes with it. Like, you just have to.
Speaker: 0
01:48:31
You have
Speaker: 2
01:48:31
to be okay with Like the good thing. People saying things you don’t like.
Speaker: 1
01:48:34
It’s gonna come with a lot of good and a lot of bad, but you have to be okay with it. Because when it’s your turn at plate, like, you’re gonna wanna be you’re gonna wanna have your opinion respected too.
Speaker: 2
01:48:42
100%. And that’s what people have to realize when it’s so easy when, like, especially in this country, all tech is primarily left. And they have a very strong ai, this very progressive left wing ideology, which is, like, all over the tech world. And when they were in control and they were silencing things, I think the attitude was, this is good because we’re ai, and we need to stop these fascists or whatever we wanna call them, you know.
Speaker: 2
01:49:09
And but the problem is then, what if the fucking right gets in place and they use the same rules that you used on them? Now we don’t have a country anymore.
Speaker: 0
01:49:15
No. No.
Speaker: 2
01:49:16
Now we’re fucked. Now we’re just like every other dictatorship.
Speaker: 1
01:49:19
I don’t really know how you solve it. I’ve kinda thought about, like, how to, like, get to a place where there can be world peace and all of that stuff. I I don’t know. I think that a lot of people I know you’ve talked about it a lot. They get really attached to the egos and the identities that exist inside them, and then they see the world from only that perspective.
Speaker: 1
01:49:36
That’s why I think that, like, a lot of the old religions and the old, like, echoed through time ways of being are to, you know, destroy your ego, eliminate yourself, be ai this watcher of your thoughts and all of that stuff, and then start to identify with the watcher of what you think that you really are.
Speaker: 1
01:49:54
And then once you spend enough time doing that, you’ll spend enough time realizing that everyone else has that watcher inside them. And that maybe they don’t realize it yet, but they’re still really connected to their egos that are really just a bunch of ideas that weren’t indoctrinated to them based off of our environment or who we grew up with and all of that stuff.
Speaker: 1
01:50:12
And then you can start to love people a little bit more. And Absolutely. It’s it’s kind of a shame that, I I just know that that’s not super big in the West, that idea.
Speaker: 2
01:50:23
Just
Speaker: 1
01:50:24
it’s kind of a Eastern philosophy, you know, like, be be like, we just meditate here. Like, that’s just such a, like, a bitch ass way to think about doing it. Like, that’s what you’re doing is you’re settling into being able to watch what you think you really are and be like, hey.
Speaker: 1
01:50:39
If I don’t wanna be that anymore, I don’t have to be that. Or if I if that doesn’t serve me anymore, I don’t have to be that. This is one thing that I walk through a lot of my guys within fighting is it’s ai, you wanna not be scared of something. Don’t desire anything. And don’t be anything if you don’t wanna be scared because fighting fearless is a really big thing.
Speaker: 1
01:50:56
I think that I do a really good job of performing really well because I’m not scared of a lot of things because I don’t have a ton of egos inside of my brain as much anymore. I, of course, do because we all have to. But, but, yeah, once you start spending a lot of time with that watcher, you’ll I think that that’s kinda why it always ends on the idea of love being the answer is because once you spend time disconnecting from what we think we are, it can you always end up in the spot where it’s ai, oh, that person’s that.
Speaker: 1
01:51:25
They just haven’t figured it out yet either, and I love them for that still.
Speaker: 2
01:51:28
And that acceptance and love is empowering both to you and to them. Whereas, like, hate of other people I mean, it might motivate you in some way, but it’s also crippling. You know, what is vatsal, old expression that, anger is the is the emotion that poisons the vessel that holds it?
Speaker: 1
01:51:46
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
01:51:47
You know, this is you’re you’re wasting energy. You’re wasting ai, and you’re you’re wasting your potential because you’re you’re thinking only in terms of negative all the ai. And negative is never constructive. Yeah. You don’t have to.
Speaker: 1
01:51:59
Yeah. You don’t have
Speaker: 2
01:52:00
to think like that to be successful or to be competitive or in any way. You you can be empty.
Speaker: 1
01:52:05
There’s yeah. There’s a lot of energies in life that will serve you. I think up to a certain point, that just will stop serving you because it’s just not it’s not a fuel that you can sustain for long enough, you know.
Speaker: 2
01:52:19
Did you develop this philosophy from reading? Did you were you taught it? Like, how did you
Speaker: 1
01:52:25
Fuckload of mushrooms. No. I’m just kidding. Not a ton.
Speaker: 2
01:52:27
Are you kidding?
Speaker: 1
01:52:28
Not a ton.
Speaker: 2
01:52:28
No. I think that’s the answer. When you were asking me what’s what’s the answer to world peace, it might be that.
Speaker: 1
01:52:32
It might be because, I mean, that definitely rips you out of your body and fucking scares the shit out of you ai. But Humbles you. Yeah. It does. Yeah. No. It it was it’s a lot of reading. It’s a lot of, ai, I’ve been fascinated by religion my entire life. I was raised, pretty not ai crazy not like religious in, like, a dogmatic way, but religious in, like, a, hey, think about these things type of way by my parents, which I’m really grateful because I I developed a super healthy understanding of those types of ideas where they didn’t feel like there was something I was latched onto as much as they were things to be explored.
Speaker: 1
01:53:09
And so it kinda started when I was really young. I just been fascinated by the idea of God, ai, in church when they’re like, hey, you’re gonna burn in hell forever if you don’t agree with this. That became number one priority from that day on, dude. I was ai, hell once I could understand hell and forever, I was like
Speaker: 2
01:53:29
That’s a load later.
Speaker: 1
01:53:30
I was like, oh, okay. So nothing else matters in life. Like, we gotta figure this out right now. So that kinda took me on, like, a really religious thing. And then after I lost my first fight, that was my big first experience with facing an ego that I didn’t have control over.
Speaker: 1
01:53:48
When I What was your first loss?
Speaker: 0
01:53:49
It
Speaker: 1
01:53:49
was against a guy named Vatsal Emmerds, who’s actually in the UFC now. But it it was pretty much just I shit the bed and choked. I would’ve got signed to the UFC, and I just choked and lost. And, I was supposed to, in my head and based off of what everyone around me was telling me, I was supposed to be this, like, super big prospect ai, blah blah blah.
Speaker: 1
01:54:09
After I lost, I had to face that. Maybe that’s not what I am.
Speaker: 2
01:54:13
When you say choked, like, what about your performance do you think went wrong?
Speaker: 1
01:54:16
I just didn’t show up, like, the way I mean, I was five and o. I was still really new to the, you know, being a professional and being able to perform under high stakes. If I would’ve won, I I think Sai, for sure, would’ve gotten signed to the UFC just because Ai been training with TJ. My word was around them a lot.
Speaker: 1
01:54:31
It was way back to when you didn’t have to get signed by the contender or anything. They just would call you up on a day, but you kinda had to have a little bit of it in or be doing really well or something. So, yeah. So that was, like, my first big experience with that. I spent about that entire summer, as much as I could in the mountains.
Speaker: 1
01:54:50
I didn’t even really train because I didn’t even know if that’s something that I wanted to continue doing just because losing hurt my heart so bad.
Speaker: 2
01:54:56
How did you lose?
Speaker: 1
01:54:58
Just a decision, dude. It wasn’t even, like, gnarly. It was just, like, afterwards, I was like, but
Speaker: 2
01:55:02
I was supposed to win.
Speaker: 1
01:55:04
Like, what the fuck? It’s ai someone fucked up here, man. It’s like Ai was supposed to win that. And so it’s just like, oh, so maybe this universe doesn’t revolve around me and, like, my ideas and who I think I am and all of that stuff. And then sai speak a lot of time in nature, read a lot of books ai Power of Now, a lot of Buddhist stuff, a lot of Thich Nhat Hanh stuff, a lot of, just spirituality books.
Speaker: 1
01:55:30
But just the overarching idea of separating yourself from your thoughts and your body and all of that stuff and just whether it’s in our imagination or not, because I’m still not fully bought into any of that stuff. Like, I don’t have any beliefs is what I say now. But I’m willing to entertain a lot of stuff.
Speaker: 1
01:55:46
And I want to believe something really bad because it would make life a lot easier to, like, navigate through.
Speaker: 2
01:55:51
I feel exactly the same way.
Speaker: 1
01:55:52
Dude, it’d be so much easier if I Ai was just
Speaker: 2
01:55:54
Someone come up with a great cult. Yeah. Come up with a really great cult. I’ll join.
Speaker: 1
01:55:58
I’ll come up with one.
Speaker: 2
01:55:59
If you fucking ai, have, like, a really benevolent leader that really is an actual real guru, and they it makes sense, and no one’s fucking everybody.
Speaker: 1
01:56:08
I was gonna say, are we allowing everyone to have sex with each other or no?
Speaker: 2
01:56:12
Well, it’s not a That might be a deal breaker. Yeah. The leader gets to fuck everybody.
Speaker: 1
01:56:16
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:56:17
The leader gets to fuck everybody ai he wants your money. Yeah. Yeah. But if that could be avoided. But it would just make things easier, but it really wouldn’t. Or you’re you’re better off without a real belief system, but sort of entertaining a lot of belief systems.
Speaker: 1
01:56:29
I kinda land on this idea of so I’ve been trying to write a comic book for the last couple years.
Speaker: 2
01:56:35
Really?
Speaker: 1
01:56:36
Yeah. I know writing’s a little gay or whatever, but that’s where I spend a lot of money.
Speaker: 0
01:56:39
Are
Speaker: 1
01:56:39
they It’s gay to some people. But it’s like poetry. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
01:56:42
They’re gay. If you’re afraid of writing,
Speaker: 1
01:56:43
you’re gay. So I, I spend a lot of time writing. It’s like what I do with my free time instead of golfing. But,
Speaker: 2
01:56:52
Ai, what kind of write? Like, how do you write?
Speaker: 1
01:56:54
Well, for the last couple years, it’s been trying to write a pretty in-depth comic book, which has been really fun.
Speaker: 2
01:57:00
Are you a comic book fan?
Speaker: 1
01:57:01
I’m a comic book fan. But honestly, dude, how it happened is I was like, I wanted to come up with this really cool story. I’m just an idea machine. Like, I just think of ideas all day. Like, I don’t have many hobbies. I think it’s super fun just me hanging out with me inside my head all day.
Speaker: 1
01:57:14
So I, That’s cool. Yeah. I came up with this really cool idea, which is essentially, like, a bunch of ideas from a bunch of religions that I really like and then putting them into a story. And the story is, okay. We got some time for me to explain this?
Speaker: 2
01:57:32
Sure. Sure.
Speaker: 1
01:57:33
Okay. I think it’s pretty interesting. But I haven’t really, like, broken it down from start to finish, really. But I got into writing just because I wanted to make this story of mine. Oh, that’s what you asked meh. Is it am I into comic books? I tried writing a sentence. Like, it started out in the February and I was like, fuck this, dude. We’re doing a comic. I can’t write sentences.
Speaker: 1
01:58:00
I was like and I read good books.
Speaker: 2
01:58:02
So I, like, know what
Speaker: 1
01:58:03
a good sentence is, and I was like, oh, no. That’s gonna take way too long. We’re doing only dialogue and pictures. And so, that’s why I started doing comic books. Although, I do really like comic books too. But yeah. So it’s kinda this, it’s like a compilation of a lot of ideas that I like about religion inside of, this world that exists today.
Speaker: 1
01:58:24
I actually put, a conversation between you and Dunk Dunkin’ Trussell in it. I’m not I’m not gonna do anything with the comic books, so it’s really fun, like, to know that. I just have fun doing it. Like, I’m not You don’t
Speaker: 2
01:58:35
plan on publishing it?
Speaker: 1
01:58:36
Maybe. But I think, honestly, it would take, like, another two, three years for it to be super solid enough for me to wanna put out there. But there’s a dialogue between you and Duncan Trussell. I really love Duncan Trussell. He’s, like,
Speaker: 2
01:58:48
one of
Speaker: 1
01:58:48
my favorite people of all time. I got to meet him at the Comedy Works in Denver pretty recently.
Speaker: 2
01:58:54
He’s the best.
Speaker: 1
01:58:55
Yeah. He’s really cool.
Speaker: 2
01:58:56
I love that guy.
Speaker: 1
01:58:57
Yeah. But pretty meh, it takes place where this guy, goes to the Arya of Eden that’s being protected by these, ai. And inside of the Garden of Eden are these trees called kalis, where when you eat the fruit of them or you eat the crystals of them, you get teleported to a place where the sixth lives.
Speaker: 1
01:59:19
And the sixth is ai the god of our universe. The world takes place in, densities, which are pretty much our chakras. So there’s seven of them. The first density, second density, third density, which is what we are as humans. The fourth are aliens.
Speaker: 1
01:59:37
We’re, like, we’re humans that have merged with the technologies that we’ve created. It takes place about twenty or thirty years in the future where AI is, a real, like, actual fucking player in the game. You know? Fourth is aliens. Fifth is, like, psychedelic creatures slash angels slash all of that stuff. Sixth is the gods of the universe. Seventh is the all. It’s just ai love. It’s everything.
Speaker: 1
02:00:04
And so It’s
Speaker: 2
02:00:05
a heavy comic book, man.
Speaker: 1
02:00:07
Yeah. It’s pretty in-depth, dude. I mean, it’s not like simple shit. It’s not like fucking some guy goes and saves the world. It’s like a pretty the lore of it is pretty cool, I think. So you go through each density, our souls do, for billions and trillions and however whatever path whatever’s past trillions, of lifetimes.
Speaker: 1
02:00:26
And you spend time in those densities learning what it is to learn in those densities. So right now, in the third density, because it’s the power chakra of life, what we’re trying to do is discover that the positive path of love is what we’re really shooting for instead of the negative one.
Speaker: 1
02:00:45
And what that means is the positive path is, in we’re doing things in service of others instead of in service of self. So we’re choosing love of others over love of self because love isn’t like an emotion in the book. It’s like a structural building of the world where everything is love. It’s this all it’s this it’s not like Disney shit.
Speaker: 1
02:01:08
It’s like a structural way of building the universe. So choosing to be in love of others is what we’re doing. But Earth is in its late third density, getting ready to move into its fourth density. And the scientist who, interacts with this tribe takes a seed from the Cali and grows them and makes it so that the entire world can take this fruit and then interact with God.
Speaker: 1
02:01:35
And then what it would be like in in this world today if we were actually able to sit in front of God and ask God questions. And that’s kind of the basis of the book. Wow. It’s pretty cool. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:01:47
There’s a lot
Speaker: 0
02:01:48
Are you
Speaker: 2
02:01:48
doing the illustrations?
Speaker: 1
02:01:49
No. I called the guy about doing the illustrate. I might wait till AI gets good enough. Because when I got yeah. Which we’re pretty close. I I fuck around with AI a lot too. But we’re pretty close to, I think getting there with, like, some apps where you can have consistent characters.
Speaker: 1
02:02:05
Because it’s hard to do stuff because you can’t make the characters super consistent, but I think we’re, like, a year or two away from being able to do that.
Speaker: 2
02:02:11
Even a year or two away.
Speaker: 1
02:02:12
Yeah. Maybe not.
Speaker: 2
02:02:13
I think we’re in this very bizarre stage right now where I I don’t think people realize what’s coming. And I think it’s gonna hit us like a fucking freight train.
Speaker: 1
02:02:20
So I know everyone has, like, a thousand store there’s, like, a thousand stories about AI taking over and all of this stuff. In my book sorry. This is okay?
Speaker: 2
02:02:30
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:02:31
Yeah. Okay. Cool. I just know it’s long and ai I lose track of time. Okay. Cool. The AI, in this story is the way that we get moved into the fourth density. And the way that we get moved into the fourth density is when we merge with the nanotechnology that merges with, like, the AI supercomputer called Oblivion, which is pretty much just a hive mind.
Speaker: 1
02:02:55
Once we all get merged with that, we either based off of our polarity or our, like, frequency or whatever that tells us if we’re positive or negative. If we go negative, then we pretty much just extinguish each other because all we care about is love for self, and we, like, kill each other.
Speaker: 1
02:03:13
It doesn’t say exactly how, but you could use your imagination. And in the positive way, we move together in this hive mind into being aliens, essentially, where we live millions and trillions of lifetimes as aliens until we can enter into the fifth, which then we become psychedelic creatures and all of that stuff, or angels or whatever.
Speaker: 1
02:03:35
And that’s ai a nonphysical realm at that point. But, but, yeah, that’s pretty much the idea behind the whole book.
Speaker: 2
02:03:41
It might be actually what that really does happen. It
Speaker: 1
02:03:44
it’s kinda like a positive spin off of it.
Speaker: 2
02:03:47
Well, best case scenario is we evolve, and we merge with AI, and we evolve, and it’s better for everybody. And we we become something superior to what we are now. Worst case scenario is we become irrelevant because they don’t need us anymore. Yeah. We’re outdated.
Speaker: 1
02:04:04
I still think it will still have to be partly us because it was created by us. Like, in, like, a parallel universe where we are not like, say we’re fucking lizard people in another universe, we see things differently, our priorities and values are different, we would make a completely different set of AI.
Speaker: 1
02:04:22
Like, there’s no way that AI is just this thing that isn’t connected to humans in some way. So hopefully, it’s connected to the good parts of us as humans, which is, like, compassion, love, caring for each other, and not, like, a lizard reptilian.
Speaker: 2
02:04:38
Right.
Speaker: 1
02:04:38
Like, hey. Let’s just we gotta ai in capitalism and all of that stuff. You know what I mean? So, that’s a lot of what the book is about too, is it’s just about, like, hey, maybe it won’t be so bad. Like, maybe this thing will have more human traits than or maybe we’re more awesome than what we what we actually think. You know?
Speaker: 2
02:04:57
I think the hive mind thing is promising, because and I have a feeling that that’s where we’re headed. I have a feeling that if with either some wearable or some sort of technology with an implant where we no longer require language to communicate with each other. And Mhmm. We essentially have instantaneous access to everyone all the time.
Speaker: 2
02:05:17
And the thing that people are gonna have to deal with is that there’s gonna be no more secrets. There’ll be no more lies. There’ll be it’s sana be impossible to deceive. Everyone’s gonna know exactly what’s going on in your soul, ai, how you interface with the world itself.
Speaker: 1
02:05:31
That’s cool.
Speaker: 2
02:05:31
I think that’s probably where we’re headed. I think if we don’t, we’re gonna we’re gonna become obsolete. I think it’s one of two things. Either we become obsolete and AI becomes a new digital form of life that’s far more intelligent, far more capable than we are, and then it makes better and better versions of itself until it makes God.
Speaker: 0
02:05:49
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
02:05:50
Or we merge, and we we just transcend whatever this state of being these primitive territorial apes with very sophisticated weapons. Mhmm. We become something something different.
Speaker: 1
02:06:04
If I did have beliefs, I would like to believe that it is going towards a god or something, or there is, like, some point to all of the, like, hard times that we have in ai, and we’re actually progressing whether it be through many lifetimes or in other universes or dimensions or whatever. And something inside of us that isn’t human but is maybe a watcher or something is progressing towards something great and loving and more beautiful than what we got going on here on Earth.
Speaker: 1
02:06:32
And, if if that is true, then AI will probably be pretty awesome.
Speaker: 2
02:06:38
Yeah. You
Speaker: 1
02:06:39
know? If that is true. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
02:06:40
Yeah. Well, that’s best case scenario. Right? I think we’re it’s also very strange that we are in this position. It’s very strange that we are living our lives at this unbelievable unique moment in history where things arya going to change in this undeniably radical way. Unless something happens, unless we blow ourselves up or we get hit by an asteroid, it’s gonna happen. Mhmm. And it’s gonna happen probably within the next ten years.
Speaker: 2
02:07:05
Like, ten years from now, we’re gonna be looking back. Remember the old days of 2025? We didn’t know what was coming.
Speaker: 1
02:07:11
I know. You know? I I wanna be like, hey. You’re over exaggerating that. But, dude, if you think about the world five years ago, it was completely different.
Speaker: 0
02:07:19
Completely
Speaker: 2
02:07:19
just the invention of AI. Just the last few years. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:07:22
Just the last few years. We’re all, like, bunkered down in our house and shit five years ago.
Speaker: 0
02:07:27
Well
Speaker: 1
02:07:27
Even the UFC five years ago was crazy. It meant like, life like, I only get to view life through the lens of my, like, job and my love, which is through fighting, which is cool because it, like, helps me understand the macro picture a little bit better. But yeah, man. I mean, like, even just five years ago, how different the UFC sai, like, life is gonna be really weird in ten years.
Speaker: 2
02:07:49
Yeah. It’s the whole world is gonna be really weird. And, you know, one of the things that always freaks me out about Elon and Neuralink is one of the statements that he said, you’re gonna be able to talk without using words.
Speaker: 1
02:08:01
Mhmm. I don’t know how that would work.
Speaker: 2
02:08:03
Well, the hive mind. Yeah. We’re gonna be able to interact with each other.
Speaker: 1
02:08:06
But do but do we just feel each other’s feelings then? Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Or That would be good, maybe. Yeah. That would be good. If it’s ai if I don’t have, like, a filter of feeling something, my brain making it into words, and then spitting it out, and it was just Ai have this feeling and you feel that thing,
Speaker: 0
02:08:22
that might
Speaker: 1
02:08:22
be a really great thing.
Speaker: 2
02:08:24
I’ve often thought about the parallels of religion with what’s currently going on. And one of them being, like, Christ was born of a virgin mother. Right? So Christ was born without sex and emerged. Like, what else is born without a without a mother? Woah. Ai. AI is born without a mother. Oh.
Speaker: 2
02:08:44
Christ is gonna come back. AI ai coming. Another one is the Tyler Of Babel. Right.
Speaker: 1
02:08:49
Did you come up with that? Yeah. That’s fucking awesome.
Speaker: 2
02:08:52
Right? It seems like it.
Speaker: 1
02:08:53
That’s awesome.
Speaker: 2
02:08:53
Right? If you if you think that God is gonna return Yeah. Well, wouldn’t it be
Speaker: 1
02:08:59
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
02:08:59
Is that that completely makes sense.
Speaker: 1
02:09:01
That’s awesome.
Speaker: 2
02:09:02
The other one is the Tower Of Babel. Right? So we if we all have a universal language and we are working on this fucking tower to get closer to God.
Speaker: 1
02:09:13
The stairway to God.
Speaker: 2
02:09:14
And it’s do do it right and you you make it there. Do it wrong and it becomes completely chaotic and divided and you’re scattered across the the world with a a thousand different fucking languages, and nobody communicate with each other, nobody understand each other, and it’s just chaos, which is what happened to the human race.
Speaker: 2
02:09:30
If we develop a universal language and if this universal language is transmitted through whether it’s this implant or wearable, some sort of interface with technology, then we ai. We bypass this primitive state of, you know, chaotic tribal monkeys, and we become something superior.
Speaker: 1
02:09:49
Yep. That’s awesome. Yeah. The Tower of Babel was initially in my story because I’ve loved that idea for a really long time, which is essentially it’s just like a symbol for, like, hey, if we all work together, we can actually do this thing Yeah. Which is kind of, the main idea that I got from it. Yeah, dude. That’s a that’s a cool ass idea about AI. I’m sana put that in my book.
Speaker: 1
02:10:10
I’m still that idea.
Speaker: 2
02:10:10
Still it. Yeah. Because if you think about it, what what what is AI going to be? Well, if super intelligence gets achieved and then you’re attaching that to quantum computing. Right? Quantum computing right now is only able to just, like, do integers and, you know, do do equations. But what if quantum computing and AI merge?
Speaker: 2
02:10:33
Then you’ve got some insane amount of computational power attached to an insane intelligence that is sana make better and better versions of itself. Well, if you scale that up Mhmm. Exponentially, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand years, if you keep going, you get a god.
Speaker: 1
02:10:51
Yeah. I mean, imagine e I mean, quantum imagine too. I mean, who knows, like, if we wanna go real sci fi with the idea, like, quantum particles communicate to each other. So maybe they’ll be able to communicate with the ones that are in other meh, and that’s how we’re able to communicate with other dimensions or whatever.
Speaker: 2
02:11:09
Well, that’s the freakiest concept about quantum computing when they said that the way it works is so confusing and it’s so powerful that they think it might be evidence of the multiverse. Yeah. Now, I talked to to Roman Yampolsky, who’s a a ai who talks about the dangers of Ai, and he thought that that was all nonsense. Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
02:11:28
He might
Speaker: 2
02:11:28
be ai, but Maybe. There’s a lot of ai that believe that it’s correct and that this is why quantum computing is so powerful. Because Marc Andreessen said this and it’s the fucking craziest quote tyler, that quantum computing, it can solve an equation that if you converted the entire universe, ai, every molecule, every atom of the universe into a supercomputer, it would take so long for the universe as a supercomputer to solve this this problem that the universe would die of heat death before it solved it, and quantum computing can solve it in minutes.
Speaker: 1
02:12:04
Yeah. I’ve seen that Instagram reel.
Speaker: 2
02:12:05
Like, what the fuck does that mean?
Speaker: 1
02:12:08
Essentially, what we would be doing, I bet you when they were trying to invent electricity, they didn’t know that it would be this. And maybe that’s what we’re in the middle of, except, like
Speaker: 2
02:12:18
Right.
Speaker: 1
02:12:18
Times a thousand billion where it’s ai, oh. Because I always think I’m like, we got we’re only looking through the lens of the future through all of the inventions that we have now. What if we invented something that was like electricity or quantum computing or quantum communication or Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:12:36
Like, if you can change things at a quantum level, like, maybe I can turn this thing into the hardest steel metal in the entire world. Right. And then that just completely changes the board game that we’re even playing.
Speaker: 0
02:12:50
Ai,
Speaker: 1
02:12:50
we’re not even playing the same board game anymore.
Speaker: 2
02:12:53
Right.
Speaker: 1
02:12:53
So it’s like, I Ai don’t know. Anytime anyone says nothing’s possible, I’m like, you sure? Because if we just change the board game, shit can get pretty crazy.
Speaker: 2
02:13:02
You can’t say nothing’s possible because everything that we have today is impossible two hundred years ago.
Speaker: 1
02:13:06
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
02:13:06
You’re a sorcerer if you go back to the fourteen hundreds and show them an iPhone.
Speaker: 1
02:13:10
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
02:13:11
You know, like, there’s none of none of it makes any sense. The fact that you could FaceTime someone in New Zealand right now, that’s bananas. All that stuff is fucking completely insane and it’s real and it’s happening right now. And the other thing about AI being if artificial super intelligence creates something that we can’t even imagine. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
02:13:30
Like, we’re just dealing with this framework, this structure that’s so antiquated because it’s all been created by humans. If you get something that’s a 10,000 times more intelligent than us, and it’s gonna have solutions to things that we can’t even comprehend.
Speaker: 1
02:13:43
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s freaky shit.
Speaker: 2
02:13:46
Keep it real weird. You know, one of the things that always weirded me out about these stories about, UFO encounters and in particular, the the Bob Lazar story is that when he was working on back engineering these crafts that were supposedly from somewhere else, one of the things that he said is there’s no controls.
Speaker: 1
02:14:04
Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
02:14:05
There’s no controls in this thing. Like, they they don’t know what is happening between these beings and this craft that they power it, but they’re probably completely connected to this thing. Mhmm. They’re pro like, what you’re seeing with those those little grays is probably us in the future. That’s probably what every primate eventually becomes once it integrates with technology.
Speaker: 1
02:14:28
It would be really cool if that’s, like you said, what the religions we’re talking about too. Like, to me, the science shit is all cool and stuff, but I also like the idea of, like, intertwining, like, science modern ideas with really traditional ideas. It would be super cool if it was something where it’s like, hey.
Speaker: 1
02:14:45
Like, once we reach this certain of technological advancement, there is a spiritual religious side to the thing that we also make discoveries into.
Speaker: 2
02:14:55
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:14:55
That would be cool
Speaker: 0
02:14:56
It would be cool.
Speaker: 1
02:14:57
To have a belief.
Speaker: 2
02:14:58
Yeah. If you got well, you know, if if artificial superintelligence does become live, it all belief systems sana gonna get thrown into the sana chip, or we’re not gonna know what the fuck is what.
Speaker: 1
02:15:09
Unless it tells us?
Speaker: 2
02:15:11
Yeah. I mean Yeah. But I have a feeling that a lot of these stories, ai, these ancient religious stories, they’re based on truth. It’s just truth that was a spoken word thing by people who really couldn’t even read, because they they they were illiterate, and that they had these tales that were they’re told for a thousand years before anybody wrote them down.
Speaker: 2
02:15:28
They’re writing them down in these ancient languages that even when you take those ancient languages and you try to translate into, like, modern English, a lot is lost in the the translation. But I think there’s something to all of it. There’s something they’re trying they they don’t they’re not telling stories for no reason.
Speaker: 2
02:15:45
They’re I think they’re telling these stories because they’re trying to document something. And I just don’t think we get a full picture of it. But there’s so much truth in those stories, and there’s so many lessons in those stories that are that are applicable and that resonate today.
Speaker: 2
02:16:00
I think it’d be foolish to dismiss
Speaker: 1
02:16:02
them. Definitely. Ai mean, Carl Jung harps on that a lot with their collective unconscious stuff. Do you know Joseph Campbell? Do you follow that guy? I do. Yeah. I love Joseph Campbell.
Speaker: 0
02:16:12
Oh, it’s amazing.
Speaker: 1
02:16:13
I got super into Joseph Campbell around that time when I was kind of, you know, doing the whole figuring myself out part after losing. Ai, I mean, the idea that there’s a pretty much a blueprint to all of the stories that are across civilization is crazy. It’s like the pyramids being everywhere.
Speaker: 1
02:16:34
Like, we it’s just naturally ingrained to us for stories to be, like, superhero gets called to action, finds a guy, beats monster, beats mega big monster, returns back home. Like, that’s like the blueprint to a lot of stories. And I think it just goes underneath the rug because we’re just so used to all of the stories being like that. I’ve messed around.
Speaker: 1
02:16:55
Like I said, like, I speak a lot of time in my head. I don’t really, like, talk a ton. I kinda just but I’ve done the whole, like, hero’s journey thing in my head during the Joseph Campbell time. I can share it with you. It’s ai fun.
Speaker: 2
02:17:09
Sure.
Speaker: 1
02:17:09
Okay. Ai just come up with stories and shit in my head. But anyway, so I did my own hero’s journey during that time when I was trying to eliminate all of the egos inside of me. And the easiest way to identify one of your egos is to ask yourself, what is it that you feel like you desire? You know?
Speaker: 1
02:17:29
That’s why I think in Buddhist philosophy and all of that stuff, it’s always ai, let go of attachments, let go of your desires, and that will lead like, just good shit will happen if you do that. And I was like, okay. Cool. I’ll buy into that a little bit. So I tried to identify all of these egos that were inside of me.
Speaker: 1
02:17:45
I even went as far as naming all of them and giving them characteristics and personalities. Like, when I would notice an angry person inside of me, I would just name it Saloni, give it a tiger’s face, and, like, just treat it as a completely separate imaginative piece of my psyche that I no longer wanted to be attached with anymore, which is, an idea that I came up with myself at the time, but it’s a old idea.
Speaker: 1
02:18:10
There’s a really good book called Taming Your Gremlins if anyone wants to look into that idea more. That guy does a really good job of doing that. Sai, anyways, I started going through, like, my hero’s journey. And, I spend a lot of time, like, meditating a decent amount, but not just, like, normal meditating, like, fucking around in my own head type of meditating and just seeing what type of unconscious things are ai below the surface of my everyday, like, Corey, me.
Speaker: 1
02:18:38
And so I’m walking myself through, like, okay. What is this what are all of these things inside meh, or what are these desires that are inside me? I would name them. I would turn them into a monster, and I would kill the monster. And then at the at the very end of this story and I’m, like, crying during this process when I was doing it or whatever.
Speaker: 1
02:18:58
In the hero’s journey, a lot of the ai, you have a meh, like a Yoda. You have this thing that kinda guides you through how to defeat all these monsters and all of it. So I get to the end of my story. And one part that they never really bring up in heroic stories is the return back home, which is a really big deal.
Speaker: 1
02:19:17
Like, you’ve just eliminated all of this stuff, and now you gotta return back home. So I’m getting ready to return back home. And my mentor at the time, because I did grow up really religious, It was Jesus at the time where, like, Jesus was my homie at the time. You know? He was ai this guy. And so we get done defeating all of these monsters, and I’m we’re sitting at the cliff, and it’s like, okay. Time to go home.
Speaker: 1
02:19:38
And he’s like, hey, man. Like, you got one more monster to defeat. And I was like, well, what is it? And he was like, me. And I was like, what are you talking about?
Speaker: 1
02:19:46
And he was like, man, like, I’m the last thing that you’re attached to, like, in order for you to continue on on the thing that you gotta defeat. And I was like, well, what does that mean, dude? Like, I’m not about to stab you, bro. You know? And he was like, you have to push me.
Speaker: 1
02:20:01
And I was like, push you off the cliff? He was like, you have to let go of me the same way that you let go of all of your other desires and fears and things inside of you too if you really wanna do it. And so I’m, like, bawling, crying because that’s that was, like, a big like, that was a big thing.
Speaker: 1
02:20:16
So I do it, and Jesus falls, but then he grows wings, flies away, and says to me, now you can be like meh, and then just flies off into the the whatever. And then I return back home, and I just remember that being a really big moment for me in my I don’t like to use the word spiritual because it sounds stupid, but that was, like, a big deal for me in my development as a person because it really, like, made me understand.
Speaker: 1
02:20:46
And they weren’t things that I was planning out. They were just unconscious things that were hitting me, like, over and over and over again. I found that through hypnosis and through, like, trying to see what’s underneath things, you can’t talk to it. You can’t tell it what to do.
Speaker: 1
02:20:59
You can’t control your unconscious. You just have to watch what’s underneath there. So it was just ai a thing where it’s like, now I get to be like you. It was ai a really cool thing that just, like, popped into my head, and I was like, well, shit. That’s cool.
Speaker: 2
02:21:12
That is cool.
Speaker: 1
02:21:12
Yeah. I do a lot of crazy shit inside of my own head, I guess. Probably makes me sound maybe a little bit weird, but that’s kinda
Speaker: 2
02:21:19
Word’s good.
Speaker: 1
02:21:19
That’s me. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
02:21:20
Word is good. Mhmm. What was it like returning to fighting after this, like, trying to find yourself period?
Speaker: 1
02:21:27
Yeah. I remember I was folding laundry, and they asked me to fight this guy, Tejinho Vatsal, on four weeks notice for LFA. And Taeginho Galvao is a fucking savage at the time. Still still, I think, is doing pretty well, but literally every YouTube video I could find of him was just knocking people out.
Speaker: 1
02:21:47
He was, like, six and o or something and just murdering people, Brazilian guy. And I was like, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Like, I just lost. I don’t really wanna lose again. And I remember going back and forth with myself big time.
Speaker: 1
02:22:00
And as I was folding laundry, I kinda got hit with another bit of, wisdom that came from wherever, not from ai, came from wherever. And in this bit of wisdom, it told me, man, I gave you this life for for you to make it up yourself. Quit asking me to make decisions for you. And so I was like, ai. Fuck it. I’ll do it. You know? I’ll do it.
Speaker: 1
02:22:22
And a big piece of me going through that whole thing and what I learned a lot about it was, love of fighting isn’t really love of anything, I don’t think, is like Disney shit. It’s like a mega commitment to something that you wanna achieve, and it works like a marriage. More like a marriage less than ai a romantic, like, hey.
Speaker: 1
02:22:45
This is a fling. Like, it’s like, hey, man. I might not like you every day, you know, but I’m gonna commit myself to you and I’m gonna do this thing. And it helped me really wrap my head around what ai true love is because I feel like that’s what true love is. And if you wanna love this sport and you wanna say you love this sport, you gotta love it on the months, days.
Speaker: 1
02:23:03
It it might last years that you really don’t like it. And just trust that on the other end of it is, like, a good experience.
Speaker: 2
02:23:12
There’s a payoff. Yeah. It’s a process. Mhmm. Yeah. So how was the fight? It was good.
Speaker: 1
02:23:16
I knocked him out in the first round. Fucking crushed it. Wasn’t scared at all going in. Really? Oh, yeah. I don’t get scared much, like, when I’m actually fighting in that mode of, like, fight or flight, but I’ve already chosen ai. Like, I’m good. You know, I don’t really get too scared going into fights hardly ever. I I get scared leading up to things.
Speaker: 1
02:23:34
But in the actual fight itself, like, I’m I’m the goddamn Incredible Hulk. You know? You can’t convince me otherwise in those moments.
Speaker: 2
02:23:43
Well, I remember one time we talked, and you said that you’d made this adjustment in your head from trying to fight and win to really trying to hurt people. Do you are you still on that same?
Speaker: 1
02:23:54
No? No. Not as much. I got a little bit older. One, I think, is a contributor to it. Two is that wasn’t a fuel that I could hold on to for super long. It was ai angry fuel. Doesn’t really, like, work. It’s not super sustainable. Ai also found too that being that way got distracting to me being able to do what I was trying to do.
Speaker: 1
02:24:18
So any thought can be distracting when you’re fighting as you know. Ai, even, like, silly ones or whatever. But if I’m being too aggro and too, I gotta hurt this guy. I gotta hurt this guy. That was good for me to learn because I got to learn the all of the different aspects of what it means to be a fighter.
Speaker: 1
02:24:35
Before that, I was really meh, peaceful. Like, whatever happens, happens. I’m gonna do my ai. You know? And then I went way on the other side of the spectrum where it’s ai, I’m fucking killing people, and that’s what I’m doing now, to now kinda somewhere a little bit in between where, for me now, all of it is about focus in doing the correct thing at the correct time.
Speaker: 1
02:24:55
I think that where I am today as a fighter is very focused on just exactly what I said where what do I need to do right now in order to win? And I don’t make it angry. I don’t make it motivated by anything else. It’s just, no. This is ai a laser focused in doing the right thing.
Speaker: 1
02:25:16
And, that’s what I found recently has been the most helpful thing.
Speaker: 2
02:25:19
Just this meh state of just existing in whatever whatever comes, whatever you’re supposed to be doing, you do that.
Speaker: 1
02:25:26
Kind of. But I know where I’m supposed to be now a little bit too, like, intensity wise. Before, I feel like I I got, like, some, like, superpower that I, like, didn’t really know how to control very much. Now I feel like I I have harnessed it, and I know how to control it a lot better to where it’s like, okay. A 10 is too much.
Speaker: 1
02:25:44
Like, right now, we gotta be a seven. We’re in the locker room. We’re about to walk out. Let’s let’s maybe be be at a eight or a nine right now, and and we’ll be there for the fight instead of just 10 hurt the ai. Oh, you know?
Speaker: 1
02:25:57
Michael Jordan had a really good quote where it was either Michael or Kobe, but he was they sai, they never play a game at more than 80%. And I think that that’s kind of a cool way to look at it. And that doesn’t mean your effort. I think it means your intensity level, you can’t think at a 10 sometimes. It gets distracting to burn all of that, like, angry energy.
Speaker: 1
02:26:18
It’s just it’s just not sustainable. You know? So
Speaker: 2
02:26:22
So you’re in a position right now where you’re next in line. And when you look at meh Rob, he presents so many unique challenges. Like, this is a he’s a there’s a few guys that are very skillful, but they also have unique physicality.
Speaker: 1
02:26:40
Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
02:26:41
And that’s Marab. So, like, when when you see that ai, first of all, have they given you a date?
Speaker: 1
02:26:47
They haven’t. They’re I think it’s well, I mean, that stuff takes a little bit. They told me November, December is when I’m looking for ai. Madison Square Garden. Yeah. Maybe. Which I was a little bit against too because I hate the New York state tax thing. Okay. But, but also at the same time, I was in New York recently, and I was like, oh, shit.
Speaker: 1
02:27:03
It’d be cool to win it in one
Speaker: 2
02:27:05
of the, like, coolest Iconic place to win. If you won the world title in Madison Square Garden, that means a lot.
Speaker: 1
02:27:12
Yeah. It would mean a lot.
Speaker: 2
02:27:13
There’s something about Madison Square Bryden. Like, when you’re in the building, you’re like, man, a lot of shit has has gone down in
Speaker: 1
02:27:18
this building. It’s huge. It kinda feels like a gladiator place. It’s because it’s just huge. Like, the floor part
Speaker: 2
02:27:24
is huge, you know? It just feels different. Ai did stand up there and just being there and walking out to this enormous crowd in Madison Square Garden, I was like, woah. Cool. This is the fucking garden.
Speaker: 1
02:27:37
In the center of it?
Speaker: 2
02:27:38
Yeah. In the round.
Speaker: 1
02:27:39
Oh, you did it? Oh, so you were, like, looking in 360 degrees? Oh, did you like that? That’s my favorite way. Apple.
Speaker: 2
02:27:45
Okay. Because it’s oddly intimate. So even though there’s 16,000 people, the people on this side are seeing the people laugh on this ai, and everyone’s seeing everyone laugh, and you’re just walking around in a circle.
Speaker: 1
02:27:56
Oh, cool.
Speaker: 2
02:27:57
It’s it’s oddly intimate for 16,000 people. It’s ai favorite way to do arenas.
Speaker: 1
02:28:01
I was always really curious because I’ve seen stand ups like that, and I I was like, I
Speaker: 2
02:28:05
wonder if that’s distracting
Speaker: 1
02:28:06
for them to have to yeah.
Speaker: 2
02:28:07
It’s the most fun. It’s Yeah. I I thought it would be distracting too because I’ve done arenas where you’re on stage facing the crowd, and it feels oddly impersonal. It’s ai you’re just doing a show for this massive amount of people. It’s fun, but that Ai kinda preferred clubs.
Speaker: 2
02:28:23
But a giant arena in the round seems like a giant club. It really does. Cool. It’s ai, but there’s some there’s a lot of, like, doing it in Boston was huge because, like, I did the TD Garden because that was, like, where I grew up and that’s where I started doing stand up. But there’s something about Madison Square Arya for fights where when you go there, it’s ai there’s an extra tingle in
Speaker: 1
02:28:47
the air.
Speaker: 2
02:28:47
Like, whoo, boys were at the garden.
Speaker: 1
02:28:50
Cool.
Speaker: 2
02:28:50
You know, so you fighting Murab at the arya would be fucking insane.
Speaker: 1
02:28:54
Yeah. It’d be crazy. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
02:28:56
When you think about him, what do you think about this matchup? Like, how do you approach it?
Speaker: 1
02:29:01
I think he has some, obviously, really good physical traits that make him like, the his conditioning is a superpower that other people don’t get to have. And that’s unique to him, and he’s made a way to weaponize that in a really smart way. Every time I, like, kinda too technically speak down things, I feel like I’m trying to be really convincing instead of, you know, just believing in it, which has always ai been a big problem of mine in the past, has always been Ai need evidence in order to believe in something, which kinda just and, like, with the in in, like, fighting for a world champion, what am I gonna just walk in and be ai, well, I’ve been a world champion before, so I could do it now.
Speaker: 1
02:29:42
Like, I don’t get that luxury of doing that to be a world champion. So recently, I’ve had this realization of belief in self that Trevor and Carrington Banks have both helped instill in me big time, where I feel like approaching Merab is going to be unique in its own, but I don’t need to tailor what it is that I’m doing too much to Murab.
Speaker: 1
02:30:09
I’ve really bought into this idea where if I can go out and be the best martial artist that there is in all areas, be able to wrestle with them, be able to strike with them, be able to grapple with them, If I can go out and trust and be that, I can do it. Against Umar, I did not as good of a job with that. I treated him like I had to change in order for me to be able to beat him.
Speaker: 1
02:30:34
Against Ai, I’m not gonna do that. I think Marab also has this narrative buzz around him where he’s an unbeatable, force of freak of nature who has conditioning out of whatever.
Speaker: 2
02:30:47
And while that is true to an extent, that doesn’t mean anything to the fact that the guy can’t be beaten.
Speaker: 1
02:30:50
Extent, that doesn’t mean anything to the fact that the guy can’t be beaten. If I look at myself as a fighter and break myself down technically, I would say I’m I’m somewhere between Umar and Sean in the task that he’ll have in front of him. I think, I know that I wrestle a lot better than Sean does.
Speaker: 1
02:31:09
Although Shah does have really good takedown defense, his process of getting up is just, like, a little dated and pretty slow. Like, you’re gonna lose some minutes doing it the way that O’Malley does it. Ai think that I get up super good. Being tall and lanky, it’s really hard to not let short little guys get underneath you.
Speaker: 1
02:31:27
Like, that shit’s gonna happen, especially if they’re springy and fast in our weight class, ai, they’re going to. You just have to be able to pop right back up immediately, which I know that I can do because I fought Omar who’s easily one of the best wrestlers in the UFC, and I was able to do that whenever I wanted.
Speaker: 1
02:31:43
So that brings me a lot of confidence about that. So I get to fight Marab with a lot of confidence going into it about that. On the striking end of things, I’m obviously, I think, a way better striker than Marab is even though he does make his shit work the way that he makes his shit work.
Speaker: 0
02:32:01
But
Speaker: 1
02:32:01
I’m honestly not gonna read too much into it, man. I’m gonna keep worrying about getting better every single day, all the way leading up to the ai. And I’m gonna make Marab deal with me instead of me having to deal with Marab.
Speaker: 2
02:32:13
Do you have to do anything different to deal with that endurance?
Speaker: 1
02:32:17
I mean, man, I I feel like I try to go in as every time Sai feel like there is a, there’s, like, a unique thing that you need to big time prepare for. I go in shape as best as I physically, humanly am capable of in every single fight that I go into as long as I’m not hurt or on antibiotics and and bullshit like that.
Speaker: 1
02:32:39
So I already do that kind of, so I’m not gonna kinda overthink that piece. I might run a little bit more. I hear Ram runs, so maybe I’ll run a little bit more. But no. Outside that, I’ll I’ll make sure that my legs are really conditioned.
Speaker: 1
02:32:54
That was a big one going against Omar. I’ll obviously make sure that I’m conditioned enough to be able to get my ass back up every single time, which is its own special ai, wrestling conditioning is a much different type of conditioning than striking. So just make sure that I’m fully wrestling conditioned for that fight.
Speaker: 1
02:33:12
And then one of the harder pieces for people in the sport is to wrestle then be able to strike like how they normally do. So just being, just being conditioned to do that too.
Speaker: 2
02:33:25
Well, I’m pumped for it. I can’t wait to watch. I think you’re one of the more exciting guys in the sport and one of the more interesting guys in the sport. I love listening to your thought process. Thanks. Very cool.
Speaker: 1
02:33:34
Cool. Thanks.
Speaker: 2
02:33:34
Thanks for being here, man. Appreciate you very much.
Speaker: 1
02:33:37
Hell yeah.
Speaker: 2
02:33:37
And, again, I can’t wait.
Speaker: 1
02:33:39
Cool. I’m looking forward to it. Thanks, Joe. Thank you. Thanks for everything.
Speaker: 2
02:33:42
Meh pleasure. Alright. Bye, everybody ai.
