#792 - Craig Jones - Fighting A Woman For $1M, Ukraine War & Gordon Ryan

23:44That would, I would say that's one of the main driving directions. Both directions. Sometimes, it's what hour of the day it is. But definitely, yeah, I mean, she's just the most accomplished grappler female grappler ever. I mean, maybe really if you combine sexes, maybe the most accomplished grappler ever. Me personally, just to do this never won anything. And I remember one event, a girl called her out, a flow grappling event at WNO. And she did some crazy interview after where she was like, anyone calls me out? I'll take that match. I was like, voodoo? Let's do it. And then we had this big build up.

24:16We had like arm wrestling match. She won the arm wrestling match. And now, after two and a half years of four play, it's finally coming to fruition. How strong was she in the arm wrestling match? Stronger than me. That's for sure. So I mean, we're going to find out. She is outside of your weight category. How much heavier is she than you? I mean, she's real particular about her weight. So better be careful here. Let's just say that's a large strong muscular woman, you know. I'm gonna do this match. I mean many guys would be would pay to wrestle around with her, you know? You're doing it for free.

24:48I'll do it for noble purposes. I'll do it for charity.

24:54What is the rule set between you and Gabby? We're going to do three, five minute rounds, one minute break in between. We changed the rules up for the event because we wanted to appeal to MMA audiences because that's a broader portion of the general public. So it's like, we want to still keep the Giu -Jitsu scoring kind of as it is because grapplers don't like, especially when you're two months out, they don't like a big change. They don't want to have to prepare for something crazy. So we'll do basically in Giu -Jitsu, your score points are like, we'll have the judges on the side sort of score points along the traditional scoring systems and if there's a four point differential we'll represent that as MMA scoring like a 10 -8.

25:33It's a close around 10 -9. We can take a point easy and we're going to put it in a structure inspired by karate combat. Karate combat have a square pit. They call it the pit. We're inspired by this because a lot of problems with other tournaments is elevated platform. guys are the crash off the stage or it's actually pretty dangerous or if the match is just on the ground like crashing of the judges table some people think that's cool it's dangerous for the athletes so the karate comeback guys really came up with this angled wall there's nowhere to go there's very few referee sort of interactions so we're inspired by that we spent a lot of money to set up a rectangular like basically a much bigger version of that so We don't want to have bigger like more space like rectangle and 30 by 40 and we're calling this the alley because first and foremost I believe you only go into a back alley for two reasons fighting or fucking sometimes both Just to loot back to Gabi Garcia for a second Is there an adjustment to your game plan that you need to do given that this is a MF?

26:44I mean, I don't train much now, so I don't anticipate me training too hard for this one. Well, I mean, we'll see. We'll see what happens. Like, a lot of people out there really think like, oh, this big woman's going to take you out. And it's like, we'll see. I just, I have no idea about the capacity of a woman, a female BJJ fighter rated for strength. Like, if you make them the same size, make them similar sort of strength as a guy, it does a Q -shaped pelvis mean that they can get into rubber guard more efficient? I don't know. Do you know what I mean? Like are the things that girls can do structurally biomechanically that guys can't?

27:24Yeah, I mean now you can say to me with the thoughts of what she can do, you know? Obviously, I have to subscribe to our only fans to really get into detail, but she doesn't look too flexible, but we will find out. We will test our flexibility come August 16, 17th. Okay, so you've got a huge big rectangle alley. The back alley.

27:50You rather than going for a trial style selection process, you just used your sort of editorial ability to try and get people like to lure them in. Yeah, I mean, we first and foremost, No one believes anything I say. So we had to kind of really emphasize that it was real. It was very hard to convince people that this was really happening. And that's where the packets are good, because those are just good kids that really like for them to be a part of it legitimizes the whole thing. You know, it's not we're not we didn't announce a celebrity first, we didn't announce like someone people like Luke Rockold.

28:25Yeah, we save Rockold for a little a little bit later. But yeah, I mean right now we've got the packets, Nikki Ryan, Joseph Chen, Nicky Rodge, we've got Luke Rockard, William and Angie Takahe, we've got Fion Davies, we're trying to work on a Super Five for her. And that's it, but obviously I'm talking to everyone. We're working on it. What's your inbox like right now? I mean, yeah, it's sadly more male grapplers than usual, you know, but it's as busy, man, I've been on the phone nonstop, I just haven't explained the rules, haven't approved that it's real. But I mean, it's funny when you throw a million dollars on the table, some people that didn't like you are suddenly like, brother, poor heart, let's talk.

29:13Well, it's interesting to think how big of a deal this is in Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu. And I think this is what I meant before. or the sport itself holds limited interest to me. I once watched some Super Fight match that lasted 45 minutes and one of the guys gave up. At the end, but everybody knows drama. Everyone can get into, oh, this is like an incumbent thing and then there's a new thing and there's this game of rivalry and you need to make a value judgment, which where do I want to be? Do I want to be here? or want to be there. That's something that anybody can understand. That's a narrative out of the Kardashians or whatever.

29:58That makes it more compelling. It creates characters and it creates intrigue. Yeah, I mean, I think it's good. Competition is good. It is even between competitions. Exactly. I think it's really good. Forces, both events, to have to do something more contribute more. Obviously, we have a lot to prove for this, there's a lot on the line. then if it turns into the fire festival, I'm going into hiding and Kazakhstan, I saw them. Isn't Billy McFarlane fighting at Karate Combat this week? Is that this week? You know, I've been in the same place. Thirds day, right? Yeah, I think the guy that founded Fire Festival, someone told me that...

30:33Oh, that's right. Yeah, he's meant to have a fire accident. Is this true? Because someone told me this the other day and I was like, the guy that was in jail for Fire Festival is fighting at Karate Combat on Thursday in Austin. I mean, believe it or not, that's actually an event organized. I should know. What do you mean? Billy Bomb Billy's the guy that funded it. He's the dude with the million dollar. Sure you do it at a discounted rate. As long as Blink 1 .82 play. Would you let Gordon fight if you said that he wanted to come over? I'd let anyone do it. Yeah, you know, obviously I got the custom gold Craig John Timmottation or Ringheed after kiss, but I'll for sure I'd let him in.

31:08What if you said that you had to fight you? Would you do it for a super fight? I mean, you've already got Gabby on the table. I think I got a big image. You know? We're doing something that costs in the mainstream, battle the sexist, you know. This is gender equality. Talk to me about sort of Gordon's role as the figurehead for the sport because he is super dominant, you know, sort of the Lewis Hamilton a couple of years ago in F1 where kind of wasn't, didn't really seem like that much of a competition. Does this help to make it more interesting? Well, I think it's most funny about this. So Gordon, unquestionably, best -grapen the world, had many health issues, disappeared.

31:50He comes and goes. He battles health issues, comes back, competes, beats everyone, for sure beats everyone. But he's a controversial figure. Just I mean, he says crazy shit online. Like he's got strong conservative political beliefs. If you would look at his Instagram, it's a Facebook dad Republican page. You know what I mean? That's the sort of stuff he's sharing, don't stop. And he's, I would say, money obsessed. And I would say he's kind of, I would say insecure. You know, I think anyone that takes offense to jokes that are like light -hearted, I find them a little insecure or like he bought, he bought it all the time.

32:32And like you would understand this Americans take the baits. We roast each other like I've said worse things to my friends and relatives than I've said about Gordon Ryan. But these guys take the bait and that's the game for us. You know we love throwing something out someone over reacts. That's what I live for. That's that's fun to me. So it's like Gordon in terms of this to one of this to one of his the ultimate bait. Because we're talking about free market competition. It's good according to his political beliefs. We're talking about money loves money. There's a hundred times more money in this but he has to choose to stay with the old tournament or go to the tournament of so many hates.

33:15Does he hate you? I think so. Yeah, I think so. Do you hate him? I don't hate him. I love the... I love that he exists, you know? I love that he exists. It's his time. You know? I mean, we used to train together. I wouldn't say we were friends, like we would train together. We wouldn't hang out after training or anything. So I think it's like we're training partners, weren't close friends.

33:38What, how much of Jiu Jitsu culture do you think is downstream from Gordon and John and kind of that culture that they've created? Yeah, for sure, massive influence, It's probably for the last seven, seven, eight years massive influence on the sport. And it's, they really broke new barriers by making Nogey more popular and more respective. Everyone used to do the Ghee and the Ghee guys used to win most of the Nogey tournaments. And then, Dana Hirsch crew came along as kind of Nogey only guys and started to win and they started to use new techniques. So I created a really cool story. John is like some serial killer that got away with it.

34:21He has an interesting like, he wears rash cards all the time. He says weird personality, you know, but it's like captivating. He's a philosophy professor originally or something, wasn't he? Yes, yeah. So he's got, I mean, obviously with all the university and college, he can teach well. He knows how to teach people, you know, and he's coached GSB, so he's a good coach. So like, he's throwing all these factors and you create this empire that they have today and like he even uses Japanese terminology, you know, it's like whether it's intentional or not, it's really good marketing, really good marketing.

34:53So then sort of credibility and mystique a little bit to what's going on. Yeah, he takes what people are already doing. He teaches in a really high level way, changes the name a little bit, really good, really good marketing and obviously his students back up that with results. Yeah, if you didn't have a guy that was super dominant, it would just be a bloke using weird terms that weren't effective. Exactly, and that's the funny thing is like he's like a car, he's like your cheesy martial arts character that you like, his personality should be that over a guy that's not a good coach. Because most of the time guys like that with that eccentric personality, he's got injuries so he never compete, he can't train like guys like that in martial arts, typically he raises a lot of red flags, but his students produce good results, So it becomes this conundrum of like the legitimate Steven Seagal.

35:41Exactly. Yeah. It's like he has a Steven Seagal mythology about him, but the results back at all. What do you think Gordon will do? Because if you rip the arse out of everyone that's competitive at ADCC, the legitimacy of the ADCC competition then goes away. What's left to do? He was to do ADCC. Is that your, if you were to put money on the tape, some of your big wads of cash? Yeah, yeah, that's not in my house anymore for the record. Yeah, he was still doing ADCC. It's funny. A lot of people have loyalty to what they have accomplishments in. You know, like when Nogi started booming, a lot of the gig guys were worried that their accomplishments were suddenly going to be forgotten now because if you create a new event with a new name, prestigious title was potentially 20 years people build out with the fucks.

36:31that, you know, like so there's always going to be pushback when something new comes in and steals, well not steals, but it just gives athletes the choice. So it's like there's always going to be pushback. I mean, even Gordon's mom was in my inbox talking about how prestigious ADCC is. I know Gary Tonin's mom was commenting on some posts and I was just like, I personally think you're torn of into trouble if your mom's defending it. You know my man.

36:56I'd kill my mom is she was defending my tournament online. I'd be like, hey, fucking turn it down. I'm 32 years on. I can look after myself. Yeah. You know, yeah, it's I think it's it's created a really fascinating story between the decision of this lineage and it asks, in genuinely does, you might have to ask John for the answer, but it asks a interesting sort of philosophical question around And what does prestige and lineage actually mean? Like what are people in this sport for when there is something very sort of real and tangible placed in front of them, which is like a seven figures of cash?

37:39Yeah, it's life -changing money. And like, what one of the good documents was that like he's like million dollars, that's easy to make. You know, he's like, do some seven ourselves with instructions. But the reality is, is like, I mean, if you come from Brazil, you do have a disadvantage in the markets in which we make the most money because you have a language barrier. Sometimes these guys have visa barriers, you know, like Gordon grew up in New Jersey, close to John Danaheer. I'm not denying that he put in the work to get where he is, but that's lucky. That's lucky. For me, I grew up in Adelaide.

38:10I didn't even train with a black belt to purple belt. Like I wasn't exposed. I just wasn't in the vicinity of a mind like John Danaheer to shape me for a younger age, I'd to work a lot of jobs, side hustles, sell one way to get to where I am today. And if I think about the Brazilians in the sport, they can win ADCC, but if they can't utilize a marketable style and they can't express themselves well in interviews, the idea of them making a million dollars is gonna be very difficult. And even if they grew up in sort of poorer areas, they're not gonna have access to be able to teach them business skills, marketing skills.

38:49those things are much more difficult for them. And a million US dollars going back to Brazil is gonna go a long way. It's gonna change their family's lives. So it is a tangible life change to get out of money for them. For Gordon, a million really is probably a million, instructional cell, but the amount of people that do that, not many. So for him to criticize those guys for leaving the tournament that he's in, I think it's kind of a bit unfair to those grapplers that need money. The issue that the Brazilians have with their communication barrier, their ability to use executive function, is actually probably the same of a lot of the more autistic athletes that are from America that kind of levels the playing field in some way.

39:32That's true. And I think obviously COVID vaccine has swayed the level of autism in countries. Like this would be the argument there. Do you know if the uptake in Brazil was higher or lower than usual? I kept giving it to me, but I couldn't increase it. So I've capped out that's why I'm retiring and going into promoting, you know. Well, no, you're not. You're coming in. You're like some football manager that also wants to step like play a coach. He wants to step out under the field of play against a woman. Yeah. I mean, you run the tournament, give yourself a favorable match. I think that's only fair.

40:03You know, and really test the waters of equality. True equality is fighting a woman, I think. And that's why we call our foundation, the Fairfive foundation. There's no fair fight than that, I think. What nationality is Gabby? Brazilian. Right. Okay. So this is a meeting of the Australia versus Brazil. Oh, fuck yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah, it's interesting to think about how so many of the gains are accruing to just a couple of people at the very, very top of the sport, obviously Gordon being one of them. What? Who else is? Is there anyone else in the sport where you think, oh, they're pretty flush, they're having it good?

40:42Yeah, I mean like be gentle and out of that main source of income and a lot of guys on their make good money, you know, like myself included, but it would be, I don't know, I'm not that financially driven. So it's like I mean, even a accomplishment, like I pursued those accomplishments together, those gold medals obviously didn't get them. But like, I'd rather have a legacy on the sport that I changed it for the better for all the athletes. And I think if there's more money on the table, the matches will be more exciting. The guys who have more money to prepare for these matches will reach a higher level in the sport.

41:17So I think like it's best for everyone. Some of the fans might complain that they bought tickets to one event and the athletes will be at the other. Again, our money from the tickets is predominantly going to charities. So it's like if you've already got the flight, you've already got the hotel, you already got an ADCC ticket. Keep the ADCC ticket. Buy a ticket about us, it's going to go to charity. You're going to be able to see the ADCC finals. So if you wanted to watch both of our days, you could still watch the other tournaments finals. It's the best of both worlds. You're getting the biggest grappling weekend ever.

41:47What's the, so you've explained three, five -minute rounds, is that all? And the final B -5 -5s. Uh -huh. So literally like UFC style rules. Trying to reflect, yeah. Uh, and how many rounds of fighting is there? So it'll be like 16 people per division. and so to win four matches to win. Okay. Two on the first day, two on the next day. Are you doing a super duper fight at the end and overall between... Oh, he's under and over. Yeah. I mean, that would be fun to do. I'm gonna be like, I need another million. Ha -ha -ha! Ha -ha -ha -ha! Ha -ha -ha! I'm like, that's why I'm going mad to Ukraine, eh?

42:26Right, you need to get some more plutonium. They've got some missiles again. We'll take it back to around. Yeah, fuck it, hell. Presumably this is a tested federation then. you're going to be making the sport clean along with giving it some money. Oh yeah, I fully intend to test every athlete but myself.

42:46That's the fair. That's really fair. Gabby should be tested not just for chemical enhancement but just for pure human biology, study, something he's gone on. Like a specimen of something. Yeah, we need to see what it is, identify, replicate it. Create an army. She sells a lot of underwear, you know, like... Did she really? Yeah. I don't know much about her. Can you explain? I mean, she's just a giant, a very attractive grappler that's for an MMA and she's for Japan. She said shows in Japan. Often criticized because she for an old grandmother in Japan, you know, and a lot of people saw that and they said, that poor grandmother's getting beaten up by a giant woman and I said, that could be me.

43:28You know, there lies opportunity where other people see issues. Do you think that the removal of steroids from the sport of Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu for the people that don't know BJJ? Is there any tested BJJ Federation? I BJJF does some testing, yeah. Okay. I'm not too familiar with it though. Would the removal of steroids make BJJ more or less interesting?

43:58I don't know. I mean, pride was it, pride fighting championships was interesting. Spectacle in Japan, there was no testing there. I think the testing all it does is give you legitimate big sponsors, you know? Because there's certain brands that don't want to be associated with the sport where everyone's undrunked. Exactly. Yeah. For me personally, I do have a local Texas T .R .T. sponsorship. Sadly, when I post about it, no one believes I'm actually on steroids. That's the funny thing. No one believes anything I say. You think that's like a sort of skinny fat -build curse? Yeah, just like this guy, he's on steroids and not working, you know?

44:31Yeah, they must be duds, get your money back. Look at my blood pressure, brother, they're working.

44:38Someone's having it. What was that thing? Where were you? Were you in Tokyo? Or you were doing some sort of test and I think you got one of the things that you won that weekend was highest blood pressure that did up. High blood pressure, yeah. Simon, depends. I do have high blood pressure. I should get that fix. Rogen was actually concerned about my blood pressure, which is in turn made me more concerned. But yeah, I mean the doctors take obviously, your blood pressure could be high sometimes before I match because you're a bit stressed out in nervous, so sometimes it's higher. Mine's probably too high, I should fix that out.

45:06Well, as a man with a famously short gas tank, what does it take to become a winner in the sport given that you have your parameters of limitation?

45:21Yeah, that's... where there's enough financial conversation to fix it. I would argue, you know? Maybe a million dollars on the line. I do some cardio work. Okay. But generally speaking, man, I barely lift weights. These days, I barely have time to train. I take, I don't take six years at all, you know? In other news, this episode is brought to you by Momentus. You are probably not having an of protein in your diet. In fact, no one is having enough protein in their diet. And this is why you need a high quality protein supplement. A lot of brands may say that they're top quality, but very few can actually prove it, which is why I partnered with Momentus.

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46:23If you don't like it for any reason, they will give you your money back. Right now, you can get up to 32 % off by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to livemomentus .com slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom, a checkout that's L -I -V -E -M -O -M -E -N -T -O -U -S. dot com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom. A checkout. That being said, you've had a pretty good run recently you and Phil Row had a pretty cool fight. So you do something else relatively spectacular recently. Like trying to break down what it is that what makes you even this close to the second best guy in the world.

47:00Like what is it about your particular approach? Well I mean I don't know a bit there's a bit of luck involved you know strategy. I think it's a game of strategy you know like I don't think I think you have the right strategy, you have the right skill set and you pick the right opponents and you pick the right rule sets, there's always a part the victory that doesn't involve working harder. And I think if you leverage your name at the top of the sport to make the rule set the most appeals to you based on who the opponent is, to have that leverage is a huge factor in your success rate of the sport.

47:33So it allows me to work less and still have better results. Do you think that that's interesting that BJJ seems to be a sport filled with people that are at least a little bit cerebral that are interested in cognitive tasks and coming up with interesting strategies. I've seen some of the breakdowns on YouTube. It's like an unbelievable level of autism that is being applied to the question in hand. And why is everyone else not doing that? I mean, good questions. A lot of people are scared to mock at themselves, scared to put themselves out there. You know, so like, I just think like, you just like, people talk about that like, oh, I don't like doing social media and stuff and it's like, I mean, no one does.

48:19You have to roll the dice sometimes. It's not gonna always come out good. You know, like, I've thrown some jokes out there that are fucking missed hard. So I miss. But they, they forget them. If they like it, they forget the misses. They remember the hits, you know, hopefully. So, people just gotta put themselves out there more to mark themselves in Jiu -Jitsu. The bigger following you have, the more leverage you have with promoters. And none of us are in exclusive contracts with any organizations, so you can massively pit them against each other to really leverage your participation in their events.

48:49Is this invitational just a one -off at the moment? Have you got plans to bring it back next year? do you, you're just going to wait and see what the like post -Coydle pillow talk feels like? Yeah, true. I mean, let's see. Obviously, if the event goes very poorly, there might be a sextate with my opponent released at a later date to really get recoup some of that money, but that's how committed I am to the event, you know? I would do that. I'm serious. I would do that. We're very filmed up, but yeah, the plan is to do it every year. We want to do it every year. Wow. So it would be twice as frequently as ADCC as well.

49:20I wonder just thinking about that sort from a game theory perspective, I wonder whether doing it every year would encourage athletes to do CGI ADCC, CGI ADCC. I wonder whether they would do it that way or whether it's just this is lots of bites at the apple of winning a million bucks. I think that would be, I think it's going to offset it so much because of the amount of money. And we're going to learn so much about this, right? So like if I compete on an event, they don't tell me how many people watch it. the uh, and obviously make reviews that sold online or whatever. They don't tell me how many new subscribers they get.

49:55Like this is all privilege information. I understand from a business perspective, but they're not giving me certain tools of leverage. Like I don't get to find out my metrics to further negotiate my position in the sports. That's one of the reasons I want to do it free on YouTube is we're going to see transparency. Yeah. We're going to see how many people are watching, you know, like for ADCC, it has to be the most viewed grappling event. But I don't even believe the information is shared with promoters of ADCC. That's all privileged information for the people that bought the streaming rights.

50:29So for me personally, obviously it's going to be inflated because it's free. And we're going to involve some MMA fighters, some marquee super fights. So it's going to be enhanced. But we're really going to see how many people watch grappling. And I think I think it's a significant amount of money given the amount of people that are traveling from around the world to Vegas to watch the tournament. And I want to have that information. And also YouTube's going to show you the peaks and valleys. So you're the interesting fights, you're the boring fights. We will know that metrics of information. I think it's going to translate athlete wise pretty similar to instructional sales.

51:03I do think there's a little bit of a correlation between how many instructionals you sell and how many fans want to watch you compete. Because you can just drive traffic. So I really want to, I really fascinated, I think that information's awesome. When you said about drug testing, I kind of wanted to do it from a research perspective. I didn't want to punish them, but I would love to know everyone says it's the sport where everyone's due status and minds would be great to have anonymous drug testing where we see what they're taking. You just aggregate. Yeah, just from like, that's, are we going to?

51:31The average testosterone level is 1500. Yeah, like we would have anonymous names, we're just like, who had the highest, you know what I mean? Like what's that? B was the one that came in with a 2 ,200 testosterone level. Yeah, and I think they're pumping crazy amounts. Talk to me about that. Talk to me just like how aggressive do you think the uses of PDs in BGJ? I think it's pretty aggressive. I think, again, there's not great financial conversation from the events, but like in terms of instructional sales, some on seminars, and just they want the medals. They want the they want the clout from the medals.

52:01So there's no drug testing. generally people are gonna take some. I myself put out my stack obviously I'm sponsored by steroid or TRT anti -aging clinic in Texas but - Intestosterone yeah but I put my stack out because I also like just saying no it doesn't really work with drugs you know it's like you just saying I kids take it anyway I'd rather at least to the next generation let them know what I'm taking so that they don't imagine it's up here and they don't take dangerous amounts. I at least want to be like, well, relatively therapeutic dose that you take. Yeah, so 200 or 250 a week, we get spiced with some antivire from matches coming up and then a real low dose stacker, but that's really it.

52:45And I want to, I don't want the kids or the next generation to speculate. I don't want them to think, I'm taking a gram a week or something. I think it's good to let them know what I'm taking so they can see hey We'll be the second best in the world to be the second best in the world on this fucking shitty little stack You know, so I think it's like a Harm reduction strategy rather than a just say no have you got any idea How much further people push the drug? Yeah, I've been I've been around athletes at pumps and crazy levels, you know like you got the ultimate bro science guys like I remember one famous athlete had, and I mean, it's more than who you think.

53:28I know one famous athlete had some health issues and when the doctor said, hey, what are you taking? They didn't know what they're taking, but their bro science that was administering it to him said, hey, I just look at this person every time I know what they need. And I'm just like, that's wild. That's like some voodoo doctor, like telekinesis. Yeah, like holds the stack back from him, doesn't tell him what's given him. It's like, Like, it says a lot of crazy shit out there. When it's shrouded in secrecy, and they're gonna do it anyway, they're left to find idiots to administer it, you know? So it's almost like, it's very much a Wild West.

54:02There's kind of, I guess this is like the meeting of the sort of more old school martial arts side stuff, which is this mystique and kind of magic and secret moobs and stuff with a new world of evidence -based something. But, you know, the mystique and the magic is supposed to stay within the art form of the sport and the evidence -based stuff is supposed to stay within the Blood work and the testing and the pharmaceuticals like you don't get it the other way around. Yeah, I mean, I'm all for full Transparency, you know, like I'm almost I'm honest about every single thing I do Almost to honest, but because some of it comes across a joke most people just don't believe me, but like most of the stuff I put out there is true what have there been any any spicy substances that you've heard about fighters using before matches, given that anything's on the table, maybe I need to smoke weed before I go out there.

54:53I don't think that ketamine would be a particularly useful nosebeers give you a little perk up, you know, is it and is cocaine a performance enhancer when it comes to the sport of Brazilian jujitsu? I think it's a bit of a wake up, you know, like a strong shot of coffee, you know, I mean, you know, it's just a stimulant. If you take too much, you're gonna probably guess out and I maybe that's why I have a bad guess. I don't know, but yeah, I mean, people take crazy shit. Everyone has different stuff they take. I've been around guys who took magic mushrooms before the match and shit. And I'm just like, what are you doing?

55:21You know, like just people do anything to get an edge. Are you worried about, I appreciate what you said, that you put your puny, wimpy little stack out there is like that you don't need to sort of go to hard and heavy. but downstream from you and a lot of the other guys in the sport, young kids, one of the attack at brother's time when he was four years old. If you say... Arroyds, what'd you do tonight? That's why you said good to the bastard. Yeah, are you worried about influence on the new generation, whether it be nose beers or keep jujitsu gay or the steroids? Well, the nose business is not good, hey, because you know what's funny is I make jokes about that.

56:08like and the kids do the science. I saw you next to a kid at the UFC thing. I know the problem is I tried to stop doing it, but it's the parents that want it. You know, and like we even gave it a bad name. I was calling it the white powder, you know, the, but yeah, I don't know. It's not great, you know, but like I guess it starts the conversation, but I would say your kids shouldn't be looking up to me. You know, I didn't win anything like in sentiment in the right direction, you know. Do you feel or do you think that you're going to feel a bit of a different kind of responsibility now being an event organizer in some regard?

56:43Does that come with any change in the way that you need to operate yourself? I mean, that's a good question. I think basically one in a nonprofit probably influences that a little bit, but I'm not really running the tournament. them at butts. Yeah, I mean for sure, but I've already had these conversations with sponsors, you know, with sponsors of said to back down on certain things and I've turned the money away, you know, like even with my instructional titles, I keep a controversial title because I'd rather be authentic. I'd rather have a smaller, more dedicated audience than a broader. What is some of the names of the instructional you've released?

57:20Alright, so this one was spicy actually, so there's a move in Jiu -Jitsu called a false reap. It's a false reap. It's a type of way to enter a leglock. Reeping in the IBGF is in a legal move. It's something where you bring your leg across to knee and it could potentially injure someone's knee. However, in the IBGF a lot of people, because they want to win, they'll do anything to win, they'll try to force the guy to make it look like they're doing an illegal move and it's sort of they were reaped but falsely but I brought out an instructional on the false reap and I called it false reap accusations but it was really a strong it was instructional about the reap I remember the fanatics called me and they said bro can we change the title on this one please and I said what about false reap allegations but I mean it fits in with IBGEF like a DQ narrative and I just started to be funny.

58:19But we tell you got to take a risk, you know, like someone's got to do. What was that one that you did about balls, something to do with balls? Oh, balls to the wall. Yeah. Cause when you defended against wall wrestling, you're really slamming your balls. Well, I'm on T. I think mine are pretty small. So then I'll hit in the wall, but generally speaking of clean athlete, it's going to have some big balls. What have you learned since being around the UFC at the top flight over the last few months. I mean, obviously just a level of professionalism of the athletes, the teams, uh, Volkowski's unique just because like he's almost like a character's too good to be true.

58:58Like it's like he meets celebrities and sometimes you disappointed by who they are as people. Volkowski's such a good person. He makes me disappointed in who I am as a person. You know, he's just like who we portrays himself as is exactly who he is. I guess that's probably true of me actually. So people want to be disappointed. But yeah, being around those guys, you realize, again, the financial conversation is much great at the highest level. So we're going to have much more professional teams. Like obviously most of us goes with managers. Most of you guys don't have managers because you cool them up.

59:27You'd be like, hey, how'd you like 10 % of $100? You know, you're not getting a manager in Giu -Tzu. So they have the whole team, striking coach, wrestling coach, grappling coach. which they just have an orchestrated coordinated effort towards one individual winning this next. Nutrition, conditioning, mindset, breath work, all this stuff. Yeah, all the things I thought. So I mean, it is good to see what can be done at that level. And Volcanoce takes it so serious. What do you think of him as an athlete? Oh, incredible, incredible. It's going to be interesting to see what he does next. I wanted to have a grappling match.

1:00:07I think we'll probably try and get him a grappling match on our event, but It might clash with something else that I can't say, but I'm not him fighting, but I Want to see him take a grappling match because I grapple with him and he's like he's a tough round So that my dream would be to see him perform in a grappling competition If he has to wait it out for a taporia rematch or something like that If he wants to wait it out because he was knocked out for whatever reason, I think grappling match keeps his mind occupied That's a good question. How well are you, person who focuses on BJJ, or, you know, Chan, or like one of the rods or whatever?

1:00:46How well would they be able to hold their own against some of the best UFC fighters just in grappling? Like how good are mixed martial artists at grappling? At grappling? At just grappling, yes. I mean, they're really good. Like I put Luke Groc on the tournament because he's really good. Like I trained with him, that's like elite level grappler. And it hits a few things there. Obviously for me UFC champion, he's got a good following. He's a fun guy and he could surprise some people. Like I wouldn't put a UFC fighter in the tournament unless I believe they had a chance to do something. And that's why I think Luke Rockholz fascinating because people are going to be like, oh, he's not going to do anything.

1:01:27And it's like, I've trained with him. He could shock some people, you know? In terms of MMA, the MMA is so brutal. And it's like, it's sort of, if you've never gone to an event live and sat close to the action, I think most people don't realize how brutal and savage it is. Oftentimes a guy gets knocked out. The camera's on the winner. Camera's not on the guy slumped in the corner. Like I was there when Bryce Mitchell got knocked out by Josh Amher. He's unconscious for a long, long, long time. You know, it's like it's it's kind of traumatic and it's really traumatic for the coaches too like again These guys are your friends.

1:02:07So it's like I don't go lightly into joining a glass camp, you know because it's like that is Your putting some of your heart into this guy's well -being. Yeah, it's brutal. It's brutal It's an unforgiving world and it's like it's traumatic for the fighters. It's traumatic for his friends and family He's coaches like it's not just about winning and losing. It's about their health well -being psychological well -being so it's like it is a big thing to corner a guy. I didn't learn that until I did Oldman fight of the first time I cornered an MMA fight was an Oldman fighter and we're talking about guys that are so broke they got no money they're not in the UFC and they're fighting they're putting a all on the line they health on the line for really not much money and that was really you feel like obviously one of my grapplers loses that sucks but generally speaking he's not Walk it up.

1:02:56Yeah, they're out of there. So like there's such an investment of Energy and really emotion because you're so invested not just in them winning for their own financial well -being But just for the health you're like man. I got to take this serious. What is Sitting in the corner of a UFC fight watching Valk and some guy like Are you ready? Are you ready? Like what's that moment like as you sort of watch them walk together? I mean, there's so much anxiety, so much anxiety going in and it's like I'm the grappling cause I'm a striking coach, but so like I'm keeping time. I'm holding the bucket when they're on the feet, you know, so but like I don't fully understand.

1:03:37I know what they've spoken about strategy wise for the stand up portion. So I'm sort of like trying to see, but I don't know a lot about striking at all. So I'm really trying to listen to them see what they're saying, see what they're feeling. But it's yeah, it's real scary and Valks like always with Valks where it was like, like he just kept doing things people didn't think he could do. You know what I mean? It's like shocking. You know, like what he did to Halloween the third fire, getting out of a taker's submissions and stuff like that so that you build him up. Your self is this invincible figure, but no one's invincible.

1:04:07You're in the game long enough. You're going to get cracked, you know, like very few make it out retire at the right time. And I'm not saying Vox should retire, but I'm saying guys like Kabeeb got out before that happened to him. You never know when it's going to happen. But if you're in there long enough, it will happen. So it's like, it's both traumatic to see as a friend, but also it's like it shocks you. You're like, oh, this guy was invincible. I didn't think about that. I never thought about the, you know, you'd think about how traumatic it is for the fighter. You realize that the friends and family are invested in that way, but I never thought about the corner man and what they need to do.

1:04:41They need to go away and have a week of emotional reflection on. Imagine if you gave the wrong advice or imagine if you missed something. You didn't, the guy hitting with something like, you didn't expect. You know, like when I was preparing folks for Islam, I was like, looking for everything on the ground, because it's like, that guy's like a mythical figure in terms of wrestling and grappling. So it's like, you don't want to leave sort of no stone on turns. So a lot of pressure. There's a bunch of compilations on YouTube of bad corner advice from UFC, I think a video got released pretty recently that I watch, maybe like five things.

1:05:17One of them where your your four rounds up you can coast in this round like no you weren't you with like three down Yeah, no, that's the thing so the corner man the USC come to you before and they're like who's wearing the mic No one wants to wear the mic You know what I mean? Oh, it's like hey if you say something stupid you'll fuck like a mat Like immortalized on the internet you like hey bro You got two rounds to go but it's already you know what I mean like it's the last round. It's live like you don't You don't want to be that guy. Yeah. Yeah. They always want to give the mic to the guy that goes in the cage, but most of the time a lot of guys will be low.

1:05:50No, I can give it to this guy. Right. Yeah, the guy that's not speaking as much. Oh, interesting. And you get to choose that. You get to choose who has the mic. The staff try to force you to give it to the right guy because they kind of know who's the head coach. And what? Yeah, what's going on? But like you try to give it to like me or the wrestling coaches. And you don't know anything. Some of those basically just holding buckets back there like. Wow. What about Dana White as an operator as a now get co -promote of Federation owner? I mean, I feel like I've got big shoes to fill by my hairlines on its way, you know.

1:06:25You need to get Gary Bracker on that hillfix it. That's the plan man. I wanted to go to do the oil resting oil chamberships in Turkey and do a hair transplant at the same time as that. That's the full. You mentioned this before we got started. What is this Turkish oil wrestling? They just oil each other up and they take any grip. They again finger slips in the ass. It slips in. It's a good handle. Is this allegedly? Is this a well -known sport? Yeah, I don't remember the actual Turkish name, but I think it's the oldest consecutively ran sporting event in the world. You early annual annual yeah annual what's got more prize money but yeah very good what's got more prize money ADCC or Turkish oil wrestling I'm a good question we'd have to find it out.

1:07:11I think there's more to lose in Turkish oil wrestling to be on us I don't know how do you prepare prepare for that Lots of the like pelvic floor exercises. Yeah, lots of kegels. That's what Gabi said She was paying for me with some strong kegol with Danes. Okay, right, like a special kind of finger snap. Yeah, hold it. Movement. We'll get back to talking to Craig in one minute, but first I need to tell you about element. If you dread the thought of drinking plain water all day, I get it. Sugary electrolyte drinks and lemon water that turn your teeth yellow just don't cut it, which is why I love element.

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1:08:18That's how confident they are that you'll love it. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with any box by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to drinklmnt .com slash modern wisdom. That's drinklmnt .com slash modern wisdom. All right, so the last few months we've been chatting and I've been saying, yeah man, where you at? Like let's catch up and blah blah. And I think you're in town for two days and then left. Where have you been over the last four months? Oh my god, where have I been? I've been to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Poland, Ukraine, Mexico, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, UAE.

1:09:08I think that's it. Where'd you want to start? Well, I mean, I guess probably most interesting place for Ukraine. So I'll sort of set up a seminar out there to raise money for the soldiers. Because the soldiers do get weapons. They do get support. The US has provided weapons. Europe has provided weapons as well. But a lot of the basic equipment, they kind of have to self -fund. Even to get to the front line is a treacherous road. And that's just Soviet construction. So even if they want to get away from the front line for their break period, like driving the cars on, And when we drove to the front line man, Potholes everywhere, destroyed cars everywhere, just from the roads alone.

1:09:50So even to get the cars to be able to come and go from the front, getting to the front line side, they have to purchase most of their own military equipment, especially if they want good equipment, and you would want good equipment with what's at stake there. So I really wanted to grab there, support those guys, and really see kind of what was going on out there. And the seminar blew up, probably bad choice of words, but yeah, we had 250 people at the seminar, so it was like widely supported. It was awesome, and we'd donate all the money to Ukrainian soldiers. And then one of the guys, Roman, I remember he coming in on the seminar poster and he said, obviously, seminar for the soldiers is great, but what about the guys on the front line?

1:10:30And I was like, oh, come to the front line, I'll come to the front line with you. And he said, I can't promise we'll survive, but we'll have a good time. And that's exactly the sort of thing I live for. That's where basically we ended up. I don't know if I can say the name of the village, but it was a village that Russians had taken and Ukraine has liberated, taken back. Obviously very, very damaged and we got to go, I think, seven kilometers from the Russian offensive. It's pretty close. Keyv as Patriot defense missiles. So you are somewhat safe. Obviously, it's a war zone, but city life goes on.

1:11:07Has to go on, you know. So I got, man, I got so So many trolls, Messer Mia, after this Ukraine stuff, like saying, oh, look, you're out there drinking beers and shit. And it's like, yeah, I mean, like, do you mean they were suggesting that there isn't actually a kinetic wall going on? Yeah. And it's like, guys, it's the front line. You know what I mean? Obviously, that's where the heaviest shit's going to be happening. There's impacts all across Ukraine, but really the front lines where the actions are. Russia has missiles that can reach far. They have planes that can reach far. but again, the target is gaining land, progressing into Ukraine.

1:11:41What was that like? What did you talk to me about the atmosphere around the ground in Ukraine? I mean, the craziest thing to me was, and it's like, if you think about it, it makes sense that life goes on, you know? But really, it's the attitude that the Ukrainians have towards the situation. So it's like, the first night I landed, so you can't obviously fly in airspace, it's dangerous there. So we took the car right and got to the hotel, So I slept through about like 44 missiles or no 31 missiles were shot at Keave and it had been 44 days since it had been such a big attack. So I woke up and people were mentioning me like, yo, cows, I fuck, I slept through it eight and had the ear plugs in.

1:12:19But that's when I realized the scope of a, another serious thing was when a missile was shot down, so a hypersonic missile was shot down and this was so close to the hotel I was at that the whole building shook. And I thought that was a missile landing, but that was it being shot down. They took me to the missile site after we're part of it landed in the ground, I was just like, even that just part of the missile did so much damage to the land there. But what's crazy to me is the guy life goes on, you know, like sometimes, like after that, the building shook, people are still trying to go on the gym and work out.

1:12:53They're just like, oh fuck it, that's like, that's life out here, you know. We're not going to let Putin change how we live our lives. And like even in the villages and stuff like There's shelling going on. There's old guys out there still gardening and stuff. It's that it's that energy that's like So like crazy like I saw when I was there one of those missiles damage the coffee shop window was like completely blowing out The lady's still in there serving coffee just like baller moves like that But I mean it's intense you got the air siren up you hear the sirens go and it's like there's a plane in the sky heading your direction muscles are being loaded to launch.

1:13:30There's kamikaze drones coming your way and you're like, do you go to the bunker or do you not go to the bunker? And did you go to the bunker? No, I was mostly out of laziness, but yeah I didn't go. I figured out if I could, if happens happens, but I wanted to do what they did. Like those guys were like, we're not changing our lives because of that's exactly what Putin. I say Putin, not all of Russia, but I say Putin, that's what they want, they want people to live and feel, they wanted to affect their daily lives. And that's their goals to not let it affect them, even if there are consequences.

1:14:05I think when you see archive footage of London during the Blitz and keep calm and carry on, stiff up a lip stuff, you almost think about that as being a mentality of a bygone era. that this was when humans were almost built differently. Mad is 80 years ago. And yet it seems that during a war zone, that same mentality just continues even now, 2024. Yeah, I mean, it has to, it has to re -emerge. Like, I mean, it is kind of like really a well -walled to feel over there. Like it's doing trench warfare. You know, it's like I think of Americans in the Middle East and stuff. It's not trench warfare. You know, you got a rich superpower against sort of poor terrorist groups.

1:14:55Whereas over there, like I look at you Ukraine's situation is crazy to me. Like it's a country of 40 million versus a country of 150 million. It's like it's a crazy thing to think about. Like and when it happened in Ukraine men weren't allowed to leave. You're not allowed to leave. Some men died trying to leave, trying to swim across rivers to get out of that. to get to Europe, you know? And then Roman, the guy that told me to the front line, he had lived in France. He has a wife in Kid in France, but he felt such a strong sense to really defend his country. That he didn't have to go back. He volunteered to go back and he hadn't lived in Ukraine for eight years.

1:15:35By remember, he said to me, he goes home is where people miss you. He's like, my wife and kid is here. My mother and brother is in Ukraine. So he volunteered to go back. You hear these stories like this and you're like, just super -inspiring stuff. Yeah, I was gonna say, how does that make you feel to be around people that are like that? I mean, obviously it makes what you feel what you do in last pretty fucking trivial, you know? The bravery of taking on ADCC. Yeah, taking out of it's one of them, right? But yeah, obviously, I mean, people can say what they will about the war and the politics of it, but they shouldn't confuse that with the warrior involved.

1:16:11And guys like that are super -inspiring. and I followed him. So he had 15, he only gets 30 days off a year, but he went back to my say, and that's where he lives with his wife. And I literally just left there. I spent a few days with him there. So I got to see what his regular life that he left was. And it's mind blown. Giu Gitsu Black Bell. He used to compete. He's, he owns a pizza shop there. He's got like a idealic life. And he left all that to go defend these people over there. And it's just like, guys like that, you know, like you think fuck, that's heavy. Wow. You want to Chernobyl as well?

1:16:46Chernobyl, yeah. So I've always wanted to go to Chernobyl. I guess like you said, the bit of dark tourism we were talking about before, fascinating place. But Russia had invaded via Belarus and came through Chernobyl and there was actually some fighting that occurred in Chernobyl, which is obviously that's dangerous. Fucking highly irresponsible by everybody. It's shit's blowing up over there, you know, like, And I'm pretty sure that was one of the moments that was one of the heaviest things that's happened in the two years of this war And that was when basically by partisan support in America and they were like your if any radiation leaks and crosses into the EU Like you're gonna get a full brunt of NATO.

1:17:23So that was one of the heaviest like don't fuck around Wish you noble, but there's a ton of mines around shinobu like Russia came through and we're pushed back out of shinobu So you can't control it but Russia left a ton of mines It's very close to Belarus, so you're actually pretty close on the border. So you're close to where they had previously invaded from. But I still wanted to go there. I thought, let's try. Let's try. So first was, a guy I met at the seminar was a special forces guy and his unit controlled Shinobu. But you have to clear four military checkpoints to get to Shinobu. This guy cleared two of those points.

1:18:01And then the third one, the guy was very angry that we were trying to go there. because it's like, it's dangerous, it's a liability, if like Australian gets killed out there, that's not good. Yeah, that's a video guy with you as well. Yeah, we had the video guy with me, so it's like, we're trying to clear through, it's not looking good. This guy, I wanted to arrest us, it was that serious. So we had to fail each and noble mission. We left. However, another again, top secret opportunity presented itself, and we were able to bypass all of the security checkpoints and get into Shinobu, and it was funny because the same guy that was angry had to let us hear this time.

1:18:39I was like, money talk. No money, no money involved. Just like basically, I don't wanna say who did it, but like obviously it was my connection. Someone appreciated that I was there for charity and I was helping you, you can't even, and I was raising sort of the little following I have sort of raising awareness about the issue because it kind of fallen out of the media cycle. Very much so. So he basically allowed me, this person allowed me to go to Shinobu, and we got to see it, and it was crazy. Obviously crazy. It's eerie, like, you're driving up. You're driving up. We got to see, obviously, the reactor.

1:19:14We got to see the abandoned town. We really spent a lot of time in the abandoned town. We got to see the Ferris wheel, like that little theme park area and crazy. But it's just completely, like, there was a lot of tourism there. Yeah, there's a lot of tourism. What's Eerie's? There's a lot of bullet holes from the fighting that it could there. So it was like - Love the last couple of years. Yeah, so it was like cool of Judy, Modern Warfare, there was that map at Shinobu. I forget the name of it, but like it's Eerie to see that there was actually fighting going on. It says bullet holes in the walls and stuff.

1:19:45Like being loaded into a lobby with no other players. Yeah, super strange, super strange. So we got to see all that. And then we got to see the giant sort of like it was a radio signal blocker. and they built this huge thing. I forget the name of it, but like during the Soviet Union days, that used to send out weird signals and would interrupt radio broadcasts and stuff. It's just like huge radio blocker. The people didn't really know what. It made of like a mesh sort of satellite material. What is it? I'll show you pictures of it, just some metal like massive, massive. And I think it was like a mid -early missile detector and a radio signal blocker, but it would send out this signal that would make noises on broadcasts.

1:20:24And during the Soviet days, people had no idea they thought it was like weather control or they thought it was mind control like a lot of conspiracies around it but we got to see that as well so those are the main things we got to see in Chernobyl. Was there a did you have a guy get counter with you to work out? Was the no no no I mean the radiation levels could have switched around because obviously it's fighting there is a part of the disrupted something maybe yeah there's the red forest where rusher had come through and I don't know how much truth there is to this but there was like people said that there were trenches built there by Russians so that would obviously that's the most radio one of the most radioactive zones there so these guys and they've kicked up all of the dirt dust yeah all the dirt and the radioactive dust and they've probably poison themselves with radiation so like they obviously didn't know you know they didn't know what was going on there what was the reactor like what was getting close to that I mean that's just fully sealed in big dome yeah it kind of It just looks like modern, like, like, like, built a building around it, you know what I mean?

1:21:26But I was still there being like, fuck, I probably shouldn't be. It just taking photos and shit, you know what I'm like. It's definitely illegal to go. I think that I watched a YouTube video about the elephant's foot, which is the melted core of the old reactor. I don't know how much truth in this. There may be something that's beaten it now, but that it's regarded as one of the most radioactive chunks of material on the planet, like the way that that congeals, the way that it melted through the bottom and then it is that it looks like an elephant's foot, this big sort of melted blob of just...

1:21:58I'd like to think that's what created my opponent coming up, Gabi Garcia, you know?

1:22:05But even when we left, we had to go through the radiation, the old radiation sensor machines where we're like standing there and they scan you to see if there's any radiation on you. Who knows if they still work, but we got in there, you know? Okay, yeah, yeah. And we made it out, but it was kind of surreal. We were like, oh man, fucking it's Shenobu. Did you get to fire some weapons? Did I see you with a bazooka in your hand or something? We got to fire bazooka. So obviously we've pissed about this. So like it's fucking idiots down there. Waste in American tax paid dollars, you know? But we just got to participate in the training, like the firing range training of what the troops were already doing that took us to the frontline.

1:22:40So they just let us shoot a couple of missiles out of the bazooka, which is pretty fun. Shot the M60 Rambo style so it was pretty fun. Yeah, standing up, start laying down and then standing up, walking forward, that's fun. But really, I should be the RPG I shot. And I was like, it's fucking pretty surreal. I just remember that a lot of times in my life, I think someone shouldn't have trusted me with this. The guy that gave me the million dollars to bring on Rogan, I was just like, fuck, people trust me, wait one minute, they should. The RPG, the guys just make sure you don't fire it too low, it's getting fucking blow yourself up.

1:23:16I'm like, okay. You didn't think about that, but yeah, everyone's tried to do the bazooka jump in Halo. So, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, imagine how high you could have sent yourself in. What do we go? Pretty crazy that finally RPG. Pretty wild. Why? I mean, it's just intense, you know, and you just like, just in case the blood pressure and heart rate went high. Yeah, already. And I think they do have a bit of a failure rate. So I think sometimes they fucking explode and shit, but it was fun. I mean, the guys took care of us with a shoot a bunch of shit. It was called, I met a ton of guys that were like talking about missions, showing us private footage of like battles, like their own GoPro footage, which is crazy because I said about how the units lack funding.

1:23:59So obviously, like, in jiu jitsu we lack funding. So what do you have to do? You have to create a social media presence to raise money. You're kidding me. These guys are making their own - So they have their - War footage. Yeah, they're in their telegram groups where they're showing personal combat footage, they're wearing goat pros, they're raising their profile. Obviously that helps for intimidating. Only guns. Yeah, but they do. It's crazy, man. You meet these guys that are famous sort of soldiers and the more famous the other more donations they can ask for and that money can be used towards a battalion to better equip them.

1:24:29Wow. And what's crazy about the soldiers out there in the situation is like, I think if there's There's something that means a lot to you or it has grave consequences and your budget is constraints. Creativity goes through the roof. You just have to. So, in terms of drone technology, they figure out ways to attach explosives to $500 PV drones that can kill. Like a DJI, whatever. And they'll take out a Russian tank that's worth two to three million dollars. With something that explosive plus DJI drone was a grand, grand in a half. Yeah. So I always thought drone technology for warfare would be heading in a direction of highly expensive, but Ukraine as the innovators in this and they're able to do so much fighting with the drones.

1:25:17Did you see this was a while ago now and it kind of shows how much out of sight, out of mind the Ukraine conflict is now that you've got what's going on in Gaza. But I remember seeing a TikTok, they were, I think it was Ukraine that were recruiting pretty hot female influences to explain, now you're interested, to explain to normal citizens how to drive a Russian tank if you happen to come across one that was abandoned by the side. Do you ever see these videos? I didn't see the side. It's so fucking cool. So it's the classic, you know, like kind of high up selfie style video and, you know, of the sort of overly positive demeanor that most influencers have.

1:26:00No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And it's step one, turn the thing, step two, press the button, step three and it's her, like just some dolly bird chick with a little bit of lip filler and a tank, like, Oh, it's your client, it's usually a lot of lip filler, but okay, each other on. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, using social media in war is huge over there, to swear the opinion of the enemy. That's the front line of the propaganda campaign. Yeah, yeah, it's great. I mean, it's it's kind of surreal. You know, but it plays a factor. How did I know that you're not American, but you'll have probably been perceived as part of like this side of the world.

1:26:38How was America or you as a representative. perceived what people warmed toward you. Did they have issues? Super positive, but I mean like I went at a time when the US hadn't agreed to fund, to continue to fund Ukraine. So it had been like seven months since they had funded it. It was up in the air. Have they since agreed to get money? Yeah. Since they've had like a bipartisan vote, they've decided to contribute more weapons to Ukraine. But I went there at a time when that was up in the Yeah, and people didn't really know what was going on. So at that time, even then it was still very positive towards the US because there were like, no matter what happens in the upcoming election, we have faith that the US will support them.

1:27:23Because like, I mean, something happened in the 90s with Bill Clinton. I think it was called the Budapest Memorandum where Ukraine was left with a lot of nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union ended. And Russia and the United States were very invested in getting those out of Ukraine, nuclear, de -armament program basically. So there was a contract science, a Budapest Memorandum where they said, hey, if we get rid of those nukes, we promise to basically protect your border. So it's like, from Ukraine's perspective, they felt like the US has obligation. You always? Yeah, you always. You agreed to do it.

1:27:59We gave up. No country with nuclear weapons gets invaded. That's a strong defensive strategy. So you can't give up the weapons, Russia crossed into their territory and obviously they didn't feel a full brunt of a military conflict with the US. And then so they always had faith that the US would contribute on that agreement. Yeah, contribute. And luckily since then they have. And but that was a surreal moment to me because again, you didn't know when those weapons were going to run out. I didn't realize how big Ukraine was, how big Kiev was, how beautiful Kiev is a city was. So like when I went there, it's like it's like you're in Europe.

1:28:37You know like he's a beautiful city. So it's a history. Yeah, it's surreal to think that like I was there and they were talking about like we felt what the Patriot air defense system did to Russian. What is what is the Patriot air defense system? It'll intercept or shoot missiles out of the sky so that they don't impact the city. Okay. And they were provided by the the US. It's like a pen that pops balloons type thing. Yeah, and the technology on that's crazy because the The hoppisonic missile, I think it can hit from the black sea to heat -keven 30 seconds. That's how fast. When they go off, you don't get a air saw and alert.

1:29:10They just are short -distance. They're going to learn. Or impacted. When we were there, they hadn't been giving weapons for a long time. You had this sort of how many are left to defend the city. That was surreal to me when I left Ukraine just thinking about all the people I had met. Obviously, especially the troops on the front line because you're like, these are great guys, you guys like everyone else, you know, like normal people, defend in their country. And if the US decided not to supply those weapons, what would happen? And even in Kiev, it's a city life goes on largely as normal. But if they ran out of air defense missiles, that would get absolutely destroyed.

1:29:49Like places like Marielpo, Kursin now, Karkiv now, Karkiv's getting hit really bad now. So that is what was left on my mind, leaving is how heavy, you know what I mean? how heavy what's happening there is and really again, thankful that the US decided to... Step up, keep contributing. Where... How do you feel in retrospect? You know, you've been there viscerally, you've made human connections with people on the front line, they looked after you, I'm sure you wait with them, the family, you hit the photo of my kids, blah, blah. Are you... Is this sort of impacted you emotionally? Yeah, for sure.

1:30:22I mean, I feel attachments to those guys, you know, I worry every day about what could potentially happen. I worry a little less with the support of weapons, you know, because it's like you think like if you think about the situation It's like they put it to me like this when they talk about having a peace agreement, right? It's like Have you watched 20 days of mario poh? No, so that won the Academy Award last year basically tells what happened to mario poh when the first 20 days of the full scale Russian Russian invasion happened and I mean you see that video that the city's been destroyed the filmmaker stayed behind and filmed from the hospital.

1:30:57You see kids die, like just bombing indiscriminately. So tragedies have happened in Ukraine. And a lot of other countries will say it's still expensive, let Russia have the land, let Russia have what they want. But it's like they put it as a perspective. For third, if a different country invaded California, massacred a bunch of people did war crimes for all intensive purposes. And then the rest of the world said, ah, let him keep California. Let's let this end. Let's let this war go for Americans. They'd be like, woof hot to love. So for me, that's what I was thinking. I was like, wow, if the weapons run out, they're still going to fight.

1:31:37They're going to fight to the last guy. Shubbles and pitchforks and whatever they get at the hands on. Because of what they've been perceived. I mean, even though there was one guy, Demetri, and like the tension between Russian Ukraine's long lasting, because I mean, he showed me a picture of the like execution papers of when the Soviets executed his grandfather. So when Russian full -scale invasion started, he got his A .K. and his fucking motorcycle helmet went out to the streets. He's like, I'd rather be dead than live under Russia. So it's like it's a very personal. Right. He's got heritage to his distaste.

1:32:08Yeah, he's like, I would never let them. You don't mean like it's crazy. Wow. So I don't know how that conflict is going to end. And you know, like, you crane deserve their land back. Russia deserves, Russia should have to be obligated to pay for the damages. I mean, how can you even pay for the emotional damages and the deaths and stuff, but I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know how that ends. It seems like just a war of numbers and just continue to throw Russian bodies at Ukraine. Yeah, that's what they've done at Forever Russia, right? I think the official statistics they say is like half a million Russians dead in two years.

1:32:50And I know the soldiers, because obviously a lot of soldiers have journals, they're journaling out there. So I know Ukrainian soldiers have told me about how they've found journals of dead Russians that have gone, they've been conscripted and ended up with the frontline immediately. It's cannon fodder, you know? And that's like heavy to think about. They're just sending mass amounts in. human meat grinder. Yeah, one, well, like Russia does have a great technology, the military technology. They can build, create shells so fast to shell the cities, which is what's happening in car keep. Car keeps just getting block, block, bomb dry now.

1:33:27And it's a regular factory to back end of a cannon to car keep factory to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so quick. And like you said, politics, the news cycle is shifted towards sort of Palestine, Israel conflict, Gaza and stuff. So it's largely getting forgotten, I would say. Funny like the mental ram of the world only has sufficient disc space to be able to have one one thing in a time. Kinetic wall going on. And that's people, people, we get mesmerized. They're like, why are you so passionate about Ukraine? Like the, because obviously people think it's so crowded, like are they pangu and it's like, why don't you talk about Palestine?

1:34:04And I'm like, guys, fucking go to Gaza. Yeah, I can't go. And also like just because I'm raising easy money for cancer, the heart disease crew, I'm gonna gleanch me on the internet. I mean, like, we're trying to do what we can with the short time we have, you know, like, and it's easy, I can go to Ukraine, I can help, you know, I can support, I've made personal connections there. So it's like, I don't think it should be one or the other, you know what I mean, but like, it's kind of like, it's best not to spread yourself to the end on one politically should of times, people only have the attention for.

1:34:36Why else did you fall in love with over your travels? Kazakhstan's cool. Kazakhstan's cool. I've been going to Kazakhstan since 2016. I actually did 80 CC trials in Kazakhstan in 2016. Interesting place. Interesting place. Obviously, again, you got some of you can't talk about over there, but it would be Bora. Bora obviously is fascinating. That's what you associate Kazakhstan with, unfortunately. What I feel bad for Kazakhstan is sometimes when there's a language barrier, jokes get misinterpreted. So for me, Bore Out was hilarious because the joke was on dumb Westerners that thought that was really Kazakhstan.

1:35:14But he actually filmed those village scenes in Romania. So it's like, obviously things get misinterpreted. It gets lost on them. And it would be annoying if you're a Kazakh. Everyone's like, oh, Bore Out, Bore Out. They took offense to that. They have a bad relationship with the bar at films very bad But their tourism board did lean into it recently it took a long time But they did lean into it and I was like comes to Kazakhstan very nice, you know, so like it took a long time But they're leaning into it now But we we went over there to film a film some documentary stuff We showed you the the cockpile the horse sort of we can put that up as well, but

1:36:16Horse fighting basically like it's like rugby. It's like rugby on horseback where you take a goat. They take a goat or a sheep but they cut its head and legs off and they'll have up to a thousand guys on horses at a time, without leaned down, they got to pick it up and throw it into an area to win money and local businessmen will put cash up to watch these guys fight it out. Okay, and people get severely injured doing this. Poor people, Polo. Poor people, Polo. So yeah, really, yeah. We went there and we wanted to film and we filmed, but it was tense because I was riding around on a little pony with a biggie small sweater on some sunglasses, you know, That's like and those guys are like, but is he making boys?

1:36:56Most of them loved it. Some of them were like, hey, subourad joke, I was like, I'm gonna die. But it was fun. We only filmed for one day there. We had some difficulties, but what was funny was, I had a stunt, like cocked by a so dangerous. Like they kick each other, like if a horse falls over, they don't stop. Like they'll trample a dude. It doesn't stop because you're taking a big prize pool, especially trained horse, especially trained riders. It's a CJI. It's a CJI of fucking horse fighting, I guess. Yes. But like, we had a stunt man and his job was, we were filming some scene where he was meant to take me, so it looked like I was riding on horseback into the pit.

1:37:39And we had a stunt double where my outfit to go into the pit. But this guy, first of all, he missed his flight that day because he was drunk. He fell asleep with the airport. Good, very good. And then when we flew him in, Instead of taking me to the edge, he took me right into the center of the pit And I don't know how to ride a horse and he had the reins So he's taking me dead center into the cockpot pit and for a while was chill some of the riders were angry because I was blocking them Because he's holding me right getting in the fucking way. I'm in the way and Some of the gang real fuck it's fucking glad of it.

1:38:07Some people thought it was funny but then someone picked up the carcass and a whole massive him came charging towards me and I was just like like fuck I'm about to be trampled here. And I was like, I don't have the reins of the horse, I didn't even know how to fucking ride a horse. I've never ridden a horse before. But I got out of there on scale, they got hit a couple times by people on horses, but we made it out. But basically the drunk stunt man, it's a good story, but it was fucking dangerous. A high risk scenario. I managed to survive the front lines of Ukraine, only to be trampled to death by a bunch of blocks trying to chase a go -tod.

1:38:40It's been a dangerous year and it's probably only gonna get more dangerous, I think. But Kazakhstan is also some Kazakhstan is actually going through like sort of a women's rights movement over there right now It's big. I don't think it's been pretty much a champion by you Champion by me. Yeah, Gabby and Gabby guys. I'll bring her out there. A but they had so they've had a couple of big sort of women's rights issues Out there. There was a guy a bishop by have a politician like heavily Muslim that country Yeah, pretty heavily Muslim obviously a country that was suppressed in their religious beliefs under the Soviet Union, but but heading back to their roots, basically.

1:39:15So there was a politician that Bishin Bav, who just straight up beat his wife to death, and some of it was recorded on camera, and he still pled, not guilty and fought it in court. And it was like a crazy thing, because everyone was like, is he gonna get off? Is he not gonna get off? That weird laws there where it was like a wife could get two weeks in prison for provoking the husband. Like there's a lot of that going on, but. You know the medieval stuff. Yeah, and it was sort of it was occurring when we were there and actually even the people that filmed that one day for us Very good director over there.

1:39:50He made a film that was sort of a Film about what's life's really like for some of the women in the smaller towns and then it became like a horror movie It was like it was really well done called duster. I don't think you can get it in the West yet But the combination of both those things it was the highest grossing and that big story at the time. Luckily, he just got sentenced and got a proper jail sentence, but it was kind of an issue where everyone was like, they might let this guy off. Wasn't an unspoken about, sort of, corner of the world that's got some pretty... Yeah, a gree just shit happening.

1:40:26Well, there's some amazing stuff, like the scenery, the people, awesome. That was going on at the time. We kind of wanted to cover that, but it's very difficult to be a fun person. on horseback. Yeah, foreigner cover anything like that. You don't know me like as a foreigner. It's a very sensitive. Yeah, it's like mind your business. It might be roughly, roughly so. But luckily it went in the right direction. He was sentenced to a fair sort of amount. But that was heavy. We got out of there. We got out of there after that. Well, all right, we'll go to Ukraine. And then still heavy in Ukraine. Yeah, cheese.

1:41:04What's driving you to do these trips? Like what's the underlying motivation that you have? I mean, I just have the ability and the connections. As weird as it is, Jiu -Jitsu gives you connections all over the world, all the gags to tech guys. You know what I mean? Like there's a lot of, like obviously celebrities, a lot of people that I can kind of utilize Jiu -Jitsu to get experiences that people might not normally get. So I love it eventually, I love seeing the world, and if I can do some charity work along the way, that's awesome, and on top of that, create some content. So that's the goal with it, and that's what we're trying to do with that travel show.

1:41:45This is gonna be a lot of fun, but also try and touch on some serious stuff. I guess BJJ has, it's a kind of a bit of a rich people sport, at least from what I can see. Maybe Brazil actually might be a good example for it. It's not but certainly when I think about the people that I know, the people in Dubai, the people in Austin, the do it. It's like the golf of the combat world. For sure, yeah. You know what I mean? It's a very affluent people are smart, or business owners and CEOs. So yeah, you're right. I guess give you an unfair advantage in piece of access. Yeah, get a slip in, slip out of some place.

1:42:26I remember, it saves you sometimes, right? So the soldiers were giving me, I don't know what you call them, they were giving me things gifts for coming to Ukraine. Some of those were heavy helmets of soldiers that killed from Russia, and they showed me the different styles of helmet. Some of those were from 1945, basically almost World War II time. You know, like they get, some of the Russian soldiers had old helmets. Some were modern. Russian military has from highest level to still wear it. They're just utilizing anything they can from the last century. anything. And one of the things one of the guys gave me was a bayonet.

1:43:00So I got given two knives. The police chief of the entire country gave me a knife made out of a Russian tank. And this is a Russian tank that was on its way. It was in Ukraine territory and they've destroyed it and someone's turned it into a knife and he's like, tell the world, this is what we do to Russians in Ukraine. We turn them into knives and I was like, well, heavy. And then another guy gave me a bayonet. And I was just like, the guy said, hey, don't cross into Europe with all of it. Wheeled in your bayonet. Yeah, but I was like, well, I don't want to throw it away. I'm like, the guys give me a personal gift.

1:43:36So as I start crossing into Europe through Poland, the bayonets found. And because it's too long and too thick and it can attach to a gun, it's considered a cold war weapon. So like, it could, cold weapon. I don't know. Some, It was meant to be five years in prison for that, for carrying that, and I was like, fuck, I didn't know that. But luckily, like we've got out of that situation, it was a bit dicey, resect, the police came, they had a fucking old camcorder out. I was like, oh shit, I might be going away for this. Should have left the bayonet behind. Did you, both of the nights in the bayonet, did you have to leave those in Europe?

1:44:12Or did you, they kept the bayonet, I've still got the Russian tank knife. That's all right. The bayonet, I think it was mainly that it attaches to guns like an attached to a rifle and also there's a problem of guns in Ukraine making their way into Europe and I guess weapons in general. And even though you can't fire a bayonet and it's a pretty primitive, yeah, weapon, it's part of the overall assembly that is. And that's the whereby fell into. That was like we were stuck at the border for like nine, ten hours. Trying to negotiate this I had to call in all sorts of favors to be like, yo, this is like, well, surely the police chief of Ukraine would be, hey, mate, come on.

1:44:56Let him out, you know? Yeah, he's sound. I mean, all of those guys, the heroes, like the police chief there, Marshall, when Ukraine first got attacked, Crimea, I think back in 2014, this guy's like a hero over there. He's like defended the Don Tess airport, and this was in the Don, and I'm terrible with the names, but he defended this really pivotal airport. And he is like, they hold onto it for so many days and wouldn't let Russia take this airport. And he was just telling me the story and he was just like, yeah, we just couldn't let him take it. And he shows me a picture and he's got shrapnel hanging out his head and a bullet hole in the side of his helmet.

1:45:33And he's like, yeah, we couldn't let him take the airport. That wouldn't happen. I'm just like, fuck. Does it put into perspective, people who take Brazilian jiu -jitsu very seriously is something where they're going to war. For sure. For sure. That's why I drink a couple beers before I match them. Like, what is having fun out here? You know, there's like this heavy shit going on. It's good perspective shifter to be able to go to these places. You know, especially like BT -man, like some of the guys, I'm with, they don't even have hospitals, they don't want to leave America. I'm just like, man, take me to the clinic.

1:46:04I think 60 % of Americans don't have a passport. Yeah, that's why. Some of that's obviously because they can't afford it. But, or some of us also have, fucking no vacation time here, you know? But yeah, I think a big chunk of it is a lack of culture, at least from what I've seen outside of the, you know, like, toffee, whanky fucking influencer friends that I've got. Like just the country's so big, you've got 50 countries attached to the same country where you can work anywhere, use the same currency, speak the same language, etc. It's like saying, I've never traveled outside of Europe. You can travel quite far within Europe.

1:46:40And America is basically a collection of countries that happen to share a currency in a language. Yeah, I mean, I'm down to go anywhere. I'll go anywhere. August could offer a good story. You know, that's a that's what I love. What was your time in Thailand like you must have been out there before? There's something out there that pulls me each and every time, you know, you put your finger on it. I have. They have to me, but yeah, I love Thailand's design. I just went to Philippines. Philippines is surprisingly awesome. I've never been. Manila, I didn't know what to expect. You visit some Asian cities.

1:47:14Some of them are super well developed. Some of them are... Philippines must learn as well, right? I've got this one. No, but there is an island in the Philippines control by ISIS. I was trying to visit that while I was out there. Control by ISIS? ISIS, ISIS island. Yeah, they're going to island. Okay. Some parts of the Philippines are super dangerous. people get kidnapped and stuff, but for the most part out of the time. That's actually, I don't know if you saw the video where I had a bunch of ladyboys wake up my friend. I did. That's him out there. Okay. So we were in the Philippines and we're hanging out in one of the seedy areas and we just recruited a bunch of ladyboys to wake your mom.

1:47:48Okay. That's the punishment you get if you want to go to bed early and not hang with the boys, you know. Okay. Yep. No excuse. And how did that go? Where do you find that many ladyboys? I'm at the pipe, but they came to me in streets, you know? Okay. This is just something that you exude. The smell of Japanese. Yeah, that doesn't wash away. No, doesn't wash away. No, I love hanging out with ladyboys. They're a good time, you know? One of the boys drinking beers with them. It's some good stories. They make your friends uncomfortable. Fucking love it. What do you want to do next? Do I do want to go next?

1:48:20After this, I go, man, you've got a fucking impotent. How long until the invitation? Six months, five months. Oh, we put the calendar. We put the counter this today 80 days 80 days until fuck and before then I got to go back to Ukraine So I'm going back to Ukraine to visit the city of Kursin So head back there. What why I'm gonna do a charity seminar for the police as a thank you for helping But we help me get out of jail or not, but as a thank you just appreciation and Yeah, just go visit the guys again. I booked out before I booked the tournament. I probably would have a shelf that for a while But summer is a pretty heavy time during the walk.

1:48:59Because obviously winter, those roads like snowed in wet. It's hard for a lot of offense to come. You know, like things get bogged to tie for cars to move. Summer's pretty hot. Things can move pretty quick. So go out and see the boys at least. But with some nice weather. With some nice weather, yeah. Yeah. So why else have you like you've done Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Stan, Philippines, Thailand, but you did a ton of other places in the middle. What were you doing that? So when we were we were planning to film in Kazakhstan and we had a break between the first stage shooting and the later days of shooting.

1:49:35So it was like, I spent a lot of time in Kazakhstan in our Matthews. I was like, fuck it. Let's just pick a random country and head there. So we went to Uzbekistan and I showed up to a gym in Uzbekistan and just surprise them and train with them. So I was like, we got time. Let's do it. They're recognizing. Yeah. Luckily, otherwise I would have felt flat. Hey, this fucking asshole dressed in short shorts. Yeah, it went well. Awesome. Yeah, visiting. I just love trying to visit many crazy places possible. Digits is everywhere. It's like a virus. It's like heavy. You can't get rid of it. Yeah, it's, it's interesting to think just how much a sport like that.

1:50:14I remember I was on a wedding in Barcelona a few years ago. And one of the guys who doesn't usually drink had had a particularly heavy day and evening. And I don't know whether you know, but Barcelona is the robbery capital of Europe. Really? Super, super, super bad. And he wandered off from the guys later on in evening, got this bus back from wherever we'd had the ceremony during the day. And he wanders into the train station, falls asleep in the train station, and wakes up to find out that his phone, his wallet, and his shoes had been taken from him. Good shoes? Well, wedding shoes, so not totally terrible.

1:51:02And he kind of has sort of a bearded crossfit dude. So he's like, pretty well known Crossfit coach, bearded guy. So it's now six in the morning and he's wandering the streets of Barcelona. Beard, wedding suit, but you know, the ties down, the shirts open. and no shoes, no phone, no wallet. And he's going up to people in the street saying, please, can I borrow your phone? Which obviously given the fact that it's the robbery capital of Europe just looks like, like he is one of the people that's then going to try and do it. And he said, he ended up finding a person that would give him his phone and then he rang a message someone on Instagram and managed to get them to let him into the Airbnb where he was staying.

1:51:41But he said, if I was really, really stuck, I would have just found the nearest crossfit gym. and said, you know, look on Instagram, there's me. Yeah, it's kind of like a global passport thing. It's a distributed network of people who do the thing you do and by proxy care for some reason? Like, oh, you do our thing. You've dedicated some years of your life to this thing. We will look after you. It's like a secret society, you know? It's like, it's good to be famous in a niche sport, but everyone in the niche sport knows you, you know? because you know, to do with the issues of widespread fame, but that's interesting.

1:52:17A connection everywhere you go. Mm. Narrow, but deep. Yeah. Narrow, but deep. That's all we all create. Going back to the BJJ thing, you know, it seems to me, total like, bro science commentary here, but it seems that at least within the next sort of five years or so, we're going to see the phasing out of one generation of competitors and kind of probably the ascendancy of a new generation. Who, if you were to throw a little bit of money invest into a bunch of different fighters, young guys that are coming up, who do you think's going to be the most dominant few fighters over the next few years?

1:52:56I mean, I think the young guys, they already do well in the light of divisions. The heavier divisions, some of the old guys can linger around. But the younger guys now, I mean, let Mickey Yavow, the Ritolo brothers, you know, like those guys are phenomenal. And then from guys that like, I mean, Dorian, he trains with us from time to time, but this guy's like a wrestling champion in America. He's super young. I think 18 -19. He's already like world class level. So at the smaller weights, those guys can already win like Kedra Toler 1 ADCC super young. So it's like the next generation has already arrived.

1:53:38I think. Yeah, I really enjoyed seeing behind the scenes of your Tokyo vlog. And what's it called? Not kimono. What's the fucking thing? What's the five? You have a key, the key. No, the what's the five person fight? Quintet, that's it. Fucking kimono. Shut up. Actually, that's a question. Is a key to Jiu Jitsu dead? Now does no one care? It's not dead. It just doesn't have the personalities that no key does. you know, and you can get a lot more... it's hard to get people to watch grappling that don't participate. It's harder to get them to watch GEE. I think it just reminds us of some traditional martial arts, you know, like it's like unattractive.

1:54:25It was cool in the 80s, you know, it's fucking Bruce Lee movies and shit, but it's harder now. I think it's a bit weirder to them, So I think no use just a bit more easily digestible than the then the key game. You're going to make the guys wear uniforms at C .J .A .I .E. I'll let them wear whatever they want as long as it covers enough skin I think, you know. You can say that to Gabby. For me, I wear a banana hammock, some budgie smogers against Gabby, I think. Come out smoking. I'll try to finish. I'll put the cigarette on the edge of the mat space and try to finish it before that. That thing runs out of steam, you know?

1:55:04Well, that's also the same pace that your gas tank is moving down that based on. That's true. That is true. That is probably the timer I have. It's either that or I put it out of my tongue. Look it out. I don't know. What are the, let me turn around. What are the ways that things could go wrong between now and CGI? Like you must have considered that what could go right? We would get all of the people that we want and this would be fantastic and it'll make money and we can give it to charity. What are the ways that it could go wrong? I mean, if you go wrong in any way, you're trying to put on any sort of event, can go wrong.

1:55:38You know, any sort of difficulties like, we're going out of our way to build, like we could just throw mats on the floor. But that's not the safest, that's not the best way to do things. So we're going to build something that is safe for the competitors to compete on. That adds layers of complexity on a short time zone as it is to put on an event. but the goal is going to be higher, really try to span how expensive making it the best athlete and fan experience possible. But I mean, any of those little things could go wrong. We've got a tight timeline, you know? And the media to get the lighting sorted to tack everything out in terms of sound and broadcast and blah blah.

1:56:18And yeah, now you're making it worse, you know? Sorry, well look, man, I need, you need to, well that's one thing, you know, people are looking at it and saying, God, where do you get $2 million from? That's the prize money. What about the money to actually front the event? I mean, we got your back alley. I mean, we've got... The budget was $3 million. So we've got money as well, but doing production budgets now. Budget was $3. You have two of its going to the fighters. Plus there's a superfight, at least one. Superfight, yeah. Two. How much is Gabby getting paid? How much is she one? She just gets the physical contact of me.

1:56:52That's more the money... Some of your genetic material. Yeah, money could buy her, But yeah, I mean, we're gonna make it work. Sponsors, you know, like we do have more funding accessible if needed, but we've set it as our goal to do this on a certain budget. Well, I mean, if, and especially given that you're being largely transparent, apart from your anonymous Ukrainian funder, if you are relatively sort of open books about it and and say, hey guys, we managed to do this thing on three mill to put on an event like this. What a five mill to put on an event like this. It's like pretty shoestring budget.

1:57:32That doesn't seem like an insane amount of money for the impact that it's had and for what it gives to the fighters and so on. I think it does throw into harsh light. So where does all of the money go in? Allegedly, right? Competition. Yeah. That's, and that's what we want to prove. We want to be fully transparent about everything like I mean even the venue like we're using Thomas a Mac I think that's we rented it out two days. I think with loading days We're still talking under $200 ,000, you know, so it's like the venue itself is quite affordable for an event of this scope being run over weekend in Vegas Fully tech.

1:58:11Yeah, wow. Yeah, so it's like it's I mean that's my theory is that we can do it for that budget If it goes over, we have more money accessible, but it still leaves the question, where the fuck does all of the money go in the other competitions? Like, where is it? And that's something that we won't have to answer. That's something that if we do this correctly, I feel like other competitions will have to answer. And that's kind of the goal here to say, hey, can we put on a spectacle that takes care of the athletes and is good for the fans, though, you know? Do you have any aspirations for fair fight foundation?

1:58:48For sure. Yeah. I mean, that's sort of like what we're doing when we're traveling around to and when charity work and stuff. We want to use some of that foundation money to keep Jiu -Jitsu alive in these small countries because like, I try to like my position in the sport, I think most people like me don't go to poor countries. Like, these countries don't have access to higher level Jiu -Jitsu guys. So I love the idea that I can visit places and train with people where Gigi's to guys wouldn't go and that to me is really ultimately growing the sport. A true Gigi's in missionary, you know, travel into these weird places, leaving a few kids behind, you know, but spreading the sport nonetheless.

1:59:28Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like if you don't have Uber exec and if you don't have a nice sort of at least four star resort available, yeah, you know, the guys that are the biggest in any industry aren't going to go down. The service isn't there. And that's yeah, those are places I want to hear crazy places. Oh, inspired by Bull Dane, obviously. I want to try to do what he did for street food, for basically, to do to you know. If you released or what's the release schedule for the content that you've captured from all of this stuff. Which we're aiming to utilize the event and the eyes on the event to coordinate maybe show clips during the event, maybe even play it before the event.

2:00:10Like we're hoping to utilize the event and the eyes on the event to grow that talking. Drive traffic. Would you Netflix comes along and says, here we go. Sell myself for official, you know. I've sold myself for less. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you've bought some unspannedies for less as well. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. How are you operating beating while you're... Well, I mean, it's like I helped set it up for two years. It's kind of a self. It sort of runs itself. It takes over on the plate. Yeah. I mean, my I started teaching the classes. I don't teach anymore. All the boys teach the classes. I'm mostly the merchandise clothing ideas guy.

2:00:47You know, that's my niche. But yeah, I mean, I'm not there too much to be honest. Hmm. Do you miss it? And you're away. I miss it. It's good to come back. Good to leave too, but definitely good to come back. I love coming back, training with the guys and seeing where my levels are, I can't see in how much they've improved, making sure they're still okay. I think they're happy to see me leave. So, you know, I come in, I throw some shit talking around, they're like, all right, fuck if you know me. They miss me until they see me then they're like, please fucking go back to a war zone. I can keep them, please.

2:01:16Yeah, damn it. Dude, I'm really excited. I'm really excited to see what happens over the next couple of months. Where should people go? They're gonna keep up to date with all of the updates and everything. My Instagram, Craig Jones, Peter J, CJI official, Fair Fight Foundation website. tickets will be on sale on UNLV, Thomas and Mack event center page. I think that should be up on the 31st around then. But yeah, I mean, it's all it'll if you follow you did too. It's on the guys social medias. It's blowing up. I can't wait, man. I'm really, I'm really, really happy to see, uh, to see you doing something cool.

2:01:49I think this is gonna mean interesting few months. It first of all, I appreciate you, man. Thanks for that. Popsicles, sprinklers, equilveries, talk about refreshing. You know what else is refreshing this summer? A brand new phone with Verizon? Yep, get a new phone on any plan with select phone trade -in in my plan, and lock down a low price for three years on any plan with my plan. This is a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer. Swing by Verizon today for our best phone deals. Three -year price guarantee applies to then -current -based monthly rate only, additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.