#2456 - Michael Jai White

32:05Right. You know what I mean? How did master sneak its way into it? But anyway, but, you know, male ego. Well, the thing about martial arts other than jujitsu is when you're sparring, it's very controlled. Like a lot of karate sparring is very controlled. A lot of taekwondo sparring is very controlled. But in jujitsu, the beautiful thing about grappling is you know how good everybody is because they all spar. They're all rolling with each other. And they're essentially going full blast until the tap. And so there's no hiding. There's no hiding your skill. Yeah, I love what Eddie Bravo used to say.

32:41Basically, when you won, I killed you. Yeah, yeah. I just killed you. Yeah. So that's like, wow, that's a trip because it's like it actually works out that way. Oh, yeah. If he gets you in a triangle and you tap, it's because you were about to go to sleep. Yes. And once you're asleep, you can just stomp your head into a pancake. Yeah, you're done. Yeah, just hold on to that triangle and then you never wake up. Yeah, what a humbling thing. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Very humbling. Yeah. And what's really humbling is how quickly someone could do it to you when you don't know what you're doing. like that was shocking to me because i had all this martial arts experience and i first started training i was like what's someone gonna do to me i wrestled in high school i'm strong i'm fast i don't know how to fight yeah i just got manhandled over and over and over again oh yeah this is ridiculous yeah see that but kudos because a lot of people they because of if you got an egotistical thing going and you you know get that your your little uh i don't know your your your comfort because you got your black belt and all that kind of stuff that means jack nothing you know to everybody i know who continues and really to learn you know real fighting yeah knows when you you had a boxer beat the hell out you and you go away there's a lot of this stuff i gotta toss out the window yeah and because i mean i never forget like times where you know like a wrestler gets to me or a boxer like pieces me up like early on i'm like no i got to learn this oh yeah yeah i went through several of those i went through one of them in high school because i have a had a friend in high school that was a wrestler and uh i didn't think anything of wrestling i'm like that's not even a martial art and then we wrestled on the grass one day and he just took me down at will yeah i was like this is ridiculous yeah like he was pinning me down i couldn't i couldn't move I couldn't get up I'm like this is stunning right I thought I'm strong yeah I thought I could move I thought I'll be able to get out of the way no not I had no chance yeah he wasn't even a great wrestler he was just a decent wrestler yeah he just humbled me over and over and over again so then I started wrestling and then when I got into taekwondo I thought I'm really good at taekwondo I was competing on a national level I won the state championships four years in a row I was fucking people up and then I remember the first time I boxed with a really good amateur boxer I was like oh Lord and this kid was like 18 years old I was at the gym he went on his kid his name is Dana Rosenblatt He went on to become a New England middleweight champion.

35:14He beat Vinnie Pazienza He beat Howard Davis jr. as a professional. He was a really good boxer. Yeah, he had to be But he was kickboxing at the time, and I was going to get into kickboxing. And so I was sparring with him. But when I was boxing with him, I was just getting lit up. I was like, oh. And then also when we were kickboxing, the moment he got close to me, I was in trouble. Right. I was like, oh, no. Like, Taekwondo had too many flaws. Exactly. The hand techniques. So I had gone through that. And so then I thought, okay, well, now I understand kickboxing. Then I met a dude who went to Thailand a bunch of times and was training Muay Thai and fighting over there.

35:49And then I started learning leg kicks. I'm like, well, oh, good Lord. Now all they have to do is kick my legs? I didn't even think of that. And then I started really paying attention to WKA fights, like the old Dennis Alexio days with Don the Dragon Wilson. And I was like, leg kicks. Leg kicks are everything. Oh, my goodness. And then I'm like, okay, well, now I've got a solid foundation. I understand how to fight. And then I started getting to jiu-jitsu. I'm like, oh, no. Back to square one. I'm getting raped. I was just getting mauled on the mats. but I'd been through that so many times and restarted so many times I was like well it's time to learn this now yeah that's what I'm saying is everything has something to teach you and you know even though there's that there's a fantasy world which is I look at it as hilarious you know there's this I don't know sometimes I would say it like this with martial arts is the Dunning-Kruger effect in the largest way possible because everybody out there has an opinion of martial arts, though very few people really know what it is.

37:00They want to look at the movies and everything, and they really want to believe that. They want to believe that this guy who kicks in the air and all that kind of stuff will be able to beat a champion. And in a way, hey, I benefit from that to some degree because they think that about me. But even though I'm comfortable fighting and I just love fighting against anybody. But you've had actual competition experience, like a lot of competition experience. Yeah, but my best experience is with, like, I got the chance to train against champions at their place, you know, when they're at their best. And it's not an ego thing.

37:45It's just like I love to be able to test myself. And, I mean, because I'm my biggest competition. And so that whole thing about just what the bow means to me is like, thank you for making me better by providing me an obstacle. And the higher, you know, the better the person, the better I can become. 100%. And so I loved it. And so I've, you know, for years I'm in there with Gokhan Saki and, you know, Murray Smiths and, you know, you name it. I consider myself one of the luckiest martial artists on the planet because I get to train with so many people. Sometimes, you know, at my house and, you know, I've got all these, you know, former champions, you know, training.

38:37And Rampage, when he was champion, I go to his place. And, you know, and honestly, like, the things I brag about is when I get humbled, you know, because that's when I learn something. For sure. My philosophy is I love to be wrong because every time I'm wrong, I learn something. Absolutely. And so, like, some of the best times for me is, like, I know when I was, you know, Michael Bisping was getting ready to fight George St. Pierre, and we were in Thailand. I was like, yeah, you know, let's mix it up. What were you doing in Thailand? We were doing a movie out there. Oh, wow. But he had the train.

39:13He was getting ready for the George St. Pierre fight. And so, you know, I was like, yeah, let's do some rounds or whatever. And I got so winded the second round. I'm like, dude, just whoop my ass. I feel so, like, I'm embarrassed. Bisping was a cardio machine. Yes, he was. He was a cardio machine. I didn't expect that because we spent all day on a yacht the day before, and he was drinking nonstop. I'm a non-drinker, right? I'm like, this guy's going to, you know, I'm going to probably take it easy on him today. He is one of the toughest motherfuckers that ever fought in the sport. I swear. This is what I say about him.

39:57No matter what you think about watching his fights, you have to understand. not only did he accomplish so much, he accomplished a lot of it with one eye. One fucking eye. He had 11 fights in the UFC with a winning record with one eye. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah, that's, man. He would memorize the eye chart so that when they covered his eye, he could side it out like he could read it. Oh, yeah, yeah. How fucking crazy is that? He's got a hell of a personal story, too. I was trying to encourage him to get that made. You know, like, honestly, man, I really look at these UFC fighters and, you know, the MMA guys as our modern-day heroes.

40:44They're our gladiators. And so whenever I have a chance, man, I always like to put them in movies and try to expose them to another kind of way of, you know, getting paid. Yeah. Especially afterwards because it breaks my heart that they're heroes and then they get discarded sometimes. Not by the union that they're with, but just by the fans. They're so fickle sometimes. Yes. Well, the casuals, the people that aren't really martial artists. Right, yeah. They dismiss a guy when they lose a few. Yeah, I just did my third movie with Cowboy Cerrone. We just finished a little over a week ago. Oh, that's awesome.

41:28Yeah, he's doing really good, man. I love that. Yeah, yeah, me too. That's a guy that could really legitimately transition to become a movie star. Yes, yes. And he's got a lot more confidence. Like I said, the third movie, he did a Western with me, Outlaw Johnny Black. I wrote and directed it. But I had Cowboy. I had Randy Couture in it. Oh, wow. And then Josh Barnett. Randy's done an amazing job of transitioning. Oh, absolutely. The Expendables. And he's great at it. Yeah. He has a great personality. Absolutely. Just very calm. Well, I remember one time he was fighting Tim Sylvia for the heavyweight title.

42:08And he came out there. He had a smile on his face. He looked over at me and he winked. I'm like, how is this motherfucker so relaxed before his fight? But he had an amazing perspective. He said to me, the people who love you will love you whether you win or lose. And he said, what's the worst thing that can happen? When you lose, he goes, you've lost before. Yeah. It's no big deal. Yeah, remember him spanking Tito? Yeah, he got on top of his spanking when he had him down. Yeah, man. Randy was an animal. Yeah, well, you know he had that heart attack while he was shooting my movie. That's crazy.

42:41And it came back to set like nothing. How did he have a fucking heart attack? I don't remember how. It was, and I think he drove himself to the hospital. Yeah, man. Talk about an American hero, man. I was there for his first fight. Really? Yeah, 1997. Yeah, I was there for his very first fight. Oh, shoot. He fought this huge jack dude, took him down, mounted him, beat the shit out of him. It was wild. That was the time where wrestlers had first started cracking this code. There was this code of there was a lot of people that thought jujitsu was the only way, and then the elite wrestlers got in there.

43:20The Mark Kerr's, the Mark Coleman's, and then Randy. a bunch of these guys got in there and then they realized like if a guy can just take you down and beat the fuck out of you from the top there's not a whole lot you could do about it right right and then we realized like boy that is the corner that's the true cornerstone of martial arts the ability to take a guy down my goodness i mean what's harder than wrestling i don't think there's the hardest sport in the world yeah the hardest sport in the world and the best sport in the world to get your kids into at a young age because the discipline and the mental toughness that they get will carry them through for the rest of their life.

43:52Yep, tenacity, just the stick-to-itiveness, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, that's just like... Even high school wrestling. I remember wrestling in high school, and I had already done martial arts, but I was like, I've never trained that hard. I was like, I can't believe... And then it carried me over into my Taekwondo career because I realized, like, oh, I'm leaving a lot on the table. Like, I'm not training like these guys are. Right, yeah, yeah. So I started running. I started adding all these things to my training that I wasn't doing before. I started doing a lot more calisthenics, because a lot more different things.

44:20I'm leaving something on the table because we were not training in the gym, and we were sparring hard. We were doing hard rounds. You'd get tired, but it was not the same as what we were doing in wrestling. No one trains harder than wrestlers. That anaerobic stuff, man. I got the wrestling bug when I was a senior in high school, and the football coach was a wrestler in college, and he challenged me. I think we did this two years in a row, my junior year and my senior year. At the end of the year, we'd wrestle. We'd just go like, you know, he and I. Like I said, I was big for my age. Were you playing football?

45:03I was for a very short time, but I ended up—I wasn't designed for team sports. Me neither. I ended up beating up the football coach. Oh, no. Yeah. Dude, like, I had the worst temper than anybody I'd ever seen. I mean, I used to go in the fits of rage. I was so angry early on, man. It's like the Hulk is like, Mike, you should chill out a little bit, man. Like, I was just. It's probably from being on your own at 14. Yeah. What it is is I was growing up in a very harsh environment, and I didn't know I was an artist. I didn't know I was a writer, director, whatever. You didn't see those growing up where I am.

45:55And so when you're a sensitive kid, man, what you do is you build armor. I was to play Mike Tyson later on, and I understood him quite well. and if you're sensitive you you know anything that's precious you put it in you lock it in a safe and you become the safe and it's it's like I grew up my brothers were completely different they're engineers so things rolled off their back but like for me just I was just volatile And luckily I had martial arts to kind of put my focus into. But like I said, like I was to play Mike Tyson, I understood him a great deal. And, you know, even though you take the moniker of this monster, it's only to hide what's really deep inside.

46:47And that's why you would see if anybody's going to go into tears in front of a million people, it's people like Mike Tyson. and you go, how does that fit in the same person? Right. And so that's what I was growing up. And, you know, I don't know if you know this, but I was a school teacher before I was an actor. Oh, really? Yeah, I taught EMD. I was a special ed teacher. So I focused on a lot of kids who were very much like me, and I still do that in the way I consider that my real job. Whenever I'm off from work on a movie or whatever, I go into the inner cities. I go into community centers. I devote my time because there's nothing I could do.

47:27There's no better spending of time than something like that. Because I was luckily, luckily saved. I had just at the right times in my life just different seeds planted. And so I'm confident that if those seeds were not planted, I would not be here. Because like I say, I've been through some crazy stuff. It's a classic story. Yeah, bro. Oh, man, like I tell you, like just a little under two years ago, a buddy of mine is a close friend of mine. He he got out of prison. He was in prison for almost like 30 years and he found me on Facebook. And so when I went back east, we linked up and I said, you know, I know a lot of people who have businesses and everything.

48:18I hooked him up, you know, got him a job and we were sitting over lunch. and in the middle of him telling me like a third or fourth story, like back in the glory days of us or whatever, while he was in the middle of this story, I was kind of getting myself set to kind of set him straight because I don't know if you want to call this superstitious, but I won't lie. I refuse to lie to my friends. I won't lie by omission. So I was getting set to tell him, dude, man, you got to stop embellishing on these stories. Just because you were locked up and you made these stories sound bigger than life. Right.

49:04I get it. But that's not real. You got to really kind of not do that. And in the middle of me thinking that and I'm listening to him, I go, holy shit. He's telling the truth. I started remembering what he was telling me. and I'm like now I'm finishing his sentences not only was that story true but the other ones were true too and dude like I swear every time I think about this I got these goosebumps and I realized oh my god how close I was to being where he was or just not being on this planet right like Like, I better devote my time into helping kids the way I was helped. Yeah, don't pull that ladder up.

49:54Hell no. Hell no. Even if I'm taken out, I accept that. Even if I'm in some projects where I'm not supposed to be and I shouldn't have been, I accept that. Because, dude, I am abundantly lucky. like it's it doesn't even it doesn't even fit on the radar how lucky i am and i could remember a lot of these crazy stories you know aside from the ones that he made me conjure back up but man i'm like wow well that speaks to your character that you had downplayed it all in your mind so much that you thought he was exaggerating i swept it under the rug yeah i i you know you're not that person anymore no no but i mean but there was so much there was so many events things that would i just call it on a wednesday that i went through that it's like i don't know like i think i wouldn't trade it because i i continue to be the happiest guy i know because of i think some of that because you can appreciate the good times oh my god yeah and yeah i should be slapped if i complain about anything right you know i mean like what and so you know so i just boy i i just know i'm so blessed and uh and you know what what we do what we're doing even right now man we're we're in the service industry man you know you're here to serve in my my opinion that's what we're all here for And, you know, it's great that we get to serve and doing the things that we would like to do that inspired us.

51:41That's definitely a lot of what we do. I mean, there's definitely a lot of it, right? You entertain, but I feel very blessed that I've been able to expose people to so many different ways of thinking, so much information, so many different human beings that have led completely different paths that can tell you about whatever discipline they're involved in, what they've learned, what we're working on right now. and what you can learn about the human mind, the body, ancient history, fill in the blank, like whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. And I see you do that over and over in utmost honesty. I remember like when you had to kind of pull Shab aside until as a friend, some things that are hard for people that, you know, other friends to tell him, you know, and like.

52:29That was real hard. Yeah. Well, that was real hard because I love that guy. He's a great person. He's a great human being. And I knew the path. I'd seen it too many times. But I hadn't seen it with someone I was that close with. I was like, you have to stop. Because not only that, you're in the heavyweight division. So the knockouts are brutal. And you're going to get three or four more in the next couple of years. And then you're not going to recover from those. Man, so many people, I hope they take a page out of that. because it's so non-manly, I feel, to just not say anything and allow somebody you love to go down the road.

53:08I mean, that might be detrimental for them. Well, it was also, Shob had another path. He was really good at podcasting. He's fun. He's a funny dude. Right, yeah. He's like, as a podcast, he's got a great personality. He's silly. He's a big, giant, silly dude. We would have so much fun, and he was doing really well, and he was making more money doing that than he was fighting. But his identity was so wrapped up in him being a top 10 UFC heavyweight. He had beat world-class guys like Mirko Krokop. He was legit, man. But that time had passed, and I saw that he was one foot in and one foot out. And as soon as the guy's one foot in and one foot out, you're going to run into some guy who has both feet in and is a fucking samurai, and then you're going to wake up on a stretcher.

53:54and you're on the way to the hospital going, what happened? And you don't remember the fight. You don't remember nothing. And then you don't know where your keys are. You forget people's names. You tell the same story over and over again. And then you struggle to put sentences together. When you start seeing dudes with the slur. Nothing's worth that, man. Nothing's worth that. Because you're, I mean, at the time he was only 35 years old or whatever he was. I'm like, man, you got another 45, 55 years of life. You can't do this. You can't sacrifice all these years for glory that will never be achieved anyway because you're not on that path anymore.

54:32Yeah, and it's not about what strangers say about you. No. It's about your friends, your family. People who really love you. It's just so hard for people to abandon that identity. That's the hardest thing with fighters is to abandon that identity. We've seen so many guys, even the greats, they come back and they shouldn't and you see it and you see them get humiliated. humiliated you're like oh yeah yeah and you know when it comes down to it these people they don't love you man like a lot of you know it's they love you as the image yeah they live vicariously through you i remember i remember one time i was in um a fight in boston and i remember when something completely changed used usually if anybody would because i did any kind of thing i I would do kickboxing or this tournament.

55:20I just loved my best. I think the thing I did best in the world was fighting. I had this, I always had these cheat codes in a way. And I enjoyed the chess match of it. And anybody who was against me, I don't care if you were my cousin or whatever, you were going to pay for all the angst that I've had in my life. But until there was this one time, I swear, I ducked a technique. I caught somebody with something that was kind of, you know, kind of cool. And I just remember the audience just cheering. And in that moment, I was like just angry. Kind of like, yo, this guy could really be messed up right now.

56:10You're cheering for me. You're living vicarious through me like I'm a pit bull or something. And I got angry at the audience. I fucking hated them. And I said, because if I was down on the ground, you'd be cheering for the person that put me down. And something just snapped. And I go, no, this is not enough for me. This is not what I want to do. and you know just something snapped and I'm much rather be skillful, test myself in a skillful way. and I'd much rather not try to peel your head off but show I could as opposed to that triumph of dominating you. It was nothing for me anymore in that. It's just something that just rubbed me the wrong way and any time I would do any kind of competition It was for me, and it wasn't for an audience.

57:20You know, just something soured. I always thought at one time, I'm going to be called out. And I thought, oh, I'll rise to that occasion if that happens. And kind of like, remember the thing with you and Wesley? Oh, yeah. Which would have been, oh, my God, that would have been terrible. But I always thought, hey, maybe something. I think Wesley just needed money. I mean, that was when he was... I don't think he'd ever be serious. I don't think that was ever serious. But it's very much like I think... We were in negotiation for quite a while, man. We had lawyers involved. Yeah, it's always easy to pull a plug on something like that.

57:59Just like Jean-Claude's talking about fighting Jake Paul, right? Is he talking about that right? He's 100 years old. He's 50 pounds. He's 100 years old. I'm like, come on, man. Come on. Is he really talking about fighting Jake Paul? Yeah, I just saw something in the last couple days. I'm like, okay. I think Wesley was serious because I think they had hit him with that tax case. And he owed a lot of money to the government. No, this was before that tax case. No, no, no. It was in the middle of it. Really? Yeah, 100%. I know it was. Huh. Yeah. Yeah, it was 2005 or 2006. It was in the middle of all that.

58:34And he was in trouble. It was serious. And he, you know, obviously eventually wound up going to jail. Yeah, yeah. And so they were going to set up a fight with him and Jean-Claude Van Damme. That was the first fight. But Campbell McLaren from the UFC was like, no one gives a shit about you fighting Jean-Claude Van Damme. You've got to fight someone who's current. And so he said, let me contact Joe Rogan. He called me up and he said, would you be willing to fight Wesley Snipes? And I was like, what? And I was like, come on, really? I go, what is this? And so I said, let me think about it. I thought about it.

59:07I called him the next day. I said, let's fucking do it. Really? Yeah. I was training with Rob Kamen in the mornings and then I was doing jujitsu at night. I trained twice a day for six months. Wow. I was always tired. I was always tired. That's one thing that I realized. Like, fuck, man, to be like, and I wasn't even a professional, really, but I was training like a professional. It's like, I can't believe how tired I am all the time. But, you know, I think Wesley had never really had a fight. I don't think so. I think he was an accomplished martial artist. He had good technique. I trained with Wesley's instructors.

59:41You know, Marcus Elgato was a good friend of mine. and also Lamar Thornton, who was Marcus Elgato's instructor. I believe that's the lineage I believe that he's through. I've known Wesley since way before he was kind of Wesley. I was a giant fan of Wesley, too, which was also wild for me because I love Blade. Blade was like my favorite comic book when I was a kid. Yeah, yeah. I didn't think they were serious about it. I couldn't imagine why Wesley—I always thought it was not real. I think Wesley thought that I was just a grappler and think he knew that I was doing jujitsu. I don't think he knew my background.

1:00:26And so, like, Wesley was talking to them, saying, oh, he thinks he's going to be able to stop you from taking him down, and he's going to catch you with a knee while you're coming in to try to take him down. I go, oh, he wants to stand up? I go, I'm way better at that. Yeah. Yeah, I was wondering how that even occurred. I didn't think that was serious. I was like, okay. It was serious. Yeah, it was serious. It went on for a long time. It was a lot of negotiation to the point where I even talked about it on the UFC broadcast once. I said, come on, Wesley, sign the contract. I'm getting bored training.

1:01:02Let's do this. Like, I have to do it now. I was like 35 or 36. I was like, I don't have much time left. If we're going to do this, we have to do this now. Like, come on. let's go and then he decided not to and then i'm like that's probably for the better yeah i know wesley for a while i remember when he was first telling me about the sovereign being sovereign yeah that's where they got him with that sovereign citizen shit yeah and i was like i wish i was friends with him i would have said dude they're gonna lock you up i was i'm super protective of my friends i've always been that way and with wesley i was always like my thing is he He used to have people around him that I'm like, you know, we have little get togethers at my house, whatever.

1:01:45I'm like, don't bring any of those motherfuckers or it's going to be a problem. You know, because there's people that just I felt like were hangers on and, you know, that kind of a thing. And I was always like, hey, man, are you good? And, you know, are you staying healthy? I've always been that way because the way I look at it, he's a big brother. If not for him, it may not be for me. You know, he gave me some good advice early on. He always encouraged me that if I'm doing if I have a movie that's overseas, get there, you know, show up in those overseas markets and let them know that you're you're down, you know.

1:02:20And I took that to heart and that helped me out in my career a great deal. And so I look at it like that. I'll never say anything derogatory about him or whatever. So, I mean, I just recently tried to reach out to him like a couple days ago just to check in, man, because I wish him the best. And I want him to really start kicking ass again. I would love to see him return as Blade. Yeah, that would be cool. He could do it too. Yeah, yeah. An older Blade. He could do it. Yeah. Fuck, he was good in the original Blade. Yeah. That's the opening scene. That was one of the best scenes in any action movie of all time.

1:03:02When it's that vampire party and the sprinkler starts spraying blood. Yeah. And they're about to kill that dude. Yeah. And all of a sudden Wesley shows up. Yeah, man. What really gets on my nerves is that, you know, he saved Marvel, man. That movie saved Marvel. Oh, yeah. You know that, right? Oh, yeah. That movie was a huge hit. Even Stan Lee admits that. They were like in trouble until that movie. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Because superhero movies are the biggest fucking movies in Hollywood right now. I mean, when they have a big budget movie, superhero movies are like the only movie that you can throw hundreds of millions of dollars and be sure it's going to kill it in the box office.

1:03:41Yeah. Whether it's the Avengers or Spider-Man or Superman or whoever the fuck it is. That's the only kind of movie that Hollywood's like, yeah, okay, we'll throw 500 million at this one. Yeah, and it's—I'm not a big fan of those things. I know it's not—they didn't design it for people like me. Right. So it's for the fan base. And to me, it's like, ugh, you know, they tend to meld into each other as far as I'm concerned. They do. Yeah. They do. There's only so many times you could tell the stories. There's only so many—you know. Yeah. But I still enjoy them. I still enjoy some of them. They're fun.

1:04:20Yeah, I like when people are believable. Right. Believable. Yeah, there's nothing believable about those movies. Yeah, you know, I like the actors that have some quirkiness and some edge to them. Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. You know, maybe I'm being unfair because I really hadn't seen a lot. Maybe I owe it to myself to give some of this. No, I think you got it. It's simple entertainment. It's a silly release and escape. That's all it is. It's not a great – there's no great films that are superhero films. Right, yeah, because sometimes I'm like, oh, yeah, she's 90 pounds, and she just threw a – okay, let me – Like Charlie's Angels or something.

1:05:00Yeah, I'm like, oh, come on now. Kicking ass in stilettos. And it's like anytime somebody lands in a three-point stance and then looks up, I'm like, I just changed the channel. Yeah. I'm just like, stop. Just stop. Yeah. But, you know, people love those things. I'm like, that's cool. I don't know why they have so much appeal, especially in the American market. People, that is one of the only movies that you can make that's guaranteed to be huge. Yeah, it's McDonald's, man. It's McDonald's. Right. I remember when— That's it. Yeah, I remember when you had, what was that, like the 300. You know, that was like nobody knew anybody.

1:05:39Right. But that was just such a breath of fresh air because it looked like some badasses that were real. Yeah. You know what I mean? I'd like to see more of that kind of a thing. Like, you know, not the star power thing, but just some motherfuckers that you believe. Right. You know what I mean? That would attract me. Also, the style of that movie was so unique because it blended fantasy with reality. Right. It blended like comic books. And history too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, knock on wood. I got some things in the works. Do you? Yeah. What are you working on? Oh, man. I've been blessed, man.

1:06:12I've got some really good movies coming out and some things that I'm planning on doing. I'm getting to a place where I'm really shooting the things that I want and producing and all that stuff. So, you know, I have movies that have their body count but also have a little bit of, like, something to say. You know what I miss? What's that? Spawn. Oh, man. Bro. A lot of people, yeah. People forgot about Spawn. You don't hear about it anymore. Right. Yeah, man. That was fucking great. Yeah, I had my—man, you didn't—most people didn't see the first adaptation of it. The first—well, I saw a cut of the movie before—I mean, at this time it had like 71 special effects in it.

1:07:01But Bob Shea at the time that was running New Line liked that version. He just gave the director a bunch to just add whatever he wanted. And the director was a special effects guy. So he started throwing special effects in there that was really killing the story, which kind of drove me up a wall. because then you didn't even see why my character wanted to get back. You didn't even see the life that I wanted to get back to because there was so much special effects. And even when I saw the final version, I'm like, what the hell is going on? People that knew Spawn, they were fine with it because they understood the character.

1:07:48But for me, it was like the story got all convoluted. But, you know, I mean, people love it. I think it was a thing for its time. But unfortunately, I saw a version of it that made you care about it. I understand, but I cared about the one that I saw. And I felt like I don't understand how Spawn sort of escaped the zeitgeist. You don't ever hear about Spawn anymore. You know what I mean? There's all these superhero films, all these different things, but Spawn was unique. And it was really good and dark. Yeah, I always said if they did another one, you should do it just like the comic book. Make it hard R or non-rated.

1:08:30Because, I mean, like to do a Spawn PG, how we did PG-13, it's like, what do you want? You trying to go for a breakfast cereal? Like Spawn O's or something? Like, come on, man. Let's go hard like the cartoon, right? See if we can find a clip from Spawn. Because I feel like no one talks about it anymore. It's kind of weird, man. They damn sure talked to me about it. Bro, it was good. What year was this? 97. Wow. Yeah. They were fucking great, man. Now stay sharp. The night is young. Evil has a new enemy. Justice has a new weapon. And the world has a new hero.

1:09:22Ha ha ha. The memories. Bro, that was a fucking great movie, man. New Line Cinema Presents. Yeah. That was a great movie. How many did you guys do? One. Just one. Just one. There was nothing else? Wasn't there something else like a series? It was a cartoon first. That's right. Yeah. Well, it was a comic book, then it was a cartoon on HBO. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Keith David was the voice of Spawn on that one. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yep. And so, yeah. But that was a big hit. I think so. It made its money back. I mean, I remember it was very popular. Like, everyone who was talking about it, people got excited about it.

1:10:06Especially people like me that liked the comic books. Right, right. They were very into it. Yeah. I was always surprised. But it's weird to me that even the comic book spawn doesn't get brought up anymore. Right. Every now and then, like, I'm off doing a movie, whatever. I drive by comic book stores. I go and I just start signing shit, right? The spawn stuff. So there's still stuff there. Oh, yeah. There's always giving me a hardcore fan base. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you know, there's people, like, there's still hardcore about that. And then Tom McFarlane has talked about doing another spawn for the last 25 years.

1:10:44It was huge. But the weird thing is, it's like, okay, I wish you all the best of luck, bro. but you created the comic book when he's talking about doing another spawn i'm like you haven't done a first one like the comic book no he's he's not a director like he's it's just like stan lee hasn't directed a marvel movie right and and tom mcfarland is talking about doing another spawn but i'm like well that would be the first time a person that created a comic book directed and produced a movie that I know of, right? Because even though he talks about he's going to do one, and he had this concept that he talked to me about, and then he said he wanted to, you know, I guess he wanted to use Jamie Foxx, and he talked about this concept that Spawn would be, you wouldn't see him, and it's like Jaws, he would never be around, but just people would get fucked up.

1:11:42All of a sudden, you know, like a mist would come in, people are destroyed. I'm like, good luck with that.

1:11:51You know, I don't know, but he's been talking about it for a while and people say, oh, man, I'm sad that you're not the next sponsor, that they're using Jamie. I'm like, when is it going to happen? He's been saying that for a long time, but I'm going, hey, maybe somebody is going to give him that amount of money to do a movie when he's never directed anything before. Right. he hasn't directed anything before he visited set a few times because he created a comic book directing a movie is something completely different you know what i mean so i'm like all power to you if that's happening but it's like i i wonder why people believe it hmm yeah that's a lot to bite off to do especially a movie like that which would probably be a large budget yeah yeah yeah but uh you know but and then you're gonna get the executives involved and they're gonna fuck with it because they always have to have their say yeah man it's a it's a miracle that a movie gets done the way it's intended period yeah i'm like a lot of times when a movie works i go how did some executive not fuck this movie up right i mean i'm always there's only a few guys that can get away with a movie where everybody just leaves them alone there's a few Tarantinos out there let him go, just let him go if you tried to make Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and you weren't a successful director, you were just some guy with an idea someone would come along and fuck that up absolutely luckily people are leaving me alone I've been directing and doing my own thing, they go okay you got this like I said, I'll give you the body count but now if I can put stuff in it what is going on with Jamie Foxx doing Tyson?

1:13:40because that's been rumored for a decade at least. Yeah, that's another thing. It's like weird that Jamie Foxx wants to do a Tyson and a Spawn, but it's like I don't take it as personal. Very talented guy. But, yeah, I think Jamie does a very good impression of Mike Tyson. Yeah, but you've got to gain like 100 pounds. Right. Jamie's got to pack on that meat at 50. But then why? I just sit there and I go, why? when Tyson's life itself has been very transparent. Right. And so you can see the real guy in documentary form and everything else. What story do you have to tell? That's true. I'm not trying to be a hater, but I'm just curious.

1:14:28The only thing that would be interesting is seeing Jamie do it, seeing him pull off Ray Charles, seeing him pull it off. That would be the appeal of it, I think. Right, but in my personal opinion, I don't think that's enough. You've got to tell a story. Right, I know what you're saying. Yeah, it's got to be some compelling story. I mean, hell, people saw Titanic. You know how it's going to end, but he had to present a story there. Well, Jamie is so versatile. He is. I mean, there's very few guys that can do all the different things that he can do. He can sing. He can act. He can do stand-up. And he can do all kinds of different characters.

1:15:09And, I mean, and he's so believable in so many different roles. You know what I watched the other day, which is a fucking great movie that I forgot was so great, is Collateral. Oh, hell yeah. Oh, my God. No, no. When Jamie had Collateral and Ray, to me, you couldn't have had a better year. Right. Two completely different human beings. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And he became those people. He became Ray Charles. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And as good as he can sing, him singing as Ray Charles was insane. It's one of the best performances ever. Ever. Ever. Yeah. But so is Collateral.

1:15:49Yeah. He really played that dude in Collateral. You believed it. And fucking Tom Cruise. Oh, my God. Tom Cruise really proved something to me in that damn movie. because I would never think I would ever be scared of Tom freaking Cruz. Right. And how convincing he was. He's a bad motherfucker. Yes. He's crazy as batshit, but he's a bad motherfucker. He brought it in that movie. You have to be that crazy to do all the stunts that that guy does. He's 60 years old. He's jumping off buildings and shit and breaking his ankle. Yeah, just like Johnny Depp. I'm like, Johnny Depp when he did Black Mass?

1:16:27Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm like, oh, you had that in you? Right, right, right. Holy shit. And just like with Tom Cruise, I'm like, him having that character in him? There's a scene in Collateral that tactical instructors play. Yes. The scene when they're— The double tap. Yes. He whips it back. Yep. Double tap, double tap. He knocks the guy's gun out of the way and pulls it out. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And it's so fast and so—see if you can find that scene, Jamie. It's a scene where they're trying to take Tom Cruise's briefcase and he's in an alleyway. Yep. Ooh. Yeah, I played that over and over myself. The amount of times that he must have drilled that to get that, unholster the gun, pull it out, shoot him, shoot the other dude so smooth.

1:17:11And the way he did it, so professional. I mean, it looks like a legit hitman. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, that was, that character, I mean, from start to finish, like, to me, proved a lot. Yeah. I mean he embodied that guy in the narrative

1:17:35My briefcase your briefcase. Yeah, it is why you want it back? What?

1:17:49Come on son

1:17:58Yeah. I actually visited that set when they were shooting that. Not that scene, but it was another day. And I remember it was weird because they were shooting something, and they were shooting Tom behind Tom Cruise's head, and he had eight camera angles just behind his head. I'm like and I'm looking at the you know the video village where they made sure they had they had a choice of whatever perfect thing that they want it was the craziest thing I'm like and I guess Michael Mann he's known for like shooting a lot but it was like eight cameras that's just behind the dude that's crazy Yeah. I'm like, this is a whole other level.

1:18:54Yeah, it was crazy. It's a great fucking movie. That movie holds up. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's prime Jamie, man. Yep. Yeah. And the fact that he's got that much range, that he can do this nerdy dude who's terrified, doesn't know what the fuck is going on, he's just driving a car, and all of a sudden he has this hit man with him, and then he gets wrapped up in this whole thing. Yeah, but as a fan, I want to see him do something else like that. Right. You know what I mean? Like something like that requires what he can do. And that's one of the things. There's not a lot of things out there sometimes.

1:19:29You know, so he's been doing things that I think show, you know, certain parts. But like to where he was going in collateral and Ray, you know, it would be nice to see that stuff again. It's got to be hard to find those roles, right? And when you find those roles, there's probably like six or seven A-list dudes that they have like on a board somewhere. And they're trying to figure out who's the guy for this. Yeah, but I believe you got to create your own stuff, man. Put it this way. Nobody was going to write Black Dynamite. Right, right, right. You know what I mean? Right. You know, my thing is largely creating my own lane.

1:20:10That was a fun movie, by the way. Well, thanks, man. Really fun. Thanks, man. So, yeah, man. And so luckily, like, I enjoyed writing. I was always looked at everything from, I was always fascinated about this industry. And I sold a lot of things as a writer, separate from the acting thing. And so, you know, just putting it all together is something that's like I really enjoy doing. How do you dedicate your time when you're writing? Do you just like have an idea and say, okay, for the next X weeks, I'm going to sit down and dedicate myself to this? Dude, it's all different. A lot of times I will see the entire movie.

1:20:47Like when I did Black Dynamite, dude, I was in China going to set. I was in Shanghai. And I was listening to James Brown's Superbad. And I just started thinking about, I'm laughing. I'm in the back of this car and there's a driver wondering what the hell is going on with me. I'm seeing the whole goddamn movie. including a nunchuck fight scene with with richard nixon and and i'm i'm laughing and you know i started jotting stuff down because i was it occurred to me man like i was like i mean one day i was thinking like wow man like growing up we had shaft and well yeah we had a superfly and the mac and and all that posters like that that we idolized and i'm going those were pimps there was something wrong with my childhood why am I I'm like the Mac?

1:21:49That's a hero? and so it made me really think about it and I'm like, I'm looking at these movies and like Jim Brown and Fred Williamson are like killing like 60 people and it's okay everybody's like this they have a club and they got all these women and I'm like this is actually hilarious if I do a movie that depicted it exactly like it is. Thinking about this, one of the biggest movies of that time was Three the Hard Way. I don't know if you remember that movie. Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and Jim Kelly. Oh, yeah. I forgot about Jim Kelly. Three the Hard Way. What was it about? It had the three predominant blaxploitation stars, right?

1:22:33And the movie was about an evil Dr. Feather who had these leaders of liquid that he was going to put in the water systems of L.A., Chicago, and New York that were going to kill all the black people. It's not a comedy. That's the movie? It's not a comedy. It was going to give sickle cell anemia to all the black people. Now, the conspiratorial thing, I've been a black man for a long time, And it is really funny because in the community, conspiracy is a big thing, right? So like that whole conspiratorial thing, oh, they trying to get you, that kind of a thing, it really, its engine was that, that paranoia that this leader of liquid was going to kill black people.

1:23:26Well, there was so much evidence that those conspiracies were real, like Tuskegee. But of course, that's something that's like it's on its feet, though. But come on, a leader, something this big, in the water systems, that was going to kill all the black people. And that's not a comedy. That was a serious movie. But when you look at it, that's hilarious. It's absolutely hilarious to think that you can do a movie about that. So to do a movie, I thought that really, really talked about that time period where it was kind of this overcorrection because, you know, you had in the 60s, there were like, you know, butlers and maids and all that kind of stuff.

1:24:14But now you had these super overcorrected badasses that could just do anything. Right. And I thought it was hilarious to look at it and treat it as if it were, back in that day, like a lost movie. Actually, Tarantino was somebody I was talking to about that whole thing when I was putting Black Dynamite together. And he had certain ideas, but I kind of went my own direction with it. But yeah, man, so things like that. I've gotten to a place where I'm putting these things together that really interest me. And I'm finding that there's an audience that likes it as well. But yeah, man, so it just occurred to me that it was bizarre.

1:25:01Yeah. Yeah, so I mean— So for that movie, that movie just came to you. Yeah. It came to me just like the whole movie came to me in a ride to set. Is that normal for ideas or do you sometimes sit down and say, like, I want to write an idea about blank? Sometimes. Sometimes. Like I have a movie that the next movie I'm going to do is a sequel to a movie I did called As Good as Dead. Right. And it became Samuel Goldwyn's one of the most successful movies. I wrote the idea. It was based off my brother. My brother, he went from Florida into Mexico and started a family. He just, like, fell in love with Mexico.

1:25:43And I kind of based my character on him. And he was basically a cop that's, like, hiding out in Mexico and, you know, trying to avoid this, you know, syndicate or whatever that's trying to kill him. But that movie just came to me. I wrote it. We were in production like two months later, and we actually got the movie done within a year. How did you get it made so quick? Yeah, I mean, they responded to the script, and it was kind of like a grown-up karate kid in a way. So my character, you don't know, what is this black dude doing working construction in Mexico? And he's got his wing chung dummy, and he's training in his backyard, and it's a kid who's trying to avoid the gangs that he befriends, that he teaches this unique kind of martial art.

1:26:39And so one thing leads to another, this kid gets good at it and they trace the style back to my character. And then the bad guys are trying to kill me and I have to fight back. So what we're doing, we're about to do a sequel. I start that in a couple of weeks, actually. So I wrote that one. um but yeah so i i feel like i don't know i i'm i'm still a fan of movies i i don't i wouldn't write something i wouldn't want to see and i've seen a lot you know i think i understand this industry i understand um there's a lot of stories that that i think could be told with fresh ways and with the action and martial arts that could be new and exciting like i'm I'm getting to a place where I'm trying to make fight scenes look very real, including choreographing mistakes.

1:27:37You know what I mean? I think people have become so much more sophisticated watching UFC fights and all that type of stuff. I think you've got to raise the bar to make something look real. and there's a lot of the stuff that's in the you know the superhero movies and whatever that you just kind of go okay you're seeing choreography for choreography's sake right and you're not invested because you don't feel like you're looking at a real fight and so i like to try to you know use my platform to step that up a bit yeah that's hard as a especially as a person who is a martial artist to watch fight scenes and go you have to kind of suspend disbelief and go all All right.

1:28:19Well, yeah, kind of like, you know, it's weird, but, you know, kind of full circle. It's kind of going back to the way Bruce Lee did stuff. And he's a little faster than the other person. He has a little bit more technique. And, you know, if you imagine, like, even if I imagine you in a real fight, your technique's not going nowhere. And other people are not going to have that same technique. You know, you beat somebody to the punch. You do things that would logically give you the edge. That's what you shoot. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah, so it's not like you got to do a lot of camera tricks.

1:28:53If you're moving faster and stronger than another person, well, there it is. There it is. So luckily, you know, I mean, I can put things on screen that kind of resemble what things might look like, you know. And you get the benefit of the doubt because, you know, you're in a heroic position. It's just very hard to do that. It's very hard to make it look real. There's a real art to that. Yeah, but like with the movie that you turned down, Blood and Bone. I turned down John Wick 4, too, though. I turned down a lot of movies. You do. You did the right thing because what you're doing, this could not be more up your alley doing the things that you're doing.

1:29:40John Wick was hard. I'm a giant John Wick fan. Are you? Especially John Wick 1. There's going to be a John Wick 7. so you can decide to do that if you want to. They got kind of crazy. They're over the top now. But even John Wick 1 was totally unrealistic. Oh, man. Totally unrealistic, but so fun. I fucking love those movies. Yeah, well, I got something that's kind of in that vein that I just finished. There's a lot of body count, but a lot of CQB. I've been studying that for a while. What is CQB? Close Quarter Combat. Oh, okay. Of course, Close Quarter Battle. but I've been doing a lot of tactical training and kind of getting myself I may compete at some point Oh really?

1:30:28Yeah, I'm pretty into it Where do you train at? A lot of places. I train with a guy named Tyler Gray. He's Delta Force I have a lot of friends who are like special force guys. You ever go to Taron Tactical? Oh of course, yeah Yeah, I go to Taron quite a bit. That guy's the best. Oh, yeah. He's a man. He's amazing. You want to talk about someone who's very technical. Oh, my God. He shoots from the hip better than anybody using a laser. No, he's preposterous. It's unreal. Always iron sights. Yeah. I mean, he uses red dots, but he prefers iron sights. He's like, they never fail. They never go wrong.

1:31:10Yeah. And he's so crazy accurate. it's wild to watch and when you think about like how long how fast could you just take out everybody in this damn room it's kind of it's kind of spooky yeah it is spooky yeah well it's also he's so calm about it too yeah it's weird like almost like autistic like weird yeah fucking rain man ish yeah yeah like what the fuck when you watch him do it like many times i've gone to his range and trained and then you know people will goad him into it like do it do a run like do this And he's like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do this.

1:31:45I'm going to do that. And I'm going to pull this out right here. Yeah.

1:31:50It's crazy. You're like, what the fuck did I just watch? That's crazy. And then you see how many times he's won the championship? Oh, yeah. Ridiculous. And there's only a few people that won consecutive years. And he's got like seven years in a row. Yeah. Just chunks. I'm like, this is crazy. Yeah. He's a very unique talent. Yeah. Very unique talent. Yeah. A buddy of mine, like Tyler Gray, he's been Delta. He's been decorated. Oh, my God, his place in Vegas. He creates guns, and he's got more in his arsenal than every gun store you can imagine. But he's something else. One of the most mellow people you ever want to meet in your life.

1:32:36and he's been the guy, been the consultant and director on Navy SEALs for years. And, you know, but I got a lot of friends doing that. So my brother, he just retired from Secret Service. And, you know, you know Danny Hester? No. He was a former Mr. Olympia, classic physique. But he's gotten into, you know, I shoot with these guys all the time. And actually Flex Wheeler. A lot of the guys are into the gun stuff. So we go set up stuff. Well, once you start training, you realize how difficult it is and how long the learning curve is. Because you think, oh, you point, you pull the trigger, what's the big deal?

1:33:26Then you get into it, and then you see someone like Taron or someone who's competing, and you go, oh, this is just like everything else, It's just like karate, like jujitsu. There's levels. Levels and levels and levels. And you see people competing and you go, oh, wow. I'd like to do that someday. Yeah, yeah. You're in a great place for it. Yes. Yeah, Texas is a great place for it. Oh, yeah. There's a staccato range that we go to sometimes. It's awesome. They have all these different setups out there. They have this old west town with all these different targets set up and you run from doorway to doorway.

1:34:00It's pretty badass. Yeah, John Jones, I see, is doing quite a bit of that. this fucking scary human being. Yeah, yeah. And if you get past him, he's got his fucking dog, Dutch. Yeah. Which is, you know, he brings a Belgian Malinois everywhere he goes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know my good friend, Josh Barnett, he's at Terrence a lot, too. Yeah, he's another scary human being. Yeah, yeah. And a very analytical, intelligent. One of the most... Very well-read. He is, like, Jeopardy smart. Yes. He's, like, ridiculous. There's not many things that he doesn't know. Right, yeah. He's amazing. I watched you guys on this show.

1:34:38I was very flattered. He mentioned out of nowhere, he started talking about how he was inspired by myself and my wife. And that actually got me real choked up. Yeah, I was like, what? Josh's a great guy. Yeah. Incidentally, my wife is somebody that, I don't know, you met her a long time ago. You last saw her sliding down the Luxor. Oh, wow. That's crazy. Yep. That's crazy. On Fear Factor. On Fear Factor. Wow. Yep. She was sliding down the Luxor when you last saw her. That's crazy. She slipped right into my arms. That's awesome. Yeah. We've done our sixth movie together. Oh, wow. So we've been, you know, we got two, our teenagers are, we got one less.

1:35:31Well, we got two left in the house. We're going to college now. So, you know, we're about to be empty nesters. Yeah, man. So, yeah, it's wild how these things kind of connect. It is wild. Yeah. It is wild. Yeah. Yeah. Josh is one of the – he's like one of the best examples to me of when people think of a martial artist or think of a cage fighter, former UFC heavyweight champion, and you think of a guy like, oh, probably some brute. have a conversation with him and you realize the depth of his intellect and the depth of his knowledge like how much he knows about Nietzsche, he can quote Nietzsche he's so well read he makes his own whiskey he's a very interesting guy.

1:36:16Man, what a renaissance guy a real renaissance guy we have the same birthday so sometimes we throw parties together when he's in town, he's always in Japan and just all over the place, man. He's an amazing human being. He really is. And again, one of the best examples, like when people have a stereotype of what they think a cage fighter is. And Josh was the youngest ever UFC heavyweight champion. Yeah, and man, that's probably, like, I've trained more with him than so many people. And it's just what a great friendship, and what an inspirational thinking person. You know, and, you know, so, yeah, and, you know, he did Never Back Down 3 with me.

1:37:03We shot that in Thailand. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's it like training in Thailand? That's got to be fun. Oh, man. Kind of hot. Yeah, but the motherland of Muay Thai. Yeah, yeah. Again, like with every style, it's strengths and its weaknesses. You know, a lot of them, you know, a lot of things around, you know, they go around and not straight. Right. Straight, you know, of course, the quickest distance between two points is a straight line. So it's not a whole lot of, well, they could do with a lot more boxing technique and some of those things. But, man, talk about toughness, that kind of a thing.

1:37:46but it's kind of a tragic like how they beat that shit out of themselves. By the time they're in their 30s, man, they're like. Yeah, they're busted up. Well, they start fighting when they're very, very young. But it's also led to them training so intelligently. One of the things about Thai training, they don't spar like a lot of Americans do where they beat the fuck out of each other. They play spar. Yeah. And that play sparring allows them to not get beat up by the time they get into the ring on Saturday because a lot of them are fighting every week. So they do touch sparring. And a lot of people say, oh, you can't get good touch sparring.

1:38:21Well, you certainly can. Oh, absolutely. Especially when you're fighting every weekend. Yeah. And that's probably the best way to do it because you're just working on timing, pattern recognition, and just getting your reps in. Yeah, just like with jujitsu, of course, when you don't muscle things, when you let the technique do its thing, it's so much better. Right. And you maintain so much better as well. Right. And I think one of the best examples of that is like Sanchai because Sanchai is in his 40s. He's still fucking people up. It's crazy watching that guy fight. But you look at him, a very unassuming guy.

1:39:00He's not ripped. He's an older guy, but his timing and his smoothness and the way he moves, it's very playful. He's just fucking people up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man, it makes me, I miss Thailand. I actually did my, we did our wedding ceremony in Thailand. Oh, wow. Yeah, and you know who was, who officiated part of it was Tony Jaa. Oh, really? Tony Jaa did the Buddhist part of our wedding. He did the water blessing and he also sang at the wedding. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. He's like. Om Bak. Yes, yes. Yeah. One of the greatest martial artists ever. What a great movie that was. Yeah, yeah. For martial arts technique, that was like one of the first times like real true Muay Thai was exhibited in a film.

1:39:46Absolutely, yeah. Like at a super high level. Yeah, yeah. And Tony just, my God, like he would do these incredible feats in front of you. Just unbelievable. He could do a somersault, hit you in the shoulder, and just tap you like that with his foot. Wow. He had that much control. It's unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. He was sick recently, but I think he's overcoming, I think it was a C word, man. Oh. Yeah. I haven't talked to him in a minute, but I just found out about it like about, I don't know, a couple weeks ago. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I knew he got thinner, but I'm hoping that he's better now. Yeah, he's a legend.

1:40:30Yeah, he's something else. It's so fascinating to me how different parts of the world develop a different style of martial arts. in Thailand in particular, because of the fact that there was so much gambling and there were so many fights, that they developed this very heavy leg kick, clinch, elbow, knee style. It was just very different than a lot of the other styles. And for a long time was really dominating in kickboxing. But then you're starting to see other styles, like particularly a lot of Kyokushin guys now, specifically out of Japan. Have you ever seen this kid, Yuki Yosa? Is he Kyokushin?

1:41:08Yeah, Kyokushin guy out of Japan who's dominating people. Oh, wow. He fights very different, man. He's fucking up a lot of Thai guys with calf kicks. Okay, okay. Oh, my God, dude. No, I hadn't heard of him. I just officiated a Kyokushin tournament yesterday. It was Sunday. Was that two days ago? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm still connected in the Kyokushin. I've been doing that since I was a kid. Well, you did the whole thing. Like we have to fight like 100 guys in a day. You did all that shit, right? I've done a 30-man. I haven't done a hundred. I'm not a hundred men, but I'm exaggerating, but it's like a lot of people.

1:41:45Yeah, yeah, which is the toughest. Honestly, I love it. It was the toughest thing I ever had to really face because you come to a point where you want to give up and you have to just kind of walk the burning sands. What is it like walking the next day? Man, I had, I mean, I remember the first time I did a 10-man, and I had several knees on my legs, put it that way, because they destroy your legs so bad. Yeah. Right? I did a 20-man one other time and made the mistake of having a, I had like an energy drink beforehand, which is stupid because now my heart is racing higher than normal. And so it made it even harder.

1:42:30But somewhere around, like, inevitably you get to a place where I remember the 12th guy, I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you here? You know? But you had to dig deep. And you got 18 more to go. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, man. But honestly. Such a hard style. Yeah. But, man, it's something about getting, you know, because you're going to be faced with yourself. You want to quit, and you have to just dig down and get through it. And there's nothing like it when you accomplish it because you know where you can go. You know that most of the time you tell yourself you're done, you're not.

1:43:14What a valuable lesson it is to know that about yourself. Yeah. And you can't, there's no substitute for that. And it's just something that you just benefit. I remember the last time I did this, we had to train out in Banff, Canada. Because usually these things are in Japan. And people from all over the style, they come and they train. You're like training eight hours a day. You got these little lunch breaks. And I didn't think it through. I think the last one was like about five, six years ago. I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to do this, but I'm by myself. And most people come with family members and all that kind of stuff.

1:44:01So you're by yourself. You're a movie star. Yeah, and I have the target on my back. Of course. And it's like we have a training thing, and then you've got a certain amount of time to go eat, but then people want to take pictures with me, and I'm the last guy to get into the lunch thing. And then I was like, oh, shit, I got 10 minutes to eat and then I got to get back in the next training session. And you have a full stomach. Yeah, and then you got like, I mean, it kind of sucked, but I taught myself something. I said, you know, you could be three hours in. I tell myself, I just got here. I just got here.

1:44:38And I dig deeper and whatever. And then the last few days, you're just fighting down to the last person. and you know there's people that's like you know they got their their eye on you because like you know i've got the bullseye on me but the great thing is dude like i say i learned a lot i'm doing footwork with frankie for years i'm a boxing technique i've got benny orquides bill wallace was my instructor i've got so many things in my arsenal and And to test myself, it's such a great benefit to, you know, and it was weird because I was thinking, like, am I insane? Because I had a movie that I was going to be starting like a week later.

1:45:24I could have just been messed up. I could have had a broken leg or whatever. A lot of times you leave with a souvenir, they call it. Like, you know, when you trade in Japan, a lot of the Japanese want to give you a souvenir. That means a broken bone. but I had to try to you know overcome that so in life it's especially in this kind of coddled life I'm living I don't get a chance to test myself that much right right and you know yeah I had to you know listen to my own complaints and shut the fuck up and get through it yeah oh it's not fair because everybody's taking pictures and you're doing this and and I'm by myself.

1:46:07No, no, that's not. The point is get through it, you know? Yeah. And I'm so glad to do that. And I always like to, that's why I like to train with champions and stuff because you know, that's you want, you want to get through things. It should be, you should be tested. I mean, as a, if I had a religion, a large part of it if i was the head of my own religious cult would be that men go through something there's a rites of passage yes you got to know how to protect yourself and your family and your loved ones that to me is is paramount you also have to know what's inside of you like the only way to find out is to test it exactly because otherwise you get these dudes that have their chest pumped out and they're talking loud why are they doing that because they want to scare people off right because they don't know what they're capable of they're terrified yeah and you can't hide from yourself right and that's the thing i'm not going to bullshit myself i'd like i want to know you know and and it's great it's it's it's no there's no substitute uh for going through that and that's the thing that i that why i love fighters so much you know you're you're you're you're you're basically naked to the world right uh you have to dig down you have to overcome things yeah that's why i love them so much because they're they're our gladiators they we live vicariously through them and that's why i'm a little dogged about actors receiving those accolades when they haven't done it right you know what i mean myself included i don't care if somebody says oh he's not a fighter you know he's an actor fine you should think that way right but personally it's it's something deeper for myself and i you know one person i think i identify with that is you because i've seen you i've seen you in the gyms back when it wasn't popular and and we're doing it for reasons that are not it had nothing to do with glory or you know ego or anything like that it's just for self-improvement Yeah.

1:48:17And that's what it's about, man, because it's about overcoming obstacles. And your biggest obstacle in the world is yourself. Yeah. Yeah. My instructor, when I was very young, told me that martial arts are a vehicle for developing your human potential. Exactly. It's so hard. Yeah. And people need something hard. Yeah. And what about Khabib's? What did Khabib say? Like what he says about discipline? Oh, that rant? Man, I had to. Oh, that. I don't know if that rant is real. Somebody told me that rant is AI. What? Yeah. Is it AI? Damn it. What? Well, who cares? It's in Khabib's voice, and I bet Khabib would agree with every word it said.

1:48:57Yes, yes. Find that rant, because let's pretend that it's not AI. Or it may be one of AI's greatest contributions to martial arts. Right, absolutely. Because becoming addicted to discipline. Yeah, every man addicted to something. Yeah. Oh, it's such a great rant. Here it is. Give me this. Give me this. it's such a fucking great rant started from the beginning too every man addicted to something some smoke some drink some chase girls some waste time but real man he addicted to discipline to early wakes to prayer to training to silence discipline no need motivation discipline move without feeling discipline say i go anyway even when tired even when lonely discipline is best addiction.

1:49:41You want strong life? Discipline build it. You want peace? Discipline protected. You want respect? Discipline earn it. No shortcut. Only work. Be man with control. Not man with excuse. No crime. No blame. You want better life? Start with better habits. Discipline. Every day until discipline become you. Fucking yeah. Yeah, I don't give a damn if there's AI or whatever. Well, kudos to the AI person that put that together. Yeah. That's how he lives. Yeah. So even if it's AI, he would go, this is accurate. Yes. Well, I'll tell you what, man. That part of the world, Dagestan, you want to talk about a hard part of the world that is developing some of the baddest motherfuckers?

1:50:25Even in Muay Thai. There's this cat coming out of Muay Thai out of Dagestan right now, Azadullah Imam Ghazaleev, who's like 22 years old, and he is fucking everybody up. A Dagestani Muay Thai fighter who has his own style. He's this tall, lanky dude who's one of the most terrifying strikers alive right now. A lot of people think he's the best striker alive. Oh, man. I think he's 22. 22 or 23 years old. And he's just fucking everybody up. He fights for one FC. Give me a highlight reel of this cat. This is just from a fight, I guess.

1:51:04The highlight reel didn't pop up right away, so I just went with the first fight. That's it. Best technical striker in the world. That's it. Click on that. Just give me some of this. Just start it from the beginning. This dude, that tall dude with the beard, Azadullah Iman Gazaleev. Watch this motherfucker. What a style he has. I mean, it's just this long, tall, lanky dude, perfect timing and measurement, and he just starts piecing dudes up. I think this is like his full fight. Yeah. Well, I don't think so. If you scoot ahead, I think he fucks this guy up pretty quick. I've seen this fight. This guy, he catches with one shot, but some dude's not so lucky.

1:51:46Oh, man. Yeah, that was one shot, but it keeps going, and then give me the next fight. He just starts lighting guys on, including ties, and they don't know what the fuck is going on because he fights different than them. I mean, he's a Muay Thai fighter. He's got that straight, you know, he's exploiting the fact that they got so much round technique. Exactly. A lot of front kicks up the middle and especially to the face. But also his spinning attacks. He's got wicked spinning attacks, man. And also comes off angle a lot. His head's never on the center line. Super fucking technical. But just lighting dudes on fire.

1:52:28and just a just an attacker always attacking and has the benefit of that range that long range yeah i mean dude is incredible incredible and again 22 years old like look at that so he's combining like Taekwondo techniques, karate techniques, and precision Muay Thai. I mean, the problem with this, not this style, but this form, is that a lot of people aren't seeing it. One FC is doing a really good job of highlighting a lot of elite Muay Thai fighters. They have Taewon Chai over there and Siddhi Chai and all these high-level guys. But in America, this, for whatever reason, has not caught on. And the only way this guy's going to get the kind of attention that I think he deserves is if he gets into MMA.

1:53:23Boom! Yeah, axe kick, spinning back fist. Boom! His straight rights are no joke. He's a laser beam. Yeah. He's so focused. He's so good, man. So good. Yeah. Yeah. So the Dagestanis are now entering into Muay Thai, which is a terrible sign for all these Muay Thai guys. Yeah, yeah, man. Those are hard, tough-ass people. Hard-ass people, man. Hard people who start at a very young age. I mean, a very young age. And also, Dagestan, now, because of Khabib and Islam, they all know that this is a pathway to greatness. Yes, yeah. And so there's heroes. And there can be Ankulayev. There's all these guys that have been world champions out of Dagestan now.

1:54:05So it's like you're seeing all these guys come out of there. And some of these young guys that are coming up are so good. Yeah. They're so good. But this is fascinating to me that you take a guy who's adapted this Thai style but then morphed it into something that's different. And, again, like you were saying, a lot of straight techniques. Oh, yeah. Especially when you're a tall guy like that for the weight class because I think he fights at 145. And when you're that tall at 145 and you've got those straight shots down the middle. Oh, yeah. Like his right is just like you can't really see it. Laser beam.

1:54:34Because he's going right directly at him. But it's also the hooks, too. His hooks are coming around the guard. Right, right. Everything is precise, and his accuracy is spectacular. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a student, obviously. I watch every fight I can. I watch kickboxing. I watch Muay Thai. I watch jiu-jitsu matches. I watch it all. But I'm always fascinated by these cats that stand out, and this guy just stands out. Yeah. Yeah, it's great when somebody knows how to use their length like that. Yeah, yeah. Well, Yuki Yoza, the Kyokushin guy that I was telling you, They're totally different. This guy is doing a shelling up and getting in tight on guys and kicking the fuck out of their inner thigh, outer calf, lower.

1:55:19He's chopping at their legs. Even Thai guys don't know what to do because they're not used to guys kicking their calves like this guy. So he's inside going shin to shin. And you know as well as anybody, Kyokushin guys have some of the most conditioned shins in the world. They're always battering shin to shin. And this dude is just getting in. And you see in the second round, a lot of these Thai guys like, oh, fuck, I can't walk. I can't move right. My calves don't work anymore. So the calf kick, which is really kind of revolutionized MMA, it's changed MMA. Because one, two hard calf kicks, you're compromised.

1:55:55You're not moving right anymore. And you're not pivoting off that foot when you're punching. So your punching power is diminished. This Yuki Yosea guy is like putting it on Thai guys with it. That's something. I mean, especially for a Kyokushin guy to—I mean, the knock with Kyokushin—I've been doing it ever since I was a kid—is just that not developing facial blocks. Well, this guy has incorporated Russian-style boxing. He's got Russian-style boxing with Kyokushin karate techniques. Well, yeah. With the Russian-style boxing, they really kind of mastered the non-telegraph kind of— Yeah. Because it looks like they're not even going fast.

1:56:37Yuki Yoh's a highlight reel. There's a bunch of fights with him and Thai guys. And, you know, the first round, Thai guys are doing their thing, and it looks, you know, like a normal fight. But Yuki Yoh just starts chopping at those calves inside. And he's like multiple kicks to the calf from in tight and close. Yeah, that's punishing. And you see guys, like, playing at, like, go ahead, kick me, kick me. And then after a while, they're like, fuck, don't kick me anymore. They're trying to get macho with him, pretending it's not working. But, yeah, like, what would it take to develop, like, calves?

1:57:12This is yukyoza. Like, your thighs. You see how he's, like, he's chopping when he's getting tight. Look at this, always. Look at how much he's utilizing, like, all the karate techniques, but also in tight just destroys guys' legs. but also spinning back kicks, all that other shit. But look at his boxing is excellent too. Ooh. A lot of Muay Thai stuff, dumping people. But look at that. He's constantly kicking the inside of the leg. When they're committing to kicks, he's taking their legs out. This dude, one of my favorite guys to watch right now. Like, look, that's a Thai guy, man. He's just destroying their legs, man.

1:57:53Man. An excellent movement. Yeah. And he comes out of a very high-level gym in Japan that's produced a lot of really—Masasaki Nori, another guy who's like that, who's a very similar guy who beat Tawanchai recently. Like, these guys are just destroying people's legs. So they're utilizing a lot of the question mark kicks, a lot of the stuff that evolved in Kyokushin, but putting it into kickboxing. Also with the toughness that is in a lot of the Kyokushin fighters. Yeah, I see him slip into a Superman. Yeah. Everybody's going to be susceptible for that. If you've got a leg kick that's that legitimate, they're going to bite on that.

1:58:40Right. It's going to be open for them. And then he uses a Superman punch. Yeah. And another very young guy. So there's these people that are exploiting these holes and these styles. Because some of these Thai guys are so hard to beat. By the time they're competing and they're 25 years old, they might have 150 fights. So much experience. But this cat's figuring them out, man. It's really interesting to watch. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to see. I wish there was like some kind of governing body that would get all the like some like superstars or whatever. Get this guy versus this guy from. Well, one is doing that a lot.

1:59:18But, you know, one, unfortunately, is not that popular in America. What I love about One is they'll have grappling competitions, they'll have kickboxing, they'll have Muay Thai, and then they'll have MMA. They'll have them all combined on one card. One is the one that Michael Chevelle was on, right? Well, he was on that. Michael Chevelle's not with One anymore. Michael Chevelle's one of the best commentators ever. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's excellent. Great guy, too. I'll probably be seeing him in another three weeks. You going to Australia? Yeah, going to Australia. Nice. My wife and I, we're going to— Well, we did a tour.

1:59:52I do, like, seminars over there and, you know, meet and greets and stuff like that. We haven't done that in a while. But, yeah, we've got some really good fighters out there. Oh, yeah. John Wayne Parr. Yeah. You know, some great fighters have come out of Australia. Yeah, so, yeah, we're going to have some fun out there. That's awesome. Yeah, they're in New Zealand. Oh, yeah, another hotbed. Oh, yeah. Another hotbed for fighters. Well, just warrior cultures, you know. Absolutely, yeah. Warrior history to those places. I don't think, I've never met an Australian that I didn't like. I know. They're the nicest fucking people.

2:00:24They're so fucking cool, yeah. Yeah, they're the coolest people. They're friendly, easygoing. Yeah, you have rites of passage still, you know, places like that. I mean, that's one thing that is sad about United States. It's like we're not making men anymore. Not a lot of them. No, no. When they are, they stand out. Yeah, you know, that's why it's like a lot of times in these movies, if you have an alpha male, a lot of times that American alpha male is being played by an Australian artist.

2:00:57It's very rarely an American. It's like such a trip, man. Well, masculinity is demonized here for some strange reason over the last couple of decades. Bro, I saw the beginning of a lot of it because, like I said, I was a schoolteacher. And I was right on the forefront seeing, like, everybody gets a trophy. You know, these kids, you know, it's about their self-esteem and you got to protect them. I'm like, come on. And, you know, taking away competition, that just, I saw the beginning of that shit. And it's just so, so bad. And then these kids don't know how to deal with loss or anything and then they end up shooting the classroom.

2:01:37Right. You know, it's, yeah. Dealing with loss is one of the most important lessons you could ever learn. If you want to get better, lose. Losing is the best medicine because you lose. I don't ever want to feel that again. And then you start thinking about all the things that you cut corners on, all the things that you didn't do. What can I do differently to make sure that never happens again and never feel that feeling? Or you quit. Those are the two options. Either you get way better or you quit. But winning sometimes you don't learn. You go, well, I'm doing the right thing. I'm winning. I'm getting better.

2:02:09I'm developing confidence. That's good. But, man, sometimes a loss is the best medicine. Yeah, man. I realized something when I was, you know, I was born with some gifts, okay? I did one thing that got me into college is decathlon. As a fluke, I jumped into a race against one of the fastest guys on the track team and beat them, right? And that was just a fluke. and the coach saw that. The track coach saw that and was like, oh my God, you're fucking running for the school. And I was like, oh, okay. I was just like, I didn't have anybody, any kind of adult that took a liking to me like that. And next thing you know, I'm on the track team.

2:02:54And I started, I mean, I was really good. And then I wound up going to college because of that. And incidentally, that's the stuff that really kind of taught me to kind of evolve my martial arts because nowhere is there a benefit of like cutting off fractions of seconds in movement like track. Like when I'm doing the shot put. Well, a lot of times I was competing against people that were ginormous and all they had to do was stick their arm out and their arc was going to be better than mine. Well, I had to generate enough power to go at a 45-degree angle and inertia and all that to get past them.

2:03:45And with running, of course, if you shoot the gun off, all your motion has to go forward. If you go backward, you're going to be a step behind everybody. So as far as efficiency of motion, all the things I had to do with track, I started applying and fighting. And that's what kind of gave me cheat codes into things to where being super efficient really helped, right? And so one thing would kind of help the other. But, like, yeah, a lot of my whole track thing was a great benefit. But I did learn that I was kind of in a way like the Bo Jacksons or the Herschel Walkers. I was gifted. And so when I would fight, I was a big guy that was fast.

2:04:42And that was kind of rare. So fighting was easy to me. But I learned that when I was the celebrated fighter, that was less of a good martial artist, because then I kind of flake off other things. like I wasn't I didn't try as hard as other people and that's another thing I don't know Khabib really said but it was a thing that he said about those gifted people a lot of people who are gifted were not the best fighters yeah that is a quote from him yeah exactly yeah and I took that you know that that same thing because I realized dude you're you're you're doing it wrong you're i mean my philosophy was like uh i feel i adapted the philosophy of okay say um this kid sean is 140 pounds and there's me and it takes me a thousand kicks to become fatigued and it takes him 100 kicks to become fatigued and he pushes to 120 and i push to 1001 who's the better martial artist he is because he's pushed into his comfort zone he's pushing himself further what if he one day gets to a thousand for him to go from a hundred to a thousand that's going to be a quality 900 that i don't have me being the gifted one right i'm looking at it using the comparative method saying, well, you know, I mean, at the end of the year, I used to kick a basketball rim.

2:06:21You know, I had that ability. But when I started thinking about, well, what I, comparing myself to other people, that was the wrong thing. So I said, no, I'm going to be like Sean. I want to train to my ability, not in comparison to someone else. uh and that really taught me something as far as like again why i put myself through these things and the benefit of it by really like when what the martial arts really teaches is you know and the fact that yeah i had these gifts but if i if i use those gifts as a crutch i'm limiting what i can be right you're limiting your potential exactly yeah And oftentimes it's too easy for the gifted guys.

2:07:14And so they kind of slack off. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, that's, that's, and I realized that's what I was doing. They also are not as comfortable with struggle. Absolutely. And being comfortable with struggle is a very important part of growth. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's a, it's a mixed message because we start to admire the, the freak sometimes. we as as men we celebrate the pugilist a lot and that's kind of a thing that where came full circle to where okay yeah i'm able to do these things but is that really me is that is that the limit of what i can be and by having someone else go oh yeah you can do this or that that's kind of a, that's not really the crux of it.

2:08:07Right. You know what I mean? Right. And it's really about like, yeah, there's going to be people that's going to praise what you can do physically. But is that, but I realized there was a point where that was kind of retarding where I could be mentally and what I can really become. You also have a responsibility to those gifts. Yeah. Because if you are gifted athletically, you have a responsibility of achieving the full potential because you've been given this thing by genetics, by life, by God, this thing where you are faster, you move quicker, you have more explosive power. But are you going to harness that gift and allow it to reach its full potential?

2:08:50When you do that, then you get a Mike Tyson. When you do that, then you get a Michael Jordan. You do that, then you get an elite of the elite. You get what David Goggins always liked to call uncommon amongst uncommon men. Right, right. And that's the real hard thing to do because so many of these, like, really gifted guys in the gym, they always kind of peter off and disappear. And when they're in a fight where they fight another gifted guy that maybe trained a little harder than them and maybe he's got a little bit more experience, they realize, like, man, I don't want to struggle like that. I don't like that.

2:09:22I don't like that feeling. I like beating up guys in the gym that are below me. Yeah, and then you got to deal with that person in the mirror. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard for guys when they're the hammer of their whole life, and then one day they're the nail. Yeah. And you see guys that are, like, really elite that are dominating, and then one day they get fucked up, and then you never see them again. It's oftentimes. But then you'll see the guy who, like, gets fucked up a bunch of times and keeps showing up and keeps showing up and keeps learning, and then you realize, like, oh, this guy is now elite.

2:09:52Yeah, and those are the true heroes to me. Right. You know, there's people I don't want, you know, sometimes you get in trouble pointing out people like, like, I don't want to say somebody like Izzy or whatever. But like you see the people who are used to having that ability over other people and when it gets hard. Right. Right. And then it's like, even sometimes there's a, there's a talk about even Tyson. and as just people or just spectators when you go oh man this guy's so gifted now some of the knock has been that when it became hard you hadn't seen him dig down and overcome that thing right right you know because a lot of times when it got hard it was like he just you know kind of tapped out yeah and so that's something that, you know, not to disparage him, but just as people are looking at life, we look at those things and we can take a lot of meaning from that and apply that and say, oh, wow.

2:11:03I mean, that's on him to say, oh, was that the case? Or is it something that, I don't know. I think with Mike, it's a very special case because I think he had the elite coaching in the beginning with Cus D 'Amato and training. And then when Cus died, he was kind of left with all this amazing ability that he had developed when he was young, but not with the elite coaching. So if Mike had left when Cus D 'Amato died, if he had then went to Emmanuel Stewart, or if he had then went to an elite boxing coach and had someone analyze his style, and someone he really respected. Respected, yes, absolutely.

2:11:49That he could still maintain that same level of discipline when he was the 21-year-old dominating the world. Oh, my God, but he has so much pressure on him. So much. Because, you know, I had to play him, so I had to study everything he did. And it's interesting because, oh, my God, like I always viewed him as somebody who was always looking for a father figure. Yes. And I would study him, and, you know, with Customato, he would dress like Customato. He was a young black guy from Brooklyn with suspenders. Right. You know, in a cabbie hat. Yeah. And then when Custom Auto was gone, he was around Kevin Rooney, and Kevin Rooney had this really fast way of talking, and it seemed like he adapted that.

2:12:34And when he was with, with, um, uh, shoot. Swatwell? No, no, um, shoot, why am I blanking? the other manager Jim Jacobs Jim Jacobs Jim Jacobs was married and I think marriage became important to him at that point because he was really under the umbrella of Jim Jacobs and then when he was with Robin Givens with Don King the N word is every third word out of his mouth very much like Don King he goes to prison he's got two father figures on him Mao Zedong and he's got Arthur Ashe on another shoulder. And I would just notice that even speech patterns would change. And I looked at him as, wow, here's a guy that I felt like I identified with a great deal because coming from the same kind of place.

2:13:36But, yeah, it's interesting because I think a lot of people don't know how much struggle he had to deal with. because people think that Kevin Rooney was kind of a savior in that situation when he wasn't. Kevin Rooney explained to me directly that he says, if you ever see Mike, please apologize for me because when Mike was married to Robin Givens, he didn't want to do this interview. And then turn around, Kevin Rooney did the interview. and Kevin Rooney's like, I really messed up when I did that. And Kevin Rooney even told me that when, at the Spinks fight alone, Kevin made like over a million dollars.

2:14:22He left that casino owing. Mike had to bail him out like so many times. And so people thought, oh, Kevin Rooney is in control. No, Mike was, I mean, he had so much pressure on him. And I think with Don King trying to hire Mike's cohorts to help out, if he's going to hang out with them anyway, to try to just do that. He had so much—this dude had so much pressure on him. It's unbelievable. And Don King definitely took advantage of that. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. You know, because I knew Don from—because I was always in the fight camps with Frankie Louse. In fact, that's how I got to first meet Mike Tyson.

2:15:10When Mike was in prison, Frankie put Mike and I on the phone together. And so I would do my little kind of interviewing of Mike while he was in prison because I was going to be playing him. So I wanted the whole story. And I went to Catskills on my own and knocked on that door and spent time with the people he grew up with in that house. Oh, wow. You know, so I learned a lot. There's a lot that, you know, the public doesn't know. And I think he was concerned about, you know, coming out. And, you know, it didn't. And so it was really interesting. I was front and center on how much pressure this guy had to deal with.

2:15:56He had to kind of develop with the whole world looking over his shoulder. Yeah. Yeah. And he was 20. Oh, yeah. Which is crazy. Youngest ever heavyweight champion in the world. He went from being a 13-year-old kid with no family to being adopted by this guy who's not just training him but also hypnotizing him. And then he's got Jim Jacobs who exposes him to this library of all the greatest fighters of all time. He's watching video footage of it. Bill Caton. Yeah. Bill Caton and Jim. Yeah. It's an extraordinary story because it's like unlike anyone else's. Like the environment that he was exposed to and the way it produced this guy who was unlike any heavyweight before.

2:16:39I mean in his prime – I always point to the Marvis Frazier fight. I always tell people you want to see like the scariest motherfucker that ever stepped into the ring. Mike Tyson versus Marvis Frazier. He was just undeniable. Just undeniable. But that pressure, the kind of pressure that – no one could explain what that's like. there's no internet back then so there's not as many favorite famous people so like who's gonna who's he gonna relate to who's gonna tell him what this is like who's gonna there's no one like him you had muhammad ali you had a few other guys that could maybe tell him what it was like but for the most part he's not he's got no roadmap and he's out there in this world of superstardom we could do whatever the fuck he wants yeah everywhere he goes people are screaming and cheering and he's knocking everybody out in the first round.

2:17:30Yeah, yeah. The pressure on that, man. And then they have to fight Holyfield. Right. A guy who was really kind of more like a big brother to him throughout his life, you know, his professional life. Because, you know, Holyfield was, he was a cruiserweight, you know, and Holyfield was the type of guy, how you doing, Mike? You check on him and all that type of stuff. Then he has to fight this guy. And there was deep down, like, he's got to fight this guy who's got this reputation as a holy man and he's all this type of stuff. And then I remember being at that fight and I remember the press conference and Mike was, like, really manufacturing this hatred that I was like, that's not real.

2:18:14Like, he's trying to dig down to really get this edge to really hate Holyfield. And I was like, I thought that was a mistake. And I don't think psychologically he was in his game. Right. Holyfield had an edge on him. Yeah, psychologically. I think it was also the fact the Holy Man thing was a big deal. Yeah. Holyfield had this incredible belief in God, and he really believed that God was looking out for him and he was going to go in there and couldn't be deterred. Dude, the third round. I mean, of course, I studied all this stuff on Mike Tyson. Third round of that first fight got chills because think about it.

2:19:01He heard something that he never heard his entire career. Everybody started chanting for the other guy. Right. Holy field. Holy field. And I swear to you, I saw just the air come out of this guy. Yeah. And it was like I've done all of this and they're chanting for this man. And how gracious he was, how Tyson was at the end, I felt like that's not a new thought. You kind of had that opinion of him going into this. Well, Holyfield had been through the wars, right? He had those wars with Riddick Bowe. He had the first war with Dwight Muhammad Kawi. Remember that fight at Cruiserweight? Oh, my God.

2:19:49Go back and watch that fight. That fight. He had the war with Burt Cooper. He had wars. And Holyfield was unflappable. He's like, I don't know why Mike Chayne is about me, but I don't know. It's like, he's just like. He never got angry. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, how are you doing? It's hard to maintain anger for that dude. He's just like, okay, this is okay. Well, that's also terrifying, too, because you can't get in there. You're trying to get in that head, and it's like you're not getting in there. God's in there. Yeah, and then I was like, if you look at it, Mike Tyson was committing to every first blow.

2:20:27Holyfield is a counter fighter. Fake him, let him throw that counter, and you got him. Yeah. And I was like, I think normally Mike knows this. Holyfield's center of gravity, so different. He's thin-legged, big up top. Mike should be able to push him easily. Easily. I didn't see the things that I normally saw for Mike Tyson in that fight, which made me feel like this is a psychological component. It's a psychological component, but it's also a training component because, again, he wasn't with an elite trainer at that time. It wasn't the same as him being trained by Costa Mono. It wasn't the same.

2:21:09He didn't have the bobbing and weaving style that he used to have. Do you remember when he caught Holyfield with the body shot in the uppercut? Yeah. And just like basically you almost said you saw finish him. Yeah. But he just chilled. Do you remember that moment? I don't specifically. Yeah. There's a moment. There's a moment like that. Where he hurts him. He hurt him, and Holyfield looked like it's like— Yeah, but Holyfield would rebound. I mean, the Rick Bow fights. But you look at Tyson. You look at almost everything he's done. I thought I was about to see the beginning of the end. And I'm like, what the— I remember being there going, why isn't he jumping on him?

2:21:52You know, hey, maybe I'm wrong or whatever, but I swear I saw that moment. And I remember going, what's going on? Why is he not jumping on him? I mean, it's interesting. It's interesting. Psychology plays a big role in how you feel about the opponent. And the opponent essentially holds up a mirror and allows you to look at yourself. And when he's comparing himself to this holy man, he probably didn't like it. Joe, you know, I think that's the way I thought about it. Of course, who am I to do it? But this is my opinion. Those dudes with that kind of character, like Holyfield had at the time, those are scary guys.

2:22:32Because, like, they can't be broken mentally. Right, right. They're always going to—and if you try to break them physically and he rebounds, like, oh, God. How much do I have left in the tank? Yeah, yeah. How many more of these shots can I take? Yeah, like, no, it's different if somebody, like, taunted you. Mm-hmm. Now you can, you know, manufacture, like, you know. Right, right. But when the guy's just like, okay, I'm just doing my thing. But you start going, oh, is it me? Right. Because you don't, you know, it's like that's when you had Fedor. Right. Somebody like that. It's just like this. It's like you drown yourself.

2:23:12Stoic. Because I can't derive nothing from him. Oh, he was the best at it. Yeah, yeah. Fedor was the best at it. Fedor would be the middle of the most chaotic war. And it looked like he was just sipping a cup of coffee. Yeah. It was crazy. There was no one like that guy. He's one of the most unique characters. I think we were robbed of one of the greatest heavyweight matchups of all time when they never figured out how to put Cain Velasquez versus Fedor when they were both in their primes. Man. Cain Velasquez is the scariest person I've ever seen as far as I'm concerned. If there was one guy that—because I pride myself if I get in the ring with anybody.

2:23:53That guy, man. He never got tired. Man, he's just like a juggernaut. He had cardio for a heavyweight that was like a marathon runner. It didn't make any sense. He was a 240-pound guy who never got tired. Yeah. Perfect technique. Yeah, and I think the fights with Junior Dos Santos. I feel like they ruined each other. Yes. I feel like they ruined each other. Well, I think it certainly ruined Junior, especially the second fight. The first fight Junior caught. The first fight, Kane should have never took that fight. Kane had to take that fight because it was on Fox. It was a big deal. It was the main event of the Fox, the first Fox card, and Kane blew his knee out.

2:24:31So if you look at that fight, Kane's wearing a knee brace. His knee was fucked up. His meniscus was torn. He was all fucked up. He couldn't anchor on it. He couldn't really post on it. And then he couldn't get out of the way. And Junior caught him with a big right hand, cracked him, dropped him, stopped him, and then he comes back. Here it is. Here's Tyson versus Holyfield.

2:24:53Boom. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Yeah, but Holyfield's still there. He's still there. Remember, he has a chance. He has a chance right now. Evander's hurt. You heard what he said, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. But that took some wind out of Evander right away. Biggest round for Mike yet. But the thing about Evander is Evander was always there. He had been through these kind of fights before. But I don't know where I am, but I was there. Oh, wow. But something about seeing that, I felt like, oh, he's about to take him out. But I think because Evander rebounded, and Evander had a history of rebounding. Oh, sure, sure, absolutely.

2:25:34He had a history of wars. Especially the Riddick bow fights. It still doesn't change the fact that there was, I feel like there was an opportunity. And that was a very un-Tyson-like situation. I just don't think Tyson was Tyson anymore by this time. I mean, I think he was a one-punch guy by this time. He wasn't cutting those crazy angles where he would slide off to the side and rip the body. He was standing right in front of guys. He lost a lot of what made him special, which was the speed of combinations and the movement. The movement is primarily because he couldn't have never gotten that far if he didn't do that.

2:26:09Show that Marvis Frazier fight. Show that Marvis Frazier fight. Tyson versus Marvis Frazier is my favorite Tyson performance. Because Marvis Frazier looked like he was going to a funeral at the beginning of the fight. Look at him. I mean, you feel the energy from his face. And he didn't play the Covenant right after this with the grizzly bear just mauling. It's the same thing. Here it is. He just all over Marvis, like from the beginning. This was on ABC Wide World of Sports. I remember watching this at home. But look at the bobbing and the weaving. It's not just right in front of him. It's angles.

2:26:46Like what did he hear? Boom! Oh, man.

2:26:51Oh, man. That was when he was the champ. I mean, he wasn't the champ yet, but he was the champ. He was about to fight Trevor Burbick, but everybody was like, oh, my God, he's real. Yeah, here's the thing that sparked some controversy. Mike Tyson versus Muhammad Ali. It depends on which Tyson and which Muhammad Ali. Well, the best of both. You know, of course, you got to say the best of both. I think the best Muhammad Ali wasn't Muhammad Ali. I think it was Cassius Clay. I think the best was when he fought Cleveland Big Cat Williams. To me, I always tell people, like, you want to know Ali before they took his title away, before they put him on the shelf for three years because he wouldn't fight in Vietnam?

2:27:28Watch Cleveland bid Cat Williams because Cleveland was a big, scary power puncher, and Muhammad Ali was just dancing around him, dancing around him, popping him from the distance. But was he bigger than Muhammad Ali, though? That's the thing about Muhammad Ali. People don't realize he was like the biggest guy in the ring. You know, he was only four pounds different than Foreman. People don't realize because he moves around the way he moves. Back then. But in the Cleveland Big Cat Williams days, he was lighter. Wasn't he? Yeah, he was only like 215 or 220. And Cleveland Williams was what? He was big.

2:28:00Look at the size of Cleveland. Look at his back. Look at the back on Cleveland. And look at the legs, though. Yeah. But he was a power puncher, man. You watch somebody. Look at his back. Cleveland was a scary dude, man. He might be lean. He might be lean, but Muhammad Ali's a big dude. Oh, he's definitely a big dude. I think he's bigger than that guy. Maybe. But look at the movement, man. My God. Oh, absolutely. So this movement was absent when he came back three years later. He never fought like this again. And when he fought Cleveland Big Cat Williams, Cleveland just did not know where he was.

2:28:32I don't know. He was 212. Williams was 210 at weigh-in. Oh, okay. Well, dudes were smaller back then. Like, think about Rocky Marciano. He was only 185 when he was a champ. But the thing is, people don't realize, because he's fighting like a lighter guy, you got a bigger guy. He didn't got especially you know, you trick people are coming in and that magnifies everything. Yeah, well sort of but they're basically the same size, but 212 is fairly small. This is smaller than Mike was when Mike was in his prime and Mike was only like 215 220 to 20. Yeah, 221. Yeah, that's why it's interesting because like Mike moved his head and the people who did the best against Muhammad Ali was with Joe Frazier and and Ken Norton, but he moved their heads.

2:29:11Yes, but again, these are the guys after this three-year break this three-year break. Muhammad Ali didn't train. He didn't train at all for three years. When you watch when he comes back after that, like, come on, son. The speed. And Cleveland's like, what the fuck is going on? But speed and a bigger guy. That's the thing. That's the thing. Because, like, you know, you thought when we were going in this clip that he was bigger than Muhammad Ali. I did. Yeah. But the thing is, like, people don't realize how big Muhammad Ali actually was. Because George Foreman, you know, was a monster. Look at these combinations.

2:29:47And his legs are bigger than George Foreman's. Right. And we know where the power is, right? Well, George Foreman, what did he weigh when they fought? 218 and I think Muhammad Ali was 214. They were like right. So the actual fight day, who knew who was heavier? Right. I'm just saying it's interesting. It is. Because you got a guy the same size as Foreman moving faster. Yeah, but he didn't in that fight. In that fight, he mostly laid on the ropes, remember? Well, he did the rope, though, but I'm seeing. He did a lot of that. He's still a big— 220. 212 to 220. Pretty close. Yeah, I've seen it different.

2:30:21I've seen that. It's just he wasn't the same guy. If George Foreman of that time fought the Muhammad Ali that fought Cleveland Big Cat Williams, it's a completely different fight. Foreman's getting pieced up. Foreman's getting pieced up from the outside, and Ali was just picking him apart and moving, and Foreman's swinging it in. He was like nobody else before him, man. He was so different. He was so different. But those three years, when he had to take three years, and he didn't train at all, and then he came back, and now he's 30, and, you know, no strength and conditioning for three years, no running, no boxing.

2:30:57His body looked different. Who did he fight when he came back? He fought Lyle? No, that white dude, horrible brain damage. Cobb? Jerry Cooney. Oh, Jerry Quarry. No, no, no, Jerry Quarry. Quarry, okay. Yeah, when you fight Jerry Quarri, see if you find that fight. Now, look at his body when you see it. You see his body smooth. His footwork doesn't look the same. His timing is off. He had a ton of ring rust. He just didn't. What's that, Jimmy? He just didn't look the same. He didn't look the same. And I think that three years, they fucked him, man. They fucked him. They fucked him. And, I mean, look, it made him a cultural hero because he wasn't willing to fight in Vietnam.

2:31:43And, you know, he famously, like, look at his body. It's different, man. He's just not the same guy anymore. He's not moving as fast. And Jerry Quarry was just a really tough guy who was, you know, famous for being able to take a beating. Yeah. Like, Ali didn't have the endurance anymore. Like, look at him. He's just not the same guy anymore, man. Yeah. It was, he was a shadow of what he was before. He still went on to win the title. He still went on. But I always wonder what he would have been if those three years were not stolen from him in his peak, in his prime. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that would have been something else.

2:32:21Yeah. You know, there's one interesting thing. Another interesting thing about Ali is, like, try to find him throwing a body shot. Right. Not a lot of those. No, he almost never did. Maybe a jab or two to the body. Yeah. It's true. It would be interesting to count up all the body shots throughout his whole career, and you might get 10. That's true. Yeah, it's true. It's interesting. Yeah, it is. That's why when people talk about the greatest boxer, of course, he's one of the greatest human beings, greatest Americans ever. Like, just, man, the stuff he's—talk about putting himself out there as far as a servant of the world.

2:33:06So there's nobody, I don't know anybody who compares to him. Also, the personality. When he would go on talk shows and he was just so fun. How sharp was he? Oh, so sharp. And all those things were memorized. One of my favorite ones was Howard Cosell said, you're very truculent, champ. And he goes, whatever truculent means, if it's good, I'm that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, he was just a different human being. He was not scared of anything, man. And there's some stuff that, some interviews that he's being real controversial. Like, he would actually talk shit to people and talk about whooping their ass.

2:33:45You know, just recently I've seen some stuff that I was like, wow, I hadn't seen this one. Oh, yeah. If anybody disrespected him, if anybody, like, if they wouldn't call him Muhammad Ali, if they were calling him Cassius Clay, he would fuck them up. What's my name? Pop! What's my name? Pop! Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. He was a special person. And just culturally, like one of the most significant figures ever in the history of America. Because at a time where the world was torn, like, why the fuck are we in Vietnam? And this one guy says, I'm not doing this. And then they're like, OK, we're going to strip your title away from you.

2:34:19And then for three years, he was persecuted and the whole world was watching and they eventually let him fight again. By then we had realized that Vietnam was not a just war. and this guy they had taken three years of his life away from him because he wasn't willing to participate yeah man what a hero man a real hero a real hero and like again a cultural icon like just a different kind of human being that inspired so many people outside of fighting my parents were hippies and my parents wanted to watch the leon spinks rematch when he fought leon spinks like everybody was excited sitting around i'm like i remember being a little kid going i can't believe They want to watch this fight.

2:34:59This is so weird to me like they want to watch a fight because that's who Muhammad Ali was He was just different. He meant something to America in a way that no other fighter before or since has yeah man, there's so many man just even for equal rights and just For everything is so much so much that I really can't think of many people has been more significant No, and many people think about, like, what do you stand for? I mean, this guy, he could have easily just taken some stupid fucking desk job with the army or something. Easily, yeah. I mean, I did a movie last year in Louisville, Kentucky.

2:35:41And while I was there, I went and visited Muhammad Ali's gravesite. And, dude, man, I didn't expect it. I was just like, let me see it. And, dude, I couldn't talk for two hours afterwards. I just sat in my car and just all got overwhelmed just to think what this man really meant. Yeah. It was just like, it jacked me up. I didn't expect that. Yeah, I can't think of another fighter that meant more, like in terms of like a cultural icon. I can't think of another one. Yeah, and put his life on the line and just was so, you know. And that's a cautionary tale to fighters too about the end, about fighting too long.

2:36:18Look, no one ever forgave Larry Holmes for beating him up. Larry Holmes, one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time, never got his just due because people never forgave him for beating up Ali. Yeah, yeah, honestly, yeah. Which is crazy. Yeah. You know, it's not fair. Didn't make any sense. I mean, Muhammad Ali was trying to beat him up, but, you know, everybody knew even though Ali was fighting, everybody knew it was over. He wasn't the Muhammad Ali of old. Yeah, and he wanted to call it into the fight, man. Holmes was like, why am I doing this? Yeah, that was sad. And Holmes was never that much of a likable presence.

2:36:56And it's hard to come behind Muhammad Ali. Right. He was never that kind of a person. Yeah, yeah. But damn, did he have a jab. That's the best jab around. Even when he fought Tyson, he was popping him with that jab. And it made you wonder, God, I wonder what Larry would have done in his prime. This would have been an exciting fight to see in his prime. The two of them? Yeah. I still don't think he would have been able to beat prime Tyson. No. But it was wild to see. Tyson made his bones on fighting bigger guys and making them miss and pay for it. Yeah. Yeah. So he'd load up on his legs. And a lot of times when he's landing, he's in the air.

2:37:32Yep. He's in the air, man. It was the speed, too. Middleweight speed in a heavyweight body. He's the fastest. Well, he was one of the fastest heavyweights. I think there's one guy. Usyk's pretty damn fast. Oh, Usyk's nice. Yeah. Oh, man. Talk about a person. He's funny. That's a funny dude. Oh, he's a character. Yeah, yeah. And you want to talk about technique, too. And another guy was trained by the same guy as Lomachenko. Lomachenko's father trained Usyk. Oh, cool, cool. Which is also why he's like a heavyweight Usyk. Or a heavyweight Lomachenko, rather. Lomachenko, yeah, yeah. He's got that footwork and movement and that Russian style, that Ukrainian Russian style.

2:38:09It's like those guys, they figured out movement and footwork. Bival has it, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, look, we're very fortunate that we can see all of these incredible human beings that have, you know, risked their life and their health and put it on the line so we could see true lessons about character and technique. Yeah, I just wish heavyweights would concentrate on technique a little bit more. Right. I mean, we're— Well, maybe Usyk's changing people's perspective on that. Maybe they're realizing, like, wow, you can't just one-two everybody. Yeah, I think what happened, there's another thing in this country.

2:38:43It's like people, I think, they're not following boxing. They're not getting into boxing. A lot of these guys are going for the money. They'll try to play football or whatever. Well, since Deontay, we haven't really had a heavyweight boxing champion in America. Deontay was our last heavyweight boxing champion. Yeah, and talk about technique. Not the best. But, you know, he had what Teddy Atlas likes to call the eraser. Right, yeah, true. He can make all the mistakes in the world. He had that one eraser, blam. Yeah, yeah. Deontay's was the craziest knockout puncher that's ever existed. Yeah. It was nuts.

2:39:21He hit you moving backwards and flatline you. Yeah, but he weighed like 212? 209 when he fought Tyson Fury the first time. 209. Yeah. He and I went shooting before. We've done some tactical stuff together. Really nice guy. Yeah. I love talking to him on the podcast. Oh, yeah. He's great. I don't know. Just work on his technique, man. It's like, geez, I don't get it. Yeah, I don't know, man. It's too late. It's what you do for a living. I think he relied on that gift for so long. Because, I mean, look at the gift, though. I mean, at one point in time, he was like 39 knockouts out of 40 fights. Yeah.

2:40:06Yeah. It's like he's. I know. Nuts. But it didn't matter when it landed. When it landed, you couldn't do shit about all that sloppiness. I still wouldn't mind seeing AJ versus him. I still wouldn't mind that either. That would be interesting. I think after the car accident, AJ might be done, though, because he was knocked unconscious in that car accident. I heard he was out for like 10 minutes. Really? Yeah, and his two friends died. You know, I mean, and after all his fights and, you know, you know, that is the last thing he needed is some extracurricular brain damage like that. True. True. And then also losing his two great friends like that has got to be, you know, that's just fucking crazy.

2:40:52Yeah. That's a sad thing. But I think, you know, if he's my brother, my cousin, I'd be like, you got to go through this. You can't, you know, you got to. For their sake. Yeah. What would your friends want you to do? Wow. We'll see. Yeah, yeah. I hope for the best. He's another one of our warriors, man. He puts his body and life on the line for us, man. That's our modern-day gladiator, you know? I know. There's nothing like a fight. It's different than any kind of sporting event. It's very different. And the losses are way different. They're way harder to deal with. And the victories are way greater.

2:41:32Yeah, you know, one of my best friends being Frankie, man. So I got a front seat to all of that. You know, Frankie knocked out Roy Jones back in the amateurs. And, you know, I wanted to see him get his due. I mean, he was WBA super middleweight champ for five years straight. But, you know, it was a front seat to the boxing life and the fighting life. It's a hard world. Yeah, it is. It's a hard world in the end is not pretty. And there's no one there for you. in the end a lot. I was watching this piece on Bobby Chacon, who was a great fighter in the 80s, and oh, my God, in the end, it was horrible.

2:42:10It was just horrible watching just the deterioration and the brain damage and no one there for you. That's a lot of guys. Yeah, yeah. I mean, your brain, it doesn't regenerate. No, it only gets worse. Yeah. And if you're experiencing brain damage now, I mean, without treatment, there's some treatments now, that they're able to use to help regenerate some neural tissue. But there's a certain amount you never come back from. Yeah. I know my son, one of my sons is, I mean, he's been going through, what do they call it? This is like a stimulation thing. The magnetic stuff? Yeah. Yeah, it's, man, I forget.

2:42:55But he's actually helped him out a great deal. I mean, he kind of went kind of an interesting route, like kind of experimented with some stuff before. But now he's kind of come back. It's turned him around. What happened? Yeah, he kind of was like getting high, kind of went that route for a minute. But he's gotten—I've just actually seen things turn around with this—I don't know why I can't remember. But it's this brain stimulation thing, and it kind of rewires you, you know? You know, I think I heard you talk about the— Ibocaine? You know, NED and those type of things. So, yeah, there's things that are going— There are things that can help, but you've got to be very vigilant about it.

2:43:49Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I've been connected to a lot of the anti-aging type of stuff. We're getting up there, brother. Yeah, it's fascinating. A good friend of mine is Bob Goldman. I don't know if you know who Dr. Bob Goldman is. No. Yeah, you should have him on the show. He's an interesting guy. He runs A4M. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's this conglomerate of doctors all around the world that's dedicated to fixing causes of diseases, not just chasing around the symptoms and stuff. And so it's like very much in the face of the pharmaceutical companies, they are really dedicated to, like, taking care of things from the source.

2:44:38Okay. And it's been going on for a while, man. It's like they have, like, about six of these things a year. The biggest one is in Vegas. But, like, look it up, A4M. Okay, check it out. Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, he's been dealing with them. I've actually tried to, I've hooked Nick Diaz up with him to help him because they're on the forefront of the new medicine type stuff. So, yeah, it's an interesting thing. A4M, they have a lot of doctors who will be giving lectures on all the most innovative stuff. And they have all the newest equipment that's just like the biggest kind of, I don't know, like rooms, huge rooms full of all the most.

2:45:35Collaborating. Yeah. It's a good time to be an older person. There's a lot of science behind it now. They have the belief that you should be living to 100 but healthily. Yeah. They really believe that. If it's ever been possible, now's the time. Oh, yeah. I think so, too. Yeah. My doctor, Dr. Alavizos, my doctor is 63. He looks like a freaking superhero. That's awesome. Yeah. 63-year-old guys when we were kids were basically dead. Yeah. They were just old men, frail, feeble. Yeah. It's interesting, man. It's like, yeah, we're getting older. But knock wood, man, I've been very fortunate. I've been very lucky.

2:46:18Yeah, me too. This is a good time to be an older person. Yeah. Man, you look good, man. Thank you. You too. Yeah. I think I'm a little older than you, though. How old are you? Yeah. I'm 58. Oh, yeah, I'm a little older than you. Okay. Yeah. Well, you look great. Well, thank you. You look great, then, if you're older than me. I feel good. Yeah. I feel very good. It's a really good. Well, there's so much information now on how to maintain your body and how to maintain your health when you're older. Yeah, yeah. Hey, brother. It's been great. I'm glad we got together. It was a lot of fun. Me too, man.

2:46:50Again, man, I got to tell you, man, how proud I am. Joe from the gym is doing his thing, man, in a big way, man. I feel the same about you. Thank you. Well, thank you, man. This was a lot of fun. Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. We'll do it again sometime. Yeah, we got to. All right. For sure. Definitely. All right. Bye, everybody.

2:47:3924-7 and without falsity. This is just the app that understands us. Personal worked. Sale. With visual dollars. Now to try out some of it.