JRE MMA Show #149 with Dan Henderson

27:11Some of these guys, when they go lighter, that they're, you know, they slow down their punches instead of, you know, keeping your speed there and your timing. Just touching each other. And not punching is hard. Yeah. That's kind of a hard thing to get used to. And it took me a while to have that control. I would accidentally drop guys a lot in practice because I didn't have control when I was, you know, kind of new to this work. Is there a way that you do now where you train guys to learn how to punch fast but not hit hard? Yeah, you yell at them, you know. Don't do it in slow motion, you know.

27:50Yeah, don't do in slow motion, but also don't... Don't be an idiot hard, but don't go slow, you know. You just got to remind them because guys just do it naturally. But it's kind of crazy for you as a pioneer because you guys had to kind of figure it out. That would make you feel a pioneer. I hear it all the time. What's a good word? I don't know. But yeah, that is a good word, but you just does make me feel a little better. You're the definition of a pioneer. I mean, UFC 17, I mean, come on, man. That's a... that was back in the dark days. I feel like I should have a fucking panda. I'm doing some gold, headlight, my hair.

28:26Yeah, but I mean, there's no better word for it. But back then, you guys had to kind of learn along the way and as the sport evolved. I've always said this, there's not a sport that you could ever point to that is evolved more since 1993 to 2023. I don't know. There's nothing even close. You watch fights today like the Makachev Volkhenowski fight. I mean, everything's so high level now. Everyone's so good in every aspect of the game. Yeah, that was a good... I mean, their first one was a good one. That was... I didn't expect that. I didn't expect it either. Yeah. The guy evolved. He got better.

29:01He got better and he figured out a lot of the things that he was doing wrong in that fight and then setting up that headkick with those bodies. I thought Volk was gonna get him just... I just felt like he had more tools and easier adjustments. Did you ever have to take a fight like that on 10 days notice? Because that's what's crazy about it. They took it so short notice. Yeah, a number of times, especially in pride. That was pretty common. Yeah, pride they would just call you up like a week before the fight, right? I fought Big Nog for... he was heavyweight champ at the time. 10 days notice. Jesus.

29:37Yeah, I mean, there was a couple of... I fought Boost of Montet on probably a week's notice. So during the Pride days? Two and a half months after a new ACL surgery. No way. They called me up and I was haunting out in Colorado. And they tracked me down on my buddy's cell phone up in the mountains and said, hey, you need to... And I didn't have a contract at the time and I went and had knee surgery because I tore my knee in. And... is like, well, if you don't take the fight, we don't know what will happen with any future contracts. So I'm like, all right, I'll do it, but you're paying me win order is...

30:20You know, the win bonus also. So I took the fight. Luckily, I knocked him out real quick with that knee.

30:31And who was that against? Mara, Boost of Montet. Boost of Montet. I don't remember that fight. I was after he left. He was just a champ and then left. That is crazy. You fought two and a half months after ACL reconstruction. That basically means your ACL was useless. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Tax season is already stressful. You shouldn't have to worry about identity theft on top of everything else. And trust me, it's a big worry. Especially since during tax season, your sensitive info does a lot of traveling to places you can't control. It goes through payroll, your accountant, or your tax consultant, and countless other data centers on its way to the IRS.

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33:36Well I mean, it was like a minute into the fight. How? Right. Okay now I'm remembering that fight. So you can find that fight. You got it? And I do this right here. Now this was, which way did they do it? Did they do a cadaver? They do a patellite. I did the cadaver because it was quicker recovery. Yeah, much quicker. I did the cadaver on my right knee and I had the patellite tendon on my left knee. My right knee was good to go in six months. But my left knee took like a year before it felt normal. That's crazy. Which knee is it? My left. And so you're supporting on it. You're already through a kick.

34:16So you're trusting it. Do you just not think about it once you're in there? No, yeah. I mean, I was, I was hiking like 10 miles a day for about four days before they tracked me down up in Colorado. So that's crazy too. Luckily I was, you know, but I was also joining the beer every day. Well that does it get you in shape though. The beer doesn't, but the, the hiking 10 miles a day in the mountains. That's actually probably pretty good for your fucking endurance. You know, all there it is. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's it. That must have been so such a relief to take a fight like that two and a half months after surgery.

34:58Yeah, no, it was definitely a good moment for sure. I was a little nervous about it because he's a tough dude. Yeah, very tough dude. Very tough dude. The funniest thing about that, you know, the one week that I had at home training, I threw like a wide left hook and dislocated my thumb. And it popped out. You can see it still screwed up now. But when I got there, I'm like, Hey, can I get a shot to numb my thumb before the fight because they can do that there. They don't let you do it here. Right. They're like, yeah, but you got to go to the doctor. They'll X -ray you see, you know, so I went in there and they got one of those things you can see the chicken X -ray me doing this.

35:40There was nothing wrong. And then I'm like, but it had the X -ray machine where you can see the bones move. And it just so weird out the bone just comes right. The ligament is gone. Oh, so. Is it still gone? Yeah, it's just torn off. Yeah, I just it by that time. I just taped it for about a year and then it was good. But my other thumb got jammed in the fight. Like when I was trying to finish him, it must have got jammed. And my whole thumb was so swollen. So I couldn't even wipe my ass. I couldn't take my pants off. I had no thumbs for like a week. So both thumbs are fucked out. Oh, God. Yeah.

36:22Wow. But yeah, that was the funny part about that. The pride days were so wild because did you when when when you were under contract with pride? Did you just like when an event was coming up, just prepare like you were probably going to fight in the event? Because they didn't contact anybody until a couple of weeks out. For their New Year's Eve shows, you know, I knew that I'd probably be fighting most likely on most of those shows once they started. Because that was their big event of the year. So I think I did two or three of those. But I was ready to go. The only ones that really that I noticed that was real short notice with those two, I you know, gets big nog and then.

37:06Against boost. I remember when boosted Montefa Tom Erickson, that one crazy event. No, it was one of those no time limit things or like a 30 minute round or something like that. And it was an Erickson was like 300 pounds. And on May 5th or with a grappling. No, it was MMA. Is that my my fight? I think it was the same event where Oleg Tectar fought Hanzo Gracie and Hanzo Gracie K .O .D. him with an up kick. It was like the first time we saw an up kick. Was that in the UFC? No. No, that was. That was some one off some of the first few UFC's they were doing goofy stuff like like they had super long fights.

37:44No time limit. Right. The first UFC was no time limit each fight. No time limit. You just fought. And pride had, pride had when I first got to pride it was two tens. And then they turned into ten and two fives, right? Do you like that? I think the ten minute round is a good idea. I liked it because I thought it separated the men from the boys really. I mean about seven, eight, nine minutes in. You know, guys start breaking. Well, also if you're a grappler and you take a guy down with four minutes into the round. And you know, you've got six minutes to go now instead of one minute. Right. You know, if you're, you see in the UFC guys struggle so hard to get a take down and they finally get a take down and then boom, rounds over.

38:29Right. Whereas I just feel like in that situation maybe the right move is to start them in the next round exactly where you left them off. You know what I mean? No, that would, I would like that. Because you think about the advantage that it is for an elite striker like Alex Bajad or something like that. If you take that guy down and dominate him in the first round and then the second round starts and he has to go right back to side control or wherever, wherever you had him. Or just do three eight minute rounds or something. Something like that. Yeah. Three eight minute rounds for a championship round.

38:58That for a championship fight. That I like that. For any fight. Yeah. Well, it's just I think, you know, Chelsen and I said this is just like no one can really fight all out for 25 minutes. You got to kind of pace yourself. No, yeah. And like I said, coming from wrestling to MMA, I kind of learned how to pace myself and then you know sometimes like my fight against show gun, which was five rounds. But I got tired because I tried to finish him like in the third round and just fucking shot my wad. Yeah. You know, and that fight was fucking crazy. That was a crazy one. It was probably more crazy to everybody else watching than it was to me.

39:41Really was that because I don't know. I felt like I dominated him the first three round rounds. Yeah. Like it wasn't a close decision on those three rounds. The fourth round was kind of close. So it could have been either way. I thought and then the fifth round he was on top of me, but he wasn't hurting me at all. So I knew he wouldn't finish me. In my mind, I knew for sure he wasn't going to finish me and I already won the fight. And you know, any time he did hit me, I'd try to get out. And he just kept mounting me again. Every time I almost get out, I was so tired. Well, I want to say crazy in that it was entertaining.

40:20No, for sure. It was very wildly entertaining fight. But a lot of people like, oh, they didn't know what was going to happen if he was going to finish me or not finish me. But I knew that he wasn't going to. So that's why it wasn't as exciting to me. It definitely was a lot tougher fight than I was hoping for. Well, because of trying to empty out the cast tank. Yeah, that. And I thought, you know, he'd, I don't know if he was coming off injuries in the past with some of his other fights where he kind of almost quit. And they broke him or finished him. And some like, that was my goal was to go out there and get on.

41:00I'm pretty hard and try to break him and finish him. He's a guy that I feel like maybe fought a little too long. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. And he, he definitely manned up and, you know, was a lot tougher than I thought he was. Oh, he's a tough mother for me. And he was amazing. Yeah. And in pride, he was fucking amazing. I think a lot of guys left their best days behind in pride, unfortunately. You know, a lot of guys, by the time we saw him on the UFC, big gnaw, croak up. Croak up. Yeah. There's a few of those guys that just the war, the fador, the wars that they had in pride were so insane. The young kid.

41:38I like fador didn't have big wars though, a couple, but not, no, not where he got hit much. No, not really. I mean, even in the croak up fight, he was basically walking down croak up, which is crazy. And you think about what an elite striker croak up is. Right. And fador was a motherfucker, dude. God damn that guy was good. I feel like some of the referees or something told me like when, when they were in their rough, rough and croak up in the UFC, he's out there saying, I'm too old for this shit or I don't, you know, like why am I here? That's not the attitude you should have when you're out there.

42:11Yeah. Well, I think also I don't know what he was doing when he was in pride, but I know a lot of guys when they're in pride were doing a lot of shit. And then they came over to the UFC and also they're getting tested. Right. Whereas in pride, they were saying like specifically we don't test it for nothing. Like Ensen told me. They did they did. They did. They did. They did. They did. They did. They didn't do anything with it. They just wanted to make sure you're on steroids. Yeah. I asked them if they would. Or wouldn't it, you know, and the answer I got, well, if we did that, it would be you and no Garrett.

42:43We'd only fighters we'd have. So yeah, I was wondered. I was wondered like how much of what you saw was guys that were tossed up. We know some guys were tossed up for sure. Yeah. I think a lot of sports have that evolution in there before, you know, before they get big enough that. Yeah. Be concerned about that. They're already doing it. Yeah. Well, then there was the testosterone replacement error. Yeah. And I was the first one to get on that. Yeah. And I was like, there's no way I'm doing, I don't want to do that. And, you know, the doctor's like, well, you'd feel a lot better. And, and I asked that a lot of commission if I even could.

43:24They're like, yeah, if you get a doctor's prescription and, you know, they say you need it, no problem. I was like, oh, really? Okay. And then everybody started kind of abusing that. They abused the shit out of it. Fucked it up for everybody. Well, those days, the V -Tore days, everybody talks about TRT V -Tore. Yeah. Because testosterone replacement V -Tore was fucking Jesus Christ. He was getting it. And when I fought him in pride, he tested positive in Vegas. Oh, really? Because we were in Vegas. Their first pride event in Vegas. Well, you were one of the only guys who didn't show a performance decline when you got off of it.

43:59Right. No, I didn't. I wasn't taking much, but I was, and I always, even when they weren't testing me like they do now, they randomly show up. And I was asking for, for the UFC to do that for years, even though now they're getting rid of it. But well, they're getting rid of it, but they're implementing some sort of a new program called Drug Free Sport. Right. But I don't know what that means. They're a logo. It might be a wink. Yeah, it depends on how much money you're making them. Yeah, I think they wanted a little bit more control of when the tests were going on, because you saw it would show up at six o 'clock in the morning, you test guys on weigh -in days and shit like that.

44:37Well, I mean, and I had, I had to deal with that when I wrestled for, you know, on the national team. Top three guys are subjected to that as well. And I had that for years, you know, and then, you know, I started, that's why I was like, oh, I don't want to do that, but they're like, oh, you can. But I would test myself at least once or twice every training camp. So I could, if anybody questioned me or how I was doing it, I could show that I'm not abusing it. This is what my level's where during training camp. So I did that all on my own just because even though I would only get tested by them at the fight.

45:18Did you have to do anything differently once you got off of it once they removed the TRT exemptions? No. Did you do anything different? Just stop taking it. Yeah, just a lot of that shit's in your head anyway. So I was like, at that time, yeah, I mean, I didn't, I'm sure that I was a little bit affected, but I felt like, yeah, I could push through it no problem. And I did. And as I got older though, like in my early 40s, mid 40s, I really started feeling the age a little bit as far as just not recovering. Did you adjust your training to handle that? Yeah, I mean, I would, I would, I made my training camps like a month longer, three weeks longer, just to kind of ease into it and not really go real hard for the first two, three weeks and then really start a hard training camp and then taper off a little bit better, but just a little bit shorter practices with more intensity.

46:24And so going back to being a pioneer, I know you hate that word, but really are. I don't get it. How did you guys figure out what's the best way to train? Like, who helped you put together camps? Like, because you're going from this one discipline wrestling, which excels that. And now you're competing in MMA and there's so many different ways to do it. And nobody really knew exactly the right way to do it. There was a lot of like different camps are doing it different ways. Right. How did you guys figure out? I don't know. I think, you know, knowing how much there was to learn in the sport, we couldn't, we kind of broke it up into different categories.

47:05You know, one day we're going to spar hard one, you know, but we also needed to learn how to grapple on the ground. You know, how to use our wrestling to control certain positions. So I think just knowing that we didn't spend every day sparring hard or, you know, three, four days a week sparring hard because we needed to learn the other shit too. So I think it just naturally went that way. And then as we got more older, a little bit older and more experienced in the sport, you know, kind of fine tune that a little bit. On certain days we do certain harder things and really try not to beat your brain up too much every day, just one day maybe.

47:51Yeah, it's kind of, it's interesting that even today there's different schools of thought, like Sean Strickland Sparr is basically every day. Whereas Max Holley. He was at my gym for like three years. Oh yeah, buzzing. So while boy, kind of had to let him go. Oh, did you? The crazier days? Yeah, now he just kind of gets to involve talking shit about people. I can see that. I like them in the gym. I liked them there. He was a great training partner. You need at least one guy. Yeah. And your gym that does that and goes hard and makes everybody else go hard. Yeah. When they're going against them.

48:33So I liked it. But other people didn't. Yeah, he just, you know, he just was too disrespectful to teammates and stuff. I'm seeing. And as the young Sean Strickland. Yeah, no, this is a well, you know, I definitely see that. And, you know, you know, always rooted for him when he left it. You know, it wasn't like I was like, I hope that guy, you know, now I always rooted for him. I thought he had a ton of potential. I was yelling at him to go up a weight class because he was always trying to make 170. I might do it. You need to go 185. You feel a lot better. You compete just the you'd be fine competing up there.

49:14But everybody's always mentally afraid. Be against the bigger guys. Yeah, he's a different fighter at 185 than he was at 171. And 170 you can see he was compromised. He's just like, how, I mean, he had to cut 25 pounds. Easy, right? Yeah, now he's big. He's way too big for 170. But when you saw his fight without a saw in you, we shocked. I only saw parts of that. I didn't see the whole thing. I was somewhere else. I didn't get to see it. It's fucking amazing. Yeah, no, I saw parts of it. And yeah, he looked great. He looked fucking amazing. The crazy thing is how good his defense is. I thought he would do well against him.

49:51I didn't think he'd do well just standing up with him. I mean, I thought on your side, it would get without pointing him a little bit. But I thought Sean would take him down and beat the shit out of him if he got on top. Well, that's a lot of people don't realize Sean has a very good ground game. No, very good. Yeah, very good. He just doesn't use it very often. Black belt, Jiu -Jitsu, good wrestling, good takedown defense. You know, he's solid everywhere. But he just loves to bang. Right. Just stand in the front. He doesn't have like huge power. It's probably getting better at putting in better places now.

50:27But he wasn't like, it's not a big knockout guy. But he definitely adds him up. And really, he's by far one of the biggest pressure fighters. Yeah. It just moves forward all the time. Well, he's also able to do that because of his defense. His defense is so hard. So undirrated. And in that, how to sign you fight, you saw it so clearly. Yeah, he's really hard to hit. So good at moving just out of distance and then putting more pressure back on you, checking those calf kicks. He's quick. Yeah. I was super impressed with that. Yeah. And it's even more impressive, you know, coming back from an accident like he had too.

51:07Yeah. And he talks about it. It's like my quads all fucked up on his right leg. Right. Like his one leg is just like the quads not even attached. Yeah. Which is nuts. Yeah, no, it's, but again, it just shows what the body can do if you just let it. Yeah. You know, if you're just mentally tough enough to push through something. Well, he changes style a little bit because of it. You know, he stands different than most people. He stands very straight up. He always has. Yeah. Always. Yeah. When I spar him, I'd have to, I quit aiming for his head. I just aim for his chest and it kind of stopped him.

51:45And then I could, you know, follow up if I hit him in the chest. I could follow up and hit him again, but he's hard to hit. Yeah, it's impressive. And he's the only guy doing that sort of Philly shell style at a championship level. It's like very interesting seeing him out there. He looks different than everybody else. Yeah. He's, he's quick. That really helps him not get hit also. Yeah, but it's just also, I think when we go back to the different schools of thought in terms of sparring, he spars every day. It's most of his training. He's sparring. Right. So when you see him fight out of Sonja in the fifth round, he got, wasn't even breathing heavy.

52:21I mean, he looked like ready to go five more after that. He's got, like just his natural ability is his cardio. Among, you know, he knows how to fight well too, but naturally he just has cardio for days. Well, I got to think that has a lot to do with constantly sparring. So the sparring thing is not, there's not a lot of tension. Very loose and very composed. Very efficient. Whereas some guys, like, but then again, you look at Max Holloway, he's about as good as it gets. And that guy doesn't spar at all anymore. Says, I don't want to get beat up. He shouldn't. Yeah, he just says especially the way his fights are typically worse, you know.

53:03Oh, he's got some fucking crazy wars. Crazy wars. Crazy wars. But he's like, I want to go into those fights fresh. And I think that was something that he picked up during training camps. So like some of the training camps were sparring a lot. He was a little beat up by the time he actually got into the octagon. And so now he's like, look, I already know how to fight. So I'll just do drills and hit mitts and pads and constant conditioning and it works. Right. Now yeah, for sure. But that's what's interesting is like there's no one perfect way to do it. It depends upon the athlete, depends upon the skill set.

53:35Right. Now for sure. And you know, you could like, I set certain days to do certain things because of, you know, how tough certain things are in certain days and you want to go hard, then you want to kind of take it easy for a day. Easier, I should say, but it doesn't work for everybody. Some guys just need need a little bit more. Some guys need less. Do you think that's something that you just need to tune in on your own with a coach and with the people that you work with and just figure it out over time, multiple camps? Yeah, I guess, but I mean, for the most part, you get what you get put into it out of it.

54:16So if some day one day you're not feeling it, you know, you kind of get in there and you get lazy, it might get beat up a little bit, but that means you're having to push through some adversity to kind of keep going, which is also a good thing and training to have to do some days. And on the flip side, you might feel great someday and you're the one beat the other guy up in practice and I think it's good for the guys to get beat up to have to see how they respond to that. Right. And to have that experience once you actually get in the fight. Right. Because it's definitely going to happen in a fight.

54:54Yeah. Yeah. What do you think was your toughest fight? Do you have a toughest fight? I have a toughest night of fighting. That was when I did that tournament, the rings tournament, the 32 man unlimited weight class tournament tournament. Yeah, I forgot about that. How many times did you fight that night? Well, the first event I fought twice and then I came back and fought three times in a night. For the, for the how much of a gap between the first two fights and the so I fought Gilbert, you know, rival, whatever. Yeah. As the first fight that night and had about an hour probably, which is pretty good.

55:3645 minutes to an hour. And then I fought big nod. And he fucked my knee up. He, we're in the clinch and he jumps the guard and his ass landed on my leg and just popped my, it, MCL. So my leg really hurt. My knee dead. I made it through that fight, beat him. And then I had about 20 minutes, 25 minutes. There's one fight in between. Oh, Jesus. And then I had to fight Bob Lue in the finals and Randy was in my corner and, and uh, ran Parsons and and they're, I find that afterwards that like, oh, there's no problem. He's going to be able to fight. He was, I was just a bucket of shit out there in the locker room.

56:22It hurt. And then, uh, you know, but that fight, I had never made that much money. It was kind of, it was, this was in the year 2000. So I think the most I had, uh, ever made from wrestling, you know, and with everything combined was when I fought the UFC, the, the year before that and made like 20 grand. This final fight was worth 200 grand. Wow. Just the winner lose. It was a 200 ,000 dollar difference. Just the one fight. Yeah, the finals, the champ got everything. It was basically winter take all type of thing. If I would have taken second place, I would have had five fights for about 30 grand total.

57:05And, and I made 230 grand instead. And then nuts. Yeah. And I'll tell you what, when I went out there and they played the national anthem beforehand, I got me pumped up ready to go and the thought of 200 ,000 dollars. Did you tape your knee up or anything? Ah, now, but I mean, there wasn't really much time and I just went out there and fought kind of defended takedowns and and this tournament was, uh, they had a little bit different rules. It was, it was two fives and, uh, the kind of like the ultimate fighter and the possibility of another five of its, if it's a draw. And Bob Ballou was a fucking stud too.

57:46Yeah, he was him and both him and no gear were both pretty big like, like 40 pounds bigger than me. Probably 40. Bob Ballou had one of the most horrific chaos early in his career. He fought Brad Kohler and he soccer kicked him with wrestling shoes on. Remember those days? Yeah, I remember that. Brad Kohler was like a bodybuilder. He was a tank. Yeah, I remember him. Hey, he was a tank. And Bob Ballou stuffed his shots and got him down and soccer kicked him into the next realm. Yeah, I think I remember that. Yeah, it's even fun. Bob Ballou was an animal. Very, very tough. He, him and Nogera, up till the time I, when I had fought them, they'd submitted everybody in the tournament that they fought so far.

58:36So Nogera had, had finished three guys. He hit him with a lot of low kicks. That was back in the wrestling shoes days. Very interesting. The difference when you're a amount of grip that you have with wrestling shoes. Big fucking difference, right? Yeah, Bob Ballou was super high level. Yeah, he's, he's tough. So here it is. He gets him right here. Boom. Soccer kick. What show is that in? Was that in Brazil? I don't know. I don't remember. 2000. What does it say world extreme fighting? Okay. It was just so many. January 15th of 2000. Just different fucking rule sets. About a month later is when I fought him in that tournament.

59:30I think it was like February, the King of Kings finals. World extreme fighting going plough. Jen's pauper was in there. No shit. Wow. That Phil John's did looks like Justin Gigi. He does. I thought it was first. Oh, paylay fought fucking Pat Militich. I forgot about that fight too. John Lewis Jeremy Horn. Wow. Nogera. Yeah. Red, red, red, red, red, red. Yeah. Matt Hughes was in there. Wow. Bunch of legends. Wow.

1:00:09Just those days, man. That's never going to happen again, where you have just the emergence of a sport like this that becomes one of the biggest sports in the world. Yeah. I think they should do tournaments again. You think so? Multiple fights in a night. It would be wild. I think they should start doing that. And then it kind of gerset up to being an Olympic sport after that. What do you do though if you have injuries? Like what if I think you got a tame down that the rules a little bit, but there's typically alternates when they do any MMA tournament. Right. But they have an ultimate. Yeah, but I mean, if someone like say if you have a war against one, like say if say if you have a war against somebody and then the in the next round, the guy who also fought, he has to pull out and then they put it in an alternate and he's fresh.

1:01:02Yeah, I mean, but they make the alternates fight. Oh, do they? Like my father boosted a monster was an alternate fight. Oh, I see. I see. So the alternates fight. I actually could have fought again that night. I'm thankful I did and I wouldn't have any thumbs in a blown out of it. It's skinny knee. Wow. Yeah, that would work. That would work. Well, you have a potential alternate. You might need to. Well, if you needed the other guy, I guess you would take the loser of the alternate. Yeah, I guess. I guess you would unless you get a KO'd. Yeah. Yeah. Well, even in some words. Right. If it's in Japan, they're like, dust them off, put some ice on his head.

1:01:40Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting when you see tournaments, though, because it's like you have a built -in super fight. Right. You have you see over the night guys winning and you know their style. And so you're looking forward to the matchup when it comes to the main event. Right. I mean, that was the early UFC. Right. Yeah. I thought you've seen 17 was a tournament. Yeah. Yeah, the tournaments were wild. The first one I went to was UFC 12. That was when Vito were fought trade, telligmen, and then he fought Scott for Ozo. Anyone the heavyweight tournament. News 19. Right. Yeah. The Randy came in after that.

1:02:21I just don't. Yeah. Randy was that. That was back when Vito was like 240 when he fought Randy. He looked like his trap started at the top of his ears. Little bitty head on top of a huge body. He was crazy, big. He was so bulked up. But I just wonder like what athletic commissions would allow you to do that. I know Los Angeles, just a few years ago, when they had glory last man standing, they had a big tournament there. It was a big kickboxing tournament. Yeah. I wonder if they would allow something like that with some athletic commissions with MMA. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't see why they wouldn't.

1:03:01I mean, big signing. They could tame it down a little bit. Kind of like they do the ultimate fighter, but you know, have it all in one night, not over. Right. A time. Well, it certainly would be exciting. I think the options that would be interesting are 1 15 minute round instead of three fives. I think that would be very interesting. And then a tournament that would also be very interesting if they decided to do. I mean, if someone wants to stand out from another organization, like the PFL or one of those like the PFLs got some weird point system that they do that I don't really understand. You get a certain amount of points for a submission, a certain amount of points for a KO and it's like you're ahead in the score.

1:03:43Is that like to go for the whole season to see where you're left? And then yeah, it's it's not the whole season was a tournament anyway. I guess it's only certain way classes or the whole. It's way classes. I don't know if they do it with all way classes, but I think that's just how they run their organization. I hope they stop doing that. Well, they're now going to own a bell tower. Yeah, which is interesting. They got a lot of cash apparently. A lot of oil money going that direction. A lot of investor money. Yeah. Listen, the more big organizations the better. I think for for the athletes for sure, for the fans, for sure.

1:04:24And they have Francis and Ghana. You know, Francis and Ghana becomes their heavyweight, you know, poster guy and you know, he's their heavyweight champion. We could be very interesting if they throw a bunch of money on it. No, I agree. I think it's great for the sport and you know, great for the fighters. Yeah, definitely great for the fighters. The fighters can't just have the UFC. And it's good for the UFC too. Everybody needs competition. You know, the UFC needs the and it's great for the fighters. If you got the PFL bidding on you, you got one championship bidding on you and you got the UFC bidding on you, that's a good place to bid.

1:04:57Well, for sure. If there's only the UFC around, you got to take what they give you. Yeah, I was kind of in that boat for a bit. When the UFC bought pride and then that was in the UFC again and then stri -force came along and I went there and then they bought stri -force. That's right. That's right. So I told the press I said Dana is like a stalker. He loves me so much. You got to buy the company. You remember a fliction? They were around for a hot minute. Yeah, that I think they basically broke the bank when Josh Barnett tested positive. He was gonna fight Fadeau and the fight. They just canceled the Holy Van and never had another show.

1:05:41Dana didn't know about it. I'm pretty sure he was gambling. I think he was playing Blackjack and I texted him and I said, hey, did you hear what's going on? I go Josh Barnett tested pot and then he called me up and he goes, what the fuck's going on? Then I told him he's like, holy shit. He was so happy.

1:06:00Yeah, he was so happy. It would have been nice for I think Trump was getting ready to be involved. He was at the event to watch or he was at the previous event to watch and I think they were kind of grooming them to be an investor. Interesting. That would have been interesting. Yeah, but yeah, that was back when everybody loved Trump. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Boy, what a fucking thing's changed. He was in all the rap songs. Rappers would always talk about Trump. Everybody loved Trump. It was like this wheel and dealing billionaire character that everybody enjoyed. Yeah, I felt like you did a decent job.

1:06:40As president, when you look at his regulations, it certainly helped you economy. That guy who was at head. I feel like we were in a lot better spot than then now for sure. Without a doubt. Well, there's a lot of shit happened. COVID in the world. The world's the world's scares the shit out of me right now. Right now, I'm like, boy, this is not good. No, this is Ukraine thing. Not good. Yeah, everything not good. Everything scares the shit out of me. I'm looking at all of it going fuck. Like there's no good solutions to them at least. All of it looks terrible. And the Ukraine thing looks terrible.

1:07:15It just, it just scares the shit out of me because it's just like all it takes is one person to fucking launch a nuke and the world changes forever. Right. And I've never felt like that was a possibility in my lifetime until now. Yeah, I mean, this is, it is a little bit unsure realm of how I, you know, I feel definitely a little bit unsure about what's going to happen. Yeah, it's very. Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at like moving to Iceland or some shit. Where's going to be safe from the fallout? We're going to do some more research on aliens. Yeah, we're the, we're the next vacation spot is. Well, that would be fascinating.

1:07:56If the aliens come down and stop it all. Yeah. If they just can't listen to deep shits. We've been watching, waiting. It's like the way I described it is like two brothers fighting in the backyard. The parents like hang on, let them fucking work this out and just figure out when one of them grabs a rock and run in. Okay. I know. That's enough. Yeah. I don't know. Just I've never felt more like the world's on the verge of being forever ruined. This is what it feels like right now. It just feels like I've never felt more like we're on, I mean, this is must have been what it felt like at the, at the beginning of World War III or World War II rather.

1:08:37Don't say three. I'm sorry. 40 and slip. Yeah. That's it's fucked. So what have you been up to other than obsessing over hunting? That's the, that's my main hobby these days. But other than that, you know, run in the club, we have this comedy club that you went to last night. Yeah. That was impressive. It was pretty cool. Thank you. It's been fun. That's, that's a nice thing because you know, in LA, we had the comedy store and one of the things that I realized when I moved out here, there's no real, there was no real home base and all these comics that already moved out here. There was a shit ton of comedians that decided to fuck California.

1:09:19I can't deal with this anymore. I can't perform because they were locking everybody down for like a year and a half. They wouldn't let anybody do shows. They wouldn't even let them do shows in the park in lot of the comedy store. It was the whole thing was so crazy. It didn't make any sense. And out here we were doing full shows indoors. Yeah. It's amazing how that is. Yeah, nothing happened. You know, we're all going to die. No one died. I shut my gym down for six weeks. Oh, that's it. Yeah. Nice. That's good. Yeah. No, I live in a good spot. That is a good spot. And our, our county sheriff, you know, said, fuck you governor.

1:09:54Some you're a hypocrite where I'm not going to arrest people for, you know, being responsible and owning businesses and still trying to make their money and keep it afloat. Well, it destroyed LA. I mean, it destroyed the restaurant industry. It really did. It destroyed it. Some, they at one point in time, they lost somewhere around 70 % of all restaurants. It was just insane. Wow. Just insane. And they never corrected because you know what it is? The people that run the government, their amount of money they make is not dependent on whether or not businesses stay open. Right. If it was, they would have never shut jack shit down.

1:10:30If the, if they worked it like, say, if you work for a company and you're a CEO and the company makes a profit, you get bonuses. Right. You get bonuses based on the amount of profit the company gets. If the whole state lost money and the economy crashed, that should be reflected in your paycheck. I agree. 100 % and if the whole state kicks ass, that should be reflected in your paycheck. And if that was the case, you would have seen a completely different response. They would have been like, ladies and gentlemen, you just need to get vitamin D and everybody needs to start drinking water and exercising and losing weight.

1:11:04And here's some ways to boost your immune system. Instead of everybody has to stay indoors and all the kids have to fucking be home and mask up and it's just nuts. It's just nuts to watch it all work. And so many people stepped in line and so many people were like, okay, and nobody got angry about it. I was one month in. I was like, what the fuck is going? I can't start looking in May of 2020. Because I was like, these motherfuckers are never going to let this go. They're never going to let this go. They, they keep ramping up all the new regulations and ramping up what can be closed. They shut out outdoor dining, which made no fucking sense.

1:11:42Right. The none of it made any sense. And that's when I started moving. When I came out here, first thing we did with my family went to a restaurant. We sat indoors and my kids are like, we can eat at a restaurant. This is crazy. And I'm and we went on a lake on Lake Austin. We were looking at this house and we went on a boat on the lake and there was people jumping in the water and drinking and and playing music and my kids are like, I want to live here. So then I was just talking my wife into it. It's like, come on. Like, listen, we could just, well, if we don't like it, we could always move back.

1:12:13We were shooting from LA area. Well, we lived, we both lived in LA for 20 plus years. Yeah. You know, it's like, had all these friends there. I had all my, my business was there. Everything was there. You know, comedy was there. Everything was there. But I just didn't like, I don't like people telling me what to do, especially people that are hypocrites. Right. And those photos of new, some came out when he was dining indoors with no mask on and it's like, these fucking, and his kids were still going to school and school. Yeah. Yeah. All of it. The whole thing was fucked. It was just the whole thing was fucked.

1:12:45You're just allowing these people that I never thought about who the governor was before. I never thought about who the man was. I didn't ever really cared. I didn't care. I did what I had to do and hopefully they did a good job and then fuck the economy up. That's all. Now, when you Joe Rogan in there. Fuck that. You don't want me. You know, well, me in there. Brother have you then. Yeah. You probably would. You probably want to have me in there, but they probably just house -nate me. It wouldn't take long for I'd be like, hey, why are we spending money on all these things? Fuck out of here with this.

1:13:17How many people are working on the homeless committee? Oh, fuck. Get out of here. We looked into that. The homeless thing is nuts. There's people on this whatever governing body that's supposed to be handling the homeless crisis. There's people on that that make him $240 ,000 a year. It was zero incentive to get rid of the homeless problem. Because then they don't have a job. What are you going to do? You're going to transfer over to somewhere else and make the same amount of money. You're going to think it's probably because you're Joe. Use that money to actually help homeless out. I don't know how the fuck they do it.

1:13:50They've ruined it. It's gotten so bad that I just don't know how you pull the, how you turn it around. I think a lot of homeless, a lot of it is stems from getting mixed up with drug use and being dependent. Drug use and mental illness. That's the primary cause of most of it. They try to make it seem as if it's just like people down in their lock like, maybe it's a few. They should have finished that wall. What it helped. That's the craziest thing is that two things are happening simultaneously. The southern border wide open and people are pushing for people to be able to vote with no ID. Those two things are insane.

1:14:30No, absolutely. Did you see that they're sending people back from Venezuela? Because Venezuela has a communist government and the people that come over to here, they escape socialism. Those people are most likely to vote like Cubans do in America. Cubans in America vote Republican. And so when they're having these issues, they're trying to actively send Venezuelans back to Venezuela. Of course they are. Yeah. So transparent. It's so transparent. I don't care what their other excuses are. The fact that they're targeting Venezuelans and their Venezuelans, 100 % hate socialism. The ones that come over here, it's nuts.

1:15:07I mean, look, there's always these periods in history where things get bad and then they get better again. They get bad and they get better again. I mean, things were great for a long time, but they're on a slide. And we got to pull out of that fucking slide. Yeah. For sure. And if we don't, it's not good. I'm real nervous about next year. Real nervous. No matter who wins. The country's going to be in a frothy uproar because of this fucked up media that we have. I think they're the biggest problem that we have. Yeah. No, they are. They are the most science. Yeah. I agree. Well, their business is just get people riled up, get people pay an attention.

1:15:46And the most outrageous shit that they can say, the most outrageous stories they can publish, those are the ones that are going to get clicks. So those are the ones that they publish. And then everybody gets into this frothy panic. And meanwhile, it's amazing. The spin that they could put on, you know, if both sides were air in the same exact story, it sounds like two completely different things. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. There's no like real like objective news source that everybody trusts anymore. There's not one thing where you go, oh, this is the bubble -bubble news. They're always legit above board.

1:16:19It's complicated issue and they're going to lay out all the different sides to it. Yeah. No. Everything's got to spin to it. It's not good. It's not good. It's not good. I don't know how it gets better. Yeah, I don't either. It just sucks you have to think about it. Yeah, no. For most of my life, I didn't really think about it that much. I never did. I always worried about wrestling and then fighting and then, you know, just simply things. Yeah. Getting shit, getting better at what I did. Yeah. And I would never, never go into politics. So it didn't matter to me. Yeah. I never really cared. Just like what you said, I was the same way and it didn't really pay attention to much of it until recently.

1:17:08I talked to Dana White once. I said, you should run for president. And he's like, dude, the skeletons that would come out of my closet. It would feel like the walking dead. Yeah. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Of course. Of course. I mean, that's, yeah. They don't give a shit if you'd be good at your job. They just give a shit about getting their side in. Yeah. And this country is so polarized. The whole right versus left thing is so crazy. Yeah, I feel like racism is a lot worse than it was before all this. Just because they talk about it all the time. They're talking about it too. And when it's not even there, they're still talking about it.

1:17:49Yeah. They're making an issue. And they're stirring the pot. Yeah, because that's what their job is. Their job is just to get people outraged. I mean, if your business is just to get people fired up and paying attention to things and angry, that's what they do. It's just our job to kind of like figure that out now. And I think trust in mainstream media is at an all time low. I don't think there's ever been a time in my life where people trust the mainstream news less. Well, I know that I don't trust them, but I don't know how even I don't know. No one's watching them. CNN got its lowest ratings since the 1990s here the day.

1:18:27They have 43 ,000 people watching. No crazy that is. And that's 43 ,000 people worldwide or just in the States. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. It's just crazy. Yeah. But even if it's just in the states, that's nuts. That's nothing. Especially when they do the points. So it points on how many millions. Yeah, I mean, that's literally Taylor Swift concert.

1:18:53And not even a big one. It's one of her smaller concerts. Wow. Yeah, it's not. But I would like to see the UFC in in an arena. I think the UFC could do the. And outdoor arena. Yeah, that Raiders arena. I think they could do that arena. Like what pride just didn't K1 did in the Tokyo. No, it was in the Saitama Super arena. No, no, that's a close. Yeah, it just stretches. They had a bigger arena. I didn't go to it, but they had like 80 ,000 ,000 people there at that. I think it was in the year's Eve show. The only problem with that is you have to hope it doesn't rain. Yeah. And I think they had people skydiving.

1:19:33Oh, look, obsessed with Las Vegas fear. I eyes UFC card at venue in 2024. Oh, I haven't been in there. Yeah, have you been in there? No, I haven't. I've seen it in videos and stuff. It looks insane. When you're inside of it, the entire thing is a screen like everything, the ceiling, all the wall. Have you seen it? Have you seen the videos? No, I haven't. It's fucking bananas. Like your concert. It's crazy. Yeah, crazy good. Crazy good. Yeah. Oh, my God. How many is it? Seat Jamie? 18 ,000. 18? Oh, they'd be perfect for UFC. Yeah. And then you could show the replays on the ceiling. You'd show the replays everywhere.

1:20:13So the guy knocked out. I could see it too. Oh, boy. Yeah. As he's on his back, you see the head kick land. When you look at the level of fighting today, and think about how it was when you started, are you proud? Are you proud that you were part of it in the beginning? Well, yeah, I'm definitely proud that I was part of that journey. But I mean, I don't know. I still feel like there's certain things missing on some of these guys. You know, they're just not great at certain, yeah, at anything, any one thing, some of them. But they're really good at everything, but not spectacular. Not specialists.

1:20:55Yeah. Yeah. We have a few guys that are specialists like Pejeta. You know, there's a few of the elite kickboxers. But then you see more, you know, you see where the holes are in their game too. Yeah. I don't know, but yeah, I think that it's definitely evolved into, you know, some guys that are extremely a lot more skilled and talented than back in the day, for sure. For sure. I just think maybe I think what's missing is some of the just the old school attitude. Well, the old school guys did it because they wanted to do it, and there wasn't really much money in it at all. You had to be really kind of crazy.

1:21:35You know, yeah. Well, you had to be a wild motherfucker to enter into UFC one or UFC two, or UFC three. I mean, it was just, you had to be fucking crazy. It was funny. I came home from 92 Olympics, and I was in my hometown in Victorville, which is in the middle of nowhere. And I went out to the local bar and some guy was in there talking to me about, hey, you know, we're getting ready to put on this show. You know, we're going to see who the toughest, toughest guys are, you know, from we're going to have a wrestler, boxers, and he's describing the UFC. And it happened about three months after that.

1:22:19It's like, yeah, we're putting together the show. We're about to do it, you know, blah, blah, blah. Next thing I know the UFC started. Wow. I have no idea who that guy was. It's just some guy you met at a bar. Yeah. I wonder who it was. Yeah. I don't know. I wonder what his good was. What role he had in it. I found out about it from a local video store. I think someone had told me about it. And then I rented UFC two, who was 94, and I just moved to LA, and I remember watching and going, holy shit, they did it. Because I always remembered thinking when I was back when I was kickboxing in Taikwondo, everybody always wondered, what would happen if a judo guy fought a wrestler?

1:23:01What would happen if a boxer fought a karate guy? But to see it all actually happened, like, holy shit, this is nuts. And that was back when, you know, was crazy. It was just kind of getting started. And then Jiu -Jitsu was everywhere. Just Jiu -Jitsu schools just popped up everywhere. And it was just like a complete revolution of martial arts where there'd been never been anything like that before. There was a John Peretti thing. Was it world extreme fighting? Remember he had that he had that event with John Lewis, right? Yeah. Yep. John Lewis. And that was Mario Sparry was in that. Mori Smith, Conan, Silvera.

1:23:44You know, there's a lot of like good fighters that came out of that as well. There's a few of these organizations that were emerging. And then in Japan, there was rings in K1 and, you know, and then pride emerged. And at one point in time, pride was bigger than the UFC. It was fucking huge. Yeah. I think they just hit them and K1 got an epicing match with, you know, with something. And they really kind of crippled each other. I can't imagine how they did it. It was so big in Japan. I can't imagine that it fell off as much of it did because it was so much bigger in Japan than the UFC ever was. And I think they had a bigger audience internationally also, not in the States than the UFC, but internationally like in Europe and because they would really get a lot of European fighters and Brazilians.

1:24:40It was a hardcore base in America that watched it. I remember guys from, you're just too school, like when they would air it live, they'd come over my house at like three o 'clock in the morning to watch it. I forget when it would air. Or sometimes it would air like you would have to like, oh, stay off line. They're not fine. The results for like a while and then try to watch it. Yeah, they delayed it. But, but those events seemed so insane. Those events seemed so incredible. What was the biggest crowd that you fought in front of over there? I think I don't know. 65, 70, somewhere in that ranch.

1:25:16At Tokyo, down there, like it was sold out for New Year's Eve. Wow. I don't even remember who I was. What is that like? I don't know any other day, but it was definitely a lot more energy. What I liked was, you know, as a fighter, they did like their opening ceremony was pretty cool to me. You know, you get up there and they do a big show and then they introduce all the fighters. I think that was pretty cool a way to do it. And it's just part of their culture to, you know, putting the padded tree. Yeah. Yeah. So I do miss that as well as other things with the show, but they put on, and this is what I always say, everybody used to say, oh, it's better, you know, it's better fighters than UFC or pride, you know, I'm like, I don't know.

1:26:10I think, I think they both have great fighters and they're probably pretty comparable, but there's no comparison to the show they put on pride. Just was a show. It was a big addition to the fights. And also the walk -in, like the walk -out was giant. It was crazy. Pyrotechnics and fucking giant screens. And it was, I mean, it was an event. It was unbelievable. Yeah. And I put certain fighters in that era up against anybody. I mean, I think, I think Krokov and his prime over there is one of the scariest heavyweights ever. Fadeur and his prime over there without a doubt. If not the best heavyweight of all time, definitely, there's like, there's an argument between him and a couple other guys.

1:26:56I agree. You know, there was so many great fights over there. Yeah. Yeah, those are quite a few. And, you know, when they started trying to do it, you know, kind of work with UFC a little bit. You have seen what's sending some of their guys over Chuck and Rampage would get over there. Even the Rampage had fought there before. Yeah, but I think that that 10 minute first round really hurt some of those guys. Yeah, it was different. They sent Chuck over there. I remember he KO Nalister at a 205. Yeah, that was been Alistair was skinny. Yeah, and he had a he fought with which is named East from Dallas, I think from Chai Mezker.

1:27:48Yeah, that's right. And I think guy was beating him, knocked him down and then, you know, I don't know what happened, but he got caught. Yeah, Chuck caught him, Chuck the bank. Chuck had crazy chin too. His ability to absorb shots was nuts. Yeah, he was willing to. And obviously that cost him a long run. Yeah, but he had an iron chin. He would just bite on his mouthpiece and just eat shots. Yeah, he tried not to be known for that. Yeah, it never really turns out well in the long run. Almost every guy that winds up, you know, that has that sort of style eventually winds up getting KO'd. Eventually the foundation just falls apart.

1:28:29Yeah, doesn't take much sometimes and you get it in the right spot. Yeah, well, you know, do you have KO's that are like some of your most like the Hector Lombard one? I was just watching that the other night. That one was nuts because we never saw each other a head kick before. I threw three head kicks or high kicks. They weren't close to the head because I just wasn't that flexible against Rich Franklin in England, but I I fell to my ass every time I slipped it. So I had thrown on before, but and I'd throw them in practice, but against lefties, I kind of had this thing where I kind of changed levels like I'm kind of look at your legs and my head kick comes up there and he's short.

1:29:19So I was able to land it. That's a guy that I think people miss his prime too because his prime was in Bellator. He was fucking starching people in Bellator. Hector Lombard in Bellator was a fucking terror. He was a terror. He was so athletic and he was so fast and powerful in that judo background, you know. I remember when he came to the UFC, he had a few fights like that like the Nate Markhart fight was a good example of that where you saw like that same sort of Hector Lombard. But he comes in fast and strong and then you know you got to whether the storm or the little man. Well you caught him in the head kick and I think if I remember correctly, you hit him with a back fist.

1:30:05Back elbow. Back elbow. And then you elbowed him on the ground. That was the elbow on the ground. When he first came here from Australia, he was Cuban but he went to Australia for a bit and lived there. When he first came to the States, he came to my gym first for about three months and nobody liked him. He was a big bully. Just trying to knock people out, warming up or trying to, you know, just when you're supposed to be going easy, just trying to hurt people. And it would happen every time I'd be out of town. I'd come back and hear about it. And Soakaju was in there too and he'd like to put him in his place once.

1:30:48But so when I went to fight Hector, you know, the media as I asked me, you know, Hector saying how he never left your gym because he never felt welcome. I never had a problem with him. But everyone in my gym thought he was a big bully. Yeah, and that's all I said about it. And we're in the face off like week of the fight. And he asked me, who says I'm a who says I'm a bully? And I'm like, what did you say? And yeah, who says I'm a bully? I'm like, everybody, everybody said you're a bully. And my, well, who everybody at my gym? Not me, but everybody at my gym. And he just couldn't get over that.

1:31:34And I'm like, you motherfucker, this isn't the time or place for that. I'm gonna fuck you up. So that those last couple of elbows were a little more personal. It's probably the only fight I've ever really felt that way that I really wanted to fuck that guy up. Not the bisming fight? No, I just, I was just a fight to me and I didn't like him, but, you know, it wasn't a guy that I'd hang out with, but you know, he was just him and I knew that I would beat him. But that logo that you have, the flying punch, that is the ultimate fuck you. That logo is so wild that you put that on as your logo. But I don't even know why he's upset about that because he's not even in it.

1:32:15He's no. Yeah, but it's, you know, he knows what it is. Everybody knows what it is. It's not like a chalk line on the ground underneath him. I remember when I saw it, when I saw that logo for the first time. Oh shit. Because that, I mean, you flattened them with that right hand. I mean, he was out cold and then you launched yourself through the air and smashed him with that right hand. Yeah. And it was that, but that becoming your logo was one of the wildest things. I think I believe. I mean, that is, that's a crazy logo. I mean, everyone has to know what that is because otherwise, it wouldn't even make sense.

1:32:55Like, what is he doing? Right. Is he about to do a cartwheel? You know what I mean? It's not like, you know, you're throwing a head kick or you're throwing a punch. It's like you're flying and your arm is above you like this. What about Air Jordan's logo? There's no basket there. That's true. But no one winds up with a massive concussion after that. You know, that's a great logo though. It really is. Somebody had Photoshopped them on like some shoes. I think I posted that not too long ago. Oh, Photoshopped him out. No, that logo. Michael Jordan. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. There's a lot of guys that make custom sneakers.

1:33:34They should make you pair those. Yeah, I don't wear shoes that often. So how often do you, you're still training with guys? You still work? I need to. Yeah, I'm getting chubby. So I need to start working out. Yeah, well, I don't drink that much beer, but you know, I'll have just food. Yeah, I just have it. I like to cook. I'm pretty good at it. So I just need to start working out a little more. I'm not too bad, but for not doing shit. I mean, I made it. Might have worked out once in the last six months. Oh, really? Yeah, no, that's not good. I don't know. The least I've ever worked out my whole life.

1:34:13Just I don't know. Maybe having to do it for so long. Well, that does happen to a lot of fighters. You know, to get fat after they're done fighting, they're just like, fuck all the weak cutting, all the bullshit. You just get so tired of it. I just want to enjoy your life now. Right. I don't know. I just, I don't know. Maybe I'm just got lazy or something. It's not about, I don't know why I don't. I'm in my gym almost every day and coach, you know, I coach and stuff, but I feel like I'm still capable of doing a lot of things. The last time I have worked out, you know, it always goes well. Are you thinking about just just training a little bit now?

1:34:49Yeah. We're grappling stuff, trying not to do the sparring part as much. Even though I'd probably get antsy wanting to spar just for fun. I'm sure you would. When you were training, what did you do for recovery? Like, we you like, guys today, they've got massage therapists and saunas and cold plunges and all that jazz. Did you, did you have like a sophisticated way to recover when you were training? Yeah, I would try to sauna, you know, and I do get, I would get during training camp a massage probably twice a week. And they were about three hours long each time. You remember my my my Mrs. Mariah?

1:35:33I do remember her because she told me that working with you was like working with wood. She said you were so dense. She said she'd never massage anybody who's so dense. She said it was crazy. Yeah. So yeah, so she actually owns a business that's in my building where my gym is it's called the lab, but they do like like IV therapy and that's great. And hormone replacement also and peptides and all sorts of different. Are you doing all that stuff? I do some peptides and I do yeah, I still I do the hormone replacement as well. I work with another company like an online one, two, blocs. It's pretty good for it's virtual.

1:36:17So it's super easy to for me that I just I don't have to go anywhere and just do it all myself. I'm so glad guys are doing that. Right. Because you know, peptides are a thing that that was one of the sticking points with usata. They were stopping guys from using BPC 157. Right. And they they allowed it for a while and then they stopped using it like come on guys. All this is doing is helping people recover. That's all it's doing is helping people recover from injuries. Right. It for injuries. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. They got a new one that's pretty good to forget what it's called something 5 ,000 or so.

1:36:51Hmm. I forgot what it's called, but yeah, it's for injuries as well. But you know, but you know, the FDA is trying to stop people from taking that which doesn't make any fucking sense. Yeah. But they're not stopping people from taking an opiates. Right. It's nuts. So yeah, she she's doing doing that. But yeah, I would do massage therapy for recovery and sometimes sometimes an ice bath ice things down depends on what what's hurting, but and supplements and eating good during training camp. But no stretching. I would get stretched like after the massages. I just couldn't imagine how inflexible you are and how powerful you were.

1:37:36It was just nuts to see you move it around try to touch your toes. I feel like because I'm not very flexible, it kept me from getting in in bad submission positions sometimes. Interesting. Well, you know, they couldn't move you. Yeah.

1:37:57I've heard guys say that that being inflexible gives them more power and like, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, when I was high school kid, I was pretty flexible and just slowly over time. I just petrified, I guess. I don't know. Well, you got dense, you know, my dad was the same way. Just the same body type. Yeah. So is your genetics anything? Yeah, for sure. My sister's that way too. Do you ever wonder like what it would have been like if you started today? Like how much further you would have progressed? I would have probably made more money. Oh, for sure. What's the most you ever made in one fight?

1:38:35Well, the most I ever should have made in one fight would have been when I thought bizbang because I had pay preview in my deal. And they the second bizbang fight? No, the first one. The first one. And when we coached on the ultimate fighter, we were going to be main or co -man. I think I think GSP fought that night and then Frank Meir and Brock Lesnar were supposed to fight on a different event. And somebody got hurt and they pushed him to that event. So Dana bumped me down to the third spot. And promoted it still as a co -man, but didn't pay me pay preview. Oh, Michael. So it would have been like three or three and a half million for that one.

1:39:26What did it want? Just pay review. A couple like three hundred grand. Oh, shit. But the most I've ever made, I think it's probably around a million. Do you remember what fight that was? Well, there was a whole contract of that like six fights, I think. I say plus certain pay per views. It's been on the mat. That one's got to suck. That one's got to sting the three million one. Yeah. And you know, you'd always hear stories, not me, but about Dana, you know, given a bonus or whatever, you know, I never saw that. So you never got one of those locker room bonuses? No. Well, I mean, knock out of the night I got, but yeah, but not one of the big ones.

1:40:15Yeah. Well, that sucks. So I mean, I didn't take it personal, but I did go to strike force right after that. Yeah. Did you, what did you think about strike force? Strike force had some great fights. Yeah, I thought I mean, I love Scott Coker. He's, well, I mean, he just has the fighters in mind all the time. Also, not just not just the bank account. So yeah, I feel like strike force had some great fighters. They, you know, had certain things that you see definitely did better. You know, they were a little more organized with certain things, but overall, strike force was, was I like them quite a bit.

1:41:01Well, it was definitely nice having another major organization. Yeah. You know, there was a lead XC that lasted a little while. Remember that? Yeah. Kimbo Slice was a big guy. That was pretty fun. I think that was on CBS, right? Wasn't it? I think it was. I know strike force had a CBS show. And then the, I fought on that card against Jake Shields. Then the Dears brothers got in a fight with Mayhem. Oh, that's right. That's right. And I'm on my team. This is not good. And then the announcer said, sometimes these things happen in MMA. Like, we're like, what?

1:41:43Yeah. It almost happened with Johnny Walker this past weekend. Yeah. That was a weird one. That was the weirdest one. That one didn't make any sense at all. They asked him where he was. And apparently he said, I'm in the desert. Yeah. Which is a good answer. He's in the desert. He's kind of a funny guy. You know, he's kind of an eccentric. He's eccentric. You ask him a question. He seemed fine. He seemed fine. You know, they asked him where he was. I'm in the desert. Okay. Do you know what country? But he also looked confused when he's standing there looking at the guy like, yeah, they're not saying anything.

1:42:20But I was hard to hear what was going on. Also, he doesn't speak English as a first language. Yeah. So there's that too. Right. You know, and I thought the stoppage was ridiculous. Yeah. Well, that's one of those ones where I really, I think, like, why when a referee calls it off like that, why can't you restart it? Restart it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't understand that either. They did it. I think Randy might have fought on the card. It was a UFC in Japan. Sakuraba, I think. And Conan. Yeah. And he wouldn't leave. And then then they restarted the fight. Yeah. No, they fought again. They fought again another time.

1:43:01No, they kept the start of the fight again that night. Did they? I'm almost positive. I think they fought again that night. I don't think they fought again immediately. I think it was immediate. Was it? Oh, interesting. Why did I know why do I have it in my head that they fought later in the night? Because they say you know, you're saying the same night. Yeah, the same night. Maybe they did that. That's what I think they did. Because Conan hit them with an uppercut and Sakuraba dropped down for a low ankle. Right. And they stopped and they tried to say it was a stoppage. Do you remember Matt Lindlin and Boostimante?

1:43:41Yeah. That was crazy. They restarted that one too. Yeah. Even though he did tap. He did tap. He caught it. Yeah. Yeah. Matt Lindlin got caught in our bar tapped. He said, I didn't tap. I might have been in the corner. I don't remember. He might have been. And then he they started and then they went a whole another round and then the round after that he caught him in the guillotine. So Boostimante tapped him twice. Yeah. That was nuts. But that was you know, I mean, I'd like them to look at replays and say, oh, that's a tap and that makes sense. But in that case of the one this weekend with Uncle I have and started up again, they're both fine.

1:44:19Everybody wants to see the fight. What's the formality? Like what's the point? There was yeah. Did he make any sense? Because he didn't understand what I asked him. It's also like check his eyes. Like also when someone gets hit with an illegal shot, don't they have a certain amount of time to recover? Yeah. So why is the doctor in there immediately anyway? And I didn't. They called it in no contest, but it was questionable if because it was kind of a it was definitely illegal. Right. Which means. Disqualification. Which means disqualification, but he called it an unintentional. But he intended.

1:44:58Yeah. So I didn't understand that. Yeah. So but yeah, I don't know if it may be and I don't know Johnny Walker, but I didn't know if he was kind of playing it off like I'm going to get the win if I don't. Interesting. That's why he looked like he was confused at the question. And that was that was curious to me as to why he was just, you know, looking at him. Well, I don't know how well the doctor spoke English either. I was the doctor in English language speaking guy. Johnny isn't. Johnny can speak a little bit of English, but when I've interviewed him, he's you know, he speaks Portuguese. So when you talk into him in English, he has to really pay attention and something wrong with that answer in the desert.

1:45:46It's true. Where are you? I'm in the desert. He's in the desert. He's telling the truth. It's not like he said, I mean, why? Maybe you stopped the fight then. I think he said why? He said, I'm in the desert. Yeah. Weird. Yeah, that was that was kind of a weird. And I was wondering why can't they just restart it? Yeah. It's a it's a bummer. But you know, do you enjoy watching fights these days, yeah, but it's not I mean, I don't pay attention to what's coming up that much. So, you know, if if I kind of see it that day and I'm not doing anything, I'll definitely watch it. But if you know, it's rare that I'm looking forward to certain firsts.

1:46:31I do I am going to go to New York for for the steep A. John Jones fight. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a big exciting. Yeah. What do you know? Well, I think I said this like when steep A. This champ way back when that, you know, I think John Jones would be a lot or he would be a lot tougher fight than for John Jones then than some of the big hard hidden guys that can't wrestle very well. Because steep A. Can wrestle. Yeah. Probably not as well as John Jones. So it's going to be I think it's interesting. I think it's a tough one to call. Steep A has more power than Jones. He's not as I don't know what the right word it is, but it's not as goofy.

1:47:18He doesn't do awg things. He's more straight basics. Basics, but good at him. Yeah. I think Jones being a little bit more goofy and doing things that are a little bit different helps him a lot. Yeah. He's very unpredictable. He always comes in with a pretty good game plan and you know sometimes when I think he should be shooting the whole time, he doesn't and you know, but I think I think I think he could do well against steep A as well. Just you know, he's just got to use that length. Yeah, I'm interested to see what happens also because steep A's had a lot of time to recover. You know, it's been a long time.

1:48:00What was wrong with them? Well, the knockout to Francis was a pretty rough knockout. Right. And you know, have a good solid two years off, have a lot of time to train. He wanted to put more weight on because he felt like he was a little too light in the Francis fight. Yeah. Now I'm interested to see him, you know, fully healthy. Like how much he's got left in the tank. Because if you go back to the steep A that knocked out for Junior D 'Oll Santos, steep A was a bad fucking man. Right. I think a lot of people are looking past him in this fight. Yeah, I don't think John Jones is the same as he was before he tested positive, like for the third time on things.

1:48:43You know, maybe he's really not doing anything nowadays and he's just I don't feel like he his body is the same. Well, he's heavyweight now, but I mean before he went to heavyweight, he just looked softer. He didn't look as good good of cardio wasn't as I don't know, he just didn't fight the same as he did back when, you know, he was kind of possibly when he was testing positive, I should say. Interesting. So I always felt like John just wasn't challenged and that when John was when he defended the title, a bunch of times, first of all, he's partying a lot. He wasn't necessarily training that hard.

1:49:22You know, like he basically said for the gust of some fight, which is one of his toughest fights, he didn't even train. He barely showed up. He just kind of like just thought, no way this guy's going to beat me. Right. Go fuck him up and gust of some came in real prepared and John had a dig deep. And most impressive thing about that is he pulled that fight out in the later rounds when he wasn't really training. Right. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know, I just feel like he doesn't look what it how he used to. Well, he definitely doesn't have a way. When I say look, I don't mean physically, you mean like a little bit physically, but when he was at 205, he still looked a little soft as last couple of times there compared to what he used to look like.

1:50:06Anything that might have been from stuff. Yeah, could be. I definitely, uh, picograms. Yeah. I mean, but he had tested positive before. So it's not like, yeah. And that's crazy how they just would have only even during you saw it, they just slapped him on the wrist. Yeah, I never understood that. I don't know what the thought of that was. I don't know what the explanation for that was. I can't really remember, but it was, I think that they thought that that was a tainted supplement, which does happen. Well, what's his face? suit a company for tainted substances and got a ton of money. The other Cuban, I think it's Cuban, not Hector Lombard.

1:50:51Oh, yo, well, Romero. That's right. He did. Yeah. That's right. He did. I think Tim means popped accidentally too from a tainted supplement. Tim doesn't know he does anything. Right. You know, he looks totally natural. The early days when you were fighting, you kind of must have assumed that everybody was on something. Yeah, but nothing you could do about it didn't matter. I'm going to beat him anyway. It was my attitude. Yeah. And you did. For the most part, most of the time, tried to. Yeah. When you look back, I mean, you had a fucking amazing career, man. Amazing career is a wrestler and then amazing careers in MMA fighter.

1:51:34I mean, it's got to feel good. Yeah. You lived a great life. No, for sure. And, you know, the book that I got coming out, it made me, made me remember a lot of things, you know, nothing I forgot, but it just brings a lot more things fresher in your mind and kind of, I don't, it's not like I sit around and reflect about what I've done in my life, you know, I just keep moving forward. But that book kind of made me do that. And, you know, it was, it was kind of fun to kind of look at my life in that way, for sure. And I'm sure about it back in time memory. Yeah. And it's funny when we were writing it, that, you know, I'd always come up with, yeah, I've read it after, you know, it was kind of written down there.

1:52:25I was like, oh, you know, I forgot about this story or that story. That, you know, it kind of goes with that. So we had to kind of add a bunch of shit. Oh, yeah, made it a little tougher because I feel like I've forgotten more things than I remember these days, but you never know. But yeah, did you do an audio version of it? No, but I was like, I'd be cool to actually read it myself. And in the audio thing with my voice and they wanted me to send a sample of that. I did like a five minute. I've read it back to myself. I'm like, oh my God, there's no way. So I sent it to him saying, yeah, we might want to think about professional for this one, for doing this.

1:53:09I know you can edit it. But yes, my wife got home from work and I had her listen to it. And we just couldn't stop laughing. It was bad. I mean, I'm not the best reader, I guess. Well, it's tough to do. There's a real skill to reading audio. Right. And trying to put the emotion part into what it's supposed to be like if you're telling a story. Yeah, no, there will be an audio version, but it won't be my voice. So I think acting is out of the question for you. Acting? I don't know. I mean, I could do certain things, but I don't know if I really don't want to act like that much. Randy's done it amazing.

1:53:55Yeah. No, I, little bit like action movies, I'd probably be okay at for sure, but, but some of these other TV drama type shit, there's no way. Right. I mean, I just, I probably couldn't do it with a straight face. They do after this, we kind of did this book and there's some producers. Like, I bury Josephson, like, once to do a biopic on me now. Oh, that's awesome. And yeah. And my question to that was, and question to you, how do you put your life in a two hour show? Yeah, how do you do that without them doctoring it to like what they did with Mark Schultz and Foxcatcher? Yeah. Yeah, that's hard because they're going to want to tie it up in a nice ribbon.

1:54:47Right. So I mean, now they're talking about, you know, a limited series instead type of thing. Oh, that would be interesting. Like a Netflix type deal. Yeah. Yeah. That'd probably be better. Yeah. If they did your whole life in a two hour show, I mean, right, right. Right. What do they job out? Yeah. Yeah. What would you, what would you be in your movie if it was only two hours? How the fuck did you do it? Right. Yeah. It'll just be a bullshit version of your life. Right. Just to make a movie. Yeah. Who's got who'd play you? I think they have a couple guys in mind. But yeah, nobody that looks really like me exactly.

1:55:25But if anybody they can move right though, you know, I'm saying like a caveman. Well, also punch and and throw, you know, and have good takedowns. Yeah. The one guy that that is a possibility. I think he trains sometimes it bosses place. Oh, that's good. Yeah, you'd have to have you can't have just an actor that doesn't actually know how to fight. Right. It would look terrible. Yeah. And I think whoever they do pick should probably come up to my gym for a couple months and a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. You get to beat up on him a little bit. Maybe that'll motivate you to get back into gym. Yeah.

1:56:05Yeah. I'll just have him get in shape for me. Yeah. Well, let me know when that comes out. Oh, for sure. Everyone to hear it. And we'll tell everybody. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanted to you to have the book a little bit ahead of time. But I never got it. I think I showed you the cover your quote. You got a quote on the back of it. I believe on the back. I can't read it without my glasses. Dan Henderson here. Well, I got glasses. I think they just took guys one of your commentating. Yeah. Here it is. Oh, Dan Henderson is a savage. He came from a pure wrestling background. Very little striking training.

1:56:47And he went and became one of the most dangerous one punch knock our artists in the history of sport. Facts. Facts. It's available now. You can get it. The audio book. You get a, oh, for one credit. It's on Kindle. It's on hardcover. Available right now. Hendo, the American athlete. You know, where the, I was trying to figure out what the name it. And when I was in Japan, I always had, I had like all sorts of different nicknames and they would just call me Dan. The media over there called me the American athlete. So that's why I kind of came up with that. It's a good one. Yeah. I didn't know what to say.

1:57:28It's perfect. Hendo, the American athlete. Perfect. Perfect. Listen, Dan, it's a pleasure talking to you. You've had a fucking amazing career. You're a real legend. I know you don't like to turn pioneer, but I'm alright with it. You know the funny thing about that is the guys that look as old as mayor. They got a big beard. They look like they're 40 or 50 years old. They come up to me and say, I've been watching since I was a kid. I'm like, how? Yeah. So yeah, it goes with the same feeling when I hear the word pioneer, but it's fine. I mean, I do enjoy the fact that I was a pioneer in the sport.

1:58:10You definitely were. If there's a better word, let me know and I'll start using that one. But thanks brother. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate you having me. Yeah. And it's a book available right now folks. Go out and get it. It's portal edgy. Alright, thanks everybody.