JRE MMA Show #178 with Dan Hardy

30:04And you can kind of carry it with you on the road. You can check it with your bags. Yeah. The blankets are really good. Veronica used that for her last couple of cuts. They're really good. Yeah, those are great. But people use hot baths now. No one was hot bathing in my day. Right. Like if you were sweating, you were working out, you were running, you were in a sauna. They were the only ways people were cutting weight. Hot bathing came in kind of towards the end of my career. What's better? I don't know. I mean, for me, I never used the hot baths. I tried it one time. I didn't really like it. And that's partly a psychological thing, I think, because for me, the hot bath was the reward after the fight.

30:38Interesting. I didn't want to feel like I was relaxing the day before the fight. I was cold showered. I wanted to feel like a feral animal, to be honest. Right. So I would cut weight on my own. It was a process of me preparing for the fight. I always imagined it like you grab your shield and your spear, and it's the march to the battlefield. You don't walk out of your tent and you're on the battlefield. There's a process of getting there. And the weight cut for me was a part of that. It was the suffering to get to the fight. So for me, it was hot sauna, cold shower, treadmill, pads if I needed it.

31:14I mean, Tokyo, I didn't even have a treadmill. I just put trash bags on, cut the corners off, the old school Thai boxing way. How much did you weigh before that fight? I cut seven pounds. And that was one of the reasons why I changed the way that I was doing it because I should have stopped that guy in the first round and I didn't have the power to it. And that was his last fight. He passed out after the fight, went to the hospital. He had a bleed on his brain. And he retired completely after that. Who was that? His name was Daiso Ishige. Oh, I remember him. Yeah, he was the king of pancreas. He was the favorite to win the Cage Force tournament, and I pulled him in the first round.

31:52And I went out there just with the intention of doing a normal weight cut, you know, six or seven pounds, exactly what I would normally do. I had a little bit more to cut because of the flight. But I honestly, hand on heart, believe that if I'd either not cut the weight or I'd cut the weight in a better way and rehydrated, I would have been able to stop him, and he wouldn't have had the brain damage that he ended up with. Because I look back to that third round and I just didn't have the power. It was like a bad dream where I'm just punching him and he's just bouncing around. He's a bloody man.

32:24So he just took repeated subconcussive blows. Way more than he needed to. And I don't know whether he cut weight as well, but certainly the thing that played into the damage that was done to him was my weight cut. That's crazy. Isn't that crazy to think of? I just didn't want to, I mean, but again, like, I have no guilt associated with that, because we knew what we were doing when we got in there, and I would not hold it against him if that had happened to me, you know what I mean? But in hindsight, pulling the whole thing apart, like, I could have been a better version of myself as a martial artist, and it would have actually probably saved him some of the damage that he ended up taking in the third.

33:00My position is that the UFC, and I think MMA in general, PFL, all of them, we need more weight classes. I don't think there's nearly enough weight classes. I think the gaps are enormous. I think the names are stupid. It's very stupid to have welterweight 170 when welterweight has been with boxing at 147 forever for 100 years. And all of a sudden the UFC comes along and decides welterweight is 170. Like why is it called welterweight then? Imagine if you go to another country and you buy a hammer and it's a sandwich. No, I wanted a hammer. I need to build a house. What the fuck is this? It's like a totally different thing.

33:39Like, why is it 170 welterweight? Why not just call it the 170-pound division? That's what wrestling does. They have divisions. It doesn't need to be, like, a name. The name seems silly. That's a good point, actually. I had not thought about that. I actually developed a system of introducing weight classes over the next several years for the PFL. I mean, obviously, the problem that we have is that some weight classes are just not filling out because the fighters are just not there, unfortunately. Right. But I also think that's a result of the monopolization and the kind of killing off of the grassroots of the sport.

34:15Because the sport's not growing like it was in my day. You know what I mean? It's very, very different now. What do you think is the cause of that? I think the control and the monopolization of the sport by the UFC, unfortunately. How does that stop small organizations? Well, because anything that starts to gather some momentum, they buy them out. They got rid of them. Well, they certainly did buy out a bunch of organizations back in the day, right? They bought out Strikeforce. They bought out Pride, but they sort of bought out Pride. They got fucked. Yeah. They thought they were buying out Pride.

34:45Do you know the whole deal behind that? All the contracts are bad. Is that right? Yeah, they got a fucking DVD library. Look, over time, I'm sure it's been worth it, right? But I believe they paid$60 million for Pride. I might be wrong about that number, but that's what I recall. and they didn't have any contracts like you know the the contracts were all fucked up so like they thought they were going to get Fedor they thought they were going to get everybody and so they got a lot of the guys to come over and sign new contracts with the UFC like Krokop and Noguera and a bunch of other people but I don't think they got nearly what they thought they were getting yeah that's that's interesting I mean obviously you know I I love the UFC and I I've I've always held Dana and the UFC and what they've created for us in very very high regard but there has in my opinion we've passed the tipping point now where now we're starting to see some of the negative effects of them kind of locking down everything because like there are certain organizations that are they are connected with the UFC and they're enabled by the UFC through Fight Pass and then they become almost like the feeder like LFA exactly but then a lot of these a lot of those shows are now starting to get dropped off of Fight Pass right and the reason for that is because contender series is replacing them so which shows have been dropped off five pounds i think lfa has just been dropped hasn't it has it been i think so i mean invictor was on there a long time ago i think they moved away themselves but like there are aries was dropped a period you know my wife's commentator on aries they they were dropped a while ago what was aries uh it's the french promotion okay ares i always say it wrong ares and they were dropped from five pounds yeah yeah i think they've been picked up again now but you know but this this is the this is my my thinking behind it right and I remember back in the day when I was fighting on cage warriors in the UK and the UFC were coming over once or twice like it started to kill off all the other shows because everyone was like I'll just save my money I'll wait for the UFC to come before the UFC came over and started like staked acclaiming in the UK we had a lot of shows that were kind of you know popping up on weekends I was up and down the country and across Europe all the time but then And when we started having two or three UFC events a year, a lot of the smaller shows just dropped off, died off.

36:57So you're saying you saved your money, meaning as an audience member? Yeah. Yeah, but you can't fault the UFC for that. Oh, no, absolutely not. And what they did when the UFC landed in Europe, they legitimized the sport. And then, you know, so the perspective started to change very quickly. When I had my title fight in 2010, I would say at least half of the interviews that I did was trying to justify the sport and why I was allowed to do what I did. That was 2010. So this is back when everybody thought it was human cockfighting still. And I was getting into debates with journalists about the human cockfighting thing.

37:33Ew. I know. Those debates are so ew. And imagine trying to attach power slap onto the side of UFC when it was then. It would have just buried us. I do not like power slap I hate it and the thing is I'm very much as long as you're not hurting anybody else I'm all for your ability to power slap each other and I've watched a bunch of clips I've watched a bunch of people get flat lined and bounce their head off the podium and fall backwards I don't like it my whole thing about martial arts is it's human chess it's high level problem solving It's you're you know, you're working up to a moment and you're doing your very best to not get hit and hit them and a Flawless performance like it's one of the things that was most Impressive about Hamzat during his first few UFC fights.

38:27I think he fought like three or four fights where he took like Three punches. Yeah, Reese McKee John Phillips. I can't remember the other one I called a couple of those Gerald Mearschardt took nothing. That was one one punch. That was flatline one punch I mean it was that was the craziest thing about him. It's like look at this guy He's not even getting hit like this is nuts and when you grab guys they'd be helpless I like skill There's no skill in having a big hand and a fat face Yeah, and putting and I don't even understand why you have chalk on your face Why do you are your hand? I don't know is that what it is?

39:02Is it just still like the powder flies through the air and you know, I don't get it. Maybe dunk your head in water I don't know. Hey, they used to do it in the Kung Fu movies, didn't they? They used to put talc on people, so when you hit them, you get a cloud of power. Did they do that? Yeah, yeah. And hitting the watermelons with the mallets to make the noises. Look, again, like, power slap can be its thing and exist just away from MMA, you know? And what I hate to see is the likes of Herzog and Mark Smith and Forrest, like, catching these unconscious guys as they're falling. It attaches the sport that we've worked so hard to develop to something that is going to – it does an injustice to the MMA fighters and how hard they work and how much of human chess MMA is.

39:46Yeah. It's literally like taking – what are those fucking smash-em-up derby racing events where they crash into each other? Yeah, demolition derby. Demolition derby, yeah. It's like a Formula One driver being involved in demolition derby. Like that's fucking crazy. There's actually a reason for the chalk. It's so that they can see where the hit was made. Oh, indication of where the petition strike lands. Well, can't you see that though? They're not like moving at the speed of light. They're also not allowed to have excessive chalk and they can't use water. There's no excessive water. As you said, put your head in water.

40:21They're not allowed to do it. They have rules. The idea they have rules is so crazy. It's so crazy. But it is a reflection of how solid the UFC is right now, right? Because you go back to 2010, they couldn't have done that without having a real negative effect on the sport. I think it has a negative effect on the sport now. I agree with you. I just think the UFC is so powerful and so strong now that they can even take a liberty and advertise power slap off the back of it and get away with it. It's that, and then it's also we're in the TikTok era where it's just really all about clips. I mean, is power slap, does it air anywhere?

40:56Because it aired on television for a while. Didn't they force it into the Paramount deal in some way? Did they? I don't know. I don't know. I think it's much more digestible in these very short clips. You know, I don't think there's a person. Like, there's some fucking hardcore MMA fans who can tell you about guys that are competing in the amateurs and tough enough. And they're making their way to the UFC. And they're fighting in the LFA. There's guys who are coming in their debuts. And you can watch YouTube videos of guys breaking down these guys' skill sets. And you never even heard of these cats.

41:31guys who are fighting in Russia guys you're fighting in Brazil and there's no power slap hardcore fans there's no like this guy fucking you gotta see him slap you gotta see him take a slap you gotta see the way she stares down her opponent before she gets slapped like yeah it's not the same man it's not I mean you can watch it you could do it I don't have a problem with it this is America I believe in freedom but don't do it that's what I'd say I'd say don't do it he come to me I'm just don't do it as a recommendation yeah do it right like don't like you know whatever you would recommend but like well i'd also say don't do jackass and you have those guys on my show all the time yeah every time i talk to steve i'm like fucking do it man why are you doing that special type man he's a special yeah johnny knoxville told me he's been knocked out 16 times out cold like that's way too many that's way too many that's nuts absolutely i mean you have zero fights on your record you've and KO'd 16 times.

42:29That's real bad. Hey, he's got well paid out of it, though. You find someone else that got knocked out 16 times. Yeah, right. That's a good point. How much did they make from it? That's a good point. I mean, that's the other thing with these power slap guys is they're making pocket money. How much did they make? I don't know. Three and three, five and five. Three? Yeah. I was chatting to someone in Vegas, and she didn't want to do it, but she was like, I don't have a choice. I can't get MMA fights. Why? She just couldn't get MMA fights. She was too big for most of the weight classes. Oh, yeah.

43:03That's a problem. Yeah. Look at poor Kayla. Yeah. Yeah. She's got to make 135. Every time I see her in between fights, I'm like, how? How do you get to 135? You're as big as me. This is crazy. Crazy. Yeah, I saw her the other week in Pittsburgh, and she's huge. She's gigantic. Yeah, she's got phenomenal genetics. Yeah, she's got that neck scar. Yeah, she's got an artificial disc, Yeah. Which is, it's really interesting that they can do that now, and guys go, look, Aljamain did it and came back better than ever. I mean, that was, I mean, everybody was so upset at him, the way he won the title with Piotr Jan, but he had a legitimate neck issue going into that fight, and that illegal knee that he took to the head really did fuck him up.

43:44Yeah. And then he went and got an artificial disc put in his neck, and then came back and dominated in the rematch. And then, did you see him in his last fight? Yeah. Fucking dude, man. that guy has the best back control in the game his back control is so elite he's it's it's really incredible because he gets a hold of your back man it's like my god yeah absolutely see that and i don't i don't mean to keep picking on officials but that is a that's another situation where i actually feel quite bad for aljo that he had to put on that performance and damage his brand in such a way because he didn't want to continue fighting right right like and and the officials are put in a circumstance where they don't have the confidence to just go, no, hang on a minute, that was bad.

44:28Fight's over. Fight's done. Right, right, right. Well, you want to give a guy the opportunity to fight still. So you don't – this is the thing about damage. You don't know looking. Some guys can take a shot like that and then they bounce back and they're fine. Look, Bisping. Bisping came back and won that fight after that flying knee. And you really got to kind of like let the fighter – if the fighter's conscious, You've got to let them decide whether or not they can – because you don't know. It's not possible to tell by looking at someone what kind of damage they've got, especially Aljo with the neck.

45:02Neck situations are so bad, man. But the crazy thing is that with these artificial discs now, like Weidman got one. There's quite a few guys that have gotten artificial discs in their neck now, and then they go back to finding, which is crazy. I wonder how that changes the way that the head twists. I don't know. One thing I noticed on Yael Romero, whose head just doesn't twist, but he's got his neck's fused, right? His neck is fused to the base of his skull. So how do you turn his head to cause concussion? I don't know. Well, there's a good argument that it makes him more durable. Do you remember when Derek Brunson head kicked him?

45:38Yeah. He hit him with a neck kick, like right here. He didn't even budge because you're hitting a steel bar. So then think, didn't Tiger Woods have some kind of eye surgery? So his eye was 2010. So he has better depth perception for golf. I'm pretty sure he did. Really? Yeah, I'm sure he had something done to his eyes. Put that into our sponsor, Perplexity Chain.

46:02What did they do? They could do that? He got LASIK. So did he have bad eyes and he got them better? Or did he have good eyes and said, what can you do? Can you make me have fucking superhuman eyes? To correct nearsightedness, it improved him to 2015 vision. 2015 okay so he wasn't improved to 2020 the problem with that is with these surgeries if you have macular degeneration it continues to progress you are going to need it again or it's going to get worse like ari shafir got uh lasik and he's like oh it's amazing i have 2020 vision because he had terrible vision before and then it started going to shit after a while because it just kept deteriorating and now his eyes suck the thing is that you know athletes like if I mean and I think it was a poll done a while ago with Olympians like if you can win a gold medal but you're gonna live to 30 or 35 would you take the gold medal and a good portion of them said yes they absolutely would most athletes in order to achieve their goals would do absolutely anything right so if I if I all of a sudden discovered that having your neck fuse like your Romero means that you've got a 30 percent chance of uh you know less chance of getting knocked out how many fighters do you think without their neck fuse just to give them the advantage How about that Tommy John surgery that people get electively?

47:19So they can pitch better. Before surgery, he was extremely nearsighted. He had an 11 prescription. I don't know what that is. Minus 11. Essentially legally blind without glasses or contacts. Whoa. And one of the greatest golfers of all time, if not the greatest. First LASIK was done after his 1999 PGA Championship win. Yeah, here you go. Results and impact on his golf. was reportedly achieved about 2015 vision better than the standard 2020, meaning he could see more detail at distance than the average person. Interesting. He described the cup and ball as looking larger and said his ability to read greens improved, and he went on a notable win streak, winning five PGA Tour events in a row right after the surgery.

48:04Wow. That links into the stoned ape theory, though, if we're going in a massive circle, right? Because microdosing mushrooms gives you better edge and depth perception. Yes. So then the theory was that you would have better chances of surviving. Yes. Either as not becoming prey or finding prey. Yes. Right? Yeah, better vision. It would make you hornier, so it would make you more likely to breed, and it also makes you more creative. And Terrence McKenna and Dennis McKenna link it to the creation of language. Fascinating. Oh, it's very fascinating. I used to remember when I was in Vegas, I had a room in my house, which I think we talked about it before, which was the mushroom.

48:42And I would like once a week, I would like clear the day and I would have ceremony on a Saturday in the evening. I'd get up on Sunday morning and go out into Red Rock and I'd do trail running. But like at the point where, you know, I took six or seven grams the night before. So now I've probably got the equivalent of two, three grams in my system. But I'm running in Vibrams downhill. And I'm like a cat. I can see the ground in a much different way to how I would if I was completely straight. So, you know. That's exciting. There are some fighters that have been microdosing through fights as well.

49:15I won't throw them under the bus. Oh, I know a few. Yeah. Yeah. Joe Schilling talked pretty openly about it. He's got a fight coming up. Does he? Joe's back? He's fighting in Brussels. Is he doing PFL? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. How old's Joe now? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I sparred with him at Frank Mir's gym in Vegas a few years ago. Suffer. Obviously, I knew Joe Shilling, who he was, and the gym that he created in LA had a real reputation and all that kind of stuff. 42. Damn. Wow. But he was just standing outside the back, just smoking a cigarette, came in, put his gloves on, and just beat the snot out of me.

49:48You know what I mean? Such a good fighter. Yeah, he's a beast kickboxer, man. I was at the Last Man Standing event in LA when he fought. That was really crazy, because you had to fight multiple kickboxing fights in a day. and you know this was glory this was like who used to run bellator was the guy who ran bellator not scott coker no yeah no it is scott coker because there was a guy before scott right yeah is it bjorn bjorn right so he left and then scott took and scott was also involved in bellator yeah or excuse me glory right was it strike force strike force scott coker ran strike force founded strike force so who ran bellator yeah bjorn founded it and then scott coker right okay right so that is correct okay i think he was involved in glory too right and uh i think i remember i went up to him and i said this is awesome but don't do this don't have people fight multiple times in the night it's just like because you get a concussion and no one even knows about it like there's been a lot of fights where guys got concussions and they didn't get knocked out and then you have to fight again in an hour and then you fight again 45 minutes after that like man that's a recipe for people getting up i know they did it back in the old days and hardcore and all that stuff it's all great but man don't do that but you look at some of those first round matchups when they were doing that and you're like okay i can see what you're doing here you know what i mean like give people easier fights in the beginning so they they're all sometimes but it's i think it's kind of random you know sometimes especially with the heavyweight k1 I mean, you know, like some of those guys, you fight Hongman Choi or Bob Sapp, no matter how confident you are in your skill set, just the sheer size of them is a problem.

51:30Yes. Those fucking K1 tournaments were bananas, man. They were so good. Woo, they were so good. Especially the lights. I had a friend of mine in Canada that used to get me VHS tapes back in the day. I don't know. I think he had like a satellite dish or some shit. I forget how he was getting them, but he was getting them and he was sending them to me. k1 heroes all these uh like real obscure events he would send me awesome oh i had a i don't know where the fuck they are now i think they might even be in my la house but i had a giant box filled with vhs tapes there were all kinds of old school fights i used to have a i used to have a like a cd like a zip cd thing that used to take with me and i had a guy at my gym and he would five pounds he would burn me pride or k1 heroes or whatever and he was finding them online and just ripping it and you know selling them in the gym but i had a whole database of stuff ifl and yeah all those old shows k1 heroes i loved you know that's kind of partially how i got the job with the ufc um when i first met dana like he just he got me tickets because it was the i was on fear factor and the ufc they just purchased it so this is 2001 this is uh right post 9-11 when tito Ortiz fought Vladimir Matyushenko, came out with the American flag.

52:46Everybody went crazy. And I started talking to him about, like, Japan Valley Tudo and do you know about this guy? Do you know about that guy? And I was just, like, rattling off all these fighters that he had never heard of before. I was talking about all these guys that are fighting out of Russia, all these guys in Japan. And then we started talking. And then next thing you know, he's like, do you want to do commentary? I was like, oh, I just want to watch. And you never thought about it before commentary? No. No. Well, I worked for the UFC before that as the post-fight interviewer, but that was in 97, UFC 12.

53:18I remember. And so I did it from 97 to 98, and then it was costing me money because I would make way more money if I'd go work out a comedy club for the weekend than I would doing this. But it was fun. So I did it for a little while, but then it was like, I think it was UFC Japan. They wanted me to fly to Japan. And Frank Shamrock was fighting Kevin Jackson. Is that who it was? Um, I think he won by first round armbar and I was like, I'm not going to fucking Japan man. I can't know I'm done. So I quit. I was like, I love you guys. It's fun. Good time. Well, it lasted Did you feel like it was gonna go where it went?

53:56No, I thought what they were fucked Really? It was funny because you know, Eddie Bravo and I were backstage at one of these events like wait You know, I met Eddie way back in the day So it was like this is like 97 98 Eddie and I were backstage We were like you know what this fucking sport needs some crazy billionaires with a ton of money who love the sport Who just because we know it's so exciting and we know people would think it's so exciting It just needs to be in everybody's face and then who comes along with for Titas. It's like we manifested them. Yeah It was crazy cuz like you know The one of the the first events that I did for the UFC I did for free I did like the first 15 events for free and I just said just get my friends tickets So it was like Eddie and I would go and, you know, we'd be like, bro, it's fucking happening.

54:41It's actually happening. But even back then, it wasn't famous. It was just it was in Vegas and it was, you know, it was kind of getting a little bit of attention. It wasn't until 2005 that that Forrest Whitaker, that the the main event of rather, excuse me, Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner main event of the ultimate fighter. that one fight changed everything it's really crazy where like the stars align with one fight the whole sport takes off yeah because it really was that i can't believe i called him forrest whitaker but yeah i did that on commentary i called robert whittaker forrest whitaker i've called people i've fucked up juliana pena's name once i've fucked people's names up it's like you have so many names in your head that's what people don't understand like we you and i but Between you and I, we probably have 500 fighters' names in our head.

55:37And then plus jiu-jitsu guys, plus wrestlers, plus boxers. Like, oh my God, there's so many names in your head. Yeah, and then project that into the history of the sport now, because we've got the history of the sport, and the history of boxing on top of that as well. The way I describe my memory, it's like I have a whole bunch of boxes of folders. And if I find that box, I can open that bitch up and talk to you about Marvin Hagler versus Juan Roldan, and it'll tell you like the dockdown was fake and this and that and Hacker went on to stop him. I'll tell you details. But if I don't have that folder in front of me, I'm like, uh, I don't know why.

56:13I don't know why I can't like immediately remember sometimes. But sometimes I can pull that box out and it's right there. And I can just get that folder out and boom. Do you remember the first time you sat down at the commentary booth and put the headset on? Yes. Yes. That was UFC 37 and a half. London? No. Oh, no, of course. It was just after that, though, right? UFC 38 was London. Well, it was 37 and a half because it was an event they put together for Best Damn Sports Show. So remember Best Damn Sports Show, which was on Fox Sports, I think? Fox Sports Net? And so what it was was they had this opportunity to do a show, and this is when Dana asked me to do commentary.

56:55And I just did it as a favor. He goes, it'd be great if you did it because it was the Fear Factor days and it was Chuck Liddell versus Vitor Belfort. I said, oh, fuck yeah, I'll do it. And I think, I don't remember who else. I think Robbie Lawler might have made his debut. Steve Berger versus Robbie Lawler. That's right. Thank you, sir. Yeah. So it was fun. And I did it once and then they asked me, would you do it again? I'm like, okay, I'll do it again. But it was really just, I just kept doing it. It wasn't a job. Like I said, I didn't even ask for money. I did like 15 of them. And then finally Dana says, look, I want to sign you to a contract.

57:33I want to pay you. I was like, okay. All right. I was like reluctantly got dragged into being a commentator. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Visible. Ah, spring is in the air, which means time for some spring cleaning. We're cleaning out the garage and finally tossing those mystery cords. But while you're cleaning out your junk drawer, take a look at your wireless bill. Don't fall for wireless traps, tacked on fees, confusing bills, and empty promises. Join Visible and cut out the nonsense. With Visible, you get unlimited 5G data and hotspot on Verizon's network for one flat cost. Just$25 a month, taxes and fees included.

58:20It's everything you need and nothing you don't. Plus, for a limited time, new members can get the Visible plan for just$20 a month for one year using code FRESHSTART. Refresh your wireless with Visible. Head to Visible.com to get started. Terms apply. Limited time offer. Subject to change. See Visible.com for plan features and network management details. that's kind of cool yeah it's similar to me though really I mean I was because I've been sidelined because you know because of my heart situation and they wouldn't clear me in California so then the UFC just wouldn't match me anywhere um and I'd had a I'd had a like a month or two of just kind of wallowing and being depressed and you know avoiding MMA gyms and uh um Lorenzo had invited me into the offices on Sahara and and I'd gone and sat with him and we were chatting through and he said hey you know I'm going to send you out to California I want you to go and see my specialist you know my family specialist and get a second opinion and etc but he said also we've got another plan for you uh he said i won't spoil it at some point you'll see dana and dana will tell you what the plan is and as i was it was like a movie as i was walking out of the offices a stretch monster hummer pulled up literally i'm like what's going on here and dana got out and and he was like oh just a fucking blah blah i just wanted to see he was like i want you to go to the UK I want you to be an ambassador I want you to do commentary and I said that's great you know let me know what I need media training he's like no none of that I just want you to be you sitting cage side and I remember getting to the first UFC London event sat down at the desk just fighting imposter syndrome bad and seeing all the all the fans starting to trickle into the arena and then someone on the on the from the truck came through and said oh I've just realized we've not practiced any post-fight interviews.

1:00:17I said, oh, I had not really thought about it, but it's just talking to fighters. I'll be fine. He said, no, no, no. I would feel better if we practiced. I said, okay. He said, okay, Brad Pickett wins by knockout. Go. I'm like, And how did you knock him out? It was my first question. And it was weird because I had not even thought about it up until that point. But when they asked me to do the kind of practice rehearsal with not any scenario that was realistic, then all of a sudden I started to panic. But I remember sitting there feeling like a 14-year-old. Like someone's going to tap me on the shoulder in a minute and throw me out.

1:00:58Really? It felt so weird, yeah. That's funny. It felt really weird. That's interesting. I don't remember if I felt imposter syndrome. I think because I wasn't getting paid, I probably thought it was just fun. Yeah. I probably didn't think it was a job. So I probably thought like, oh, they just want me to do this because I'm famous and it would be good for the sport if the fear factor guy is enthusiastic about the sport. So that's how I thought about it. And so like I would go on like the Howard Stern show and stuff and we'd wind up just talking about the UFC. and this was, again, I wasn't even working for the UFC.

1:01:31I was there to promote Fear Factor, but I was talking about how much I loved UFC, and I just think it's awesome. And back when I was competing, no one knew what the best sport, it's so hard for people to recognize that today because it's not that long ago, you know? Like, last time I fought was like 88 or 89. You would think, like, we kind of had it sorted out back then, but you didn't, no one knew. No one knew, like, what was the best thing to study? I remember I went to this gym. A friend of mine was teaching at this university, and I would go and train with him and his students sometime. And I would go there, and they had a judo program there.

1:02:11And I'd be like, look at these suckers practicing this stupid judo. Like, this is useless. You can't even kick anybody. I mean, all those guys would have killed me. They would have just grabbed me and fucking thrown me on my head. But I didn't think that. I was totally delusional. I thought I was going to kick them into the fucking shadow realm. and no one knew what the right thing to study was. If you took Kung Fu, you thought Kung Fu was the shit. Bruce Lee, right? I'm wearing a Bruce Lee shirt. He was really the only guy that was wise enough to realize you just got to take a little bit from everything.

1:02:43And having one style, whether it was his initial style, which was Wing Chun or whatever it is, karate, that's not the way. The way is the right way to win. In close quarter combat, you need to learn how to grapple. You need to learn boxing. You need to learn how to block correctly. You need to learn how to kick correctly. Back then we didn't know. And we always wondered, like, what would happen if they did, like, put a bunch of guys together? And I knew Benny the Jet had competed in some weird stuff in Hawaii. But no one really knew. So when it was finally happening, to me, I was like a little kid.

1:03:18I was like, oh, my God, it's happening. It's really happening. And I was like, please let this work. Please let this work. And then to watch the evolution of it from the beginning which is just hoist going in there and dominating everybody because no one knew jujitsu And he had the Giants we had all this friction. It was amazing And then everybody took jujitsu including me I'm like I gotta learn jujitsu and then to watch the evolution like these giant juiced up fucking wrestlers come along like Mark Coleman Smacking marker smashing everybody you're like, oh my god, you've got to get on the sauce And so everybody you know v tour got up like 240 pounds and his fucking neck start at the top of his head Oh, yeah, bro.

1:03:59I was training the same gym as him when he made his UFC debut So I was training at Carlson Gracie's gym. I kind of knew what was coming then why didn't I knew he was awesome But I didn't know how good his hands were because I only saw him doing jujitsu Right, but I knew he was a beast like and he was a black belt in jujitsu at the time and you know a phenomenal athlete just so fast but then i saw a video of him he fought john hess in hawaii you remember john hess safta fighting yeah so john hess was this giant guy he's like six seven or something like that and veto just fucking took him to the ground and bang bang bang bang bang bang hit him with like 30 fucking unanswered punches in a row like in three seconds like and put him away and then they're screaming jujitsu jujitsu i was like wait a minute This is not, I mean, I get it.

1:04:51You know jujitsu, but that was boxing. You used striking. But it was like to be there at the very beginning and watch this evolution. There it is. There's Vitor. Look at this. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I mean, my God. And look how thin Vitor was back then. That was Vitor at like 199 pounds, maybe. Maybe 190. Oh, he was so fast. And so that was there for his UFC debut. So that was UFC 12. So he fought Trey Tellegman, and Trey Tellegman, like, had no idea that this guy could box that way. Like, no one did. They thought he's a Carlson Gracie jiu-jitsu black belt. I was like, okay, you know, avoid the takedowns.

1:05:31This guy's really good on the ground. And he just starts tuning people up with his hands. Yeah, and Tellegman was Lions then, wasn't he? He was one of Ken Shamrock's guys. Did he have a missing pec? Yes. He was in a car accident, I believe, when he was a child. Oh, is that right? Yeah, and his pec was not attached on one side. And he was fucking Jack, dude. And then he fought Scott Ferrozo after that, who was like a giant fat guy. Who was also like a tank, you know, like a huge fucking knockout artist. And Vitor tuned him up to just the speed he had. So this is like, you know, 1997. And it was it was wild.

1:06:08And that was in like a high school auditorium in Dothan, Alabama. It was like really weird. Crazy. I was like, this is so these places. These are so strange. These events were so bizarre. you know i was hanging out with the lion's den guys we go drinking together and stuff it was fun but it was just weird it was like what is this thing that we're doing this is it the dothan civic center that's what it was look how small it is look how little that place is 97 yeah so that would have been the time when i was i was at art college yeah and i would i went to i went to virgin megastore there you are look jeff blatnick he was the fucking man i went to virgin megastore and uh look how you're beautiful man look at i'm so pretty and no one taught me no one told me what to do no one gave me any instruction nothing they gave me a microphone and then said we're gonna come to you backstage i'm like what do you want me to say like literally it was fucking nothing it was nothing you probably knew better than everybody else though well luckily i was a Huge fan.

1:07:10So it was pretty easy. I got the job because they had a guy that was doing it before and they got rid of him and Campbell McLaren Who was one of the producers was good friends with my comedy manager and they were he was just casually talking It's like we're looking for someone to do post fight interviews and he's like Joe loves the UFC He's like you think you'd do it. And so they called me up. I was like fuck. Yeah, let's go It's like this is and this is so it's like 97 I guess I was 30. Yeah Is this how the judges used to announce their picks? I guess so. There was a bunch of rules at the beginning that seemed very strange to me, too.

1:07:47I saw they had overtime rules. Ooh, I forgot about that. Yeah, they called them laws of the octagon. Valigi. Valid Ishmael. He was a lunatic, wasn't he? He was a mad man. So intense. Mad dog. No biting, no eye gouging, no fish hooking. That was it. You could hit people in nuts. That's it. That's it. I tell you what. I've got a piece of my gum missing from someone trying to fishhook me. Oh, God. They took a piece of the gum away with their fingernail. I'm going to have to get something done. I've got some teeth that need fixing at some point. Oh, Jesus Christ. Not nice. Aye, aye, aye. Fishhook is dangerous.

1:08:21Yeah, that's nasty. If someone fishhooks you, you should bite their fucking fingers. Oh, I think so. You should be able to bite them. Like, fuck you. Get your fucking fingers out of my mouth, motherfucker. That's interesting about commentary. I've always wondered because everybody came after you, right, when it comes to MMA commentary. So like in the early days when I was first doing the job, no one knows what a color commentator or a play-by-play commentator is back in the day. I think there's more of an understanding now. So my response to everybody is I'm going to try and do Joe's job. You know what I mean?

1:08:52But you'd set the bar so high. I think partly that's what fed into my imposter syndrome. I'm sitting in. The podcast that you did with Dustin, I appreciate all the kind words you did. I want to throw it back to you though because you were the person that raised the bar for everybody else to reach you know so and I didn't realize because I never had an intention of being a commentator like it just came off the back of my career because my career was ended abruptly so then anyone that ever says oh you're actually pretty good at this the reason why is just because I listen to you religiously like a lot of people watch the fights don't pay attention to the commentary like i tuned in i was paying attention to everything that you said so even even the delivery and the cadence and stuff what you did laid the foundation for me to learn so i very very much appreciate that oh thank you thank you it was accidental same for me but but it can't have been accidental because i had somebody to learn from you know that's why i asked you because you didn't have anybody that kind of kind of you know well it was weird because um i think i was one of the first people to do it that had a real understanding of jiu-jitsu.

1:10:00So when the fights would go to the ground, the play-by-play guy would have, you know, like Goldberg, great guy, didn't train, didn't know what the fuck was happening. So I would have to, and also people at home, what's going on? So I'd have to walk them through exactly when someone's in danger and why they're in danger and how they can get out of it and when they're free. Okay, see his elbow he's free now he's good and so my mind is spinning like 100 miles an hour i'm like now i don't have to do that as much because people kind of understand things much more but there's certain situations in certain positions where i would have to say no this is a submission like he's he's very close here like okay now he's got to cinch it up he's got to put his ankle behind it's like now he's got it he's got and you'd have to like talk people through it so it was it was different than any other sport because it was you're kind of like educating people on what's Happening like I couldn't use obscure I could even though I use the obscure term like you know crackhead control or something like weird stuff like that that Eddie comes up with these fucking ridiculous names for submissions and positions But I would have to explain why this works and what's happening and what's going on and what's what's in danger you know and it was weird because I felt like this obligation to jiu-jitsu that That was the one thing like you could someone kicks you in the head you get it someone needs someone in the head Oh, you hit him with a flying knee.

1:11:21You get it. But explaining someone like what like, you know, a calf crusher is like that's that's a weird fucking position. Yeah. Like what is going on there? You know, explaining to someone, you know, why a triangle works and why it doesn't work and why someone's safe, you know, with a head and arm choke. why okay he's okay he's got his hand over his ear there's it was all this weird stuff where it was partially trying to be entertaining but also trying to educate and i had to kind of figure it out as i did it you know as i called i don't know how many fights i've called probably thousands yeah i mean i've called a lot you've you've been doing a lot longer than me well i don't do as many now you know i only do north american pay-per-views and i don't even do i don't even go to Canada anymore so fuck them.

1:12:10I love Canadians. It's the government that fucking creeps me out. But the amount I was doing back then, I was doing like 20 shows plus a year, 22 shows a year. So I was doing a show almost every other weekend. I was flying somewhere. And it was exhausting. It was a problem. But at one point in time, it became really my main job after Fear Factor was over. And I loved it, but the traveling was brutal. You'd go to Australia, you come back from australia and now you're going to dallas you're going to dallas you're going to new york it's like yeah i was in us first time i went to australia with the ufc it was a 56 hour round trip and i was on the ground for 30 hours you feel like you're on drugs i feel like like someone gave me a drug i don't even know where i am yeah i loved it though i loved being there i'm like wow what a crazy country you guys are on the other side of the planet and you're all cool and the food's great yeah it's fun and i got all the i got all the gigs that most people didn't want to do like i was i was being sent to all of the farthest reaches you know what i mean like i i did i mean singapore i loved japan i loved yeah you know going out to australia to do those events i did a lot of the russian events you know i was even back at one time in case bruce buffett didn't make it i was going to be the really as well yeah oh wow that's crazy that's a hard job absolutely that guy set the bar right he almost dies every event really we're we're looking at hammer like one day is going to be loud because he you know bruce has got to be like 70 years old now right yeah i'm like one day that motherfucker's going to stroke out in the middle of alasana and just fucking pop blood starts leaking that's it if you ask bruce that's the way we'd like to go that's how you'd want to go one of my craziest sweet suit on i remember i remember coming down a a slide like a metal slide from the Great Wall of China with Bruce Buffer in front of me and Uriah Faber behind me and we're going down on these like rugs on the way down from just weird experiences that you have on the road with UFC you know what I mean yeah that was good I've always always loved Bruce yeah he's a great guy you know that's another thing as well is like and you'll remember this from back you know back when I made my debut like I would get into it with Bruce like I'd be like calling Bruce on and yeah yeah he always used to come to me I loved it because it was just the idea of of hearing Bruce Buffer say my name was just wild to me the outlaw party dude I'll get goosebumps we always talk about like whether or not it's um a jinx to fist bump buffer you know like me and Anik were talking about it but I was like no Khabib fist bumped him every time so it can't be a jinx because you look for jinxes you look for things that are a bad omen or a bad sign you know yeah weirdly superstitious aren't we we like to we like to hang stuff on things that aren't our responsibility isn't that weird it is especially with fighters fighters are super superstitious yeah they get real weird about the the things they do their rituals before fights what they what they eat where they like what they wear yeah yeah and and like some of the things they do like i mean like ben henderson with the toothpick like crazy yeah i was interviewing him post-fight i'm like yo toothpick in your mouth and he got in trouble for that yeah dangerous though especially if you know you get knocked out and that toothpick's going down your throat i just didn't understand why he did it like what it's like a bit of a bit of a safety blanket almost it's like a familiarity that it's there it's the weirdest one of all time a toothpick in your mouth yeah okay yeah very strange i like a toothpick but not during a fight that dude still had it Yeah, he's got a fight coming up in Brussels.

1:15:48Wow. It's a rough fight as well. How old is he now? 44. Wow. Yeah, fighting a kid called Patrick Habarora Good Belgian fighter. Yeah, it's interesting though. I mean, you know, you got Form a champ with all that experience. Oh, yeah. I mean, he's still in great shape. Yeah, he still can compete at a high level It's just wow these guys when they're competing for that long. It's so nuts. Yeah, you know what I what I've and I suggested as well as a thousand other things that I've suggested to the PFL, but a master's division, right? You know, the likes of Cowboy and Tony Ferguson, you know, the guys that you want to keep fighting, but you don't want to see them just get smashed by Chemaev.

1:16:28Sure. I would love to see some of those fairly matched fights. You know, like when we had, it was Nate Diaz against Chemaev, wasn't it? And then Chemaev was taken out of the fight and Tony Ferguson was put in the place and Nate won the fight. That, to me, was the perfect matchup. The Chemaev one would have made me feel really uncomfortable to watch. I would love to see a Masters division, especially now we could accommodate it with some of the older fighters around. Because most of them, they just kind of bounce over onto, you know, Bairnuckle or whatever else is out there as options. Whereas, like, they've still got so much to offer.

1:17:01And if the fights are fairly matched, I think we get some more really real good ones. Yeah, it is a problem when you see those old veterans that still have something to offer, and then you see them getting thrown in there with some 27-year-old assassin. And you're like, good Lord, don't do this. I mean, I'm, what, 43? I'd fight someone this weekend. Like, I love it. It's still in me. But I know I'm physically, like, I mean, even if I was at my athletic peak, I wouldn't be competing with these guys now. They're terrifying. But, you know, like, to know that I'm getting into a fight with someone that's as game as me but has also had the experience as well as the wear and tear, you know what I mean?

1:17:39Yeah, evenly matched. Like, look at Pacquiao's about to fight Mayweather. Makes sense, right? You know, like fighting Terrence Crawford, you'd be like, don't do that. Exactly. Yeah, like, I don't want to see you get stretched. You know what I mean? But, like, you guys are both in your late 40s. Like, okay, yeah, all right. I'll pay for that. Yeah, as long as they're not gone. You know, there's some guys that they get to a certain point and they're like, why is their family letting them compete? Why hasn't anybody stepped in? Doesn't anybody recognize their skills are gone? Doesn't anybody recognize they get knocked out way too easily now?

1:18:19There's a bunch of fighters like that that I just really wish would not be doing it anymore. Yeah. And the thing is, it's sad about it as well. And this is where I feel like the community around MMA has probably changed in the last decade or two. is like the old, the veteran fighters were just carried in such high regard, whereas now you're the highlight of somebody else's, the start of somebody else's career. And a lot of the fans, I mean, certainly what I see online, they're very dismissive of fighters that at one point were great and are now not quite where they used to be. And, you know, they start throwing around words like washed and stuff.

1:18:55I'm like, you've got to respect where these guys came from. Like no one lives forever. No one is at their athletic peak forever. But we also should still be celebrating what people have achieved, you know. And I feel like that's something that we're not, we don't get as much in the sport. And that's partly because the young fighters get matched with the veterans to, you know, like, you know, bring Ken Shamrock back out of retirement and dust him off for Rich Franklin to fight him because no one knew who Rich was and he was so close to a title shot. Do you know what I mean? Like that was one of those moments where I'm like, that's kind of a, I don't, I don't like that fight.

1:19:28You know what I mean? Because I can see what's being done there. Right. And I mean, not that you might have needed it, but the boost that he would have got from smashing the hell out of Nate Diaz, you know, that was kind of part of the benefit of throwing Nate into that fight, you know, and they're the fights that I would like to not see anymore because I think we get more fights out of some of these guys towards the end of their career where they, maybe their athleticism is not where it was, but their knowledge is way ahead of where it used to be. Right. We go back, you know, we were talking about the old days and when we first get into it, and when MMA first became a thing like me as a 17 year old sitting I wheeled the TV in with the VHS and I put the tape in and I watch UFC 2 and 3 and I had this feeling of I'm like now I'm questioning myself and everything that everything about me as a martial artist I have to do this and if I don't do this I'm going to be questioning myself my whole life but at the same time I'm looking at this going well I know one martial art really well taekwondo and I know probably four or five other martial arts all right you know wing chun uh i'd done some traditional jiu-jitsu i'd boxed quite a lot you know what i mean so like i had a decent handle but i also have a library of martial arts books and i would sit in front of that that library and think to myself like how am i going to consume all of this information and it wasn't like okay i need this bit of information and this and it wasn't a case of absorbing what is useful and rejecting what's useless i had to absorb everything in order to go through that shedding process and it just felt so overwhelming like i remember going into fights feeling like i have no idea how this is going to play out like i don't i don't know half of this guy's skill set just purely because i haven't had the time to learn all of this stuff and it's like the more you pick at it the more you know it's like it's like you're hitting a rock and all of a sudden it falls in and it's a massive cave inside and it's just full of information and i'm like how am i going to consume all of this knowledge you know what I mean it was I remember feeling very very overwhelmed by it all and that fed into a lot of anxiety during fight week which was you know something that everybody always manages but if I look back that was where my anxiety came from it was the it was the over analysis of the sport and the feeling like I was never going to be able to learn all of this information whereas now in actuality I feel very very opposite I feel like now if I was going back my training would be very very focused and very very streamlined but that's because I've had years and years of experience of watching the sport and knowing what works and what doesn't and pulling things apart you know what I mean so it was almost like and I said this I've said this to a lot of young fighters if I if I in my career at one point could have stopped and taken six months out or a year out just to be a student and just to learn and absorb that would have been a real benefit for me when I stopped fighting and I was doing commentary and work doing inside the octagon and stuff like my knowledge was growing on a daily basis I felt it and and I just I thought to myself man I could have done this when I was in my career but I I didn't because I was I was partly scared of the of the the over analysis of it you know and partly partly concerned that I was going to show myself so much that I didn't know that I was just going to feel like it was endless it was a bottomless pit of knowledge right you know whereas when I started doing inside the oxygen and I was I was watching fights in chronological order from the beginnings of people's careers all the way through and then I was going back and I was watching prelims of fights that I wouldn't have watched in my career because I only want to watch this guy and this guy because I don't want all of this sometimes I watch somebody and feel like I'm getting worse when I'm watching them you know what I mean so I'd be very very specific about who I would watch whereas in actuality if you watch the whole card start to finish the fight IQ increases generally as the card goes on so the guys at the top make far less mistakes and they're the guys that I'm watching so I'm watching people that are you know way closer to flawless than I am but if I watch the prelims I can see the same people the same mistakes that people are making they're just making them far more regularly on the prelims so it was almost like watching the prelims was uncovering problems and bad decisions much quicker than it was when I was watching the few specific guys that I was trying to learn from.

1:23:48So there was a real benefit in just absorbing all of it. And then the next stage was, and it was specifically Robbie Lawler against Rory McDonald. It was the first time I realized I was watching a fight without putting myself in the cage. And it was like an epiphany. I was like, oh, I'm just watching these two guys as a fan. I'm not comparing Robbie Lawler to me and Rory McDonald to me and my process of preparing for an opponent was very similar to what I would do for for an analysis I would I'd get into him I would watch it as much as I could of that person but then I would go back and watch my fights that I knew were available to them so I'm now I'm watching my fights with their skill set in mind right so now I'm I'm almost I'm almost pretending to be that person to watch me and go okay well I can do this to him and I can do this to him but there's always a bit of ego involved there so like say with Carlos Condit an incredible fighter right he's great at everything but he's not gonna be able to take me down and there's no way in hell he's gonna be able to knock me out you know Mohawk flapping in the wind you know and it was like and that was that was my ego getting in the way right because if I was looking at Carlos Condit versus Robbie Lawler or Carlos Condit versus GSP I would have respected his counterpunching, right?

1:25:03But my ego was a block in that scenario. So by watching two fighters and being able to remove myself entirely, I just saw things differently. And it took my shit out of it. It took my drama out of the way. That's interesting. Your ego really can get in the way. And it really makes you make terrible decisions. Like how many people have taken fights they shouldn't have taken just because of their ego? Their ego just gave them a distorted perception. Absolutely. There was this guy that was training with us that was really good at jiu-jitsu, and he had no striking, and he was going to take an MMA fight.

1:25:34And I remember saying to him, you have to understand that, like, what you can do to people on the ground, right? You could make a person feel helpless, right? Someone could do that to you standing up, and it's way scarier. It's way scarier. Like, you have no idea. Like, you think it's this weird Dunning-Kruger effect, right? Like you think you're really good. So you think you're good at that like you've this distorted You don't know anything about striking. Yeah, like his striking was like Pap pap like rudimentary like nothing. I'm like someone's gonna set you up and boom Right and head kick you they're gonna and he got TKO'd he got beat up badly And I think it really fucked him up too.

1:26:19Yeah It's almost like you pull the curtain back and you realize there's a whole of the world behind the curtain that you you'd not anticipated was there. But the scariest world to not be good at is the striking world. Absolutely. That's the scariest world. And I've tried to quantify this myself because it is an interesting thing because often I find myself I'm explaining the nuances of feints and movements that are opening doors for other things to land. I mean, Adesanya was a master at this. Conor McGregor was a master at this. And the way that they deliver their techniques, there's such an elite level of intelligence to it that it's easy to just think that it's chance what they're doing right like like take color take a conor mcgregor cowboy for example right and and the beauty of the beauty of inside the octagon is i would download all the angles of the fight i would watch every angle the full fight from the whole whole angle so i'd see different things and there's a there's a moment in that fight and this is this is the benefit of of uh say conor mcgregor say his brand is the left hand right Conor McGregor's left-hand brand was a very, very powerful weapon for him to take into the fight against Cowboy because Cowboy was so focused on it.

1:27:30And there's an angle from Cowboy's back to against the fence, and he sees Conor close his left hand. And straightaway, Cowboy goes, left hand's coming, and he moves on to the head kick. It was the threat of the left hand coming that forced Cowboy to make that mistake. Anderson Silva, Vitor Belfort, when he looked at his leg and kicked him in the face. like the idea of him being able to sell and and you look at that fight vito's checking the inside low kick while the while he's got anderson's toes in his mouth you know what i mean it's like he was able to sell a technique purely with his eye line purely with a feint and adesanya is another master at it as well and that to me then shows that there are we've got ranges in mma but in each one of those ranges there's dimensions as well right there's dimensions of understanding Like you could be a button mashing fighter and a lot people have success with button mashing, right?

1:28:24They throw the technique that they worked in the changing room warming up on the pads but then there are people that understand that each one of these techniques and each each thing that they do Or piece that they have in their arsenal is a setup for something else, right? You know? Well, that's what's interesting about people that have a real system. Yeah, Dwayne Bang Ludwig. Have you ever trained with him? I haven't but we fought didn't we so yeah, I mean I was a huge fan of him back in the day I remember him, Tico, in somebody in King of the Cage up against the fence. Oh, yeah, and he did that.

1:28:54I just fell in love with him, yeah. That was Genki Sudo, wasn't it? Yeah. Great system of footwork, though, isn't it? Oh, he has an amazing system. And his system is like he has a giant notebook filled with techniques where everything, his system is very well thought out. And it's really interesting because he didn't fight the way he teaches. No. That's what's really interesting. Like T.J. Dillashaw is probably his greatest student. and TJ fought completely different than Dwayne. He constantly switched stances, constantly was like, he was giving you so many looks. And, you know, it's wild watching when, you know, you watch like Dwayne style versus what he would teach because it was just like, oh, if I had only known this while I was fighting, if I had only known this while I was coming up, if I had only known this early, early on in my career.

1:29:44Yeah. And this is where I don't think we get enough people crossing over to coaching. afterwards like whenever I see former fighter in the corner Mike Brown Robbie Lawler whoever it is like I'm filled with confidence that the sport is moving on because they're going to pass on information that they've taken on from somebody else and refined you know like my taekwondo teacher told me when I was a kid if if you're not better than me at my age I've failed as a teacher right and like and he always Mick Rowley's name is he always gave me everything there was never any restriction because he wanted to see what I would do with it and where I would take it because then same with Eddie Bravo who's right we were just chatting about it uh backstage um remember Sean Bollinger sure he used to be able to heel hook himself and he created the double bagger and there's a few different things but I remember being on the mats and watching Eddie Bravo listen to one of his 16 17 year old students to see what he could learn from him and that's that's such an unusual thing in a lot of martial arts schools is the teacher being a student right Right.

1:30:43And that's something that always stood out to me about particular people. Like I would never want to train a fighter and hold anything back from them because I always want to be just a little bit better. You know, I want to I want to give you everything, throw everything I've got on the table and then see what you pick up, see what you run with and see what you can teach me from it. Yeah. It'll make you better, too. And that's the thing. Absolutely. But you have to have an honest ego. Yes. Like you have to be able to really say, okay, this is how good I am. I can't pretend I'm better than I am for these people.

1:31:16This is how good I am. And you have to be able to show it. Yeah. And that's one of the beautiful things about jiu-jitsu is like you have to roll. Like if you're a teacher, you're rolling with people. But if Eddie gets caught in something, he'll tell people. Yeah. And he'll show you. Show me what you did. And everybody, look what he did. And he'll bring people around. He's like, he'll let you know. I'm just a human being. I just happen to be really good at this. And even if I'm really good at this, there's openings. There's holes. There's things that I don't know. And this is a constantly changing and evolving game where people are bringing in new things.

1:31:47And some of these new things, you know, you analyze it and you go, well, here's a simple way to stop this. And as soon as someone knows this, that that submission is gone. And so then you kill it and you put it aside. Well, we tried that one. Didn't work. Sometimes you like try to stop this. You're like, I don't. I think that's legit. And then guys would get down. They'll go, what if you do this? So what if you do that? And he'll have classes. We'll have like 15 guys come up with different solutions to these problems and say, okay, get him in it and put him in it. All right. Now, how do you finish it?

1:32:18And you grab here? Okay. What would you do here? And then like you have guys like break things down. And that's that honest approach. Someone told me that remember when Hoist Gracie tapped Dan Severin with a triangle? They were training at one of the Gracie schools, a friend of mine. and he saw that and he said can you show us that he said you're not ready for that yet i can't show you that and he's like what the fuck are you talking about like the guy it's it's a technique like show me the technique like he just did it and he's like no we're not gonna like they were holding back yeah so in the early days there was a lot of holding back you know this is like what was that what year was that that had to be like 94 or something like that right but then you know but then like everyone's reputation as a coach back in those days couldn't really be questioned too much you know what i mean right because there was no way of them proving it i just i can't it's too deadly right you know you know what i mean whereas you know like like the people that's and those those people stand out in my mind you know eddie was one of those people he stood out in my mind because because of how he he approached the the sessions he was always a student even when he was the teacher yeah and the other thing as well that you know everybody wanted I had to name something in the 10th planet system.

1:33:33So everyone was trying to create something and make it stick. So it created this really, it was a thriving environment to be in. I loved being at Legends back in the day. And obviously Bomb Squad as well before that. What year did you start training with us? It was Legends. It was after the Bomb Squad had closed. I went back to the Bomb Squad, well, what was the Bomb Squad, to train with Paolo Tolcher of Bloodsport fame. But yeah, Legends. and it just opened when I arrived. So what year was that? 2005? Six? Probably 2006, yeah. Wow. Yeah, because before that I'd been training at American Top Team.

1:34:10Bro, that's 20 years ago. Isn't that crazy? I know, two decades, man. That's when we met, 20 fucking years ago. Yeah, and a lot's changed. Nuts. Yeah. It's nuts how time just fucking waits for no one. I was just saying to the guys here, like, it's funny, like, the Joe Rogan experience, if you'd have asked me what the Joe Rogan experience was 20 years ago it was getting crushed inside control that was my experience of Joe Rogan being on the mats during the class and watching you smash the bag with your back kick and then stepping onto the mats and just and you had you almost had like the opposite game to most of the guys on the mat because all the 10th planet guys were like pulling you into half guard or into guard and trying to wrap you up whereas you were very much a top game player yeah that's at least how it felt to me it was like you were the different role on the mat to everybody else Well, I got obsessed with head and arm chokes.

1:35:01Yeah, I felt it. You know, it fucked my neck up, I think. I wound up having a bulging disc in my neck. It was either that or not tapping the guillotines. But I got a head and arm chokes. I developed it where it was like, if I locked it on, you were pretty much done. And when I started tapping brown belts and higher level guys with that, and then I just really concentrated on it. And it's one of those things where it's like, you know how it is, just like with a kick like everyone has strong legs you know you can lift weights with your legs but like how come some people can kick harder than other people well it's the the coordination the technique the refinement of it where it just and there's something like that in a squeeze like marcello like marcello would get your back and his rear naked choke marcello garcia was just like a master he's not a big strong guy like so what is it and so i that was like my number one go-to was the head and arm choke if i could get that shit i was pretty sure i could lock it up so i just developed this style of just crushing where i would just have my whole body would just lock on something like a pit bull you know yeah but that's interesting the difference between striking and grappling and going back to what we're talking about a minute ago like there's something mechanical about grappling right if you pull on somebody's head the head's going to come down or they're going to force back and the head's going to go back there's a there's a cause and reaction in grappling almost all the time that even a person that doesn't fight can see the basics of yes right well if i pick one leg up and i throw you around you're going to lose your balance right even something as simple as that but with striking there's so many so many things that happen with striking where no one touches anybody right especially when you've got and then this is where the dimensions come in you know you've got the button mashers at the bottom you've got the guys that have refined their button mashing skill sets so now they've got two or three combos that work well for them or they've got a particular technique that they refine to a point where they can deliver it in 10 different ways but then you've got people that understand that each one of their weapons is a different thing at a different time and serves a different purpose at a different time you know yeah like like with a jab for example everybody in their game has got a jab but if you strip that jab down into its core components and you go you know uh you you look at like a like a secondary identifier right of that technique there are going to be differences right If I throw my right hand straight and I throw it over your jab or I throw it when I split your cross, that to me is three different techniques.

1:37:31It's the same weapon that you're using, but the delivery system is different. But then on top of that complexity, you've got all of the damage that you can inflict that draws responses to people. Like the calf kick. Now you can feint a calf kick and get someone to pick their leg up. That's a very, very basic example. or when someone's been hit with a body shot, you feint a body shot and their head's almost always open. There are certain things. I mean, headshot dead is another good example. How often do you see someone throw a punch followed by a kick and knock their opponent out? Duke Rufus used to teach that.

1:38:05Is that right? Yeah, he taught me that. That was his thing. He really liked the shield, the vision with a punch and have the kick come behind it. See, that for me, that's one delivery mechanism of one particular technique, right? And there are lots and lots of those. Lots of them. Lots of them. But that's where I find it really interesting is and how I sat one day and I thought to myself, I'm going to nail down the jab. I'm going to start with that because I have intended on writing a book or two about this at some point. And I started with the jab and I got to like 20 ,000 words. And I thought to myself, no one's going to read this shit.

1:38:41Like I'm going to sell one copy and it's going to be to myself so I can criticize it. Do you know what I mean? Well, you've always been a very thorough guy in the way you analyze things, which makes you a perfect candidate for someone who's a commentator. Because you really have a very complex understanding of the mechanics of movement and of all the different things that are happening. You're not just like, oh, we hit them hard. You're looking at all the different layers and you analyze things on multi-levels, which I always find fascinating. like you have a great commentary style it's really excellent you're absolutely one of the best out there that means a lot to me thank you yeah you're great i'm fortunate enough to have a bit of the tism you see so it's like i see the patterns that's a good thing yeah touching the tism is good yeah oh my god yeah i don't think i have that no no no no what are you i have adhd yeah i was gonna say yeah my dad's adhd my mom's my mom's tism for sure you know what i mean we're yeah I don't have the tism, but I have this weird ability to lock in on things where the world goes away and I don't need food.

1:39:48Yeah. I can do something for like 12 hours in a row. 100%. I forget to eat all the time. Yeah. All the time. In fact, Tom Hardy's just announced that he's autistic. He's just collaborated with a brand and they've created a whole line of no eye contact rash guards and stuff. How convenient. He's autistic. Come on. You know what was really interesting? There's so many people that are claiming autistic. like unless you're coding in your sleep shut the fuck up you know what was really interesting is i have a friend called scroobius pip he's a rapper in the in the uk you know scroobius yeah so he was in he was in taboo with tom hardy and he told me a story when they were driving from la to vegas and scroobius pip his his uh record labels called speech development records he has a stammer um he has a speech impediment and on this drive between la and vegas he's driving tom hardy's in the passenger seat and tom started to mimic his stammer but apologized for it he's like i can't can't help it like he's oh wow he's like absorbing parts of his character for a new very similar to like it happened to with johnny depp and bill murray when they played hunter thompson right like like you like you watch jack sparrow and jack sparrow's got a hunter thompson kind of move to him and even johnny depp said himself he don't think he was ever the same after he played Hunter Thompson in Fear and Loathing.

1:41:06Well, he was such a giant Hunter Thompson fan. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's interesting about, like, certainly method actors, people that can play a role. Like Jim Carrey is another good example. Christian Bale, right? Daniel Day-Lewis. Oh, my goodness. Maybe the best. Like, their ability to, almost like Shang Tsung out of Mortal Kombat, they can absorb a bit of the person's character and then kind of become that character. Yeah. I met Tom a couple of times at Henzo's in New York. And he's a lovely guy, but he's hunched over, no eye contact. Oh, he is? Well, I think a little bit of that is fame as well.

1:41:43I think so. There's a little bit of fame that just weirds you out. If I go places, I try not to make eye contact sometimes because it's just too odd. I'm just like, hi. You might think I'm autistic, but I'm just fucking weirded out by too many people. I totally get that. You know, one of my favorite shows that you ever did was with Henry Rollins, the first one. and he said something that always stuck in my mind he said i'm very good being the party i'm not very good being at the party yeah stuck in my mind i feel like that all the time but i'm i'm i go the opposite way i i realized recently i i hold too much eye contact i and i find it exhausting i was walking through the park next to the hotel last night and i'm no i'm like having a conversation in my head like stop looking at people stop looking people in the eyes stop making eye contact i do it all the time i like lock in but i'm even doing it now like we're talking i'm kind of locked into you and i even in your conversation you you like have a look away i i struggle to do that i'm actually trying to consciously do it sometimes i have to sometimes if i'm thinking of an idea yeah i look away my wife said that i wonder if that's autism because it's like uh one of my daughters has my recall my ability to like she'll talk about like uh you know whatever it is Like she can rattle off like information about the Titanic.

1:43:04Like she's like, you have your fucking dad's brain. Like that's nuts. But when I do it, I look away sometimes. Like I look up. Like I'm talking about things. I really want to be clear about what I'm saying. I look up. And it's because I want to – I think it's because I want to take out the element of eye to eye and communicating with someone. looking away while thinking known as gaze aversion a common cognitive behavior that helps people process information by reducing external distractions yeah yeah that's what i'm doing by looking at an empty space or upward the brain shifts from environmental input to internal cognitive tasks such as memory retrieval or complex thinking yeah that's what i do i don't even i didn't know it was a similar like when people turned on the radio when you're trying to find where you're going you know oh yeah you have to like block you whatever it is right still see but you have to like, you know.

1:43:53Or if someone's yapping at you while you're trying to figure out where you're going and they're telling you, and I tell her and they're like, we shut the fuck up. I don't know where I am. We have to figure out where we're going. I find myself doing it when I'm walking through airports. When I'm traveling, I've got my wife with me, Veronica. I notice I constantly don't make eye contact with her when we're traveling. And I don't know why that is. It's like I feel a little bit like there's enough to be dealing with right now. If I then open a conversation with you by looking at you, that's another layer of let me just deal with the airport.

1:44:22Yes. Well, you know, people don't think about that, but when you're involved in multiple tasks at the same time, you know, you're taking away your ability to concentrate and do a great job at any one of those things. If there's multiple things going on at the same time. That's why, like, I used to do interviews in my car, and I stopped doing them because I sound like a moron. And I realized this because I'm thinking about cars. I'm going 60 miles an hour. This is a car to the left. This is a car to the right. This is a car in front of me. Car behind. This guy this fucking asshole. Oh, he's got a motorcycle.

1:44:51He's gonna get killed We'll get him zipping in between the lights and so I'm thinking all these different things and then I'm trying to explain Different stuff. I thought it would be a great way to multitask Let me do this fucking stupid interview that I don't want to do anyway, and let me do it while I'm on the phone It'd be kind of fun. Yeah, but me ma just sound like a moron because like I can't Articulate well because I'm thinking about too many different things simultaneously. Well, you're already multitasking Yeah, which is why I like the sensory deprivation tank so much. Yes, yes. Because there's none, there's nothing, there's no tasks.

1:45:23Is that still a regular thing for you? I got it right here. Have you really? Yeah, I got it right here. I've only done it a couple of times. Where are you living these days? I'm in the UK. I'm right in the Midlands in the UK. But, I mean, only for... Getting a little kooky over there, isn't it? Yes. You might want to bail before they lock you up for thought crime. I know, right? I know. For real. It's like, I'm conscious and cautious all the time. I feel right now like I'm kind of, I'm holding my tongue on a lot of things. just purely because i i kind of i know that when i when i start talking i'm just ah you know because that's how i am you know i i'm very opinionated unfortunately that's a good thing well if i decide to start talking then i won't i won't shut up and i'm not i'm not open that floodgate yet but i do feel like it's coming but i also feel like i need to i need to feel like i need to prepare for it a little bit you know what i mean like there's a bunch of books i need to consume before i'm i'm in the right place where i can open up and fully express yourself about certain things yeah Yeah, it's just where it's going right now is not in a good direction.

1:46:21It's tightening down on people's ability to express themselves. Yeah. And you've got so many issues. It's happening everywhere, though, isn't it? I mean, even like, you know, like, I mean, as a comedian, you know, freedom of speech is so important to you and to your industry. You know what I mean? And I feel like that's changed a lot. You know, across the world, it's the same in Europe as well and a lot of places. I think in America in comedy it was closing down and then people realize we can't have this and it's opened right back up. Right. OK. You know, there was a bunch of people that were trying to conflate jokes with your actual opinions.

1:46:59Yeah. You know, I talked about on stage once. I'm like, you know, Bob Marley didn't really shoot the sheriff. You know, just when Quentin Tarantino's filming a film, nobody's dying. okay this is entertainment and you say things that you don't really believe because it's an outrageous thing to say because it's funny and there's this understanding of that as an audience member you're supposed to be able to accept that but then you have these cunts out there in the world that are just looking to find words that someone said and ascribe them as if they you know put it put it down on paper as if this is a statement like this is what this person actually thinks he believes like no that's not what we're fucking around we're talking shit like you can't pretend yeah and then take a small clip and put it completely out of context on tiktok or something all the time yeah all the time about all kinds of things people which is part of the game you know people love to do that it's like it's fine it's okay you know what you it's fine for tiktok minded people the real problem is people that don't know you and don't understand you and then they get an impression of you based off of that this is their first introduction to you and it's based off well the fuck that guy but you know that's just part of the game yeah it's gonna happen i think comedians and satire is one of the last lines of defense against tyranny i really do like i i watch prime minister's questions every wednesday and i listen to just the nonsense that comes out of it and we've got keir starmer and kemi badenock just going at each other over just nonsense it's it's nothing real no real no real quality of conversation is coming out of that but what i feel like is if we had a panel of comedians sitting in the gallery somewhere you know you've got a robert mitchell and ricky gervais and james acaster and a few others just sitting there just going well that sounds like nonsense and then poking fun at it and making a joke out of it it brings a reality to things that i don't think i think we're lacking in a lot of ways well the lakota have had that in their tribes they had a thing called the hayoka which they called a sacred clown and the hayoka would be able to make fun of everything and as soon as you couldn't make fun of something you knew it was bullshit so it's like you couldn't make fun of the chief's wife or you couldn't make fun of you know someone some warrior couldn't make fun of something as soon as you couldn't make fun of something like hey why are you so defensive how come i can't make fun of that that's interesting yeah i mean look it had to actually be funny hayoka hayoka it had to actually be funny of course or you'd probably get killed but that's your new move that's your new move joe you need to set up by haoka for the world well i think that's what comedy is in in many ways it's a test you test things it doesn't mean it always works and it doesn't mean that jokes are always funny and it doesn't mean that sometimes people don't overreach you know patrice o 'neill had a great statement about that where he was talking about uh something that happened on the opie and anthony show and um he was on fox news and they were criticizing it and he was saying you got to understand that all jokes come from the same place they all come from the place of trying to be funny and some of them you might find offensive and some of them you might laugh at really hard but it's the mindset the place that it's coming from is all the same and i was like that's so wise because that's really the best way to describe it because that's really what everyone's trying to do.

1:50:21They're just trying to make people laugh. It's just sometimes it doesn't come out right. Or sometimes it's a miss, like, especially if it's an ad lib. Like at any moment in time, you generally don't know what the next word out of your mouth is going to be like right now. Right? I don't know. I'm just free balling. And sometimes you'll say something really hilarious. And sometimes you say something, you're like, cut that out, Jamie. You know, it's like, You try, you swing, you miss. You know, you don't know. And people want to take these things that you're freeballing with and just trying to make laughs and call them a statement.

1:50:59And think that it's like this well thought out, you know, like you sat down, you wrote this out, you went over it with a fine tooth comb. This is my press release. Like that's not what comedy is. It's jokes. You're just fucking around. And if you can't take a joke, you're probably annoying. And you really shouldn't be in any position to regulate discourse because you're not a fun person, right? You're a person that's looking to take things very seriously. We know a lot of people like that that are bad faith actors and they play gotcha. You just said this. You really mean that? So your position on that?

1:51:36Oh, fuck off. I'm not interested in engaging with you because you're not real. you know like this is not a real thing you're playing a stupid game i'm playing a game of we're two human beings communicating with each other and we're going to overstep sometimes we're going to slip up we're going to and every now and then you're going to nail it knock it out of the park and even if i don't like you if you fucking make me laugh i'll clap yeah you know it's kind of similar with trash talking isn't it you know what i mean and if somebody like one of the funniest lines ever was and i remember connor as he was saying he was laughing at himself and it was the back and forth with Chad Mendes.

1:52:10And Chad was saying, you can't wrestle. And he was on a live feed at BT Sports Studio. And I remember it so clearly. Because as he was saying it, he was finding it funny himself. He was like, I'll wrestle my balls on your forehead. And then he's laughing. And everybody in the room is laughing. Even Chad Mendes is laughing. You know what I mean? He was a funny dude. How about the Jeremy Stevens one? Who the fuck is that guy? And that's become a part of MMA law, right? Like it's amazing how he's influenced. Oh, he was the master shit talker. And also the master at emotional warfare. Yes. Like the Jose Aldo fight.

1:52:46I remember being there for that fight going, Aldo is out of sorts. Yes. His whole, he looked fucked up. His body looked smooth. He didn't look like he wanted to be there. And he just threw himself at Conor and got cracked. Wasn't it crazy? He was so emotionally torn. And like the moment was so big and then Connor across the other side looks so relaxed and loose Because he know he knew he had won the emotional warfare The emotional warfare was one and that is a giant factor in fights whether or not someone bites on Emotional warfare. Yeah, I think that's a giant factor this weekend. I watched your war room by the way.

1:53:25By the way I love your YouTube show. It's really excellent. Thank you and and this fight this weekend is a lot of emotional warfare, right? Strickland has said some wild shit about Hamzad. He would say, shoot him. He calls him a goat fucker. I mean, but it's interesting to me that it doesn't seem like Hamzad is biting on any other. He's like, this guy, he said this thing, but he doesn't believe it. Yeah. And you're like, whoa. Like, he's not, he doesn't seem upset about it. It doesn't seem like it's under his skin. He's like, this guy says he wants war, but I don't think he wants war. He'd be dead.

1:54:05That's it. That's how it should be. I mean, Strickland would be the same. I don't think you could say anything to Strickland that would offend him. He's just... He'll laugh. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he'll laugh. Whereas, say, when I had that fight against Marcus Davis coming up, I was surprised at how angry he got at me. Like, in the Countdown show, I'm laughing. I'm like, I literally can't believe is this het up and wound up about it you know and like you go back to the connor thing the you remember the press conference where he stole aldo's belt the last one they did in ireland so i was behind the the stage for that one to start with when they were both being kept separate and dana was there and um and then when they went on stage i was on connor's side of the stage at the bottom of the stairs and the the anger just emanating off aldo the whole day was exhausting for me just to be around and then after the the the press conference where connor had taken his belt as soon as they circled back and they were behind the thingy again aldo was like beside himself angry yeah and as soon as i saw that i'm like wow that is it's that's that's like a level of witchcraft that you see in like the fainting of striking and when you can start to pull somebody's emotions out like that yeah and like for me i think i think fighters should be completely impenetrable like no one should be able to say anything to a fighter to upset them i just it's it's an immediate weakness that you throw on the table for someone to get their teeth into well it's one of the things that i really appreciate about pereira his stoicism he's always just stoic you could talk all that mad shit about him you know and like the uncle i of the rematch with uncle i have like uncle i have had talked so much shit after that first fight yeah you know And then when he blasted him out in the first round, then he went like this.

1:55:52Beautiful. You know? The same thing with Jamal Hill. Yeah. You know, I mean, he's very stoic. But afterwards, his celebration is even like, look. Look. It's so cool. I like the fact that his coldness is a part of his brand. Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah, he's very cold. That stare down. Yeah. Like him and Yuri Prohaska. It's so disturbing that Yuri thought he was using spiritual warfare. Like Yuri accused him of using sorcery. He's like, no magic this time.

1:56:26Yuri's so crazy. Such a crazy request. Yeah. Like, do not invoke spirits. I had someone trying to get a witch doctor on me in Brazil once. Really? They thought I was casting spells. Yeah, they tried to get a witch doctor. yeah casting spells is like because if you believe it it'll work right if you really but that's why voodoo works right because if you believe in voodoo it will fuck you up if someone says i'll curse you you're like oh no i'm fucking cursed shit yeah if you really believe that it will work yeah if you can make if you can make someone afraid of something or sensitive to something you know and and you know and i i was always a big fan of marcus davis and i knew how dangerous he was in the division but I also knew that if I poked him enough in the right direction I would get a particular version of him that suited me right and there were two versions of Marcus right there was the Marcus that showed up and he was like stacked looked like the Hulk and you're like okay he's gonna grapple or there was the Marcus that was a little bit slender and he just looked different and that version of Marcus Davis was knocking everybody out right that's when he's coming into box and and I knew that if I pushed him enough because I it was easier for me to deal with the heavily muscled grappler version of Marcus Davis than the slick Southpaw boxer version.

1:57:44So my thought was if I can push him to be really, really angry at me, he's not going to want to roll the dice on striking games. He's going to want to edge his bets and try and force the fight into the range that I'm not very good at. So there was a purpose to it. But as soon as he bit on it, I was like, that was too easy. That was too easy. And there was clips of him training, his nose is bleeding, and he just looks and then that's when i'm for the weigh-ins i made the i hate dan hardy t-shirts because we did a like a 10 minute countdown show for it and i was training at wild card at the time just to try and get inside his head you know i'm training a boxing gym i'm you know i'm expecting you to be a boxer and i played the game really hard on that fight and um And it was interesting to see how it played out because of what he expected from me and the version of him that I got.

1:58:36And he was so angry at me that his vision, his mind was clouded. And even in the end of the second round, he went back and sat on his stool. And it always stuck in my mind, Mark Della Grotti in his corner. It wasn't advice. It wasn't anything. He said, you're one round away from shutting this kid up. it was all about about silencing me putting me in my place interesting you know and then and then funnily enough after that the next fight was mike swick and for the whole training camp mike swick was like he was waiting for me to start trash talking so i'm like i'm not gonna do it because he's expecting it and he'll find it funny so it's not gonna have any kind of impact so i just waited until the press conference and brought him a runner-up trophy and he was like i'm bringing this to the cage on uh on fight night and i'm gonna give it back to you but you know but it's it's interesting to see what you can do how you can affect people like that and and make them act out you know like the the countdown show the the very start of it it's just hilarious still in my mind is you've got this whole kind of it's like dimly lit and marcus is there and and he's like you know when i was a kid uh my mom used to say you can't say you hate this unless you think a little bit about how much you dislike it every day and then there was a pause and the UFC nailed it with the editing and he looked down the camera and he went I hate Dan Hardy and then it cut to me and I'm just laughing like a prick like you know like I and I totally under I got so much hate mail for that fight I can't even tell you I think I've still got a folder in my old email account because I saved it all that's funny it was I got I got death threats I got all kinds of stuff like people hated me from that fight but like as soon as I'm I thought you know I'm gonna make I hate Don Hardy t-shirt surely to kind of like bring some light to this I even made one for Marcus and he threw it back at me but you know it was just like I wanted a particular version of him you know just like like what Connor did with Aldo he primed Aldo to run onto that counter left and and Aldo a clear mind training from a blank slate not having any of that psychological warfare in mind never charge like that would have been so much more dangerous for Connor right he and And Conor was always heavy on the front leg, and Aldo was one of the best leg kickers ever.

2:00:54You know, he probably would have tried to kick the legs and piece them apart from the outside and find his motions. But Conor was always going to be a problem for Aldo because he's so fast and he's so explosive and so big. He was so big for 45. His weight cut was hell. Watching him weigh in, and that was the days where you would actually weigh in. This was before the ceremonial weigh-in. So he would have to make 145 and then stand there, and he looked like a dead man. He looked like someone from, like, fucking The Walking Dead. It was weird. And then he would just rehydrate, and the next day, you know, he had to be a buck 65 when he actually fought.

2:01:32Easy. Easy. I like what they've done with the weight cutting. I like the fact that it's done in the morning and people can rehydrate and stuff. The thing I miss is to see people facing off when they're in that feral, dehydrated state. right that's the thing i miss because like a lot of the time i'll be looking for reads you know there's the picture of you kind of looking around you know what i mean it's like you want to see that face off where people are in that state like what's one of my favorite things to do is see the guys head to head looking at each other's eyes because you just there's a fucking smell yeah there's a feeling in the air you get a sense i wear the meta glasses when i'm doing face-offs now so you can see pfl have made a little logo hardy's hardy vision and you can And sometimes people are like face-to-face, it's palpable.

2:02:20And what I always loved when people were cutting weight is you got a far more genuine version of them than the version that was... I mean, even look at Conor, right? He was feral at 145. At 155, he was cutting, but he was on point. At 170, he was like, feel great. Just three different versions of the same person, 10 pounds apart. And when I fought Rory Markham, that was co-main event in my second fight in London, um UFC 95 he arrived fight week on the Tuesday at 195 to make 171 and I knew that it was going to be a rough weight cut for him he was a big guy he was massive and he'd never been the distance 16 and 4 he was knocked everybody out that he fought and I was remember when he fought was it Brodie Farber kicked him in the neck and like as he went down he like crossed his legs on the way down that was at the palms and it was just dead at him it was brutal but like when we were we did the weigh-ins in a theater in London and obviously we're all on our on weight we've I've been on weight since two o 'clock as most people have we've journeyed into London on the bus everyone's still on weight no one's drinking and like you walk through the changing rooms in the back and we're in like an old like West End theater and like you can see where people are at what state they're at how much they've cut weight and I remember seeing Rory Markham just sitting there just he would just look like he was broken already he was just so drained and exhausted so my thought to myself is i'm gonna get right in his face as soon as i've stepped off the scales and i wanted him to feel that i wasn't as depleted as he was the day before because that would then be his memory going into the fight on fight days that he didn't cut as much as me he didn't feel like shit like i did yesterday right and like as i walked onto the stage i i'm standing on the scales and i'm looking at him and there's never a photograph of me looking at the at the crowd and flexing i'm looking directly at him and as soon as they read my weight i went straighter I put my forehead on it and I tried to push him back a step or two.

2:04:16And that was because we were on weight. If that was a morning weigh-in and we were doing it later in the day, it wouldn't have had the same kind of impact. Right. He would have already been replenished. He would have felt much better. Yeah. No, it's a good point. He would have pushed. That's why I always wore contact lenses as well. I always had the contact lenses on the stage. I just didn't want people to see my eyes. I didn't want them to get a real version of me until fight night. Yeah. Yeah, emotional warfare. It's real. It's very important. I loved it. I mean, I wasn't very good as a fighter, you see, so I had to lean on what I could get.

2:04:47Look at the guys in my division, though. I mean, John Fitch. I know. Mike Swick was great. Josh Koscheck, a bit of a prick, but great fighter. You know what I mean? Yeah. They were good guys in my division at the time. Man, I didn't have the wrestling to be competing with a lot of those guys. That is a giant factor, and that's a factor that takes so long to catch up to. Yeah. God, if you can ever, unless you're like a real superior athlete, just a freak athlete. It's just like someone who's got a gymnastics background or something who's very explosive. It's so hard to pick up that wrestling later in your career.

2:05:22That's what's so crazy about Pereira, is that he figured out how to just stuff everything from a multiple champion kickboxing career where he didn't do any grappling at all. Lost his first MMA fight to submission. Really couldn't fucking grapple at all. Gets together with Glover Teixeira, and just figured it out. But I also think with him, it's a freak athlete thing. For sure. Because it's the same reason why he hit so hard. I think he's just weirdly built. But even a freak athlete, though, you take him back 10 years and you take Glover Teixeira away, and he's not supplied with the information where he can apply that athleticism, right?

2:06:01And this is where former fighters passing on knowledge, like we talked about. I mean, look, we went Bass Rutten, Dwayne Ludwig, TJ Dillashaw, right? Right. You know, like Glover to Shearer to Alex Pereira is probably one of the best relationships because for me, Glover to Shearer was he overachieved in his career based on his age and his athleticism compared to the people in the division. The reason why was because his game was so solid and so sound. I say to young fighters, you need that Glover to Shearer base level where you can be semi-conscious, taking big shots, sweep to top position, take someone's back and choke them out.

2:06:38Like he did that consistently. He would get dropped and come back from the dead and finish people. Glover also missed six years of his prime. Crazy. Because he couldn't get out of Brazil. Well, you were talking about him constantly before he was signed. I remember that. I remember hearing his name a lot because you were – same with Pereira. You were talking about him before the UFC signed him. But if you'd imagine Glover to share – sorry, Alex Pereira walked into an MMA gym in 2005, they would have probably tried to teach him a whole system of jiu-jitsu. Right. And then he would have had a wrestling coach that would have tried to teach him folk style or freestyle wrestling.

2:07:13Whereas Glover Teixeira is like, there's a lot of this shit you don't need, brother. First of all, I'm not going to teach him any submissions because you're not really going to need them. But he does know submissions. He's a jiu-jitsu black belt. But that's the thing. Does he know the whole database of jiu-jitsu? Does he know everything that a normal black belt would learn? And I'm not discrediting his black belt. But what I'm saying is his game has been very specifically tailored to be effective in the arena that he's fighting in. That's true. But it's also the relationship that he has with Glover, too, where it's one really elite coach with a world championship level experience concentrating on a very special athlete.

2:07:50Whereas if you're at ATT, you know, there's fucking Chechens and fucking Dagestanis and just a room full of assassins and five coaches. And like, I don't know if you'd get that kind of attention there. You know, there's two different schools of thought. You know, there's the school of thought that you need to be around those people because that's a shark tank and that's how you get better You'd be around all these killers and then there's another school of thought is like no You're better off at a very small gym with a small group of people that really concentrate on you I'm more inclined to think of the small gym I think the small gym with elite trainers is a better option Than being in a giant.

2:08:28I mean, it's not that att doesn't Create amazing world champion athletes. It certainly does but I think if someone's coming up maybe you're better off with someone like first of all you'd have to find someone like Glover who's really interested in taking the time and really working with you yeah and Glover and you know going back to what we're talking about earlier like Glover's already gone through the process of learning jiu-jitsu and absorbing what's useful and rejecting a lot of what's useless yes so he's not giving Pereira the useless part of jiu-jitsu for MMA right right now how much of how much of jiu-jitsu specifically is applied to mma right there are so many positions that it just changes when you start to use punches things become a lot easier when you can start to strike as well because you can force people to do things they don't want to do right yep so like i feel like the refinement that glover to shiro went through to be the great fighter that he was is the reason why pereira has become so successful because he's been given the pieces that he needs.

2:09:30And I would imagine that, you know, if you rolled with him, he would be a real problem. But I would imagine his game's still very direct. Like, he's not using crackhead control and he's not rolling for knee bars and that kind of thing. I just... But neither is Hodrick racing. Of course. You know what I mean? But he's also gone through the shedding process, right? Yes. Well, I don't think he ever really acquired all the crazy shit. I think there's a lot of these guys that, like, fundamentals are just, like, laser focused. Like Hickson. Hickson was always just laser-focused fundamentals. Minotauru Noguera, laser-focused fundamentals.

2:10:05Do you think the existence of Vali Tudo kind of forced them to go very specifically to what worked, though, for no-rules contests? Probably. There's probably some of that because, obviously, Hickson competed in Vali Tudo very early on. So it's like, yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of stuff goes out the window as soon as you punch, right? A lot of stuff. Yeah, but including some heel hooks and things like that. Like, there's certain positions where you see guys in jiu-jitsu tournaments like, boy, you find yourself like that in a fight, that guy's going to blast you in the face. Like, you're in a bad – like, you're grabbing a hold of someone's leg and your head is right here and you're hooked like – there is nothing stopping someone from elbowing you or punching you in the face.

2:10:50It's kind of nuts to even pursue those. But as long as there's no striking, boy, it's very effective. Yeah. See, I often think that I'm quite, I feel very fortunate that I came into martial arts before MMA. And the reason for that is because the way that I learned martial arts was not for sport, right? And this was an observation I've had recently where, you know, a fighter just would fall apart if they don't have a particular person in their corner, right? my my martial arts instructor back in the day from when i was six was teaching me taekwondo or teaching me martial arts should i say for him not to be there cornering me because i'm doing it for self-defense there's no sport context he's not teaching me techniques that i can use when he's there to coach me through a street fight right he's trying to give me the techniques that i need so when he's not there i know what i'm doing yeah right same thing with like spatial awareness like often like you know when when i was in clubs and i was fighting a lot back in the day my awareness of fire exits and tables and that kind of stuff it gives me it gave me a similar awareness to how i can use the cage against my opponent which i feel is not necessarily used as much as it could be in mma these days like there are there are certain fighters they just don't like how often do you see two fighters up against the fence panel and the whole cage is there and they're like they're not not no one's using the pressure that they could be using sometimes people circle themselves onto the fence unnecessarily but the idea of being backed up against the wall is only if you don't want people attacking you from behind was my my perspective in a in a self defense context so i think the way that i learned martial arts allowed me to kind of see it as a um in a more efficient way right like say for example if i'd have learned jiu-jitsu i wouldn't have wanted to use jujitsu for a street fight because a lot of street fights i got in it wasn't one person right so i don't want to be inside control or choking somebody out while he's volleying me in the head like for me it was the efficiency of okay here's a guy here's a guy you know what i mean like how quickly can i get through these people yeah you know and i feel like that's something that this is maybe where the scoring criteria can be adjusted to so we keep getting what we want out of the sport because there are stagnant fights they do slow down people do start to think okay this round this round this round and there's not there's not a an instigation for a conclusion built into their game necessarily but isn't that also dependent upon matchups like sometimes people just cancel each other out skill wise and that's just part of the game absolutely but usually the ones where they cancel each other out skills skill wise are they actually the more interesting fights because whether it's grappling or striking and it keeps moving almost always it's when there's a dominant skill set on one side and the other person just can't deal with it like look at me comes out and trick us exactly look me against gsp right like i i didn't have the skill set to compete with him right if i'd have been able to wrestle i'd have forced him to strike if i'd been better at jiu-jitsu i'd have maybe forced him to to strike a bit more right but because there was a way of him completely taking me out my game there wasn't necessarily an onus to to instigate a conclusion to the fight right so almost always when you see one person that is so dominant in wrestling and the other person can't handle it that's when the fights can sometimes be quite stagnant yeah my argument in those scenarios is okay well yeah you're winning this with wrestling you're winning it with wrestling but you're not concluding it right like you're going to get to the end and the judges are going and go, well, yeah, you controlled him for more of the fight.

2:14:25Like the Hamzat Drikas. Yeah. I mean, I'd be interested to get your thoughts on this. I think we should stop scoring control in MMA, right? Control is scored up against the fence, right? Defense is not scored in MMA, right? Defense is its own reward, right? Control, in my opinion, is its own reward. If you're a grappler and I'm a striker, it's on you to take me into the range that suits you. Right, but if someone's taking someone down and controlling them and working towards a submission, how do you quantify that? They might not get it, but they're working towards it. So then if you consider top control as you would center control, right?

2:15:08When everything else is even, you go to octagon control as one of the later scoring criteria. When the striking and the grappling, everything's even. Then we move into, okay, well. octagon controls weird though because it's like So octagon control could be you're in the center of the cage and you're pressing the action But what if you're a counter striker? Like what if you're Tyron Woodley versus Steven Wonderboy Thompson and you spend a lot of the time just moving away Like remember they fought to a draw right didn't they fought to a draw one of their fights? Yeah, but that that was also that was also I mean I don't necessarily want to criticize Tyron, but I don't really think Tyron liked fighting He spent a lot of time wearing his back heel down against the fence with the crowd booing in the championship rounds.

2:15:51I never got the impression that Tyrone liked fighting. He was just good at it. That's interesting. I don't know why you would think that. I thought that was the style to beat Wonderboy. I think that's the smart style to beat Wonderboy because he didn't fight that style with Darren Till. Darren Till blasted him, took him down, and got rid of him quick. But with Wonderboy, you cannot stand in the middle of the cage and kickbox that guy because he's doing weird shit he's doing things with his legs you can't do like and you know like if you see a guy like raymond daniels or mvp like you can't wrestle him you can't yeah yeah i can i i i hear what you're saying totally but but like say for example in the damian myer fight he defended 26 takedowns in that fight when the distance right right but with the wonder boy fight he rocked wonder boy and he had wonder boy hurt where wonder boy didn't hurt him which is like because he forced wonder boy to be offensive instead of countering so by making it boring by backing up yeah but but i at the same time i don't necessarily think i don't know as that was a calculation of going i think it was you think yes because he fought him that way the second time as well i think but i think that was intimidation from what wonder boy could do on the feet and him not wanting to waste energy trying to take him down i don't think he was intimidated i think he was waiting he was waiting for moments to explode because it's not like he was timid when he blasted him and had him rocked and hurt he never made a fan out of me tyron and and the thing is what was interesting is i had a similar you didn't think you weren't a fan after the darren till fight oh absolutely right like and same with the robbie lawler fight you know that was an incredible knockout and this was the thing that was frustrating is that he had the capability to do that kind of thing and sometimes i just felt like he he wants to play king of the hill he didn't want to be the smashing champion that the other fighters did you know what i mean Well, you know, you got to think, like, he had some fights that didn't go his way as well.

2:17:50Strikeforce, the Nate Marquardt fight. The Nate Marquardt fight where he got KO'd, where Nate hit him with, like, a video game combination with those elbows against the cage. So there's consequences to just wait. And by the way, Nate Marquardt, boy, there's the guy that kind of people forget how fucking good that guy was when he was in his prime. Woo! When he went over to Strikeforce, he was a fucking monster, dude. That guy was good. He was good. I had heard stories about him training in Colorado with GSP, with all those guys that are like, dude, Nate Marquardt fucked everybody up. He was that good at one point in time.

2:18:28So many names of fighters that have just been kind of lost to time that people don't realize that they were so good. Eve Edwards, there's another one. I talk about him all the time. There's a point in time where Eve Edwards was the best 155-pounder on the planet. Facts. Yeah. It's just like people forget. People forget how good people were. Interesting, the point you made about counter-strike. And I've always thought this about guard playing as well. If you're a guard player, you've kind of got to accept that you're losing until you win. Yeah. Like Machida was one of the best examples of a counter-strike.

2:18:57And then you say Adesanya against Paolo Costa. Paolo Costa was in the center of the cage for most of that. Yeah. So if you're just looking at octagon control, well, you're going to score it to Paolo because he was in the center. But there was no doubt that Izzy was just toying with him and lighting him up from a distance. Yeah, but you couldn't say octagon control because Izzy was landing all his shots. But that's the thing. That was a very, very clear one, right? Where you've got one person moving back and giving the center of the cage, but clearly winning on the striking. whereas if when it gets very even with the striking you have to really have good judges to be able to pick apart who's landing what yes even because like we had a fight the other week yakub kasuba uh he was fighting the tan short and he was backing up the whole fight but he was landing way more strikes than his opponent but even when it got to the end of the fight i'm like are these judges gonna score this right are they because they don't have the stats that we have in on the screen in front of us, right?

2:19:51They should. Exactly, they should. But because they don't, are they going to go, oh, well, you know, it was moving forward and we had a fight in Sioux Falls the other day where the female fighter, Sharon Bowers, was pushing forward and she was landing but her opponent was backing up and countering a lot of the shots and the judges scored it to Sabrina. It was, you know, it was the right decision to make but the crowd didn't like it because they felt like the Bowers was the one pushing forward and making a fight out of it. Yeah, but that's casuals. Of course, yeah. But it is a risky thing to be a counter-striker and a guard player in MMA because you have to, first of all, credit the judges to see what, you know.

2:20:28But who's left that's a guard player? Not many, right? It's kind of been cycled out of the game. Olivera is, like, the best at it. But even that didn't work out for him in some times, did it? There was a lot of time he'd spend energy guard playing. A lot of the time, why, you know, good wrestlers decide not to wrestle because of the amount of energy it costs. That's true, but, I mean, like, look what he did to Gamrot, and that was super impressive. Gamrot's so good. So good. The fact that Gamrot was just lost on the ground with Oliveira. It shows you how good Oliveira is. Do you remember Gamrot's debut against Garam Katateladze?

2:20:58Both of those guys. He's in karate combat now. Both of those guys are so elite. And then when they got matched up against each other in their UFC debut, I'm like, man, people aren't going to realize how good this matchup is. Like Sarukian, I called his debut against Makachev. And he was 5 % behind Islam in that fight. But that 5 % was an incredible fight. Yeah. I am very curious to see how Pereira does against Cyril Ghosn. Yeah. Cyril Ghosn's a different thing. Just moves differently for a big guy, doesn't he? He's also a real heavyweight. There ain't a fucking time since he's been 15 where that guy's making 185.

2:21:40No. Right? That's a big man. And he's an incredible athlete and a really elite striker. like a really good striker like and a fucking big heavyweight man and I know Pereira weighs like 260 now I get it I get it yeah he's a heavyweight yep definitely but he was 185 it was 185 just a few years ago and he was a 185 pound champion and then the 205 pound champion and I don't think Cyril can even make 205 no Cyril's big yeah and he's big and fucking thick and and he's good man And I'm telling you, that Tom Hardy fight, excuse me, Tom Aspinall fight. Tom Hardy fight. My mind sucks. The Tom Aspinall fight in that first round, the eye pokes were disgraceful.

2:22:27First of all, I think. Still got to fix the gloves. Oh, God. You know, my solution is mittens. We don't do this anyway. Why are these out like this? Yeah. It's a good point. The thing that annoyed me is they went through all the effort to fix the gloves. but they never asked a fighter or a person that wraps hands like what they actually thought. They were getting contender series fighters to grade them. And, of course, they're all like, they're great. They've got UFC on them. I'm so happy to be here. You know what I mean? Like, you know, like talk to Tate, for example. I'm like, they must have asked you about the hand wrapping, about the gloves and stuff.

2:23:03Because the problem is, right, like when you get there on Tuesday and you try your gloves on, you're like, yeah, they feel good. And then you get to fight night and they put a quarter inch of padding underneath. and then you're trying to close your hand. And the difference between the Pride gloves or the Rising gloves or the Fairtex, I always used to use Fairtex if I could. There's a curve in the glove, right? When you try your gloves on, what the blue shirts backstage do because they know the game is they roll the glove up and then wrap it with the Velcro of the wrist. So it stays rolled from Tuesday to Saturday.

2:23:38And then when you get them on Saturday, they've kind of curved a little bit, right? But the curve is not built into the padding. And the new ones that they made, there was just too much technology and not enough common sense in them. Have you used Trevor Whitman's? I have. Veronica's just got a pair of them. The best. They are very, very good. They're the best. They're the best. That's an ownership problem, though, isn't it? It is. I've tried to negotiate that and broker that, and maybe I still can be successful. I just talked to them. I talked to Trevor. maybe it still can be done but even with trevor's the fingers are still exposed and i think there's certain guys who just have this fucking impulse to do that and i think one point every time yeah poke somebody in the eye one point every fucking time because there's a lot of fighters that have never poked anybody in the eye right so how come how come they've been in wild scraps never poked anybody in the eye yeah i mean well i'm i watch i watch one championship smugglers muay thai and And they are in range.

2:24:38They're not poking each other. No, they're not. And by the way, I love small gloves Muay Thai. It's so cool. It's so good. It's so cool. And it's so interesting. North America needs it. And for all these people that hate when fights go to the ground, my God, that's the solution. And I've been trying to sell this to the UFC forever. I'm like, fuck all this slap fight shit. And I know you're really interested in Zufa boxing. That's great. How about UFC striking? How about UFC Muay Thai? It'd be amazing. And even kickboxing, what they're doing with one. and guys like Yuki Yosa and... Yeah. Watch out for Ben Wallace.

2:25:09Have you seen this kid? Oh, yeah. He's a beast, man. I signed him to PFL a little while ago. Just can't get him matched. Just couldn't get him matched. Because people don't want to stand with him. Click on his Instagram, and he's... I mean, in my opinion, he's one of the best strikers in the world right now. And he trained at Renegade for a long time with the Edwards brothers, and I would watch him just play spa with people, and the level of trickery. That's where you go back to saying about dimension. right there are rangers in fights and then there are dimension there's in those rangers yeah and he's like a jedi level of dimension of understanding of striking and and to see him have the success he has means stopping john lineker with calf kicks and you know yeah just very impressive you're gonna see him go how is one doing are they not good from what i can tell i mean yeah that's what i've heard as well and that concerns me because if we have more limited options that sucks yeah you know this is why i mean and i've i you know i feel very much like i'm in the right place now with the pfl because we need more organizations like we need more organizations unfortunately in my opinion the usc is not the custodian of the sport that we need right now you know what do you think they're doing wrong i mean i think i think it's a variety of different things i mean underpaying the fighters killing the sponsorship market they they buried a lot of growth of the subculture you know you remember the old UFC expos that we used to do I'd do like five six hours a day signing tap out over to Silver Star over to Zion's and like as soon as that was all killed off a lot of that subculture died off and all those subcultures offer jobs outside of outside of fighting you know it allows people to then start a brand and sponsor some young fighters like Charles Lewis mask paid me double what I was getting paid for my purse when I was in Japan.

2:26:59Double, just to wear tap out shorts in a tournament and cage force. He didn't need to do that, but he was a fan of the sport. He loved it and he wanted to support it. And back in the day, I had sponsors like Earache Records and stuff that was on my banner, just a heavy metal brand from my local town. The idea of being able to have these personal sponsors that would help you out was massive. And then the other thing, the other issue that we've got is that We don't have enough events now for a lot of fighters to get experience. So then a lot of the people that get signed to contenders are like five, six, seven fights into their career.

2:27:36I was talking to somebody about this the other day, and there's good, clear examples. Like, I was 19 and six when I joined the UFC in 2028. Conor McGregor had already built a brand and a follow-up. Wait a minute, you just said 2028. Sorry, 2008. Maybe there's a return on the card. 2008. I was like, are you a time traveler? I feel like I'm here a little bit with the UFO. Yeah. So in 2008, like there was, where was I going? I lost my train of thought. Sponsors. Sponsors. Yeah. So like we had sponsors. There was a subculture that was growing around the brand and there were shows that would host you long enough for you to develop a brand.

2:28:18Right. So like I didn't have nearly as big of a following as Conor McGregor or Paddy Pimlet. But I had a similar platform, right? I was Cage Warriors champ. Then Conor was Cage Warriors champ. And he was an established fighter with a game and a following before he came to the UFC. Same with Paddy. We don't see that as much anymore, right? We don't see the fighters growing on their local scene and building a local fan base that really starts to grow the sport on a grassroots level, you know? Right. But why is that the UFC's responsibility? Oh, no, I'm not saying it is. what I'm saying is that unfortunately I think the UFC is now kind of paying for the the control that they took many years ago because the industry has been stifled around it like the sponsorship industry for a start was massive you know and the problem with it was there was a lot of sponsors that weren't paying so that a lot of fighters would wind up in lawsuits and there was a lot of bullshit that was going on I mean some of them were and it was great yeah you know like uh you know i'm really good friends with brendan schaub and there was a point in time where he was making x amount for a fight but he was making like three times that in sponsors yeah i mean i doubled my show money on the gsp fight because of my banner i only got 22 000 for that fight but which is crazy crazy it's crazy world title but that's what i signed up for i wasn't going in for the money you know what i mean but in hindsight when i look at it and gsp was getting i mean you get like six million he spent quarter of a million on his training camp how could i compete like he would book out a whole hotel and bring guys in from new york i i had a i had older in my corner who at the time was a brown belt you know i i you know and i had a thai boxing coach that was telling him me to knee him in the head on the ground from bottom position you know like bless him he just didn't know the rules i didn't have the support network because i just i couldn't afford what i would have really needed for that you know but if i if i go back to if you know was i mean the sponsorship process was interesting because the first thing they did was they brought in the fees that the sponsorship companies had to pay.

2:30:15So it was like, if you're a clothing brand, you have to pay$50 ,000 a year to sponsor UFC fighters, and that goes to the UFC. Now, before that, as long as it wasn't offensive and it wasn't a conflict in sponsor, the UFC would take it and you'd carry on. Condom Depot. Oh, man. Remember that? No. I turned them down a few times. But if you think about it, say Airache Records, they couldn't afford to pay the UFC$50 ,000. They would pay me£300 to have the thing on my banner, right? So then as soon as you bring in this, okay, everybody has to pay£50 ,000 to be a sponsor in the UFC cage. Almost all of the sponsors then fell out the market straight away.

2:30:56And then you've only got a few that are lingering. And then if you're a clothing distributor, if you sell a variety of different brands, it was$100 ,000 that you had to pay. yeah right so if you're mma warehouse and you're sponsoring alistair oveream and your sponsorship budget for the year is 250 000 and straight away 100 grand's been taken out because the ufc need it just your pool's gone down right so you've got less money to give to the fighters and then you're sponsoring less fighters overall i get that i get that argument and i definitely agree about fighter pay like i'm always in favor of fighters getting paid more it's very dangerous job and it's the only thing that people are paying to see they're not paying to look at the cage they're not paying to look at the ring card girls they're not paying to hear me talk they're paying to watch the fights fighters should get the majority of the money and it is a problem when they don't have leverage and i think that it's great that you have things like mvp getting involved with the netflix card and i wish the card was a little stronger but it's difficult like like lynn's fighting against It's Francis Ngannou.

2:31:59Like, you know, you need, like, who the fuck is even available that's not signed to a contract that you can get Francis to fight? Yeah. That's not a goddamn execution, you know? Yeah. You know, Francis is the legitimate heavyweight champion of the world. Absolutely. And the thing is the heavyweight division is always going to be more of a victim of the underpayment than any other industry. Is Francis no longer with the PFL? No. How did that, what happened there? I just think it was a bad deal done by the previous CEO. Oh, it was a previous CEO? Yeah. Something not aware. So he fought Henning Ferreira in that one fight.

2:32:36Yes. Is that the only fight that he had in the PFL? Only one he had, yeah. That's kind of crazy. Yeah. It was just, I mean, it was a bad deal for the PFL. And we've done a lot of bad deals, bad decisions. Who's that guy that just knocked out Henning Ferreira? Oh, Sergei Bilasteni. Woo! Used to train with Fedor and yeah, that guy's fucking legit. Yeah. And very, very fast. Yeah Like him V Tom Aspinall is an interesting fight That is an him versus anybody's interest in V Cyril Gant. He moves a lot like Cyril Gant But he's got Sambo background and but that guy's legit. I watched that for a fight and I was like, holy shit Spun his head around and yeah, dude, and you know, I mean this this cat.

2:33:15Yeah pull this up. Here we go he moves like Fedor too he trained with Fedor which is interesting yeah you want to get through to the third yeah that's that little body shot so third round was the finish he catches him with this massive shot he looked so dominant like throughout the fight man like right away he's a beast isn't he this kid is very very legit oh my goodness the speed yeah so the world needs another fucking big heavyweight man yeah and this is this is awesome that this guy exists what's his name again sergey bilisteni i just saw this yesterday i'm guilty of not watching enough pfl um but the thing is it's like the fights are legit the the talent is legit but man it's just not getting the attention that it deserves look the thing is as a ufc fan i get it right because you want to watch one promotion where all the fighters are so you can find out who the best is because that's what ultimately it was about right it was about finding that who's the best listen man that guy could kind of compete with anybody of course of course and we've got guys that can across the sport i mean you know across the across the the promotion we have i mean you know dakota thad gene you know we've got some real real good fighters and even in like we're if you've not watched lewis mcgrill and dean garnett it is one of the best fights you'll ever see there were 13 knockdowns in it it was carnage but then we're also seeing really interesting things like like the scottish twister have you seen the scottish twister right yeah so that was stevie ray who hit it against pettis and then he hit it uh against lewis long in the in uh glasgow and then he's passed it on to jake hadley and then jake hadley's just submitted matthias matos with it and it's fascinating because it's kind of a twister uh-huh it's like it's have you tried it yeah yeah i mean i struggle with it so here it is but look at this the key is the foot in the thigh it's like an offside triangle.

2:35:12You can see that that right foot is just hooked in. And he's going to threaten with an arm triangle. He's kind of holding Matos here. There's a bit of a hand fight going on. He's going to keep hitting Matos and Matos is going to go to an arm triangle position. Then he's going to start to try and force that right elbow down so he's not in an arm triangle and turn into the body triangle. But that right foot caught in his thigh doesn't allow him to turn fully into the guard. So look at this, how he turns in, clears the head and there's the crank. Look at the foot on the inside of the thigh. Oh, that's nasty.

2:35:42So that is, I mean, I've had this done to me as well as I've done it. So you've got compression into the neck, pressure into the lower back, your hips being lifted off the foot. It's a horrible submission. It looks horrible. Oh, this is the Cheesecake Assassin demo, isn't it? Interesting. But this is what's fascinating still to me about MMA, is that I still feel like these technologies that we've not yet discovered. The calf kicker being a good example. Right. Scottish Twister being another good example. What comes next? There's going to be some shit. I've got books and books and martial arts books, and I feel like if I dug, I might find something.

2:36:17Yeah, I don't know what's missing. Here's something that I think might be missing. Front leg roundhouse kick to the face. Guys who are fast with that, I used to see that a lot in Taekwondo. I used to see that a lot. There's guys that just throw it out there like a jab, and if it hits you in the face, you're fucked. And we've seen it a few times in MMA. We've seen a few guys get dropped. We saw Rose Nama Yunus and Zhang Weili. You just don't see it very often. And, man, if you're good at that, if you have a fast one, that is a devastating kick. Yeah. See, that is a good example because that's a great technique and a great setup.

2:36:58Because the reason why the head kick landed was because she just landed an inside low kick. Yes. So Weili had pulled her lead leg back and pitched her head forward. Yeah. Beautiful set. I totally agree with you. I think there's a lot that's still to be discovered. It's just stunning to me how few people get cracked with that. I feel like that was a major weapon when I was doing Taekwondo. A lot of people used that. Crescent kick as well was used a lot in Taekwondo. There's a few guys that use that still. Anderson used that a few times. There's a cat. I'm so sorry, man. I forget your name. But there's a dude who's got a video on Instagram where he knocks this guy out with an inside crescent kick to the face.

2:37:34there's a few people that are pulling it off you know yeah there's definitely more to come there's definitely a lot more there are a lot more techniques that i also think they're going to be a lot more um targets on the body that can be exploited that we're not yet right you know well a lot of the guys in um in kickboxing in particular in one are using that toe kick to the body yes ap chaggy there's this cat yes what is his name jamie i've actually congratulated this guy i apologize, sir, because I went back and forth with him. Jason Barry, is that what he just said? Back it up a little bit. Before that?

2:38:14Before that? Before that? See, look at those Cage Warriors gloves. Justin Barry. Justin Barry. That's it. Look at the curve in those Cage Warriors gloves. So they're basically, they're either Fairtex gloves or they're a copy of the Fairtex gloves that they use. Look how he does that. It's crazy. That's slick, Isn't it crazy very cool crazy? Yeah cage warriors is another great organization. That's really producing elite talent That's just I agree with you. There's not enough of them But it's like what does the pfl have to do to get more attention? You know because it seems like they're throwing a lot of money at fighters like there's that is that million-dollar thing still happening No, we've got rid of the tournament.

2:38:49We've gone to regular shows now So we have main and co-main we've got rankings now done by combat registry They don't have all the crazy point system where you know that's gone That didn't make any fucking sense. I'll be honest. I love the PFL, but PFL's been its own worst enemy for many, many years. We've got a new CEO, John Martin, who's been on Ariel's show a couple of times. He does great interviews. He loves the sport from a fan's perspective. Doesn't know it quite as much as other people, but he's making the right moves and making the right decisions. I mean, I love Don Davis, but he was like Willy Wonka of MMA.

2:39:24He was like, I've got a great idea. Let's do this. and then you had pete murray who just was consistently making bad deals all the point things were like i didn't understand any of it so i was running pfl europe for for a couple of three years i i stepped in at the end of 2022 as commentator in 2023 i became the head of uh head of fighter ops for europe so i was doing all the signing and matchmaking i only had four shows a year but i mean it was it was a passion project for me to sign all these young guys and match them and my argument was every single and I always used to say this to the fighters because remember when Dana used to do this back on the old weighing days where he'd get all the fighters no corner men no coaches just translators and the fighters and we'd gather in one of the changing rooms in the arena and Dana give us this speech and it it was stirring like we're all there to murder each other but for for like five minutes we all felt like we were in it together and I loved that feeling I missed it even walking out we're like fist bumping each other and we're all hyped and that's where he'd announce the bonus amounts and stuff.

2:40:25So I would do that with PFO Europe. I'd gather all the fighters together and I'm like, look, there's not a single fight on this card that has been matched for one person to win. Every single person stepping into the cage has got a fair chance of winning. Your destiny is in your hands, right? And with PFO Europe, I was able to build a good roster and to, I mean, we had some fantastic shows. But when I first inherited it, we had four tournaments, right? So I had to sign eight fighters per weight class. So I had 32 fighters on my roster that was done already before the year started. And then I'm having to get loads of different flags.

2:41:04So we're going into a place and I've got a bunch of fighters on the card that I don't need that aren't going to sell any tickets. And it was just working against me constantly. So I pushed to go down to two tournaments and have just a normal MMA show for the rest of it. and that worked out well but they they just they loved the tournament format because it was a distinguishing factor and the question is you know what do we have to do to uh to to make a difference like i mean i think we are doing those we are making those moves we have to make more content tell the fighters stories better for sure maybe you guys should start a fucking muay thai i'm down for it maybe like the UFC is fucking up with that i've i sent dana all these different fights i send him all these is um iman gazaleev that dude asadullah iman gazaleev holy shit is that guy good i'm like look at this like this is what people want to see man like everybody is booze when the fights go to the ground if it gets boring this shit's never boring yeah maybe you guys should pick up the slack 100 look it's i mean i've i've thrown hundreds of ideas on the table i always am you know that might be the move man i mean one that might be what differentiates yeah i think so Because look how big it is with one.

2:42:12I mean, it's essentially become most of their fights now. Yeah. And it's accommodating fighters that have got 200 or 300 fights in another discipline that don't want to learn how to wrestle or grapple. But they are the elitest of elite strikers. And so easy to translate. Absolutely. Everybody knows what's going on. Yeah. A kick to the face is a kick to the face. Yeah. I agree with you. I mean, I think, but I'm always throwing ideas at the PFL. The one that stuck was introducing elbows. Like when I first started working for the PFL, we didn't have elbows. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. And I hated it. And I'm like...

2:42:44Well, it's pride. Pride didn't have elbows. Yeah. Did Bellator? Bellator had elbows. So what the fuck? Well, see, that was my selling point. That was the way I managed to convince them. I said, okay, right. We've taken on Bellator now. We've inherited Bellator and everything. Take the rules too. Right? Yeah. Well, this is how I pitched it to them. One of my biggest opponents was Ray Sefo. He did not want elbows added in. I could not get my head around it because he's always coaching elbows from the corner. right why didn't he want to i'm not sure i couldn't i couldn't get my head around it but but the thing that pushed it over the line was me going okay right we've just in we've just taken on bellator right we've got bellator and we've got pfl imagine in a world where we now apply pfl rules to bellator what are the fans gonna say they're gonna be like well that'd be terrible they'd hate it because you're taking elbows out i'm like you've illustrated my point exactly so clearly that's not the right way to go so then we need elbows i'm glad they listened to you because that's ridiculous yeah you know what really needs to happen is knees to the head on the ground 100 absolutely it's crazy that someone could just huddle in a turtle position yeah and not get pummeled like you shouldn't be in that position the only thing i can do without and i loved it in pride and i wanted to fight in pride for the soccer kicks as well that's the only thing i would i i i can reasonably do without and the reason why no ring the ring is different you can move yeah the problem with being planted into the cage and get stomped or soccer kicked for sure remember wes sims frank mir stomped him yeah the the the thing with and i've and i've watched every single pride fight that's ever existed i'm sure i only ever see people get involved in the head when the fight's already pretty much done right right so it's melvin manhoof and sakurabo exactly it's like it's like the icing on the cake that we don't necessarily need when you can just hit them with one more shot and they tried something in cage rage if you uh when cage rage existed back in the day where the referee would decide that you could stomp on or let me let me ask you this what do you think about sidekicks to the knees i don't mind it the problem with that is it's one shot and you're out for a year but then heel hooks are just as dangerous aren't they but they're not because you can tap you can tap and you can hold on to the arms before it gets to that position and you could tap.

2:44:56The thing about the sidekick to the knee, like, what's his face? Khalil Roundtree. Yeah, but the guy, Modestus. Oh, Modestus. Modestus Bacacus. When you watch his knee go sideways like that, you're like, good Lord. You're done for a year. If you're ever the same again. I mean, I know Shavkat's in a similar situation right now, isn't he, as well? But you can't hit to the back of the head. But you do hit to the back of the head. Because if it's a roundhouse kick and it goes over the shoulder, guess where it lands? Absolutely. Yeah. But the thing is, the back of the head is more protecting from the bottom of the base of the skull downwards.

2:45:29But if someone throws a roundhouse kick and it goes over the shoulder, it's going bong right to the back of the head. But then how many football players in a season are taken out with a low tackle? I mean, it's the same in rugby as well. It's like, for me, that is a risk of the sport. That is a part of the... But it's a victory with an illegal move that we all allow. It's only illegal because you can't strike to the knee. but then but no no no back of the head kick oh yeah yeah for sure yeah i'm saying the back of the head kick you win by knockout and you shouldn't have hit them there yeah but then but then also you've got to go into well did they turn their head what was the circumstance of it etc etc i mean the thing is like you can't in the rules you can't strike joints right but then it was the same thing when we had elbows and i'm like we're doing shows in france and i'm saying to the french commission we don't have elbows and they're like okay so where where does the elbow start and where does the, you know, where is it forearm?

2:46:24Where's the forearm, right. But the thing about, like, attacking the knees, you would have to say, well, it's got to be a straight kick where you hyperextend the knees because you can't say don't leg kick the knees because you're going to be able to leg kick the back of the knee always. If you take that out, you're taking out a giant chunk of all techniques. But the side kick to the knee, the problem with that is you're going to ruin careers. Like, there's a lot of guys that are just not the same. Tiago Silva, I don't think was ever the same after the Jon Jones fight. In my mind, it's the game we play.

2:46:53I agree with you. I see your point. I see it. No one's dying from a knee injury. It's very unusual, too. It's like the Modestus fight was one fight that you can name, and Khalil's obviously a very elite striker. Yeah. Yeah. I don't mind it. I genuinely don't. I mean, I'm more interested in making sure the fighters are protected when they can't protect themselves. That's where we need to raise everyone's understanding of what's happening. Yeah. I agree with you. Listen, brother, always good to talk to you. We should do this more often. We should absolutely. Except for every six years. We're back in Austin soon, though.

2:47:26We're back in Austin soon. Oh, when are you guys here? Johnny Eblon's fighting Costello Van Stienis in the rematch at the Moody Center. When in July? July 19th. Saturday. Saturday, July 19th. Is that the right day? Oh, motherfucker. Or is it the 18th? I am out of town. I know where you are. God damn it. I'm out of town. Yeah, I know. I know where you are. I'll be there. You'll be there? Yeah, I think I'll be there. Okay, well, we'll talk about it afterwards. I don't know what we're talking about. Yeah, we're talking about it. But yeah, Johnny Ebelin, Costello Van Stienis. That's too bad. I want to see that.

2:47:55Fuck. Yeah. And I will say, for me, our middleweight division is probably the most competitive with the UFC's middleweight division. Johnny Ebelin's a bad motherfucker. Like Costello Van Stienis, the current champ. Did you watch that fight? No. So Johnny Ebelin, undefeated in 17, 18 fights, was beating the brakes off Costello for most of it. Like last 10 seconds. Yes, I did see that. Yes, that's right. So Costello's defended his belt. He beat Fabian Edwards. Travis Brown elbows. Yes. And then Johnny Ebelin just ragdolled Brian Battle like it was nothing. I saw that, too. That was insane. No, he's a beast, dude.

2:48:29Well, now those two boys are going to rematch. Austin at the Moody Center, middle of July. It's going to be a good one. I wish I was here. Me, too. All right. Thank you, brother. Thank you, man. Very good to see you always. Dan Hardy, what's your Instagram? Dan Hardy MMA. Dan Hardy MMA. All right. Bye, everybody.

2:48:57We'll see you next time.