#221 Joe Pyfer - UFC 17-Sec KO Secrets, Meeting Mike Tyson and Terrifying Childhood Stories

36:37are you seated? Do you know what's coming next? You probably really don't. It's Andy Lwani here from Culture Shock, the podcast where celebrities, all sorts of culture makers, people, and everybody in between, we just get on. And we're trading rehearsed answers for some unexpected shocking questions, maybe sometimes dumb, that you may ask yourself sometimes, and you want to see someone else ask them. With all things plenty of laughs, surprises, and just enough chaos to keep everyone on their toes, you might enjoy this podcast. Be sure to check out Culture Shock wherever you stream your podcasts online, and obviously, you're gonna like this.

37:10I'm sure of it. Find the vacation you're looking for in Missouri. Whether you're searching for this, Wanting something like this Oh, that's cute Maybe up for something like this Or just really, really need something more like this You'll find the vacation you want in Missouri Missouri, it's the getaway that gets You Plan your fun at visitmo.com

37:54All right, so we were talking about good things. Good things, yeah. Another good memory was obviously winning a couple of tournaments, like I had said, but those were good memories. Video games were good memories to a certain extent, but everything that was good wound up becoming super abusive. Really? Yeah, everything started out good, and my dad had great qualities. He really did. but he let whatever demons that he has take over and um things really really really went and he always had a temper always but things really went bad after the surgery i think he uh i think he started to lose his mind a little bit because of narcotics and uh i never really realized that until a couple years ago though but you know he was always on gabapentin xanax perks oxys um uh what's the other one i don't remember but you know and he would always drink a young yingling or two yinglings with it you know and um that shit makes you very thin-tempered what do you mean started out good i mean we just talked about at age one yeah i think when i say started out good is like first tournament super proud super happy i've won i submitted everybody five years old great memory you know one of my greatest memories in competition it's what started everything it's your honor that love i remember that yeah very well um i'm pretty sure i leg locked a kid and i arm barred a kid and i think i leg locked another kid or maybe i i think i uh arm bar guillotine and leg lock so um it was a very good memory for me i got to see ken shamrock down there which was one of my favorite fighters as i was young it was one of the first people i I remember watching him and his brother, Frank Shamrock, who was pancreation.

39:44And, you know, he was proud. And same thing with, like, video games. It used to be fun. And then it got really bad. I got one of the worst beatings of my life over a video game in the end. Why? For a fucking video game? Because I was fucking good at video games. And I was co-op playing with him. And I was stealing his kills. Sounds so fucking stupid. Sounds so stupid, brother. but sorry i'm fucking nice at video games you remember that yeah oh of course well that that last beating was i was 15 16 i was 15 going on 16 and it was right before it was one of the last beatings i got before i ran away so started out good ended bad competition started out good and then if my dad's the kind of guy where if he's not in absolute control and he's not in the spotlight and I don't give all glory to him, you're dead to him.

40:37So that's how it changed. The first competition, he was just happy. And I think he had good intentions. And I will always be grateful for his introduction into the sport. It's how I know what it is. It's how I've gone to do what I've done because of his introduction. But I will say this. He gave me tools he never thought I would go and build a house with. So he gave me the tools, and that's it. And then other people gave me the blueprint. and I've gone and built the house. So that's the best way to look at this story. And, yeah, you know, like I said, competition used to be good, turned bad. Would you say your first memory is getting your ass kicked by your dad?

41:19I mean, could you be descriptive? What was that about? Yeah, I remember we were wrestling in the living room. It's also the memory of when I first remember hearing Celine Dion. And he had a stereo, and we were wrestling. and I guess I choked him a little too hard at five years old. At five years old? At five years old. He basically let me take his back and I put a choke on him and I remember squeezing it too hard, I guess for his liking, at five years old and he wound up flipping me over and slamming me right on my head, basically like a DDT. I landed straight up on my head and then he kicked me and that was the first beating into jiu-jitsu that I remember.

41:59So I'd been slapped a ton of times, numerous times, brother, more than I could count. Overlearning, you know, overlearning something slow. I used to get beat if I took too long with our homeschool curriculum just to do a phonics page, which was English for homeschool curriculum. I mean, he would beat your ass bad, you know, split your skin bad. So sister's got the same type of abuse, but I've been hit with a jump rope by him, which was probably the worst. i've been hit with the metal end of a fly swatter i've been hit with spoons yeah i've been hit with a lot so yeah and it was almost like he took pleasure that's the one thing that bothers me about that dude is he took pleasure in it um the louder you screamed it was almost like it fed the rage that he had like almost if you've like what kind of like what i have with fighting if i hit somebody and i'll knock them out i'm gonna keep hitting them it's like that it's like that it's like fueled to the fire.

42:56I don't know. It's a very weird, very weird thing. I think he thought like he was the man by doing it. And yeah, it was a little bit disturbing because it's almost like he wanted an excuse to hit us or punish us. We used to get put in the corner. And I'm talking about all of us, not just me. I got it double time because I was the boy. But I mean, our punishments would be standing in the corner too, but we'd be standing in the fucking corner for three plus hours. So yeah. Damn. So that was my first memory of getting beat that I remember. Let's walk through like a daily routine in your life as a kid.

43:33Wake up, make myself eggs. He would wake me up at like 7 a.m., which, you know, isn't crazy. Sometimes 6 a.m. And I would go outside and we'd have like a cinder block. And he'd make me push it, sprint to it, throw it, sprint to it. We had like tops to outboard motors. They were the capsule and outboard motors and we'd have like three or four of them because he had a couple boats there That I was working on and we we'd set them up like hurdles. So I'd run jump over jump over jump over Then we would do sprints We just did a lot of like natural body weight workouts And then we would play video games or I would have to do some type of homeschool But at that time my mom wasn't working three jobs so she was the one teaching us and the early half before he became disabled and So yeah, so we would do that, but then we would play video games.

44:25We had a PlayStation 1. I've always been a PlayStation kid. I loved video games. I always loved video games. It was like a little escape from reality for me and just like constant seriousness. So then yeah, that was it. It was probably video games and training. That was most of my life. And sometimes we'd go to the shore with like 20 bucks and just like that's all we had. And we would fucking play arcade games. So those were the good memories. you know and um they didn't last very long when would he start beating did you notice any routine was it drinking was it drugs was at the same time every day was it no it wasn't the same time it was it was very frequent I probably got beat a minimum five times a week um but you know it usually was over jiu-jitsu um so I started to resent jiu-jitsu and hate it uh and I just wanted to play with toys and I wasn't really loud.

45:20And if I did play with toys, he would come in my room and like kick all, I've been spending like hours building Lincoln Logs and he would just come in and took pleasure in making me cry and would like fucking smash all, like kick it all over my room. Just literally, I'd be sitting there peaceful playing and he would come up the stairs and walk in and just kick all my shit over. And then I would cry and he'd call me a pussy and walk out and stop crying like a pussy or fucking toys and then just leave. I was like five years old, you know? It hurts your feelings. You don't understand it. You don't know how to process it.

45:50And it's not that bad, right? But, I mean, it's still like, why? So he would do a lot of things that just didn't make sense. Countless beatings over the jujitsu, you know, including my sister, screaming at them, smacking them, pulling them by the hair, throwing them. Like, if he got so frustrated, he would grab you by your hair and fucking throw you face down and then tell you to go to your room and leave you in your room for days. hours and i mean hours like eight to ten hours it was a minimum as punishment by him so i used to be so afraid to leave my room after getting punished i would piss out the window because if i even tried to go to the bathroom to go get a sip yeah i got beat the out of for it so i would piss out my window so fucking terrified and i pissed myself till i was about 12 years old wake up from nightmares and shit like that so i think i think all the beatings and the nah i don't know if it's i don't know how the mind works but i just think from all the like trauma of like shock of how bad you would get beat i think just like led to like really bad nightmares like devils chasing me and shit like that so i had a lot of a lot of bad nightmares seeing like like like i don't know if they were demons on the wall or whatever the fuck it was that I was thinking I was seeing.

47:11Obviously, it was not real, but I used to be in a really scared, dark place as a kid. Damn, man. Yeah. What would the conversation be between you and your siblings? We wouldn't really have a conversation other than that we would say we fucking hated them and that we were afraid of them. We all used to say the same story so we wouldn't get in trouble. There's one instance I think. So I lied about turning on an electric heater. We were so poor. We got government assistance almost all my life. And after my dad had became disabled, it was even harder. And then our mom was never there to protect us from him because she was working.

47:55So that was when shit became scary because it's like, what are we going to do? How are we going to fucking avoid this guy? We couldn't even take a fucking spelling bee. So you would have 20 words. This is part of homeschool curriculum. And you would write the 20 words on a, you know, line piece of paper. And then you had in your homeschool book, you would, you know, spell the word. You would write the word. He'll read you the word and then you have to write the word. It was part of spelling. I mean, asking this guy just to take a fucking spelling bee was one of the scariest fucking build up the moment of courage parts of your life.

48:29Because the guy was so fucking aggressive. What the fuck are you bothering me for? Get the fuck out of here. you know you see i'm fucking doing something but get the fuck out of my face so like we were afraid to learn but our mom's at work so how the fuck are we supposed to learn and uh you know he would just sit there on his computer and fucking watch fight videos all day and talk to his friends and play video games or fucking yeah so it was a little bit scary um did you guys stand up for each other at all so unfortunately uh no but um yeah so no it was really like the girls really tag-teamed me a lot so I used to hate their guts because anytime there was a beating that was about to get served they would all rat me out uh or all blame me just because it was easy and they didn't know any better you know it was just kind of what they were taught it's what we were taught and you know I was the boy so I could handle it but yeah I mean my sisters used to be a little little mean people at one time you know I'll get my ass beat and they'd walk by and smile at me and think it was funny and I'm sitting there crying you know screaming or whatever and he used to do the most humiliating shit where you'd have to pull your pants down they're all sitting in the living room and you make them all sit in the living room and they'd fucking beat your ass bare naked in front of all of them which is very humiliating.

49:51You know, you got four fucking sisters. I'm pulling my ass out in front of them just so you can beat me. And he would beat you until you cried until you screamed. And that's how you would get split skin and shit. Like I'd hit you bare ass over the dumbest shit, man, over the dumbest shit. I couldn't even tell you like necessarily too many specific ones of like why he would do it. But you know, it's not like we cursed. We were a Christian family. We went to church every Sunday. So we didn't curse. We didn't use foul language. Um, but yeah, so it was, it was a little bit, uh, you definitely hold some resentment and anger for a guy after that.

50:27But as a child, you have unconditional love for your parents. You know, that was he, I thought he was some great fighter and he came from Kensington, Philadelphia. He had an abusive life. He had fucked up parents. I can't speak on his life. Other than that, I don't know what's true, what's not true.

50:44But, yeah, it was a very disappointing thing to have. As I got older, the beatings get worse and the betrayal get worse. He grew up like that. He grew up like that. He definitely had a harder life than me. I don't know what's true and what's not, though, because of all the lies. I think he's the type of guy who tells himself something. Well, he's definitely the type of guy that tells him something until he believes it and then claims it as truth. And that's just a little bit, I don't know if that's a little bit narcissist or psychopath or whatever it is. I'm not a psychologist, but yeah, man, he's told some wild stories that literally are not true that I'll give you an example with.

51:24But the one example I wanted to give you is that we had no heat. So we lived in a farmhouse that you had to use oil for heat and we couldn't afford it. It was a couple hundred bucks. I think it was like 450 bucks every time you would fill it. It would last like a month and a half, two months. and we couldn't afford it, and it was winter, and I went down in the morning. I think I'm like six years old, and I turned on the heater, and I was sitting by the heater. The electric heater takes a long time to heat up, and I was sitting by the heater. I forgot to turn it off. So I had it on low, but regardless, he tried to pull, oh, you could have burnt the house down, blah, blah, blah, blah.

52:02So he lined this all up, and he was like, I'm going to beat every one of you until one of you tells me the truth. and I did a fucked up thing I blamed my sister I was scared I knew he would beat me the worst I knew he wouldn't beat them as bad as he beat me so I blamed my sister and um she got beat and I felt like a piece of shit and so after I felt guilty um I told him that I did it and he beat me anyway so it was kind of like what's the point in telling the truth if I'm gonna get fucked up anyway but I understand you know at the same time I understand you can't lie or I shouldn't have lied and I let my sister get beat for something that I did and that was one thing he always held on to to try to say that I was a piece of shit kid at six years old and never let me live it down and my sister hated me for it and so that caused like a little bit of tension between me and my second older sister and it is what it is but you know it was cold and uh it sucked but i mean he beat the shit out of her pretty bad and it was yeah i still feel some type of way about it felt terrible so that was one situation um with the girls but there's many um he's grabbed my older sister by her neck literally off her feet and slammed her head into we had horse hair drywall i guess um because it was a farmhouse and he's literally put her whole head through the fucking the wall.

53:25He strangled them, ripped their hair, stomped them. Same thing as me. Strangled my mother, hit my mother in front of us numerous times. I'm surprised he never went to jail. He did get locked up once, but I don't remember. I was too young to remember what the charge was for, whether it was domestic violence or whatnot. Why would he be your mom? arguments couldn't win an argument or the argument went on too long um one instance was um my mom comes in wasn't even confrontational and she has her cereal um and she sits on the couch and she goes since when do you watch hockey he gave her the death stare made no sense gets up walks over and literally grabs her by her throat and she's holding her bowl of cereal out so she doesn't spill it on the couch she's she doesn't like making a mess so he grabs her by her neck and she's just waiting there and you see her turning purple she's turning purple turning purple and he's like fucking holding her still and then all of us kids start screaming and freaking out until she finally has to drop her bowl of cereal and start fighting him she starts to fight him and he fucking drops her with a body shot we thought he killed her i mean floored her and all of us kids started like trying to pull him off and she's laying there like like you know like winded winded and um yeah we all hated him for it so that was one instance He picked up a hammer.

54:47He had punched her a bunch of times in front of us, slapped her a bunch of times in front of us. Yeah, he was just a violent dude, man. And I don't think he there was a huge mood change. Like, you know, I feel like he was a little bit resentful or remorseful before 2004. But after that, I mean, once he was on narcotics every day, I mean, he was dependent on these things like he couldn't go without. out. But the crazy thing is when he got the surgery, they finished his surgery. He had, he had a fusion. So they put like a titanium cage in his back and it's just the wildest thing because they finished his surgery and double the time that it takes to do that surgery.

55:28I think it was like four hours and they finished in two because he was an in shape guy. So I learned this from my mom because I was still a little bit too young to comprehend all of it. But you know, he has a successful surgery and then he starts claiming that he has all this pain and all this shit and he goes in and he's trying to sue the guy and saying that the guy ruined his life and all this crap but when they did MRIs and they did x-rays and they were doing it there was no inflammation there was no fluid and they they were telling him like dude we don't understand we understand what you're saying but we don't see any source for your pain that you're describing like it doesn't exist so we don't know what you're trying to do and he didn't become successful with a lawsuit or anything, but he did get SSD off of that.

56:10And I think that's just what he wanted. I don't think he wanted to work. Um, and he claimed to be disabled, right. And all this pain, but anytime he wanted to hop up and fuck you up because you pissed him off, it was like, he couldn't, he wasn't hurt at all, but he could still do jujitsu. He could still box. And, um, yeah, it didn't make any sense, man. So it just, yeah, I mean, I've, I've had surgery and I've tried to take, I think they gave me oxy or a perk and I've tried one, I think it was an oxy or a perk, don't remember, and I fucking vomited. I threw up, couldn't take it. But I will say I felt very agitated after taking it.

56:47So I can't imagine if that's what you're on all the time and suppresses emotions or agitates you and that's what you're on and you're dependent on. I think he was an addict. It's the only way to say it. You're an addict and you would drink with it. And he used to fucking brag about how you could take vikonins, like four vikonins, and drink two beers and still drive home with us in the car. Damn. What would snap him out of it? Out of what? Out of his rage. Nothing. You couldn't stop that dude. When he wanted to be that way, that's how he was. Nothing would snap. I think fear of going to jail would be the only thing that would snap him out of it.

57:25my mom would threaten to call the cops and put him in jail. And then that's when he would like get even more violent verbally, but you could tell he was afraid to go to jail. He's a real big, tough guy against people that couldn't fight back. That's always been him. He, he somehow always seemed to pick the right people to fuck with that he knew couldn't whoop his ass. But he, his biggest claim to fame is that he was 115 and four. And the crazy thing about that is, you know, I'm Joseph Oliver Piper the fifth. He's Joseph Oliver Pipe for the fourth. You look my name up. I'm sanctioned. I fought for commissions.

58:00I've done medicals. You can find my name anywhere. Obviously, I'm in the UFC. I'm legit. This dude's been telling people for 20 plus fucking years, probably 35 plus years now. He's 54 or 53. That he's 115 and 4. How do we have Sugar Ray Leonard, Sugar Ray Robinson, fucking Jersey Joe Walcott, Floyd Mayweather, you know rocky marciana we have all these guys amateur records my dad's telling everybody he's 115 to four where look his name up try to find it he's a fucking liar he's but he's said it so many times and he's a convincing guy he's easily can master manipulator they can say it to you straight to your face without blanking without switching up like yeah i'm 115 to four where bro even in his he's even made a documentary recently to try and say that i stole his story he's the real homeless kid and people have been trying to put his name down in the mma world talking about me um but you know there's no proof behind anything he says he made a documentary yeah so he's made a whole documentary he was even trying to make another one he made a documentary basically saying that uh his son stole his story being me and i did it to get clout and attention and sympathy from people Where is this documentary?

59:18YouTube. And he's got 50 ,000 views off my name. But if you look at the documentary and you watch the documentary, there's nothing that addresses the allegations of me saying that he abused my mother. There's nothing that addresses the abuse of his daughters. And one thing that stands true, what he doesn't realize is there's six fucking people that say the same thing. And he completely acts like they don't exist. the same way that you know it's been 12 or 14 years since i don't remember exact years but you know it's been 12 to 14 years that he left my mother and moved in with another fucking reject that now divorced him um but i think she's a piece of shit too because she stood there and watched me get beat worse than i ever got beat in my life and didn't do a fucking thing about it so i don't like that fucking lady but uh i still have like anger for that woman but yeah um Why do you think?

1:00:14So he left your mom, your mom didn't leave him? Yeah, so the whole story is, you know, obviously all the things between me and him. When I was 15, he was already cheating on my mother with a girl that liked me in high school's mom. And my mom and my four sisters left me and my father because she couldn't take it anymore. And the abuse of the daughters, and she just needed to get away from him. And I hated my mom. Hold on. Why did you stay with him? Because all I had was jujitsu. That's why you stayed? Jiu-jitsu, yeah. And I was brainwashed by him to believe that my mother was out to get us and ruined my life and his life.

1:00:48And I loved him unconditionally despite all the abuse. Whoa, hold on. How does he mindfuck you into thinking that your mother is the one after you when he's the one that's kicking your ass every day? Yeah, I mean, I got beat by my mom too, nowhere near the same extent by him. But the reason being is because, like I said, my mom was kind of absent with me because I was like a little clone from my dad. Everything he told me to say, I would say it. And I think a part of the reason that became true is because we're homeschooled. So not to say that we developed slower, but we definitely didn't realize what was normal and what was, we had no idea we were in an abusive home.

1:01:30We just thought that that's the way it was because we were homeschooled until fucking eighth grade. You didn't have any friends? Nope, none. I didn't have my first friend over until I was 14. Are you serious? Yeah. Yeah. No friends, no phone. I didn't have a phone until I had a job. And I would fucking bail hay and do odds and end jobs here, you know, mow lawns and do things like that to be able to pay for my phone bill. So I had no friends. How the fuck are we supposed to know when we're sheltered from everything? And we always were told, and I think my mom, my mom always had the best intentions.

1:02:01But my dad, you know, it was like we were little slaves for him. He would bang on the fucking upstairs if he wanted one of the kids to come and fucking make him something to eat. I've never seen that dude fucking cook a meal for himself. Ever.

1:02:16He didn't treat us like kids that he loved. He treated us like servants that he had. So, yeah. So, yeah. You know, I was in jujitsu and that was my identity. That was the only thing that I could excel in regardless of what he felt. um but after that first competition if i had ever beat anyone it was oh you beat tomato cans you beat crumbs you're sandbagging all this bullshit and i was mind you i was 13 you know 12 i was always going against older kids and uh if i lost it was i was a disgrace to his fucking name and i was pathetic and he can't believe it wasted his fucking time and his money and i was a piece of shit and i would get beat over that you know if i lost i would get my ass fucking whoop because I embarrassed him in his name.

1:02:59And that was the craziest thing is embarrass his name. What the fuck is your name? What have you done? I couldn't tell you. The guy right now lives in a one bedroom apartment. He's been divorced twice. The chick that he left my mother for divorced him. Don't know why, but I'm sure it's something abusive. There's plenty of cases that I could say that, you know, prove that he fucking views people as his slave and his servant more than he does a companion or someone that he loves. Um, but you know, he's been divorced twice. He lives in a one bedroom apartment. He has no money. Um, and he has one recent friend that all of a sudden came out of the woodwork as his best friend to be in the documentary against me.

1:03:40Who's never met my mother or my sisters. And now he goes back to a black Baptist church when he was one of the most racist people I've ever met. So maybe not now, but I mean... And that's kind of the dynamic of this guy's snakeskin.

1:04:04Nobody knew what was going on. What about your jiu-jitsu coach? Yeah, so my jiu-jitsu coach was my father when I was young. He's the one that taught me everything when I was young. So you wouldn't even interact with other kids unless you're in a tournament? Yep. I wouldn't even interact with them. I would just compete against them. The only people I interacted with, so Steve Haag owned Fight Factory, and I'm not sure if you're familiar with Eddie Alvarez. He was a former UFC champion. He fought Conor McGregor. He was a 155 champion, fought in Bellator, fought Michael Chandler. Really big name in MMA.

1:04:35And he knew me since I was five years old. There was numerous times that Steve Hegg, Eddie Alvarez, Sam Morpiza, you know, had mentioned like, yo, you're going too hard on this kid. He would make me fist fight fucking 16 years old at 16 year olds at 13 just to fucking do it. And I'd be getting my head caved in. But I was no bitch. where i still fight him where would at the gym and then they would stop it i remember steve hagg stopped it and he was like dude what are you doing like you're making this kid fight a 16 year old who's like way bigger than way like big kids been in fucking 50 street fights and what are you doing trying to like you're getting his fucking head caped in and he's crying and i'm bleeding and like you're just you're the whole time he's telling me i'm a fucking loser i'm not fucking listening see this kid's fucking retarded so they wind up pulling him aside and we're like yo you can't treat this kid like this and just numerous times they'd heard how he talked to me and they would try to tell him and he would tell him to fuck off stay out of his business don't tell me how to parent you don't have fucking kids who are you to talk to me and um so eventually all their friendships ended because of it and uh yeah so uh many people saw it um they didn't know the extent of it because nobody was ever over at our house for the most part so you legitimately had no idea that that wasn't normal no idea not until i went to public school and then i went to public school and i was starting to get smart i was hearing about the things that kids would do with their parents and going on vacations and shit like that and i'm like what the fuck and they're like oh yeah we're all going like some kids would be like oh if you want to go hang out here if you want to go do this or do that and i'm like i can't my dad wouldn't even fucking drop me off my dad wouldn't drive me anywhere so how quick did you pick up on that stuff i don't think very fast i i mean i would say i'm not very not slow either but i would say by the end of my eighth grade year my first year in public school my first full year in public school i was like this shit is not fucking normal and then until like my sophomore year i really realized like how sheltered we were and how good you know some parents were involved they were like he wouldn't take me to wrestling and it was wild it was like he didn't want the whole reason he didn't want me to wrestle is because he didn't want somebody else to coach me and how he always talked about me was like um property like somebody's gonna take what i built that's how he would talk i built you you owe me your fucking life like those were the things he would tell me every fucking day so you feel fucking worthless you don't feel like you have any value you just feel like a fucking servant all the time and it's like dude what about me what about what i want to do i don't give a fuck about your feelings kill yourself all this shit like he would tell you to kill yourself yeah the last one of the last beatings i got before i ran away i remember telling him i started having like depression um to a severe level that's what i think it was i always felt like i never had always felt like this empty hole in my stomach and i could never identify what it was or understand what it was but after my father and i had left my mom and we moved in with this new fucking woman that he was with um he uh he didn't do anything with me like nothing.

1:07:43And, uh, it was almost like he paraded me. It was almost like he took pride in beating me up in front of her to show her what a tough guy he was, like how bad he was. And like, it was just fucking corny, man. It was corny. You know, he knew I would never swing on him because he had told me a story because I was a Christian and I, he had told me a story about how he hit his father and knocked him out, which I don't know is true. I have no idea if it's true, but that's what he told me when I was really young. And he was like, you got to promise that you'll never, you'll never put your hands on your parents.

1:08:17And I remember promising and like, I always held that close. Like I never wanted to have that kind of relationship where I'd hit my father or fall back against him, but he would fucking tee off on me. And I wasn't getting slapped, bro. I wasn't getting, you know, like a spanking. I was getting fucked up and I would have to cover like a real man and fucking shield and hide. So I wasn't, I mean, he broke two of my teeth. He fractured my orbital bone. Yeah, so the dude was, he actually broke my teeth in front of my friend. The first friend I had over, his name is Billy Cruz. And great kid. Still friends with him today.

1:08:53He had a fucked up life too. And we were over playing video games, playing Call of Duty. I think I was whooping his ass as usual on there. And fucking, he was trying to like pick on me the whole time, pick on me the whole time pick on me the whole time and i finally got sick of it i was like dude why do you always got to do this when my friend's over that's all i said man this dude jumped up and fucking punched me like he was fighting for a world title all the way into the kitchen and i was covering up and he fucking uppercut me and broke my teeth out of my mouth 13 14 years old and my friend standing there like what the fuck like he got sent home after that um And his wife, his second wife, watched me get beat to death basically and did nothing about it.

1:09:39Did nothing about it. And then he brainwashed her to the point that she was like, oh, you were a bad kid. You were always mouthing off, mouthing off. And I was like, questioning isn't mouthing off. Questioning why I'm getting beat isn't mouthing off. But his thing was like, when I say jump, you say how high. You would ask him why you're getting beat. All the time. How would you ask him? um after I got fucked up I would say why do you hate me so much and tell me he hopes I fucking die and I kill myself and my feelings don't matter and um yeah that was pretty much the premise of it so um he would never give me an explanation it was just a rage you could tell he had like the crazy eyes man he's one of them guys that has the crazy eyes and uh I really started to fucking hate him so then i really started contemplating killing a motherfucker in his sleep or killing myself and uh that's when i had to get the fuck out of there so but he left my mom to lead up to that part he left my mom um and was already cheating on her he had cheated on her already but then he was talking to this uh this lady and he moved in with her and she had already had two of her own kids and basically there was like fucking four or five of us in a two-bedroom apartment and the whole situation was fucked up and yeah i mean he did nothing with me he told me if i joined the wrestling team i can fucking walk to school so that's where will harman came into play who was my wrestling coach who had would pick me up in the morning and drop me off sometimes i walk to school um if i ever missed the bus you know when i was living with him i had to walk to school a couple miles in the winter.

1:11:23So it is what it is. I'm appreciative of Will Harmon. I think he saved my life in a dark place. He was the only person who looked at me and actually gave a fuck about me and said, yeah, I think you can do it. I think you can be a great wrestler. I think you can be an MMA fighter. I think you can do, I think Joe Pfeiffer can do whatever the fuck he puts his mind to. And he was the first person in my life that ever really made me feel like that. Like, man, somebody actually believes in me and cares about me because I'm just me, not because of him. Sam Orpiza, he tried to cut me off from jujitsu at 15 years old.

1:11:58I started submitting that motherfucker when I was 16. And so I think it started fucking with his head like, this kid's starting to get strong. This kid's starting to, like, I could manhandle him a little bit on the ground. And so I think that's why the beatings got worse. I think he was literally trying to beat me into submission and, like, being a coward and just always being under his thumb. never leaving him i think that was his biggest fear was once he realized i started excelling and getting in shape and really started loving it for myself from the time at 13 years old on it was my way of like rebelling against him yeah i was like you i'll start doing this for me and i remember telling him that one time i'm not competing for you anymore i'm competing for me and i remember seeing like grudges teeth like pissed off like if he could have killed me he would have and the amount of times that this man is threatening to shoot me is crazy crazy he would threaten to shoot you all the time all the time all the time and thank god when i lived with him he didn't have a gun but then his his fucking wife had a gun a couple guns and he made sure to tell me he had him he threatened to kill my coach um my high school coach and a wawa or threatened to beat his ass i don't remember which one he either threatened to kill him or threatened to beat his ass but he was like you're the one helping my kid and he was like yeah he's like yeah I should fuck you up or something like that or I should fucking kill you and it was like for what because he's being the father role that you wouldn't be you know because he gives a fuck and you don't and um you know but I think my biggest gripe with that guy is the amount of the lack of remorse and the lack of accountability he's not a man men take accountability men face you know they face the choir and they say, Hey, I fucked up.

1:13:41Never has he ever done that. And anytime the worst part after I had left was that he made fun of the fact that I was sleeping in a park. Mind you, I slept in a park for less than two weeks and I joined the wrestling team. So I would shower there. I got one free meal from school. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Well, let's go back. So one thing that is on my mind is, is, you know, you, you, you would, you would just said that you had thought about either killing yourself or your father so i mean what were those thoughts like yeah man uh so which one were you leaning were you leaning towards the most killing myself yeah how were you gonna do it um the only thing that ever came to mind because it was the only thing i had access to was caught in my throat um how old i was 15 15 years old yeah so thinking about slitting your own fucking throat yeah or his or his i got tired of it man you know i got tired of expressing myself and i got tired of feeling that feeling of like worthlessness i felt like i had no value in life i felt like i was just breathing air and um then when he's trying to cut me off from jiu-jitsu i'm literally going to school and coming home to an abusive home and there's nothing positive in my life and he made it clear to know Let him know how much he fucking hated me and I should have stayed with your fucking mom.

1:15:03If you were with my mom, if I was with my mom, I probably would have been put in juvie, which was probably true at that point with our relationship. She had threatened to put me away in a home. But I also hated my mom's guts because it's what I was convinced to do. And I started cursing at my mom before we had left, tell her to fuck off. And one of the worst things for me that I still feel bad about what my mom is lying about where my dad was when he was cheating on her because I was given that responsibility to not tell. I know. Yeah. You knew. So when she left, there was one instance. He took advantage that I love video games.

1:15:42And it was the only thing I had. I didn't have friends come over all the time. You know what I mean? it's not like i got his cell phone uh unless i had like a little phone but i didn't i had like two people's numbers his and like one friend um and uh one time he it was like 2 a.m and he leaves this is actually a great great part to tell so my mom's living with one of her friends on a farm with my four sisters and they're living in like it basically was a shithole and they were all sleeping in her living room on couches and like blow up mattresses and stuff so it's not like they had the comfort of like living in a nice house.

1:16:15They were living in a shitty situation, but they were just happy to be away from him. And I wasn't, I was stuck with him and we lived off. She was gone for about six months and me and my father lived on instant oatmeal, uh, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, besides the free lunch that I would get sometimes from the school. And electric got shut off at one point. And one of my, uh, black friends named Scott Roseborough, um, his grandmother had fronted us money so we could stay there because we were going to get evicted. And then our electric got shut off and she paid that, um, all for him in the end, you know, short story all for him in the end to call him, uh, a racial slur, which you know what that means and never pay her back.

1:16:57So he ruined my friendship with her. Um, I was still close with, you know, my friend Scott, but you know, we lost connection over the years just cause I think things just got awkward. Um, but, uh, yeah, so at like 2 AM he goes and leaves to go bang this woman who was cheating on her husband as well. Um, and, and they, they fuck in a car and only time he let me play fucking video games is when he was going out to do something fucked up. And, um, and then when he was with this woman that he wound up moving at, but wait, before I jump onto that, so he goes and he does that thing. The lady's husband winds up finding out.

1:17:33Uh, I don't know if it was days later or weeks later or whatever, cause they were fucking around for a little while and i wasn't talking to my mom at all when she had left so um the guy finds out and comes to the house says he's gonna kill me and him and he's an older dude he couldn't fight dude was a bitch but show shows up banging on the door and my dad the coward that he is fucking hides in the other room and tells me if he walks in hit him with this and i had a he had a wooden bat like a wooden staff and it had like fucking i don't know if it was electrical tape or something, but basically I had a wooden bat.

1:18:08So I stood behind the door and if he was going to walk in, I was going to crack that motherfucker right in his head. And thank God he didn't come in the house, but my dad was in the fucking dining room hiding like a little bitch and was ready to let me take the downfall for something he did. Holy shit. But it shows the type of coward he is. How old were you when that happened? 15. Jeez. 15, just turned 15. so and um you know what's fucked up about that situation is the girl had spent her sweet 16 money on me and brought us thanksgiving dinner and so it was a really it's just a really dark time it was a very that was the first part where i remember feeling like i was always like sad and felt alone i always felt like a voiceless kid um where i didn't know how to express myself because i couldn't talk to anybody i couldn't confide in my sisters because they didn't know any better we're all taught the same thing, which is fucking telling each other.

1:19:02And the second you get in a fight, throw something that's hurtful in their face and we would cut deep. So I wouldn't tell anybody anything, but that was the first time where I just really started feeling like depressed. And I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with me? I didn't know it was depression. I didn't know what it was. I just, I had never learned what emotions were and didn't know how to process it. And it was just like, what the fuck is going on in my life? And, um, so that was that situation. then my mother moves back and they try to figure things out and he's like how do you feel about your mom coming back i missed her you did regardless of how i hated her or thought i hated her i missed her um it felt yeah it felt like a part of me died when she left and just felt very empty i mean we would blanket off when she was gone we were so broke because he would only make like 800 bucks a month we'd blanket off the living room and get a propane torch and a propane tank and that's how we'd heat the living room and fucking eat instant oatmeal for about six months we would boil water just to have hot water because we didn't have propane i couldn't afford to do it didn't have oil to heat the house so i would boil it would take fucking two hours to boil water just to have a warm bath and by the time you fucking did all that the water's warm and it's fucking like 39 degrees in your fucking house where you can't even sleep in your room.

1:20:24You have to sleep on the couch. So, yeah, and I'm still going to school and things like that. Came home, the electric was off. It was just fucking dark. It sucked. I had my first Thanksgiving without my mom, and that's where, like, music was such a big help in my life. And this guy seemed to be fucking thriving because he was getting pussy. So then my mom came back, and he was still cheating on her. And I remember my mom crying because they were supposed to be working things out, and she was crying and begging and asking me to tell the truth. And I was like, hey, is that the gym training? And she knew that wasn't true.

1:20:59But I just remember her crying and I just kept a straight face and kept playing video games and refused to answer her question because I thought if I had said something, I was fucking putting me and him in a jeopardizing situation. And that's one thing that still bothers me because I know how hurtful that is. Having gone through my own relationships and failures. and uh so yeah that sucked so then we fucking move he leaves her we move we move into an apartment and after the divorce and everything with my mom and stuff I testified that I never wanted to see her again which would stick until I was about 18 um because I thought she fucking hated our guts and was going to take money from us and we were broke and all the shit but I was really just brainwashed, man.

1:21:46So it sucked. I didn't have any contact with her. And, um, you know, then this lady kind of tried to like force this role of like a mom. And he tried to say that, you know, your mom doesn't even give a fuck about you. That's why she doesn't want to fucking see you and all this. And she's the one that got you into school. He, he acted like, because they put me in public school, which you're supposed to fucking do that. This was like my new mom. And I had to treat her that way. And I was like, fuck out of here. I got a mom. So I never adopted her as my mom never fucking liked the woman um always thought she was fucking on the spectrum in my opinion so and um yeah i hated her guts and every time she had an autistic daughter and she would basically go in and touch my family photos that i had taken and i would get really upset and be like get the fuck off my shit and he would come back and beat me the fuck up over that

1:22:37so the fact that he beat me up over another woman's daughter who was touching my fucking belongings that weren't hers regardless of your special needs stay the fuck off my shit and uh you know one time she was like yeah i i don't mean to like the daughter she was like i don't mean to you know talk about your family or nothing but your mom sounds like a complete fucking bitch. I was like, bro, you can't even fucking feed yourself. Shut the fuck up. I remember like snapping out and he beat the fuck out of me for that. Oh man. He couldn't wait to do it. I mean, this dude rushed home to beat me up.

1:23:12Whatever he was doing, he rushed home to stop my fucking head, beat the fuck out of me for it. And it goes in there and next thing you know, I hear him fucking this fucking girl. So, uh, he's a lucky man, bro. He's a lucky man. And, and he's still out there till this day trying to fuck with me but you say you left at 15 correct yeah and so i mean right before i turned 16 i literally was turning like 16 that when are you in eighth grade like 13 14 years old yeah so it took you two years to figure it out yeah two and a half years yeah i realized that 15 he was a liar and that's when it really broke my heart i realized all the lies he was telling and i was like damn my father's a fucking liar and then that's when i started turning on him and I started having resentment for him and then I was starting to challenge him by asking questions which he hated and uh what kind of questions would you ask him like why'd you tell this person this when you just did this and he would be like mind your fucking business and um you know I'd be like well you told me when we left we were gonna do this and play games and play games and you were gonna live the bachelor life but we were gonna do everything together like build this business with the upward motors or we were going to rebuild a truck together and it wouldn't happen and i was like bro you do nothing with me anymore and just the stories he would tell people like the guy has his god complex like he has something that everybody else fucking wants at 15 years old like i said he tried to cut me off from jujitsu he goes man i'm fucking done with the game all these motherfuckers want what i got what the fuck do you got what did you go do that everybody wants bro like i'm not even insulting i'm just asking the question so i remember telling him why do you tell everybody that you were 115 and 4 but i've looked you up on the internet and i can't find it who the fuck are you to question me i got beat up over that fucking jumped up fucking punched me in my face um simple things mind you this happened almost all the time like i would play basketball across the street.

1:25:13We used to live on, it's called Sandy bank, fucking road in media PA. We lived at one Sandy bank road. Nobody lives there anymore. So I don't give a fuck to say the address, but Walden, Walden elementary was right across the street and had a little basketball court. So I would go play fucking basketball with the kids that I just became friends with as the new kid, which was already uncomfortable. You know, I went from a school of 340 fucking kids in the middle of nowhere to a school that had 1600 kids and I'm the new guy again. So I would go fucking play basketball. I was supposed to be home at eight o 'clock.

1:25:44I walked in the door at eight or three. Second, I'm the guy was malicious. So that means you would have had to watch out the window to watch me fucking walk home. And he would wait behind the door. And second I walked in and fucking punched me in the face as hard as he could and drop me just because I was three minutes late from across the street where you can visually fucking see me playing basketball with kids, not stealing not doing drugs not never did it not lying about where i'm at and um yeah so it was just the kind of guy that he fucking was man and um but i would i would question him all the time and so after the beatings i would go on like these hour long fucking runs like like two hour runs or i would just go walk for like six hours straight in the documentary there's a good part where you know my coach is driving by he used to live in Delco it's like a couple towns in one it's a couple towns and all but they could just call the area Delco and my coach Sam Morpiza lived in that area and I just got fucked up got beat up and I'm walking down the street and I have like fucking Walgreens headphones and I'm like crying and I'm angry and I'm squeezing my fucking hands because I went to kill him so I just would go on walks for an hour and he would see me crying down the street walking and he was like, I just wanted to pull over and help you, but I wasn't in the position to.

1:27:03You're still living at home with your father. But I would just walk for hours, and then he would threaten to call the cops if I didn't come back. So it's like, you beat the fuck out of me, and then I go to leave and just walk, clear my head, and then he would say, get the fuck back now. It was just a control thing, man.

1:27:24And one of the last beatings I got, I'll give you the last beating that I got. It was a three-part beating. So it starts over this game called, I think it was Uncharted 3 or Uncharted 4. And we were playing co-op. And I was getting all the kills. I've always been good at video games, whatever. Dude starts freaking the fuck out, bugging out over me getting more kills than him. You're stealing my fucking kills. You're always trying to outdo me and all this shit, you fucking scumbag piece of shit. And I'm just sitting there and I'm like smiling at first. Then he takes the controller and that's why he fucking freaks out.

1:27:55He takes me smiling like, what the fuck do you want me to respond? Like, I'm just going to keep doing my thing. Like I'm playing a fucking video game. We're on the same team. You dick like so he takes the control and fucking chucks at me splits my fucking head I still have a scar in the middle of my head from it. And so I have start blood coming down my face And I looked at him like I wanted to kill him And he was like yeah, you want to fucking try me? So he jumps up. He's like you want to fucking try me start typing himself up and then just starts letting off on me in the living room so I just curl up and Eventually I have like a blood full mouth.

1:28:27I started laughing at him because i i was like i don't give a fuck you can't break me bitch like so i started laughing he's like go pack your shit so i started packing my bag comes in the room takes all my shit throws it on the floor starts fucking swinging on me again he was like yeah there's all the shit i've done for you start swinging on me again we fight in the fucking and i never swung back and when i say fight i'm just curling up i'm just trying to defend as best as i can and he's like like grunting Like, you could tell he loved it. He would grunt every time he would hit me. Like, every single time, trying to put everything he had into it.

1:29:00But little bitch couldn't knock me out. So there's that. And then I wind up walking out of the room. I put my bag on the couch. And he corners me in the kitchen. And he starts fucking swinging on me again. And he's like, I'm going to kill you, motherfucker. I'm going to fucking kill you. Comes back, fucking, like, leaves for, like, five seconds. Comes back. I should have just ran out of the door. but you know a little fear locked up i guess at that point uh or a little hope that he was gonna like fucking calm down before i fucking left and he fucking pulls out a pocket knife and he starts walking towards me he's gonna fucking stab me with it he's like i'll fucking kill you i'm gonna fucking gut you and all this shit so i fucking shoved him right over the fucking table it was like a little plastic table shoved him over the table grabbed my fucking bag ran out of the house and never went back.

1:29:48Damn, man. Slept in the park for almost two weeks. Wined up meeting a kid that was getting racially bullied that I stood up for. Hold on. You slept in a park for two weeks? Almost two weeks, yeah. How old? 15? Nine days, yeah. 15. I was turning 16, like, the week after. So, no birthday for me. But joined the wrestling team. School had started. Did the school have any idea that you were sleeping? eventually eventually no because this was before school season school started like um i was in the park for maybe three days before school started so then i was in the park for about a week after that and then you know we had pre-practice and things like that so i would just use the locker rooms to go shower but uh yeah it was uh it was unfortunate but we had the pre-practice for the summertime already for wrestling season.

1:30:44So we would do lifts and we'd do runs. So that's how it was already being able to shower and go to school already. And I wound up meeting this kid who was getting racially bullied in the lifting room and they were calling him fat and all this shit. And listen, he definitely has a disability of some sort, a special something, even if it's on the spectrum, something. Like it was very socially awkward child and it was very evident. But yeah, I wound up asking him if he had anywhere or knew anyone of a place that I could live or room that I could rent. And he happened to have his brother that was in juvie for arson and tried to light somebody's house on fire with a trash can in the garage.

1:31:25And he was away at juvie. They were two African kids adopted by a white Welsh man who was the middle school teacher at Springton Lake to Pencrest High School, which is where I went. In the same town, which was Media PA. and um man talk about living conditions there was fucking maggots black mold asbestos um what's what was once like white carpets or cream colored carpets were fucking the color of this couch from cat piss infested house um they never cleaned anything it was disgusting um it probably took a couple years off my health to be honest um i lived off microwave food for the next two years of my rest of my high school life and the father was a really bad alcoholic wind up losing his job was suffering with liver failure started having eyesight problems and all these things so when i had gotten my license i was the one taking to the doctor's appointments i was the one buying groceries i was the one trying to make the house clean i bought like the the glue tiles where you would buy glue and then put it on the floor and like you know i tried to make it nice and Um, you know, I'd wind up doing the whole upstairs and things like that.

1:32:39His father funded it. My dad spends it now that I stole from him by doing that. Um, or, uh, by saying that because the guy would give me his card to go buy his groceries that he wanted because he was physically unable. And I was the only one that was trusted as a driver and had a driver's license to go do it. My dad tells people that I stole from him and has now been friends with the kid that I used to live with and says that I was a racist to him. says that I stole from his father and the kid believes it. So, um, but that's what my dad does. He finds weak people to prey on, um, and brainwash.

1:33:13And, um, unfortunately for them, they're not smart enough to look past the type of true person that he is. So we aren't friends and we haven't been friends. And, you know, also my gripe with him was that he was friend with friends. See, the thing is, man, it's like, I'm trying to be a little bit reserved because I don't want to put people's shit out there but basically i mean i mean this kid's trying to fucking text my family who he met one time um things that are very unfair but the kid's best friend was a fucking child molester and my dad says i beat him up because i'm a racist but i beat him up because he brought a fucking child molester over to the house and the kid was 19 and fucked a 12 year old so i told him clear as day i don't give a fuck if this is your house or not i take care i take care of the house that take care of your dad that you don't give a fuck about.

1:34:02If you fucking bring that kid over here, I'm going to fuck you up. Brought the kid over here, kicked the kid the fuck out, threw him out, and then fucked him up. And that was the end of us. And then one time I told him that he didn't give a fuck about his father. But mind you, mind you, the things that my dad is trying to stick on me are things as a teenager. I'm still not a man. I'm still an adolescent child. I'm still a teenager trying to figure out his way. I got to make decisions now as a man. And that's one thing I always owned up to. I've fucked up. I have fucked up. I've said some things that I probably shouldn't have said.

1:34:34I've done some things that I probably shouldn't have done. But I didn't hurt anybody in that process. I didn't take anything from everybody. I was never malicious. I never tried to ruin anybody's life. And he tries to - You are a product of - My environment to a certain extent. But is that an excuse after you leave home? No. I don't take that as an excuse. I'm not trying to give you an excuse, but I mean, you don't fucking know any better. Yeah. That's how you were raised for - I had no guidance. Exactly. I had no, I met my grandfather a few times. I met my grandmother a few times on my dad's side.

1:35:08I don't remember my mom's mom. I didn't, we weren't, I didn't have aunts, uncles, cousins, fucking grandparents that we saw or watched us or ever came to visit us. I think my grandfather came to visit us maybe two or three times ever. But I don't blame the guy because my dad's a fucking douchebag to work with. You know, looking back, it was like, we used to be really upset about that. Like he never comes and sees us, but that's how he would say it to be like, look, your grandfather's a fucking scumbag, but it's not it. He's the scumbag. He's the one who's always fucking causing division. So yeah.

1:35:40Um, you know, this kid fucking brought him over and we wound up parting ways. And, uh, now my dad has latched onto him and tried to coach him in boxing to not get bullied by people like me and has convinced him that I did him wrong and I stole from his father and all these things. And it's just wild, man. It's really wild. He latched onto an ex-girlfriend of mine, um, that I had an abusive relationship with where she was physically abusive to me. And, um, you know, and I don't give a fuck to say it because I can own it as a man, but you know, this, this girl had cheated on me so many times. So I would put holes in the wall, you know, not knowing how to channel that rage or wanting to fight guys over it and things like that but i was one of these guys who was like oh you're broken i'm broken me and you against the world but you know that's not that's not healthy and it didn't work out that way so yeah man um my dad has been there i'll tell you this he's never been there to one single fight that i've left him tickets for which was my first three or four amateur fights and he took pleasure in it because one time i shouted him out uh thinking he was there because he told me he was there and he was never there and uh he never showed up um but in his documentary he tells me my hands people a guy who doesn't even fucking know me is saying that my hands were the best they ever were when i was working with my father and that's why i'm the fighter i am and all this i'm like brother we stopped training together at 15 he said he was done with the game all these guys want what he's got he said you ain't fucking training with these people no more fuck this guy fuck that guy and he calls my one coach sam morpiza sammy the snake because he was so threatened to have somebody else come and coach his kid because like he said all he cared about was they're gonna come take what I built that's how exactly how he would say it in front of me they're gonna they're gonna come try and fucking take what I built I built you motherfucker you owe me my you owe me your life you ain't shit without me you've never been shit without me you would be a fucking bum you'd be fucking sweeping floors like but that was the normal talk that's how I was talked to every day of my fucking life every day of my life including my sisters that, you know, I think yoga pants started coming out when, which I agree.

1:37:50I don't think fucking little girls should be wearing fucking yoga pants. That's my own opinion. I'm a traditional guy, but they would have little pocketbooks and that my mom would get them very inexpensive. Um, you know, and they'd want to walk around or they started getting into makeup, girly things. And he would call them fucking whores and skanks. And, um, a great example of how you treat my, one of my sisters with their own abuses. My second oldest sister was in her junior year of high school, I believe. I may be wrong, but I think it was junior year. And she told somebody in school or her counselor that she wanted to kill herself because she felt like her father didn't love her.

1:38:27So the concern Joe Pfeiffer, the fourth that my father is, goes to the school with, I think, my mom. I asked my mom about it. She don't remember it. She remembers the situation, but she doesn't remember if she was there or not. but anyway I'm pretty sure all those kids went to pick her up with my dad and he's like oh man I don't know why she would say that super concerned like you know looking at her like he's upset about it like you know I don't I don't know why she'd be like that so we go home he gives her the keys to open the door as she's opening the door and all those kids are there he grabs her by her fucking hair in the back of her jeans and fucking chucks her on her fucking face face first on the floor second we get home then he picks her up by her fucking neck and slams they're in between the couch and start strangling her and in between the couch.

1:39:16And then we all start trying to pull him off and he fucking beats the shit out of me for it. And, uh, that's how you treated your daughter who was suicidal. So, um, there was an instance where one of my friends were over and my sister was like trying to convince him to cut her wrists and he fucking beat the shit out of the kid. Um, but you know, it was some dark shit, dude. It was some weird fucking just just weird fucking shit. Just, you know, but the guy has never taken accountability for one single fucking thing. I've watched this guy literally tell me to my face that my grandmother on my mom's side had a miscarriage and buried the kid in the backyard.

1:39:56And he was crying to me one time after I'd already moved away for about a year after I ran away. and i'm trying to reconcile reconcile with them or have some type of relationship because at the time everybody that didn't know details is saying you only have one father you only have one father and that used to that used to guilt me because i had a good heart man and uh i i was a christian and i always believed in trying to forgive trying to forgive get past it trying to forgive but you were a christian or you are a christian i am a christian yeah and um i i lost my faith a little it from the probably about 18 to like 23 maybe 24 um i was pretty bitter um because there was a lot of things that i prayed for that never came true the way i wanted but you know looking back i've lived a beautiful life um of pain and success and uh everything that has happened has happened for a reason um and it's all been i think god's timing so uh i saw that you carry a picture of yourself at age 10 years old.

1:40:57You saw I carry a picture? Yeah, is that true? I don't carry a picture of myself. No. What picture is this? I must have read it somewhere that said that you, to remind you. I have a, I don't carry it with me, but I do have a picture. I don't carry a picture of myself, but I do have a picture that I hold on to, and it's me at probably under two years old with boxing gloves and headgear on. and I hold on to that because um like I was really convinced I was going to be a fucking nobody but I will say the thing that kept me going was I had this gut feeling that I was I don't want to say better than other people but I always believed I was above the competition I always believed like I had this feeling like I'm meant to be more than average I just had this feeling just had this feeling just had this feeling so I had all the other depression and all the other feelings too but this, I know I'm not, this isn't, this isn't it for me.

1:41:58And that's what kept me going, you know, from not hurting myself. Um, and then high school was the hardest time for me because I was fucking angry at that point. And, uh, I really didn't have any filter anymore and I didn't give a fuck how people viewed me, whether they thought I was crazy or angry or whatever, but I had been saying since I was in middle school, I was going to fight. I wanted to hurt people. I went to fight. I wanted to fight. I wanted to fight. And that's exactly what I would say. I want to fuck people up. I want to hurt people and I want to make them feel the same fucking pain that I felt.

1:42:31And, uh, it was the greatest motivation I could, like rage has its time and its place. And it got me through the early years until I became more mature and understood emotions and was able to control and just digest why I'm angry or what's, what are you holding onto that you haven't let go? Or what what are you holding on to that you haven't forgiven um and uh yeah so yeah what was it that made you understand emotions my coaches my coaches you know seeing the way that they lived how they loved their wives how they loved their kids um how they treated their friends and uh you know sam orpisa and will harman combined have been a savior for me will harman if i didn't have that guy regardless of everything that I went through.

1:43:19If that man didn't take me in, I wouldn't be here. I would have never made the UFC. He gave me four years of free housing and a home, a stable life, good food, and unconditional love and support, which I've never had. Was that your wrestling coach? That was my wrestling coach. How did that relationship develop? So I was wrestling. I joined the wrestling team and we had red versus gold, which was for varsity matches but I'd already won my position another kid had already won his position he was a weight class above me I was a weight class below him I was 170 he was 182 and they wanted to find out who the best kid in the school was and I actually hated my head coach for it Gregory Jacobs who I love now um you know dumb child to me hated him but they wanted to see who the best wrestler was on our team and I wound up beating them uh but I remember being so angry about it because I felt like they're trying they just want to see me fucking lose because i've said i was an mma kid like all these people are against me and i remember everybody's parents being there and i was the only one on the other side of the gym by myself and the only other person so we had we had the wrestling mat the gym floor the basketball court and then we had an upstairs indoor track and will harman was up on the indoor track on my side only guy and um i got my headphones and i'm pacing back and forth and I'm like fucking mad like I'm gonna try to kill this kid and blah blah blah that was just my attitude for competition and um you know I look up at him and I'm like look at this I was like a little all these motherfuckers and their parents I say I ain't got shit he goes who cares about that he's like just go out there and give it your best man he was like I believe you I believe you can do it and those words man um because I just remember his face I just remember his face looking down and he was like, I believe you can do it.

1:45:08And that's all I needed, bro. That was like a fucking fire to the most, it lit a fire that was crazy. And I went out there and I beat him. You know, it's not nothing to brag about. It was, you know, he was a good teammate and a friend till this day. But at that time, you know, everybody was talking shit that I was gonna get beat. And he's the kid that's been to States or been to Regents already. I've never wrestled because that was my first real year of wrestling and I beat him. And now I was, you know, known as the best wrestler in the high school on our team at that time as far as like heavy heavier weights and um yeah you know it was good that was the start of our relationship and you know he was the first person to tell me he loved me uh in a long time and i remember i would i would be there at 6 a.m train go to school be there i was the first one there and the last one to go and uh often a lot of times i would just sit in a wrestling room and just fucking sob after practice at the end of the day because i hated my life and i wanted to be something and i didn't know how to do it but i was just putting all my energy into wrestling and i fucking loved wrestling i loved it i loved working hard i loved fucking suffering and uh yeah i remember just fucking sobbing many times after practice and harman happened to walk in he comes over and just gives me a hug and didn't say anything other than i love you kid and uh yeah damn so that was the start of that and um i you know every lunch period i would sit and not sit with kids i hated people my age and i would sit every single day with that man and he would split one of the one of his sandwiches that his wife made him and uh we would just sit there and play chess and talk about life and um yeah that's how i spent my fucking lunch periods with him.

1:46:53So those are sentimental. And I get choked up over those because, you know, I'm so appreciative of what he did and that he didn't have to do. And he put his name on the line and his reputation on the line to support a kid like me that could have gone off the deep end. And, uh, you know, I never wanted to let him down. And, um, you know, obviously, uh, he's been one of the most important people, but, you know, to answer your question to circling back about, did the school ever know? Um, I don't know if it's called a truancy officer for, if you miss a bunch of school or if you have troubled home or something, but somebody did come to the house and I don't know how I got away with it, but basically they were like saying I was going to have to come with them.

1:47:30And they came to the place where I was living because I was 17. And, um, uh, by that time they had come there, I was 17 and they were like, Oh yeah, you know, you're going to have to come with us or saying something about like, if I, if my parents lived here or was I emancipated or anything like that something it was very vague I'm vague on the details of what they were there for but it was something about you know possibly taking me away and I remember looking at the chick and I was a little arrogant prick and I was like do I look like I'm fucking unhealthy do I need your fucking help and I was like trust me if you take me away from here you ruin my fucking life and I slammed the door in her face and I never heard shit but then they the psychologist started reaching out to schools child services things like that and I remember snapping on Will Harmon because I was like, who the fuck did you tell?

1:48:17Like I wound up almost turning on him because I thought he ratted me out and I was going to get put in a home. And luckily I didn't. I don't know how that's possible or how that happened, but I'm sure it helped that I was living with somebody who was a school teacher at the Springton Middle Lake School. But I don't know the details behind as to why, you know, regardless of how I felt, I'm sure they could have taken me but they didn't and i'm just grateful that they didn't so um but yeah they they wanted to find it harman knew harman knew everything he was the only person i would tell everything to i would come to school with a fucked up face back when i was living with him um so yeah damn yeah why do you think you hated everybody your age because all they cared about was being cool and i didn't give a fuck about being cool i wanted to be somebody and uh i I didn't care about telling fucking high school stories about what girl you fucked or, you know, what corny fucking sport.

1:49:14I also didn't like all the fucking football kids. I didn't like any of the track kids. Like, they all thought they were hot shit because they were wearing jerseys. And I don't know. I don't like kids. I don't like kids. Do you think it was because you felt resentment that you weren't living like the way that you were brought up? I always wanted to play football and I didn't get to. But I don't know if it was resentment. man, I just, I think I was much more mature than I thought I was by that time. And I saw like the real ugly part of life in one way, you know, obviously, you know, like I said, mine's very average compared to some of the stories out there.

1:49:50But, um, yeah, I just think I didn't connect with kids that did dumb shit, talking about smoking weed and drinking and fucking girls and going to parties. That wasn't me. I had no desire to drink, party, smoke. um you know I definitely did my fair share of whoring around but that was to fill a void and you know it was the only love or acceptance or validation that I got when I was frustrated and felt alone so um yeah I just didn't see the value in what they did I wanted to be an athlete I wanted to be in the UFC and I was saying that since I was in middle school so I didn't I didn't relate to these kids when they would talk about these stories and then they would always fucking try to tell you like you weren't allowed to say the r word you can't say retard and i'm like bro shut the fuck up like i'll say what the fuck i want and so i didn't like being around those fucking nerdy kids um then you had the guys that thought they were fucking tough and i was almost in a fist fight every fucking day but none of them would fist fight dude when i went to this school where the school i came from everybody would fist fight then i go to this school and it's like preppy kids and they all talk shit but then you would run up in their face and they'd be like kind of shocked that you're about to fight them and i'm like well what the fuck did you talk shit for if you weren't ready to fight it was like mind-boggling to me and everybody thought i was crazy because i was actually wanting to fight people over talking shit so a lot of kids thought i was fucking nuts and uh what wasn't it just was about it and um i had a couple funny instances so So never like a full blown out fight in high school.

1:51:27But yeah, I had some funny things. How did you reconnect with your mom? So it's very recent. It's recent. Yeah, it's very recent. It's been almost a year.

1:51:45I despised my mom for a little bit when I was a little less mature. but how can I really fault a woman who was getting abused the same way as I was and just for that reason because she's a woman is why I give her forgiveness and an excuse because she was traditional she was a Christian woman was a Christian woman she doesn't really identify with Christianity anymore but nonetheless she lives her life how she wants but she was a 24 year old woman who had never been with another man and grew up in the church and met my father at the church because he was going to commit suicide apparently by jumping off the bridge they wound up sending him to a church after they got him off the bridge and then that's how he met my mother that's how they got connected um so she thought he was her forever after you know and she was willing to go through thick and thin and and you know and do anything possible to make it work and obviously it failed and she has never been with another man since so he ruined the rest of her happy ending so how did you reconnect my sister it's a fucked up situation my youngest sister was basically homeless because my like I said they're very backbiting towards each other and they've been much better since I've been in the picture because I won't tolerate it.

1:53:21Because the way I see it, just so you understand why I think they respect it, is because the perspective in which I've given it to them, if I can fucking come out and be a better person, so can you and you have no fucking excuse because I kept enduring the abuse while you guys were free from it free from it and I had to run away you guys got the privilege of not having to deal with him again and um and you guys have one life and I tried to put it in the perspective of we have one life to know each other I have one life to know you and everybody else that I meet and if you're genuinely okay with treating each other like this when we're supposed to be the deepest love bonded people in our lives like then you're a true piece of shit and um that's exactly what I told them if you guys don't learn to love each other, then you're all pieces of shit.

1:54:08So, um, I think they've kind of been trying their best and that's been pretty good. Um, but they've done some malicious things to each other. So I'm not proud of it. Uh, and I don't support it and I don't condone it and I want them to be better because that's what I want to be around. I don't want to be around shitty people. Whether you call yourself my mother or my sister or my father, if you're a shitty person, I'm not going to be around you. Um, I don't have time for that shit. my life's too short as it is i can't believe i'm 28 already i can't believe i'm here you know like who would have thought fucking little joey peifer is sitting on the sean ryan show or has been on joe rogan or is about to break in the top 15 in the ufc but because i believed and put it out there and put the work in put the right people around me all this has come true right you know so i reconnected with them because my sister rachel so i have two younger sisters the older of the two youngest is Rachel and then there's Amy and basically they were feuding and Amy had basically told my sister's um I guess you didn't say baby daddy some problems that she was having and basically ratted on her and it kind of like was a really scumbag fucking thing to do knowing that she's going through a custody battle so my sister refused to let her come back to the house after she had lost her job.

1:55:27So my sister was sleeping in the car in the park. I don't think it was that long. I think it was a day or two or a week or something like that. But you know, nonetheless, it's your fucking baby sister. And I hadn't talked to these people in six years almost after I'd punched my sister's boyfriend in the fucking mouth. And, um, this is two weeks before my last fight, uh, last year, uh, international fight week. I'd knocked out a guy named Marc-Andre Berriot. And I just had this guilty conscience because they had all reached out before trying to ask for help, but it was all monetary. And I was like, no, fuck off.

1:56:02Like if you can't fucking have a relationship with me and give a fuck about me as a person, but I'm only good enough for you guys to need something, then go fuck yourself, get away from me. And that's how my attitude was. But you know, I'm not a, it bothered me when I heard she was really struggling. And then that's when I was like, okay, now I need to step in because this is just fucking ridiculous. Like, what is going on with these people? And my sister had kind of taken over in a sense. You know, I don't think she meant to, but she was kind of stuck in this fog where she thought she was running shit at the house.

1:56:34And I had to remind her, this is my mom's house since I was four years old. You don't run shit. And I don't give a fuck what bill you pay. If you don't pay the rent and you're not on the lease, you don't run shit. And don't be a fucking scumbag. You know, if the shoe was on the other foot, you would always want somebody to give you a little bit of grace and give you that chance it's not like somebody got killed it's not like somebody got you know raped or fucking stolen or something you know crazy this is a family fight get the fuck over it and i tried to give them that perspective and uh so i showed up i went down there i met her at the park and then i drove there my sister started running her mouth and she was heated obviously because she felt like my youngest sister had a role in her having a really bad case with her children custody-wise which i understand i don't think you should with somebody's kids but yeah i went up paying the rent for a few months for them um so they could get on their feet and she could handle some of the lawyer bills and things like that and then i also paid a couple thousand dollars to fix my mom's truck that they that blew up on her that's all they had it was the only thing they had to drive hours to exchange their kids for my sister so between you know my mom working full-time she's a truck driver um and my sister needing to drive six seven hours every other week to exchange her daughter at that time you know that's the only car they have so um i did it for the kids i did it for her i did it for my mom and so i get back and i helped them and i told them like i'm not here to reconcile but i'm here to hopefully inspire you guys to give a about each other again because it breaks my heart and That's why I don't want to be around you.

1:58:09I want to see my sisters fucking thriving in life. But this is the thing that I hate about my father, though. This motherfucker did so much damage. Women take damage differently than men, 100%. They're just different creatures. And I'm sure you would agree. They all have been in domestic, violent, abusive relationships. Except for my second-older sister. I think he's a pretty even-keeled guy. He's had his problems. I'm not going to put them out there. but I'm pretty sure he's pretty good to her or at least works. I have my feelings about him is what it is, but you know, they have four kids together.

1:58:46My oldest sister has two kids together. Apparently, you know, he hits her and has threatened to kill her and things like that. And my sister hit me up, um, to help her get the kids out of the house. And I said, no, because it's been six years and I can't afford to jeopardize everything that I've built for someone I don't even think gives a fuck about me unless they need something. And it's always been funny to me. They've done this thing where they've cut me out or I've cut them off. It's really them that cuts me off. And then when shit really gets tough and there's some deep shit going down, then the brother's good enough.

1:59:21I'm the only one that understands. That's what they've all hit me with the same punchline. And it took me a while to forgive them, but I forgive them. I love them all. I forgive them shit that's mean too to them, you know, so hopefully they forgive me, and, um, but, you know, I was like, why would I go and get involved in helping you take kids from a man that I had no idea, all I know is what I'm being told, I don't know the other side of that, and I don't believe in fucking with another man's family, so maybe if you were active in my life, and I knew things that were going on, but she had said he had threatened to shoot me, so I don't know what's true or what's not, you know, it's, I wouldn't doubt if he would threaten to shoot me, he can't beat me, you know, so, but I want to put myself in this situation i haven't talked to you in years i don't know what's going on and now you ask me to put myself in that situation um uh but i don't remember where i was going with that to be honest cte kicked reconnecting with your mom reconnected with my mom so yeah i went and paid their rent and everything and then you know naturally i talked to my mom and she thanked me she reached out to me and thanked me and uh yeah we just kind of started slow from there, man.

2:00:29And it's been really good. Um, you know, this was a year ago. Yeah. Almost a year. Almost. Hasn't been a year yet, but it's almost a year. And this has probably been the longest connection that I've had with them since I was a child, since about 15. So, but it's been the most rewarding too. Is it hard? Is it hard? I think what's hard. I think I know it's not hard right now. It's not hard right now. I think what, what does get to me though is that my mom's older and uh i lost a lot of time with her so that kind of gets to me a little bit so i think she has a beautiful heart i think she's got a beautiful soul and um she's a respectable woman is how she likes to call herself and i agree with that and uh i used to hate her guts at one point and it irks my soul that i ever did and it's because of that motherfucker.

2:01:25But luckily I'm a grown man now and I can defer from right and wrong, good and bad. But yeah, he damaged all of them, I think, for life. So that's the only thing that I really think that is hard is just that I lost a lot of time with her. But this is what it is. I am now in the present moment and that's where I think the maturity has really helped my career, right? Is being in the present moment and now. Living in the now versus looking in the past, looking in the past, looking in the past. That shit eats you up. Do you guys have any tough conversations? All the time, yeah, all the time. We agree to disagree all the time, but that's okay.

2:02:02I think we developed a relationship now where it's... You can have those without... We can have those tough talks and know that we aren't going to disappear from each other. I'm also not talking to her every single day because she understands that I have a busy life. um i also have people that i love and care about that i'm taking care of or you know trying to provide for and things like that so uh yeah um but yeah it's good it's good now damn joe that's tough man yeah yeah this this fucking guy is uh interesting interesting i think he should be studied i really do think he should be studied i mean he hides in the church now claims that he's a Christian does nothing Christian, you know, a great example is I did, uh, a little podcast for a little bit with me and my coach, Sam Morpiza.

2:02:56And, um, His best friend was Steve Haggum in the Fight Factory, which was like the pinnacle of MMA in Philadelphia. We had all the killers. We had my coach, Sam. We had this guy, Zach McCoskey, Eddie Alvarez. A lot of really good killers that came out of there. And the guy got cancer and he had it right behind his nose, like basically in the middle of his head. And because the guy came on my podcast, mind you, this was my dad's best friend for like 10 years. and then, you know, he basically disrespected his wife when my mom and him separated one time. He was sleeping over there and disrespected his wife and he, you know, Steve kicked him out and that's how they stopped being friends.

2:03:37My dad called him a traitor and all this and started talking shit on his wife and all that crap. Claims to be a Christian. And this is really funny because if you watch the documentary, tries to play, talks real soft, talks like he's just like, yeah, yeah, you know, if I didn't use God as my compass, I wouldn't be here today. And it's the fakest shit I've ever fucking heard, especially if you know the real dude that he is and um you watch the documentary yeah yeah i want to know the lies he says because everybody's tagging me at you know he's he hasn't talked to let me put it this way so he has five kids this is the most crazy this is the craziest shit he has five fucking kids me and four daughters three of those daughters have never reached out to this motherfucker since he left.

2:04:21Why? Is it because you were such a great guy? Is it because you didn't abuse them like you say? Is it because they were brainwashed by their mom? Is that your best excuse? Is that for over 12 years, I know for sure, plus, it might even be 14 years, I don't remember what it is. I think it's 12 years plus. None of them give a fuck to talk to their father. Why? What could you have done that they don't give a fuck about you that much or they hate you that much. Dude can't answer that question, but nobody's asking him that question. You go watch the documentary, all it is is a fucking victim card. My mom this and my dad this, he hated his fucking dad, wants to kill his dad, hated his fucking mom, apparently.

2:05:03And then now he's like all fucking sad that his mom passed away. And it's like, dude, like you tell so many fucking lies, you can't even keep track. And, uh, but that's my biggest question to him. How come none of your daughters give a fuck to talk to you? Why? And how come, how come six people can say you did the same shit that I said? Can you explain that? Like, and he just doesn't address it, but he's going to make a documentary saying, I sold a story. I used to beat up the kid I used to live with. I stole from his dad and I'm a piece of shit. I had an abusive relationship as a kid and all that.

2:05:41It's like, bro, you're talking about a teenager. His claim to fame is that I was a terrible fucking kid even though i didn't steal i didn't smoke i didn't hide things like his biggest thing is like that i lied about my sister turning on the heater and she got her ass beat so i was a piece of shit years old yeah he said it showed the character that i was i was a scumbag willing to throw somebody else under the bus at six years old and i'm like yeah you're right it was a scumbag thing but i've learned from it unlike you so um yeah it's just wild you know he's trying to make another documentary now and people are trying to get me to go on shows and things like that to go talk to this guy and confront him face to face but i don't want to give him that platform yeah i don't want to give him that relevancy and that's all he cares about this man has never been there for any of my success but he has been there more than anybody for every fucking failure not realizing it's a lesson that i just keep growing from but he's been there for every single failure when i broke my elbow he sent a picture face down ass up told you this would happen as soon as you fight anybody real you get your fucking ass beat you're a fucking bum you'll never make it in the ufc i bet he fucking is rolling over in his bed now like even recently you know i i heard something you know like he fucking tells people first of all brother he's never coached me for one of my fights ever he's never been to one of my fights but he tells everybody he was i was the best boxer because we trained for two weeks for my fourth amateur fight.

2:07:07And then our last stint was he shows up in my house. I just, it is what it is. I just slept with a chick, right? So we had an agreeance that we would train at 7.30, I think it was, every morning. And I had a garage at a place I was living before I wound up being homeless again and had to go live with Armin. So he would show up, and he shows up at fucking 7 o 'clock, and I'm not up yet. I just, you know, done whatever with some chick and I fucking wake up to my phone fucking going off, going off, going off, going off. And I'm like, dude, what the fuck? Like, so I answer the phone, but I can hear like a like he's in my fucking house.

2:07:44Just walked in the house like no invite or nothing. Like it's not his house. And he's like, get the fuck downstairs now. I'm like, who the fuck are you? So I like freak the fuck out. I'm like, who the fuck are you talking to? I'm like 19 at this point or just about to turn 19. and he's standing at the bottom of the stairs like he's like gonna fucking what my ass with his arms crossed across at the bottom of the stairs in the house that he wasn't invited in i fucking fly down the stairs i'm like who the fuck you talking to we call him all this shit and he threatens to come back and put a bullet in my head and all this shit and i was like yeah i was like touch me motherfucker and i was like i'll kill you i swear to god i was like i'll beat you so fucking bad like you'll die on a fucking feeding tube for all the times you hit my mom for all the times you hit my sister.

2:08:27And it was the first time I ever saw the bitch in him because he realized that I wasn't chain quivering Joe no more. I wasn't little Joey Pfeiffer that he could intimidate, that he could bully, that he could fucking make his bitch. And I think that's why he threatened me with the gun because he realized he couldn't fuck with me no more. And I was ready to fucking hit him at any point. But the only thing I wouldn't do is I would never hit him first. And that was just because of my Christianity and because of my moral high ground that I tried to stick to. and yeah he fucking drove away like a little bitch and didn't do anything another instance he threatened to shoot me was I was at my my insurance agent guy's place who I've been friends with since I was 17 and I just always go up there to say hi every now and then and talk and I'd already obviously been away I'm like fucking 20 years old at this point living with Harman and she sees my black Mustang she worked down the street his wife and she pulls in and asks, comes in and says, oh, I need one of my ID cards for my cars.

2:09:29She didn't need a fucking ID card. She saw, she saw my car and wanted to come in and fucking talk shit. So she comes in, mind you, I haven't seen her in maybe, it was only like three, four months. And by that time, like she used to be sympathetic and be like, oh yeah, I don't know why he's so angry. I don't, I don't get it. He just gets snaps out and all this shit. She like, she like spoke super fast and fucking weird. And, um, she comes in, she was like, what's up you fucking piece of shit, like right in front of the guy and starts like coming at me heavy. And I just start smiling and I'm sitting here real, real calm.

2:10:00And I'm like, Oh, what's the matter? I said, did he fucking finally brainwash you? And she was like, Hey, you're a fucking piece of shit. And you're a scumbag kid. And I'll just like, just going off. And I'm like, and she was like, Hey, because your mom, this and that, I said, you know, it's crazy. You speak about it. But I was like, you weren't there for it. I said that all you are is just fucking vomiting. All he's told you. I was like, you never witnessed any of it. Like it's just fucking wild. So we want to go on out in the front. What do you know? Who pulls up? Fucking disabled Joe fucking pulls up.

2:10:26And the only thing he's mad about is where the fuck were you when I called you? You're supposed to be at work, bitch. Go the fuck back to work. Why aren't you where you're supposed to be? This guy don't work. So he grabs her by her fucking arm and shoes her to her car, like fucking throws her to her car and tells her to go back to work. And I started laughing and we're out front because my friend was like, yo, if you guys are going to argue, can you argue out front, whatever? and he didn't want it inside the business and i was like yeah of course i was like i'm not even arguing she's just fucking yelling at me so he grabs her by arm shoes the dare tells her to go back to work and then uh he goes i started walking behind him and i'm like laughing because i wanted a reason to fight him and i was like what you so angry about huh i was like what you all upset about i was like what's the matter and he like you know i was antagonizing him and uh he turns around he's like i'll come back and fucking kill you motherfucker i'll shoot you right in your fucking face right in front of my guy right in front of the insurance dude he fucking gets in his car and he speeds off i was like all right pussy i was like but you still haven't done shit and he's like yeah you keep calling that shit i'll fucking he's like i ever see you again i'm gonna fucking kill you and whatever so i wind up telling his wife i said wait till he fucking turns on you bitch watch and see wait till his fucking wait till his fucking demeanor changes and he puts his hands on you i said i guarantee you you'll be the next victim i say because i'm not around to get punched on no more i was like he's got to have somebody a guy like that's got to have something to abuse.

2:11:48He's always had it. He's never not hit somebody. He's never not abused somebody. So I have no idea why they got divorced, but I would love to know. Damn, man. I know how he talked to her. I heard how he talked to her. I just can't imagine with nobody else there to stop him what else has happened. So yeah. I know there's some chatter about Dr. Phil. Yeah, there's some chatter about Dr. Phil and going on there, but you know. How did they get to him?

2:12:19So there's a guy that goes to this gym that he trains at, and his son trains there, and he met this guy. Whose gym? Your gym? No, not my gym. If he came to my gym, we would all beat him to death. He knows better than to do that. He's not that dumb. My coach, my boys are loyal at Marquez MMA in Philly. They're loyal. and he'd be damned if he ever even comes close to that city and steps near there. If they see him, they'll kill him. But no, this is a gym that's, I'm not going to mention it because it doesn't deserve fucking clout. But there is a gym and he goes and trains there and this guy's son trains there and this guy was on Dr.

2:13:02Phil, his name is Butch. He was on there because of his father murdering his mother when he was a child. So that was his storyline on there. Super cool guy. Like him a lot. But he was gathering content to do a story on my dad becoming Joe Pfeiffer, the person he is. And I don't want to put everything out there because I don't know what he's comfortable with or not. But basically, the executive producer has reached out to me and has been trying to convince me that it's a good idea to go on there. If there's some reconciliation. And I said, look, at the very least, I forgive the guy. I hate the things that he's done, but I forgive the guy.

2:13:39Do you really forgive him? 100%. Because I wake up and I don't think about him. Good. He has no control over my life. He could sit across from me like this and there's no intimidation. There's no threat. The only threat is if he had a gun and that's it. But I carry two. Hopefully it never, ever happens. I don't think it's funny to gamble about life. There's got to be a sense of being extremely uneasy after I've been through that. no no i think that would mean that i haven't forgiven him still there's nothing uneasy about it what could he say i stand on the truth i stand on the truth i'm on a mountain of truth i have sources to back up my truth i have witnesses to back up my truth i have friends to back up my truth i have teammates that have seen what he's done or how he's talked or how he's acted he has nobody he literally is going to die alone it's fucked up it's sad and i really want him to change.

2:14:37And the only reason I was even contemplating it is because my mom wanted me to do it. She wants him to leave me alone, but he just fucking attaches everything. I can't see any of his social media. Pretty sure he has me blocked or whatever, but I know people are always telling me he's talking shit on me. He's writing essays. He'll post pictures. So one of the things that he does is he'll show pictures in the documentary of me and him smiling. So what he does is he takes a child's unconditional love for his parent of constant forgiveness and shows only the good memories and says, does that look like a kid that's abused?

2:15:11Does that look like a kid that's abused? Oh, look, he's smiling there. Oh, look, he's smiling here. Well, no shit. Do you ever beat the fuck out of your kid and then tell him to fucking smile for the camera? I don't think anybody does that. So it's, uh, his, his logic is very fucking shallow and really dumb. So it it doesn't threaten me whatsoever. Um, you know, I think he's just a sick dude. I think the, the narcotics for 20 plus years has really warped his fucking brain. I don't really know if he has sympathy or remorse. I think that part of his brain is probably damaged. So he might be on the borderline, a psychopath or is a psychopath.

2:15:46He's for sure a narcissist. Um, he's always talked about himself, like the God complex, like he's always had something everybody wants and he's destroyed every single, this is how I have to look at it. Before I'm in the UFC, I've had lifelong friendships and I still have those same lifelong friendships today. This man has no fucking friends, no, like bro, you went from a family of five and a wife that loved you and kids that loved you unconditionally to damaging them all to where they hate your guts. Like I just don't want to carry around hate for the guy. I just recognize who he is. I used to, bro, I used to fight out of anger all the time.

2:16:27When I was fighting early in my career, I would just blitz motherfuckers and just fucking try to kill them. Like I was literally like, and I still have that side of me, but I know how to control it a lot better where it doesn't involve him. You know, I just want to kill a motherfucker because you're trying to take my, my, my money from me. But before it was like, I really wanted to like hurt people. And, um, even in my everyday to day life, like road rage, things like that wanting to fight people and you know i've definitely saved myself from a couple big damaging blows where i could have been in prison and um i'm glad i have you know but that's because of the strong men that taught me how to be men he always claims that the only reason i am what i am is because of him and i think it's such an insult because people like will harman who put their neck on the line who put their you know opened their door to me open their home sam orpiza the guy was working two jobs, sleeping on floor in between his fucking jobs to provide for his family.

2:17:18And people like Chandler Henry, you know, who were able to, in the documentary, you know, I can express myself now verbally, but he has a way with, you know, filming where he is able to express what I couldn't put into words. And I think that's his talent. And I think that's why this is doing, going to do so well and, and help a lot of kids. So, um, you know, but because of those men in my life, that's why I'm where I'm at. Because I was smart. I asked questions. I never was somebody that didn't ask questions. I always challenged everything. Ask questions, ask questions. I don't give a fuck if you laugh.

2:17:54If it gets a stupid question, if I don't know it, I will say I don't know it. Because once I learn it, I'm not going to forget it. So yeah, dude's fucking there and just waiting for me to fail at every moment, brother. Do you want to reconcile with him? no no there's nothing to reconcile i know what he is i know what he's done i want him to take accountability so that's reconciliation for me take some fucking accountability and don't die piece of shit you owe that to my mother you owe that to my sisters because you fucked up their future too and they're still going through it luckily i'm not but they're still going through it and how do you think you I mean I think I think downstairs for the interview you said you've been you have a significant other yeah then whether for three years almost six almost six years sounds like your sisters don't have healthy relationships hmm I don't know about your mom now does she have any healthy relationships oh she's got a couple healthy friendships but no a significant other.

2:19:00How have you learned how to treat a significant other, a significant other respectfully and with honor? People like Will Harbin, saying how he loves his wife. Now he has kids that he loves. He's got three now and he has one special needs daughter with Prader-Willi syndrome and loves her unconditionally and provides for her better than anybody else could. And the irony of it is that he was a special needs teacher when I was in high school for over eight years and then his first daughter has special needs wow so who better equipped to take care of it you know nobody ever wishes for that but who better could handle that than him um so it's kind of crazy but yeah you know just understanding right and wrong is super simple super simple hitting your wife is wrong you know uh it's it's really easy not to do um you love the person, you would never want to do that.

2:20:01But, you know, it is a struggle because I disconnect very often. You know, we've had our struggles in our relationship and separations and things like that. But one thing I will say, because like I said, I don't really put my personal life out there or the status of whether I'm single or dating or anything like that, just because I don't want people involved in my shit. But that specific person, no matter how it makes anybody feel was there for me um when i was a loser she was there when my arm broke she was there after my arm broke she was there when i got in the ufc she's probably one of the most special people in my life um you know uh she always believed i could do it probably one of the most special people in your life yeah aside from harman aside from harman he gets he gets first place you know he's i think because he saved my life um but yeah it's him and her we'll call him a tie right on yeah you know and um yeah i used to look at her when my elbow was broke because they told me i would never fight again and uh i used to be like i'm gonna make it and she'd well up and i'd well up and i was like i'm gonna make it i'm gonna change our lives i'm gonna change our lives I'm going to change our lives.

2:21:19And, man, damn, if I didn't fucking get it back and do it. And I'm still going. You've done it. I'm still going. So it was a hard fucking road. We've been talking about all my family shit, but the fighting road was a whole other fucking fight that had nothing to do with that guy, nothing to do with my past. And that was a fucking struggle in itself. Aside from my upbringing, I had one of the fucking hardest roads to get in the UFC as well. Well, we're going to get into that here next. But before we leave this segment, I just want to ask, what advice do you have for kids that are going through this kind of stuff right now speak up speak up talk to somebody if you don't know who to talk to find somebody um get an opinion you know gather information is the best thing you can do um like since i've been out here dealing with everybody from you know uh the daily wire which is what the documentary is going to be on july 25th and whatnot um i've gotten all their opinions on the whole dr phil thing too you know because I like Dr.

2:22:16Phil. I think it's, you know, it's cool or whatever, but it's got to make sense. And it doesn't really make sense to give this guy what he's always wanted, which is to be relevant. You know? Yeah. He's nobody without me. That's how I see it. And, but yeah, speak up. Put your fucking pent-up energy into a sport. If you're a sports guy or a girl or whatever, you know, if you're a books person, fucking study more than anybody else. Educate yourself more than anybody else. Whatever you put that time into, it will pay you back. Hard work doesn't go unnoticed when you have to put it to the test. Sometimes it goes unnoticed because nobody sees you doing it, but when you start to perform and you've done all the hard work, there's no denying success from that.

2:23:03So put that anger and energy into a sport is the only thing I can relate to. And no matter how crazy an idea within reason i'm not talking about these fucking fruit cakes in the world today but um as long as you you know you have that self-belief that you can go on and be something fucking big why can't you why can't you give advice why can't you i'm a fucking nobody all generations of my family have been fucking bums i don't even say that my grandfather's been a bum that's not fair to say but when i say my father's a straight fucking loser dude hasn't taken a fucking ounce of risk for his family or tried to better his life as a person or as a man as a man at all it's a shame i'm 28 years old and i know more than that dude does he's fucking 54 53 you know take the risk take the risk be willing to fail because failure is only a fucking hey i took a shot and i missed but you might learn how to do better next time so take 100 of those fucking shots no matter how crazy they are is my advice love that go for it thank you let's take a break

2:24:23all right joe we're back from the break we're moving on from the family stuff but i did i wanted to ask one more thing and and this actually comes from a guy that's on my team who's got believe it or not a very similar upbringing to you and uh i'm just so fucking proud of him because he has changed his his his lineage and in his he's gotten away from that generational curse and uh he's been with me since he was 17 years old and uh still with me today he's i think he's 26 but um but he wanted he this question is from him and uh and so i told you at the beginning like this is gonna touch a lot of people who've been in in similar situations as you and and what he wanted me to ask you is as you as you start to amass the success that you're seeing and getting in the UFC and making a name for yourself and how do you combat the the voices in your head the self-sabotage from all the shit that you went through with your dad and your family and and you'll never amount to nothing hoping you would die I'll fucking kill you how do you keep those voices from entering your head or what do you do when they do so I don't think you'll ever stop them from coming into your head especially if you've had trauma or anything abusive in your childhood that, you know, that is stuck with you for years, it's always going to be there.

2:25:55You know, I think it's natural for humans to doubt themselves. It's our protective mechanisms. When you go to do something scary, your brain tries to stop you from doing it because it knows the risk, the damage, the hurt. But I think it's being in the present moment. I think that is the master key to everything. And Sean Brady, my teammate, who's also, you know, get on his title run, He's a top two guy. He's number two at welterweight. You know, he had a lot of performance anxiety in his career, and he turned it around. And, you know, I used to pick his brain too. This is where it comes back to what I said about asking questions because I still had the doubts.

2:26:34If I lacked anything I lacked, I'm a very confident guy. There's not a guy you could put in a room that I don't think I could knock out. I think I have that chance against anybody, big, small, doesn't matter. Well, I think you've proven that. Yeah, except Kelvin. That guy's tough. Um, but I still dropped him. But yeah, so, uh, he, uh, you know, I asked him like, man, like, what do you, what do you think you did to change? He was like, just being where my feet are, being my present moment. You know, he went and got help and sports, uh, sports therapy and all those things. But I'm not really big on like therapists.

2:27:05I'd like to just kind of figure it out. Um, or ask questions of people that I trust and things like that versus somebody I don't really trust and pay money to. And just, I don't connect with people like that. but you know he was like being where my present and being in the present moment like and just appreciating where you are you know no matter what was done to me it's what's shaped me to be the human that I am I think a part of anxiety comes from obviously doubt and the things that can go wrong but if all I worry about is my effort and controlling that effort and my confidence and my preparation and my confidence and my education on things that I want to learn about and things like that like I can't fail you can't fail like I'm not defined by a winner loss in the UFC even if I got cut from the UFC it's that's not it's not my identity anymore um it's me going out there and taking the risk and giving it all that I have that I can judge and that's that's who I am I go out there and I put it on the line every time and I try to look for the finish every time or I try to apply myself to be a better person in my everyday life because that's that's the person you have to go to sleep with.

2:28:12That's the person you have to wake up to. That's the person you get your work ethic from. So I would just say it's being in the present moment and realizing that your past doesn't define you, fighting doesn't define you, and how you treat the people you love is true success. The friendships that you have is true success. It's not monetary. It's not money. It's not cars. I love cars, but it's not cars. It's not the fucking big house. It's not the jewelry it's not the watches it's not the chains it's not the fame it's how you treat the people that you love most in your life that's how you're going to be based that's how you're going to fucking keep a sound mind and um yeah so no i don't think anything in the past is like affected me anymore it used to you know i used to be like oh if i lose this motherfucker's gonna laugh at me or everybody's gonna think i suck and all this shit and now i've had my struggles when I lost my first UFC fight.

2:29:04I walked into a fight. I wasn't a hundred percent, whatever I lost. I wasn't the better man that night. Um, and everybody turned on me. It was the first time I got famous pretty quick in the fight world. I got a lot of hype behind me and that I lost. And then everybody was like, you fucking suck. You're a fraud. You're a bum. You lost my fucking bet and all this shit. Kill yourself. You're this or you're that. So it still continues. Now it's not my father saying it, but it's people, but these fucking people are unhappy in their life. Imagine taking time to go and fucking shit talk a professional athlete you've never met.

2:29:34Oh, I could relate to you all day on this. Of course. Of course. You could touch 100 ,000 fucking lives and save 100 ,000 people. But if you piss one fucking person off and they don't like it, oh, you're a piece of shit to them. Who cares? So live your life by the standards of the people that you keep in your circle is what I would say. And I think that's helped me not let the negative thoughts get in my way. and if they come in my brain. I've been reading this book called Inner Excellence. I think for athletes, it's a must read. Sam Morpiza is always influencing me to read books. I hate reading books, but I'm not a big book reader.

2:30:13A little too fatality for it, but I still do it. And, you know, yeah, it's been a great, it's the ego. It's the ego. A lot of our fears are ego-driven. So it's been the most humbling fucking annoying thing to try and digest because your ego gets in the way of everything It influences everything Like why you're insecure about something Well, because you're afraid to fucking lose in front of thousands of people or millions of people on the TV And it's like bro. You got to let go all that you can't control all that The only thing I can control is my performance. Did you work hard for this moment?

2:30:49Yes I fucking turned over every stone I could I don't think go out there and give it your best effort Might be a win on the other side, might be a loss, but whatever it is, you're fucking ready for it. Man, it is astounding that you've figured this out by age 28 years old. Because I got real fucking men in my life. Now imagine if my father fucking had been a real man. Yeah. Maybe I would have fucking got it, maybe I wouldn't have, but I think this is my story to tell. This is my platform to tell it. And thanks to guys like you, I get to do it. But let's talk about, so let's start moving into Will.

2:31:25I know he was, what was his last name? Harmon, Will Harmon. Will Harmon. You had mentioned earlier that he had put his job on the line for you. How did he do that? I mean, he was picking me up, you know, not that that's against the rules, but he was trying to take me in his house before I had gone homeless, but he couldn't do it because the student teacher thing, can't do it, or he would have. but you know he didn't consult with anybody even after you know I graduated and opened up his home and I think he put his job on the line just by simply fucking protecting my story and the things that I was going through and keeping that close to heart and I'm sure he had conversations about it in some way but I know he got a lot of people off my back you know he stopped me from getting suspended from school a bunch of times for slamming kids into shit or one kid was saying some homophobic slurs and I said some shit back and threatened him and didn't get suspended so he was always putting his neck out there for me I broke doors in high school and fucking did a lot of stupid shit out of anger and he always was just there cleaning up my trail so I didn't get in trouble so you know necessarily not anything to get fired over at all but um you know just even those small things went a long way like I lost my senior night and I fucking broke one of the bill code doors like big ass door fucking kicked it right off the hinges and broke it he came in next morning before anybody knew him fucking fixed it wow and uh i slammed the kid into you know the glass and busted his face and he went on and i should have got suspended and he stood behind me saying yeah it's like you know i know what was being said and this is what's going on in his life and you know it really went to bat for me and i couldn't really afford like if i had gotten i probably would just dropped out of school so he kept me going to school um i didn't have good grades and all I wanted to come to school with was to see him, play chess with him, eat lunch with him, and wrestle.

2:33:18So my man was there. Well, I mean, what was it like for you? So you didn't move in with him until 18? I was 19. 19? 19. Yeah, I lived, so I moved in with a friend at the time who was not a real friend. And he moved in with his girlfriend and I moved in with my first girlfriend at the time and we were both in very very toxic relationships and yeah I don't give a fuck to say it because it is what it is but when I was working 60 hours a week the dude was fucking around with my girl while he was engaged to his girl and I didn't find out until six months after I'd already broke up with her and then you know we couldn't afford to stay where we were staying and I got my car repossessed my phone got shut off my insurance got shut off and harman took me in and um the worst part about it is my teammate one of my teammates had a former team that i was at the girl of my friend so it was like a a big fest between everybody but me and uh yeah that is what eventually led them to break up which means we couldn't afford to stay where we were and then i found out that and then i was like man i'm gonna kill this motherfucker too and I told Harmon about it and he was like, you gotta come live with me.

2:34:35He's like, I just bought this house. He just bought the house. It was perfect timing and he was like, I got extra room for you. And my car got taken away. It was one of the most humiliating feelings. And he taught me a very good lesson. It was probably the first lesson he gave me under his roof as to what it is to be a man of your word. And he gave me the money to get my car out of repossession and pay it off. and he said I'm giving you this money not because I expect you to pay it back but if you tell me you're going to pay it back that's your word and if you don't I'll still be friends with you and I'll still love you and support you but I might look at you differently and uh that was right before my pro debut I moved in with him um I paid him back over two fights but I moved in with him right after my fourth amateur fight so then I had one more amateur fight and then went pro and I paid him back by that flight cash.

2:35:28And it was one of the best feelings in the world. And yeah, I finally had a stable home. I finally had good food. I finally had heat. I finally had my own bathroom. Yeah, it was special.

2:35:46What was that like for you going, I mean, you went 19 years in the same environment, same type of environments, different abuses, different experiences. but none of them a loving, traditional family dynamic. And so then you get inserted into Will's home with his kids, with his wife, with him. I mean, it's something that you'd never, it was just you and him? Yeah, just me, him, and his wife before they had kids. This was before they had kids. Yeah. So what was it like for you to experience real love in a real home? I developed this mentality that things were too good to be true. So every time I thought something good was going to happen, I expected it not to happen.

2:36:37Even something as simple as going to a fucking water park as a kid. Nah, it's too good to be true. It's not going to fucking happen because it didn't. Every good thing that we looked forward to as kids, including my sisters, we all expected it not to happen. It would just get shot down. We never got to enjoy it. And so it was very uncomfortable for me for a long time. And then when I moved in there, it was like I had this overwhelming peace of like I can fucking heal. Like I can rest. Like I can go to sleep and not worry about someone kicking my door in. And, like, one of the triggers I used to have was somebody knocking on my door.

2:37:10Because there used to be a slit in my room at my old house. And it was an old farmhouse. So everything was, like, slanted and lopsided and shit and, like, beat up. And I had a little slit in the door from him fucking kicking my door in all the time. So I just remember seeing his fucking eyeballs look in to see if I was in my room when he would punish me. Or to see if I was, like, asleep or something. I would fake sleep every time. I remember one of the most traumatic fucking things is hearing that motherfucker walk up the stairs because I used to creak I'd hear the fucking creak and I would jump in bed and then truck and try to hold my breath So he didn't think I was awake and he wouldn't bother me and I remember fucking I had a like a mesh Unmeshed blanket and I remember seeing this fucking eyeballs.

2:37:51It was like I was in prison, bro The dude was fucking like I'd be like real quiet He always did like traumatic like like not traumatic but startling shit like kick the fucking door and scare the fuck out of me and then trash all my toys and then fucking leave and laugh and so it was like i always i always like or he would kick the fucking door and i didn't even know why and then start beating the fuck out of me for something i apparently did fucking wrong whether it was getting in an argument with my sisters or maybe a fucking fist fight earlier me and my oldest sister used to fucking fight all the time but my rule was i wasn't allowed to fucking hit her back so i used to hate her she fucked me up all the time and uh till i got older but uh but yeah um so one of my triggers was like somebody knocking on the fucking door i didn't have to deal with that he did it a couple times and i would like freak the fuck out it was like a ptsd fucking thing like i hated it like made me angry as fuck i don't know why i was like ready to fucking fight people over it but i didn't have to deal with danger anymore i was able to be in a house where i could have food i I didn't, I, we used to get yelled at all those kids for even opening the door for more than like 15 seconds in the fridge.

2:38:57Get the fuck out of the fridge. Like you were afraid to fucking eat. Yeah, man. Or you were told you couldn't eat, you know, because we only had so much food and it would fucking go so fast, you know, and we're a household of seven. And, uh, so it was like, you know, I didn't have to worry about how much food I ate. He used to make fun of me for how fast I ate because I would like scarf down food. And, uh, cause we always had a lack of food. but yeah it was the first real like peaceful moment in my life that I had Was there an adjustment period? Definitely definitely like you know what I mean it just it didn't feel real it felt like it was only gonna last so long and then you know probably after like the first year I was like man like this is fucking awesome this is amazing and yeah I'll never not be thankful for that man.

2:39:42Do you still train with him? Nah he's old man he's 40 he claims he's old he's not old he's he's he's on a different goal in life he's out there trying to run five miles in 30 minutes um that's one of his goals and uh yeah he's a little banged up from wrestling plus i whip his ass now and it's not even fair yeah we used to be competitive yeah i i still would he still would catch me in high school but i could beat him but now it's like yeah i'm a lot bigger and yeah so he don't old man don't want that ass whooping no more but i've been trying to get him back into lifting and everything but you know he's got three kids now and one daughter has special needs and you know he's got a wife and everything this is really hard for him to take the time to you know really go out and train but he was only ever a wrestler anyway you guys still see each other a lot yeah pretty often um you know sometimes we're going lulls and i don't get to see him that often and we don't talk that much but you know we still i got him out to the last fight because it was in our home, like in our state.

2:40:44And, um, you know, anytime I get to talk about him, I do. And, uh, you know, we still hang out and still see each other. And I hope to do that till the day he passes away and I pass away. So I hope that happens. That's a friend for life for me, man. So I'll never forget everything that he's done. And, uh, I'll always cherish our lunchtime periods, playing chess, splitting the sandwich that his wife would make. I've never seen somebody put so much meat on a sandwich. But it was banging, man. It was banging. I used to think that that was like the most, like, man, how do you afford this? Like, that's how broke I was.

2:41:15Man. Oh, man. So, yeah, no, Harmon is a godsend to my life and for sure saved my life from very, very, very dark times. And, you know, he literally looked at me when he took me in and he said, I believe you can make it. And he's like, and I want to see how far you can go. And I want to see what you're made of. and you can live here for free. But if this is what you really want to do, I want to see you chase it. That's all I did, bro. Eat, sleep, train. Just kept going. And that's why when I lost my first contender, that's why I felt like a fucking loser because when they told me it was over, I was like, I lied to everybody.

2:41:51Little did I know. Let's move into, so I mean, 19, you're living with him. You had already gone pro. No, so I turned pro by the time I was 21. I had five amateur fights, 21 or 22. When did you start fighting amateur? 2017. 2017. How old were you then? 19. 19? So I had already had fights by the time I moved with him. I had four fights by the time I moved with him, and then I did my last amateur fight with him and then my pro debut. So I think it was 19, 19 or 20. Whatever I was, what, I'm 28 now. Full MMA fight? Full MMA. How old were you with the first one? 19, yeah. 19, yeah, because I was still getting escorted.

2:42:35I was either 19 or just turned 20 because I still got an escort across the casino floor. Holy shit. And Harmon was the escort. How did that, I mean, how did that come about? How do you transition from wrestling, jiu-jitsu, into... So I always had this dream, though. I always had this dream. I always wanted to fight. I always wanted to fucking be in the UFC. I always envisioned people chanting my name and 20 ,000 fans and me walking out. and uh in the ufc it was never anything else it wasn't bellator it wasn't one championship it was always ufc ufc ufc and uh i was working fucking 60 hours a week in a deadbeat job for verizon fucking wireless phone sales that i fucking hated i hated everybody i worked with i fucking i cannot see you selling cell phone flats everybody laughs yeah it was fucking terrible i hated that fucking job um fucking dookie bro oh man i didn't sell shit um so yeah i was working 60 hours a week and i wound up just taking a fight just to take it and who approached you i mean how did you even how did you get in there um i i told sam morpiza who wound up becoming my coach he wasn't my coach for my first four i'm sorry he wasn't my coach for my first three amateur fights i was at a school called Bounce Studios with a guy named Rick Miglorese, who's a longtime black belt, was there at my first competition when I was five years old.

2:43:57Like, dude's known me for years. Love him to death. Great inspiration, like fucking solid fucking dude. So I was a part of that team for a while. After Fight Factory went away, he closed the gym, Steve had closed the gym. I joined Bounce Studios. So I was working 60 hours a week, and I had one of my teammates, Basil, and I had Rick Miglorese as my corner, but I had reached out to Sam about wanting to fight and he got me my first fight with a organization called xcc at the time and um real scumbag promoter i'm not gonna mention her name she fucking flipped me off right before my last fight fucking bitch it's a funny story nobody talks shit on you woman but uh so yeah she uh i got a fight and i fought this guy i was 178 pounds fighting at 185 didn't lift had my own schedule didn't do shit barely was training but trained like once every fucking once a sunday was sparring and just went and took a fight knocked the guy out in fucking 17 seconds flatline 17 seconds 17 seconds threw a fucking inside kick hit him with a cross right hand put him out face down uh they took him out in a stretcher oxygen tank and he had uh like like brain hemorrhaging i don't know if that's brain bleeding or something but he was never cleared or allowed to fight again ever since so i felt terrible about that i actually saw his coach last year for the first time and uh he was like yeah you know he never was allowed to fight after that he's the one that told me and i was like damn bro that fucking sucks like tell him i'm sorry like but uh yeah i smoked that dude immediately had another fight was training for this is why i said this woman is a scumbag was training for my next fight was going through that toxic relationship with that first girlfriend still living in that environment you know like i told you about all the shit that had happened there and she basically would fucking break up with me and then go to a college party and fuck dudes and fucking i was like fucking gutted i was one of them dumb kids that didn't have any confidence in the love world didn't know how to navigate it didn't know it wasn't love you know two broken kids against the world type thing like i had said and fucking i was heartbroken so i wasn't eating i wasn't sleeping i got down to like 168 and i had to force drink myself to get up to 174 wow and i still fought and this is where i don't like the woman is that she had known i was going to fight a collegiate wrestler the entire time so i was training for a boxing guy and then she switched it the day before and says oh yeah your opponent pulled out but we have somebody else for you i asked the kid the kid's like yeah i had a little training camp so anyway i fought this kid he was much bigger than me whatever i rocked him he just fucking wrestle fucked me for like three rounds and I wasn't upset about it and I was like what the fuck like this is what I want to do but I'm not upset about it and I was like I can't have a half foot in half foot out so I fought one more fight after that so I'm one-on-one I go fight again I took a dude out smoke him in the first round and uh and then I was like you know what this just isn't fulfilling I feel like I'm fucking off and I was like I can't have one foot in one foot out i'm gonna quit my job and at that time i'd already quit my job at verizon i worked at honda piazza honda for a little bit as a salesman got fucking bent over with that job didn't get any sales i was like fuck i'm sorry no it is funny just don't strike me as a salesman this reminds me of like my first job after the seal team so i became a real estate agent for like two weeks yeah and you realize you're like dude this shit sucks so i was like man fuck that so then i worked even better it gets better i worked at fucking la fitness for a little while nice gym memberships and then this fucking turd of a manager i had was changing the last names of the people that i would schedule to come in to buy memberships or you know join the gym and was taking my commissions so i remember i worked like 67 hours one week and i got like a 453 paycheck and I was like you fucking bitch like I hate your guts and uh I was like what am I doing I was like I'd rather be broke than fucking work this much to just have that little bit of money and I hadn't had any sponsorships yet in fighting or anything like that and I was begging Sam Morpiza to coach me and um he put me through the fucking ringer man um so I wound up quitting my job and I went in I gave her the finger and fucking threw shit off her desk and I said you're a fucking scumbag for stealing from a kid and i gave it a finger and left and she tried to tell me she was going to call the cops i was like call him bitch you fat fuck like i was fucking i like said a lot of fucked up shit to her but i quit and then i just pursued fighting full time man and i always knew i could have done so much more because i would go in and train with guys that were training full time and do hold my own and do better than hold my own and i was like man these guys train every day and they're bigger than me they got strength conditioning they have money for supplements.

2:48:50I'm still fucking them up. So I finally got serious, man. And I was like, this is it plan a or nothing. And, um, that's when my car got repossessed all those things. So then I fought another fight against this guy had real beef with. It's a hilarious fucking thing. He was like talking shit. He was going to be eat McDonald's and knock me the fuck out. He said he was going to knock it and put his nuts on my face. If he knocked me out all this shit, mind you this guy's like 34 I'm 20 so I was like all right bitch like you know it was the first time that I sold tickets I was in the negative every time I sold tickets before that I didn't sell shit nobody wanted to see me fight nobody gave a fuck this one I sold 150 tickets as an amateur which was huge back then and um I actually made a couple hundred bucks and um I knocked him the fuck out I dropped him on a jab I was screaming I was like get up motherfucker I was like come take my name talk all that shit i was like get up motherfucker like i wanted to i tried to kill this guy so i fucking send him to the shadow realm knock him the fuck out and uh knocked him out bad like he was at a pool of blood like split his fucking mouth open um and put him out one shot and uh that's when my career really started taking off that's when people were like yo this kid's got something i mean you're known for knocking people out yeah fast yeah how do you do it i've been a A lot of bar fights.

2:50:07Never dropped somebody. That's crazy. Hey, I hit. Doesn't connect, buddy. Yeah, I think. Well, that's part of the problem. You got to connect to be able to put somebody out. Yeah, I think, I just think, you know, this is where I credit my father. I got to start so young, so my understanding is better than someone who just started. I understand rotating my hips and landing at one time and having speed. You know, it's not all about just power, but it's speed. It's timing. It's the perfect shot. When you land that perfect shot, you'll feel a whip right through your body. You'll feel like a, it's almost like a snap, like boom, like a whip crack.

2:50:42And you'll feel it. It's like a, it's like a wave. It like travels up. You'll see like the whip in your muscle. If you watch some of my fights after this and you see like some of the shots that I hit people with, you'll see it like riffle all the way through my tricep. Like it'll get like a jiggle, like boom. And it's, um, so I think that's part of it, you know? And everybody at this level has knockout power and they're all good. And they're all dangerous. Where's the placement? the placement i mean listen temple ear this is probably the most dangerous one and then if you can catch that chin because really all a knockout is is your brain bouncing off your skull and you go unconscious it's a what it's your body's way of protecting you um or at least that's what i think i'm not a fucking doesn't seem like good protection it's not because then you're fucking defenseless but um yeah so i just have a really good understanding and i always prided myself in power.

2:51:32I actually never knocked anybody out. I've dropped people before that and I've hurt people, but I never really knocked anybody out until I knocked out the first guy in my amateur fight. So I won that fight and then I fought again, knocked that guy out, made my pro debut, knocked that guy out, fought another fight, won a decision. How did you make your pro debut? So I made my pro debut. I was four and one as an amateur and I just felt held back. I was like, I want to elbow motherfuckers. I want to knee them in their face. I want to kick them in their face. Like I'm a complete mixed martial artist.

2:52:06Like I want to use all the tools. I felt so held back with like when you're an amateur until you become an advanced amateur you can kick the legs without shin guards, but you can't kick them in the face. If you drop somebody in the amateurs With the shin guards you can't hit them in the face. You can only hit them in the body. I'm like, well the fuck's the point in dropping them? So I made sure when I hit people I just had to fucking put them out in one shot and it was the intention. my intention was to actually like i used to picture mortal combat when i hit you your head fucking shatters and um i still had that rage i still had that anger so when i was hitting you i was putting everything into every shot and it paid off now it doesn't pay off because you got guys that are defensively responsible they know how to weather the storm and you know they have good game plans and they've been there done that against guys who everybody hits hard so it's a little bit different now you have to really be technical to get that shot um but i was ready to make my pro debut at this point i already got sam came on board sam morpiza who's very monumental as to why my hands are as good as they are he came on board for my fourth amateur fight against that guy that i told you was talking shit on me his name was adam atia complete fucking loser and uh yeah so um i beat him i had sam sam used to fucking make me show up at 3 a.m just to see if i would show up make 5 a.m 6 a.m drive all the way to philly 40 minutes just to see if i would show up.

2:53:26And I did it time and time again, time and time again. And I kept asking him and begging him to coach me. And I finally got him on board and I told him I would do whatever it takes, you know, to be successful at this. And I'll wake up at any hour. I don't give a fuck what time it is. Let's do it. And I did that. And he definitely tested that. And, um, you know, I just started improving and getting better and getting better and getting better. I would say where I developed the slowest, that was the diet. You know, I didn't have money to really like eat super, super clean like I do now. But, yeah, I made my pro debut and fucking smashed the dude.

2:53:59Smashed the dude. I mounted him and fucking, like, I was just, bing. This is where I say I wouldn't stop if there wasn't a ref at that time because I was so anger-filled that I would, like, get off on fucking hurting people. So I remember I was sitting on top. I, like, I fucking was beating his ass for, like, I did it in the first round, but I was beating his ass, and I fucking took him down, threw him down. I already caught him with an elbow on his head, and I fucking mounted him, and I postured up and just started hitting him. And the dumbest thing he could have done was try to hit me back. And then I wound up hitting him and his eyes rolled.

2:54:29I must have hit him like eight times before the ref got me off and he was like crucified, like out. And I just kept fucking hitting him. Like I wouldn't stop. And the ref like threw me off and that was my pro debut. It was probably one of my favorite wins because just how violent it was. Like you could see the anger and shit like that. And for me it wasn't just anger towards my father and my life, but it was anger towards like you motherfuckers don't think i'm gonna make it i'm coming so that was my pro debut then i fought um my second fight against a guy who fought in bellator who had like a lot more experience than me and i beat his ass dominated him it was so slippery i definitely could have finished the fight but it was so slippery and humid in there i remember i couldn't like fucking place my feet or anything and i won a decision and then i won all finishes i was six know uh won my first title for art of war this this company called our uh venue called art of war um and then i lost my first fight because what's sam thinking leading up to this leading up to what to your first loss i mean you're just crushing he knew he i was more than ready i was more than ready but i didn't let him know where i was mentally i was suicidal again you were suicidal through the winds yeah yeah i was angry man it was eat me up i hadn't forgiven my father i hated my life like i still wasn't making any money you basically fight for free bro all the way up until you get to the ufc you know they might give you two grand maybe and that that's as a professional with like fight experience you know when you're an amateur you don't get paid a purse you only get ticket sales and i didn't sell any tickets at the for my first three so i wound up owing money because i would spend the money i had i needed to fucking survive you know before i was living with harman but then you know my first i think i made 500 500 my first pro fight maybe 700 700 or maybe 350 350 something like that i don't remember what it was and um but i started picking up some sponsorships so it made it a little easier you know and sam like sam didn't just coach me sam he was a fighter too he fought in bellator he was 13 to three as a professional very successful mma guy but then he had a kid and then he had another kid and just like fighting was not feasible if you lost and he lost one of his last fights as an mma fighter and uh it just wasn't it just didn't make sense for him to do it anymore i mean when you say suicidal how how suicidal are you talking about thinking about it every day multiple times yeah every day every day i just had this dark cloud over me like i started feeling worthless because i had the problem with now that i'm a fighter my identity is fighting and then i forgave my father like i tried to let go of it right before my uh i was six and oh right before my seventh fight uh professional fight i so i'd already won a title art award then i went to this company called ring of combat which were awesome and i won the title there and mind you i was finishing everybody in the first round i only had one decision so i was i knocked everybody the fuck out and won the belt in like 50 seconds or something like smash this guy and uh then i was fighting a guy who honestly wasn't really that good he was like six and four at the time or five and four or five and three something like that and i was six and oh and um and i was supposed the guy who was 10 and 3 but he was a replacement because the guy pulled out got hurt or something and it was the first time i ever walked into a fight and i was like there was no music that could hype me there was no people that could motivate me and i was just like i don't want to do this it was the weirdest feeling man it was the weirdest feeling and it was the first time that i had had my girl's family come and watch me because we we didn't like each other at first they didn't like me i didn't like them you know i'm the disgruntled angry kid who used to fight kids and fucking was an angry kid and they didn't want me with their daughter type shit and you know i didn't blame them looking back i don't blame them at all and i love their family you know they they are family to me and the kaka family is probably another godsend not even probably they are a godsend they've been wonderful people um so walked out there man was trashing this fucking guy dominating him and everything and then I fucking was tired um I had his back I had mount but I didn't have the finishing mentality so I wasn't trying to ground and pound like to get him out of there I was just trying to control him and I don't know why and it would it still it still fucking bothers me because like bro I took him down at will I dominated and everything so then I took a shot I was already tired I blew my nut I was done and I didn't have anything to fight for I didn't know what I was fighting for first time it ever happened to me didn't have the anger it And I fucking took a shot, like slipped, like kind of like did a split and I was against the cage and he stuck a guillotine and I didn't tap and got put to sleep.

2:59:11Wake up and fucking, that was the first time I was devastated and I was fucking crying, looking at myself in the mirror, like what a fucking loser, what a pussy and all these things and just like real negative. You know, that's where that girl is very special, you know. I mean, did you talk to anybody about suicidal tendencies or? Not before that. You just? No, I just bottled it up. I was always used to handling emotions on my own. One foot in front of the other. I didn't tell Sam. I didn't tell, you know, I told Harmon about the abuse at home, but I would never tell him about suicide. I would never tell him about depression because I thought it was weak to talk about it as a man.

2:59:50And when it's not. there's nothing wrong with talking about it um especially if you're struggling with it you know so after that I did and you know I got myself right and I came back and I also went and got a different look from another team because the team that I was training at which was Bounce Studios they're amazing jiu-jitsu school but they are not an MMA program school and uh at least to make it to that level to the UFC level and so I went out to Colorado and trained with a team called Elevation I went and trained with Neil Magny who's in the UFC been a long-time vet whatever and I got a different look was training at altitude came back you know got another first round or second round knockout and got my mind right got myself physically right like was lifting and eating right and doing all these things and I just start going on a tear and then I got that contender series fight how did that come on your plate after my return so I lost then I won and then I got the contender series fight and so now I'm seven and one and I go to fight this guy Stoltzfus who I broke my arm against.

3:00:51I mean did they approach you? Yes so uh they approached my management. Well I managed my management approached them with my record you know you have a manager that goes who I've signed with since I was 1-0 his name's Lloyd Pearson and I've been with him he's under VaynerSports and I've been with him since I was 1-0. It's like and he doesn't take people that are that young in their career but Chandler had initially done a documentary that was about my life trying to get into the UFC but it was deleted because we just redid it once the story made sense when I got UFC. But anyway, nonetheless, they saw the documentary.

3:01:23Eddie Alvarez I was close with, who was in the UFC, former champion. He was a champion of Bellator, a champion of UFC, fought and won. Fought Dustin Poirier, Conor McGregor, fucking all kinds of people. Rafael Dos Anjos is who he beat to win the belt. So anyway, Lloyd manages Eddie, and then that's how that connection happened, and then they signed me at 1-0. So Lloyd paid for me to go out to Denver. That's how I got to go out there because I didn't have the money for it. Gave me a car and everything. And me and my girl went out there and, you know, so it was a good experience for me. But yeah, so he contacted the UFC.

3:02:01UFC offered me a fight against this guy who was 12 and 1, which was Dustin Stoltzfus. I go out there and I fight him. And I had Sam Morpison. I had one of my best friends at the time in my corner. That was it. I had one real coach. I had no training partners. It was just me and him. And it was during COVID. So, yeah, it was bad. It sucked. And so I got out there and I fight. And I lost. I broke my elbow. Get put in an ambulance. Don't get to meet Dana White. All he posts is like, oh, yeah, Joe had a dislocation. He'll be fine because that's all we thought it was at first. It turns out I exploded the radial head in my elbow, which was like, I can turn my hand like this, but I can't turn my hand like this.

3:02:46So now I can't power clean. I can't turn my hand. My arm doesn't go straight. When I had my first surgery, so before I skip to that, I got an ambulance. I'm fucking crying. And I'm like, dude, I did 20 years in this fucking sport to fail. And I remember asking God, like, why? What the fuck am I supposed to learn from this? What is the point? And da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Victim. Victim mentality. and you know had I just been patient realized that no storm blasts forever I would be okay but went to another dark place again and I got the first surgery but they told me you never fight again they were like you're done you're not fighting again like you'll slip the you'll dislocate it even easier now because I had to cut one of the capsules which I guess is like a ceram wrap that holds all your joints and muscles and ligaments in place or something like that.

3:03:38Could be fucking that up, but that's essentially the idea. So I get the surgery, and my arm's like this, literally like this. So, and I do all the therapy and the rehab and all this shit, and I come and I see, I drive to Sam's house, and I'm like, look, man, I was like, I'm gonna fucking come back. I'm gonna fight. I'm gonna fight. He's looking at me like, what the fuck, Joe? Like, it's not gonna happen. And then I tried to go back. I joined Team Marquez, which is where I'm at now. My head coach is John Marquez. Jonathan Webb's my jiu-jitsu coach. And then I was close with Sean Brady. I knew Sean Brady since I was 13 years old and he was 16 years old.

3:04:13Um, and I'd always like stay in contact with him. Not often, but every now and then we always had a good mutual respect for each other. And I'd been telling him before I lost the contender series that I wanted to make the move over there because I knew I needed a real team. If I was going to make this my career, I needed real sparring partners, real regiment. Like we didn't even have an MMA program all the way i made it to the ufc and the way i won all these fights was literally simply hitting pads wow hardly sparring maybe once a week i sparred with basil hafez who's in the ufc i'd spar with him who was a 70 pounder who i would do very well against um and it wasn't enough wow i had my best friend at the time that it was only a wrestler who knew no fighting at all and i would just use him as a drill dummy and that's how i made my first contender series run holy No strength conditioning coach or nothing.

3:05:03So look at all these pieces that I didn't have to the puzzle. And that's the other thing that gave me motivation. It's like, once I get these things right, I'm going to go on a fucking tear. Once I get these things right, I'm going to go on a fucking tear. So anyway, I had the first surgery. I'm fucked up from it. My elbow's fucking stuck. I have excruciating pain. Every time I extend, it's the worst nerve pain I've ever felt in my life, let alone the surgery itself plus the break. Worst fucking pain I ever felt. and you know all the while I keep telling my girl like you know at that time like I'm gonna make it I'm gonna make it I'm gonna do it for us I'm gonna do it for us I promise I promise I promise I promise so I go and I get it I go back to the same surgeon I'm like look dude something's fucking wrong takes an x-ray he's like oh there's nothing we can do like you know if you do if we do any more surgery like you're gonna have nerve damage you're gonna have fucking it's gonna be loose it's gonna to be like flailing around in there every time you punch, which it was.

3:05:59And so I went to this guy named Dr. Tosti, who I'm friends with today. And I fucking love that man. And he got me back in the fucking cage. And he said, you have a 30 % chance of success. And as soon as he said that, as he was talking, I was like, when? Let's do it. When? Scheduled it four days later or a week later. And right there in the office and fucking went and did it all over. So I was back to square one. so I wasted a whole year of therapy and rehab just to go do it all over again except this time he slit the whole outside again and he slit the whole inside and he had to cut the capsule I had a torn forearm still which is why I was in so much pain for almost a year and mind you what while having a torn forearm they're hanging fucking weights off of you and chains and fucking making you do all this shit and stretching it while I have a torn forearm so the pain was fucking I've never felt something like that.

3:06:53And, uh, so I go get the second surgery and here we go long road to fucking recovery again. Uh, by the time I was good, um, I went and joined team Marquez and went over there and I was training with Sean and, you know, I got cleared probably two weeks right before I was allowed to fight. Uh, I scheduled a fight when I wasn't cleared and then I got cleared literally two weeks before the fight, but two weeks before the fight, I break my left thumb off the joint. And I already have all these nerves, like, do I still got it? Am I going to be able to make it? Blah, blah, blah. I'm fighting a world team trials wrestler.

3:07:24I was supposed to fight a former UFC fighter. His name was Kyle Magalesh, Brazilian. And he pulled out of the fight. I think he was just a bitch and didn't want to fight because apparently he had a heart issue, but then he was eating fucking burgers on his Instagram. I don't know what really went down, but yeah, I don't know what went down. So they gave me this fucking guy who was Derek Brunson, who was also a UFC fighters wrestling coach guy made he was he he didn't make the world team uh world team for wrestling but he did compete in the world team trials which is a very high you know respectable level of wrestling and mind you he was young in his career he was three and oh four no i was seven and one or seven and two but i was out for two years so um yeah so i go and i have that fight i squeeze my hand into the glove got past the commission without them knowing i I had a broken hand and I couldn't throw my left hand the whole time in the return fight.

3:08:16But I remember my nerves being the worst they ever were. Scared as fuck. Like, dude, what the fuck am I doing? Why am I doing this? Like, do I still got it? Like, what the fuck? Went out there and faced those demons and, you know, got the second round knockout and fucked that dude up. And, you know, then my coach told the commentators, he's like, you just did that with a broken hand. And they were taken back by that. And, you know, I had my speech about, like, I didn't lose that fucking fight. It was a freak accident. And I want to get my fucking shot back. I deserve it. And especially after what I've gone through just to get back here.

3:08:51And I said, you know, I knew as soon as I came in here and that bell rang, like, that this wasn't fucking over and I'm coming. And shortly after that, you know, they hit up my manager, the UFC. And they said, hey, look, we got another fight for him if he wants to do this. And I think it was August. and when i got the call i was playing a lot of street ball and i fucking broke my ankle dislocated my ankle like three weeks after the fight so i'm in a boot and they're like do you want this fight and i was like yep this is the ufc you're the ufc yeah my manager calls me he's like do you want to take this fight and i said well i'm sitting in a boot but i was like fuck yeah let's do it let's run it back and it was against a guy who was an lfa middleweight champion used to be a 205 champion i think he was a two-weight champion i don't remember but he was like seven one or eight and one had all knockouts all finishes and I was the underdog again and uh the guy that I was living with with me my girl and him all lived in the same house um at that time and fucking when I went away to corner one of my teammates Andre Petrowski in the UFC they had done a bunch of showings and we didn't know they were going to sell the house but the showings happened while I was away.

3:10:04And then when we got back, he tells me like two, three weeks before we didn't think we were going to have to move for like months. And he tells me like two, two weeks, three weeks before my fight. Yeah. You guys got to find somewhere to live because we're out of here on this date, which is Tuesday. I thought Friday, we were kicked out and I'm like, well, fuck, where am I going to go? I don't have any money. I don't, I don't, you know, whatever. But first things first, I got to win this fucking fight. And, um, meanwhile, while that's happening, he fucking overdosed on pills or something. And I remember I found him in his room fucking bugging the fuck out, like cross-eyed as fuck.

3:10:40I'd never dealt with anybody overdosed in front of my face, but I knew something was wrong. And I went in the room and I was like, yo, I'm going to go train or whatever. And dude was like fucking, like couldn't even talk. He was like, I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with you? I remember making fun of him. Like, what are you, what the fuck are you doing? Like, what the fuck's wrong? And he's like, like, and then I realized he was fucked up. And I don't, till this day, I have no idea what it was. Um, but his parents, I told his parents, I said, look, I can't deal with this motherfucker. You got to come get him and take him to the hospital.

3:11:10I'm fucking done with this dude. And there was a whole lot of shit leading up to it that I don't care to talk about, but the dude was just a fuck up. And so I go train, whatever the week before the fight dude disappears again. First of all, he went to a rehab and then I picked him up in the rehab and I was like, dude, you know, you'd always talk to me like the fuck, bro. Like, why wouldn't you tell me something like this and all that? He said, oh, I'm sorry, all this crap. And then fucking does it again in a week. It disappears and nobody can find him. Overdosed again in a hotel. And then at that point, my attitude was like, I hope you fucking die this time.

3:11:45Because if you're going to keep fucking taking advantage of everybody that loves you, something I never had. And you have good parents and you have a good mother, you have a good father. and all you give a fuck about is fucking fucking up every opportunity that was ever given to you then I don't want you around me and so and then he tried to call me the day before my fight and be like yeah I figured you want to hear that I'm alive and I'm like bro honestly I didn't care if you were dead and I remember hanging up the phone and being like fuck off like so then I fought all the fights sucked ass on that fucking card there's five fights ten fighters and I fight.

3:12:21And once again, I'm standing, you know, I thought was fucked up as I'm standing in the fucking room behind the doors. You walk out of these doors and you go right to the cage at the apex. So it's a very big moment. It's very intimate. You don't have any walkout music. It's very quiet. There's no fans. It's just UFC staff and your fighters. That's it. And the coaches. So you can hear everything. And that was my first environment, like second time trying to do it in this environment which i kind of liked but it's a little more intimate and they're fucking playing on the screen my arm breaking in front of my face before i walk out and i remember just being like all right motherfucker like i don't know i had that victim mentality still i felt like they were doing it on purpose i'm like why the fuck would they play why would they have a tv right at the entrance where i can see my fucking arm breaking looking back that's not what they were trying to do it's just you know telling the backstory is my journey coming back so anyway i go out there if i I fucking knocked the guy out.

3:13:17And then I screamed at Dana White, thank you for the fucking opportunity. And I was like, sign my shit. And I screamed it at him. And nobody's ever screamed at Dana. So, and my coaches were worried that, yo, motherfucker, you might not get a contract because you just cursed at him. And I was the only one that got a contract and he drops the whole beat Joe Pfeiffer if you want to get in the UFC. Act like Joe Pfeiffer, beat Joe Pfeiffer. And it was fun. What did he mean by that? I think it was The way I interpret it is He knows the story Of how I broke my elbow And it was done And I came back And I won a fight And I still asked for a fight And I took it And I came back And I was the only one That was like passionate I was the only one That was like relentless Like I was gonna Fucking get it finished Like I didn't stop Try to win the fight Like he said Like I was trying to Fucking smash this dude And I think he loved the energy afterwards.

3:14:13It was like I was fighting for something much more than just the fight for the win. I was fighting for my fucking life. I was fighting for a fucking way to provide for me and my girl and things like that, you know. And I think he appreciated that. So I think it was just the resilience of my story, the resilience of the journey, not being, not accepting no and going away. Like I fought and I came back. They promised me a return fight and they didn't give it to me. They said, nah, go get one more win. And so I was fucking pissed about that. Came back, got the win. Then I get the thing and all the media, basically everybody wrote me the fuck off.

3:14:47One of the most hurtful things about the first fucking loss in the Contender Series was I heard sponsors like telling people they were like, yeah, he's fucking done. Yeah, I fucking wasted my money on this kid and all this shit. And like, I didn't hear from him. They wouldn't answer my texts, answer my phone calls and nothing. Like I lost so many people through that process. You find out who's real when you're at your low. and I'm thankful for it again. And so, yeah, I think B. Joe Pfeiffer is just the resilience of never accepting the odds not being in my favor, and I kept fighting, kept fighting, kept fighting, and I wasn't going to quit.

3:15:23So I go out there and I beat a guy I was supposed to lose against on paper, which means nothing, and then I scream at him to give him my fucking opportunity. You know, I think that fired him up too, like somebody who wants to be here, Somebody who's dying to get this opportunity, that's a motherfucker that deserves it. So I think that's why he used me as an example. And he was very frustrated at the other performances of the night. So it also helped that they didn't do good. And then, yeah, he wound up handing me. How did that make you feel to get that kind of recognition from Dana White? Man, I was fucking floating on cloud nine.

3:15:57I'd never smiled so much in my life. It felt so good to just smile and just be happy of what I'd done for once. I didn't have that moment before that. know and even even people on the regional scene like local to home I don't think that they thought I was gonna make it I think they knew I had potential before I got hurt but then after that nobody really thought I was coming back they thought I was done and so yeah it was it was one of the best feelings in the world and then he wound up flying me out that weekend so it was cool how things transpired right so obviously I felt in cloud nine he wound up giving me money that housed me for the next, you know, I told that story for the next year.

3:16:36But that Dana personally flew me and my girl out to Texas for the Amanda Nunes-Joliana Pena 2 fight, I think it was, where she got her belt back. And, you know, I got to meet Mike Tyson, which was like my favorite fighter of all time. I'm not a guy that's a fanboy. I don't really care to meet people aside from, honestly, you've probably been one of the people that I'm most excited to meet aside from Mike Tyson. and um but i would say this is a lot more meaningful just because of the impact of it um but he was one of my favorite boxers i grew up watching him i loved his aura like the black shorts the mean mentality like i really related with that so he flew me out there so i won my fight on tuesday i flew home in the airport on wednesday they had already sent me another fight and i accepted the fight in uh the baggage claim area waiting for my fucking bags and it was on my birthday one month later on september 17th so i i flew home tuesday i'm sorry i fought tuesday flew home wednesday accepted another fight thursday i moved out of the condo that i was in it works out like i told you with the condo with my strength conditioning coach um adam ferris uh he owns pursuit he's the one that got me fucking yoked now but um that man changed my fucking life too bro every person that i've added has fucking done they've changed my life so um yeah wednesday i flew home took another fight thursday i moved out on friday i moved into the condo saturday i flew out to the fights and uh first time i'd you know ever been able to go to an event that fucking close like sitting right next to right next to dana right behind him and uh yeah it was a fucking fairy tale man you know and even just fucking walking through like the title the fighter tunnel because i started fighting i hadn't made my debut yet so i don't know what any that's like but i'm walking out through the tunnel where the fighters would walk and like people are screaming my name and saying yo pfeiffer yo bjo pfeiffer and all this shit and it was like damn that's how fast it changes and it was just it was just great you know to see the smile on um on my girl's face and the smile on my face and yeah it was a true moment to always be proud of and never forget so it was beautiful it was beautiful that's awesome and i finally got my chance that's all i ever wanted was just an opportunity man i didn't want anything given to me i just wanted an opportunity and i knew that's the kind of performance i could have i knew that was the type of breakout i could be because i'm not a character i'm just me so there's no there's no like sifting through my attitude to find out who the real guy is i just say how i feel and what better sport to be in than fucking UFC to say how you feel.

3:19:17I don't have a boss that's like fucking checking in on me or monitoring what I say to a certain extent. Like, so yeah. Yeah, so it was cool, man. It was cool. It was really cool. Very grateful and fucking fucked, man. You know, now I could look my girl in the face back then and say, I fucking did it. We fucking did it. And that was the most, yeah, I'll just leave it at that so I don't cry like a pussy. That's amazing, man. And I get to look at Sam Morpiza in his face after all the time, never charged me a fucking dime, just wanted to see me do better than he did because he got screwed over with some management and some people and things like that.

3:20:00Like the MMA world did him dirty. But I could look Harmon in the face and say, hey, we've been saying this before everybody else believed. you were one of the only motherfuckers that believed and then sam and then my best friend at the time and then chandler you know i've been friends with chandler since i was in high school so and then now he look at the career he's got i think he is one of the most gifted people behind the camera and i think his gift is expressing what you don't know how to say so now he lives a life where he gets to do this shit and make documentaries about fucking stories that are 10 times mine how the fuck is that not a fairy tale don't hype him up too much or i'm gonna steal him take him he's available you help him by doing that you know he's now he's he's married you know he's able to provide he's got two kids two beautiful little kids and it's a really cool full circle moment you know is there a driver behind when you're going out there that is to prove your old man wrong?

3:21:02Not no more. Nothing. Nah. Not even a little bit. He's so far in the rearview mirror, not even a little bit. Fucking A, man. Good for you, dude. You know why? Because this is me. Good for you. I did all this for me and the people that I love, and he's not one of them. So he can't be included in that. What's the point in proving him wrong? I already did that. What has he done that's better than me? Not even from a fucking money standpoint, but who has he impacted? What lives has he changed? What lives has he inspired? I'll say my wrongs. I'll admit my wrongs. I'm a man. I can say it when I'm wrong.

3:21:38Something he's never done. All he's ever been is a victim. And that's not me. And I refuse to die that way. And I refuse to live that way because I only get to live once. So when I say fuck that guy, it's not I hate you. It's like fuck that guy. Who are you? You couldn't sit across from me and even compare. You're not a man. So how's your relationship with your girl's parents now? Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. They're awesome. They're amazing. Yeah. They're, they're great Christian people. I love her brothers, her sister. They've included me on holidays where that's my tradition, which I used to always hate holidays.

3:22:15And now I look forward to it cause I get to see her whole family and, um, yeah, it's, it's very special. They made me a fucking cornhole master. her brothers used to hate cornhole her brothers got me so good at cornhole now and you know it's just the simple things man it's the simple things you know um even when we that one huh you better marry that one yeah yeah yeah there's there's a lot of stuff i still want to do like there's a lot of things i want to accomplish before that um but yeah if i'm gonna have kids and i'm ever gonna to get married. That's probably the one. So hopefully I don't fuck it up.

3:22:55What turned it for him for her parents? I think just realizing the person that I was, you know, they had this stigma about who I was and yeah, they had the stigma about who I was and didn't know who I was. They had, they had an idea of what everybody has said, who I am versus who I was. And you know, know, I was a little douchebag then, you know, she had only had one guy before me and one boyfriend and, you know, like I said, grew up super Christian and everything, so I didn't have to deal with any baggage. I know the girl's not a whore. She doesn't have a past. I don't have to deal with any of that crap and got a good head on her shoulders.

3:23:31And, but yeah, there was an instance where I just, there was a couple, which I'm not going to, I'm not even going to fucking put it out there because I was immature. But, you know, I used to fucking have a loud car, never fucking pull in the driveway because I felt like they were against me because they didn't want her to ever, like, leave her ex at first. And I basically took her from him. So probably not the way that they wanted it to go. And they also wanted to protect their daughter and make sure she wasn't getting involved in something bad or with a bad guy. And, you know, there's just take my around fighters that were violent, mean people and all this shit.

3:24:09So I don't blame them. And I also didn't act accordingly to change their minds. I was kind of like this think what you want of me type shit. I don't need to win nothing over with you. But now it's just, I don't know when it changed, man, but they just, it just clicked one day. And I think it's just a realization of like what I was trying to do, how I've done it. And when I won my Contender Series fight, you know, I made sure to say that I love the Kaka family and all that. And I do. I love them kids. I love them kids. I love her parents, and they're very wholesome, great people. And I'm very fortunate to be involved in their family.

3:24:47What's it like going to Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving? Oh, me. I love it. Did you have any of that as a kid? We had some Christmases. We had some Christmases, but the Christmases that we had were always...

3:25:07They weren't as special because you knew how much was going on. You can't really just fake because a holiday comes around. That everyday life isn't terrible. Yeah. So it wasn't very meaningful. From my mom getting abused, me getting abused, my sisters getting abused, to us all faking smiles because we got gifts. Now, as kids, we're not faking the smiles, but you know the parents are because you know what's going on. But my mom, like I said, I always give my mom, she's a respectable woman, And like I said, despite the absent years that we've had between us, she always worked her ass off. And that's where I get my work ethic from.

3:25:49And yeah, you know, I hope that she is proud of herself because she did the best that she could in that situation. And she didn't make all the right decisions. And she probably... Have you told her that? Yeah, we've had that difficult conversation. You know, I've let her know how she wasn't there and didn't protect me the way she protected the girls Have you told her that you hope that she's proud of herself? Oh, 100 % I've told her over and over she should be proud of herself She still works every single day and goes out there and fucking hustles While that dude sits on his fucking back playing with his dick fucking acting like he's a cripple But the second you give him something ego driven, he's on it Guy doesn't have any physical ailments anymore So, you know, she's probably gonna work till the day she dies which sucks unless I have a chance to change that one day.

3:26:37What would you like to see for your mom? I would like her to meet somebody and be happy. I don't think there's anything worse than leaving this place without a significant other to hold hands with when you close your eyes for the last time. So I think it's a beautiful thing.

3:26:57And she kind of has a sour taste towards men. I think she's getting much better with it because of me because not all men are pieces of shit by a large margin, I think. It's definitely hard to find a lot of really good men, but I would like to see her meet somebody and be happy. Even if happiness doesn't include a significant other, I just want to see her happy and enjoy some things. I want her to go do some things. A lot of her life has been dealing with her daughter's troubles because they all have troubles. And I've tried to tell her, you can help how you can, but you're not obligated to. They need to figure it the fuck out.

3:27:33So I just hope she puts herself first sometimes. So that's my wish for her. Put yourself first sometimes. You're 58 years old, you know. Yeah. Your life shouldn't be fucking dealing with your kid's problems. Joe, I know you've got a flight to catch, so we're wrapping up the interview. But I've got just a couple of topics that I want to ask you about. One of them is we didn't get a chance to dive into it much, but you know you were talking about ctd traumatic brain injury that's a lot of stuff that guys from my background deal with and and i know that comes with you know with fighting with striking football with everything that you've experienced and you said that i think you said that you wanted to have kids in the future would you want your kids to fight to fight no it's not the right sport to make the most money you can go play football you can go play baseball the pay grade is so much different mma is going to be on its way there i hope in the future but it'll probably be past my time or at the end of my time but the pay grade is fucking drastically different and um i wouldn't want to see my kids like this is a very brutal sport and when i say it's brutal it's brutal fan base wise these motherfuckers are relentless they'll follow you to fuck around for a year just to insult you are you serious it's that bad oh yeah i'll show you some shit um but yeah they'll follow you around for a year and tell you you're a fucking pussy you suck oh you're a fraud you lost my fucking parlay like anything and everything salty joe poopy pants joe oh you talk shit on Mexico.

3:29:13Yeah, I did. Fuck it. Um, when I stand behind it, so it is what it is, but yeah, I mean, yeah, no, I don't think I would want it. You don't make no money. You don't make no money. You're going to fucking spend 20 years trying to be the best and MMA is going to evolve so much by the time I'm done that it's going to be fucking impossible to get in. So I would rather see my kid go and fucking play MLB and make fucking millions or go play in the NFL and make fucking millions. I mean, I'm a big sports guy, but yeah, so I don't think I would direct my kid. I definitely want to teach my kid to defend himself and, you know, take no shit from nobody.

3:29:50And he'll definitely learn to fight, but he won't learn to fight in an abusive fucking environment like I did because then they'll resent you. They'll resent the sport. It's honestly that way with a lot of kids, even in just simple wrestling. So not because the parents have tried to live through their fucking kids too much instead of just being proud of them and trying to push them. There's a fine line between pushing and motivating and fucking breaking down and...

3:30:16What's the fucking word? Discouraging, you know? And you got to have some positive reinforcement behind what a child is doing or else they don't want to fucking do it. Have you looked into... Have you looked into CT and TBI and shit like that? Is there any discussion about that in the fight community? about what you're in for when it's over, when these injuries. No, I've kind of steered clear of it because I don't want to fucking think about it. It's like me getting on a motorcycle and being like, well, you could fucking get smashed in the road. I don't fucking think about it. I do a good job protecting myself for the most part, but, yeah, I'm going to have some form of fucking CTE because of just the training it takes to get to a fight.

3:30:57That's where the real damage is. And, you know, I worry about it when I do think about it. Have you looked at psychedelics at all? Are you aware of what those are doing? Like mushrooms? Mushrooms, Ibogaine. Mm-mm. You haven't? I've heard of mushrooms and like my teammate does them. One of my teammates does them like micro doses and shit like that. But I haven't done it yet. I want to because I think it'll be helpful. But right now I know that my boys over at Alp, they're protecting me against dementia, Alzheimer's, and opening up a few neuropassages. Well, let me educate you a little bit, if you don't mind.

3:31:36Yeah. So this came up on my radar because a lot of, you know, from explosions getting blown up, breaching doors, falling out of helos, whatever. You know, a lot of CTE, a lot of traumatic brain injury. And so through my interviews, actually this guy, DJ Shipley, who I just, I don't know why I think you should connect with him. He's a fucking animal. But a good friend of mine. I, Eddie Gallagher brought it up. He was, I don't know if you know, he was a SEAL. He had brought up psychedelics, caught my ear. Then I interviewed this guy, Marcus Capone, former dev group guy who started this, this nonprofit with his wife, Amber called Vets.

3:32:19Interviewed him, started researching all about psychedelics. And so at the time, Stanford was doing the study on Ibogaine and they were flying in guys that had verified TBIs, which, you know, if you look at it on the imagery, whatever imagery they're using, it shows like these black spots in the brain. These guys would fly down there and, you know, they're forgetting shit. They're losing their tempers. They're, you know, it just fucking changes you, man. It changes who you are, your temperament, your memory, all kinds, your mood, all kinds of stuff. and they'd fly these guys down to Mexico because it's illegal here and they'd do Ibogaine and then they'd have a rest day and then they'd fly right back to Stanford in every, I think it was, we'll have to pull from the studies, but everyone that came back, the black spots were gone.

3:33:19Done. Brains totally lit up. Changes their lives, changes their mood, cures addiction, cures, I mean, I haven't drank in over three years now, and I didn't even go down there for that. I'll drink either. Basically, what it does is it replenishes the receptors in your brain, which take the cravings away. So it was like, you know, people congratulate me. Oh, congratulations on three years. So, dude, I didn't, it was like a light switch. I just didn't want it anymore. Came off Adderall, came off sleeping pills, came off. I wasn't really doing any opiates at the time, but it cures it like that. And it cures, seems to cure TBI.

3:34:00What is TBI? Traumatic brain injury. Oh, okay, okay. So if you're getting kicked in the head, you're going to have TBIs. Yeah, I've been hit where I've seen, I've never been knocked out, but I've been hit where I've lost like half vision. I've been hit where I see black spots. I've been hit where I've seen white flashes. So, you know, I may have been doing this sport for a long time. My dad dropped me when I was 12. I'm still conscious but I think I was like the first like real con I'm sure I've had concussions before that from getting stopped but that was the first time I ever got hit and got dropped but yeah I'm definitely I would love to talk to him for sure well this is the key yeah giving you the key for your future health is wealth yep so if you don't value your body you're probably a fucking turd.

3:34:47Yeah. One more question. Looking back, what would you tell your 10 year old self? Hold on. The ride's about to get wild. Just hold on. Just have faith. Hold on. Don't quit. Life is precious. Life is beautiful. Depending on the perspective you choose to see it through, what lens you choose to see it through. And then there's a really fucking ugly, dark evil side to it and that's why it's super important to people the company you keep and there's always good that you can find there's always evil that you can find both exist good is losing but you know try to keep it as calm and quiet as you can value being in your own home and doing the simple things in life but hold on man hold on don't let go and don't let anybody discourage you from any idea you have go out there and try it and if it don't work try the next thing just keep fucking trying keep trying keep trying keep trying it's like water in a fucking crack you'll find a way to break through and uh make sure you have something higher than yourself to pray to um and that being God I don't think there's any other thing that you should pray to other than God.

3:36:10So he's the one for all of us, I think. That's how I'll choose to live my life.

3:36:20And yeah, hold on, brother. Good for you, man. Thank you. Well, Joe, it was an honor to interview you, man. Thank you. It really is. And I know this is going to help a ton of people. So thank you for being open. Yes, thank you for having me on. and thank you for this milestone in my life. I can honestly say, until this past week, never ever in the fucking million years where I thought I was going to be able to sit here and talk to you. That's pretty fucking... And I've been watching this for a while. Well, it's my honor. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you.

3:37:06Thank you.