The Ugly Truth Inside the UFC & Why Hard Work Beats Talent - Brad Pickett

0:00I was shitting myself, telling me there's got to be a lot better things to do for a life. He didn't find fighting until he was 25. He was at a gym in East London. He went on to compete in the WEC and the UFC. And UFC president Dana White called him one of his favourite fighters to watch.

0:17Brad Pickett:Ladies and gentlemen, for the thousands attending and the millions online, the one, the only, Brad Pickett! The time I walked to the cage, I was like, I was a beast. I was so on. I was ready. He was only 16 at the time. Have a word for yourself. I remember just like, I mean, and he battered the crap out of me. Gave me a bleeding nose and just absolutely humiliated me. I'm like, I just remember straight away after the session going, I need to learn this. But when I retired, playing a boxing match, won it with two punches, didn't get punched. See you later. And then retired again. I was at one point could be the first UK UFC champion.

0:58What have you learned about that? But I could just go sit on the beach, but that's not me. I don't earn the F you sort of money where I can just do whatever I want for the rest of my life. Take us back to the decision to hang it off. I'll have it a bit.

1:14Brad, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It's a full circle. I was at your last fight, so it's a real full circle weird moment to be set across. That's got to be nine years ago. I think so, yeah. I remember Jimmy Manor was the main event. He was. yeah what's happened since then a lot uh since then i've had another child uh make it two uh i've opened up my own gym now i'm a full-time coach i coach a lot now i coach a lot of athletes uh all levels kind of thing uh but also at the top so i have a few ufc athletes and stuff like nice nice so we always set the pockets off the same way i'd be interested to see how you how you answer it right who are you and what problem do you solve i am a now full-time uh professional professional MMA coach and I solve confidence, you know, like people have helped people with confidence in certain situations.

2:08And then usually when people can solve something, they've got experience there themselves. So what's your journey with the confidence been like? Obviously, once I learned how to look after myself in any way, shape or form, honestly, just for fitness to start off with. But once you have that confidence being able to look after yourself two things one people leave you alone by default you know a bully would only go pick on someone who they think is an easy target if you're not an easy target people can leave you alone uh for one and two I used to kind of the type of person I'm I used my skill to be a bit more of a vigilante where I'd look after people couldn't look after themselves and I kind of like try and defuse situations and most of the time I could were you always quite confident as a child Brad no I kind of put myself very much like my son now my son buddy who's 10 like when I was that sort of age I was a bit of a crybaby I was strange I was a tough kid in a way where impact wouldn't hurt me but let's say if you accidentally hit me hard as an accident I'd be fine I'd be like okay no way it's fine but if you hit me half as hard but you meant it and you've being mean, I cried my eyes out.

3:25I was like that kind of very emotionally, very emotional when I was a child. And even playing football and that growing up. Also I began to fight until later on in life because it wasn't really around when I was growing up. My main sport was football and cricket and stuff like that. And when I was playing no sports here, I'd say I was like a little crybaby. Someone would attack me, I'd die. And I just remember weird, it was like a weird thing where I was about 16, I think, and I switched from normal school to college. I went to college, complete new circle of friends, and I just thought, I want to stop being a pussy.

4:03And I'm like, I just started playing football and I started tackling people hard. I was like, I actually enjoyed this. This is pretty good. And I completely changed my footballing style and I've become like a bit more of Dennis Wise. And I just got way better at football because of it. And I was like a hard tackler, you know, throwing myself around the pitch. And I just loved, I loved that. okay I'm actually quite physically not so much of a melt and I actually enjoyed it when you when you think about that so like that change of like different environment what what was it about that that made you decide I want to change completely people didn't know me yeah I wasn't like tired with my same brush I've always had you know I mean so I could just be wherever I want there's a completely new set of friends I could just be who I want to be and I'm like I didn't like the way I played football before really obviously and then I enjoyed loved it when I started tackling people hard getting tackled hard didn't mind it you know I loved being way more physical you know actually gave me a bit more of a buzz hmm so where's the the join from football I love football of being physical to then martial arts um so my first kind of combat sport I done is when I was playing football I used to play football for uh uh a good team like Russian Diamonds uh and like and another team called Rawlstown and to outside of playing football I wanted to get fit and I just knew that boxing was a very good level of fitness and I remember going boxing uh and just going boxing for a few months just to get the fitness and enjoying it and then I remember doing a bit of sparring absolutely hated it to start with but then i mean let's say i actually hated the thought of sparring because i'm like you're getting a bit nervous and then when i did it i'm like loved it you know and then they yet again said to me i don't want to have a boxing match and i was like in my head saying no but somehow i was not in my head when i was saying no uh and uh i ended up having a boxing match and yeah again even i remember this even to this day as i'm not a fighter in a way where it's not natural to want to go punch someone in the face you know like for me it's just not a thing i've never punched someone in the face in a normal walk of life unless i really had to um but i remember like being thinking really technical before the fight throwing a jab cross and thinking about all the technical side of things going into my first fight and then going to thinking about that and that guy just came out and cracked me as hard as he could Splat my nose Right And I'm just like And then I don't remember Nothing else And the next thing I actually remember Was me just Getting like Pulled away And him being out On the floor And me winning And I had no idea What happened So since that fight I've always asked people To record my fights And back then It was VHS Obviously But yeah So we got my fights This was like I just saw red And yeah Obviously you're not Supposed to see red But I just didn't I had no idea what went on.

7:11But then from then, you learn how to control your emotions and stuff like that. And, yeah, so that was my first kind of boy of the ear into combat sports. In a weird way, I kind of, when I was just boxing, I liked just the natural respect you get from people. People just like naturally, all right, mate, how's it going? They're like, just because they know you're tough. And I know it's not, it shouldn't be the be-do-and-end-all, but it's like, I just like the people, yeah, again, would leave me alone or people who who are quite tough would respect me because of what I did and I kind of liked that kind of feeling you know so that first fight was a boxing match yes and then what's the link to MMA okay yeah sorry yeah that's the original question so so our boxing machine at the age of 19 to 21 and this is when I was like playing football football is my main thing I ended up actually my ECL playing football for a Sunday morning team where I should have been playing for just because i weren't getting games for russian diamonds i wasn't getting any dead games so i uh just started playing football Sunday morning which i shouldn't been watching my ACL got released by my club so for blah blah blah blah started playing for a different club called rawnstown was it was in a dr martin's league i think it was at the time i can't remember no what was it anyway it's not a bad standard but nowhere near the level i was playing before uh And I still try to just do that.

8:39But obviously the level was completely down. Then I tried to get back into boxing when I moved back down to London. And I found it a bit boring in a way. Also, this is where I went to Peacock Gym in Cannons Town. They would always look after the younger ones, rightly so. I was like 25 at the time sort of thing and I'm walking through a boxing gym they're not going to give me any attention they want to look after young kids I get it but then I remember seeing a guy called Lee Remedius back then this was like a guy which was a pioneer of UK back in those days and I remember seeing him in Peacock gym he was training and I was like oh man this looks really cool what was this?

9:25what are you doing? and I also watched the UFC because as a kid growing up there was a film called Bloodsport don't even have to seen it with van damen and it was like the early kumite where like it'd be a kung fu guy versus a sumo wrestler as a wrestler versus a boxer and it was like there was like that and that's what the early ufc was so i was fascinated always like who would win that fight surely ninjas the best no one's gonna be a ninja that's literally in your head because if you if you knew someone who's done ninjutsu you'd be like i'll stay with my guys he's a ninja and you're You always put those things in.

10:02But when you see all these different martial arts come into practice against each other in the early days of the UFC, I was so fascinated. It was like, man, who would win? And you saw early days, there was a guy called Hoist Gracie. He was like a skinny Brazilian guy with a gi on. And you're thinking, what's this guy going to do when you see some jacked guy wrestler that come in muscle bound? And you just take the guy down and submit him. And you're like, what the hell? and that's where I fell in love with like early UFC and the first guy I kind of said I met with a guy called Leo Medias and I went where do you train and that sort of stuff and there's another guy on my council estate where I grew up in East London a guy called Del Edwards he's still alive to this day a very good friend of mine he used to train in a place called Elite Fighting System in Ellinville and Castle I remember I used to get on my bike cycle there and I was just like man this is so I remember my first ever session.

11:02I'm being now about 25, 26, kind of proud. I used to box. I get out on myself, you know, kind of thing. I remember going to this gym and now being this young kid called Mark Baby Smith. Mark Baby Face Smith, that was his name. And I'm like, he was only 16 at the time. I'm like, mate, have a word for yourself. And I remember just like, and he battered the crap out of me, gave me a bleeding nose and just absolutely humiliated me. I'm like, I just remember straight away after the session going, I need to learn this as a life skill. Because I mean, being quite proud, I kind of have someone out there, a 16 year old kid, be able to do that to me.

11:48So I'm like, I need to learn this just for life skill. Because back then it wasn't really a career path at all. So I'm like, yeah, I just need to learn this. and that's what kind of started my journey. I was there, elite fighting system and just doing it for a bit of fun and then it just took off kind of thing. So with your career at that time, was it just pure football and training or was there anything else going on? No, because I was 26. I wasn't earning money playing football. So I used to work... Okay, try and cut a long story short. when I was growing up my parents were quite famous cobblers like made shoes used to make shoes for like Elton John and stuff like that and that's why I grew up in London I was born in Whitechapel I lived on Brick Lane I was then we went to Victoria Park we lived there we had our own little shoe shop there we had a factory out the back shop there and we used to live above the shop and mum used to make shoes for like famous people and then really a rich guy Indian guy called AJ Kelsey spoke to my dad because he was kind of highly known in the industry and asked him who can he recommend to go to India set up a load of shoe factories teach people how to make the shoes and so on and so forth and my mum and dad oh do you fancy a change and they said oh let's go so when I was eight years of age I moved to India I lived in India yeah it was a mental time so I lived in India for two and a half years.

13:26I remember being there and going to a school, local school there. No one spoke English, not even the teachers. I remember just going into school, no one spoke any English and I'm like, what am I even doing here? I used to walk out of the classroom and just go play with stray puppies in the playground. Wait till school finished, go home. And my mum, after, it took about three days to my parents to realise no one spoke English because they're like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm just playing with puppies, mum. So they ended up finding an American boarding school. So I went to an American boarding school called Woodstock up in the Himalayas up near Nepal.

14:06So I went there. Just me and my brother went up to a boarding school up there. And we was up there, we lived in India, that area for like two and a half years. And then we moved back down to, back down, moved back to England. My parents didn't want me growing up in London, thinking, I would get myself into loads of trouble. So we moved to a not actually a nice place, a place called Weldon, which is like near Corby. But I went to a school in Aundel. I went to Aundel school. Not that there's a very famous private school there. I didn't go to that one. I went to the public school in Aundel. And that's where I had kind of in the Midlands.

14:46That's where I had my teenage sort of years. That's where I played for Russian Diamonds because that's where they were in Roran's town. uh and then when i was about 21 i moved back down to uh london and live with my brother and going back to my job so i went on a massive that was good my job uh because of fashion my brother worked for diesel uh and he was in fashion right there so i ended up working with diesel myself worked for diesel for a few years uh and then from there i worked for another company called marishi which is like used to do the combat sort of trousers with the dragons on and stuff like that and then i worked in floor street i kind of liked the job it was quite a very sociable job uh went to loads of nice parties got nice clothes it was quite cool uh and then from there i went to work in the head office which was in old street and it was a bit of a desk job for me and i was getting itchy feet i'm i didn't want to sit at a desk every day so then also in this old era i wanted to become a stuntman i was like oh you know i'm gonna become a stuntman so one of my disciplines kind of just all coming in line was doing martial arts so i could do martial arts as well that's a discipline so all this sort of like i say back in those days like mma wasn't a career path so i was like what can i do to make work so i was trying to maybe become a stuntman and to do this as well and train i had to like have a normal job so to get out of the office i I went and just become a labourer and I just started working cash in hand or just working per day when I want to work and then other days go do my discipline, go do a bit of horse riding to get my discipline and that sort of stuff.

16:28And then kind of fighting just kind of took off and I started fighting a bit more and oh man, this is quite cool and doing well in fighting. Then I'm like, okay, right, I could maybe just fight. It took a long time kind of thing. I had to work and fight for a long, long time and then it got to the stage where I started earning enough money to not have to work a normal job. Zach Thompson, do you ever get sick of calling kebab houses and nanas when you're trying to speak to qualified decision makers? I do. Well, I think I might have found the solution. 98 % correct qualified data, which means when you're cold calling, you're always going to be speaking to the right person.

17:08Do you know what the solution is? It can't be Prospio, can it? Prospio, let me spell it for you. P-R-O-S-P-E-O dot I-O. If you're looking for great qualified data, then you know what the solution is. Prospio.io. I mean, I want to find out if you ever did any big stunts, but like that, let's dig into the discipline side of things. Because for somebody that's focusing on being a stuntman, you're thinking, right, it's going to help my career. what advice would you give to people listening now they're thinking about pursuing a skill whether it be like a combat or another kind of skill when it comes to applying discipline to themselves what have you learned about that?

17:52It's tricky because obviously when you're young your goalposts can change all the time one minute you want to do this one minute that's the trend this is the trend so i would say to succeed in any work of life you have to have a good work ethic and you can adapt that to anything you do you know you have to have you know i'm always a punctual i'm up early i'm in the gym early i'm there early i put the work in i'm always a hard working uh person so uh like so cliche to say hard work always beats talent you know like 100 % if you have natural ability sometimes things come too easy to you so you don't build up that work ethic where if you have someone who has a good work ethic and is quite talented that's when you get really good people in their field uh so it's one of those ones just apply yourself and you know put the time in a lot of times the thing as well people always look for quick quick results in anything they do if it's dieting you want quick results if you want to get fit you want to see it quick yeah it's love it's time put into anything any craft your podcast you it wasn't you didn't do this and it was amazing straight it takes time and and the more you put into your craft in anything you do the better you're going to become out more hours you put into that craft this way also i say it is quite good to do a job that you like because then it doesn't feel too much like a job if you're going to like a sandwich factory packing sandwiches i did that when i was young just to earn some money it wasn't fun but still i took that job seriously and i applied myself seriously within that job because that's what you should do as a person because you never know people in that sandwich factory may go work for audi or whatever you want to do and then you go to that and they're thinking well you work really crap at that job i'm not gonna see i always say apply yourself to no matter what you do professionally as much as you can but try and find a craft that you enjoy like doing like a hobby that you like doing that you have to keep turning it into into a job and then sometimes you may need a normal job to support that idea work because money is important unfortunately so have that job there to support your dream until your dream could overtake no I did I just have to work a normal job until fire took off as well so yeah so if you put us back in the era that you came up in in MMA there's no smaller weight classes in the UFC and I imagine money was even less than it probably is now So could you put us in the shoes of what the opportunities were, how they came about, and how much money you might have been able to make?

20:45For me, my first fight, I fought for free. I got a free table, like this size, just for my friends and family to watch me fight. Then I even remember when I got to the stage where I was at Cage Rage. That was the big show back in those days. Cage Rage British Champion, I was earning like£500 a fight. But what I did, which I try and also install it into my athletes that I have now, you have to build some sort of brand. You can't be just a good fighter this day and age. We have them in abundance. You need to have a bit more. So you need to see yourself as a product. How can I make myself valuable?

21:19I made myself valuable because I had a good image of my walkout kind of thing, my attire. And then also I understand to be valuable to a promoter, I need to sell tickets. So I used to sell a good amount of tickets, 150, 200, 300 tickets for fights. you know so a promoter would be like 100 % I want him on that card not only because you're a good fighter but he makes me money so then you like if my I always say it to my fighters now if there's say you two have fought each other right I'd win yeah right okay right but say you sell like 200 tickets and you only sold 10 if you get injured I would do whatever I can to find you a fight because you've sold 200 tickets right So I need to get you a fight.

22:08So I will work day and night. I'd even probably put one of my best friends in there to fight you, because I need you to fight. You get injured. You sold 10 tickets. All right, let's just scrap that fight then. So that's just where it's important. It's business. It's business. People don't understand. I just want to be a good fighter. It doesn't work like that. You have to understand the business side of fighting. Because it's very big in boxing. Boxing is all about selling tickets. You have to sell tickets. you don't sell a certain amount of tickets to take out your fight purse so it's about, you need to understand the business side of things so going back to what we were saying before it wasn't really a career path for me because, yeah again they didn't have my weight classes the only time it become somewhere where I wanted to go was the WEC which was like the biggest it was owned by the UFC but it's where all the smaller weight classes were but that was in America and it was very hard for an English fighter to fight in America because visas and of course you can do it but that was a big expense on the promotion so at the time it used to cost them quite a lot of money to get visas so I remember getting my shot in the WC what helped me is my best friend and best training partner at the time Mike Brown was the WC featherweight champion so he was my in kind of thing where I got to speak to them and speak to them and they were all there saying oh when are you going to get Brad on so I was chatting to them a lot and then I remember they offered me a fight on two weeks notice and I went yep I'll take it but then they couldn't get the visa so that I'm in time but just because I said yes like I was like they were like okay like next time so they ended up signing me and I made my WC debut and that's when it was quite cool this is where it was nice to be I had to travel from the first fight in the WC travel to Vegas where when I got to any sort of level of fighting where I could travel around the world, I wanted to fight in certain places.

24:12Vegas, 100%. So making my WC debut fighting in Vegas was amazing. And also I won that fight by a very rare submission at the time was a proving necktie. And I got like a 10 grand bonus for a submission on a night. I was well happy. It was a great... People always say, what is the best moment of your career? I don't have a singular moment, but I had moments with my career and that's one of them making my WC debut in Vegas in a hardlock casino winning by a proven necktie and getting 10 grand bonus which was amazing. I just want to go back to the brand building bit. So I think like Dan Hardy when I think of Dan Hardy I almost like see him before you know like the image of him the silhouette of him and I think it's the same view with the cap on and the braces on like you know Brad Pickett almost before you see him when did you realise that was important?

25:07Always I mean I'm not stupid it's entertainment sport right so it's like if you're a comedian and no one's laughing at your jokes you're not going to be in a job for a long time so like so you I also understand I need one for one I need to be inside I need to be involved in exciting fights I need to put on a show because at the end of the day you're an entertainer right yes this is a sport but it's an entertainment sport so I need to put on good fights but then also you need to have someone to remember you so when i got into fighting when i boxed um when i was boxing my mom said to me oh you got it from your granddad uh he died when i was four so i didn't really know him but i remember looking at him and seeing pictures of him and he used to wear braces and a truby hat and he used to um in the day work as a roofer doing roofing at night time he used to do bare knuckle boxing just to earn some extra money for the family so i'm like cool that's my image i'm going to wear a truby hat and the braces to pay tribute to my granddad a lot of people got it mixed up because my nickname was one punch as well from boxing i was being mickey one punch from snatch but i was around before him so i like to think guy richie stole hit that character from me but uh but those people used to go after my fights in cage oh well done mickey i'm like my name's brad yeah don't worry about it you know uh but yeah so i'll understand that he is very important to build a brand, you know, because you need like, even like you said, Dan Hardy, you'd be like, oh, the guy with the red hair, the mohawk.

26:37You'd be like, cool, you need to stand out. And also, in this day and age, it's a lot harder because in the UFC, you're uniformed, you know, so, you know, now I think they've changed a little bit. Well, I used to always, when I first started, wear yellow shorts, you know, like, you know, so, and you can walk out, now you have to walk out in Venom gear, you have to wear the, the branded stuff walking out so you can't have my trilby hat and braces and come out and you're wearing a reading newspaper that's what i used to do and it you can't put that sort of show on where i remember watching early ufc sort of days and early fighting there was a guy called genki sudo a guy from japan uh and he was such an entertainer like so so entertaining in the way he fought but also he used to break dance on his ring entries he used to have like six or seven people with him and he'd be like a proper like pristin zi muhammad you know you go about those sort of ring entrances like oh god what's he doing what's he doing this time oh he's coming down on the throne yeah yeah like those sort of things like ring entrances for me is a massive part of the show to um get yourself across and people to relate to you i mean that's the fight could be boring sometimes but if they go oh yeah you know the guy came in on the flying carpet you'll be like wow okay cool you know things like that is and you'll understand some people will remember that over the fight so it probably feels different in in this day and age obviously like with with the way that social media like tiktok and everything so instant if you're giving advice to young fighters on building a brand and one of the things was like building that following that you can sell tickets to what what advice would you give to them today honestly be yourself for one because like it's hard to sometimes people can create a character to try and like put on a lot of people like because obviously you have someone like conor mcgregor right so he's changed that changed the game massively in multiple ways some for the good in my eyes sometimes for the bad where he was always himself i've fought in the cards with him many times you know like uh and we've had a lot of chats and stuff like that and he's always himself you know like he's himself he's very charismatic when he's he's he's he's the only sort of person i remember who would do a press conference and i'll actually want to listen what's this guy saying he's just had that kind of voice always had it and you see now a lot of fighters try and mimic that and it doesn't come off very natural it comes across very fake bland and yeah so i say one be yourself try and also find the audience you know like outside of fighting that you can pull into fighting and make sure this up a bigger brand so like like um if you're massively into gaming then have a gaming community community have bring some people into that or if you're into anime then you have that sort of thing you know so i always like don't just think about i need to bring anime fans into the sport you'll become a bigger asset if you're bringing people outside the sport into your sport you know so that you want to make yourself you know like popular not just inside the sport itself I want you to like and subscribe don't hurt him John please don't hurt him you gotta like and subscribe and if you do not like and subscribe I'm gonna kick his head in please do not allow violence in the facility like and subscribe and we can all go home safe thank you

30:09And you mentioned McGregor there, and one thing I think of is the talk, the self-talk and out loud. He believes it. He believes he's going to win 100 % of the time. So we've sat here with people that used to do coaching with Ricky Hatton, stuff like that. And one of the things we talk about is the self-talk before a fight. So when you think back to some of your early fights, what was the thought process before you go in? what story were you telling yourself i was shitting myself telling me there's got to be a lot better things to do for a life you know what am i doing in my life i should be i could do something else you talk yourself out of everything but backstage i was a mental midget you know like i hated it i hated being backstage i was so it's like waiting for a death sentence you know like saying it's not natural to want to go get punched in the face have you ever been in any altercation at any point right it is very nerve-wracking right and that's with someone who can't fight imagine now i'm going into a situation where someone's been training for months to punch my head in it is very nerve-wracking right 100 it is so i didn't like it at all i hated the backstage but when i walked out and i got the crowd i'm like ah okay and then by the time i like cliche to say by the time i walked to the cage i was like i was a i was a beast i was so on i was ready but backstage i hated it i couldn't sit still i was pacing up and down i hit a bit of pads i'm gonna leave me alone i'm like it's like i was very antsy like and i hated it but when i walked out i loved it you know like just the crowd everything there and also I was just stupidly and I always have been so competitive in anything I did like I don't want to lose no way and as well I always say this I was never I was a bad loser where I hated losing but I wasn't a sore loser I never made excuses like say me and you played me played you at chess right now I want to beat you if you beat me I'll be like okay well done I'll come back and I'll beat you I'll get you you hold on to this and I'd be competitive like that sometimes I'm comfortably competitive you know but I'd want to come back and beat you but I was never like oh you're beating me because I had a migraine or you're beating me because my toe was hurting or like I never make excuses but I hated losing you know it was yeah always and that's the thing with team sports I grew up always with team sports and in team sport you get the best player on the pitch and you can lose the game you can be the worst player and win you know one on one sport it is so mentally challenging even if you think about something like tennis me versus you i have no one else to blame i can't blame the left wing for not passing the ball the goalkeeper for letting one in i can't blame no one else it's just me so one-on-one sport is so mentally challenging but then you bring the physical aspect of the mma into that it's the hardest sport you can do in my eyes i've done every sport you think of nearly to a certain degree it's the hardest sport you could do so as an athlete when I was growing up I was like it's the biggest challenge you know so I always enjoyed the challenge and it's been like I say when I was back in the sport when I was trying to when I was growing up with the sport I had to educate most people like most people play is that legal can you do that and I'm like I never used to say I'm a cage fire because I hated what the view that would give to someone was a cage fire I used to say I'm a professional athlete and I'm like okay what sport do you do I'll go I'll do mixed martial arts and I'll go oh what's that and then he gets to the stage where I have to try and explain and then go cage fighting oh cage fighting yeah right but for me it's like I'm an Olympic athlete I do boxing I do wrestling I do judo I do karate I do all these things it's like being a a decathlon of martial arts I have to be can't be just if I was the best wrestler in the world and fight I could get beat I could be the best boxing guy get taken down you know you have to be good at a certain good degree in all these things so that's why i have to be like it's like hussein usain bolt would be would win the 100 meters but in a decathlon you're not going to beat the high jump or the so you have to be you can't just be good at one thing you have to be good at multiple things and that's why yet again being an athlete like i was where i was good at sports not the best at all sports but i was degree okay that's why i thought i thrived in this sport.

34:46And also I kind of think mentally, I was quite a mentally tough person since the 16-year-old switch. Mentally tough person. And I think the mental side of sports is the biggest thing that people overlook. You have to have, no matter how good you are, if you don't have the right mindset, you're not going to succeed. You have to have the right mindset to be able to endure. Things can't always be your way. I've seen so many fighters who are so good in the gym, so good in the gym, and go to a fight and just be like, what is going on with this guy? And I've seen the polar opposite. I've seen guys who are not that great in the gym go and fight.

35:28And I'm like, who's that guy? Because when it's real, you either fight or flight. You have to do one of those two. And some people really rise to those occasions and some people crumble. One of the fights you had in the WBC was with Demetrius Johnson, who's arguably one of the greatest of all time. True. And you beat him. Yes. And I was watching it yesterday, you beat him with wrestling. Yeah. Which is going to be unheard of, like English guy coming in, wrestling the American. How, for maybe for people who are looking to learn a total new alien skill, how did you get yourself into wrestling and make sure you learn it enough to beat someone like that?

36:09for one that was quite yeah it was quite a big thing for me to really out wrestle Mighty Mouse but I didn't out wrestle him as in wrestling I out how I explain this MMA is his own sport right so if I had a wrestling match with Demetrius it would have beat me 100 % but wrestling for MMA is completely different striking for MMA is completely different grappling for MMA is different don't get me wrong a lot of things translate if you're a black bone jiu-jitsu you course you're good on the floor but when it's mma and like a punch in the face while you're doing stuff it changes the goalposts yeah again in mma wrestling wise you wrestle at such a low stance and your hands are around your legs to protect your legs if you did that in a fight you're punching in the head you know so your hands gotta be up here so now your hands are up here i could get on your legs more so i'm throwing punches your hands come up, I can get in on your legs.

37:06Also, if your front punches at me, I could level change, time your level change. So for me, wrestling, I was very good at wrestling for MMA. I learned how to wrestle for MMA, and I've become very good at wrestling in MMA. So it is completely different. Don't get me wrong, a lot of things translate. But I was good at MMA wrestling. And I also remember after that fight, I remember there was two really good fighters. Chad Mendes and Uriah Faber and they both fought on that card as well and I remember going backstage and Mike Brown who was in my corner for that fight Uriah Faber and Chad Mendes went up to him and went, oh by the way where did Pickett wrestle?

37:46He goes, he's from England, he's never wrestled in his life and they were like so shocked but yeah because it was quite a shock for me completely out of wrestling, Demetrius Johnson Wow, so what's the transition then from, you're a WBC fighter and then you're a UFC fighter how did that journey progress? For me, this is where my life became a lot easier, right? Where, because I was fighting, I was fighting in the WEC, which was the UFC for my weight class, if that makes sense. So when I say I was ranked number 10 in the world and I'm fighting number five in the world in the WEC, if I went to the UFC, it's the same people.

38:26It's exactly the same. So when people, when I used to be at home and people go, oh, when are you going to fight in the UFC? I'd be like okay right so I kind of fight in the UFC but I fight in the smaller weight classes so I fight for a show called the WC which is owned by Zufa which owns the UFC but it's where they put the smaller weight classes and they're like alright so now when it made it so much easier for me when people are do you fight in the UFC? Yes literally because the competition was the same when I was ranked number 10 or number 5 in the WC when I moved to UFC I was right number five in UFC so like it just translated the whole weight class moved into UFC so the only thing that honestly changed was the colour of my gloves and what it said on it WEC it just said UFC the competition was the same the other thing that did change was the line you obviously got way more eyes on you and stuff like that so and the purses went up getting a bonus like I said to you I got I had four fights in the WC, I hit four bonuses.

39:34Each one of them were 10 grand, right? It's still a lot of money. I went to the UFC. My first fight, I hit a bonus. I got 70 grand. So it's a big difference for hitting bonuses in the UFC to the WC. So that's the big change. Financially, an eyes on you was the only rule change. Competition was the same. You spoke earlier about the losing and the competitive nature. I guess, what is the flip on that? So, like, if you're winning and you're getting all of this money and probably fame and success, what happened to Brad and his ego throughout that process? Honestly, I was always very much a grounded person, always have, you know, like, yeah.

40:21Also, I'm also, like, a realist. Like, also, I know that I was earning great money at the time. Also, I'm not going to earn that money for the rest of my life. you know, so I have to be smart with my money, I've done the right things, I bought houses, and I've done that kind of thing, that now I'm okay and uncomfortable, but yeah, again, I'm still working now, of course I've got a job that I love, I have my own gym, I'm coaching other fighters, but I could just go sit on the beach, you know, like, one, that's not me, but I don't earn the FU sort of money where I could just do whatever I want for the rest of my life, you know, like, there's only a few people who actually do that um but yeah for me i was always brad you know i i don't think fame and money changes people it just brings them more into the limelight so if you're a dick at some point and you're more in the limelight people are gonna see you being a dick a bit more right anyone could be nice and i'm gonna be a dick but if you sometimes you're a bit more of a dick and your camera's on you all the time you're going to be caught up being a dick but if you're a nice person majority of the time you've got nothing to hide yeah so that's me I was just me I just kind of find I'm quite down to earth quite normal yeah so it didn't bother me like any line I didn't get it oh I'm Brad Pickett UFC now yeah I didn't I'd none of that and then when you reflect on your career with the UFC do you think is there anything looking back now that you wish you'd done differently or handled differently?

42:01Any situations? Not particularly, because whatever choices I made throughout my life has put me where I am here now, today, and I'm very happy with my life. A lot of people measure success in loads of different ways, like very materialistic, what car do you drive, what house do you have, that kind of stuff, what clothes you're wearing. That, for me, is very materialistic. For me, I value my life into what I have. It's my family. I have two beautiful young kids. I have a lovely wife. I've been my wife 17 years. Love her to bits. I can't wait to see her. I have a great time. We're a great unit. We're great parents to our children.

42:46People say to me, what about your kids? What do you want them to do? I do not care. I don't care if my son's the smartest person in the world or the sick as shit. or really good at sports or bad at sports. All I want to do is him to be a nice human being. That, for me, is gold. Anything else on top is a bonus. He just wanted to be a good kid, have good nature, you know, like caring. I think that will get you further in life than most things nowadays. A lot of people will tread on people on the way up. I get that. And some people see, I don't know if you've seen the Manistee and that sort of thing.

43:20You get people like that where a lot of young people think that's what I need to be. It's not. you know like being a good person can get you far in life and like surround yourself around those sort of people you know and i say i'm i'm happy with my my family and how i have a very loving family i don't i think i'm a very good dad and yeah that's what makes my think i'm one of the richest men in the world with what i actually have to this day you know don't get me wrong i say money is always important very it is money is just a tool it doesn't give you happiness but you can use it to do good things 100 if you're a good person so if i had loads of money of course i could go on nice holidays and create great experiences for my children but i also could do that without loads of money i can still do that and do great things with my kids and like you know like two kids in a really poor uh background could still have a great time with the family and do great things money but you can don't get wrong you can do better things with money um but it's not the bead or an end of uh happiness you know it's just a tool to make you happy can you talk about the competitive nature obviously always been involved in sport can you take us back to the decision to hang it up and not be an active fighter anymore this was always but this is a tough one because i i do i hate this when people go oh that guy should retire oh man he hates your retire it's such a personal thing right so it's so hard especially as an athlete in anything you do because you shine identity so most people when you're say in football or cricket or you know or even mma in most sports you retire probably 30 to 40 that's sort of age backer right then what when you're first in any other aspect you're either the CEO of a company or you were a tradesman now you have your own firm now you have other people doing the work for you you're normally established at that age so then being a fighter you go you've got to start again fuck okay now what what am I going to do you're like shit you can't work you're going to have to work for the rest of your life you know so like if you've not done things on the way up to lean back on what do you do?

45:47So like it's hard so I remember me when I was fighting I was like I'm quite transparent my life towards the end of my career I was on like 45 and 45 45 grand to show 45 grand to win so I was earning like potentially and also with sponsorships over 100 grand a fight what else am I going to do? I could earn 100 grand here just for having a fight and that's all I ever do, I'm going to do this, 100%. I'm going to do this until the wheels fall off. That's what you're going to do in your head. It's so easy for me to now say, this guy should retire. Okay, cool. What am I going to do now then? It is a hard thing to retire.

46:30But most people, when they do retire, is either through losing their job, they usually cut you or some of this, or a bad injury. Same in football. It's either a bad injury or the club releases you and you go down, right? But for me, I retired. When I retired, I got kind of really glad the way I did it. I did it on my own terms. I sort of, like I said, people are motivated. You have to be motivated to compete. People get motivated by different things. Sometimes people, it's their family. I want to fight for my family. I want to fight for money. I want to fight for fame. I want to fight for competition.

47:13I was always that one. I always was competition driven. I wanted to fight the best people in the world. I wanted to be the best. I was always that guy, trying my best to get to number one. So when I started seeing myself going down rankings, I remember I had quite a few, what I'd say, title eliminator fights in my career, and I kept on falling over at the final hurdle. and I remember obviously I had that win over Demetrius Johnson and he was at that time moved down a weight class went to flyweight and he was like this is where the class of him is to go unbeaten at flyweight it was amazing and that sort of stuff but I'm like I've got a window of that guy what if I went down a weight class I could potentially fight him and be number one in the world again and I'm like that's what I want to do so I remember when I fell over kept him falling over the hurdle at flyweight sorry I had banded away I'm like I'm going to go down in weight class and try and fight Demetrius Johnson this was just as I got married as well and like so I went on my honeymoon I was on diet I was dieting I changed my lifestyle around and for me to make Bantamweight was not easy it was a complete lifestyle change like I remember I got like a Dexter scan before before my first flyweight fight I was six weeks out before my fight I was 6.3 % body fat alright and I still had 20 pounds to lose.