JRE MMA Show #161 with Khalil Rountree Jr.

The Joe Rogan Experience by Joe Rogan Park Gas by Night All Day What's up? What's up? What's up? We're just talking about eating pigeon. So I was in Europe and I had pigeon and it's a red meat. Wait, pigeons are red meat. Yeah, it's red. And they serve it very rare. Yeah, it's red and they serve it very rare. Yeah, that way, way, way, way, way. I know. Wait, first of all, eating pigeon is just, it's different. But you're telling me that it's a red meat and they serve it rare. Yeah, it's rare.

Well, there's quite a few details. I know. That was a little stunt, too. When the guy, well, the chef basically, he brought us out food. Right. We didn't order off the menu. And when the pigeon came, that's, yeah, it looks red, man. It looks almost like you're eating a piece of steak. It's like before you prep it. This is not what I would expect it being, like, getting served this. Well, there's a bunch of different birds that have red meat. Like ostrich. Ostrich has red meat.

I didn't know that either. Yeah, I used to get ostrich burgers at Fudruckers. I think Fudruckers went under, unfortunately. You know what? I didn't have an ostrich burger at Fudruckers like years ago. Yeah, but I think about it. It's the shit. It's very good. Wow. So wait, tell me more about this. What's the word again? How do you say squab? Squab. That's what they call it. Okay, squab. But this guy just says it's like a pigeon breast. It's like pigeon breast. Yeah, it's just pigeon breast.

It's like a red meat. It does look kind of juicy on it. Like when you see a pigeon, they're pretty like. They're pretty jacks. I'd imagine it's a good thing. Well, this conversation started off air because that's what it looks like. That's the rib-by of the sky. Oh, okay. That's Sand Hill Crane. Now look at that. Doesn't that look like beef? Yeah, it looks like beef. They call them rib-byes in the sky. That's Sand Hill Cranes. Wow. That's a great.

I have never had it, but it's supposed to be insanely delicious. Wow. Yeah, they call them in Texas. That's a big one in Texas. That's interesting. Yeah. So we were talking about animals that have been modified. Like we're looking at Carl. And we're like, how crazy is it that a human over thousands of years altered by some of that, by select breeding, created that thing? It's kind of nuts. Yeah, I mean, since we're on the topic, this is kind of weird.

There was one night I was going down this crazy, like YouTube spiral. And there was some guy who was just making creations. Like he used human, he was just cross fertilizing shit. Oh, God. Yeah, it was the craziest thing ever. I don't know. I'm iris, right? I don't know what the hell you call it. He was like making these creatures and then they were like living in these jars and then it would fast forward like, you know, three weeks, four weeks and they're growing.

And one of them had this like crazy little eye. And it was the weirdest shit I've ever seen, which then led me down going on another spiral where it's like apparently there's people around the world who will like, do like breed, breed like goat mix with like fucking human. And like it's just weird, man. There's a whole other world out there. There's a whole other world out there. You know, the Russians were trying to do that in World War I or World War II, which World War was it?

So the Russians were trying to make a hybrid human slash chimpanzee. And the idea was you get a super violent psycho human and you don't have to worry about Russians dying. You got this fucking creation because Russians were dying by the millions. I mean, World War I and World War II were fucking World War I. Unbelievably brutal. So hybridization of annals is famous for controversial attempts to create a human ape hybrid by inseminating three female chimpanzees with human sperm. Yeah. It's wild.

Yeah, bro. They were trying wild shit. We're trying to make something so that they could send it off to war. Do we have, did they succeed? No, no. We don't know. That's the thing. That's the great thing. Where are these test things going? Where are the test subjects? You know, like what the hell happened? Well, listen, let's, we, I think we both agree. For sure there's a clone out there in the world, right? There has to be something right? They must have tried that.

Yeah, they've done it with sheep. They do it. You can get your dog clone. You can get Carl cloned. Yeah, let's do it. No, let's do it. If you get Carl cloned, I want, I want version two because Carl is just amazing. He's expensive clones. Yeah, Carl's, yeah, they're very expensive, right? Isn't it like, it's like 25 grand, I think. I was telling for. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, Carl's be worth some money. But I think it's, it's a lot of money, but they can do it.

But I mean, the whole dolly, the sheep thing, like when they, that was the first animal they cloned, I think there was a bunch of failed attempts. So I, you know, what is the odds that it comes out exactly like your dog? It might be all fucked up like the psychotic. It might have no soul. You don't know. Yeah, right? They may look like your dog, but who knows what kind of dog is going on. They'll be real creepy. Yeah. Fucking chew on wires and fucking.

It's like the, the, the very dark like, say, tannic version of your dog or something. Yeah, exactly. I'm a pet surgery. Yeah, dude. Yeah, you bury the pet like the pet comes back, but now that it's still kind of your pet, but now it's evil. Oh, no. No, just thinking about that, it freaks me out. But that, I think that, I don't know how I went down that spiral, but. Oh, you can go down some YouTube rabbit holes, man. Yeah, dude. I've gone down some serious YouTube rabbit holes.

Yeah. I was sent, like, four hours once researching this theory about Neanderthals that this guy, there's one dude that thought that Neanderthals, we have this idea of Neanderthals that they look just like us. Okay. And he thinks, no, he thinks they probably look more like gorillas, like, and they probably were covered in hair and they're probably able to see it night and they're probably super violent and they might have hunted us.

So he had this whole theory about like the super predator chimpanzee looking Neanderthals. That sounds interesting. Yeah, crazy. Yeah, crazy. But most likely not correct. Most people, the real anthropologists sort of study this stuff like, no, no, no, no, we know some of them had red hair. But red hair could be like orangutans, or red hair. Yeah. But they had giant eyeballs, you know, and they were just very different to us. But close enough that we're, we in a bread with them.

Yeah, I, I got to see this. I mean, like, this type of stuff is super interesting. Like, it's hard for me to get into like fantasy books and stuff like that, but like YouTube videos on like, you know, like this Neanderthal, like kind of theory or whatever. I've spent so much time just going down rabbit holes. Brain? Brain ticklers. Yeah, I don't know if it's made me a better person. It just blocks up your thought process, you're right?

It's like driving down the street and then you have to brand them thought about. Yeah. It'll make for good conversation. I always have like things that I could pull up, did you know? Yeah. Because there's always stuff in there. It's nice to have the friends that kind of are in the same little like, right? We're going to open to kind of some of the weird shit. So you can have fun conversation. And that friends would go too far. They'll call Eddie Bravo up and I'll just go, I gotta go.

He's so deep. He's so deep in the CIA, MK Ultra, like the deepest of the deep. Yeah. He's in that shit all day long. And my friend Kurt Masker, he's the worst if I call him up. Like he knows everything about every conspiracy that's ever happened. And he knows all the people that were involved and he'll start rattling things off. And he's like, oh my god, you give me an exciting. Yeah, yeah, it probably freaks you out. I can only imagine. You're like, okay, stop. Too much. Yeah, especially today.

It seems like the world could fucking explode at any moment. Oh, in any minute, dude, what the hell are we living in? This is, yeah, that's why I guess it's better to just kind of, yeah, you got to put a stop to, like, what we consume. And they're like, what information we want to, like, let into our brains because Jesus. There's a, was it Abbey Levenovich? Is that the guy that was on the podcast to talk about? He's a great phrase. He, you know, we have processed food. He's bad for you.

Multiprocess food. This is processed information. Yeah. And that's the way he described it. It's like, oh, yeah, it's like junk food for your brain. It's like, but you're eating snacks. Man. Instead of like taking in a meal. Yeah, that's so crazy. It reminds me. I don't know why I kind of off subject, but on, you know the comedian, Ronnie Chang? Yes. So he had a really, really funny, like, a part in his most recent, like, stand up bit.

And he would, he talks a lot about, like, you know, social media and just like the internet and this country, everything. But he said one thing. He's like, something about like Americans. He's like, it's very common, you know, Americans like, I'll die for my country. I'll die. How about you read a book for your country? He's like, how about that, you know? And it was, it was funny coming from the end of the tone.

But I mean, like, that's, I guess, what brought that up is like, yeah, processed information, right? We have a lot of fast, you know, info. Somebody can divvy up a video really quick and put it out there. And it's the first thing we see. So we believe it, you know, or like something can go viral. And we've seen it a bunch of times and then on to the next thing and we're getting this information.

But like, it's a lot different than like, okay, let's, let me pick up a book or like a couple things and actually read it and see if these things, you know, align in like, okay, now I can kind of formulate it like, okay, this is closer to the truth. And actually understanding the history, how these things are figured out, how this was formulated, what led to that instead of just the article or worse yet a YouTube or TikTok video. Yeah, exactly. And I think people are educated by TikTok today.

Everybody. That's a lot. I really firmly believe that it's like shifting the way people think about things in a negative direction. I really, I used to poo poo it, I used to think, ah, the algorithm, whatever. But now I'm like, oh, it's definitely, it's definitely fucking up to country. 100%. And I think China is doing it on purpose. I think it's brilliant. Yeah, I mean, I've heard that. I definitely don't have the like capacity to figure out if it's true.

Like the truth or not, but I did hear that. That's kind of crazy. Well, you know, their TikTok is very different than ours. That's what I heard. Yeah. Like it's like all like science and like positive stuff and martial art, martial art, martial art. Yeah. Science achievements and hours of just like, academics, ratchet. Yeah. Like, it's the craziest stuff. Yeah, I have more people get shot on Instagram reels. Those little, and counts, I don't even follow. Yeah. Right?

Instagram knows that I'm watching fucked up things. So they're showing me like, you know, failed card jacking attempts. All kinds of people get run over by trucks like every day. I tried to create, I created a TikTok like shortly because my wife was using it and she like, they have like shopping or something on there. So I was like, oh, let me just download it really quick. So I downloaded it.

Like after the first day, it started feeding me these like, these pages that were like homeless people in like Arizona and like California that were just like hooked on like fentanyl. And I was like, what the hell? And they get deep into their stories like some guys like interview and then like, how long you been out here? And I'm sitting here watching this and like 20 minutes goes by and I'm like, why am I depressed? Why do I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders right now?

And I realized like, holy shit, like I'm just, I'm literally here in my living room watching like drug addicts on the street just like completely waste their lives away. Meanwhile, you're living the life that they could only dream of. If you take a young guy before his life goes sideways and say, what do you want to do with it? What would you like if I could just wave a magic wand? I would like to be a badass fighting the UFC. All fucking jacked young and strong.

And then one of the top contenders up and coming. Yeah. Meanwhile, you're depressed. Yeah. Looking at people that you don't even know. Crazy dude. It's crazy. I think that's how they're doing it to us. Oh man. Because no matter where you are, there's something that you can watch that'll freak you out. That'll freak you out, bring you down. Yeah. Just like change your mindset, slow you down, whatever it is.

I was talking to Sugar Sean about that and he was saying that just scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, stuff that doesn't have anything to do with him, he goes, I just get this like mild form of anxiety. It's like mild case. I'm like, I do too. I do too. I don't know why. I think part of it for me is I know I'm wasting time. I know I should be doing other things. I'm fucking busy. Yeah. That's how I'd be watching people get shot. But why am I watching it? I can't stop.

I just keep fucking scrolling. Yeah. Especially if you're taking a shit. Oh, that's so worse, dude. I don't even know how to take a shit without my fucking fucking... I take one hour shits now because of my fucking phone. Because of my phone. It's like I can't just get in there and do the business, dude. I got to intentionally leave my phone outside to just do what I'm there to do. But if I bring my phone in there, it's a wrap.

It's a wrap because if I don't have my phone in there, I'm like Ricky Bobby and Tyler Digg and I don't know what to do with my hands. Oh my God. Where's my phone? Oh shit. When it 1% is your people taking a shit with their phone now, I want to know. 99.9. Guys, men? 100%. 100% has to be 100%. Yeah. It's how I find out half the things that are going on in my life. You know one thing that bugs a shit out of me, though?

If you're going to take shit in a public place, like for instance, like the PI, right? If I'm at the UFC PI, just got to work out whatever I got to take shit. The guy next to me, turn your fucking phone down. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Like don't blast it. I don't want to hear what you're listening to. I'm trying to watch my, I'm trying to watch my shit. There you go. Yeah. Don't make me go into a blue tooth earpods. Don't make me fucking listen to it. That's what you know you're a degenerate.

When you put your earpods in, when you take it to shit, that's what you got to real problem. You've, you've, you've gone. You've gone too far down the rabbit hole. Have you fucked around with any of that AR stuff, those goggles? Augmented reality. Yeah. Only like the, the meta quest. I haven't tried the Apple Vision Pro yet. The meta quest, though. Because I know as soon as I try the Vision Pro, it's over. I'm going to be wearing those things like, fuck.

Because when the meta quest came out, like when I first had it, like, you're going to get me off the thing. It's incredible. It's incredible. Like look around, playing these games, taking off, like, oh my. Wow. Exilarating. Yeah, I know if I, if I were to get the, the Apple Vision Pro would be over because there's just so many cool things. What did I see recently? There was something that they were using, AI. This one was talking to her deceased daughter.

Her daughter, young daughter died and AI had recreated her daughter and with, with these goggles on, these VR goggles, she was having a conversation with her daughter. I was like, I like vaguely remember seeing something like that. Brand new, but I think it's this. Oh, yeah, this is it. This is so crazy. This is so crazy. Yeah. I mean, seeing her deceased daughter and trying to touch her. Oh my God. This is like what we were talking about about the phone, right?

Like just putting ourselves through like this depression and stuff like, dude, this is crazy. This is like, this, she can't even touch her. So she's like reaching out like she wants to touch her. Yeah, and she's crying. Look at that. Oh my God. She's just, well, the glove she has, she probably can feel something. Yeah, probably. So how they're showing it to the viewer. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh man. Look at that.

Oh my God. I mean, it probably, maybe a version of it that feels good to her, you know, but like, this could be, oh God. This could be pretty bad. God, that's so sad. Oh my God. Man, we're so close to the matrix. We're so close. We're in the matrix, dude. I think we might be, you know, Michael Ballas was saying it yesterday. He thinks it is a simulation. Elon said the chances of it not being a simulation are one in billions. Yeah, he thinks it's 100% a simulation.

I, there's too many things that, that, there's too many coincidences, right? Like even, I might sound like an idiot for saying something like, like, I mean, think about this, a normal thing, bro. I mean, think about like stuff like the Simpsons, dude. Right. Like, you see those like Simpsons theories and shows like, come on. Like, this is too accurate. Yeah, they called everything. Like, this is years ago, you know, like these episodes came out years ago.

How are things like this aligning or like, how are these, you know, matching? It's just, it's weird. It is really weird. It's really weird. It's weird and why is, why is us being in a simulation any stranger than reality itself? Just the universe itself. Just the fact that we are one planet of nine in this one solar system that is one of hundreds of billions of solar systems in this galaxy and that this galaxy is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe.

The whole thing is so crazy. The idea that we're in some sort of a program. Why is that more crazy? Like everything about us is crazy. Subatomic particles are crazy. I mean, the way our body is designed is crazy. The fact that you can make a car all out of a wolf is fucking crazy. All of it's crazy.

Yeah. I mean, even listening to you right now, as you were kind of breaking down how pretty much insignificant we are, I just kind of like everything started zero and then I was like, oh no, get out of this time. No, but you are significant and insignificant at the same time. I don't think we're invaluable. I don't buy the thing like, the people that are like really dark about it all and like, oh, life is meaningless. It's like, no, I don't think that's true.

No, I don't think that's meaningless at all. No. Like you said, there's an equal like significance and significance. Like when you look at the grand scheme of things, you zoom out, we're tiny. You can't even see us, you know, if you're from an airplane, you look down, you can't even see the humans, right? So that makes us feel a little bit small, but like, I don't know, something about us inside how we feel, how we perceive things, the power that we have in numbers, right?

Like the intelligence that we have to create things like AI and laser beams and all this stuff. Like, I mean, that's pretty insignificant. We're very significant. We're just a part of the whole thing. The whole thing is just infinitely massive and we think of ourselves as small because we're just one piece of it. But we're like, I think we're a critical piece of it. And I think what we are is like the pervaders of creativity.

And I think creativity is like a thing that's in the universe that forces intelligent animals to make things. And I think we're like a antenna of this creativity. And then we put it out there. And then eventually we're going to leave this planet. We're going to go to other planets and colonize and put that stuff out there in the world. And probably not even in the form that we, you and I are in right now. Yeah. It'll probably some hybrid form. Some hybrid form. Some cyborg form.

And that's an episode I forgot the gentleman's name. Man, super, super intelligent guy, older guy. And he was talking about the different forms of like civilization. Civilization. Yeah. Yes. How interesting was that? Yeah. Do you know about Dyson's fears? No. So they believe, this is just a theory. But they believe that when a civilization reaches an incredible level of technological proficiency, they're going to be able to develop these enormous structures that capture all the energy of a star.

Okay. So literally surround the star with this structure. And they think they might have detected these structures in the universe now. These structures are just theoretical. Okay. So, I think they're going to have a lot of different structures. But they believe through, there's a thing called the James Webb telescope, you know, about that. So this most powerful of space telescopes is now, they're getting information that they think might indicate that these things could be a Dyson's fear.

So you can find anything about that. Huh. So, what is this? So right here in our galaxy, what is that just a tic-tac? See if there's an article. Dyson's fear candidates, look at that. Go up to the one that says candidates. Yeah. So this is from May. So they found these things amongst, I don't know how they detect why they think this is a Dyson's fear.

But if it just makes sense that if civilization can go from being hunter-gatherers to being people that fly in airplanes and look at VR and enter into the matrix, like we're clearly doing, that if you just keep that going a thousand years, a million years, you're going to get to some insane level of technological ability. You have to. Yeah. Like, you absolutely have to.

So maybe we are just like kind of in the beginning stages of like, you know, maybe there's humans elsewhere in the galaxies far, far, far, far away. Like some star wars type shit, right? And we just haven't gotten there yet, but we're close. I mean, we're seeing how close we're getting with everything. That's what Terrence Howard had. Terrence Howard had a crazy theory about it. I have to watch that when I've seen little clips, but I've got a. They're both good.

The first one's great because he just goes kooky. And then the second one's great because Eric Weinstein, who's like a legitimate genius from Harvard, sort of settles him down and explains what's incorrect and what's, what is correct and some of the stuff is very correct and some of the stuff is really fascinating. Terrence is clearly a genius, but he's like self-taught. And sometimes when you don't have peers correcting you and you've got to have that.

Yeah, you have to have actual, it's like a martial artist like I got this move, bro. Yeah. And like try this shit on me. Right? It's kind of like it works in the streets. It works on everybody. It's like now try it on me. Like, but Terrence has this brilliant idea about that what happens is you have a star. And then the particles that eject from the star are what creates these planets.

And when the planets get to a certain distance from the star, when they develop that Goldilog Zone, he goes, they eventually develop people. And he thinks it's like peopleing. It's like when you see like crops growing. Oh, it's the time of the year. The rain and the soil. Crops are growing. And they'll, oh, they're far away from the sun. They're peopleing. They're making people.

And this is what happens and then as this, as time passes in this society, if it survives, doesn't kill itself gets further and further from the sun, it has to develop the technological ability to keep the planet hospitable. And then it goes even past that to the point where they develop these things like Dyson's fears and then develop the ability to manipulate their environment, create black holes. They develop the ability essentially to create new universe.

Yeah. And ultimately over hundreds of millions of years or whatever it takes. So he explained this and then someone you said stepped in and kind of like, no, that night, that he didn't correct. Oh, that's just a theory. And it's a fascinating theory. And it turns out it has a lot of like really interesting ideas, but that was one of the most interesting ones.

So that like every solar system, the reason why we see it here and the reason why when they look at the like the web telescope is found a bunch of these plants are in the Goldilog Zone. And he thinks that this is just a normal occurrence that these planets, they as time goes on, our planet is getting further from the sun. And eventually the sun will burn out. But as time goes on, as our planet gets further and further from the sun, it's not going to be hospitable anymore.

It's going to get to a point where it's like Mars. And Mars at one point in time was hospitable. Mars, they think Mars had water on it. Mars might have even had life on it. We don't know, but it could be billions and billions of years ago. Wow. So this theory is pretty wild that like all this stuff is just basically particles that eject from the sun and that eventually coalesce and form a sphere and form a planet.

And initially these planets are like very close to the sun and they're you know insanely hot. But as they get further and further out, they reach that Goldilog Zone and that's when they start developing life. And then ultimately develop a very highly intelligent form of life. Wow. Yeah. And then the very like came from I think that's Terrence's theory. Oh. Terrence has 97 patents. What does that mean?

I don't know because apparently people that have explained it to me say you can actually just file patents and the people that are working in the office, they're not sophisticated and know enough to know, especially in various disciplines as to whether or not what you're saying is real or actionable. It's like is this something that you could really have a patent for? But they'll let you file for the patent. Okay. So that's what it's like.

Yeah. Wow. But the idea that every solar system eventually has a planet that gets to that spot where it's just enough so it gets water just enough so it has like all of the things that's necessary for life. And then if you want to get really crazy, then you think that the planets that are further and further out that have the super intelligent ultra advanced species. What they do is they come back and they help us. They come back and then fucking pick up the pays boys. You know what I mean?

Like they give us a little crash UFO here and there. They give us a little this. Give us a little that. Maybe even manipulate us. That's the ultimate theory. The ultimate theory. I mean that sounds kind of cool. Right. Well, it's almost like Carl. Just like Carl. Yeah. It looks very different than a fucking wolf. Right. We look very different from all the people on the planet. Like there's so many varieties of humans.

Yeah. We're very similar to dogs in that regard and that we can all breed with each other. But yet we look very different. So you can take like a golden retriever and they breed them with a poodle or a laboratory you make a labrador. Yeah. You know, but they're still dogs, right? But they look very, very different. Right. Well, that's only dogs that are like that, right? Like fish, bass all look like bass. Yeah. Zebras look like zebras. There's something about us that's fucking real weird.

And you get attributed to climate and different environments that grow and some of those changes have to have taken place from that too for sure. But if you buy into all this alunaki crazy shit, the reason why we are so different than all the other primates is because they introduced their DNA to us. Yes. To like the he created us and created us out of lower hominids. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Which is so fun. Super cool. It's fun to think if it's true.

I've looked at some of that stuff a little bit before, but I didn't know how myself to get too deep. Yeah. You can get deep on that. But yeah, definitely an interesting perspective and like way to like kind of break down humanity in a way. Well, we are a mystery. You know, we are the ones who've created this theory of evolution and the fossil record and all those things. But the thing that created it is the biggest mystery, the human brain.

The human brain doubled in size over a period of two million years and apparently it's the biggest mystery in the entire fossil record. They have no idea what happened. Is it still growing or probably probably probably just growing slow. You know, another two million years now might double again. Yeah, I wonder if there's any record of like, I don't know, maybe just the slightest, you know, record of like, okay, it's growing. It's right. You don't wonder.

For 500 years ago, now has there been any increase in? You have to get like the average brain size of everybody today. Like how far back do we have really good records of brain size, you know? Yeah. Got to go back to like Kennedy's estimation. Probably nothing, nothing earlier than that. I mean, I'm sure there's an anatomy records that go further than that. I mean, probably, you know, maybe the 30s or the 40s. Like when did they start studying the size and weights of human brains? I wonder.

I wouldn't know. But it makes actually, I'm making notes right now. Terence Howard, like, I got to look into this guy more. All I know is just like Terence is fast. You know, he's acting. Well, he's a great actor. Yeah, super great. He's a great actor, but I mean, I think he's even more interesting as a thinker. But the way he responded, I think, showed a lot of character, the way he responded to Eric Weinstein correcting him on stuff.

Because he didn't, you know, he kind of tried to argue his point, but he didn't get upset. He didn't get emotional about it. He didn't get attached to his ideas. It was, it was, it showed he's a brilliant guy that doesn't have all of the information, but he's brilliant. But there's a giant difference between being a brilliant person and being a person that has information. There's a lot of brilliant people that don't have any information.

Yeah. You know, which is why like there's, there's people like I firmly believe that to be great athletics, it takes a kind of intelligence. And you're not measuring it in an IQ, but to pretend that someone is like a Wayne Gretzky. There's not some kind of a genius, you know, or a federal or, or an elite MMA fighter. You have to be a kind of a genius.

Yeah. Because you're navigating this most difficult of world with micro second decisions get made, training, instinct, discipline, the will to carve out this existence. And all those things, it have to have a fucking truly, truly exceptional mind to be able to do those things. I agree. 100%.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody that's doing things that just like a really high level or like they're doing things differently or they're like the number one, two and three in there in anything and anything. Yeah. There's definitely a level of. If you're focusing at physics, we'll everybody thinks you're a genius. But if you're focusing on hockey, people don't think you're a genius. Or if you're focusing on chess, maybe people think you're a genius.

But if you're focusing on jujitsu, maybe they don't think you're a genius. Yeah. And it's kind of interesting. Yeah. But I think they're all geniuses. I think for sure. I think every one of those people, if they had the physical capability, because obviously some people unfortunately have terrible genetics and they're just never going to be an elite athlete. But if you have the physical ability, that's only like a little tiny piece of it.

The real piece is the mental part of navigating, not just the training, but the improving and then the ability to execute, under pressure. Yeah. You've got to have the mental side to even drive the physical side, right? You can be a physical specimen. How I'm built, right? But I know nothing about football. So it's not like I can just, I have to develop some type of brilliance or some type of training. You have to train. I have to think. I have to do all these things.

Like you look like you can play football. That's what I'm saying. I look like I can play football, but my mind's not wired that way. Right. So I'm just going to do a lot to make that happen. And then obviously there's a lot of football players that look like a beast. But if you get them in the cage, they have no idea what to do. No fan, dude. They have a throw upon you. We've seen it. It's so crazy. We've seen it.

Guys that like, you know, they're bad asses, but there's a difference between being a bad ass versus a train fighter. Yes. It's just a whole different world. Yeah. And it requires not just physical work. It requires a kind of brilliance. But just because Terrence doesn't have that information, he's a brilliant guy. If he had that information, he'd be even more brilliant. He'd be more relatable to all these other brilliant people. That's really interesting, man.

I want to look into Terrence Howard more, actually. Like this is fun. Yeah. I like this. I like to, I want to explore like the side that you're explaining to me. I would have never really known, but I'd like to be inspired by that. I'd like to, you know, just hear this guy out. Well, I had a reporter tell me about him years ago, and then I watched some YouTube videos of him. And one of them, he was at Oxford talking to them about mathematics. See, like, that's so cool. What the hell?

Yeah, what the hell? Crazy. The whole thing was crazy. But it's just, there's, you know, we should be inspired. There's a lot of interesting people out there in this world. Yeah. A lot of people that have some really great ways of looking at things and inspiring stories. You know, when you think about like what they've done and how they've done it, it really fuels us all. It's one of the reasons why we like sports when we're not even participating in it. Because it's so inspirational.

Yeah. You know, if you watch a great fight and someone wins, you're like, oh my God, that was incredible. You leave, you're like energized. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or magic shows. Comedy shows. Yeah, honestly, dude, honestly. Pretty much anything. Yeah, yeah, anything that, yeah, requires that stuff. Yeah, you get, you get energy from it. You really do. There's a type of energy that we humans get from each other.

And I think that kind of energy that we get from each other doing things, that also, it's beneficial to us like evolutionarily. Because I think it promotes more work and promotes things getting done. It actually fuels things getting done. So like similar to like the, are you watching the Olympics right now at all? Bro, I watched that fucking transgender woman boxer, boxer female boxer. I'm like, what the fuck are you people doing? What? Actually, I haven't seen much, every bar or whatever.

Anything that has a television right now, I've been traveling. So I see like, Olympics is on everywhere, right? But one thing that I've noticed, it's like, it's so weird. It seems like the Hunger Games. You know, like, I was saying, he's like crazy out there. And just like, all you know, this is like, extravagant thing. I'm like, this is the Olympics now. Like, why is this? It's so different now than it, than what I remember it being. The Olympics is a giant scam.

There's two things going on simultaneously. Okay. You have the best athletes in the world participating in their disciplines. That's happening. And then on top of that, you have enormous amounts of money being made and none of it's going to the athletes. It is a giant scam. So the kind of people that are putting together that ridiculous opening ceremony, we've got a bunch of drag queens in the last supper and all that. Yeah, well, I didn't understand that. Nobody understands it.

Yeah. Because it's not made by athletes. It's not made by the Olympics. It's made by the people that are in charge of putting the Olympics out. So they're the ones who are reaping all the money and sucking all the cash out of these athletes. Got it. Not only do they do that, but then they go to places like Brazil. And so if it's going to be in Brazil, they build this fucking enormous place for it to participate in to all the different arenas or different things. And then after that, nothing.

So then all the people there who are poor are like, hey, where the fuck did this money come from? And why didn't you just spend it on the community? Why did you do this? Why did you do this for volleyball? Is volleyball that fucking important? You didn't use that money to help people? Yeah, that's bizarre. That sucks. The money they make is astronomical. The Olympics makes billions and billions of money in television revenue and advertising revenue. And they don't give any of it to the athletes.

So it just goes to the Olympic Committee. They just ballin. Wow. And these are the crazy people that are putting on the last supper with transexuals. That's what they're doing. Was it the last supper? Yeah. I saw it was something that like, it was something like some Greek nonsense. They tried to say that after the fact. The lady who was playing Jesus literally said she was Olympic Jesus. She was joking around about being Olympic Jesus. Because she was in the same position.

Jesus was in the last supper. She had the halo behind her head. It was there being artsy. They're being fun. But it's not the place for it. Yeah. It's pushing this weird agenda in this place where people are already getting fucked over. The whole Olympics is just people getting fucked over. Yeah. I mean, if you're the best athletes in the world representing your country at the highest level, possibly humanly possible. For one, yeah, you should be getting compensated. Oh, shit.

You know what I mean? You should be getting compensated. Yeah. And yeah, I think that there should be something that's more focused on the extravagance of like this moment of like the athletes waiting so long to be able to do this. And yeah, it should be more athlete focused for sure. Yeah, they just. And not so much like a show or like this. They let some wacky dude get a hold of the fucking the reins. And he decided to do this. And that's what it was. It's literally what it is.

It's literally what it is. And he just decided to have a guy in a beard. This is true. This is the actual person that put it together. That is who he is. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I didn't know who the guy is. I mean, we don't need to name him, but he's just getting enough hate as it is. But the whole thing is fucking completely insane. But my point is the whole Olympics are insane. They're robbing people. They're robbing the athletes. No one is tuning in.

There's not billions of people all over the world tuning in just to see a bunch of transsexuals pretend to be Jesus in the disciples. That's not why they're tuning in. They're tuning in to see who's going to win the 100 meter dash. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's going to win this? Who's going to win that? Who's going to win the sprints? Who's going to win whatever the fucking event is? Who's going to win boxing? That's what people are tuning in.

And those people that have dedicated their entire lives to wrestle the Olympic Games. They're not getting a fucking scratch of that. That's so crazy. It's nuts. Oh, man. So it's nuts. And there's nothing to do about like nobody can do anything about that. It's just pure K. Well, at one point in time, there was probably no money in the Olympics because there was no television. Right?

Yeah. So at one point in time, the Olympics was just about the best athletes in the world competing against the other athletes, the best athletes in the world. It was for national pride. You know, you bring a gold medal. You have a fucking parade when you get back home. It was great. And it was probably very, I don't know what the original, like the one where Hitler was in the 1936 Olympics and he's fucking jacked up on math and he's rocking back and forth. You see that one? No, dude.

You're putting me on so much game. I love this, bro. You're putting me on so much. Yeah, I got a guy coming on tomorrow to actually talk about drugs in the Nazis. Like all the crazy drugs that they were doing. They had to be on drugs. All kinds of stuff. For sure. They were getting free drugs. Yeah. They were doing free drugs. And there was no just saying no back then. Everybody's like, what does this do? It keeps you up for days. Let's go. Fuck yeah.

So Hitler at the Munich Olympics is like, he's on math and he's rocking back and forth. He's just amphetamine out of his fucking mind. Just coked up. Just rocking back and forth where everybody's watched the Olympics. Show it to him, Jamie. Yeah, we need to see this. We played this like, oh my god. We're gonna rock it, dude. Look at him going. He's going. What a maniac. That dude ruined that. That dude ruined that. He ruined that mustache forever. Yeah. You don't just rocking back and forth.

But back then, how many sports were in it? Was that 36? 1936 or 38? 36. How many sports were in the 1936 Munich Olympics? Because now there's homes. There's everything. Everything. And rhythmic gymnastics. Sometimes shooting. Yeah, there's decathalons. I don't know when it started, but there's only a certain number of events. So if they put a new one in, they got to take something out. Oh, really? That's why I lost wrestling a few years ago.

Everybody got mad because they added skateboarding or surfing or something like that. Is that always from the case? From the beginning? I mean, not since there's only like 10 games to start with. How many events were in the 1936 Olympics, though? Because I know they may have might have put a cap on them in the future. I don't know if they had a cap on it back then.

My point is back then, like in the Jesse Owens days, when Muhammad Ali won the gold medal, like those guys weren't doing that for money. For Ali, it was like a way that he could transfer into professional boxing and with Meljuk Taylor and Pranel Whitaker. Those guys got fast track. Mark Breeland, all the Evander Holyfield, all those guys who met him. They had venues for the events they had. So they had a lot of stuff, but not as much as they have now. I don't know. A wonder.

See if you can find how many more events are there in 2024 than there were in 1936. We'll see if they say that. But the point is like everybody who did the Olympics before television, they just did it for national pride, just like winning the national wrestling. Of course, you do it just for the glory of it. 32 sports, 32 sports, including 28 core Olympic sports contested in 2016 to 2020. And then what did it used to be in like 1936? 1929 events. 25 disciplines. So it's slightly less.

Got to love the AI overview, right? Just quit instantly, get all the things. All the things. The Olympics were often considered controversial because they were held to showcase a third rike in Adolf Hitler's theories of Aryan supremacy. All jacked up on co-fuckin' bad. Oh my god. What a fucking maniac. Wow. Nuts. So back, my point is, so back then there was no television revenue. There was no one was making billions and billions and billions of dollars.

So the Olympics started with a very pure intention, the pure intention of just winning, being the best. Be the best for me country. But somewhere along the line, it became this fucking enormous business and the athletes never got cut in. And no one's ever spoken up about it, have they? What do they do? They don't have any power. No one has any power. Yeah, that's true. I mean, the TV networks don't want to change. They're like, shut the fuck up. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. This is getting us views.

They're just stealing money. Imagine if that was the case with the NBA or the NFL or UFC. Imagine if the athletes got zero money and everybody else is driving around and rolls voices and living in the hands. Oh, it's crazy. It'd be super crazy. Yeah, you guys are fighting for glory. Yeah, not. It's not about money. You represent your country. We've done studies and it shows that when people fight for money, they don't fight that hard. Yeah. So what? That's the Olympics.

They're boxing for zero dollars. They're punching each other in the face as hard as they can for zero dollars. For a goal. And this woman today got punched in the face by a man. Damn. Yeah. They let a transit. There's apparently two, at least two, transgender boxers that are fighting in women's boxing. What the fuck? I don't understand. You can't understand because you're not retarded. That's something wrong with you to understand. Do you think that that makes sense?

All you have to do is say you're a woman, but you're not though. I say I'm a werewolf, but when the moon comes out, I stay a person. Yeah, I mean, I want to understand the, the, like, from their part, their reasoning. This year a nice guy. You want to think that there's some part of this, like there's probably some sort of a reason of, oh, if they explain it to me, like, oh, I see your perspective. Yeah, I want to see the perspective. There's no perspective. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist.

Because that perspective would gray the line to like, well, why not just let all men compete in women's sports? Well, men would dominate. And that's why you have Title IX. There's a reason why men in women's sports are separated. Because it's not fair. Yeah, it's not fair. There's a reason why the UFC has weight classes. You're not fighting brand of marina. Yeah, sure. Because it's not fair, right? All these things are put in place to make things as fair as possible.

Weight classes, gender distinction. Other classes, they're not transgender. What are you talking about? That's what this says. They may be intersex. Wait a minute. Is this today? This is about them, yeah. July 30th. July 30th. It's today. But there is an athlete that they were saying was a male athlete that was compete, Riley Gaines posted it on her Instagram. It says they failed test that came back. Testosterone test. Elevated testosterone. What does that mean? So they took testosterone.

Is it exogenous to why they're calling this person transgender? Are they female to male? Like they're trying to transition a male? Is that what they're saying? I don't know. What? Okay. What article is this? Out sports. Out sports. What is out sports? I'm going somewhere else. But hold on. What is out sports? What is that? What is the probably LGBT? Yeah, it's LVGTP. Yeah. It is. So this might be biased. Google transgender boxer. And what is it saying?

I think they're saying that the big trans boxer started it. They were fighting Paris. That means events. But here it says this is the person. Algeria's in name. I don't know. I don't know. Say that. And Taiwan's Ling Yu Ting were disqualified from that. God. It's pop-ups. Qualified from last year's Women's World Boxing Championships after failing gender eligibility tests. Okay. That means they're transgender, Jamie. That out sports is a biased website. It's unfortunately.

It's kind of propaganda about this kind of stuff. All right. Scroll it up. Scroll it up again. So it says, yeah, the person that has the XY chromosome, the boxer's chromosome text came back as XY. So that's a male. It says it's a legend. Well, at the time of the disqualifications, based on DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to trick their colleges into posing as women.

The association's president, Umar Kremlev, told Russia's task new agency at the time, according to the results of the test, it was proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from competition. So I don't think out sports is being honest about this particular thing because there's outrage all over the place about this one particular person that they're talking there that did test for an XY chromosome. That's a man.

I know it sounds horrible to misgender someone and all that good stuff. All that's great until you want to fight women or even compete against women. Let's just cut the shit. Yeah. Yeah. When it comes to competition, I guess, yeah, there's a level of like, it's just unfair or it can be, you know, also we're denying sandbagging, right? Yeah. We both know what sandbagging is. Sandbagging has always happened. You would get it in all sports.

I remember when I was a kid, there was a kid that we were in a little league baseball and there was a kid that was 15, he was trying to save 13, this motherfucker threw he. He threw the heat. He had a crazy fastball and everybody's like, how old is this fucking kid? Little league throwing like 80 to 89. Oh, trans boxer, hergy back, y'all, and don, back, and don, aims for gold medal. This is also from out sports, though. So, okay. So this one they're being honest about.

Right, but they're not being honest about that other one. Compete's in the, as he competes in the women's boxing division. Wait a minute. What does that mean? That's right. Why are they saying he then? I, this was the other way. See, they're saying himself in his nation. So, this is a trans female to male competing in women's boxing. Because they're saying him. So, out would not be calling this person a male if this person identified as female, but they're competing in women's boxing.

So, that just means they're juicing up. They're just cyborg, cyborg-ing their way to the thing. He proudly proclaims he's never taking testosterone on the social media accounts. Okay, so he just says that he's a man? So he's transgendered just by saying it. He's not doing any hormone replacement therapy. Knowing his strong stance against discrimination he faced during competition. So, this is just a woman that says they're a man and competes with women. That's different. That's very different.

Especially if this person's not taking testosterone. That's very different. But the other one has X, Y, chromosome. That's a boy. Congratulations. That's a lot. That's a lot to take in. That's a lot for my brain to even process. Well, it shouldn't be about ideology. It should be about biology. You should have biologists determine whether or not someone's male or female. It shouldn't be like you just decide. This article was nonsense, too. Because you're saying he competes in women's boxing.

Well, why? Why would he compete in women's boxing? If he thinks he's a man, go compete with the men. Yeah, it's sad. What I mean by that, it's sad because in today's times, it's hard to stay politically correct. Right. It's impossible. Even now, I'm like, how do I... How do I even talk about this? I know. You get what I mean without getting completely... I don't know what to say. I don't know what... But that's the trick.

The trick is getting you so confused by it all that you can't even discuss it. And then you just sort of allow it to happen. And you go, well, how's Tom me? What am I going to do? Yeah. Yeah. What are you chewing on? This is... Try these. That's Lucy's. That's a breaker. Breaker. Those are good. Yeah, you like... Ooh, it's good, man. The espresso is good. You'll like it. Breaker. Yeah, this is a little... Crack it. It has a nice flavor. Yeah. Wow. It's delicious. Not bad, right?

Wow. Okay. Yeah. Probably banned from the Olympics. I wonder if Nick Teensban, so speaking of which, we should probably get to your whole story. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. So, you were slated to fight... It was Jamal Hill, right? Yeah. And which was a bit of a huge fight for you and for him. And explain the story. Explain in your words what happened. Okay. Yeah. So, I was scheduled to fight Jamal Hill, co-main event at UFC 303.

At the time, it was Lynn Connor was still, you know, going to fight Chandler. So in preparation, leading up to that fight, I was... How do I even say this? I was working with a company who I like outsourced, like to take care of my supplements and stuff, like, hey, you know, I don't have the time to necessarily like pick what's right for me. But these guys, I trusted them. They promised me. And they did your blood work. They did everything. Yeah. Blood work, everything.

Like, you know, I trusted them. I've taken their stuff before, past drug tests before. So there was nothing for me to, you know, worry about. And then I, it was brought to my attention from the owner of the company. He was visiting my house and pointed out something that I was taking and shouldn't have been. But it was sent to me from their company. They mentioned, you know, they sent a letter to the UFC. As soon as I took it, I had to... I mean, I called the UFC, and I was like freaked out.

I was like, what the hell? I didn't know. So this stuff that you were taking was a part of like, it was a stack of things. It was like... So let me, I want to get this like, I want to get this correct, you know, like, because this is the first time that I'm, you know, speaking about this publicly. So the most simple way that I can put it is I was outsourcing my supplements. I was sent a blended supplement that I was not told that I should not take.

And the company knew that I'm a UFC fighter, that I'm under drug testing protocol, like all this stuff. So they knew that. And someone from their company sent me something that I shouldn't have taken. And there was no like, heads up, hey, this, no, no, no, no, it just came. And I continued to take my supplements as I'd been doing. And then when it was brought to my attention, like, hey, you shouldn't be taking this. That's when I immediately alerted the UFC. And like, hey, this is DHA. DHA.

Correct. And it wasn't even, it was in a blended supplement. So DHA was inside of a vitamin type supplement that they sent me. And we should also point out DHA is not even performance in answering. So it's not like you could get any kind of an advantage. It would help your health. It's kind of stupid that it's illegal. Yeah. I mean, there's like, when I looked at stuff from like the WADA list on why they banned it, it just doesn't really make any sense, you know?

And for it to have any type of performance enhancing benefits, I'd have to take it for a long time and a lot of it. And it still wouldn't even probably do anything, you know? Yeah, it's not a steroid to point this. It's not like some crazy shit that you take and also like EPO or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I don't understand if you told them that this was an accident, giving, given the understanding that this is not performance enhancing, why did they suspend you?

Okay. So UFC, which is awesome. They've been so helpful, man. Like Donna and Jeff and even Hunter, like, so grateful for them. But they had to suspend me. They gave me a two month suspension because my test did come back positive. As soon as I told them, hey, I just tested on May 4th. So I haven't gotten the results back yet. But this is what I just found out I've been taking. So it's probably going to come up on this test. So keep a look out. You're like, keep your eye out.

So then they're like, okay, where they like expedited my test. They called it like, hey, we need this test back immediately because I was booked to fight. And so I'm obviously, this is like, I'm panicking, dude, I'm like, fuck, like everything is, could go down and I fucking didn't do anything. You know, right? Right. Right. Now, the biggest moment of my life that I've been preparing for is, is in jeopardy. So UFC expedited the test. They come back and Donna calls me. She's like, okay.

Okay. Exactly, excuse me. Exactly what you stated did show up on the test. So we have to issue you some type of suspension for a failed drug test. So they just gave me two months. But that's completely separate from the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Oh, yeah. So that's what I'm in now. That's the situation. So what are they trying to do? So I'm still suspended under Nevada State, but they still haven't given me the time yet specifically. So yet today was supposed to be another hearing.

But as far as I know right now, it's going to be somewhere nine months or more. Jesus Christ. Yes. For DHA. For DHA and crazy. That's so crazy. So UFC is they're trying to help. And we're trying to get this like, come on guys. I'm being penalized for reporting. Self reporting. Self reporting something that's not even my fault. Right. I didn't intentionally do this. It's just it's a really, really rough time right now, Joe.

It's hard for me to really kind of like keep it together, especially like you were saying. Like I was scheduled to fight Jamal. And like, I'm at a point in my career right now where man, I felt like I feel like I'm really damn close. But now I don't know what the hell is going on because I'm being held up by all of this stuff. Yeah, you are really damn close. You're really, really close. And every time we see you, you look better.

I was really looking forward to that fight because I think that would be that's a giant test. You know, Jamal's a former champion. Yes. And he's going to be angry coming off of that loss to Perreira. Yes. Man. Yeah. So you're in Limbo right now. I'm in Limbo, dude. It's in how many months ago was 303? 303 was, what was it, mate? Mate. Mate? Mate. Okay. So here we're in July. And so you still haven't answered yet. And if it's nine months, would it be nine months from the day?

Nine months from the day. So you could maybe do December card? No. Nine months from the day of a positive test. I think that comes out, I think that comes out to February. Oh, wow. Okay. I broke to November. Okay. Yeah. Like February. So I wouldn't be able to fight until next year. God damn it. Yeah, dude. And so like, then you're so close and this so close, heated up division, heated up division, things are moving. You know, guys are fighting.

Dude, I mean, like even to not fight this long, I mean, I don't think people have, or it does so much for me, financially. Like, you know what I mean, dude, I got mortgage. Like, shit, it's been such a huge thing on them. Also momentum. Momentum. Yeah, not fighting. I mean, and you're in your prime right now. Yeah, dude. That's, I, when I even think about it, like it, it brings up so many different emotions, you know, like I do my best to work through them.

And I've been training my ass off, you know, like I've, I've tried to do everything that I can in this time to just stay prepared and just even know, even if I know that I'm going to be fighting next year or something like that, like I'm just like, okay, I don't, I have to, I have to stay strong. I have to keep progressing. Right. I have to continue to be better every time. Yeah, you know, every fight. Well, you were after the Anthony Smith fight, you just, you're so hot right now.

I mean, it's like on that level where like this guy might break through and become champion. You're in that range, you know? Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's where I'm headed. Like, I'm so focused on whatever it takes to get to that championship. And that Jamal hill fight was like the way that I was looking at, okay, this is my way to prove that I'm ready. Yeah. I mean, hopefully that fight can get rescheduled, you know, because my biggest focus right now is, I mean, I want to fight Alex, man.

I just, I know that that's going to be a great fight that everyone is going to love. Yeah. And I know that it's a struggle to like. Yes. And I know that I have to, you know, like, yeah, I've got to fight Jamal and maybe that one, maybe like if that happens first, then that'll still keep me in that position of like talks of like, okay, then now you're ready for it. Who knows what's going to happen? Who knows how many fights it's going to take now for me to get that fight. Right. Right.

That's the one to me in my mind that I'm like, that's the one that I want. Well, fortunately Jamal, unfortunately for him, Jamal got injured. Yeah. And so he had a pull out of that fight too. That whole card, that that fight switched so many different times. Yeah. So when you think about, but I think Jamal had a knee injury, right? Yeah. It looked like something pretty bad. Yeah. And so that, who knows what's going to happen with that? That could take him out for many months. Oh, we don't know.

I don't know if you have surgery. What was the extent of Jamal's knee injury? I believe it was like a severe meniscus tear. Yeah. Something like that. Like a lot of fluid it looked like. Yeah. So, you know, of your knee, knee issues? Yeah. When I was 15, I broke my knee and the pit, hardcore pit. Oh, no. Yeah. I was moshin. It was going crazy. Some guy had some steel toe boots on and he was just flinging around and he boom, kicked my knee and broke my tibia at the top bone was taken out.

Jesus Christ. Yeah. And then crazy thing. At the time I was on tour with the band that I was playing with. And we were close to Mexico. So we went to this shitty hospital like Southern California, like close to the border. And I was only 15, 16 at times. Something like that. And they were like parents and churns. It was like, I don't know. I don't have anything but my leg is the size of football right now. Fix it.

So they like shot me up with some type of drug and put a brace on me and gave me crutches and they were like, peace. And I had to drive from Southern California to Vegas which took us at the time two days because we had to make stops because I was in pain with a broken leg. Nothing had been done. Oh my god. And we were young so my friends would stop at like a Walgreens or something, get a bunch of cough medicine, binadriel, you're a drink this.

You know, like just try to put me out because I'm in a van with a broken leg. Oh my god. Yeah, dude. It was crazy. So yeah, I'm broken. But nothing, nothing torn or anything like that. But also that healed up and you're good to go. Yeah, I'm good now. It's kind of amazing when you think of how many fights you've had and all the kicking you do, you've had no knee injuries. Nothing. Wow. No, dude. Yeah, thankfully. I mean shit, it's been really good. I feel better now than I ever have.

Like everything's strong. This is great. This is a great time for me as far as just like athletic progression. Well dude, you look so good in that Anthony Smith fight. Oh, thanks dude. I love that fight, man. I love that fight. That was one of my favorites. I watched it. I watched it back. That off speed when you hit with that uppercut. Yeah. Ooh, that was good. I started. You know the crazy thing. I'm glad you pointed that out. I don't know. I think I started that in the first or second round.

That was something that was like doing intentionally. The reason why that's my favorite fight is because from start to finish, I was 100% locked in, zeroed in. I still remember that fight now as if it were yesterday. So like, you know, that hints to like the, I didn't finish it because I was just locked in. There was nothing like overly emotional. Right. I was in there to eat, man. Yeah, it seemed like it. And I didn't, I didn't feel emotional in that fight at all. Everything was just locked in.

Locked in strategy. Yeah. Pick my shots wisely. It was a masterpiece. Thanks man. I know those fights where there's a certain time in a fighter's career where they make this breakthrough and you go, boy, he's right there. Yeah. Like they're right there where like, I want to see that guy fight all these other folks. Yeah. I want to see that guy fight all these other killers in that division. Yeah. That's where I'm at.

Yeah. And that division is, you know, it's interesting because Alex is such a dominant champion, but there's not a lot of compelling challenges for him. You know, it's Ankelaya who I think is going to be next. I think they're pretty much saying that. That makes sense. That makes sense. And then Jan Bahovic, of course, because his fight was pretty close with Alex. I think it was a split decision. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And he's for whatever reason not being considered.

I think a lot of people looking past Bahovic because he's older. Yeah. Yeah. But you can't. I mean, you can't look past anybody, right? I mean, look how far Glover came. Right. Right. You know, like, and I think, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, you can't overlook anybody. Well, at the elite elite level. Yeah. There's so many of those look, Bahovic and Jan and rather Bahovic and Ankelaya fought to a draw. Remember that fight? So those guys are like right there. Like there's so many.

It's tightly contested fights in that division. Yeah. I just, I think I'm not like shitting on anybody or, you know, saying that like I deserve this anyway over anybody. I just, I'm excited, man. Like I just want to give the fans that fight. Yeah. I want to give myself that fight. You don't even like just for just for the, for the experience. Like I don't plan to shoot any takedowns on this guy. You know what I mean? I don't think he plans to shoot any takedowns on me.

No. And I think that it's like, and there's really, when you have two guys that strike like we do and that are scaled in, we like, you know, like we're thoughtful. We know everything's precise. It's not just we're not going there and just slaying and banging. Like as he says, button pushers. Yeah. Yeah. It's two guys that would know, hey man, let's get in at any moment. Yeah. It could end in the first second, but it also could go five because the bolt of us are fucking warriors.

So I just think like, and, and while he's still doing his best, you know, like while he's still at the peak is kind of like, because I'm doing my best and I'm getting to the, my peak and you get these two guys at the highest level. And like, that's a sick fight. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. You know, so like, hopefully he continues to win. Hopefully I'm not suspended for that long.

And if I have to fight someone else in between, like, you know, in between then, okay, I understand. You know, if it's Jamal Hill, if he gets back and they book us a five-rounder and it's like, okay, who's, you know, winner of this can fight champion. Okay, cool. Yeah, I'm going to go down for something like that, you know, but yeah, man, I'm, I got to work that out. Who is the head of the Nevada State Athletic Commission now? Jeff Mullin. Is it Jeff? I think. Jeff's a reasonable guy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know how much say he has on how things get sorted out. Yeah. But he's martial artists too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So he's a lot of those, a lot of those guys are, you know, I win. I win, so I thought that I was supposed to have my hearing, I guess you want to call it last month and I showed up in person. Like they allow public comments like time for the so the public can come in the beginning. So I came and I saw these guys and I'm like, oh, I know all of you.

You know, in my mind, I thought it was like some crazy thing, you know, like, oh, man, I have to go. And so I showed up and I looked around the room and everybody sat around this table, like all the board. And I was like, oh, I've seen every single last one of you at every fight. Right. So I felt more comfortable. And I kind of like let him know like, hey guys, I'm here. I think that my case is today, you know, they were like, no, it's not until next month.

And I was like, okay, well, I just hopefully you guys can kind of look into the facts and just see like, yeah, this is not my fault. Not only not your fault, but not going to help you in any way. Yeah. You took DHA for a couple of months. It doesn't mean anything. Yeah. You're a fuck. Not even for a couple of months, a couple of days. Oh, there you go. A couple of days. Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no way that's going to give any performance in hand. I just hate paperwork.

That seems like logical heads would go, oh, clear them. Yeah. Yeah. If you have to suspend it for two months, okay, two months doesn't not that big a deal. Yeah. Well, let's get a right back of the hunt. Reschedule fight. You know, we got so many big fights coming up after this fear. There's Salt Lake City, which is, I think Salt Lake City is going to be a hollow way in Ilya, Duporia. Ooh. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. And then of course, big hollow way fan here. Shout out to Max Hollow.

Damn, man. How about that Gachi fight? Ooh. I was there. I was there. It was crazy. It was crazy. The way that, you know, when people do like the wave in crowds, it was, this was like the fucking atomic bomb. Boom. Boom, dude. And then everyone like, it's last second, you know, like it's crazy because it's like, OK, you're watching this fight and you're like, OK, cool.

Yeah, Max got this, you know, in the bag and then Gachi comes and he's swinging and it's like, OK, like everyone's still engaged, right? Because they're fighting. But then like as soon as I hit, boom. Insane. The entire arena. I was in. And Gachi was just thinking about it like being in that moment. That was sick. It was so crazy. And Max versus Duporia is going to be wild. Yeah. It's going to be great. That is a wild fight. Duporia is a fucking savage. Yeah, he's a savage.

He's so savage, which brings me to what I was going to say about Jamal. I'm very sad that he heard his name. You know, I certainly wanted to get better, but I did not like him taking that fight with you so quickly after getting KO'd by Per. No? No. I don't like guys taking fights real quickly. I mean, I like it for you, but I don't like it for him. I don't think it's smart. I think you feel OK, but I don't think you're OK. And I think that's Volkanovsky after he got KO'd by Islam.

And then a couple months later he fights Ilya and gets knocked unconscious. Yeah. That's real, man. You know, you've been stopped before. You know what it's like. It's like you're not quite right for a long time after that. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know, man. Like, when it happened and when they called me and told me that this was the situation, that was a lot of the fans response. And then people that I know, they're like, dude, what's wrong with this guy? Like, what's it?

And then, honestly, my response to everybody was like, dude, that's none of my business. It's up to him. It's true. You know what I mean? Whatever he chooses to do, that's on him. Yep. But I mean, it does, I don't know. To me, it seems like him. I mean, he seems like someone who's very like, fuck it, headstrong. I'll do it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's him. Definitely. I'm going to continue to do me. And then it's really. Look, he might be fine. Yeah. I mean, he got clipped and dropped.

And then he got beaten up when he was on the ground. And he stood right back up afterwards. Maybe he didn't get a concussion. Maybe he just got dinged. Who knows? But like, guys of, like, Mercocrop cop in Pride, he fought Kevin Randerman and he got KO'd bad, real bad. And then he fought again 25 days later. What was it was all that one? Who did he fight? I forget. See if you find Mercoc's record. Then he eventually fought Randerman again and then choked him. Damn, I missed those days.

I missed those days. I remember when I first introduced him in my hand. I was seeing Crocopdo those high kicks. Oh my God. And just folding people. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Folding people. Folding people to the body. Folding people to the head. Anyway. So, so we're, we're going to say go all the way back. Kevin Randerman. So he loses the Randerman and he fights Kenahara and then he fights Oyama and then he fights Alex, a million ain't go.

And then he fights Josh Burnett and then he gets a rematch with Kevin Randerman. But so look at the time. So April of 2004. And then in May. And then in May, a month later. A month later. It takes a month break. Comes back in July. Yeah, bro. They were fighting another month. Fightless August. Then again, and October. And again, and December. And then again, February. And then February. Fight Mark Coleman. Can we shoot? Oh my God. Those guys were getting after it. And guys Hall of Famer, right?

Oh yeah. 100% percent. 100% Hall of Famer. And back then, those guys weren't, they were like the whole thing. They were like the whole thing of Pride back then. They didn't get called until like two weeks before the fight. No one even knew who was on the card. Didn't even know. No, they all like it was all like everybody just trained. Yeah, was it just like guys were training and then they get a call and then it's like X amount of money and then I go, we'll be there. Yup. And then show up.

And you get a lot of you get paid in cash, right? Yeah, I'll go get that back. Yeah, corner man. They're like taping cash. Taping cash. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I did hear stories about that. I heard a lot of stories about that. Man, what a time. It was a wild time. It'd be cool if they were still kind of like that. Yeah, like they have leagues that were like that. That would be cool. Well, it would be cool if there was an organization that was competing with the UFC at that level.

Yeah, like that Pride was at the time. Like Saitana Superena. That's Saitama Superena. I think it's 90,000 people. It was full. Yeah, full for Pride. Crazy. Nuts. And then, you know, the scandals, the Yakuza, all that stuff and it just kind of goes away. But at one important time, they were bigger than the UFC. It was huge. Yeah. And it was huge here too. Everybody watched it. Yeah. Especially martial artists.

Everybody watched No Gera when he was the champ and Fador when he was going through his prime over there. Yeah, when I got in to MMA, I think I watched more Pride than I did UFC. Oh, and at the time it wasn't live, right? But like if I had to go buy a DVD from Z-Records or something, it's like, yeah, of course. I mean, I buy the Pride event. Sometimes it'd be a Pride event and you'd have to stay offline because you'd find out the results and they wouldn't air it for a while later.

Like days, maybe even weeks later. Yeah, that was before I wasn't even that deep into the game yet. I was just watching like DVDs and YouTube videos, I think. And they would have them sometimes live and you know, it would be live in America. So you'd have to watch like four o'clock in the morning. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had a bunch of guys over. But you guys from Jiu-Jitsu came over house. We all watched it like four o'clock in the morning. That's pretty sick.

Well, speaking of Jiu-Jitsu, I'm going to compete in world masters. Really? Yeah. I'm doing that. It's the end of August. In Vegas. The only thing that makes me nervous about stuff like that is when I got... In your... Yes. Yeah. ...the guy at your level. That's like right there with a shot at the title. Like you're a fight or two away from a potential world championship fight. Yeah. And then you're going to let some dude leg lock you. It's not going to happen. So... Do you see that?

No, no, no, it's not going to happen. I mean, like, so this is something that I'm trying to just do for myself. To like, man, I've been training like a dog, you know, and like... What belt do you know? I'm purple. So I've been training like a dog. I feel good. Yeah. Yeah. And I just like, it's not that serious to me, right? It's not like I'm putting everything on the line to go win this thing. It's like, no, dude, I just kind of just want to get in there and... Khalil, you're a savage.

Once you get in there, you're going to be going, why are you lying to me? Why are you staring at me? You're just straight up killing me. Why are you lying to me? I am a killer, but I think it's a little bit different when it comes to like going in here and competing with you dudes, too. I think for me, the reason why I kind of made this decision is... And I mean, it's like 170 something blocks from whatever to register, right?

I could just say at the last minute, like, no, I'm not going to do it. But I think it's another way for me to get out and like... And hang out with the fans, dude. Like, you have a lot of fans in the Jiu-Jitsu community as well. And I have a lot of friends in that community and I go to worlds every year and hang out there and sometimes I get the itch, like, man, it'd be cool to just... You know, hop in here and have three matches, four matches in a day, like whatever.

So that's kind of more of my approach. I just want to get there, kind of connect with the people. Yeah, I'll throw my key. I'll compete. But I'm not going to get injured. If something's, you know, if someone's got my leg, ankle locks, something like that, like, okay, let's... Maybe I'll tap. Maybe I'll tap. It makes me think about Cubswanson. Remember Cubswanson blew out his ACL on a grappling competition? I didn't know that. Yeah, I blew out his ACL on a grappling competition. He was no-guy.

I think it was no-guy. And it was, you know, when it was a couple of years back, when Cubs was, you know, doing really well. And for sure, it slowed his momentum. You see now you're like freaking me out. I mean, I thought about it, right? The thought of injury came on. Do don't tell you right now. Don't do it. It's not worth it. Come on, Joe. Listen, you probably will be fine. But if not... If not. If not. Then it's another way.

You know, many videos people have sent me over the last week of, uh, dudes getting heel hooked with their leg breaks, snaps, like hard, loud cracks. I'll show you something. Dude, I hate that shit. Yeah, no, I don't want to know it. I don't want to... I don't want to see it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to see it. Right now is so high. It's so high level. But I don't feel like locking in G. I don't know.

I don't know what, what, I don't think you can like, inside heel hook. There's, there's a bunch of things that the problem is the friction of the G. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's this, uh, unnatural control. Yeah. Ah, yeah, I mean, like, I'll, I'll give it more thought. The other thing is it's like scrambles, like, inscrambles needs blow out. Yeah. You know, because scrambles in the gym and scrambles in training are different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, in competition. In competition, yeah.

You're way more, like, you're gonna push 100% in competition. More explosive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Weird stuff happens. Yeah, weird shit happens. It's not worth it if I got shit. Dude, you're right there. Yeah. You're right there. You're right there. I'll say, fucking don't do it. I was so sure until I had this conversation with you. If I can talk you out and doing it, please. Listen, imagine you do that. You blow out an ACL. Yeah, then I'm an idiot. Yeah, it makes no sense. For no reason.

Ah, fuck, joke. It's not worth it. Okay. I would not be snowboarding. I would not be doing anything. Oh, that's okay, okay. No nonsense. Don't fuck around. Well, there's no, no reason for nonsense right now. You're right there, dude. Damn. You're right there. You guys heard it, Joe Rogan just talked me out of, thank God I did. Oh, God, you gotta listen to me. Wow. And the Lord, because you did see me. Like, oh, you fucking pussy, show it, bro, you fucking.

No, but here's the thing, like I would hate to have this conversation with you and you be so like adamant and passionate about like, dude, don't do it. And then something did happen. And then I, well, I'd hate to even try now because I put it in your head. I don't want that to be in your head if you want to do it. Maybe I'll talk to you again and try to like, you're gonna be fine, dude. You're awesome. I'm sure you'll be in complete control.

These guys can't fuck with you, what purple belts are gonna be able to tap you. But I've been trying to stay, you know, somewhat active. It's crazy that you say like, snowboarding shit because I picked up skiing. Last year. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Super natural. Everything was good. Of course. But thankfully I picked it up at the end of the winter. So I only got like three months in, but I did hit some black diamond runs in Whistler.

And that was like, the guy told me he's like, oh, this is the one that they did in the Olympics. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. I'll try it. Jesus. I did really well. But outside of that, I mean, I'd play a lot of golf, dude. Well golf is a good one. Yeah. Now I'm gonna get hurt doing golf. Now I'm gonna get hurt doing that. So I'll just stick to that. Fucking Trump. He's eight years old. He's out there playing golf. What? A maniac, yeah. How the hell's this guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just shot him in the ear. But that's actually one thing that I found out about skiing. Because like, here's the thing. Yeah, skiing, anything like that can be dangerous. But when I was out there, I didn't see anybody over the age of 40 on a snowboard. Right. But I saw guys 80 years old, my father-in-law skiing. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, I want to pick up things that I can do for a long time. I want to be active now.

Like, ever since I made the change, I became a fighter and all these things, and my life's changed. And I want to stay active. I think that's very important to stay active as long as you can. And so I picked up some hobbies because I am an extreme guy. Skiing can be an extreme sport. Yeah. But it can also be very chill. So things like golf and skiing have been kind of... I stopped skiing a couple of years ago because I wiped out bad. And it was not my fault.

I was going around a turn and this lady didn't know how to ski and she was kind of like sliding into the trail. And I had two decisions. They're plow right into her and fuck this lady up or fall. And I chose to fall. And I didn't have much control over how I felt because it was like at the edge of the turn and I slammed my head. The back of my head, bad. Definitely got a concussion. But also broke the top of my leg. It's called an insufficiency fracture.

It's where the top of your shin hits your cartilage. It still fucks with me to this day. And top of your shin hits your cartilage. Yeah, there's a crack at the top of my shin. Like at the top of my tibia. Oh, that's why I broke my leg. That's why I broke my knee. Same spot. Yeah. Mine was not bad. It was just a crack. But I went to the dark and I'm like, man, something's wrong. It's just like, it's not. This feels fucked up and it did the x-ray and everything. Oh, you have a crack.

Shed. A crack in your bone. There's nothing they can do about it. They said it'll be okay in six weeks but I'm like, fuck skiing. I'm done. And I was like the rest of the day I was out of it. I tried to get on the ski lift and I fell because I was so dizzy. Really? I tried to get up and I had a hard time getting back up. They had to help me up like an old man. I couldn't get up.

I was like, I hit my head hard because I remember when my head hit, when I heard the bang of my head hit the pack snow. I was like icy snow. I remember thinking, oh, that's a concussion. Yeah. Right away. That's real. Yeah. That's real concussion. Yeah. If this is taking blows to the head before and things like that, you can feel like I actually. That was harder than I think I've ever been kicked in the head. It was bang. It's like, oh, fuck, man. And I was just dizzy the whole day.

I was thinking about going to the doctor for that. But I'm like, let me just see how deal with life. Yeah. I don't know what they would do for me other than hospitalized me and monitor me. But I knew I got rocked. How has your training been going? What have you been doing? Well, I still, like I said, my knee still fucks with me. And so that's kept me from doing Jiu-Jitsu. Because it's just, I don't want to get injured. I'm 56 and as you get older, injuries take fucking forever to come back from.

And I've had a couple of problems with this knee. I've had surgery on it and then at one time I fucked up my MCL about when I was about to get on stage. So I was doing these shows with Dave Chappelle at Stubbs, which in town was during the pandemic.

And they're bringing me up to stage and I'm turning the recorder on on my phone as I'm walking up these cement stairs and I wasn't paying attention because the stairs kind of turn and I stubbed like the top of my foot as I was like stepping up and I kind of heel hook myself. And like hard and painful. Yeah. And I went on stage and my leg was shaking from the pain. Yeah. And it looked like I was terrified to be up there. Like, oh, I'm so nervous. The show went great.

People probably didn't even notice if they didn't, were it in the front row and see my leg shaking. Yeah. But. So you got this Netflix special thing coming up. You're gonna come live. It's live Saturday night. Dude, I'm like, I know. Where do I find it on Netflix? It'll be on Netflix Saturday night. Yeah. I'm excited to see that. It's gonna be fine. I was actually kind of looking at some stuff like knowing, you know, like a few weeks, a month and advance, I'd be here.

I'm like, I want to see some of Joe Rogan's like comedy shit, but I couldn't find a lot of like recent stuff. I'm gonna put some of it online today. I haven't done it special in six years because I was supposed to do a special right when the pandemic broke out. Okay. So the pandemic broke out in March and I was gonna do a special in August and then everything just shut down. Got it. What the fuck? And so, and then I just came here, moved, bought a club, started to build in my own club. Oh yeah.

This Saturday, nine o'clock. Saturday, nine o'clock. Nine o'clock. Texas time, seven o'clock, Nevada time. Okay. We're gonna have a watch party. I might as. Should be fun. Yeah, I'm gonna have some friends over. I'll be cool, man. I'm excited for it. I'm like in comedy a little bit more lately. It's a good relief for a fighter. Yeah. I'm such a serious guy. That fucking sensitive and serious.

You know, I take everything in a heart, but I've noticed that like just opening up and like watching other guys do stand up and stuff. It's really fun. Like just having, just being able to laugh about certain shit. Right. You know, yeah. Yeah. Actually, after I, after all this shit happened, one of the first things I did, Ronnie Channie invited me out to a show. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, he was in town. He does jujitsu. I don't know if you know that.

No. Yeah, I've only been doing it a few years now. I think he's a blue belt, blue a purple belt. Wow. Pretty good. We trained at the PI. We rolled. That's awesome. That's awesome. Super cool. Had some good rounds. He filmed like this little thing that never got released, but yeah, that same, same day, he's like, hey, I'm having a show tonight in Vegas at the Venetian. I'm like, come by. It's up to Happy when I went and so cool, man. So funny. Yeah, sure. Ronnie's a good dude, man.

Yeah. Very, very, very funny guy. Fight fan. I love his angry comedy. Yeah. It's so good. It's angry at everybody being so stupid. So stupid. He's like his napkins part. Like he was like saying something about Americans. Like just always so many fucking napkins. Napkins and like screens, screens. Oh, it's funny. It's very relevant. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good time for comedy.

Yeah, because also whenever the world is about to be on fire, I don't know what everything's going crazy everywhere you look. It's a good time for comedy because there's so much shit to talk about. Yeah. Um, damn. So now I'm not going to do due to it to turn a minute. Please don't do it. I wouldn't ski either. I'll tell you don't ski. You're just too close. Yeah, too close. You too close to like one of the most important things that a combat sports athlete could ever possibly achieve.

You're so close. Like the UFC champion is the greatest fighter on earth. It's there's no if ands or butts about it in that way class. UFC champion is the greatest fighter on work. The only thing that you can contest that is with, okay, one FC has some elite fighters, Bellator has some elite fighters, PFL has some elite fighters. There's there's guys out there that are really elite that just so happened to have been signed by or other organizations.

But MMA fighters at a championship level, you know, ultimately are the best fighters on earth. Yeah. And you're that close. Yeah, yeah. So just stay, yeah, stay stay. Just keep training man. Keep training. Keep training. Stay focused. Keep improving. You know, every time I see you, you're better. Yeah. So it's obvious that you, I remember when you came back from Thailand, you fought Eric Anders. Yeah, yeah. You love that one. I love it. I love it.

Because when you bring me up on other podcasts and you talk about that, I'm like, fuck yeah. You still remember that. Dude. Yeah. And I knew you were good, but there was like something happened. It's like, what the fuck happened? Yeah. Like this is just monumental. You know, you see like numbers. Like you, you are, you went up like 30% or something crazy. Yeah. And then even in that fight, yeah, there was like 75 low kicks landed. Like things like that. It was the smoothness to it too.

Yeah. There's a technique. It changed me, dude. Yeah. Like, I mean, we talked about it. Yeah. Thailand was like one of the best things for me. And like my heart is still there. There's still a huge connection. Did you go back? I did, I went back after the Smith fight, but I went back for just pure like, let me just get re-tapped in. And I went there and then that's where Mia and I, we got married there. Like here we had a Thai ceremony. It was really cool. Oh, cool.

Yeah. So we just kind of like, I hadn't been back since the pandemic. So we went back and just, I needed it, you know, because I'd been focused and just training. Right. So I was like, let me go back home because it feels more home. That's why. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's been cool. I've still stay active in that area at home. I've been working on some new stuff. I'm very excited for when I do fight again.

Because I know it's just, I know it's a better version of me, man. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe it's like, as I get older and just like, I guess where I'm at in my life and the mental shift that I've made towards training and the dedication. You've had some moments in the past where you weren't like fully locked in. Yeah. And then, but you've always come back from those and been locked in in the next fight. Yeah. You know, so I think now you realize, like, hey, this is it.

This is the push for glory. I think one, I don't know if a lot of people realize this, but I've, I've pretty much spent my entire career in the UFC. When I got into the ultimate fighter, I had three professional fights. That's crazy. I got into the ultimate fighter three, you know, I had all my fights in the RFA in the beginning, LFA now, at middleweight. And then ultimate fighter, like heavyweight season comes up and I'm like, okay, I'll try out.

I can make the weight, made it, then got the contract. So all of my fights, besides the first three, I've been in the UFC. So like, yeah, there's been some crazy, like ups and downs, but I feel like now I'm at a point where, yeah, I'm a lot of crazy. Crazy place to develop. Crazy place to develop. So many guys are coming in now that you have to see like 21 fights. 21 fights, 15 to know.

You know, like they've built, you know, they've kind of built their style and they've got through all the adversity before. Then they get to the big show. It's like no, you didn't away. Like I was kind of born in the big show. And, you know, like as soon as I, as soon as I got into it, Dana was hyped because of my ultimate fighter performances. So he starts throwing me on like main cards, you know, right, right. You know, I'm on the big show. I'm fighting in arenas already all the ship.

And then the go-con, go-con sake fight. And then, you know, like, that was a huge one. Yeah, dude. So that was a huge one. Yeah, so go-con had so much hype coming in. It's so much, you know, glory champion K1. Yeah, go-con was a legend. Yeah, so it's been kind of cool to finally get to that spot where like, I feel good, you know, like I feel good. I'm confident in what I, what I can do now. I know exactly where I'm going. I'm not like one foot in, one foot out.

And, you know, I got one thing that I'm focused on and that's being championed. Well, the work showed in the Anthony Smith fight. It really did. I mean, this trajectory that you're on showed that you're on a new level. Yeah, dude. New level. Yeah, you live for sure. New level, for sure. And, you know, one thing that's kind of crazy that helped me for the preparation of that fight because he took it last man 10, 10 days notice. I was scheduled to fight another guy.

He got pneumonia, like kind of the week before or something like that. But I did a lot of shooting for that camp. I went shooting and that changed my perspective because I'm not a guns guy. Oh, it was like shooting in a range. Yeah. And it changed, it just changed a lot. What way? You know what we were talking about earlier, how like, like brilliance and like physical ability and like mental. Yeah, I'd never, I was never a gun guy. Like my dad was murdered.

So like from a young age, I just kind of had this like weird relationship with guns. And yeah, I've had guns. Yeah, whatever. Pull on me. Blah blah. But when I made that decision to go and like actually learn from a guy who was a Navy Seal, had a lot of expertise. Had a really good wave like we spent hours of him just like explaining to me certain things. You know, gun safety, blah blah, different situations, his mentality, clearing buildings, blah blah blah.

So I'm taking all this in, all this information and processing it all. And then I finally start to shoot. And the power that I felt from the gun, you know, just like the accuracy that I felt from shooting an AR-15, the understanding of like different caliber bullets made me start to then formulate how I'm going to strike like, you know, like, man, I'm giving away secrets, fuck it. So even on the like the Anthony Smith fight, like my left hand, I'm like, okay, my left hand is 556.

So that's the ammunition for a fucking, you know, for AR. So like that's how I was kind of processing everything. So every time I threw my left hand, I'm thinking of the sound and the feeling of the AR. I was like, boom, you know, like, yeah. So I'm like, okay, like feeling the target, whatever, just kind of like, okay, what do I feel like fucking loading? Okay, load it.

Boom, you know, like I'm just thinking about every time I shot the gun, every time I shot the pistol, it's like, I was like, really? Yeah, dude. Wow. So like it was it, it really like I was able to kind of pull from that experience and then bring it into my fight. But then also not only that, I was also thinking about like the things that this guy was telling me when it came to like, when they're in combat, when they're clearing buildings.

And so like just emotionally, it's so crazy to do before that fight. My strength conditioning coach Lorenzo, he's a big, big shooter guy, ex-military, you know, but big, big on shooting, big on self defense. And the day of the fight, you know, like I'm obviously just in the zone and I'm sitting in the living room because I stay with him during camps. We just do it that way. So I'm like sitting in living room, kind of just shaking back and forth because I have so much energy.

And he knows that I've been putting in my experiences from shooting into my training. And it's crazy. I was sitting there, dude, and I have my hood on too inside and I'm just like rocking back and forth. And he comes and he just fucking sets an AR-15 right there on my lap. Oh, wow. And walks away. Oh, wow. And he's just like, just rocking back and forth. And I'm like, yeah.

Yeah. You know, and then we drive to the apex from the house and then like, so the whole, yeah, the whole time in my head, even my eyes were walking out. He's like, 556, 556. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, 556. And then in the first round, he's like, 556. And I kept saying that in my head, 556, 556. Bung! Wow. And just fucking, dude, it was crazy. That's an interesting visualization tool because you think about it. Like that's really how you want your strikes to land.

You want them to be almost instantaneous from the time you pull the trigger. From the time you pull the trigger. Yeah. And you like, what's your right hand? Right hand was, wasn't even a weapon. It was like, I wasn't looking at it like that. It was kind of more like range. Really? Yeah, rangefinder. But I'd say like, I'd say that when I did throw the jab, it was probably everything for that, like, was 556. So even my jab, I threw some pretty clean jabs in there.

Yeah. But I wanted it to land straight, accurate, and like fast. And so it wasn't like, you know, shotgun. I'm not like, oh, but not thinking of the sound, the reactant, the precision. The precision. Instantaneous. Instantaneous. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, not a lot of recoil. Right. Like, blah. Yeah. Sting, sting. Like just like that. That's interesting to visualize it that way.

You know, because you know, sometimes you see guys throwing punches at a lower level, and you see them like grit, swing, and everything's wide and hoping it lands. Yeah. Well, I was very intentional with every movement, every strike, and that fight. So far, that's my favorite one. Before that, it was Eric Anders, because it was like, oh, I've got to do some way tie. But this one, this one I still got to throw some, you know, tie style type of stuff.

As soon as like my posture kind of relax, I remember one of the commentators like, oh, here comes the tie. You know, I was like, okay. So that was cool. But I think the, you know, the weapon kind of mentality for me was nice. That's interesting. Yeah. That's a great way to think about it really, you know. Yeah. It's a great way to visualize like the instantaneous response. Yeah. Yeah. But that's me, dude. Every time, every fight, something different.

Like, I, that's the art side of me for martial arts. Right. You know, that's how I'm able to stay in this. That's how I'm able to grow. It's more than fighting. It's more than ego. It's more than my dick's bigger than yours. You know, like, I don't, like that to me, that should, fuck it. Like that's why it's kind of hard for me to to like position myself in the right way and like build the fan base and like have the income and stuff like that. I think that, like that could potentially have.

Right. I'm more of an artist because I'm using, you know, I need it. Like, naturally an artist. So I, like, I need to find ways to like, how do I express this? I don't, every fight's different because I'm just trying to find a different way to express myself and like, what I'm going through and how I'm feeling. You know, that comes out in fights. Art really, it is the right term when people call it martial arts and, you know, people have had arguments like that's not an art.

It's an art to people who understand it because when you watch a person land a beautiful combination, that's artwork. Yeah. That's like, ooh, it's pretty. It's pretty. Oh, it's pretty. You know, you watch someone land something good. It's like, that's pretty. Yeah. You know, and I don't, I don't see a lot of it as much anymore. I think that's why I haven't, I've been watching fights for different reasons nowadays. You know, like, I'm watching, like heavyweight fight, watching heavyweight fight.

And I'm just trying to see like, okay, what's kind of the common theme, what's everybody kind of working on. But that's why I used to like to watch, you know, Anderson and Leo do and all these guys because it was just a different time they were bringing this kind of like fresh new look and, yes, you know, this different thing versus... Well, Anderson, particularly, he was an artist. Oh, yeah. When you went in that front kick to VTour's face, like, does a piece of art. Beautiful.

And it's just the timing involved in that and then just expression, blah, just landing and setting it up. Have you thought about going a middleweight? I have. When you walk around it. I mean, right now, like, under 230 over 220. So I'm like, I float in between the 222. So you're not an enormous light heavyweight? No, no, no. I'm probably one of the shorter ones. Yeah, for sure.

And I thought about middleweight, but like, I've done that Dexascan thing at the PI and my body with like just dense, like no water, just bone and bone and muscle is 186. Oh, God. So you got to get to death's door. Yeah. Like, at the beginning of my career and in the amateur days, I did light at 185, but it was, it was hell. And so now, like, I like to eat, man. Yeah. And obviously you're doing great. Yeah. I like to train. I think there should be way more weight classes. I really, really do.

I think there should be one every 10 pounds. Yeah. Minimum. That'd be nice. Look at boxing. There's a reason why there's a 147 and 154 and a 160. It's because there really is a difference, she, the legitimate in their prime, 154 and a 160. Yeah. It's just, that's how it should be. And when you get a gap like 85 to 205, that's crazy. That's too big. That's too big. Yeah, that's too big. That's a really big gap. It's too big.

Yeah. And then another 25 pounds, I mean, or, you know, 205 to 265 is nuts. That's the way cutting. It's trash, dude. I don't like it. I don't, I still like it. Okay. So I'm, well, I walk around to 20 to 30 below a level. I still don't necessarily cut weight. Like I make sure that I gradually go down. I keep my food consumption the same all the way through camp. The only thing that changes is my intensity goes up, which causes my weight to go down. Oh. So I sit in the sun. It's perfect.

I sit in the sauna 30 minutes maximum. Oh, that's great. It to lose one pound. So that's why you're so physically from perfect when you're fighting. Yeah, dude, I don't. Yeah. And that's why I like, I'm five rounds for me. Like I feel like it's going to be nothing. Because I train year round at the weight when I rehydrate. I'm back up to 225 below where I'm used to carrying my weight.

Right. So when I'm doing all my drills, when I'm running and when I'm jumping and when I'm doing all the stuff that I'm doing to get better physically, that same person is the same person that's stepping in the cage. I hate the idea of like expecting yourself to perform at the highest level, but for the last two weeks or something like you're depleting.

And then the last day before you expect to be at the height of physical performance, you're dehydrating your body and your brain and everything of everything. That just doesn't make sense to me. It should be illegal. It should be. I honestly, like I don't fuck with cutting weight. It's just, that's great. You know, like I just don't, I don't like it. I don't think that it gives anybody the advantage. I really don't like a guy who's, you know, I'm going to cut down to 155.

Like what do you walk around 190, you're fucking stupid. You know, like, it's like, yeah, you're going to be the bigger guy who cares. Like, you know what I mean? We're also going to not be able to take shots as well. You're not going to be able to take shots as well. Long term, like if you really want to do this, if you really want to be doing this long term, it's not going to be good for you. You know what I mean?

I can only imagine that like at like a smaller level, like or like at a deeper level, it's probably bad for your body. Do you think there's a reasonable way to stop weight cutting? Because when WME bought the UFC, I had a conversation with Ari and I told him, you know what I would do? This is what I would do. If I was running the show, I'd get rid of weight cutting. I'd figure out a way. He's like, how? What would you do with the weight class? Like a blow him up. Blow him up.

The stars are the most important thing anyway. No one's going to give a fuck of Alex Petta. He's the champion at 225 or 210 or 205. No one gives a fuck. He's the champion, right? We all know he's the champion. So let's find out what he actually weighs. What do you weigh when you're healthy? What do you weigh when you're healthy and lean like you do when you get down to 206 or 207 when right before you cut the last pound or two of weight? What do you weigh?

Let's find that out and that's what you should be fighting at. We should have adequate weight classes so that like you don't have an elite fighter that's starving himself to get to a lower weight class because he's really not big enough to compete at the 20 pounds above weight class. And this is, I know that one instituted some sort of hydration testing. That's the bullshit. Yeah. What do you hear about it? So I can't give like an educated, like I don't have all the facts right now.

But from what I've heard is that like it's from the fighters that I have like friends in one, they just say like it's bullshit and there's also like ways around it. Like they can, for instance, like they test your the hydration right in your urine to be able to be like, okay, if you're, if we detect that you're dehydrated and that proves that you're cutting weight, but a lot of these guys will dehydrate and they'll cut weight and then they'll chug a bunch of water and just hold their piss.

You get what I mean? So like just so that went whatever. I don't know. It's really weird, but it doesn't seem to really be. So the sum shenanigans. There's some shenanigans. I think that one thing that people that they could do as far as this weight cutting thing, just how they randomly test us. We don't know when your side is coming or we don't know when the anti-open is coming. Way us to. Yes. And we have to be in between. X amount give us like a 10 pound allowance. You know what I mean?

So it's not like you fight at 155, but when we came and tested you, you're 190. When Alex fought Izzy, he weighed in at 85 and then he made into the cage at 226. 26? Yeah. Nuts. Nuts. Which is, it's crazy. That's like 40 pounds man. That's so much depletion. That's so crazy. That's so crazy. That's so crazy. You know what I mean? Like yeah, he gained a lot of weight, but also like how much, let's look at the other side of that.

How much did he deplete the day before he's supposed to fight Izzy a lot of signing of the heavyweight or the middleweight fucking champion. And when is he knocked him out? Maybe that had a factor. I'm almost positive about a lot of these knockouts and shit do happen from weight cuts. I think so, man. I think so too. Yeah. And then like our ability to go X amount arounds, blah, blah, blah. Like I think that it all plays a factor, man. Especially with the inability to use IVs.

Yeah. Because they say that the brain takes the longest time to rehydrate. You rehydrate your body in 24 hours, but your brain takes like 48. Yeah. They do a good job at like giving us all the stuff, you know, like all these liquids and things like that. Like they do their job. You have to see always does their job, but there can be, there can be some type of change made. Hopefully there is, you know. No one is thinking about it at all. There's no attempts at all to do it. Just the culture.

Yeah. People are just, okay, this is what we do. This is a culture. I mean, it's happened that way for so long that they just have this in their head. Yeah. Why would they change it? Yeah. Why would they change it? I just think there's a lot of things that could be done differently. And I think the hydration thing is a real big one. I think that's a, that's a giant one because it does, it's, it's so bad for the performance of the athletes because it's going to weaken you 100%.

Yeah. You look victorious, you look awesome, you look less awesome than you would look if you didn't have to dehydrate yourself 24 hours ago. Period. Also more dangerous. Also kidney problems, organs shut down. And the instances that I know that people have died from MMA, there was one in Russia where a guy died from a fight that apparently he had like some sort of preexisting condition. But I know at least two guys who died in Brazil from weight cutting. Wow. Yeah, we see it, right?

We see these guys, I have to pull out the night before or whatever because they are the day of. Yeah, I think a lot of it is because of the way cuts. Speaking of hydration, try this, man. What's this? This is my drink. Kill Clif. Octane, CBD. Uh oh, I have to read the ingredients. I think it's okay. Dana takes it. Dana drinks it. It's legit. It's good. That's spicy cherry. Yeah. Your company?

Yeah, Mike. Well, I'm one of the owners of the company, but this one I came up with me and my friend Cam. This one's called Elk Blood. Spicy cherry. It's good. But this is all cheers. This is all legit, clean ingredients. And, uh, I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great.

If the UFC was going to do anything differently, that would be the first one that I would say. The second one that I would say. Pay structure. Pay structure for sure. I knew I heard you talk about that before. They should be getting more money. 100% or so. Or not. Also, I don't like the win bonus. That's what I meant. That's what I meant. Like, I think, um, I think the win bonus thing is like, I hate it. It does suck. I did hear you talk about that. I forgot what episode.

I think it was with Francis. Yeah. Yeah. I agree, man. It's pretty rough, you know, like, especially with bad decisions. Yeah, it sucks. Like, bad decisions. And then, like, you get half your money. Crazy. Half. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Especially with decision. Half. That's nuts. Yeah. I, you know, like, I'm grateful, whatever for, you know, what I make. But I do think that it would be a lot nicer to just not have to pay for. Pay or, you know, fight for win and show.

The other thing that they need to do, and I really think this could be done. Cover the tips of the fingers. Yeah. There's no reason why these fingers need to be exposed. Okay. So I've been testing. It's been pretty cool. I've been the guy testing all of the new gloves, like with the, with Amber from the UFC. One of the slight changes that they've made is depicting in the glove, provides a little bit more curvature towards the fingers.

But yes, covering the fingers, I think would be something that would prevent all the eye pokes. That's one of the, I think the eye poke right now is probably the scariest thing in MMA. Yeah. Getting poked in the eye. Going blind. I got poked the last camp actually preparing for, for a Jamal Hill. And like, it cut the entire, I like top eyelid. And I was like, this is the scariest shit ever. Yeah, I think that should definitely be.

It's something that's not going to happen anytime soon because all these new gloves, like the production, I don't get it. Yeah. When they said they were going to have new, they, they seem real similar to me. Trevor Whitman, in my opinion, has the best gloves. Who the onyx had. Yeah. And they're the best MMA gloves. They had some sort of, there was some negotiation with Trevor, but he wanted more money than they were willing to give. Apparently there's a lot of money. I don't know.

But I think it should be different than that even. I think it should be like the Trevor Whitman gloves, but where the finger tips are, I think you cover it with just a piece of leather. Just a leather. Yeah. Yeah, with like a little sliver, you can just, yeah. Yeah. So it goes in there. Because you can still grapple. Yeah. You just can't spread the fingers. Exactly. Why would you spread the fingers in? Like almost like mittens. Exactly, like mittens. Yeah, you just, it's a piece of leather.

Yeah. So if you wanted to hit someone with the knuckles, you still could. Then you still have to worry about the thumb. Yeah. But that's going to cut down, think about the percentage that it'll cut down on finger pokes. Because a lot of them are this. Yeah. Right? We see it very, we don't let's see a lot of them. So if it's this, but if it has that, then it's not going to go in the eye.

Yeah. If it's a cover and the cover, like you never grapple like this, you never close your fingers together ever. So what would it prevent in grappling? Nothing. What would it prevent in striking? Nothing. But it would prevent eye pokes. Yeah. It seems like a pretty clear solution. Yeah. It's just crazy. Like anything, right? There's just a lot of like, I don't know, it's like politics and yeah, I think that that is one of the things that could have been changed.

I don't know why or who at the round table was like, Yeah, I don't know either. We've heard all the time, we know that eye poking is a thing, but let's make the same glove and just do it, you know, a little bit differently. Well, it's better. Everybody says it's better. Yeah, it's better. It's not. It's not perfect. Is it lighter? It's lighter. It's 3.5. Oh, half ounce? Yeah, half ounce lighter. Rist is a little bit different, like the straps different.

The inside of the knuckle part here is padded now. So like if you do throw like a little bit of that, it kind of makes me want to punch like night style. Right, right, right. Your hands more protected. Yeah, hands more protected. You can feel the half ounce or like the, you can feel that. Really? You can feel the difference. I can at least. That's crazy. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a decent glove.

The only thing that we kind of had some issues with in the beginning, if you guys saw on the mock chev fight, the logo was coming off. Oh, really interesting. So I've been testing that and kind of just doing round after round of just like in the cage, you know, rubbing it on the canvas, rubbing it on the cage, you know, getting it wet, fast-learned, whatever, to just make sure that these logos don't come off because we can't have that, right? Right, right.

And that's, huh. Yeah. Yeah. But they look cooler. Yeah, gold ones look cool. The gold ones are the, the world-tied ones are going to be really cool. Yeah, but the gold ones, the gold ones are cool. Oh, the gold ones are so cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's been nice. Yeah, that's the new, that's the new, new glove. See, the container, one of the baby blue. Yeah. That's pretty sick. It reminds me of the pride when they had the blue gloves. Pride gloves are great to, yeah, pride gloves also curved more.

Yeah, they curved more and you saw very few eye pokes in pride. Yeah. Who is that? It's like something with an eye. Ease, something. Yeah. They were good, they were good gloves. But we'll see, man. We'll see, you know, hopefully probably five years, five more years. I don't know how long I took them to change the glove. I know, it took a long time. I don't think they're going to do anything different, honestly. I think they're just going to keep it this way.

But I mean, how many fights get stopped because of eye pokes? A lot. I think they've got the rematch with Balal Maham and Leon Edwards. They added to have a rematch because Balal got eye pokes. Yeah. Yeah, first fight. And I poked real bad. You know, one thing that I did want to mention too is I had this discussion with a friend. You know, when these, remember like the Drew dober fight. And that cut. Yeah. And there was a fight before too, like some guy, like that eye was just like hanging.

Yeah. The eyebrow was just hanging by the thread. One thing that would be cool is when these moments happen, and when this doctor, when these doctors come in to check, obviously as fighters, we're going to want to keep going. Most of us. We got our win and show money. We need that. We need that. We need that. Right. But it'd be nice if they like brought, you know, a coach as well to be able to kind of help call the shots, not just the doctor. You know what I mean?

Like, I think that having coaches in your corner is a very important thing. For many reasons, right? They kind of keep us in line, give us advice, what we're doing, things that they see. But I think there are times, man, where like some people should have that coach that's like, dude, enough. Right. Right. Enough. Right. Especially if you care about the longevity of the fighter. There'd be other coach.

I don't think that there's enough coaches in the sport that are like showing this kind of level of care, concern for their fighters. One thing that I appreciate about my coaches in my corner is that like, dude, when you're done with this, we don't want you slurring. We don't want you fucking drooling. Right. You know, we don't want you limping. Right. Like, you got to get out of it. Like, you got to be done with this healthy so that you can continue to live a normal life. Right.

This isn't the only thing. Right. You know, and I'm like, wow, that's a good perspective. Like, when you're done, you're in your 40s, right? Yeah. And then you have, yeah. If you're lucky, you have 60 more years of life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep your teeth. Keep you know, like, you fucking doesn't have to be that way. Right. You know, you don't have to be this fucking barbarian.

Right. So I think that like, for instance, like, if I had a cut like that, obviously, I'm going to want to keep going, but that's a bad fucking cut. That's like moments away from like, your eyes going to be exposed. If you get punched one more time, right, depending on your opponent. So like having, having like another person kind of be able to come in and tell the fighter, like, dude, look, it's over. It's over. Yeah. And we care about you. And yeah, you need your money.

Right. Yeah. But like, let me make this call. Yeah. Not the doctor or you know what I mean? Right. Or the coach can be like, hey, like, there's a minute left, there will be a lot to tell the doctor, we fucking got this. You know what I mean? Right, right. Like, allow the coach to come in at that moment too. I think it would be like, that makes sense. That makes sense. But they're not medical professionals. And I know there's a lot of lines that, you know, pop. Yeah.

And you go different athletic commissions have different standards, right? New York is notoriously rough. They stop things quicker. Yeah. They, they, they stopped weight cuts quicker. You know, New York has had a bunch of different issues with people cutting weight. That's where Hamzaa, when Hamzaa missed weight by eight pounds, they stopped him from cutting. How was it the commission? Was that New York? I don't know if that was New York. New York was definitely max hallway.

When max hallway was supposed to fight the beab. And I think the last minute, they pulled him out of the weight cut and they said, you can't do it. Because max wasn't supposed to be fighting at all. That was when Tony Ferguson blew his knee out. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Damn, I didn't know it was the commission that, like made that decision. Yes. The commission made it to see. But that was the early days of the UFC being in Mass and Square Garden as well.

Okay. It was, you know, you got to realize New York was so fucking corrupt. Yeah. And then the guy who kept it out won up going to jail for corruption. Shocker. Shocker. Crazy. But yeah, that was a weight cut issue. Max was supposed to be fighting could be. Wow. Yeah. Which would have been wild. Oh my god. Yeah. Especially. Now watching Max. And Max is another one. Like people, because Max lost to Volkynoski, you know, people just sort of wrote Max off and said, oh, Max passes prime.

Like, nope. Yeah. Nope. Max better than ever. Yeah. That last fight. How do you think that we as UFC fighters should be able to like fight in like more like boxing or Muay Thai type shit, like outside of the UFC? Well, it depends. You know, if it's a guy like you, I would say no. You're too close. Okay. And he's like coming up in the UFC and he gets a, you know, you're only fighting him once every six months anyway. Yeah. And he gets a possible Muay Thai fight.

If that guy blows his knee out, that's on him. Yeah. You know, this is his decision. If he wants to stay active and do these other things as well, sure. Yeah. But once you become like super close and also super valuable. Yeah. Like you're, you're a star now. And in the UFC, there's only a few guys like you that are not just stars, but win and spectacular. That's spectacular fashion. Right? That's like I'd be like, no. You know, I'm boxing.

Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And look what it did to Connor. Like it completely derailed Connor's career. Sure, he made $100 million fighting for Mother. Sure. Sure, made him a huge star. I'm sure he would do it all over again if you could do it again. But the reality is, you go back to the Connor that beat Eddie Alvarez, that the Connor, I mean, that Connor was a mother fucker. It was a mother fucker. Oh, I know which we had that guy still, man.

I watched that that finishing combination again today Eddie Alvarez. Yeah, we too Eddie's punch It's a motion. Did you watch it? Yeah, it's the fucking algorithm Eddie Conner's got his eyes wide open look look look look at the punch comes to his nose and nose Counter this counter so nice. Oh my god right behind the ear. It's a perfect counter It just rocks that he the time he didn't even break eye contact

He's still looking at him and then the right hook look at this bang. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Yeah I get so crazy that that got fed to me on my way here Yeah, I got crazy. Well, this has been going around today. Yeah, primer Gregor was so smooth Look at that. I'm even smoothie now. He says yeah, I wish that was true. Yeah, same dude damn I was true, but it mean maybe is maybe is and we just need to see him fight again

You know, it's been a couple of years. I really hope so like I'd love to be able to still get the feeling of seeing Conner do amazing shit And by the way, I fully support him pulling out of that fight. Yeah, yeah, don't fight with a broken toe No, that's crazy like people say toe like whatever it's people don't talk a shit

But like did you step your toe and you're crying about it for five minutes? So imagine having a broken toe exactly You know like it's not yeah, and me want one Alex fought Jamal apparently he had a broken toe What was it broken broken or was broken broken really hit a broken pinky toe going into that fight it going into it Yeah, I mean well Shama Shama hey, I mean hey Shama that's like he's ready to go yeah

Yeah, oh my god. I see the guy that you think about when you train. Yeah 200 percent it's like I never okay when I started this when I started MMA I had a dream I had a dream of Meeting Anderson Silva and that dream came true like I I just had a feeling I had a dream. I'm like man

I want to meet this guy. I want to fight this guy something. I just want to be involved with this guy met him Live with him was in his wedding, you know like all that stuff and like okay cool And since then I haven't had real like a dream like a vivid dream until I started seeing Hey, don't come into the light heavyweight division and you know all these things and like now Yeah, I have a dream and like my dream is to put on like a very very memorable fight against this guy like

Something that like no matter what fans are gonna fucking love it. It's gonna be memorable It's gonna hopefully go down in the hall of fame one day, you know like Something like that, you know like it's yeah, so yeah, it's the guy that I think about at the moment and You know and my motivation to train and to get better and to be a better person To be a better man. It's like I'm fucking grateful for the guy in a way, you know what I mean?

Like it's not a good thing. It's more of like yeah Fuck yeah, thank you for giving me something to like wake up for every morning But for being so dominant. Yeah, that is the thing about when you have an incredible champion. It really does make everyone Inspired it makes people rise. Yeah, make sure skills Have you ever watched Vahitoff fight in glory? No Arten Vahitoff is the last guy to beat

To beat Alex and glory and he's nasty. He's his Russian kickboxer. He's really really fucking good Yeah, super technical those kickboxes are crazy Yeah, yeah, glories. It's glory is the most in my opinion It's the most underrated and under appreciated of all the combat sports Because the level that those guys are fighting at is so high Yeah, I remember when I listened to you when your episode with with in Ghana when you were talking about

Sajrk Dumbi. Yeah, I mean I trained with him a little bit when I was living in Europe and I walked into this gym Joe I'm not even lying dude I probably trained there twice and I was like I can't I'm not fucking built for this And at that time like at that time I still young like this was I think it was could have been it was around the Go Kansaki fight maybe before or after but I walked into this gym in Belgium and

It was just full of dogs and Cedric was there and he was training and the way of these guys were just drilling I was fucked up my legs my arms Because they're they're blocking in their offense defense drills are full speed We know what I mean big gloves shin guards, but they're like Wawa Wawa bang and then back and forth and back and forth and back and forth full speed back and forth

And it's just not stop. I think the class is like an hour and a half or their training session was like an hour and a half Something like that and I remember leaving and walking home in the cold and I was just like I'm supposed to fucking you know and they they knew like oh this guy's a UFC fighter blah blah blah

So like I like fucking I have to show up tomorrow. I fucking told them that I came here to train. I came all the way to Belgium to train Show up the next day or whatever a couple days later do it again, and I'm like do I don't think I can come back like fuck this Wow, so the way that these guys are training that are like aspiring glory fighters and you know current glory fighters

It's a different level man. Wow. It's different level of ability of like what they can take you know what I mean like just like pain tolerance

And just like their routine and just what their condition for now. Yeah, it's a different way they train the way the ties train Okay, so I'd say like ties don't necessarily spar hard at all I don't know of a place that I've like I haven't seen ties like full on spar It's very like lighthearted and more like playful and skill and things like that a lot more a lot more bag work a lot more attention to balance and defense And then On the pads. It's a lot less combinations

Like it's not like that. It's not it's not like that. Really?

No, that's why it's very cringed to me when I come back to America and I see these guys who are teaching Muay Thai And it's like the seven punch combinations just because it's punching and kicking and you're throwing in knees and elbows Doesn't make it Muay Thai, you know what I mean like it's not it's not the same essence in my opinion So how do they hold pads over there like it's so like for instance like when I was when I was training my trainer It's like it's more of like he's drawing out

What he kind of wants to see from me based off of my position and like how I'm standing and where I'm standing So he'll he'll have his distance and he'll kind of sometimes won't even really tell me what to do He'll just kind of like insinuate like like like body kick Boom and then however I land then maybe he'll hold the right hand And then boom however I land after that maybe hold the hook And then from the hook and then maybe he'll hold the leg kick

But it kind of depends on like where am I at right? You know like what's my position? He's not like okay jab cross hook low kick Oh It's more based off of your fighter. How does your fighter flow right? You know what I mean? So like in that distance if I'm if he's like telling if he's just like because My trainers didn't speak English at all I had to kind of like learn to adapt so he would just be like

Kind of like doing this like okay slow down relax calm. So I would go okay Yeah, relax and then he'll quickly like that and then I have to kick boom And who'd like to and then he'll like okay relax Punch boom elbow boom like it's just kind of calling out these reactions Not giving me this like eight punch combo four punch combo okay in with the It's just a lot more instinct. It's a lot more like stay calm stay relaxed and when you attack

I don't want to see that you're about to attack me. I need it to come quick and like I need to go right back to relax Yeah, I need to go right back to our last position You know, and so you feel like this kind of pad holding it's more applicable for a natural fight like developing skills I think so I mean like especially if you want to Kick or punch or do anything at like a full power right because I do notice that like like from the tie pad work That's where you practice your power

That's where it like the on the bag and on the pads. It's more power right It's less like boxing is more like focus mitts You don't really do power with boxing on on mitts But with like with my tie it's like this is my chance to be like how How effective is my left kick at a hundred percent You know, and I'm like trusting this guy to be able to catch it for me so um

I I prefer it. I make I prefer the The true essence and the true martial art of avoid tie because it's it's When you when you kind of understand it and when you've kind of learned it from you know like just different traditions and like different lineages It's like you can

You can pick up on things that you're like okay now. Okay. Yeah, this is this is like I can fucking ruin someone If I like relax right here and I'm standing just like an arms length of this guy And I just want to really blast the kick and be on balance I can ruin this guy, you know you also were telling me that they changed the way you were kicking Yeah So everyone like everyone has their own way It's like if you go to a jiu jitsu school and like in arm bars and arm bar

But people have different ways of like setting it up or more effective to to get it um The biggest thing that kind of helped me was for one like a Lot of people when they kick they lean back to kind of counterbalance that weight Mm-hmm and my trainer always told me like he always had me like a dry like drive my pressure forward I actually wished that I was fucking training with you. I was here Side note. I was like damn the other sick to fucking to show some stuff through again

But anyway, uh, he was showing me like next time. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I got a whole gym here. Yeah. I saw it It's probably way better now than oh, it's great. Yeah. Yeah, we'll just move in here, but um Um kind of like this more like forward projection So like all of my weight and plus the kick

Moving forward versus standing stationary lifting my and going back. You know like there's like a no tilting um The turning of the hips like kicking with the shin and not the foot like so there's a lot of little details that go into like making these things happen You know and also the speed of the kick like a lot of big problem that I see in MMA for sure is that like man I can see kicks coming from a mile away, right? Because there's just so much

Just to get your leg up. You should just be able to fucking whip it and it still be as powerful as effective You were saying something about the smoothness of the they they taught you to relax more when you're throwing kicks I have like you have to relax like the kicks the The leg is the heaviest Lim on the body, you know, and just like if you want to knock someone out you don't want You don't want to

Tense up first you gotta be relaxed. It's gotta be swift. So it's kind of like in order to lift your leg to throw it at a full speed And like and to for it to be accurate you gotta be relaxed you have to and how much of that is like When you when you're training how much of your training when you're working on technique is kicking the bag How much of his kicking pads how much of his kicking the air?

Okay, so I kicked the bag a lot um I just have a bag in my house um and everything's usually like slow just getting my body to move and Comfortable with lifting my leg and it just be effortless Just a technique. Yeah, just the technique and like the flow and like the feeling The one you do at home like how much warm up do you do before you do anything like that?

It kind of is my warm up. Yeah, I do it lightly until my intensity picks up and until I'm like okay I'm fucking tired, right You know, so I'll start off really slow Yeah, I post like a video the other day. It's like of my routine like I just like I put on this music like Thai country

Oh, let me see it. Yeah, it's uh Yeah, actually if you pull that up you'll see like that's kind of my daily um like my daily routine so I'd say a lot of my training it's like probably 60% is just like shadow boxing Light bag work working on balance um, yeah So just see like What are you listening to? I'll put it on that's like the classic Time music. Yeah, so try not like even here. I'm trying not to lean my head back and try to keep more of like a station like a

Straight up and down posture while throwing the kick. It's very hard But it's like as you practice it. It only makes the kicks a little bit more effective. So this is at your house. Yeah This is my bag 130 And so you just set and stuff up. Yeah, just touching it. Yeah, just touch because like I need to know that I can touch it before I need to like before I want to blast it

And so that's how you warm up you warm up just gently. I just do that until I end up like really sweating fucking hard on the back You know, I feel like okay, I've done this motion enough to where now I can Release at 100 and do I can just fucking do a lot of stretching. Yeah, I spend

Probably three to four hours a day stretching. Wow. Yeah, really. Yeah, holy shit. It's like one of my hobbies I just I love it like if I'm not okay, so I when I wake up in the morning I'll Say like sparring say I have sparring at 1130 I get to the gym by nine and I'm stretching for two hours Wow, I use Olympic rings. I love stretching on Olympic rings I'll put them like so I hang them at like a nice height and I'll put my arms through and they're just like kind of here

Mm-hmm, and then I'm like flexing down and it kind of helps elongate my spine. Oh, I'm practicing Yeah, decompressing. Oh, I'll put it like on the like under my elbow here And I'll kind of like do like the iron cross and just kind of I do a lot of just different like unique type of stretches And I do them every single day and I just want to make sure that like my body feels as free as possible

I hate tightness. I fucking eating my lower back so tight right now and I hate it. You know like that's just one of the the Oh, I got some shit. I could show you for that. Please. Yeah, yeah, it's a cool shit here

So yeah, like I'd say a lot of a lot of my time in a day is spent stretching. That's crazy three to four hours a day man That's not like sometimes it's two hours and then I'll go training and then later like an hour before I go to bed, you know but Yeah, a lot of my time a lot of my time Well, look at my wife says like oh, where's that garage? You know, I'd be like I look kind of make sense though when you think about how free you are when you're fighting like everything is so fast

To be relaxed. Yeah, gotta be relaxed. You have to be loose to do that. Yeah You have talked to guys who aren't flexible like I was trying to explain I was trying to show someone some guard technique a guy was fighting in the you I don't say his name And I was like so when you're in this position here. I was showing them how to use a rubber guard I'm like so I'm I'm in control here and he's like I can't get my leg up right there

I'm like what do you mean you can't get your leg up right there? It's like I just I don't have any flexibility I'm like do you stretch? Yeah, it's like no, I'm like you don't stretch. You're a world-class fighter and you don't stretch I'm an old comedian and I'm showing you that I can do this. This is crazy. You should be able to do this

Like this is not a thing that's hard to do rubber guard. Yeah, yeah I mean it's sometimes like especially right now it'd be really hard for me to do rubber guard But um why? Okay, so the other day I was working out

Uh, I do these like Saturday workouts. I invite my friends. We do like a kind of boot camp like circuit thing Just something for me to stay active and to invite my friends to come you know enjoy a healthy lifestyle um, I have a friend who's Older guy and he was doing amazing air squats and I was like just Banter I was like do you call that a squat?

I Anybody in the right mind would have known like yeah, this is a good fucking squat, you know But for some reason I don't know what what's going on that day, but he took it personally And he was like what you have the worst fucking squats in here you fucking and just like blew up on me and I was like Whoa dude didn't know we were going that route But since you want to fucking you know what I mean since you want to test the waters

And then I just started fucking air squat in like a maniac bust out like 80 air squats Like my asshole almost touched a ground, you know, it's like going full speed um And then like I just I was kind of like rubbed the wrong way So I just went hard and I wasn't really thinking about posture or technique or anything. I kind of tweaked my back a little bit

Uh, and then that wasn't the end of the workout. We still had to go and burn a thousand calories on the on the assault bike Oh, no, so then I hop on the bike and I'm full blast, you know like Four miles an hour just And it kept hurting and I was like I'm not going to show these guys that I'm hurt I'm gonna just I'm a dog you like get back on

And by the end of the workout like I mean for the past like three days. It's been real hard Oh wow, so my lower back right now and then The day after that I went and I have to swing the golf club like At least four times the four days a week Jamie has one of those things out here. Yeah, simulator. He told me that thing. Yeah, yeah Jamie's a nut. He's out the roll of time. Why? Yeah, yeah

Um, that would that would definitely inhibit your rubber guard, but normally you could probably do it right? Yeah Yeah, yeah, normally yeah, you should be able to do that. Yeah, it's like if you're on your back. That's it's a Regardless of what people think that's it's a very effective technique

Yeah, and I've put people in it. I'm like get out. Yeah, let me hold you and try to get out not On the topic of rubber guard, but after we're done with this I'm gonna show you this six-week thing that I'm working on Oh, okay It's like it's really cool

I'm gonna show to you and then when you see me do it in a fight you're like holy shit. Oh, all right Yeah, it's I'm unseen unheard of um, and it's a mixture of like What I've learned like some Muay Thai concepts and like uh, like yeah Muay Thai concepts and like methods mix with what I've been learning in my Gjutsu because I'm training with a guy who's a black boat under Damian Maya um, and so a lot of the jiu jitsu stuff that I'm working from like learning from him is amazingly effective

Especially for my mentality. I'm like my body style So like in my off time and in my stretching and just my artistic mind I was like how do I blend these two together? Wow got it. Oh wow. Yeah, yeah, it's nice. It's sick. It's sick. How much time do you spend boxing? I don't box a lot Yeah, I'd say like my pad work Like my MMA pad work is a lot of hands Not necessarily like boxing boxing just kind of like MMA boxing

But um, I mean, I would love to do more boxing. I just noticed that when I focus on Boxing like I have in the past um, I just get a little bit more flat-footed Mm-hmm, you know and because of my nature and my spirit I'm just willing to stand in bang like And just right right right right right right

You know, and I'm like waiting on counters and I'm waiting to roll and I'm like um I'm gonna which is weight right here and I'm gonna slip and react encounter but um So it Sometimes can put me in a little bit of a bad position But if I find the right boxing trainer that kind of understands MMA and understands my style

I could see it being effective, but I haven't found that yet. So you just put it all together. Yeah, that's your thing Well, this a man um, I'm bummed out that you're going through all this bullshit But um, I'm really excited to see back in there man. I really really am especially after the anthem Well, I've been a fan for a long time, but the Anthony Smith fight was like it shows me that you are

You're right there. I'm right there. I hope you know Jeff sorted out Everybody in Nevada State Athletic Commission sorted out and hopefully you can call the next one too, right? Oh, I'm excited. That'd be amazing. Yeah, I hope so. I really do. I really do Uh, it's always great talking to your brother same and tell everybody your Instagram Social media where where people can find you find me on Instagram Khalil round tree just my first and last name

Uh, that's all I got right now working on a website. Oh, oh nice. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna work on a website and just get a little bit more Give some more content You know interact with like fans and stuff in a whole different way Possibly, you know, start to provide more videos and just some more interaction. So um, all that's a process But for now just hit me up on Instagram. Yeah, that's better. All right. Let's go to the gym show show. All right. Bye everybody. Let it