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Rogen So don't forget Code. Rogen Five bucks off your first order with Jordache. My guests today are the UFC interim lightweight champion of the world, Justin Gaikai and his trainer, the great and powerful Trevor Whittman. We had a fantastic time talking about all kinds of good shit. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Please welcome Trevor Whittman and just engaging the Joe Rogan Experience Train My Day podcast, My Night All Day Boom.

Trainer of the year, Trevor Lipmann. You might be you might get it. We'll see if he doesn't want to.

Short list.

I got I got not that many athletes. So that's where, you know, when I had one or two years ago, that was unique to me because I went in there like, man, I don't deserve this. I remember having forty athletes and the guys who have all these athletes, it's put in so much time. I had three athletes at the time, so that was cool.

But again, I think performing and doing good as a coach is one thing, but also, you know, putting in that full time when you're running a gym and having forty athletes, it's nonstop. Sixty hours. You're not doing anything with your children. Yeah, that's, that's. But then when I seen the athletes talking on the screen and talking about, you know, Rose talking about changing the world and just being good people, then I was like, oh yeah.

And I remember repeating to myself when I went through a tough time and lost all my athletes, we kind of had to split. And it all happened through when Nate Markhor had that issue with it, that TRT and I talked about the grey area. You know, if you're going allow someone to do that, you have that space like he instantly got shunned for it and he's got children. He had a new kid on the way. And I was just like, man.

He got shunned, we knew about it prior, and I'm just like they said, you could do it, but they don't know how to test the levels.

And that situation turned into a bigger situation. And then I ended up starting over with athletes.

And I remember repeating to myself, you're the best coach in the world. No one is better. And I remember just repeating I a new gym that was big. Thirteen thousand square feet. I was paid about myself that I just kept saying it over and over and over. And then when I was sitting there that night, I was looking back, looking at him, and we won like seven awards that night, which is the three of us. And I was like, man, that's super cool.

That's when it kind of hit.

And I was like, oh, man, there's something to be said for having a small stable of athletes versus like there's some of these super gyms where a lot of guys wind up complaining. A lot of guys wind up saying they don't get the attention they deserve. They feel like they're staggering or they're stagnant there. And it's just it's not it's I don't think it's the right way to so different.

I'll tell you. Takes it back to my boxing days. I only had three or four athletes at the most, and I was running with them and had them at my house and I was feeding them and they were at my house for camp. And it was one on one for everything, for the psyche.

I mean, that's that's such an important part when it comes to fighting outside of just engage, you just engage. I learn from this guy when it comes to mental health. He's just ingrained with, like the strongest mental. And I love that part. Like, that's why I love working with Rose, because the mental part but one on one is key that is key to being able to to to be with your athletes.

And I'll tell you, it's like a hobby. Again, it ain't like a job.

It's like passion, you know, and you never really want to do it for the money you need to pay your bills.

But the key is it's the athlete. It's about them.

When Justin when you came to Trevor, like how much striking experience that you had?

Zero. That's yeah. No, I was I had five amateur fights. I had never, never been in a street fight, a one on one to fight a couple of big brawls, never thrown a punch, never been punched. And I got hit hard in my fist fight, almost got knocked out. I was like, man, I need to find if I'm going to do this, I need to find a coach.

So you see five amateur MJ fights with zero striking training zero.

I was just I would just take right after wrestling was over, I would just be like, I want to fight. And then I was I was in the best shape in my life after wrestling season. Right. So I was a machine still, but I just had no no skills. It was go out there and wrestle, take them down. Slams I was you know, I got my nickname, the highlight before I ever knew how to strike.

And that was from throwing tossing people.

I have to tell you, when he came into my gym. So I met him at one of the fights and I thought he was a Japanese guy because I was traveling to Tokyo a lot with Dwayne and his name Gaikai, for some reason. Just I pictured a Japanese guy. Yeah, it seems like it could be Japan.

And I was like, oh, my God, it was spectacular the way he was throwing people and putting them on their head. I was just like, amazed. And I talked to him in the locker room. I was like, dude, I'm a huge fan. Like, your fighting style is so unique. And then he's like, I'd love to come to your gym. So he comes down, he comes in, he's like, I'm here to fight it.

I was like, cool, you know, like, all right. Well, we're sparring today. He's like, yeah, I want to fight. And I'm like, oh, cool. Let's go back to let's say, well, we're sparring today. Let's get back here because you have a year and he's like, well, I need that. I'm just like, oh, my God. Like you're fighting.

I'll take it to the equipment. And I was like, yes, OK, let's get some new guards.

What year was this? This is 2009. Yeah.

Imagine imagine that moment if someone told you eleven years from now, you can look at one of the baddest motherfuckers on earth.

I'd say it took me a week or two to know. Like, yeah. His mindset and the way he trained like this first session that he had was one of the most unique. So I tell him about this equipment to get your equipment on. I was like, you want those Hager's?

And he goes, he jumps up a bit, is like, well I to wear a helmet.

Look, no one else is wearing helmets and I'm like like who is this guy. So he's sparring with this guy named Vinny Lopez and he gets hit with an uppercut while he's hitting Vinny with overhand and he turns around and goes Oh and I'm like, oh shit, he's hurt, you know?

So I go over to him. I'm like, you good.

And he's like, that felt so fucking good. Look at it as fist.

They both cracked each other so hard, like, oh, shots like it was it was nice. And from that time I was like, dude, you are super unique.

I've never put somebody like that before. I look, I know that's fucking hurt.

Did I look he's like, you know, Vinny looks like I mean he's all tied up neck down Mexican, you know. Looks like you stay out of prison. He's Puerto Rican on the set.

Everybody is for a reason. Yeah, it's me. These he likes me.

Yeah. I was like, I got to go with him like yep. It's like, all right. Oh shit.

They would get the one on one thing I was saying, you've heard like five or six guys as we've been going to these fights, say how they appreciate a one on one time. And that's going back to what that was. I don't want to miss that. Earlier when you were talking about that, that that's that's the biggest thing for me, that every single one of my training sessions. Talking to me like he was talking to me in my fight for spying when he needs a call to the Talon or call the fight, he knows he watches me every day.

And this one on one thing is what these guys are.

Our understanding is so important is everything when it comes to fighting at a high level, it's having that unique relationship with a trainer, having a trainer where you and the trainer are tight like that, like D.J. had it with a man whom, you know, there's a lot of guys who have that kind of one on GSP had it for as a hobby that that relationship is so critical.

It's so it's so simple because you're going in there together like you're you're helping each other. You understand, you know, his whole process from beginning literally with him, you know, his entire fighting process from the beginning, that first time he was there, like, that's invaluable. Met these guys that are jumping into these super camps. And the person is just sort of giving you random general motivation in between the corner, telling you to keep your hands up or the jab.

Although, you know, that's not enough. It's not it's not optimal. I really feel like the optimal relationship is a trainer that really knows the athlete well and is with them in every in every training session.

One hundred percent. I think there's a huge issue. First off, big training camps are key just because the partners I mean, you will get champion rebel fighters out of there because you you're seeing all different styles. You see investors, grapplers, southpaws, all different sizes. So it's great for that. And you adapt to different athletes.

The hard part with that is most of the guys train to somewhere else. They go somewhere else for the conditioning. They go they go to all these different places.

And all the coaches are the MEANWELL.

They're all like, oh, man, you're six weeks out. We got to train hard and you're going from one session to the next hard session to the next hard session.

And when you're with them all the time, I pull back a lot on him. And that's the key to peaking. Like a lot of times people just push hard, push hard, push hard. And that's another huge issue in the sport is over training. Yeah, guys, I mean, it's it's again, that injuries in the sport are are are common all the time.

And most injuries are happening in training.

When you pull back, are you doing it based on just your general feeling of how he looks and how he's performing what he's saying? Are you using heart rate variability using a like a woop strap or a heart rate monitor or anything?

You know, a lot of those are when it comes to those types of things, my intuition is always played best for me. And knowing each athlete, each athlete is different. Some athletes need to to fight at a different heart rate than another.

They perform better at a steady, high heart rate. Some need to spike like in the beginning when he loved the fight, he loved to see people drowned and their eyes open. So we trained like that. He wanted to be the most exciting fighter.

So I'm there to make sure I'm hitting his goals, not my goals.

Like I'm there for the athlete. I train every athlete differently and it's all about purpose. Like, what's your purpose for fighting? What do you want to be? And his has changed in the last four fights. Four or five years ago, he actually said he wanted to be a world champion. And before that, I want to be the most exciting fighter in the world. And it was about going out there causing those wars and and in the gym, he was sharp and could box that.

He could really do some athletic stuff, but he loved to see people drowned.

It's just amazing how technical you're striking is considering the fact that you've really been only doing it for eleven years. I mean, you're one of the best, if not the best striker in one hundred and fifty five pound division. That's a fact. And that clean sharpness of your fuckin left hook man. So one of the best I've ever seen. It's so fast and so there's no fat in there.

He's been telling me one day, you know, your left hook is going to be your best punch. And I was like, what are you talking about, too? And the minute I'm just I played all sports growing up. I was up as a pitcher. I was a quarterback, punter kicker.

You think there's a benefit in that? You just don't know what a right hand is doing a baseball. You know, my kick does not necessarily just kick him as far as I can. Now, it's a placement. Timing is the most important thing there. But those mechanics that I developed through those playing other sports, I think has helped me so much, just my athletic ability. And once I found, you know, this man is a genius, I can't tell you how the process that he started ten years ago, you know, I.

I had no idea. I still don't know what the heck we're doing. I'm telling you, it's just listen, it's you know, how how how you only jump, that's all. You know, every day I step in and that's what I'm asking him. And he is an artist, you know his mind. And I can't see even what he's talking about, you know, are Onex equipment. He's telling me these things. I'm like, you know, I can't put it into my head.

I can't see it. But I you know. I know. And then once it the finished products, like, holy crap, same thing when I fight, you know, every time after I feel like, holy shit, I can't believe, you know, we've been working on this for ten years. But more specifically that the specific details that I that I executed in that fight last night, you know, we had a short time and there was really certain things that we he instilled that I had no idea he was in stealing and.

Just came came to fruition on that night, and it was it was spectacular to watch this spectacular go back and watch well after fire every time everything.

Trevor, how important is it for a guy to be a coachable athlete to. That's one of the things that you and Luke Lucario both said after the fight, that he's the most coachable athlete.

That's key. That's the whole thing, is I'm there to assist.

And, you know, I I put myself as the co-pilot, like, I'm there to draw the map and you've got to trust me around these corners. Like you're the driver. You're the one that that knows. But you have to trust me and to be able to be coachable. I mean, if not, I'm just a water boy, you know? And that's why I'm only coaching a few now, too, is we got to we got to be in this together and you've got to trust me.

And I get I got to be there for you. And if you trust me, then every decision that I make for you, you've got to trust whether it's, hey, don't take this fight.

I mean, with the fight, the last fight, I was like, no, you're not taking the fight. And he's like, come on, coach, but fight. This is the only fight. When he first got offered for the first time and I was like, no, we're at a spa session. And he's like, why not? And I'm like, because you said you never take a short notice fight. I'm like, Now.

Yeah, then he was like eleven days. But we've been traded hard like that. He hit me with all these points and he's like, dude, with the coronaviruses going on who cares. He's like, let me get in there. I need to fight someone right now. I need to release all this and his little basic points. I looked at him, I said, All right, is it good? How are you going to do it again?

Are you can stick to your goal and the next one, because I might let you off on this one. And he said, I will never take a short notice fight. That's why the second time he was offered, he was even more pissed about it. I was just like, he's like dealable was seven days out, like I got nothing to lose, you know, I go out of my shield.

So this is the let's be clear for everybody.

This the first time was the Lamore, California on the 18th, April 18th. And that was how many days out.

So I got the call, I think was ten or something like that. No, I think it was like fifteen days before that. I got the call one night. The next day I went we I called him. He said no that night. Went to spawn the next day. And then that's when I talk, you know, not talk to me, do it. But I, I did like seven hard rounds. I felt great.

You know, I had been sparring so much and so he was like I was like, let's do it. You know, I talked him into it. And then so we go hard. And then I think it was when do they cancel? I think it was ten days before the fight. They canceled it.

And that's when, you know. Went out the window and then they called you all right, out of camp. That's right. I was down to 168. They called me at like 3:00 p.m. and that night I went to sleep at like one eighty two and a half.

And I went, I, you know, just terrible choices. I was like, what you eat? Would you eat? And you go to I went straight to a mcgill's world of ice cream. I got, you know, double scoop with the waffle corn. And then we ate Pizza Hut for breakfast the next morning at Pancakes. I had my cousin basketball there with me. He was helping me, you know, with my cooking and helping me around the house during that.

That was hard, you know, twenty days. And, yeah, we went hard.

And then three days later they called me and they're like, you know, it's midnight. And I was like, fuck that. I was like, I don't take short short notice. Fights like this last one was, you know, ten days. I get the benefit of doubt of it being a late, late notice fight. And now they want to do me night. You know, that that goes out the window, that you know me. That's not now it's not really a late replacement fight.

It is. But it is for me. It is in general.

But, you know, the the general. Public would think, you know, this is he got a full campaign and this is a real fight, blah, blah, blah, so I was like, no, like I'm not doing it.

So let me get this straight.

So you're not doing it because you fell out of camp, started eating again because because so the 20 day notice was like something very special. Like that was something I definitely could have performed and I would have performed. And I think this is the ability to say I think I would have performed and I think I would have won.

I wouldn't have been as confident as I was. I was terrified when they called me that night. I was terrified I couldn't sleep. The next day I woke up terrified because I knew I knew that this is not what I do. This is not how I do it.

This, but because you weren't fully prepared, because there's no way to fully prepare in that amount of time.

But my mind my mind, when I go in there, do I have to keep my mind in a very, very special place, how much of it is that and how much of his physical, you know, like physically?

I don't I don't I don't have this question. I don't know. I can't answer that question for you. But here's quote. I don't process that. But I not something I have a process.

This what I'm saying in this way, though, is what how physically prepared. Where were you in training. Yeah.

So I was just I was I mean, I was the main training partner for Neil Magney Hubbard when they find Vegas. Oh, I was I was in shape. I was in shape. So the second five let me jump in here.

The second fight I thought was a way better, way better a place to be from a conditioning standpoint because he was already in shape prior to the first one. We just went to work so hard like we were trying to get his body in shape quick. And that's that's a hard thing to do. Then he went and gained twelve pounds, which we are four weeks at that point, which is perfect because the fourth week out I always pull back on and let the body recover.

Because you're third in your second week are weeks. Those the weeks that we need to really hit, hit, hit prime and really push hard. And it was a perfect fit. I might do we take this time off.

You go on up and eat. Now you're ready to go again. You got that little that little fire back in your body because you're able to eat whatever you want. And I thought it was perfect timing from how I trained my athletes from a conditioning standpoint. And I actually had to talk him into that one. I was like, this is even better.

Like, this is perfect for you.

Four or five or so for your perspective is like he had a chance to recover, eat all that food, take a little break. And it's good because your body gets to charge back up again and then grind back six and five and six and week five are hard weeks.

They're like a start to those those last two weeks of peaking because our fight week, we slow down a little bit and we just turn the engine on, turn it off. So we go six and five on. The weeks are really hard. Then we pull back in week four, we'll take like three days that are really late and then push it a little bit. And then week three and week two are the ones that I'm trying to get him to get hit five rounds.

We're not doing six rounds. We're not doing seven. We're making sure that we can go five minutes hard for every round, be sharp, not get lazy. And I thought it fit perfect. So when you say a week to two weeks out. Two weeks out. Yeah, right. Before we leave for the fight, what do you prefer. Like if you had a blueprint like they came you Trevor how much time do you want before a failure.

We'll schedule it around you if you're in decent shape.

Eight weeks if you're out of shape. Twelve weeks. Twelve weeks because you take three or four if you don't lift weights for a little bit and then you come back and lift weights and you ain't live for six months or three months, you're going to get real sore.

Yeah.

So you've got to have that break in process where your body is. Your body is going to be shut down and you start to oh, so you have to get through that process.

It just the pre training and then you start to hit it hard because you can't just go and hit it hard to miss out. You just can't break it down. You're going to get hurt. Yeah.

So why did you feel that that was not a good fight, the main nine. So I had no idea I had my body would respond as well as it didn't I didn't think I could be ready to one hundred percent without. I've always done twelve weeks. That's that's all I've known.

So it ever felt like the first decision was just like a split decision, the middle of covid-19 fucking I'm going to do it anyway. And then when they came to the second time like no, no, no, no, I want a real car so why can't we just push it may twenty sixth right now.

Give me three extra weeks then I give my whole then I get my whole ten weeks. Right. And that's all I asked for. So that was my mindset when they call me because I knew they were going to call me the day before I was like watching a fucking call me and they want going to fight May night or something like that. And I knew it and my manager called me like midnight, let's go.

I was like, fuck, I like, no, he was so well, I was like, fuck that. I was like, I ain't no fucking puppet. I'm not going to dance when they want me to dance. It's like I said, I don't take the replacement fight. This is now a late replacement. You know, this is different circumstances. These are the circumstances. Everyone and even he was like, flabbergasted. He's like, what are you talking about?

It's the same thing. I'm like, no, it's not the same thing. Like, to me, it's not, you know, like because I don't no confidence is everything.

I know I can perform, you know, I but you want everything to be done right. Is the biggest fight in my life. Right. Of course. And but ultimately and then and then when I thought about it, I was like, it's only if it's anybody's fault, it's my fault, you know, because I knew this, you know, I knew I was going to find. Again, and if I'm not if I was, I was training hard, but I wasn't training with the mindset, you know, that I need to have old school wrestling mentality.

You know, you you have to see the price. You know, every single morning you wake up, you know, the guy, the guy that you're going to fight, you know, that wasn't there, that wasn't there when I woke up in the morning. So I didn't feel like I was preparing in the proper way. So something that was at this level.

So you don't just need ten weeks for your body. You want it for your mind as well.

That's the most. Yeah, I mean, that's the most important part to me. I've been training since I was four. My body is. My body is a machine, you know, I do. I didn't know anybody in that time that well, that's what it comes down to. I had no idea because I've never tried it, but I was in bed. I had done better between fights since since I fought cowboy than I had ever done between fights in in in in the fact that I was staying in shape, running, you know, I had a treadmill at my house.

I was still sparring. I never know. I took like two months of sparring, three months of spying. But then I was spying the first three or four months before I got that call, you know, to to get in there.

And you made a crazy shift in your career in that you started off as a wrestler. But when I first started watching you fight in World Series of fighting, I was like, look at how this motherfucker throws like kicks.

It was kind of crazy. Like you would throw leg kicks while you were working the body, like inclose like even very you know, everybody's got their own sort of way of moving.

Like everybody's body mechanics are different. But you were throwing these like crazy inclose like kicks, like you'd be like on top of people and you were chopping at their legs. When did you make this shift? Because you don't take anybody down now, which is kind of nuts if you really think about the fact that you were an all-American wrestler and you're your bases in wrestling, you have not had a single fucking takedown attempt in the UFC.

No, but I know I got taken down first for two seconds with Michael Johnson. Rock me.

I don't know how they count takedowns in this sport, but it's certainly not like wrestling not. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, Eddie and Dustin tried to take me down, but I scrambled away out of that. I was a great defensive wrestler. I when I was I wrestled Jordan Burns twice, you know, the first time I stopped his leg for two and a half. Periods and then, you know, pretty much collapsed my sternum and I couldn't take a breath for three months after that, but I mean, then then then it then I gave in, know, then it broke.

My body broke and I couldn't stop anymore. The second time I wrestled them, I stopped every single, you know, he had nobody stopped saying. They go with the oh, no, God damn it, that's you bad motherfucker. Well, it's a shift between being a wrestler, the head and so I'm sorry. So I was a defensive wrestler. I was never a great offensive wrestler. It was it was so hard to take me down when I was all-American.

I started in the pigtail round and I beat four, three, no. Eight seed never succeed. And I think I beat the number of or something, but I gave up the first take down and every single one of those matches and then they broke because of my defensive pressure, you know, I was constantly hanging on them and my my late kicks. Wrestlers, they like to separate wrestling from fighting. I'm just doing this, I'm just doing it both in the same thing in the clinch to clinch is one of the most dangerous with those kicks.

You're talking about that's if your hands are on you because you can feel where their weight is shifting, which way they're moving, which way they want to move. And it's just constantly getting to put all the pressure on on a foot and fire kick from that range. And that's all wrestling. That's I'm using my wrestling so much when I'm fighting like it's when that's when I hear people say and it's so hard to see that with the even with the untrained eye or the trained, I'd be hard to see.

But I'm wrestling so much in there. I understand that.

But that's interesting that your wrestling allows you to do that from the clinch because you have a better understanding about where they're putting the weight, because you're manipulating them around. And then when they are the weight on that leg, you're chopping. I can't check.

Yeah, you cannot pick. I was so bummed out. I didn't call them Michael Johnson fight because I was a big fan of yours. And when you were coming to the UFC, I was like, oh, shit. I was like, this is going to be fun. And then when I found out you were doing that Michael Johnson fight, it was like, fuck, I'm like, I can't call that one. I'm not going to be doing that one.

And then I got a chance to watch it. And I believe it was the night before we had a car. Yeah. So I watched it in my hotel room on my laptop, and I was like, damn, that was this.

A few fights. And I'm like, fuck, I wish I called that fight because that fight was madness. That was just mad at the border.

I've had so much fun with the Korder, like it's I've giggled a few times and right before he got stopped by Poya, he said something to me in the corner, just made me crack up. He says down and he's like he even hit hard.

I just like it, just look at it and I'm just like you just have so much fun out there. And he really enjoys the fight, like he enjoys the process. And you know, I've worked with a lot of athletes and when they win, when most people say it, they don't mean that at all.

Right. They're like they're psyching himself up.

And he is so unique, like he loves to be in there when it's fight night. Like he'll say, he said it to me twice. And I was like, oh, really? Because he's like fucking nervous. And I'm like, really? That is like cause I'm not nervous at all.

It was just like, you know, I can't do it because I just lost my last two fights. That's what it was like. Yeah, it is like I'm so nervous because I'm not nervous.

I should be like just like I need to get out. I was like, I need to be up. I want to stay and not feel anything.

Yeah, that was the victim fight was very interesting because that was one of the first times we got to see real animosity from you to you were you were genuinely pissed off at him. I could tell he was talking a lot of shit. Yeah. About how, you know, you're a human punching bag. And he was going to knock you out and you could see like you were you were like genuinely angry. I was backed into a corner.

Yeah, I'm human, man. I had to fight back. So I was defending myself mostly, but. I was in such a tough spot coming up to London, I knew what I had I knew I had the skills, you know, I knew.

And it was just well, both of those fights were very close fights to you, both very similar.

And both fights one fight. So Michael Johnson, Eddie Alvarez doesn't play my first three fights in the UFC 2017, 2018. They were voted top three out of five. That's out of nine hundred and fifty eight fights. That's what I did. And I only got paid half for those two fights. That's that's what hurt me the most.

Well, they're both real similar to in the fact you almost got both those guys sidekicks and they're very similar in the fact how I lost became complacent while I was having too much fun. I forgot that I was fighting the best of the best. And I was I love it too much, you know, and not having the crowd there, I think so. I don't I think it helped me so much. And I think it's going to weather this crowd or no crowd in the future.

I think it's going to benefit me so much because I was able to understand that the crowd does influence my emotions. And I my only rule is never allow someone or something to affect or control your emotions. And I wasn't I wasn't aware that the crowd was having that effect on my emotions in the fact that I would have engaged more, I would have taken more chances in that fight with Tony. And I didn't do that because I think I was able to be in control of my emotions for the whole time for every second.

That's interesting, because that was so wild. If there was a crowd there for that fight, holy shit. That was yeah. I would have engaged. It would have been a crazy crowd. I mean, if that was T-Mobile Arena. Holy shit. I mean, that would have been madness.

I would find it.

It would have been crazy, but it was super unique to be able to be a part of something like that with no crowd. So it was like it was super cool.

Like he's going on and saying that he would have I don't know if he would have, because if you look at the three fights prior to that, there's a huge difference in your in your range and your balance shoulders.

Like he's he's outrange. You outrange Vick. You you still pressure, but he's got balance shoulders now used to be front heavy.

And that was a pressure fighter. He was the weight was on the front leg and he was pointed with the head. Now he's level shoulder where his range is just crazy.

Like with Tony. Tony was like he couldn't find you with your range and your speed and your balance and which is total work.

Totally.

And Tony, Tony will push you back, hit you with combos all the way back to the cage. Ours was dominate the centre of the cage and use your footwork, like keep them off balance.

And that's what he's done well in his last four fights.

And we shift the game plans completely when I had the conversation with him, because he was like because at the after the first loss, it wasn't much change that that he wanted. He still wanted to fight that way. After the second one, he's like, I need to change something. I'm like, what's your purpose?

You were the most exciting fighter and what do you want to be? And he's like, I want to be the champion. I was like, Did you have to be intelligent? You have to be intelligent to be the best fighter in the world. You've got to be the best defensive fighter. Don't change who you are naturally, but you have to understand defence and defence starts with position. Yeah, always starts with position. You have to know position.

You have to win every position.

Well, you came into a real crossroads, right, because you were this incredibly exciting contender. You come into the UFC giant prospect. Everybody's excited. You have this fucking chaotic war that reaffirms everybody's hopes and aspirations like this is what we're hoping. Justin Gage is going to come to the UFC. Holy shit, there's going to be wild, man. This motherfucker doesn't care. He throws down. You throw down with Michael Johnson like that, and then you have those two losses in a row and people think, oh, God, is he in over his head?

Is that does that style only work on the lower level, guys? And you get to championship caliber guys like, well, you know, Dustin's never held the title, but he's a championship caliber guy and so is Eddie Alvarez. He's a championship caliber guy. He won the title. So you looking at those two guys, like maybe when you get to that point, maybe maybe he's not ready for this or maybe he doesn't have the style. So then you make this adjustment.

So tell me what that was like. You make you sit back. You guys have this conversation. You say you want to be a world champion. And then what what changed in your head so he can tell it so much better than me?

Because for me, it's. It's I can't explain it because it's never been anything, it's just do what I'm told to do when I show up and work my heart, it's like that's all it is every day for me.

I didn't I didn't make a decision. I think it was a choice, obviously.

But you said you wanted to be a champion now instead of being the most exciting fighter, you wanted to be a champion. Yes. Yes. What was that shift? So. I mean, so I always wanted to be a champion. I thought I could be a champion. I was undefeated, right? I thought I could be a champion with the style that I was fighting because I was now losing I seven amateur fights, 18 professional fights, 25 nights in a row.

I had no idea but that I needed to change that. I was just going in there and I was breaking people. I was like, I can't I can't not break anybody. I'm going to go in there and break everybody because everybody is breaking, you know, for some reason.

And then when I lost to Eddie and Dustin or Eddie, and he doesn't it was I watch them many times and I understood that it was the same mistake. You know, you can get hit. I was winning. I thought I was winning those fights. Judges scorecards maybe don't resemble that, but I thought I was winning those fights. The night after I fought Dustin, I went out and took 200 pictures with all my fans at the bar. He was in the hospital.

Probably our guarantee wasn't on his feet because he didn't walk for a month.

So I just understood that no matter how bad. You caused damage, if they don't go down in the land that shot, then, you know, it all goes away and they've got to have my money. I didn't understand. I never got paid half my money.

Oh, you didn't?

You know, I think I knew, but I never thought about that. I don't like that. No, I don't like stuff. People like me. I don't I wouldn't argue for the whole roster. And it's very few like me, so. But I'm going to go to war for myself.

When it comes to that, you're going to fight your hardest no matter what you're saying. You don't need that bonus, the winning bonus to me to win. You saved my life like I. I need that. I don't like it.

I don't like it for the athlete. And I think there's often times where, you know, you would say, oh, it forces guys to try to keep it out of the hands of the judges. Well, that's crazy. You you can't you can't you can't decide that I'm going to keep it. That one statement. Don't put it leave it in the hands of the judges. That one statement drives me fucking crazy because that's not how to fight.

Judge me. That's the the one stay with the judge me the most crazy. Yeah. My mom said it wants like a fight for you as a mom. Don't you ever say that again to everything that I told her why I was like these guys are trying their hardest. You think they're there in their minds like oh let's leave it to the judges and leave to the like. No, they're just fighting for their life. Right, exactly.

You know, and, you know, Chance didn't fall in their favor when it comes to a knockout. Whatever you want, however you want to put it. Yeah.

I mean, take away all the criticisms that we all have for judging and just the idea that somehow or another you can make this decision to go knock this guy out who's a world class fighters trying to knock you out. That's a great way to get knocked out. And when you when you're fighting, you have to fight correctly. And I think me watching as an observer, what's shifted with you is you just seem to be more calculated in your aggression, though.

All the aggression is still there. Yeah, the ZIPPI just spots you fight robots. Barboza fight. Dude, you got right on top of that motherfucker. And he's one of the scariest strikers in the division. You got right on top of him.

That was a super impressive knockout because you you just you figure the distance out perfectly, but you put a tremendous amount of pressure on him. But your distance was excellent, like to avoid your avoiding, but yet you were still there when you wanted to hit him.

Yeah, it's crazy just but yeah. Thinking going in there with it, you know, to be methodical, I never had a method. There was never there was my only method was create car crashes, create a car crash, be the be the, you know, physics.

Both have the same same weight. Right. You know, same force. If I can create more force and be there first, then I'm going to win this car crash. That's usually how it works.

And the issue was when you're fighting in a high heart rate, you get your lazy spots where you start to want to get on your heels a little bit and you lose your accuracy, you lose your sharpness, you lose your your your power, you're maxed out in your heart rate.

And that's why his finishes I feel like you're you're way sharper now and you still fight like you're always going to fight the way you do it.

Then you love the fight, but in spots is key and you're still walking them down.

You're still pressuring them, you're still being able to do those things. We didn't change much outside of. Now he fights in spots.

It's amazing. Just what did I say specifically? I never specifically went you know, you said you wanted to be a champion. And I was like, we've got to get a lot more technical.

And all I ever said it was other than that. And we talked about sports.

We we said you got to fight more in spots.

It was really also to when I'm watching Spar, I watch every session and and I tell them, you know, you're going to hard to pull back this one go out and you're only able to use your left hand. So now you can't throw power, you can only control so on. And he'll still walk people down, but it takes away him throwing so many combinations or hucking four at a time, you know, and and he's able to create these patterns.

That's better. You're controlling range or controlling position and then waiting for mistakes.

The best fighters in the world can always match a good match.

But it's the first one that makes a mistake is the one who loses. That's where it and momentum is so important in sports. Momentum is everything that snowball once it starts to build, it's so hard to recover and turn that around in high competition. It's a mental thing.

But when you can control things and control and control and then find one mistake and then you build on that mistake, you're like a wave.

You slowly get a little bigger and you still get a little bigger.

Now you start to capitalize because once they make a mistake, that pattern starting to create. And then once you get someone to make a mistake after mistake after mistake, that's when you crumble on them. And I feel like that's what he's done really well.

The three fights prior to that, he was just a capital able to capitalize on the big mistake.

But credit to Tony, Tony is one of the most gangster dudes in this sport.

And for him to go through the damage that he did to continue to walk forward is something unique, incredible.

It is one of the coolest things to experience as a coach, to sit there and watch his mental not change. Even when he because I was calling for the ref to stop the fight about halfway through the fifth round.

And when he got hit with that last jab and shook his head, I don't think it was.

A point like, oh, I don't want to go on no more, I don't know if it was the orbital because I know he had an orbital issue, but there was something going on where his body is telling him not to do it. But his mental is like, no, don't stop. Keep going.

If he's still kicking and punching, even with the big old gash on his shin from the check, he was still kicking, getting cracked, and he'd get knocked backwards and then he would go from Backwords right back to forward as it was. It was super unique to watch.

But again, it was it was great to see someone who can listen and understand that if you stay in control yourself, that's the key to everything in this world.

If you listen to anything else on the outside and you start to adapt to other things, you're never going to live the way you want to live. And to be a fighter, you have to be in control yourself all the time.

And I always say the best fighters are the best actors, the ones that could trick their self, fake it till you make it till you get to the championship and you have to live that way.

You have to obsess, never being broken. And even if you break, accept it in an honest the next, don't deal with it.

Oh man, I had such a bad day. This one of my biggest pet peeves that I hate is here and someone. Oh man, today was a shitty day and I was like, yeah, there's going to be many more shitty days but accept it. Yeah. You I love it. Does it zero good to sit around and talk about shitty day. Totally. I have fighters say man you always say and just positive shit you always just like it.

I'm like hell yeah. You got to love every part of it. Like yeah I'm gonna say beautiful at any point when I see you get hurt to the body of a crack up. He got kicked in the cup. He had a big ol cup the last fight. He got kicked in the cup. He turned sideways. Did the movie or talk about cop moonwalk where we turned lateral. You don't get the squareness from the front kick. He did it perfect and he stepped back into this coming up.

Like, how did you hit your cup? He had a jaw. Sapir Cup.

I wonder what are the cut to do big for the tight budget. I laughed. I was like to to the cut, but I just I just think, you know, it's what kind of cup do you use?

He forgot his coffee cup in his mouth.

So the UFC always has one major problem for them.

What the UFC has a so no, no, they're new cups they got.

I'm not the only one that forgets their cup.

OK, so what do they give you? Just like a really nice cup. Oh, it's just just just a cup and I stick it in my underwear that has a little pocket for the cup straight.

He trains with no cup there. So maybe there's so many this part of the cup on workups, you know.

So so Dwayne Ludwick Jesus guys, loose ball Dulaine Ludwig I think a carried out put it in the back seat and, and when I went in for some type of surgery and I wasn't there for that one surgery, he got kicked in the ball and the dude kicked him in the ball, had to accept the fight for him and take the fight that he was training for.

But every time he takes a ball shot, I don't let him stop my get up work up that I did not wear a cup.

That sounds so crazy. Whatever. I hit the balls. Yeah, but look at wrestling, not wrestling. But this is in wrestling cups. Cups are for life and death situations. But sparring is not that.

Yeah, but you can get kicked in the balls and lose a ball.

We've had this conversation touched my body. I offer for the sparring. I announce names percent of the time. I got five hundred dollars for anybody they could drop in with body shock drop.

People got kicked in the balls. In your fight with Tony, that was a free kick, like a kick. And it wouldn't have hit my balls if my opponent so big. This group is true. Hey, hey. Honestly, do cups do like especially in boxing? Because I never did mixed martial arts. I did boxing in boxing cups are the worst. There are those those particular things do don't just sit in the front of you. So you take shots up here and it smashes you.

It's like the worst like.

But have you ever used one of those diamond makeups. I see people shorts. I see people getting them up though.

Did I have some of those laying around. I'll give you one. All right. Diamond sent me a game. I fucking love that. Where from jujitsu. They sit in the compression shorts and they're tight. Probably help, though. It helps my special times. Jesus Christ, we're a god damn cut.

But are they allowed to wear tie cups, steel type? Yes. Yes, they are actually seen.

I actually seen in in one of the fights because I didn't know if they were able to because they're steel.

Yeah, but I seen the string coming out. I had to tie up James McSweeney's Cup one time and I'm like, bro, how are you wearing it like that.

He had a string going up his ass so bad, like a thong so tight and he's like, tighter, coach, tighter. And I'm sitting there and I'm yanking on this thing and I'm like, dude, how are you going to fight like that? But it ain't going to move every move.

And if someone kicks, you fucking hurts them. I could not imagine man needs to be with the ty steel. Totally. Yeah. Listen, man, the ties know how to do it. I mean, nobody gets kicked in the nuts more than them, right. They're just thrown leg kicks all the time. Yeah. They slam shins in the ball sacks all day long and they figured out a way to make that something that you don't want to do completely.

But it's also a giant lever for for their yards.

They have heard about that. When you're grappling, you can really feel it. Oh, my God. It's illegal in a lot of Brazilian jujitsu tournaments for Hooke's. They're back the spying or my mark, yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we we had a guy in our gym that wore one. He mounted me and stuck it in my sternum.

I'm like a boxing match. So worst pain. It's like like he's got a giant rock, shoved it into your your sternum.

But so when your when you're sparring, you don't ever feel vulnerable that your balls are just kind of like jiggling around them.

I mean there were some tight boxer briefs, so they're not hanging out and you're like, all right, whatever.

So, so again, I feel like it's a real problem. And that's his outside issue. I work for the athlete.

That's one thing that is super unique for me that I am I'm not going to be your father.

Like, I'm going to train you on to give you everything I got. But this is your life. I will say that in many ways I can. But if you're not going to train for it, I'm not going to just sit there and annoy you.

For when it comes to Vegas. I told you so ever when you lose a ball.

I used to be when I when I was a catcher, I didn't wake up. Oh, jeez, that's crazy, right?

Oh, yeah. Protect yourself.

You see that video where you hands who was Dwight Gooden throws that ball and the bird explodes.

Oh, you really wanted to at the moment. Have you seen it turn his leg all the way up. Yeah, I've been told, yeah. I haven't seen the bird exploding. That's kind of Diamondbacks.

So he's he throws his ball and this bird flies right into the line of fire and explodes, explodes in a burst of feathers. Yeah, I remember him pitching.

He was like the fastest pitcher at the game, the middle of the game, middle of a game.

So the birds fly and the here goes like this. Oh, so look over here. Oh goodness. So he throws it and just perfect timing.

No way. Yeah. It just randomly explodes.

So that's the bird flopping off over it. Just down there to develop it. He cleaned it. You could cook that like that. Yeah. You could cook it right there defensively.

You could end up fucking birds. He basically stopped it in its tracks perfectly.

It was like the perfect collision. I mean, what are the odds of that happening?

Unbelievably, really effective in golf. He had a birdie. Oh yeah. Sorry about your balls, please. I'll get you one of them diamond in my makeups. Think about cuts. Well, we're OK.

Cheesus, just coach talked to him. There's a point zero zero zero zero zero nine percent chance Randy Johnson would hit a bird on any with any given pitch.

Oh, come on. Put that number mathematician's. Yes. So you how many how many pitches have been thrown and there's a little one time out of there. That's what I mean. So that's how many birds that's probably what made that.

And then as they continue to go on, that's going to change because till they hit a second bird, never once had a bird been hit with a pitch in the history of baseball before that fateful day with Randy Johnson that said each game team throws around 150 pitches. Multiply that by 200000. You get three to change every year for many years, roughly somewhere in the ballpark of one in thirty million per per season.

Yeah. Postseason.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's a little crazy.

If you were not playing Major League and someone did that, no one's going to believe then believe that ever.

Yeah. Even like what. Yeah. My buddy Ball right when he drew the ball the bird just perfectly lined up like your buddies and Anthony threw a ball at a bird. Tell the truth.

So think about your nuts, please.

I told you I got you take giant cup. Yes, yeah, yeah. Well, I have a bunch of them back and he'll be the best father. Like, he's so good with kids. You.

You need work up, man. Yeah, you want to find a girl first part of the equation. Yeah, but don't find a girl right now because that fucks up more fighters than anything. The wrong girl. Oh, picked the wrong one. I'm sure you won't.

But sometimes you don't think you're picking the wrong one. I think you're picking the right one.

Then they fucking take their mask off for each. Oh, they're so tricky. Some of them some of them are tricky at all.

I tell you, I was done. I found my wife, my best friend.

I tell you, she was kid. I say all my success.

She was someone who supported everything I did, which was so different. And again, having that backbone and having someone to support you is key. You got to have the people that are there for you. When I have the day where I feel weak and I'm like, oh man, I really just don't want to do this. She's like, get up and do this. Like, you got this that the days where she needs to hold me back a little bit and it's just having that balance is key.

But yes, in this industry, when it comes to two athletes and especially the level that you're at, it is a scary thing.

I've seen it change so many people.

And it's not just the women, it's outside influences. It's it's it's this is one thing that I love about this guy is he is the same dude from day one.

And I've had so many athletes just become something different. You know, they get Shalon and they just become different.

And he's just grounded. Dude, I call me. Yes, because every person that knows him is like, hey, man, come over my house to dinner. And he just can't say no. He's like, oh, OK. Who will be to bring you this kind of.

Yeah, it's just a great, great thing. Like he's so good to his family is so good to all of his friends.

He is very unique, very unique. And it's always the nice dudes like you see in from the outside.

You look you think, hey man, meathead, you know, like these are one of the most intelligent for people type of fighters. And some of the nicest guys are the ones that perform the best ones. It's going to help a lady across the street. They fight for something.

I think that's unique. There's something to that because I think guys who don't have the burden of guilt, like laying on their head, that they're an asshole, like even if, you know, you're a sociopath, if you act like a piece of shit, no matter how much you justify, like I'm the fucking man who gives a shit in the back of your head, you got to know you're a piece of shit. You got confidence. Yes, it's false confidence.

So that's why I was so scared to make that walk. Or you should be scared if you've done everything. What are you scared of? You know, it's probably you probably didn't need the right things. You probably didn't go to sleep. Right. And you probably drink too much alcohol.

You did something and know you can't lie to yourself about being an asshole, though, as well as you might expect. They can reword that and be like I'm the shit, the piece of the shit. You know, it's you reward that. That's a it's a psyche. Right. About the shit is like now you two pieces. You thought about that with a lot of fighters that they get into trouble.

I wonder how much that fucks with them. Like and also to in today's day and age with social media, if you're an asshole, if you do mean things, people find out about it and they like that guy's a piece of shit, fuck him, you know, and then you you feel the sting of that now and then you getting out there and you're getting booed and, you know, you see that fuck with guys. It makes a big impact.

Those are the hardest guys to retire to, like once they don't have it anymore.

It's it's a rough thing. That's that's a hard being.

A hard thing for me as a coach is is seeing the end. Yeah.

And that's why I'm so into like like life coaching, not just coaching, it's coaching them about life that hey man, you're the same dude as anybody out here. You're challenging yourself. Yes. You are doing something at a different level and going out there and chasing things. But don't let it change who you are to people. And because you have everything now, when you're champion, you go into any restaurant, they're going to give you free dinner, feed your family, doesn't matter who who's with you.

But when you lose, all celebrity jobs are ahead. They feel bad for you, too, like, oh, my God, that's just got knocked out.

Yeah, it's very hard to step away from. And you see guys that continue to fight for way too long because they need that feeling.

They need that that that invincible ness again, that that that stardom, that kingdom. Yeah. And that's hard for me to watch because it's that's a challenge.

And you see a lot of people go down the wrong end. It's their identity.

Like when they're not fighting, they don't know who they are because first of all, fighting is so much more exciting than anything else you're ever going to do. So you get used to these gigantic highs and then preparing and then the nerves of preparing and all the the anticipation of these big events. Fighters have the riskiest job in the world outside of first responders, soldiers and people along those lines. I mean, you're literally playing a game called I'm trying to throw my bones in, separate you from your consciousness.

And you're going to try to do that to me. And it's and you're doing it publicly in front of everybody. So there's emotions, there's physical, you know about everybody knows about the damage that it does to your body. It's so it's there's so much riding on it that for fighters when they leave that and then they go to a regular life, like a lot of times it's very difficult, very difficult to make that adjustment.

That's why so many of them come back now, and that's why it needs to be guided from day one. And again, it's how you have to have a time like. Your goal, you have to set goals that we've talked about when your time is up and and how long you going to fight for, you have to set those goals.

You have to be true to one that's like not taking a last minute fight. Yeah. You know, that's you have to have your goals set in place.

And once you start to break those rules, you're you're really not grabbing the wheel, right? You're you're letting it cost.

And then that's that's where you start to spiral downhill or go off track. And I think that's super important because you can only do any sport for so long. But all athletes like even in the NFL and things like that, they think they're going to play forever.

They have this mindset that you're going to play forever, but it's so hard to see what happens to them after the lights go out.

Yeah, very hard.

Very hard. Most athletes, pro athletes wind up going broke. Yeah. I mean, it's the vast majority of NFL players are bankrupt within, you know, just a couple of years of retiring.

Same thing with NBA players and mentally bankrupt mentally, mentally, where they can't earn, they don't want to.

And they almost get like like self sabotage. Like, again, it's a you know, I'm kicking my ass like it is again, if they start to beat their own self up.

Yeah.

And that takes a lot of work to I mean, that feeling after after being in that octagon and winning is the highest of high. You know, I've never, ever experienced anything like it, but I focus as soon as I leave. I really focus on not on bringing myself down and not not being too high for too long because with the highs and the lows and I don't I try to I'm constantly in the middle.

So when you do that, like right after the tone, you fight like a lot, walk like two minutes after I walk, you know, you go through the whole process. But that whole time to the process is like, you know, for one year you're special, you know, you're not special. That was awesome. But back to normal, you know, now it's it's immediate. Immediate, right.

With the right wing. I was talking to you. I was like, you know, my finger hurts. But other than that, it's like you seem pretty normal. Yeah.

The only thing that was normally through the belt, the way I get that fucking thing out of here, I want the real one. I did that. I mean, that's a competitor in me.

You know, like I said, you know, Dustin won one of those. And, you know, as you stated, he was never a champion. Yeah. You know, so but he did when he won two interim titles, you know, championship caliber.

But and so was Tony. I mean, Tony was an interim champion as well. But interim titles are very weird. It's a weird thing. I kind of think they shouldn't exist. Yeah.

It's like definitely not real belt.

It's more real than the BMF belt, but it's just it's just one of them. Every time I hear that, I think the Cowboys like to BMF everyone out there and I always think of that.

Yeah. I mean, it's called the BMF ranch. Yeah. Yeah, the BMF belt was but it was fun obtainment.

We got to do it. And remember, Beltz, whether the interim or not, you get pay per view buys.

So again, there's we gotta look at the pros and cons and the athletes I hope. No, I'm talking about the right. I mean, yes. Yeah.

That's why I should that was one huge factor for what I've I've always said I don't think late replacement fights, but I never said I don't take late replacement world title fight. This this is way different. Yeah. No. Yeah, just the implications. I was different.

You had a statement. One of the things you said when you first entered the UFC, you said, I'm going to put on some incredible fights and I'm going to lose and I'm probably going to get knocked out.

Nobody says that it's crazy. Crazy. He says it was. So you say all the time, I'm like, stop saying that shit, because you say you get yourself knocked out. But that's that's but that's the key to him. Like, he doesn't hesitate. Like if I do anything as a coach, I got to pull him back.

And that's a great thing.

Like, I've been a motivator my whole career. I've the psychology.

I'm a great technician, but my psychology is tricking people to win is how do you get out there and do it and and making them to believe you have to force your head into something to make something happen.

You have to go out there and fight.

And that's hard for a lot of people. This guy is like pulling people back is a great thing. It's like that's that's it's still hard to do at times like that with him. But the fighters just go too hard.

They hit rage and rage is hard to settle down with.

Someone has rage like someone said something about your mama. I'm always like, they don't even know your mama has to, like, stop.

Well, there was a great moment after the second round after you get hit with that uppercut, you came back to the corner and you told them, take something off your punches, take about ten percent off, just hit him a clean shot.

You trying to murder him with every shot. And then you made that adjustment. And that that's that was really interesting because a lot of times coaches would tell stuff to fighters and the fighters probably know someone in their head, but it's fucking with them that they're starting to get tired. It's fucking with them that they got hit and then they lose some composure, they get emotional and they go out there and they want to make mistakes. You immediately adjusted and you went out there and you would see like.

By the end of that second round, when Tony hit you with that shot, people were like, well, maybe this is a shift in the direction of the fight. Nope, the shift was the opposite way. You came out in the third round, more technical, and you came out and did exactly what Trevor said. Yeah.

So we worked long and hard on that. I trust him with, you know, with everything as he said, you know, we wouldn't be he wouldn't be my coach if I didn't trust him with my life and with everything I go in there to do.

So when he said that you would take 10 percent off. So the crazy thing is, is you only see 10 percent of the interaction between us, right between rounds. I'm right now I'm actually talking to you. Is he trying to get that whole that whole thing?

But, yeah, I was trying to see. Trying to get what, though? Because he's trying to keep his audio from his bio. Because you want to hear it and watch it.

Because I don't remember it, you know. Right. Of course. Just like when he come to me in the fifth round and I was laughing, I just asked the reason I was laughing is because I just asked him. I said, was that the end of the second or third round? And they're like, this is the fifth. And I was like, no fucking way. I'm not going to say. I was like, no way. And that's well, that's when they cut in, you know?

So you don't see there's so much you don't see in that interaction between me and him.

And it's so important for fighters to see that adjustment and how his endurance leveled off because it was like you were having these wild exchanges and you were you were fucking hit. And Tony, first of all, Tony Ferguson is made out of metal. Why?

It's crazy, especially when you're talking about a body type like you were talking earlier about someone with a frail body type.

He doesn't have a chiseled neck. Right. He's not like Mark. It's so unique to me. So tough.

He's so fucking it makes me what is it, a choice to go to sleep at night? But there's also a key, like if if a fighter can take something on understanding coach ability is like you have to have your reactions, but you also have to have your responses.

Like reactive stuff is like like Jap's positional stuff is reactive, like you have to be able to react positions first.

I love jujitsu because it's position before submission. You have to react to to positions before anything else. So there's reactive stuff. But the responses is why you have a co-pilot to help you see what you can't see and start noticing that. Or how are you playing defense and using a jab to find openings where you're still working, but you're thinking and going, oh, every time he does this, he's dropping his hand and you're able to see things.

That's where you have to be responsive and you have to be aware in the moment where a lot of times people can't. They just bite down. They just bite down on them.

I found this and very similar the way you used. If I was bite down, their eyes are getting big.

Oh, that's my response is I continue to do this and they're going to fall.

And again, that is a very important point, is a coach and the athlete understanding. I am there to help you with your responses in the gym. I'm going to create your reactions. I'm going to create your patterns, your basic fundamental patterns that's going to help you win positions and slightly win rounds where you're controlling the fight. The other pieces, how am I slowly creating momentum to get finishes?

It was pretty stunning how well your you adapted and then also how your endurance leveled off because you did seem like you were slowing down a little bit at the second round. But it was because you were sprinting, because you were throwing these full power fucking haymakers. But then when you leveled off in that third round, then it's like you had an endless gas tank that was interested.

You're in control yourself. If you're making decisions, it's a lot easier on your psyche. Yeah. When you're trying to just fight out of things all the time, again, you're not in control. If you can control your thought, you cannot control your breathing.

How stunned were you that Tony could take those shots? In the fight, you know, there's just no there's no point where I won't even understand you weren't thinking at all, just throwing them. You know, it was crazy. The shots I hit, you know, Jonte, our Vic Barbosa and struggling with I was so surprised I went to sleep, you know, I didn't understand why I think he was positioned mostly. But, yeah, I was when I was hitting it with some of those shots, especially the one when it came through what he was doing uppercut.

I couldn't believe he didn't go to sleep with that. But I go back to the Michael Johnson fight when he hit me with that left hand. There's no reason I shouldn't have went to sleep then. So I don't I haven't figured that part.

Johnson is a very good way to see when he knocked out Poyet with that same pointed a sharp his left hand.

I was cutting through it and it was on the chin. It was everything a knockout shot should be. I don't know why I didn't go to sleep. I got to figure that part out. I know how people go to sleep. I don't know how people don't go. Yeah, it's random.

It's weird. I mean, sometimes guys take hit kicks full on head kicks and they don't go to sleep.

It's position. It's everything is sports. Can you base can you can you lock down and you say, did you see it. That's that's a huge piece because if you don't see a reason for it, so you're letting it's again linear or rotational is what's causing the concussion. And when you don't see a shot, those are the ones that caused the most damage. If you're able to brace for it and bite down on the punch, it's a lot better.

So a lot of times when you see seen two hooks, both people hook and I throw like this, I turn away and then also I come and I don't see it. I'm causing that head on collision, but I'm not braced for it. I'm not leaning against the wall where if I see a hook coming, I've got my my head carrying my weight. Yeah.

And able to take the shot. So a lot of times it's the shots you don't see coming and that's the timing.

But there are people who will punch you in any moment and you're going to go to sleep.

Yeah, that's their power. So that's so that's like one of the craziest thing in this in this world. It's no if it was I told you what I'm telling you. I've seen people who don't have balls are on one foot when I touch them. Hey, your low kick.

So it was so low key for many years, wasn't thrown with the right technique.

But it is when you kick people, they're like, oh my gosh. Like you have a sharp, heavy bone.

It's so dense. And the dense bones in the UFC. There you go. So there's a lot. Yeah. So they've done a scan on you.

Well they said they can't confirm or deny. Got the ball and they can't run it out better right now. We got that they have a deficit with DEXA scan right at the UFC and you know, you later inch by inch scans, your whole body tells you what you made of the MRI.

Your bones are denser than yours, I would assume. So that seems crazy.

That guy doesn't come from this planet.

You know, they sent him. We want to hear crazy story about your repeated on the podcast. I'll say it anyway. When he he had some sort of a fracture, it was orbital.

They sent him to a doctor and the doctor examined him and then calls the UFC and goes, where did you find this guy?

And he goes, yeah, he goes, he's a fucking specimen. How he goes, No, no, no, no. I've never seen a human like him. He goes, I've been practicing medicine for more than 40 years.

He goes, the the ligaments the tendons in his eye are three times larger than a normal human's, like everything about him. And I was Dana told me this and I was talking to Dana about it and I was talking to my friends who know the whole Cuban program over there, the Cuban athletic program. And of course, he was on the Cuban Olympic team. I said, look, this is some fucking experiments down there, son. They did some 100 percent experiments.

It's not just incredible genetics, which for sure he has, but like he might be a part of some goddamn right. You know, like there's there's a few like Karilyn. Well, they used to call him the experiment, the wrestler from Russia, the guy who was like a fucking super hero and just threw people around like rag dolls, 300 pound man's crazy. It would try to be they would try to flatten out so he couldn't hoist them up and he'd get his hands on fucking.

Yeah.

Just placed him over his head like they called him the experiment because his parents were like five five. Yeah. These little tiny parents and he was this gigantic gorilla.

That's crazy. I wonder if there's any doctor out there that's ever talked about me and said, man, you have never seen a specimen that's just all ligaments and bone and muscle he throws.

There is that perfect technique because he has no muscle. He's not trying to muscle shit.

But there's something about guys that are strong in jujitsu. It's actually kind of a disadvantage for learning because you could power out of things so you don't develop proper technique.

Yeah, like, do you want to learn learn from a little girl like a Hoiles Gracie or Eddie Bravo or small guy?

Yes. They're not overpowering anybody. I think there's there's something to that graciela's.

Yeah. Perfect example. Perfect example. And then what's striking is kind of in a similar mode, like the really technical guys are the guys who have like Floyd Fluzone knocking anybody out one punch kind of has to be technical. He's you know, he always had brutal hands. He was always hurting himself.

It's you know that. That is the cool thing about boxing is the sweet science. How many years it has been around and there's just so much involved with that. But you're seeing a huge shift in MMR where it is like so, so, so special with your fight is be unique.

Again, going back to position of footwork like the footwork is a key like that that people will talk about the punches and pulling stuff off the punches. But from the I when I watch it, I'm just like, man, it's it's keeping someone off balance where their step is.

One just a point of a second behind you. You can control the timing, you can control when you punch. And that is such it's a dance.

There's a lead.

When there's two dancers, there's a lead and you have to lead the steps. If you're leading the steps, you got them coming to you. And that's creating that pattern.

And then we can just like that's one of my favorite things to teach is just footwork, like understanding position.

How do you makes a one on one hand fighter or only able to use one side of their body because they can only put weight on one side and timing the foot when there's a foot off the ground. They can't base, they can't block until that hits the ground.

So it's in between beats. But those are the spots that I could just geek out about and just have so much fun.

But the technique is so key.

People who are born with gifts and going back to how people just punch differently. Some people just whether it's heavy bones, some people, you look at it and their technique is nothing and you're like, holy cow, they can hit.

Yeah, some people just have great power. Like we were talking earlier about Alex Pereira, the guy who fights in glory. He that motherfucker knocks everybody. He's a guy who knocked out Starbound or he knocks out everybody. He's got crazy power. And he you know, he's built strong. Looks like a strong guy. But there's something about his power that is it's greater than whatever you would expect that comes from him.

Chris, you remember because LeBron like an athlete at all and the guy every time he hits someone, they were reacting big time. And, you know, he had thunder in his hands. You really did. And he could take a shot. Really? Well, that's again, a super unique thing is, is those taking the shots.

Your plan is very hard. Yeah, he had a very plotty, very heavy base.

Yeah. But that cost him when he fought, Anderson. Oh yeah. It was Anderson timed it. Yeah. Just, you know, another sharpshooter who is sharp.

He hit you when you're at the certain times where you can like Winnicott first coming in attack and I'm like just beautiful working backwards and still create not much leverage and causing a head on collision as you're pulling your hips away.

So presumably it's all timing. I always say I have like like six songs going on in my head during a phase, like a reggae song as a country song. Do you do your songs? That's what I'm dancing to. You know, my concerts. I'm constantly changing rhythms. And if you're constantly changing rhythms, I can't find a pattern. They can't find a pattern. You can constantly catch them in between them trying to find it. And that's that's what I'm doing in there.

My feet are dancing.

So are you actually singing? I'm thinking of the song. No, no, no, no. Not you. Just just moving if you wanna. Intuition is right is if as if I'm never on one beat.

If you watch my fight I'm on ten different beats just to mix it up and to be unpredictable and offer different looks to make them.

Because the first thing that happens in a fight is distance control. Someone's going to control distance and my shift early, you know, back and forth, but it's going to be established within the first minute. That is the most important thing of any fight that will ever happen in a fight, I believe, because once that's established, the person who establishes it is going to be able to control, you know, the rhythm. And then once you can control the rhythm, now you can make them dance to your tune.

Once it gets into your tune, your fucking smoking as a coach.

When Tony Ferguson decided to make weight, even though the fight was off and then wound up fighting just a few weeks later, for real, like the April 18th fight, the Taichi Palace fight, he just decided to make weight.

And, you know, and is a lot of people are pretty impressed by me included. But then a lot of people were saying afterwards, like, hey, what if he has to fight again in four weeks? It's like you got to pay for that. He's not one hundred fifty five pound guy. You know, he's 170 pounds. He's not young. No. And he said we were in contract to fight again.

He still was going to make weight. Yeah. Yeah.

But I weighed 178 that day. I was. He said you were to make. Well like hell no I'm not. What do you fucking all yours. I had on him donuts a few days before. I don't ever look at that stuff Joe and think anything because again I'm starting to think about them and get distracted by.

But as a coach, like forget about the fight, the fights over and gone and never person who said something is done and say that's that's a good thing or a bad thing. Every person is different. Like if they fight at a lower weight and it's cool for them and they need to hold that weight better. And you're going into five rounds. I prepared a three round. There's so many different variables that go into it.

I've got to treat each, I don't know, like I honestly probably would almost all the time. I'm not going to say never, but yeah, probably not going to do that. But mock cuts are good for you if you have issues making weight. Sometimes a cut is good because it gets you down to a point first.

And, you know, if you there's so many people that cut so much weight, the weaker the fight that I think that's a huge issue.

So I really didn't look at it as that big of a deal. I was like, you know what? It's better than just waiting to the last minute, because that is where there's huge danger in this sport.

How much you cut. Not a lot. This was the easiest cut of my life, so you got down and down and then you cut off how many pounds?

When I got there, I was 165. Oh, not bad. But you hit 63 twice prior to going prior to going there.

I hit 62 twice the week before. That's none of my guys. I had a lot of weight. I don't like it. I think it's the most dangerous thing. I think, again, it's it's it's not natural for your body. You're detoxing everything. You're taking everything out of your system.

And again, what are you really going to fight at? Right.

So on Thursday night, we started our work. We do one workout at night and I was one sixty three point four when I started working out for an hour and 20 minutes. And when I got off, I was one fifty six point six. And it was I was amazed at how much I had just collapsed. That's amazing. So, yes, I went to bed, I went and drink eight ounces of coconut water, went to bed, woke up one fifty six point to one fifty six point four.

Oh, wow. Worked out for 20 minutes in a sauna for ten. And then I was on way. Oh, that's amazing. It was the easiest kind of my life.

That's amazing. So that's you just got it dialed in perfectly. My body is I've been doing this like people make fun of me when I say I've been doing it since four. But my dad caught me sneaking Tomalis into the bathroom when I was like six. I've been doing this my whole life like I am. My body is a machine. It knows once it gets down, we get to we get to go right back up. And that's, you know, my mind internally.

But, you know, it knows one of the things you said I thought was really funny.

I hope Tony breaks my nose so I can get it passed.

Yeah. Everyone talks about how I talk for when I talk fast. I've always talked fast. Sounds like a mumbling, but my nose doesn't work. Yeah, I sit there, plug your nose and talk, you know, see this is the same thing I can tell hearing it because my nose used to be broken too.

I had it fixed, I had accepted.

But this goes back to the dense bones. I heard it in December. Season ends in March. I got a fix in April and it had healed already. And the doctor, he said, I drilled. I tried to drill through that side, but I couldn't get through that side because your bones too dense.

But yeah, the doctor sounds like an asshole, right? Give me.

That's the college paid for it, so.

Yeah. So this was a long time ago. This was when I was 19. Yes.

I lip to you also just have to think about the fact you just constantly getting hit in the nose. Yeah. I don't recall ever got hit in the nose in a fight that's. Well I'm waiting but in training you do.

They hit my forehead. They don't touch my nose or my chin, really. I've seen I've seen so many people in surgery and it's again, it gets so Shenkar.

When he got his surgery, first session, back foot was again it you're building up the cartilage. And again, almost there's been three people through the gym that's had surgery and ended up breaking their nose again. I recommend it when you're done. Yeah, I wish they could clear it up.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I know about building the cartilage back up. Yeah. That's what Vandelay did, which was crazy. Like it became a different human right. But he had the worst flatting those I've ever seen in my years of watching combat sports.

The chain had my nose fixed. He broke my nose like that time I had a broken and it crawled right back. But man, I could breathe. It's like like maybe I haven't, you know, that I've read it slowly fell back into position because it's been like that for so many years. He had broke my nose in sparring.

I was so beat up in training from training Shane Carwin, Shane Capano, she started sparring with him because he couldn't hit me and he hold on her, hit the brakes.

How much you were wet, like one sixty. And you're sparring with Shane fucking car. Oh, yeah.

My hands were so bad hitting mitts with him. He was he hit so hard, Joe, that it's crazy. So I got to understand what everybody is talking about with his gloves.

They were like, man, he needs different gloves. And I'm like he's got when he's got the best gloves, they're fine.

They just that being a bitch. And he hit me and broke my nose with a jab and I was just like, holy shit, I'm walking them down.

And it came through one jab and I went to go step in and open up my guard. And he hit me like and I turned around and like, damn, you broke my nose.

It is our own break your nose coach. That's like a turd. But I was over the side. I look back at it like this.

It is like, oh, shit, coach, your nose is broke. Yeah. But it I like, you know, all your fighters.

You gave them the worst impressions ever.

I do the best that they all do. So I used to call it negative. Nancy Kerrigan, Carwin Changizi care vigar when I like to have fun with the guys in entertaining myself with them, especially with a big do like him.

I was like the little dog barking all the time. Well, in between fights, people don't know how big he got. Oh my gosh, he was so hard. Like I couldn't take the shots no more like oh my hands and my my arms. I was like, do we have to work? You have to get time in and I can still help him sparring.

Well, I remember his nose was broken when he fought Gonzaga and then he hit Gonzaga with that six inch punch.

Do crazy just like fall backwards, just hit someone, just barely touch and boom and it just just falls just just off. It's crazy.

Now, he was an enormous guy. Oh, yeah, that's broken. And look, he's laughing crazy. He's a fun guy. I tell you, there was one time in a fight where he was on top of the guy and he was dropping these shots on them and he hit them one time in the way the guy's body moved.

It looked really weird, like, hey, look, I was like, did you? I thought he just killed them. Like, he hit them. So weird the way the guy's body, like, bent and went numb.

I was like, oh, my God, you could feel it through the K, like underneath the echo underneath when he was hitting the dude and his head is pinned against the the canvas.

He is a unique to that dude. It's so freaking.

Well, I remember his stoppage of Frank Mir. That was one of the most ferocious stoppages of I've ever seen in the history of the heavyweight division, which hit him with those fucking uppercut. So they had a collar tie. And so in that fight, he had so many situation.

He was drinking beer night. He was like one of the he had a stem cell thing going on in his neck that he didn't know if he's going to be able to fight. He took it on like three weeks notice because the Brock Lesnar fell out but ended up injuring his hand.

So if you notice, everything was left handed, you use like 30 boxing.

And I had to ask for him to bump and he bumped the shoulder and then went, boom, boom, hit him like three upper crust and he folded.

Yeah. Then he turned them on his back and was just covered with the left hand.

And he was so injured going into that fight. It was crazy the way he was able to perform really.

And then when he went on a strict diet, he's like, oh, the rabbit food coach. And he got all fitted.

He was this great diet mentally. He wasn't there, like when we had Dos Santos dos Santos. And again, that was a tough fight because after the Brock Lesnar fight, every question was about his conditioning.

So, Shane Carwin, if he goes out there and fights the first round, like there's your fight, one round fight, we're stopping the fight after first round.

I don't think anybody get through a first round with him.

But when he pulled back and he started going, hey, I need to see if I can go five rounds of man because he went back and he gassed out. Yeah, I remember with them all. We're sitting there screaming. We're screaming at top of the lungs and we're like counting the three and the screaming because the crowd was so loud he couldn't hear us.

And he's on top of them just pounding Brock out.

And we were like, we used to stand back up. We wanted to get back up because they it was just the ref was just let it go. Let it go.

And if you stood back up, he's going to drop and get fights over the gas itself out in the second round. He's like, Coach, I can't feel my legs. I can't get up.

And I'm like, you have to you got to fake this to get up. But I figured once it gets out there, he gets hit. One time he's going to do there silverbacks going to come back out. But he went out there. I remember he would he got taken down by Brock.

He held on to the chin as he went down. I thought he was he grabbed the just got a long but he's a unique human being.

He came that close. That close, that close to stop it. But he he was always so damn frickin he hurt him so bad standing so bad. Yeah. And then when he got to the ground Brock was just able to cover up and then he blew his wad just trying to take him out of there. Yep.

He thought the ref was going to stop it. I did too.

Yeah. I think everybody in the crowd, the whole energy. But that was like yeah, we were like excited, excited, excited. They were like, oh my God, he's got to pull back.

Like the Dominic Cruz Henry Cejudo fight was kind of controversial stoppage. You know, Dominic's trying to get back up and the referee stops the fight versus that fight where, you know, you're seeing all these unanswered blows.

It's so I would much I would honestly much rather a fight be stopped early than to let it go on, because the toughest job out there is the referees.

I tell you, there are a lot of times they and it's hard.

They get to perform, too. They go out there, they stop a fight too late. And then they're like, next time they're like, oh, man, I got to start the fight early.

It's tough. You're out there like the referees got such a tough job.

They do. And but sometimes. But it's got to be safety. You letting people go on there sometimes when I'm just like, never let that guy ref again. Like taking years off a fighter.

It's crazy. Yeah. Some some guys give guys too. Too many opportunities. I thought it was Herb Dean in your fight, right. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was a perfect stop. I mean, to me it was a perfect and it's rare that you say that with a guy still standing and moving back the way Tony wasn't a world champion. He never went down once, never went down, was crazy.

But it was getting to a point where the shift was just happening and his body was telling him he like he was really, really off balance. His legs were starting to go a little bit. He was going to be a saint. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Not good.

No, I don't ever want to take that beating. He would have stopped it before that happened. For sure, I already know that Trevor was stopped. Yeah, it was you. Yeah, yeah. Nobody could stop it in Tony's corner. That's the other thing is Tony's kind of I mean, he has a jujitsu coach, has a striking coach. But Tony, march to the beat of his own drummer. Yeah. I mean, he's got a whole disco band going on in his head.

He does whatever he rose against Carlos Poza.

I take 100 percent credit in there because we never talk to the head coach.

Was it was just so chaotic. I mean, she threw so many damn kids. She looks so damn good, but there was no control in the damn corner. I was so pissed at myself, like that was one of the hardest fights. That's what I let the gym go and said, hey, man, I need to do this and do it with passion and and really take this serious because I was so bothered by that.

I almost was a cheerleader prior to that fight, watching her on the ultimate fighter perform with no coaches in her, just do her thing like she's so damn talented.

She finished everybody on The Ultimate Fighter and she came in for that title fight.

And I was so upset with myself that I didn't have the conversation. I asked the coaches, who's that girl?

Who's who's the ones calling the shots? I was so upset. And that kind of situation, it is that it's very easy for teams like the if you look at Tony's corner, everybody in the corner is great. And again, sometimes that conversation just needs to happen and saying, hey, who's going to come in the corner win? Who's going to say what? There's got to be someone that takes control of a corner.

And that's why I use less coaches.

Now, he's got his brother in there because I feel like, again, a lot of people have great things to say, but we have to stick to something. I remember working the corner with a wrestling coach and I'm working on clinch stuff and he's working on wrestling and taking them down.

And I'm like, we're contradicting what we're saying right now. I'm like, who's talking? And someone's got to be able to say, shut up. Right. One voice at the time.

And you have to have that. You have to have that. You have to have those conversations.

So when the name Marquart situation happened and for people don't know what happened, Nate was on there was a time in the UFC in combat sports where you were allowed to take testosterone replacement therapy. And we always talk about TV talk because he was the best example of what can happen. We take an older fighter and juice to the gills and then throw them out there like like he was like a fucking aliant. That guy had muscles on his teeth, you know, like it was the times when Retour was the scariest.

The Lucara codify, the Bisping fight, the Henderson fight like dude retaught fourteen.

It veto was fucking terrifying. But it was weird that you're letting this guy take testosterone. And Nate was they tested him and they found his levels were off the charts and they were like, what are you doing? Like you can't fight and remember offended.

And then all sudden he had a fight again and they took him off suspension, which is crazy to me. And then he uses his doctor again with the TRT.

And I'll tell you one thing, Nate is one of the again being coachable.

He's one of the most coachable guys, sometimes almost over coachable, because if I remember, he walk around at his best boxing coach to the world who was the best boxing coach?

John Chambers, best college coach. Like, he just he just believed what you were saying. He just so trustworthy.

And his doctor, he believed in so freaking much to go.

Wow, how much this doctor. We couldn't even get a hold of the week of that fight. He wouldn't answer his phone. He's like, I'm at a lacrosse game.

And I'm just like, what the fuck is going on? Like, how do you test levels? How do you know how much you're freaking taken? But this was allowed. That's a big fucking issue.

Yeah. From what I understand, the doctor gave him way more than he was supposed to get.

Yeah. And then, you know, and again, that's that's a shitty fucking thing.

I couldn't believe how the doctor probably like a lot of these doctors, especially trained doctors, you know, there in those days, you know, they probably wanted to prove the effectiveness of TRT.

The more is better, it's fucking fill them up, turn into a fucking silverback, you know?

And then again, you don't do you're not told what to take.

How much is it in your hand when you see those guys get off of everything and their bodies deflate like veter? When he fought, Chris Weidman was like, Jesus Christ. This is sort of this is weird to see.

And and it becomes a mental thing, too, because you need that again. It's again, you have it.

And when you can't do it, it's such a mental thing again.

That's when you can stay strong mentally is why I love this guy. This guy is so fucking strong mentally that again, he doesn't need anything fucking else. And it's the guys like that. Again, Shane Collins best performance.

He had a beer night and he was not just going on, you know, from the fucking fight because I brainstem things. He nachos that I'm going crazy. Well, fuck it.

So one of his best performances. Yeah. Mentally because he was OK.

This guy worked as an engineer, would drive an hour to the gym at nighttime training, nighttime drive all the way back home, grab like a cheeseburger on the way home because he can get time to get anything else.

Just crazy.

That is nuts that he was working full time. It's crazy. While he was one of the best heavyweights on the planet, the ultimate fighter, when he coached the ultimate fighter, he was working hard in between workouts. He was doing full work for his engineer job was crazy.

Just crazy. While he was coaching the ultimate fighter. Yep.

That's I remember doing that to ask them because Jabe is going to pay more and he's like, no, he's like already got out of the NFL because of an injury. And I know I could get injured at any point. He's like, no smart dude.

Well, he had a fucked up back right from football. Yep. How bad was it.

Very bad. I mean, they, he got to retrain for pre-season and then he never went through and then he started fighting because he had fun and he went to a Ron Waterman fight was for a lot of the job there because they did.

That's crazy that it's OK for fighting, but it wasn't OK for football to his back and the four year fight, he his back was so messed up in Roy Nelson fight, he had to pull out because of his back.

His back was always an issue. We wound up getting surgery on it. Right? I'm not too sure.

I'm not too sure. A lot of Alcides stuff, too. So after the night Marquart situation, you you just started up your own gyms, so all the fighters left. Why did they leave?

Well, we had a manager come in and I had a dispute with the managers and they started managing all the guys and they wanted to be a part of grudge. And I didn't want to settle for what they were talking about. And they started training in a different gym.

And when me and they kind of didn't see eye to eye on it because the way their publicist puts on out why I don't do interviews anymore, because I was like, oh, you put my words the wrong way.

I mean, they talked it out and became friends again. I was like, I had your back gray area pissed me off. Like I was like I had to speak about it.

But the way that whole situation was handled, Nate left. Everybody left. I was like, when you started with your brand new I had here my hair rose.

Yeah. The gray area, meaning the TRT, right where I was like I was pissed. I was like, you guys are going to cut him out and shun him like this and say that he's doing this when you allowed him to take drugs. But there's no way you can tell how much he's taking.

It's crazy to me. They can only tell the levels that you have. But you said it's OK, like again. And then you took them off a suspension for this and then said, all right, cool, everything's back to normal because I need to talk to you.

Open up. Yeah, it's just crazy to me, you know, like they said are we'll test it after this fight. I'm like, dude, it's just crazy.

It's it's worth things. Again, that was a very bothersome time for me.

But when the whole team left because they left because we didn't see I was pissed at what I said and I was, you know, I'm standing up for them. It's like, all right, whatever.

See the way you want to see it. And I've always been about my guys, you know, fight it first. And the whole team left.

I was like, once that happened, I.

I was like, man, am I going to go work at Home Depot? What am I going to do? But I just got a new fucking GM big ass, Jim. He was brand new with me, Rose is brand new. I was like, I'll start over this now and again. I came in through the other manager. Yep. And I, I only did a year for two years when I was like five. Luckily, whichever you get stupid.

Yeah. This is genius. What do you think. And then thank God they left. Yeah. And I got to fuck them after, after my lease was up. But I left the gym though and started to started equipment company and started focusing on how can I because I respect every fighter who fights. I have so much respect for you getting in there. And as I get older I get a little softer side to me. Like when I even when we win, I see the other person lose.

Like it's hard for me to celebrate. Seeing them down is a hard thing. Like Cowboy, that was a hard fight for me, like I didn't think would be hard at all. Looking across the cage wasn't hard at all. You know, he's a he's a gangster and I know would still be cool.

But when the ref wasn't stopping the fight, when he hit him with the uppercut, like I jumped up on the canvas, could have caused the disqualification because there's still no real set rule on how do I stop a fucking fight.

Right. It happened in New Mexico. So Mexico is fucked. But I jumped up like, stop the fucking fight. And then I ended up walking back with Cowboy all the way to the back end.

It made me emotional is hard. Like here we're stopping him. He's on his next title run and we're stopping him in his tracks. Stop stopping him moving forward.

And he's moving forward. Yes. My fighter, I want him to move forward and all those things. But with age has been harder for me. And again, I respect every person who is out there inspires people.

So I started someone in the gym and then I moved into my basement and I was like, you know what? I want to start something new. I want to be able to help every athlete out there that goes out there and risk their life. So I started making equipment and with my injuries, I just couldn't coach.

That's why I shouldn't be guys anymore. My body was so fucked up all the time, like the kind of injuries, you know, I've had all sorts of injuries due to psych and there are always risks.

And like when you're drinking a beer with a strop, you at the bar and you're drink, you can't pick it up because you got the best potato head. What is good for business is that fact to do. My hands are so bad. So look at my head. My hand opens.

Mmm. It's not that dented from taking punches. I just believe it's from me trying to squeeze on the because I got small hands and you got no left or right when it comes to women. I'm holding mitts on trying not to let them fly across the room. I think it's just created my ligaments in my my hand to shape that way.

Well, in that crazy.

But my forearms are seeing all the time flat. No, not at all. In that crazy cup. It's like I'd go in the hot tub and push my fingers and try to separate them and it'd be like the most painful thing ever. But elbow issues, I'm an inside of my forearms.

People don't realize how hard it is holding hands, especially from my God, that body punches like my chest bone CLECs. Now, because of him, he's got to I just can't take shots.

But I started making equipment because I needed it. And I was like, I needed to make shit out there because you don't. I had sponsorships by companies. They send me mitts. They're like, give us some feedback and I'll be like, the colors are cool.

But this I would cut them open and free from them.

And I've been doing this for fifteen years. Reform with I'd go find different foam's because I needed something soft. Take the shock off but you need some a little bit dense to keep the bone from bone and how you do the whole deal.

Right with sewing machines. I my mom's sewing machine, I said can I borrow your sewing machine. And I tried to make a mint that had a left and a right that I wouldn't have to squeeze my hands to hold onto because my hands are so weak. And after two sessions I was like, dude, I can't hold them.

It's what chicks I couldn't even hold on to. The type heads is freaking crazy.

So it started by need and then I'd have fights and all these high level coaches are like, where'd you get that? I'm like, I made that one. I remember the first parabens. I've either so ugly. I went to Joann Fabrics and got some materials that made these bits that every every coach in my gym was like, Dude, I want a pair. And I was like, cool, pay for the materials and make you some and men also.

And I'm like a year by year out from these custom stuff. And I'm an artist at heart. So once I started learning how to sew, I'm starting to learn materials and it just went crazy from equipment coaching standpoint.

And then I was like, you know what? I needed really some for the fighters and the hand issues in the training issues that I'm always dealing with.

Almost all the time my fighters were going in fights, they were injured, they were going into fights, injured. And that's common. Like you could talk to anybody. They're going into fights, injured, and they have to because they're not going to get paid if they're not fighting.

And they're like, instantly I could name a guy who's had how many surgeries. And he continues to fight like with bad injuries.

And he's like, well, I'll get surgery afterwards. And it's fight off adrenaline. But how many times, like the Shinkawa fight going into it, injured, able to perform. And I was a psychologist and once I started doing this equipment, it clicked. Everybody's like, yeah, we need better stuff. We need stuff that's made for me. We need Amami equipment. It's crazy to me. There's a picture of you back in the day where you had this headgear on that was small, just covered to your forehead.

And I'm like, why are people wearing these big ass hat years?

That's like old school when they made boxing headgear.

So people think boxing headgear is safe. It is not safe. You're putting heavier weight on your head that blocks your vision. And if you can't see a shot coming and you knock me with it, with the heavier weight on there, your cousin way more linear damage to me.

Think about like when you're at that park, I always think about the little springs with the dinosaur on it. My daughter gets thousands like Ryan just. Bounces back and forth, but if I get on and I like, hang down, remember how my Tyson used to wear that real thin head? Yeah, totally, totally. So it's always I wear a month out and it Amami, like Amami, is not the norm to have headgear on.

It's not because you're grappler, you do all these different things. So you the clip in the way, you can't do any type of grappling with it.

So I'm on a mission to create all this new stuff again, just evolve and it's never going to be better. But each time I get a little better. A little better. A little better.

The UFC glove, the one it shot, brought on the glove is the same in the UFC. It's still the WANTO pattern.

Remember to want a glove.

The only thing they did different is, is that the skirt they used to have a skirt was a pain in the ass to get on Shankara. And I remember they we had to cut into his gloves one time and that's why that was changed. His hand was so big that they had to change the glove size because Brock was a forex then when they had to make a five x but they actually open up the skirt because of that, because Shenkar when we actually allowed the commission allowed us to cut it open.

Mhm. But when it comes to, to the glove they're the worst thing. I can't even say it's a worse glove, it's, it's really the only glove. They did have the gloves that were really good.

They were better, they were better made sure they were better.

Part of the other night for me when I put on those gloves on you, if you start getting a burning in your forearms just to make a fist, you're constantly fighting against yourself.

Just to make a fist is the natural thing to handle. No says it pulls you here to make it. You really have to strain the whole time. Yeah, everyone complains. Do you mind if I run around to the side of a table with.

No, no, go ahead.

That's yeah. That's one of the ways to get knocked out. So this is a cowboy tone.

So this is the UFC glove. Yep. So that's right. Can you take off your watch? Yeah. The strap is. And so yours are the other ones, the white ones are yours. Yes, these are mine. So put that on so I can explain. OK. We're going to explain it to Mike. So so this is what happens with fighters and anybody who's worn fat with gloves like this, they put this on, they give the strap on, and they also have a hand wrap underneath this.

So what happens is when you go to make when you go to make a fist, go ahead and make a fist.

Notice that it's hard to do this. And when you do this, you start getting a lot of pressure in between your fingers here. And that's a huge thing that fighters feel. What's the name? Robin actually has a he's wanted to come in. He has a wood tool at the end of a hammer that stretches these out because the pressure puts right here.

It's also hard. It's also hard to make a grip. So when you're going to go to make a grip here, it's tough because this is a gardening glove. It's got all these straight finger pieces here. So you're packing all this material here. And then as you squeeze it, it's hard.

It's it's hard constantly. You have use your arms at the end of the fight as everybody talks about having had the experience, turning over your punches is where it really gets you.

So when you put this on, I want to kind of explain this is the right hand. Oh, yeah. So I actually better I actually made space back here for the hand wrap. OK, now there's a strapping system that goes down inside this. So when I pull on this, you'll notice this piece right here actually pulls on this. There's no fingers. So it's easy to grab on to their space for the hand. But this strap is actually connected here with a seat belt type of material that pulls on the back of the metacarpals.

So when I pull on this, you'll actually feel it lock up on the back of your hand as well.

And then when you wrap like this, there is no grabbing of the glove.

So you're not going to be able to grab like like with the Velcro arms put you in such a kind of comfortable and relaxed, normal position.

Have you brought these to the U.S.? I have. I have been speaking.

You showed me this quite a while ago, and I said it before, and so you've improved on them. So this is far superior. Dana loved the collapse. He was blown.

He was blown away by him when he saw him as he liked the lay out so much more comfortable. The issue is there with a company called Diaco. That's one who makes the manufacturing products. And they wanted to own the technology because all of our stuff is patented. I've went through the patent processes I put.

So the company you have see, Glove's wants to own your shit completely. They don't know. They don't want to own it. The UFC wants to own it. Oh.

So the thing is with it is, again, I feel like I want to bring this to organizations, but that's not really the real issue. Like the finger POCs is one thing.

At least you're getting paid to do what you do.

But just this right here where it's not like your hand opens, your grip is so good. So notice the spot on the side to. Oh. Protect you. Do you remember when when Rendel time forgot Sarah McMahon.

She actually cut her knuckle right here. Yeah.

It was crazy to me underneath the hand wrap and everything, but the glove sits up above your hand so you don't protect that or Hammerfest.

And again, being able to shape to that's to lead to a hand sport. Yeah.

Boxers is the fourth and fifth metacarpal enemy is the first metacarpal. Yeah.

Because some because it's so the first is that this is so superior that it's a great club.

But again it's the training issues that I was focused on. I didn't like when I heard they needed the glove, I was like cool, I could make a glove. So I made a glove. That's actually how I made my wallet because I was like, all right, let me think through this.

I cut their gloves there you see it a few times, but I cut their glove up to see what form they're using.

I mean, there's technology for them out there. And it's crazy that our sport is not using any type of technology for them. It's crazy.

But if you look at technology from what is this? So it's made for contact. It's made for to take contact. Not like what you sit on, like a pad that you sit on. That's what this is. No, that's that's evidence. Yes.

It's it's it's almost the shit you sit on. So this is not designed for hitting things that we're saying. It's not designed for hitting things. Again, it's up to the manufacturer to be able to. But again, that's not a huge thing. Again, in the fight, you want you want to have so much benefits, you want to put your hand like I mean, this is this is I mean, it's not a day.

So, again, any day I don't want to talk shit about their gloves. They don't know what they don't know about their love. No. The thing is, injuries in training, like the training injuries drive me crazy.

It's all these gloves out there that you're getting for sixty dollars. If you're buying a glove for sixty dollars, it's getting made for probably five, six, seven bucks. Like it's crazy to me, that stuff that I'm cutting open, the gloves that are, say, 16 ounces on them that way.

Eleven ounces. OK, I got to show you love right and left, never wears the same rights.

Always lighter like you, because if anybody's out there, they want you to do that and you start way all. You're crazy to see what they weigh. It blows my mind.

Me being a gym owner, do you have to sign a waiver to come into my gym? It's crazy. Crazy to me that gloves don't they're cookie cutter tags. Like no one's checking this. There's no quality checking when you're sparring with things.

Well, your boxing gloves are amazing, too. They really are excellent. Oh, that's crazy. OK, so that was from season 10 with the heavyweights. So this is supposed to be how many out of 16? It's 11 ounces.

Wow. That's for the heavyweights to spar with.

That's crazy. That's not good. That's a professional fight. That's not good. But just the contrary of these, I think would take out a lot of Eyeborgs.

It would take out a lot of people back to your hand is like naturally pulling open in the UFC glove.

It sort of lends itself to these IPOs and you get to perform better, like if you stay in a better position, my form is getting bent out of shape. Plus, with your gloves like this off, my glove is pulling my hand back like this. It's like doing a push up on my door knocking knuckles.

Right. I have no leverage. Right, right. Right. It's going to help.

Performance is good because it's more about the performance when it comes to the fight club. When it comes to the training stuff, it's about getting to the fight healthy and not having to pull out of a fight.

So explain to me the issue of getting this pass through, because this is this is the best. So remember, there was a few issues. Have you tested it? And I said, all right, listen, how your glove has never been tested. What has it been tested with? That's another issue that just boggles me that our equipment has never been tested.

NFL, you go to any other sport league, all equipment is boring.

I think they I think everybody looks at this stuff, especially when it comes to putting stuff on your fighter. You got to deal with concussions. You've got to deal with this.

Well, football, they're playing a game, you know, how many times are they testing stuff in other sports? But look at our injury rate. We have 70 percent of injuries are happening in training, not the fight.

That's crazy. You have no equipment on in the fight. And more and more injuries are happening in training. That blows my mind. Mm. Well, it's because of training a lot more than you're fighting. Yeah.

But again, like you think about football, like I've had someone tell me, hey but they, they stop hitting in practice and I'm like, yeah but you play every week so you're fighting every week.

So it's a whole different thing. You need to be able to spar to know that you can make the right decisions in that hurricane, to be able to know that you're conditioned to fight. So again, you have to be able to train like that. Some of the biggest injuries I've seen in training are like someone getting hit with a knee when they don't have an iPad on their throw. Want to kick someone shooting down? They they hit the knee.

Josh Copeland ended up getting seventeen stitches in my gym because the other guy didn't have an iPad on like where the standards when it comes to training, that's a huge thing too, is you got guys coming in and going, oh man, I'm just got hand-me-down equipment has been used for four years. The foam is broken down again. Why is headgear used the stop cuts so you can get to the fight.

Do you make a hit or kneepads?

Well, I so I've been testing. I've had the same check. So this is the head to head. Oh, no clips you can grapple. Oh. Like super cool. Here, I'll give you a one to feel that. OK, so Velcro is on the top, so feel the weight behind this.

Oh wow. It's super right. Yeah, that's great. Yes, that's perfect in terms of the amount of protection, too. Like, it's not it's not delusional. It's like it's not keeping stock cuts. Yeah, it's not simply the stock cuts. Yeah, I wasn't doing well. I went into a hip. I went into a knee. But you could see way better with this. Yeah.

There's so blindspots. That's why I make the angles like I do on this headgear. So if you look at the one with our funny looking mannequin, you're going to see you lose no vision with it. Yeah, no. You could tell.

Oh, that's so much better. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. You don't you don't have any peripheral problems.

There's no blindspots. Excellent.

In the foam that we're using is this is what I'm talking about. Technology from feel this. As opposed to what other kind of foam EVA foam is in, I'd say 95 percent of headgear. And is it just cheaper? It's just cheaper. Yes, it's cheaper. So you're going to find carpet padding. You're going to find the balance. The recoil. Mm hmm.

So this is this absorbed energy. This is where he's humble and. So think it's crazy thinking. So let's explain this for people that are just listening. He had this one from the phone and Justin's dropping was at a ball bearing the marble, big marble marble.

And then it hits that cheap foam and it bounces like crazy. But when it hits the technology foam, it stops dead in its tracks because it completely absorbs the think about water.

The faster you hit it, the more you the more the faster you'll stop.

If you go into a slow, you just kind of slide through it. So that stuff you feel feels like NASA foam, like super, super soft.

It sticks to your head, doesn't move around, so it forms to your head. Drop the bigger ball in there.

That's crazy. Now drop it on one of those other ones. It'll actually pinch the foam through it and just do it.

So you think about gloves. How many times are you hitting something?

And in boxing, you're not you're not allowed to spar with the gloves or your handbags because you break the phones in. Right. And again, it's just crazy to me.

There's no new technologies when it comes to these types of things, even if I don't know what kind of pad is under where we fight. But if something was there to absorb the energy when we got knocked out in our head, hit the back, I would assume it would be better for us. Yeah. Healthwise. Yeah, all of these things.

So with with shin guards, most people deal with the injury on the instep. So when the shin guard is made, you have this instep and you get the soft spot and the weakest part of your foot, you need checks.

It's like one of the biggest internal ligaments again, all the time.

Your feet are like them. I get checked right on that spot.

I'm actually making gear that has a boot back behind it. So that protects that spot. So you'll see it pop out.

So it's formed back behind where you actually zip in. So that's all protected on the soft spot. And I have not found it. A shin guard out there, 90 percent shin guards aren't left left-to-right right either. You kind of just get right to your body. You look at the straps and say, which way do they go?

And another pet peeve of mine, when I'm a coach and I got a world class athlete and they're stopping every time they throw kick to say, hey, man, let me fix my shin guard, it's turning. Yes, drives me freaking crazy, right?

So I made shin guards is actually going to fit, not turn on you cover your toes actually have flex where your toe goes.

You can adjust the bottom, it's zip in, in the boot area so there's no sliding like just again rethinking how things are made. Knee pads, knee pads protecting on the side. So if I go to throw a knee, I'm not going to hit you with the side. These guys are using volleyball kneepads, guards.

It just drives me crazy. Like world class sport, world class. I know nothing has changed.

So that's what I've been doing in my basement, having a blast doing just creating this new shit to keep guys lasting long.

I'm the tester. I'm serious. I have not been heard in five years in training. It's super cool if I when I have forgot my shin guards are two times I believe in putting some putting other ones on. It's like I feel so vulnerable when I'm wearing them because there's no comparison and I sound biased, but no happy little athletes when they put this on its whistle.

And every time an elite athletes are using their stuff, which is super, super cool, try this this pat on the side.

You might say it's a bias, but I think you're right. I think you're telling the truth. I think I mean, look, the just the quality this shit. I mean, Trevor, you sent me some of the stuff before and I've raved about it. It's excellent.

Did you did you did you heat it up? Did you heat mold the foam? No. So I didn't think I explained that to you. I just kind of said about to you, how do I know you got it? You put it hairdryer in there for four minutes and watch what happens.

Dude, I'm crazy, but I mean those hands. So then you put your hands, your hand kind of has like a multiple form or base layer.

So you did this because of all the problems you were having with your hands? Yeah. So now I wanted something I could just hang on. Like, I feel like I can hang on for a long time like this. Yeah. And the handle it on a TypePad. It's hard, hard for me to grip with weekends in that crazy people.

Do you make these a longer form for Ty. I for like I can make everything and make everything to, to form.

So all of the gear that we sell we custom make two sizes. So we separate the foot size.

Because you think like Evans, I had the fat calf OK. And he has real short legs so he has to get the extra large is where it comes up where he can't wear knee pads because the shin guards are this high and then he's got this, this foot pad that doesn't fit his big ass foot like he's got an awkward size. So we're shaping everything. We actually went to the UFC, we're doing 3D scans and we shape the equipment to use super.

So explain to me again why the UFC doesn't adopt this girl.

I to you, hey, I spent two years there and again, Dana gets it. I don't want to sell this to the UFC.

I would much rather give it to Dana. I feel like Dana helped grow this industry, what it is, but they're not.

Zuffa no more. They're a different company. Yeah. And again, it's very hard. I'm speaking like you were talking earlier. I speak a language they can understand. They don't know. You don't know what you don't know. Right.

They don't understand the issues that I deal with when we talk to somebody you say, are you talking about the owners?

No, I'm talking about the people who handle the deals. They don't sit back in the locker rooms and deal with what goes on with the fight gloves, how your arms get tired, their gloves suck.

They have no idea their gloves suck. They have no idea what is it. Again, we don't you don't know why?

Why would they? Well, look, we put on this fight, Max Holloway of and Wolski, they were the regular gloves. We're fine. Yeah, right. Yeah, every single fighter has a complaint, but these are so much better. So they wanted to own the technology and that technology they have. The internal strapping system is actually a technology that can go into any sport and is used in all my equipment. So I was like, dude, I can't just do that for the fight glove.

And again, I want this in all organizations.

Right. So my goal is the training aspect.

First, again, I want to help the fighters get to the fight. That's key. They got to get paid. It's secondary.

When you order our safeguards, they come by your shoe size by signalling you're going to get a video to tell you how to give us your measurements. You're going to get a custom. We custom tailored to means drawn win like it's just crazy. Crazy. We did 3D scans. Who was there because I wasn't there. So we have a 3D buscaino right now. We're currently scanning all UFC athletes that are that want to get because we want to test it with them and we're going to get we're going to give em fake it.

It's going to be guard headgear, seven ounce gloves. I bringing my sweet, sweet 16 ounce gloves and a pair of four of them, me sort of seven ounce gloves are bag gloves or to use them, I use those four.

So as I have me, you know, we spar two times a 16 ounce gloves one day and this sparring so we use seven ounce gloves. And what is this, what is this for. It's four ounces. That one's actually the same as the other one, the five point eight ounces.

It seems like it protects your knuckles so much better. Totally. I mean, we go back to the four ounce gloves again and everybody thinks that every UFC glove is four ounces. You're going from five X to extra small.

So you go on from about eight point something ounces all the way down to like like two point nine ounces for the four featherweight. Yeah. Fly weights.

Yep. This is amazing. This is really good. So what has to be done. So this is like so I put some pressure on somebody.

Well again, it's hard when it comes to testing things like we're testing things, you got to see the testing, we're doing the super fucking cool.

I've got data collectors right here. Check out this hand that we got.

It's got sensor points on it to be able to tell the force because they were like, why do you have it tested?

They can't. Yeah. So it's a rubber hand with sensors in it to be able to test.

So we're we're testing everything because they're like, have you tested it? Have you Prud'homme? Like, what am I testing against. Like what do you guys want me to test against.

And I mean I testing it. Listen, this is different to a fighter telling to put it on. Do you like it. Yeah, this is better. Listen to him. That's the test. So this is pretty cool.

Move to the right. OK, so those are x rays with gloves on. So you can kind of see how I think I know what a glove feels like on the inside. Almost all boxing gloves. Have you in the door knocking knuckles. Yes. Position and there's so much floating space.

Where do you see the X Factor glove in there? Look at the foam. It's so cool how it supports around your hands your raps.

Yeah, those are those are raps that I actually stepped away from because we put the straps inside the glove.

So they say, what do you see when you start to think like I have a USRAP in three years.

So let me talk about this real quick, OK, even for heavy bag gloves, nothing. So I would never tell anybody that back in the day because I'd be like you when I was fighting, I was these were the raps.

So these are the rounds. So those are those are reps.

How I started Onyx was I started with hand raps outside of my equipment that I was doing. I was like, right, what can I bring to market? So I started a patent on hand handgrips. And with this patent, it came into the gloves. I was like, well, fuck, if I can make gloves that have a support system because you think about what do you need a hand rap for?

And I'm not talking to a professional hand rap that you fight it. I'm talking about the one hundred and twenty inch rap that gets tangled up in your lingerie and it stinks up your gloves when you put them on this rap that I was doing, I was able to put inside the glove.

And if I'm able to make a glove fit and the size of the strap and pulls the glove down to shrink against your hand, pulls it out, if I have a glove that's too big, I've always had small hands. And when I have this extra space, I go to hit him.

He bobs and weaves his head and my hand does this and tweeks because the glove is this much longer on this side, I start to cause him problems.

When I'm wrapping my hands, all I'm doing is adding more material in the ball of my hand here. So if I were grabbing on to something, the more material I have in between my hand, let me see that foam real quick. The foam.

So if I have so when you're putting wrap on and you've got material inside your hand here, Joe, I've also got the material from the glove.

So the more that material I put inside my hand here, I stop getting my natural fist right. I start to get this. And that causes my leverage points to start causing injuries. If you have ligament injuries, it's because you don't you don't have any flex behind.

So I can't pack my fist. So I'm stretching my fingers if I'm not lining my strong bones up, meaning my my metacarpals down with my strong bone, I'm not getting the correct alignment in my fist. If I start going to my door knocking knuckles, I'm not lining my wrist up for kid.

Just listening to this to Trevor has a whole series of X-rays of persons hand inside regular gloves and then inside his gloves.

And it shows you that with the Onyx gloves, you're getting a flat. Knuckle at the top, so be just like balling your fist with nothing in your hand and punching someone with the knuckles as opposed to, like you said, hitting him with that door.

Knock at door Yeah, we have a tiny tiny because again, this is not good, but. Any kind of flex here is going to cause ligament damage. So Rose would not go without. She would not go without Wrap's And then after six months of using the gloves, she's like, I'm a I would ever have. She didn't have a fight scheduled. I always recommend, hey, man, if he gets what you again, don't change his heart for a lot of people.

I would never want you to wrap your hands in the UFC.

No, you're not forced to. I mean, they're going to send a man to you now.

A professional handgrip is different because when I get a professional Harapan, there's a little space material. So it's like grabbing on to a finger. That's great. I got a little bit of grip, but when you start packing too much material, like the hand wraps one hundred twenty inches, that's where the issue is.

I don't know how to wrap my hand up causing more damage because I'm putting too much material right now, stressing out the ligaments. And again, that's what's causing the damage in the hands. And again, hand injuries are that you're moneymakers.

That's one more time. How's what do we have to do to get this into the UFC?

So because this is I think I think we either wait for the Diaco deal to get up or we continue to do what we do. I called the company that makes these. Is that who's D'Errico?

So Diaco is now making the glove for the UFC. OK, used to be a century before that.

OK, century. So their deal is for how long do we know? I don't know. We don't know yet.

We want those in the UFC. This is way better. Yeah, it's way better. But again, my goal Joe, like that's the fight is not a huge issue. I did that as a favor.

Like I was like I can help that. It'd be great marketing too. Right. Right.

But my thing is helping the injuries, the ones that I dealt with with issues that people having crappy gloves. I mean, think about it. I understand what you're saying, but let's get to the heart of the matter here. So, Diaco that you say the name D y ACL. So they want this technology. They want to own it. No, UFC wants to own it.

UFC wants to, but they want me to work with Diaco to be able to do it. Now, if I work with Diaco, they want to put the UFC brand on it and I want to they want me to partner with Iacono. We're our own company.

I'm like, it's not even if they knew anything to do this or they just want to just absorb it. Hey, man, it's not even to watch. This is this is the change, this whole freaking game when it comes to something like that. Now, if someone like a Nike comes to me and says, hey, man, let's partner, let's do something that's different thing.

Now, I got access to great manufacturing are our issues right now is we keep selling out because I'm dealing with a manufacturer that makes snowboard boots because they have the best strapping system.

They have the best materials because it's waterproof, doesn't take on water, doesn't start to get the bacterias.

I've used so many different manufacturing companies that make gloves already and they can't make what I make because they're stuck in their old patterns, their old ways of making gloves that way.

I've tried so many. So we make them out of house. Jesus Christ.

So this is a problem. So when the.

No, that's the solution. This is the solution. But this is a problem. This is not in the UFC and it will be there's no doubt in my mind.

It's again, it's one of those things the UFC wants to own this patent. Yeah. They want to own it. Like I said, I want to work with Dana. Dana wants that glove.

And Dana knows about this person.

Yeah, well, we been have had one of the best conversations ever. He's like, that is the best thing ever and it's the best club.

Yeah, it was one of the best things. It's hard for people to listen to this and try to put it in their head because half the people are watching, half the people are listening. But for the people listening, I mean, if you're a martial artist and you need to get some gloves, this is by far the best.

You know what needs to happen in the NFL, in the NFL when you're training, you're using high level equipment and it's provided by the NFL.

That's your athletes. Right. So the UFC needs to provide it.

This needs to be they need to be wearing equipment that's going to protect them, help them get to the fight. And when they're in the fight, be able to perform. Yeah. And not deal with what I've been doing my whole life, has being a psychologist to get people to the fight and worrying about these issues of them fading out and being like thinking about your hand. I had tied my boxing boot too tight.

One time I had these high Adidas, you know, the real time was back in the day Hearns used to wear and I tied them to title my calf that I remember. All I could think about was my calf muscle. I was like, oh my God, it was such a distraction when I was fighting in that crazy shoe string too tight.

This is what they did with all the time, with their hands.

First thing to do, like get my glove off, my gloves off. Yeah, yeah. And that's the circulation. It's all they can't breathe. It's so it's such an uncomfortable feeling.

This is night and day and that's we made for hand wrap like that one is made for our fire. There's no room for the handgrip. Well, this is cause more pressure when you add a little bit. Anything under there. Yeah. So now I got a glove up, get a bigger size glove than I would originally have.

The padding in this thing so superior to when you punch it in the phone, see if you pound on the knuckles, there's I actually make pocket holes for the knuckle with all the padding would be on a handwritten note, slides in.

Perfect. I feel it. It's amazing.

And again, protecting these areas too, because the number one breaking them is that the number two metacarpal, the shit drives me crazy when there's some fucking roadblock for using the best thing.

I love it, dude. I love to win. So that's what always made me unique, is people like my dad. Told me in the boxing world, he's like, you're going to be a boxing coach to game nice. And I was like, oh, cool. I went out there, smiled. I was like, thumbs up to everybody. To my opponent was like, they're like, what the fuck is this guy? Well, it actually was kind of built my name.

I love that. Give me an obstacle and I'm going to show you that I tell them all time Picasso would paint a picture and tell people what he's painting, but people not see it.

He knew what he was doing now what it looked like before it came out. He's seen it in here. And I see it like I see all the white space. It's open now.

It's about leverage and also great partners finding the right people who want to get behind something that is so freakin important, that is overlooked.

It's such a huge market.

Yeah, it's such a huge market.

All everything gets attributed to boxing. But boxing is not they're probably the main consumer, but they're not the only consumer. Everybody is so big it's getting.

So that's, I think boxing, boxing equipment market. Everything is boxing equipment market. I said no, it's all the guys buy in the boxing gloves and the gloves will look up.

If you look up at me gloves, you know, you buy boxing gloves, you're buying those that much.

You're buying shin guards. Yeah, there's nothing the equipment and we are specifically my equipment. This is when I grapple with this is similar to a headgear. I was with the headgear my whole life. You know, it's not comfortable. Headgear was never comfortable, but it's protecting me from cuts and I could still do what I need to do.

You make anything for just jujitsu? I'll bet I can make anything, dude. Literally one hundred percent ever you want he can work. You were keeping it simple.

And we're actually releasing our skin guards in eight years. People have been waiting for a while because I made some that's how I started making the headgear with T.J. Got Dwayne called me and said, hey, do we have a fight and broke his nose and no that was Corey saying Hey where I made that sweet ass headgear.

So you the basketball players, I wear the little. Yeah, yeah.

One of those. You got bifocals, whatever. Do you have bifocals. You want to do a headgear. Really. It was freaking crazy. Oh interesting. Yeah. Oh that's great.

Is that the story. Yes. And he broke his nose. I was talking about he wanted to fight still and so we're like well we got you.

And how long did he wear that. And training for the whole training camp.

He, he, he just fought, broke his nose. And then I was in there and he had another fight scheduled. Such a talented dude could be such a good fucking talent. But he was in there with the plastic piece and I was making him years at the point. And I was like, dude, let me take that and see what I could do with it.

And I came back and he's like, what the fuck? This is awesome.

But TJ, the headgear started with TJ because he went into small headgear. You can still grapple it.

There's Super Court. There's like it's open for the eyes as well. So you could see out of it clearly it doesn't get fogged up or sweat.

I told you I'd never show anybody those pictures of me size in him, but look at the cut on his eye and then slide to the side.

You should be able to see that picture together. Yeah, interesting. And see how small it is and see how it fits, huh?

Yeah. That's genius shit for me, the shin guards go to his best thing he's ever made.

What about heavy bags and stuff? I got it. I got back. That's so sweet. Dana bought two of them. Yeah, he bought two of them. He was blown away. He came down to the shop. So they he brought the whole crew down. Like, again, this is this is something it's that super special. Everybody sees it. Everybody gets it again.

I'm the difference in your heavy bag. You can hit your head barehanded, barehanded. And it's had to seek and it doesn't hurt one bit. Doesn't scratch you, doesn't really it's got he's got some weird beads in there and some the way he ditched it, they don't, they don't pack.

We're so old teabags bags used to have rice like rice is really fun to hit but it packs because it's got that little, that little angle to it.

So if you keep kicking your chop and you'll get a to Denmark, it's so hard to work back. Right. It's very similar to that. Like it's got tons of weight to it, but you're going to hit bareknuckle and not hurt your hands at all.

And even with my mashed potato hand, it's one of those things you got to be able to hit again. You're hurting yourself.

Like, how many bags have you kicked and kicked a hard spot? I've had bags fall apart and there's lingerie falling out, scraps of lingerie, lingerie. And one of my bags, there's stuff and it was scraps. Again, where's the technology to get that new bag out, which is cool to water.

But do you notice what is, you know, the ball that I'm talking about?

You know what that is? It's a Bowie. It's one that's like I always say, if you got duct tape and a yellow pages, you could make a good body shields like you would have handled other. Yeah, people get real creative in a combat sports.

Where is the technology? Where is the testing?

And that's what we're doing. So are you are you selling that heavy bag as well or is it something? No, I'm focused on the training gear right now because again, manufacturing is the issue because we keep selling out like our gloves are sold out every time, every freaking time.

I can get them here.

And then I'm like, oh, dude, because it's such a difficult process to make them do.

They're selling. They're selling. They're just they slip up with the demand, keep up with the demand. And I went back to use my other manufacturer. Now we're working on building manufacture in the United States. We've we're actually doing all the shin guards and had years in the States.

It's supercool difference between these two. It's kind of hilarious. It's like everything about it. Also this.

I never like this side stitching shit the way these fingers are done. This is somehow better with his no fingers, nothing is exposed. You're know any scratches.

There's also no consistency in those. You see gloves you could pull out of a bag. And the last ones, yeah, they all laughed malfunctions.

The padding was like way up here. And I was like, oh, look at your padding. It wasn't sunk in all the way and it was just cut wrong.

Just made cheaply. Yeah, that's unfortunate. I mean, it's really unfortunate when you're dealing with the very best fighters on the planet Earth and they're forced to fight. What a unique sport. Right.

Like like professional fighters training with your common everyday people in the same gym. You know, you're going crazy, crazy.

It's like weird in that fact that, like, a guy can join in my gym and like a month later, one of Spaan you. Yeah. Like that.

And I could start coaching and be on ten as a fighter and be like, all right, cool. You're fighting in two weeks. Professional. Yeah. I could take you make you professional fighter in two weeks. I can actually decide to go tomorrow for a fight if you want.

That is crazy. That is crazy. It's crazy. There's no real.

That's why everyone's attention because that's what zero qualification.

I want to help grow this industry and just again create some type of standard and again keep you safe, man, and keep it fun and keep keep the entertainment value high through performance.

If people want this stuff, what's what's the website address.

Oh and exports on exports dot com. Oh. And exports, you know on exports.

It's cool. You see the one on one, the one on one website. The end is the one on one because I believe you fight yourself like a year on this.

And so that's what the one on one means. The Y is not in the Onyx because we protect your why there. Why is internal. So it's all very purposeful.

And again, the best thing is when I wrap people's heads, it fights and they start going they start to enhance its feeling.

Right. Like when you know that you got good shit and I'm telling you, feeling is everything we custom on every single piece of. Yeah, we put every one of you, you name the highlight or gates. You push other people's things again.

Without the coaches, without everybody else out there, this industry would be nothing. Man super cool. That's very fun stuff, huh.

Yeah, it is fun stuff. But I love how much you put so much thought into this.

I break you dude. I live at that place. Yeah. I love it. I'm so fucking passionate. I can't stop, won't stop.

I'm like what can I help with this. Like get here, leave me alone. I'm like oh especially when I prototype it. But I got the idea of like oh hell yeah.

I can see all this is done in your base throughout the office. Yeah. I got these glasses, they got the tape in the middle, I got a pocket protector.

I want a white coat moving up in the office now to Saturday. I thought so that we flew in Monday. I was in the office. That's my job.

Look at them there. Look at that face is so intense and he's a perfectionist.

That's what kills me. You know, he'll make a headgear. It's perfect. He don't like it. He has to start over. It's like, oh, evolution, my God, I'll never be perfect. But I'm always perfecting that that's kind of how I think about things, things always someone's got to come along and make the very best gear.

You know, the last technology that's come out in combat sports is Muhammad Ali used to be able to do this after fights, which is dull.

And they attach that, right? Yeah, that is the last. It's crazy, right? Well, used to have horsehair up to Crazy Horse.

That's cool, though, because that's where the fight it's like packs a punch, it protects your knuckles and it gives you a good feeling. And seeing if I glove, I still think it's about the fight.

But if we can help with finger pokes and bring it back down 10 percent, that's cool.

Good thing you can be eliminated. If you can feel the intensity. If you figures are exposed, someone's going to get a finger in the eye at a certain point.

Yeah, but this I think will eliminate a lot of those. I think eliminate a lot of I believe it will eliminate a lot. I don't believe will eliminate all. Might eliminate half. It's going to elevate the performance big time.

Yeah, well for sure it's going to prevent a lot of knuckle breaks.

Oh 100 percent down to strapping against the metacarpals. One hundred percent is going to make it a lot easier for the handicappers to be able to make a make a wrap that's going to fit in the glove and then be able to do what they're good at.

And less hand injuries will make for a better five last last longer in their career to like four inches farther than boxers.

And, you know, it has to be accounted for.

So he's not going to buckle so so that in boxing it's this knuckle that because up close range. Sure hooks. Right. Sure. Hooks long range. When I'm at this range, you have a tendency to leading with your front knuckle and that's why the front knuckle is always landing first long range, big, long, long range.

You're about two feet further out than you would be in boxing.

Speaking from a heavyweight division. Yeah, this is all awesome stuff, man.

I'm really excited about it. But I get down about this and I'm like a little child.

It's really clearly better super and anything else. And these mitts are fucking fantastic. Those are three, right? I have some like this, but you also make them longer.

Look, at times I have all sorts of make whatever, whatever you like. If you want one longer, I'll make it a longer, little longer than every one of my first and only one is ever made this size. Yeah, everyone's. And I test it first.

That's one thing that we've done, we've done right now, five years worth of research and development to create the patent patents, make sure the patents were right. We got the patent on the headgear, patents on the shin guards patent on the glove design, patent and technology patent. The strapping system is a utility patent, which is technology.

Super cool. What's going to control a lot of shit in the sports industry outside of this kind of equipment?

What are your thoughts on like strength and conditioning? And how do you organize that for your fighters? Like, what do you do? You bring in an additional strength conditioning coach.

Yes, we we have one that works on the outside through Lauren Landow, one of the best out there.

And he's a he's a guy underneath.

Lauren, I look at them as how the NFL looks at them. They're there to make you more explosive, more powerful, but they're not there to condition you. I conditioned the athletes. I conditioned them for the fights. They get them sharper, they get more balanced.

They get all the stability we've been doing strength, work and stability work. And the conditioning is all done by Christine with my training.

It has to be sports specific, has to be interesting. But we gauge the rounds, like if he's going three rounds, he's going to one, maybe two times go for maybe five rounds.

Everything else is three rounds sometimes to pull them back, pull them out.

If I start seeing them get lazier, you might make a stupid mistake or he's just tired to the week and we gauge the training regimens like hard in the beginning, slow down at the end of the week because you start to make lazy mistakes because your body's tired.

That's where I've seen a lot of injuries happen.

Do you work with the strength coach to have like a coordinated schedule? So you say, hey, he's going to be sparring today, let's not have any strength. We change. We change that throughout the fight. Like for each fighter that we're fighting different stuff. It will change it for that. If he needs to be stronger, if he needs to be faster, it's it's on the game plan that I put together prior to the fight.

And then with what he's doing and where we get the most use out of them, too, he makes the biggest gains, is off at training camps.

That's where he makes the biggest gains is where it gets stronger. It's where he's consistently working and pushing more weight. And when it comes to a fight, can we start to pull back just a touch?

And you said you do running as well.

Oh, yeah, we do. Hill running like mountain running. Well, we'll do sprints on Tuesdays right after sparring. So his legs are shots. We'll go out and hit some sprints. It's early in the week, so we go and spike the heart rate right after he's got dead legs from right.

And then Saturday on a fresh day. So he's Spar's on Friday. Then Saturday we go and do a long distance runner, which is only like two miles. And it's very inclined just so it's not hard on his joints and it keeps him.

Eighteen minutes is my best time. You hit a really good one last time, but it again, it's the legs are kick lower. Orlando had told you what I mean, but it's not the best for you long distance. I say I know when I fight, like when you run and you stop running your legs. Want to keep moving. Like in boxing. I know when I was running because my feet wanted to move.

And when you get hit with a shot, your feet still are active. You don't get like, oh, get plotty. So there's that benefit.

And again, strong legs are key. That's where you're racing to go every time.

Yeah, it seems like there's something there's a benefit to running with fighting in different. It's different than any other sport.

Look at Nadiya's talks about it all the time. He's in. He's got one of the best genes.

Like he's just he's he just goes he's got a flow. He's got he's got that momentum that he just keeps and carries and carries. Long distance runners have that mindset where they can just go.

It doesn't matter. It's like like rolling. If you roll for an hour different, you know, you just grapple for an hour. You've got to be able to stay consistent. You think better. You become smarter. You like you don't just go out there and say, all right, I got to be this fucking brute, win this fucking thing. You have to pace yourself.

Yeah, I don't do longer than twenty, twenty five minutes runs because I, you know, I don't want to pace myself, I push it. I don't have to fight one twenty five minutes but you make it like a fight.

Rose runs a lot that she has a different thing to you. She's a runner. She can run. I'm not a runner up. She made me stop running. I thought I could hit a time that was not even close to hers.

I was running consistently. I was like, man, I feel good. It made me feel so good. And I was like, I'm. I hit a seven minute mile, at least seven fifty nine on it. I went out and man, I ran a mile harder than I could ever run. I had asthma the whole time.

I was like, oh mama, I might be low 70s man.

I looked at my stopwatch right as I stop I was like eight fifty something. I've always been a worse runner man. I've done elsewhere. Other stuff I had to bag Zach better.

Zach Bitta holds the world record for the fastest 100 miles.

He ran one hundred miles at a seven minute mile pace.

Jeez. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's insane. He ran a hundred miles and I think it was eleven hours and forty minutes total and then did another hundred miles. This is the one he did a seven minute pace on a treadmill. So this one hundred miles on the treadmill. What is it like seven minutes and fifteen seconds miles.

Or something crazy like that for one hundred fucking crazy.

That's a lot of patience that's all. Yeah. That's, that's almost like you ever see the kind of person. Yeah. Oh yeah. Like that's actually that's better though than planking.

There's the people planking for like days like what are you doing mentally.

Like what the hell are you thinking about that carpet the whole time. Yeah. I guess if you listen to something very interesting. Yeah. You've got to be on my podcast, maybe, maybe a book, something, something that captivates you like you like any books.

I love books on tape on a run. So my favorite thing. But but I'm worried about mountain lions these days. I've been run with my dog and I also worry about rattlesnakes. Yeah. So I've been just listening to the sound of my feet.

Nice and breathing. It's cool being out there with your dog to get some super cool about that. Yeah, we did it today. I love it, but I'm worried about snakes man. These motherfuckers are everywhere out here and I see Brandon showing pictures like two days in a row. Everyday he sees rattlesnakes on his trail. He's crazy. He's he's biking in an area that has a high concentration of rattlesnakes.

But I ran over one once with my old dogs. The dogs aren't alive anymore. And we not because of this, but they're just got old. But I ran over this snake and I didn't even realize it was a rattlesnake until I was in the air over it.

I thought it was a stick because it was totally flat and it was a part where I'm really pushing hard in the run and I turn the corner. The dogs ran right the fuck over it, too.

Damn, I'm in the media and my oh my God, it's a rattlesnake. Like fat, like my wrist man who is a big fucker.

I'm from southern Arizona. Man, we had a long road. Yes. Well, Arizona has the fucking big ones, man.

You made a good visual that I could actually I have it in my mind now you jumping over that is a good visual.

I couldn't believe it in in the air over him. I was realize I'm like, oh my God. Can I ask you a question? Yeah.

So. Look what you got, this is super cool, do you miss doing Fear Factor like that? I don't know. So I think I'll tell you what, I love that show.

And the time I was talking with the guys out there, one of my favorite times were actually like I was like, oh, I like that dude.

There was a chick who was getting some dude was talking shit to her and you told you called the dude out. It was ready to fuck them up on the show. You remember that? No. You called him out and he was being aggressive to the chick on the show.

And you're like, hey, man can be talking like that. And he got aggressive with you. And you're like, all right, we can fucking do this. You know, I think you're confusing it.

This is what happened. A girl punched a guy and then you and then the guy's the girl's husband got that's what I was told.

Never forget. I was like, yeah, fear factor is going to be a fight with the host. I didn't know your Dave at the time, but I'll never forget it. Put him in a clinch and I'll try to figure out my my. You want to choke him because of choke come that I'm doing something to him. Yeah. And I didn't want to knee his brains out, but I was like, I'm like I have them. If he does something then I could do.

But I'm like let me just hold this dude in the plum and just, just also let them know how weak he is. You hold someone by the neck just now, never before now. I don't know, like, oh OK.

So in that time of your life did you know where you'd be. Oh no. I never know where the fuck am I just do things I have to do a really good like I'm such a goal setter, like I'm a dreamer and I like this like magical to me. It's fucking cool. I love it. I love that shit. Yeah. I'm not much of a I wanted to ask that because again you have come a long way bro.

Yeah. But it's all just keep going. Just grind one day at time. Yeah. I'm not a class action, I'm not a one day I'm going to be on top of the podcast world. There's no thinking about it at all.

It's one day, one day I'll look back and see what I've accomplished. But right now.

Yeah, yeah. I don't. I just enjoy what I do. So I keep doing it. I try to do it my best. But the fear factor thing was it was like it was a great job. It was a great job. I made money. It was fun. It allowed me to do a lot of things. It also gave me fuck you money so I could do whatever I wanted. So like from the money I made from Fear Factor, it actually helped my comedy because I didn't worry about saying anything because I was like, Oh, I'm good, man.

I put that money. I really didn't live that lavishly. So I put a lot of money away like I got fuck you money. And then once you have fuck you money, you tend to say fuck you more often and then you get more fucked you money because you be yourself, you know.

But it was a job.

Fear Factor was a job was like this never feels like a job, Joy, especially because I get to pick who's on. Yeah. I don't have anybody on it. I'm not interested in actually telling you what to say. Yeah, exactly. No one's bringing a guest list to me and say these are the people you're going to have on this week. I'm like, oh Christ.

You know, like this guy's going to host The Tonight Show or any of those shows like that. That's what they have. They have like someone comes to them with a list like and then it's fake because.

Yeah, whether they want to be around them or not, they have to act like they want to be.

They pretend. Yeah. And then you know it at home. See this everything has is er factness whereas people could tell here we're just having a conversation.

So having fun with the face so much it's so it's a real session right now.

That's the old UFC logos is as real as it gets. Yeah. So true. But that is what it is. How cool is it though Dana.

I stepped up and came out and fucking had some fucking fight so I'm glad. Hey, I'm glad you didn't wait. I'm glad. I'm so glad that he had the balls and he was right.

And meanwhile, look, everybody got tested like ESPN, a lot of places like not ESPN, but there was a ESPN asked me about it, but some places were actually upset that I was shaking people's hands so that you you were supposed to do interviews outside.

Right. They had this crazy. We all got tested. That's what that's what I'm saying, because that girl has no mask on it every time my coach is the only one who didn't wear masks. So I'm good. So the thing was, is I'm back in the locker room and the commissioner's I would have mask safety.

And he's like this. He's like, you need to have a on and he's in and now you have to have goggles.

And I'm like, listen, I said I said, first off show made in the rulebook.

I know I need rubber gloves. I've seen in the rulebook. I know the fucking rules need to have gloves on and every state is different, but most of them have the rubber gloves. You have the rubber gloves on.

But I said, all right, show me the rule book. And no, it's not in there. And I need to be able to be there for my fighter for safety. That's number one. He needs to be able to hear me and everything that I'm doing. I'm there for him and his safety.

And you're just a fucking the guy is going to do like it just makes no fucking common sense.

No, it's everyone's lost their mortaza. Everyone's lost their mind. Is everyone's paranoid of this. First of all, this kills less than one tenth of one percent, particularly. You're talking about people that are really healthy like you guys. It's zero risk.

You know, he was about to fight and he had it. I know. That's how bad he felt. Exactly. Jorquera was literally made way going to fight, you know, coughing, nothing. Didn't even know he had it just had a feeling you might have had it because family members, he was around somebody. Yeah. It's not something. It's people that are metabolically challenged. They're the people the people that have insulin resistance problems. The. People that are vitamin D deficient, the people that have asthma, obesity, all those people are in trouble, those those people are they're going to get fucked up if they catch this disease.

When you see the numbers drop drastically for the flu, heart disease, heart attacks, it's going to be proof that something was fucking wrong.

Well, they thought it was going to be way worse than it was.

But the problem is when everybody's fucking tested and we're here, there's 1100 tests the UFC did. Three guys tested positive. They sent those people out. Everybody was tested. We all knew we were OK. The common sense shit that drives me crazy. Yeah. When people just don't have to fucking like I'm like that just makes no fucking right.

It was a sheep mentality, too. Everyone is like a bag so that masks go anywhere. Everyone's wearing a mask, not Texas. I went to Texas last week. I ate a real restaurant we went to tonight.

We had a morten's. I mean, the waiters are all forced to wear masks and shit like that, I guess, whatever. But just to sit down in a fucking restaurant and have a nice meal and a glass of wine.

Hey, no traffic here. There is positives right now. Yeah. For now.

But when it opens up, it's going to be starting. People that are angry, driving like fucking maniacs, it's going to be dangerous to go back to work because they were getting paid more for unemployment than they were at their fucking job.

There's a lot of that, too.

And where's that money coming from or the money coming from a little bit from our pockets that I'm very, very, very happy that Dana White stepped up and did that fly to Florida and then it worked out well and it felt real different. And I felt real very, very fortunate.

I was thinking he was there. I was like, wow, there's not a lot of people that get to be here live for this. And then when you and Tony Ford and it turned out to be absolutely one of the best title fights of all the fights that super privileged.

Oh, yeah.

I just think about all the people with huge amounts of money that would just pay for me and told me to go fight, you know, in their gas. In their house.

Right, exactly. That's what you ask me next. That's a good that's always been a hey, I got that any rich people want me. If I'll bring someone team so soon, we will do that cause you saw your home fights.

But of course I have a job. I have skills.

They give you paid just as much time you need for this much money. Two days is OK.

And it was also there was a gap between the table in the cage that exists normally to there was the use your cage.

Right. Usually worked like touching the funny as shit as you guys stand next to each other doing your interviews. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you have no logic, no logic.

And there were people were upset. There was an article written about the fact that I didn't use social distancing inside the act.

We were shaking. I know exactly. We were talking about like people just looking for shit to complain about. And by the way, these fucking two guys are about to fight this a lot. Boy, no more social distance unfriendly thing ever to name Stephen A.. Smith said you guys didn't grapple because you're afraid of. And I said you were joking, right? Not your job. I don't know, Mike. He said that and he meant no.

I thought you were totally just laughing.

I thought you meant it. He did say it. He meant it. Yeah, he did do is just fucking meant it. We're literally swapping blood here. Yeah, exactly. This is the HIV world. Hepatitis world. Yes. Yes. Everything you name it, you get it. Staph, everything, anything through blood. But that kind of that kind of trouble. Stephen A. Smith though, he's a personality like that.

He's got hot takes on things. So when he says he could have not meant he could be as smart as smarter than we think and said it because of today, it's like it's exactly I get it causes for me. Yeah, it's a lot. Listen, he makes his living that way. We're all talking about him. I mean, that's how he makes us and makes a living getting people to talk about some things. He says he's a very engaging personality.

You have to use that in the next interview, though. I don't because it's. Yeah, yeah.

Well you they know about God. I knew this shit was coming for the last ten years.

I hit him so hard because I was scared he was going to touch me. Get that on. I'll try to keep him six feet back on the fight.

I think people are like why did he grapple. And a huge factor. And it could be a fight. It's going to be my feet worked. Yeah. There was never a spot where he felt comfortable to close the distance. I was constantly too far away and staying off the fence. So that's going to be huge against be.

Will you have the style? I mean, if you wanted to say, OK, what kind of style do you think would work against a guy? It could be. First of all, a guy was a fantastic defensive wrestler, like you said, and then a guy was a superior striker. And those two things you have, you got to self defense.

Yeah. You got to have feet work without the viewer you can't see out the fence. But Beeb's whole game is you know, he's a great grappler as well. This whole game is. Using that grappling in the fight against the fence, yeah, you will not if he's taking a shot in the open, is to drive you to the fence to finish the takedown. He's not going to take down an open. Interesting. You go watch all this fight, right?

You're going to see maybe five, a handful, if that of takedowns in the actual center of the cage. He'll start in the middle, but he's going to push to push you to the cage and use the cage. It's going to be a feet where it's going to be me keeping a distance. We feel slightly uncomfortable. Like when he did go for them. No, I was just too far. He thought he was close enough, but I was just too far.

Right. Well, he was already beaten down that way, too. Yeah. It was super sneaky, like the one he hit on by both of us. It would have been the same in the first round because the distance I was keeping. Right. You have to in order to shoot a double leg, you have to be at a distance. Would you feel comfortable in wrestling? It's always you know, I shouldn't unless my head's touching your head.

I should never take a shot because I'm too far away. Right. So control and distance staying off the fence is going to be the most important thing in the world when it comes to that fight.

Now, when are they talking about for that fight? I mean, we got to save, man.

So that's kind of crazy.

Whenever we want to g man, he's got no well, Henry just left but one twenty five.

One thing I think Henry's done for good. Twenty five one thirty five to a one fifty five and 170. I mean I don't know any manager that's ever had that many champions in the stable. I think Henry a year and a half from now is like hmm.

Oh yeah. It's again it's business. Yeah. He wants big money.

You know, that's the look, he's one of the absolutely undeniably the greatest times for always had issues with people getting paid.

Yeah. I love it like that. Just loves the fight.

Like their technique is just so fun to watch so fast. I mean, Henry's a special guy. It really is.

I mean, you look at a guy, incredible athlete won the gold medal, Mealybugs won two division, and then he's winning by stoppages against world class Smashing Pumpkins. Yeah, he's amazing. He really is amazing. But I respect his choice. I mean, the guy decides to go out on top and will go down in history as one of the greatest of all time for sure.

The UFC is, you know, as athletes, the hardest people to do business with in the world. So when you do have the cards in your hand, you have to go to war for yourself.

There's no other time we were able to, but the only time he's going to have those cards is when he's actually the champion. Right now, he is the champion. If he decides to vacate the title like he has, they remove him from the rank and they put it. They don't just give it back.

I believe that, well, he can earn it. He doesn't have no problem doing that. He'll get a tough immediately. Right. But he won't be good to not be the champion going into the fight.

So there's like financial considerations.

But that was I believe that was him playing his cards. Right, going to war, you know, and they and they they don't respect you enough. And so eventually you have to at what point do you say no, right? I think legitimately he's probably done, too. When you stop and think about the fact that he retired from wrestling at 21, you know, not even at the peak of his powers right after he wins a gold medal.

And then the fact that he came back from that first round stoppage to today and then beats him in the rematch. What was it like 10 years later?

And with his knee, his knee and his ankle, always looking like he goes out like that with the Morris fight and in that fight, just so crazy overcoming that and just getting.

Yes, nothing left to accomplish.

The Marlen Mirage fire was incredible because Maliki is so talented, fucking good man and so, so nasty with his kicks.

It was crazy. There's I take it and kick it for a while.

Did it overcome that, like it, and then come back in the second round just himself to his chest and mention that he's he's a very intelligent person.

Yeah, but retiring like that actually just go out like no one's done it like that. Like George has done it. But he had a rough fight prior to he came back later. Like the thinking is this no one's done it. I always say do things outside the box be remembered.

I think he'll fire you. He Mayor Emanuel. Captain Eric thinks he's going to far, I think.

But I do think it be on his terms, which is ultimately all he's fighting for, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, listen, man, the guy has done amazing stuff. So the fight with you and Kobe, you both have the same manager here. Talk about September.

Are they saying with you that I mean, so we again, we both pretty much we decide. I mean, they have a fucking lot we don't have we don't decide the UFC is the boss thing, but you can't make anybody fight. And I'm ready in September. He's ready in September. So it's perfect.

Now, I know Vegas is going to at least allow some audiences in July, supposedly because I'm at that park theater, the one that's right across the street from T-Mobile. I'm there in July for doing a comedy show. It's supposedly going to actually happen. They haven't canceled it. They haven't canceled it. Oh, my God.

This is all New Jersey, right? New Jersey. Open to pro sports with an audience. I don't believe so.

I think that's exactly the thing. Yeah, that's huge.

You can be. I mean, as much as it was cool to see you and Tony fight with no audience, I kind of like I mean, as much as I love fighting with no audience, I want them there.

The spectacle of fighting, that's such a big fight. Yeah, it's the biggest challenge of his career. It's the biggest challenge of Beeb's career. It's the biggest challenge of your career. One hundred percent. Yeah. To be the greatest. What he does like this again, we can't take anything away from that. It's you.

When you look at well-rounded fighters, he's well-rounded, but he's great. At one point he does. And that is like what made Chuck Liddell great. Like he had thunder in his arms and he's brawl and brawl like you get hit by him. He's great at what he does.

And that's what's so exciting, is having opportunities to be able to step up. That's what I'm really excited for. I know he's excited for. And again, no one's got to see his wrestling. And I met this guy watching him wrestle with what he does was so unique.

It's a total different style of wrestling then that's hard to train for and it's kind of like a hidden weapon. So I feel like we're bringing something unique into this.

I think it's a very unique fight. And it's also Tony was thought to be the biggest threat to that title because Tony is such a good grappler and he's so good on his feet and he fucks people up on his feet.

So him fighting you and you stopping him like you take that spot now. And also your style, in my opinion, is better. Oh, I mean, the thing about Tony Styles, as Tony can fight off of his back, he's not worried about take downs and he was going to fight that fight with.

The mindset of being OK on his back. Yes, yeah, that was the that was the thought process, whereas your thought process is completely different, being such a great defensive wrestler, but also being the superior striker total. It's a very dangerous for could be very dangerous, especially the confidence you must have coming off of that five rounds with Tony.

It is good. I mean, I know how bad those kids hurt. You know, if you if I can touch your calf, I'm not I'm never kicking above the knee anymore.

Really only know he you know, I'm pretty well, not on purpose.

Never really. It's pretty devastating. So devastating to clinch. You're going to kick above the knee. Maybe it's a non-event. I'll try to break their knee by anything but from the outside so you could fire the different distances. So much more safe. Mm hmm. And there's so many nerves and ligaments that run through that part that have no protection. Your thigh, your your quad is a big muscle to get through your quad to get to those nerves, you could touch the nerves.

That's why you know what he said, Henries. Catherine Fujino hurts because you got kicked in the calf. Yeah, the nerve. Stop firing. Yeah, just try and learn. You know, I can touch.

I got a touch of beef there four times and then he's compromised. Yeah. Once he's compromised, he can't shoot, he can shoot but he has to have the fence. Right. If he doesn't have the fence he fuck there's no fucking way. Yeah. I promise you that has to be in the middle so he can give me. There might be a scramble. He might ask me in the middle once or twice, but if he wants to take me he's going to have to put me at the fence.

Now once they set this fight, you you need eight weeks.

Is that what you want to get prepared? Yeah. So so we're getting close to that, right. We're in June and just a week or so.

Yep. June, July, August. Yeah. So I'm taking I take thirty days off. But they didn't give you a specific I don't know anything. Yeah.

Just September. I didn't. Sure I was. My manager probably knows more details than I do fight Island.

Seems like there's not a lot. Yeah it does. I guess when I was a treasure Treasure Island or they opened it up, I did see this place on Google. It's like fucking that movie contact or zoom in, zooming in. You see things like it's also like I want to like, look at Google Maps look like deconstructed. Yeah. They put a whole bunch of dirt. Don't even tell if the video tells me everything you wanna tell me I'm worse as fuck.

Yeah. I'm not sure if it's real.

Yeah. It might be just saying it just so he could get it on a date set for his little spot in Vegas and just be like, oh yeah, we don't need international flights. It seems like the only option. Yes. Until the options back. You know, you ain't getting visas right now.

No, you're not getting visas and I don't even know how they're going there have to fly everybody private to this fucking island. Yeah.

I want I want to know if I can get back. Right. Yeah, that's the thing. Right. Where are you going to land your window?

Include the flight. If you lose, you got to have that boat and or you land in Tijuana and then you have a boat. You got to get to San Diego and then we'd drive you home.

It's crazy, but I love the fact that they decided to do all these different things. I have the palace fights that got cancelled because the governor got his panties in a wad. But this this Florida thing was great. And I'm just I'm glad that the fights are rolling again. This this weekend's a tough fight, man. Tiger and and Gilbert, that's a tough fight. Good time to do it in Florida. I don't think they're doing that.

Where is a full. I don't think it might be an apex fight, I'd be up other trying to move there. Actually, I think it is because they were saying, if not, they would move to Arizona. OK, I don't know.

I think Arizona doesn't give a fuck about the Wild West. It is the Wild West. Never open. Carry on.

Have you seen the movie too soon? Yeah. So 40 miles north of that is where I grew up, Las Vegas, APEC center.

Now, here's interesting as well, because the APEC center is a smaller fight of smaller octagon.

Instead of a 30 foot tall move it they have to move a 30 foot in there. No, no, dude, that's like you think at the Palms, like when you fight at the bar.

If I were a smaller one down the old days. Yeah. So this one is a twenty five foot octagon. It's smaller, but it might I think it's a good size.

It is smaller but it's not too small.

It's going to, it's going to be 20, 20 too small. 20 small.

But this is twenty five the square cage out there, the victory victory and it's square case. That's the cage I find in a rage in the cage I think is maybe like 12 foot 10. It was like really a bull fight. Speaking of the cage, the movie, the big movie just watched that the other day. There was classic with you in it. You were like, comes the boom, here comes the boom. You like signing people for a fight.

It was classic, but the cage generic would have fallen apart. So it's the it's the best. You like that or just the best.

Yeah. They never get it right. Warrior Warrior didn't get it right. They fought two days in a row of fucking scenes the day after a fight.

Yeah. Those stupid classic Hollywood bullshit.

You know, there is a thing with awesome though. That was a better day, but for me it was like it was the apex. And I was going to be very interesting because that's even small or small, because it was weird being that fifteen thousand seat plays I did like I did there.

I looked around, I was like this crazy and weird, so weird.

Like they could have had that at the hotel and in a conference room just set up to honestly admit it's a fight like that where you got promoted from for the first time and like you have your fighters that you just hope and your fighter gets paid because you look at a crowd, there's like twelve people. Yes.

And they got an arena like that. I've seen that. Yeah. I've been a part of some events where you're like you're hoping you guys get paid because you show up at five, but there ain't no one in the crowd.

Yeah it's it's but it was unique because it's the you have the TV, you it's just your body, you know, you're on the big show. But it was just it was super unique.

Well Gilbert already done that. He's already done no crowd because he did the no crowd in Brazil before Damian Meyer. So he's one he's used to the experience dirham. This would be tyrant's first fight like that.

This is different. What is it? What is different about it? Like when you walk in the on a Bruce proffers just down the hard like crazy.

So I don't know. He's screaming and nothing. You don't hear anything. There's no people. It's weird. You just see the echo.

Is his sound such a fucking special place at that time. Like I have no idea. I'm, there's, I'm not I mean I'm there but like I'm not.

What do you like what is happening in your head.

There's literally nothing like not a thing. You just go your bliss just piece. Real weird. Yeah. Piece no nerves. I don't feel a thing really soothing. So I get in there, you know, I looked him in the eyes and then you know, he broke for a second and I was like, all right, give me some water.

I got this fire and it's just peace then. So it's like up from the minute to minute training camps. It's like a tunnel just closer and closer and closer and you get knocked down. You just see that the blue canvas, the lights. You can I understand like knows the light's really bright. There's like a smell. They I smell it. And then it's just the Taj closes like he's announcing, you know, I've never even seen his face in there.

I've never heard his voice. I've never heard Bruce before. His voice never really. But it's close. And if I started just warm and it is closing and it's over. Wow.

The difference between your fights where you said you having too much fun like the poor fight or the Alvarez fight and now what is the difference?

So that was even so once the tunnel closed, when those fights, it was like over, over. Now I get like I have like three pieces from this fight that I can remember. And so I'm more I'm I'm more present now. More calculated. Yeah.

I'm as president as I can possibly be while still able to rely on my reactions in my intuition.

So your reactions, your intuition is all the stuff that you worked on in training and then you just trust it. You trust that process once you get inside your head. Yep.

And it's my timing is my timing is unbelievable. Just weird things like my dad's a genius. My dad has honed these certain skills, like right now I'm seeing him doing it with my my nephew, but he'll be watching TV and he'll throw a ball to you. You have to catch as many times as you can and he'll move it back. You know, he'll start doing it sideways. You try to get to one hundred first to fifty HIV fifty.

Then he's going outside his. A ball to the roof and it's rolling down, you have to kind of listen to it and as it's falling, you got to kind of react to it falling to the ground, like these small little things that my dad has done like since I was a baby and my weird OCD, when I'm driving in cars as a kid, any time I was a shadow cast on the road, I always had to blink as the shadow was in between the tires like.

So it's just my my ability to react and not hesitate is, I believe, what's allowing me to do that inside the octagon in those situations. Well, whatever the fuck it was. Yeah. Something that sounds so stupid and weird, but oh this is so stupid. Those small little skills that I constantly worked on since I was and I never knew why. I never knew what I was doing this. But I'm now you know, hindsight is always 20/20.

It's crazy because it's not something you decide to do as an adult. Right. This is something I built up your whole life and now you can do it. But you're split-second timing and counter shots with Tony. Was that pretty spectacular?

Second to none. No, with me, Kongregate is going to it's going to be a fucking iRace. It's going to be a. You know, we're talking about milliseconds here, and that's the race that we'll have that for you looking forward to. I do. I want to shut them up.

I love that I really would. Do you think that's a possible fight? I could find myself. I wanted to. You think so? Everyone is going to say that if that I'm lying and if it was there, I would take it. You know, Daniel Cormier said that the other day. I'm not that fighter, for one.

I have an opportunity to do something that can be unmatched in the history of our sport, to go in there, to come off the circumstances, to be to be Tony like I did Gilbee, Habib, Gobe, Konner, that's legendary.

So that's what you want to do. You want to beat Kabab and then fight Konner. But when you said you could fight QandA right now, why are you saying that?

He's calling me out. But is he really because he said something about me too. Well, and I know that's not real. He doesn't want that.

I think he would take the fight with Eisemann or use me. OK, yeah, he wants to fly Habib. But the only way you have to go, you have to go. If he could have got when he picked Cowboy, he could've gone through me. He could have gone through me.

There's no you know, if you're a fan, but don't you think he matches up way better with cowboy? Well, that doesn't matter. That's irrelevant. But I think it is for him, I think, to make a spectacular performance. I think he felt like he matched.

I think it was I think it was smart. Yeah. But now you get to call for a title shot. No, like, I'm in a great position because when I get to fight for a title, there's five hundred somewhat of people on this roster.

Every single one of them would want to be in my position right now. But I also have the ability to bring some kind of I always draw playing when it comes to this word, but a rhyme or reason way, a way to a title shot for young guys that come in.

They think politics run the show. They ultimately do. But there is a small chance that you get a say in your destiny and eliminate politics. And that's what I just did. Politics were going to fuck me. I wasn't going to get the fight. Conroy was going to somehow or some way get that fight. And now I got the chance to go out there and I did what I did.

Well, just through the virtue of your performances, you become incredibly popular. And that's enough. That's enough. Its popularity is everything.

I mean, this is a weird game. You have to win.

You have to win. But it's also the way you win like you and also when and you winning the way you did in Florida when there was nothing else going on in the world. Yeah, there's no live sports. And so you winning the way you did and doing it in such spectacular fashion against a hugely respected guy like Tony Ferguson, that makes you undeniable. And when you're undeniable, weird things happen.

You know, timing is everything. Doors get opened. Timing is everything. It was a perfect time. It was, you know. Destiny, whatever it is, you know, I don't put anything into any of those things, I just do what I can do today. But, you know, timing is everything and it feels like that was part of my destiny to have the opportunity at that time under these circumstances.

Well, it certainly is a magical storyline if you're writing a movie. I mean, that would be the best way if I can, when I go back, have even then I'd be gone.

What what run in the history of this war has been better coming off two losses, getting counted out. You know, that's what I'm here for, that I can inspire the world now.

Do do they have anything lined up for Connor now? Because Connor keeps talking like something's happening.

He's back and forth from the boxing to the enemy that it's again, it's he keeps on trying to talk the day he's the number one.

I would say it's he said he was going to come back and do this for yourself. You're not. That was the season like he talked about during the season. And don't get me wrong, I respect the shit out of him. He can fight his ass off. But he was like, I'm going to do a season and I have three fights in three months or whatever he said. And the whole thing is, is people stop listening when you're not sticking to your word.

And if you're going to fight, fight, stay relevant, pick away class, be just consistent as you are when you fight because he's super consistent. When he fights. I say talent. Yeah.

I said in an interview that he was losing clout among fighters and in the game Dana was laughing at him. Reporter asked him, he said Connor says he's fine just the next day, unless that's all they need right there. That's you're losing respect. So he has to go and fight back, kind of earn a position.

I mean, beating cowboys. Nice. But he's got to kind of get another win. One hundred something else is going to happen to really sell the public on one hundred percent that you can sell a certain percentage of the public based on his name.

And it was at 170. I mean, it's again, there's the consistency. I look at it from a consistency standpoint is like what weight class are you going to go in?

I feel if he was fighting a one forty five, he's very unstoppable. I feel like that's the weight class for him. But him changing weight. If I was a coach with him, I'd be like, hey, pick a weight class, be consistent.

He's so great. Big for 140. I know. But again I ever made that one again.

But again he he came from the super hungry. He's getting up. The stronger dude's back. His speed is key. And when you go bigger weight classes, you start to lose your speed.

Well, that's what those modified I thought was so ridiculous. I saw them. Uzma was posting photos of that. I'm like, that is so crazy because Ousman is enormous and he's so powerful.

I was spar with him for this camp where he's a big dude. Yeah, he's a big guy. He's a big guy and he's strong as fuck. Yeah. Like when Ousman gets a hold of guys, he drags him to the ground and he's he's an incredible wrestler in his mind, to his mind is very, very powerful. So when I was looking at that, I was like, wow, that's sad. Really happened, you know, but it's not.

Yeah, that's stuff I saw happen. I even texted Dana about that one.

I'm like, come on, man, you know nothing about that. And they really haven't.

But that's when when is talking about seven delic after he fought cowboy, he was like, I feel so good at 170.

I'm like, dude, OK. But it's also yeah, it's all good. I think it really did feel good, but it was a real one. Seventy five. Fifty five. Yeah exactly. Exactly.

So your ultimate goal is to do that, to be Connor.

And then what do you do, do you have a long term for the fuck out of here.

And that's it. That's all I need. Wow. What do I need after that. Yeah. That would be legendary. I'd make plenty of money, which is ultimately what I'm here to do. And I took control of my destiny, which is all I ask for. Yeah. So it's good, you know, business wise. The smart move could be, you know. Right now to fight harder, because obviously that's a lot of money. I think you have more leverage, but beating to be I make way more money, a lot more money when I have even a fight.

Yeah, if I'm not there. If he doesn't, he's he's not on my list. Conor's not Habib and Poyet are the two on my list right now. Those if I fight them too with big paydays and I'm good. That's a great plan, man. This is a good way to wrap this up. Listen, man, it's been an honor privilege having you guys in here. I really appreciate it. It's a dream come true for me, man.

You're a you're a legend. Thank you, brother. You're a legend, too. And I really fucking hope these goddamn gloves make their way into the U.S. Senate where they. It's all about timing right here.

And I really hope I'm there in September when you guys fight.

I can't wait to see it because I was kind of pissed.

This is the this is the first fight you've ever commented. Don't you do that. You always fight. Yes. Yeah, yeah. But this was the second. It was fucking awesome.

Appreciate it. Thank, guys. Thank you, everybody.

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