TJ Dillashaw, Duane Ludwig & Bas Rutten

00:00on yes slow down Dwayne slow down you have an orange watch you are a fucking what is the orange thing I've always been attracted to orange I grew up in Colorado so the Broncos orange has always been around me ah so the favorite ninja turtle at the time was Michelangelo with the orange and then really no other fighters or gyms were using orange So I wanted to make sure I did my own thing that is your own thing Yes, sir. Orange is I mean it's like I absolutely love orange I see some orange at a store, a crowd of people, I see an orange shirt, and my eye just goes So if there's a fruit bowl and there's an orange right next to a banana Ground the orange DJ, what is it like being around this guy? Oh, it's intense, man, I love it You know, life's full of energy, you know, you can't be calm around him Because he's got enough energy for both of us, you know Yeah, no, he's a madman, we worked out today

00:46And he's in the middle of, like, training, he just gets excited and starts hitting his pass together I love it I don't ever have to do road work because of this guy, you know I mean, we hit mitts for so long and so hard that I'm in too good a shape already, you know? That's interesting. Like, all the footwork drills and everything, I never really thought of that. Like, you probably don't have to do road work. It'd be too much. I do too much training as it is. If I started doing road work, I think I'd overtrain myself. That's fascinating. You have to kind of regulate that, huh? Like, there's a standard model that, like, a lot of fighters follow, and road work is a big part of that. But do you think with all the stuff that you do, if you did that as well, it might be too much? It'd be too many hours put into the day. I'm just too tired by the time I get home or I'd have to, I mean, I could do it on the,

01:27out of camp, you know, just to keep my mind right and kind of get some Zen going. But during camp, it's too much. I train too much to be able to have to, have to run as well. It's funny because everybody's got a different sort of way of doing it. Like Jeremy Stevens was on the podcast recently. And one of the things that he was saying is that he really ramped up his running to the point where that, what he was saying is that having like this, like long endurance base really helps him and fights because he knows that he is always going to recover he can always push further and harder to me he seems like the kind of fighter that does need to build on the cardio anyways you know i feel like each person's body is going to react differently to training and i'm someone that has endless cardio it feels like when i'm fighting

02:07and training so i need to stay more a little more fast twitch and i'm always putting size on instead of losing it and i feel like stevens has been trying to drop weight and get smaller and it helps with his weight cut I'm sure yeah I think it helps with his weight cut but I think with him it's also like a mental thing too he wants to break guys like he's such an aggressive guy like that's a big part of like his training is just being able to like have those extra gallons in the gas tank absolutely I mean I think that's what's kind of hard it's hard for me to run because of my mind so crazy though too like I'll go I'm all over the place I want to rather hit mitts and be aggressive I'm too aggressive of a person I guess well we were talking before the podcast about our friend Cam Haynes who just ran 200 miles and we're like, that shit is not good for you. No way. No way. It's not good.

02:52Your body's not supposed to do that. It might be good for his brain though because he's so fucking crazy. Like he needs to know that he can do something like that. He ran for 78 hours. That's why I want to hunt with him. Yeah. Because I just know it's like my dad. When I grew up hunting, we'll go hike 100 miles in a week to go out the back country and have a backpack and sleep out in the middle of the woods. I just feel like that's how Cameron Haynes would do it. You know, just as hard as possible just to do it. Yeah. My friend Adam Greentree from Australia came over, flew over to America last week, went to Montana, and then hiked some crazy amount of miles into the mountains, camped out, went in deeper and deeper because he kept encountering wolves and grizzly bears, camped out there, shot an elk, and for the last four days has been packing out this elk by himself. Wow. Four days.

03:44So if you've never shot an elk or you've ever seen an elk before, folks, an elk could weigh, you know, somewhere around 800 pounds, which is probably around 400 pounds of meat that he's packing out. So four days of 100 pounds on his back. Well, you're in your hiking. You can't carry it all out. You've got to quarter it out. So not only say you hike five miles or something on your back, you've got to go back and get the rest of the elk to hike that five miles again. So you're hiking the same trail two, three, four times, depending on how big the elk is when you quarter it out. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure he said he hiked 12 hours. Wow. So that could easily be who knows how many miles. At high altitude, I'd imagine. Oh, that's right. Another piece of the puzzle. So he's got 100 pounds on his back for 10 hours, 12 hours a day for four days in a row. Yeah. That's ninja. That's a workout.

04:32I feel like there's nothing better than that. So primal hunting with a bow out in the middle of nowhere, especially, I mean, by yourself. That's crazy. Well, y'all also, you could get him on Instagram, Adam Green Tree bow hunter on Instagram. He documented it all, you know, with the Instagram stories. So he was there. There he is. And a dude met him up there. A friend of his hiked through the night to come and meet him up there and help him, I think, on the third or fourth day. But he's got all these videos of him up there in the mountains. That's an awesome picture. Yeah. It's just so cool because, I mean, he's just out there surviving. Look at this. We're looking right now for folks at home listening. We're looking at this tent that's covered in snow. The ground's covered in snow. And this is where he's been living for the past week. I mean, that is the high country.

05:20Because when you're on public land, most countries don't have the same sort of public land setup that we have in the United States where you can just go hike into the mountains and camp out in these national forests. And so he took advantage of all that, and he's up there. Oh, where is he from? Australia. Oh, okay, okay. That's right. Yeah, all you have to do is come to Montana. You buy a tag. I think a tag for an elk is $1,000. And, you know, he's up there with a pistol because there's bears up there. So his kill sight, a bear came in on his kill sight when he came back. There was a grizzly there, and there's a lot of grizzlies in Montana. Mendez was just up in Alaska and got an awesome moose. And his story is pretty cool, too. He got a real big moose, and then over the night in camp, a grizzly bear came in and tried to take his moose off and took a big chunk out of its neck. Oh, Jesus.

06:09Yeah, so his whole story of what he's got going up there is pretty cool. He went on an awesome hunt and showed up there. Wow, look at that thing. Wow. Good Lord. Yeah. We're looking at Chad Mendez's. It says a 63-inch do-it-yourself Alaska moose hunt is now live on his YouTube channel. 63 inches is the width of the horns, which is just insane. Oh, wow. That is an enormous animal. So if an elk is 800 pounds, that's probably like 1500, 1600 pounds. That's an enormous animal. And he's doing guided hunts, right? Yeah. He guides people. That's awesome. That's his passion. Yeah, that's what he wants to transition to after he's done fighting. He should. I mean, that's where his passion's at, and he's obviously extremely good at it, so no reason not to. That's cool. Well, here's a question. He got popped for some supplement thing. And a lot of people are getting popped for tainted supplements.

07:00If you buy things in the store, there's a lot of supplements that you get, like, at any nutrition store that have all these, like, if they're not steroids, they're peptides. They're all these things that sort of make your body produce more hormones that are illegal by USADA. And he got caught for that stuff, apparently. Is that what he got caught for? Yeah, yeah. They proved it, that it was a supplement. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, cool. I haven't really asked him too much about it. It's a bummer. Yeah. That's good at this level you have to be make you be mindful of what you're taking into the body So especially with the new guidelines, so it's just part of following the rules Can't go in the cage and I poke somebody but go I didn't know Now there's so much going on with supplements now You have to make sure you put in the research and the investigation speaking in your body

07:41I poking did you see that picture of Travis Brown's finger knuckle deep into Fabrizio Verdum's eyeball? He didn't even say anything in the fight, right? Did Verdum I don't remember seeing Verdum call home or anything on that? I don't remember but I did see that jump side kick in the beginning at the end on his trainer that was a cool fight it was a cool fight it was a bummer to me to see Travis fight like that because I remember Travis earlier in his career was just look at that picture that is fucking insane Esther Lynn from All Elbows on Instagram put this picture up and she's an MMA photographer she takes awesome pictures That's an awesome pitcher. And this is insane. I mean, it is literally knuckled deep in his eyeball. It just, it's hard to look at, man. It's, oh my God. His second knuckle though too, right? His middle knuckle. It's like his finger has disappeared in the eyeball.

08:37I don't remember him stopping or saying eye poke or anything. I don't remember either. He was focused. But there was a bad one earlier in the night with Jimmy Rivera and Uriah. Yeah. That was a bad one. And Jimmy Rivera after the fight said he couldn't see. He said he still couldn't see. He said he couldn't tell what color things were out of his right eye. Fucking eye pokes, man. Pride gloves, huh? You've got to redesign the gloves. A little bit of a curvature in there and that opener all the way. Sorry. No, I think you're right. Most of the time, this is what I do. I obsess about martial arts and making things better. Someone's got to do something because the way things are going, we're just so many guys are getting eye gouged, so many guys are getting damaged eyeballs. It's just, it's not worth it, man. And it seems like we're waiting for something terrible to happen.

09:19You know, like, look at Michael Bisping. Yeah. I don't know if Bisping's came from a kick, though. I feel like it might have come from Vitor's kick. Was it that or was it in practice? I don't know. Do you think it was in practice? I think he detached his retina a couple times, so I think that's why it is the way it is now. I think he's heard it multiple times, and it was kind of where – because it's not completely fixed. I think they fixed it enough to where he can fight, and then when he's done fighting, they'll probably fix his eye completely is what it seems like. Well, what they did is they stuck oil in his eye. I don't understand it, but one of his eyeballs apparently has oil in it that's protecting the retina. So that's why one of his eyeballs is black. Oh, yeah. I was wondering what was going on with his eyes. That's why.

10:00Yeah, one is black and one is his original eye color, which I'm not sure what it is, but it's very strange looking. But it's just, he's a fucking savage. I mean, he didn't even consider retiring. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, stick some oil in there. Let's get going. Whatever I can do. Put an eye patch on. Let's do this. Got to get back to the gym, mate. He does push it. That guy comes to fight each and every time. He's a fucking animal. Yes, sir. Michael Bisping is the middleweight champion of the world. And who saw that coming? He did. He did. I've seen that opening in Luke Rockhold's Instagram videos leading up to the fight. I've seen the same thing his trainer saw. Really? Yeah. He was leading it back. He was telling me weeks before the fight that things he was doing while he's hitting mitts,

10:39dropping his right hand all the time with his left cross and kind of leaning back and kind of shoulder rolling and whatnot. And Dwayne called it out a couple weeks before the fight that he saw openings. He didn't say he was going to get knocked out with it, but he saw some openings there. Openings there. I mean, it's pretty simple. You can see where the openings are on that one for sure. And I remember after Bisping caught him and his trainer pointed at him. And I'm not quite sure what he said. Left hook. But he was for sure saying, see, I told you. I told you. That was it. Jason Perillo is very good. Jason Perillo, yes. He's a good boxing coach. He understands the game. I got respect for that guy. But it's cool to see something you've trained multiple times come out and actually work. And then win the fight. And then the title fight. That's nice. That's rewarding.

11:17Well, it's along the lines of what we were talking about today when we were working out. There's so much depth to this sport. There's so many options and there's so many possibilities that to the outsider, people look at it, it looks brutal. You see that eye poke and you're like, oh my God, this sport should be illegal. But to a person who really understands and watches it and appreciates it, it's like this crazy language that you have to learn. with all these different words and all these different ways of putting together sentences. And I like to use the language analogy because, like, if you're talking to someone and they only know a few words and they want to yell at you, but you're like some Sam Harris type dude who can just has an incredible language and you're just so eloquent, you spin them up like a web and they don't really don't know what the fuck to say.

12:04And that also happens in a fight when a guy has a very simple, like, real obvious game. He does a couple of things and he does it well as long as you engage him in that same sort of simple obvious way He's got a chance But when you over flood I'm like Dwayne this Dwayne was showing me this switch series that he works on Which is really amazing really really interesting stuff. Thank you, sir But one of the things I noticed is while you were demonstrated to me because it's so unusual It forced my brain to hiccup for a second ago. Oh, okay And if that happens in a fight you're fucksville. Oh, right. Oh, yeah 100% those Those little hiccups, right? Those little moments where your brain is overloaded because it's got to think instead of just react because you're doing something unique. If you're thinking inside the octagon, you're going to get caught. You're going to be in trouble.

12:52You need to have a completely clear mind and just kind of react to things. And for me, it's just been kind of having fun out there. The more fun I have and the more loose I stay, the better I'm going to fight. If I go in there with a game plan and thinking what I want to throw and what I want to watch out for, what he's good at, what he's not good at, then I'm going to be a little bit slower. You know we were talking about your fight with Dominic Cruz that you seem so emotional like you wanted to kill that dude Like you were so yeah, I mean I definitely wanted to kill him, you know It was so hot. I mean it was obvious you were you were headhunting as opposed to like one of the things that I really enjoyed about But your first and your second fight with Hen and Burrell But your first fight with Hen and Burrell was like here you are

13:30Fighting for the title and you look like you're in a sparring session. Yeah, you were just so loose like right away you could through every there's nothing of tension to what you were doing everything was like flowing and I was like look how like well he's responding to the pressure you were having a great time out there yeah exactly not not thinking about it you know and like you said with the cruise thing I want I want to finish him I want to go out there and put a point on it and uh you know things you learn from those are those are the small mistakes you learn from and you change them up next time and you uh come out there a little more level-headed and uh you know play his game Kind of like you were saying, he's a point fighter. And if you go out there and let him point fight you, then that's what he's going to do.

14:08So you've got to be able to react to how he fights and change it up a little bit. And that's why each training camp is a little bit different. And you learn those things. When you go and watch a fight after it's over, do you see openings and you're like, shit? That's called regret. I still have this, but sorry. 100%. You'll see it and I'll start sweating because I'm getting mad that I didn't do something correctly. You know, like in the end of the first round, I was watching the fight against Cruz and I had a double leg locked up so deep and I just didn't finish it. And that could have changed the entire fight. Just one takedown in the first round. I was all the way deep, hands under his butt perfectly. I just didn't pinch my elbows to finish it. So I went to lift him and he slid right through my arms. One difference I had to make was pinching my elbows in and, you know, it changes it.

14:53Just one of those things in the moment, isn't it fascinating how you have to train perfectly and then you have to just let everything go automatic? Yeah, that's exactly it. You hit the nail on the head is to train everything perfectly. That comes down to quality reps. But then what's a quality rep? Hitting and not getting hit or getting the takedown, not getting taken down, things like that, right? So now it comes to the point of adapting to the athlete and the scenario. And what's correct, again, is making sure you have high success with that technique, whatever that technique may be. So just put it in the time of the reps until it comes out fluidly and there's no longer a thought but an instant reaction. Well, and also having the right coaches, too, that can give you that information and can give you that high-level technique.

15:39Because there's so many people out there that are talented people, but you see their game just doesn't evolve. It just hits this level. And it's sort of like the level that their coaches are capable of taking them to. And then they don't go any further. And you have to believe and trust in that coach to be able to take you to that level. I mean, someone can be telling you the exact thing you need to do, but if you don't trust and believe that guy, if he doesn't get it through your head the right ways, then it's not going to make sense. You're not going to do it because you don't believe in it. Well, I think it's amazing what's going on right now with MMA, that people who are casual people, like a perfect example, the other day I was at my daughter's school, and one of the dads came up to me.

16:17And this dude was just a new fan. He'd only been watching MMA for the past year and he was just rapid-firing questions at me And he was obsessed with it. He's like I was never into martial arts when I was a kid I watched a little bit of boxing and he's like but man the UFC has just got me hooked And he's like one of the things that I love about it is how many different ways a fight can end He's like it's just it's so crazy like you'll you'll watch a fight and then all of a sudden the guy's getting choked Just like what happened? And we were going over this about it. And this guy was a real smart. I think he's a hedge fund manager or something like that. But he was obsessed with all the possibilities. You know, and I think casual fans are starting to understand now that this is a very intellectual pursuit.

17:02If you don't have a strong mind and if you don't have this full range of options and possibilities inside the octagon, you're most likely limiting yourself. Agreed agreed I see that yeah possibilities are nice way to change things up and again like we said earlier Confuse the brain get them thinking about something else and then you do something else. So it's always nice But I think right now we're seeing like um, there's a there's a pack right? There's like the standard pack of athletes that are doing things in a certain way And then there's a few that are moving away from the pack and they're expanding the potential of mma I think you're one of those people. I appreciate that. And I think you for sure are one of those coaches and There's a few guys out there. I know you don't like to hear but Dominic Cruz is one of them

17:46He's also doing it and we were talking about him today that like his style is so fucking odd You know, like he's technically not sound actually, but you know, but he uses it the right ways He's got awesome timing. Yeah, he's got great cardio. He's got a great chin Yeah And then he can get away with the the bad things he does because he does them for the right way for himself Yeah, I don't necessarily think you can say it's technically bad because he's so fucking successful And he knows how to do I just think it's not standard You know like he doesn't like we were using Ramon Deckers as an example He does not throw kicks and punches like Ramon Deckers But what he does do is he throws them like Dominic Cruz where he's moving like a pendulum back and forth and his footwork is so weird and He's overwhelming your mind with possibilities and he doesn't do the same thing twice

18:32He mixes things up so well that he's a tough nut to crack Indeed yeah, he's tricky. He is trickier than I expected for sure But you know piece of that again game planning is the talks up to the fight to get them emotionally invested Yes, and then it becomes a bit trickier to find the head right Right, so that's the goal when you were when you were leading up to the fight He was talking so much yet Yeah, and you could tell that you were getting so upset But that is a big factor in fights right because fights are so emotional emotional because it's one of the only sports in the world where your health is on the line like literally like this the option It's not like you might get in a car accident when you're racing cars that that's a possibility But the goal of MMA is for you to fuck up someone's body. Yeah, absolutely man

19:16Um, the thing you hit thing with him too that makes pisses you off so much is that he'll attack anything and just talk about something It doesn't even make sense just to talk and talk louder and faster and not give you a chance to talk It's like high school girls just bickering at each other. I think that's what pisses you off the most. Because he's not even actually making a great point. He's just making it and making it louder. Well, he's very articulate. He's a good analyst because of that. He's good. He does good at that. Agreed. Another technique. If you get a chance to fight him again for the title. Yeah, I better. Which you're in line, right? Obviously. Well, you lost a very close decision to him. And then you beat Rafael and Sun Tzu. Which, in my opinion, we were talking about this today, was an excellent example of how far you progressed

19:57because you guys had a really tough fight the first time you fought. It was a close fight. This fight was not close. You just ran away from him. I mean, ran away with the fight, rather. Not ran away from him. But, I mean, you were just, it was a clear victory. It was like you were just so much more technical. There were so many more options you were presenting to him. And he was basically the same fighter that he was back then. Maybe slightly better, but you're a way better fighter. I appreciate it, man. We've worked hard. We've worked long hours, worked really hard. You know, it's crazy how, like you said, this sport works out how quick things can change. You know, I mean, I could be on an 11-fight win streak right now. And a split decision loss to Rafael Sincal, you know, I thought I won that fight. A very close fight with Dominic Cruz that I felt I won as well. Those two fights go my way.

20:40I'm on an 11-fight win streak. You still have the belt, you know, known as hopefully one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters in the world, you know. Well, you still are, for sure. What's interesting right now, too, is this new rule set that's going to go into place in January. You know where they've changed this whole thing about down fighters like being able to attack a down fighter Yeah, good call you have to have four points down now So if you yeah, if you put a hand down on the ground and someone kicks you That's that's totally legit now, which I think it's long time coming I think that's a I'm a little bummed out. They didn't get rid of the 12 6 elbow But you know whatever Which is one of the most ridiculous rules because that's really not gonna hurt you any more than me putting a shin across your face You know that's crazy Or getting neat in the face and crushing your skull

21:26That stuff happens all the time and now you're going to take away an elbow You can't even really generate that much force with Well it's not more force I mean I think there's way more force in the Elbow that comes down the side Because it's more like a punch Because you get your whole shoulder torques into it Your shoulder dropping down is a weird movement I mean I guess there's some guys Like Anderson Silva or You know Yattsin Klai or some badass TIE fighters that can generate ridiculous power With that but I don't think it's any more than any other kind of elbow. No, absolutely not. No way. It's just some of the rules, I think, are a little bit archaic. I think we all agree, though, that the gloves... Yes, sir. ...is probably, like, if there's going to be, like, one thing that needs to be changed, I mean, it would be really nice if we could all get together and figure out a way to make it

22:08so there's less eye pokes. Well, here's three experts in the field right now. We're all saying Pride-style gloves would be an example, or, like, the Shido gloves, but anything that doesn't allow the hand to fully open. Fuck, they own Pride. Just use those goddamn gloves. Plus, those are the sweetest gloves, too. I love the pride gloves. I collect all kinds of fight memorabilia. Yeah. I'm all over the place. No, they're dope, man. By the way, show everybody your wallet. Oh, yeah, nice. Yeah, my boxing coach, Trevor Whitman, who's by far the most tentacle martial artist I've ever come across, he took an old fight glove and, where's the cameras there? Made me a wallet out of a fight glove. Have you seen that yet? Yeah, I saw it on Instagram. That is so dope. It's soft. It's nice. He makes all my punch mints, my tie pads, my belly shield, my leg kick pads, my kick shield. I'm super impressed.

22:54I was always impressed with Trevor as a coach. Let me get a picture of that. I'm going to put that shit on Instagram. He's just a ninja. I mean, I'll take that same skill set and put that into martial arts or to developing technique or drills. That's so cool. It's the same things. You can put that same information to running a successful business or whatever it is. He's just a detailed guy. Yeah. It's just fun to see someone do something that cool. Heck yeah. Yeah, that's unique, huh? So you guys are in Colorado now. You moved to Colorado full time. How much different is it living there? What is it like now? Also, you're training at altitude all the time. That actually made a huge difference. I didn't even take into account when I first went out there. When I was cross training and I was going back and forth from my camps, going from Sacramento to Colorado, going back out there was so tough.

23:40Some people get affected by the altitude differently. Joseph Benavidez doesn't get affected by it at all. Mexicans. He never gets tired, man. Mexicans don't get tired. It's a racist thing to say in a positive way. I'm telling you, Mexicans have fucking incredible gas tanks. Joseph will come up. He'll be gone. And Vegas will come out, and he'll train exactly the same. For me, when I go to altitude, it messes with me big time. But I feel like I get the effects from it long term when I'm done with the camp. I felt big differences when I train at altitude when I'm done with my camp. After I've been out there for six weeks, I'm in a camp, and you come back down to sea level. when we first start hitting mitts at wherever we go, it just feels awesome. Yeah, sea level, you feel like a Superman, right? Yeah, it's crazy how much of a difference it makes.

24:23Have you ever tried one of those altitude tents, those things that people sleep in? I have tried it. It's so hard to sleep in it. Is it? Yeah, it gets hot in there, and then your body doesn't recover as well. If you're sleeping at really high altitude, anything higher than where we're at, if you're sleeping at a real high altitude, it's hard for your body to actually recover overnight when you're actually supposed to recover. You're supposed to have your testosterone built up when you're sleeping, and oxygen get into your muscles and recover over the night. And if you're sleeping at high altitude, it's really hard to do that. You wake up more sore, you wake up more tired, and it's hard to recover. Interesting. So what I had heard was that the best balance was training at sea level but sleeping and living at altitude. I heard that as well. It seems like it wants to go back and forth all the time.

25:04That's what I heard when I was in school. I was a kinesiology major and I was really into exercise physiology. They said train low, sleep high. So that your body, when you're sleeping and hanging out, you're rebuilding all these red blood cells but then your threshold of working out at sea level you can push it so much harder so your body's used to going that hard you know but you train in lack of oxygen you can't train as hard so i mean that makes sense to me but then when sleeping in an altitude tent i feel like you can't recover until you're acclimated you know once you're acclimated you can recover you know because you have more red blood cells in your body but until then i wonder if anybody does it where like you live in san bernardito and then train up in big bear and just keep going back and forth and then sleep tito's thing for a while huh but he lived

25:45up there though right first yeah tito used to live up there for his camps he was one of the first mma fighters to incorporate that you know which is boss oh boss did boss did pop for his heavyweight title uh he came to colorado for his camp for his fight against kevin randleman so since i rootin so because uh there was a promoter in town that would hold shows they were called the lone wolf invitational and uh he had a couple shows and then i think maybe his third show boss was there he was just a special guest so then the shows after that were now at the boss and invitationals but when he was there he would he would be a special guest of the show and then he would do a seminar the next day then i'd fight on the show and then do a seminar that's how we came together and uh he noticed the effects of the altitude and then so he just did his next

26:28camp there i wonder if there's a difference between like when when i think when they're studying how athletes perform while they sleep at a high altitude and train at low altitude i wonder if there's a difference between the intensity level that mma requires and the amount of like i don't think there's a sport in the world that requires you to train as much as mma because there's so many different things you have to work on good point or as hard like we train with a lot of nfl players that with lauren landau uh and in denver he trains a lot of denver players and a lot of guys come before they do their combine and come and train with them and you just kind of realize like how much harder your strength conditioning is and how much harder you have to push and that's just one workout you know and then maybe they're going to do some football drills

27:11and whatnot we're going to hit mitts and do some grappling and wrestling and yeah it's it's a very tough sport to get ready for i mean i really don't know if there's many that are as hard or harder that's what makes it fun huh it's fun to watch you know it's really kind of crazy when you think about the 10-minute rounds that Pride had and how difficult 5-minute rounds are. Well, you definitely need it if you're a grappler. I mean, who the fuck's going to beat Damian Maia if every round's 10 minutes? Yeah, you're going to be worn out. That guy's a backpack. He's so on another level right now. That's one of those guys that's so good at one thing, but he's incredible at it that he can get away with it. Most guys can't get away with just being good at one individual aspect of MMA, but he's one of those guys. He's just so dominant at jiu-jitsu that he can get away with it.

27:55So that's the theory too, or the concept is he's really good at the rear naked choke. Well, a few submissions obviously, right? But let's say you're just ninja at the rear naked choke. Now that's your one technique. Now everyone's aware of that. So all you have to do is just have different entries for that rear naked choke, right? So different entries, and then obviously you finish the submission. But as far as the striking concept, the same techniques or combination, just different entries and different exits. Again, that same technique itself. Yeah, there are a few guys who have like just really excelled at one particular technique to the point where it gets ridiculous Like remember Cody McKenzie was catching everybody with that McKenzie teen The backwards guillotine thing he came and showed her that alpha male that thing is crazy

28:35But you have to be built for it though. He's like perfectly built for his arms are long, you know Skinny, yeah Yeah Well, then there was Paul Sass. Remember Paul Sass? That's right, the triangle 12 fights in a row by triangle and everybody knew it was coming. He couldn't do shit about it But you can use that to your advantage, though, as well. So I was helping Matt Brown train for Maya, and I didn't like how he was approaching the fight that he was so worried about what he was going to do. He's like, he's going to do these takedowns, he's going to take your back, he's going to do this. He was so entrenched in what Damian Maya was going to do to him in the fight rather than worrying about what he should do, what aspects he should take to the fight to stay away from his game instead of really what he's going to do. So you can use that to your advantage if you're a fighter that's so strong at one thing,

29:16confuse someone and get them so worried about what you're going to do that they're actually thinking inside the fight rather than reacting and just doing what they're good at already because if matt would have fought i feel like the way he should have in that fight he could have picked damien maya apart maybe yeah yeah or maybe he would have got fucking grapple fucked again yeah maybe later on yeah that's my hope and thought at least yeah well i'm a big matt brown fan but i'm a big damien maya fan as well it's for me it's it's weird you Because I'm a fan of a lot of guys, and these guys oftentimes fight each other. And you've just got to appreciate the event and appreciate the result. Appreciate the sport. One of the cool things about MMA is that there are these outliers, like this one-trick pony, like Damian Maia. But what a fucking trick.

29:59I mean, he can strike, and Damian's striking has gotten leaps and bounds better. It's one of the reasons why he's gotten so better at applying his jiu-jitsu. It's because he's so much more comfortable with his stand-up. His distance is very good now. We understand striking really well now, but that jujitsu is just so next level. He's making it happen. When he runs through a guy like Carlos Condit like that. Or out grapplers Gunnar Nelson that easy. Malled him. Just mauled him. Like you said, another level for sure. And also goes to show you how fucking good Jake Shields is. Oh, you're right. Good call. People sleep on Jake Shields. Jake Shields beat him in essentially a grappling match. A lot of people forget. But Jake Shields was always a guy who kind of struggled with the stand-up because he wasn't like an explosive guy. He was just sort of like competent with his stand-up. Awkward.

30:48But again, he beat Tyron Woodley, the fucking welterweight champion of the world. Beat him in essentially a stand-up fight. So did Nate Marquardt. Yeah. Shields is smart with his grappling. He's come out to Muscle Farm, worked out with us, and showed some technique. And his top game is just so tough. Ridiculous. He doesn't even have to use any strength. It's just all about his positioning and the way he's on you. It's so tough. I mean, it's a chess match for sure. Yeah, he gets slept on. He's fighting Fitch now. They're going to fight in the World Series of Fighting. That's a very good fight. Very, very interesting fight. That's interesting. We have both ways. I was wondering about Fitch. It's good to see him back in there. He hasn't fought for a while, right? I don't know when the last time. He tested positive after he fought Pal Harris. Oh, did he? Yeah. I thought his knee got hurt. A little bit of that, too.

31:28Yeah. He tested positive for elevated testosterone. Oh, wow. Yeah, you can't have that. You've got to follow the rules, right? The guidelines. The rules. That's what has to happen. Yeah. That's good. But back to like styles, it is so interesting that there are so many different styles and there's so many different people like Wonderboy. Yes, sir. I love that guy. Who's the one trick pony in the other direction. You know, just his fucking striking is just bizarre. And his style is like really karate based, almost like a sport karate style. But it just incorporates the movement and he's operating for a longer distance and he likes to draw people in and get them extended before he catches them. Dude, he's like a cobra. Yep, exactly. Like his movement, like his back and forth pivoting off the waist. Yeah But he also He does another thing That fucks with people Is that front leg Yeah His front leg Is so nasty Like he

32:15When he fought Hendrix He hit him on a front leg side To the body And you could see Hendrix got like Stuck by it It was a hard shot Yeah And he like kind of Acknowledged it And then he got Roundhouse kicked in the face With the same foot Like right away Quack It's like the Zohan Yeah It's just all up in your face All the time It just never stops Oh that would be funny Yeah To me a dream fight is Damian Maya versus Wonderboy complete opposite styles That's a dream fight. I want to see what the five is like I feel like now what we're watching to with Damian Maya is also we're watching this master who's 38 Oh, you're right. Good point. Yeah, he's still well He's he's up there for the competitive ages, but he seems healthy and yeah, we can happen 38 that's the old man I don't want to fight at 38. You don't have to. It's one of those things where you've got to wonder how much more sand is left in that hourglass.

33:06Yeah, interesting. I mean. Or is it pulled the Radicatora trick? Just fight until he's 50. Yeah, I mean, fuck, Randy almost came out of retirement for Fedor. Oh, nice. He was thinking about fighting fans. I wouldn't mind seeing that just as an old fight fan. Yeah. To fight nerd. Yeah, for sure. You've got to think about Maya, though, too, being 38 and being able to push it that hard still is his style of fighting. Yeah. Good call. You know, he's not getting hit very much. He's on your back. You know, his training's probably that way as well. And so he's able to go a little bit longer rather than someone's gonna be in front of you and slug it out Yeah, good point. He's definitely taking less damage striking wise over the years I think they did a stat on him where he got hit 13 times over the last four fights. No way Yes And like the like it's just that's and most of them are the Matt Brown fight. Yeah, oh wow

33:47It's just fucking crazy how like technical he is when it comes to his jiu-jitsu. Yeah Yeah, that's why you don't play jiu-jitsu, right? So we got to punch him in the face while he kicks like Nate Marquardt did. Yeah. Well Nate caught him early in his career too though You're right really understood the stand-up game. Yeah. Yeah people sleep on Nate Marquardt too, man You know people forget how goddamn good Nate especially in his prime Yes, sir, and you watch that Tyron Woodley fight when you fought him in Strikeforce. He looked really good then Combination that he hit him with was like fucking a video game. Yeah. Yeah, he was sharp That's when he was working with Trevor Whitman. He's back with Trevor as well But again, Trevor is by far the most technical, detailed martial artist instructor that I've come across in any field. He really breaks things down.

34:31And I hear Shane Carwin's making a comeback. Oh, nice. Really? I heard that as well, yeah. He's a free agent. So he can go wherever he wants. Oh, interesting. I wonder where that's going to go. Good morning. Interesting. Is he training with Trevor as well? I'm not sure. I don't actually spend too much time with Trevor. But hopefully, if he's smart, he should. He will. I know he's really close with a wrestling coach at Mosley Farm. Yeah, Lister Bowling. Right. And I've been hearing it from Lister that, you know, he's a free agent. Looking about getting back into working out and seeing how his body holds up to see if, you know, how he's going to push it and what's going to happen. Yeah, he has some pretty significant back injuries, right? Yeah. It was his neck, right? It was his neck. Back in his neck, I believe. But, you know, you've got to think, that guy played football at a high level for a long time.

35:12Yeah. And all that crashing, big dudes smashing at each other. Those guys are freaking natures, man. I can't. That's so crazy to be able to be that big and that fast. 230 pounds, just run into somebody who's standing there. It's not good for you. Yeah, definitely not good for you. You want to stay healthy, that's for sure. Because it goes back to keeping those same rules in line when you're training. The goal of the training is to get better, right, not to hurt each other. So just making sure you're taking care of your partner and using this time to improve and get better. The better I get, the better you get, and so on. Yeah, and if you can get a good camp like that where everybody has their ego in check and you all grow together, that's massive. Good point, yeah. new egos they're to learn and get better overall you know it's something that i've had to obviously

35:53work on too because i'm so competitive and i want to be the best all the time you know even in the gym no matter what i'm like i'm pushing like i want to train harder than you i want to be better than you and so it's something that we me and doing have had to work with and i've always had to work on it you know i just gotta gotta you know stay stay controlled the fire yeah how do you control yourself when it comes to like the amount of work you do do you monitor your heart rate? Do you check, like, do you have any sort of markers that you check to make sure that you're not overtrained? I know a lot of guys do it off their heart rate. It's a good way to do it. Mine's just kind of off the field for the most. So how am I waking up in the morning? And how am I feeling? Am I eager to go train? Am I eager to still feel like I'm the best in the world? That's

36:29kind of like my body lets me know mentally of what I should be doing, what I shouldn't. It's taken a while to learn that. I wish I would have known this during wrestling. Cause I believe I messed up my wrestling career in college by just pushing too hard for too long and redlining my body so it's all just off of feel now and i kind of lay out my my whole camp that way you know i know what days i'm going to do three practices what day i'm going to do one and just kind of go off of feel you know if i need to rest a whole weekend or just rest sunday it's all for just my energy levels and how much i'm willing to do do you do you have a nutritionist that works with you i do um they're perfecting athletes i'm actually teaming up with them now too and we're doing programs for little kids and for wrestlers as well because the wrestling the wrestling world

37:06does not know enough i mean they've cut weight for the longest amount of time but they just do it the wrong ways. But yeah, perfecting athletes has helped me out a lot with my career and they actually have been able to boost my hormones with the way I eat, you know, and that's how so. So my nutritionist, Michelle, she used to be a fertility doctor. She's real holistic. She's into acupuncture and doing all that. And the foods that they're feeding you are the right things for your endocrine system and boosting your testosterone and making you just a healthier human being. I mean, if you eat and live healthier, your body's going to produce more testosterone and live the right way. And that's what they've done with me. What I've heard is that more fats, like eating more fats. Yeah, good fats. And I've seen it in a lot of different athletes, especially athletes that start following ketogenic diets.

37:51It ramps up their hormone production because fats are a pre-kosher for hormones. So a lot of coconut oil, a lot of avocados, saturated fats from healthy meats, especially like grass-fed meat. I feel like you can't get enough of it. I mean, if you're working out as much as I am during camp or even just working out all the time, like you can't get more. The good fats are one of the best things for you. Yeah, that's the other thing to take into consideration. When people talk about athletes and people talk about people that exercise and are fit and want to follow a healthy diet, there's such a different caloric requirement for someone like you who's training, what do you train, two or three times a day? Yeah, two or three, just to switch it up. Sometimes I'll do one hard one, just depends where I'm at. But yeah, I'd say on average three times a day. So your body's just a blast furnace.

38:37It's hard for me to hold on to weight. You know, I got to try as hard as I can to keep my weight up. So when I'm out of season, like right now, I'm trying to lift heavy and stay as big as I can. And then when I get into camp, you know, change it up. I'm doing a lot of hypertrophy right now, a lot of hypertrophy training. I'll get closer to camp. I'll start doing more strength training. And then when I get in camp, like closer to my fight, I'm doing more power training. So when you say hypertrophy, like what kind of training? Like deadlifts? Like what kind of stuff? Yeah, I mean, obviously I'll do deadlifts and stuff. But it all depends on the reps you're doing, really, and how much weight you're going to do. So if I want some hypertrophy, I find a weight that's hard for me to do 10 to 12 times. You know, that's what's going to make my muscles build the most, like, higher reps and start building size.

39:18And then when I want to get strength, I'm going to start doing less reps, you know, around, like, six. And that's hard to do at six. And then that's when I start building more strength. You know, power is, you know, three quick, hard, explosive, you know, deadlifts and cleans and stuff like that. And then, like, big breaks in between sets. Yeah, all depends on the breaks as well, too, yeah. So when you're getting down to 145 or 135 rather how difficult is that for you? Like what are you walking around at? During camp I'm walking around like 150. I usually show up five days before my fight at 152. I usually train what I'm going to fight at. So I walk into the cage 150, 153 probably. I'm training like that my whole entire camp. Five days before the fight I'm weighing 150 and then I just lose it all with water weight. So that's not that much. Not at all. 15 pounds.

40:02It seems like a lot to people listening probably. But we know guys who are losing 25, 30. Which I think is too much. I think that's not healthy for your brain. It's too hard to recover hydration on your brain, you know. Have you ever thought that if you didn't do the hypertrophy training and you didn't do all the power training and you just did more aerobic, like you might drop down to 145 naturally and then might be able to cut to 125? Yeah, yeah. Have you thought of that? I could make 25s. I mean, it definitely wouldn't be fun. Super fight. I don't really want to have to. But, yeah, it's definitely something I could do. I mean, you know, I'm trying hard to. Mouse needs a super fight. He does, man. He's creating old shows. And I'm a huge fan of the guy, too. You know, he's so good that I would love to fight him. And I do feel I have a really good style for Mighty Mouse, too.

40:45Because I know he's talking about doing a super fight. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's in an interesting position because he's really essentially cleared out his weight class. I mean, he's fighting Wilson Hayes. And Wilson's a very tough fighter. Is he fighting Wilson? No, no. Is he? Yeah. He's going to fight the winner of the show that Benavides just wrapped up filming a show at the Henry Cajuda. Yeah. And I think Demetrius is supposed to fight the winner of the show. I think you're right. But what did I read today? He was supposed to fight Hayes, but he got hurt and pulled out of the fight. And now I think he's supposed to fight the winner of the ultimate fight. No, I think you're right, but I read something today. I forgot about that, but I read something today about him fighting Wilson. So maybe it was just an older article or something like that, or maybe it was confused.

41:28But my point is, even if he fights the winner of the show, good luck to those guys. Good luck. You're fighting a fucking human buzzsaw. Yeah. Yeah. He's on another level in this cardio plunging from all angles Yeah, he's man. He's good man And he's in my opinion one of the best examples or the best example ever of a guy who has so many possibilities His language the language of fighting his language has the richest vocabulary of any fighter I mean the way he fucked so who do up in the clinch with those knees to the body like that Who does it better than that? I've never seen a guy did good break a guy down better with knees to the body like that You'd have to go to Anderson versus Rich Franklin. Oh nice good call, but that was like almost like a more brutality Oriented thing. I mean when Anderson did it was just grab ahold of you and just around you rag doll you with with

42:16When he was doing it when mighty Mouse is doing it was almost like like it was crazy to watch It's like Jesus Christ like these things are coming there. They're landing like that They're five he's firing them off like with no hesitation. There's no wind-up. There's no exertion Everything seems effortless and they're there. It looks like you could do it all day And it's good. It looks like a real fucking problem when you're in there with them Well, one of the I think I'm assuming makes sense is Matt Hume his being his coach who's obviously the wizard, right? Very intelligent in the fight world, but with the background of Suhudo missing weight so much attacking the body assuming that maybe he had a hard cut and maybe ate too much or drank too much and attacking the body as far as the Game plan so it's very smart of him then also obviously he did it with the correct timing and accuracy

43:00So yeah, it was good. So who do really struggles to get done 25? That's right here. Yeah He looked big on the show. I come to a little guy. Yeah, I just 25. Yeah, yeah, I find it Yeah, he may be I mean maybe like the exact example we're talking about with TJ Like that maybe they were like very similar in size and he just decides to go down there and I could call Yeah, I just doesn't have the correct maybe not the correct path to actually make it happen If he's actually missing weight, then he needs to get I don't know what his deal doesn't miss it in a long time But he did a few times back in the past But he missed a couple of the UFC weights Yep and they made him fight at 135 He fought a fight at 135 And then he showed them that he could make 25 again and did it Because he's going to be fighting Benavides now And I'm not sure when that fight is Maybe December but Benavides is coming out to Colorado

43:48In about one week he just texted me the other day He actually bought a condo in Colorado So he's going to be training with us full time Until the fight and that's going to be good Benavides is a very creative martial artist We and him, when we train, we flow. We create a whole bunch of new rhythms and paths and patterns. It's good. I love it as a martial artist finding the next level of the game. It happens a lot with him, also with TJ. It's fun to work with that level of athlete just to play with the game itself, of overall expanding the level of martial arts. That's where I'm fascinated by what's the next level, where are we at, what can we create. Yeah. Benavides is also one of those guys that if you saw him in a silhouette, if you couldn't see who he was, if you couldn't see any detail, But you saw him move around You would know it was him Yeah Even the way he holds his hand Yeah

44:30The way he holds his hands Like everything He's got a very distinct He's unique He's one of my favorite people In the world man He's awesome I love that dude Yeah He's such a character man He is Yeah he really is Talking about spinning kicks and stuff He's got them He's such a good dude He is really good What do you got here for notes dude What's going on Just for me to slow down And make sure I take my time And yeah that's my main thing Slow down and think I get so wrapped up And just getting I put myself into fight mode when I talk. I just got to make sure I'm being calm and being collective and making sure I'm getting the points and the messages across with what I'm doing because now, obviously, on the podcast, this podcast has helped change my life over the years and I'm sure you get this all the time but you literally helped change people's lives for the better and I thank you for that and thank you for having me on

45:12and the exposure for us. It's badass but to use this time properly to help influence others and not to try to tear anybody's name down but to help uplift and inspire and help people become better human beings. That's what I feel My message is on this earth is to help people become better. And my vehicle, my tool is martial arts. So I love it. Whether it's general fitness or training the highest level ninjas to compete for the belt, it's my service back to the world to help make sure we're all together. Well, it's interesting to see you really flourish as a coach, too, because very few fighters have taken to it the way you have. Where not only were you a very good fighter, an excellent fighter, but you've surpassed that as a coach. That's really rare. I feel that. I agree with that. I appreciate that. I just put my time and energy and my OCD-ness into developing others. That's literally what it is.

46:03I'm obsessed with it. And there's only one way to be great is to be obsessive and then to have fellow ninjas like TJ and Benavides to play along with this tool of martial arts to see what the next layer is. Yeah. I love it. I need this level of dedication and athleticism in order to do that. So because of them, I'm at the level that I'm at. So it's a win-win. Like every relationship should be. read the notes slow down every relationship should be it should be a win-win not a one-sided path so um you know not long ago tj asked me why i'm always so you know hyper and excited and loving life it's because his goals are my goals like one of my dreams is to see him with the belt again like that's something that i obsess of is to make sure he's wearing the belt that it's in his proper place so and same thing for benavides i would absolutely love to have benavides be wearing the

46:49belt. So, um, it, for me to help others become better brings me a lot of joy. And I love that. Isn't it funny that that passion and that intensity and focus has a negative connotation? People call it OCD. Like we're weird with our definitions. Yeah. Yeah. It works for me, but it wouldn't mean, but why, why is that like necessarily negative? It's not. Yeah. Well, I, for me, because I have so many things going on, there's so many other elements throughout the world with my wife, my family, my business, I'm lucky and I'm blessed that everything in my circle, my bubble works with each other well because i mean i take my kids to go and train my wife goes and trains people ask me this quite a bit are you going to have your kids fight no i'm not going to have them fight if they choose to i will support their path whatever that is whatever their passion

47:31is i will support that but they do have to train because they look at it as a form of insurance i'm not always going to be around to protect them i want to make sure that they can handle potential confrontations if they have if they can if they need to by either talking about it you know trying to diffuse the situation or if it does come to come to a physical confrontation they can handle themselves properly but just being healthy and happy and confident with your walk and your talk and be able to help other people that's what i make it sure it's mandatory that my kids do train martial arts and my wife as well el guapo just texted yeah sensei he's here he's the man carter is definitely gonna fight yeah boss yeah little boss so my uh so i have my daughter jade my little boy dwayne bang ludwig and then my third child is carter boss ludwig but we all refer to him as

48:13boss, well, little boss. He's the man. So Sensei Ruten's my main most influential martial artist to make an impact on me, and he's changed my life with what he's done for me, his care and his passion in my martial art journey, and then he's the first guy to take combinations and put them into one coat. Sensei Ruten! Ladies and gentlemen, the great Boss Ruten is here. He is here. Boss Ruten, ladies and gentlemen, former UFC heavyweight champion and one of the baddest men that ever lived. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. My brother. Good to see you. Thank you for coming. Have a seat. Good to see you. Long time, no see. I know Carter's going to fight just because of how aggressive he is. I remember the first time ever going to Dwayne's house and watching his little two-year-old pride stomp his dog. He knows what a pride stomp is and his pride stomping the dog. We have big, huge pit bulls. One of them was. That's a dangerous move,

49:08a two-year-old kid stomping a pit bull. Yeah, but that's what people have the misconception of pit bulls being bad dogs, but they were known in the past as nanny dogs. My kids can actually physically rough up my pit bulls, and they don't care. They're big enough. They're strong enough. They're composed enough, and they're females. So they're just about it. The females, that definitely helps. So that helps for sure, yeah. Tell them the story that you pretty much went naked and I heard from your wife yesterday. The pit bulls separating the pit bulls. So the two dogs. Do you have two females? We have two females. Ooh, that's not good. Yeah, so the story would prove your point correct. I'm about to hop in the shower, and my wife tells me the dogs are fighting out back. So I grab my towel. I wrap it on. I run outside to separate the dogs because they'll fight because the neighbor's dog barks.

49:56And they'll bark at that, and then they'll bark at each other, and then they start arguing and fighting, right? So anyways, I run outside with my towel on to get the dogs to separate them. While I'm separating the dogs, the towel falls off, but I still have to separate the dogs. And the neighbor's behind me now. It's a show. Boom, and they have a get-together. Oh, nice. I'm in the back naked just rolling with the dog and separating them and making sure everything is good. Does anybody have their phone out? I'm not sure. I'm not sure, but his wife winks at me now, and it's a little bit strange. It's good to be wanted. No, she doesn't. She doesn't, no. It's always nice to feel wanted. That's a savage scene. The dude separating his fighting pit bulls naked. It's funny now because my wife will go, Oh, yeah, that would have been good, huh? It's a joke now. I'll say the dog's fighting and go rip my shirt off.

50:42But that was a good one. I had two females that fought to the death. Oh, that's right. I heard that. I came home as a dead dog in my living room. Not good. How was the other dog? Was it healthy? She was fucked up. She was fucked up. I put her down after that. She killed another dog, too. She was crazy. Rescue dog. I got her a little too late. Well, they're minor rescues. I got her when she was about nine, ten months old, and she had already been indoctrinated into the world of violence. Yeah, but see, as much as I travel and move around, I want the pit bulls there because no one's going to break into my house They put bulls and my wife having the gun and everything. So we're good. Or if they do, they're not going to have a good night. That's a warning, guys. Yeah, yes, sir. Yeah, and females are, like, super protective. They both of them are. Yep, you're right. Yeah, they genuinely love our kids.

51:25Yeah, but females together, like, they're like chicks together. Like, try having two wives. Good luck with that chick. Well, they go both together to the restroom, right? That's what they do. They go together and stab each other. It's just something about females. They just two men can they get together and one of them will decide or two male dogs One of them will decide like okay that guy's the king and I'll just fucking cower when he growls at me But females they fucking they never decide who the alpha is. They just go nah that bitch got lucky last time We're going again right now It's women it's all the time with women if you think about it when my wife comes back for she went out with Other women they all just always stress like oh, so so it's cancer so and so is this with us with guys That never comes up right? Did you hear about him? No, we're like party have a great time

52:15So much sorrow that is so true women always want to tell you who's sick Who's got a problem? Oh, she's got chronic fatigue syndrome. Oh, they read on the internet. Oh, I have a headache And I read on the other oh, this could be cancer My wife's good my wife she's on point with stuff She's about the good positive stuff and lifestyle and take care of the family. And she's good. She's programmed herself wisely, I feel. Well, they say that there's like a natural sort of evolutionary path that women get together and talk a lot. Like that's one of the reasons why gossip exists so much with women. Because women would be, you know, gathering food and talking. And that was one of the ways they figured out who was full of shit and who wasn't. Whereas the men would be out hunting and they'd be like, shut the fuck up. Oh, interesting. Interesting.

53:03Yeah, that's why men value, it's also why men, they value quiet, men who know when to be quiet. That's important. And also, they don't value men who wear shiny shit and are really loud and have a lot of junk on and stuff like that, because those assholes would get in, they would fuck up hunting parties. Interesting. I agree with that. I don't know if it's right, but it makes sense. It makes sense to me. I believe in it. Women are programmed to do more things simultaneously at the same time. That's why they can't really take care of kids, but he can do anything we don't we just have one focus Yeah, that's it. That's why with the military and women I always think it's a dangerous thing And the reason I'm saying a dangerous thing is because the natural inclination for a guy is to protect a woman You know, so if something happens everybody wants to automatically that's an instinct that's built into the guy

53:51To protect the woman which could of course make a big trouble in there in the great Right, I suppose to treat them as an equal on the battlefield That's it. Yeah protect them. Yeah, well, maybe training will take that away. You know if they train like a guy Then they go okay My wife is down She'll fight so she fought me I'm afraid of her I can't like Like if I like play too rough with the kids like I'll see her looking at me watching over across the gym like oh shit You know like she'll come and come and fuck me up man. She's she's awesome. Well, what's the keeper? Well, there's strange times because we're asking women to take on a lot of the traits and characteristics of men. You know, and some of them want to, and I understand that. But for some, they feel like they're required to. And I don't necessarily know if that's what they want.

54:45You know, but I think society wants a woman to be a breadwinner. They want women to contribute and compete with men in the workplace in a lot of ways. And a lot of women want to do that, too. Quality, yeah. Yeah, and then when you see that, and then when it comes to the military, it's very difficult to say, like, oh, women shouldn't be on the battlefield. Because then all of a sudden you say, well, what are you, sexist? But it's not traditionally a female. Open option. Yeah. If that's the path you want to go, then go ahead. I want to be me. You be you. We'll have fun. Yeah, I get that. I mean, there's some women that I think would probably gravitate to her to killing people. They'd probably think it would be a lot of fun. Well, if you're a feminist, then also when you see a spider, don't let us get rid of the spider. They all want to play power power and then there's some of them, you know, oh no, no

55:25I do everything myself I said well, that's your job right now as well Yeah, I guess so I was reading something about arachnophobia Where they were thinking that arachnophobia which is a fear of spiders and a bunch of different like snake phobias and much different phobias Might literally be the memory of your ancestors like someone, you know in like someone your ancestors know died in front of them got bit by spider or they almost died and they got bit by spider and that shit is just Hardwired in your DNA. I see some people will see a fucking spider and they can't move they freak out It doesn't make any sense. My daughter freaks out when a wasp comes by she'll just freeze I'm like, oh shit. I got to go pick her up or swap the for the wasp away We have wasps in our area. So that kind of makes she just freezes out. Yeah fly around You don't know where they're going. My daughter's got good footwork

56:16hummingbird that makes a lot of noise yeah sometimes when you're like meditating there and flying in front of me go it's like a chopper they come and fuck with you they and that one i look i open my eyes this guy came back twice and i look at him i go what's up and he's right in front of me here and he goes maybe maybe he sensed your chi for sure he did for sure female maybe it was not a he it's sensei boss is that sensei boss sorry if i shouldn't be clapping El Guapo is meditating in the yard. We were just talking about Sensei before he arrived as far as, I'd like to go back to this, but again, he's the first one that I was aware of that actually did elevation training when he came to Colorado. Sorry to say that, but also what he did is he took combinations and then chunked them together. Hence, numbers like four. If you say four in the root system, it's jab, cross, hook, cross.

57:04So again, it's that same idea of taking the combination and chunking it together. Because if I was to say jab, cross, hook, cross, that's a lot more time than me just saying four. And that concept is what it took to continue to develop the system and just the idea to be able to communicate with TJ on the pads or in the cage with limited time. Just calling simple commands or combinations so we can actually make sure that the fights are taking place and not getting too sidetracked. You know who's got a really interesting system is Mark Henry. Mark Henry who trains Edson Barbosa, Frankie Edgar. He's a fantastic trainer. Like one of the most underrated guys in the business. Rashad Evans told me that he will name combinations after his daughter. Like Rashad like certain things and they changes them with every camp yep with every camp the change the names change

57:48So no one's ever gonna be able to pattern you they never like the other corners They're not gonna have any fucking idea what he's calling out Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can do that the mother Tyson yeah He used to change the numbers all the time because they would have a number system But then every time he would change the number so nobody could pick up Hmm nice. I feel like I feel like we do too much shit if you change if you're going to change shit up on me man i'll be so lost yeah we're always adding we're like he's got a system we do an online system we do his own academy which he teaches you know the basic stuff i mean boss we got a boss combo we do you know we got my combo stuff like that we'll put it online and but then we always switch it up so each camp my combo might be different you know but if he completely switched all of it up i'd be lost we would do too much as it is i'd be lost

58:32Yeah, we did the boss combo today. When you're trying to remember all these different things, like the Ramon Deckers, there's like 50 shots in a row. That sounds like Deckers. Yeah, it does. The Deckers, stuff like that, the Tyson and the Deckers, those things kind of tie together. You're doing things you're supposed to do naturally anyways. You're returning with the same punch and slipping and then rolling into the body and kicking inside and then kicking the head. Those are supposed to come together no matter what. He's just making it a combo. So once you stop thinking about the combo, you just naturally start to do it. Right. Put on the reps. With the Tyson, he's following the hooks up with coming to the body and then the uppercut. So it's kind of stuff that ties together, and it's a lot easier to remember it that way. Has to flow. Has to flow. Natural intuition.

59:15Yeah, boss, before you got here, we were talking about the level of MMA right now. It's so fascinating because there's so much depth, and people are getting so much better, and there's so many different styles, and it just seems like such an exciting time right now for MMA. It is. It is really exciting. For me, the first big change that happened in MMA was that everybody now was in shape. Finally. Nice. You remember we had all these guys running out of gas? I go, dude, that's like being a painter. You're going to have half a can of paint. Do a job. You say, I'll run out of paint. I'm sorry. You know, it's the dumbest thing there is. Go run a hill. You know what one guy one time told me? I said, yeah, but I'm a heavyweight. I said, Kane Velasquez. And he goes, yeah, but he trains really hard. Also, he's Mexican. And I look at him like, are you kidding? I said, you just gave the answer. Just train really hard.

60:00Nice. Yeah. And there's a science behind it now, too. You know how to train, when to train that hard, and which ways to do it, how to make your body bigger if you need to or faster if you need more endurance to train that way. So, I mean, it's just like all these other sports. There is a science to it. It's becoming a real sport. But to back up my Mexican theory, I talked to Crazy Bob Cook, and Crazy Bob Cook said, Kane will take like a month off or two months off, get hurt, you know, something like that. Has to rest up an injury. Not train. Come back and outwork everybody. It's so not fair, man. It's Benavidez, too. That does not happen. We were talking about Gilbert Melendez, another one. Fantastic cardio. A lot of Mexicans have crazy fucking cardio, man. I always had good cardio. It might just be the mental. Well, it's because you don't love a heart, too. He has good cardio because he doesn't calm down.

60:41Yeah, I don't calm down. If he shows up here early for the podcast, he's out in the parking lot shadowboxing. You know what I mean? He's not on his phone hanging out like most people waiting for whatever he's got to do to happen. He's always doing something, always crazy. But he goes 100%. The thing with Dwayne is when you hold focus, Mr. Typez for Dwayne, you cannot say, oh, you cannot take a break for five seconds and say, listen, make sure that you do it. He wants to keep going, keep going hard the whole time. I said, guys, step back, do this different now, okay? Just relax constantly. He's in my face. He wants to go 100% all the time. He does that to me holding mitts. So on the other end of it, I'll be hitting mitts. We'll be going for like an hour, hour and a half. I'm just like dead tired. So my feints and my forework have gotten so good because how much he's in my face.

61:32He'll come at me nonstop wanting me to throw combos, and I am so dead tired I'll feint and move. You know what I mean? Like, give me some time. Let me breathe. Let me breathe. That's good. That's good. That's good, bro. Good cause of developing your skill set in martial arts as a whole. So there's a purpose to it. We were talking about how interesting it's been how Dwayne has transitioned so well into becoming a trainer. Was that a challenge for you going from being a great fighter to being a great trainer? No, no, it wasn't. For me, it's always been like riding shotgun, you know? Or for instance, we were talking about if a student fights. I'm more nervous than the student at that point. Then I would be when I would fight for myself because then I'm in control. So, no. But sometimes it's difficult if you don't have the right student, right? If your student is not responding. Yeah, it's very hard.

62:22It's once you have those, you know, but a lot of them don't. a lot of these fighters don't listen to their corners. Still, till this day, top fighters. I mean, you hear the corner constantly screaming. They don't do what they're doing. They think they can see it better. But once there is a trust, and there was always a good trust between Dwayne and myself, and the same with him and TJ, then he knows what you're seeing that's probably going to work. And he will do it. Like, if I would say four to Dwayne in a fight, it will come out less than a second later. I would just shout four. It come out right away. If you could enhance my voice When he's fighting It's a video game We need to get a bow horn Get a bow horn The UFC shall allow bow horns No, no, no I did that In the UFC I brought a megaphone Because I thought Everybody was screaming And they actually put it In the contract after that

63:13That you couldn't have a megaphone Watch my fight against Kusaki Short combinations You feel like this loud voice Because I figured In Japan they're quiet But here everybody's going to scream I'm not going to hear them So Avi Avi Rubin, the old owner of the Beverly Hills Jiu-Jitsu Club, says, I'm going to bring a megaphone. They go, yeah, that's a good idea. That is a great idea. What about just like a tube, like a roll of toilet paper or something like that? Should roll up a piece of paper. Yeah. Could that work? I'll try it. Depends. One of those orange cones. Yeah, nice little chocolate cones. I always do them when I see them. I like those cones. The reason why I brought that up about training fighters is because there's an interesting parallel between you two guys. Both great fighters and then both wind up having great students.

63:52You having Dwayne as a student and Dwayne now having TJ as a student and a bunch. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to that. There is, you know, but it's all connection. And that's with everything in life. You know, once there is a connection that is people, you know, if I don't care for him, you know, if he's not a good guy, you know, and that's what some fighters also. They come in, they just work out, they're gone again. You know, they don't build a relationship. And once that happens, it hurts their fighting. I guarantee you that. Yeah, I'm sure. And for fighters, it's really a problem when you build a relationship with the wrong trainer and then you got to leave that guy. And, you know, you have this tight bond with someone who doesn't really know enough. Yeah, that's a hard one. Yeah, I've seen that many times. And when they leave, people get super butthurt. It gets to be a real problem.

64:37Yeah, but if it's real, it's real. As I always say, you know, I say to my daughters, they say, what do I tell the guy? I said, just tell the truth, you know, can't go wrong with the truth. The guy, sorry, you know. It's like on Inside MMA, I would say about a certified, oh, that sucked or this sucked. And I say, yeah, but what if we're going to get him on the show? I say, I'll say the same thing. And if he tells me that I'm wrong, he can say because it did suck. You know, you just got to be honest. There's nothing he can do. Yeah, it doesn't mean they suck as a human being. No. It just means that in that moment, that was the wrong thing to do or they didn't execute it properly or, you know. Yeah, and then I have to be on point, too, as far as a trainer with the fighters I'm coaching, if I got to make sure I'm calling the right commands at the right time as well.

65:17And that goes back to the relationship that you have and making sure you have that connection. When you also have to know your fighter's capabilities. Exactly, exactly. You know, when you have a great racehorse, you know, everything becomes so much more interesting because you have all these options. And there's so much mental behind it too. Like Dwayne knows how to coach me too. You know, like not everyone responds to negative energy. Some people respond to negative energy right. Like Danny Castillo, you've got to tell Danny Castillo, you're doing that like an idiot. Come on. Yeah, he responds differently. Fix that. And he's like, okay, yeah, and he'll do it better. With me and Dwayne, it's a little more, you know, I've got to pump the guy up maybe a little bit, tell him what he's doing right instead of what he's doing wrong. So you've got to know how to coach each fighter.

65:56And once you build that relationship like Boss is talking about, you don't let it go. Yes, sir. There's very few things that are as painful as listening to bad corner work. Yeah. Oh, that's fun. I had a guy went down to his liver in the corner, cross who crossed? I go, you don't want him to throw a right hand right now. Let him keep that here so the liver is protected. And I go, yeah, that's an idiot. Exactly. Who does that? Yeah, I see that. Did you watch the fights this weekend? Yeah, I did. What did you think about Stipe and Alistair? Man, that was crazy. That was so crazy. I made the four, three or four last punches he gave. I mean, they're on an inch. They're all exact at the same spot. He's got really good precision. Yeah, I just stopped him. And he got hit hard. Yes, sir. He waved it off, but then that guillotine, and we know, 11 guillotines, I believe, that he had before. That's right. And tight ones.

66:44He put me in one time. I said, I want to feel it. I go, whoa, this is a really tight guillotine. But he got out. Yeah. He's a freak athlete. He really is. And he's a very likable guy. He's awesome. Yeah. Steve is a good guy. We were talking about his composure. Yes, sir. He's so composed. Like in Brazil, when he fought Fabricio, when he was in a stare down, he's just dead-faced. He's got his own dead face. It's not like a Fedor dead face or a Kane dead face. He's got his own dead face, but those guys they can just stay completely calm, you know in that incredible environment of being there in Brazil 45,000 plus people screaming for Fabrice over doom and he just shuts his lights out That's one of the dance our own our main battle right is being able to control ourselves and he's looks to have mastered that ability to control his own emotions and make sure he's directing the energy in the right path

67:32So Stipe good job grasshopper. He's a bad motherfucker It would be interesting to see if someone got into his head the way like you and Dominic were going after each other or the way Connor got into Aldo's head right yeah, that was good point. That was a master class and fucking with someone's head Absolutely, I mean Connor took Aldo completely out of his element where he was just so frazzled by the time They actually met each other inside the octagon. It's just I think with the Overeem and Stipe is the same as Holman and Rousey, you know Rousey's intimidating everybody the way she is. And when she's at the stare down, that's when she lost it because she realized Holly didn't care at all. She was just there, I'm going to hurt you. And it's the same with Steve. Everybody is intimidated by Overeem, and you should be because he's a monster. But I think Overeem could see in his face already,

68:21he's not intimidated. This guy has absolutely, you know. And then when you fight a guy like that, that little voice starts playing in your mind when it gets bad, you know. And that's why maybe we saw these crazy things running away, which I say is a good thing because I said the same thing against Corwin McGregor, but for a big, huge heavyweight, it doesn't look good. And now, you set yourself up more as a victim because he's following you in. And that all is an input in your own brain because now you start telling yourself, oh, I know everybody thinks I'm hurt or that I'm afraid. Am I afraid? You know, there's the whole doubt thing that goes on in the mind. There's always these two voices I say. So one voice wants to quit and the other voice wants to go, right? you know you're a really bad situation and they say okay call it quits call it quits and then

69:04suddenly the other one goes no no no no wait wait we're not gonna let's just let's just see what happens you know and then suddenly you come out of the situation like i was i was about to tap in my second fight and and and but then the audience started cheering for him and then my ego took over i go okay i get out of the situation and then 30 seconds later i knocked him out with a knee to the liver and i go okay this is the last time i'm going to think like that because the the bad voice Stay away from the bad voice. Yeah, focus on what you can control, and that's yourself, right? Did you ever use any psychological training? Did you ever talk to a sports psychologist or anything like that, or is it all self-taught? All self-taught, but what I did a lot is talking to myself. And people might laugh about that, but I'm very honest to myself. Like, people say, oh, are you nervous to fight? No.

69:46I'm not nervous. Why not? What can happen? What can really happen? He's going to knock me out? Well, it's going to be hard because it never happened before, but if it happens, well, I'm not going to feel it. Apparently, you know, you're going to go down. Submission. Is this a mission? Is that really so bad? I'm going to tap. So what is so really so bad? Well, the really bad thing is listening to all the crap that all the not so good fans are going to tell you afterwards on social media. But if you just care, remember last time I told the story from in the room? If you take a fighter who is normally a nervous fighter, this is what I tell my students who are nervous when they have to compete. I say, okay, imagine now. The guy's right here. We put you in the room. We lock the door. Nobody can go in there. You guys fight. and when you come out, you're not allowed to say who won or lose.

70:28Do you really care if you would lose? And he goes, no, because everybody can lose. I say, well, that's the mindset you should have when you go to a fight. That's my mindset. Winning or losing, I'm going to win. I'm going to do everything in my power to win. But if I lose, so what? We're human. We come out of it. I say, you overcomplicate things. Certain combinations. When I said four and then I do four punches to the head. And then I say, we stay with this combination. The only thing we're going to change are the heights. So now I'm going to say for you to the four points is a left right straight left hook right straight I'm going to say okay body head head head now you're the first one has to go to the body head head head Body body head head head body head body head body I mean now you can make like 12 combinations from just a four punch

71:12You know and and but some people when when I tell it to my students sometimes they overthink it They're gonna oh no I say no just think body head do the same combination But they start thinking oh that's a liver shot that no that's not liver shot to the body just you know keep it simple and once you can keep it simple it's much easier to to do well it's one of the things we were talking about earlier was the amount of fighting that is mental and the amount that is your attitude and how you feel about things and how you go into things and just your enthusiasm like Travis Brown we were talking about Travis Brown who earlier in his career was this fucking stone cold killer I mean he had all his crazy footwork he'd throw a lot of kicks and And remember when he knocked out Stefan Struve with that Superman punch? Oh, that's right, yeah. God damn, he was so unpredictable and wild.

71:58I was like, this motherfucker's going to be the heavyweight champ. Just give him some time. And then he moved to Jackson's. He's training at a great camp. But he just doesn't seem, I mean, maybe there's a few losses in a row. He just doesn't seem to have that fire anymore. Did he lose when he was at Jackson's? He changed camps. Yes. He started losing after he changed camps. Most of the time, and that's what I tell people. like my stretch routine and every time when i say this they they ask me what is your routine i do the same stretch routine as i did 23 years ago when i started same routine and the reason is it never got me an injury so if it's a winning combination don't break it and it's the same with your team if it's a winning combination do not break it once you break how many fighters you see changing camp or firing a trainer or firing a manager or somebody who always helped

72:44them and suddenly they start losing you you broke the the spell or whatever you want to call it the the mystical thing that was going on. That was working. Don't break it. Why would you? Yeah, but it's so rare that you find the perfect person. Like if you're with Johnny McFuckstick in Columbus, Ohio, and he's a shitty coach, and you've been with him forever, and you've got this weird bond with him, and then Faraz Zahabi wants to train you, and you're like, God damn. What do you do? There's a lot of intangibles. Not everybody runs into Bas Rutten right off the bat. You know, because I tell all my students, I say, listen, I teach two times a week. Go anywhere you want. Any gym, I don't mind, guys. You want to spar with other guys, go anywhere you want. But the problem is if you have that guy we were talking about who doesn't know anything, he's going to be butthurt.

73:25He's going to be, okay, you cannot go, you cannot go. But a good coach will say, go. Yes. Just train everywhere. If you can find something better, please do. Perfect example is Duke Rufus, who's a great coach. And Pettis, Anthony Pettis, started training at Jackson's. He just wanted new looks. He wanted different things. He wanted to mix things up. And he had some great success doing that. And he also cares about Anthony Pettis. He wants him to do that. He cares about his career. He wants him to grow. And so he's like, yes, please go do this. Yeah, experience some new stuff. Every time I went up and trained with Ferossa TriStar, he loved it. He loved the idea. Go up there, get some new looks, get some new technique, grow. Those are real friends. Those are real people that care about you, and they want you to have the best thing in your life. I sent Dwayne to other camps. Right?

74:03I mean, he went to church camp also. Yep, to train. Well, there's a small handful, maybe half a dozen or more, of really, truly elite camps right now. There's American Top Team, of course. There's a few that you could go over. But of places where you really kind of can't go wrong It's really just a matter of finding the right combination for you too, right? I mean some some camps are more grappling heavy and you might be more of a striker We've seen that happen too, you know guys just kind of get the wrong formula Yeah, it's the thing if you're a great striker go to a more grappling oriented camp That's what I always say you got the striking. That's what I decided. Okay. This is it Forget about striking three times a day submissions. That was it never lost again. It's just doing what you're comfortable at and do that a lot and make sure you get comfortable at it and that's it wonder

74:51boy is a great example of that you started training with weidman who's a great wrestler and it just completely changed his confidence and his stand up and now he's so loose standing up you're getting to see the same wonder boy that was i think he was like 57 and 0 as a kickboxer something crazy like that and you see those skills now because good luck taking that guy down correct you know he's getting mauled by chris weidman all the time weidman who's a big 185 yeah you know exactly yeah that comes to the there's so many levels to mixed martial arts so many areas we could obviously take the the three easy ones with the striking the wrestling and then the grappling right so with those now what's your style what's your skill set now with that being said you got to make sure you're getting with the best people in those three areas

75:34also but now we can take in the fourth account which since i said earlier is the conditioning aspect now so there's a lot of pieces of the puzzle and you can't just go to one guy you can't Just go to a boxing coach. Well, if the boxing coach isn't really familiar with MMA because things are different, as we point out today, with the distances, right? And then using the switches because of the further distance. So you've got to make sure you have the correct people that understand the mixed martial arts game. Because if you go to an expert karate guy who doesn't understand MMA, that's not going to work. No matter how much you guys love each other, it's not going to work. You have to have MMA in the mix. Yeah, you go to a wrestling coach who doesn't know how to strike, he's not going to learn how to close the distances with punches to build a time your takedowns.

76:09He's going to want to grab a hold of you and move you around to shoot on you. You might also not understand where you're in vulnerable positions for submissions. Like a lot of wrestlers still shoot that double with the neck on the outside. And I mean, they just haven't figured the distance out or the difference in the technique out. Yep, agreed. Yeah, that's why I love this trio and this lineage because I'm taking what Sensei has done as much as I can than what I've done and then adding that up and now passing it TJ's way. And this is a direct line of lineage of martial arts information that's been expedited. Expedited and it's it's awesome to have an actual martial art family and just keep passing along the knowledge It's fun for me as a martial art nerd It's also interesting because TJ has that wrestling background as well

76:47And then I think that's a big factor in his success because he's incorporating all of your techniques and your techniques And then on top of that you've got that elite of athleticism and then the wrestling base So you've got awesome takedown defense and takedowns and also I really firmly believe there's something about wrestlers that fucking grind of dieting and starving yourself and dehydrating yourself and the mental toughness that you get from certain wrestlers, it's off the charts. I've still to this day never done anything harder than wrestling, even with all the aspects of martial arts and fighting. Fighting to me is a lot easier than a grind of a wrestling season. I wrestled at Cal State Fullerton where we started way too early. Like I said, I overworked myself and pushed through a ninth month season being completely

77:33strict on everything my diet my you know i can't i'm not going out and having fun with my friends because i'm wrestling and then wrestling every weekend and just it's such a hard practice like still today we do two days a week like wrestling practice like damn it i don't want to go wrestling i just love wrestling i'm gonna get hurt i'm gonna have to go really hard like man wrestling i've done you know it's tough man and it definitely does breed mental toughness and then you're learning how to compete on your own every weekend when you're training a team elevation you're doing wrestling practice are you doing strictly wrestling are you putting wrestling shoes on and you're doing like full on wrestling uh like you know a competition between your teammates are you doing that kind we do that as well as we'll do MMA wrestling as well you know there's

78:14different forms of it but yeah I'll go throw my wrestling shoes on and we're doing matches you know depends on where we're at we'll do situations and yeah we're doing full on real wrestling practices is there a benefit to having wrestling shoes on though because you're not going to fight with them on your defense will become way better if you wear shoes so it's so much easier to get out of a takedown without you can't like a single leg you should not get taken down in a single leg if you do you're i mean it's so easy to slide your leg out on a single leg but with a wrestling shoe on i can't i can't just go to that easy defense i have to use my hips i have to cover his head i have to use all these positions to have a better defense with my shoes on so it's a difference between like grappling with gi and no gi is it that kind of a thing yeah i mean so in college I shot high singles.

78:55That's what I shot. I shoot a high single. A guy tried to turn and kick out. I would catch his shoe and then take his back. In MMA, a guy turns and kicks out all the time. So a high single leg is not going to work anymore. So, yeah, I mean, like with a guillon, you can't get away with certain things. You can't just slip out of a submission. You can't just slip out of an arm bar and roll out of it. You actually have to have the real technique of getting out of it if this guy is so good at it. So, yeah, it's learning you to do the defense the right way instead of using the cheap moves. That's interesting. Would it be okay if you did it with no shoes on and your opponent did it with shoes on? Because that way you would have the slipperiness of being barefoot. So if I'm wrestling against a kid that I know is coming in from college and he's really good, I am not wearing shoes. I don't care.

79:37I'm not going to wear shoes. Like Chad Mendes, one of the best wrestlers in the world, at practice, he'll never ever wear shoes now. His defense is ridiculous. He just pushes you off his leg. The way he'll stand now, too, is because he'll only let you shoot a single leg because he knows how easy it is to get out of it. And he'll never, ever wear shoes again wrestling ever since grappling. But don't you think the injuries, the twisting knees come from shoes, wearing shoes? Because a lot of guys, they do it on the wrestling mat, and that's still okay there because it might slip a little bit, but as soon as you step on the judo mat with shoes, you're planting your feet. And then with upper body motion rotation, something's going to twist because a lot of injuries happen with wrestling, right? Yeah, you've got better traction. So you've got to know what you're – I mean, I've wrestled my entire life.

80:20I kind of know my positioning with wrestling shoes on and stuff. But I think it creates better habits to have your shoes on while wrestling. Because you're not going to be able to get away with what we call a stanky leg, where you just whip your leg out. If I have a grip, what you want is the grip above your knee. But as soon as I get your grip below my knee, just by pushing it down, I'm out. I'm just sliding my leg out. There's got to be a similar situation to wearing gloves, right? Like when you're trying to limp arm at a certain position. Real naked. Yeah. Real naked is really hard to finish with gloves on. Any kind of grappling we do at elevation is with our gloves on, you know, because I'm catching certain moves and I can wrist ride differently. Chokes are different. I can't slide it as easy behind your head. You've got to learn all those things with gloves on as well.

80:59Some people think that it would be a safer sport without gloves. Probably. It's going to be a lot more bloody, though. A lot more bloody, right? A lot more bloody. That's the thing. The guts and everything. And the breaking hands. Yeah, but you would learn a lot more effective striking. Like you really couldn't just unload on a guy and just hit anything. So for Ross, I was up training up at TriStar. He's like, hey, I recommend at least like once a day, once every other day, hitting the back with no gloves on. You know, get that proper technique of knowing how to hit something with no gloves on so you don't have that padding and protecting. If I got a 16 or a 10 ounce glove, I'm able to just go away on that bag and punch it as hard as I want. I don't have to punch right. But if I don't have gloves on and I'm hitting that as hard as I can, I have to hit it correct.

81:41I have to have the right knuckle placement to put it on that bag. Yeah, I mean that's what a lot of karate and traditional martial arts guys believe they believe that those gloves are actually giving you the soul sort of false sense of of your abilities Your wrists are all wrapped up your hands are all wrapped up You know you can tell you how many times did he break his hands in a street fight all the time Mitch blood green because they perfectly Tape his hands up in training and then when he has to has to hit without on the other side You know hitting a bag and but because if you do it wrong Like if you're hitting a bag bare knuckle because I had a guy who told me my my coach is really good coach Because he lets us hit the back until our hands bleed. I say your coach is an idiot I said because if this happens four weeks before the fight guess what's gonna happen every single workout when you hit

82:27You're gonna reopen the cuts. It's gonna hurt Every first of your workout right? Yeah, so yeah If you do perfect and the impact is perfect But as soon as you hit and you slide a little bit and you shave a knuckle off, well, four weeks before the fight, that's not going to heal anymore because you reopen it every time. One of the interesting things about MMA is how we're still kind of learning. And there's no right approach for everybody. Everybody's approach is different. Like the approach for Damian Maia is going to be different than the approach for Wonderboy. It's going to be different than your approach. And it's so difficult to figure out who's right. I mean, it's really based on the success of the past. Well, if we take away the gloves, everyone's going to turn into Wonder Boys kicking with Damian Maia's grappling. Yeah. If we take away the gloves. Well, there'll be a lot more chokes.

83:11A lot more chokes and a lot more kicks if they take away the gloves. There we go. Yeah, I mean, it's so much easier to sink chokes in, so much harder to defend. Yeah. So we definitely have to change up the commands then. Now, when it comes to, like, if you look at football or baseball or any professional sport, they pretty much have protocols that are very similar. Like most teams have pretty similar protocols as far as like training and how they prepare their athletes. But with MMA, it's wildly different. Like who decides, like for you, who decides when you're doing strength and conditioning, when you're doing hill sprints, when you're doing sparring? Like how do you guys work that out? I find someone that I trust completely and then work together with them. For my striking and my MMA with Dwayne, it's something we team up together and think of like,

83:59what if I do this? What if I do that? And then kind of make a perfect plan for myself. My strength conditioning coach, Lorna Ndow, I believe in him completely of watching him train athletes and peeking me the right way and how I feel personally. It's all trial and error. Where I'm at right now, I trust in every single coach for different aspects. Leister Bowling for my wrestling. He's been around the game for so long and knows how fighting works that I'm going to trust him in my wrestling techniques and help him pick me apart. You know, Elliot Marshall is my jiu-jitsu coach. I really believe in Colorado at Elevation FI team with me and Dwayne. We really got it pretty good to figure it out. But someone's going to come in and have a different mindset of what they want to do. And if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you.

84:36Yeah, it's just the trial and error and the learning as you go along is so interesting because, you know, you lose a fight and then you go, God, what did we fuck up on? Where did we go wrong? What do we need to do better? Yeah. And then, you know, maybe, you know, you get that Joe Silva call like, hey, you know, we have a fight, Nate. weeks you ready to take it i had joe silva call me when i was up on a ladder doing electrical work in the mountains to fight in two weeks and it was against jonathan gulay so uh i said uh sure i take the fight and then i text boss right away or i call him and i say can you train me he's like sure so go out for a week so yeah going back to the point that worked out well fastest ko in history ever we had a fight for that ever we had a fight for that one yes sir mr rogan thank you sir i

85:18appreciate that so many people were hating on him having the fastest ko in history there's a lot of fucking debate. I was like, the referee, it's wrong. It was a wrong call. They were saying it was like 11 seconds or something like that. Like, bullshit. That was sick. We played it over and over and over again. That was fun. We were working on that exact technique, just pulling down the jab, going overhand, right in the back with Sensei, and just repped it out, ripped it out. It was so fun because I'm leaning over the cage and I'm saying, Dwayne, he's going to come up straight forward. I want you to step to the side and just knock him out. You will hear me say that, repeating it over and over. I say, I don't know Because every time I have that. I have one time I said, he's opening with the right low kick. I went to the counter. And then the guy opens with the right low kick. How do you know? I have no clue.

85:59Every time he works with us. With Jens Pulver, how we knocked him out. That combination we worked in the dressing room before. Boom. I mean, it's all the time. With Goulet, for some reason, I go, he's going to come straight at you. Just move out. Don't you think it's kind of data chunking? You've seen so many fights. You've trained so many people. You just see things. And you don't even know what you're seeing. You're just like, you know how sometimes you'll see a guy. I call it all the time. I'll see a guy lift his heel up and he's about to throw a right kick. You just know for whatever reason. Twist a little bit. And then the funny part is when he does a back kick, nine out of ten times, the other one throws a back kick. So I always thought, I'm going to do this on purpose. And hopefully when he makes one, I'm going to catch it. A little off beats. Off beats, yes, sir. I can do this too.

86:46It's crazy when people throw back kicks. probably the most ill-advised back kick of all time was Chris Weidman versus Luke Rockwell. Maybe the most ill-advised back kick. That was called at the moment? What do you mean? His corner called it at the moment? I don't know if he called it. I think maybe it's because Luke had been knocked out by Vitor with a wheel kick. So maybe, I'm just guessing, that Chris decided to throw a wheel kick. But it was like, you could see it coming. It wasn't fast. No, if you don't know 100% how to kick, I said don't kick. And he shouldn't have done that. It was way too slow, and they saw it coming. Off a memory of that, though, when Vitor Belfort did it, I think I remember correctly, Rockhold was against the cage. Correct? He was trying to circle off, right? Yeah, so he was aware of the cage. Now, Weidman's back was against the cage.

87:33I thought he was closer to the cage than Luke was in that fight. I don't believe so. No? I believe he was moving. I believe it was the same thing. He was moving towards Rockhold. I don't remember, though. The correct direction? But I remember Vitor threw it before, and it was the first time I'd ever seen him throw a wheel kick. He threw it right before against Rockhold and missed, and they threw it again and landed it. Caught him. Nice. That was a TRT tour. That was a different Vitor. He told me before, he says, boss, my kicks are going to be getting really good right now. I'm going to knock somebody out with a spinning bagging through the head. I said, go for it, dude. And then he knocked him out. Well, Vitor has had so many hand surgeries. I believe he's had eight different hand surgeries. He's broken his hand so many times that I think he just started concentrating more on kicks

88:17You know just see that made a big difference. This is going back to a Patterns, you know people lift the heel up, you know, they're gonna throw something Yeah Well figure out what they're gonna do but in that same theory is paying attention to what combinations and what techniques actually land and then Chucking those together and making those the system So just being having going back to the language and the vocabulary of hyper percentage combinations drill them and rep them out So just it's not too bad. Yeah, and know how to really deliver a technique before you attempt it. Like, the first time I ever saw a Cain Velasquez throw a wheel kick ever was in the Travis Brown fight. And it looked fucking perfect. I was like, what has this guy been hiding this forever? Like, he never threw a wheel kick, and all of a sudden it's a perfect wheel kick. But it's probably because he had practiced it

88:57and drilled it to the point where he's got it down. It's like, all right, time to unleash the wheel kick. He has a lifelong martial artist in his corner, Javier Mendez. So I'm sure he's seen a million back kicks and can correct him on what to do properly rather than what he's doing wrong. Yeah, but it's interesting when you see a guy like out of nowhere pull a technique that you've never seen before. Well, high-level athletes, I could show TJ anything, right, or watch videos and see something and he could pull it off right away. He's a great visual learner. I'm a great visual learner. So the sensei, I can learn by watching tapes and watching somebody do something. I can just mimic it. So can TJ, so can sensei. It's just the way it is. I wonder what the next technique that we're going to see that we couldn't believe someone's pulling off inside the octagon. Interesting. It's been a clothesline, bust with his clothesline

89:38and elbows to the collarbones. I saw somebody land a clothesline recently. Do that. That fight's going to be over. I saw someone do that, and I was thinking of you, because you've talked about that so many times, that like, go up to a bag. Yeah. They attach to us both on the Twitter feed, right? Yes. It was on Twitter somebody. Yes. It's a clothesline. Yeah. But the clothesline, if you really do it, they can cover up with their hands, but you're still going to hit them. You loop around, and you loop around to the back of the head, which is still outside the Mohawk. Yes. It's still a legal punch. Well, and their feet is completely legal. He moved his head or didn't move his head, and it's his fault. Well, also, Eddie Bravo and I had a conversation about this. When you hit a guy with a head kick, a lot of times it's landing on the back of the head. A lot of times. It's coming over the shoulder.

90:21A lot of times the foot is impacting, the instep is hitting the back of the head before anything. And nobody's ready for that impact. Everybody's ready for the sides and to the front. Tyson, his hooks, he was always the smallest guy, shortest guy, but he would hit his hook almost to the back of the head. His hooks were so short. I always say it. Just hit yourself really gently with the palm in the back of your head. Your brain is simply not ready for that. Yeah. One of the best head kick KOs I've ever seen that came from the back of the head was Ernesto Hoos versus Maurice Smith. Nice. Did you ever see that conversation? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jamie, find that because it's such a crazy combination. The way Hoos gets his leg up, they're in the middle of a clinch, and Maurice, I believe, picks his knee up, and Hoost comes over the top and down behind his head. Saksha Jajira style. Yeah, yeah. He used to do this.

91:13Yeah, he just did a seminar at the academy. Kicking over the defense. Yep. Yeah. Right there. And just like what you said before is, say you take a punch mitt and put it on the head. You're going to let me just hit the punch mitt? Yeah. Like if you have your hands up? It makes no sense. Yeah. So, you know, having your hands up, you think the guy's protected now and don't punch him? Right. Put your hands up. Let me punch you. Let me punch your hands, right? Right. That's something I've always got to sense at. Especially kick. Block my kick. Come on. It's a misconception of people. When they put their hands up, but this is what goes on. If I want to kick you in the head and I see you put your hand up, a normal person automatically takes the power of the kick because he sees his defendant. But if he just would not care and just kick as hard as he can on the defense, he will kick him out. He's going to knock him out.

91:49This last weekend we saw Yancy Medeiros fought Sean Spencer. Spencer blocked the kick and he took it right to the head. Check this out real quick. This is Maury Smith versus Ernesto Hus. Play the whole thing so you can see the combination. See? Boom! Look how he does it in the clinch with the knee. Boom! Yeah, that is a Rommel Decker's kind of style, you know, like the push and the kick to the head. He started with that at all. The way he was able to bring it up and around like that, too. It's just crazy. If you realize he was in the clinch, he'll block the shoulder and almost pull his hand down for him. He kind of guides his hand out of the way so his kick's gonna come up and lay me in the head. That's also where like flexibility is so critical.

92:29Like there's no more important thing when it comes to kicking technique than flexibility because if you don't have the flexibility your body's all stiff and it doesn't move right and you just can't there's no no one can do that unless you're flexible. Yeah, gotta stretch. Gotta do the stretching routine. This is a complete animal, man. This is such a good guy. Oh, who's the best? In all the fights. Him and Kamin and all this. Who was that one Croatian dude that kept knocking him out? Knocked him out. Yeah. That fucking guy hit so hard. What an animal. Oh! Yeah. He was the first K1 champion. He was an animal. That's right. That's right. Sateke. He knocked him out. Sateke. Yeah. His muscles also, when you see it, it's like a different kind of muscle it almost looks like. He's very strong. Yeah, there's some dudes like that. Yeah. It took a long time for him to break the ice with me.

93:18And suddenly, he came to me and he goes, you're a funny guy. But it took like four times of meeting him. He had no clue what to expect. That's a hard part of the world. It's a hard part of the world probably tough to relax Yeah, gotta be on guard the whole time. I think to this day the greatest stare down of all time was Cro Cop versus Vandele Vandele would mean mug everybody and it would work. He looked at Cro Cop and Cro Cop looked at him like motherfucker I'll cut your head off It was like all he did almost He was a little too high with the kick That was the second fight. That was the second fight, but in the first fight I mean, you never saw the eyes of a killer more than that one time. Because, I mean, he was the head of an anti-terrorist squadron in Croatia. But you see, I go back again. That was Vendelay always intimidating somebody, and now you have suddenly a guy who does not care.

94:10Not only that, your strong suit is striking, and you're taking on one of the most explosive strikers to ever compete in MMA. And a guy who, you know, was a legit K-1 level striker. But he was a, you know, it's interesting how that style really worked really well. Like, here it is. Like, look at this stare down. Look at Krokop. Get the fuck out of here. Look at that fucking stare down. I mean, that's goddamn terrifying. And I'm not even there. Yeah. That is legit as fuck. He's not believing in Vandele very much. But it's interesting because Krokop was successful in K1, but he was never the elite of the elite. Right, agreed. But his style, that explosive one-shot style, translated so well to MMA. Whereas maybe Ernesto's style would not have translated that well. I see that. Because he was more technical, he would set things up more. What I say, no single kicks, I always say, because they can be countered.

95:03And I always say, or you kick like Mirko Krokop. Because if you then kick really hard on the defense, you're buying yourself a little bit more time because you force them to block it. But some of these guys with the left kicks If they're the orthodox They can't kick I say take the kick What are you going to do? Is it going to give you a rash? I mean it's not going to do anything It's not going to kick a muscle Just counter the kick Well when Croke up It's a full blast kick You're going to be forced to block And then you can counter Which buys him a little bit of time To get out of the way again That was TJ in his last fight Just wait for the kick And just step in Throw the cross Time him on the way in Well there's levels to everything right? And there's levels to kicking And Edson Barboza's switch kick Nice yes That's one of those things where I watched that and I go, what the fuck?

95:45I've never seen anybody switch kick that fast. He just... His inside leg kick, you can win a whole fight with it. Watch old Benny the Jet video. His spinning back kick to the body. Oh, yeah. Oh, his back kick to the body. He gets Fujiwara. I mean, I saw that Kings of the Square Ring. When you see him, you can hear the impact on the body. It goes. You see the guy crumble. Benny the Jet was a bad motherfucker. By far the best American kickboxer ever. Yeah, he's without a doubt one of them. I would say him, and then I would say Rick Rufus. Such a pioneer, too. I mean, he was doing that back when there was really no one at that level. I mean, he was at such a high level. Such a wild dude, too. Again, Mexican. Is he a Native American? Is he? Indian. Oh, is he? I think so. Or maybe a mix, but I'm pretty sure. Because he used to come out with the headdress and stuff as well.

96:36That's right, Blinky Rodriguez, who was his brother-in-law, was Mexican. I saw him in Holland coming in. He was fighting Spang, Ewan Spang, who was a big, bright guy, strong, strong kickboxer. And Benny never fought with low kicks. And Spang is murdering him in the first round. Everybody's for Spang. Spang keeps going. And he gets low kick, low kick. I don't know how he stayed in the fight. Benny, right? In the second round, he starts coming in a little bit. And it was five rounds, five at the time, because Thai boxing. In the third round. And now Benny the Jet starts coming back. And suddenly Spong starts spitting out his mouthpiece because he needed an extra break. And then he did it again. And he did it again. And there it was like Rocky versus Ivan Drago. You saw literally the whole audience changed from being for the Dutch guy to be for Benny the Jet.

97:22Because they realized this guy is so tough and he keeps hanging in there. And then Benny the Jet stopped him in the fourth round. It was the craziest thing. People were going nuts. When he spit out his mouthpiece, he went Spong. Everybody, boom! You know? He was a new hero there. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen. Did you watch Glory this weekend? No, but I heard it was really good, right? Yeah, Jason Willis knocked out Simon Marcus. Oh, wow. Fucking crazy. And Marcus was lighting him up early in the fight. Lighting him up. He's like 44-2, right, Marcus? So now three then. Three now, yeah. He lost to Schilling in that crazy fight where they went that extra round, and Schilling knocked him out with a right hook, which was an insane fight. That was the tournament, too. That was the first fight of that tournament, and Schilling fought two more times after that fucking crazy fight.

98:09But the Willness fight, Simon Marcus was lighting him up, man, with Muay Thai. And Willness is more of a boxer style, and he was moving in, and he had some success with combinations. But then he caught him at the end of the round with a shot, and Simon Marcus was kind of playing with him and lowered his hands. He was smiling, and he got hit with a couple of shots, and the referee gave him a real questionable standing eight count. and the commentators are screaming Joseph Valtellini was screaming like that's ridiculous they shouldn't do this the 8 count's no good he wasn't about to go down there's no standing 8 count in kickboxing like why'd they count him like they're saying that the ropes held him up then the next round Willness just fucking dropped him legit and hurt him bad and then dropped him again and finished him off for Uber I'm looking forward to him fighting Badr Hari now December 10th right?

98:58God damn that's going to be nuts Badr Hari is one of the scariest motherfuckers ever walked the face of the planet. I have no clue how he's still out. Out of jail? Out of jail. I guess he's got money. Oh, that's right. Yeah, because they said, oh, he's a bank robbery. At first they said it was maybe going to be in Morocco. I go, don't do it in Morocco, dude, because if you beat him, that's going to be a problem, I think. Yeah. Didn't he rob a bank, right? No. No, not him, but he beat up some people. Oh, Lee Murray. Lee Murray went to Morocco. Okay, okay, sorry. With brass knuckles. My story's better. Well, he beat some guy up at a nightclub where he stomped his shin. They held the guy down, and he allegedly stomped on his shin and snapped it in half. See, that's not being a good person. I don't think that's what he was going for. No, I don't think so. I don't think he was going for the good person.

99:51We've got to help each other out. Yeah. Stories like that, you have many of them from him. Oh, man, that's not good. Yeah, not good. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of MMA. I think that MMA is the most exciting sport in the world. But there's some things that you see in kickboxing that you just don't see in MMA because there's no threat of the takedown. So you see these wild technical exchanges. And in my opinion, we need more of that. You know, there's not enough eyes on it. I just don't think enough people are paying attention. Phenomenal show, Glory. It's a phenomenal show. That's why I don't understand the numbers. Why is not many more people watching it? And especially the guys who are complaining about not understanding mixed martial arts. Well, punching and kicking. Everybody can understand that. Oh, good call. I got you. Or 85% knockout ratio. Yes, sir. Yeah. It's a great show.

100:38I love Glory, but I like Lion Fight better. I like traditional Muay Thai. The traditional Muay Thai rules. I just feel like Glory would be even better if they just went Muay Thai. Because why take away elbows? Why no elbows? I'm not a big fan of elbows just because of the cuts. It cuts too easy, right? I understand. But then also limiting the clinch time because the clinch time can be boring, right? So I think like the K1 rules are more – I like the K1 rules or glory rules better for that aspect for the higher pace fight. Or just in the clinch, keep elbows. But in the clinch, just don't allow them to play around as long. See, I understand what you're saying about elbows. But part of me is like, look, it's a striking contest. Why would you eliminate one of the best weapons in striking, which is elbows? And Lion Fight has these – I mean, look, they get cut up for sure.

101:23Like, do you see Gaston Bilanos as one of his faces? I mean, he gets cut the fuck up. His opponents cut the fuck up. They're blasting each other with spinning elbows. But it's fun as hell to watch. Yeah, definitely fun to watch. I'm not trying to be in there anymore at all. I'm done. I'm good. I hear you, man. Much easier just coaching TJ and coaching the guys and teaching martial arts and eating what I want and hanging out. I totally respect that. I just think like as a person who appreciates the purity of the art, I just feel like there's no reason to take out those clinch battles and there's no reason to take out those elbows. Because the guys who are good at those clinch battles, you know, they just start fucking blasting each other with knees to the body and it has a significant toll.

102:06And then the elbow battles that they have inside the clinch, to me, it's a really important part of stand-up striking. I see that. Yes, sir. Agreed. We were talking about earlier Sex and Jura. He just did a seminar at my academy, and he showed us really cool clinch elbow knee techniques. It was nice to get it from an actual pure Muay Thai fighter to see his look and his perspective of what can happen in the clinch. That was eye-opening. It was cool. Yeah, I think if we didn't have those guys, we wouldn't know that. Exactly. We would have only the level of striking that we see in MMA. And I think when you go and you watch a Ramon Deckers fight, you watch him in his prime, I mean, you realize, oh, okay, this is possible. There's levels to this fucking thing. Jordan Mean, right? Yeah. His elbows. Oh, man. He retired. Yeah. No, he's coming back. He is. I heard. Yeah. His father is the boss of the MMA system also.

103:00Yeah. And he told me he's going to be back. Yeah, he's a blackbomb to you, right? Yep. Nice. His father's a fucking savage. There's a picture of him on his Instagram page. He's like 50. He's fucking jacked. He's still screaming like crazy. He's fucking jacked. Yeah, Jordan is a very, very talented guy. But he had so many fights, you know, as a young man. I mean, I think he was only 24 or 25 when he retired, right? That's what I tell everybody. It's because they start competing too young. He competed when he was 15, 16 years old. They have to lie about his age, you know. You're going to burn out. You shouldn't do that. Everybody's asking me. I met this girl now in Visalia, 12-year-old, Jenna. I mean, I started following her. I sent her a whole bunch of gear and stuff, you know. I said, because she says, watch me. I'm going to be the next Ronda Rousey. So I go, yeah, I want to see that.

103:42But it's, you know, it's the training. I told her, start sparring maybe when you're 15 years old wait with that, because your brain is still wiring everything to your nerves at that age, and it stops at 14 just give it two more years all the connections are there, and then maybe start sparring but competing, I would just wait wait for competing, don't go in this early do jiu-jitsu, wrestling do all that, but striking to the head I think they should wait with that even doing those things at a young age, you need to make sure they're fun I almost got burnt out of wrestling in 8th grade I wanted to quit I wanted to be done with wrestling it was just because every weekend I'm competing that I'm so nervous as a little kid I'm putting so much pressure on myself they're like I gotta win this tournament I gotta do good my dad was my coach I wanted to impress him all this stuff you know

104:25it's like 8th grade I was almost just gave it up you know but you gotta learn to learn to have fun with everything as long as everything's fun like you can compete do all that stuff I mean obviously kickboxing is a little bit different because you're going through some brain trauma but even with the wrestling and jiu jitsu make sure it's fun if you got a little kid that wants to do MMA or a little kid that wants to get involved in grappling and wrestling, make sure it's fun. Go to practice, play in some games, do some things as well as learning technique because little kids will get burned out way too fast. Enjoy the journey. We hit it in striking a lot, right? AKA, they were striking, they got injuries and injuries there. How many times should we spar? We spar two times a day. Do we ever get injured? No. You and I are sparring? No. And we go. If people watch, they're going to go, oh, these guys are crazy.

105:08But we know exactly where we hit, where we kick it. It's all about sparring partners. Now, if you decide, oh, your great sparring partner doesn't show up and you get somebody from the club somewhere, yeah, who has this weird, he's not as professional, yeah, you get injured. But I've never been injured in sparring. Yeah, but you're a freak. You're boss rooting. Settle down. But same with you. You never get injured. We all spar at heart. What did you think about Cowboy Cerrone deciding no more sparring? He doesn't spar. He just does drills. He's talking about that. and looked sensational in his last fight. He looked sensational because he still was sparring before that. You know, it's closer, but the further you stare away, it's like a luller. He said he never sparring. Finally, he started sparring. He started sparring, and he became much better. See, I look at that.

105:56I think your reflexes need to be tested all the time. If you're going to fight, well, then you're going to have to fight in training because that's what's going to happen. Unexpected things, unexpected techniques, you know, you need to be prepared for that. If you just spar, you don't know what I'm going to throw at you. You can visualize a counter on my right straight. Well, what if I set it up as a one-two instead of just a right straight? You see? And with that being said, we're talking about sparring, but it's not just full-on fight sparring. But there's a whole level of sparring drills that you can play with and mimic scenarios going back to the patterns, right? Like what's a typical pattern? The jab, the cross, the rear low kick. Learning how to deal with those things in the motion. But while you're doing that drill, you have to have the clear mind like you're in the fight.

106:35But know that you're going to be countering the jab. We were sending something up in the jab, but not just going in fighting guys. I don't want this to be misled where everyone's just fighting and sparring hard, but to do actual sparring drills because there's a full path between hitting mitts and actual sparring. And then that's the web of the sparring drills. Yeah, I think Cowboy also had an issue with cutting the weight, too. Yes, sir. Yeah, he looks good at 70. Cutting weight was just too much for him. At 170, he's a fucking assassin. I feel like he went up to 170. There was a lot less pressure on him at first, too. You know, you got to go into a fight with just having fun and not thinking about, like, I'm supposed to win this fight. For him, he's going to a completely different weight class. What is there to lose, you know? And so I think that's what's helped him out a lot, too.

107:12And I think he's kind of catching his groove. He looked awesome. He was really good. Right body, left toke, right high kick. I loved it. And it went all full hits. If you saw the body shot, it dug in there. Yeah. Right? And then wrap it up with the high kick. I loved it. And the technique, the technical aspect of it was so, there was no wind up. There's no muscle behind it. Everything was just perfect. Pop, pop, pop, crack. Head kick. It was just, God damn. He's another guy as far as developing somebody. I used to help him out when he was first training in Colorado, and he was so wrapped up into his own style. I would try to say, no, do this and do that. But then I realized, look, everyone needs to be their own athlete. You've got to do what's good for you. It feels natural. Go ahead. And then he's just a prime example of someone you have to allow to be themself. Right.

107:53But just kind of guide a little bit here and there. But he went down to Jackson's, and look what he's done. He's amazing now. Well, he's such an individual. Yes, sir. As we all are, yeah. Trying to put cowboy in some other boxes. He's just a fucking wild man. what have you who's the weirdest guy you've ever worked with where you're like jesus i don't even know if i can fucking help this guy uh we all have those favor yeah favor yeah yeah but he doesn't he doesn't but he's not going to try to learn new things though yeah he said in the past so you know i gotta respect that and you've been successful there you go but the game has changed now look at the results the the game has changed you have to change along with it like the definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results you have to evolve you have to

108:32Let the ego go and continue to develop and train and learn that has to happen Well, you guys had personality conflicts for whatever reason, you know, no blame but whatever they were you guys had But it was a great time when we were together like look what happened with flourish, right? Yeah, I became much better much better as a martial art instructor being able to work with all the athletes, right? Everyone we work together everybody rose. So it was a good time. It was good win-win It worked out time for me to go home and do my own thing and things laid where they were You asked about why you know him as a good coach and the reason of that is what I already mentioned with the training He's always there. He's always there on time He always goes full out and that work ethic. He took to be a coach He will always be there with the guys cutting way to doing everything

109:15I guarantee you they can call you at 3 o'clock in the middle of the night the day before the fight I mean Breaking up pit bull fights. Just give me 30 seconds. I got this. But that's it. That's it. If you have that drive and you're so focused on one thing, he just put that focus on training. I'll be training all day long. I'll get home and want to just relax, veg out, maybe watch some TV, just do nothing. And then maybe it'll be like 12 o'clock at night. I'll get a text from Dwayne on something on my fight, what I should be doing, what I should be thinking about. I'm like, God. Now I've got to think about this all night. So he's, he's, the reason why he's so great is like you said, he's constantly thinking about it and he cares how well I do. Before you fought Hannon Burrell, I was eating lunch in Vegas at the hotel. I had a bunch of my friends with me. We're all getting ready for the fights.

110:00Dwayne comes over. Hey man, come on, sit down. How you feeling? Boom. Sits down and just, that's what we're going to do. He's going to sit. The whole thing is movement, it switches, it gets to the side. The whole thing, Burrell, Burrell has his style, it's his style. He goes like this and he just was like a fucking hundred miles an hour. And then he's sitting there putting food in my mouth going, and then he visits Kevin, James, Whiteman, and me in Vegas. We were also in Vegas. That's right, yeah. And we still got the same thing. Same thing. It just goes off. What do you think? This is good. This is good. This is good. Boom. But that's why you're so fucking good, you know? And I don't like the term OCD, man. Obsessed. I've dedicated my life to the arts. OCD is those weirdos who wash their hands a hundred times before you leave the house. This is a different thing. This is just, it's a positive obsession. Yes, sir.

110:45Yeah. Again, I've dedicated my life to the arts. Yeah, man. So it's fun. I love it. Yeah, pretty much everybody at this table has. Your method, though, is so uniquely Dwayne. And I really love your system. I think that's so critical is that you've taken all your stuff and you've written it out and you put it into this system where you can really learn. And that's something I learned from Rob Kamen, too. Rob Kamen, who's amazing. Yes, sir. He has a system. And one of the things that I learned when I was training with him was like this guy has this system the same way a lot of jiu-jitsu guys have a system. And it's like his system of breaking things down and movement and strikes that it's all like it has a pattern to it. Yes, sir. And you could follow this pattern. There's a progression to it. And with the way the world is today, you can learn it all from him online. Yeah.

111:37Like he's so good at like breaking things down and be able to film it and show it to people that you can go on his online academy and learn exactly what I'm doing. Yeah, all you need is a willing participant. Someone to train with you is going to do the same amount of work that you are. Agreed. Yeah, it's fun. I love it. I definitely love it. It gives me thriving passion and a purpose, you know, to put energy into other humans and to watch them flourish and grow and get better. And that's a feedback for me. It's obvious. I might be just doing it for myself, but it's a good service back first. But I love to see people do good Well I'm glad you're around dude Because it makes it interesting And this is such a fucking exciting time for MMA So much good shit is going on Are you loving doing that show? The MMA show? I love it I heard you on On the broadcasting You're talking about the different levels of

112:25Knockdown right? And we had Herb Dean and Big Joe McCarthy And Joe McCarthy was talking about the five levels Of a knockdown Once you start staggering, once you fall back, once you crumble there's all different sides you know and i think that i love those conversation you know the round table sit down with some professionals and talk about problems that we have right now and then figuring it out and i i love that and the show also is great i see new talent like conor mcgregor in the beginning we had him on you know so we see these guys come on the show but also once a while we got a mark coleman or you know or don fry you know i see my old buddies again it's it's just a fun show boss before you got here we were talking about eye pokes and we showed the fabricio over doom travis brown eye poke did you see that have you seen it yeah i heard about it yeah fucking

113:08crazy like knuckle deep into fabrizio's eye what do you think could help that what do you think could fix that i think penalties i i truly believe so because if you look at pancreas which was open and striking we never stabbed each other in the eye and we have open hands right how is that even possible right so now because we arch our hands backwards because we want to hit with the palm and and just the fact when that happens is it won't happen in training right and and and especially Actually, not at that camp. Oh, no, not anymore, of course. Because if they come from Greg Jackson Winklejohn, I would say, well, Mike Winklejohn lost an eye. Right. You know, with a nail. Whether it was a footnail or a cape, but still. Holding pads for somebody. Holding pads. Yeah, that's what happened. It's very dangerous. Yeah.

113:50No, but I think once you say, listen, if you're known to do that, that it happened with you in the past, a referee should be allowed to go before there. You say, listen, when I poke, I'm going to give you a red card. And I think that will stop it. Because people are going to become more careful. Red card, which in pride would cost you 10% of your purse. 10%, yeah. I think the point deduction. I think one point every time. I think no warnings for an eye poke. I think the gloves. I think the gloves, too. But I think that even if you take a point away from a guy, if you warn him, that person you poked in the eye is still damaged by that. So even if he says it's an accident, it doesn't matter. One point, either way. No, that's what I'm saying. Even if it's obviously an accident. Both. If your fingers go into someone's eye and you know it's going to cause a point, everyone is going to curl their knuckles back.

114:40Be more accountable for it, right? Yes, sir. I see that. Yeah, so gloves and penalties. Or a beating afterwards if you do it. You're going to be tied up to a pole. I hate to believe anybody's doing it on purpose, but someone must be doing it on purpose. Some, I feel, are kind of aware of that. They have to be. Yeah, for sure. I mean, how often is that happening in training? I don't know. But some of them do look deliberate. It's like kicks in the pills. I mean, Christoph Suszynski was one time fighting, and he got kicked six times, I believe. It might even be seven, in the pills. And he goes back to the corner. The pills are the balls, ladies and gentlemen. And I go, kick him back. Yeah. That's my answer. I say, he's not getting a warning, so do it back. Yes, sir. Right? Then he knows how it feels, and hopefully he's going to stop. But Christoph is two nights of a guy. He didn't do it.

115:26There's a few fights where you go, ooh, I got to wonder why not that's purpose. purpose rather, did you see Cech Kongo versus Krokop? Oh, yeah, yeah way lay them in the sack Wham like more than once. I mean it was several several good blows Most of the time it's bad technique most of the times with the lead leg and they don't step open the right foot So the angle cannot go like a 90 degree angle into the muscle and it kicks straight up And be sure look look at everybody who gets kicked to the pills I guarantee you the leg that they're standing on the toes are pointing forward Yes, if they will point to the side it will be okay. Well with check. I believe it was knees in the clinch. Oh It was I think it was just right yeah, the Thai boxers you know that I never need anybody in pill I did once actually but that was on purpose That was against Renee Rosen

116:15You know that or you I if I could fight video from that that is the best you left So I fight Renee Rose you heard about him right the tall guy from all the total psychopath they say and it does always illegal things so we're fighting him and I'm the first round I beat the crap out of him and the second round we come out and we're clinching and he bites in my ear and I'm shouting let go mate let go let go and then you see my knee going all the way back and then I knee him as he comes loose from the ground that's hard I knee him in the pills he goes down and I wanted to attack him on the ground but they pulled me off and then Cora Hammers was in my corner now he brought all his friends it was like he had Hells Angels with him and and I had all my bounces friends with me and they all started fighting they threw they threw a chair into the ring it bounced off core

116:58hammers his back it lands behind me if you see the video man it lands behind me I look behind me I see the chair I sit in the chair while I watch everybody fighting and I later they cleared everybody everybody's turned down because the referee took he says why did you do it I said look at my ear and it was a hole straight through my ear he bit straight through my ear a hole in there And then he grabbed the microphone and he announced to everybody, whoa, whoa, whoa, he's got a hole in his ear. He bit his ear. That's why he did it. And then everybody calmed down. Oh, wow. Did you continue the fight? No, no, no. That was it. It was a hard knee. Wow. It's like the Wild Wild West. That was a good one. Eddie Bravo thinks he should be able to hit a guy in the back of the head. He thinks that when you take a guy's back, that when the old days of MMA, when a guy had two hooks in,

117:46you almost didn't go to the rear naked choke. You just blast a guy in the back of the head with elbows. Yeah, that's right. But then we go again before rules, right? Henzo and Yeah, what's his name? Striker? Yeah From Holland. Yeah, Spikers. Spikers. Ben Spikers. Ben Spikers. Yeah, the judo guy. Apparently that guy was fucking with Henzo. Kept calling his room. I love Henzo. Calling his hotel room all night. So Henzo was like, oh, okay. All right. And did you see what he stepped on his face at the end? Stepped on his face after he smashed him. Yeah. Yeah. Don't mess with Henzo. That's what guys would do. They would take someone's back. I remember how off Gracie fought somebody. I forget who it was. But he got a hooks in and just boom, boom, boom, right to the base of the skull. It's so effective, though. I know, but it's the longevity of it.

118:33Balmstrike will do the same thing and it keeps your spine intact. Right. But here's Henzo. Oh, nice. Oh, this is actually, okay. Look at that cage. Yeah. Just duct tape around it. So he gets his back. He flattens him out. And then here it comes. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Yep. Holy to the baby. Yeah. I mean, that is the way to open up that choke, man. You can't defend once someone starts raining those elbows down. And you know, you can cover that shit up all you want. Now he's tapping. Now watch this. When he goes away, what are you going to do? He gets up. He steps on his head. That's right. That's my Hanzo. Hanzo. World Combat Championship. He's a master. That was, I think, the same. Look at it. He helps him up. Hey, roll over, buddy. After he stepped on his head. We're pals now. Oh, it's just the peoples. Wow. Yeah. Nice. He beat the fuck out of that, dude. That was a good one.

119:23That was, I think, the same event where Murillo Bustamante fought Tom Erickson. Oh, wow. They fought for, like, fucking 90 minutes. It was one of those crazy fights. It was a 45-minute fight, I think it was, honestly. Wow. It was a crazy fight because they didn't have, like, an ending to those things. They didn't, you know, you just fought. 90 minutes for Sakuraba and Hoyt, remember that? Yeah, that's right. But they did rounds. They did rounds. I don't think Murillo and Erickson did rounds. I think it was just one long, I don't remember. But I remember Erickson at the time, he's like the forgotten heavyweight. When he was in his prime, he was fucking terrifying because he was a natural 300-pound gorilla. An enormous wrestler. And he could hit so fucking hard. I remember he knocked out Kevin Randleman. He hit Kevin Randleman with a left hook and knocked him out.

120:10But I was like Jesus Christ he was one of the scariest guys for his time But just like kind of missed the window, you know like that he was really scary in the early days of MMA Nobody wanted to fight him. Yeah, Buster Monte though super tough man. What a great guy Man, we tapped Matt Linden twice. Yeah, you had to tell you twice. Yeah Linden's was like nothing happened. I didn't tap yeah, and they believe him big John actually told talked about that on our show So he said, yeah, that was a bad one for me because, you know, I didn't see it. Yeah. And that's what people should understand at home. You know, same as the referees, especially of Dean and Big John, they're so invested. They love the sport so much. There's so much there for the fighters. So when they make a bad call, it hurts them as well, you know. But then to get the avalanche of all the people on the Internet, you know, come on.

121:02Everybody's human. And we were talking about, I believe, four calls or three calls that they were talking about with Herb Dean. Herb Dean had over 7,500 matches he did. Like, oh, the odds are great. I like those odds. Only four mistakes and 7,500 matches. You're doing a good job. Well, both of those guys are the gold standard. Yep. I mean, Herb Dean and John McCarthy, that's the gold standard. I mean, you know who was really good before he went away for selling weed? It was Josh Rosenthal. Yeah, he did my last fight. He is very good. He's a very good referee. So crazy he went away for something like that. So crazy. Well, he went away from selling weed, and he had a little bit of an arsenal. So a few illegal guns are... Selling a little bit, only 12 acres of weed, or what was it? Hey, nothing wrong with that. It's just helping the world.

121:45But the real problem was, I believe guns were involved, and that's one thing. But yeah, you're going to sell weed illegally. You've got to protect yourself. It's unfortunate. The whole thing's unfortunate. But he was a very good referee. Very good referee. Very good martial artist, too. Yeah, he always trained. And I respect that, obviously, having people in the field. If you're going to work in the field, you should actually train in the field. Yeah. That's what I wanted to bring up to you. What did you think about the Travis Brown-Fabricio Verdun fight where Travis called time? He got his finger jammed. Fabricio threw a punch, and Travis's finger apparently broke. And there's some photos of it now online. It's fucking nasty. It shows you how tough Travis is that he continued with his finger smashed. And it was a compound fracture. where the bone broke through the skin.

122:30That's one picture, but there's some even better ones that he released today where you could see it after the fight. It was a nasty break. So it was a weird thing where Fabrizio threw this punch, and he threw one of those Chuck Liddell-style overhands that come over the top, and it landed on the fingers of Travis and snapped one of his finger. So Travis calls time, which you really can't do. He's like, my finger's fucked up. He calls time. Scroll up though And you see the actual opening Here comes the boom He says time out So he cannot do that Against Maurice Smith Did they stop it? Sorry That's right, you did that boss You did that in a fight Yeah, Maurice I like that I kicked him in the head And then I got excited and wanted to give him another kick in the head But I slip and I fall on the ground And Maurice wants to jump on top of me and I put my hand up. I say, wait. And he stops. And I'm getting up

123:28and I go, thank you. That's composure, huh? That's ninja. It's a trick. Yeah. And you know, another one that helped very funny if anybody was with Jason DeLucia. I dropped him with his liver shot, right? And then I walked towards him and you see what I'm doing. I stretch my arm above me and I wave with my hand and you see him looking up to my hand and then I liver kick him again. I just put my hand up. We say, yeah, look at this. And he actually looked there. That's so ridiculous. That's good composure, right? We actually use that stuff all the time. The bird. The bird. So there's Master Tong. The bird is a bird. Master Tong, he's my first striking coach at Alpha Male. And when Dwayne first started to come to teach at Alpha Male, I think it was my second fight you were there. We were in San Jose against Hugo Vianna. And we're in the hotel room, day of the fight, just kind of hanging out, just waiting.

124:19And Master Tong's just in the bed. He sleeps all day long, and then he's in the bed just hanging out. Dwayne comes to hang out with us, and he's telling Master Tong a story, and Master Tong is kind of looking at him like he's paying attention. But then he looks at Dwayne, and he goes, bird. And we're inside a hotel room, right? And Dwayne looks over, and there's a bird. And as Dwayne turns back to start talking to him again, he's rolled over on the bed and looking the other direction and sleeping. So he, like, faked him up. He juked me. He's like, hey, look over there while I turn over and go to sleep. He couldn't deal with the barrage of the Ludwig. Talking fast. He can't even understand it, so he turns around. The fucking guy, he was supposed to corner TJ in that fight. What's that? He was supposed to corner you on that fight, and we couldn't find the fucking guy.

125:01I'm about to walk out for my fight, and Master Tong's nowhere to be found. I'm like, what the hell? I'm going out to my fight. Where's Master Tong? And then so Danny just corners me, and after the fight I get back, and Master Tong's like, oh, TJ, I go smoke way up in the rafters. So supposedly he says he went up in the rafters to smoke his cigarette, and he was too scared to get down, so he couldn't come down to come corner me. That's a great reason. I'm in the room the next day and I go Where the fuck were you? What's up with ties and cigarettes? Or gambling or everything, I don't know It's just a culture down there Really good fighters that smoke cigarettes He was smoking while he was fighting That guy is so talented, it's crazy If he had half the work ethic that Dwayne had He'd be amazing He's such a good trainer, he's such a good fighter I don't know man He's such a freak though

125:47I would see him in the corner with a tank top on and gold chains and sunglasses inside. Big smiles on his face. Sun's out, gun's out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big ass belt buckle on. And if you fucking character like a belt and he would make sure to be in the camera for the decisions. He's like positioning himself so you can see him. Like he wants to be a superstar, you know? Wasn't there like an issue with him gambling against one of your fighters too? Against Faber apparently. No, not joking. This is for reals. Apparently the motherfucker when Faber when he fought Boral in New Jersey. It was me and Tong. And no one knows if this actually happened, right? But allegedly, he gambled on Burrell to beat Faber and he's cornering Faber. Like, what the fuck, man? I go to New Jersey to corner my... I do two seminars. I get up super early, do two seminars before his fight, come back, fight, do everything I need to do.

126:44And then after the fight, which apparently he gambled against Faber, I'm leaving the hotel to go, I got to get up super early and take off to go back home. And I'm walking out down the hall. And he's got a track record of hitting people up for money all the time. Tong. Well, he's an addict. He gambles. Yeah. So he legitimately apparently has a problem gambling and not budgeting his shit, right? So anyway, I fly to New Jersey, do two seminars, corner. I'm working my ass off. I'm leaving the hotel after the fight down the next morning. And he's following me down the hotel. Oh, Dwayne. Oh, Dwayne. Can I have a little bit of money? And then I gave him the crow cop stare. I was like, no, motherfucker. I got up early, came out here, worked my ass off two seminars, cornered, and did what I needed to do while you were sleeping in. Don't ask me for money, motherfucker.

127:31I got genuinely mad because he's just being lazy ass and asking me for money. So I told him no. It's like Deadpool when he says you're the world's worst best friend. You know, when he bets against him at the Deadpool. Oh, that's right. That's right. But on the positive side, Master Tom's a badass motherfucker. He's so bad, man. He's such a talented dude. I think he is one of the best guys in the world to hold mitts. Yeah, he can catch the mitts. I wouldn't say he's super structured. Maybe it's his understanding of English. He can't break something down like, this is why you should do it, and tell me why I'm doing things and when to do it. He just kind of shows you. He makes you do it on the mitts. Without even you knowing it, he makes you do things you're supposed to do the right way just by holding them and having a very limited vocabulary. He's helped TJ a lot.

128:15Oh, he was my first trainer, and I picked up on a stand-up very quick with him, and I think he's a great trainer. He's just an addict. He's got nasty Muay Thai, too. Oh, dude. He's so, yeah. Very good Muay Thai. He's good. I love the guy, man. It's a problem, man. When people get that gambling bug, that's a scary bug. That's a very scary bug. I never did that. Get a bug. I got to be a good bug. I mean, if you got a trainer that's bending against you, I'm not as bad as it gets. Is that confirmed, though? So Master Tong was coaching out in Texas. He was at a gym in Texas, and that's when Dwayne first got here. So Massatong was kind of mad and just kind of left. That's why we needed a new coach. That's why we brought Dwayne in. And then when Faber was going to fight Baral, he brought him back for eight weeks for his camp, and he was out here training him.

128:58Faber went into that fight with a hurt hamstring, and Massatong knew that as well. He tore his hamstring a little bit and went into the fight a little injured. And so when Massatong went back to Texas, he was bragging that he made $5,000 because he bet all this money that Faber wasn't going to win the fight. and then it got back to Faber because Faber knew the trainer out in Texas and so it came back to him and he found out about it. Allegedly, who knows if it's really true, but Master Tong was bragging about it. That hurts. That's awesome. That's loyalty. Yeah, you love him. I mean, I love the guy. And if I come to find out he bet against you, that's rough. What if he gave you four? He won five and gave you four. That's what you're supposed to do. Listen, dog. You know and I know that you came into that fight a little fucked up. Here's a taste. Given the majority of it. Right? Not even half. Like, most of it.

129:43He still won $1,000. People with a gamble problem don't do that. I know. They don't. They want to keep it all the greedy fucks. Well, because he had nothing to show for it afterwards. He guaranteed he went and gambled it somewhere else. Oh, man. I mean, when he was coaching at Alpha Male in the beginning, before he got there, I mean, he's making good money. You know, I know he supports his family and stuff, but he should have been a lot more well-off than he was. But he's an addict. It's a serious problem, man. It's like you wouldn't actually think that it's probably it's it's a serious That goes back what I was telling my guys I mean for myself. We're gonna create habits Let them be good habits and I got that from sensei create good habits, right? Yeah Your your habit is train like a motherfucker teach like a motherfucker get obsessed with that

130:22I don't get obsessed with blackjack. I invest in other humans poker for that matter Yeah, yeah, it's it's weird once you gamble because you need it. You always lose trust me I enjoy gambling on fights I used to do it all the time when I first started working for the UFC. I would gamble on fights And then I was like can I get in trouble for this? I was like I wasn't sure I was like I'm not can't affect the outcome You should you should mention it before the fight you say I put my money People get mad at me though The best is when the time when uh Diego Sanchez won a fight and then at the time you're going to interview him, he's like, hey, you told me I was weird before. And you're like, yeah, you're weird. And then he just got quiet. He tried to call you out, but you're like, no. Yeah, you're a weird guy. Diego's weird as fuck. Have you seen his interview before he fought Joe Lozon? Which one is that?

131:18UFC 200. He was doing an interview before Joe Lozon. He had this whole... It had to have been planned out. It was almost like a freestyle rap. He put it on his Instagram. It is one of the funniest interviews I've ever seen. is I wish I remember exactly who we did that up he's so odd but awesome yeah awesome and a good thing about him a long time ago this before the ultimate fighter this guy would send me videotapes from the East Coast right and with a note and he says boss I okay this one I won but I still can you break it down where I have to work on and I would write everything down and send it back to him and then I saw my the ultimate fighter and then later I met him in an in an elevator I say man you always used to send me the tapes you say Yeah, thank you very much. But you see, I really appreciate it about a guy like that. Yeah, no, he's a really, really dedicated guy.

132:04You know, Diego Sanchez is a fucking warrior. And he's a guy who's won more third rounds of fights where he lost the first two. The Martin Kampman fight, I'll never forget that fight. Because his face was hanging off of his skull. And he's chasing Martin Kampman. And Martin Kampman, who fought at 185, was a big fucking guy for 170. And Diego's just, ah, just running out of a mask of blood. The Jake Ellenberger fight, the end of the fight, he's on Ellenberger's back beating the shit out of him. That's right. Lost the first two rounds, comes back in the third like a fucking savage. If every fight was 100 rounds long, Diego Sanchez might be undefeated. Mexican. Yeah. Mexican. That's right. Fantastic endurance. He always had a crazy cardio. Fuck you, Donald Trump. Oh, that's good. I mean, think about who had more endurance than Julio Cesar Chavez, right?

132:52Well, yeah, you're right, but people fail to mention that he trained. Was it Mexico City or was it 7,000 feet elevation? People don't take that into account. And a lot of his fights were there as well. Yeah, that's a good point because a lot of people don't realize how high Mexico City is. I didn't know until the first time I went there. I just did a fucking elliptical machine there and I was like, holy shit. I said it. I said it to Cain Velasquez on our show. Are you going to go out like three weeks ahead because of the elevation? And he says, no. I said, do you think that's a smart idea? Because you should be training there. When I trained for the Redmond fight in Colorado, my first week, eight days, nine days were really not nice. They were not fun. I mean, I got tired so fast. It took really a while for me to get into it. And Colorado was 2,000 feet below Mexico City, which is crazy.

133:43To have a heavyweight title fight there. Do you remember the second UFC there? When everybody ran out of gas? Yeah. The first two UFCs were in Colorado. Oh, the first one too. McNichols and then the other arena downtown. I forgot which other one it was. Do you remember Ben Rothwell and Mark Hunt in Colorado? Oh, yeah. Yes, sir. Oh, those poor guys almost died. They both almost died. There's only one way to prepare for that. You have to be in that element because you literally have less red blood cells. Yeah. Period. I talked to a guy who's an endurance athlete who lives in Boulder, and he told me, you have to live there for three years. He said to reach the full potential. He's like, for those guys, when you're talking about bikers or triathletes or something like that, for them, every last second is in bike. Because you're doing the same activity over and over and over again.

134:35It's not like fighting where your creativity, your explosiveness, all these different things come in a factor. It's just biking. You're just biking. You're just running. You're just swimming. These are the things you're doing. And so every little second, every little ounce of extra endurance. So they optimize everything in that regard. And he was saying to really hit your full potential, you need to live at altitude and train in altitude for three years. So, okay, so he lives and trains very nice. Yeah, I see that. Three years. Wow. Yeah, well, full potential. Go from the 99% that you had at one year to 100% after three years. You know, it could be like that as well. Yeah, I wonder. But I understand what he's saying. What threshold? If you have only 10 days or two weeks to train high altitude, I almost would say don't do it. Because your first week is going to be the worst week. You can't think straight.

135:21It's better to just stay. But if you have to fight at high altitude, always go there beforehand, man. I'm telling you, three, four weeks at least. There's the First Bank Center, which is right by my academy. They had a couple of UFCs there. When you walk out of the dressing room, there's a big metal sign on the wall. And it says, extreme elevation. If you feel lightheadedness or dizzy, please rest and drink water. So that's what like the fighters see as they're walking out to the cage of that big-ass fucking science right to my father Yeah, it's crazy for people who don't live there to take fights at altitude. It really is Yeah, especially with fights fighters can't afford like if you're training for a fight in Mexico City You can't afford to go anywhere I mean if you if you're on the undercard you're making you know What's like the lowest paid guys in the UFC? 8,000 is it 8 and 8? It's crazy It's crazy

136:06You gotta get on the O2 trainer They get those lungs That will help. That will strengthen them, for sure, yeah. Because a lot of people say, oh, this part that you know, it mimics high altitude. Can't. You cannot. It doesn't. Oh, you have to wear it like eight hours a day. Right. But otherwise, it won't. But it makes your whole inspiratory system much stronger, and it's easier for you to pull in. Well, you're talking about your own personal O2 trainer where you put it in your mouth, and you have, like, different filters on it, too, right? Stronger and weaker. Stronger. I'm now with a guy who is the trainer, the scientist behind Usain Bolt, three other gold medalists on track and field. Actually, Dominic Cruz as well is training there. This guy has a higher IQ than freaking Einstein had. He has like over 25 medical journals wherein it's proven that only inspiratory training works.

136:53So what happened was he did a review of my competition. Explain what this thing is to people that are listening that don't know. It's a device that I invented because I was an asthma patient, and I realized that after an asthma attack for like a week in bed or eight days in bed, I would resume my track and field, and I would break my running times. And it always puzzled me. Why am I stronger after an attack? This is crazy. The medicine, medication. And then I realized when I saw – I went to the doctor's office, and I saw a poster on the wall with a pair of lungs on there, and it showed where it's inflamed when you have bronchitis. And what happens is you think as a kid it's infected in the lungs. It's not. It's in the air pipes that go to the lungs. So that was my aha moment. I realized, oh, I've been working out my lungs unknowingly because I've been pulling air through that infected hole.

137:46So unknowingly, I make my whole lung system, my inspiratory system stronger. So why don't I come up with something that controls the air intake? And that was it. And then finally I started, oh, there you got it. I started making it. And it's a very simple device. It starts with a hole of 15 millimeter. millimeter you start training with it and once you feel that you get the same air as you did before you go to 14 millimeter and now with this guy what this guy does with it because when my lawyer called me and he said listen did you read that review about our competition it's horrible they they they they slammed this I say I know because they control the area in and out it's not a good way to do it I said contact that guy I want to send him an auto trainer and when he contacted him he said Basruta will I said Basruta from the auto trainer yeah we're already using it inspiratory trainers I love the

138:31product so what is the difference the difference is when you control the air out as well you cannot completely empty your lungs because you you do it with resistance but if you complete an air out is all with force it's all done by your core and your diaphragm and your intercostal muscles here in your ribs but breathing in it's also done with that it's much harder to breathe in but as soon as I start stopping the airflow out I cannot completely exhale anymore before I take a new breath and that's what I started with so now we're going to come out with all these medical journals with Usain Bolt all these people that he trains all do inspiratory muscle training so they all use that kind of a device all all use yeah wow so like those masks that you wear that control in and out those are no good that that that was the that's the

139:16competition yeah that was the competition but so it's just something that just controls in and then you can breathe out with your own mouth like so you breathe in through it and then when you breathe out what do you how does it work when you breathe out freely how does it comes out because it gets two valves one side is the where they have the holes on and on the other side you have a flap and if you if i breathe in the flap closes forces you to breathe into one side brilliant yeah and it did and it works and the only thing that this the scientist said he said well you can use it like you did boss with training because it cured me from my asthma on my website you will read a lot of people cured it for an asthma i don't use an inhaler anymore and i used an inhaler my entire life even before world title fights always had an inhaler with me because if i would sneeze

139:58for instance very aggressively three times my lung would close i have to open them up with an inhaler i haven't used an inhaler for two and a half three years now anymore so it works with everything we're actually looking for an fda improvement everything is going to happen now because the results are just crazy good that's fascinating yeah oh and what he said what i wanted to say is what he does he lets them in the morning do 30 repetitions so they take a smaller tiny hole and you you lean over with the auto trainer and once you you breathe out you every bit of air goes out of your lungs and then you while you're breathing in you're sitting straight up and then you breathe everything out again you do 30 repetitions in the morning that's it for you for your inside so that's all you're doing is just 30 repetitions that's it and that'll build

140:41you up if you go for six weeks two times a day 30 minutes and 30 repetitions and after that just one time a day, the increase you're going to have, you're not going to have any lactic acid in your core, which, by the way, is the most important thing in fighting. That's why everybody gets tired, I always say, because their muscles start pumping, just like your biceps are pumping, and they start pushing your lungs backwards. So now your lungs cannot freely inhale anymore because you're pushing them backwards with your core. And that's the reason when you see guys, you know, that's why I used to do I actually said that at the seminar last Saturday. I said That's why before a fight, I would do a lot of abs, but constant stretching abs. Abs, stretching. Abs, stretching. And that was for that reason, because I know if this gets tight, your core gets tight, everything goes downhill.

141:28That's why the guys in the beginning with the steroids, well, in the beginning they're still doing it apparently. But you saw guys, because if you use steroids, you pump much harder, right? So they're very strong until the core builds up with lactic acid. Now the lungs can't breathe in anymore. and that's why you see them going strong, strong, strong, strong, strong and then suddenly they drop and it's over with them. That's the reason. So your protocol for this O2 trainer is you do it 30 times, like 30 breaths? 30 breaths in the morning, 30 in the evening, after six weeks, you increase your whole respiratory... They say you got 15% to 20% you will gain. It's incredible. 15% to 20% in how long? How much time? Well, six weeks. In six weeks. Yeah, you'll be amazed. Once we're going to come out with all these journals, you're going to like it. So 15% to 20% lung capacity? Yeah, look.

142:20This is inspiratory, right? This is other devices. Now they can – there's still air in there because they can completely empty their lungs. We're looking at a video for folks who are just listening to this. We're looking at a video on Boss Root and O2 Trainer, which is online on YouTube, right? Is it just O2 Trainer? What is your – Yeah, this is – O2 Trainer.com. The site crashed right now. Oh, okay. We did a site crash because we swamped it We swamped your site, boss You swamped my site, boom, nice Selling some O2 trainers I love the flap, though, that's amazing Dude, I'm buying one of these It's such a, I'll get you one It's such an easy score It's such an easy thing Are you using the body exit system? It's right back here Come on back, I'll take you back here We gotta end this podcast anyway But I'll show you in the back Because I gotta get the fuck out of here Boss Rootin You're a fucking gem Of a human being

143:13It's a pleasure to know you An honor to make your acquaintance Same I can say for both of you gentlemen It was an honor To train with you today Bang Ludwig You're a fucking genius And TJ You're a bad motherfucker Badass I can't wait to see you Fight for the title again And I really I really hope it is soon And uh Thank you everybody That's it This fucking podcast is over Jihad Woohoo Awesome