JRE MMA Show #132 with Joaquin Buckley

00:03Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. TRAIN BY DAY. JOE ROGAN PODCAST BY What up, Mr. Buckley? How are you, sir? Man, I'm doing good, Joe. Good to have you in here, man. Hey, man. Thanks for having me. You are the owner of the most [laughter] highlighted, the most viral video in the history of MMA. I think that [ __ ] jump spinning back kicked in the face. Yeah. Yeah, I think so, man. you know, uh, it took a minute for me to actually like think that it is, you know what I mean? Because there's so many other like awesome knockouts out there, you know, like my man, [clears throat] you know, Dan Hind over, you know, Bisbane, you know, with the H bomb and then with my man Essen Barbosa with the, you know, spinning heel kick on Terry Adam, you know, and, uh, like Francis Zanu, you know what I'm saying? Like just so many

00:48like different heavy hitters out there with with great KOs, you know? But once I really like sat back and looked at it and it took some time to actually like take everything in, I'm like, "Yeah, that's pretty dope that I did." Yours was crazy cuz he's holding one foot and you're jump spinning back kick him in the face with the other foot. I mean that is just wild. [laughter] I mean come. Have you ever done that in a fight before? N so that was my first time. So you know if if you want to really hear it man it's it's a long story with it because nobody taught me that kick you know like I never had an instructor. Never. No not at all. you know, I was just fascinated with martial arts, you know, since I was a little kid, you know, and, uh, you know, once I got, you know, started with MMA and stuff like that. The gym where I came from, it could only teach so much.

01:29The instructors only knew so much. You know what I mean? It was just like a mom and pop, you know, gym type stuff where, you know, a lot of, you know, people would just get there to, you know, get into shape, you know? Um, but overall though, when I used to go on YouTube, I used to watch a lot of different videos, you know, on how to, you know, not just train as a mixed martial artist, but just to learn like different moves and techniques from different disciplines from, uh, not just Taekwond do, but, you know, Hopkido, you know, Kushin, uh, uh, Sancha, you know, all these different disciplines that I used to take from. And, uh, then once I looked at the disciplines, I looked at who the best people in it, right? And then I looked at different people that's, uh, in those disciplines, whatever. And guess who I ran into when I got into taekwond do.

02:10I seen one of your videos. [laughter] No, no, for real. For real. On uh you taught George St. Pierre like how to correctly throw the uh spinning back kick. Yeah. You know what I mean? But you at first showed him how to throw the sidekick and I used to watch those videos, you know, over and over again, you know, and then it evolved when I seen Raymond Daniels perform Oh, the two touch. Oh my god. Yeah, he did that two touch. That's that's probably one of the biggest highlight reels in kickboxing history. Facts, right? You know, but I seen that I was like, man, that's dope. cuz it's a level up from what you showing, right? So, I used to perform that on the bag on a heavy bag all the time and people like, "Man, what are you doing?" Like whatever. But I used to generate so much power when I used to balance, you know, uh my right foot on her cuz uh not my

02:48right, but my left foot cuz I would come in like a roundhouse kick cuz I'm softball. I would balance on the back and then I would propel myself off the bag and I would spin and we used to make this this hard pop like a shotgun, right? And would bend the entire bag. So, I'm like, "Bro, I feel like so powerful like throwing this kick." You know what I mean? Uh, but regardless though, just seeing these people like do this stuff and just learning from them and just imitating these moves, you know? Yeah. Years later, then I end up performing that kick. You know who's got some of the best instructionals of that of like traditional kicks like sidekicks and turning side kicks? Michael J. White. I'm already hooked. I'm already hooked. Watch the thousand. Michael J. White has some sharp technique. Yeah. Big facts. Big facts. And on top

03:27of that, even before him, Bill Superfoot Wallace. Oh yeah. Come on now. You know what I mean? So, you know, well, he had the best hook kick ever, man. His hook kick was incredible. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he only had one knee. His knee was [ __ ] up. Yeah. Big fact. Yep. And that's why cuz he used to do like judo, you know, he used to do throws and stuff. He couldn't do it anymore. So, he end up transitioning just to kickboxing, but like he taught himself how to just fight on that just that one side, you know, make himself, you know, uh just like a line hard to hit, you know, but he made his uh his leg like a jab, you know what I mean? stick guys, but he would hit with a roundhouse like you said, u heel hook kick. You know what I'm saying? Or just just like the spinning back kick as well, you know? See if you can find a highlight of

04:04Bill's Superfoot Wallace. Oh man, they got plenty because the fact that he only used one leg cuz he had one knee that was just really [ __ ] up. So he couldn't kick with it. So because he did everything off that one leg, his one leg had so much dexterity. It's like that old school quote from Bruce Lee videos. That's what I used to watch. I used to watch stuff like this all the time, you know, and it's cool just coming back to it. And he was so fast too with it like it was hard to see. Yeah. This is And he would joke around about like, you know, the camera not being fast enough to see his feet, you know. Yeah. But he had the very best kicks off the front leg. Yeah. Yeah, man. And he's he's still getting after it. He's still getting after it. I don't want to try to be funny, but I think my man's still alive. Yeah. I think he is, too. But [laughter] he

04:47did commentary in the first UFC's. Yes, he did. Yeah. The very early days. Yeah. Wow. So, he's still out there. Look at that. So, this is just a year ago. Yep. Yep. Good for him. Yeah, man. We see if you can find some of his fights cuz he knocked a lot of people out with those just uh try to put like verses [snorts] and it it'll pop up on its own. So, like Yeah. Super and like verse and then they'll show it was just so hard for people to deal with. Oh, that was [snorts] in a force of one. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. Uh I think he fought this guy named Joe Lewis. Yeah. Yeah. Joe Lewis down there. Yeah. Watch that one right there. Yeah, that's a good one. So Joe Lewis, not the heavyweight boxer, but the heavyweight kickboxer was a legendary karate fighter. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. This is a fun fight to watch. And look at that boom. Yeah. Style with that front leg. The thing

05:33about that style though, I always wondered like how would those guys do against like a Muay Thai guy through leg kicks cuz we saw that with, you know, with um a lot of fighters that had that style once they encounter like Rick Rufus. Once they encountered leg kicks, they got kind of [ __ ] up until they realized how to deal with it and how to use the leg kicks. Then Rick Rufus became an incredible leg kicker. Well, I mean I mean perfect example. So Peter Cunningham. Yes. So you know who Peter Cunning is? Superfoot. Sugarfoot. Sugarfoot. Not sugar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So uh but he he fought Muay Thai guys and used to whoop their ass. Yes. Because he could throw leg kicks. Yeah. He could throw he could throw leg kicks and he had hands. Yes. He had everything. But that's like the beautiful thing about MMA is we're seeing all those techniques being

06:19incorporated. Like a guy like you who can do all the other things now you're learning jump spinning, back kicks, and all this other stuff. See, I always assumed watching you fight that you had some sort of a traditional martial arts background because you throw so many sidekicks and they're so clean. They're so sharp. I I assumed uh I guess I can attribute that all from martial arts movies. That's wild. lit literally all from martial art and like people think it's a joke but literally when I was a kid you know uh you know just growing up you know I mean my mom you know would raise me she was you know single mother and stuff like that so she can only do so much you know what I mean so I was on the TV all the time that's what raised me you know what I'm saying just watching big facts you know uh cuz I was around a lot of women you know so when

07:00she needed help I was with my godmother Erica and stuff like that and I was with you know my god sisters and stuff like that so it was a lot of you know women around so I was looking for male influences and the fastest way I could find it was just on TV. Wow. You know what I mean? So just looking at Bruce Lee, looking at Jackie Chan, looking like Michael Jaw White, Donn Yen, Tony Ja, like these are the guys I'm like, "Oh man, I want to be like them." You know what I mean? So yeah, it's amazing how many people got influenced to fighting and to traditional martial arts from movies. Big facts. Yeah. It's like the best some of the greatest kickboxers would tell you who. Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee is the one that got him into it. You know, it's the best salesperson ever is those movies. Yeah. Big facts. I mean, you look at like the emergence of karatemies in the

07:38country after Bruce Lee movies like through the [clears throat] roof. Everybody wanted to learn. Mhm. Including Chuck Norris, you know. Yes. Yeah. Including Chuck Norris. So, when you what what was your first actual like uh coaching in martial arts? Uh my first coaching uh that was the gym at Finny's MMA one. I was 18. I started as soon as I got out of high school, man. Cuz school wasn't for me at the time, man. You know what I'm saying? I was like, you know, not taking it seriously. But, you know, I just always wanted to be a part of martial arts, you know, when I was younger and I knew that wrestling was going to be a great foundation to start in, you know. So, when I was in middle school, got into high school, whatever, I got into wrestling and then after that, after I graduated, went to Finn's MMA. So, in 2012, wrestling in high school, were you

08:20thinking that you were doing this to prepare to fight? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yes, sir. Well, I mean, like low key, but like I knew that that's what I wanted to do and it was the closest thing to a discipline to a martial arts discipline is wrestling. That's the only thing. I wasn't good at football, wasn't good at basketball, wasn't good at baseball, you know what I mean? Uh uh couldn't catch water if I fell out of boat, you know what I'm saying? Like, so my biggest thing is like, you know, I never really like sports anyway. It's just martial arts. And the only thing that uh I could apply those skills to was wrestling, you know, cuz my mom didn't want to put me into like any karate. All that stuff cost money, you know, at the end of the day, but wrestling was free. And so when you first got into actual coaching, you you already knew how to

08:59kick then just from watching movies and [ __ ] uh somewhat. I wouldn't say I actually knew how to kick, but like that's where it's imitation. You know what I'm saying? Uh life imitates art, right? So that's my biggest thing is just like I used to watch these guys and used to And you got to realize like these guys that's playing or actors are real martial artists. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? So they re they using real techniques at the end of the day. So I just get to look at that and use it and and just apply it, you know? I love like one of my favorite movies to watch is Blood and Bone, you know, uh with Michael J. fight with Kimbo Slice, you know, and it's a lot of techniques that he uses that I'm like, "Oh, bro, that'd be dope to, you know, pull off, you know." So, yeah, I would say like that was my my start into martial arts

09:38was the movies, but my real like actual training started when I was 18. And so, when you were 18, how long was it before you had your first fight? Uh, bro, it actually didn't take long. I think it was like a little bit of like uh nine months, 10 months into training and I had my first fight. Was it an MMA fight? Yeah. Yeah, it was MMA fight. Yeah. So, in Missouri, in St. Louis, whatever. So, as amateurs, like we didn't need the head gear. We didn't need to wear like shin guards, nothing. So, you fought like a pro, you know. The only thing that you couldn't do was like heel hooks and knee to the head. No heel hooks. No heel hooks. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. No heel hooks. But all the other submissions were okay. Y and no elbows. Yeah. Every other submission was cool. No elbows, no knees, no cuts, you know, and then no heel hooks. That was the only only rule.

10:20So, just a few limitations. Yeah. And uh so did they have a a comprehensive amateur program there like or was it was it balanced? Were you fighting someone that had experience or we just fighting another person? I was just fighting another person, man. Like I don't think it was balanced yet, you know, even in 2012, you know, uh everybody had the showdown, you know, uh so like you know the promoter, you know, being putting fights together and everything, but people were still trying to figure out actually like the gym wise of how to, you know, u develop a fighter, if that makes sense, you know. Uh because I feel like still to this day that a lot of MMA gyms still not doing it right, you know, but that's a whole another conversation for a whole another day. So a lot of these guys that was in amateur fighting just wanted to fight just to get a feel for

10:58it, you know, and those type of guys I was fighting almost like at the amateur level, you know. Well, we we had dinner that one night. We were talking about the difference between going to a big gym and the way you're doing it at a smaller gym. And there's some interesting conversation to be had about that because you made some really good points about when you're in a smaller gym, you get individualized attention and you're not getting lost in the crowd. Exactly. And that there's so much information out there already with all the videos that are out there and all the fights you watch. So, so sometimes it's good just to be um so my coach is a perfect example, right? He'll have us working on the same thing over and over and over again and we know it and we know it by like a heartbeat. But and we'll tell coach like, "Hey coach, can we do something different?"

11:42He's like, "Yeah, yeah, but I want y'all to do this." You know what I mean? And you need that type of discipline whatever just to keep doing the same thing because that's how you actually work on your tools. You work on the basics over and over again. You know what I'm saying? Where then it becomes instinct, you know? So even though we have so much applied knowledge out there and so many things that we can do sometimes it's like the basic knowledge that we have and if we work with a smaller gym we able to focus on that a little bit more you know as a team you know instead of everybody just doing their own thing cuz I don't care nobody say like big gyms everybody just doing their own thing everybody just working with who they working with you know they not even working with the coach unless they got a name and they got a big fight coming up

12:17that's the thing right because that's what I hear it's like you get two arguments one of them is iron sharpens iron and so if you're around like if you go to TT if you're an American Top Team worldass facility giant place dormitories world class guys coming from all over the world but when I've talked to fighters who train there they say look man you get in there with some Russian dude you never met before and he's trying to kill you yeah big and that there's no supervision like if you're not a worldass guy if you're not a top of the food chain guy that has a lot of money riding on him they'll put you in there with everybody who's in class big and you going to have to learn you going to sing or swim you know what I mean you have to develop and become that individual in order for them to work with you, but they're not going to

12:58develop you, you know? So, a lot of guys get it twisted when they go to these big gyms and they think that they're going to be elevated because of the guys that they're around, but at the same time, like you said, people just trying to beat you up, right? You know what I mean? So, you're not really learning anything. So, that's one thing I talk about structure, right? So, just because you're a big gym and you able to have all these, you know, um, housing for fighters, you know what I mean? You got the big nice mats, you got the heavy bags and all this other stuff. You got all the pretty stuff, but you have no structure within the gym. You know, a lot of guys should be working with certain people to develop their skills. So, like, let's say, you know, certain pros, high level pros, you know what I mean? Not saying that a high

13:33level pro can't work with a amateur, but certain amateurs shouldn't be working with certain pros. Like, they should be developed to a certain point where they showing that they know enough and now they can move up and work with certain individuals. You know what I mean? Get fed to the wolves. Exactly. You know what I mean? cuz all it's going to do is hurt the young amateur. And then sometimes amateurs be doing the wrong thing and be going too hard and could end up cutting, you know what I'm saying? A high level pro, you know, and they might not be making a lot of money, but that's somebody that's a potential prospect. Yes. But now they ain't got a fight coming up cuz they was going with this amateur cuz they ain't had nobody else to go with, right? You know, so, you know, it's a lot of things, you know, that that play a part

14:08into having a big gym and a small gym. But I just love having a small gym just because you get that actual attention that you need. Well, it sounds like your coach is a fantastic coach. Oh, he won the best in the world. What's his name? Walk Mercy Lago. So, we got the same first name. That's crazy. [laughter] That's an odd name. Not a lot of those walkings out there. So, when you're um what is the name of the gym? Uh Mercy. And And when you're working with him, it's like specifically with him and a bunch of other people or like how does So, he so he he's the head coach, you know, um for MMA wise. And then we have uh Nick Simmons. So, the gym itself is called Salt Academy. It's a wrestling um academy. So, he he has a lot of uh high level prospect high school wrestler, middle school wrestler, some of the best wrestlers, you know what I'm saying, in

14:53the nation, you know, uh that come to him to learn wrestling. So, his name is Nick Simmons. Uh but I work with his uh older brother Andy. No, actually younger brother, Andy Simmons. Uh that's who I work with. And uh he's more of my size and stuff like that. So, I get a lot of high level wrestling from him because both of them are hall of famers uh at uh Michigan uh state, which is pretty dope, you know, and uh so they got a a nice revenue, you know what I'm saying? Not revenue, but like a great career uh within wrestling. Went undefeated, you know what I'm saying? For the longest time, like I think over 200, 300 bouts or something like that, undefeated. And then I got a conditioning coach at the HBI Human Performance Institute, uh, Justin Hardik. He was an NFL player, you know, that's where we get all our, uh, conditioning work in. Uh, so like we

15:37don't have many, many guys, you know, but at the end of the day, we have enough to work with. We also got a guy that works with our jiu-jitsu, who works at uh, Magic named Brennan Barry who uh, does all our jiu-jitsu. But the crazy thing about him, he's not a black belt. He's not a high level jiu-jitsu guy. He's somebody that's just passionate about jiu-jitsu, who watches it every day, you know, and he shows us stuff that actually work, but he's somebody that's committed to it, you know, and who watches it every day. And uh that's who we learn jiu-jitsu from. Well, that was the case a long time ago. There was a lot of guys that were like blue belts and purple belts that were opening up schools because they didn't have a real good school around them and they knew that they could teach at least a base of fundamentals. if they were really

16:17excited and passionate about jiu-jitsu, they would grow with their students. Exactly. Exactly. And that's exactly what he's doing with us, you know. Uh cuz I can see Brandon going very far, you know, into being an instructor, going far in jiu-jitsu, you know, but just somebody that, you know, not looking for anything out of it, you know. He never asked me for any money or nothing like that, but he shows me a lot of things that helped me win a fight against Alberaya, you know, how to get the stand up, you know, how to get my guard back, you know, and uh, you know, it's just crazy because in that fight, a lot of people had me pick, you know, and thinking like, okay, Albert train this big gym, you know, at Extreme Couture and stuff like that. He has all the tools. he has all the resources and then I go back to Michigan. I don't have much

16:58but I got the people that's able to work on the things that we need to work on and we do it repeatedly until I get it down and then we able to show that in the fight, you know. And I feel like that's why I'm saying like we actually showing what works within this game, you know, because if you got the right group of people that you working with that can help advance you in your career and stuff like that, then that's what you need to mesh up with. But a lot of fighters feel like they need to move on from the gym that they come from that they was developing well at to go to a bigger gym, you know, and that's not the way to go always. Well, it not always, right? It really does depend upon the environment and who the coach is, what kind of relationship we have with them, but it seems like you got a good one set up. Yeah. Yeah. So, how do you balance out

17:41how much grappling you do versus how much striking you do? It It seems like you prefer striking. That seems like your your level of expertise. I wouldn't say the level of expertise, but that's where the money come in. Yeah, that's where the money come in. Yeah, bro. I just want to always be exciting, you know, but now we trying to, you know, switch the gears into just becoming a winner, you know, because now [clears throat] we got money in the bank, you know. So, uh, my biggest thing is like when I went out for my first UFC fight with Kevin Holland, I just chose to stand on the feet. I could have took Kevin Holland down. I could have, you know, I mean, put it put myself in a better position to win, but I decided just to strike and, you know, I fell on that. He beat me, you know, in the third round, you know, and he got the advantage on me.

18:21But at the end of the day, I was like, I want to make these fights exciting and and and and fan appealing, which even with the loss I had against Kevin Holland, people still wanted to watch me fight, right? You know, and then coming into my second fight with um Empa, you know, still chose. I mean, I mixed in a little bit of takedown, but I let him back up. I was like, I want to keep this on the feet. I want to keep going. And then, of course, we did what we did, you know. So like my whole course is just going through my career. I just want to strike with these guys and get good knockouts so I can get a third check. So you are thinking that way. You're thinking I want to make this. That's how I was thinking. Yes. And now you're thinking I want to be a champion. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yeah. That's the shift, right? The pivot. And sometimes guys get criticized

19:01for that. And I I'm opposed to that criticism. People are saying, "Oh, they're fighting boring." And I'm like, I don't know what what you think is boring. I think baseball's boring. I don't think fighting's ever boring because there's always a potential for something crazy to happen. But the intelligent fighters know how to win. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like Floyd Mayweather, like for me, when I watch him, and obviously you got some of the best defensive fighter is him. Uh but when you watch him fight, you can call it born if you want to, but when you really pay attention and the things that he's doing and how he's, you know, uh moving around fighters and how he's evading these punches and, you know, and able to counter fighters, like, bro, that's very intriguing. Masterful. And then now we talk about, you know, Izzy, you know, it's the same way. Same thing.

19:42Same exact thing. That was my argument about the Jared Caner fight. [clears throat] They're like, "Oh, she he should have engaged more." I'm like, "Dude, he's fighting Jared Cananeer. You can't engage all [laughter] the time recklessly with that. That dude's a powerhouse." And that's the thing. I'm not mad at Izzy for what he does because this what he keeps doing, right, in order to retain his title. And I hope he keeps doing I hope he does it against Alex Pur. I pray. I pray. Uh I want to talk to you about that fight cuz it's kind of your division, but maybe not in the future. Uh uh. No, do you decided? Actually, oh yeah, I already decided I'm going down to 17. Yes, I'm about to get that. But regardless, are you going to have this fight with Chris Curtis? Yes, Chris Curtis. And that's at 85. That's at 85. So, they want they wanted

20:20me to have one more fight at 185. They was like, "Well, if you want to make this good little money, resign at 185, fight CC, and then we can talk about you moving down to 170." Are they opposed to you moving down to 170? I don't think they opposed, but they only seen me at 185, right? You know what I So they like, "Well, first off, cuz it's so many different things cuz people haven't seen me fight at 170, even though the majority of my fights are welterweight fights, you know." Yes, sir. Yeah. So, uh, the majority of my career since I was 18, since I've been an amateur, everything and going into pro, I was a 175. But dude, you're pretty [ __ ] swole. [laughter] Yeah, I am pretty swole, but you know, don't let these muscles uh deceive you. You know what I'm saying? So, I mean, I think Michael J. White talked about it before, too. Like, uh, when he's

20:57bulking, you know what I mean? Like, a lot of people think he's bigger then. Well, he is bigger, but they think he's smaller when they see him. But when he's cut up, you know what I'm saying? And he's clean, that's when they think he's his biggest because they see all the muscle and it's so defined and everything, but he's actually lighter. But he's actually lighter, you know? And it's the same thing with me, you know? So, it's just that perception that people see like, oh, they think I'm a lot bigger than what I really am. Actually, in that Nash Dean fight, I walked into that fight at 185. Did you really? Yeah. Yeah. At 185, I actually cut I cut too much damn weight. No way. I was I was walking around at 181. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even the Even the PI guys, they can tell you. So, what do you weigh right now? Uh, yeah, I'm a little heavy right now.

21:34I've been eating good, you know. So, Texas barbecue. Yeah, big fact. [laughter] But I never get up to 200. So, I'm probably like 195. I never get up to 200. Interesting. That's very light for 85. Exactly. Especially when you look at some of those giant dudes. Yeah. I mean, all of them. Shoot. Nine. Alex Pere cutting from 240. You know what I'm saying? Jar Caner used to be a heavyweight. Oh, yeah. Jar, you know what I'm saying? Like, come on now. He's as big as he gets at. Well, that was what I was saying about Izzy. Like the way he fought him was the perfect way to fight him. Oh, he was smart. You got to fight Jared. The only the only person that I I give any slack to is um Jared Kenner himself because he had the best opportunity, right? And I feel like even if he didn't win, he still could have brought the fight a little bit better because Izzy

22:13doesn't mind fighting, you know what I mean? But she he wants you to bring the fight to him. But you see Jared Canon there trying to clench up against him, try to do tactics I ain't never seen him do before. What happened to the killer gorilla? You know what I'm saying? What what happened to them rocks that you keep in your pocket? You know what I'm saying? like all these little different things that give you, you know, mental fortitude. But you fought scared that night. I don't care. I don't care. Nobody say Jared Kennaire fought scared that night. Really? He fought scared. I never seen him fight. I mean, when when he fought Jack Massie, he he he ran through, but that's a different fighter. It's like he's fight When you fight Izzy, I think you're fighting a supercomput. When that dude's standing in front of you and he's throwing all those faints and movements,

22:48we can debate all day, but my thing is when [laughter] But my thing is, if I was to fight is you got to put that pressure on like Kevin Gassin did, right? And now of course Izzy could have gotten better from that fight which he more likely did. He certainly did but still you never seen him fight that type of fighter again you know with Kevin Gasselin being in the southpaw a shorter fighter a inside fighter as in you know putting pressure on him he never fought that type of individual again you know and I feel like my uh striking and my stature fits like a Kevin Gassam you know and I feel like my footwork is a little better than Kevin Gassam as well. So I wouldn't just be going straight in. I would hit different angles on Izzy. That's how you beat Izzy. feel like is is taking it out of a kickboxing range, you know what I mean? Putting in the

23:28boxing range and fighting inside, you know, and then guess what? Mixing in the takedowns, you know, but guess what? It's kind of hard to take down Izzy. But at the same time, like even with Robert Whitaker, a lot of people say he probably won that fight, but I feel like he didn't do enough though. You know, there's so many little debates that you can put up behind it. But my thing is, I feel like Izzy is able to be finished in certain positions that he put himself in because it's a lot of things that he do uh because of his reach. He leans back a lot to to try to counter away from punches, right? But if you can find that angle and you can see the holes opening there because his body is there, his chin is available, you know, you can find that punch. And I felt like Jay Cananeer could have exposed a lot of that if he fought the way that he fights

24:08a lot of other guys. You know, you just have to run the risk of getting knocked out. There it is. Hey, you know what I'm saying? Hey, if you scared to get knocked out, then you know what I mean? You probably shouldn't be in this game. Right or wrong? Yeah. But I think he probably felt like he'll find that opportunity somewhere in the fight. So it's like don't get knocked out while you're trying to find that opportunity. Yeah. But it but at the same time like it's scary though. I know what you're saying. You know, it's scary. Like so my biggest thing is just trying to figure out how Mike Tyson, my one of my favorite fighters. Like he always put pressures on guys. Like you could you could knock out Mike if he came towards you, but he was evasive. You know, he moving his head the whole time, moving his feet, shifting everything. And it was all

24:45about angles, but he never let the pressure down because he could probably get knocked out. You know, he just worked on his defense. So even with Robert Whit cuz that first fight that they had, that's why he got knocked out cuz he added so much pressure. But he left a lot of holes open for Izzy to expose. But if you could have just worked on just keeping your hands up and working inside and moving your angles and stuff, you probably could have did a little better on the second end, which he did, taking them down and trying to But you trying to game plan on how to take the belt. Like, bro, you got to beat that individual. And I don't know how you feel about that, but my biggest thing is just like you can't just like barely beat a champion and be like, "All right, it's my belt now." You know, that's just me in my opinion and that's how it's always been. You know,

25:24I kind of see that, but whoever wins the fight wins the fight. If someone wins a clear-cut unanimous decision for a title, that's still winning. Yeah. Where where have we seen that, man? Like, you know, with Dominic Reyes and John Jones, Valentina, I feel like Valentina lost that last fight. Like, low key, uh, very close fight. Very close fight, but debatable that she lost. Debatable. You know what I'm saying? But at the same time, debatable. Robert Whitaker and Izzy. That's debatable, too. But the thing is though, forget the bait. Y'all got to take that thing. You got to take it. I feel that. I I I I completely appreciate that. I think Robert Whitaker was a way better fighter in the second fight. I think losing to Izzy just reignited that fire inside of them because I think fighters, and you know, you could speak to this better than me, but

26:05I think fighters, they go in sort of cycles. like sometimes they're just not totally focused and motivated or maybe they're overwhelmed by pressure or you know so many so many different things cuz you don't never know what's going on outside you know what I mean in in their lives and stuff but for Robert Whitaker I mean he went into the fight as a winner like I mean it was I remember Michael Bis being saying something like uh Robert Whitaker didn't look as confident in the second round but my thing is though like Robert Whitaker getting up to that title fight he's been winning in decisions Right. So, he got used to just beating guys and and taking them to a point where he's just outp pointing them for real. You know, even with the Jerry Caner when he broke Jerry Caner's forearm. Ain't like he was hunting for the finish. Just he's just out pointing just

26:50touching just touching guys. You know, you thinking with a man with one arm, you probably be able to get him out of there. But did he know he had one arm though? He didn't know his arm was broken. I ain't say he know it, but at the same time, if you apply that type of pressure and uh you put it on somebody, you know what I'm saying? Like, you can only do so much with a broken arm. Shout out to Jerry Kenned for even fighting like that, right? So, I was hoping that same dog would come out in the Izzy fight, but regardless, like we skipping points, you know? Uh, but I know what you're saying, but you know, it's armchair quarterbacking, right? [laughter] Big fact. So, so with um with Robert Whitaker, you know what I'm saying? Like I felt like in my mind he just got used to just coasting for a lot of his fights because it wasn't close. Like he would

27:29win every round when he fought what, Kevin Gassel? When he fought Darren Thiel, you know what I'm saying? like he was just beating these guys by decision and and fairly easy and and Jared Caner fairly easy and then when he got to Izzy, he thought he can win the same type of way, you know. I think he's also I think the Izzy fight, it's just my opinion, but I think he was suffering from those fights with Yo Romero, too. When you fight Yoo Romero, that [ __ ] just changed takes something from you. He takes like fighting a brick wall. That dude is different. I can see that. You know, he's so different. And those fights were horrendous. Remember, he got knocked down and hurt. Yeah. Yeah. And got back up like like a G. You know, he he tried to do the same little tactic that Yoel did. You know what I'm saying? When he jacked the

28:14knee. Yeah. Well, Yo [ __ ] his knee up in that first fight. Yeah. What do you think about that side kick to the knee? That's controversial, right? I mean, it's legal. It's legal. Yeah. I mean, I have I haven't done it, you know what I'm saying, to anybody. I haven't seen the opportunity to do it. But if I see like somebody like with a straight leg, you know, I'll never do it if somebody has a strong stance. It wouldn't make any sense to do it then. But if I see somebody has like like a Sean Strickland is a perfect example. If you if you stand like I'm Yeah. I'm killing that knee. Yeah. Big facts. Well, Jon Jones is the master at that. Yeah. All that length. Big facts. You the best at using distance. No one's better at using distance. Uh John's the best. Yeah, he is the best. But because of his attributes, you know what I mean? Cuz

28:53like the 84, you know what I'm saying? His reach. Like that's crazy. And then on top of that, the legs. I don't know how long, but your legs is longer, you know? So, uh, with having all that reach, like I feel like that's what But a lot of people like, "Oh, he's like one of the best defensive or best footwork." I'm like, "No, not at all." Well, it's not a footwork thing. It's using his attributes. Yeah. But that's what Mighty Mouse has the best footwork. Footwork, big fan. I don't know. Hold on now. Hold on now. Hold on now. You know, I got some good footwork, too. You got very good footwork. Come on, man. Mighty Mouse is off the charts. Oh, I know. Mighty Oh, that's my That's my mouse would come in like this and then all of a sudden he'd be over here. No. Big fans. Big fans. You know, I had to I got to put myself in the mix. I understand. [laughter]

29:28Yeah. But no, I I love Mighty Mouse, man. Shout out to him, man. He definitely uh on my pound-for-pound, you know what I'm saying? Oh my god. Of all time. Of all time. And he's a guy who talked about having all the stuff in your personal life in order. Last time he was here, he's like, "You know what? A big part of my success is having a stable family life, having [clears throat] wife, having, you know, every not having personal problems, no crazy people in your life, no [ __ ] that drags you down." Big facts. Which is a problem with fighters. Yeah. I mean, cuz it it can apply, you know, negative energy into your life and into your training. You know what I mean? You're not able to focus on the things that's really really important as in uh, you know, being able to provide for your family cuz this is how we eat, you know? And if you got to focus on

30:07other stuff and and try to get your life in order like a Jon and that's crazy thing. Jon Jones be going through crazy stuff and still able to maintain on the highest level, you know, and still go crazy. Remember when he said to Daniel Cormier, "I fought you and beat you after I did Coke." Like that's wild. I was like, "Oh, no." Big fan cuz you know Daniel's in there training with Kane Velasquez and drinking only water, [laughter] man. And and and that's wild to me that uh John, but I feel like he probably been doing it for so long that it became natural for him because obviously he was a champion at what the age of 23 years old and he probably was always doing this little crazy stuff. I mean, Kobe Coverson was talking about it like when he was roommates with him. Like he was always a wild boy. Always love to party. So, it was just something that he came

30:48accustomed to and a part of. But sometimes I be like, "Brother, you ain't getting tired of that." You know what I'm saying? You ain't getting wed out like like you would think so. I mean, my man, what how old is John now? John's in his 30s. You know, I think he's a little older than that. How old is John? Is he 34? I mean, John won the title. The time to come back. I feel like for John, like if if he waits any longer, I feel like he needed to stay away. Well, according to John, the the the holdup is Stipe. Stipe did not want to sign for the fight for December 10th. Mhm. And uh I don't know what that is, whether they didn't offer Stipe enough money. I don't know what what what's going on. So I don't want to speak out of line, but I think they're targeting when Francis's knee is recovered. A Francis and Ghana Jones fight. Oh, okay. So So they getting rid of the

31:34Steep cuz I feel like before he fight Francis, he need to fight somebody like a steep or Tuvasa, you know what I mean? Somebody like that just really shows that you belong at heavyweight before you just fight for a I would say that for anybody else. For anybody else, I would say that. But when you're talking about the greatest light heavyweight, maybe the greatest mixed martial artist of all time, let him fight. And I would I would have said that probably two years ago. Yeah. But it's time, you know what I'm saying? Like, but he's training. The thing about John is John's wild, but he's also smart. And one of the things that John's doing. Yeah. Putting on so much weight. He's [ __ ] huge now. I mean, John's like 255, jacked, all filled out. If he can maintain that endurance and keep that kind of pace that he had at light heavyweight at 205.

32:18And if you look at his the strength and conditioning work that he's doing, man, he's doing it the right way. That's nasty. I ain't But this building, but this ain't but this ain't lifting weights, though. You already know. And uh be be honest with you, like we don't see what goes on. And I know he's training hard. I know he's uh Well, first off, he did change the team obviously, right? He got kicked out of uh Jason W. I don't know the story behind that, you know? I don't know if he's still either. Yeah. So, my biggest thing so like Yeah. All right. Who you training with now? Who you sparring with? Like who you working with? Like you know those are the things I want to see. I want to just see you in the wait room. Is he doing something with Henry Cejudo? I don't know. I have no clue. You know I think I think he was working with him

32:53for a minute. A lot of guys working with Henry. I like what Henry's doing. I like what Henry's doing. That's a focused man. Big fact. He's a focused man. And he and he keeping himself involved for sure. Like even though he's not fighting, he want to come back for sure. Well, they're talking about him fighting Aljamine Sterling for the title which I hope takes place. Yeah, I hope it takes place. That's a very good fight. I like that fight a lot. For him to come right back straight to the title makes sense. Two division champion, Olympic gold medalist, one of the greats. Yeah, you're right. And actually, that that was the original weight class that Henry came from, right? So, it was a 125, 135, right? Yeah. Well, he, you know, he won at 25 and he was the top, but he also won at 35. I feel like him coming back at 35 to fight Aljo is a very legit fight.

33:39I like that fight a lot. I'll be honest with you, I I think Almaine take that one. Al Jane's a [ __ ] I think he take that one low key, bro. And right now, Al Jane's a champion. You know what I'm saying? Like when a guy becomes a champion. Yeah. Like the way he [ __ ] over TJ Dillashan, he beat the [ __ ] out of that dude. And I know TJ's shoulder was [ __ ] up, but dude, this just the way Al Jain fought Pod Jan in the second fight, too. He's a champion now. There's a thing that happens to a guy when he comes into his own and you go, you know what? I can't wait to see him again cuz I think he's going to be even better. That's how I feel about Aljo right now. It's like that you you realize like the confidence is there and when you talk about like and for 135 like the physique that has like the the

34:19type of shape that he's in like bro I'm like bro he ain't looking like other 135 he's the perfect 135. It's like the perfect amount of weight cutting the like he's got his diet dialed in. He comes out shredded as [ __ ] but he also has great cardio. Big fat and he's long too. He's big. He walking around 176 when I saw him. Like that's wild. Jesus. That's wild. You know me and and that's the thing. That's why I know I'll be cool at getting down to 170 cuz I ain't got to cut a massive amount of weight. And definitely when I clean up my diet, the only probably the the biggest I probably cut is like 20. need that seems easy for you to make 170. You know what I'm saying? But that's the thing. Like I was walking around at 182 185. You know what I'm saying? like when I was like [sighs] 21. Um 20. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. I'm trying to think how long I've been

35:11walking. So like since I was 18 going up to like 23 years old, I was walking around that weight, you know? Well, I didn't actually start to fill out until I didn't get any fights at 170. It makes sense that they're want to see you like cut the weight though because like you see there's so many problems like Hamzot's the biggest problem, right? trying to get down to 170 and the dude misses it by eight pounds which is [ __ ] up the whole card. The whole Yeah, man. Now, hold on. Okay. And I love to talk about this too because I don't think the UFC set this up like no crazy stuff. I ain't trying to be on no Brandon. No, I ain't trying to be on but low key it just worked out too well. It did work out too well, but that's how things happen sometimes. You think so? Yeah, it's my whole life. It's your whole life. [laughter] All right, but I get it. I get it.

35:53Trust me, things just work out sometimes. Yeah, big facts. Okay, that was a situation where it was the best case scenario in terms of options because Kevin Holland had fought at 185 before and he was available and he was willing and then they got in a squabble backstage and so they said, "All right, let's just make this at 180 and Kevin's like, "Good." Because Kevin was already supposed to fight Daniel Rodriguez at 180. That all that made sense because they got [ __ ] over. The thing is though, and uh that's the thing. It really didn't make no sense because why are they fighting that when they eating and then why did they just put on the card last minute? Well, they had no other options. The only other option was cancel the card. Like what what is the option? Why would they why would they have to cancel? No, no, no. I'm not talking

36:34about like No, no. I'm talking about why even put Kevin Holland versus uh uh what's the homeboy name? Drock. Why even put that fight on the card? And why is it catchweight? Kevin Holler can make the weight. Drock has always fought at 170. So why is he already uh making up the mind? Oh, I want to fight at 180. Well, they had made that arrangement far in advance and I think but no, it was a last minute fight that they put on. Yeah, but I mean it wasn't like the day of Daniel Rodriguez, Kevin Holland, like all I'm saying is just like for it to be at 180 and them to make that like decision to make it at 180. That's all I'm talking about. Because then also Tony Ferguson versus G Leang, that fight didn't make no when they made the fight, that fight didn't make no sense to me. Well, that fight made sense to me. All right, go ahead. Go ahead. It made

37:13sense to me because Tony Ferguson's coming off a knockout loss to Chandler and then moving up to 170. But yeah, but that the thing about it is like I think as you get older Yes. Okay. And I think it becomes more and more difficult for you to make the weight, you feel weakened by the weight cut. Daniel Rodriguez, the reason why that made [clears throat] sense, if you look how big he looked against Lee Jinglelon, and when I mean big, I mean like carrying body fat. Yeah. Yeah. It look like I don't know. Drock ain't never come in shape. [laughter] He's in shape, but he's just not ripped, you know? He's just got that that Kane Velasquez style body, you know, where they never look shredded, but they're always in shape. And I think that he was probably heavy and he said, "Look, I'll take the fight, but I'm I'm heavy right now. I'm not

37:54going to make 170. I'll kill myself. So, let's do it at 180." And Kevin's like, "Fine, I fight at 185 all the time. We're good." Right. Right. Right. So, it's got all the pieces of a conspiracy theory, but there's logic behind it. Big even cuz the hamzai and Diaz make sense only because like UFC don't want Diaz to come on. You know what I'm saying? and be shine. I sort of didn't make sense though, right? Because a lot of people like Jesus Christ, Hamzot's so big. Diaz has fought at 155. Hamzot's coming in. This [ __ ] easy kill for Hamzot. Yeah, it's a big big easy easy money, you know? And then also, you help develop even though Hamzot's still got a crazy following, but it's still not the, you know, American base, you know what I mean? So, like it helps build his name. So, that fight did make sense for me right there.

38:35But then it's like the whole switch up. I'm like, bro, that's too perfect. Because then then you have Kevin Holland and Hack that had their whole little dispute, right? Yes. And you already got Kevin Holland who didn't have to cut no weight. And that's the thing about even Kevin, shout out to him. He wasn't cutting weight for real at 185. You know what I'm saying? Like like my man was just walking around, you know, smoking doing this little thing and like walking to the cage and fight at 185, you know? Yeah, for sure. So to have that fight at 180 and then tell when I want to say tell Hanza, but Hamza said himself that the doctor told him to stop cutting weight. Hamza was like, "Uh, well, I can make it." You know what I'm saying? So, I don't I don't even think it's on the fighters, but I feel like the UFC was able to mess this up a little too well.

39:11Well, let me tell you because I know Yeah. You know, you know, I'm talked to Dana when the [ __ ] went down. He's like, "This is a [ __ ] mess. What the fuck?" He goes, "I don't know what we're going to do cuz so they were in chaos and then they masterminded. They got together and they brainstormed. They said, "Okay, what if we do this and this and this?" And it turned out, like we were talking about it, it's a better card. Way better. Way better. Ferguson versus Diaz, a competitive matchup. That made sense. You know, Hamzot versus Kevin Holland. That makes sense. I'm not arguing that. That's that's how it should have been. You know what it didn't make sense to me? I think Lee Jingle got [ __ ] Oh, he got played. He even said it too, you know. But Dro But Drod is still still a 170 fighter though, you know?

39:55But he do cut a lot of weight though. Yes. You know what I'm saying? And uh my thing is though, but Gian, he had to put in that extra work in order to get that weight down to 170. Yes. Cuz Gang is a ripped guy, you know what I mean? So I know I know it's hard to even try to get to that 170 weight class for himself. Um so, you know, he did have a little disadvantage. I felt like Gian won that fight too, bro. I feel like he did enough to win, you know. I mean, [clears throat] it was so close. Definitely a very close fight, you know. So, but then, you know, uh and shout out to Neil Magny who just finished D-Rod because Neil Magny is one of the most underappreciated guys in the UFC. Yeah. That guy has cardio. The pace that dude puts on people. He's such a workman. He just comes in and just constant volume, long reach. Uh I I don't know. I feel like Neil M,

40:39he does a good job of getting guys to fight his style. Yes. You know what I'm saying? He takes his time with guys and like guys take their pace but then don't realize, okay, oh, time is getting ate up right now. And Neil Mley does a good job of tying guys up just using that long. It's boring. I ain't a lie to you. It's slow. But even though when you say like, oh, it's not boring. It's masterful. But there's a lot of things I'll be seeing Neil Magnet do and I'll be I ain't gonna lie to you. I'll be falling asleep. I'll be because you like [clears throat] exciting [ __ ] You're wild. I do. I am a wild man. [laughter] But I don't know. Well, speaking of Neil Magny, you know, you know, and I'm glad he got a win because you never know, you know, with the UFC with, you know, losses and stuff like that. But that Shopk, you know what I'm saying? He he he

41:13demolished Neil Magny, bro. You know, and what he got him out the first round. Yeah, that guy's good. He's good. He's he's under the radar. Like with mainstream people, they do not That's the real That's the real Hamza killer to me. He's a bad [ __ ] Like with what? 16 finishes, 17 finishes. And he does everything. He can do everything. Striker, grappler, everything. I think he got a fight coming up against Jeff Neil. That's right. That's right. That's a banger. That's a banger. I like Jeff Neil now. Jeff Neil's back. Yeah. Yeah. Big facts. Big facts. You know, he went through a period of time where he was dealing with his own [ __ ] and, you know, wasn't really totally focused. I mean, almost, if I'm not mistaken, almost died or something, you know, he was in the hospital. He had a really bad infection. Bad infection. Real bad. So, it took him

41:56out for a little minute, you know, and then recovering from that was difficult. And then he had some personal life [ __ ] But now, now he's back. He looks like the Jeff like when Jeff Neil fought Mike Perry, I was like, "This [ __ ] is a dark horse." Almost because he's got timing, man. His timing and f when Jeff Neil's on, he's one of the best guys in the division. I I can agree with that, you know, and definitely what he did to Vicente Luke was masterful, you know, and I and I was telling a lot of guys like, you know, watch out for that because just how Vicente Luke, he strikes, and he's a powerful guy. Don't get it twisted. A lot of knockouts, but he just keeps his head straight up, takes a lot of damage, takes a lot of punishment. But if you got somebody got decent footwork, good combinations that they put together,

42:34which Jeff Neil does have, you know, you seen like or I mean just picked them apart just with boxing alone, you know, and a lot of those guys with those Dutch styles, you know what I I feel like man they just be getting touched too much. It's a hard style. It's hard style. You know what I mean? I mean you could deliver some bangers but that's it's somebody standing right in front of you and Jeff Neil wasn't doing that for him. Yeah. He masterfully moved around and picked his shots and that was big. Like the the division is wild. Like the all divisions are wild right now in the UFC, but I feel like 170 in particular. And I feel like the only thing that's missing from 170 is the personality part. You know, you got the Kobe Coington and now we got, you know, well, Kevin Holland as a 170 fighter, but a lot of these guys I don't feel like

43:13promote themselves. Even Vicente Luke, what is his nickname? The silent, you know, assassin. He don't talk much. He doesn't do anything. You know, Gilbert Burns is one of them, you know what I mean? Like that don't really promote itself like that. Jeff Neil don't really promote itself like that, you know? But they all talented, but you don't have a lot of personality that goes within, you know, uh, fighting that people want to actually attach themselves and want to watch you fight, you know, and that's what I feel like the uh, 170 division is missing from Mazda. Mazda Doll, you know what I'm saying? Mas, number 11 in the world now. Like, come on, bro. Like, he he eating, but like I feel like Moz, even though he a personality, like he ain't a he a journey, man, man. I ain't trying to be, you know, like it is what it is. Dangerous [ __ ] Well, I'll

43:54take that fight if I can get that fight. I love that fight. You might be able to get that fight. I mean, you think so. Joe, I might not. It will. I mean, I'm on your show. You know, you win with Chris Curtis. I ain't no if I'm going to knock that fool out and I'm going be a bad [ __ ] He is, bro. He is. I ain't going to lie. A really good fight. But my thing is, oh, it's a great fight for me, but you can't stand right in front of that man. So, when he fought Phil uh Halls, right, Phil Hall was beating his ass, you know, putting the jab on him, you know what I'm saying? Hit across like level changing, you know, on him. Uh, and that's the thing about Chris Curtis. he he's able to just, you know, shrug off a couple of those shots, you know what I mean, and just be patient and just wait. But when Phil Halls got comfortable and just like, you know,

44:30feel like he's just flowing, that's when he got caught. Boom. And took that one shot and then it was over with. And that's one of those never say die guys. [laughter] You know what I'm saying? Like he's always there. He's always there. But I love it stylistically with you because if your style of fighting, I tell you something, in your last fight, even though you lost that third third round, you showed why people love you. You came out with guns blazing. Yeah, man. I was Well, I went into that fight with the wrong um mentality. The the same way I came out in the third, I should have came out in the first and the second because I was hoping and I was praying on because I was, you know, nitpicking on a lot of stuff. You know what I mean? I was just talking about where you from, you know, being Russian. But now being a Frenchman, so you like you ain't got a

45:11real home at the end of the day and people love me more than uh uh than you out here in Paris and I'm getting more love and they don't even know who you are. like just little things like I talking about like eating up Nashadine cuisine like just like just just picking on him the whole time. But regardless though like that first round I was hoping that he was going to engage a little bit more. But because of that size and because of that length that these guys have, you know, they would only fight me at bay, you know, which is smart film. He is intelligent, right? Why try to expose yourself and then the pressure too hard where I can catch you, you know? But I was hoping that he'll come in with a little bit more emotion, you know, but [clears throat] he didn't. He kept poised. He said, "So you were [ __ ] with him hoping

45:47that he would get out of character." Yeah, exactly, man. But, you know, he did his job, you know, but at the end of the day when uh coach said, you know what I'm saying? We definitely losing. We had to pick that, you know, [ __ ] up in the third round. I said, "Hey, let's So, I was like willing to get knocked out in order to go knock him out." Yeah. That's the only difference. That third round, you emptied the gas tank. That was impressive as far. I had to. Yeah. And I'm surprised he survived that knee. You know what I'm saying? That crazy knee I hit on him, man. So, that's why I'm thinking like, bro, maybe fighting at my more appropriate weight class, you know? It's like George St. Yeah, like you know, u moving up to 185, but he never stayed there because at the end of the day, he already knew that these guys would be big. Even if he's better as a

46:22fighter, these athletes are just different now. You know what I mean? Uh uh and anything that you giving up, whether it's size, length, strength, like these all play a part, you know, when you messing with some of the best people in the world, you know, most certainly. I think 170 is a much better weight class for you. Yeah. Yeah. In in every way. And especially if you're really walking around at 181 sometimes. that. So that's that's what I was like I accidentally cut down cuz I was just trying to I was just chilling like you know and I was eating whatever I wanted in Paris like I was enjoying my whole time there you know so I was eating before waitings you know what I mean if I just can't say that you know what I mean like I was at the restaurant you know I mean just just uh just chilling and uh my biggest thing is just like I'm not afraid to fight guys that's

47:06bigger you know I know that I'm giving up some type of you know um you know advant antage for him because of the attributes and stuff, but at the same time like my mentality is there that I'm willing to fight and brawl with anybody that that stands in front of me, you know, because when I started off with MMA, that's all I used to work with was bigger guys. And sometimes I was like, "Oh man, I can actually take the advantage because I'm faster and my footwork is there, you know what I mean? Or I'm just better and skill set wise, you know, because you already know like the heavier the weight class, you know, the less skills. Smaller weight class, the the more skills, you know, I mean, flyweight division got some of the best fighters in the world. Do you think that's the case in the like 170s and 185s? Cuz I don't think that's the case.

47:44I I mean, well, I mean, structurally when you see uh heavy, but even at 185, you still got a lot of guys that's not that good, but they just powerful. You know what I mean? Uh but I would just put it a great example. You see a lot more strikers in uh the 185 division, but in 170, what do you see more grapplers? And at the end of the day, in my in my humble opinion, MMA is still structured for grappling. It's still structural for jiu-jitsu, wrestling, judo, all that other stuff because at the end of the day, you got to grab, you got to clinch. So, I feel like the grappler, the better grappler is always going to win in MMA. That's just my opinion. You know, it's most of the time. Yeah. Most not every time, but like Edward Yeah, that's barely. Come on now. That was minute later. Barely. Yeah. But still, it doesn't barely doesn't mean anything when you win the world

48:31title by head knockout. Like Ben Ashin versus uh Jorge Mos. It's a great situation where a flying knee you pop him with, but if they fought again, that probably would never happen. I think there's a bunch of factors there. First of all, you're dealing with a Ben Ascarin that Ben Ascarin, this is all common knowledge now. He had a [ __ ] up hit by the time he got to the US. Big facts. He was already blown. He came in too late. Yeah, he came in too late. But but you seen him with Douglas Lemur, Andre, you know, like like when he fought those guys, you know what I mean? And those were great MMA fighters like Andre, I forget his last name. Kurskov. Kurskov. Like but he destroyed them, dude. Yeah. rack with just with just wrestling alone. Hhabib is a great example to me again because shout out to Michael Johnson right from St. Louis, you know, actually

49:13went to the same high school too as well. You know what I mean? We got a little crazy story with that. But um you know, he was the only person that really hurt and could have had the actual opportunity to beat Habib, right? But Habib said, "What? I'm I'm going to take take you down and keep you down." So I feel like the majority of grapplers is always going or the better grappler is always going to be the better striker. I think it's the most important skill in MMA. Because the grappler has the ability to dictate whether the fights or goes to the ground. That's why when a guy like Bo Nickel gets into the the MMA [clears throat] world, everybody's like, "Oh shit." Because it's just such an accelerated wrestler. But but but at the same time, it still levels to it, right? Sure. Because uh Aaron Pico, I think, is a great, you know, example because they

49:52rushed him too fast cuz he actually fought a dude named Zack Freeman who's uh from Missouri as well. And uh experienced dudes like, you know, Zack Freeman wasn't like the most talented but hardworking dude, you know what I and he was a vet like so he had multiple fights in the game and then Aaron Pico even though like he's a what Olympic wrestler or something like that and and then you know Golden Gloves boxing all this stuff which is cool he didn't have the experience in the MMA cage which is a little bit different you know and I feel like if you don't develop these guys skills and experience first they can get caught even though they got all the skill sets in the world they still just going to get caught you know by somebody that's already been in that you know on that level did you see Aaron's last fight where he blew out his shoulder

50:28where he blew out his shoulder no I didn't see yeah he had the same thing that happened with TJ. He dislocated his shoulder and and then how to stop the fight. He threw a left hook and and it just popped out. He just popped out. I be wondering like where these little injuries be coming from like that, you know? Well, some of these wrestlers their shoulders are so [ __ ] by the time they get into MMA. They have all these tears and [ __ ] and they're kind of barely holding on. Right. Right. Right. Right. I mean that's the things though cuz it might be happening like in training. So if it's happening in training like you got to do something about like to to keep it or prevent it from happening, you know, cuz he was staying active then, right? Uh Aaron Pico, like you know, he was So here it is. They're trying to pull it out.

51:07Oh, they in the in the corner doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, they were trying to pull it out. I don't know. I don't There's like a technique to pulling someone's shoulder. He's just pull No, ain't no technique to that. He's just pulling that thing. I don't think that's He's trying to pull his arm off. [laughter] Yeah. I don't think that's how it goes. I think there's a way to do it. I don't I don't know necessarily think this guy is doing it correctly. Maybe I'm wrong. You trying to [laughter] Isn't there a way? Isn't there a way you're supposed to do it? Definitely a weapon and like Mel Gibson slamming his shoulder in the wall. [laughter] That's really the weapon. That's not the right way to take this off. But it's a common thing where guys blow their uh shoulders out. It's uh Have you uh had any surgeries or any like major injuries?

51:45Yeah. The only time I had surgeries uh when I got into the UFC. Yeah. I a had no like injuries like throughout the fight until I started fighting on the best promotion on the planet, which I'm fighting the best fighters. What did you uh what injury did you get? Uh ACL. uh tear a meniscus tear. Um so meniscus and u as well as the orbital uh fracture in the Antonio Royal fight. Yeah, that was bad, you know, cuz I was seeing two of him, you know, and I was coming off and I was coming off a loss of Allesio. So that's who tore my uh meniscus when he had kicked me with that roundhouse kick cuz I was ducking. I was trying to box too much, you know, kicked me outside my head. But the way I fell end up tearing, you know what I'm saying, my meniscus. And then uh after that fight that I had with him getting that surgery. I had went into the fight

52:27with Antonio Royo. I won that fight but he left you know a good little mark right underneath my eye but found out that uh he had broke my orbital. So did you have to have surgery in your orbital? Yeah. Yeah. So they had to replace it like with a little rod. Yeah. So like the base of my like my eye itself um like it was gone. So like my my eye was just floating. So I could have had a lazy eye. You know what I'm saying? So they like Yeah, we got to replace this. you know, so you can have that wall back underneath that foundation almost. What does that feel? Do you can you feel it when you No, I can't. I mean, yeah, I can feel it a little bit like [clears throat] um like the soft part that you have here. So, I can feel like right here where it's a little harder, you know? Yeah. And they said if it was metal then I couldn't be able to compete. So, they

53:04put like a plastic one and I was asking them like, "Is that going to affect it? Is it easy to break?" They like, "No, it's hard to reach type shit." So, Oh, yeah. Actually makes a lot stronger cuz the bone is so like fragile. So, if it was metal, you wouldn't be able to fight cuz it would cut or something. Uh I don't know. That's what they said. Like anything that's metal in your body, you won't be able to compete. You know, I think that was coming from the UFC had hit him up and told them that. H don't you know what I'm saying? Don't quote me, but that's what I heard the doctor tell me, you know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's just in the face when they do cuz like uh did you see uh what was that dude who fought Canelo? Billy Joe Saunders where he he got his whole face caved in, cheekbone, everything. It was like up here here. Which one you think is worse? that one

53:46or the uh Sage Norut when he got his like was a bad one. That was a bad one. And then you got uh who else got their face c and it's sad cuz like it's multiples [clears throat] uh cyborg with MVP. That was probably the worst ever. That right the skull his forehead in that that that that's scary because it's supposed to be the hardest part of your hit. The hardest part where everybody breaks their hands and they caved in like like it got hit with a missile. Man, that was nasty. That was the wildest flying knee. Michael Venom Page is a bad [ __ ] dude. He's wild. Yeah. Yeah. I remember I wanted to fight him when I was in Bellatory just to get my name out there for real for real. But I just I just wanted to challenge myself against somebody like that because he had that style of like traditional martial arts pointing like point fighting, you know. But he

54:28was really knocking Well, he was knocking dudes out though, you know. Oh my god. Yeah. Look at it. That's his the fracture. This is cyborg. Yeah. Look at all the plates he has in his [ __ ] head. And that was it for him, man. Oh yeah, that's over. [clears throat] Yeah. He was He said he was going to keep fighting after that. And then like unfortunately you can't big foam. Yeah. Let's see it. Play that again. Watch this. Here it is. And like you can hear it too. Like if you can play some of that nasty when you hear the pop. Like you just heard it break. Just heard it cave in. And a dude as tough as Cyborg. See him writhing in pain like that. You would have seen me kicking my legs, boy. I would have been like out there swimming. Yeah, that's and then look at MVP like little Pokemon like he caught Pikachu or something like [laughter] oh

55:14that's crazy and he a showman for sure but he got his ass whoop by Mike Perio in that bare knuckle bare knuckle box that's a whole different type of style of fight you know I'm sorry like you know you thinking cuz you got uh gloves on or you take the gloves off and like it's still going to be a type of fight but bro like that's bone on bone you know what I mean and like that that takes a different type of beast like to fight bare knuckle boxing well Mike Perry's designed for that [ __ ] bought it. Oh yeah, he was made for it. He's made for that [laughter] [ __ ] Big thanks, man. Yeah. I've always thought like it's kind of weird that the elbows aren't covered by a pad. Your shins aren't covered by a pad. Your foot's not covered by your heels. You got to start right in like they did it old school like y'all got to start

55:52right in front of each other and just get the bang. You know what I mean? So, uh I mean I I like bare knuckle box. It's very interesting but not for me. No, definitely not for me, man. Yeah. Even if they come with a big check. Nah. No. I mean cuz hesitation. A little bit of hesitation. I mean, cuz I'm thinking about that check, [laughter] you know, but at the same time though, it's just like, man, your health is everything, you know, and people come out looking different with bare knuckle boxing, you know? Uh Paulie Malignaggi, you know what I'm saying? Versus Ardom, that [ __ ] was crazy. Uh Paige Van, like like like come on. Like you get rid of your money, you know what I'm saying? Like you you a pretty ass girl. Like, you know what I'm saying? You don't need to be in bare knuckle boxing. Chris Leeben, he fought in bare knuckle

56:29boxing. It looked like he got hit with a hatchet. His whole face was busted. Nasty, man. And then you just get cut up because of the knuckles. You know what I mean? So you just got all these little splits down in your eye. Yeah, I'm sorry, bro. Just too What if it's too much? But do you think that it's like does it is there an argument for doing that in MMA to for eliminating gloves? Because if you don't have glove if you don't have pads on your knees and your shins and your elbows and all the other weapons that you hit people with, why do you have pads on your knuckles? [laughter] Well, that's good. But the it's the break of the hand, you know? Right. But doesn't that make it unrealistic to be able to just wildly I didn't know they was trying to make it realistic. I thought they was trying to make it a sport. It is a sport, but it's a sport of

57:07fighting. And if you have no padding, all these other areas. So, here, let me show you uh King of the Streets. This is real fighting right here. So, uh it's KO uh KOTS. Uh King of the Streets. Yeah. Uh who was fighting? Uh no, no, I don't know the names of these fighters. I'm just about to show you this like this form of fighting. It's a promotion. This is real fighting at this element. You know what I mean? Cuz they fight outside. They fight in a warehouse. And uh as well um they don't have any bare knuckle like nothing. This is king of this is real fighting. This is what UFC can't do this. Underground fight club. Yes. Look everybody got a face mask everything like that cuz they don't want to get exposed out here just in case a murder get murder happen. Is that a a mat? Like what are they fighting on? They not fighting on the mat. That's concrete.

57:50That's cement. Really? That is cement. Yes sir. And uh they actually uh pretty popular right now with sneakers on. Well yeah that's a real fight. Wow. sneakers on concrete, but [laughter] bro, you get KO'ed and you fall back off. And they got they got many they got many KOs. Yeah. If you get body slammed on concrete, that is [ __ ] bad. So, one dude got rocked uh with a left hook, right? Fell down and as he fell down, the dude kicked him right in his face and like my man just seized out. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. Now, this is brutal, but this is the closest thing that you get to a real fight because this is a real fight. It's a real fight. And the only thing that's covered is they're wearing sneakers. Why are they wearing sneakers though? I feel like you shouldn't wear first of all you shouldn't be wearing running. Oh, this dude is just getting

58:31piled. [screaming] So, you take your shoes off, Joe, before a fight. Um, no, I wouldn't. But I wouldn't wear those. You said you I wouldn't wear those shoes. I would wear wrestling shoes. Wear them uh Sketchers down there. Wrestling shoes. Wrestling shoes are lighter. They have no If you have cushioning under your sho under your soul, that cushioning is making you unstable. It's making you move. Like if you have running shoes on and you're going side to side, you're not fully planted on the ground like you are if you have wrestling shoes on. Wrestling shoes would be the way to go. Big fast. But you but in in a real scenario, you would never have wrestling shoes on and getting ready. And then you ain't going to pause somebody like, "Hey, wait, wait, wait. Let me put these wrestling shoes cuz I didn't been in street fights. I I didn't known that

59:13element. I used to work security in St. Louis and I worked security for like eight years, bro. Too too damn long." But the only reason why I work security, man, cuz it was so fun. You know what I mean? So many different stories. There's so many different things that's going on and just uh just being out there in that environment cuz like in and just regular life like ain't nothing going on for real. You know what I'm saying? Just having a regular ass job, you know? And I'm I'm fighting still and I'm just training. But this is where like the fun part of it, the night life, you know what I'm saying? Almost being like I said the John Jones. So I'm glad I didn't get signed earlier in my career cuz I would have had a bunch of little crazy stories to tell. You know what I'm saying? No, for real, for real. You know what I mean? So, but luckily I was able

59:47to mature over time. But regardless though, like uh I didn't seen the street element where a lot of guys think because they train jiu-jitsu, cuz they train boxing, they train, you know, MMA that they going to be good fighting in the streets, but they ain't no rules, bro. I just seen dudes be calmly like, "Ah man, I don't want to fight you cuz you do and I got a beer in their head and smash their head immediately." But they not even seeing like just the body language, right? You're not paying attention to certain stuff, you know? And I feel like a lot of u guys that train a discipline, which is nothing wrong with training a discipline, but they don't they they use that alone to think that's going to save them. You know what I mean? You got to actually have the mentality that like, you know, you are going to end a threat at any

60:24given moment by using anything that is necessary at that time, you know? And a lot of guys don't do that because I've seen guys on the floor thinking like this it's a jiu-jitsu match, but it gets stomped out, right? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like it's like different things like that. You know what I mean? So, I feel like people be having the wrong idea when it comes to like jiu-jitsu, wrestling, MMA. Like, that ain't the core element of fighting itself. Well, if you're fighting like those guys are on concrete, that is a whole different ball game. But that's especially with takeown. That's the real That's a real fight though. And like I said, I never do nothing like that. That was for no amount of money. You know what I mean? I bet they're not getting paid very well either. No, not at all. They just going viral. That's it. [laughter]

61:00You know what I'm saying? They just going viral, you know? But uh bes besides that though, but I do respect it because at the end of the day, that is real fight. Oh, it's real. Yeah. Period. Especially on concrete. If you're on concrete and you're fighting a wrestler, you're you're in deep [ __ ] You're in deep [ __ ] Well, hold on. I didn't seen wrestlers get knocked out though. Oh, that happens. Come on now. They thinking they thinking just double leg itself, but dude pulling your hair. That's true, too. Adding stuff to it like you know, head button like you're only a wrestler. Yeah. Big facts. You know, because you thinking like your actual form of wrestling trying to you get in the wrestling stance like come on man like what did you do like but I didn't seen it before like where people actually pick a stance like to get in that's not

61:41real fighting you you don't even show that threat you just make the move right you know what I mean and like I said you eliminate the threat as fast as possible you know I mean shout out to the uh Detroit Dust you know what I'm saying Dale Brown you know but he speaks about it as well because it's just like you you want to be in the most calm position as possible if you amongst somebody that's trying to fight you know what I mean Now, if you know this about to go there, like you shouldn't show that you want to fight them. You should actually like be more calm and be more whatever. And then once they actually make that move, that's when you counter whatever and hit whatever part of the body that you can be aware. Just be always be aware. You know what I'm saying? Always be alert. Do you find that now that you're known and you become like a famous fighter, do

62:21people [ __ ] with you now? I ain't never been really [ __ ] with now. [laughter] Like for real. Like I ain't never just had no type of problems like that. Uh, but you're a nice guy though. Yeah, that's also part of the way you carry yourself. Yeah, I walk with respect everywhere I go. You know what I'm saying? So, I never like be out of pocket, never, you know, be out of line, you know what I mean? So, I never had any situation where anybody would want to fight me, you know? Uh, but, you know, me working security, I guess I had opportunities where I could have jacked up a lot of guys, you know. Definitely when I was younger, I was definitely effing up a lot of guys, but that's not the security job to do. You know, you're supposed to deescalate a lot of situations, but you had a lot of guys that will, you know,

62:57you know, try to press your patience, right? And I could pop on, but I just keep it cool, keep it calm, and try to, you know, try to get people out the smartest way possible, like, hey, bro, you know what I'm saying? Let me holl at you outside real quick. You know, but then kick them out, right? You know what I'm saying? Like act like I'm trying to have a conversation with you and then, hey, hey man, let me see you got something on your wrist, man. Break it off and then they got to leave. You know what I'm saying? But you get, you do have scenarios for myself, like when I was working uh security where guys will try to challenge you. you know what I mean? And try to bulk up and stuff like that where you do have to do something, but at the end of the day, don't don't nobody really try nothing because then, you know, they lose. I'm I'm undefeated in these streets.

63:31I'm glad you're out of that situation [laughter] now. That's a dangerous game to play. I mean, and I've been playing it for a long time, you know, and that's why I say like it ain't scary getting into that cage. That that does play a factor. Guys have been in street fights and a lot of them. Yeah. It's calmer in the cage. Way more calmer cuz like it's an actual it's it's competition. You know what I'm saying? Like I dudes where they get KO'ed and dude keep pumping boom boom boom and not stopping. Yeah, like bro hey bro like bro you going to do some life bro like you kill this dude. You know what I'm saying? And that's how people die all the time. You know what I mean? And uh regardless though, but those scenarios in dealing with that type of stuff, like I said, I feel like I'm at home when I'm in that octagon, you know, because this is where I feel like I'm

64:23free and then I can express myself freely without actually being judged for doing what I'm doing, you know? So that's why I love, you know, fighting in the UFC right now. Now, when you look at your career going forward, you've got this Chris Curtis fight. You plan on winning that fight and then you want to drop down to 170. No, I am point blank point. I was already I I was already planning on moving down to 170, but what my manager told me, I ain't trying to, you know, put his stuff out there like that, you know. Uh I'm signed with Sucker Punch, uh Brian Butler, but he was telling me I can get a better contract if I sign one more fight at 185. Okay. So, the UFC offered you this fight. They want to make an exciting fight for this big card in Vegas. Big fact. That's a great card. And and they love it, right? You know what I mean? Uh because it's not one

65:06fight that the UFC gave me that I did not I didn't took every fight. I was even supposed to fight Alex Pere, fam. Really? Yes sir. Yes sir. So I had to res out Hassan fight right. We was supposed to fight the first card of the year in January. He talking about the shoulder hurt. You know what I'm saying? He did something to his shoulder. Whatever. Blas blas. You know. So I was like man forget that bro. I've been training hella hard. Like just give me anybody. You know what I'm saying? So if it ain't cuz I'm not going to push that fight back. I want to fight in January, whatever. So he was like, "All right, all right. Let me uh Brian was telling me, all right, let me call them back, whatever, and let them know." And uh they came back with a name. And he like he was so hesitant to tell me though. This is the funny part, right? So he was like, "Oh man, you know, I

65:42don't really like this fight for you, man. You know, he's not really well known, but he's pretty good." And I already said it for before he said it. I was like, "Alex." He said, "How do you know?" I just already assume just with my style and who he is because I always make sure I pay attention to who's on the roster. I got to pay even Bo nickel. You know what I'm saying? Like even though he's not Nowhere yet, that's still a name that people pay attention to and people want to see him do well. So I pay attention to fighters like that. And knowing that Alex Pere really only got signed because he beat Izzy. I was like, "That's somebody to pay attention to." So when I was able to guess that name, he was like, "Yeah, that's the that's the fight they want you to fight." Immediately I said yes to it. So he calls them back and he calls

66:16me back. Was like, "Hey, I got some good news and I got some bad news." I was like, "Oh, what's up?" He said, "Good news. You look great to the UFC uh that you taking this fight, you know what I mean? But bad news is they said they won't be ready in time." And at first I was like, "Oh man, this dude being scary, but now it makes sense. He ain't scary to cut the weight. M he got so much weight to cut. He big him up, you know. So, it wasn't that Alex Per wouldn't be able to take the fight because I think his coach or whoever his trainer is the one that declined because of the time frame wasn't messing up time to cut weight. He needs time to cut weight. You know what I mean? But I would have I would have took the fight though because I already know that he has to cut a lot of weight. That dude's walking into the cage like 220 easily. Easily.

66:54Easily, bro. You know what I'm saying? Cuz he walking around 240. He's got so much power. What are your thoughts on that fight this weekend? because that's a big fight. Uh my my thoughts on it, bro, like is way different from everybody else's. You know what I mean? Cuz people call me crazy all the time. But I think it's going to be like the same fight that we seen Yoel and Izzy with where you got two people just staring each other down, you know, not trying to make that move because you so you know, they both have the capabilities of knocking each other out or Francis Anduo versus a Derrick Lewis, you know what I mean? Uh so and with everything the hype being behind this fight too, you know, uh Izzy is going hopefully, like I said, if he don't apply his emotions into it like he hasn't done with every other fight, I feel like he's going to do enough to

67:34win, but I feel like Alex Pere is not going to be able to apply that pressure uh on uh Izzy just because he won't have the energy to sustain that for five rounds. Remember this a five rounder, right? Because of the fact that he's cutting so much weight. Thank you. You know what I mean? And then plus, we don't see uh Alex Pereira move a lot anyway, right? in his fights. You only seen with Bruno Silva where he pushed him up against the cage a lot and that was a good fight to watch. A very good fight to watch. He got hit in that fight. Got touched up real good. Bruno Silva is a very good striker. Yeah. Big facts, you know. Well, I don't know. Say good, but I get what you're saying. You got good power. He's in your weight class. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. I I'll be seeing guys and I'll be like, this is why they win these fights. You know what

68:09I mean? So, I know that you're not a a boxer. I know that you're not a kickboxer, not a heavy striker cuz he's more of a jist. He's more of a grappler. But Bruno Silver got good power. You know what I'm saying? And so he able to wing some of them punches cuz a lot of times like Bruno Silva be getting his ad where even Jordan Wright was touching him. Jordan Wright was touching uh Bruno Silva but then you know Jordan Wright just got caught stood in front of him just stood Exactly. stood in front of him got caught and it was all and it don't take that much on the 4 oz gloves and that's why this Pereira fight is so interesting though because Pereira has that just need that one shot power. He just need that one shot. But the thing about uh Izzy, he is patient and he would he would well we're not going to call it boring, but he will strategically break

68:47you down all night long for 25 minutes. But the if he got Yeah. If he got to touch that leg all day, he going to touch it. You know, if you ain't going to do nothing about it, if you're not going to answer back, that's what he going to do. But I feel like in my heart, you know what I mean, that Alex Pere unfortunately doesn't have the actual ability to fight Izzy the way he needs to win for five rounds. for five round because he's so big. Yeah, that's one of the reasons. But I I just think between both of them, it's going to be a boring fight. It's not going to be as exciting as people think it might be. And that's the thing Izzy needs that type of exciting fight right now, you know, because of the Jared Canineer fight. You know, we can say Paul Costa, but that was so how long, 2020, you know what I'm saying? So, we we've been expecting this from the champ

69:26because he's so pulverized outside the cage with, you know, the French tips, the pearl necklace, you know, I mean, doing all these little videos and and dancing and all that just showman stuff. But we want to see that showcased in the cage as well, you know. [clears throat] And that's my biggest thing. I'm impressed by Izzy and I'm a fan of Izzy first off, but I feel like if you don't bring a fight to him, he's not going to bring it to you. That make sense? Yes. I feel what you're saying. So like Anderson willing to dance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Big fact. I mean, people forget that there was quite a few fights where Anderson Silva did the same thing. He laid Talis lates. Remember that fight? Yes. You know, there was many fights where, you know, he laid back and waited for guys to come in with the Damian May. Yes. You know what I'm saying? And boy, boy,

70:09Danny was mad about that one. You hear me? You know, but at the same time, that's that's way he won. Yes. You know, because why would I why would I engage with you knowing what you trying to do, right? You understand? So, like I said, with that being said, I'm not mad at Izzy because he going to do whatever it takes to keep that belt. Mhm. That's the money, right? You know, Alex Per wants that. But the thing is though, I don't think his ability is gonna be there in order to take it away from, you know, and they just gonna be standing right in front of and it's gonna be a kickboxing bout and they like, "Oh, well the other ones were kickboxing, but you already seen from Izzy." Well, I was a little bit more emotional in those other fights. And that's why I lost. But then you see the strategic Izzy now. I don't I don't I don't see uh Alber

70:50beating him. Interesting. Very interesting. Um Yeah. I take into account what you're saying about the five rounds and the weight cut because that is a big factor. That's a big factor. That's a huge factor. Yeah. Because Alex is so big. But without the wrestling threat, because Izzy is not really a guy who takes anybody down. I'm about to say, yeah. Who out there wrestling, right? So everybody think like, oh, is he going to turn into a wrestler? No, he ain't. No. You you you only fight the way you train, you know? And not saying you don't work on that element of wrestling, but I don't see Izzy like shooting a jab, shooting cross, shooting hook, and double it. No, that's not going to happen. I mean, if it does, I'll be stunned. I'll be shocked. I'm sure he can do it. I'd be shocked. But thing is though, now you got to engage with and that boy a

71:32sniper. Alex Pere, can we pull up that uh you don't mind? Please. The uh with Alex Pere with him shooting like you know what I'm saying? Uh sniping with the arrows. Yeah. When he shot the soccer ball, bro. Man, that that that that's crazy because my biggest thing is though, like Alex Pere is the same type of beast too, right? He's a trap. Mhm. He waits all day and once you expose yourself or you come close enough, he hits you like Sean Strickland. Exact. Yeah, Sean Strickland stood right in front of him. Oh, but it wasn't even just standing right in front of he was marching him down with his hands down. Well, he had he keeps his hands like he has a very strange style. So, here's him. Yeah. Yeah. I ain't going to lie. This was cold. It's pretty badass. This was cold, bro. It's pretty badass. And it ain't one of them special little arrows either like bow and arrows. Like

72:17it's one of them he just made in the house. Well, that's a recurve stick and grab a string. Yeah, that's a recurve bow. That's a hard much harder bow to shoot than what I shoot. I shoot a compound bow. That's that takes real skill. Yeah. Look at him. That that roar that he has is terrifying. [laughter] I'm very excited about this fight, man. I don't know, you know, what kind of preparation he's done in terms of getting himself lighter for a five round fight and making sure that the cut is not as bad. I don't know. But he looks shredded. All right. He looks shredded, man. And he looked like he killing himself to make that weight. That's all I'm going to say. He certainly is losing a lot of weight to make that weight. He killing himself to get to that weight. Um, but like I said, but he's done it many, many times. But you see Izzy doing all this press,

73:01doing all this stuff. And now I be be honest with you, I be like, it's a positive thing, but at the same time, like I I ain't never seen him do this much work before or preparation for a fight where it comes to like uh selling. Yeah. Press. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But they make you do that. I mean, this is mass and square guard. But this is the most I've ever I pay attention to these fighters all the time because they in the weight class, right? I want to be these guys, right? I want to take their belt, right? So I pay close attention to what they do all the time and especially Izzy cuz he's a champ, you know? Uh so besides it just being ESPN plus, you know, he got his own YouTube channel and everything like that. And I mean like I feel like he didn't amped it up even more. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's either showing me that you

73:38have a lot of confidence, you know, about yourself and you able to uh uh take this fight. I would want to say not so serious but not as serious because you got you doing other stuff on top of this right as Perez is only focusing on training and fighting right now. There ain't no press for him for real for real. You know what I mean? So he's taking it into initiative. I'm talking about Izzy to promote this fight as best as he can. So you also taking away from your training at the end of the day, right? So that's but I feel like he think he's good enough to do what he's going to do in order to take uh take time away from his training. But isn't that just what the UFC obligates him to do? Because he's not selling the fight. He has pay-per-view points. Not with everything, but he has pay-per-view points. I feel you. But I feel like

74:19he he also is the only one that speaks English. Alex doesn't speak English. Yeah. True. True story. So that makes it difficult. But I feel like a lot of stuff he's been doing on his own as well, doing extra stuff, you know, which I don't mind that because you got to promote the fight. You got to do and be honest with you, it's not that hard of a buy because not being able to speak English. He's the only person that beat him. Only person that knocked him out. You know what I'm saying? So that's that's an easy sale on itself. So my thing is why is trying so hard? You know what I mean? Like this is the one that if I wasn't a MMA head and I was just like whatever just watching this stuff, I'm like, "Oh, okay. That'd be interesting to watch." Dude already knocked him out. This dude is undefeated in MMA but still could be a close fight. I'll watch it,

75:03you know. But Izzy is is going about his uh way. And like I said, I don't know what's going on in his head, but I feel like he's not trying to think about the fight itself, even though it is the press conference and all this other stuff. He's trying to get himself more calm, right? He want to be around more people. I forget who it's another fighter that talked about that and the reason why he always stayed um you know, in the press in interviews because it it took him away from the fight, you know? They always wanted to be in the light. I [clears throat] forget what uh I know what you're saying. So, like the more you do other stuff, you could just have fun and it loosens you up and talk to people. Exactly. And you ain't got to actually focus on the the uh the actual mission itself, you know. You just go to the mission, you know. So, I don't know. It's it's

75:43two ways to go about it, you know. And I feel like if Izzy goes out, like I said, emotional, he will get caught, you know. So, I feel like he needs to keep doing like even when he play around like I might just kick his leg and just jab him the whole fight. Do that. M even with him joking do that. Yeah. You know because at the same time that's how you've been winning your fights this whole time. A lot of a lot of them. The thing about Bahara is he's there to get hit. He he can be hit. He fight. You said it right. You a mahogany tree. He is that like he's made out of water. You better not run into him though. You understand? Yeah. He's like built different man. He's so dense. Yeah. Big fact. I mean just the way he hit guys with that left hook, right? And and this the crazy part. It's not just him knocking them out, but they all fall the same.

76:26Yeah. They fall like they just shut off like they got shot. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, I ain't never seen that before. Like I see like even with Mike Tyson when he knock out guys at least they fall whatever like in different type of ways. But like you said it's like he almost killing these guys. It's like a straight, you know, blank shot to there. Boom. That left hook and like their whole body just shuts down. Like the LFA knockout that he did. I don't know who the dude he knocked out. Find that fight. Yeah. I mean he's a [ __ ] with that left hook. But he's a [ __ ] with everything. You know, when he knocked out Jason Wilness, you know, hit him with a head kick and a flying kick. He ain't had that many fights. But hold on. Did you see his loss though? Which one? He only had one in kickboxing and No, no, no, no. Oh, my bad. So, uh,

77:05in MMA in MMA, yes, sir. Yeah, he got submitted. Correct. He got submitted. Yeah. Yeah. But it was uh So, have you seen it though? Yeah, I did. I saw it a while ago. So, it's hard to find. I found it one time and that's why it gave me a lot of confidence like to fight buddy, right? Just seeing the fight that he had against dude and trust me, dude was taking a lot of punishment. Don't get it twisted. knew it was tough as hell, you know, but just seeing how that guy was able to persevere through that, right, and still uh clench up against Alex Pere and wear him out and make him tired and get him to the ground and then eventually end up submitting them. I was like, "Bro, I'mma put that dog work on." That's the type of style that I bring. I don't care who I'm fighting, I'm still going to bring that style. I don't care who you is. You know what I mean? So,

77:43all I need to do is see that. It's like, "Oh, you ain't got that great of condition." And it's not that you don't work out hard or you don't train hard. You cutting all this weight to get there. M your body ain't never going to be 100%. I also think that was very early in his approach to MMA and that was also low key but like 6 months later he was in the UFC but it was also before he was fighting Glover or training with Glover. I think that made a big factor in both Glover and his career. Might have but he's still fighting the same way to me. Right. M it like I said I look at the last loss like like even with um not even lost with with Izzy but like with the fight with Kevin Gon where he got touched the most you know and that's the fight. So here's this is this is what is this? This is his kickboxing loss. Yeah. No, he lost a few times in kickboxing. He

78:29got l body work. Yeah. I ain't see this. Oh that's a good kickbox kickboxing fight. Yeah. Yeah. He got caught. I think Izzy beat uh homeboy right there though. Left hook leg kicks. He's lost before. Yeah, of course. But again, this is Alex early in his career, but this this kickboxing though, man, you know, and and this is what I'm trying to say. Like, if I fought Alex Pere, I'm putting the singlet on, you know? [laughter] Like, I'm not going to play with you. Like, you know, I'm I'm going to take the fight where I feel like I have more advantages at Yeah. He lost his last kickboxing fight in Gloria. A very, very close decision uh to I forget the gentleman's name, but this Russian cat who's a Oh, no, no, no, no. Not not neat. Now, that was Well, that was nasty. THAT WAS A THAT WAS NASTY. I give him that. But like I said yet again, dude standing right in front of

79:11him. Yes. Dude standing right in front. He setting up that trap, you know. Yes. Yeah. He set up the trap. Not only that, Izzy called that. He he was actually in the dressing room and he he called that fight. And that that's Bruno Sil. Yeah, that's Bruno Sil. Bruno Sil was getting his ass whooped by Jordan Wright. And I feel for Jordan Wright, man. You know, he just got that little 50k though for fighter night. But he he's just a one round fighter though, I feel like. Well, he fights wild. Jordan fights wild. So, uh, this is the Bruno Silva fight, which is the only fight that he went in the UFC to decision. But you see Bruno, Bruno hit him with some shots. Bruno clinched with him here, bro. Putting that dog fight. Put the dog fight on. But as he a dog, too, though, you see him still coming back. Boom. But he got him pressed up against the

79:49cage though. Look, he don't move his feet though. He's standing right in front of you. And Bruno survived. We have to put that out. I mean, and guys have finished Bruno, but he survived against Pereira. But again, I mean, the bell saved him a little bit. Bell saved him a little But again, you fight a guy like him like if and this fight even though he walked out of it with a decision that took something away from Bruno, when you get a beating like this against a guy like Pereira, you know, that's also how I feel about Francisano's first fight with Stipe. Stipe won that fight, but man, he took a lot of punishment. Oh, punishment. Yeah, a lot of punishment. And I don't think you're the same after that. There's certain fights where fighters fight that that was the Sean Strickland one was Sean Strickland was like almost like tailor made for him.

80:34Hold on. So this is what I want to say too cuz uh the reason why they need Alex Pere is because there's nobody that's going to be able to uh well not nobody cuz I could have done but regardless it's it's three walls that's saving Izzy, right? You know what those three walls is? Rob uh Robert Whitaker, Marvin Vtori, and Jared Kennan. M if you a fighter up, matter of fact, Nash Dean, right? Just I lost to him. If he's trying to work his way up into fighting for a belt, you got to fight one of those guys. If you can't beat those guys, you're not going to fight, right? Alice Pereira, did he fight any one of those guys I mentioned? No. But I feel like Alex Pere get exposed if he fought any three of those guys. Well, I think that's one of the reasons why they fasttracked him to the title because of the fact that it's hyped up. It's a big fight.

81:18I think Marvin is a very tough fight for him. Marv Vtori, Robert Whitaker, and shoot all three. Well, Vtori in particular really good at takedowns. Big [ __ ] guy. Big as [ __ ] You see that guy like how the [ __ ] is that 185 pounds? I mean, shoot Paula Costa, man. Actually, that was that's one of the best fights I've seen in a minute between him, Marvi, and uh Paula Costa because they both fought at their natural weight. Right. Right. You understand what I'm saying? They didn't cut anyway. They didn't cut it. Cuz at first I I gave that same prediction at first. I was like, "Bro, if these guys fighting that 185, it's going to be the slowest dragged out fight because both of them going to be depleted." But instead, Paul Costa didn't come in, cut him weight. He was like, "I do. I don't want to cut

81:55weight, man. I want to be what he said 205 or something like that." He was like, "No, forget that. I don't fight that 205, man. I don't want to be heavyweight." [laughter] Cuz like my my man came in damn near like a heavyweight. I don't care nobody say, you know? So, even though they made that 205 light uh light heavyweight uh weight together, they were both just walking around. You know what I'm saying? One of the craziest aspects of MMA. The day before a cage fight, you're supposed to dehydrate yourself. Dehydr yourself to the point of death. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's wild, ain't it? It's wild. Doesn't make any sense. And I'm trying to go back to it with my crazy ass. But my thing is though, it's just understanding they just keep getting bigger. Yeah. You know, you can do it, you know, and uh my biggest thing is like I'm not scared, but it's I got to be smart,

82:36right? you know, and um you know, being able to fight these guys, you know, I got to realize like I got to be safe in the first and second round, you know, that's why I don't mind like one of the main event because I feel like I could definitely put that pressure, had a conditioning to go 25 minutes on the guys that's in middleweight, right? So, we can fight a little bit smarter, but only having three rounds, I can only do so much, right? And that's what happened in the National D. I ran out of time. So, I played myself, you know? Uh but yeah, these guys, man, like it's just crazy just to see the development of 185. So a lot of these guys that's going up into the rankings and stuff like that, if you're not fighting those three guys right there and you don't beat him, you're not gonna fight the belt. So now that Alex Pere was able to

83:12skip over the head, like he was a knight, like you playing the chess, was able to skip over those three pawns and now he's getting the king. You know what I'm saying? So hey, that's lucky him, you know? I ain't even mad at it because we want to see something that's different. In my eyes though, I just don't see it because I don't believe Alex Pere has the skill set necessary to fight the type of style that we need to see Izzy against. And what type of style you think that is? Aggressive grappler, forward pressure, good hands. Kevin Gassam, right? Even though Kevin Gassam lost, right? That another style like that, a southpaw. I don't believe that's the only southpaw that he fought. I believe uh Izzy up. Oh, yo. Yoel's a southpaw, too. Oh, yo. But yo didn't do nothing. Yoel was been a perfect, but he just stood like this. Yoel might be 60 years old. Yeah, he is.

83:57We don't even know how old he is. [laughter] Then he went like a lawsuit or something. Like, didn't he get paid? Like, I don't know. Like, somebody was talking about supplement. It was a supplement like taint it, whatever. Like, he got a bag from that. Like, yeah, something happened. I don't know how much he got. Yeah. Okay. But he just won his last fight in Bellator. He did. Who you went against? Um Oh, no. No. Actually, I think I probably might know. Melvin Manov. Yes. Beat the [ __ ] out. Yeah. Yeah. And I hate that because Melvin Manov was one of the guys I looked up to, bro. Oh my god. Melvin boy was a pure sav. Like, that was the Mike Tyson, the kickboxer, you know. Come on now. 100%. Like, like, and but just seeing like guys with those gladiator shorts come out with those gladiator shorts shredded. Yeah. Yeah. Come wearing the leash to the death.

84:42He come out to the death. I mean, that dude fought like a [ __ ] demon. Yeah, man. He was so good as a kickbox. Guy knocked out Mark Hunt. Yeah, I know. How about Mark Hunt knocking out that undefeated fighter at 48 years old? You see that [ __ ] Mark Hunt. First of all, Mark Hunt in Australia. Mark Hunt still fighting. Still fighting. Won. He won his last fight. He won too, huh? Yeah, he Well, he shout out. He He fought this undefeated boxer. Yeah. And uh knocked him out. He was like a huge underdog and w up knocking him out. That's 48 years old. And And that's But my thing is, yo, why you think that is though? Like not why he knocked him out, but why you think these guys continue to fight like this at this age? Well, I think Mark Hunt is born for it first of all. He loves it. He's been around forever. I mean, Mark Hunt was

85:25the K1 Grand Prix champion, you know, fought in pride in the glory days of pride. fought in UFC and the glory days of the heavyweight division and still slinging leather at 48 years old. Massive respect. I think like with all that being said and done, like you think like you'd be done. I don't know, man. You know, like what more do you have to prove and show and do like Anderson like Anderson Silver, man, that broke my heart when you lost to Jake Paul, bro? And like you got this little kid, bro. Like, you know, and he doing his thing, right? You see that he's an athlete. You see that he's working on his uh his style of fighting. You know what I when it comes to boxing, but at the end of the day, it's still he picking he picking at every MMA head, right? And he he's fighting Tyron Willie, Ben Asher, now Anderson Silva, and then guess who

86:09he said probably going to be next, right? Jake Paul. No, um Andrew Tate. Oh, actually, they just posted they just faced off. But the name the name that he was talking about was Diaz, though at first. At first. Well, the Diaz fight is a big name and a big money fight, but he's a [snorts] lot bigger. He's a lot bigger than Nate, but that's that's that's the point. Yeah. He wants as as many he is doing this more, but at the same time, he embarrassing all of us like for real. Like, and it's sad because like he's saying all these different things and he's talking about and having these real conversations that need to be had, but it's coming from him about money. You already know, but it's not but it's not a conversation for him to have. But it is. It is because it helps him get attention and it helps take his I love what he's doing. I hate it. I hate it. I want to be I

86:56want to be his [ __ ] But you're a fighter and I'm gonna get a check [laughter] for it, too. But it's not it's not because I'm just a fighter because he's telling us that we not even brave enough to fight for ourselves. So, I'mma fight for y'all while I'm knocking out y'all legends in the process of it. You know what I'm saying? Well, he's what he's doing is very intelligent. Oh, no. It's the promotion's off the chart. He's hilarious. He's He's brash and he's winning. And he's winning. But it's who he's winning against though. Yeah. But Anderson Silva, you got to say that's the most impressive fight that he won. You got to say Anderson Silva is a legend. Maybe he's 47 years old. But that's I had Jake Paul to win. I knew Jake Paul was going to win just because of the age itself. You know what I mean? And then uh on top of that, I

87:38didn't see Jake Paul knocking out Anderson either though. You understand? I just knew it would be competitive uh enough for Jake Paul to take it. You know what I'm saying? Take the win. Uh, but at the same time it's just like, bro, like if you fought Anderson when he was, you know what I'm saying, in his prime, bro, you getting knocked out, right? Well, you talking about most certainly in an MMA fight. Most not even most certainly in an MMA fight. Like Anderson used to box boxes, bro. And that's the thing too I hate about MMA dudes like since we on here like a lot of these dudes be like I box Canelo or I box you know what I'm saying Mayweather and all this stuff but never get in the actual ring and uh uh just train and spar with actual real boxers from like whatever little the neighborhood you know what I'm saying like I used to actually box with the

88:23guys from the neighborhood and Pedale boxing like Josh uh Temple you know uh uh uh Von Alex de Alex Alexander's brother you know like I had to actually work with actual boxers to realize Oh, this is a different type of game. Yes. You know, but when you just boxing with the guys that's in the MMA room and you thinking like cuz you touching them that you pretty decent, you going to find out if you actually get in with with a real boxer before you actually compete with them that yeah, you you don't know what you're doing, you know? Cuz it's certain little combination and there certain like cadences that we do as MMA fighters that will get us knocked out in front of boxer, you know. Have you thought about competing as a boxer? Yeah, that's where the money is. But [laughter] the thing is though, it's so diluted because the the whole perception

89:02of MMA guys want to box is because of money. Cuz I would never just get into it for money. My biggest thing is I would actually commit myself to the sport of boxing. I would get me a boxing coach. Like when uh even George St. Pierre, like I feel like he could have been pretty decent, you know, had a great job in MMA, but you see he was working with who? Freddy Roach, you know, and uh Anderson Silva also found a boxing coach. I I forget who he who he was working with as well, but you could see him that he was training that art of boxing and he was could actually compete in the actual ring back. So, you would need a timeline. You would need Yeah, definitely need time. How much time do you think you would need? Uh well, since I already been working with boxers for a minute and I got a great uh boxing coach at SDL Boxing, uh Reggie Thomas, shout out to him. Uh I

89:47probably only need like two, three years to actually find me a profile, you know, and actually work. But that's a realistic assessment. I'm glad you said that. Two, three years is correct. Oh yes, sir. You can't just hop into it. A year time ain't just going to work for you. Yeah. And be and then I'm not just going to call out the best in the world, you know, poundfor pound. I'mma work my way up, right? I'm going to get some knockouts. I'm going get some good little names. I'm going to get some prospects and then I'mma like once y'all see I got a resume now. Now, let's see what them names talking about. Now, when you're talking about your future, like how many more fights you have on your UFC contract? Oh, man. Man, I'm going to keep that on. Oh, how many do I have on my contract right now? Yeah. Uh, I just signed. I just signed. So, uh, I still got four, I guess.

90:25Yeah. So, the CC is the new fight on the on the contract. So, when you So, I got a four fight contract. When you get over those four fights, when you're done, have you seriously considered I know exactly what my plan is. What is your plan? Oh, yeah. I I can't give now. You tell. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can't tell you the plan now. But you do have a master plan. I got a master plan, baby. It's beautiful, too. Yeah. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So, we working on it. So ideally when you move to 170, do you have a name in mind? An opponent in mind? Oh man. Yes sir. So So my big first off, you already shouted out one of Midall. I didn't even think about him. Mazda. I I didn't even think about him. Right. But for Mazda, he's looking for the top. Exactly. So it'd be a waste of time. He'll be a waste of time. So a real fight, right? So we just talked about

91:12it. And even though he a killer and I and I love him, right? And as a as just a as a fan of MMA Shabbat, right? And he already got a fight booked with Jeff Neil, I feel like if somebody fall out in that fight, I would love either one of those guys if somebody falls out, you know what I mean? Um because both matchups between me and Jeff Neil, we kind of fight similarly, right? So it' be a test of skills right there. And Sha, we just don't know about him yet. Like we going to find out how good Sha is when he fight Jeff Neil. If he does or if he fights me, we will really see how good he is. You know what I When is that fight supposed to be taking place? I have no clue. I just know they uh January 23rd, I think. Is that a fight night fight? Yes. Ooh, I might go to the Apex for that. Is that the Apex? Yeah, dude. I love going to the Apex. Yeah, big fat. I was

91:55I went to the Apex uh recently. I I watched uh um Song Yong and uh Corey Anderson. No. Uh uh no, you might have said I'm not [laughter] Cory. Cory San Cory Anderson. Shout out to Cory Anderson. He's killing it in Bellator. Um, but San Hagen and Song Yudon was a wild fight and to be there live with like very few people in the crowd and right that apex is something special man. I you know I hated the fact that fighters had to fight there during the pandemic but I love being there. I I think for me right now like uh even shout out to my man Charles Johnson. He got a fight coming up. You remember Charles? You know he finally in the UFC, you know what I mean? A little sh man. Big flyway. So, we got another fight November 19th in uh in Vegas. Uh but I feel like it's just a good start for a lot of guys in the UFC, you know what I mean? Get their feet wet in the

92:46Apex, you know what I mean? You know, cuz the lights ain't so bright, you know? It's not like a whole arena and stuff. Like, you still got an audience, you know? You still get a little feel for it, but like I feel like that's where guys need to start off at, you know what I mean? At the Apex and then work their way up to a bigger venue type stuff. So, I think I would agree with that. I think the Apex is a good start off, you know, for a lot of guys for this one yet. Okay. Does not have a location. They don't. It might not be. They look Kevin Kelvin versus uh is a very good fight. That's a very good fight. But I think Kelvin Gastelon could have been a world champion at 170. Most he just like eating. He loves eating too much. Shopcott versus Jeff Neil is good. That's a good fight. And that's the thing though. I know how talented Jeff Neil is. So we going to

93:27really see how good Shopk is. And Carlos Hernandez and Nasimento is a great fight too. I ain't going to lie you. I don't know who those is. I don't know who that is. Hernandez is the guy that uh submitted um [ __ ] is his name? Uh that that [ __ ] gigantic jiu-jitsu guy. Oh god. Oh no. Is that Fluffy? Fluffy Hernandez. Okay. Okay. I know his real name there. Okay. Yeah, that's uh Okay. But who is he fighting then? So who is Fluffy fighting? Uh who was it again? Nasto. Nasto. He's a very good fighter, too. That's a good fight. It's one of them underrated fights. Yeah, there it is. Who is that? Oh, no. Stop playing. He's good. How dare you? How dare I? What? He's a good fighter. All right. 13. Okay. 19 196. Oh, 13. Oh, so you uh submission ars. Yeah, he's a a Brazilian cat. He's very good, man. Okay. He's very good. That's a good fight. I'm

94:15excited about that fight. Okay. So, this is 125. And so, Fluffy ain't the the right dude I'm talking about then. That's 125. Oh, so that's a different Carlson Hernandez. Oh, it is. [laughter] Okay. Yeah. I was like, I don't recogn Hernandez is not Carlos Hernandez. This is his name. Yeah, I don't know. Google Fluffy, but you right about because he he submitted the dude that uh and I mean he Anthony is his first name. Anthony, that's sorry Anthony. Um who did he uh he he just won recently as well. Hey, and you know what's funny about this though? They called it the Kevin Holland effect, right? Cuz Anthony Hernandez and myself lost to Kevin Holland, right? Rudolph Vieiraa, that's who he beat. That was the big fight. That was huge. Yeah, a lot of well not a lot of people who beat Bario in his last fight, too. Whoever betted on him to win by

95:04submission got some good money. Crazy money. Yeah, big cuz that that is unheard of. The fact that he did that was able to submit one of the greatest jiu-jitsu guys to ever compete in MMA. That's another guy that's enormous for that weight class. Oh, big. If you're standing next to Vieira, you're like, how the [ __ ] are you making 85? He's so big. So, on top of just talking about that, right? So, a lot of people on the internet, man, they be going crazy, man. But they was like it's the Kevin Holland effect because Anthony Hernandez Hernandez also lost to Kevin Holland and then I lost right. So when I came back I did my crazy kick after losing to him right after he came back. He did his crazy like uh you know submission on you know what I'm saying? Then nobody expected. So he was like man it might be a good thing to lose to Kevin Holland man. You

95:45might have your crazy little next fight cuz my name blew up after that and then his name blew up after this little you know what I mean and it was all just like so it's just crazy how the internet just be going wild like that. You know it is interesting how put things together. one big moment can just like catapult your career. Yeah. Well, only I feel like it's only in MMA, bro. Like that, you know, because like you see Mos, you see a Diaz, you know what I mean? Where they of course they didn't took losses, but all they needed was a couple wins, couple good finishes, bro. And their name was, you know what I'm saying? Massive, you know, at the end of the day, you know. Well, that's also why you fight the way you fight to get those big moments to have to get cuz you're you're like one of the most fan friendly styles that's in the sport.

96:24Well, it's just the people I used to watch and who I used to love watching. So, I just imitated them, man. Like I said, so Melvin Manoff was one of my favorite fighters, bro, to watch. Rampage Jackson, man, with his personality outside of, you know, UFC and stuff. And, uh, you know, a lot of these guys that, you know, I used to be a fan of, those are the people that I emulated my style after and I just meshed my own type of style into it. Oh, Melvin, man. Jesus Christ. Melvin in his prime. He was so fun to watch. Without a doubt, one of the most alltime scariest fighters. Pure savage, man. And my man was only what, five, what, eight, five, seven? Yeah. He wasn't big. And he was fighting like uh like Tyrone Spawn, like uh uh who else did he fight? Um the the Gohan Goku dude, what what's his name? Goki. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like fight

97:10Mark Hunt. He brought Mark Hunt and knock Mark Hunt out in the first round. Hunt tried to come after him real, but he's like, "No, forget that." Sat down. He was so fast. Melvin in his prime was so fast and so savage. Those kicks were just insane. Yeah, bro. A whole different level, man. Yeah. Well, he was one of those guys out of Mike's gym, those do or die guys, you know, just like Bhari, you know, whatever they're doing in that gym, man. They are creating monsters. I I don't even know if if it's the gym, but the people that they bring in, you know, like the type of um lifestyle that you live and your upbringing is the biggest thing and that's what makes for a great fighter. You know what I'm saying? And like, you know, I don't know much of Melvin Manoff, you know, past, anything like that, but they they were just talking about how he just come from humble

97:54beginnings and everything like that and how life was hard, you know what I mean? And I believe we was talking about Francis and Ganu, you know, uh, in the back, whatever. But we was just talking about, you know, how how great of a fighter he is because all the things that he had went through, you know, and when you see him walk around and the way he carries himself, you could just tell like can't nothing phase, right? Can't nothing hurt him. Just a fearless fighter, you know what I'm saying? But it was all because of what he experienced in his life that led to, like I said, so making fighting real easy. Now, did you hear the story that he told on this podcast? Yeah, of course. Crazy. It's wild. Crazy. On some movie type stuff, you know what I mean? Like, come on, bro. You know, and just to believe like to keep going through that, right? Like he he

98:33and that's the thing too, like he could arrest dying to go like, you know what I'm saying, through that journey. You know what I'm saying? I know. But multiple times, eight times he got arrested. You know what I'm saying? Sent back to the desert, right? And I'm going keep going until I get there. Like come on now. That's perseverance right there. You know what I'm saying? That's real perseverance. Yeah, bro. So that that that right there alone, like I said, you can use those as examples that people actually go through to not stop doing what you doing cuz I almost gave up on dream on some [ __ ] You know what I mean? Like so like back in the past like when I used to have a gym uh Infinity MMA uh that's where I started. That's where I developed my skills a little bit, you know. Uh but the promoter himself uh me and him like we was real close you know

99:16it was almost like on a father and son relationship type thing you know and uh at the end of the day you know I was never looking at it as business you know he was uh always booking me up for fights and always you know uh uh putting me out there on like a main event or the main card and stuff like that and people would come and watch me fight and I would be cool to do it cuz I just wanted to fight you know that's all I wanted to do I had no other intentions not even making money I just wanted to compete and that was it and you you know, not saying he using me, but he used me. You know what I'm saying? Take it cuz he making money. He making good money. You know, think about your overall career. And he wanted to keep me stuck in the in St. Louis, but I didn't know no better anyway, you know. You know, so my thing is I didn't want to reach out and find

99:57different other places to fight cuz I'm like, [ __ ] I'm getting fights here because he's a promoter, you know. So, uh, at the end of the day, you know, um, once I started to grow as a fighter and stuff like that, I end up getting a Bellator fight. only got like a one fight contract deal when Bellator came to St. Louis. So they do stuff like this, right? Bellator comes to St. Louis and they assign like the local fighters on the prelim, right? You get a one fight contract deal, but you would just fight the dudes that you would have fought on the local promotion, you know, anyway. But now you just fight him on the Bellator show, but I end up showing out for Bellator. End up going crazy. I fought uh know his name. I know his name. Uh Damn, bro. It's sad, bro. You know, I be forgetting my man's name sometimes, man. But I think his name

100:36like Chris something. Anyways, I end up beating him, beating him in uh the second round. Uh this is when I first met Big John uh McCarthy, right? So, this is the first time like a big promotion, a bigname referee, actually like refereeing my fight. So, end up beating dude, you know, end up getting signed uh to Bellator later on, but before I had signed to Bellator, I I looked for Jesse for advice. I was like, "Hey, man, should I read over this contract?" He's like, "Just sign it. Like, don't even worry about it. Like, this is the best contract you will ever see in your life. to sign a contract, right? So, I end up signing a contract, doing whatever, you know what I mean? End up taking my first loss uh in Israel, whatever. Once I took my first loss, they kind of held me back for a minute, you know? I got a KO loss against Jackie Goss, but like it took

101:21like seven months, eight months before I could even get back into actually competing, whatever. But I was already ready. I was like, "Bro, I can fight again. Like, I'm good." You know, cuz sometimes they'll put that uh restriction on you for you not to fight for a certain amount of time after KO. But I was already cleared. I'm like, "Hey, I'm ready to fight again." So, I end up getting another fight. And this was with uh um Justin uh Patterson, I believe his name is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, once I once I fought him, whatever. I had to string another fight uh string uh layoff another It was another like eight, seven months again. So, with me, I'm getting paid, but I'm not really making no real money. And all I'm doing is training. All I'm doing is fighting. I'm not doing nothing else. All I'm doing is uh just focusing on that, you

102:01know? So, I'm really kind of just living off of these checks, you know, and I'm not being smart about it cuz all I'm doing is just like like, "All right, this fighting thing, this is what's going to work out." So, they end up giving me pretty much uh four fights. So, I end up fighting uh Venicious De Jesus, and they end up fighting uh Logan Stoley, whatever. So, I only had four fights within like a two-year period. So, I went two one year and two the other. You know what I'm saying? So, not enough. Hm. Not enough fight. It was even close. No, you need not to eat. No. And and also to stay active. Exactly. Right. So, but my thing on top of that, just going into the story where I almost, you know what I'm saying, just gave up on it. But, you know, I was like, damn, man. I kind of just like lost out on a lot of experience, you know what I mean? Because like I was uh

102:4622 when I got signed, you know? I was 24 then, you know. So, I'm just like, damn, I could have had a bunch more fights than what I had. So, Bellator end up cutting me though, right? End up letting me go. So, with all this being said, me and the promoter, whatever, we was bumping heads on a lot of things because I was like, "Bro, I want to learn more. I want to do more." Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, but I feel like I'm being held back. You know what I'm saying? So, he would never really communicate with me what was really going on, you know? And the thing is, the only thing like my man was just using me for like the potential uh to get more clients in the gym cuz they would use my name like, "Hey, we got a Bellator fighter here. He's a trainer here." And all this other stuff. and they would use that to sell like for

103:25like you know more people just to sign up for the gym you know and it is what it is. Uh, but I just didn't like that, you know? So, so how'd you get out of that? I just left. I was like, "Man, forget this gym." You know what I mean? I literally just like, "Man, forget everything." Because once I got cut from Bellator, you know what I mean? I just like, "Man, that's some bullshit." Cuz like this is the highest level of, you know what I'm saying, promotion. Now, I got to go right back into fighting on Shamrock. This some [ __ ] right? So, I left the gym and I did my own thing. But the thing is, well, I ain't had no connections. I had no network. Like, you know what I'm saying? As in people to to reach out to. [clears throat] So when I was dealing with uh uh Jesse, he he provided all them things for me. The gym uh uh uh the information for

104:07instructions and also the promotion for the fight, you know? So those are the main things I need and I didn't have it at that point, you know? So I had to hop from gym to gym and try to find me another spot. But every gym that I found, man, was kind of whack, you know what I mean? I was like, bro, these ain't the ones I want to be at, you know? Uh because just like the instruction wasn't there or uh they wasn't able to find me fights. It be like multiple little reasons. So I was like, man, I want just start doing this on my own. So I started hitting YouTube like crazy, you know, and I started just watching and and and just being a student of the actual craft and the actual sport itself. Like what were you watching on YouTube? Thousands of things, man. I mean, it got to the point where it was so crazy. I was watching Wing Chuns, bro. Like so

104:47Master Woo, I don't know if you know him. Uh Master Wong, I think his name is. uh he does like a lot of self-defense uh moves, you know what I mean, online, but he he does funny instructional videos and but I used to watch him all the time. I watch uh Shane Fazin. I don't know if you know who that is. No, you know, but uh actually if you can look him up like so he fight tips, whatever. And he shows like all different things, but these are the things that was like the foundation of me learning. Shane Fasen. Yeah, Fasin. I don't know how to really spell his last name. F A Z-N or something. Um and you got it. Jamie's got it. And his so his YouTube channel is just all literally just fight stuff. Oh yeah. All instructional stuff like this. So this is what I started off with. So that's just his uh Instagram, but it's his YouTube got like millions

105:29of followers on it though. Check it out. Interesting. And so his whole thing is just just instructions, big facts, right? Oh, Muay Thai rock paper scissors theory. Oh, [laughter] okay. So he's one of those dudes just breaking [ __ ] down. You got count countless stuff on there. But, you know, and and I'm not saying he's the best instructor at all, but when you talking about you just need more knowledge, you need more information, these are the type of videos that I was watching. It's amazing how many of those there are out there. [laughter] So good. You know, for a young fighter, it's such a good time to learn. There's so much knowledge out there. There's so much data and there's so many people like him that are obsessed with communicating that knowledge. Yep. Exactly. And then he was, you know, he used to work with uh not work with

106:15but like he had far the hobby on there, you know what I mean? Breaking stuff down with him and stuff like that. So then I got to see different like real coaches and how Yeah. So this other guy Yeah. Master Wong right here. So like this was like the street fighting element and all this other sort of stuff and different techniques. But because I didn't know some of these guys be sometimes low-key like full of it, right? What is he telling you to do there? I'm curious. What's he telling you to do there? Guys grabbing them. What's the move? You had to turn it up a little bit. It's not go very much. My head is down. Headbutt me. It's not going to go very far either. Second thing you learn to understand that on a throw. Hey, he fast as hell though. Okay, this is the problem. Somebody come along and try to get your hand both into hand and try to smack you in the face.

107:01You might be victim up. You might be do something naughty. I got no idea. This is the question somebody asking me. Somebody grab you in a color pick. What sort of thing do you do? Let me show you. My man could be a standup comedian. I ain't going to lie to you. He's got that interesting combination of like like a Asian accent with an English accent. They're going to [laughter] husband prop you like this. I think he'd be capping though, you know. Well, he's being entertaining. Exactly. And that and that's what it is at the end of the day. But so this is mostly like street fighting stuff. Yeah. All Yeah. Self-defense stuff. Like just quick ways to like end a fight, you know? Uh instead of like hitting combinations. I want to one strike, you know what I mean, in the fight type thing. But regardless though, you know, so you go from that to just watching

107:43YouTube videos, training yourself. Did you have people that you were training with and sparring? Like how you So I was just working with the guys that I was working with at Phiney's. Uh so my [clears throat] close friend, the one that you uh just met, Eric Dillard, he's like a brother to me. So, we used to wrestle together in Marquette, you know, and I actually uh got him into MMA, you know, and uh the thing is he been watching like the UFC, you know what I mean, for the longest time, but like the actual training of it, he end up coming to finish MMA only because of me, you know? So, we [clears throat] end up training with each other. And like I said, once I split uh ways with them, uh I was working with him the whole time. So, things that I would watch, things that I would see on YouTube, I like, "Hey, bro, let's practice this. Let's do

108:20this." You know, and I actually got good at holding mits, you know what I mean? Just because I wanted to see a lot of things. and uh just work a lot of things that he couldn't perform like like actually hold for me. So, I had to hold it for him, you know, to actually get it down just a little bit. And um be honest with you, like I said, that got to show me a lot of different uh just creative ways to throw your hands, creative ways to throw combinations. Like, you don't have to throw it like a box, you don't have to throw it like a kickboxer. Like, you can add those fun uh traditional moves in there with the fundamental basics, you know? And that's what we was doing. We just having fun and just doing that. But the thing is though, I wasn't able to find any fights while I was doing this type of stuff. How much time was going on here between you leaving that gym?

109:01So, I got cut in [clears throat] uh 2018. That's when I left the gym in 2018. And then uh I was able to get a fight in uh 2019. It was only a year's time, but I felt like I got played with the the two years that in 2016 to 2018, I felt like I got I got played, you know what I mean? And not having that many fights. And I was still struggling as a fighter. And I was with Bellator. I was still struggling low key, you know what I'm saying? So, I felt like I I wasted a good amount of time, you know what I'm saying, within that game, but I didn't know when I was going to be able to fight again. That was the problem, you know? So, even though it was only like uh [ __ ] well, it was kind of close to two years, but it was still like just a year and some change that I was able to find another fight. It still felt like it was so

109:41stretched out because I didn't see when I was going to be able to find another fight. So, you were really considering quitting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, actually, I wasn't considering. I actually did it. So, I went I went about the part of just training, but I just gave up on actually like hunting the dream down. I just got a regular job, you know what I mean? Uh I was taking care of my grandmother at the time, like which that was a big deal as well. I I had moved in uh with her because I ain't had no house. I didn't have anything to my name. Uh unfortunately, my grandmother was uh stricken with uh ALS disease, you know what I mean? And uh and that's a rough one, you know. I have a friend going through that right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that. you know, um, but, uh, it's a neuron, uh, disease where, you know, it

110:19shuts down all your motor functions, you know, and and it kills the muscles where it puts you in, uh, paralysis almost, you know, and, uh, that's what I was dealing with the whole time as well, too. So, a lot on my mind outside of that. So, I was like, man, I can't be focused on trying to chase a dream when I got to help my grandmother wash up and eat and all this other type of stuff, you know? Uh, so yeah, I had to go through that first, right? And once I went through that, it's funny how once I kept training and kept motivated with just my friends around me, even Maria back, that's one of the kids that uh trained with me at Finn's MMA, but anytime I called him up, he'll work with me. RIP to my man Ryan Sutton. Uh he was one of the guys that came out with me in my first uh UFC fight uh but he passed away. But that's another person that I

111:02looked to and called uh in order to get some training in. But it was just a small group of guys that I would call up to just ask to get some work in. And these guys are the people that I depended on in order to my mental Mhm. just to hit pass outside in Forest Park in St. Louis, you know. And this whole time I've been doing that. And I just stopped chasing after the whole goal of getting a fight. And then one day a guy named Mike Rogers hit me up because I was, you know, coming in at his gym, not in and out, but just just coming there just to get some spawn work in, you know what I mean? But not actually like learn anything, but just some spawn work. And he told me like, "Hey man, LFA hit me up." I was like, "Oh, for real?" He's like, "Yeah, man. like if you want to uh I can give you their number or whatever and then you can contact uh the

111:40matchmaker yourself because he didn't want to do the in between talk for me like he didn't want to be like a management cuz I ain't have no manager. I ain't had nothing at the time. Uh so he told me about LFA and I end up getting a fight with LFA uh against Chris Harris. But the funny thing about that that little setup was that I only took the fight cuz I needed some money, some extra money. That was it. But the way the only reason why I took the fight as well um cuz I couldn't find any other fight at welterweight. So I had to fight at middleweight at 185. And they tried to tell me it was a catchway. I was like what's the weight? I was like is it one uh uh I was like is it 175 or 180? They was like no uh 185. I was like man that's a whole weight class. So when they told me that whatever I watched the dude I did my own film study on Chris Harrison. Like all

112:23right I'll take it. It's easy money. I need the bread anyway. And funny enough that's why I stayed at 185. That was the only reason why I moved up because didn't want didn't nobody want to fight me at 170 at what's away that whole time, you know. So, I took that fight, got that fight, but I didn't worry about it. Once I won that fight and got that little check that I got from LFA, I was back to work doing what I was doing, just chilling. And then a year later, I still get another call. This is 2020 now, uh, from LFA to fight Gregory Rodriguez. I I don't know if you know who that is. Robocop. Yeah. He the one that got his uh head split, whatever. He's a bad [ __ ] Yeah. Yeah. But I but I need that bread at the time too. So uh I took that fight with him. It was going to be for a LFA title and um you know unfortunately he

113:07had pulled out the fight you know so they had to find me another fighter and uh you know like I said funny enough me not even chasing anything but people just coming to me now I was able to get these fights you know uh so and when did you wind up at the new gym? That that wasn't until the kick really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have no team. I just had the people I told you I was working with. So, even the Kevin Holland fight, no team. The guy that passed away, uh, RP, Ryan Sutton, uh, he the one that helped corner me in that fight, but he was just a teammate. He was going through stuff in his own life as well. So, you were just kind of on your own training yourself. Yeah. Wow. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I didn't have fighting at a world class level on your own training yourself in the UFC against top guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So just to even be able to get

113:55there the way we got there is crazy in [clears throat] itself, you know, cuz like I said, I only took those LFA fights cuz I needed a little bit of money, but I wasn't like, "All right, I'm going to be in the UFC one day or I'm working towards to be a UFC champion." Like I just was like, I need money or just for my mental health, I kept training. Now, but I want you to speak to the difference in the structure. like once you got to this new gym and all the structure that you're praising and all the way that your new trainer trains you and the new environment, how much different is that and how much of an impact has that had on your career? I think the biggest part of it was just uh the commitment that they had to me, you know, that I never got from that other gym. Like so all the information that I had to find on my own, they had information for me,

114:35you know? So I was actually learning, you know, so instead of trying to like figure out the information on my own, I already had people that was already great at what they did and they was showing me stuff, you know what I mean? And now I'm able to learn a little faster and more efficiently, if that makes sense. That is so incredible that you were fighting on a worldass level with no coaching. Nah, I mean, well, I did have world class coaches because you got to just imagine like the people that I've been watching for like influences as instructors on YouTube. Like I said, even from yourself, bro. Like even if you don't call yourself a coach, like that sidekick, I only knew how to throw a sidekick cuz I watched your video with your Yeah, it's hilarious. But it's the truth, you know? And um I wish I was around to show you in real

115:12life. It's even better, [laughter] right? Big facts. You know what I mean? But even though you showed you with like the internet and everything and YouTube, you showed a thousand if not a million people that kick, you know, but it's about people actually taking that information and applying it to their own life if they want to, you know, and that's why I like Bruce Lee so much because like that's why, you know, J Kundo is such an awesome style because it was his own style. It was his own form of fighting that he took and that he mastered, but he took it from other places and he did it back when that was taboo. Big facts. You know what I That was very taboo. Even when I was doing taekwond do, you weren't supposed to do other things. You were supposed to only concentrate on the art that you did. Big fact. And Bruce Lee was like, "That's not smart."

115:53Not at all. You know, cuz uh your style of fighting should be like a fingerprint. You know, you should have your own style. Like you should it shouldn't be like a person like when you look at them, you like, "Oh, they doing kick in MMA in my opinion. Oh, they doing kickboxing. Oh, that's a wrestle." Like it's a mixed martial arts. Like you should be trying to pick the pieces in the puzzle like what they actually doing. Well, you mostly see that now. You see that real specialists now that are only one thing low key. I mean I mean we getting there but I still haven't seen that actual like for real on some boy like like I said man I'm from like you know I mean watching a lot of uh movies and stuff but like you know one of those complete fighters you know except for like the uh Demetrius you know I mean or uh GSP you know ain't a lot of those out

116:33there though in my opinion. Well, I think you're seeing more of them now than ever before. But we have to also take into consideration that MMA in terms of real sports is relatively recent. Yeah. There's no sport like MMA where if you go and watch the fighters from 1993 and watch them from 2022, they're [clears throat] completely different. Yeah. Completely. But because the athlete changes though, you know, um so that's why I I would say that. But I feel like yet again, so like Hhabib, perfect example, you know, he retired like he was only winning one type of way, right? you know, um he's a real specialist. Yeah. Yeah, he's a real specialist. Uh but you know, man, good at that [ __ ] special. [laughter] Jesus Christ. A lot of people can't stop it, you know. Uh but I'm just trying to think like like good like people that they fight a certain type of style,

117:19which is great for them and it fits the way, but like a Hamza, I wouldn't call him like a complete fighter. I feel like he's just great at what he does. And if he's able to fight another um grappler, he's able to switch it up to a striking prowess. But even then, Gilbert Burns was touching him. Yes. Because I would say the Merchart fight, but like we only got he only got one punch out of that, you know, but you can't call him no great striker because he was able to land that one punch, right? But when I seen that he fought Gilbert and he started to stand with him, I'm like, "Oh, you're not a great striker." Because Gilbert Burns is not a great striker, but he was able to land I don't know how many punches on Hamza in that fight. Gilbert's a wild man. Gilbert's a wild man. Yeah. Yeah. I feel wild man. Yeah. You can be a wild man all you want to, but

117:59at the end of the day, it still takes technique in in the strike. He's got technique, too, but it's just one of those things where I think Hamza tried to walk him down. And you know, you you want to engage like that with Gilbert, you're going to get and and like I'm not disrespecting these guys when I say, but they good at what they good at, you know? That's all I'm trying to say. Like Gilbert Burns is a monster, but you see when Hamza had took him down and Gilbert Burn threw up them legs a couple times. Hamza didn't like that. He's like, let's stay on the feet for a minute, you know? And then I realized, oh, Hamza ain't good at striking because he just stands right there. And also, I'm a matter of fact, I shouldn't even say it because I could potentially fight this man one day, but one thing that he does that is that is terrible, he only

118:39hits on one side. He favors one side too much as a striker and we watch it all the time. Now, you can take it back and and watch Hanza fight, but when you watch you like, "Oh, that's what he's talking about. He don't all all day. Right hands, right feet, you know, uppercut all day." and he favors no setup. Everything just with power and intention to knock you out, which is great and all, but you still putting yourself in a, you know, in a position to get hurt. Were you stunned by that Kevin Holland fight with him? Uh, no, no, no. I wasn't stunned because I knew Hans out was going to immedately try to shoot, you know, and Kevin is not like no real real wrestler, you know, he worked with DC and he said he worked with Johnny Hendricks and all this stuff. Like, it take years. Like I I come from a wrestling background. Like, bro, I was a ass a trash ass ass

119:23wrestler like in high school, you know. It took me years to kind of understand what wrestling is, and I'm still trying to figure it out, but I know I'm a better wrestler than the majority of guys that's um at the 185 division, some of them. You know, uh but now I'm going have to f focus on grappling even more because I'm going to a grapple heavy division, which is 170. You know, you have Hamza, Kobe Coverton, Kamarooman, you know what I'm saying? Like these guys are grapple heavy. So, if I'm able to get up to that level and be able to compete with them, it just shuff uh stuffed the shot. I know that they couldn't compete with me on the feet. Yeah. When you think about your transition from being self coached to now being on on your own team, how it's like you have so much potential right now. So much potential to get even so much better.

120:12This is all I get to focus on now. you know, even with um uh my grandmother, you know, um her daughter, my auntie came back, you know what I'm saying? Um to live with her, to take care of her because I wouldn't be able to be in the UFC if I was a I had to keep taking care of my grand because like that like low key like people don't understand like that's a 24-hour thing. Yeah. You understand? And um uh it was sad because I had to leave my grandmother in the bed, you know, in order to go to work to Walgreens, but I had to have a close job and I had to keep a monitor to watch her to make sure that she was fine, you know, and everything that she needed, I had to leave the job, you know, and I had to work overnights at Walgreens in order to make sure I check up on her throughout the day. So, I had to work the night shift, you know what I mean? So, when she slept, I

120:53was working. And then, you know what I'm saying? So just little things like that, you know, that um it was hard to actually maintain an actual career as a fighter. You understand? I when I was a kid, when I was 24, I lived with my grandmother for a while. My grandmother and my grandfather. My grandmother had a stroke and um they gave her 72 hours to live and she w up living for 12 years. And I was there with my grandfather when my grandfather was taking care of her 24/7. And one thing that imparted upon me is that life is short and that you got to appreciate your health and your ability to do things now and appreciate it in a way where knowing my grandmother when I was young when she was this this wild lady and then seeing her my grandmother went to jail for for running numbers for the mob. Okay. Wow. My my grandmother was wild. She they

121:43tried to get her to to give up names and she's like, "Fuck that. I'm going to jail." And so we were always like, "Where's grandma?" They're like, "Oh, she's visiting her auntie." They lied to us. And meanwhile, grandma was in jail for running numbers. It was kind of crazy. So to see her Mhm. when I was older, when I was 20, in my 20s, um, that sick and [clears throat] inability to move in and pain all the time, it was like, damn, you got to do something with your life. Like, that's 100% short window. So, and even with my grandmother going through that, you know, um she she still had great spirit, you know. Um what's sad about ALS, you know, it it the first thing that went was her voice, you know what I mean? Like like her voice became faint, you know, I mean, she wasn't able to speak, you know, and all these other things. Uh

122:31but she's still able to smile, you know, and it's sad that about this disease that can even take that that can take that away as well. But she's still able to smile and still able to, you know, laugh about, you know, certain things. And, you know, that's one thing about my grandmother that her spirit is so um has such an impact that it can affect you, you know, because she don't look down on herself because she was stricken with this terrible disease. You understand? Like even with uh it stands for ami amitrophic lateral scalosis is the actual name. She even changed the acronym where uh ALS is stands for abundance of love and support. Wow. Because that's what you need in order to defeat something like this. And um I had that with her because I she lost her daughter which was my mother. I lost her at a young age and my grandmother took

123:21me in, you know, and uh I didn't have my dad around in my life. So she was the one that was taking care of me the whole time. So when it came to my turn, right, couldn't hesitate, you know? So I I was willing to give up everything in order to take care of my grandmother. That's beautiful. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it just had to be that way. It speaks to your character. Yeah. Yeah. But regardless though, I wouldn't even be around, you know what I'm saying? If she was never around in the first place, you understand? Yeah. But I understand what you're saying. Like, that really shows me like any anything that I really even go through ain't really that hard, right? Ain't even that hard. You know what I'm saying? Like, we good. We can get through it, you know? So, um, having her go through this type of experience and being able to see what she goes through,

123:58but how she's still able to hold her head is beautiful. That is beautiful. And now, you know, and I I feel like every fighter is not just their skills, but an accumulation of their life experiences that give them character. Mhm. And that most certainly gave you character, I guess. You know what I mean? Like I said, man, my my granny took the responsibility up when nobody else wanted it, you know? Like I said, [clears throat] I was uh you know, with my mom and stuff, being a single mom, she raised me, so I was with her all the time. Every single day, I was with my mom, you know what I mean? And if I wasn't with her, I was with my godmother, you know? So I was around a lot of women at the time and like I told you before like the male influences the only thing I got was from TV and watching you know movies all the time you know so um having that you know and

124:43and doing what I was doing you know um it's just crazy that you know once my mother had passed away unfortunately some of the people that was in my life before left too you know what I'm saying so like the people I used to always see or hang out around that was around my mom a lot when she passed away you know what I'm saying it's like they passed away you know, type stuff. So, my granny was the only person that really took the responsibility of raised me and uh taking forth that because I went through like a depressing stage like, you know what I mean? I was never like um what's the word? like never seen a therapist or nothing, but like I felt like uh I went through a depression stage after I lost my mom and it took me a while to even like speak to people, you know? Ain't like I like turned mute or nothing like but took me a while to

125:25even just be around other people because I was just so upset, you know, [clears throat] that the person that I was around all the time was just completely gone. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Just out of nowhere in my eyes, you know? And uh it took a minute for me to just like accept the fact that she was gone, you know? And uh I wouldn't even say get over it, but like I just said, you know, I just kind of what's the word? I'm just forgot about my mom ever existing to get over the whole fact that she was gone in the first place. Yeah. I didn't I didn't even go to her like her like um her burial, nothing. I just like Yeah. Yeah. It be I couldn't take it. You know what I'm saying? So I just like, man, maybe if I just forget about it, you know what I'm saying? It'd be cool, whatever. But um on top of that, you know, just understanding like

126:04that life is short, like you were saying before, like it's good just to go for your dreams and stuff like that, you know, because um this I ain't trying to like bounce into like too much stuff, but before my granny even had like ALS and stuff and I was still in high school. Um she was raising me the whole time. I was a kind of a bad kid, you know, in and out the house doing what I wanted to do. And I wasn't bad like like robbing people or trying to like gang bang or nothing like that, but I wanted to do what I wanted to do, you know? And uh being raised by so many women like you feel like you're the man the whole time, you know? So eventually my grandmother end up asking for my father's help in order to come in back into my life and stuff like that and try to raise me, you know what I mean? Or help raise me. And I'm like 16 at the time, you know what

126:47I'm saying? 15 at the time. And this is my first time really even meeting this man. Wow. you know, so once I, you know, having an interaction with him, like, uh, I was trying to tell my like, "Bro, I don't need to stay with him. I'll just leave. I just like, you know, live on my own." You know what I'm saying? I'll run away type [ __ ] right? [laughter] You know what I mean? But, you know, uh, my dad was like, "Yeah, you being all disrespectful. You, you know, acting out of pocket and stuff like that." I was like, "Yeah, even if I is, what you going to do about it?" You know, and that's where we had a whole situation, a whole scenario. So, the only reason why this is crazy, right, is that, you know, I find out where my fighting power comes from. You know what I'm saying? It's from my pops. Cuz my pops used to uh wrestle as well back in the day. So,

127:25when I used to wrestle in high school, I thought I was somebody special. So, when I got into it with my dad, whatever. And um we was in the kitchen and stuff like that. You know, I thought I had the upper hand because, you know what I'm saying? I'm wrestling and whatnot. And I remember I had threw a punch. He blocked. He hit me dead in my chest, right? I'm like, "Oh, cave me in." I end up wrestling him. I was like, "All right, I wrestle. So, I'm going to go ahead and take a shot on. Soon as I took a shot on cuz that was the only thing I was good at was a double leg, right? That man power drive me. He grabbed my hips like this, picks me up, boom, slams me. He's like, "You ready to get back in the car?" You know what I'm saying? Oh, you ready to get in the car? I was like, "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm good, bro. I ain't trying to fight you no more." You know

127:58what I mean? So, but the reason why I bring that up is because like I realized like I'm almost just like this dude, right? Even though I never met him, you know what I'm saying? Just that fighter mentality, that fighter will like, you know what I mean? That's where I get that from. And it's crazy that even then at that time I never gave him a chance unfortunately. And um without me giving him a chance and not getting to actually know him, I end up losing him as well. You know what I'm saying? So I end up losing my mom and my dad. But the thing is I never even got a chance to even try to talk to him and get to know him because I never like actually went about the opportunity to talk to him and speak to him cuz he was almost like a big brother to me cuz we both living with uh my grandpa which is his dad, you know. So I feel like it was more like a big

128:41brother relationship between me and him, you know. Yeah. And when I lost him, you know, and I didn't get the opportunity to actually um experience him like I should have, you know, by the time I wanted that, he was already gone, you know. But I mean, it's going as a teenager and just meeting him for the first time. You can't put that on you. I mean, you didn't No. Yeah. Not at all. Yeah. I was like, cuz I ain't been going to call this man daddy or nothing, you know? [laughter] That's hard. That's so hard. No. Big facts, man. Did you call him by his first name? Uh, yeah. Yeah. So, I call him Marcus. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's weird enough as it is, right? I mean, not at all because that's how I knew him, right? You know what I'm saying? Like Marcus like that, you know, everybody used to call him Jug too. That was his nickname and stuff like that. So,

129:25yep. Yep. Yo. So, like I said, once but that's the crazy part then like once um just growing up around him like for and it was only like a year time too. It was only about like a year where we was able to like actually be in the same household and actually speak to one another. But everything that he used to do, I like it's certain things that I did as well that I was always wondering where I get it from, you know, and I got exactly from him. Like we move the same, we talked the same, we walked the same, and I like this my first time really like meeting this man. That had to be weird. Yeah, it was a little weird though. I ain't going to lie. [laughter] I ain't going to lie. You know, uh, but it made sense though, you know, where it came from. Yeah, completely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, all those things are that's a part of character. That's a part of what

130:03makes you who you are. I mean, I think people that come from an easy life have a very difficult time make it in the world of fighting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's very it's not the same. I mean, people have done it. You know, the people that come from good households and good families. PJ Pen. Yeah. BJ Pen. Well, George St. Pierre. I mean, George St. Pierre was bullied when he was young and that's what got him into martial arts, but he had a very good relationship with his parents. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But having a rough childhood is almost like a prerequisite to being a great fighter. So many fighters come from like dark times. Uh yeah, big fights. I mean, like I said, like your experiences alone can prepare you for fights, you know what I mean? And that's what makes some of the best fighters in the world, you know? But I feel like with everything that I I

130:47went through, I guess it it I guess you can say it prepared me for fighting, but it really showed me and this is where I'm trying to get to, you know, and I ain't trying to like put all together, but like losing my mom and losing my dad just showed me, bro, like just go for it. You know what I'm saying? Just like go for your dreams, man. Go and do what you want to do. You know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, we only got one life. Like my mom died at a, you know, pretty young age, like was like 35, 36, you know what I mean? Dad died pretty young, you know what I'm saying? almost getting to the age of 40, you know. Um Um No, no. What you No. What? How? My mom. [snorts] How did your dad die? Uh overdose. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Overdose. Um heroin overdose. Unfortunately, you know, but I feel like, you know, he was trying to use that to like, you know,

131:30block the pain or the stuff that he was dealing with. Of course. You know. Yeah. Of course. Unfortunately, you know, so many people are dealing with so much. I mean that's uh that's this [ __ ] crazy dance of life and your your dance is very crazy and and that makes sense now knowing your childhood why you're so ferocious. Mhm. Inside the octagon. I didn't even think about it like that. Think about the [laughter] life experiences that you've had. I mean it is it is a major factor in what forms a man's personality and the what you've gone through those trials and tribulations. You can't substitute that. Yeah. Yeah. Someone either has that or they don't. There's a fire that some dudes have and you have it. I appreciate that. A lot of that comes from just bad times. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and also, man, it's just like when I see that right

132:18with my mom passing, when my dad passes, it's like, you know, the only people that know that are the people that's closest to us, right? You know what I'm saying? And my thing was like I just always wanted to leave my name here and print it somehow some way in some type of fashion, you know? Uh cuz it's a fun little quote, you know what I mean? That uh that that I like. I don't know who said it, but they was like, you know, you die twice. You know what I mean? Uh, the first time you die is when you, you know, take your last breath, and the second time you die is when they say your name for the last time. And that always spoke volumes to me cuz like I was like, man, I want my name to be remembered some way, you know? And, uh, that that's was my real pursuit for real for real doing like MMA and chasing my dream. Yeah. Leave your mark. Leave my mark. Yeah. Some way.

132:58Well, you definitely have that opportunity. [laughter] I mean, you've already left your mark, but you have an opportunity. You're only 28, right? Yeah, only 20. You have a a giant future ahead of you because especially knowing your background now, like and knowing how little real formal training you've had and the fact that you've reached this level of proficiency and skill and accomplishment. It's pretty crazy. I mean, you're in a really great spot right now, especially now dropping down to 170 lbs, which is your natural weight class, where you're not going to be at a disadvantage physically like in the Nordine fight. Mhm. Yeah. So, I mean, but I think everything plays a part, you know what I mean? And everything happens for a reason. So, I'm glad I fought at 185. I'm glad I was able to develop my name, you know what I'm saying, in the middleweight division

133:42and stuff like that. Uh, because it's it's not going to make it harder to go down to 170 and fight a couple other, you know, ranked good names instead of starting all the way back over. Well, you fight guys like Iov who's like, what is his natural weight? I mean, what is he walking around? I don't know. He probably 215. You know what I'm saying? Who know? Much much bigger. Yeah. And that's I mean he's like he's an elite level fighter at that weight too. So you have I fought I mean be honest with you when I look at my resume at 185 I ain't fighting no bums. No I ain't fight no bones you know. So I fought a lot of uh you know high level guys at middleweight and I did a successful job. You know I took a couple L's here and there. But you know I was able to accomplish you know get five wins uh up to four knockouts within the middleweight division. you

134:22know, and I think that should speak volumes for me to go to a weight class that's more fitted for me to Yeah. Much better. Much better for you. And also with this structured training and the fact that you really do have relatively little in comparison to the amount of time you've been fighting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, I've been fighting for a long time. Yeah. You know, for for 10 years, but I just didn't know nothing. Right. But that's that's what's so [laughter] crazy. It's like you and you accomplished a lot with that and now having very structured training and being in your physical prime and going down to a natural weight class. I mean once you get past Chris Curtis, if you get past a know [laughter] but it's just that win mentality in me like like ain't no it was like this is all the preparation that I've been putting in and doing and um

135:10just taking the time and opportunity to actually promote the fight for for myself. You know what I mean? coming out here with you and speaking to you, you know what I mean? To sell this fight even that, you know, I just I just developed too much time and effort into this fight to lose. I can't, you know, because everything that I want on the other side is riding up to this fight. It ain't like the national dean fight like this the fight right here, you know what I mean? So, the last fight that I got uh uh not on my contract, but other year cuz this will be my fourth fight that I had, you know what I'm saying? Within one year, you know, and that's a big deal to me. And uh I feel like I really need to show out for this one, you know, because I never been a fighter either to lose back to back because I at least like if I'm not learning in the

135:49gym, I'm learning from those fights, trust me. Well, I think you did learn from that fight and what you're talking about with that third round that you should have fought that way in the first round. Isn't that a big part of the whole experience of having high level competition is these little little lessons that you learn in each individual encounter? And they major, you know, even though they're small, they make for major adjustments or uh uh major improvements. what I mean to say, you know, so having that fight with Nassadine is showing that I need to put the gas on a lot of these dudes early, period, you know, and uh make them work, you know. So I didn't make Nashadine work as hard as I should have in that first and that second round, you know. Now, what kind of strength and conditioning routine do they have you on? Because you have such a wild style

136:30of fighting. I mean, you have to have a deep deep gas tank to fight the way you fight. Yeah, I got a I got a psychopath, man, as a conditioning coach, man. Like cuz uh yeah, big fat. Shout out to uh Justin Hardik, man. So, he been sending me actually workouts, right? So, this is what I just did. Uh here, I can actually show you cuz he hasn't been out here with me to help me train. So, like this is one of the workouts that he had me do uh right here. Matter of fact, I'll let you look. So, look, this is also cool, right? So, he sends this out like a little a little history lesson, right? Talking about uh Akanawa uh in that war, you know what I'm saying? Dday, you know, and just talking about like, you know, what the soldiers had went through and how they had to, you know, keep fighting and and and keep going up that hill doing so many

137:14obstacles and dodging bullets and all this other stuff. That's all about kamicazi [ __ ] right? Tell me about it. And then he gets to the workout. [laughter] Wow. All this history lesson and then the workout. Yes, sir. And it gets me pumped. You know what I'm saying? Like because it's just a reminder like bro like like like it's it's a mentality thing, you know, of what you go through and then how you take the fight or how you take your training seriously. You know, you got to make that switch, right? You can't just go through a workout and be like, "All right, man. I'm going just get this done." Like you like live or die. Like I'm training for like war point blank period, you know? And uh that's what I love about him. So we do a lot of, you know, cool unique things, man, with him. But he makes sure to push me to my limits, you know. Now, how do

137:55you balance out strength and conditioning workout with skill workout? Like what what is your like a a week's work with you structure? So, so, so Monday Monday through [clears throat] Friday, man. So, I'm I'm in the gym point blank period. And I even work out Saturday and Sunday, but I'll be doing my own thing, you know. But Monday, uh we do HPI work. So, that's strength and conditioning. On that same Monday, we do uh striking MMA work with uh my head coach, whatever. So, just two days, you know. Tuesday, same thing, working with conditioning coach. Then I'm working uh grappling. Tuesday is grappling day, so wrestling, MMA. And then uh Wednesday, same thing, conditioning. So we might work um let's say like functional work, you know what I mean? Just uh just working the weights, uh like kettle bells or like what's the the one they have? Steel mace

138:45and do functional uh work with that. And uh Wednesday we got sparring, you know. And then Thursday we had the same thing just outside conditioning. Now we running, you know, we outside with it. And uh after that with Thursday we got jiu-jitsu uh training. And then Friday we have uh just uh open mat, you know what I mean? That we work with coach, but then also Friday we hit a heavy uh heavy lift. Yeah. And so do you have days where you like do you are you specifically doing jiu-jitsu some days or wrestling some days? So Tuesdays and Thursdays grappling. Tuesdays is wrestling primarily and then Thursday is jiu-jitsu. Is it hard to get everything in? Because that's one of the things about MMA is there's so many skill sets you have to work on. Yeah, of course. Of course. I mean, but the core the core things and you already know what the core things is for real is

139:34jiu-jitsu, boxing, kickboxing/ Muay Thai, uh, judo, and shoot what else? What else can we put on that? Uh, I guess that's it for real. Four things, you know, that those are core things. So we we get to work all those fundamental things, you know, but it's actually like trying to actually form our own type of martial arts. And then coach is just always trying to have us work on our, you know, abilities, right? And try to form us into the best fighter that we are, you know, and he just tries to work those attributes that we have, you know. And when you do by yourself on the weekends, what do you do? You just concentrate on what you think you need to work on? like how you so with uh Saturday and Sunday I usually work uh with Andy Simmons with uh wrestling on Sundays and uh Saturday I I pretty much just do my own thing. So like a little workout, watch some little

140:18videos. I still do the same thing that I've been doing for the longest time. Always trying to find different videos, but do a little fun little workout, but it's nothing too stressful. It's just having fun and just keeping uh my tools tight, you know. So that might just be hitting the bag and just working on like certain little basic uh techniques. But uh Sundays though, I work out with Andy Simmons almost every Sunday, you know, and Andy Simmons is a dog. Like you can bring him up if you want to, but you know, uh like I said, from Michigan State, undefeated at uh uh was undefeated in his high school and then went into uh being a collegiate wrestler at uh at D1 Michigan State and going crazy there, too. So, do you have anybody that works with you on your nutrition? Uh I mean, we don't work on it necessarily, but like we eat clean,

140:59though, you know? So, uh Justin cooks up all our meals. Uh, so that's my coach again. Uh, conditioning coach. So, Oh, that's great. Yep. Yep. Yep. So, he cooks up the bison. Um, everything is like, um, I feel like it's like dog food, man. We eat the same stuff every day, man. But, uh, we eat up, uh, bison meat and, uh, chicken and, uh, just white rice and broccoli. Real plain, real simple, real boring, you know, nothing too crazy. But, I told you like with me, it is perfect though, you know. But at the same time, I don't have to really focus on like literally what I'm putting in my body until going to 170, you know. So, I still play around. I still eat whatever I want to, you know, being at 185. So, was he doing like meal prep where he gives you like pre pre-portioned meals and then you just save them for the week? Yeah, we eat that same thing the whole

141:42camp. Yeah. But it's the perfect nutrition what you're saying. Yes, sir. That's the right. Yes, sir. What about recovery stuff? Do you do cold? We do all that. All of it. All of it, man. Like, it's nothing too crazy. Like it's all the things that uh fighters been doing for the longest or boxers been doing for the longest. So we do ice plunge. We hit the sauna. Uh I like cryo a lot more for myself. Uh I hate being cold and wet, you know? Uh but but the thing about the um just the regular ice plunge that you have to do, I feel like it's more mental because you got to stay like you can stay in there a little bit longer. You know what I mean? And um I feel like just for the attitude and and getting to the ice plunge and stuff like that, that's what I think it's great for. But I I feel like cryo I like cryo a little bit more. You know what

142:26I'm saying? For inflammation in my arms or if my body aches, if I have anything going on, I feel like cryo will get me right real quick cuz I only get to be in there for like 3 minutes, you know? Yes, sir. When you do the ice plunge, how long you stay in there for? Uh, we try to do 10 15 minutes. You know what I'm saying? Two and then two sessions. So, you're doing buckets of water with buckets of ice in it. You're not doing like a real cold plunge where it keeps it to 34°. I mean, I mean, well, we keep it there, you know. So yeah, we check the temperature and that thing be getting to 32, bro. You know, and we in Michigan, too. So Oh [laughter] boy. So that helps. The winters in Michigan. You just get in a lake. Yeah. Big big I mean big facts, you know. So uh And you try to do that at the evening? Like when do you do that? The recovery stuff.

143:11Uh we we try to hit it. So usually we've been doing it Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays, you know, right after like a workout, you know what I'm saying, with him. And then we'll go straight into it, you know? Uh, but don't do the um like bucket of ice and stuff like that. Don't Don't do it every day. We don't do it every day. No. Do you get massages or anything like that? No, I don't really get no massages, man. If I do get a massage, man, it probably be at the mall or something. [laughter] But I like the uh the compressions. Um, norm is cool, you know. So, that works, you know. But yeah, I don't really get like like massages, nothing too crazy like, you know, everything's real basic, man. Like my thing is like it's just every day now. I get to train every day. So it might not be like the craziest things that I'm doing, but I'm doing the same thing consistently.

143:58Right. Having no job has to be a big factor. Oh yeah. Going from, you know, having a job and training when you can to having training being your whole job. Big fact. Cuz like I said, I'm not doing nothing crazy or special. Just able to do it every day. You know what I mean? There's so many fighters that fight at a world class level that still have a job. It's crazy. Man, that's just a sport that we in, you know. You know, but my thing I I it is it is unfortunate, but I've been blessed and I've been uh fortunate enough to like be able to fight the way I'm fighting and I've been rewarded for it, you know. So, you know, I feel like a lot of fighters if they put more on the line and they go out and actually try to take a little bit more risk, they could potentially, you know, be on the other side. But at the same time, it's all

144:40about winning. You know what I mean? Uh, but unfortunately you see some guys that win some fights, whatever, but they're not exciting. They're not fun, and you don't see where they career takes them, and they don't make a lot of money, which you see, like they, like you said, they got another job, they still training, they still, you know, trying to find sponsors, whatever, just to pay some certain bills and stuff like that, you know? So, it's that risk and reward factor, you know? So, if you're willing just to win, but not be exciting, you know what I mean? Just realize like you're not going to get the money that you really looking for and you going to have to I guess that's the harder route. I feel like, you know, unfortunately, it's interesting like that those calculations like are you just trying to win or are you trying to win and be

145:16someone who's very entertaining, right? Big facts. And I feel like, you know, a lot of guys don't train that way. And I've been training like that for a long time, you know? And I wouldn't even say like I'm a hard guy to spar or nothing like that, but I'm trying to touch you though, you know. I mean, we see it in kickboxing, we see it in boxing how those guys spar. Now, those guys spar for real. Like, they be trying to knock dudes out, you know? And I feel like some guys in the MMA culture, whatever, they just want to touch like, man, I don't really want to hurt, you know, do so, we just going to touch like this and and just tag each other. But I feel like that that plays a part in your fights, too, you know? And a lot of guys get touched up even more because of that in a fight instead of actually taking it serious in sparring because used to sparring hard.

145:58Exactly. Right. So now they're getting touched up for real in an actual fight, you know. How do you balance that out though? Because you if you spar too much, you leave too much in the gym. Well, how many times did I tell you I spar in a week? One time. One time. [clears throat] One time. That's it. That's it. What I need to spar more for? Interesting. [laughter] Yeah. Big fact. So hard recognize it. Yeah. It's a good day. Yeah, [clears throat] man. What day is that? Do you spar? Wednesday. Yeah. And so Thursday and Friday thinking about work and drilling and drilling. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yep. Well, it sounds like you got a great plan, man. And I'm very very much looking forward to this fight in December. That's a that's a big fight for you. And I love the fact that you dropped it down to 170. No, big facts, man. And before that though, too, like before we even end off

146:40on that, you know, because I said I wanted to fight at 170 and you asked me like who's some names. So if it's not Shot and it's not Jeff Neil, you know, I love to fight Shawn Brady, you know what I'm saying? Or uh Vicente Luke, you know, those are two great names, two good matchups for me, you know, and they both coming off a L. You know, those are great fights. I'd like to see all of them. Big facts. But listen, man, I'm a big fan. I'm uh really excited about your future and and hearing your story has been fantastic, man. I appreciate you for having me. I appreciate you very much, man. And I'm again I'm really looking forward to December and your whole career. That's 100. I'm a fan. I appreciate brother. Thank you very much. All right. Oh, tell everybody your social media so they can find you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You already know, man.

147:19Uh so my social media is Newman 94. That's my Instagram. I got a YouTube channel now. Uh that's why we buckley official uh on YouTube. And then as well, I got, you know, my own little business, uh, Solid Foundation, you know. So, make sure y'all go follow that page as well on Instagram. What is that? Solid Foundation. It's just apparel, just merch. Oh, okay. You got your own clothing line. Yeah. Yes, sir. That's good. Spread it out. Yeah. Yeah. You already know. All right, brother. Thank you very much.